Parry took a second to make up his mind. “Everyone!” he yelled across the floor. “We’re in business.”
“THIS IS CUSHY. I COULD get used to the corporate life,” Rebecca One joked as she sipped her Diet Coke through a straw.
“Sure could,” Rebecca Two agreed.
The Styx twins were in the boardroom, lolling around in the upholstered chairs with their feet on the table.
Rebecca One ran her eye over the plates of sandwiches that she and her sister had barely touched. “I’ve had all I want of these.”
“Me, too. Would you please clear the table and bring us a couple of ice creams, Johan?” Rebecca Two asked. She watched Captain Franz as he collected the plates, then headed for the kitchen.
Rebecca One slammed her Coke can down on the table. “Will you stop treating him with kid gloves? You don’t ask him to do things for you — you tell him. And he’s a Topsoiler — don’t use his first name,” she said. “I worry about you, you know. You’ve got to sort your act out.”
Slurping her drink, Rebecca Two made no response.
With a back swipe, Rebecca One sent her Coke can hurtling across the room. “Doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll probably have to dispense with him sooner rather than later.”
Rebecca Two avoided her sister’s gaze.
Captain Franz returned with two tubs of ice cream. Rebecca One took hers but then threw it straight back in his face. He barely blinked as it struck him. “This is vanilla. I wanted chocolate. Get me a chocolate one right now!”
“You didn’t say what you wanted,” Rebecca Two pointed out as Captain Franz shuffled away.
“Are you for real?” Rebecca One said. “It’s up to us to show the Heathen who’s boss.” She was shaking her head in exasperation, when her cell phone suddenly rang. Taking her feet from the table, she went to her coat to retrieve it.
“I don’t know this number,” she said, as she examined the display. “And who would be calling me right now, anyway?” After a moment’s deliberation, she answered the phone. “How did you get m —?” she snapped, then fell silent.
“So who is it?” Rebecca Two tried to ask as her sister continued to listen to the caller without saying a word.
Captain Franz had returned with the tub of chocolate ice cream, but Rebecca One waved him away. She was frowning. “How do I know you’re on the level?” she asked. A few moments later, she seemed satisfied with the answer. Still listening to the caller, she cupped a hand over the phone’s microphone. “Get your coat,” she whispered to her sister.
“What for?” Rebecca Two demanded, but her sister ignored her, already heading for the door.
Out in the corridor, Rebecca One again cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and spoke rapidly to her sister. “Get Franz to bring the Mercedes around to the back. Tell him to keep the engine running.”
Rebecca Two almost exploded, she was so curious. “Why? What’s going on?” she hissed.
But her sister was moving down the corridor at speed as she wrestled her coat on. “Tell me what you want out of this,” she said into the phone, as they turned a corner. They came face-to-face with the Limiter guarding the doors to the warehouse.
Rebecca One beckoned at him with her free hand. “Your pistol — quick,” she ordered him with that hushed urgency people use when they’re mid–phone conversation.
The Limiter obediently unbuttoned the flap on his holster and passed the gun over.
“Silencer. That’s good,” she said, with a glance at the suppressor on the barrel. “No, sorry . . . nothing,” she replied quickly to the caller. “Just dealing with something here.” Her voice became hard with authority. “All right, I’m convinced, and you’ve got yourself a deal. You have my word on it — scout’s honor ’n’ all that. We’ll see you soon.”
She ended the call. Without missing a beat, she raised the handgun to the Limiter’s chest and discharged it at point-blank range.
“What the . . . ?” Rebecca Two leaped back as, right in front of her, the Limiter sank to the floor. “What did you do that for?”
Rebecca One barely drew breath to reply. “Executive decision . . . no time to explain now,” she said.
Stepping over the Limiter’s body, she threw open the doors. As the humidity and the stench of raw meat from the warehouse enveloped them, Rebecca One was already racing inside. “Find Alex and Vane,” she shouted to her sister. “And fast!”
Parry took the first party down in the elevator. He’d told everyone to change from their Arctic Issue parkas into a variety of other less conspicuous clothes that had been provided to them back in the Complex. But as they entered the BT Tower reception area in their Sherpa jackets and thick corduroy trousers, they resembled a Victorian climbing party about to set out on an expedition.
Terry Finch was beside the revolving door as he kept a careful eye on Mortimer Street outside.
“You dealt with the staff, then?” Parry asked, speaking loudly to the old man as he ran his eyes over the rather drab area and the abandoned reception desk. “The Emergency Order obviously did the trick.”
“Well, . . . they’ve gone to a Starbucks around the corner until I give them the say-so to return,” Terry answered.
Parry frowned. “You don’t sound too sure — was there a problem?” he pressed the old man impatiently.
“One of the security gentlemen wanted to check with head office, so I stuck the official document in front of him.”
“And that worked?” Parry asked.
“No, he wasn’t buying it, so I drew my Webley on him,” Terry said with a mischievous grin, taking a revolver from the holster in the small of his back. “That worked like magic.”
