James Axler - Deathlands 43 - Dark Emblem

by Dark Emblem [lit]

  The bundle hit the floor and scattered lifelessly next to the aching Doc, and he spied a button on the sleeve of the shirt he remembered Emily had sewed on a lifetime ago.

  "No," he whispered, even as the air began to thicken and his brain began to shut down. Struggling to his feet, the skinny man staggered to the chamber door like a drunken mantis and used the metal sphere he held in his right hand to begin pounding on the unbreakable surface of the armaglass. Again and again, he raised his arm and brought it smashing down.

  "Wasting his strength on such a futile show," the silver-haired man with the raspberry-purple necktie calmly observed from control, watching Doc on a wall monitor, the picture beamed from an interior security camera hidden inside the armaglass chamber. "He should sit down and compose himself or he'll never survive the trawl."

  "I don't think Dr. Welles wants him to survive, Mr. Burr," Chan said from a nearby station, his own prior conflict with Doc now put aside as he, too, stood back and watched what was about to occur. Burr shot Chan a withering glare, and the technician fell silent, choosing to no longer peer at the live video monitor. Instead, he sat and focused on the readings coming in on his computer screen.

  The tragedy of the biography he'd been reading scant moments ago still fresh in his mind, Doc cursed them from within the armaglass prison. "By the three Kennedys, a plague upon your houses, you white-coated malcontents!" he bellowed, swinging the metal balls with all of his fading strength even as the mists fell upon him, swirling into his brain.

  "Jackbooted thugs! Blind thoughtless cretins! Gibbering jackanapes! Rapists of family members and small children!" recited the agonized voice from behind the armaglass, even as the rights within raced up to an unbearable brightness.

  As Chan had before, the other people in the gateway control room without safety goggles were forced to turn their heads and look away from the video monitors. Many of them had already done so when Doc's fate became inescapable and apparent.

  An unworldly humming like a thousand alien hives raced through the chamber, the anteroom and into the control area of the mat-trans gateway. Just when the sound became almost unbearable, Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner was gone in a puff of smoke, vanished in the fog. He was a missing person once more, taken away a second time as if he had never existed.

  Welles strode to the armaglass chamber through the security of the adjoining anteroom and wrenched open the heavy gateway door. Inside, there was nothing left except the nostril-tickling stench of burnt ozone. The heat from the mat-trans unit filtered out and wafted across his body, sending fresh trickles of sweat running down from his armpits.

  "He's away, Director Welles," a technician informed him over the intercom system, her eyes scanning the readouts on the oversized computer console on her observation station. "We're showing a ninety-eight-percent probability of a successful matter transfer via temporal annex, but have no way of tracking or knowing the exact destination."

  "Do you think he made it, sir?" Chan asked, his reedy voice coming over the intercom.

  "I don't care whether he arrives in one piece or not," Welles replied, wiping the tail of his jacket over his perspiring face as he stepped down from the elevated gateway chamber and into the anteroom. His skin color had taken on an unhealthy purple hue, and his small eyes were crinkled and leering, a crazed look topped by a manic toothy smile.

  "So, what was the point, sir?"

  "Peace of mind. And I'll tell you this much. I hope Tanner made it. Hell, yes, I hope he made it, the arrogant son of a bitch, and wherever he is, I hope he's choking on whatever future hell he's trapped in now."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Always the master of understatement, Jak delivered the most precise and telling description of what the group of friends were now facing in the darkness of the rain forest.

  "Caves."

  The albino always used a minimum of words, even fewer than the usually closemouthed J. B. Dix. Sometimes, such abbreviated ways of speaking made conversation with Jak a frustratingly one-sided experience. Other times, the tautness of his verbal expression summed up a situation so perfectly that the florid Doc and his love of language could never conceive of competing.

  This was one of those occasions.

  "Yep," J.B. added. "And lots of them."

  Ryan didn't bother to restate the obvious. The impressive face of the rock wall was a honeycomb of cavern entrances, dark womblike mouths opened wide and indicating the presence of random holes of varying sizes. J.B. dug in one of the many pockets lining his leather jacket and took out a small flashlight he'd "liberated" from Jamaisvous's supply room back in El Mono.

  Thumbing the switch, he used the beam to illu- minate the wall and the caverns, darting across the dark openings, spotlighting in a flickering white circle the varied entryways. J.B. moved the light over the holes one by one for the group's visual perusal.

  "Plenty to choose from," Krysty said. "Take your pick."

  "Too many," Dean added disgustedly.

  Soto coughed, and cleared his throat. "I am afraid all of El Yunque is reported to be honeycombed with such caverns. Some are easily seen like these, others less so. This area is a good place to start, since there are existing tunnels already in place that were used by the local Indians for hiding dating all the way back to the time of Christopher Columbus."

  "Who?" Jak asked.

  "A white man. He came to Puerto Rico like most others-to claim land in the name of his Spanish masters," Jorge explained.

  "Typical white male power fantasy," Krysty added. Ryan shot her a look and she shrugged. "That's what Mildred always says."

