Chapter 82 - Fungus Among Us

  Suddenly the thing surged forward. It rushed at Alex. Maybe it was all the orders he was shouting that got him the unwanted attention, but whatever the cause, the creature was headed right for him.

  I took two steps in, getting ready to block its advance, but Alex’s voice stopped me cold.

  “Castle, no!”

  I glanced his way and saw he’d already taken to the air. Alex wasn’t in any direct danger from this thing, but if I went up close and personal with it, I might be. I flew up to join him.

  “Don’t you dare go near that thing,” Alex said. “We have no idea if your Natural Armor and Regeneration will make you resistant or not. You’re the one person here that we cannot afford to lose. You sit tight. Let us handle this, okay? You don’t have to do everything, Cameron.”

  I chuckled. “Fair enough. What’s the plan, then?”

  “Dara! Think you can torch him from far enough back that you’ll be safe?” Alex called out.

  A woman on the ground shouted back, “You sure this isn’t like that movie where the fire spread the spores, right?”

  “As sure as I can be,” Alex replied. “Do it.”

  “On it, boss!”

  She turned her full attention on the giant mushroom man. The creature was only about fifteen feet away from her. If it went for her quickly, she’d be in range of those spores in seconds, but I figured Alex had to have a plan in mind. I wasn’t disappointed.

  Dara’s hands glowed, then fire flashed around them. She held her arms in front of her, fingers splayed out, and shot a wave of flames at the creature. Orange and yellow fire washed over it, and for the first time, the creature backed up rather than advancing into the attack. It covered its face with its arms, those spore pods on the ends of the arms igniting, burning merrily.

  I hadn’t seen much fire magic since the Event hit us. During the fighting with the Karabos, I’d seen a couple of police shooting off Fire Bolts at the enemy, but not many. I’d never seen a crystal drop that allowed someone to cast fire magic. If I had, I absolutely would have socketed the thing. Fire magic was awesome, and as good as my Lightning Bolt spell was, I’d love to be able to shoot flames from my fingertips, too.

  “Hit it again!” Alex shouted.

  The fungus giant still smoldered, but it wasn’t out of the fight yet. Not even close. As soon as the flames stopped washing over it, it lowered its arms from the defensive posture it had been holding and advanced again—this time, straight at Dara.

  She blasted it with more fire, stalling its approach. The creature staggered under the wave of fire. It took one step back, then another, trying vainly to keep the flames away from its face.

  The face. That had to be important somehow. The thing was actively defending that part of its body. There had to be a reason for that, I figured. Maybe that was a vulnerable spot?

  “Aim for the face!” I called out. “It’s protecting its face!”

  Dara nodded and sent another sheet of flame blasting at the thing, but it was still doing a good job of defending itself. Those arms were burning well. The seed pod hands were fully engulfed, which made me incredibly happy to see. But it wasn’t done. The creature took a step toward Dara, striding straight into her fire. Then another. A third. It was closing the gap slowly, but it was closing it.

  She was in trouble.

  “Alex, see if you can slow it down. I have an idea,” I said.

  “Make it quick,” he snapped, blasting the creature with a Lightning Bolt.

  I didn’t waste breath replying. I just soared a few dozen feet to the nearest street sign, a galvanized steel post driven deep into the sidewalk concrete. With a yank, I ripped the thing free of the pavement, then brought it down hard, shattering the remaining bits of sidewalk stuck to the steel.

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  With the sign in hand, I shot skyward again, darting forward as I did. My aim with a makeshift spear was only so-so, and I wanted to make sure I was near enough to hit on the first try.

  I wasn’t going to get another before the thing reached Dara.

  “Hey, ugly, up here!” I shouted at the thing. To my shock, it actually looked! It turned toward me, arms still up to block Dara’s flames.

  Its eyes were jet black. There was no sclera, no colored iris, just a pair of inky pools. Its mouth gaped wide as it stared at me, and that too was a black pit. No white teeth shined inside. There was no sign of a tongue, or much of anything else. The interior of its mouth was as dark as its eyes.

  But the other thing I noticed was how few scorch marks were visible on that face. The arms were actually burning. Its mushroom cap was blackened, the edges glowing embers. The legs were streaked with burned patches.

  Not the face, though. I saw some soot, but no burns. It was protecting its face above everything else, which told me my hunch was spot on.

  I was as near as I dared get. I chambered my arm back, getting ready to throw, waiting until I had the best shot I was going to get… Then I released the throw.

