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The Sentinels
Times Past, 1948
Sacrifices Must Be Madeby CSyphrett
1
Mac Maine adjusted the heavy vest he wore over an insulating body suit. He ran a cord from the portable generator on his back to the huge keypad that was affixed to the surface of the vest. He plugged the cord in, getting a green light. He pulled the welder-type helmet on. He took a moment to breathe, glad the device had not blown up.
His partners were also getting ready for the mission ahead. Harry Hutchinson wore a white suit and tie that turned black as soon as he activated his absorbing power. Even Hutchinson's fair skin and white hair became as black as a walking shadow. He pulled on a white hood and placed a tie clip in the shape of a black star on his tie.
Hal King worked the action on what looked like a telephone dial on his belt. Satisfied, he pulled on a jacket to cover the dial.
John Constantine took a drink from a flask. He was glad his wife and son waited in England for his return. He put the flask away in his hip pocket. He straightened his green vest and short coat. He lit a cigarette, hoping that his son wouldn't pick up the habit.
2
Harvard Yale had a book the size of a Gideon Bible in his thin hands. He flipped through the yellow pages with a movement borne of long practice. He pushed his glasses back on his nose as he jammed the book in a pocket of his gray coveralls.
Roland DiGrasso flexed his hands as he concentrated. Metal formed in small hexagons over his clothes and body. The metal ran up his neck, terminating into a helmet resembling a cat's head. A steel tail whipped into existence. He flexed his hands again, and blades sprang from his knuckles. He relaxed, letting the claws retract.
Number 99 sat in a heap on a bench as his comrades went through their rituals. Bilious eyes peered from under a pile of moss it used for hair. It waited patiently for the order to move out.
3
The seven had assembled to help the Allies during the war. They had been called the Sentinels by the press, and the name stuck. As the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, they had remained together.
They had also adopted a boy psychic into their ranks, but he was not going on this mission. A back-up of some sort was needed, and he was going to pull that duty. Mac sympathized, but Hutch had put his foot down. The kid was to stay behind as a monitor and mission control.
Of course, Gallowglass had pitched a royal fit. Hutch had just smiled and said no in that calm way of his. The boy had glared at Black Star with ice blue eyes. Then he nodded and left the locker room.
4
The Sentinels walked to a building overlooking the airstrip. They had to be briefed and then be flown to their destination by one of the Blackhawks.
The base had a temporary feel to Mac as he listened to the whine from his backpack. He would have to check the generator for wear and tear when he returned from the mission. An nuclear device capable of reducing you to atoms was nothing to sneeze at.
Mac entered the briefing room last, standing by the door. He felt paranoid but wanted to be sure to be able to leave in a hurry if he needed to. Of course, any blast would be at least a mile wide, so he didn't know how much help that would be unless Hal could turn into something useful in the nick of time. Mac doubted the group's luck on that kind of outcome.
5
"Hello, gentlemen," said the army officer at the makeshift podium that had been set up. "I am Captain Richard Exeter. I am pleased to meet you."
"For how long?" muttered Constantine.
"This is the mission in full," said Exeter, ignoring the interruption. "One of our new planes spotted something happening in the Pacific. He took photographs before undertaking the actual mission he had been assigned. When the film was developed these pictures were what prompted the call to you."
He dimmed the lights and put on a slide projector. A series of thumb pressings revealed an island rising out of the ocean.
6
"What's causing that?" asked Harvard Yale. "It certainly isn't natural."
"We don't know, Doctor," admitted Exeter. "As you can see in the pictures, there are no volcanoes on the mass or nearby that would cause an upswell like that."
"It seems strange enough to warrant investigation," said Harry Hutchinson. "But why call us? Only the Doc and MC are any kind of expert in the sciences."
"MC?" asked Exeter.
"It's short for Molecular Converter," said Mac Maine by the door.
"Ahhh," said Exeter. "The brass feel you are the right men for this job, I suppose. Otherwise, the Sea Bees or someone else, would have been sent in."
