Darius felt his skin prickle with terror.
“What the hell? He’s a fekkin’ giant!” Blake said.
“The other one was just a child,” Gatticus explained as the monstrous face withdrew from the hole in the door. “Get ready.”
“For what?” Lisa demanded.
Before he could reply, the Ghoul slammed into the door with a BANG! and the central beam of the three barring it cracked. As the Ghoul withdrew from the door for another charge, Darius caught a glimpse of a smaller Ghoul scratching at the door across the hall from theirs. The baby who’d been crying there was now eerily silent.
“He’s coming through!” Gatticus said.
Another BANG sounded, and the central beam exploded, along with the door. Giant splinters flew through the air, and Darius sucked in a breath as the alien ducked inside their room. This Phantom had to be at least nine feet tall. They all backed away involuntarily as it came in.
“We need to work together,” Gatticus said. “Stand your ground! Keep it back with your spears, but don’t let it grab them... Lisa!” She was backing away furiously, shaking her head in horror at the giant monster standing in front of them on thick hind legs. All four of its long, muscular arms and over-sized, eight-fingered hands were free, ready to slice them open with dagger-like claws that put the tips of their spears to shame.
The Ghoul grinned at them in a surprisingly human expression, as if this was a person in a monster suit. The Ghoul’s mouth gaped open, revealing interlocking sets of glistening gray teeth that would make a T-Rex jealous. “Fek...” Blake said, trembling audibly.
The Ghoul cocked its head, and blinked all four of its giant black eyes, first the upper set, and then the lower.
“Kak. Kak. Kak,” Blake said. “Hey, man, just go away, huh? We’re not supposed to be here. We’re not designated fekkin’ prey, okay?”
The Ghoul’s smile broadened until Darius was sure the upper part of its head would peel back to reveal the person inside the monster suit.
Then it spoke. The words were a garbled, guttural mixture of growls and hisses, and more than a few words sounded like hairballs begging to be coughed up. Darius couldn’t have reproduced that language in a million years, but he understood it just fine.
The Ghoul said, “I do not care if you are supposed to be here or not. I will rip out your still-beating hearts and watch as your spirits join the Revenants. Prepare to die, pathetic creatures. Would that your deaths could cleanse the vile stench of you from my respiratory canals.”
Chapter 21
As soon as the Ghoul finished speaking, Darius thrust his spear toward its chest. One of its hands snapped out faster than his eye could follow and grabbed the spear behind its point. The Ghoul snarled and snapped off the tip, flicking it aside with the backs of long dagger-like claws.
Blake stabbed from the other side, but it rolled out of the way, dropping down onto six legs. Even standing on all sixes, the Ghoul’s shoulders were at the same height as Darius’s head.
Darius drew his sword and held it in a tight fist, but the Ghoul had greater reach with its arms than he did with the sword.
“Darius!” Gatticus called. “Catch!”
He glanced in the android’s direction just in time see a heavy shield flying toward him. He caught it against his sternum with a thunk of metal on bone. Wincing, he grabbed the handle and held the shield in front of him.
Blake circled around the Ghoul with his spear, trying to outflank the creature, but the lower set of its four eyes tracked him, while the other two watched Darius.
“On three,” Gatticus said.
Blake nodded.
“One, two...”
The Ghoul leapt straight up and dug into the ceiling with its claws, clinging above their heads and grinning down at them. It made a lazy swipe for Darius’s head, but he managed to duck and roll at the last second.
Blake cursed and stabbed up with his spear, scoring a lucky hit between the spines on the Ghoul’s back, but the blade barely pierced its hide. The Ghoul shrieked, and a long barbed tail flicked down to slap Blake aside.
He screamed and dropped his spear as the barbs buried themselves in his chest. The Ghoul turned its head to watch him with both sets of eyes as Blake’s expression slackened and his face paled in shock. He sank to his knees with the Ghoul’s barbs still buried in his chest.
“Now!” Gatticus roared, and ran in under the creature, his sword flashing.
