The Demon Crown

by James Rollins

  Once finished, her abdomen thrummed with demand.

  A droplet of poison formed on the tip of her stinger.

  Then an alarm spread, rising from the distant edge of their territory.

  Threat . . . and possibility.

  With the lek settled, the soldiers at the edges resisted their natural urge to attack anything that moved. Their aggression was tempered now by the need of the swarm. They allowed creatures to enter their domain, those who could serve the swarm’s needs. They let them draw close, only attacking enough to herd their prey in closer, goading them forward with pain.

  She extended her antenna and monitored the trap by sound and smell.

  Her abdomen curled and uncurled, loosening her eggs and driving them toward her sharp ovipositor. Still, she waited. Across the walls, others did the same. Some fluttered their wings, expressing desire. A few snapped their thick, sclerotized hind legs. Each crack resonated down the tunnel. The echoing helped give shape to the passageway.

  Then a new note alerted her.

  She listened to the change in cadence of the swarm’s buzz. The muscles of her legs tightened. She crouched on the wall. Driven by instinct, she kicked out her hind legs, joining the chorus of clacking.

  Finally, her antenna picked up two scents: the pheromone of conquest and the carbon of breath.

  It was enough.

  She leaped into the air, wings buzzing to lift her heavy form. She headed toward the puffing exhalations. All around, those like her took flight or snapped their legs. The echoing allowed her to easily perceive obstacles in the pitch dark.

  Though her eyes were still blind, the membranes over the hollow sockets on either side of her head were stretched taut and picked up every vibration. She trailed along streams of pheromones. Chitinous lancets honed her stinger, already lubricated with poison.

  Her eggs would have to wait for now.

  She clacked her legs together as she flew, casting out a sharp wave of sound ahead of her flight. As it rebounded back, it filled her head and gave shape to darkness. But she also began to hear something more within that cloud of exhalations.

  A vibration, one she could not resist.

  It echoed to her, drawing her faster. She must be there first. Light grew ahead, but she ignored the brightness and concentrated on the trembling in the air.

  It grew clearer.

  Becoming a rhythmic pulsing, beating fast.

  She lowered her head, antennae stretched, and raced straight for it. The brightening tunnel crackled with more sharp snaps, triggering her to flick her own hard legs together, adding her cadence to the chorus.

  Ahead, a thrashing shape appeared.

  Panicked beats drew her toward it.

  The reverberation of the swarm now penetrated flesh. Through a cage of bones, she watched a chunk of muscle pound and pound. She followed the cloud of carbon gasping from her target and dove through it.

  She landed on soft skin, much more tender than ancient memories in her genetic code remembered. She had once sought out larger prey, those whose flesh had hammered with deafening beats, all guarded over by armor.

  She easily slipped her stinger into that tenderness. Muscles at the base of her abdomen convulsed, pumping her poison deep. Her prey did not react. Her venom was not meant to bring pain—only control.

  Once empty, she leaped away but stayed near, fluttering over her target. She wafted a net of pheromones over her prey, marking it as her own. Those laden with their own eggs fled out into the brightness, searching for other hosts.

  She hovered in place.

  Her antennae weaved the air as she waited.

  She continually snapped her legs, evaluating her prey, making sure its flesh was uncorrupted by a previous incursion. Her abdomen held thousands of eggs. In turn, each egg nestled many larvae. Their hunger was her hunger. They would need plenty of meat, blood, bone.

  To ensure that, she waited for her poison to fully take effect.

  Her venom was meant to fell much larger prey, so it didn’t take long.

  As she listened, the panicked beating slowed, then slowed again, becoming fainter.

  In that cage of bone below, the chunk of flesh quivered, convulsing unsteadily.

  It was time.

  She dropped through the cloud of puffing carbon once again and landed on soft skin. She arched her abdomen. Eggs surged into position. Each sting would deliver scores of her progeny.

  And with her prey subdued—she could stab over and over again.

  She would not stop.

