Dragon City

by James Axler

  * * *

  DOMI’S PALMS RAN ACROSS the invisible front plate of the cylinder, the section that had locked in place with some kind of force wall. The strip of amber lights was glowing frenetically there, a crazy pattern playing across her retina in golden hues. Though beyond her range of sight, the wall seemed absolutely solid, and it was utterly smooth to the touch like Jell-O popped from a mold.

  At the strange console, Enlil continued to tap at the keys, his clawed fingers darting this way and that as he played some nightmarish, silent orchestration, faster and faster to reach an imagined crescendo. As he did so, Domi heard a voice beside her and turned to see Hassood just waking up.

  “Where—? What happened?” he asked, looking barely awake. From inside the cylinder his voice sounded as if it was coming from an old-fashioned diving suit, echoing and tinny, as if spoken down a long iron pipe. Then his body tensed and he arched his back, his breastbone jutting out toward the front of the chamber. “What is—” he began, rising fear in his tone.

  “We’re in a lot of trouble, Hassood,” Domi told him, her hands still testing the walls of the pod. “My friends are on their way.”

  Hassood looked frantic, his eyes wide and his voice cracked as he spoke. “Look at all the good they did for my cousin!” he shrieked before reverting to a muttered prayer, his lips working through the syllables as he closed his eyes. His body strained upward, as if being drawn there by powerful magnets.

  Domi looked away as the man screamed, turning her full attention back to the walls of the cylinder.

  * * *

  THE KATANA AT HIS BELT slapped rhythmically at his side as Kudo clambered hand over hand down the bonelike ladder. He found himself plunging into darkness once more, and could not see how deep the ladder went before it might access another deck. It certainly brought home just how huge the spaceship Tiamat was.

  As he clambered on, water began dripping from above, finding its way through the circular cut in the floor. Kudo looked up, saw the crimson semicircle glowing there, felt a single drip of water splash against his cheek.

  He hurried onward, his hands and legs working in unison as he sought the next deck down. The rungs of the ladder became slippery, slick with water as he continued urgently toward the next level. The constant dripping sounded like a dinner bell in his ears, and all he could see was the wall behind the bonelike ladder as he urged himself to greater speed.

  In a moment he was there, reaching the floor of a vast, echoing chamber whose next closest wall was so far away that he couldn’t even guess at its distance. Kudo extricated himself from the ladder and began searching for the water tanks, even as the ladder itself became slick with water.

  The gloom painted shadows across everything, and a low rumbling seemed to echo through the floor plates of the room. As water trickled down the ladder behind him, Kudo unsheathed his sword once more and stalked warily into the room.

  * * *

  HASSOOD WAS SCREAMING, a stream of howled words shrieking from his taut mouth as witchfire ran across his body in the containment field of the pod.

  Domi tried her best to ignore the noise. She reached up, trying the ceiling of the little cylinder she had been caught within like a bug in a jar, her chalk-white fingers scrabbling frantically to find some weak spot, a seam in the construction.

  Domi’s eyes were drawn to her left once more, where Hassood was struggling within his invisible bonds. The man was shaking now, bouncing in place as his body vibrated. Barely four feet from the spectacle, Domi found she could no longer ignore it. Hassood shrieked, a strained, hoarse sound as his body shook itself faster and faster within the containment field. With a sudden rip, his cotton shirt tore, splitting along the arms and across the chest, the buttons springing from it as their threads snapped, firing forward with the speed of bullets until they struck the invisible force wall and abruptly dropped to the floor of the cylinder.

  Hassood screwed his eyes up in agony, and Domi wanted to scream in sympathy. When he opened them a few seconds later, they were changing. The coffee-dark irises shrunk to nothing and a yellow wash seemed to bleed into the whites like paint dropped in water.

  When Hassood blinked again, Domi saw the eyes were reptilian now, a match for Enlil’s. The soft skin around his eyes was changing, too, tautening into a harder substance, flakes appearing and affixing themselves. At some point—though Domi hadn’t noticed when—the man had stopped screaming, his agonized shriek curtailed with the abruptness of a guillotine. His jaw was altering shape, too, she saw, its lines becoming harder, more angular, the center of the face jutting outward more like a snout. He was Annunaki now, she realized, his genetics twisted, recoded, immutably changed beyond repair.

