Chapter 5: The Last Ride

The Shovelhead's engine growled like a caged predator as Leo rolled down the driveway, its headlight cutting through the storm with defiant intensity. Rain hammered his father's leather jacket, but the familiar weight felt like armor—protection blessed not by divine power but by love and memory. Behind him, the house of ghosts settled into darkness, its phantom occupants continuing their eternal routines while the living world prepared for war.

Leo was halfway to the street when the sound hit him.

It started as a vibration in his bones, a frequency so low it seemed to emerge from the earth itself. Then it rose, climbing through octaves that human ears weren't meant to process, until it became a moan that filled the valley like the death cry of some primordial god. The sound was answered from the north, then the east, then the south—a chorus of inhuman voices that made the storm's thunder seem like whispers.

They're coming.

Leo gunned the engine and shot onto the empty street, the Shovelhead's rear wheel spinning on wet asphalt before finding purchase. Through his Void Sight, he could see them now—shapes moving through the storm clouds with impossible purpose. Giants, each one easily twelve feet tall, striding across the landscape with steps that shook the earth. Their blood-red skin gleamed in the lightning, and their claws left gouges in reality itself as they moved.

But they weren't alone.

Clustered around each giant's feet like pilot fish around sharks, the frog-demons hopped through the rain with amphibious grace. Their mottled skin had taken on a bioluminescent quality, patterns of sickly green light that pulsed in rhythm with their movements. Leo counted at least fifty of the creatures, maybe more—an army of nightmares converging on the town from every direction.

And I'm riding straight into the middle of it.

The rational part of his mind screamed that this was suicide, that one man on a motorcycle couldn't possibly face down a supernatural army. But rationality had died thirteen years ago in a funhouse that shouldn't exist. What remained was purpose, refined and concentrated until it burned brighter than reason.

Leo took the turn onto Main Street without slowing, the Shovelhead leaning so far over that his knee nearly scraped asphalt. The town spread out before him like a fever dream made manifest. Street lights flickered in patterns that hurt to look at directly, and shadows moved between buildings with predatory intelligence. The few cars still on the road swerved erratically, their drivers responding to threats they couldn't see but could somehow sense.

A police cruiser sat abandoned in the middle of the intersection ahead, its doors hanging open and its radio crackling with increasingly desperate reports. Leo caught fragments as he roared past: "—multiple casualties at the mall—", "—something big moving through the industrial district—", "—for God's sake, don't go to the funhouse—"

Too late for that, officer.

The Funhouse loomed ahead like a cancer made of neon and nightmare. It had grown since Leo's childhood, impossible additions sprawling in directions that defied geometry. Victorian towers twisted up into Art Deco spires that somehow connected to Brutalist concrete blocks, the whole structure pulsing with lights that belonged to no earthly spectrum. Reality rippled around it in visible waves, each pulse sending cracks through the foundations of the world.

Leo was still three blocks away when the first giant stepped into his path.

The creature materialized from shadow and rain, twelve feet of blood-colored muscle and bone arranged in a mockery of human form. Its face was almost human, which made it infinitely more terrible than any monster Leo had faced in the Void. Intelligence burned in its eyes—not animal cunning but genuine malevolence, the kind of hatred that required consciousness to truly flourish.

"Leo Vance," it said, its voice like grinding stone. "The Visitor's pet. The Void's broken toy."

Leo didn't slow down.

The Shovelhead's engine screamed as he opened the throttle, aiming directly for the point where the giant's legs met. At the last second, he yanked the handlebars hard left and leaned the bike into a slide that would have been impossible on dry pavement. The motorcycle went down in a shower of sparks, but Leo was already rolling, using momentum to carry him away from the immediate threat.

He came up with the meteoric blade in his hand, its surface drinking in the storm's energy until it hummed with barely contained power. The giant lunged forward with surprising speed, claws extended to tear Leo in half. Instead, they met star-forged steel that had been quenched in tears of grief and sharpened on the bones of demons.

The blade parted flesh that shouldn't have been solid, and the giant's roar shook windows three blocks away. Black ichor sprayed across the street, hissing where it touched asphalt. The creature staggered back, clutching a wound that ran from wrist to elbow, its first taste of pain in whatever passes for a lifetime among its kind.

"Impossible," it growled. "You're just a man."

"I'm what men become when they have nothing left to lose," Leo replied, raising the blade. "Ask your boss—he made me this way."

The giant charged again, but this time Leo was ready. He ducked under its swing and drove the meteoric steel deep into its thigh, angling upward to find whatever passed for its femoral artery. More ichor flowed, and the creature's leg buckled under its own weight.

But killing one won't matter if there are fifty more.

As if summoned by the thought, two more giants rounded the corner behind him, moving with the coordinated precision of a military unit. Between them hopped a dozen frog-demons, their bioluminescent patterns now pulsing in synchronization. They were communicating, Leo realized—sharing information through some form of living light show that turned their skin into a network of biological signals.

The wounded giant made another grab for him, and Leo responded by drawing the Visitor's baton with his free hand. Divine fire erupted along its length, turning the street into a tableau of holy warfare. The baton's light struck the giant's face, and the creature screamed in harmonics that shattered the windows of every building on the block.

Too bright. Too much power. They'll see me coming from miles away.