  There was plenty of meat.

  15

  May 7, 1:49 P.M. HST

  Hana, Island of Maui

  No doubt this is the right place.

  Five minutes ago, Gray had parked the Jeep next to the banyan tree, only to hear faint screams echoing down the forested slope of the mountain. Fearing the worst, he had left the team to organize and grab their gear, while he and Seichan took off on the motorbike.

  He leaned over the handlebars of the Yamaha off-roader, challenging the bike’s knobby tires and suspension for the precarious climb along a narrow trail.

  Seichan clutched an arm around his waist. Her other limb balanced a large pack over her shoulder, crammed with fire blankets and a med kit, which included EpiPens.

  He prayed they could reach the campers in time, but even before he and Seichan had reached the trailhead, the screaming had eerily stopped.

  Too suddenly.

  He gritted his teeth and goosed more speed out of the bike’s four-stroke engine. He expertly bobbled up the rocky trail, all but hopping from rock to rock, sometimes balancing on the rear tire. The motor growled in complaint, and mud flew behind them.

  Gray searched the trail ahead.

  Palu had given them vague directions to the old lava tubes.

  Follow the trail. Watch where the forest turns into bamboo.

  The Hawaiian had also warned them of the precarious nature of the upcoming terrain. A series of collapses had broken into a knotted labyrinth of old tunnels, riddling the slope with hidden chasms and fissures. The main entrance, the largest hole—what Palu called a puka—was near a small spring-fed pond.

  The team would rendezvous there.

  Behind the bike, Palu and Kowalski followed on foot, each carrying a pair of propane tanks outfitted with spark-igniters and timers, all courtesy of the fireman’s connections with his department.

  Still, it had been Professor Matsui who had laid out this course of action. The plan was to dump those tanks down various skylights into the tunnels. If the swarm had gone to ground down there, the team’s goal was twofold: do as much damage as possible to the swarm, while also chasing off any survivors. By unsettling the wasps, Ken hoped to delay them from establishing a lek.

  For now, it was a decent plan.

  It could buy the island some time.

  That is, if it’s not already too late . . .

  With only one way to find out, Gray fought his bike higher up the mountainside. After another minute, he rounded a sharp switchback, and the forest miraculously changed. Hardwoods and ferns fell away, replaced by an endless stretch of green bamboo. The stout poles marched in all directions ahead. Mists hung heavy among the lilting emerald fronds.

  Gray gaped at the sudden transformation.

  With his attention distracted, he missed a figure stumbling out of the forest to his right. The man fell across the path, his shoulders slamming into the bamboo on the far side. His form crumpled to the ground.

  Gray braked hard.

  To avoid hitting the man, he jerked the bike off the trail and crashed into a tall thicket of ferns. The cycle toppled and threw off its riders. He rolled, compromised by the beekeeper’s coverall he wore, a precaution recommended by the professor. He and Seichan had donned the protective clothing before making the trek up here.

  Gray quickly regained his feet and adjusted the veiled hood.

  Seichan dragged her pack out of the lush underbrush.

  T
hey then converged toward the man on the trail.

  Gray reached him first and dropped to a knee. The man appeared to be in his mid-fifties, balding with a mustache. Likely the tour operator, Emmet Lloyd. The man’s head lolled. Ropes of drool hung from his lips.

  Gray grasped his cheeks. “Mr. Lloyd, where are the others?”

  Emmet seemed to hear him, but the man’s eyes fought to focus. His pupils were huge.

  Drugged or a concussion . . .

  Seichan pushed next to him. She had the med kit open and an EpiPen in hand. She jabbed the injector into the man’s neck, shooting epinephrine into his system.

  Professor Matsui had studied the toxins found in the venom of these wasps. It was his specialty. He had warned them of the poison carried in the stingers of the large breeding females.

  A potent neurotoxin.

  While epinephrine was no cure, Ken had said it should counteract some of the effect.

  “Mr. Lloyd,” Gray repeated.

