CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SAMIA HAD SENSED rapid movement above her, the hairs on her neck prickling with alarm. A thick, powerful limb had closed around her waist and squeezed with ferocious force. She had dropped her pistol and an instant later, she was airborne, being whisked up the elevator shaft by some unholy beast. She caught a glimpse of the wet, albino-white tentacle, a network of fiery red veins visible under the translucent skin.
She screamed as she was pulled through the open elevator door three floors above and hit a hallway coated in a weird, sticky slime. The tentacle tightened and she was dragged down the wet hallway. Her scream echoed in the empty hall.
All movement suddenly stopped and the ivory tentacle withdrew, vanishing down the far end of the corridor. Dizzy, she sucked down a big gulp of air, becoming aware of the stench of rotten fruit. She realized the smell was coming from the sodden carpet. It smelled exactly like Rakan’s mysterious new drug. Was this monster somehow excreting the drug Rakan was feeding his followers? The thought boggled her mind. Talon had said there was more to this case than met the eye, but this was impossible—wasn’t it? A shadow moved and she turned to see the monster slithering ponderously toward her. Samia wished the beast had remained cloaked in the shadows. The transparent creature called to mind a giant earthworm or super-sized maggot. A ring of squirming tendrils framed a maw of razor-sharp teeth positioned below a giant cyclopian eye. The tentacles moved in strange synchronicity, seemingly under the command of an inhuman yet intelligent mind. Like a slug, the beast was leaving a slimy trail on the floor as it advanced toward her.
Rakan’s drug. It had to be.
Then she spotted the body of the RAID captain inside the see-through mass of the monster. The hapless officer resembled a fly caught in amber, his skin almost completely dissolved by the creature’s digestive fluids. While she watched, the RAID captain’s skeleton twisted and bones were ejected one by one from the demon’s slimy body as it quivered and sloshed toward her with malevolent intent, tentacles jittering. Samia remembered the old man’s story. The elderly were sacrificed while the young were turned into soldiers. She was about to become a meal for this beast.
What ancient evil had her former lover unleashed upon the world?
Her grandmother had told her tales of demons and Jinns when Samia was a child, but she hadn’t believed them. Her mind turned back to the graffiti of the hand of Fatima she’d come across in the neighboring building, a symbol of protection. It all made sense now. An ancient force of evil had returned to haunt the modern world.
Talon’s words slashed through her mind: I’ve seen things most men couldn’t imagine in their worst nightmares. There are horrors out there, dark forces certain men can tap into. Men like Rakan.
Her terror catapulted her back to her feet, and she began to retreat down the corridor. Unarmed, her only option was to flee. But where could she go? The giant worm reared up, readying for an attack, its tentacles casting a mad parade of shadows against the walls.
Seconds before they could pull her toward the waiting maw, the beast froze in place. Footsteps echoed behind her. She spun around to see Rakan closing in from the other side. The skinny young man who’d courted her ten years earlier had been replaced by a powerfully muscled figure. The long hair was gone, and a thick beard hid most of his features. Only his eyes remained untouched by time. The spark of fanaticism had always been present, even when he had been a skinny teenager, but years of prison and hardship had fueled the fire that now burned with piercing intensity.
Had she truly once been in love with this man?
His eyes locked with hers, empty slits bereft of mercy or human emotion. Rakan had spared her so he could say his farewell, she realized, but it was only a momentary reprieve. His attention shifted to the monster at the far end of the corridor.
“Master, accept my offering.”
With these fatalistic words, the beast reared upward and rippled toward a screaming Samia.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
YASMINE FOLLOWED THE others into the waiting van parked outside their tenement building. For the first time in her life, the world and her role in it made perfect sense. She finally understood her true purpose. Thanks to Rakan, the cause of all her suffering and pain had been revealed. The demons that ruled this unholy land had banished her and her family to this forgotten part of the city to live out their lives without hope. Rakan understood this. He’d lifted the veil that had blinded her.
