by James Axler
Kane, behind her, was also feeling for threats lurking in the darkness. He was one of the few humans in the world who paid the same attention to his peripheral senses as to what was right in front of him. When people said that he had the build of a wolf, Domi was puzzled, but the man definitely had the predatory alertness of the lupine hunter.
She wasn’t surprised when he put a hand on her shoulder, noticing something that she’d missed. The figure on the ground was badly mauled, but recognizably human. Domi skittered closer, then went on watch while Kane examined the form.
“Dead,” Kane pronounced. “Something tore his arms from their sockets.” He gave the corpse a quick scan with a small LED flashlight. Domi stole a glance and noticed that he was wearing the traditional gray overalls of the consortium. She bit her lower lip, seeing the horror in the dead man’s bulging eyes. He’d died slow and hard. Chunks of his belly and chest were gone.
“Let’s see if Thurpa recognizes him,” Kane suggested.
Domi let out a short whistle to summon the others from their position at the door. So far, the only other occupant of this building was a dead man, and she’d made certain to look up into the rafters. Even without seeing anything, she knew that no bat things were asleep up there. She didn’t pick up a whiff of urine or feces in the entire building. Domi had spent enough time in bat caves to know that when those things slept, they tended to excrete wherever they hung.
It was safe in here.
Thurpa approached the dead body and looked at its face, illuminated by Kane’s pocket torch.
“That’s one of Magruder’s men. I think he was Jacobs,” Thurpa replied. He realized how lucky he had been and suppressed a shudder at the sight. “He was with the group that was coming with me to meet you.”
“Magruder, as well?” Brigid inquired.
Thurpa nodded. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the corpse for long monents, but then looked around. “Not a lot of blood for all those injuries.”
“He was brought here as food. I didn’t see any arms here, either,” Kane added.
“Why drop the body here and not guard it?” Grant asked.
“Bait,” Domi mused. She pointed toward a high window with a catwalk in front of it. The glass had been broken out, and the opening was obviously large enough for one of those creatures to slip through. “They could have been hanging out one of the windows.”
“I looked. There was nothing. Remember, I fought these things, too, and I was specifically looking for them,” Grant said.
“We’d best take leave of this building,” North stated.
“But...” Thurpa began, looking at the dead man. He could barely imagine how, earlier in the day, he had been so callous in linking the destruction of a group of meerkats to how he would have liked to deal with the consortium members and their incessant grumbling. Now, Jacobs was lying here, torn apart and gutted, and reality smacked Thurpa in the face like a brick. “We’re leaving him here?”
“If he’s bait, they’ll know if we’ve touched him or moved him,” Kane replied. He’d been studiously careful not to disturb the form on the ground.
“Next building,” Grant said, leading the way back to the door. He took point on the route out, simply because he wanted to be the front man in case they needed a breakout. No telling what kind of trap those winged monsters could assemble, but so far, they’d attacked with raw, brute force twice. Maybe the third time they’d go for something a little more strategic and stealthy.
Grant set up just outside the exit and waited for the others to emerge. He might not have had a point man’s instinct, like Kane, but he had some keen senses and situational awareness. Not preternatural or feral, like Kane’s or Domi’s, but serving as a magistrate required being more than just an insensate lump of meat whose only instincts were to pound on troublemakers. Sure, it was one of the things that Baron Cobalt had really loved about his magistrate corps, but the day-to-day life Grant had led was one where he had to be a community peacekeeper. Straight up brute force always took second place to keen observation and awareness of dangers, to intercept them and disarm them.
He didn’t see any of the creatures, but he didn’t let up on his paranoia about their presence. This whole situation stank. He was further distracted and on edge from the presence of two former enemies, North and Thurpa. Though he’d never come into conflict with Thurpa himself, Grant had seen the kind of brutality North was capable of, including setting bombs that would have turned a crowded public square in the city of Garuda into an inferno of death and destruction, all to provide chaos that would assist the Millennium Consortium to move in and conquer the underground realm.
The night sky was a clear backdrop, with stars sprinkled across it like grains of sand spilled on black velvet. He caught glimpses of night birds fluttering to and fro, as well as insects, but there was nothing larger than his fist up in the air.
That didn’t make Grant feel any better. He’d rather know exactly where the enemy was. Waiting was hardly his favorite thing to do, especially when the payoff for that patience was a fanged and clawed creature trying to tear him open and feast on his entrails.
Grant waved for Kane to make a quick dash toward the next building. This one looked more like administrative offices, and the windows, at least on the two sides he’d already observed, were all intact. There was still the half he didn’t see, windows that would allow plenty of access to kongamato. The building looked like a maze, but fortunately, was only five stories tall.
“We’ll stick to the lobby,” Kane said over his Commtact. “Going room-to-room to clear the place just screams trouble. We’ll either get too caught up to notice militia or Durga arriving, or we’ll end up stuck in a hallway with kongamato pushing in from either side.”
“Check,” Grant returned.
North seemed to have drifted off into a trance. His eyes were closed, even as he walked. Yet he didn’t stumble once, but kept pace with the rest of the group.