"We're expendable," said Constantine.
"I wouldn't say that," said Exeter.
"How do we get there?" asked Hal King.
"A pilot from the Blackhawks will take you over to the island and air drop you. In twenty four hours the same pilot will extract you. Hopefully in that amount of time you will be able to find the cause of this anomaly."
7
Mac Maine admitted to himself he was the team worry wart. On the face of it, it looked like a simple rush job. Get in, get the goods, get out. He had the a feeling of disaster looming ahead. He kept silent about the feeling, though. Hutch and Doc would just downplay it and try to take it easy when they needed to be sharp. Anyway, even if they agreed with him the feeling would persist. It was the nature of the beast.
Mac fell in behind old 99 at the end of the line. He listened to the whine from his generator and 99 move across the tarmac without legs. He watched the surrounding field from behind his protective visor. He wondered how bad things were going to be.
8
Mac took a seat near the door. He watched as the others tried to settle in. He knew that Hutch hated to fly, but 99 loved it as much as a kid on a roller coaster ride. Mac could take it or leave it. It was just something to endure until it was over.
"Gallowglass!" said a raised voice. Constantine glowered at the boy through a cloud of cigarette smoke. A chance encounter with a storage locker had dislodged the boy from his hiding place.
Mac almost smiled.
"I thought I told you that you are back-up for this," Harry said. "Stowing away is not being our back-up."
"You'll need me," Gallowglass said, ice blue eyes glaring at the group.
"Off the plane," Harry said, pointing with a hand.
Mac almost stopped Harry but decided at the last moment not to say anything. After all, he didn't need the headache of dealing with the man's cold anger or watching out for the boy. Mac watched the boy go silently.
9
Mac Maine waited patiently as the plane slowly came to life. He wondered sometimes what he would do when he hung up his generator for good. Maybe grow tomatoes or some vegetables to feed the world.
The pilot, the American Blackhawk named Chuck, taxied the plane down the runway and into the air. Mac held onto the strap provided until the ride became smooth as a calm lake. He pictured the island in his mind's eye. He knew of nothing natural that would cause that type of behavior in rock. Not even a volcano would create such a phenomenon the way the pictures suggested. He supposed Harv agreed with him, because the man was scanning his book for answers to the question.
10
"Get ready for jump," said Chuck over the intercom. "Target is five minutes away."
Mac watched Hal King work the dial on his belt. He was always amazed at the transformations the dial caused. This time a winged barbarian took Hal's place.
"Conan the Hawkman is ready," the new Liberty said.
"Let's go," said Harry Hutchinson. He waited as the cargo door opened for them to jump to the island below.
11
Hal King, as Conan the Hawkman, grabbed John Constantine's hand in one hand and the Doctor's in the other. Harvard hastily put up his book as the winged warrior hurled the trio into the air.
Roland DiGrasso waited for his team to clear. He grabbed Number 99's back as the walking heap pushed to the door. The two vanished over the edge with the sound of flying leaves.
Harry Hutchinson waited his turn patiently. He watched as 99 hit the ground with a splash. The Stainless Steel Cat had caught several tree branches and clawed through the trunk of a tree to bring himself unharmed to the ground.
Harry jumped, becoming a black silhouette. He fell into the treeline, and as he hit vegetation and then ground the matter vanished in a human outline. He cut off his powers and climbed out of the hole he had inadvertently dug. His suit was still white as he joined his comrades.
Mac frowned as he surveyed the passing ground below. He threw himself out of the plane, counting to three. He touched the key pad on his chest in a pre-set numerical code. He heard the generator on his back whine. It's going to explode, he thought.
A set of rings resembling an atom enveloped him in a brief flash. Suddenly the Molecular Converter had wings. He glided through the air with a sigh of relief.
12
Mac glided down to the ground, dispersing the wings with a single button push and flash of light. He looked around at the island, wondering when the grass and trees had appeared.
