Ibenus (Valducan series)

by Seth Skorkowsky

  The blast from Gregorie's gun nearly made Tommy drop the box again. Had he not been wearing the muffs the sound would have surely deafened him. Limestone chipped a full foot beside the closing insect. Two more shots and the beast fell, legs curling and steam pouring from a hole in its cherub face.

  All at once, a cacophony of cries erupted from the hall. Something moved at the edge of the infrared's light,

  "Go!" Tommy yelled, but Gregorie was already running. Fucking pussy.

  Heaving the box trap in front of him, Tommy ran as fast as he could. Unable to see his feet, he stumbled over the uneven floor, nearly tripping. The cries grew louder.

  Turning, he saw two more of the bugs twenty feet away. Tommy dropped the trap and drew his forty-five. The laser sight came on as he squeezed the handle, its dot a brilliant flare in the night vision. Holding the gun both hands, he zeroed it in on the first creature and fired. The bug exploded in a spray of goo and legs. The other one scrambled to the side, but a second shot sent it tumbling back. It tried to right itself, but the laser found it and the third shot blew it in half.

  The bug in the box was trying to get at his foot through the holes. The tumble had broken one of its legs, now hanging limp, but it didn't seem concerned. Still clutching the gun, Tommy seized the box by the handle and ran.

  Around a corner he saw Gregorie ahead at an intersection. Something flashed in his hands, a brilliant glow, then spewing sparks.

  "Come on!" Gregorie called.

  The heavy box swung with each step, threatening to pull Tommy over.

  "Drop it!"

  Tommy kept running. A thick fog spewed from Gregorie's hand. He hurled a clay smoke bomb down the passage, past Tommy's shoulder, leaving a trail of sulfur-reeking smoke.

  Without a word, Gregorie turned and ran down the right passage. Huffing, Tommy tried to keep up. He tripped. Fingers reflexively tightening, the pistol went off, blasting the wall. He fell over the box, smacking his shin and landing with a painful grunt. The gun skittered away, its laser winking off as it left his hands.

  More cries were coming. His skinned palm stinging, he clambered to his feet. The bug was still banging inside the box. Fuck it. I'll trap another. Not wasting time to find his gun, Tommy ran, limping in the direction Gregorie had fled.

  Sweat ran down his face and neck. It gathered along the goggles' rubber seal beneath his eyes. A terrible clicking was gaining on him but he didn't dare look back.

  Panting, he reached the main tunnel. He turned to see another of the damn bugs just a few feet behind him, beyond that, one of the bladed-armed big ones scuttled along the wall. Ripping the silenced gun from its holster, Tommy shot. Dust and stone chips blasted as he tried to hit the scurrying insect. Finally, on the seventh or eighth shot, he hit it, unleashing a stench like a sun-baking corpse.

  The big monster hissed, its mandibles clacking. More screams came from the distance. Tommy shot it once and ran.

  Faint light moved along the passage ahead beyond a curve. He couldn't get to the bunker without passing whoever was there. The clicking claws were gaining, the screams growing louder. There was no turning back but there was an exit ahead. He just needed to get to it.

  Rounding the curve, silhouettes moved in the glow ahead. One held something long in its hand. A sword?

  He was almost at the turn off. Just a few more yards. The lights came up his direction, but Tommy ducked beneath the rusty pipes, his shoulder slamming the wall as he took the side passage. His side cramped from the running. His aching legs couldn't keep this up for much longer. Almost there.

  The tunnel turned and he splashed through ankle-deep water. Iron rungs protruded from the wall ahead. Salvation.

  Something hit him from behind. Screaming, Tommy fell forward into the cold muddy water. Sharp legs scuttled up his shoulder. Giggling in his left ear. Tommy rolled, sunken rocks digging into his side. The mud had smeared the goggles' lenses. He was blind and the bug clambered across him.

  Arms flailing, he struck the hard carapace. He still had his gun. Tommy grabbed the thing and tore it free, but the spindly legs latched onto his arm.

  Twin needles stabbed his hand with a crunch he felt more than heard. Icy cold shot up his left arm. His fingers twisted as the muscles seized. Roaring in animal fury, Tommy rammed the gun' muzzle into the bug's side and fired, and fired, and fired.

