Alex strained until he felt his shoulders begin to pop from their sockets. He flexed, screamed and writhed, and then flexed again, feeling his own strength begin to bend back the colossal power of the giant. The whole time he could feel Jabir ibn Hayyan in his mind, watching, screaming his own fury at losing his prize, promising a pain beyond madness to be rained down upon Alex.

But there was also frustration from the withered alchemist, since Alex’s mind refused to be dominated and controlled like so many humans had been in the past. Alex wrenched hard, and one of his arms came free, then the next. The Eli thing just held Alex by his chest, which had already suffered broken ribs. It immediately began compressing his rib cage. Alex’s bones screamed and began to shatter, and Alex knew he had mere seconds before his diaphragm was totally collapsed, and his lungs and heart shredded by the daggers of his own splintered bones.

Alex jerked forward, gripping Eli by the head. He tugged, swung, and ripped at the huge melon-sized cranium. The face remained indifferent to the attack, passive even, but Alex felt the hands increase their pressure on his torso. He tasted blood in his throat, and with one last burst of strength, he jerked his hands upwards. There came a sound like tearing canvas, and the line of stitching at Eli’s neck started to pop open. Alex gave one last mighty heave, and then the head totally ripped free, and a spray of dark jellified, coagulated fluid splattered stickily around them.

The hands dropped and Alex fell to the ground. He threw the head into the dark shaft where Jabir ibn Hayyan had disappeared, now screaming his own rage. He sensed the thing that had once been a man was already fleeing deep into the labyrinth below the ground. Behind him the headless giant still lumbered about, perhaps searching for its face and eyes.

Alex got to one knee, holding his chest and carefully sucking in deep breaths. Every movement was like a hundred knives piercing his flesh. He shut his eyes, grimacing, but remembering his learned techniques to quell the agony of his body and the tormented screams from the damaged psychology rampaging through his mind.

Alex searched out sun-sparkling waves breaking on a deserted beach, the smell of green apples, and an image of his son, Joshua, holding up a favorite toy. He stayed silent, immobile, ignoring the lumbering monster and the grotesque whispering of the small being somewhere in the dark caves, and just concentrated on calming himself. After a moment he opened his eyes and pressed the comm. stud in his ear.

“Sam.”

“Boss.” The response was immediate. “Goddamnit, you’re alive. I knew it.”