by James Axler
It was creepy.
“All right,” Sela Sinclair said on the other end. “Lomon just told me that there was a Zambian company of soldiers about six hours from the station. If you don’t run into trouble before, we’ll come out and meet you then.”
“And if not?” Domi asked.
“We drop everything except our guns and come smack that militia right in the ass,” Sinclair concluded.
Edwards’s chuckle reverberated through her skull. “Provided you leave anything for us to smack.”
“Could be bad. Soldiers might have bat things on their side,” Domi said.
She immediately caught the sudden change in her diction. She’d begun dropping prepositions, speaking more primitively. That happened when she was tense and on edge.
Fargo North was a good candidate for her unease.
And then there were the kongamato, presumably under the control of the Millennium Consortium.
Throw in a local militia who had a reputation for spitting their prisoners alive and roasting them for a feast, at least according to the Zambian guards at Victoria Falls redoubt, and Domi was surprised she wasn’t reduced to monosyllabic grunts.
Finally, there was Durga.
The last time she had seen him, he was close to twenty feet long, a writhing half man, half stony python with the strength to smash through rocky walls as if they were made of cardboard. He was ruthless, bulletproof, and had the reflexes to catch her and hurl her like a rag doll. She still ached some from that encounter.
If Durga himself wasn’t enough of a menace, she also remembered the last time she’d gone up against a couple of his followers, two full-transformed Nagah. They were strong, and their venom had left her blinded temporarily. If not for their battle being in waist-deep sewage, she’d have suffered even worse, but her fight against the two of them had nearly killed her.
Domi had little fear of any opponent, no matter how strong, but to date, her battles against the worst the Nagah had to offer had been true tests of her strength and courage.
Yes, she was on edge. But that was good. Fear made her smarter, stronger, faster. If her elocution dropped to grunts and snarls, then too bad. If she had to fight, she wasn’t going to talk anyone to death.
She switched channels back to Kane’s almost instantly, spotting movement up ahead.
“Trouble,” she whispered.
He didn’t have to answer; she already heard him coming to her side, though she had to stretch to hear his approach. He moved quickly, but walking heel to toe, finally kneeling by her side, his breath smooth and shallow, falling into silence. The two people, obscured by the long grass, watched as a tall figure moved in the foliage off to the side of the dirt road.
It was a man, but as he struggled into view, they could see that he was not in good shape. Blood dripped off him, and farther into the trees something large and strong was on the move.
Without a thought, Domi was on her feet, long strides taking her closer to the wounded man. Almost as an afterthought, she realized that the figure before her was other than human. She could tell by the thick muscled hood that connected the sides of his head to his shoulders and the glimmering, iridescent scales twinkling in the sunlight. Blood poured over cracked lips, and frightened eyes looked up and behind him.
Kane had moved with her, and she heard the hydraulic snap of his holster launching the Sin Eater into his palm.
The Nagah on the road collapsed, his arms no longer able to hold up his weight.
Out of the thick forest, a kongamato appeared, screeching its predator cry so loudly that Domi felt her ears would burst.
She turned toward the attacking monster.
It didn’t matter that the Nagah could be one of the same murderous monsters that had slain innocent nurses back in Garuda, the powerful bruisers who had nearly killed her in that sewer fight.
Domi had grown, had learned much.
And most of all, she’d learned that the strong rose to the defense of the weak and the injured.
The feral girl unleashed her own savage cry.
Chapter 11
Thurpa clutched his chest. He’d never thought that anything could cut the thick scales running down the front of his torso so easily, but the hard, almost armor-plate shell had been split easily by the cruel talons of the kongamato. He struggled forward, gasping for breath, spitting from split lips that oozed blood into his mouth so that he nearly choked with every inhalation. He was in deep trouble.
How the hell had he gotten himself into this situation?
That didn’t matter. All he could do was run, knowing that beasts were on his trail, hounding him, hunting him down to rip him limb from limb. Those things were on the warpath, and he’d barely survived first contact. Those kongamato weren’t fooling around, and if he stopped, if he stumbled, he could count the remainder of his life in seconds.
