His point was made when they heard the thing roaring from below. The sound echoed up the stairwell and bounced through the concrete hallway. Javier turned to run and Crowley grabbed him by his arm.
“Oh, no.”
“Lemme go! Lemme goooooo.” The man was on the verge of tears.
“You played God with something that has its own gods.” Crowley's smile nearly split at the edges. “You decided you had to make a better soldier maybe? Or a better human being? Or just to see what you could do. That never goes well. The difference this time is I'm here to make sure you see firsthand what happens when it goes wrong. You don't get to get away.”
Damned if he didn't try. Javier thrashed and whimpered and pulled at his arm as if it were locked in a bear trap. Crowley shook him hard enough to rattle his body and gripped his arm even harder.
“We figure a way out of this, great. Until then you're my personal property. Come along now. I need to know where you're holding your 'specimen’.”
“I don't want to see it again! I don't!”
“You don't get a choice, sweet pea! You screwed up. Your specimen must be awake now and if it is, it's called to its brethren. The only chance you have is if we set that damned thing free!”
“Others?”
“Oh, Javier, you have no idea. They're older than mankind. Older than you can imagine and there are so many of them. For a while I thought they were truly gone, but no, they've just been in hiding.”
“I thought. They said there was just one!”
Crowley grinned harder and stared at him and Javier flinched as if slapped. “Only one? They're like cockroaches, Javier! See one and it's already too late. So you better fucking hope—”
Something lurched from the shadows, and then Javier's head vanished into the mouth of the beast. It bit down and sprayed blood over the walls as it pulled away from the stump of Javier's neck.
Crowley cursed and drove the thing backward, shoving it down the stairs. Javier's body slumped, still spraying crimson stains as it dropped, and Crowley jumped over the corpse with ease, but not before the blood sprayed his legs.
Later, if he thought about it, he might feel guilty about how the man had died, but it wasn't likely. The man worked at a top secret genetics lab. That would never be beneficial to anyone. Another variation of Pandora's Box only this one created bigger, badder fish-men.
The thing came for him and Crowley ran into it as it stood taller and loped up the stairs. The hand that hit him broke ribs. Crowley hissed between his teeth and rammed his hands into both of the bulbous eyes, tearing with his fingers.
The screech it let out was deafening, and he wondered if the monsters had more than one volume setting. Just the same it was too busy working on seeing through ruined eyes to notice Crowley dropping between its legs and slithering down the stairs, wincing at the hot pain of broken bones.
He didn't carry any weapons. Crowley had to jump to reach the thick neck of the thing, but he managed, hauling it backward down the stairs with the unexpected weight. On the humans he went for a choke hold. Here he went for maximum damage and wrenched the head of the creature around until the bones in the neck snapped with a firecracker series of reports.
It crashed to the ground and let out a gurgling hiss as it died.
Down below, further along than he would have expected, Crowley heard the sound of gunfire and though he could not make out the words, he knew the voice as Kharrn called out in rage.
Down the hallway past the door he was obligated to kick open, Crowley saw too many shapes. Not just humans. Not just monsters shaped by men. Deep Ones. True Deep Ones. They were coming in. Some carried weapons, others merely used their claws as they tore into the escaped nightmares Javier and his associates had bred.
One small part of him was horrified.
Another piece was repulsed by the shapes of the things.
Most of him was thrilled. It was so rare that he got to cut loose properly.
Kharrn followed the corridor until he reached an elevator. Though the building still had power, the elevator didn’t seem to be operating. Kharrn found a stairwell. The door was locked but the axe sheered through the bolt as easily as it had hacked down the gates of Uruk when he had attacked the city with the armies of Sargon. Kharrn didn't know if it was sorcery or time-lost metallurgy, but the blade never lost its edge and the metal had so far proved indestructible. Kharrn stepped into the stairwell and started down. Whatever secrets the place held, they would likely be buried deep.
He had only taken a few steps downward when another of the mutant creatures came roaring up at him. This one wasn’t as big as the one he’d seen previously but it had spines like a sea urchin and its head was just a shapeless mass with eyes and a roaring maw.
Kharrn braced his feet on the stairs, lifted the axe high, and then brought the heavy weapon down on the monster’s skull. The mutant’s hide wasn’t as tough as that of the other and the axe split the creature’s skull, sending blood and brain matter splattering down the steps. Kharrn was careful not to slip in the gore as he stepped over the dead creature.
There was another locked door at the bottom of the stairs and the axe made short work of this one too. This led to a large laboratory. The room smelled of chemicals and pain. Kharrn narrowed his eyes as he saw the tables fitted with straps and restraints. This was where monsters were made. Kharrn had no love for the Deep Ones, but he did respect them. An elder race, older than humanity, and one of the few things that had survived the cataclysm that separated the forgotten age where Kharrn had been born from recorded history.
Kharrn heard a moan and he looked toward the far end of the room where there was a big door with a glass window. A man lay on the floor leaning against the door. Kharrn crossed the room, keeping alert for any threat. When he reached the door he saw the front of the man's shirt was covered with blood that ran from his nose. The blood mixed with drool from the man's gaping mouth. His eyes were fixed straight ahead but he wasn't seeing anything. The man's mind was obviously long gone.
“You still live then, savage?” a voice said from nowhere. “It has been so long.”
Kharrn stepped up so that he could see into the room beyond the door. The room was filled with computers and medical equipment. A table in center of the room held a Deep One in a web of straps and wires. It was looking at Kharrn with dark and ancient eyes. Deep Ones were immortal unless killed. He didn't remember this one, but it knew him.
“You and I fought once on an island far from here,” the voice inside Kharrn's head said.
Kharrn spoke aloud though he knew he didn't need to. “There are many gaps in my memory. I don't remember the fight, but I believe you.”
“You almost killed me.”
“This was before the cataclysm?”
“Yes, in the days when Father Dagon strode the Earth and the Ones Who Walk Behind the Angles held sway.”
“Few can remember those days. How did you end up here?”
“I was caught in a storm and washed up near Golden Cove. The men who found me turned me over to the scientists who have tormented me for the last five years. They had some sort of machine that kept my brothers in the deep from hearing me. But I finally found a way around it.”
“I will free you,” Kharrn said.
“No need. My brothers come. They are here even now. All on this pitiful island will die.”
“The people on the other side of this island have nothing to do with this place.”
“No matter. I will have my revenge.”
The big door wasn't locked and Kharrn swung it open with a hiss of escaping air. He stepped into the room and approached the table.
“You still have the axe, I see. Will you slay me here in my bonds?”