Ragnarok cta-4

by Kane Gilmour

  And Queen was up there somewhere.

  Where are you, Zelda? Has that bastard controlled you like Asya? Did you run into a dire wolf? Are you lost?

  Rook had done a lot of thinking on Queen during his time in Norway. He knew he had feelings for her. Couldn’t deny that any longer. She was smart, bad ass tough, trustworthy and looked good slathered in head-to-toe mud.

  He smiled at the memory of the two of them, covered in mud for camouflage, hiding in a tree from a bunch of human-Neanderthal hybrids. Good times. He’d been on the receiving end of Queen’s fury that day, too, when she’d mistaken his muddy form for the enemy. But today was different. When he hung up that phone and turned around to see Queen…the look in her eyes. She was hurt. Queen was hurt. And he’d done the hurting. He regretted it, but it also confirmed what he suspected.

  His growing affection was mutual.

  Of course, all the affection in the world did diddly-squat for him right now.

  He growled in frustration until his voice was hoarse. Then he heard a scraping noise on the other side of the pit. Something sliding.

  Sonovabitch, what now?

  He pressed the button on the little LED flashlight and the scene was suddenly as bright as day in the blue-white light. The grayish-white skins of the piled-high genetically engineered dire wolf pups were everywhere. He saw nothing that might have caused sound. Nothing A small mound of dire wolf corpses shifted to his left. Then they stopped.

  Then the same pile moved again.

  Something was moving under the dead monster babies.

  Rook played the light around the confined space and the pile of dead shifted again. He stopped breathing and moved a hand over the light to dim it, but not extinguish it entirely. He wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t capable of it. He was filled with so much seething rage at his confinement that fear didn’t exist. The presence of something living in the pit with him filled him with a desire to fight it. He was a hunter now and whatever it was that shared this pit with him, it was his prey.

  Slowly, Rook moved his legs under him so he could pounce if necessary. The shifting of the mound stopped. He waited, still holding his breath. When it emerged, it happened so fast that Rook fell backward, startled.

  A few of the crushed baby dire wolf bodies launched a foot into the air as a furry gray snout erupted from the pile. The creature’s head was rounded but with a short elongated snout. Its eyes were beady black specks in its fur, and its nose was a black lump at the front of its head. When it opened its mouth and Rook saw the teeth, he knew without a doubt what it was. He had seen plenty of them in the woods around Fenris Kystby.

  Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? Course, you’re bigger and badder than most.

  Rook let the light hit the creature fully as it struggled out of the vertical tunnel it had dug through the corpses. The wolf was huge. At least six foot long, with a wet matted coat that was dark in front and gradated to white by the time it reached the hindquarters. Rook had never seen a wolf like this.

  The creature had elongated, white-furred legs and no tail. Its front half looked normal, but its back half had powerful muscles that looked almost human. The rear paws weren’t paws, but feet. With talons.

  Damn, Rook thought. That batshit Fossen left a half-wolf, half-dire wolf abortion down here to die. Looks like death didn’t take.

  Then he realized he was the one who’d been left to die. There was no way Fossen didn’t know about this beauty. Rook stayed perfectly still, wondering if the creature would attack or not.

  Then it opened its huge jaws like a cat yawning-large enough to swallow most of Rook’s face. And the thing snarled at him.

  Right, that’s it for you, Benji.

  The hybrid lowered itself, its muscles tensing, preparing to spring. But Rook surprised it. He lunged across the the pit and slammed his body into the startled creature.

  The pair crashed against the brick wall. Rook ignored the jarring impact and mashed his head down on the thing’s snout as it dug its two-inch-long fangs into his shoulder, which wasn’t the best move in hindsight since he helped push the wolf’s top canines deeper in the meat of his shoulder. He shouted in pain, but so did the wolf. It released his shoulder, snarling and snapping at Rook’s face.

  Rook growled, too, as he pummeled the side of its head with his meaty fist, aiming for the soft temple behind the eyes. A hard enough strike should knock the thing out. But it squirmed and flailed, slipping from his grasp.