But now the trees and bushes that had hindered the progress of the winged horrors on his heels were gone, and he had nothing to cover him. He crashed to his knees, still clutching his wounded chest, blood spilling from broken lips and a torn cheek. He could barely think, his head was reeling so badly. Even with his fingernails sinking into the dirt of the roadside ditch, the ground seemed to sway. He kept his elbow straight, fought for balance, but the world spun about him.
Blood loss? Head trauma?
Branches snapped. Leaves rustled. Something thick and solid and fearsome was coming closer. Thurpa wished that he hadn’t dropped his sidearm, but he was battered, bleeding. He could barely keep his balance while on one hand and both knees. The breaking of a branch as loud as a gunshot made him whirl around, and with that, all hope left him. His eyes widened as he saw the apelike creature, its ugly, conical skull counterbalancing a fang-filled beak floating between bulbous shoulders and above chest muscles that were like pulsing boulders on its furry chest. As it balanced on its half-sized, almost comical hind legs, its long, freakish arms reached out, trailing leathery membranes from its waist to the end of a wickedly clawed, impossibly long finger.
The wounded Nagah let out a groan. “Why, Durga...”
And with that, his arm folded beneath him and he crashed against the side of the ditch. Strength gone, the kongamato wailing its brain-spearing sonic wail, Thurpa felt himself slipping from consciousness, the contents of his skull starting to liquefy. He just hoped that the end was quick....
But then a woman’s voice rose to a screech in defiance against the kongamato’s. There was a crash of bodies just above him and Thurpa rolled over to see a lithe, almost catlike shape lunging into the winged frame of the hell beast that was chasing him.
* * *
DOMI DIDN’T HAVE a lot of time to consider her tactical options. The kongamato was nearly atop the wounded Nagah, and she didn’t dare let the battle drop on top of him, for fear of exacerbating his injuries. With all her strength, she launched herself like a human missile, intercepting the winged predator from the side. She knew that she didn’t have the size and power to stop the creature’s forward momentum cold with a head-on tackle, but even her hundred pounds of weight could deflect the beast from its deadly course.
Domi didn’t think of this in terms of physics, in mass or momentum, or conservation of energy. Rather, she thought of it in a practical manner, just as she had experienced it in the Outlands. She remembered how she’d seen a coyote bring down a pronghorn antelope, which was faster and a little bigger, tackling it from the side, catching it off guard with a blindside attack. Coyotes didn’t do mathematical equations in planning their moved, and neither did the feral Domi, and yet the end result was the same. Both the hunting canine and the albino girl managed to bring down a larger, faster, stronger enemy using tactics rather than brute force. She hit the kongamato at a right angle, arms snaking around its neck, feeling the incredible musculature shifting beneath the creature’s
skin.
Domi herself was no slouch in the department of deceptive strength. A life of hardship in wilderness and urban war zones had hardened her to toughness beyond what a twentieth-century albino would have had. If she’d been born before skydark, she would have been frail, her pale flesh far too weak to withstand harsh sunlight, eyes easily burned out by the brightest days. But Domi, in spite of or even thanks to her difference, fought harder. She refused to die. She didn’t possess bulging muscles, and yet they were tightly corded, taut against bones that had been banged around in multiple combats, strengthened by stress. Because of this, she was able to dig deeper into her reserves, last longer, hold on harder, move faster than others her size. Domi and the predator both slammed into the berm alongside the road. The creature’s beaked snout took the brunt of their combined impact with a sickening crunch, the kongamato stuck with Domi hanging around its neck, perched between its broad shoulders, at its back.