“Riiiight,” Parry exhaled, his frown growing even more pronounced. He looked from Will to Drake. “Make sure you’ve got your tranquilizer pistols handy,” he said before he addressed Mrs. Burrows. “And, Celia, can you keep a nose out for any trouble heading our way? I need to know what’s waiting for us around the corner,” he told her.
“A very nice Italian restaurant about three hundred yards up on the left. The calzone’s making me feel quite ravenous,” she said, smiling.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever give me a straight answer?” Parry grumbled just as two old minibuses pulled up on the yellow line outside. The rest of the party had descended in the elevator, and one at a time, they exited onto the street and loaded their gear into the backs of the vehicles.
The driver of each minibus didn’t speak as they threaded their way through London. Will saw for the first time just how far things had gone in the capital. Other than the groups of soldiers and policemen stationed around the place, Euston Road itself appeared to be quite normal and the traffic relatively heavy. But as he glanced down side roads, it was a different story. He spotted the odd burned-out car and huge piles of household rubbish that hadn’t been collected in weeks. Fire engines blocked the entrance to Regent’s Park, and beyond its gates whole rows of large white buildings blazed away.
They took a right off Marylebone Road and raced through several back roads because the driver of the first minibus had spotted trouble up ahead. Then they emerged at the start of the Marylebone Flyover and sped up the incline.
They had all turned their radios on so they could hear Parry’s directions as he spoke into his throat mike from the first minibus, which was also carrying Stephanie, Sweeney, and the Colonel. “I’ve received a report that there’s a disturbance in Shepherd’s Bush, and the army is out in force there. So we’re going to leave London on the M3, then cut across country to the M4. We’ll maintain radio silence from now on, unless there’s a hiccup.”
“Hiccup?” Mrs. Burrows asked as there was a click and their earpieces went ominously quiet.
Drake swiveled around in his seat beside the driver to answer her, glancing at Will, then Chest
er and Mr. Rawls in the process. “My old man means if they hit a problem, they’ll open up with their weapons and take the heat so we can bug out. One of the vehicles has to make it through.”
“Gosh! I’m so glad I came with you,” Chester piped up.
One of the first to be born, the Styx Warrior larva was barely recognizable as the stumpy little maggot Vane had cradled in her arms only days earlier.
Having sprouted two pairs of legs and a muscular tail, its appearance bore more than a passing resemblance to a tadpole making the transition into a frog. Only no lily pad could have supported this brute’s weight; measuring more than three feet from tip to tail, it was more on a par with an overgrown Gila monster.
And as the Warrior larva had grown, building up reserves of protein for its impending pupation, food was all it thought about. It slept only sporadically, nearly every minute of its day spent trying to satisfy its insatiable hunger.
So when the Warrior larva chanced upon a pool of warm blood that had seeped under the doors to the warehouse, it began to lap at it energetically with its gray, darting tongue. The regular meat deliveries were all well and good, but not a touch on living or freshly killed quarry. Having licked the concrete floor clean, it began to investigate the source of the blood.
Like a dog outside a pantry, it scampered up and down as it probed the gap under the doors with its tongue. As the larva’s olfactory receptors picked up traces of the body on the other side, blood-flecked drool leaked from its maw. It snorted in frustration. It didn’t know how to get at the juicy meal and had begun to scuttle up and down again when it bumped into one of the doors. It observed how the unlocked door hinged open a fraction.
The Warrior larva paused for a moment, its slitted black pupils considering the barrier in its way. Then it began to ram its head against the door. The larva battered it harder and harder, until there was finally enough room for it to squeeze through. And it couldn’t believe its luck as it surveyed the dead Limiter stretched out on the floor. The door had swung shut again behind it, but the Warrior larva didn’t care — it had no intention of communicating its find to its sibling brothers. Keeping the whole body to itself was far too tempting.
It began to gorge itself on the delicious corpse. It was oblivious to its surroundings while it nipped off strips of flesh from the Limiter’s face with its needle-like teeth and gulped them down.
The minibuses parked at the rear of the two-story building, and everyone clambered out and followed Parry inside. Eddie and one of his men were waiting for them in a room filled with cardboard boxes. Will looked for Elliott, but there was no sign of her.
“Your Old Guard have the factory surrounded. We haven’t seen anything to suggest that anyone inside is aware of our presence yet,” Eddie reported to Parry. “And we’re ready to lock down the whole estate.”
“Perfect,” Parry said. “Go ahead and seal the place. From now on, nothing goes in or out.”
Eddie spoke to his man in Styx. After he’d hurried off, Eddie addressed Drake and the rest of the party. “The floor below is a half basement used for storage. I’ve established it as one of four Objective Rally Points for the Old Guard. You can see the target location from there, but don’t venture too close to the windows.” He turned back to Parry. “And my surveillance team is waiting for you on the roof, Commander.”
“Excellent — I’ll come and take a dekko. But first I want to hear from Celia,” Parry said, swiveling to Mrs. Burrows. “That thing you do — can you do it from here? Because I need you to tell me what’s over the road.”
Mrs. Burrows nodded, then tipped her head back. Will heard Stephanie’s sharp intake of breath as his mother’s eyeballs rotated upward so that only the whites were showing.
