Wolf of the Tesseract

Chapter 22

"Jackie, get Claire," Rob said. The eclipse had taken full hold, dimming the sky, but the moon did not pass beyond. It hung in place as if staying to watch the destruction of all reality, waiting for the battle to play out below.

Jackie nodded and hurried forward, dodging mounds of burning debris. She shot off bursts of laser energy to lay cover fire and ran to her friend while James slowly turned to face Rob. Her eyes gleamed with a certain fire of confidence as if she had done this before.

James wore an impressed grin upon his face. "How many times must I kill you?" James smiled maniacally. His smirk turned to a snarl and he flung blazing fireballs at the werewolf.

Rob deflected them with his massive sword and charged towards the sorcerer. James sidestepped and drew his sword in response. Eldritch flame burst forth, wreathing his blade with fire.

James slashed at him. Rob blocked and their crossing blades splattered sparks across the space between them. They thrust and parried, each trying to open an opportunity for a lethal strike.

Between blows, the sorcerer scooped up the nearby athame. Fire wreathed it, too, as he pressed the attack, striking with a flurry of blows. The warlock wildly cut at his enemy.

Rob whirled around, evading the blades and seeking a new angle on his enemy. He saw an opening as James over-extended his attack. Whirling the glaive high above his head, Rob held off the killing strike when Claire shrieked nearby.

Both Rob and James froze. A tentacle shot out of the void. Greyish green it wrapped around Claire while Jackie fired into the gathering vyrm troops, trying to keep them at bay.

Claire grabbed at anything that she could to prevent the Devourer from pulling her through the tear and into the nether. Both of the combatants rushed to her, momentarily forgetting their deep and bitter rivalry in defense of the princess.

James blasted the monstrous tendril with fire. The otherworldly appendage paid it no notice. The sorcerer hacked and slashed at it with both burning blades but it completely resisted all of his efforts.

Rob leapt towards it, bringing the Stone Glaive to bear. He sliced downward violently. The tendril cut partially and the wound turned to stone. The tentacle stiffened as it clutched its prey. Rob smashed it, breaking the arm to gray chunks which crumbled like old concrete as the severed limb retreated to the negative dimension.

He rushed to Claire's side and broke her free from the stone appendage which wrapped around her. Jackie grabbed her friend. "Come on! Let's go!" They dove out of the way of a second squid-like limb that tried to seize her.

Rob sliced cleanly through those as soon as able. A blast of hot air spewed from the nether-hole and a terrible shriek echoed through the town. Sh'logath hungered desperately for Claire's blood.

Jackie grabbed Claire and they crawled underneath the semi-truck trailer, trying to stay shielded from the vyrm onslaught. "How did you get here!" Claire exclaimed her joy more than she asked the question.

She fired a quick burst of energy into the group that got too close. "I didn't know what to do. I wandered around Europe until a very beaten-up werewolf found me. We couldn't find you, so we went looking for that stone sword, figuring we'd catch up here before Sh'logath woke up."

Claire beamed. Despite the dark circumstances, her friends' attempted rescue made everything a little brighter.

The Heptobscurantum's forces had begun to wane, even though the vyrm had stopped entering through the dimensional gates which had winked shut. The cultists' numbers had simply been insufficient to contend with Nitthogr's.

Rob hacked at a mob of vyrm soldiers as they charged towards his friends. Each that he drew blood on froze as stone. Half of the attackers turned and fled back to the safety of the larger group where Jackie peppered them with her assault blaster.

She changed out chargepaks with a high frequency and hoped that she had enough. The entire trailer suddenly ripped free from its position and skidded to the side, toppling to its side and crushing an entire faction of vyrm.

Jacob Sisyphus stood on the opposite sidewalk, manipulating the forces powerful enough to wield a tractor trailer as his toy. His hands glowed with energy, but his eyes looked fatigued and bloodshot. With robes tattered and torn he limped across the street, using an eldritch shield to block the offensive Jackie tried to mount. Summoning all of his rage, Sisyphus charged ahead and punched Jackie with a wild haymaker.

Jackie fell to the ground. Her head cracked against the pavement, knocking her unconscious. Sisyphus hurled her weapon into the distance so that Claire couldn't grab it.

A cheer went up from the scattered Heptobscurantum and the remaining members of their cult targeted James, keeping him occupied with a rain of bullets. Sisyphus tried to grab Claire, but she proved more agile than suspected. She ducked and slipped away from him.

"Get her!" screamed Adams as Claire bobbed around the corner of the semi-tractor.

Sisyphus ran after her. He stepped around the edge of the cab just in time to see the werewolf charge forward with his swinging fist. The first blow stood the former wrestler up straight and the second one drove him to the ground.

Rob picked up the wizard and shook him violently. He hoisted the robed cult leader high above his head and flung The Seven's eldritch master across the intersection where he crashed into his four peers.

The entire battle seemed to come to a halt as Sisyphus, clearly dazed, struggled to his feet. He stood in one corner of the offensive triangle. Summers, behind him, handed the Occultist another pack of blood and he bit into it with his one remaining false tooth. The remaining Illuminati stood behind their recharged magic wielder

Opposing him on one side of the Mexican standoff was James: the inter-dimensional warlock, Nitthogr. On the other was Rob, the werewolf with the mythic stone blade.

Adams tried to outfox his enemies in political fashion. "Tell us, almighty Nitthogr. Why do you oppose our sacrifice of the Princess? Wouldn't it make sense that we pour out all her blood upon this altar? The moment of the Great Awakening is at hand!"

Clearly flustered by the turnabout, James shouted. "You know nothing! I am Nitthogr, true Herald of Sh'logath! Only I know the proper day and hour of the Awakening!"

The Devourer roared from beyond and the vyrm shifted on their feet, uncertain of their course. They lowered their weapons ever so slightly.

"We know everything!" Adams screamed back. "Caivev..." he looked around for something. "Caivev told us..." something had distracted him, like the ear ringing of persistent tinnitus. "Caivev told us of your treachery against Sh'logath!" He looked around, pulling a foreign object stuffed within Sisyphus's cloak: a TRX718 blaster pistol.

The shrill whine it emitted had grown demandingly loud, now audible to all. Adams looked at Rob who had flung the man at them seconds ago.

Rob stared at the blaster with cold, hard expectation. The charging port on the battery pack rapidly flashed red, right above the terminal where a tiny metal clip had been jammed.

Boom.