Labyrinth

by James Axler

  It was so far away.

  Mebbe thirty-five feet separated Bob and Enid’s demon from the companions.

  It was hard for any of them to believe that the time to react had already long passed.

  But it had.

  Before Jak could unleash the flamethrower’s destructive power, the trannie launched itself at them. It was all Jak, Doc, Mildred and Krysty could do to dive and fall out of the way, and flatten themselves against the floor.

  The wind of its passing buffeted them. Its horn points screeched across the concrete.

  The trannie was traveling so fast it couldn’t change its trajectory. It was twenty feet down the corridor beyond them before it could land, brake on the wet floor with its back legs, turn and jump again.

  Mildred rolled up with her revolver, leaving her torch on the ground where she’d dropped it. Diving away, the others had let their torches fall, too, and the resulting low angle of light cut visibility by a third.

  She knew it was coming, and she knew she might not be able to see it before it was on top of her. From a solid, kneeling position, she held the ZKR raised and braced with her free hand. She had no plan; all she had were her reflexes and skill, both honed to Olympic silver-medal caliber. Mildred didn’t see the onrushing target as much as she sensed it, flying high and tight along the ceiling. The custom wheelgun bucked in her hands as she got off a single snapshot. A finger of flame bloomed from the muzzle and an earsplitting thunderclap exploded in the tight space.

  The shadow zipped past.

  Over her shoulder, in the dim light, she saw Doc knocked backward, off his feet, and slammed to the floor, his prized Le Mat skittering away into the dark.

  Doc clutched at his stomach with both hands, moaning.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  J.B. watched Ryan’s bobbing torchlight fade, becoming fainter and fainter until it vanished down the slope below. His own torch was propped up against the inside of the turbine housing, casting stark, leaping shadows over the huge blades and their supporting axle.

  There wasn’t much room to move. The available space consisted of a scant triangle of open area, its apex at the axle, and sides drawn by the edges of the fan blades. To fit inside, J.B. had to kneel, bent over, with his shoulders twisted sideways, parallel to the channel.

  Jubilee was a lot smaller, but she had a baby in her belly, which limited her mobility. Hunched over, holding on to her knees in the narrow space, she was no more comfortable than he was. In the light of the torch, she looked even younger than her thirteen years.

  The sounds of violent, strangled wretching echoed from the intake side of the turbine. Back there in the dark, it sounded like the demon was turning its stomach inside out over its helpless victim.

  Jubilee shed no tears for Pilgrim Wicklaw, her ex-husband and the father of her baby. Why should she cry over that blackheart bastard? J.B. thought. He noted there were no tears on her part, period. Not for herself, or for her unborn child. The girl sat on the floor of the housing, her eyes closed tight. From her pallor, she was in deep shock. Her former husband’s blood had drizzled onto her face and down the front of her robe. She breathed raggedly through her mouth, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

  The girl was in a bad way.

  J.B. tried to see between the fan blades that were all that stood between him the creature still noisily puking buckets of acid. The glare of light from his torch made it impossible; he could see only pitch-blackness. He shifted the Smith to his left hand, shaking a cramp out of his right, surprised to discover that he was squeezing the pistol butt that hard.

  At extreme close range, the .38 caliber wheelgun packed plenty of knockdown power. Even against a demon. Because it was going to have to crawl into the turbine to attack them, J.B. figured he had a pretty good chance of doing it some serious, brain-splattering damage. No matter how fast and dangerous the thing was in the channel, it was going to have to stick its head between the blades.

  J.B. didn’t like the idea of Ryan doing the channel recce alone, and going so lightly armed. He would have preferred to do the scouting, himself. If he had gone through the turbines first, instead of Ryan, the job would have fallen to him. And he wouldn’t have been left behind, protecting the girl. Even though the toughest survived in Deathlands, he wouldn’t have left the girl behind.

  With a long, guttural moan, the demon stopped its wretching over Pilgrim Wicklaw.