“People . . . humans . . . maybe five hundred and fifty . . . no, more, I think. Maybe six hundred — I can’t tell precisely,” Mrs. Burrows said.
“And Styx?” Parry asked.
“Yes . . . but not many. I don’t know . . . three dozen or more?”
“It would be helpful to know the exact number,” Parry pressed her.
A bead of sweat broke from Mrs. Burrows’s hairline and trickled down the center of her forehead. “It’s no good — I’m getting jumbled signals,” she whispered. Then a shudder ran through her as her eyes suddenly righted themselves. For a moment she seemed to be in a daze, then she turned to Parry. “This is strange — it’s as though I can’t tune in.”
Parry stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Don’t worry — you’ve given me enough of a confirmation. All those people must have been bused in for the breeding program. What else would they be doing there?” He started toward Eddie. “Even if there’s a full regiment of Limiters inside, we’ve got to get the job done.”
“No, wait!” Mrs. Burrows said sharply. “You don’t understand — there’s something in there that doesn’t want me to find it. Something more than Styx. Something dark.”
Parry merely nodded.
“OK, everybody downstairs with me,” Drake said to Will and the others.
Eddie held up a hand. “Before you go . . . Elliott’s in the rooftop Observation Post, and if it’s all right with you, she’s made a request.”
“What’s that?” Drake said as Will and Chester exchanged glances. They both began to move toward Eddie, believing that Elliott would want them with her.
“She’s asked that Stephanie join her up there,” Eddie said.
Will froze as he heard Chester whisper, “Wha —?”
Once up on the flat roof, Stephanie and Parry kept low as they approached the parapet with Eddie. The former Limiters were there in force and had strung a light blue camo net a few feet above the parapet so that their silhouettes wouldn’t be outlined against the sky.
“Commander,” Harry Handscombe said when Parry ducked under the camo net, and they shook hands vigorously. “Piece of luck, wasn’t it — me locating the target so early in the running?”
“Certainly was,” Parry said, smiling at his old friend. “But not so lucky that you almost got yourself slotted by those Darklit troops. I never asked you to stick your neck that far out, you know.”
Harry would have shaken his head if he’d been able, but instead gave Parry a wry grin. “Enough of the neck jokes, you old reprobate!”
Parry moved to the edge of the roof, his binoculars in hand. He checked the position of the pale sun to make sure there’d be no telltale reflection from his lenses before he began to scrutinize the factory opposite. “Ah, yes, there they are,” he said under his breath when he located the Limiters and New Germanian guards patrolling the parking area.
Stephanie had been standing back from the parapet, not sure what she was meant to be doing, when Elliott beckoned her over. As she crept to Elliott’s side, Stephanie eyed all the former Limiters with some trepidation.
“Don’t mind them. They may look pretty spooky, but they’re on our side,” Elliott confided in her.
“Cool,” Stephanie swallowed, then frowned at Elliott. “But why do you want me here? Your two boyfriends are, like, gagging to be with you.”
“Back in the Complex you told me that you could deal with anything. So here’s your chance to prove it.” Elliott wasn’t being confrontational, and Stephanie recognized this as the girl continued to speak. “In a moment, we’re going to neutralize every single living thing outside that building opposite.”
“Neutralize?” Stephanie said.
Elliott inclined her head. “We’re going to snipe all those men as quickly and as cleanly as we can. Will you help me?”
“Is this some sort of sisters’ thing?”
“If you want to call it that.” Elliott shrugged. “I never had a sister.”
“You want me to shoot people, too?” Stephanie asked, glancing at Elliott’s long rifle, which she’d camouflaged with white tape and
now had a chunky silencer affixed to the end of the barrel.
“No, I want you to spot for me,” Elliott said, indicating the scope beside her. “I’m relying on you to get a fix on the guards’ positions, because when we open fire from up here, we can’t afford any slipups. If one of them raises the alarm, we lose the element of surprise.”
“OK, I suppose I could do that,” Stephanie said, going over to the scope.
Will was surprised by the sheer number of Old Guard present in the dimly lit basement. Although their faces were obscured by ski masks, he sensed the nervous expectation that hung over them as they chatted quietly among themselves.
“Shotguns?” he asked as he noticed what some of them were carrying.
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us across the road,” Drake explained. “For close-quarters combat, a semiauto twelve-bore is right on the money.”
“And what are those tanks they’ve got?” Chester asked, observing that a number of men had twin cylinders on their backs.
“Flamethrowers, for the final stage of the offensive,” Drake replied. “You see, simply leveling the target building doesn’t cut the mustard. Things have a way of surviving in air pockets under the rubble. We really don’t want any of the Warrior grubs — if they’re actually in there — to crawl out after we’ve left the scene. If a single one were to get loose, it could find more humans and . . . we’d be back where we started.”
“I see,” Chester said, while Will and the others listened.
“There’s no alternative but to get inside and do the job up close and personal. We have to make sure nothing is left alive,” Drake continued.
“You mean kill everyone?” Mrs. Burrows interjected. “What about the humans I sensed in there — they could be Colonists or innocent Topsoilers who through no fault of their own have got caught up in this. Can’t we decondition them with Danforth’s Purger, then take th —?”
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