But now he’s been taken from us.
I can feel the rage twist my features. I want to tear this mutant apart like an animal.
Perri rolls away from the altar, his coat catching on the rocks, and he raises the shotgun and shoots as soon as Vex gets out of the way.
A good part of the mutant’s thigh explodes under impact, and he growls. “You miserable humans! You’ll witness the wrath of the new world!” He uses the stone altar to stay upright.
Perri pulls the trigger again, but nothing happens. He’s out, too.
Vex places herself in front of the cultist once again, arms raised, but she doesn’t attack. Perri told me her programming stops her from hurting humans, but it doesn’t prevent her from trying to protect us. In the sea of anguish and rage I’m drowning in, I can feel a breath of affection for the robot. The mutant backhands her and she falls on the rocks without making a sound.
I throw my empty gun and pull out my serrated knife with one swift motion. Time to end this and avenge my king. I launch myself at the mutant and bury my weapon in his gut.
He laughs. “It’ll take more than this to kill me.” He grunts and tries to bite my ear off.
I pull my knife out and bury it again between his ribs. The smile finally drops from his inhuman face. His brown hair is splattered on his temple with seawater and his clothes are in tatters from Perri’s gunshot.
I spit in his face. “Go to hell.”
He growls. “Hell’s doors are closed to me and my reign is here, with the other gods.”
Fuck, he’s batshit crazy.
I pull my knife out again to stab him one more time, but he blocks my next attack. He twists my wrist, and pain explodes in my entire arm. I drop my weapon. He grabs me by the throat and pushes me down to the altar. My head and back hit the stone.
Perri screams and jumps on his back, trying to strangle him from behind with the shotgun.
The mutant raises his deadly blade.
That’s it, he’ll cut me down like he cut Alastair.
Perri… I want to say,run… But the asshole is crushing my windpipe with an iron grip. Perri’s still trying to strangle him in turn.
My vision blurs but I see a creature rising from the waves behind them. A monster with dark skin, white hair, and bluetentacles writhing where his left side used to be. His pale eyes are wide and terrifying.
A monster rising from the abyss to enact vengeance.
“Take your hands off what’s mine,” he says in a deep, distorted voice.
The cultist finally lets me go to look behind him, fear, at last, registering on his inhuman face. “You…”
Alastair pries Perri off the mutant’s back with surprising care, his tentacles wrapping around his arm, before pushing him behind him. Perri is sobbing. I think I am, too.
The zealot tries to bring his blade down again, but the monster is faster. Alastair’s tentacles stop the weapon, and he gets a hold of the mutant’s head with his remaining human hand. With the help of his blue tentacles, he rips his head clean off his shoulders, tendons and skin tearing with a disgusting sound.
This mutant’s blood is red. I wonder which lab he was born in, and what kind of life led him here, to build a temple by the sea and worship the old gods. Was he the one who started this mad cult, or did he grow up in the shadow of someone who molded him into what he became? We’ll never know, nor do I care to ask.
I watch with fear and fascination as the headless body falls at my feet. The King looks in the eyes of his dead brother one last time before throwing his head into the waves.
Try coming back from that, I think.
Then Alastair turns towards Perri, then to me. He looks… strange. Just like he was on the beach last week, when he hunted me down on the sand. But he’s still the Alastair that we love. I don’t fear or hate this version of him.
I reach for him with a shaky hand just as Perri reaches my side. My face is wet, from brine or tears, I don’t know. Alastair sighs deeply, and at last he gathers us swiftly in his arm andtentacles. We find ourselves smothered against his cold chest. He breathes us in and growls.
“We’re fine,” Perri sobs. “We’re fine.”
I wrap my arms around both of them and squeeze. I wish I’d never have to let go.