The winged beast wrenched itself upward, twisting in a blind effort to dislodge the small woman who had denied it the kill of the Nagah. Domi kept one of her sinewy legs wrapped around the thing’s side, pinning a wing down. Blood frothed from its shattered nostrils, and teeth spilled from crushed lips and its broken jaw. Pain made it wild and confused, so that it didn’t even think to pause and hurl itself onto its back, to grind Domi against the earth with its weight. Rather, it slapped at its own chest and shoulders, killer wing claw flicking at empty air, as she was in too close for it to slash at her. The Outlander girl had drawn her knife even as she’d raced to the Nagah’s aid, and now she twisted her wrist around and stabbed deep, just above the creature’s clavicle, avoiding the ribs and heavy muscle of the beast’s chest. The razor-sharp blade carved through windpipe and blood vessels feeding the thing’s brain, and the kongamato’s cries of rage and terror faded swiftly to sputtering, useless sprays of lifeblood. In a moment, the predator’s struggles were over forever.
Unfortunately for Domi, hers were just beginning.
The albino girl whirled as a fresh blast of shrieks was directed at her from another monster breaking from the tree line. High cries laced with infrasonic vibrations shook her brains until she felt her eyeballs begin to throb in their sockets. The creature’s screech was a stunning tool, and it left her flat-footed enough that she didn’t have the forethought to raise her knife to meet her next attacker. It struck her, and Domi was carried through the air until she was on the opposite side of the dirt road, some fifteen feet wide. Even tangle-brained by the beast’s yell, she managed to draw her knees up against the thing’s chest, and when they struck the ground, her feet hit first, and transferred that impact force against the heavy keel bone of the winged menace’s chest.
That knocked the breath from the kongamato, and it tumbled over her, ass over head, into the scrub. Domi had been spared from the crushing force of the fall by her shadow suit. But she wasn’t wearing head protection, and could already feel the abrasion at the back trickling blood where her scalp was ground against the dirt road. It smarted, and didn’t make getting up any easier, but she rolled, knife in hand, toward the off-balance predator. It scrambled to get to all fours, but Domi’s blade was aiming for home. She jabbed at the struggling, bat-winged horror. The blade’s point carved through tough muscle and stopped as she struck solid bone.
The kongamato released another roar and gave a powerful shrug with one wing. The backhand blow scooped Domi off her back and tossed her into the ditch, twenty feet away, where she’d slain the first of the African nightmares. She managed to twist in midflight and push her feet in front of her, and the shadow suit’s non-Newtonian nature once again helped redistribute the impact of the landing. With a sidestep, she was back and balanced on both feet, turning to face the kongamato across the road.
Domi had recovered just in time, and now her knife was up and ready to respond to the beast’s attack. It sliced out to meet the killing finger-claw on the creature’s wing, the impossibly long digit stretching out seven feet to slash through her throat if she hadn’t been on the defensive. With the strength of her response working against the power of her opponent’s movement, she cut through bone, muscle and wing membrane. The already bloodied thing let out a wail at the loss of one of its weapons.
Suddenly the unmistakable cracking of a Sin Eater accompanied the beast’s violent shudders. Both combatants had been so focused on each other that they hadn’t noticed that Kane had taken down two more kongamato with his guns, and now his unerring bullets had blasted this one to the jungle floor.
Domi glanced back and saw that Kane had a few scuffs on his face, and his shadow suit was caked with dust and spattered with blood, meaning he hadn’t had the easiest time of it. Even so, he’d dispatched both his foes and moved in to settle Domi’s battle for her. It may not have been part of the rules of a duel, coming to the aid of another, but this was the jungle, and Domi’s ears were ringing from her head smacking the ground and the earsplitting screeches of the winged predators. Chances were even that if the battle had gone on longer, she would either be too wounded to be useful, or dead. The shadow suit had shielded most of her from injury, but when she put her hand to the back of her head, it came away smeared with blood.
Already Brigid and Grant were on the scene, weapons scanning for any new threats, even as Kane tended to Domi’s injuries.
“Fine,” she said tersely. “Brain rattled.”
“So, you’re perfectly normal,” Kane said with a wink, tilting her head and looking at the bleeding.
