I bolted toward Vamp’s cage, reaching it just as Green-eyes appeared at the top of the ramp. Before I knew it he was on top of me, the barrel of his pistol an inch from my face.
“Sam!”
I swatted his wrist, knocking the gun aside in the same second it went off. Heat flashed against my cheek as the boom all but deafened my left ear and the smell of burned powder went up my nose. There was no time to think. It felt like electricity was coursing through my entire body, making me feel fast, powerful, and invincible, but when I kicked him in the ribs I got almost no reaction at all. I ducked under his arm and kicked him again, but he was heavy, and solid, and he didn’t even seem to care. It wasn’t like the movies. He didn’t go down. I couldn’t even move him.
I ducked down out of the way as he made another lunge for me, scooting behind him as he pitched forward. Still off balance, he tried to turn and bring the gun around behind him.
“You slippery little bitch!”
I rammed him with one shoulder before he could shoot, and he stepped backward, not realizing the ramp was so close. His ankle twisted, and he barked as it gave out underneath him. He fell back, his other foot slipping off the side of the ramp. He started to fall back, over the edge, and his gun clunked down onto the floor as he grabbed the scaffolding at the last second.
He started hauling himself back and I barreled into him with my shoulder. His hand slipped and he pitched back, grabbing at me as he fell. His fingers brushed my arm as I hooked one elbow around a metal support and he dropped down, crashing onto his back on the platform below.
“Sam!”
Vamp was in the cage just behind me. I felt along the top of the doorframe until I found the latch, then pulled the bolt free just as two more men topped the ramp.
The door crashed open and Vamp sprang out, going for one of the men without a second’s hesitation. He threw a punch and creamed him right in the eye, following up with a left hook even as the guy began to fall. He went down and Vamp turned to the other one, the one with the spiked hair, just as he raised his shotgun. Vamp saw it, took a step back.
“Vamp!”
Green-eyes’ pistol still lay on the platform where he’d dropped it. As the shotgun barrel zeroed in on Vamp’s face, I scooped it up and aimed down the sight.
It bucked in my hand as it let out an earsplitting bang. At first I thought I missed. The guy didn’t fly back or spray blood or do anything like what I thought might happen. He just kind of jerked once, like the sound of the shot had surprised him, and a little hole appeared in the middle of his chest. He stood, kind of frozen, with the shotgun still pointed at Vamp but not pulling the trigger.
The barrel listed to one side, and a big blob of blood grew from out of the hole before running down over his stomach in a dark trickle. He took a step back, and his eyelids drooped as the shotgun slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. A second later he fell down after it, crashing down onto the wooden planks.
Vamp stared as I stood there, the gun still held out in front of me. The barrel of the pistol shook as I looked down at the man’s body. Vamp stepped over it and approached me carefully.
“Sam...”
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the body.
“I killed him,” I said.
“Sam, come on,” Vamp said. “There’s more of them coming.”
I could hear them. They sounded far away, but down below I could see more men headed for the scaffolding. The captives were screaming to be let out, shaking the cages.
“Sam!” Vamp snapped. He grabbed the shotgun from the floor and shook my shoulder. The man he’d kicked had recovered, and was back on his feet. He reached back and pulled a pistol from where he’d tucked it in the waistband of his pants as several more armed men appeared at the base of the ramp behind him.
The air next to us warped suddenly, and the cage doors buckled. A point of white light appeared inside a ball of distortion and then expanded out into a hexagon-shaped portal as a figure stepped through it with his back to us. The gate collapsed, and the figure rose. I saw a length of spine running down under the smoke gray skin of his neck, and the two slowly shifting brains beneath his skull. The figure’s head turned, and I caught a flash of sunset pink.
Nix...
Vamp shook me again as something flickered in front of my face.
Sam, forgive me. I couldn’t let them do it. The message popped up on the 3i display, reeling across the air in front of me.
“Dragan,” I whispered.
Nix moved suddenly, darting out between us. Over his shoulder I saw the other two men reach the top platform, but that’s as far as they got. They both stopped short suddenly, like they’d hit an invisible barrier. My heart thumped rapid fire until the pistol, still stuck out in front of me, began to drift toward the floor as Dragan’s words continued to scroll past.
I know that you—
His connection dropped as one of the two men halted and grabbed his own throat. His feet came up off the platform, his toes dangling, as his cohort fell to his knees. He jerked, then with a meaty crackling sound his head twisted around completely. A second later his arms did the same.
“Sam,” Vamp said. He was looking at me and hadn’t seen. His voice sounded low, and thick, like he was talking in slow motion. “Sam, are you okay?”
