Schmidt knelt behind the hatch at the top of the ladder. His time in Afghanistan had familiarized him with improvised explosives and rocket-propelled grenades. Especially the smell. Burnt almonds. The steel hatch protected him from the blast wave and the shrapnel, but the heat washed over him like a bad sunburn. In an instant it was gone. His ears rang and he coughed. But he was alive.
Zoe lay on the polished floorboards of the mansion’s second floor. She had curled into a ball with her hands clamped over her ears. A fine layer of dust was already settling onto her puffy coat and cold weather pants.
Daylight poured through the stained-glass windows. Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. All filtered through the smoke and dust created by the RPG’s explosion. The second floor might have passed for a restaurant on some sleepy highway in the backwoods of Pennsylvania if not for the bar. Bottles of gin, whiskey, and bourbon decorated the shelves behind the lacquered wooden bar, reminiscent of a prohibition-era speakeasy. Sacks and duffle bags filled the spaces between crates and military trunks giving the place a post-apocalyptic bunker feel. The pile of survival materiel had evidently protected the spirits from the blast wave.
A man stood amid the odd furnishings holding the spent tube of the RPG. He wore a tattered lab coat over a bulletproof vest. With short, buzzed hair and an imperial jaw, the man adjusted his rectangular spectacles and turned his discerning gaze to Schmidt. He regarded Schmidt with the same dissatisfied expression a lion might wear upon losing his prey. He discarded the spent rocket launcher, drew a handgun from his hip holster, and leveled it at Zoe.
“You’re them, aren’t you?” the man asked with a faint, Japanese accent. “Kelvig’s lost puppies?”
“We are not your enemy.” Schmidt dug around in his ear, hoping to alleviate the ringing. He resisted the urge to draw his own pistol. “Please lower the magnum.”
Zoe slowly rose to her feet. “Yes. We’re with Kelvig.” She wavered, grabbing onto a nearby diner table.
The man lowered his aim a few centimeters. “If he trusts you…” He lowered the weapon to his side. “Why are you here?”
“You’re Doctor Taito, right? Kelvig needs your help,” Zoe said. “He’s hurt.”
The doctor snorted. “I’m not leaving. Not with the acolytes stirred up. And not with that beast skulking around. Thank you for that, by the way.”
Zoe blinked a few times and stared at the floor. She placed her other hand on the table.
Schmidt stepped to Zoe’s side and grabbed her shoulders. “You will not have to leave. We brought Kelvig with us. Do you have a bucket?”
Taito narrowed his eyes. He holstered his magnum and grabbed a plastic trashcan from the bar.
Schmidt placed the trashcan in front of Zoe and wrapped her hair in his hand. She doubled over, retching her breakfast into the trashcan. Schmidt had seen the effects of a blast wave hundreds of times during the war. He had flown medivac for seventy-three sorties. They always vomited.
Taito disappeared around a corner only to return moments later with an oxygen tank. He wheeled it to Zoe’s side, unwrapped the plastic tubing, and placed the mask on her face.
Schmidt helped her sit at one of the diner booths and turned to Taito. “Thank you.”
Taito waved a dismissive hand. “Foon… told him this would happen.”
Schmidt had pictured Doctor Taito as an emergency doctor like the one he served with during the war. Decisive. Eager. Knowledgeable. But the man standing before him seemed like the exact opposite.
“A little help!” Director Kim poked her head through the hatch. Smudges of soot stained her face, and her hair was dusty and windblown.
Schmidt rushed to the hatch and slid down the ladder, following the director through a shattered wooden wall. Iron sheets decorated the broad chamber’s walls like armor plating. The glass ceiling was gone, shattered by the fury and rage of the beast and Taito’s explosion. Glass fragments littered the packed dirt floor where Lonnie lay in the arena. Tufts of his coat littered the ground around him like bloody snow. A dark stain spread from his body; a pool of mud formed a circle around him. He did not move. Not even to draw breath.
“Shizer!” Schmidt rushed to Lonnie’s side and felt for a pulse. Nothing. “Get the doctor!”
