“Maybe a little music will change matters,” said Jack, calmly. He pulled out a CD from his backpack, slipped it into the boom box, and pushed Play. Turning the volume control to the max, he placed the machine at his feet, facing the oncoming horde. “Listen.”
All motion stopped. Every eye fastened on the boom box, whirring happily to itself. Jack’s reputation as humanity’s champion had obviously grown by leaps and bounds during the past ten minutes. The Gabble Ratchets snarled, the Border Redcaps raised their knives and chains. And the CD player bellowed rock and roll.
The music hit the waiting crowd with the force of a tornado. Dropping their weapons, the Border Redcaps shrieked in sudden, unexpected agony. Clutching their hands to their ears, they broke formation and scattered through the railway yard. Many of them ran for the tunnels leading into the darkness. Their screams remained long after they disappeared.
The Corpse Hounds fared little better. The Gabble Ratchets collapsed to the ground and rolled back and forth, baying at an unseen moon. Recognizing a perfect opportunity when he saw it, Jack quickly ran over to the monstrous beasts and dropped a functioning pocket calculator on each of them. They vanished in satisfying bursts of white flame.
“What is that song?” yelled Cassandra, catching up to Jack. “And why is it devastating von Bern’s allies?”
“Electronic music,” said Jack. “Generated by a computer, naturally. My encounter with the banshee gave me the idea of returning the favor. It’s not bad stuff, though I prefer Emerson, Lake and Palmer when it comes to synthesizer.”
He gestured at the boom box. “Carry it with you. Sooner or later, some of the Redcaps will plug up their ears. But until then, the music should provide us some protection. Let’s cut down those wicker baskets. Until those women are safe, the Huntsman is still a menace.”
As if replying to Jack’s concerns, Dietrich von Bern’s voice, magnified by a portable amplifier, boomed through the immense cavern. “Cover your ears, you fools. The music can’t hurt you if you can’t hear it. Remember, there are only two of them. Surround them. Use your guns. Stop them. Prepare the fires. And release the Great Beast!”
“Release the Great Beast?” repeated Jack. “I don’t like the sound of that. Come on.”
A half-dozen Border Redcaps, wads of cloth dangling from their ears, their baseball hats holding the material in place, waited for them beneath the nearest cage. Grabbing a handful of floppy discs from his pockets, Jack sent them sailing at the fiends. Years of goofing off in computer lab finally paid off, as he flipped disc after disc with uncanny accuracy.
Aware of their peril, three of the Redcaps managed to duck out of the way of the plastic rectangles. The others shifted position, but not enough. One touch of the hard plastic was enough to send them to limbo. By the time Cassandra arrived, the number of their enemies had been cut in half.
Faced with a trio of foes, Cassandra completely forgot the discs she was carrying. Instead, releasing the CD player, she lunged at the first Redcap with her staff, catching the killer hard in the chest. Bones cracked, and the fiend tumbled to the concrete floor. He showed no further interest in the fight.
Twirling her walking stick like a baton, the Amazon slammed the second Redcap sideways across the face. Like the first, he crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
The third gang member pulled an automatic from inside his shirt. He never had time to aim and fire. Cassandra’s staff smacked the gun from his hand, then sent him joining his companions on the floor with a smash to the forehead.
Hurriedly, Jack deposited a floppy disc on the chest of each of the fallen Redcaps. With satisfying bursts of light, all three vanished.
“Sorry,” said Cassandra, tearing at the pile of wood located beneath the cage dangling high over their heads. “I got carried away.”
“No problem,” said Jack. He pointed upward. Seven anxious faces peered down at him. Seven terrified women, hoping for rescue, screamed words of encouragement. “How do we get them down?”
“Von Bern must have a block and tackle somewhere,” said Cassandra. “That cage is tied to a girder in the roof. Releasing them will take hours. And we don’t have the time.”
She gestured with her stick at an object at the center of the pile of timbers. Jack cursed in dismay. Von Bern’s henchmen had placed a can of gasoline and a timer between the logs. Set for six o’clock, the mechanism was already counting down the minutes. Jack checked his watch. They had less than an hour to disarm thirteen bombs scattered throughout the huge cavern.
“Smash it,” he said to Cassandra, pointing at the timer. “We’ll free the women after we deal with von Bern.”
A roar so loud that it set the wicker basket above them swaying cut off the Amazon’s reply. Guessing why her eyes had widened in shock wasn’t difficult, though. Turning about, Jack Collins faced the Great Beast.
40
It waddled towards them from the other end of the railway yard, its intense bellowing shaking the walls. Seventy feet long, the Great Beast stood twelve feet high at the shoulder, balanced on four short, stumpy legs, and was ten feet wide. Fifteen feet of its length consisted of a gigantic mouth filled with teeth the size of bar stools. Its milky white eyes were the size of pizza tins. Assorted spikes decorated its back and sides. Dark brown, with splotchy spots of green, the monster bore an uncanny resemblance to a gigantic alligator.
It wasn’t hard to guess its true identity. At least, not for Jack. After reading hundreds of fantasy novels from Adams to Zelazny, he was an expert on mythical creations. The monster could only be Leviathan, the monstrous sea creature mentioned in the Book of Job. Though the Bible described the creature as a serpent, according to earlier Babylonian and Canaanite myths, the creature was actually a giant sea dragon. Or, in more prosaic terms, an alligator the size of a steam locomotive.
Watching the Great Beast approach, Jack experienced a curious sort of déjа vu. His mind flashed back to dozens of 1950’s science fiction B-movies, filled with giant ants, flies, wasps, and grasshoppers. But now the menace was a monstrous alligator demon, and instead of watching the film, he was living it. He only hoped that his plan was the equal of those dreamt up by Kenneth Tobey, Steve McQueen, or Peter Graves.
For all its immense size Leviathan moved surprisingly fast. The beast ignored minor obstacles in its path like Border Redcaps, stomping over any of von Bern’s henchmen too slow or too stupid to get out of its way. Though it kept its gaze fixed on Jack and Cassandra, the monster allowed itself a few quick snacks as it approached, swallowing several gang members foolish enough to dart in front of its huge mouth. Chewing and swallow its prey didn’t slow it down a step.
Jack estimated the Great Beast would reach them in only a few minutes. While he had a general concept of how he planned to stop the monster, he was still short on specifics. He would have to improvise on the run.
“What should we do?” yelled Cassandra. Even though she was screaming at the top of her lungs, it was hard to hear what she was saying, between Leviathan’s bellowing and the horrified cries of the imprisoned women. The Border Redcaps, for all their faults, perished quietly.
“Split up,” shouted Jack. “Leviathan’s after me. Keep out of its way and knock over the rest of the bonfires. Von Bern’s troops are pretty well scattered and they shouldn’t prove much opposition. In the meantime, I’ll handle the Great Beast.”
“On your own?” cried Cassandra, looking concerned. “That thing’s awfully big. Jack. And it looks pretty hungry. Floppy discs and pocket calculators won’t stop a Great Beast. I hope you brought something special to handle it.”
Jack pulled off his backpack and emptied the contents onto the concrete floor. “You take all the discs and calculators,” he shouted to the Amazon. His hands latched onto a thin box the size of a small attaché case. “This baby is going to give Leviathan indigestion.”