She kicked and bucked to no avail. She heard Porter calling her name, closer now. Feet stomped past her head. One came down on her free hand and she screamed in agony.
Gardener took advantage of the opportunity and grabbed her by the wrist. He nearly had it twisted up by her other hand when the pressure suddenly abated. Something warm and wet splashed down on her back and slithered across her bare skin. Her first thought was that a bowl of soup must have sloshed from one of the tables, but she quickly remembered they hadn’t served soup. She realized exactly what it was at the same time that the chief’s lifeless body flopped onto her.
Sturm cried out and dragged herself out from beneath him. She rounded on him and was prepared to scream again when she caught a quick flash of reflected light in twin spheres and smelled the ghastly aroma of the underground warrens.
A tiny, cold hand closed gently around her wrist where the cuff was clamped. The girl’s entire body trembled as she crawled closer to Sturm and buried her face into the bare skin above the neckline of her dress. Sturm felt the warm dampness on the girl’s face, smelled the metallic scent of blood, and heard the soft whimpering as the girl started to cry.
Sturm wrapped her arms around the child’s narrow shoulders and drew her into an embrace. The girl’s shoulders shook and she squeezed so tightly that Sturm gasped. She stroked the back of the girl’s bald head and felt the heat of tears on her own cheeks.
The entire episode was surreal. She had seen Spears removing the girl’s scorched remains from the underground warrens, and yet here she was, alive and in her arms.
“Shh…Everything’s going to be—”
A burst of pain in her shoulder and she pitched forward onto the girl. Pain raced down the length of her right arm and up her neck into the base of her skull. She felt a sudden chill, deep inside, like an icicle grinding against the underside of her scapula.
A sound like thunder split the night and echoed across the waterfront, drowning out even the screams.
* * *
Spears ejected the spent brass and chambered another round. He had tracked the creature along its bloody rampage until it finally held still long enough for him to get off a shot. Granted, he had been forced to take it straight through the woman’s shoulder, but even at this distance it should have passed through her cleanly with enough residual velocity to hit his target. The creature had moved so fast that it had appeared as little more than a blur through the goggles. He had expected it to come from the ruins, but it had surprised him. It had already been inside the building. Clever little demon. He should have been prepared for that contingency, and yet he was also thankful for his rare lack of foresight. Watching it move through the crowd was breathtaking. Darting first one way and then the other, nearly separating men from their heads with the grace of a striking cobra, then speeding off in a different direction entirely before the golden arterial spray even hit the ground. It was awesome observing it in its element. If there was one consolation for him, at least Trofino would be smart enough to recognize the net closing in on him and would bolt with his research and destroy any evidence that he had ever been there. The project would live on, but this was the end of the road for Spears.
He lined up the next shot, slowly blew his breath all the way out, and thought of his son as he sighed down the monster through the nightmare frenzy.
And pulled the trigger.
* * *
Porter was in motion the moment he heard the bullet pound Sturm’s back. He dove of top of her as the hornet-whine of the second bullet sang past his ear. They tumbled to the side and he used their momentum to roll her behind an overturned table. He felt her blood on his hands, on the side of his face, soaking through his shirt. Hot and wet. She screamed when she came to rest on her back. He tried to keep her left hand from exploring the crater of the exit wound. Blood boiled out between her fingers. He jerked off his tie, wadded it up, and pressed it to her shoulder to stanch the bleeding. She cried out with the application of pressure.
“Hold this right here.” He placed her hand on the tie and slid his away. “Press down as hard as you can.”
She moaned something he didn’t hear. He was already crawling back out from the behind the table. He peered around the edge just in time to see the distant strobe of muzzle flare, about three hundred yards out and a hundred feet up. There was a spark to his right as the bullet ricocheted from the ground and careened off into the building with the sound of shattering glass.
The majority of the guests had made it around to the front of the center, where their screams echoed under the colonnade. The injured still back here groaned and whimpered as they attempted to limp and drag themselves through the wreckage of the ruined tables and chairs and across the path of broken glasses and dishware.
He heard crying behind him and turned to reassure Sturm that everything was going to be all right, but froze when he caught the glare of eyeshine above where she lay. He stared into those small, wide eyes for a long moment. They glistened with tears. It was the girl who was crying. The sounds she made were full of such palpable pain that Porter instinctively reached out to her. He touched her softly on the side of her face. She leaned her damp cheek into his palm.
The table jumped with a crack and peppered his face with splinters. He yanked back his hand and ducked lower as the report echoed off into the night.
Something changed in the girl’s eyes. They somehow narrowed and sharpened, and he recognized the predator lurking behind them. He could barely see the silhouette of the girl’s bald head when she leaned down toward Sturm’s face.
“No!” he shouted and dove to try to stop the girl from finishing off Sturm, but she was already gone.