  The spear sailed through the air. The creature tried to pivot and move its arms to block, but because of the angle, it couldn’t stop both the spear and the flames. It hesitated for a critical moment, maybe confused about which was the greater threat. That let the spear crash directly into it, right above the open mouth.

  Steel pierced fungus, driving through until half the length was sticking out the far side. The force of my attack drove it backward and almost sent it toppling to the ground. The creature managed to retain its feet, but wobbled there, barely standing, for just a handful of seconds before finally collapsing back onto the steps.

  It shuddered there, twitched a few times, and then finally went still. I hovered above it, keeping my distance. Those spores were killers. Literally so. We all remained well back, giving a few beats. I had a feeling everyone was thinking the same question I was.

  “Is it really dead?” Dara asked at last.

  “I think so, but I’m not for taking any chances,” Alex replied. “Dara, how’s your mana?”

  “Low, but I can manage a bit more flame.”

  “Good. Cameron, you and I will hit it with all the lightning we can produce, while Dara burns it,” Alex said. “If I had some gasoline to pour on it, I’d do that, too.”

  “I think we can manage that,” I replied. “You want gas?”

  “I won’t say no. I don’t want to lose anyone else to those spores,” Alex said.

  “On it!” I flew up the street a bit. Alex’s people had begun clearing the dead vehicles from some of the roads closer to City Hall, but they hadn’t gotten out this far, yet.

  As a result, the streets were still loaded with dead vehicles. It didn’t take me long to find an oversized SUV. I picked the car because SUVs tended to have bigger gas tanks than regular sedans, and I wanted the best shot at getting the most gasoline on this particular fire.

  I landed next to the vehicle, then flipped it up on its side—with one hand. Tier nine Strength was cool!I glanced at the bottom of the vehicle, looking for the gas tanks—there. I was no mechanic, but it wasn’t the hardest thing to find.

  Once I knew where that was, it was an easy matter to lift the car into the air and carry it over the fungus giant’s body. Then, I ripped a hunk of metal off the bottom of the SUV and stabbed it into the gas tank, ripping sideways to tear a jagged foot-long hole through the metal. Gas poured down like rain, gallons of it dousing the creature and the ground around it.

  “Get Roberts, too,” Alex said. “We can’t take any chances.”

  “Understood,” I replied. That was grim, but it was the right call. Whatever those spores were that Roberts had inhaled, they were absolutely deadly. He’d succumbed in about a minute, but the stuff had continued growing from all over his body until I could barely see his still form under the sprouting mushrooms.

  I shifted sideways, dousing his body with the last gallon or two from the tank. Then I pulled back and set the car back down again a short distance away.

  “We’re good now, I think,” I said.

  “Hit it,” Alex replied. Bolts of electricity arced from his hands.

  I fired a Bolt of my own, then a second and a third. Dara launched flames that swept across the fungus giant and Roberts’ body, igniting the fuel I’d splashed over them. Both bodies erupted in hot, hungry flames.

  Alex and I set ourselves back down on the ground a suitable distance away and watched as the flames burned. I glanced back up at the strange building, but nothing moved, up there. No more creatures stumbled out to attack us, and for once I was grateful. That monster was insanely powerful, its attack incredibly deadly. If we were going to tackle more creatures like it, we’d need better ways to protect ourselves against those spores.

  Finally, the flames had died down. We waited until they’d guttered out completely before even trying to advance. There was no sense risking more lives when we didn’t know how resilient those spores were.

  “You want me to go tap the creature for crystals?” I asked Alex softly, as the last of the flames died.

  “I hate seeing you risk yourself on an unknown like this,” Alex said. “I’d rather have someone else. Why you?”

  “Because my Natural Armor is tier nine, and I have a secondary crystal that’s tier six. Because my Regeneration is tier five, which gives me a better than average chance to maybe survive those spores, if any are still active over there,” I replied. “I get that you don’t want me risking myself if it’s not necessary. I don’t want to die, either. But I have the best chance at walking away from that thing.”

  He hesitated, thinking it over, then nodded. “Okay, give it a try. But at the first sign of trouble, the first mushroom growing on your skin or itching sensation, you back up, got it?”

  “Yeah, I think that goes without saying,” I replied, shooting him a cocky grin to hide my nerves.

  Then I stepped forward, closing the distance between myself and the creature’s body, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.