"Unnatural development," Doc said, touching the grass which was reaching for the sky.
"They... are... screaming," 99 said, frowning darkly. "The Green is screaming."
"If I was aged like this," said Doc, "I would scream too."
"Crom," said Conan from a spot above the treeline. "There is something going on towards the center of the island."
"Let's check it out," said Harry. "Cat, take point." The ferrous feline bounded forward. His claws were extended as he looked for any enemy to attack and rend.
Mac brought up the rear as the Sentinels moved towards the trouble spot. He wondered what they would find when they reached the ruckus. He hoped it was some kind of animal migration. Of course then he would have to explain how animals got on a deserted island. One thing at a time, he told himself.
13
Gallowglass walked the airfield impatiently. The Blackhawk plane used to deliver the Sentinels was on the horizon. He watched it descend with his ice blue eyes. It came to halt gently on the airstrip and taxied out of the way.
Gallowglass waited impatiently for a fuel truck to roll out and refuel the plane. Only the pilots of the arrival moved on the strip to his eyes. He searched for the ground crew. The guys needed that plane back in the air as soon as possible. He found the mechanics playing cards in the main hangar.
"Excuse me, but when will my flight leave for the island?" he asked, feigning innocence.
"I don't know, kid," said Purcell, the chief mechanic trying to fill a deadman's hand. "Everything is grounded until the C.O. says otherwise."
14
"I don't understand," said Gallowglass. "The Sentinels are going to need to be picked if they are in over their heads."
"Tell me about it," said Purcell, pulling an eight into his hand. "Valdemir grounded everything that was supposed to be flying out of here."
"I see," said Gallowglass. He left the mechanics and headed for the headquarters. Anger raged through his system as he walked, causing rocks, loose dirt, anything small and not nailed he crossed to be thrown at random. How could this guy start an investigation and then shut the door on his own people? That didn't make sense. It's almost as if this guy doesn't expect them to return, thought Gallowglass.
He began to jog to the building. Something rotten was going on here.
15
Harry Hutchinson paused when he saw what was happening in the middle of the island foliage. A circular hole was forming in the ground, swallowing up the surrounding forests. The earthen whirlpool grew rapidly with every piece of ground swallowed.
"What's going on?" he asked, forcing a calm he didn't feel. He especially didn't like the way Doc and Constantine shared looks.
"It's a hole to Hell," Constantine said.
"We have to close this somehow," Doc said. "Quick." Constantine nodded.
Something then erupted from the whirlpool. Harry didn't know what it was, nor did he care. It flew right at him, spitting something corrosive. He activated his power, absorbing the spit and then the creature itself as it tried to grapple with him.
More of the monsters flowed from the pit. Something glowing was following them. He heard Hal yell "Crom!" as he stepped back from the expanding pit for better footing.
He heard Constantine chant something in some forgotten language. Something with too many eyes and about thirty tentacles exploded in a ball of flame.
16
Hal King could not quite get over the feeling he got from using his dial to let a hero loose in the real world. It was like being two men in the same body. On the one hand, he knew nothing of fighting skills. On the other, the hawkman he was now was slicing and dicing like a musketeer.
Everywhere he cut, something was wounded. Some were more fatally wounded than others. He frowned at what appeared as a glowing hand erupting from the expanding pit, flinging the monsters from its body as it sought the real world.
Hal flew clear of the rioting flyers to get a better look. He could see a gigantic arm trying to follow the hand into the open air. He also saw Constantine and the Doctor trying to shut the portal. 99 was defending them with hammering blows from his treelike arms and blunt fists.
Hal cut a swath with his sword over his three teammates. The others seemed to be doing well enough on their own. Black Star absorbed anything coming too close to him in flickering strobe as he moved to grab and trap the attacking monsters. The Stainless Steel Cat cut his enemies with a lightning quickness. He pounced, stabbed or slashed violently, sized up his next victim, and then pounced again.
