Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters (39 page)

“You wake up the giant monsters, set them loose, and they crush the
Argo
for you. Crush it and eat everyone on board alive, if the legends are true. And then what? You ask them nicely to go back to their lair?”

“First things first,” said Finch.
“Do you think you could find them?”

The Roman stared long and hard at the commander and nodded.
“I can find them,” he said. “If they’re real. Striking a deal with them is up to you.”

The officer bit back his frustration.
“And how would we do that?”

Carter looked past him to Kraft.
“You know the stories, doctor,” he said. “You should have an idea what you can offer them.”

Kraft looked away from the helmets.
“You already know,” he said, “don’t you? They’re real and you already know where they are.”

Finch furrowed his brow.
“What makes you say that?”

Kraft studied the mercenary’s face.
“He said we’d have to wake them up. Twice. Not find them.”

Carter grinned and swallowed another inch of scotch.

“You’ve known these things were real?” asked the officer. “For how long?”

The Roman stared at the hat under Finch’s arm.
“Many years ago,” he said, “I found a map. It led me to a cave that went miles down into the Earth. Fool that I am, I wanted to see what was at the bottom.” His eyes flicked back to the officer’s. “The devil you know versus the demons you don’t, commander. You sure you want to do this?”

Finch straightened up.
“Mr. Carter, I don’t know the devil or the demons. I’m just doing what I need to do to save American lives.” He held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

“You have a deal with me,” said Carter, “but I’m not the one you need to worry about.”
He finished off the scotch and hurled the glass into the fireplace.

~

Three days later Kraft found himself on sabbatical from the university and employed by the OSS. He and Carter flew from New York to London. From London they crossed the Channel into France on an old freighter called the
Charlotte Knight
.

Their chaperones were ten Marines, all of them squeezed into modest civilian clothes and led by a gruff sergeant named Thater.
They carried folded German rifles hidden in carpet bags and knives stowed in boots. Thater took every chance to remind Carter and Kraft they were untrained civilians who read too many books. Carter usually laughed at him, and something about that laugh always shut the sergeant up for half an hour or so.

For three weeks they traveled by truck, train, and foot across Europe.
First Italy, Yugoslavia, Albania, and then into Greece. Carter did most of the talking when it was needed. He had a solid grasp of every language they encountered. He taught them all phrases in specific dialects. Thater had a small bundle of forged paperwork that helped back up most of the claims, and the Roman always had a few francs, lira, or Deutschmarks handy to ease the flow of conversation.

In a coastal town named Parga they were joined by a woman Thater called Joy, a local contact.
She wore trousers and a heavy fisherman’s sweater that hid her figure, but not the burn above her left eye. They spent the last of the Greek money on two old fishing boats and a half-dozen wooden barrels. The leathernecks wrapped their rifles and grenades in Mackintoshes and packed them away. Thater watched his men load the barrels onto the two boats. “We’re here,” he said, “and we’ve got the supplies. Now what?”

“A little group of islands called Paxos,” said Carter.
He pointed out to sea. “About eleven miles out. There’s a good demand for olive oil on the black market these days, and the main island is mostly olive groves. Anyone finds us out on the water, we’re just a group of farmers and fisherman who couldn’t find enough buyers.”

Thater tapped the sidearm under his patched coat.
“Should we be expecting anyone to find us?”

“There’s bound to be a boat or two on patrol,” said Carter with a shrug.
“Word is there’s a platoon of Nazis stationed on the island, but they’re all in Gaios or Lakka, the two big towns. We shouldn’t even see them.”

The sergeant nodded.
“The moon’ll be up at sundown. It should set around twenty-three hundred. That’s when we’ll head out.”

“Paxos,” repeated Kraft, staring out to sea.
“Legends say it was formed when Poseidon struck Corfu with his trident, to create a place of peace and quiet. He left his wife there.”

The Roman smirked.
“I guess that’s half-right, eh?”

~

The trip across the waves took just over two hours. The one ship they saw ignored them. Once the shadows of Paxos filled the horizon, they killed the sputtering engines and the Marines took to the oars. Carter guided them around to the far side of the island. In the starlight, the pale cliffs loomed over them. “I see a cave,” hissed Pearson, one of the Marines in the other boat.

“So do I
,” said Joy.

Carter shook his head.
“It’s too close. I think the one we want is a mile up the coast.”

“You think?” echoed Kraft.

“It’s been a few years. Don’t worry.”

They rowed along with the Roman crouched in the front of his boat.
“There,” he said half an hour later and pointed at a spot of darkness against the white rocks.

Thater peered through binoculars.
“You sure? Looks just like all the others.”

“Pretty sure.”

They moved in until the cliffs blocked out the stars. On each boat, the barrels were cracked open and olive-scented rifles were handed out. The darkness swallowed them, and the splash of oars echoed off the rocks. Flashlights clicked on and strands of illumination stretched into the cave.

“We should be able to row in for a hundred yards or so,” said Carter.
“The boats’ll be hidden there.”

The circles of light skipped across the water and reflected onto the walls.
“Back,” said Kraft. Four flashlights and six rifles swung. The boats rocked and came to a halt.

A column stood half buried in the rocky wall.
It had been shaped and polished. The lights panned along as the rough surfaces gave way to finished stone.

Thater gave a signal and the rowers pulled again, pushing them deeper onward.
The tunnel became more regular, a careful channel in the rock. They came to an end, a dock which led to a small landing and a massive arch.