  Bits of leg and shell spattered his face and open mouth. Gun smoke and that god-awful reek filled his lungs. He couldn't feel his arm below the elbow.

  Dropping the gun, Tommy yanked the useless night scope off and clicked his light.

  The creature's severed head was still attached to him, pincers locked onto the side below his little finger. The shell blackened and steamed and Tommy tore it free, ripping his skin, but he couldn't feel anything in his arm.

  Water splashed. Rapid clicking sounded from the blackness. Tuning toward it, the white beam from Tommy's headlamp fell on one of the giant bugs. Pale green traced the edges of each of its body plates. It raised its bladed forelimb like a praying mantis and moved in.

  "Fuck you." Tommy drew the magic kris from his belt and lunged, throwing himself beneath the descending forelimbs. The wavy blade slid up under one of the ventral plates and the monster squealed. Its jaws slammed down on the helmet like a hammer blow, but they didn't break through.

  Tommy yanked the blade half out, unleashing a spray of hot blood, and rammed it in again. Staggering, the beast tried to pull away but Tommy pushed forward, pounding the blade like a jackhammer. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Die!"

  The monster fell backward into the water, but Tommy didn't stop. Straddling it, he drove the blade in as hard as he could, sawing its insides until the creature fell still.

  Tommy pulled the long blade free and stood, panting. It didn't burn like he'd been told, but he'd done it. The thing was dead.

  He spat. "Apex predator, asshole." Tommy sheathed the monster-killing blade back into its scabbard. His hand, his arm, all of him was coated in the creature's sticky blood. He needed to get out of here. Surely the Valducans had heard him.

  The numbness in his left arm extended up to his shoulder blade but the spreading had stopped. He sloshed up to the ladder and looked up. Fifty feet, one-handed. It was the only way out. Tommy gave one final glance back to the monster he'd killed, drew a breath, and began to climb.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "Shh." Malcolm raised a hand, and cocked his head. "You hear that?"

  Victoria stopped, listening. Silence. The soft ping of dripping water. She held her breath. Earlier, the faint, hollow rumble of a subway car had passed overhead. But now, the tunnels were dead silent, save the drips and their breathing. She shared a look with Orlovski and they both shook their heads.

  "What—?" Orlovski started but Malcolm silenced him with a karate-chop motion of his raised hand.

  Victoria continued listening. Slowly, she shifted her weight between her aching feet.

  There! Three faint pops, each no louder than a breaking matchstick, sounded ahead. Shots? Who's shooting? What are they shooting at? The distance was impossible to judge. The mines ate sounds but it couldn't be far.

  Orlovski nodded that he'd heard them, too.

  "All right," Malcolm whispered, clicking off his helmet light. "Hold back forty feet but keep me in view." He transferred the blood compass Matt had given him to his other hand and drew his horn-handled machete. He crept forward. Brick arches ran the length of the tunnel like stone ribs. Malcolm kept to their shadows, the pale dust covering his body added to the camouflage.

  Sliding Ibenus from his scabbard, Victoria waited until Mal neared the edge of their red lights' range, and began to follow, Orlovski beside her. They kept their beams just off Malcolm so as to not silhouette him so much.

  Another shot echoed ahead. Closer.

  Malcolm crouched at an intersection and waited for them to catch up. Once they were on him, he ducked beneath a bundle of rusty pipes
and started up a square tunnel as wide as a street.

  Shouts came from ahead. A figure came around the corner, sprinting toward them. A pair of blocky night goggles with a single jutting tube in the middle covered his lean face.

  "Courir! Courir!" the man shouted, waving an arm, the other shielding his eyes from their lights. The blued metal of a revolver glinted in his hand, though he wasn't pointing it at them.

  Malcolm stepped out before him, machete raised and left palm out front. "Arret!"

  The stranger yelped and jumped back in surprise, nearly falling. Malcolm thrust his palm out harder. "Look!"

  Panting, the man looked at the hand, then at Victoria and Orlovski closing in.

  "He's clean." Malcolm lowered his palm. "Ah! Ah!" he said as the man moved the hand clutching the pistol.

  The man froze. Malcolm pointed to the floor and the man carefully set the pistol down. He peeled off the night scope. Dusty curls of hair framed his face.

  "We need to run," the man said in heavily accented English. He looked back over his shoulder. "They're coming."

