Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (39 page)

***

Ellis dived for cover behind a tree as the explosion echoed across the street. Crouching, she looked backwards.

“They’re shooting! Officers under fire!” the SWAT team leader shouted. He cocked his M16 and leveled it at the cult members.

“No! They are unarmed!” Ellis shouted frantically. The SWAT members hesitated, fingers on the triggers. She peeked at the cult members. They were still standing. A fire rose in front of the idol, an electric flame burning with an intensity that was hard to watch, as if a lightning bolt was dancing on the ground between Allan and the idol. Allan stood in front of the fire, facing the idol with his arms held high, and his bull mask looking directly at the idol, flashing white and blue as the lightning bolt was reflected on its metallic surface.

“I thought peace would triumph. I thought Man should not lift his hand against his fellow Man. I was mistaken. I will not allow what was built here to perish. I need the power of the storm!” His voice was powerful. A cult member was dragged forward, a shirtless man, his head slumped down and his feet dragging behind him.

“I sacrifice this offering. I offer you this Akrabu, as is written in the pact. I am paying the price, as is written in the pact. I take upon myself the role of Harbinger! I welcome you upon this sphere!” Allan knelt down in front of the idol, his arms raised high, his bull mask a smaller version of the idol’s metal head. Ellis thought she detected sadness in Allan’s voice.

“No!” Ellis shouted. The man was dragged towards Allan and then the cult member who held him glanced towards the waiting law enforcement agents. Ellis saw long blond hair fluttering in the wind. It was the leader of the bikers. The blond leader, now a cult member, had dragged another of his bikers and then he threw him into the blazing electric fire. He immediately vanished without a trace into the blinding conflagration. Allan bowed his head down before the fire till the horns on his mask touched the ground. Then he straightened and held his hands up, raising the rod high, aiming for the sky.

A flash of lightning blazed towards Allan’s rod and stayed there, flickering on the Stormgod’s symbol, spewing bright sparks.

“Take them down! The leader and the blond man!” Ellis shouted, but a strong wind started blowing along the road, raising debris and blackening the day. Ellis could barely hang on, but she grimly looked towards Allan. She tasted sand in her mouth and heard agents and SWAT members swearing as the sudden storm engulfed them all.

“I am the Stormgod’s Harbinger! I sacrifice this offering. Give me the power to vanquish the Akrabu!” rose Allan’s voice above the shrieking winds. Ellis saw another man being dragged forward and then watched the blond rider smile as he threw the second rider into the fire burning in front of the idol.

Allan got up, turned towards Ellis and raised his head, rage in his mask’s eyes. Electric fire burst all around his rod, traveling upwards till a flickering blue white flame arced at the top of the rod, filling the sign on its top with frenzied sparks. Thunderclaps roared from the sky, followed by lightning flashes  that half-blinded Ellis. She continued to watch, her eyes filling with tears.

“Incoming!” Ellis yelled.

The lightning bolt attached to Allan’s rod roared and shrieked, a madly dancing line of electricity connecting the metallic rod to the black clouds above. Allan somehow held on to the rod, though it jerked in his hands trying to break free. The rod was thrust forwards, aimed at the NSA and SWAT teams. The lightning bolt roared as it snaked forward, a vertical line of destruction thundering and incinerating everything in its path. A deep, molten track was burnt into the street as the line sped towards the agents and the SWAT members arrayed in front of the cult.

A tree standing in the way of the bolt burst into flame immediately like a matchstick, cracking and splitting down the middle. Men dived everywhere, trying to get away from the bolt. Ellis saw two SWAT officers go down, each a black smoking mess. She took a deep breath, thumbed her P90 to auto fire and aimed it at the cult members. She emptied the magazine within a few seconds and ran from behind the tree. She moved as fast as she could, but she still felt the sudden blaze behind her as the tree she had just left exploded into flame, the lightning bolt that that passed through it making her ears ring.

