by James Axler
Kane was back again. This time his Sin Eater blasted out single shots that elicited more annoyed snarls and gnashing of teeth, distracting the bestial giant. Grant finally was up on the titan’s shoulder and pushing the ropes down under the cyclops’s chin. It turned its head, swinging it as if to thrash Grant from its shoulders. The big Magistrate still held on to the coils looped around his foe’s neck and swung on them, using his 240 pounds of muscle to wrench the rope tight around the thing’s throat.
The collapsible baton snapped open with a flick of his wrist and Grant jammed the steel length into the slack of his noose. A hard twist and he soon had not only handlebars, but heard the croak and groan of the cyclops as it struggled for breath. Big, fat fingers reached up to snag the rope, but Grant cranked on his baton, twisting to take up any possible looseness in the lines. If the cyclops was able to catch a breath, there was a good chance…
The ground suddenly seemed to rush toward Grant in the corner of his vision and the burly Magistrate twisted his body with everything he had. The giant threw himself onto one shoulder and the force of that plunge produced a loud, sickening crack. It could be a dislocated shoulder, or the creature’s collar bone, but either way, the sounds struggling past the giant’s restricted larynx went up several octaves. It was definitely left in pain.
Grant felt good that the creature didn’t roll onto its back. About the only thing that kept it from crashing its full weight onto Grant was its bent, massive leg. There would be little that could twist such a thickly muscled, heavily boned limb. Using the tension of the baton in the rope as leverage, he stood perpendicular to his giant foe’s shoulders.
Grant’s own legs pushed out, removing the absolute last of any slack around his opponent’s throat. While he didn’t have enough muscle to match the cyclops, he did have the leverage and more than sufficient power in his legs to constrict the big bastard’s blood vessels and windpipe. Even with the thing’s fat fingers clawing at its throat, trying to snag something to relieve all of the pressure, Grant flexed his leg muscles, digging into the beast’s shoulder blades.
It started to feel as if he’d dislocate both shoulders from the sheer amount of strain he was putting on the grip when Kane ran up to the baton.
Kane braced his back against the cyclops’s wide shoulders, then hooked the steel bar in the step between his boot’s sole and the raised heel. Kane pushed with all he had, and that tension held him up enough so that he could raise the other foot. The combined leg and torso strength of the two Magistrates was more than sufficient now, and Grant saw the giant’s shoulders stop squirming.
“Enough,” Grant ordered. “He’s out.”
Kane let his knees flex and dropped his feet to the ground. Grant dropped to the dirt, panting. His skin was soaking wet beneath the shadow suit, even as the high-tech uniform was hard at work, whisking his perspiration away to cool him. This level of exertion was something he hadn’t maintained for a long time. His arms, legs and back ached. He watched the baton slowly twirl, the ropes slackening around the giant’s throat. With the loosening, the deep, steady breathing of the cyclops reassured him that his plan was successful. They’d downed the mutant without having to slaughter it.
“We’re going to need to be environmentally sealed so he can’t track us by scent,” Kane noted.
Grant nodded, watching his friend jog over to retrieve both war bags. Kane walked back, grunting as he extended Grant’s war bag to him. He took it and tugged the loops of rope off of the monstrosity’s neck, returning it to the bag. He hoped that the suffocation would keep for a while, but just putting his palm where the pulse would be on a normal man showed a strong, steady heartbeat.
“Sleep tight, One-eye,” Grant muttered. “We don’t want to see you again for a long time.”
With that, the two merciful Cerberus adventurers pulled on their hoods and stalked off into the forest.
Chapter 10
Four people were all that moved on the old goat path through the hills. One man, who could be two smaller men by height and weight, and three women, each well-armed and clad in the seamless skintight shadow suits. They, of course, were Cerberus Away Team Beta.
Edwards walked at the back of the formation, cradling a massive shotgun identical to the ones carried by Kane and Grant. Should the CAT encounter any of the mindless, the enslaved, it would be his position to lay down less-lethal fire, stunning and staggering attackers in an effort to prevent harm from befalling the thralls of the Stygian couple—Charun and Vanth.