Darius ran too, blocking a swipe of the Ghoul’s claws on his shield, only to catch a second swipe on his arm. Claws raked through his flesh in fiery lines. He cried out, and his shield fell from numb fingers.
Despite the pain, he had the presence of mind to counter-attack. He stabbed up as hard as he could, aiming for one of the Ghoul’s armpits. The sword buried itself up to a third of its length and the Ghoul gave a deafening shriek that left Darius stunned, his ears ringing painfully. The alien jumped away and down from the ceiling, yanking its tail out of Blake’s chest and pulling him into a face plant on the floor.
Blake lay eerily still and quiet, while Gatticus paced around the Ghoul with his shield raised and his sword at the ready. It looked like he’d scored a hit on one of the Ghoul’s arms, which was flopping uselessly and gushing black blood. But somehow that didn’t seem to faze the alien. It opened its mouth wide, as if to swallow Gatticus whole, and then gave a screeching roar that shook the entire building and again set Darius’s ears ringing. Finding his shield, he tried to pick it up, but his hand wouldn’t obey his commands. He glanced at his arm to find it soaked and dripping with blood. The white of bone shone through his severed biceps. He blinked, staring at the sight of his paralyzed arm in shock.
Then the bathroom door cracked open, and he looked up to see Cassandra peeking out, her sword gleaming in the darkness of the bathroom. Her eyes caught his, and widened. Fury flashed across her face and she opened the door fully.
“Hey! Over here!” she called.
“Cass! Close the blasted door!” he yelled.
But it was too late. The Ghoul snorted and its head whipped around to see her standing there.
Darius roared and ran in while it wasn’t looking. His left arm flopped uselessly against his side as he ran, but his right still held his sword. He reached the Ghoul just as it was turning back to face him, jaws gaping wide for the kill. Darius stabbed his sword between two sets of legs and deep into the creature’s belly, burying the weapon all the way to its hilt. Then he felt a searing vice close around his sword arm, just below the shoulder, and he lost his grip on the sword.
Cassandra screamed and rushed toward the Ghoul, flailing her sword like a baton. Darius wanted to scream at her, to tell her to run, but he was seeing stars, and couldn’t manage more than a croaking whisper.
He stared stupidly at the Ghoul’s glistening, metallic gray teeth, buried up to licorice-black gums in his right arm. Seeing that, he wondered how his arm hadn’t been severed completely. His blood gushed into the Ghoul’s mouth in a sticky red stream. It jerked its head, dragging him even farther away from his sword—not that he could have grabbed it. As it did so, the Ghoul reached up with one hand and withdrew the blade from its stomach; then tossed the weapon aside as if it were a toothpick.
Cassandra reached the alien from the other side, and it raised two of its leg-arms, ready to slice her open with six-inch claws. She swung her sword at the first arm, and it swung back.
Darius watched in slow motion horror as her sword was batted right out of her hands, leaving her defenseless.
Where was Gatticus? Where was Lisa?
A split second later, he had his answer. Lisa stabbed her sword straight into one of the Ghoul’s giant eyes, and it released him with a bellowing shriek. The Ghoul tossed its head and went on shrieking, shaking its head from side to side as if trying to fling the sword out. It stumbled as it backpedaled away from them. Then it rose up on hind legs and stood swaying in front of the door, reaching clumsily for the sword with three
different arms. It pulled the sword out of its eye and black blood gushed down its face and chin, mixing with Darius’s own. Blood ran into one of the Ghoul’s lower eyes, blinding it completely on that side. It stumbled toward Lisa, leaning sideways and walking askew, as if it had lost its sense of balance.
“I will have your eyes for this!” it growled out as it stumbled toward her.
Gatticus snuck in on the creature’s blind side. When he was close enough that he could have reached out and touched the Ghoul, he dropped his sword and did exactly that—reaching with both hands for the Ghoul’s chest.
His palms made contact with the alien’s bare skin, and arcs of blue fire crackled and leapt around Gatticus’s hands, rippling down from the Ghoul’s chest to its toes. The alien froze and its massive jaws gaped open in a soundless scream. A few seconds passed with the alien frozen like that, in shock or pain, and then Gatticus stepped back and the creature fell over with a thud.