  Except for the hissing of the torch and the wheeze of Jubilee’s breathing, there was silence. Horrible silence.

  J.B. strained to hear what he knew he would hear—scraping sounds, followed by silence.

  Then more scraping. Much closer.

  Razor-sharp claws grated on smooth concrete. Something was bounding through the dark, in great, distance-devouring leaps.

  “Wh-what n-now?” Jubilee whispered to him.

  “Shh,” he said.

  J.B. didn’t know “What now?” because he couldn’t be sure what the demon was going to do next. Whether it would give up the hunt because of the fan that stood in its way, and the close quarters it was going to have to negotiate, or whether it would try to climb over the steel barrier, or push it out of the way; in either case, J.B. was going to have room to aim and fire. And either way the girl was in position to get out of the housing and survive, at least in the short term.

  When the scraping stopped, the clicking began. Sharp. Metallic. It was very close, and very loud. Its vibrations penetrated the housing floor and, J.B. had no doubt, the channel walls as well. Not human, definitely not human, but intelligent just the same. The clicking was a code understood only by other demons. A code repeating its message of territory and blood over and over again.

  Jubilee reached out and caught hold of his arm, squeezing it hard and digging in with her nails.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “I want you to stay as still as you can, now. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  He pointed to the far side of the turbine, the side that Ryan had exited through. “Can you get out that way in a hurry if I tell you to?”

  Jubilee looked at the triangular gap between the blades in front of her. “Uh-huh, I think so.”

  “Don’t move until I say so,” he told her. “But when I give you the word, I want you to get out of here quick and run. I want you run as fast as you can until you meet up with Ryan. Everything’s going to be all right if you just do what I say.”

  Despite his assurances to the girl, J.B. didn’t really know that everything was going to be okay if she bolted from cover when they came under attack. But he was damned sure that things were going to go very badly in the turbine if the demon climbed inside.

  J.B. turned back toward the clicking. The gaps between the fan blades that faced him were all black. All but one.

  It was reddish brown.

  A demon face looked in at him.

  J.B. brought up the Smith & Wesson in a blur, but before he could fire double-action, his target was gone.

  Just like that.

  Its after-image swam before his eyes—spiky clumped hairs on an obscenely flat head; black, gleaming eyes as big as his balled fists; rows of black-edged teeth dripping with yellow bile.

  The acrid stench of fresh vomit wafted into the housing.

  The demon was on the other side of the turbine fan, calmly considering its options. Whether to jump in after them or not.

  “What is it?” Jubilee said to J.B.’s back.

  “Get ready.”

  The clicking shut off and there was another scraping sound. Talons on concrete. The demon had made a jump. After a few seconds of silence, J.B. heard another scrape, much farther away.

  He knew from the greedy, hungry look he’d seen in the demon’s eyes that it wasn’t giving up on them. Whatever the radblazes it was doing, it wasn’t giving up.

  J.B. held the Smith’s sights on the gap where the creature had last appeared, thumbed back the hammer and let his finger curl tightly around the trigger
. “Come on, you ugly puking bastard,” he said to the darkness. “Time to eat some lead.”

  When the demon came, it came hard and head-on.

  The turbine housing jolted from the tremendous, battering-ram impact. The jarring shock and clanging noise stunned J.B. right down to the soles of his feet. He felt like he was the one who’d hit a wall.

  His propped-up torch fell over and rolled away. He fumbled for it and picking it up, held it in front of him, low to the ground.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  The bottom edge of the fan blade was bent in a good foot. It was the blade’s weakest spot, and the demon had hit it dead center, hurtling out of the dark like a rocket. To twist the forged steel out of shape required awesome power, and even more awesome determination. The shock mounting of the demon’s brain allowed it to withstand full force, head-on collisions.

  And come back for more.

  Outside the turbine, claws scraped as the demon jumped away, preparing for another ramming.

  The Armorer braced himself with both hands this time.