  "What is?" Malcolm asked.

  "Monsters. Bugs."

  "Where did you get that?" Victoria motioned to the pistol.

  Faint baby cries echoed in the distance.

  The man looked back. "We must go."

  "The gun, the goggles, where did you get them?" Victoria asked.

  "Tommy."

  "Tommy?"

  A half-dozen pops sounded up the hall, sounding like pneumatic hammer.

  "That's a silenced pistol," Orlovski said, taking a step forward.

  "Tommy? Where is he?" Victoria demanded.

  The cries were growing louder.

  "Back there," the man said. "He's crazy."

  "There!" Malcolm pointed down the hall.

  Victoria looked, but saw nothing. More wails sounded.

  Shoes scraped on rock. She spun back to see the cataphile running away. "Stop!"

  She started after him, but Mal touched her arm. "No."

  "But he knows where TommyD is."

  "And he said he was this way." He picked up the revolver.

  Tightening her lips, Victoria glanced back, but the cataphile was gone. "Bollocks."

  Weapons out, they hurried down the passage. Malcolm motioned toward a hallway on the right side.

  "I saw something through there."

  Clicking sounded further ahead, followed by a child's laugher. Victoria raised Ibenus as a mantismere and three screamers rounded the tunnel only a few yards ahead.

  "Close up," Malcolm ordered, taking a step back. They formed a triangle with Orlovski at the right and Victoria at the left.

  One of the screamers skittered up the wall and jumped, jaws wide. Malcolm threw up his hand and the creature slammed backwards as if it had struck an invisible wall. The other two scuttled around, one moving behind the dusty pipes while another charged toward Victoria's feet.

  She swung Ibenus down to meet it. Air whooshed in her ears with an instant's weightlessness and she was beside it, the descending bronze blade cleaving it in two. Inky blood squirted across the ground. Screaming, the half-bug tried to crawl with its remaining forelegs. It rolled its head up, jaws open, then fell still and began spewing steam.

  Three loud pops echoed from the tunnel beside them.

  Victoria turned as the mantismere lunged toward her, its twin blades stretched before it.

  Malcolm dove between her and the beast, his palm raised. The demon hissed, recoiling from the palm tattoo and Malcolm sprang toward it, Hounacier arcing down at the monster's head.

  The beast dodged to the side, one of its saber arms deflecting the machete's blade. Malcolm ducked as the second arm swung at him. The beast corrected its miss and brought the blade back up, but Orlovski charged in, slashing his kukri up beneath the arm with a hard crack. Hissing, the beast stumbled to the side, blood spurting from beneath its limp, useless arm.

  Victoria was about to go in for a killing stroke but something moved at the corner of her eye. A screamer hurried along the pipe behind Orlovski, its shadow long in her head-lamps beam. "Behind you." She sprang toward it, swinging Ibenus. A whoosh and she was there, her blade coming down in front of the springing insect. While she didn't cut it, Orlovski managed to get out of the way before it could hit him. It landed on the floor, long legs scrambling away as both their blades came down just a moment too late.

  The mantismere let out a rattling hiss and swiped at Malcolm again. Blocking it with his machete, he brought his boot up and kicked the beast square in the abdomen. It stumbled back and Orlovski slammed Amballwa into its side, tearing an enormous gash. He was out and away before it could turn on him.

  Malcolm edged in for another attack.

  "Look out," Victoria called, swiping Ibenus down on another screamer moving up behind Malcolm.

  Mal threw his hand out and the little beast shrank back, stopping long enough for Ibenus to chop it down. More putrid stream filled the hall. Eyes watering, she turned to see Orlovski lunge, ramming his kukri into the mantismere's back. One of its smaller, clawed arms scratched blindly back, slapping him.

  Malcolm brought Hounacier down onto the demon's neck with a bone-like crunch. Blue fire erupted from its wounds and the beast fell. The last of the screamers, circling around behind Orlovski withered.

  Coughing and panting, Orlovski yanked Amballwa free. "Everyone okay?"

  "Yeah," Victoria said, trying not to breathe through her nose. In the light of the blue fire, she noticed a notch in Ibenus' blade where he had hit a rock cleaving the last screamer. "Shit."

