by Smith, T. L.
Looking at my hands, I knew it was a good thing my Rising came so late. If I’d lit up on our first encounter with these people, we’d have been shot right there.
Thinking of Lutz got him glimmering next to me, earning expletives from the team.
Chucky turned around to see what was wrong, leveling his weapon. “Who’s this?”
“This is Sgt. Brandon Lutz, my partner.”
“Her dead partner.” Casey elaborated.
“Ouch, dude! Don’t you think that’s a bit insensitive?”
“Really?” Chucky glared at Lutz. “How long has he been here?”
Lutz snickered wickedly. “Dude, I’ve been hanging around all night, waiting for you people to get here.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Now maybe I can lend a hand.”
“Like what? Can you go see what the Maxa’xak is doing?”
“No, he can’t.” Casey and I both answered at the same time, earning Casey a glare for keeping Lutz secret.
“Ease up, bro. I can go a little ways ahead, all within the life-force energies thing.”
“Well, that could be helpful. Get up there, soldier.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He said it with a wink and took off at a trot, in full view this time.
I got curses in my headset from Frankie, and laughter from Casey. I gave him the eye now. “Maybe I should have sent you to do introductions.
“Like you didn’t do that to him on purpose.” Chucky sniped as he took the wall across from me.
I tapped my com. “He wants to help. Make sure we don’t walk into a trap.” Almost as soon as I said it, a stop order came through our headset. I listened to part of a message before Lutz reappeared.
“Take cover! Percussion grenade.”
I stuck my fingers in my ears, everyone else quick to do the same, dropping down and facing the wall. An explosion sent a cloud of dust rolling up to us. We barely waited for it to clear before we were moving, weapons ready as we heard shots fired.
Chucky pushed me back into Casey as we reached our advance team. The shooting had stopped and they had dropped to defensive positions, weapons pointed into the darkness just beyond a new glow stick.
Four men lay dead against the walls. Lutz reappeared. “That cleared the next bend. You can see what’s in the rooms now.”
Frankie stood up. “Thanks, sergeant.” I got a sideways growl from him. “Anymore friends you want to introduce?”
“Hey, you almost walked into them.” Lutz came to my defense.
“Rooms?” I raised my voice over them both, shaking loose of Casey.
Frankie backed down and took his team, now including Lutz ahead, then gave us an all clear. We turned the corner to find a widened section of the tunnel, with metal doors cut into the walls.
Not human height, but half as high. Their color was the same as the rock and they had a coating of dust from the explosion.
Lutz reappeared. “There’s more as we go deeper, but I can only go so far ahead of you. Unless someone I know joins the advance team.” Lutz pointed to Casey. “I need energy to feed off of.”
“Will do.”
“NO!” I answered at the same time Casey agreed. I couldn’t let Beth out, but she was alarmed, as was I. “You know Frankie now. Use his energy.”
“It has to be someone I knew when I was alive.” Lutz shrugged. “Manifesting 201.”
“Not funny. I’m not letting you get yourself shot. You’re not even supposed to be here.”
“As your husband, I am.” Casey checked his weapon, then his vest. “Come on.” He jerked his head Lutz. “Let’s expand your territory.”
Before I could keep arguing, they moved around Chucky, who squinted at me.
“Shut up.” I glared back, knowing he was about to admonish me for being too human. It wasn’t the first time either. How frequently had the fates put us into the same family? Fates being the Great Mother. She had more of a sense of humor than the Great Father who was off somewhere throwing random energies together to see what happened.
We hunkered down as Lutz brought Casey’s reports. A few more percussion grenades went off. They cleared the tunnel a hundred feet deeper and were ready to hold the tunnel.
I turned to the first door.
CHAPTER
33
I ran my hands over the door, but felt no active bad Spirits on the other side. I stood back to let several Kwia surrounded the door. Two stood ready with weapons cocked, the third opened the door from behind and tossed in a light stick. There was the sound of scurrying, then stillness.
“Come out, now. Hands on your heads.” Chucky shouted. Nothing happened.