Grant rapped his knuckle against North’s forehead. “Rise and shine, digger boy,” he grunted.
North opened his eyes, his features gone from placid calm to open disdain. “I’m scanning for communications.”
“You’ll trip over your damned feet if you keep walking like that,” Grant told him.
North rolled his eyes. “If I did, what would you care?”
“Like it or not, I’d have to pick your stupid ass off the ground,” he replied.
The archaeologist shook his head. “I wouldn’t trip. I’ve memorized every inch of this terrain. I’m using my optical nerves for something more useful.”
“Fine,” Grant answered.
North blew out a sigh, then looked to Brigid. “Is he always this dense?”
“Dense is being snotty to someone who’s looking out for your safety,” Brigid replied. “But hey, nobody’s perfect, except for you.”
North grimaced.
“Did you pick anything up?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. That’s what’s so disconcerting. The lights are working, but there’s not a soul in sight.”
“Maybe some people just know how to shut the hell up and not attract attention to themselves,” Nathan offered.
“All of this waiting is eating at what nerves I’ve got left,” Thurpa mused. Kane waved, and the cobra man was the first to jog toward the lobby of the office building. Grant and Brigid hung back to make certain they weren’t being shadowed by creatures stealthily gliding on high.
When they finally followed the others into the lobby, they noted that Domi quickly signaled for them to shush. Someone had rushed through, knocking over chairs and tables, spilling papers and mugs across the floor. Kane pointed to a splotch on the wall next to a fire door. Grant and Brigid had seen enough aftereffects of violence to realize that someone had been shot. There was no pool on th
e floor, which meant that the person hit had at least gotten through the doorway before succumbing.
But there was no telling who that had been.
“Do we go?” Brigid asked.
“I’ll go,” Kane offered. “You guys take care of our guests and keep an eye out for trouble up here.”
“Sure?” Domi asked. Kane could tell that she was itching to come along with him.
“The fewer we leave behind up here means the harder it will be to protect the lobby if someone comes at us,” Kane returned. “Trust me, if there’s a trap down there, I’ll spring it loud and clear. Then you can come down and help.”
Grant gave his friend another one percent salute. Kane returned it.
Sin Eater slapped into the palm of his hand, he opened the door and entered adark stairwell leading to the basement. The click of the shutting door resounded through him, running a tingle of dread throughout his body.
With the closing of the door, the stairway was pitch-black. Even after a few moments of his eyes adjusting to the darkness, there was not a hint of illumination that he could pick up. Turning on his pocket torch, he saw a dribble of blood droplets on the steps, and followed it downward.
Chapter 13
The blue-white beam from his flashlight preceded Kane as he descended to the lower levels of the building. The setup of the Kariba facility was much different from the one they’d encountered upriver at Victoria Falls, but even as he walked down the steps, his peripheral vision was starting to pick up similarities in architecture. Normally, Kane didn’t think of building style or design, and even if he did, he recalled Brigid’s mention of an Italian firm doing both the design and construction of the facilities along the river.
However, the similarities were far more than just flashes of familiarity from recent surroundings. Kane paused and knelt, checking the stairs. He’d seen some like them back at Cerberus, which only added to the growing suspicions he held that the power stations all along the river had been built as a cover for Project Overwhisper and its redoubts. Considering that the same firm had worked on both sides of the river, and the border between then Zimbabwe and Zambia, it made sense that they might have dug a whole network of tunnels along and possibly under the river, connecting a number of buildings.
Kane continued downward, keeping his beam on the droplets of blood leaking from the gunshot victim, not on his surroundings. The stairwell was a rectangular spiral, and while there were doors breaking off every twenty feet, leading to various basement floors, he could check that out on the way back up. The blood trail was the vital thing, and there was no sign of the victim pausing, loitering, as a companion stopped off at one of those doors.
But Kane would stop as soon as he saw evidence of that. The last thing he needed was an ambush cutting him off from his friends upstairs. So far, his instincts were dead-on about stumbling into these kinds of traps, a combination of his natural alertness and years of experience giving him a nearly supernatural intuition about trouble.
He paused again when he reached a landing where many droplets had assembled, creating a small puddle. The wounded man had stopped here for a while. Kane glanced toward a nearby door and clicked off the light. Once more, the velvety darkness descended upon him, and he waited a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust.
He walked to the door and gently opened it, trying to make as little sound as possible. Even as he did so, despite the inky darkness smothering his vision, his ears and other senses were keen, picking up on the slightest of cues. The sound of the door was only a few clicks of the handle and latch, but there was also a quick, almost imperceptible intake of breath. And a spray of light that was doused at the same moment the shadowy figure gasped. It was only a momentary glimmer, but it had silhouetted the stranger, and gave Kane a perfect target.
Rather than go for the Sin Eater, he slashed out with a straight knife hand, rigid fingers spearing into the chest of the man and rewarding Kane with a spray of fetid breath and spittle. An instant later, he brought up the pocket light, keeping the lens far forward from his eyes, and hit the switch. A blaze of white-blue light caught his breathless opponent right in the face, the beam burning harshly into his wide-open eyes.