  "Battle wound," Malcolm said. "We all get them. Kill a demon and it'll mend." He ducked beneath the pipes and started down the side passage. "Come on."

  Victoria touched the rounded portion where the blade curled back. I'm sorry. Clenching her jaw, she ducked and followed.

  Icy fire danced along Hounacier's bloodied blade. Holding it up like a torch, Malcolm led them down a narrow corridor. If a demon was ahead they'd have to fight it one at a time. Victoria kept special attention to their rear. The all-too familiar stench of rot they'd just escaped grew stronger as they moved deeper. Malcolm stopped at an intersection, sniffed, and headed down the side hall.

  The stink was worse here. It felt oily in the catacombs' unmoving air, a greasy film that soaked into her hair, clothes, and skin. Mal's foot splashed ahead and soon Victoria was sloshing through cold, ankle-deep water as Orlovski strolled atop it like Tactical Jesus.

  "Hello there," Malcolm said.

  Coming around a corner, she spied a corpse. A dead manstismere lay on its back, a wide cut in its pale stomach. The sharp edges of its form had softened; its head widening at the jaws, the saber limbs shorter, with ridges resembling fused, elongated fingers as the blades. Its plated chest bulged slightly, a pair of faint nipples beginning to peek through. The transformation was fast compared to what she'd witnessed before, her first time in a filthy Manchester building as her partner bled out. Black steam boiled out from the bloody water. Bits of rotting meat and screamer legs splattered the walls.

  "Why isn't it burning?" she asked.

  "Killed the body but not the demon." Malcolm looked up a series of bent rungs. High above, a half-crescent of night sky shone through an open manhole.

  "What could do that?"

  "Umatri," Orlovski said. "Bastard managed to stab it."

  "But I thought he couldn't kill it. Did he bond?"

  "No." The Russian picked something out from the corner. "If he had bonded, the soul would burn." He lifted up a black pistol. Muddy water ran from the handle and familiar square suppressor. "In case we doubted it was him." He cleared the filthy gun and shoved it into his pack. "Fucked but salvageable."

  Malcolm sheathed Hounacier and started up the rungs. "He couldn't have gotten far."

  An infant's wail sounded in the distance behind them.

  "There's more of them." Victoria li
fted Ibenus and faced the passage.

  "Mal," Orlovski said.

  "He's getting away," Malcolm hissed, fifteen feet up the ladder.

  "You want to run through the streets dressed like this, searching for him?" Victoria asked. "The demons are here."

  "He has Umatri."

  "And we'll get him back."

  More sobs joined the first, growing louder.

  "She's right," Orlovski said. "If those demons see their burning friends they'll bolt. This is the closest we've been to finding the eel."

  Malcolm stopped. "And this is the closest we've been to TommyD."

  "Don't worry. TommyD's mine," Victoria said. "Just not now."

  Malcolm was silent for a moment, then gave a frustrated growl and started back down. Eyes blazing with anger, he drew Hounacier and moved to the front. "Then let's get to it."

  They moved down the hall, back toward the main passage, the distorted cries becoming clearer with each step.

  Orlovski drew his pistol and cocked the hammer. "I want to take the minions out fast so they can't swarm us."

  Pale firelight flickered along the walls ahead. Long, spidery shadows skittered past. Malcolm rounded the final turn and the crying erupted into a wave of screams. Mal threw out his palm and charged, Victoria on his heels. A pair of cowering screamers backed away, one not fast enough as Mal slashed Hounacier, chopping off one of its pincers. Oily blood dribbled from the stump. It shrieked, loud and terrible, but was cut off as Mal's boot stomped down, spewing guts across the stone.

  The hunters scooted under the pipes into the wide passage, the air still thick with dark, rank steam. Four screamers circled, hopping along the walls and floor. Victoria stepped toward the closest, but Orlovski took it out with a pair of rapid shots.

  "There!" Mal shouted, pointing his blade. Further up the hall, a mantismere retreated around a bend.

  Orlovski's pistol fired twice more, one shot pinging off a pipe. A screamer scrambled to get behind them but a third shot sent it to the floor, legs curled and blackening.

  Not wishing to damage Ibenus by chopping at the screamers along the stone walls, Victoria drew her pistol. Sword in one hand, and gun in the other, she swung, blinked, and shot one that charged Orlovski from behind.