Darius blinked in shock and slowly shook his head; then he turned to look at his ruined arms. Sick horror twisted inside of him at the sight of all the blood, dripping from nerveless fingers to a puddle at his feet. Yet somehow, he remained conscious and standing.
A mysterious prickle of feeling returned to his left hand. One of his fingers twitched. He tried lifting that arm and managed to raise it a few inches, but it felt too heavy and weak.
Lisa and Cassandra both ran up, one on either side of him. Lisa wrapped her hands around his right arm in an effort to stop the bleeding, while Cassandra just stood there staring, her lower lip trembling, and tears streaming from her eyes. Lisa said something, but his ears were still ringing from the Ghoul’s screams.
Darius tried saying something too: It’s okay, he said, but even his own voice was lost to him.
Cassandra shook her head vigorously to deny his reassurances and glanced down at the dead Ghoul at their feet.
A low hiss sounded from the open door, and everyone’s heads snapped up to look. Another, smaller Ghoul was creeping through the door on all sixes. Cassandra’s eyes widened in terror. Gatticus was already there, blocking the way with a bloody sword in each hand. He was crouched low, ready to repel an attack.
The Ghoul stopped just out of reach of him, eyes tracking, barbed tail flicking restlessly from side to side. Then it crouched low too, as if to mimic Gatticus, and a split second later, it sprang up, leaping over Gatticus’s head and descending on him with jaws gaping and claws flashing.
Gatticus cried out in alarm as the Ghoul ripped one of his arms right off. The arm came away sparking and crackling, and the Ghoul froze, staring at the bloodless socket. It spat out the arm, and held Gatticus down with one arm while it slowly drew the claws of another hand across his chest. Its claws screeched as they dug through his artificial skin and carved ragged furrows in the metal casing below.
The Ghoul stared blinkingly at Gatticus’s chest, as if suddenly confused by the sight of him.
It backed away slowly, shaking its head. “What deception is this?” It asked in the Phantoms’ stuttering language of hisses and growls. “You are not human.”
“No, I am not,” Gatticus replied.
“You are one of the metal people. What are you doing here, fighting us? You are with these... prey?” It asked, glancing in Darius’s direction.
“They are not prey,” Gatticus explained.
“Then why are they here?”
Darius frowned, while both Lisa and Cassandra slowly shook their heads.
“Our ship ran out of fuel and we came here by mistake.”
The Ghoul growled. “You must leave.”
“We cannot leave without fuel. Can you help us?”
The Ghoul snorted and shook its head. “You could buy fuel at the depot, but it was destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Gatticus asked.
“Why do you think we are wiping out this village? Someone must answer for the destruction of that facility.”
“If there’s no fuel here, then we’ll have to return to our ship and wait for the next vessel to come here and render aid,” Gatticus replied. “Will you let us leave in peace?”
The Ghoul glanced at Darius, then at Cassandra and Lisa. It turned back to Gatticus and pointed at the larger Ghoul lying dead on the floor. “Who killed this one?”
Gatticus hesitated. “It was me. I killed it, but it was self-defense.”
The Ghoul stared at him once more. “You are one of the metal people, and yet you chose to side with these humans over usss?” It dragged that last word out in a prolonged hiss and rolled its head and shoulders, like a wet dog about to shake itself.
“As I said, it was self-defense.”
The Ghoul hissed again and bared its teeth. “You will have to account for your actions to the old ones. As for these prey, they are now forfeit. You can stay to watch them die, or perhaps you can join me on this hunt as a form of restitution.”
Darius couldn’t believe what he was hearing. No wonder Gatticus hadn’t wanted to tell anyone in Karkarus that he was an android. For whatever reason, the Phantoms treated androids as equals, while they treated other biologicals like animals.
“Very well,” Gatticus said. “We will hunt together.”
“What?!” Lisa shrieked.
A chill came over Darius, and he shook his head. “Don’t,” was all he could manage.
“I am sorry,” Gatticus replied. “I can no longer help you.”
