The sun was already coming up by the time we were all assembled at the tree-lined entrance to the pits. On a purely visceral level, this gave me some comfort, but from a realistic stance, it meant that our time was running out. If Miles’ theory was correct, the agency’s soldiers might already be making their way back onto the property and the pits were dangerously close to their encampment. Not only that, we had yet to run into any chimeras and I had a feeling that our luck was about to run out.
“Okay, listen up everyone,” Miles gestured for everyone to move in close so that he didn’t have to speak loudly. “You’ve all received a copy of the map Lance and Hugh made of this area, but it is by no means complete. We’re looking for an entrance into what we suspect is an underground facility. What we’ll find down there is anyone’s guess, but first we have to find a way in. So far, we’ve been able to piece together some constants in the traps that Bluebeard’s concocted. I sent that to everyone. Can you think of any others?”
I was impressed with the list we had compiled. Aside from the white stones, the number three appeared with enough regularity that I wondered if Bluebeard was channeling the Daughters. As suggestions were thrown out, Anil furiously jotted them down and checked them against the incomplete map. Several times he rolled his eyes or shook his head.
Once we had gathered all of the constants, we began planning a course of action. Since it would be impossible for everyone to enter the pits safely, it was decided we would form something of a human chain of communication in the event that we had to get out fast. Dennis joined our team and we became the official explorers of the pits. I tried to convince Ingrid to stay behind, seeing as she was the most technically useful, but she was adamant that she was coming with us. It was obvious that everyone wanted to tell Johnny the pits were too dangerous for someone in his condition, but it would have been a waste of breath. I just prayed that whatever Abe had used to stich him up held.
As we entered the forest, on our stomachs to avoid the chest level triggers that shot bolts from the trees, I heard Anil laugh up ahead of me.
“What’s so funny?” I asked as I cleared the tree line and pulled myself up into a crouch.
“This,” Anil gestured to the literal pit that sprawled out in front of us. Lance was right, it totally defied logic. Despite being surrounded by water, there was a fifty-foot drop to a sparsely treed lake below. Clearly, something artificial was hidden behind the rough rock and tree-rooted walls damming the area. “Did you ever play the old game Monster Curse?”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It was kinda lame compared to the stuff now, but it was super hard. You basically had to get through all of these outdoor levels that eventually took you to a castle where you fought to save a princess, but I never made it that far. The swamp level was the worst. This reminds me of that. In fact, it was the first thing I noticed when I looked at Lance’s map.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t a video game,” I reminded him. “You can’t just hit up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, and A and get unlimited lives.”
“Yeah, duh, Lucy. But here’s the thing, there was a secret door that led to a dungeon. I spent enough of my childhood staring at the in-game map to have memorized it. Lance’s map is that map. Whether that’s a coincidence or Bluebeard is a hardcore Monster Curse fan, I don’t know, but if I’m right, we’re sitting right on top of the entrance.”
“Well if that’s true wouldn’t that be the dumbest place for it?” I couldn’t believe I was arguing video game logic while lives hung in the balance.
“Not really,” Miles said, peering over the edge. “Look down. All that’s down there is water and a bunch of booby-trapped paths. My money’s on the walls.”
Sure enough, about twenty feet below us was a protrusion that could have been a thin ledge. “Okay, if that’s a door, how do we get to it?”
“We have to go down over there,” Anil answered, pointing to what looked like a rough set of precarious stairs that were carved into the wall several feet from us. “There’s probably a path through the water, and then some handholds for climbing that we can’t see from here.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy did you?”
“Actually, I don’t think we have to do any of that.” Lance began pulling items out of his pack. “I’ve got fifty feet of rappelling wire and enough sturdy trees to brace us.”
“You’re not thinking like a psycho,” Ingrid warned. “You think Bluebeard’s going to leave any inch of this place trap free? There’s got to be traps set into that wall.”
“I’m willing to risk it. There are probably more traps the way Anil’s suggesting.” Lance slung the wire around the base of a tree and secured it with a clamp.
“Wait,” I said as he began to secure the handholds. “Ingrid’s right, we don’t know. Let me go first.”
“No way, I’m the experienced climber here. What if you fall?”
“If I fall I’ll survive. Just like I’m the most likely to survive if something gets shot at me or blows up on the way down. Think about it Lance, I just grew an arm, can you do that?”
After a time wasting debate and a lesson in rappelling, I was ready to go. It was a very good thing I’m not afraid of heights, because in order to get off the side of the ledge, I had to let myself fall backwards to get the proper footing. My descent was slow, and my underdeveloped arm threatened to give out, but at last my feet touched air and I lowered myself onto the ledge. Sure enough, there was a shallow tunnel that ended with a rusted metal door.
And lying in front of the door, head bent at a terrifying angle, was Carlos.
Chapter 29
“He’s dead, but only just,” Johnny proclaimed after examining Carlos’ body. “Still warm and his neck was broken, but I don’t see any signs of a struggle.” He was right. There were no scratches or markings to indicate that Carlos had been in a fight at all. That someone or something had managed to catch him off guard like that was frightening. Even more frightening was the very good possibility that they could still be near.
