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Authors: Tim Marquitz
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the control of it than I’d mastered. Another RPG explosion rattled the remnants of the building and set my ears to ringing. The place was getting ready to come down on top of us.
A bone-crushing agony made that the least of my concerns.
Another tendril had snaked from the portal and had latched onto my wrist, its length wrapping around it several times as the pressure increased. I snarled in defiance and yanked against the rubbery limb. Turned out, that wasn’t the best of moves.
Through the shimmering portal, and like Veronica had implied earlier, a whale-sized octopus-looking thing oozed its head out into our world. An inbred first cousin to Cthulhu, the creature’s round face nothing but tentacles; dozens of them clasped at the edge of the portal and used me and it as a foothold to slip into Earth. The hail of bullets at our back pretty much confirmed our status between a squid and a hard place.
There was no doubt I needed to get Rala out of there and make sure the book was safe, but I wasn’t confident teleporting her away because I didn’t know where she’d land. Canada might be nice this time of year, but I didn’t suspect any place outside of Old Town would be good for a zebra-striped orange and black alien.
I growled, gesturing to Rala as I ripped the tendril from my arm, realizing she wouldn’t be able to shut the portal down with that thing jamming it up. “You need to go.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Go? Go where?” There was no disguising her fear.
“Anywhere,” I answered. There wasn’t time to argue. I raised my hand and blasted a hole through the roof on the opposite side of the portal, away from whoever was shooting the place up. Then I fired another blast in that direction. Didn’t expect to do any damage, but all I needed was a moment’s distraction.
“Fly away, damn it,” I screamed, “but stay in Old Town. I’ll find you soon.” My eyes went to the book. “Protect that with your life.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat before I saw her make up her mind and trigger her transformation. Where the mousey alien had been, was now a shifting mass of growing flesh and strange, muscled appendages tearing her clothing into shreds. Rala’s face, already a bit long to begin with, had stretched even more, her jaw and neck elongating almost comically. Jagged teeth erupted from her mouth, which split her cheeks wider and wider. Her tongue lengthened and sharpened into a point, a frothy, reddened tendril that flicked in our direction.
Rala’s arms twisted and grew longer, the elbows snapping backwards as leathern wings exploded away from them like a parachute being deployed. Her eyes were alight with energy, reddened fire crackling in their depths. She clutched to the book in one tiny claw and clasped Chatterbox in the other. His eyes were wide with squishy terror.
“Go,” I shouted, and she did, letting loose a roar as she hunched low and propelled herself through the hole I’d made. A quick gust of wind later, she was gone. There wasn’t time to see how far she got.
Scarlett cut away a tentacle that lunged toward me, and I sidestepped another, but there wasn’t enough room inside the wrecked building for us and the monster spilling into it. The thing had squeezed most of itself through the doorway, its amorphous mass filling up the room, where it had blocked off the back end with its bulk.
Both of us glanced at the fog of war at our back and sighed in unison. We were thinking the same thing. It ran contrary to Scarlett’s nature to engage humans but with all the missiles and bullets flying, they’d pretty much voided that concern on her part. It was risk human casualties or stay in the tight space and be squished by an extraterrestrial squid. She didn’t wait on me before she made her choice. Scarlett ducked a lashing tentacle and bolted through the smoke. I was right on her heels, the weird ululating trill of the creature chasing us out.
We broke into clear air only to have
A bone-crushing agony made that the least of my concerns.
Another tendril had snaked from the portal and had latched onto my wrist, its length wrapping around it several times as the pressure increased. I snarled in defiance and yanked against the rubbery limb. Turned out, that wasn’t the best of moves.
Through the shimmering portal, and like Veronica had implied earlier, a whale-sized octopus-looking thing oozed its head out into our world. An inbred first cousin to Cthulhu, the creature’s round face nothing but tentacles; dozens of them clasped at the edge of the portal and used me and it as a foothold to slip into Earth. The hail of bullets at our back pretty much confirmed our status between a squid and a hard place.
There was no doubt I needed to get Rala out of there and make sure the book was safe, but I wasn’t confident teleporting her away because I didn’t know where she’d land. Canada might be nice this time of year, but I didn’t suspect any place outside of Old Town would be good for a zebra-striped orange and black alien.
I growled, gesturing to Rala as I ripped the tendril from my arm, realizing she wouldn’t be able to shut the portal down with that thing jamming it up. “You need to go.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “Go? Go where?” There was no disguising her fear.
“Anywhere,” I answered. There wasn’t time to argue. I raised my hand and blasted a hole through the roof on the opposite side of the portal, away from whoever was shooting the place up. Then I fired another blast in that direction. Didn’t expect to do any damage, but all I needed was a moment’s distraction.
“Fly away, damn it,” I screamed, “but stay in Old Town. I’ll find you soon.” My eyes went to the book. “Protect that with your life.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat before I saw her make up her mind and trigger her transformation. Where the mousey alien had been, was now a shifting mass of growing flesh and strange, muscled appendages tearing her clothing into shreds. Rala’s face, already a bit long to begin with, had stretched even more, her jaw and neck elongating almost comically. Jagged teeth erupted from her mouth, which split her cheeks wider and wider. Her tongue lengthened and sharpened into a point, a frothy, reddened tendril that flicked in our direction.
Rala’s arms twisted and grew longer, the elbows snapping backwards as leathern wings exploded away from them like a parachute being deployed. Her eyes were alight with energy, reddened fire crackling in their depths. She clutched to the book in one tiny claw and clasped Chatterbox in the other. His eyes were wide with squishy terror.
“Go,” I shouted, and she did, letting loose a roar as she hunched low and propelled herself through the hole I’d made. A quick gust of wind later, she was gone. There wasn’t time to see how far she got.
Scarlett cut away a tentacle that lunged toward me, and I sidestepped another, but there wasn’t enough room inside the wrecked building for us and the monster spilling into it. The thing had squeezed most of itself through the doorway, its amorphous mass filling up the room, where it had blocked off the back end with its bulk.
Both of us glanced at the fog of war at our back and sighed in unison. We were thinking the same thing. It ran contrary to Scarlett’s nature to engage humans but with all the missiles and bullets flying, they’d pretty much voided that concern on her part. It was risk human casualties or stay in the tight space and be squished by an extraterrestrial squid. She didn’t wait on me before she made her choice. Scarlett ducked a lashing tentacle and bolted through the smoke. I was right on her heels, the weird ululating trill of the creature chasing us out.
We broke into clear air only to have
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