Ragnarok

FORTY

River Thames, London, England

Bishop held tightly to the metal bar, helpless to stop the fragmented Ferris wheel from plummeting into the Thames, and certain he was about to die.

The wheel warped down to the muddy river. Saving the girls in the steel-and-glass cage was no longer possible. He held on with all he had as the wheel tipped out over the river. Four-hundred feet down, but the ride took only a few seconds.

At the last moment before his capsule hit the murky brown of the Thames, he considered leaping off the structure, to improve his chances of surviving the fall. But a split second of indecision was one second too many. He was out of time.

The capsule he stood on was the last part of the large wheel to reach the river. As the base of the wheel struck and sunk, his descent slowed some, but Bishop didn’t notice as the water rushed up toward him. A wave roared up, striking the capsule and slamming Bishop down against its roof. He coughed as his ribs and lungs compressed from the impact. His head spun, but he remained conscious, protected by the armor, which was living up to its reputation. Thick, brown river water coated Bishop, stealing his vision.

He dropped again, as the wave receded, and the wheel began to sink.

He looked through the capsule window; his hands still clenched around the metal bar he had used as a handhold during the descent. His grip tightened in anger. The three teen girls were dead. Their bodies had slammed against the steel and glass in the plunge. Murky tan water filled the shattered capsule. He could see two bodies floating and the third girl’s fractured head looked like a split-open watermelon left to wilt in the sun.

The very top of the capsule was still above the water level, but the rest had submerged. He turned, looking behind him at the crunched and mangled frame of the London Eye, which now resembled a toy construction kit hastily shoved into a container with bits sticking up in all the wrong ways. Bishop turned his attention to the bridge, searching for Knight. But the Crescent had retreated further along the river. Where is he?

Then Bishop saw him through the murk coating his helmet’s visor. He quickly unfastened the catch buckle at the side of his throat and pulled the helmet off his recently shaved head. The cold of the air hit him and the rain spattered down on his face as he watched his friend being carried away by a dire wolf toward a portal.

He nearly dove into the river with the plan to swim to the Embankment, but he wouldn’t have time and his armor would drag him down into the depths of the river.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He reached to his earpiece to call the pilot back to him. But it was too late. Knight was stabbing the back of the white thing’s neck over and over, but then they were in the portal.

And suddenly it, too, was gone, leaving a tremendous hole in the side of Portcullis Building’s lower corner. Missing the struc-tural support the corner of the building provided, the rest crumbled in a heap of stone, sending a plume of dust up into the rain. The billowing cloud looked like a miniature nuclear detonation.

“Black One, this is Bishop. I’m in the river, north of the bridge. Come get me before I drown.” Bishop spat into the water. The remains of the Ferris wheel were still sinking slightly as water filled the capsule with the dead girls. Bishop smashed the helmet onto the glass of the capsule, his normal calm demeanor gone, along with his friend and half of London. The impact lined the glass, but the helmet bounced away into the brown swirling water and sank.

“On my way. The door or the rope?” The hovering ship banked sharply and raced back over the bridge and above Bishop’s head before slowly beginning to lower.

“Rope will do.” Bishop said.

The black nylon rope dangling from the still open door of the craft came within his reach. Bishop didn’t bother with the belay device-he just wrapped the rope around his arm a few times and shouted, “Go!”

“Where to Bishop?” Came the reply from the co-pilot, Black Two.

“To the next nearest portal. I’m going after him.” Bishop grunted as the Crescent’s engines blasted, increasing altitude until he was nearly as high as he had been on top of the Eye. The plane accelerated, swinging him on the rope, banking away from the river and over the top of Big Ben.

“But the device the MOD is bringing…” Black Two’s voice was hesitant, but he was right. The mission was to get the nuke inside the portal.

“If those lame dicks ever get here, tell them to throw the thing in after me.”

Bishop could see the next portal on the edge of the duck pond in St. James’s Park up ahead, filling the green clearing set aside in the middle of the gray city. He took a deep breath of the rainy air and made up his mind.

“Lower. Then do a flyover.”

“Roger,” came Black One’s reply.

The Crescent dipped a bit and the rope swung Bishop directly at the globe of crackling and spitting yellow fire. As the rain pelted it, the portal spit miniature lightning bolts, making this one look like it had electric hair. Bishop could smell the singed air as he got close. The rope swung right through the curvature of the wall of bright light, taking Bishop’s body with it.

A second later, as the Crescent sped past the globe, the rope swung out the other side of the sphere of light.

Bishop wasn’t on it.