The Devil’s Peak II, page 18
Drake also looked out at the dark sea surface and stepped forward. “It’s still out there; I can feel it.”
“Me too,” Isabella replied and grabbed his arm to pull him back.
Drake turned to her. “So, how? How did you get here? I thought we destroyed the entrance at the Devil’s Peak.”
“We did,” she said and craned her neck far back to look upwards. “But we now know there are other entrances around the world. Some hidden in plain sight.”
He followed her gaze. “You followed a guiding star.”
“You might say that.” She smiled. “It’s the way we came in. And our way out.” Her brows snapped together. “Hey, it’s gone.”
“What was up there?” Benson asked.
There was nothing there now. The blue dot of light was missing.
“There’s a portal. Or was,” Isabella said. “We came through it. Swam down and went through it.” She scoffed softly. “We left a rope dangling there – right at the top. We need to climb.”
“How high?” Benson asked.
“About a thousand feet, give or take,” Leonidas replied.
Benson groaned.
“Yes, it’s high, but manageable,” Isabella said. “If that portal is still there, you’re going home. How’s that for motivation?”
Benson chuckled. “Lady, I will grow wings and fly up this little bump in Hell’s ocean.”
The four of them turned and selected outcrops for handholds and steps, and began their climb. Almost immediately behind them the water boiled and surged.
“Something is pissed that we are trying to leave.” Benson looked back over his shoulder.
“We climb, we take turns to stop and shoot, and then climb some more,” Drake said and leaned back to sight his big friend. “Clive, last lap.”
“On it.” Benson started up.
When they were no more than a hundred feet up the massive beast surged up onto the small black beach. Its massive mottled grey body lumped up behind it, and from where they perched, Drake saw that the creature reminded him of a sea going dinosaur, except the paddle flippers ended in claws.
“Dammit,” he cursed as the long serpentine necks immediately rose to try and snatch at the humans.
The four of them did as suggested. Drake and Benson only had handguns and a few rounds remaining, but Isabella and Leonidas threw them each a spare clip. The Knights had rifles and handguns, and from time to time, one of them would stop their climb and fire back down at the massive car-sized heads.
Though they had little chance of killing the beast, they could do enough to distract, slow it, or maybe puncture one of the eyes. Although the strange thing was he couldn’t see any eyes on the heads.
It certainly didn’t stop the thing at all, but it slowed it as each time it was fired upon, it stopped its climb to hug the dark stone.
Drake finished, then Leonidas took up the turn and shoot task. Then Benson, followed by Isabella. They were still only about five hundred feet up by now, but their strategy worked in that it kept them ahead of the beast.
Behind them the rock started to crumble and the black tower of stone shuddered as the massive weight of the monster was brought to bear on it.
“The peak is narrowing. If it gets much higher, it might snap it off,” Isabella said.
“With us on it,” Drake yelled as it was his turn to fire again. “We can’t stop it. We just need to stay in front of it.”
This time he managed to strike one of the many heads dead center, and it hissed like a steam train, and the damaged head pulled back a little as it stopped its climb. But there were so many more.
Drake then turned to scale higher, and move as fast as his screaming, already fatigued muscles could carry him.
Isabella led the group, constantly looking upwards trying to find the shimmering blue portal window. But there was still nothing there.
She saw they had only around three hundred more feet to climb – she wondered what would happen if she reached the top and there was nowhere else to go.
And the thing was still coming.
It was no place to conduct warfare as even though it was the high ground it was exposed and precarious. Plus their ammunition would soon be exhausted.
“Come on, be there,” she whispered.
Behind her Drake came next, then Leonidas on the opposite side, and falling back was the huge form of Benson.
Isabella turned to fire down again at the thing. Its massive whale-sized body clung to the dark stone, and its many heads snaked forward.
The heads were gaining on them, and when she turned this time, she frowned in confusion – it was then she saw the thing a little more clearly – the individual heads had no eyes, and were just mouths on long muscular pipes.
When she followed them back to the body, they didn’t join to some multi-pronged neck as she had thought, instead they emanated from within a wide mouth – these things were acting like extended feeding apparatus, and she bet that if they got hold of one of them, they would be fed back into that cavernous maw.
And the worst thing of all, the massive beast raised huge flipper-type appendages that had spiked ends, gripped the rock fifty feet higher and levered itself up even further.
Benson was being run down and his breathing was ragged and his movements slower. She knew that the hardships he and Drake had endured had drained them both. And the big man was enormously strong, but with the size and strength came an Achilles heel of fatiguing more quickly.
“Climb, Benson,” she shouted.
“Don’t wait for me,” he yelled back.
“Don’t make me come back and carry you,” Drake yelled.
“Don’t you dare stop, Drake.” Benson scowled and dragged himself up another few feet.
Leonidas was first to make it to the top of the peak, and balanced there, looking around. Isabella came next, perching just below him.
“Anything?” she asked.
Drake came up to a few feet behind the pair of Knights, but there was nowhere for him to climb further as the narrow peak could only fit two people.
“Are we done?” he asked, and turned to fire another two shots.
“The blue window was here. Just here…somewhere,” she lamented.