  As the thing that had been Hassood slumped lifelessly against the walls of the containment cylinder, Domi felt the plate beneath her vibrating, felt her whole body begin to tremble and shudder as if with intense cold. “Stop it,” she begged. “Stop it now.”

  It did not stop.

  * * *

  GRANT AND ROSALIA HEARD Domi’s pleas coming from up ahead, and they redoubled their speed as they ran through a narrow room lined with chairs. Each chair stood on a single leg, and their backs were uncomfortably arched in a manner that made them look more like the buds of flowers waiting to be open in bloom. Each chair contained a headset attachment on a swivel arm that stuck out close to the headrest, the unit working via some kind of pivot arrangement.

  Rosalia’s dog dashed ahead of its mistress, paws padding against the hard deck as it sought the open door that led into the next chamber. Grant almost tripped over the mutt when he caught up, for the animal was standing just inside the doorway, peering into the room beyond.

  Her breath coming hard, Rosalia joined them a moment later. “What is it?” she asked, keeping her voice to a whisper.

  “Look for yourself,” Grant said.

  They were on an open catwalk with an uneven, arched floor and no safety rail. Beneath them waited the vast chamber full of the sleeping Annunaki, two hundred or more poised in their slumber, just waiting to be brought to life.

  Chapter 24

  Domi shrieked again, and Grant pinpointed her position by the noise, spotting the flashing lines of amber light that illuminated her containment pod over at the far end of the room.

  “That’s Domi,” he growled, already in motion, hurrying along the catwalk as swiftly as he could.

  Rosalia followed, the dog bounding past her to get ahead. “What do you plan on doing?” she asked as she ran.

  Grant assessed the crisscrossed catwalks, searching for a way to the room itself. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “Find a way to stop Enlil.”

  They ran, taking a turn where two catwalks crossed, tromping toward where a staircase met the high avenues. The room seemed to be vibrating, a low shuddering playing deep in their ears. Below them, Enlil swept a clawed hand over a softly lit semicircular podium and a series of ghostly lights flickered there for a few seconds.

  “What is he doing?” Rosalia asked in wonder.

  “I can’t tell, but Domi said something about more Annunaki,” Grant warned.

  Then they heard Domi scream in pain and the amber bands that locked her in place grew brighter, coursing with energy. Enlil’s hideous, duotonal voice pierced the air as he raised it over the sounds of Domi’s agonized screams.

  “Welcome, my sister. You shall be Lilitu.”

  Grant’s Commtact burst to life at that moment, as Domi’s shrieking voice drilled into his skull. “Grant, where are you? Where—?”

  Grant, Rosalia and the dog were at one of the stairwell entrances now, and Grant clattered down it without slowing, taking the curving stairs two at a time.

  “I’m coming,” Grant snarled over the Commtact link. “Be there in a minute.”

&nb
sp; Following Grant down the bowed stairs, Rosalia glanced around her and saw the cylinders waiting in the shadows, each one populated with a sleeping Annunaki figure. “Grant, we’re outnumbered here,” she shouted, advising caution.

  Grant ignored her, hurrying down the stairs, the Sin Eater ready in his right hand. As he reached the bottom of the stairwell, still fifty feet from where Enlil was charging Domi’s form with new DNA, altering her form beyond recognition, Grant skidded to a halt, his feet stopping just in front of a shimmering line of dark water that was all but hidden in the gloom. Then the blaster in his hand coughed, launching a cluster of 9 mm titanium-shelled bullets on rapid fire at the scarlet-cloaked form of Enlil.

  Some sixth sense warned Enlil in time, even over the sound of the energy surging through Domi’s cylinder, and he stepped aside as the bullets raced toward him. Missing Enlil, the projectiles drilled into the control podium he had been standing at just a moment before, and there was a burst of sparks from its side. Enlil walked backward, scampering away from the control console as more sparks fizzed from its front panel and an arc of electricity came to life across its keyboardlike surface. Domi began to shriek with pain, the amber bar turning white as a crest of lightning blasted across the front of her cylinder. In the cylinder beside her, Hassood’s altered body burst into flame.

