The camera continued down, moving past the visible walls. Almost twenty meters. He held out a hand, signaling Gerhard to stop.
He was about to ask if it was enough but Victoria's panicked voice came through. "Shit! Allan, they're coming!"
A cacophony of screaming infants erupted up the shaft, distorted by echoes. Then they appeared, pouring around the sides and up the tube's walls like frenzied ants, mandibles clacking from their hard emotionless mouths.
"I can see two mantismeres," Sam said, her voice unsettlingly calm.
Orlovski sheathed his kukri, drew his pistol, and started firing with metronome timing. Pop… Pop… Pop. Even suppressed the shots were loud enough to make Allan wince. The Russian didn't seem to notice. Bullets ripped through the ranks, shattering their child-like faces and sending bugs toppling back down the pit as more surged past them.
"Circle up!" Allan ordered. He drew his own pistol. The other hand braced it, holding the light as he shined it down. The closing wave was like a single boiling thing. Unable to focus on just one, he fired at the mob. His shots chipped up brick and wounded several, but nothing like Orlovski's methodical precision.
Gerhard dropped the line, sending one of the screamers crawling up it into the pit. Umatri's sheath rattled and shook, the writhing blade desperate for blood. He drew his pistol and began firing. His shots, like Allan's, were a wild hailstorm of bullets. Luc moved beside him, his own pistol out.
A hot shell, ejected by Luc's pistol, bounced off Allan's vest. His own shells were pelting Orlovski, but the Russian didn't react.
Orlovski's gun clicked empty. Keeping his aim on the monsters, he ejected the mag, letting it fall, and slapped a fresh one in. He resumed his firing, the screamers now just fifteen feet below them, when a mantismere swung out over the edge below. It charged upwards, its blade-like claws moving up either side of the tunnel. The dark steam from the dead screamers billowed up the shaft, making it difficult to see.
"There's a third one," Sam said.
Orlovski fired at the demon, taking it once in the head and once in the back. The holes closed as fast as they opened. "Silver with quartz tips." He ejected the nearly full mag and glanced at the next before loading it in. "Brass with blue spinel." He fired twice more but to the same result as Luc peppered it with his own ineffective shots.
"Camera's out," Sam said.
I think I shot it. Allan's eyes watered with the incredible and growing stink. It was like looking down a chimney. He prayed he didn't get sick inside the mask. His gun clicked empty. He jammed it into the holster and drew Ibenus. "There's too many!"
Luc grunted and shot a screamer just a foot below the edge before his own pistol's slide locked back. He drew Velnepo and glanced over at the giant boiler.
"Door," Allan said, guessing the big man's intent.
Gerhard and Orlovski's loud shots filled the brick room, blocking out the insects' wails as Luc turned to the boiler.
He slammed the mace down on the top of the square, cast-iron door. The boiler rang like a muted gong as the now bent door broke free of its topmost hinge. Taking hold of it in one hand, Luc swung the Velnepo into the bottom of the awkwardly-hanging door, knocking the other hinge free with another clang. Despite his hold, Luc stumbled, nearly dropping the door as the full weight came down.
The mantismere reached the top. Mouth wide and hissing, it lunged out the last foot toward Gerhard. The German fell backward dropping his gun as he clawed for his keris. Allan hacked with Ibenus, taking the monster in the shoulder and under the neck. The demon fell, barely missing the second one halfway up the tunnel. Blue fire ignited at the bottom, silhouetting the approaching horde in flickering light. A trio of screamers curled and fell at the demon's demise, their steam adding to the thickening cloud.
Dropping Velnepo in his belt ring, Luc seized the door in both hands, lifted it above his head, and hurled it down the pit. It tumbled as it went, chipping bricks and smashing or knocking bugs free. The mass of metal and carcasses slammed into the closing demon, sweeping it down in the wave.
Orlovski shot the last of the still-clinging screamers and a moment's silence fell. Allan's ears hummed from the shots. Then the wailing began again, but far less than it had been. Luc helped Gerhard to his feet. Both held their holy weapons ready.
"Boss," Sam said. "We could hear your shots up here. Police are going to get called."