“In Spanish.” I didn’t hold back the sarcasm.
Chucky repeated himself slowly and hands poked out of the hole, then a man’s face. He did as he was told, crawling through the low door on his knees, hands on his head. A woman crawled out after him on all fours, her eyes wide as she blinked and looked around at us. She started rattling off pleas in Spanish, crying.
“Shhh. We’re here to get you out.” I didn’t wait for my warriors to figure out what to say, Spanish being one of the many languages I knew. I reached a hand out to her, but first let it graze over the man’s upraised arm. No glow. “Come on.”
She avoided my hand, dropping her face to dirt floor, praying as tears came faster. She was invoking St. Zavala. Believing I was her, the other Ci’in being my angels. She prayed that I save their lives and souls. I stepped back. Why wouldn’t she think that? We were glowing.
“Get up and go with one of these soldiers. They’ll get you to safety.” I rattled it off firmly, stepping out of their way.
The man managed to get to his feet. Hands still on his head, letting them down slowly to help the woman up. Still nothing to show he was infested as he passed by me and a Ci’in took his arm. She gave me a nod to confirm he was clean.
They stumbled, the woman still crying. As I turned around, Chucky was kneeling down to peer inside the room. “Damn!” He covered his face, backing away. “Fucking animals.”
I looked into the cell, glowing green with the light stick. It was barely more than a hole in the wall, a little longer than wide, maybe six-by-eight. A bucket was against one wall, two more on the other wall. I didn’t have to go inside to know one was a toilet. I could smell it. “They had no choice.”
“I wasn’t talking about them.” Chucky headed for the next cell door.
I couldn’t blame him for his disgust, but I knew it was only going to get worse.
Three more cells released the same grateful, desperate hostages. We had the cycling pattern down as we reached the next section of tunnel and sets of doors. I leaned against the wall behind the door, then jumped back. I’d started to glow hotter. “Bingo!”
The Kwia at the door backed away. “The stench. Something in there is dead.”
“It isn’t the larva.” I looked at the cells we’d already passed. In ten thousand years we still didn’t know everything about the infestation process. We didn’t want to and only learned what we did from those hostages rescued before their turn came.
It was brutal. The victim became nothing more than a wild animal. A wild animal in such pain that its only reaction is to kill. This was the stage where they usually died, but this one hadn’t. He was strong enough to make my skin crawl.
I swung my rifle around and rapped on the cell door. Something inside threw itself against the door in response, the screeching inhuman. “Give me a glow stick.”
One plopped into my hand and with some twisting, I tore off the end, using the gel to mark the door as I’d seen in dozens of plague disaster movies, only with a ‘Z’ for zombie. “No one needs to see what’s inside these cells until we have to.”
Everyone agreed.
Two more cells yielded uninfected hostages, the third gave me a bad vibe, but a woman’s voice answered the rap. She pleaded for help, that her husband was sick. I gave the Kwia a nod to open the door and she spilled out, kneeling on the ground, her clothes
torn until almost nonexistent. Deep scratches ran down her arms and legs, and across one cheek. She rattled off words, pointing inside the cell.
“We’ll take care of him.” I nodded to the team to take her out of the cave. They pulled her off the ground, carrying her weak body away. She kept begging us to help her husband. I couldn’t tell her he was beyond help. I certainly couldn’t let her see what would happen to him.
A glow stick was tossed into the hole. Against the back wall was the man. I could see why her clothes were nothing but rags. She used them to make restraints, tying his arms and legs. Smart woman. From the way he was thrashing around and gnashing his teeth, I doubt she’d still be alive to beg for his salvation.
When I got the message she was in the hands of triage, I gave Chucky a nod. He locked the door, marking it. I moved on. “How many of these cells are there?”
“Eleven more.” Lutz appeared ahead of me, walking backwards. “The guy we ran into that first day is in the group heading down. He doesn’t look too good, but I don’t see any wounds. He’s stumbling and two others are carrying him. I think that thing is happening to him.”