Kraft shone a flashlight across the archway, revealing carved letters and figures.
He shone the beam past the opening and it vanished off into darkness down an endless staircase. “This is more than just a cave.”

Thater looked at the staircase.
“How far down we going?”

“Far enough.”
The Roman paused. “Doctor, if I could have a word. You too, Sergeant.”

“Time’s wasting,” said Thater.
“What is it?”

Carter stared at the arch.
“I just need to ask. Are you sure about this?”

“We have our orders,” said Thater.
“That’s all there is to it. We’re doing this with or without you and Doctor Kraft.”

~

They marched down the steps for almost four hours. Thater called a break, and his men ate while switching out the batteries in their flashlights. The walls were covered with elaborate carvings and glyphs, and Kraft had fallen behind three times when he stopped to make sketches or rubbings in his notebook. He came stumbling down the stairwell behind them. “This is amazing,” he said to Carter. “How’s it gone undiscovered for so long?”

“Who says it has?”
Carter let his eyes roam around the tunnel. “I think people find this place all the time. And then they explore, see what’s at the bottom of these stairs, and spend the rest of their lives trying to forget.”

“You didn’t.”

The Roman smirked. “I’ve seen a lot of things people can’t believe. You get used to it.”

“Sun’s coming up soon,” said Thater.
“How much further we got?”

It took them another three hours to reach the bottom of the stairs and the doors.
Each was twice as tall as a man, bound in iron, and marked with a golden trident.A beam of white wood stretched across them, its ends braced in a set of thick brackets.

“Looks like writing over here, Sarge,” said a burly man named Weaver.

Kraft shuffled over. “It’s a warning,” he said. “It says to turn back and not disturb those who sleep within.”

“Works for me,” muttered Pearson.

Thater gestured a Marine to the other end and they lifted the beam free. Four men put their shoulders to the iron doors while the others covered them. There was a hiss of stale air and a smell of brine as the doors parted and swung open. The Marines moved through in pairs, fanning out to either side with their weapons ready.

The doors opened onto a ledge, a platform at the top of a grand staircase.
Kraft saw similarities to the design of the Parthenon, and also some links to Knossos. And then he raised his head and looked out at the chamber.

The northern wall was yellowed marble, shot through with brown and purple threads.
The southern wall, almost half a mile across from it, was stark white. The far end of the chamber vanished in the distance.

“It’s like the Grand Canyon with a roof,” muttered Thater.

He tripped on a loose stone but couldn’t take his eyes off the distant ceiling. Kraft tried to focus, tried to see details, but there was just too much.
He could see the pillars, arches, and vaults, and on some level he knew this was no natural cave, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. His eye followed the endless expanse of wall around, like a sailor studying the horizon. Countless oil lamps flickered on endless reliefs. And then he saw her.

“Carter!” he hissed, and his finger stabbed at the air.

A fallen colossus rested almost a mile away, a chalky sculpture of a beautiful woman. It would’ve reached the roof had it been standing. The figure was almost buried in centuries of accumulated debris, creepers, and vines.

Then one of the long tendrils flexed and curled, a sleeper’s twitch.
The Marines brought up their weapons.

“Easy,” said Kraft.
“She’s asleep. She can’t wake up until we release her.”

“How do you know?” asked Thater.

Kraft glanced at him. “I read a book.”

Thater took in a breath to respond and the northern wall of the impossible cavern shifted.
A dozen firearms swung away from Scylla to point at the other side of the chamber. It trembled, moved a few feet, and then settled.

The endless flesh of Charybdis was yellow and veined like an over-swollen leech.
Her bloated body dwarfed whales and dinosaurs, even buildings. She had no features except her mouth, a gigantic maw over a hundred yards across with teeth like plane wings and a dozen tentacles the size of trees instead of lips.

“Sweet Jesus,” whispered Weaver.

Scylla was easier to look at. Kraft saw her face, almost peaceful, and was struck by the graceful lines of her cheek and jaw. But as the doctor followed the curve of her neck down to her bare shoulders, he saw the flesh darken. Her body split off into too many limbs, and each one vanished into the tangle around her. It made his eyes ache.

Carter marched down the stairs and off across the chamber.
Kraft and Thater followed, most of the Marines behind them. Kraft glanced back and saw one or two seem to stumble under the weight of history they hadn’t been prepared for. The demolitions expert, Oetker, still stood on the platform. Joy went back for him and guided him after the others.

It took fifteen minutes to reach Scylla.
She was a hill in the cavernous room. “Looks like a pile of giant octopuses,” said the sergeant, keeping his rifle trained on the closest tentacle.

“There should be restraints,” said Carter.
“Shackles. Circle her.”

Kraft found the first set of chains by looking at the floor around the monster rather than gazing at her body.
The huge links, like a ship’s anchor chain, wrapped up and over her twisted mass and stretched down to vanish into a hole next to a long slot. “It’s an early tumbler lock,” he said. “Probably predates most of the known Iraqi ones.”

“You men keep looking,” Carter told the Marines.
“There should be more of these.”

The Marines found six locks around Scylla.
Another four ran along the wall of flesh that was Charybdis, the chains reaching up so high they faded from sight. Kraft mapped them out in his sketchbook, then selected two near Scylla. After orders from Thater, and some prodding from Joy, Oetker began packing wads of plastic explosive and blasting caps into the locks. He looked glad to focus on something else.

It took two hours to pack a brick and a half of putty into each lock.
Carter was worried it wouldn’t do the job, but Thater and Oetker both assured him it would be more than enough. Wires were run, ends stripped, and the Marines pulled back toward the staircase.