Clenching his jaw, Allan peered down the smoky, blue-lit tunnel. One screamer was circling the bottom, but wasn't coming up. "We aren't equipped for this. Fall back to the van."
Chapter Twelve
Allan sipped his lukewarm tea. On the giant monitor, screamers surged toward the camera, their infant-like faces glowing green, appearing to float in the infrared, their eyes empty pits of blackness. Behind them, two mantismeres clambered into view, holding back as their minions led the assault. One walked upright along the floor. The other scuttled along the arched ceiling like the mewling soldiers. The camera jostled and began to spin slowly as they moved past, knocking into it. Then the broken limbs and steaming carcasses began raining down as Orlovski opened fire above.
He thumbed the button on the oval remote, pausing the video as the camera dropped. "The first two we caught completely off guard inside the building," he said, standing beside the wall screen like a professor. "However the nest was far larger than we'd imagined. Three more were downstairs and attempted an ambush in case we tried to follow them into the catacombs."
"Are you sure there were only three more?" Master Schmidt asked. He sat in the middle of the front row between Luc and Master Turgen. The rest of the knights filled the briefing room, eyes on Allan.
Allan nodded to Sam, seated to Victoria's right.
"That's all we saw before the camera went out," Sam replied. The dark circles beneath her eyes made her appear ten years older. She'd plowed through footage and archive records all night as Orlovski had driven them from Paris back to Brussels.
"Whether there's more or not, they likely won't return to the house." Allan clicked the remote and the screen changed to a map of Paris with an overlay of winding paths and blobs in glowing yellow. "We think the mantismeres have been using the old Roman limestone quarry beneath the city. The abandoned apartment was simply a convenient access to the surface, but there's hundreds more. Between the mines, the sewers, and the subways, the catacomb tunnels extend for over two hundred miles, with hundreds of potential accesses to the city."
Master Turgen squeezed his chin between thumb and forefinger, eyes intent on the screen, almost looking through it. "And there's been no other reports but the one that led us there?"
Allan hit the button again. Slideshow images of spray-painted tunnels, lit by flashlights and candles began scrolling past. "Not that we've found. I suspect the demons have been feeding on cataphiles, the people who live and explore down there. They could feed and possess them as much as they want and no one would even notice them gone. There's a small police unit that patrols the catacombs, terribly inadequate for its sheer size. If the demons avoid them, they could live down there indefinitely."
Turgen nodded, but more to himself than to Allan. "Do you suspect an eel?" There it was, the million pound question. All eyes locked on Allan.
"I do."
A collective weight settled over the room, everyone's unspoken suspicions now voiced and now real with Allan's affirmation. Two years before, after Anya had orchestrated the deaths of over three dozen hunters, destroyed twenty-seven holy weapons, burned the Valducans' home, and nearly wiped the entire archive, she'd offered herself to become the body of Tiamat. In the brief time the Mother of Demons was flesh, she'd birthed a half-dozen flying eels. Each eel, ten feet long and wearing Anya's face, served as a nexus demon. Each victim they bit became possessed with a new demonic spirit unique to that eel. Mantismeres were one of those breeds, and if they didn't find and eliminate that eel soon it could unleash hundreds, maybe thousands, of mantismeres onto t
he world. Eels were considered top priority. So far they'd killed only two.
"The concentration of them is too high," Allan continued. "Mantismeres have only been found in Europe so it's likely still here."
Master Turgen's chair creaked as he leaned back into the leather, his posture straightening, seeming to regain that hardness Allan remembered. "Very well. Do any of our knights have experience in the catacombs?"
"Well," Allan said, "last expedition down there was in 2009. Out of that team Malcolm Romero is the only one still alive."
"Call him— No. I'll call him," Turgen said. "I'll tell him to come at once."
Sam perked up a little, a slight smile to the edge of her lips.
"Are you sure he'll come?" Luc asked.
The old man nodded. "I have no doubt."
"Who's Malcolm?" Victoria whispered to Sam but the whole room could hear.
"Mal?" Sam asked, still grinning. "Oh you'll love him."