Everything began to sound like it was coming from far away. Nix stood before the men, his arms held out by his sides with his palms turned upward. He never touched them, but somehow a tattooed arm, then a leg went spinning through the air behind Vamp in slow motion. My ears began to ring, drowning out the mayhem as a chunk of meat with jutting rib bones flipped in the air. It sprayed blood as it tumbled back down the ramp to the first platform, and warm drops spattered down onto my face.
“Sam!” Vamp cried.
I turned my eyes back to him, my stomach bunched into a rock-hard knot as my heartbeat turned to one continuous rumble. The fear in Vamp’s eyes was like nothing I’d ever seen in them before. He reached for me like he wanted to grab me but was afraid to.
“Dragan,” I croaked.
He shook his head, eyes wide. “What?”
“Dragan...”
“Sam, what’s wrong?” he asked. As my head began to bob, I followed the flat muscular ridges of his abs down to his crotch, then pointed with one shaking finger.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“You’re circumcised.”
Then all at once the machine-gun beat of my heart stopped.
I choked as pain pulsed up my neck and down both arms. The factory reeled around me, and I fell back with the wind rushing in my ears. I barely felt the floor when I hit, and Vamp’s shadow crouched down over me.
“Sam!” he screamed. His voice sounded very distant, and soft. “Sam!”
He was still screaming when his voice faded, with the light.
~ * ~
Chapter Twenty-one
03:53:55 BC
Darkness surrounded me, seeping into every crease and crevice like cold, thick mud that pushed me deeper and deeper into nothing. The warmth of life fell away, until it was no more than a fading star I had no hope of reaching.
Is this death?
Was I was crossing from the realm of the living and into the realm of the dead like in one of Ling’s stories? Some distant part of me hoped I hadn’t let everyone down ... Dragan, Vamp, the little Pan-Slav kids, and even Nix. What would they all do with me dead? Would they still try and stop the burn?
It doesn’t matter. You did everything you could.
The worry faded as I fell. The burn, even the world itself, seemed far away by now. It would continue to turn after I was gone, and without my help. I wondered if I wouldn’t arrive on the other side to find Dragan waiting for me there, and I decided that if he was, then that would be okay.
Yes, it’s okay. You can let go....
It was more of an idea than a voice, an unspoken urge to give up what little fight I had left in me, and let the i
nevitable come.
Just let go....
Maybe my mother would be there too. Maybe we could hang out, she, Dragan, and I. Would any haan be there? Would they get to cross over too?
Just—
Something slithered in the dark, a cold, fat worm that snaked under my right arm and down my bare side. I wanted to cringe as whatever it was crept up over my belly, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.
It coiled around my waist as a second worm slipped down over my shoulder, its tip branching into two wandering feelers that crept down over my chest. Gentle pressure built around my waist and I was being moved, dragged as the things touching me were joined by another, and another, and another.
I began to panic, but my body wouldn’t respond even as the feelers pulled me back into an enveloping mass and squirming cilia engulfed me. They drew me in deeper until the shapeless cold gave way to a hot inner core that warmed my back and sent a shudder through my whole body. They were on my face now, writhing, and though I felt a scream build up in my chest, I couldn’t take a breath to release it.
A faint hum broke the quiet, an anxious buzzing noise. I felt a tickle on my lips and realized it was a fly. Not just one, but a swarm of them. More and more began to crawl across my face and down my neck, arms, and legs. All I could think of was the jiangshi, the folklore festival ghouls, mass victims of the Impact’s burial who were left to rot away in the rim.
A louder sound, a low rasp that rumbled over rhythmic insect clicks, vibrated deep in my chest as one of the slithering worms found the middle of my chest. It coiled there and split into a squirming mass that grew warmer as it branched out down my rib cage and over my bare breasts. The center of the mass turned hot, and a tingle at my breastbone turned to a sharp, painful jolt...
My eyes opened, and faint light seeped through. In the shadows I saw glistening, ropy strands that entangled me. Shiny black shells, the backs of scaleflies, scurried in rows down the length of them, crawling in and out of the dark pits that covered each one.
They slithered as one, squeezing me tighter. I opened my mouth, nearly gagging on a fly whose buzz echoed inside before it spiraled away above me, then was finally able to suck in a breath and scream.
~ * ~
Chapter Twenty-two
03:54:09 BC
My scream echoed into nothing as my back arched against damp concrete. A light flickered somewhere high overhead, casting shadows from the scaffolding’s metal skeleton and wire cages across the wall. Something nearby made a low clicking sound and I smelled cooked meat.
“Holy shit,” I heard Vamp say over the rapid-fire tick of cooling metal.
I opened my eyes and saw him kneeling next to me shirtless, his tattoos as recognizable as his face. He’d found his pants and shoes and put them back on.