  The pupils seemed slightly more responsive, but the man remained dazed and loopy.

  “Gray,” Seichan warned.

  He noted her tone and turned. She stood up and pointed out into the misty forest. Through the fog, columns of dark smoke—dozens of them—wafted up from the ferns carpeting the ground. A droning hum filled the forest’s undercarriage.

  The swarm.

  The wasps were abandoning their subterranean lair, likely drawn by the noisy approach of the bike. Gray pictured the knotted maze of lava tubes beneath the ground, all interconnected.

  He glanced to the right.

  More shadows curled into the white mists.

  They were out of time.

  He turned to Emmet and slapped his face.

  Then twice more.

  Finally, the man’s lips curled with irritation.

  “Where are the others?” Gray pressed.

  After a long moment, a tremoring arm lifted and waved at the trail ahead. Slurred words slipped from slack lips. “Up . . .”

  “How many?”

  To answer seemed to take all his effort. “Two . . .” he forced out. “Husband, wife . . .”

  “We don’t have enough time to search for them,” Seichan said dourly.

  She was right, but how could they abandon them?

  A new crashing noise intruded, coming from behind them. They both turned. Palu appeared, half-running in his beekeeper’s getup. He hauled a propane tank in each hand, carrying them as effortlessly as a couple of pillows. The only sign of exertion was a sheen of perspiration glowing over his tanned features.

  Despite the situation, he wore a big grin. “There you are, brah.”

  Kowalski came puffing up behind him, gasping and looking close to keeling over. He dropped the tanks and leaned on his knees. A continual string of curses followed. “Christalmightymotherfuck . . .”

  Gray waved to the swarm swirling forth from fissures and holes all around. “Get to planting those charges. Five-minute timers. We can’t let more escape.”

  A good portion of their plan counted on catching the swarm while the majority remained underground. According to the professor, wasps were attracted to the sweet stench of propane gas and often nested near pilot lights. While the gas was normally odorless, companies added the odor to alert homeowners of a leak.

  The plan was to open those tanks, drop them into the labyrinth of tunnels, and let the heavy gas spread throughout the lava tubes before the ignition set it all on fire. If they could get those spewing tanks underground fast enough, the odor might lure the swarm closer—hopefully near enough to be caught in the explosion.

  Kowalski hauled up his tanks with a groan. “Let’s do this.”

  Palu hesitated. “Where are those campers?”

  Gray pointed to the path. “Up there. A husband and wife.”

  “I know this trail.” Palu nodded to Kowalski. “We drop these in the tunnels, then go find them.”

  Gray pictured the coming firestorm. “Five minutes,” he reminded the big men. “Whether you reach them or not, you haul ass off this slope before those timers run out.”

  As they headed away, Gray hooked an arm around Emmet. He bent at the waist and hauled his slack form over a shoulder. As he straightened, he watched Kowalski lumber toward one of the smoky columns, waving wasps from his path. Once close enough, he lobbed a tank toward a fissure hidden there.

  Palu followed this example, and the two men moved farther upslope, seeking new sites to plant their second charges.

  Gray hefted his own burden and started down the trail.

  Seichan headed to the bike.

  Before Gray could take three steps, Emmet stirred, thrashing weakly. “No, wait . . .”

  Gray stopped and turned, cheek to cheek with the man. “What?”

  “Another . . . a boy . . . Benjie . . .” An arm pointed toward where Emmet had stumbled out of the forest. “Fell down hole.”

  Seichan heard this and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll go look for him.”

  Gray hesitated, but she scowled at him.

  “Get moving.” She tapped her wristwatch. “I know.”

  He checked his own watch as he headed down.

  Five minutes . . . and counting.

  2:07 P.M.

  Seichan clambered through the dense underbrush. It was like wading through a bog. Ferns grasped at her, thorns tried to tear her tough nylon-blend suit, and mud sucked at her rubber boots.