He ran his hand over Sturm’s neck, felt her slow, thready pulse, smoothed his fingers over her unbroken skin. If the girl hadn’t gone for Sturm’s throat, then what—?
Another crack of gunfire, but he couldn’t tell where the bullet struck.
He peeked back around the side of the table and saw a small dark shape scale the fence and leap down onto the other side.
And then it was gone.
“Don’t…” Sturm whispered. “Don’t let…anything happen…to…her.”
Her cold hand found his and squeezed ever so softly. The blood on her fingers was already crusted. He squeezed back, then replaced her hand on the sopping tie.
He had no weapon. No backup. They were pinned down by rifle fire and she was bleeding to death. Attempting to move her was a risk, especially though the field of fire, but he needed to get help. If he didn’t at least try, she could die right here.
There was no other choice.
He swept her up in his arms, pulled her as tightly as to his chest as he could, and sprinted out into the open, knowing full well that he would feel the bullet tear through his flesh long before he heard the report.
* * *
Spears saw the fuchsia and gold shape alight on his side of the fence and sprint toward the ruins. He managed to get off one quick shot before it vanished from sight. He leaned over the edge of the smokestack and tried to take aim, but it was too close and he had lost his angle. It must have gone back underground, where it assumed he would have to give up his advantage and face it on its own turf. He cursed his misfortune as he watched the rubble through the scope for several long moments. He had wanted to see the expression on its face when the first bullet hit, and then the explosion of pink mist when the second destroyed its skull.
It was only a matter of time before this entire area was swarming with cops. It was one thing for the men down there to cover for him from afar; another entirely when they were down there in the bedlam with blood spattered all over them. Fortunately, he had prepared for this eventuality. In addition to the small, shaped charge he had rigged to the main power line, he had spent the better part of the afternoon planting bricks of C4 throughout the warrens. There was enough down there that when he pressed the button on the remote detonator, the whole waterfront would crumble into the
Pacific. Both he and the creature would be enveloped in the firestorm. He would take his vengeance with him to the grave.
Spears studied the ruins for nearly a full minute longer. There was no sign of the monster.
The men and women at the cultural center had found their way to the front of the building. If anything, their screams seemed to have grown louder. Beyond the building, he could see red and blue lights in the distance, approaching fast. The shrill sound of sirens reached him a heartbeat later, and beneath them, what could only have been the mechanical pounding of helicopter rotors.
It was now or never.
He cast aside his rifle, removed the detonator from the inner pocket of his jacket, and rested his thumb on the first in the series of triggers. From his first day in Basic, he had always known that his destiny was to go out in a blaze of glory. He felt neither shame nor sorrow, only vindication. This was how it was meant to be. He clung to the image of his son’s face as he pressed the first button.
The ground shook and the northern edge of the ruins dropped from sight. Smoke and dust chased a fireball into the sky. Debris rained from above like massive hailstones. He pressed the next button, and the one after that. The smoke and flames billowed toward him, forcing him to duck down behind the lip and onto the grate. He coughed and retched as clumps of concrete pummeled his back. The smokestack began to lean. He could already hear the crackling sound of bricks breaking apart and the mortar that had held them together for a century crumbling to powder. He could barely see the red glow of the final button through the suffocating cloud. When he pressed it, the ground would open up directly beneath him and swallow him into its fiery depths.
He covered the light with his thumb, drew the deepest breath he could through the smoke and dust, and—
A reddish-orange flash below him. Through the grate. Its shape distorted by the swirling smoke. But he knew damn well what it was.
The creature clawed its way straight up the crumbling inner wall of the smokestack toward him.
He leaned over the access hatch in the grate and locked eyes with it.
“I’ll see you in he—!”
The creature fired up through access hatch. The iron rim struck him in the face and knocked him backward. The detonator fell from his hand and clattered to the grate.
It was upon him before he could react.
Claws hooked into his face: through his cheeks, the soft crescents beneath his eyes, inside his ears, and under his chin. Teeth bit right through the flesh on the side of his neck. He felt them scrape against his vertebrae, felt his lifeblood rushing out into its mouth.
The smokestack shuddered and tilted to the side. He slid across the grate with the creature still perched on his chest, ripping his neck from side to side, refusing to let go. His fingertips brushed against the detonator and he managed to flatten his hand across it, pinning it to the grate. He smashed his palm onto it with the last of his strength, pressing every button at once.
The creature tore away a strip of flesh and stared down at him, his muscles and tendons dangling from its bared teeth, its face a golden mask of his pain.
“Boom,” he sputtered through a mouthful of blood.
* * *
Sturm could barely see through the film of tears over her eyes, but she wouldn’t allow herself to so much as blink for fear of losing consciousness. Smoke boiled toward them from across the field, crashing over the fence like a tidal wave. She coughed and cupped her functional hand over her brow in an effort to shield her eyes from the dust. The smokestack was a vague black column toppling to the right, until a fireball shot straight up its height, blowing apart the bricks even as the structure tumbled toward the ground. Flames blasted up into the sky.