Blood pumping, Ellis ran to join her team as they took positions behind a large workshop buffeted by incredible winds. She pulled the empty magazine out of her weapon and slammed in another, pulled the charging handle and then peeked around the wall of the shed, looking at the cult members. The long column of cult members was still advancing, the gray metal idol they carried leading them, Allan walking beside it, another blinding lightning bolt connecting his rod to the black clouds above. Everyone in the procession was chanting the name of the Stormgod as if it was a shield wrapped around them, as if it had the power to protect them.

“Take them out!” Ellis shouted. The NSA team members opened fire almost in unison, trying to aim at the cult members through madly spinning dust devils dancing everywhere. The P90 zipper-like sound was deafening, as the weapons fired their 5.7-millimeter-caliber rounds at 900 rounds a minute. Dust and asphalt fragments flew in all directions as the road cracked under the impact of the SS199 armor-penetrating bullets. Yet, the cult continued to advance as if the bullets had no power to hurt them. Allan raised his rod and another lightning bolt came thundering down, attaching itself to the tip of the rod. The brilliant bolt of destruction was launched in the direction of Ellis’s team.

“Back! Back off!” Ellis shouted. She sprinted off, the team members leaving their positions around the structure. The gyrating vertical shaft of lightning slammed into the workshop and burst out of its back. The work shed remained standing but a moment longer, and then the two smoking halves collapsed, raising up a cloud of smoke and dust, and then consumed in flame. Ellis and her team retreated, firing as they moved from position to position, the vertical bolts of lighting chasing them.

***

Thorpe couldn’t move, couldn’t control his limbs. He watched the madly dancing video image on the Raven’s control computer screen. The interference was getting worse. The explosion echoing across town came from a single lightning bolt that attached the funnel to the tip of the horned temple. Thorpe thought he had seen enough wonders to make him immune to anything else the world could throw at him. He was wrong.

The black spinning funnel was cut by a brilliant bolt of lightning, as if a vertical doorway out of the tornado was being opened. A hand holding a jagged metal sword emerged out of the tornado’s doorway. Long horns followed and then the funnel opened completely, the dark, spinning tornado unleashing the thing it bore into the world. It landed on the ground near the temple, cracking the pavement. It towered over the nearby buildings and sheds, its great pinions casting a dark shadow over a large area, its body clad in gray metal armor, its plates covering its torso and its limbs. Its pinions flapped once, breaking windows and uprooting fences, and it took off. The last image Thorpe saw before the drone’s transmission died was the thing’s horned head, its eyes filled with electricity.

“No,” Thorpe whispered.

***

“Fred!” the Spotter called out.          

“I see it.”

The leader called down another lightning bolt to his rod, the jagged line of electrical energy blinding in its intensity. The masked gray figure held the rod raised up high. The bolt moved madly, trying to break free. The continuous thunder it emitted grew stronger, and the bolt got thicker, with tongues of electricity arcing all over the figure. Fred sited the figure in his scope, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger. The heavy rifle slammed into his shoulder, but Fred’s attention was only on the scope. The figure was still standing, still gathering more energy into the lightning bolt.

“Negative impact!”

Fred ignored his spotter. He aligned the figure again and then squeezed the trigger a number of times in rapid succession. The M107 rifle was semi automatic, enabling the sniper to shoot bullets off as fast as he could press the trigger, at least till his nine-round magazine ran out of bullets. Fred smiled in satisfaction as dust covered his target, but then his eyes popped open. The robed figure was still standing! One of the men behind it had collapsed to the ground, but the rod was still held aloft and was still gathering electricity to it. The gray-masked man turned.

Fred thought he could see the eye slits in the gray conical mask directed right towards him. The gray metallic bullhead seemed to snarl in rage.

***

“Guardian! We need a little help here,” Ellis called out as she and her team fought a continuous battle, emptying magazine after magazine with little effect. The lightning bolts had already killed one of her teammates, an agent that didn’t dodge in time. Not much remained of the body. They ran on, firing at half-obscured gray targets, moving out from cover to cover. The sizzling bolts were getting closer and closer. Ellis had a burning tear in her armor vest from hot shrapnel that flew from the cracking road. Her legs ached from the continuous effort of emptying a magazine, jumping away and dodging behind the next available cover, hoping not to be incinerated on the way. There was a soft chanting all around them as the cult members’ voices cried out the name of their god.