  Once they had arrived within the section of Puerto Rico considered to be the rain forest, Jorge had taken time out to explain a bit about the area to the out-landers. The forest was named for the 3,496-foot-high mountain looming above and in front of them, El Yunque. The forest itself was a rough 28,000-acre stretch of jungles, hills, streams and waterfalls. Two hundred species of trees were to be found inside this dank, overgrown area, and El Yunque was almost always wet from the thunderstorms that sprung up two or three times a day to violently drench all within.

  Such abundant rainfall, when combined with the rich soil, was responsible for giving the area lush and exotic greenery.

  "Most of the tunnels only go down and back for about twenty feet before they dead-end," Jorge continued, as he hitched up his gun belt. "A few of the passages intertwine and connect with others. Those are the ones where it is suspected El chupacabras make their lair. The legends state they breed here, where there are few people and no interference."

  "Make sense," Jak said. "Stay where nobody comes."

  "So the question is, why have they been heading out to San Juan?" Ryan mused, still not fully sure of the how or why of the queer-looking muties and their hunting habits. "You'd think there would be enough wild game here. It's a bastard long trip to the city."

  "œ7 chupacabras are hunters," Jorge noted. "They have probably expanded their area to find new prey. Besides, a distance of thirty miles is nothing to these creatures. They move quickly, and some of them possess the ability to fly, although only for short distances."

  "Sure wish you two had some idea of what we're going to find," J.B. said sourly to the Puerto Ricans. "This could be a wasted trip."

  "No, Sefior Dix. All the evidence we have collected from the old tales, along with what we re- searched for ourselves, points to this site as the chu-pacabras's lair."

  "Well, then, we'd better get looking," Ryan said, stepping forward and rubbing the back of his neck. Another one of the sudden rainfalls that had soaked them all was starting to pick up in intensity, and he wanted to go ahead inside and get out of the rain. "Guess we'll start at the far left and work our way down."

  ' 'Do you want to split up?'' Soto asked, his worried expression revealing his own doubts of such a tactic.

  "No," Ryan said, his eye following the path revealed by J.B.'s flash. "We're in no hurry. Stick together-there's safety in
numbers. We check out the caves one by one."

  The band of travelers fell into a defensive stance before entering the first of the many black openings. A routine was quickly established. Ryan took the point. Soto, Jorge, Krysty, Dean, Jak and J.B made up the rest of the search party. Go in one cave, follow it back, check on any side tunnels, turn and exit.

  Soon, an hour passed. Then another. The similarity of the rocky clefts' interiors began to press on their minds, making each of the caverns interchangeable. When the second hour passed, Ryan's wristchron gave off a soft beep, and he called for a break so they could clear their heads.

  The one-eyed man stepped over and sat on an outcropping next to Krysty. "Hey," he said to her, running a hand down the back of her soaked red hair.

  "Hey yourself."

  "How you feeling?"

  "As good as you."

  "That lousy, huh?"

  "'Fraid so. At least the rain stopped for a little while."

  "You picking up anything out of the ordinary? Any echoes of the earth power in those caves?"

  Krysty got a focused look in her vibrant green eyes, as if she were peering down a hallway in another place far, far away. "Nothing in particular," she finally answered. "But there is something old and dark and ancient about this place. Like these caves are older than man, and will still be here long after we've taken the last train West. Know what I mean?"

  "Right. Place gives you the creeps."

  The redhead smiled. "And Doc's supposed to be the one with the vocabulary."

  Twenty minutes later, the pattern began anew. Soto suggested going back a few caves, since the last ones checked might have had a hastier scrutiny than earlier ones when they started. His own weariness now beaten back, Ryan agreed. If the others felt as refreshed as he now did after a quick break from stumbling around in the darkened caverns, something might very well have been missed through fatigue.

  It was inside one of the caves being searched for a second time that Ryan spotted something he hadn't during the first go-round. "Wait a minute," Ryan said. "J.B., get that flash back over here on the wall. To the right."

  J.B. did as his comrade asked, raising the illuminating beam and playing it across the back stone wall, seeking out whatever had alerted Ryan. He patiently moved the beam and revealed a familiar-looking steel doorway framed in dull silver vanadium steel. On the right side of the frame was a keypad display.

  The doorway imbedded in the rock wall was open, the vanadium-alloy door itself recessed into the narrow ceiling slot of the reinforced support frame. The familiar and standard entry code numerals were still glowing patiently on the tiny screen, unwiped by the last person who had exited from what was clearly another redoubt.

  "Black dust," J.B. breathed, his amazement echoed by the use of the arcane epithet he used only in times of complete and utter surprise.

  "Gaia's heart," Krysty added, equally surprised.

  "Dad, is that what I think it is?" Dean breathed, his eyes squinting at the door.

  Ryan nodded. "Answers one question that's been bothering me about the timing of Jamaisvous's appearance in San Juan with the return of El chupa-cabras. The goatsucker must've come out of the redoubt."