The next tallest of the group was Sela Sinclair, though her second place in height was a distant one. She also possessed a less-lethal, ammunition-loaded shotgun. It was Sinclair who had put together the crowd-safety weapons, and while Edwards would be smacking overly aggressive attackers with neoprene slugs, she took it upon herself to fire ferret rounds. The .12-gauge slugs would vomit forth payloads of tear gas, something that should make even the most powerfully mind-controlled victims pause. No amount of mental domination could stop the body’s responses to powerful irritants such as the pepper extract within the tear gas shells. And when their enemy couldn’t see, they couldn’t attack.
The third member of the group was a young, olive-skinned beauty who seemed decades older than her true age thanks to her bone-white hair. This was Myrto Smaragda, the sole survivor of the Olympian expedition to this very countryside. Her presence was as much a healing process for herself as well as a hope for rescuing her lost platoon. Her choice of armament was a conventional assault rifle, just in case there were other forms of opponents under the control of the Etruscan godlings, or an appearance by one or the other themselves. Certainly, the other members of the group also had conventional firearms, as well. Even so, Sinclair had given Smaragda a gren launcher, loaded with larger tear gas shells, as well as smoke grens to hide and cover them against pursuit.
The last, as well as the smallest, of the group was their leader. Her size, however, did not mean that she was the least of this group. Though moving almost like an animal, scouting ahead of the team, she was the appointed leader of the group. Her experience, surviving in the Deathlands and later in the urban apocalypse known as the Tartarus Pits of Cobaltville, had sharpened her wits in ways that no mere scholarly education could hone a warrior’s mind and skills. She didn’t have any long weapons in hand, but her gun and her knife were sheathed at her hips, ready to flicker out in an instant. The rifle she had strapped to her back was something to fall back upon, just in case.
So far, nothing had showed up to keep them on their toes, but Domi, Edwards and Sinclair were professionals, as was Smaragda. Relaxation of their vigilance and dulling of their instincts was a quick road to doom. Then again, Smaragda was a living example of how even the most diligent of adventurers could end up on the losing side of a conflict. They were aware of the dangers that they approached, but even so, they were stepping onto the home turf of creatures capable of almost crushing an aircraft and stopping heavy machine-gun fire cold with energy fields.
Caution was the order for the present, as it always was.
Domi combined both her own feral instincts, sharpened in countless wastelands and danger zones, with the high-tech additions of the shadow suit hood. At first, she had been afraid of feeling more cut off from the world, but the electronic boosts were things that she could make use of. Now the hood was giving her access to spectrums of hearing and sight she’d only dreamed of, though she took care not to rely too heavily on the electronics, the same as Kane had with his point man’s instinct.
Her ruby-red eyes were sharp at picking up faint light in the dark, but even they didn’t have the preternatural ability to register ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. The shadow suit optics did.
And so far things were quiet with the setting sun. There was also no contact over the Commtact. That meant in their hour of travel so far, Kane and Grant had persevered over the approaching monstrosity. No report on what they met up with, but also no distress call.
&n
bsp; That was good news to Domi, because she knew that her comrades in arms would at least get a message out if they were in fatal distress. The two of them had stuck around to make contact, perhaps to be captured or to be invited into the arms of Vanth and her mate. With that as one option, CAT Beta was to sneak up on the home of the enemy, gathering information through stealth rather than infiltration.
Kane and Grant had been taken in by more than enough gloating enemies that it had proved to be a useful tactic to offer an olive branch, or simply be captured. Still, without Brigid Baptiste’s presence, Lakesh would have said it unlikely for such a plan to work. Kane, Grant and Brigid’s ploys and ruses worked thanks to what the ancient scientist called a “confluence of probability.” Luck was on their side whenever they stood united.
