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He had a vision of a painting, an abstract using that fantastic, unique red, and the oily black of the smoke, and . . .
The creature moved forward with surprising speed, mincing on delicate tubules like a centipede.
“Attack, Private! Attack!”
Justin spared a moment for self-pity. How had it come to this? Erin, dead, and now that she was gone he missed her. She had never loved him, he’d known that, but at times she had been kind. She had been all he had. Now here he was, drafted into a fight he did not want. But the threat of pain was too compelling. He had no choice.
Anyway, Justin told himself in a weak attempt at buttressing his ego: I am Knightmare! And Knightmare fears no one!
Right?
With a cry that was meant to be a roar but came out as a frightened whimper, Justin ran straight at the nearest arm, swung his sword, and sliced effortlessly most of the way through where the arm was as thick as a sewer pipe.
He grabbed the injured leg with his claw, pulling the deep gash wider, and swung his sword again. This time the blade went all the way through to the concrete beneath and a chunk as big as an elephant came away.
Came away but did not die. Rather, the detached leg instantly crawled at Justin and he swung again, cutting a third of it away.
This third, too, did not die.
“Hydra,” Justin whispered. He had paid very little attention to any part of school, but he had done a paper that referenced the Moreau painting Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra. In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a beast with many heads, but if you chopped one off, another grew in its place.
“Go for the boy!” DiMarco’s voice, distorted by the loudspeaker and even more by the incessant whap-whap-whap of the helicopter.
The boy was at the far end of a fifty-foot arm and sitting easily twenty-five feet up.
“Sure, no problem,” Justin said, gritting his teeth. It would take speed, and once he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. All or nothing.
He gathered his courage and broke into a run, straight at the beast. He jumped atop the nearest uncut leg and ran its length even as it curled up behind him like a trailing wave.
Easy! In two seconds he would cut the creepy kid in half.
But as he swung his sword the tentacles whipped at him, smearing his armor with caustic poison and, worse in the short term, entangling his legs, so that Knightmare went sprawling. His outstretched sword arm stabbed right for Vincent, but three tendrils snatched at the blade, were cut through, but managed nevertheless to steer the blade harmlessly away.
Knightmare jumped up, looked down, and saw smoking holes in his chitin armor, but the pain was distant and the poison would never reach his bloodstream. He charged again, yelling, “Die! Die!” and swinging his blade like a scythe through the whipping worms, which sprayed poison like severed arteries pumping blood.
At last he was face-to-face with Vincent; only a few stubby tendrils whipped frantically between them.
“Who the hell are you?” Knightmare roared.
The boy had a surprisingly sweet smile and a musical voice. “I am Abaddon. I am the destroyer anointed by the god Satan! I am . . . the star!”
“You’re batshit is what you are,” Knightmare said, and prepared to slice the boy off the monster like a wart.
“You haven’t even figured it out, have you?” Vincent said, and it was his taunting voice that stayed Knightmare’s sword. “You don’t even know what this is, do you, Knightmare? I guess you’re stupid.”
Justin gaped. This kid was taunting him, insulting him. He sounded like a not very bright high school bully.
“Stupid old Knightmare,” Vincent said, voice dripping sarcasm. “You know nothing. You want me to tell you? Do you?”
Knightmare’s great armored head nodded.
Vincent held his frail human arms out, palms up, tilted his head back, and with a laugh in his voice said, “It’s all TV. It’s all entertainment!”
Knightmare did not move as the human brain of Justin DeVeere digested this statement.
“It’s a show, you dumbass,” Vincent said. “And you’re just an actor.”
Suddenly the leg the bemused Knightmare stood on heaved so violently that it crumpled Knightmare’s knees. He rose a dozen feet into the air, and like a baseball bat, a thick arm smashed into him sideways. Knightmare went flying, tumbling through the air, and skidded to a halt within a few feet of where Dekka and Armo stood.