The Ghoul rounded on Darius, its jaws gaping to reveal interlocking sets of sharp, metallic gray teeth. “Prepare to join the Revenants, humans.”
Chapter 22
Gatticus picked up a sword and joined the Ghoul circling them. Darius pulled Cassandra back, keeping himself between her and the gray-brown monster.
“No wonder people want to kill androids,” Lisa said. “You’re on their side!”
“We’re all on their side,” Gatticus replied, shrugging. “Androids are simply less resentful about it than humans and other biologicals.”
“Because we get hunted, and you don’t!”
“That is not our fault,” Gatticus replied.
“Maybe not,” Darius said, “But this is. You’re participating.”
“Enough talk!” the Ghoul growled, and reared up on its hind legs in front of them. As it did so, Gatticus dropped his sword and darted sideways, slipping in under its arms and planting his palm against its chest. Blue fire crackled around his hand once more and arced over the alien. It screamed and thrashed the air, trying to knock Gatticus away, but he managed to avoid the Ghoul’s desperate swipes until the beast collapsed in a pile of twitching limbs. A gust of air sighed out of the slits in the alien’s neck, and it lay still.
“What...” Darius trailed off. “You were pretending,” he realized.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, and then nodded to the open door. “Someone is coming.”
“More Phantoms?” Cassandra asked in a terrified whisper.
Gatticus shook his head as he went to retrieve his severed arm from the floor. “No. These are humanoids,” he said, as he examined the arm in dismay.
“Reinforcements,” Darius decided.
Cassandra was staring at Blake. “Is he...”
“Let’s see.” Gatticus said, and went with her to where Blake lay motionless in a shallow pool of his own blood. Gatticus pressed a pair of fingers to Blake’s neck, checking for a pulse. “He’s alive,” he said, nodding. “Hold this,” he said, and handed his severed arm to Cassandra. “Darius, I’ll need your help to get him up. I only have one arm.”
Darius was about to object on account of his own injuries, but his hands and arms were somehow coming back to life. He flexed his hands, the nerves prickling all at once. At some point the blood had stopped flowing from the gashes and punctures in his arms, and they’d scabbed over.
“How...” he trailed off, flexing his hand. Then he remembered the nanites they’d all been injected with. That had to be the answer.
“Hurry,” G
atticus said. “They will not stay down forever.” He nodded to the Ghouls on the floor.
“They’re not dead?” Lisa asked.
“No.”
“But you took the blame for—”
Gatticus waved his hand dismissively. “Because I needed to keep it talking. It never would have let us go, whether it thought we killed one of them or not.”
Darius hurried over to help Gatticus lift Blake to his feet. The other man groaned and stirred as they hauled him up. His chest was crusted with blood where the Ghoul’s barbed tail had stabbed him, but his injuries seemed relatively minor compared to what Darius himself had suffered.
“Wake up, princess,” Darius said.
“Who you callin’ princess?” Blake murmured.
“You. You slept through the whole blasted thing while we almost died.”
“Actually,” Gatticus said, “Blake was dead himself until a few minutes ago.”
“Say what now?” Blake asked, his brown eyes flying wide. He shrugged out of their hands to stand on his own.
“The barbs in a Phantom’s tail are poisoned,” Gatticus explained. “The venom stopped your heart.”
“What about that mother and her baby we heard earlier?” Lisa asked.
Darius looked up to see her staring at the splintered remains of both their door and the one across the hall from theirs. Darius watched those doors for a long moment, half-expecting another Ghoul to come creeping through. “Can you tell if there are more Phantoms in there?” he whispered.
“No,” Gatticus said. “But if there were, by now they would have come here.”
“I’m going to see what happened across the hall,” Lisa said.
“Get a weapon first,” Gatticus said. “Just in case.”
“But you said—”
“I could be wrong. Sometimes Phantoms lay ambushes for their prey.”
“Great,” Blake muttered.
Darius went to pick up one of the discarded swords lying on the floor, as did each of the others—except for Cassandra, who was holding Gatticus’s arm instead. This time she didn’t object to not having a weapon.
Broken Worlds- The Complete Series Page 13