Schmidt pulled off his coat and shoved it into Lonnie’s gaping stomach wound. Focusing on his training, he started chest compressions. Lonnie’s arm pulled to the side so Schmidt could get his knee placement correct. He kept his hand placement above the diaphragm. Ah ah ah ah, stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive. He repeated the chest compressions over and over. Seconds turned to minutes. Where is Taito!?
After what felt like forever, Doctor Taito marched into the dusty arena with his handgun drawn. He glanced around like a nervous faun.
“Help him!” Schmidt skittered away from the body. His medic training taught him the likelihood of surviving a stomach wound that deep was barely one percent. “Etwas tun!”
Taito rolled his eyes and holstered his weapon. He stalked to Lonnie’s side and crouched. Taito removed the bloody coat from the stomach wound and placed his hand onto the shredded flesh.
Schmidt started toward the doctor. “What are you—”
A wide-eyed Director Kim grabbed Schmidt by the arm, arresting his movement. “Watch.”
The light from the stained-glass windows dimmed. Shadows filled the arena, reaching toward Lonnie and Taito like grasping claws. A figure, fuzzy and translucent, emerged from Taito’s back. Terrible, feathered wings unfurled from the figure and spread from one side of the chamber to the other. The iridescent feathers glimmered in the low lighting, sending a thousand different colors shimmering across the dirt floor and iron-plated walls. The being’s pearlescent skin glowed from within, but its eyes felt hollow and sunken. Black veins bled from the eye sockets before melding into the being’s milky-white face. Its hair, long and silver, hung from its head like an executioner’s hood.
With a flap of its wings, vigor pulsed through Taito and into Lonnie. Flesh writhed and warped. Throbbed and tightened. The skin puckered and stitched together. Lengthy claw marks closed, scabbed over, and then turned a bright pink before vanishing altogether. A second pulse hit Lonnie like the jolt of a defibrillator, and he took a sudden breath. His eyes popped open, and he rolled away from the doctor, erupting into a coughing fit. The shadows faded.
The angelic entity was gone.
Taito rose to his feet. He wiped a glob of spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. Sweat trickled from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked them away like tears and strode for the ladder.
Schmidt stared at Lonnie. The little man was on all fours hacking and coughing into the dirt. What did I just see? Schmidt had heard tales of battlefield angels performing miracles on the fallen. He had always dismissed them as delusions. Hallucinations. War-time hysteria. But he had witnessed this firsthand. Was that real?
Director Kim rushed to Lonnie’s side and took a knee. “Are you ok?”
“What…” Lonnie coughed again and plopped onto his ass. He looked around the arena with a dazed expression. “What happened? Where’s that thing?”
“The beast?” the director asked. “Gone. Frightened off by Doctor Taito.”
“But you’re ok?” Lonnie asked. “You’re not hurt?”
Director Kim shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Lonnie’s shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. He trembled with a low sobbing sound.
“Lonnie!” Zoe burst into the arena and skidded to the ground beside Lonnie. “Are you hurt?” She poked and prodded around him before grabbing him in a hug.
“Ow.” Lonnie pushed Zoe to arm’s length. “I’m ok. Just a bit sore.”
Director Kim stood and brushed the dirt from her pants. She approached the ladder.
“What just happened?” Schmidt asked.
The director paused and turned to Schmidt. She chewed her lip. “At this point, I’m not sure we should be surprised.”
“Meaning?”
“This place is not what we expected.” The director rubbed soot from her hand. “But it is why we’re here.”
Schmidt’s brow furrowed. He had figured the government-sponsored expedition was about more than just climate change. But monsters and magic? The stuff of fairy tales had never crossed his mind.
Director Kim nodded to the hallway. When they were standing out of earshot, she leaned close and whispered, “The initial plan was to land at station thirty-seven and mount an exploratory mission onto the ice. We had snowmobiles, ice trucks, and helicopters on standby.”
Schmidt nodded slowly. Helicopters. Explains why they need me.
The director pursed her lips. “There’s something beneath the glacier. Something very warm.”
Schmidt raised an eyebrow. “A volcano?”
The director shook her head. “Something alive.”
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