“Do you think he was trying to escape?” Miles asked solemnly. Carlos had been one of his close friends.
“More like cryin’ for his mamma.”
I barely had time to register the unfamiliar voice before a wiry, yet inhumanly strong arm went around my neck, and a CPA was pointed at my face. Where the vampire had come from was anyone’s guess. Carlos’ body still blocked the door and Miles had been watching the entrance. Everyone else was still above. I weighed my options and rather quickly realized that I didn’t have any. While my arms were free, going for one of my own weapons would be useless because even as fast as I was, chances were good that the vampire holding the CPA to my neck was just as fast.
“One of you strappin’ young men wanna get this carcass out of my way?” he growled with a kick to Carlos’ body. Neither Johnny nor Miles moved, but I saw the muscle in Miles’ eye twitch at the vampire’s disrespectful move. Both, like me, appeared to be weighing the situation and looking for any weakness to exploit. Unfortunately, this just made the vampire angrier. “Daddy don’t need her alive, you know.” With a flick of his fingers, he disengaged the safety on the CPA. “Don’t even know why he bothers so much with this one. Ain’t like she’s even pretty.”
Miles put his hands above his head and Johnny copied his movements. “I’ll move the body, but you’re in my way. If you could move to the left, please.”
I was dragged a half step in the opposite direction before the CPA in front of my face disappeared and the arm that was around my neck went slack.
“What the hell?” I turned around to see a CPA sticking out of the back of the vampire’s neck. “How the- Ah!” I jumped as Lance dropped from the ceiling.
“Ninja skills,” he said with a wink before hauling the dead body of the vampire over to the ledge and dropping him unceremoniously into the lake below.
“Ou
ch,” Miles said with a wince as he peered down at the churning water.
“Well look at that,” Lance remarked blandly. “I owe Hugh fifty bucks. Apparently Gatormen will eat the yokel mods.”
Ingrid and Anil soon followed and the small space was getting crowded, so Dennis agreed to stay above and be our link to the team on the other side of the forest.
“Well, only one way from here,” Johnny said with a sigh.
“I don’t like the idea of not knowing what’s on the other side though,” said Lance.
“Hang on a second, I’ve got a theory,” Ingrid said while concentrating on her phone. “Come on, come on, dammit!” She cursed in exasperation. “I was trying to see if I could get the hemograph to work without the network, but it’s just an overlay.”
“No it isn’t,” I said and pulled out my own phone. “I was there when Andre was testing the idea. He only added it to the GPS because he wasn’t finished developing the whole app before we had to go to Paris. I know he installed a full version a while back.” I pulled up the application and opened settings. “Dammit! I forgot this isn't Fred. You're right, it's an overlay.”
“Well crap,” Ingrid muttered. “What else can we do?”
“The same thing we did for years,” Miles replied. “We use our eyes and ears.”
“That's all well and good, but we need to figure out what we are doing before we go charging in there,” I reasoned. “Something tells me we're not going to have a lot of room to engage the chimeras, and that same something tells me we're going to run into a lot more of them than mods.”
“That’s why I’m going in first, Johnny too, and Lance will bring up the rear. Our best chance is shooting them at a far enough range. If they’re too close we’ll have to try and injure them,” Miles explained.
“Which means we need to stick together,” Lance added.
“Well, if we’re all ready,” Miles said and carefully moved Carlos’ body away from the door, pausing briefly in salute to his fallen friend. “Let’s go.”
To my surprise, the door opened without issue. I would have expected a lock at least. Inside looked a lot like I had expected. The walls were gray painted metal and the floor was concrete. It appeared to be some sort of bunker, but the ceiling above us was riddled with pipes. To our right and left were long corridors that came to a dead end on each side. Ahead of us was a staircase made of metal grate. One look down and I could see that it went pretty far before hitting a single landing. I didn’t like it, but we had no choice but to go down.
It was quiet, eerily so. The only noise was the hum of what was most likely a generator powering the bunker. I was about to comment on this when the thunderous sound of heavy footfalls echoed up from the stairs below. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. We must have triggered some kind of an alarm.
“Everyone get down and make sure your helmets are secured,” Miles yelled before pulling down the face shield on his own and lifting his rifle to his shoulder. One by one, as the chimeras came into view, Miles squeezed the trigger with deadly accuracy. Even though they were more than twenty feet below us, we felt the thunderous shockwaves as their bodies exploded.
“I think we started a chain reaction,” Johnny commented and lowered his own gun. Sure enough, the echo of explosions intensified and I prayed that the structural integrity of the building would hold up.
“Let’s hope he was dumb enough to send all the guards after us at once,” Miles said when the rumbling finally stopped. “How many of those things could he possibly have?”
“You’d be surprised,” Lance answered wryly. “Apparently they’re easier to breed than the kids. One of the girls told me he could turn out hundreds of new chimeras a year. I doubt she was exaggerating.”
As we carefully descended the stairs, I was surprised to see that they remained intact despite the explosions. Though the remaining bloodbath made the stairs slick and dangerous, slowing our descent. When we finally came to the bottom, we followed the long, gray hallway until we came to the first break in our path. Ahead of us was another set of stairs leading down, and the hall split off to the left and right.