17
Mac Maine didn't feel like he was doing well. He felt surrounded by the beasts, and he couldn't get clear to get room to work. He pressed a sequence to send a dozen morningstar-like projectiles at his foes. The strange shotgun blast dropped some of the monsters back in the pit.
He pressed the repeat key.
Then again.
Finally he had some clear space to move. He decided to join Doc's group for the safety in numbers. He used the repeat key to make some room for him to take up one side.
Mac didn't like the way his generator was whining at him. The last thing he needed was an overheat and an emergency shutdown. Mac fired a carpet of spikes as 99 swatted something through a tree. Let them charge across that, he thought as he dialed his morningstar sequence again.
18
Gallowglass paused at the commanding officer's door. The officer, Henry Valdemir, and the captain from the briefing were talking. The mascot listened before charging in. He didn't like what he heard.
"All the planes are grounded as ordered, sir," said the Captain. "The Sentinels can't be pulled out before they are killed."
"Good," said Major Valdemir. "Make sure Gallowglass is taken care of, and my plan will be complete."
"Yes, sir," said the captain. He turned to leave the room and fell to the floor, strings cut by some unseen force.
"Why don't take care of me yourself?" Gallowglass asked angrily.
19
Henry Valdemir smiled. "The cub roars," he said mockingly.
One of the major's hands came up, scribbling with his fingers on the air. A magenta roar swept across the room. Gallowglass raised his arm in a blocking motion. The beam flattened out before a narrow dagger stabbed Gallowglass's eye into a black ruin. He fell to the floor with a scream.
"Time to die, cub," Valdemir said, coming from behind his desk to stand over the boy psychic. "First you and then your precious Sentinels."
20
Gallowglass lay on the floor. One hand covered his destroyed eye. The other lay by his side. His one good eye glared at the traitor standing over him with a white hot fury. The boy brought his lax hand up, closing it in a fist. His power leapt forth ravenously.
Henry Valdemir tried to shield himself from the attack with a ward. He knew much later that that instinctive gesture had caused him to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Still, it kept him alive as every bone in his body shattered. Blood vessels, mostly capillaries, split apart under the blow. Half of his hair was ripped from his head as one eye almost ruptured. Then it was gone.
Valdemir fell to the floor, only kept alive by the ward he had generated.
21
The giant continued to force his way out of the spreading pit. Demonic forms split themselves from its glowing skin to continue to battle the Sentinels.
The first to die was Roland DiGrasso, The Stainless Steel Cat.
The Cat sliced his way through the hoard with diamond hard claws. He cut one in half and turned to deal with another one to his right. The one he cut in half wrapped itself around his legs, bringing him down. The surrounding demons fell on the silent Roland. They crumpled and snapped his armor in sections, breaking his claws. Finally something stomped down on his helmeted head, crushing the skull underneath.
The assembled crowd hurrahed in achievement. Then a barrage of morningstars cut through them as Mac Maine pressed his repeat key angrily. His eyes watered, but he forced himself to concentrate on the job.
22
The giant reached out with one hand for the ones trying to close his gate. The spell being cast by the human with yellow hair must not be completed it realized. Something bit it in the leg. It glanced down at the annoyance. It frowned at what it saw.
The human that absorbed substances had somehow attached himself to the giant's leg. He was cutting into the upper thigh of the emerging demon with his ability.
The giant grabbed the bothersome human. His hand lost bits as he seized the human at both ends and pulled him apart into two pieces. He dropped the fragments, bleeding monsters as he turned his attention on his primary objective.
He would stride upon the earth once more.
23
Hal King felt the familiar tingle of power loss. He flew clear of the fighting area, landing gently before his power faded completely. He reached for the dial, hoping it would work again so he could get back into the fight. The others needed him to get back as someone with a lot more going for him than a flying barbarian.
He felt a sudden stabbing in his back. He tried to turn but found that he was frozen in place. He looked down. His feet weren't on the ground. As he stared, a thing resembling a scorpion's stinger erupted from his chest. The grass and trees were stained by his blood as he slowly died.