  The creature leapt away and barked at him, then leapt at his throat. Rook tucked his chin and fell back into the soft mound of Fossen’s failed experiments, pulling his legs up and kicking the flying wolf up and over him, smashing it into the far wall of the pit.

  Rook, still desperately clutching the LED light in his left hand, spun around on the mound to see the beast hit. He was shocked to see the creature violently twist its body in mid air like a cat and land with its hind legs on the wall. The claws dug in, and the thing stayed attached to wall as if he had tossed a spaghetti noodle up to see if it would stick. The strange creature’s front legs hung away from the wall. They looked like normal wolf paws, unable to find purchase on the wall. The wolf craned its head up and opened its mouth, showing its teeth. Rook was certain the bastard was smiling at him.

  It shot off the wall and rammed his stomach, slamming him back into the wall, where he hit his head yet again.

  “That’s it!” He shouted. “Time for a fuckin’ lupine barbeque.” He doused and pocketed the LED light. He wouldn’t need it in these close confines, and he needed his left hand free.

  Darkness engulfed the pit.

  But not all his senses were blind.

  The creature smelled horribly, and Rook guessed that he did too. He could hear it breathing and it could probably hear him. They would have no problems fighting each other in the dark.

  Rook rolled as the beast snapped at him again, just clipping his forearm with its long muzzle, drawing a line of blood down his arm. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the warm drip. Rook snatched out and grabbed the hybrid by the middle of both of its front legs, and rolled. His arms swung hard and the beast went with them. He slapped the entire creature’s body hard against the wall of the pit. While it was stunned, he wrapped his arms around the thing’s thin front legs and applied sudden, sharp pressure.

  He winced at the sound of breaking bones, but the monster’s pain-filled howl drowned out the noise. Feeling merciful now that the creature sounded like any other wounded dog, Rook moved a hand to the creature’s neck and then moved his other hand up to join it. The wolf resisted, snapping at him, but it was a half effort. The pain from its broken limbs sapped its fight.

  With a violent crack, Rook twisted the head 180? around, and the body slumped in his hands. He dropped the hybrid creature and fished out his LED from his pocket, admiring his handiwork.

  “Who’s afraid of the big bad Rook?” he grumbled and then felt glad no one had been around to hear that particular gem.

  “Now where the hell did you come from?” He moved over to the side of the pit where the thing had clawed its way free from the tiny dire wolf corpses and he found a tunnel.

  Rook thought about it for a second. He rationalized that if the creature had gotten into the pit’s bottom, there must be an exit out somewhere. It couldn’t have just lived down here. There wasn’t enough for it to eat. The thing’s fur was wet too, so the tunnel must lead to water. He tried to remember any lakes or ponds in the area around the lab, but nothing came to him. Then again, it had been pretty cold for a while, and any nearby lakes must have frozen over.

  I’m gonna get halfway down the friggin’ tunnel and another one of those things is gonna try to eat my head.

  “What the hell,” Rook said and then moved over to the hole. He pushed some of the carcasses out of his way so he could slide down the tunnel head first. About a foot under the bodies, the tunnel made an S turn, and he had to struggle, grunt and squeeze to make the turns. He kept the LE
D illuminated ahead of him and saw that after the S turn, the tunnel widened out and moved upward at a slanting slope. The walls and ceiling were dark damp soil, but the floor was rough with yellow, grainy sand. As his legs came out of the S turn, Rook found he could actually get up to his hands and knees and crawl. It was better than wriggling like a worm.

  The tunnel continued to slope upward, but the temperature dropped the further away from the pit he moved. Rook guessed he had gone about three hundred yards when the tunnel widened out to the inside of a large stick structure. Rook quickly recognized it as an abandoned beaver lodge in the rough shape of a dome. The ceiling was still low, but the room was large enough for maybe four adults to lie down side by side. It reminded him of a camping tent.

  The wolf was using this for a den after eating Mr. Beaver.