“Where to?” I asked, praying the answer wasn’t down. Without the hemograph and GPS, we were at a deadly disadvantage and the maze-like set up of the bunker was not helping my panic. I checked Andre’s transmitter and was dismayed to see how far we were from his signal.
“Hang on, what was that?” Ingrid took off her helmet and gestured for silence. At first, I didn’t hear anything except the hum of the generator, but then I heard it; the faint echo of a tormented scream issued up from the stairwell.
“Oh my god, that’s Lona!” Miles yelled and began taking the stairs two at a time. We followed him down and into a narrow hallway, just barely wide enough for two people to pass. I tried to concentrate on the reason we were there in order to stave off the panic that began to take hold. We came to yet another intersection and stopped to listen for a clue as to where to go next. The screams echoed again, but it was no use. The metal walls made it impossible to tell which direction the sound was coming from.
“Dammit!” Miles cursed and slammed his fist into the wall.
“Okay wait, I think I have an idea,” Lance said. “These ceilings are pretty low. If we pair off and stand side by side with our hands up we might be able to muffle the echo.” I wasn’t a scientist, but I was pretty sure sound didn’t work like that. Considering our only other option was to split up, I went along with it. As Ingrid and I stood in front of the left corridor, I heard nothing until Johnny and Anil yelled out, “this way!” at the same time.
Lona’s screams became louder as we ran the narrow corridor, but at the end of the hall, we were stopped by a locked door.
“Stand back,” Miles said and went for his gun.
“Miles no!” I yelled and shouldered my way in front of him. “That’s just going to ricochet all over and maybe hit us. Let me take a look at it.” I had the lock picked in seconds. The hallway beyond was the first we had seen with doors. At least we didn’t have to guess where Lona was. Her voice carried from the only open door in front of us.
Miles started to run, but Johnny pulled him back. “If you go charging in there you could endanger her life. We need to lure them out somehow.”
“Oh my god,” Ingrid whispered with wide eyes. I hadn’t noticed that she had snuck away from the group and had glanced in the room. “I think she’s having her baby!”
“What?” Miles broke free from Johnny’s grasp and ran. We all scrambled to follow, but within seconds of Miles entering the room, a body came crashing through the doorway, and we halted.
“Mod,” Johnny said with a sigh of relief. I jumped out of the way just as the second and third bodies were hurtled into the hallway, but Johnny wasn’t as lucky.
“Johnny, I need you in here now!” Miles called out in a panic. I helped lug the body away and Johnny scrambled to his feet, shutting the door to Lona’s room behind him.
“Lucy, do you think you can pick these locks?” Lance asked me. “The others could be here as well.”
“Or they might have escaped,” Ingrid said from further down the hall where one of the doors lay half off its hinges. I wondered at first if this had been the room Carlos had escaped from, but abandoned that notion when I noticed the solid metal frame of the bed had been twisted violently. Carlos might have been strong, but not strong enough to bend steel with his bare hands. Whoever had been in here, had super human strength.
I made my way down the hall, picking locks and turning up enough empty rooms that I began to get frustrated. But after five empty rooms, we found Saba in the sixth, strapped to a table with her mouth gagged.
“Mom!” Anil ran in and we began removing the restraints.
“Are you okay?” I asked when we removed the gag. “Did he do anything to you?”
“I don’t know.” She sat up shakily and hugged her son. “One minute I was covering Andre, and the next I woke up, bound to this tabl
e.” She tried to stand, but fell to her knees and retched. “Definitely drugged,” she said hoarsely and wiped her mouth.
“Can you move?” Lance asked with a furtive glance toward the door. “I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be alone.”
“I think so.”
Anil and I helped Saba to her feet just as Ingrid rushed into the room. We didn't need to ask her what was wrong as the sounds of a herd of wild animals echoed down the hall.
“Stay here,” Lance commanded and checked his ammunition before running into the hallway. Seconds later the air rumbled with the shockwaves from the explosions.
“How many explosions do you think this place can take before we end up at the bottom of the swamp?” I tried and failed to keep the panic from coming through in my trembling voice.
“Well you would think that since Bluebeard gets some kind of freakish enjoyment out of making explosive people, he'd want to have walls that can handle it,” Anil quipped sarcastically.
“We might have bigger problems,” Ingrid said while typing furiously. “I’m sending a message right now, but I don’t know how we’re going to get Lona and the baby out of here. It’s over a mile to the safest place for the helicopter to land.”
“Lona’s here? My god, what the hell happened?”
We caught Saba up on everything that had transpired since the team returned with Bluebeard, posing as Isaac, including Carlos’ death. While the others were trying to coordinate how to get Lona to safety, I continued to pick the locks. I knew Andre wasn’t here, but I would have assumed Cynda, at least, was in the same area. But as I walked down the hall, opening empty room after empty room, I began to lose hope. I found myself standing again in front of the damaged room, having unlocked every door with no further success. Suddenly, I had a horrible realization and did some quick math. It had been just about a month since I brought Cynda to headquarters. I ran back to the others in a panic.
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 58