Domi had little doubt that either Kane or Grant would be overwhelmed by an assailing monstrosity like a Gear Skeleton, but she also didn’t suffer the delusion that they were invulnerable. If either was in danger, Kane would certainly give a loud and clear warning to Beta. Sure, some parts of her would rebel at the concept of her friends dying, but Brigid Baptiste had been adamant on teaching her practicality and logic.
Domi would mourn those two, but only after she was certain there was no other means of bringing them back. Kane hadn’t given up on her, even when it had appeared she’d died in the detonation of an implode gren. Finding the Time Trawl on Thunder Isle had been Kane’s means of rescuing her, plucking her temporally from before the detonation of the lethal bomb, saving her life. Even certain atomization by hi-ex hadn’t stopped Kane from trying.
Domi could do no less for any of the rest of her Cerberus family.
She’d penetrated into the depths of the very base where she nearly died, looking for a cure for Lakesh as his mind began to fail. Her lover had been losing his mind, thanks to a bit of genetic vengeance cast upon him by Enlil, countermanding the same destructive nanobots that had rebuilt Lakesh from a two-and-a-half-century-old, half-artificial scientist to a man in his vibrant late forties. The slow robbery of Lakesh’s intellect was ultimate vengeance against the man who assembled the Cerberus Redoubt to battle against Enlil and his kin, when he was first Baron Cobalt, then when he was Sam the Imperator, then finally his true Annunaki overlord self.
If Kane and Grant were in trouble, though, both men would have the foresight to send out a signal, one that was a tight-beam communication, nearly unjammable, up to satellites Lakesh and the Cerberus techs had hacked into. When that emergency dispatch was squirted out, Domi would have received the relayed message at the speed of light. Broadband jamming was one thing, but a full-power emergency pulse, focused like a laser, would not be blocked by whatever the enemy was using.
They were getting closer to a village now. Domi had been able to smell the village and its attendant flocks of livestock, but the road had been eerily quiet. Normally, at this range, when the smell was this strong, the bleats of goats and sheep would hang heavily in the air. This wasn’t the case here. The same thing that Smaragda had observed before—the lack of life and spark in nature—was an oppressive weight on Domi’s feral instincts. Every nerve in her was on edge, hating the ominous quiet smothering the countryside.
It was giving Smaragda hell, Domi could tell as she glanced back on the road, but the woman was a brave soldier, strong of will and willing to go into terror. The Domi of five years ago would have not even dreamed of stepping into such an unnatural void of life. Even the rotted shanties of the worst parts of the Tartarus Pits had rodents and flies and people all squirming and struggling for life; a wild energy that made the world feel right.
This was a nightmare of lifelessness, far more chaotic to her senses than a dark, dusky realm where any moment a knife could slide between your ribs. There were few cues for her as even the animals had seemingly gone mute. A fence loomed ahead and Domi waved for the others to stay still and silent. On silent, bare feet, she moved up to the closest post, keeping herself down in a crouch. The grasses along the fence had grown nearly three feet tall, both inside and out, something that already seemed out of place for the stench of sheep prevalent in this area.
Reaching the fence, she parted some grass and saw that there were at least forty sheep penned into the area, but they simply stood in place. They’d eaten, but not with the same mindless industry that a usual flock would have. The animals were just taking in enough to sustain their lives, not grazing down to the nub and then moving on to another section. By the growth, Domi was able to put it at three or four months, putting the conquest of this small farm town right in the area of the first expansion of Charun and Vanth after their awakening. This was just as the CATs surmised upon their transit.
Approach on the road was too risky. The ovine brain wasn’t one of the sharpest in the world, but certainly if the sheep were caught in a form of mental thrall, there was every likelihood they could serve as eyes and ears for the two Etruscan demigods. Domi slowly allowed the grass to bend itself back into position, in no hurry to let her presence be betrayed by the rustle of blades.
There was no wind, especially none at her back, so her scent wouldn’t waft toward the sheep. With practiced stealth and grace, she returned to the rest of her team.
“Sheep. Just like the birds,” Domi noted softly, keeping her voice low. “Numb.”