  He crossed to the far wall of the circular chamber and found a puddle. He guessed that he’d be able to glide through the underwater beaver tunnel. The only question was, what he would find on the other side? Was the lake or stream or whatever this puddle was connected to, frozen?

  Goodbye crazy-ass wolf, hello hypothermia.

  “Here goes nothing.” Gripping the LED in his teeth, Rook took a deep breath. Then he slid headfirst under the water and kicked with his feet until he was completely submerged in ice cold water.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

  4 November, 0130 Hrs

  Asya immediately recognized that the security officers with the glazed over eyes were still breathing. She thought they were dead when she turned on the light. They were sitting in the dark!

  Even now, after she had come into the room and turned on the light, the four beefy, muscular males in darks slacks, shined shoes, white shirts and gold badges on their chests, didn’t move. They sat or slumped in chairs, at desks arrayed around the room. Their eyes were glassy, and they either stared at the screens in front of them or looked off in strange directions around the room like mannequins.

  Their uniforms identified them as a security team working for the lab. Asya held her breath. The men still hadn’t noticed her.

  They must be under control from the light. Lost in bliss.

  Arrayed around the room were twenty flat-screen monitors showing footage-live she guessed-from closed-circuit TV cameras around the facility. On the wall was a hard white plastic floor plan of the lab, with the legend Gleipnir Lab 1. Past the men, she saw a black metal cabinet the size of a closet at the back of the room.

  A weapons locker.

  She debated retreating from the room. Instead, she stayed motionless and continued her own glassy-eyed stare. What will they do? Will they ignore me?

  Then as one, all four men stood abruptly, startling her. They all turned their heads her direction, glaring at her. Like a flock of birds. Like the villagers.

  She froze in place, tensing her muscles, waiting. She knew they would come. She was suddenly glad Rook and Queen were not here. She wouldn’t have to hold back for fear of what they would think of her.

  The bulky men lunged at her all at once.

  The two furthest from her slammed into each other. Their frenzied attempt to get at her in the narrow space between desks was passionate, but uncoordinated. The other two men, one slimmer and the other heavyset, were closer, and they came straight at her. No finesse. No tactics. They just rushed.

  Asya leapt straight up, her knee connecting with the underside of the fat man’s chin. His head ricocheted off her knee with an audible chock. The man fell over backward, slamming his head hard against the wall. Before she could land from the leap, the taller, thinner man was wrapping his arms around her midsection. She thrust her head back, hitting him in the nose, the cartilage snapping and a gush of crimson flooded out of his nostrils, saturating his white shirt and the back of her hair.

  When his grip loosened, Asya swiveled in his arms, facing him. She pushed against the underside of his arms with her hands, and slid down out of his grasp. The man tried to reassert his grip, but she surprised him, by shooting back upward, where he’d held her the moment before. She rammed the flat of her hand into his already injured nose. Blood sprayed. The shattered cartilage drove into his brain, killing him instantly. The man’s body fell away from her as she was tackled from behind.

  Asya turned as she fell to see one of the two remaining guards. They were both big men with Nordic good looks, short blonde hair and glistening gray eyes. Acne marred their otherwise clear skin, which she assumed to be the result of steroid use. She hit the floor by the doorway and rolled in a crouch to her feet.

  The man closer to her took a step forward, lumbering and trancelike.

  Asya darted through his parted legs near the floor, then spun and shot a fist into the man’s groin. He buckled at the blow, but quickly recovered to stand straight up again.

  It’s like they can’t even feel the pain. As she heard the last man step toward her from behind, she realized that she would need to kill these men. There would be no other way to stop them. Her only other choice would be to run.

  And Asya Machtcenko did not run.

  She darted to the side of the man she had hit in the groin. He reached out for her slowly, like the creature in an old Frankenstein film-a large sweeping grab, unfocussed and wild. She got around him, but he had carried the sweeping hand around, and it hit her back, knocking her against the closed door.

  She moved to her left just as the man drove his fist into the door, where she had been seconds before. A solid crunch filled the air. The man broke at least one knuckle. She slipped around the other side of him, and made a run at the second, slower security man still standing.