The peak shuddered as the beast climbed higher and then lurched a few feet to the left before coming back. They hung on, but Drake slipped a few feet.
“This spike of stone isn’t going to hold much longer.” He climbed back up. “Got any flares left?” he asked.
“One,” she replied.
“Now or never,” he said.
She loaded the plug, pointed the squat gun straight upwards and fired.
The flare shot straight up into the black atmosphere. It exploded and then began to sink slowly back to them.
But there was nothing – no blue window, no portal, just black on blackness.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “It’s gone.”
The flare drifted lower.
“There.” Leonidas pointed.
Hanging in the air, almost invisible, and nearly right above them was about twenty feet of rope, hanging there, seemingly coming from nowhere. But as the flare went below it, they saw it actually fed into a dark circle.
“The portal.” Isabella grinned, feeling her spirits soar. She turned back to Drake, grinning madly. “I’m a dummy. It makes sense now, of course. It was daytime when we came down, but must be night up there now.”
“Night, day, summer, winter, I don’t care. Let’s get out of here.” Drake grinned and looked over his shoulder. “Okay, big guy, we are leaving.”
Drake saw then that Benson seemed stuck as the leviathan beast dragged itself up another fifty feet. But then it didn’t stop and instead it came on another fifty, making it almost within reach of Benson.
Soon it would be on all of them – or – the pinnacle they perched on was creaking and swaying, and Drake knew that the ancient rock could not take it anymore. In his mind’s eye he saw a hundred foot of the top peak break away, and carry them all to the dark mud a thousand feet below.
Isabella must have had the same thought as she turned to Leonidas. “You go first,” she ordered. “Tell Marco to be ready. If he’s still there.”
“He will be.” Leonidas turned to Drake and pointed. “Do not get left behind. We came a long way to get you.”
The Knight then looked up at the rope dangling about five feet above him. He had to slow his breathing, readying himself for the insane jump into the blackness to grab a sliver of rope hanging in nothing.
He kept his light on the rope, but it still moved in and out of visibility. He slowly crouched, coiling his muscles as he seemed to count down, and then leapt.
Drake’s mouth dropped open as the man seemed to snatch at nothing, but he caught the rope’s end and hung on. Then hand over hand he ascended, and like a magician’s trick, he vanished into a black hole.
Isabella turned. “Drake, you’re next.”
“No, you’re next,” Drake said. “You’re too short to leap up and grab the rope.”
“You’re right, I am,” she replied. “Thats why you’re going to jump up, grab on, and then I’m going to climb up your body.”
“Not without Benson,” he said and turned back. “Give him another…”
There came a massive creaking and popping and then the massive rock peak started to tilt.
“Go, go!” Benson yelled.
Benson looked down at the approaching leviathan. The snake-like heads coiled and thrashed, and some had wrapped themselves around the peak, perhaps to give the massive creature extra stability. But directly below him the massive mouth hung open, waiting.
“Climb, my friend.” Drake held out an arm. “You’re coming with us. We’ve come too far…”
Benson shook his head slowly. “No man, I’m done. Those worms are all in me.” He smiled up at Drake. “You were the best captain and boss I ever had. Thank you.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Drake scowled. “I’m coming down.”
The peak moved again, and Drake glanced upwards. He saw that they were now not in alignment with the rope and it was an extra foot up and away from them.
“We’re going to miss it. It’ll be out of reach soon. Come on…” Isabella yelled. “We need to go, now.”
The massive peak made a noise like a gunshot, and a crack ran right up its center. And then as if that wasn’t enough, the beast dragged itself up another dozen feet.
“I’m coming,” Drake said, and took a step down.
“Stop.” Benson held up a hand. “I can do this. Besides, I’m the one with the secret weapon.”
“What?” Drake paused.
Benson opened his fist and showed Drake the grenade. He grinned darkly. “Show time.”
He pulled the pin.
The big man kept the rueful smile on his face and his eyes on Drake as he let go of the pinnacle and fell backwards.
“No-ooo!” Drake screamed.
The two hundred and fifty pound man hurtled down the rock face, and the monstrous creature opened its mouth to accept him.
No sooner had the moth snapped shut, then there was a muffled thump, and the mouth burst open as flesh and some of the tentacle tongues or whatever they were, were blown free in a gout of flame.
The creature screamed, and in its rage, shook the dark spike of rock even more.
“Drake, we are leaving!” Isabella shouted even louder than the beast.
Drake then snapped out of it as the shard of rock shook back and forth and pieces of the dark stone fell from all around him. He began to climb fast.
When he was at the apex and balanced beside Isabella, she pointed.
“It’s up there, can you see it?” she asked.
He could only just make out the rope dangling down. It was now six feet up, and not directly over the peak. It meant if he leapt for it and missed, then he wouldn’t come back down on the rock summit and instead would plummet a thousand feet to the ground, or into the beast’s damn mouth.
“You need to grab it, wrap it around your wrist and hang on, waiting for me.” She held his arm. “I’m going to leap for you, and climb up your body. You must be ready.”
“I’m ready now.” He turned to her. “Give me a spring.”