  “What—?” Enlil demanded as he spied Grant charging toward him. “Do you realize what blasphemy you’ve committed, apekin?”

  “Fucked something up but good,” Grant declared as he bounded toward Enlil, the Sin Eater spitting bullets.

  Then Grant was upon the Annunaki overlord, his muscular body barging into Enlil’s reptilian form and knocking the Annunaki back. Enlil reacted instinctively, his left hand grabbing Grant’s wrist below the Sin Eater as his right lunged for the ex-Magistrate’s face with sharpened talons.

  Grant tried to pull away, and both figures made an uncoordinated dive toward the floor. Enlil recovered with a swiftness that belied his massive form, even as Grant rolled to avoid his next attack. Grant was just too slow, and the sharp claws of Enlil’s hand raked across his cheek, leaving three bloody lines as he tried to move out of reach. Grant found himself backed away from Domi’s prison, his knee sinking in a shallow stream of fast-flowing water.

  “Cerberus apekin,” Enlil swore as he rose from the floor. “Will you never learn to accept your place?”

  Grant pushed the blood from his cheek in a red smear. “We’ll never bow down to you, you psychopathic monster.”

  Enlil barked a cruel, ugly laugh at that. “‘Psychopathic’? How little you comprehend. Your feeble understanding has no place judging the actions of your betters.” He took a menacing step toward Grant, his hands unfurling, sharp claws glinting as they reflected the sparkle show that crisscrossed Domi’s cylinder. “Now it ends. I shall replace you and all your kind with my brethren—as Tiamat wills.”

  Grant whipped his blaster up as Enlil came stalking toward him across the darkened chamber, his sharp-clawed toes clacking on the bonelike plating there.

  * * *

  A DOZEN FEET AWAY, Rosalia reached the lowest step and stared around the room full of cylinders, the katana held loosely at her side. Nearby, the control board sparked and Domi’s cylinder was alive with witchfire while the one beside her was a column of flames. The dog nosed against Rosalia, letting out a plaintive whimper.

  “Okay, mutt,” Rosalia said without looking at him. “Shut up and let me work this out.”

  Grant was being overpowered by the lizard man, but she had to do something about the albino girl first. Domi looked as if she was being roasted alive in there, or worse. In a moment, Rosalia dashed away from the stairwell, ignoring Grant and Enlil as she hurried to the sparking pillar of the control board.

  The dog yipped as it neared the control column, clearly uncomfortable with the electricity arcing across its surface.

  “Yes, I know it looks dangerous,” Rosalia reassured the hound, “but we have to do something to earn you dinner, don’t we?”

  A few feet away, Domi was screaming, a twisted line of electricity playing across her arching form. The front panel of her cylinder sparked and flashed as the amber bar’s intensity grew. The two events were linked; Rosalia was sure of that, but there was simply no way to know how the alien console operated. In burying a half-dozen slugs in its side, Grant may have unintentionally sealed his colleague’s fate forever.

  * * *

  TWO DECKS BELOW, KUDO had located what he concluded were the water tanks to the mighty starship Tiamat. He stood in a vast area at least a mile across as water dripped down from high above him, bulbous mounds with a metallic shine looming over him and reaching to three-fourths the height of the towering ceiling. Curved and fattened to the size of city blocks, it was near impossible to guess what each of the vast units was, but Kudo pressed his ear to the side of each, listening intently for the familiar slosh of water and searching for piping that might lead it through the ship itself. Several of the units were almost silent, giving off a faint hiss as of steam or flowing gas, and Kudo wondered if these might be the mighty drives for the fantastic space-faring craft.

  Ultimately, the modern-day samurai had found twin units poised next to one another like a bloated zeppelin, with hard shells and a multitude of pipes coming from several points on their surfaces. When he pressed his ear against them, Kudo had heard the distinctive swish of water, and the pipes he could reach vibrated subtly to his touch as something was pushed through them under pressure. The floor beneath one of the units was sodden where water had dripped onto it over a long period of time—Kudo felt reassured by that thought. He felt certain he had found what he was looking for.