“Maturity? Shit!” I turned back to Chucky. “I don’t have time for this. Lutz says we got a new Maxa’xak emerging.”
“Got it.” He spun back. “Split up. If you speak Spanish, stay here to evacuate the victims. If you get a live response, open it. Get a glow and no human, mark it.” He waved his arm as he turned towards me. “Everyone else with us.”
Lutz disappeared, returning to our advance team. Another round of explosions sounded, screams, then clearance to move on. We kept running into assailants, sacrifices meant to slow us down.
They had no concern for their own survival, only gaining time for the new offspring to emerge and escape. If it chewed itself free before we got to it, it would be small enough to slip into the cracks and crevices of this mountain, this aquafer. It could evade us for ages.
“Hold up. They set explosives to cave in the tunnel.”
Chuck jerked and swung away from Lutz’ sudden materialization, stomping his feet as he pointed his M9 at the ceiling. “Damn it! Announce yourself before popping up like that. My trigger finger is jumpy enough.”
“Sorry, dude.” Lutz grinned. “You can shoot me if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Sarcasm from the dead guy. Cute.”
I turned to the group. “Bombs… anyone?”
“Did you see the final hook up?” A Ci’in stepped out of the team.
“Yeah. Electronic trigger. Watched them wire it.” Lutz shrugged. “I took training classes for IEDs. I can’t touch it, but I can talk.”
“That much is clear.” Chucky snarked at him.
“Man, I wish I was still alive. You seem like a hoot to hassle.” Lutz grinned as Chucky pointed his gun at him. “Casey’s going to have to be close enough for me to feed.”
“Please! Don’t phrase it like that. It’s bad enough we got zombies, I don’t need a vampire ghost image in my head too.”
“Okay, borrow from.” Lutz rolled his eyes and waved at the volunteer. “Come on, unless you’re afraid of ghosts too, like Chucky here.”
“I’m not afraid of ghosts!” Chucky fumed and glared at me. “Figures your friends are just like you.”
“Yeah, she rubbed off on me.”
“Both of you. Mission, zombies, a pissed off Xak and its baby…”
Our volunteer Ci’in eased between us. “I got a mini-kit on me. She tapped a tool belt on her hip, giving Lutz a grin. “I don’t mind mouthy ghosts. Had a few in my time. You humans like to hang on to those you left behind.”
“Only until I have to go.” Lutz stepped aside and gave her a chivalrous bow. “This way, my dear.”
She trotted away with him just like he was a normal guy flirting with her. We followed behind as she left us a trail of light cubes. We reached half of the advance team, set up to stop us from going deeper. Bomb perimeter.
“How much further?” I knelt down next to the team lead.
“About a hundred feet. Your guy indicated it was just enough explosives to seal off the section, not cave in the whole mine.”
“Good to know. Any word from our tech?”
“No, she and the rest of the team left their com-sets. Electronic trigger and all.”
“Great, so we know absolutely nothing.” Chucky was across from me.
“Not ideal, I agree, but necessary. Once we get past this trap we need to get Lutz back on their position, so we know what’s happening. One second too late and no one goes home.” It was a bittersweet goal, eons old, but one I wanted to fulfill for us all.
I waited a few more minutes, but waiting with no word was more than I could bear. In two steps I slipped past the warriors prone with their rifles. Chucky cursed out loud, coming after me. “Seriously, Sis, I don’t know where this streak came from.”
“Kettle, pot. You’re just as bad, and it ain’t our first round, brother.” I pointed from him to myself as I slid along the wall at a crouch until I came up behind Casey.
He looked up at me as I knelt behind him. “Can you two stop sniping at each other?”
CHAPTER
34
Casey shut us up for a few minutes, but I was feeling the Maxa’xak, and the urgency. Snipping at Chucky took the edge off, but I resisted. It took another five minutes before we heard a little ‘yip’ from up ahead. “All clear.”
With that, I took off again. Lutz buzzed ahead of us, trying to catch up with the enemy. A few more bends and I didn’t need his help to know we were close. My whole body shimmered with energy.