“Hey, Vamp.”
He broke into a wide smile, and his eyes turned shiny.
“You’re back,” he said.
I squinted up at him, trying to focus. I felt like I’d been asleep for days.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Are we—”
I broke off as all at once it came back to me. I jerked up into a sitting position, almost knocking heads with Vamp before he put his hands on my shoulders to steady me.
“Easy,” he said.
I darted my eyes around the room, telling myself that if Vamp said I was safe, then I was. Pain and sickness lingered in my mind, but they seemed distant now. Almost forgotten.
From our perch on the platform, I could see the rendering vat down below, where steam still rose in a faint, slow-moving cloud from the surface. The engines had been shut down, and the fat was cooling.
I looked back at Vamp, and his eyes were bright like he might cry. “What happened? What’s wrong with you?”
“They darted you,” he said. “Before you dropped, you took a dose of blue shard. Do you remember that?”
I had faint memories of Vamp leaping from the cage. There was a fight, and then...
“The crystal stopped your heart,” he said. “You OD’d. Your body couldn’t take it.”
“No,” I said, still fuzzy. “No, I’m okay, I just...”
“You died in my arms.” One tear started to roll down his cheek, just one before he wiped it away. “I felt you go.”
“Vamp...”
I put my arms around his neck and squeezed as he held me. His hands were warm on my back, and for the first time in a long while I didn’t feel that tension I’d felt in the months gone by. That awkwardness that started when his feelings changed and any contact between us turned into something complicated. It was gone, at least for now, and he just held me like he used to when I needed to be held and he was just my friend.
“I’m here now,” I said in his ear. I put my hand on the back of his head and ran my fingers through his thick hair.
“Yeah.”
When I broke the hug, he didn’t try and hang on. I leaned back, my fingers still laced behind his neck.
“Nix?”
“He told me he would take care of you,” he said. “After ... he told me to go get my clothes, and that he would take care of you.”
“Where did he go?”
“We let the others out of their cages,” he said. “Then he took them away from here, to wait until help comes.”
I got onto my feet and realized that, in my sleep, either Vamp or Nix had dressed me. I bent over and laced my shoes back up.
“Hey,” Vamp said, “take it easy. You’re still pretty beat up.”
“I know, but we don’t have time. We could already be too late.”
Nix, I’m coming down, I said on the 3i. Where are you?
The room, where they keep their lockers. Go down—
They took me there when they brought me in. I know where it is, thanks.
I headed down the ramp, feeling more energetic. It wasn’t until I saw the body with the bullet hole that I remembered firing the gun, and the way the life had faded out of the man’s eyes. He was still lying on the ramp, his eyes open and a fat red trickle drying on his belly.
Skirting around him, I headed quickly down the ramp. The cage doors all hung open, and the captives were gone. Sprawled on the second platform below were two twisted, broken arms trailing ragged skin from their stumps. The planks were covered with dark, tacky blood and I hopped over a trail of discarded guts whose squiggly end trailed off to the floor below.
Nix had done that. I’d always been so sure I’d known better than most what the haan were, and what they were all about, but not anymore. If I’d been asked the day before, I’d have said the haan didn’t even understand the concept of violence. That even if they did, they lacked the capacity for it, at least in our world. Now I’d seen with my own eyes that they weren’t only capable of it, but good at it. The haan had hidden a strength from us that allowed them to pick apart a human being as easily as a child picked the wings off a fly.
He did it to defend me, I told myself. No other reason. To defend me, and because they deserved it. It’s no different from what Dragan did when he rescued us from men like these.
But I couldn’t look at their remains, and it was different.
When I got to the bottom of the second ramp, back down onto the concrete floor, I headed back the way I’d come in, crossing past the spent tranquilizer dart and the crumpled foil pill sheet that still lay a few feet away from it. In the hallway outside the rendering chamber, I passed the corridor branch where the pocket of cool air had collected, and heard the rush of wind in the distance. Some of the captives had gathered there, sitting and standing along the walls in varying states of dress depending on what they’d been able to recover. They couldn’t just go out into the rim or they’d get lost in the sea of debris and dust. If they didn’t choke outright, then the toxins they breathed in would kill them long before they ever found the wall. They waited, frightened eyes following, as I passed by them on my way toward the locker room.
“Nix!”
When I pus
hed open the door, he was standing in front of the lockers. The contents had been arranged neatly on top of the folding table which he’d set back up, along with my pocketknife.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“For a dead girl? Pretty good.”
“I’m glad.”
I approached him, and cut in front of him as he tried to dig around in the locker some more.
The Burn Zone Page 29