The true enemy walked the streets of Paris. Safe in their wealthy neighborhoods, they felt shielded from their impoverished neighbors—but this false sense of security would be shattered today.
Today they would stand up to their oppressors.
She climbed into the van, joining a group of twelve other men and women. Their faces were familiar, fellow residents of her building, some who she knew by name and others who’d been strangers to her even though they they were neighbors. Most were armed with AK-47s and machine pistols. At least half of the group sported explosive vests under their jackets and coats.
Yasmine had never fired a gun in her life, but the weapon felt strangely good in her hands, almost soothing. The metal was warm to the touch, and she was gripped by a powerful sense of confidence and purpose. She knew exactly what to do. All uncertainty had left her body. A singular goal drove her now, shared by the others in the van. Soon she’d be pointing her gun at the monsters that ruled this accursed land.
The door clanged shut, and the vehicle lurched into motion. Rain pelted the windows, washing away the building she’d called home for most of her life. As the tenement receded in the haze, she cleared her mind of all thoughts beyond the upcoming battle.
Nevertheless, her eagerness made the drive toward their destination seem to last an eternity. When the van finally pulled into the underground parking garage of the Forum des Halles, Paris’ largest shopping center, Yasmine rejoiced. The moment of reckoning was at hand.
It took them another ten minutes to find a parking spot in the crowded structure. Their oppressors were busy fattening their stomachs and filling their empty lives with material possessions that would never make them happy. She almost felt sorry for them. They were travelers on the wrong path, driven by goals and desires that took them further away from the truth and deeper into the darkness.
Yasmine drew a deep breath as the driver killed the engine. He opened the door, and they all filed out of the van, faces locked into masks of concentration. The final battle was about to begin.
The mall was crowded with stores, restaurants, discotheques, a museum, and movie theaters. A city below the city, Yasmine thought. High street retailers dominated the shopping landscape: Mango, Zara, Kookai, H & M, Bershka, Sephora, Yves Rocher, and Fnac were all represented. Symbols of wealth and privilege, all serving as another sharp reminder of her people’s oppression. The French embraced materialism and spent their inflated paychecks on all this junk while her people barely could make ends meet. Failed colonialism and a need for cheap labor had lured them to this country so that their sweat and backbreaking work could bolster the economy of the infidel. Caught in a cycle of material indulgence and selfishness, their ungracious hosts refused to bear enough children, forcing the government to continue to import cheap labor from other parts of the world. They promised immigrants a better life, but all her people received for their efforts was a subsidized housing unit in a forsaken neighborhood where no one else wanted to live.
Even though some shops had already closed for the night, crowds filled the underground city. Bright overhead lights revealed a series of escalators busy carrying shoppers from the surface to the underground shopping paradise below. She studied the eclectic crowd, fighting back a surge of primal terror. On the surface, these people might look human, but Rakan had opened her eyes to the truth. Demons lurked below the façade of wealth and refinement. Crimson eyes glared back at her, and peals of cackling laughter drifted from restaurants and shops. Struggling to fight back a panic attack, she t
ook in the world as it truly was. Her hijab, which immediately identified her as a resident of the banlieues, was a beacon to these monsters. They homed in on her cultural differences, earning suspicious glances from the security officers who roamed the underground hallways of the complex like a hungry pack of wolves. They were servants of the demons. The guards would have to be taken out first before they could point their machine pistols at the demons lurking inside the maze of shops and restaurants.
She studied the others in her group. They were spreading out across the mall, forming teams of two or three so as to not arouse unnecessary suspicion. Eventually the demons would become aware of their presence, but by then it would be too late. Yasmine knew that she would certainly fall in battle to the infidel’s bullets, but she planned to take a few of them with her.
Someone had to stand up to these monsters.
Someone had to try to save their people.
Hopefully her sacrifice would pave the way for a better future. She was ready to lay down her life in the name of her new master and his glorious vision. This was not merely an attack on the decadent West—it was the first salvo in a war.