"He went native," Orlovski said. "Got engaged, too."
Sam's eyes darted toward the Russian, skewering him with a sharp shush.
Allan couldn't help but smile himself. If they could get Malcolm, then they might even be able to pull this off. He was as stone-cold as they came, a natural leader and fiercely protective of his teammates. He'd stepped down as Team Leader a year before, went independent, a Valducan in little more than name.
Master Schmidt hadn't taken his eyes off the flipping slideshow. "Before Doctor Romero arrives, I want everyone to read the report from his mission into the catacombs. We'll find out what supplies he'll require and procure them at once."
Orlovski leaned over and whispered something in Luc's ear.
"We'll need to practice close quarter drills," Chaya muttered to Schmidt. "Attach tac lights to sidearms."
Master Turgen cleared his throat. "I'd like to announce that Gerhard Entz has chosen to join us."
Gerhard gave a small nod as the knights congratulated him, their moods a little less than enthusiastic at the moment.
"Welcome aboard," Allan said, clapping his hands. Gerhard hadn't spoken the entire ride back. Allan had mistakenly assumed the silence meant that the German was going to bolt the moment his week was up. Technically that was today.
"Tomorrow night we'll hold the ceremony to officially induct our newest knight into the Order. I will need to speak with some of you privately beforehand about your duties. Until then, many of you are understandably exhausted. Rest up. We have much to do in the next few days."
#
Ice clacked as Victoria sipped her drink, vodka and orange Fanta. Sam had named it Funta, because it's fun. On the giant screen before them, an elf with impossible pigtails hacked her purple-glowing sword at a grunting orc, vaporizing it in a burst of sparks. The elf charged deeper into a cavernous tunnel, lit with wall-mounted torches. Caverns…tunnels…"There's no way we can scour two hundred miles of catacombs, not if they're trying to hide."
Sam let out a breathy growl. "I told you," she said killing another orc, this time with some discus boomerang, "no talking about work. It's a night off. I didn't get one after the last job so I'm taking full advantage of this one."
"Sorry." Victoria sipped more of her Funta, trying to just let it go as Sam seemed to have. It wasn't working. "How do you do it?"
"What? The jump throw? It's all in the reflexes," she added in vaguely masculine voice, presumably an impersonation but Victoria didn't recognize it.
"No. How do you sit there so calm while the others are screaming and getting hurt and you can't do anything about it but listen?"
"Oh." Sam kept playing her game, jumping over a pit of spikes and snatching a floating crystal.
"Sorry," Victoria said, once it was clear she'd again spoiled her friend's down time.
"No." Sam paused the game and set the controller in her lap. "I get it." She picked her own drink off the desk of the empty chair beside hers and knocked it back. "It sucks. I once watched Taras get shot. Twice. They'd set up a camera in front of this house and they were coming around a corner chasing the target. I saw the shooter but…" She shook her head. "His cry came through my radio as it hit him. All I could do was just sit and watch him bleeding out. Mal's yelling at me to keep listening to the scanner and watch the other cameras and Taras is just dying right there in front of me. I just wanted to start the car, drive up there, bring a med kit, anything but sit there."
"What did you do?"
"Stayed put. Followed orders."
Victoria imagined herself in that situation, Allan dying on the screen as she watched, unable to go to him, unable to help him. "How? How could you stay there?"
"It's what we do. If I hadn't, I'd have missed the scanner call. Police would have come, found us." She finished her drink. "I hated Mal at the time. But he made the right call. Our job is as critical as theirs. If we lose our cool it can spiral out of control. So we have to stay calm, calmer than them, so that they can stay calm. Got it? We have to be their rock."
That image of Allan dying still kept playing in Victoria's head, but she nodded.
"The worst is the silence, though." The leather seat creaked as Sam got up and carried he glass to the refreshment table. She scooped ice out of a polished copper ice bucket before pouring a healthy amount of Norwegian vodka. "When you're blind and can hear them fighting and yelling, then it all goes quiet and you're just…waiting. Your brain starts running wild. Is anyone hurt? Is someone dead? That's when it fucks with you." The liter Fanta bottle hissed as Sam unscrewed it. She poured a dash in, not much more than to add color, then stirred the cocktail.