“Why mind control sheep or birds?” Edwards murmured.
“The power needs to punch a hole to the other dimension,” Sela Sinclair offered. “They want to open a door back to their home world, and doing that takes a lot of energy.”
“So they’re tapping free will? Souls?” Smaragda asked. “However that goes, it’d be a hell of a boon, technologically.”
“If you don’t mind robbing someone of their individuality,” Sinclair countered.
“Maybe for prisoners,” Edwards mentioned.
“Maybe we get out of here,” Domi grumbled, her ruby eyes narrowed to slits as she looked back toward the farm. “We skirt the town.”
“And we shut the hell up,” Smaragda added, gauging Domi’s impatience.
The albino girl nodded. “Not so many words.”
With that, Domi and her team backtracked, then gave the farm town a wide berth.
It would add an hour to their trek, but when it came to butting heads with alien menaces, there was little to be gained by rushing blindly into battle.
* * *
WITH NIGHT’S ARRIVAL, cloaking the world in darkness only illuminated by stars and a slim crescent of moon, CAT Beta had been able to move with a little more speed. In the inky shadows, they had the advantage of superior night vision, including Domi’s ruby-red gaze, which made her sensitive to even the faintest of glows. She’d long since inured herself to daylight, but except on overcast days, she kept a pair of sunglasses ready to keep from being “snow blinded” by the burning sun.
It was after the arrival of dusk where she came most alive; a nocturnal predator entering her environment. The others were utilizing night-vision optics, and with the world cast in green via light amplification, the four of them were in far less need of keeping to foliage and such.
Sure, they meant to stay in the shadows, something that they could discern even in the night-vision optics. Domi eschewed that, as she was used to a lifetime of night hunting that she had honed to perfection. This was training and skill that she continued using, even with technology that couldn’t honestly improve upon the senses she utilized. She could understand using IR and UV vision, as well as telescopic optics, but for night work, with plenty of natural starlight for her to see by, she didn’t use the hood.
The four people kept their profile low, thanks to the camouflage aspects of the shadow suit’s high-tech polymers. Though Domi didn’t have her faceplate down on her hood, she did have it tucked up over her bone-white hair, so as to minimize the shocking contrast of it against the countryside. The same had gone during the day, as well. Her bare feet, though cast of the same alabaster as the rest of her albino skin, had been d
arkened and dirtied by years of trudging, so that she didn’t have to worry about them sticking out like sore toes.
Domi heard the flutter of wings in the distance, then froze, the others coming to a halt behind her and crouching low.
“Bird?” Edwards murmured, speaking in a low tone.
“Lots,” Domi returned. “Too dark to see us. Maybe.”
Edwards and Sinclair immediately picked up on Domi’s heightened agitation. Her language skills suffered in fight-or-flight situations, but that was all right with her two partners. When it came to fighting for survival, Domi’s lack of elocution was balanced by downright eloquence when it came to the arts of violence. However, as they were closing in on the location of the missing parallax point, any bit of action would only draw down the attention of the godlings and who knew how many of their mindless slaves.
Though CAT Beta was made of formidable warriors, armed with powerful weapons, there still were limits to both firepower and skill in the face of superior numbers. Standing and fighting would be tantamount to suicide.
Their option was silence and a fighting retreat if necessary.
That retreat would get harder, though, the farther they penetrated into the realm of Charun and Vanth. There would be a larger perimeter to fight through, more lines of thralls at their backs to block their escape.
Together, though, the four of them knew that even if it came to blasting through the opposition, they were still limited by several things. They knew that their opposition was composed of innocents enthralled by the pair of winged demigods. And they had a limited supply of ammunition, even if they didn’t care about causing lethal harm to the mental slaves.
As of now, Edwards and Sinclair were scanning the skies with their IR optics, picking up the heat signatures of several small birds in flight. They swept the air above them, staying as still as possible. There was a dull dread hanging in the night, if only for the fact that they knew their enemy had its own air force, the very birds of this area.