  The warrior reached into a pocket of his tunic, pulling loose the items that Grant had handed him before they had split up. These were explosives of a sort, though without the fearsome power of the units Grant had used on the ship’s hull. Each was round and about the size of a squash ball with a tabbed seal. Unlike the others these were marked with a chemical symbol for sulfuric acid, one of the strongest known to man. Kudo stared at it for a moment, checking how the seal worked. Then he pulled at the tab on the first, revealing an adhesive strip on the side of the spherical unit which he shoved against the side of the first water tank. In a couple of seconds Kudo had added two more close to the first and was hurrying across the gangway to the other water tank. He had two more of the devices, and wanted to get the process under way as soon as he could.

  A tiny charge was contained inside each ball-shaped device, and once they had been primed by removing the tab, a timer fuse ran down for roughly thirty seconds before cracking the shell and flinging acid out in a vicious spray. It was a nasty little weapon, to say the least. As Kudo placed the final two charges on the other water tank, the first explosions set off, three blisters of acid appearing on the surface of the other tank. The skin of the tank fizzed under that deadly onslaught, astringent white mist pouring up toward the ceiling as the shell of the tank was eaten away.

  Something appeared at his side as Kudo was finishing at the second tank. He turned as he primed the charge, just in time to see the figure emerge from the trail of dripping water and lunge at him.

  Like being mowed down by a tidal wave, the brave Tigers of Heaven warrior was knocked back by a savage, sopping-wet blow.

  * * *

  ENLIL’S FOOT KICKED OUT, striking Grant in the chest as the man squeezed the trigger of the Sin Eater, sending a burst of gunfire into the air. Grant found himself knocked backward as the kick connected, knocking him up off the floor so that he rolled through the air before finally tumbling down again on the decking a dozen feet from where he had started.

  Grant recovered quickly, raising the Sin Eater once more and sending another burst of fire at the approaching form of Enlil stalking between the channels of glistening water. The bullets zip
ped into Enlil’s swash of crimson cape, leaving burned holes where they cut through the material and out the other side.

  Enlil was unfazed, his lips curling back in a savage grin as he charged toward Grant, bloodlust in his reptilian eyes.

  “It’s too late, apekin,” Enlil boasted. “The hour of your demise has arrived.”

  Grant heard a crackle behind and above him, and when he looked he saw a great chunk of the overhead catwalk spark with expelled energy from the ruined console, a streak of lightning ripping through the air.

  * * *

  STILL STANDING BY THE sparking control panel, Rosalia bared her teeth in frustration, unconsciously mimicking the scruffy-looking dog at her side as another lethal burst of energy shot from its open panel. Beside her, the cylinder holding Hassood was alive with fire, the freshly made Annunaki body burning to a crisp.

  She had to make a decision. Domi was dying in that other cylinder, and it had something to do with this control unit. But it was alien technology; there was just no way of knowing how it worked. Her sword still clenched in her right hand, Rosalia reached forward with her left, finger jabbing out to press a key with a red glow, hoping against all odds that it just might be the off switch. Beside her, the dog growled warily, a deep, throaty noise of warning.

  Rosalia looked at it, her hand still poised over the keyboard as sparks like lightning hurtled across its surface. Another blast shot upward, snagging one of the skeletal catwalks in a shower of sparks. The dog looked up at her with its strange eyes—white with just the slightest cerulean highlight—and it whined again.

  “Dammit,” Rosalia spit, pulling her hand back.

  The dog was right; there was no way of knowing which button to press. The odds of alien tech working with the same logic as human were incalculable.

  But a cell—now, that was another matter altogether.

  Rosalia hurried over to the cylinder where Domi was trapped, staring emotionlessly as the albino warrior cried out in agony, her chalk-white body charged with sparking, twisting tendrils of current. The cylinder wrapped roughly halfway around a circle, with the front panel missing. In its place, Rosalia saw, was a simple bar of amber light, flashing angrily as Domi squirmed against the power source within. Though it didn’t appear to have a front, Rosalia watched the way the sparks played in front of her, realized there must be some barrier of force there, visible only beyond the human optical range like something ultraviolet or infrared.