Hal King's body was ripped apart and eaten by the surrounding monsters while it was still warm. The dial that he had used for the last seven years was discarded as useless. None of his friends saw him fall. Only the evidence of the bloody grass would show where he fell trying to protect humanity. He was not the only one to have an empty grave as the battle concluded.
24
John Constantine wished he had said good-bye to his wife and boy. He wished he had been more of a father than he had been. He wished for lots of things before he finished the closing lines of his spell and turned his regret to a resolve to win at any price.
He finished the spell, cutting the palm of his hand with a dagger for the blood sacrifice involved. Luckily for them Doc had known something that would work.
"Good-bye, love," Constantine said as the blood raced from the wound in his hand in a whirling ring around the pit. "Goodbye, son."
Constantine hadn't noticed that Harvard Yale had cut his own hand with a pocket knife in almost the same way. Their blood became a ring of glorious light pushing against the void, fighting a losing battle to drive the monster back into the ground.
25
Mac Maine scanned the battlefield in a panic. His generator was screaming for mercy. Number 99 and he were the last Sentinels standing. Worse, that thing wasn't going back in its hole like it should.
Mac took a deep breath. He felt like he was losing his mind at the decision, he was making but it was a simple equation. The hole needed to be closed to keep these things from the world. As long as that thing was trying to get out, the hole wouldn't close. Something had to be done to clear the opening.
Mac knew what he was doing was crazy. He knew his duty. He pushed the self-destruct key on his pad. He then dove into the pit with his eyes closed.
26
Number 99 howled in pain. His normal height was nine feet. He tapped something in his rage and loss, something he had never thought of before.
Suddenly he was thirty feet tall, and every smaller thing within reach died as he charged the monster in the pit. He flung himself on the startled giant, relentlessly smashing down with crushing fists. The demon tried to hurl 99 away, but the earth elemental would not be denied as it swung again and again with all of its might.
The lesser creatures didn't know which was screaming more: the giant from below finally hurt as it had never been hurt before or the humanoid avalanche swinging with cracking stone fists and everything it could bring to bear.
Something rumbled deep in the ground. A flash of light and a wave of heat turned the two fighters to drifting dust as if an atomic bomb had been detonated.
The glowing ring drew the survivors to the closing portal and dragged them below. When everything looked normal again it dispersed into the ether as a sheet of white becoming a white cross in a circle burned into the ground where the pit had existed.
27
Gallowglass arrived on Grim Island hours later. They had tried to confine him to the hospital because of the damage done to his eye. Valdemir's guilt was called into question. A list of things they wanted.
He finally threatened to kill anyone who got in his way if he wasn't on the next plane to the island. The sympathetic Blackhawk pilot named Chuck let him sit up front in the cockpit.
His hand strayed to his face. It was an effort to keep the pain back. He needed to get to where the Sentinels were. Not even a destroyed eyeball was going to keep him from his goal.
Chuck landed the plane on the surface of the ocean just offshore. Gallowglass rushed to the hatch and opened it. He stepped on the pontoon under the plane's body. He ran across the water to the beach.
Chuck followed at a slower pace. The overflight he had done had convinced him that any danger was over. Besides, he wanted to give the boy some privacy at the moment.
Gallowglass reached the scene of the battle in a rush. He staggered to a halt. The carnage made him sit down. He picked up the book Doc always carried with him. It lay beside Harv's body where it had fallen out of his pocket when he died.
Gallowglass sat like that for a long time.
Epilogue
A lot of changes had taken place on Grim Island since that final battle. A lot of changes had taken place inside the boy who became the master of the place. Some were for the better. Some weren't.
He remembered having to tell Mrs. Constantine that her husband wouldn't be coming home again, because he wouldn't let someone from the Army do it.
Every day he walked to the memorial park he had built. He looked at the statues there and remembered the people who had took him in and taught him the meaning of sacrifice.
Sometimes he wondered when the guilt of not being there when they needed him would go away.