  Frustrated, she was tempted to rip away the cumbersome outfit, but this was no bog and those weren’t mosquitoes buzzing through the air. She swatted wasps from her veil and slapped at bigger ones on her arms or chest. There was a limit to her trust in this suit. She recalled Matsui’s account of these creatures, how the wasps’ usual prey in the prehistoric past had been far better armored than her.

  She also only had to look around to be reminded to be extra cautious. Small birds littered the ground, some wings still twitching. Off to the right, antlers poked above the brush, marking where a speckled deer had met a similar fate. And what she thought was a mossy boulder to the left was actually a collapsed wild boar, evident from the curl of its yellowed tusks.

  Clearly the wasps had been busy.

  Respecting the danger, she slipped a Maglite from a pocket of her backpack and twisted it on. She did her best to hurry from one smoky column to another.

  Where the hell are you, kid?

  She kept an eye on her watch.

  Three minutes left.

  She didn’t want to be here when those tanks exploded. Still, she pictured a delirious child trapped in those fiery tunnels and growled deep in her chest. She cursed his parents for putting him in harm’s way—not that they could’ve anticipated this exact situation.

  But still . . .

  She forged to the next fissure and pushed into the humming, battering cloud around it. She poked her flashlight through a break in the undergrowth. Her beam revealed a good-sized hole. She pointed her light through the skylight and into the tunnel. The floor lay twelve feet below.

  Nothing but more wasps, crawling over every surface.

  She turned away—but as her beam flashed across the far rim of a hole, she spotted a small print in the mud. Maybe a sneaker. The edge of the fissure looked freshly crumbled.

  Swearing under her breath, she returned to studying the tunnel. From her vantage, she could only spy the immediate area below. The boy, frightened and panicked, could have crawled deeper into the system. Even a few yards and he’d be out of her direct line of sight.

  Only one way to find out.

  While she could have easily hopped down, she needed a way to climb back up. She had rope in her pack, but unspooling and rigging it would take too long.

  Instead, she reached to her waist. After being caught unarmed back at the cottage last night, she had come fully prepared this time. Under her suit, daggers and throwing knives were hidden in wrist and ankle sheaths. For this chore, she snapped free a large Chinese cleaver from her belt.
>
  She picked a bamboo stalk as thick as her wrist. With her blade freshly honed, she felled the trunk with one strong strike. She caught the pole as it toppled, then shouldered it to the hole and dropped one end to the floor below.

  Two minutes.

  She grabbed the green shaft, swung around it, and slid down its dewy length. Her feet crunched into a mat of wasps. She ignored the swarm’s alarmed and vigorous response at her intrusion. Wasps exploded off the walls and rose from deeper in the tunnels.

  She crouched against their assault.

  She pointed her beam down the tunnel.

  First one direction, then the other.

  Through the swirling cloud, she caught a flash of white skin and a small red sneaker.

  Benjie.

  She reached with her rubber glove, snatched his ankle, and pulled his gangly frame toward her. She didn’t have time to check to see if he was still alive. She simply picked him up and draped his small body across her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.

  She crouched and leaped up. Her hands latched on to the pole, while her legs tucked. Using her boots as grips, she shoved higher. All would have gone well, but the freshly cut end of the bamboo slipped and danced wildly across the uneven damp floor below.

  She crashed sideways, hitting the wall hard. She managed to keep hold of the bamboo, but the end of the pole skittered below for a long terrifying breath—until it finally found its grip again.

  She hung there for another moment to be sure. The internal timer still counted down in her head.

  Less than a minute.

  She started her ascent again.

  Only another four feet to go.

  Then pain flared in her side, fiery and explosive.

  Surprised, she slid down the pole’s length. Before her boots hit the ground again, her fingers clamped hard, stopping her fall. As she balanced the limp boy, she glanced to her side. She spotted a triangular tear in her suit.

  Must’ve ripped it on the sharp stone when I hit the wall.

  A wasp—one of the large soldiers—crawled out the tear and buzzed away, its work done.