With the confidence of a seasoned soldier, she released the safety of her AK-47 and steeled herself for the next phase of the plan.
Soon the blood of the demons would flow freely inside the Forum des Halles.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SAMIA’S SCREAM ECHOED as the tentacle closed around her waist and pulled her up the elevator shaft. Talon reacted on pure instinct. He brought up his Glock but was unable to squeeze off a shot without risking hitting Samia. He let out a curse of frustration as the detective was pulled toward an open elevator door three floors above him and vanished from view.
More men barreled into the lift below him and started opening fire at the elevator roof. He had to go after Samia and get out of there before one of those fanatics managed a lucky shot. His eyes locked on the steel emergency ladder that ran up the length of the shaft.
Without hesitation he hurled himself toward the ladder and began to scale it, bullets whizzing past him. As he fought his way to the top floor, his mind was on fire. What sort of creature had snatched Samia in the darkness? Talon had faced mad cult leaders, demons, and even the spirits of the dead, but he’d never seen anything like the monster that had abducted Samia. What was he up against?
Casca would have an answer; the billionaire always did. There was always some archaic text he could reference that would make the miraculous feel mundane and the extraordinary ordinary. Based on the size of the tentacle, Talon concluded a beast of massive proportions lurked on the top floor. He had imagined the Jinn as a creature made of smoke or fire, but the nightmare waiting above him was all-too-solid—and a monstrosity of gargantuan size.
The last six months had exposed the vast gulf between myth and reality. How did Rakan control a creature of such proportions? Or maybe he was getting it all wrong here. Maybe Rakan was the servant and the beast the master. Whatever the case may be, it would be up to him to stop both man and beast, and he prayed his weapons would be adequate for the job.
Moving swiftly, he continued his ascent. Stray bullets pinged against steel cables, narrowly missing him. He refused to worry about Rakan’s followers below; all of his thoughts were focused on the primordial terror he was about to confront in battle.
He arrived at the top floor and slipped through the open elevator doors. The monster had pried them apart with enormous force and must’ve damaged the mechanism in the process.
As Talon stepped into the corridor, an overpowering stench of rotting fruit made him gag. His shoes smacked against the slippery floor, and he slowed his gait to avoid losing his footing on the slimy substance. After a few cautious steps—Glock in one hand, the demon slayer blade in the other—another insight hit him. The smell of decay came from the thick fluid blanketing the floor. It had to be the drug Rakan was distributing to his followers, but why had buckets of it been emptied out across the floor?
Eyes alert, nerves on edge, he advanced down the dark corridor. Adrenaline pumped furiously through his veins, his dread growing with each step. A monster lurked in these hallways, waiting to strike. He could have definitely used a pair of night-vision goggles, and an MP5 and a few grenades sure would’ve calmed his ragged nerves. The Glock and demon slayer blade felt ill-suited for battling the colossus that had snatched Samia.
Where was the detective? Had the creature devoured her?
A second later he received his answer as he nearly tripped over the prone figure splayed across the floor. Samia looked up at him, eyes shiny with terror and her clothes coated in slime. Her lips weakly whispered words that drove a chill up his spine: “We’re not alone.”
A sudden sound behind him made him whirl. A figure had appeared on the other end of the hallway. The powerfully built man cut an intimidating silhouette in the moonlight. It had to be Rakan.
There was the master, but where was the Jinn? Talon’s eyes roved the dim corridor, and at last he caught a glimpse of shadowy motion another twenty feet behind Samia. A gargantuan worm oozed from the darkness and filled the hallway with its impressive bulk. Talon swallowed hard, atavistic fear taking hold of him. The creature slithered toward Samia with preternatural speed, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. Talon’s stomach lurched, the truth hitting him in a wave of revulsion. Rakan’s drug was a byproduct of this giant worm.