Domi pointed toward the Nagah who had burst from the forest. She wasn’t in the mood to spar verbally with Kane, not at the moment. She’d risked her life for the snake man, even moments after worrying about how tough it would be to battle one. He was covered with blood and lying in the roadside ditch, chest heaving, more blood pouring over one hand. “Nagah.”
“I know what he is,” Kane answered. “But you count more to me.”
Domi smiled through the pain as he handed her some gauze with surgical tape on it. “Okay. Thanks.”
With Domi affixing her dressing to the back of her head, Kane was free to check on the newcomer.
The cobra man had a bad laceration across his chest, and his face had taken a hammering, but as he panted deeply, no flecks of blood sprayed from his nostrils. That was a good sign that the cut by the killer claw was nasty, but hadn’t penetrated his lungs. Even so, the Nagah’s cheek was torn, and his mouth was full of blood that he kept coughing and hacking out. It was amazing how the thick chest scales of the reptilian had provided so little protection. Kane realized that the man had been lucky.
Kane sprinkled coagulant powder into the chest wound, the powder soaking up blood and turning into a gelatinous mass that closed off the minor blood vessels severed by the predator’s wing claw. Kane took a few moments to put gauze pads across the cut scales, then tape them in place. He wasn’t certain how many nerves were active in the chest plates of a Nagah, but the gauze would provide some padding. The coagulant powder would be absorbed by the body. There would be a scar remaining, but at least the wound wouldn’t cause more blood loss, or allow infection to enter his body.
Nathan showed up and rushed to Kane’s side, holding the staff Nehushtan, concerned over the health of whoever was getting first aid. The sight of the cobra man, however, stopped the young Harare man cold, eyes wide as he gaped at him.
“What’s your name?” Kane asked, nonchalantly. This was to check to see if his patient was all right, but also to add an element of humanity, for Nathan’s sake. Kane was used to the reptilian race, unlike the young African.
“Burba,” the cobra man answered, voice slurred, lips and front teeth dripping blood, mouth swollen.
“You can tell me later,” Kane said.
The Nagah nodded. “Okabe.”
Kane reached into his medical kit and took out a sealed ice pack, slapping it hard to let the
two chemicals mix and produce an endothermic reaction. Thurpa accepted the pack and pressed it to his battered mouth to bring down the swelling.
Kane then glanced toward Nathan and the staff, and shook his head. This wasn’t the time to go broadcasting the capabilities of Nehushtan to strangers. Thurpa’s injuries weren’t as life threatening as Nathan’s had been, and chances were this could have been a trick of Durga’s to plant a spy in the Cerberus explorers’ camp.
“This...this is one of Durga’s people?” Nathan asked.
Thurpa nodded, but his eyes held confusion. “Ibe a Nagah. But Ibe not sure ib Ibe with Durga abby-more.”
Thurpa pressed the cold pack to his mouth again, realizing how silly he sounded.
Kane looked at the cobra man and could see genuine confusion and betrayal in his eyes. “So you came here with Durga?”
Thurpa nodded slowly, as if admitting to a great sin. The injuries he had suffered were brutal. If Kane hadn’t had a means of clotting his chest wounds, the Nagah would have been in big trouble in the space of half an hour, if not from major blood loss, then from pathogens getting into his body. Durga was a ruthless, clever enemy, but the kongamato didn’t strike Kane as being so surgical with their claws that they could nearly kill a man, yet leave him alive enough to be saved.
Even if that were the case, Kane wasn’t certain of how fanatical Thurpa was. Would he risk his own life? Or would he even think he was doing so? Kane thought about how he’d saved Nathan before. It was out in the open, and a good stalker could have spied upon the staff and seen its powers.
Kane put those questions aside and continued talking to his patient. “Do you know why the kongamatos attacked you?”
Thurpa shook his head. “Just went wild.”
“Was Durga controlling them?” he pressed.
The cobra man nodded. “I thought he was. But he told me to find you, Kane. You are Kane, right?”
“Right,” Kane confirmed.
The Nagah took the cold pack from his lips again. “The name is Thurpa.”