  Just before she reached him, she stepped up into the air, planted her foot on his thigh and ran up the man’s stomach and chest. She pushed off his broad pectorals and her head and arms shot back toward the door and Frankenstein’s guard. Her body flew horizontal, with her back to the ground, for just a foot before her arms found the lumbering guard’s head and neck. She grasped his thick neck with both hands and as the man that had acted as her ladder came closer, she wrapped her shins on either side of his neck too.

  Together, the three of them formed a human bridge, with each guard acting as the uprights, and Asya stretched from neck to neck as the surface of the bridge. With a sudden and violent shift of her hips, Asya rotated her entire body in a horizontal twist, like a human top that had just been launched at speed. The spinning movement broke the neck of each burly man, before all three of their bodies pitched to the floor. The report of the cervical vertebrae fracturing in stereo was tremendous, and she feared the creatures from the larger room would be coming to investigate.

  Extricating herself from the dead men, she scrambled to her feet. She slipped to the door of the room and opened it just a sliver. Out the crack into the large room, none of the white beasts were making for the security room.

  Good.

  The first man she had hit-the overweight man-began to stir on the floor. Asya lifted her leg, as if she were about to perform a simple ballet move, but then sprang up in the air and landed on the prone fat man’s neck with the bone of her knee and upper shin. The man made a sickening gurgle and grunt when his neck broke, and his eyes bulged from their sockets with the ramming impact of Asya’s entire weight, dropped from a five-foot height.

  She stood again and quickly checked the man whose head had smacked against the stone wall of the room. His skull was cracked. Congealing blood coated the edges of the wound. It looked a brighter red than she would have expected. Like a young girl’s nail polish, thick and glossy. He wouldn’t be rejoining the fight either.

  Asya looked at the live video feeds on the monitors around the room. One showed a room full of people sleeping on beds laid out like in an orphanage. The lab scientists, she assumed. Another showed the glowing sphere in the main room and a few of the creatures sniffing the air around it. Another showed the empty office where she had collected Rook at gunpoint, earlier in the
night.

  She saw more empty storerooms and offices. She had yet to come across tunnels or corridors, though. Some of the cameras showed views of doors outside, leading into the lab. One of those doors was ajar in the snow. She didn’t see any rooms that looked like they might have rope or weapons, so she would check the cabinet at the back of the room next.

  A monitor screen with rows of electrical switchboards caught her eye. The room was filled with thick electrical cables. Another screen showed the entrance to the tunnel where she had taken Rook to the pit. Then she realized something and checked all twenty screens again. Fossen, the man that ran the place, was not on any of the cameras. Neither was Queen. And neither was the entrance to the lab she had used with Rook and Queen. A lot of blind spots in the surveillance. Asya walked over to the plastic map and looked at the floor plan. The tunnel back to the abandoned part of the lab was not even on the schematic.

  She stepped around one man’s extended leg, and made her way to the black cabinet. She opened it slowly and it creaked with a barely audible squeal. Inside were a few of the Walther pistols like the one she had used on Rook, and two AR-15 rifles with black canvas straps. A hook on the inside of the cabinet door held a small hand towel. It smelled of machine oil, but she used it to wipe blood off her face and out of her hair. On the floor of the cabinet was a navy blue nylon bag. She knelt and unzipped it to find a black braided nylon rope.

  Perfect.

  She took the bag and threw it over her shoulder and then put two of the pistols in the pockets of the ridiculous lab coat she wore. She thought of taking the rifles, too, but she didn’t think she could conceal them well enough under the coat and they wouldn’t fit in the bag. She left them and made for the door. On a small hook by the door was a 6-inch plastic-barreled flashlight. She pocketed it in one smooth move.

  Back in the large main lab, she once again skirted the wall in a slow shuffle and made for the tunnel back to Rook, forcing the glazed look back into her eyes. She kept expecting the creatures to see through the ruse. But the beasts ignored her as she walked.