  "JAMAISVOUS KNEW? He knew!" Krysty breathed, her crimson hair tightening about her face and neck in an unconscious mirroring of her inner turmoil. "This explains everything."

  "I know," Ryan replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And we left Doc and Mildred back at the fortress alone with him."

  "Millie's a big girl," J.B. said, his face a tense mask. "She can take care of herself."

  "It's not Mildred I'm worried about. She's been leery of Jamaisvous since the beginning. My concern is for Doc. He'd do anything to get back..." and Ryan trailed off, not wanting to raise questions or suspicions in their Puerto Rican companions about Doc's origins. "To his own place. Where he's originally from. He has a wife, kids."

  "Sure," Soto said. "I understand."

  Jorge took up the conversation. "This...'redoubt' I believe you called it. You honestly think El chu-pacabras live inside?"

  "Yeah. Like I said before, I believe the bastards were cobbled together by some mad doctor working on some sick project," Ryan replied. "At the very least, they must have lived in here. Don't know if any are left or not."

  "Only one way to find out."

  When the keyed-in code admitted them, Ryan stepped past the doorway. The layout inside was functional and to the point: stripped barracks, with skeletal bed frames and empty footlockers; a closed-out kitchen, the cabinets barren of foodstuff, utensils, anything not nailed down. Long-lived autocircuits clicked into life, causing the overhead strip light pan- els to flare as the group made its way down the main level to the single elevator car at the end of the hallway. The heavy steel entry door to a stairwell left of the elevator was crumpled as if hit by a massive battering ram. The door had been hurled across the hall, and lay ripped from its mounting hinges.

  "Somebody wanted out in a powerful hurry," J.B. said, running a hand along the twisted metal. The front of the ruined door that had been on the inside of the stairs was covered in jagged scratches, some light and quick like the tracks of a domestic tabby, others deep and long like the aftermath of an enraged Bengal tiger.

  "Or something. See if you can fetch us a ride, Dean," Ryan said, jerking a thumb toward the elevator.

  "Right, Dad," Dean responded, stepping past J.B. and the stairwell door to the front of the elevator. He pushed the call button, but the plastic activation disk mounted in the steel plate to the right of the elevator doors remained dim. He tried it a second and third time, pressing with all of his might, and still received no satisfaction.

  "Elevator's out," he announced. "Must be busted."

  "Not like elevators," Jak said. "Make me nervous."

  Memories of previous elevator escapades went through Ryan's mind, including one precarious escape from a stalled car that had hung between floors, suspended over nothingness. They'd been able to exit via the ceiling hatch, but then were faced with a lengthy climb up an emergency shaft ladder, after which the only exit to the top floor was guarded by snipers.

  "I can't say I care much for elevators, either, Jak. Jamaisvous said there were power problems here with the nuke gen," Ryan replied. "May be why the elevator isn't working. No choice in the matter-I guess we walk. I'll take the point."

  Then a weight fell on Ryan's shoulders. He felt long crooked fingers try to grab on to his face, snaking claws toward his nostrils, his mouth, even a small hooked claw that tried to insinuate itself into the empty socket behind the tooled leather of his eye patch. Hot breath blasted on his neck like an open flame, and visions of vampires skittered through his brain.

  Ryan didn't frighten easily, but the cold sweat of fear involuntarily popped out on his brow. Dropping his blaster, he reached up with both hands to snatch the animal who'd fallen on top of him. His gloved fingers found purchase on a series of quill-like appendages sticking out of his attacker, and he used them to lift and hurl the beast to the floor. Two of the razor-sharp quills cut through the leather of his gloves and into his fingers and palms, but Ryan ignored the bite of pain to rid himself of the animal.

  Landing upright, the creature flapped a pair of wiry arms and skittered across the floor, half running and half hopping with a seeming clumsy agility. And speed. A pair of powerful hind legs assisted in the quick, rapid motions the creature was making as it scurried away.

  Like many of the other mutations Ryan had glimpsed or come face-to-face with in the Death-lands, this one possessed a pair of glowing red eyes, and a softly hissing mouth filled with sharply pointed teeth. Pupils of a pale yellow-green were slitted dots within the centers of the red.

  The drawing Soto had shown him back in the cafe hadn't begun to illustrate just how ugly and frightening El chupacabras truly was. The beast's head was oval, with a strong lower jaw. Small holes served as a nose, and, like stickies, the mutie had no ears. Two small arms ended in three-finge
red clawed hands. The powerful hind legs also had three claws, and Ryan took note of the bat wings under the creature's arms, much wider and sturdier-looking than in the illustration.

  "El Chupacabras!" Soto gasped, his round face flushed with excitement.

  Jak's Colt boomed twice, both slugs catching the creature high in the chest, and while the force from the shots drove the chupacabras back for a second or two, it still kept coming, silently, eerily, with eyes of glowing crimson lit by the darkest of inner fires.

  Dean chose to unleash his own firepower, drawing his Browning Hi-Power and cocking and firing the blaster in a single fluid motion. The round was useless for any kind of long-range shooting, but at a mere twenty feet from the target, the payload the