But stealth was no longer an option. The army knew exactly where he was, and they were closing in from all sides. Leo could hear them now—footsteps that shook the earth, croaking calls that echoed from throat to throat as the frog-demons coordinated their assault. Soon he'd be surrounded, crushed under the weight of numbers no matter how powerful his weapons were.

Unless I make it to the Funhouse first.

Leo sprinted back to the Shovelhead, which had somehow remained upright despite the crash. The engine was still running, still eager for the fight ahead. He swung his leg over the seat and gunned it toward the center of town, weaving between abandoned cars and dodging the grasping claws of frog-demons that leaped from storm drains and rooftops.

Behind him, the giants gave chase with ground-shaking strides. They were fast for their size, but they couldn't match the Shovelhead's speed on the straightaways. The problem was that Leo couldn't maintain a straight line—not with enemies dropping from above and emerging from the shadows on all sides.

A frog-demon landed on his back, its claws digging through leather into flesh. Leo reached back with the meteoric blade and carved it off without slowing, but more were coming. They moved like a pack now, using buildings and abandoned vehicles as launching points to intercept his route.

The Funhouse is only two blocks away. I can make it. I have to make it.

But as Leo rounded the final corner, he saw what waited for him in the street ahead.

Mister Fulcrum stood in the rain like a figure from a fever dream, tall and thin and wearing a suit that belonged to no particular decade. His face was ageless and terrible, beautiful in the way that poisonous flowers are beautiful—attractive enough to draw you close before the toxin takes hold. He held something in his left hand that Leo recognized with a surge of rage and sick anticipation.

The witch's finger, no longer bound in copper wire, writhed in Fulcrum's palm like a living thing. Its pale flesh had taken on a pulsing quality, and clear fluid dripped from its severed end to form puddles that steamed in the rain. Whatever the little girl-thing had done to it in the airport, the finger was now fully awakened, aware, and hungry.

"Hello, Leo," Fulcrum called out, his voice somehow audible over the storm and the approaching army. "I've been waiting for you. We all have."

Leo brought the Shovelhead to a sliding stop twenty feet away, engine still growling like a tethered beast. The Visitor's baton pulsed against his ribs, responding to the chaotic energies radiating from the awakened finger. Divine and profane power recognized each other across the distance, oil and water preparing to mix in ways that would satisfy neither.

"Thirteen years," Leo said, his voice steady despite the rage building in his chest. "Thirteen years I've been preparing for this moment."

"And what a delightful preparation it's been!" Fulcrum's smile was wide and genuine, like a child delighted by a particularly clever toy. "The Void changed you, didn't it? Broke you down and built you back up into something that can actually pose a threat. I'm almost proud—it's like watching a student surpass his teacher."

"You're not my teacher. You're just a sick bastard who destroyed my family."

"I liberated them," Fulcrum corrected, raising the witch's finger. It pointed at Leo like an accusing digit, and where it gestured, reality began to warp. "Freed them from the tedious limitations of linear existence. They're still here, you know. All around us. Every choice you didn't make, every path you didn't take—they're exploring those possibilities in the spaces between spaces."

Leo drew both his weapons—meteoric blade in his right hand, Visitor's baton in his left. The two artifacts created a field of conflicting energies around him, divine light warring with star-forged darkness. "If they're still alive, then I'll find them after I kill you."

"Oh, my dear boy," Fulcrum laughed, and the sound was like breaking glass mixed with children's giggles. "Don't you understand? This was never about them. This was about you. Everything I've done, every horror I've unleashed, every barrier I've torn down between worlds—it was all to create this moment. To forge you into exactly what you've become."

The army was closing in now. Leo could hear giants stomping through side streets, could see frog-demons massing in the shadows. Soon the entire intersection would be surrounded by creatures that existed only to tear him apart. But Fulcrum made no move to retreat, no gesture to summon his defenders. He stood in the rain like he was exactly where he wanted to be.

"What are you talking about?" Leo demanded.

"The Void needs a guardian, Leo. A watchman to stand between worlds and ensure that chaos remains... manageable. The previous guardian grew tired, you see. Complacent. He let too much seep through, caused too much instability." Fulcrum held up the witch's finger, and its movements became more frantic. "But you—oh, you're perfect. Broken enough to understand necessity, powerful enough to enforce it, and motivated by exactly the right kind of controlled fury."

The realization hit Leo like a physical blow. "The Visitor. You're talking about the Visitor."

"Former guardian, current recruitment officer. He's been watching you for years, nudging events, ensuring you'd develop exactly the skills and ruthlessness needed for the job." Fulcrum's smile turned predatory. "The baton you carry isn't just a weapon, Leo. It's a badge of office. A cosmic leash."

Leo looked down at the Visitor's baton, its divine light suddenly seeming less pure, more possessive. Had every choice he'd made since escaping the Void been his own? Every step on the path that led him here?

No. It doesn't matter. Family matters. Revenge matters. Nothing else.

"I don't care about cosmic responsibility," Leo said, raising his weapons. "I came here to kill you, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."

Fulcrum's laugh was like wind chimes made of bones. "Then come, guardian. Let's see if thirteen years of preparation were enough."

Leo gunned the Shovelhead one last time and rode straight into the heart of madness, his father's motorcycle carrying him toward whatever waited in the impossible geometry of Mister Fulcrum's Funhouse.

Behind him, the army of giants and demons followed like a tide of nightmare made manifest.

The final hunt had begun.