Casey saw it too, grabbing at my arm each time I tried to slip past him. “You wait until we can see what’s ahead of us. Last thing we need is you setting off an ambush. We got them cornered, making them all a hundred times more dangerous.”
“That’s right. Listen to him.” Chuck said it firm enough it wasn’t just him snarking at his little sister.
“It’s hard.” The imbalance between the three of us, Ci’in, Kwia and Maxa’xak created a force all of its own, a magnetic draw that sucked me towards it. Drawing me forward to extinguish the bad energy and return the universe to the proper balance. “This is why I’m here.”
The grip on my arm tightened, reminding me Casey had hold of me. It was the same sensation as during my Rising, the rope that bound us, his blood against my skin. It worked against the overwhelming urge to rush into battle. He drew my feet back to the ground.
“Hang onto me a bit longer.”
“As long as I can.” His fingers dug into my arm, restraining my bloodlust for the Maxa’xak.
A few more meters and the advance team dropped to the floor. They started firing into the dark ahead of them. Cubes of light were thrown into the blackness and immediately weapon fire was returned. We all hit the ground.
Level ground. We were either at the bottom of the mine or one of the last levels. That was better than being fired upon from below, but the cavern ahead was off to the left of the tunnel opening, meaning our warriors were shooting around a corner.
I crawled up behind them, waiting for them to open up a barrage so I could stick my head out to get a view of the cavern. A quick image, then back in response to Casey jerking on my leg. I curled around and pulled out another light stick, stabbing it with my knife.
“We need more cubes in there, but this is what I saw.” Using the stick like a pen I drew out the cavern. “There’s another tunnel or cavern there. There’s a debris pile right here.” I blobbed gel to the side of the cavern. “That’s where the shooters are. We need some good throwers.”
Two of the Kwia and Chucky raised hands. “Grenades, percussion and smoke. Then Frankie, take your group to that pile and take out the shooters. From there launch the next assault. Knock them off their feet and give us time to get through.” I nodded to the Ci’in. “Hold on extractions, just make sure they can’t get up again.”
“Got it.” Frankie pulled out what he had
left of his grenades, as did everyone else, handing them off to our throwers. We moved back while Chucky’s team joined the men keeping the enemy on edge. The three men took a moment to prepare themselves, each getting a quick peek between gunfire outbursts, timing their assault.
They opened up another final barrage of bullets at the enemy line. Simultaneously, Chucky and his Kwia stepped into the cavern and started lobbing grenades.
I jerked at the same instant one of our throwers dropped to his knees. Chucky snatched his live grenade, threw it and shoved the wounded Kwia back towards Frankie. As soon as all the grenades were tossed, the team switched, Frankie charging the debris pile.
I met the throwers, who’d picked up their wounded man to drag him to the wall. Chucky let go, swinging his rifle around and following Frankie into the cavern.
The man in my arms slid down the wall. I could hear him gasping and pulled his bullet-proof vest open. He was hit right where the vest opened on the side, probably as he raised his arm to throw a grenade. I ripped open his shirt, forcing him to his side. “I think it hit a lung.”
I folded his fingers back over the wound, feeling a ring. He was Bound. Someone was waiting to see him again. “We’ll call a team to come and get you. We have to go.”
“Go. Go.” He tried to wave me away, without losing his grip. We’d been doing this long enough he knew the risks and that we had a higher obligation. I gathered myself and stood up. Someone was already calling for a triage team. For him and for anyone else wounded as we attacked.
The next round of grenades was my signal. I pulled out my knife and the rest of my team followed.
Smoke made it hard to see, but I felt the enemy ahead of us. They were in pain and confused, the grenades did the job intended. I found the pile of rocks, their cover. I hit the first boulder and jumped, seeing five men collapsed on the ground as I came down on the other side. None of them the man who’d stopped us the first day. No Maxa’xak.
No, that energy came from the hole these men were left to protect. My whole body was on fire. Two men conscious enough reached for their weapons. They didn’t have time. From above a rain of bullets struck them. Their bodies jerked with each impact, until they were still.