Kane released the toggle switch and the hallway was cast into darkness once more. Even if his opponent turned on his own light, there wouldn’t be much he could see anymore, thanks to the sudden blast of LED-powered illumination in the face. Kane wanted to know who was working with Durga, and how they controlled the winged horrors on the rampage. Thus, he needed someone to ask.
The man who had appeared in the brief flash of the pocket light had a bald pate, completely clean and shiny from the eyebrows up. But from the eyebrows on down he sported a sheen of long hair, concealed only by gray coveralls. His hands and wrists were equally as furry, even to the knuckles. If it hadn’t been for the gleam of his bald dome, Kane could have confused him with a wolf man from an ancient vid, but this was just a particularly hirsute member of the Millennium Consortium.
Kane reached out, hooking the man by the neck with curved fingers, and leaned back, pivoting around to slam him facefirst into the closing door behind him.
The millennialist’s head bounced of the edge of the door, and once more Kane felt a rain of spittle, and perhaps blood, released by the impact. Another grab and he shoved the tumbling fur ball backward to the floor, planting him there with a grunt. Kane stepped on the fallen man’s shoulder, eliciting a groan.
He turned on the flashlight again, glaring down at him. “Who was shot?”
“Ma-Makoba,” the man sputtered. His beard was covered with bloody saliva from his lips, and blood seeped from a split eyebrow.
“How badly is he hurt?” Kane asked.
“Bullet went through and through,” his captive answered. “Why ask?”
“Because I came into this stairwell looking for a wounded person to help, if I could,” Kane responded. “I still want to help, but you seemed as if you wanted to ambush me.”
“How...”
“I have some good instincts,” Kane said. “You must be Magruder. Thurpa described you. I’m Kane, of Cerberus redoubt.”
“You’re him?” Magruder mumbled, recognition setting in.
He nodded. “So, you survived the kongamato attack?”
Magruder brightened at the inference. “Thurpa’s alive?”
“Yes,” Kane returned. “So why did you hang back?”
“This floor, I was told that there were medical supplies here, to help Makoba,” he responded.
Kane frowned. He scanned around and found a small basket of materials strewn on the floor. There was gauze, tape, sutures, even some disinfectant and clot powder. “Gather that stuff up.”
Magruder was able to move now that Kane was no longer stepping on his shoulder. He gave a cough, and Kane actually knelt to help him collect the medical supplies. Kane opened one packet of gauze and pressed it to Magruder’s oozing brow.
“Thanks....”
“You’re bleeding all over,” Kane told him. “Remember that if you try to jump me again.”
“All I can see is a big golden blur in the middle of my vision,” Magruder muttered. “What did you hit me with?”
“Just an ordinary flashlight,” Kane returned. “And then a door.”
Kane had his Commtact transmitting, so that the others could at least hear half the conversation with Magruder That kind of information would let them know what was going on with him, and that he’d made contact with potential enemies.
Surprisingly, during Kane’s examination, he’d discovered that the millennialist was apparently unarmed. In a dangerous situation like this, it either meant that Durga and his crew were disarmed, or that they’d sent Magruder up without a weapon, another piece of bait to hook the Cerberus explorers. And all Kane could think of was the trophy up in
the lobby, the orichalcum staff, Nehushtan, and its uncanny abilities.
And now it was time to follow Magruder to the wounded man. Kane let the millennialist take the lead. This was feeling more and more like a trap, but he’d established that he was easily as dangerous as any group he was set to encounter. He also had the consortium thug in his sights, and more than a little rattled. The banging he’d just taken would be more than sufficient to impair any rapid response Magruder could summon up. Sure, the man could still walk, but Kane had gauged his strike so that it wouldn’t have been fatal, but definitely concussion inducing. The drunken stagger as they descended the steps was proof of Kane’s ability and the success of his tactic.
Magruder opened the door. “Makoba? Durga?”
“Here,” said a hoarse voice that Kane recognized immediately.
“I found Kane,” Magruder called back.
“Hurry,” Durga rasped.
Kane took Magruder by the arm, hustling him along, but all the while keeping his right hand free, his forearm holster ready to snap the Sin Eater into his palm and begin blasting. His neck hairs stood up as he drew closer. Durga looked like hell, sprawled on a piece of fabric that connected two wooden bars, his yellow eyes glimmering like hot embers in the light cast by a small lantern.
Makoba was a large black man, easily as tall as Grant, but about fifty pounds heavier, his thick, bulging muscles covered by a layer of fat that softened his silhouette. He looked waxen and pale, clearly suffering from blood loss. Magruder went to work, as did a couple of men who had stayed there. They two had been hovering near Durga’s gurney, but immediately went to work, helping their leader, who glared at Kane.
“You look like shit,” Kane offered.
Durga smirked. He was balanced on one elbow, but relying mostly on the wall behind him to keep him from being prone. “Feel it. Thank you.”
“I seem to recall you had something to do with this situation,” Kane answered.