"I can imagine."
Sam picked the wireless controller back up and returned to her seat. "That answer your question?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Now, no more shop talk for the night." She held up her glass. "Agreed?"
Victoria clinked her empty glass against it. "Agreed." She rose and refreshed her drink as the redhead continued her game. Sam wrenched the controller up, as if the movement might transfer and help her character leap over a chasm.
After another round of drinks and mild increase in Sam's elf dying, Allan strolled in through the briefing room door. A slight flush brightened his cheeks and he carried an open champagne bottle in one hand.
"That's an interesting look," Victoria said, eyeing the strange ensemble–engraved breastplate, tall boots, and vibrant blue cape that matched the sash beneath his belt.
"You like it?" He gave a flourish, tossing the cape back over one shoulder, allowing full view of Ibenus on his hip. Instead of the usual black nylon scabbard, the sword rested within a dark leather one tooled with Egyptian hieroglyphs and accented in matching bronze.
"You look like you should be in this thing," Sam said, nodding to the screen.
"Don't be jealous. You'll have one soon enough."
"Yeah, but mine will have boobs."
He grinned. "But what will you put in them?"
Sam shot him a cold glare, eyebrow cocked. Then she glanced down at her T-shirt and shrugged. "Gotta get `em somehow."
"Well, I think you look rather smart," Victoria said.
"Thank you." He held out the green fat-bottomed bottle, beads of condensation glinting across its surface. "Care for some?"
She motioned to her glass, still a quarter full of funta. "Need a new glass."
"Who needs a glass?" Sam extended her hand, wiggling her fingers.
"We are cultured people here." Allan tipped the bottle up, taking a draw before offering it over to Sam.
Victoria tapped her chin. "Is that a bacterial culture or fungal?"
"Why not both?" Allan said. "We make no prejudices."
Sam knocked it back, then came up sputtering. "Bubbles," she coughed, then offered it to Victoria. "So ceremony over, where's Taras?"
"He should be up soon."
"Good."
Victoria sipped the cold champagne, enjoying the fizz play across her tongue
. She looked over as Allan lowered into the seat beside her. "Aren't you hot in that?"
"A bit." He tapped the breastplate. "But I so rarely get to wear it. Last time was…Matt and Luiza's wedding. Chaya was knighted before she came over. So, two years." A tinge of sadness crept into his voice as his eyes momentarily dulled. "Too long."
She offered him the bottle.
Allan accepted it, lifted it in a mild toast, but didn't drink. "So what have you ladies been up to?"
"You're looking at it," Victoria said, motioning her head toward the video game and drink table. "So how did the knighting go?"
"Good. Very good. Gerhard has come around very well, all things considered. The both of you were instrumental in that. None of us will forget it."
"Great," Sam said. "Payback begins when you stop talking about work. Got it?"
Allan looked over at her, seeming a bit taken aback.
Victoria mouthed, Night off, and he opened his hand in surrender.
The door opened and Orlovski strode in. He'd already traded the armor and cape for a bright blue and white jersey emblazoned with a two-headed bird. Though he still wore the dark trousers and riding boots. He gave Victoria and Allan a simple nod, poured himself a funta and plopped down beside Sam. "You haven't made it out of the temple yet?"
"Stuck on the last part. I can't find the bloody key."
"It's easy. Just go back to the idol room."
After a quarter hour of watching Sam play as Orlovski backseat drove, Allan tapped Victoria's shoulder. She turned. He inquisitively raised an eyebrow and motioned his nose toward the door.
The corner of her lip tightened into a smile and she nodded. Bidding the two goodnight, they quietly made their retreat, leaving the two to their games.
"You read my mind," Victoria whispered once the door had closed behind them.
"It's a knight's job to read their student."
"I thought a student's job was to read their master."
"It goes both ways, I suppose. Whatever the case, if tonight's supposed to be a break, last thing I want to be doing is staring at a screen. I get that enough."
Ibenus (Valducan series) Page 14