She nodded, crouched, and meshed her fingers together into a saddle.
“Count of three.” She smiled. “Eyes on the prize.”
“You’re the prize,” he said, and felt his cheeks flush at the dumb pass, and the timing of it.
“Not now, Romeo. Focus,” she said, but smiled nonetheless. “Ready?”
Drake looked upward and focused on nothing but the end of the rope and her voice.
“Three, two, one…”
As she reached the top of her lift, he leapt.
The rope wasn’t there, but the combined power of his thighs and her throw up, meant he was able to take a second grab – the first he grabbed at nothing but air, but then he found it as her light beam hit it, and he grabbed on. It was wet, but his hand didn’t slip.
As she requested he wrapped it around his arm, and dangled there right at its end. He turned to her, his free arm outstretched and his hand open.
His wingspan meant he was now only about three feet from her, but the dark peak began to teeter back and forth.
He knew she had seconds before the colossal spike of stone toppled like a massive, petrified redwood to crash back to the dark water.
Isabella crouched, her face a mask of pure concentration. The peak began to shift away from him and she didn’t wait, and leapt.
She sailed towards him as the thousand foot high spike of dark rock fell away from beneath her. There was nowhere to land now and there would be no second chance.
Drake stretched out, and their arms came together and he gripped her wrist as she did to his.
“Got you,” he said.
She hung on, dangling there, and breathing hard.
From out of the darkness, a huge bat-like creature slammed into her and clung on. In the spinning light of their headlamps and flashlights, he saw the revoltingly familiar face of one of the deformed things that were once people.
Isabella cursed and fought it with her free arm, but the extra weight and jerking made Drake’s hand slip a foot down the wet rope.
Isabella punched and beat at it, but it kept moving and its long claws gripped her as it moved around onto her back.
Drake could see what it was getting ready to do – bite deeply into the back of her neck. He could do nothing but grit his teeth and stare.
The thing was on her back now and the female Templar Knight swung her head back trying to headbutt it. She also drew a dagger she repeatedly stabbed behind her. But the abomination was too fast and avoided each of her strikes. It bared its teeth.
“Please, no.” Drake gritted his teeth from the strain.
The gunshot split the air, the bullet hitting the thing between the eyes. It peeled off Isabella and fell away into the darkness.
Drake and Isabella looked up to see a soaking wet Leonidas had slid back down the rope and was aiming his gun. He holstered it.
“Can we go now?” He smiled roguishly.
Drake grinned and then had to turn back to concentrate on pulling Isabella up so she could grab onto the rope herself. He felt more tired than he had ever felt in his life, but knew this might be the last time before rest. And as he had said to his lost friend, Benson, now was the time to put it all in.
He pulled her up and she swung her other arm up and grabbed the bottom of the rope. She held it and looked up at him and smiled.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Piece of cake,” he said and then looked upwards.
Leonidas was waiting for them. “Drake, it gets thicker, and you’ll know when to hold your breath as we’ll be in water. We’ll need to swim to the surface – about fifty to sixty feet, got it?”
Drake nodded. “I’m ready…for anything.”
The trio began to climb.
***
Drake followed Leonidas up the rope and from time to time he looked back down at Isabella coming up after him.
After all the horrors he had endured, and all he had lost, he felt strangely elated. And that was down to the woman who had jumped back into Hell to pull him out. No one had ever done something like that for him, and he doubted no one ever would again. Maybe Ethan, but he was blood.
He couldn’t wait to see his brother again. And Addison, and the sunlight. And he couldn’t wait to spend some more time with Isabella.
He grinned as he climbed. This was the first time he ever felt something more than just a groin-led attraction for a woman. This time he felt something deeper. He suddenly wondered whether she felt the same. Maybe she just came back out of a sense of duty.
He sucked in a deep breath, summoning his last ergs of energy and continued the slow agonizing climb up the rope. It was hard going as the rope was slick with water, and he could smell the salt water on it. Up ahead he saw Leonidas’ headlamp light grow dimmer as he entered some sort of darker place as if he were climbing into a thick cloud.
As he followed the man, he found the air becoming thicker, moister, and he struggled to draw in breaths.
He slowed his climb and looked down and saw Isabella looking up at him.
“Get ready to suck in a big deep breath, and I mean big, and then hold it. Then climb real fast. You gotta swim up about fifty feet,” she said.
He did as asked and in the next few feet, he knew the air was moving beyond being breathable and water was running down his face. He drew in a breath all the way to the bottom of his lungs, and then Drake climbed fast.
His muscles screamed from the pain and fatigue, but then suddenly the miasmic heat of where he had been was replaced by coldness, and wetness, and the pressure of quite deep water. After the sensation of being dragged back down by gravity he was now buoyed and being lifted.
He let the rope go and kicked off, swimming upwards in the inky black water. But this water wasn’t the decrepit stinking vileness from below, but clear seawater that washed away the blood and gore, mud, and excrement.
He kept his eyes open, and saw the glimmer of something up ahead. He swum towards it, feeling the pressure lighten and knew he was coming to the surface. His lungs could barely contain the air anymore, and as he started to see pops of light from a growing dizziness, he breached the surface.