  The impact shook the housing and its occupants to the core. It made the fan blade groan as it was driven in yet another foot.

  The demon wasn’t trying to turn the blade on its axle, either because its body wasn’t built to perform that kind of task, or because it knew better than to expose any part of itself to blasterfire from within. It didn’t need to turn the blade if it could bend it far enough out of the way.

  There was no guarantee that it would bash out its brains before that happened.

  “Run!” J.B. told the girl. When she didn’t move, he grabbed her by the arm and shook her. “Run!”

  Jubilee cleared the housing an instant before the demon gave the fan yet another full-out slam.

  This time the blade bent from higher up, from closer to the axle. On the next collision, J.B. knew the beast was going to be under its curled edge and in his lap.

  “Ryan!” he shouted down the channel, as the demon jumped away, readying itself for another go. It wasn’t a cry for help. J.B. knew there was no help to be had, not from anywhere. He was inches, maybe seconds away from a most terrible death. It was a cry of warning to his friend that something bad was coming his way.

  Something triple bad.

  When the demon hit the blade again, its head and shoulders popped through the gap it had created. Snarling, snapping, slashing with its claws, it thrust itself forward.

  J.B. backed away on his knees, twisting sideways and off balance, firing the Smith again and again.

  AS THE SOUND OF GUNSHOTS rang out, Ryan dashed from the channel’s end, and sprinted up the long, steep slope. No way would he leave his oldest friend and battle companion to die alone. Not while he still had bullets, blade and breath. As he vaulted over the locked hatch in the floor, something moved thirty feet in front of him, fast and low to the ground.

  He skidded to a stop. Bracing the Astra’s butt against the heel of his left hand that held the torch, he took aim at the shadowy form.

  The demon pulled its trigger before Ryan could pull his. Leaping flat against the wall and springing off it in a blur, it landed ten feet closer to him and on his weak side, the torch side.

  It was the size of a large dog.

  Thinking he had caught it flatfooted, Ryan swung his sights around.

  And it vanished again.

  He whirled, following the scraping noise its claws made on the concrete, and picked up sight of it at once. It had landed closer to him still, in his blind spot on the left.

  Blind spot no more.

  Ryan squared off with the crouching demon, holding the muzzle of his weapon pointed slightly down, and not aimed directly at the thing. The creature gave him a full-frontal view, offering up its narrowest silhouette and the smallest possible target.

  It didn’t jump away from him. Instead, it raised itself up to its full height, which was about four feet from the floor. Its back was rounded, appearing almost hunched, and it was made up of interlocking armor plates. Standing on its rear legs, it used the edges of their horns to strop the matching rows of prongs along its middle legs.

  Quick, precise strokes.

  Not the act of a creature that felt it was in any danger.

  Ryan backed up, figuring that every step added a fraction of a second to the time he had to react.

  The demon gave him a sidelong look, cocking its head. Curious. Contemptuous. Then it followed after Ryan, moving one leg at a time, with exaggerated, even palsied slowness.

  Was it mocking him?

  Ryan sensed the hatch in the floor before his foot hit it and detoured around it.

  The creature stalked him like he was something soft, toying with him, teasing him.

  Ryan swung up the .380, trying to take advantage of the larger target being offered.

  The demon jumped away, bouncing off the wall, hitting the floor and jumping again.

  No way could Ryan track it, let alone hold a lead on it as it zigzagged around the dark channel. Giving something that fast 360 degrees of attack was a tinhorn mistake. And Ryan was no tinhorn. He started backing up toward the wall behind him.

  The creature stopped its elaborate jumping-bean act. It alighted beside the hatch, watching him retreat.

  Arrogant.

  Supremely confident.

  Ryan pressed his back to the concrete wall. Whatever stand he was going to make, he’d make it here, and now. He let the torch drop from his hand. It rolled against the foot of the wall. Keeping track of the demon over the Astra’s sights, he quickly reached down and drew his panga from its leg sheath.