Talon doubted bullets would be effective against a beast of that size, but old habits died hard. He reflexively emptied a whole magazine into the incoming creature, the slugs digging deep into the translucent skin. The gelatinous mass of the monster’s body absorbed the projectiles without sustaining any damage. Blood twitched and pulsed under the glassy skin, but the monster didn’t slow its inexorable approach. If anything, the bullets seemed to just be pissing it off.
Two tentacles shot out from the teeth-ringed jaw, unfurling down the hallway with lightning speed. Before they could snatch the detective and add her to its list of victims, Talon was beside her, demon slayer blade in hand. The knife cut a wide arc and found its target: the first incoming tentacle. The blessed steel managed to bite into the creature’s flesh, drawing blood where the bullets had been useless. A roar shook the walls of the corridor as the tentacle withdrew as if struck by lightning. It whipped back into the wormlike body, vanishing momentarily from view.
Talon wondered where this abomination had come from. Had some ancient ritual or some other form of infernal magic given birth to it? Or had it always dwelled amongst humanity, lurking in the shadows?
Didn’t matter. Casca might care to speculate at length about the Jinn’s origins, but Talon was more interested in how to defeat it.
Another cry of pain joined the monster’s roar. Talon whirled toward the beast’s human master closing in from the other end of the corridor. Rakan was screaming, a large gash running across his arm.
Somehow attacking the beast had hurt the man.
The Jinn, the drug, Rakan—the three were all linked. Together, they chained the residents of the tenement in a nightmare of enslavement and addiction. It would be up to Talon to cast off those shackles and break the hold Rakan’s drug exerted on the poor people of this neighborhood.
“Watch out!” Samia screamed as two more of the wounded beast’s tentacles rippled toward him. This time around one of the tendrils wrapped around him before he could launch a counter-attack with the magical blade. The creature’s wet flesh pressed with inhuman force, and he dropped the demon slayer blade with a scream of pain. Steel thumped against the wet floor.
The Jinn pulled him thirty feet down the hallway toward its wide-open maw, eight-inch teeth gleaming with the same strange substance that blanketed the floor.
Talon was helpless. Nothing would stop the beast now, unless…
The pentacle burned painfully against his chest, igniting in response to the approaching darkness. It made him wonder—could the amulet be a weapon as well as an early warning syste
m?
There was only one way to find out!
Fueled by a rush of newfound hope, he snatched his amulet with his one free hand, every muscle in his body screaming with agony. Seconds before the teeth of the waiting maw could tear him open, he pressed the amulet against the monster’s glistening, see-through flesh.
The contact was electric, the results immediate. The Jinn released him from its steely grip mere seconds before those razor-sharp teeth would’ve ripped off his face.
The tentacles violently reared back, and Talon was sent tumbling down the corridor.
He hit the wet floor face first. Desperately, he pressed his lips together, refusing to allow any of the horrible, addictive substance into his mouth. Barely clinging to consciousness, he knew he had to get back to his feet.Tapping into a last reserve of strength, he stumbled erect, but it was too late. Rakan’s massive shadow eclipsed the wall before him. One meaty arm closed around his throat in a brutal headlock.
Talon clenched his jaw; he had to get out of the submission hold before it was too late. Instincts taking over, he twisted his head to prevent Rakan from choking him. In the same instant, he brought up his middle fingers under the man’s nose. He pushed up and back. Rakan’s grip loosened, giving Talon enough leeway to make his next move. He put all his weight into his enemy, slamming him against the wall.
Rakan grunted, releasing his hold with a pain-filled curse.
The beast on the other end of the corridor echoed his irritation with a renewed roar. Interesting, Talon thought. Apparently the link between man and monster worked both ways.
Talon spun around just as Rakan’s fist blasted out at him. The drug dealer’s paw connected with his ribs, cracking bone. Talon exhaled agony and stumbled away from the mountain of a man, who outweighed him by at least fifty pounds.
He’d defeated bigger men, but Rakan’s punches were fueled by the supernatural power of the Jinn.
Occult Assassin 4: Soul Jacker Page 8