And then they were gone.
The earth shuddered one final time as the smokestack’s bulk collapsed upon it, then stilled.
Sturm sobbed and leaned back against Porter’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her from behind to both support her and keep pressure on her gunshot wound.
Tires screeched behind them. Sirens squawked as they died. Swirling red and blue lights diffused into the smoke and made black silhouettes of the terrified men and women who converged upon the emergency vehicles.
“You did everything you could,” Porter whispered into her ear. “She didn’t suffer.”
Sturm tried to squeeze his hand, but she lacked the strength. She merely grazed her palm across the back of his hand.
The darkness swept up from inside her and drew her down into its cold depths. Her last thought was of a child consumed by fire reaching out to her before disintegrating into a cloud of embers.
* * *
“I need medical attention over here!” Porter shouted.
He carefully lowered Sturm to the grass and leaned over her so he could keep as much pressure as possible on her wound. His tie was saturated. Rich black blood poured out from beneath the compress, wetting his hands and soaking through her dress. There were standing puddles in the recesses of her clavicles and her jugular notch. Her pale face was freckled with crimson. Her eyes seemed to be sinking into the dark pits of her sockets. He could feel her breath slowing in her chest and prayed that he could pass his life force through his hands and into her.
“Goddamn it! I need a doctor over here! This woman’s been shot!”
He felt warmth on his cheeks but couldn’t be certain whether he was crying or covered with her blood.
More and more emergency vehicles arrived behind him, their sirens creating a carnival of lights. Surely one of them was a mother-loving ambulance.
“Out of the way,” a man said, and bodily shoved him to the side.
Porter was about to take a swing at the man when he recognized the blue-on-blue of the paramedic’s uniform and the case of medical supplies he slammed onto the ground beside him. Porter looked up and saw another paramedic running toward them with an orange backboard on a gurney.
“You do whatever you have to do to save her,” Porter said, “or, God help me, I will track you down and make sure—”
“I said get out of the way!”
Porter scooted around toward Sturm’s head and leaned down over her face.
“You hang on. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare quit on me.”
He kissed her on the forehead. Her skin was cold against his lips. He watched her eyes for any sign of acknowledgement, but saw none. There was a smear of blood on her cheek that almost looked like…
“Back away!” the first paramedic shouted. “We need to get her on the rig right now!”
Porter leaned closer. The girl hadn’t been going for Sturm’s throat or the blood gushing from her shoulder.
The paramedics slid the board under her back and strapped down her legs, hips, and chest.
Porter stared off through the settling smoke toward where the smokestack had once lorded over the ruins and felt a sense of loss he couldn’t quite define.
The men hefted Sturm up from the ground and set her, board and all, on the gurney.
“I’m coming with you,” Porter said. He took Sturm’s hand and ran beside the cart as they wheeled her toward the waiting ambulance. “I’m right here, Layne. I’ll be with you all the way.”
He watched her face in the alternating red and blue glare, hoping for some miraculous sign that she was going to make it, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the bloody kiss on her cheek that could only have been made by the small lips of a child.
EPILOGUE
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
only a look and a voice, then darkness again and silence.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1400 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC
Monday, October 29th
10:36 a.m. EST
(6:36 a.m. PST)
Nine days later…
&nbs
p; Dr. Amon Trofino sat in the anteroom of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology’s office, tapping a happy rhythm with his feet. He was not only on the verge of becoming one the wealthiest men on the planet, he was about to make all of his professional dreams come true. He’d have his own lab, equipped precisely to his specifications with no expense spared, the finest staff in the world, and carte blanche to conduct whatever experiments his heart desired. And he was about to change the world in a way that no man shy of God Himself had ever even imagined. Once the DoD scientists verified the legitimacy of the samples that Carla had saved from the lab under the Phobos compound before they permanently sterilized it, the Secretary of Defense himself would undoubtedly stroll in here with a beaming smile on his face, clap him on the shoulder, and offer him the key to Fort Knox.
Today was the day when his real life began. Too bad Carla couldn’t be here beside him. She had been the best assistant he had ever seen. Unfortunately, she had known nearly as much about the project as he did and he couldn’t risk being cut out of his own deal. He could still clearly remember the sound of her fists pounding on the closed door from inside the sealed lab. Perhaps she hadn’t been as smart as he had thought after all. She should have waited until they were clear of the sublevel before handing him the case. He’d be surprised if there was enough of her left to fill a thimble.
The hallway door opened and a man Trofino hadn’t seen before entered. He wore a crisp black suit, a matching tie, and sunglasses on his impassive face. Even though Trofino couldn’t see the man’s eyes, he could feel his stare crawling all over him like the legs of so many spiders.
Predatory Instinct: A Thriller Page 26