  As the long blade scraped free of the leather scabbard, Ryan heard another gunshot. This one a muffled, flat crack through the floor. It sounded like a .38, but it wasn’t J.B.

  The demon didn’t flinch at the sudden noise. It was too hard-focused on its prey. Head lowered, body lowered, it began to close in, preparing to spring.

  From the turbine end of the passage came an explosion of rattling noise. Like buzz saws slicing into unanchored sheet steel. Then the buzz saws clashed together. Blades screaming. Grating. Shattering apart.

  Whatever the racket was, it made the demon pause in its attack. And held its attention for a fraction of a second longer than it did Ryan’s.

  Ryan recognized the opportunity he’d been waiting for and without hesitation seized it. With the Astra aimed at the creature’s left eye, he fired his first shot and rode the sharp little buck of its recoil back onto the target. The hollowpoint round struck well behind the huge eye because by the time the bullet arrived, the demon was already moving to the right. The bullet entered the back of its head and clipped off a saucer-sized chunk of skull.

  The impact must have stunned the demon, because though it continued to glide to the right, it did so almost lazily, carelessly, and best of all, it didn’t jump, which allowed Ryan to put three more quick rounds into it before the little pistol’s slide locked back. He placed the bullets in a line down its neck and along its side, hoping to hit arteries and vital organs.

  Something skittered, spinning across the channel floor, hitting the toe of his boot.

  It was a piece of brown skull plate. Upside down. There was a big gob of white goo cupped inside.

  Brains.

  Demon brains.

  The racket back at the turbine continued unabated, but Ryan’s demon no longer seemed interested in it.

  Goo as thick and clotted as buttermilk leaked from the small holes in its torso, dripping and splattering on the floor.

  Goo leaked from the hole in the back of its skull, running down either side of its neck.

  It was still alive.

  It was still standing.

  From its body language, it wasn’t happy.

  Ryan dropped the empty .380 and shifted the panga to his strong hand, figure-eighting its heavy blade in the air in front of him.

  The demon rolled its head on its shoulders as if testing its injuries. Then it snapped its ja
ws together and thrust out its stumpy little arms. As it closed in on Ryan, it did so in a straight line, no longer evading because his blaster was on the floor, no longer playing with him because the fun and games were over. It showed him its twin stingers, curved black thorns extending from the top of its wrists.

  Then it jumped.

  HER EARS STILL RINGING, her head still reeling from the battering of the turbine, Jubilee crawled out between the fan blades and into the channel. As her knees hit the concrete, there was another collision behind her, and the shriek of metal, yielding.

  It was coming.

  The demon was coming through the blades.

  Scrambling to her feet, she started to run down the grade. The weight and position of her baby made it impossible for her to muster any real speed. In front of her was a fuzzy wall of blackness. The only light came from behind, from the torch inside the turbine. Passing through the fan blades, it threw crazy, angled shadows across the ceiling and walls.

  She had just reached the edge of the light when the final collision came, a clanging crash, and a squeal of steel bending back.

  If the one-eyed man was somewhere ahead of her, she couldn’t see his torch.

  The man she’d left in the turbine let out a shout, and then opened fire with his handblaster.

  Supporting her bouncing stomach with a hand and arm, she veered closer and closer to the channel’s wall, until she was running alongside it. It was so dark ahead that she felt she was running blind. Downhill. Jubilee put out her free hand and let her fingers intermittently brush the wall. The grazing contact made her feel a little better. At least she knew she was headed in the right direction.

  Three more strides, and the guiding wall abruptly fell away from her fingertips. A half step more and her fingers slapped against a hard edge, then smooth wall again. She knew what it was.

  A hole, Jubilee thought as she ran. Oh, dear Enid, a hole.

  She could see nothing, not in front of her or to the side. It was as if a black hood had been pulled over her head. She could only run and pray that nothing followed after her.

  A prayer that went unanswered.

  From behind, she heard and felt a concussive blast of air. The demon had jumped from its burrow.