Ellis looked around her. She marked the positions of her teammates and planned her course as they continued to withdraw. There wasn’t any other option, not with that kind of firepower leveled at them. Ellis could barely hear anything above the roar of the thunderclaps erupting around her, though she heard the continuous chant. Ellis’s hand checked her belt, revealing that she had only one additional magazine left. She grunted and moved the safety to single fire.

“Alpha, wait one! Another magazine, I’m empty!” Ellis heard Fred’s voice on her radio. “Alpha, I’ll have it under control in -” There was a small clicking noise in the earphone and Fred’s voice disappeared.

“Guardian, Alpha,” Ellis said. She peeked out from her position behind a small fold in the ground of the road. It seemed that the idol and the people behind weren’t following them for a change. The air was filled with smoke with a sharp acrid smell.

“Guardian, Alpha,” Ellis said. She looked around. The SWAT team had taken positions on the other side of the road, next to the NSA agents. She winced, seeing how many agents and SWAT officers were already lost. Ellis raised her head cautiously, and saw the gleaming bull’s head steadily approaching towards her. She ducked back down.

“Guardian, please respond,” Ellis said.

“Incoming!” An agent called out. Ellis saw a blinding vertical line of sizzling electrical energy moving in her direction. She rolled on the ground and all the agents and the SWAT officers pulled back, flattening themselves on the road away from the direction of the lightning bolt. Several agents and SWAT officers fired, spent cartridges flying everywhere.

“Fred, goddamn it! Answer me!” Ellis said. She looked to the north, up Division Street. Black smoke filled the air as the concrete boiled and burnt under the impact of the moving lightning bolts. There were no people to be seen. Ellis looked to the northeast. Black coiling smoke came from the hill where Fred should have been.

“HQ, Alpha. We lost two agents and several SWAT officers. We are under fire from some type of weapon. And I can’t raise Guardian.”

“Alpha, retreat!” Agent Graham’s voice sounded strange.

“Another one!” Ellis looked quickly. Another bolt of lightning tore through the air with its thundering noise, but it headed eastward, missing them by more than sixty feet.

“Move out!” Ellis snapped. She grunted as she sprung to her feet again, the agents and SWAT teams pulling back. Two black NSA vans pulled up, their sliding doors opened wide and agents ran out. They aimed their P90 submachine guns, waiting for the approaching cult members who were still hidden behind a bend in the road.

“Into the vans! Now!” Ellis barked. The agents and SWAT team members swarmed aboard, Ellis moving slower and taking the rear. She kept her weapon aimed at a line of lightning that was visible above a work shed’s roof, approaching slowly but apparently still reigned in.

“They won’t shoot at something they can’t see! Let’s move!” Ellis shouted. One van pulled out at once, its engine belching smoke, the driver putting pedal to the metal. Ellis glanced at the hill overlooking the town. The whole hilltop was smoking, thick black smoke that obscured everything. The second van began to move, its tires screeching and leaving burnt rubber marks on the scalding asphalt. Ellis grabbed a handhold and pulled herself into the van, slamming the sliding door closed.

***

Ellis ran to Graham. He held her.

“I’m sorry. Fred's gone,” he said, simply. Ellis looked at him for a moment with red-rimmed eyes. She took a deep breath.

“We need heavier weaponry. Our submachine guns had no effect. They also had some kind of electrical weapon,” she finally said.

“Yes, we know. We saw the lightning bolts from here. The director already sent in a request. Reinforcements are on their way,” the agent said, gently. Ellis turned towards the town. There was no sign of the cult members, though the police officers were aiming their rifles at the town, taking positions behind the patrol cars blocking the entrance to town. The SWAT team leader was red with rage. He went over to one of the trucks and pulled out a heavy, 12.7 millimeter machine gun, calling for his team members to help him.