by A. L. Knorr
“No, he came through there,” Bordeaux answered, nodding to the last door on the left-hand wall before the smoked glass. “Dalal was securing it when he opened the door and hugged him.”
Dalal bent his head and sniffed his sleeve, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
“If you smelled like this,” he huffed, nodding down toward his offending arm, “then you’d call it an attack too.”
Despite the thrumming tension, or perhaps because of it, I had to stifle a snort. As Bordeaux and Stewart turned to look at me, I realised I’d made a fatal error. Neither of them seemed to appreciate the humour of the situation.
“Something you’d like to add, Ms Bashir?” Stewart asked, clearly nonplussed.
I should have shrunk back with my tail between my legs, but I ignored the sergeant’s question to crouch next to the man on the floor. The smell made my eyes water, but I gave him a gentle smile and spoke to him in a low, soothing tone.
“It’s okay you’re going to be safe now. We’re here to bring you back home.”
The whining noise stopped, but he continued to rock, his eyes darting to my face every so often, when he wasn’t looking at the men with guns standing over him. I inched closer, feeling my skin wanting to jump up and run away, but keeping the same tender look by sheer willpower.
“You said you’ve been in here for days,” I said. “Why didn’t you leave?”
His eyes snapped toward the ravaged door, and a parched tongue rasped over his cracked lips.
“I was afraid,” he whispered. “Afraid it would come back.”
I nodded, wondering if the horror this man had endured had broken his mind. Even I, who possessed a way to fight the demon, had found Kezsarak terrifying. To a person helpless before his fury, I could only imagine the terror.
“The thing that did this,” I asked, gesturing to the room, “did it kill everyone else? Everyone in the compound, I mean?”
Part of me fostered a spark of hope that Kezsarak had killed the awakened Ninurta. It might make Kezsarak even more terrifying, but I’d beaten him once before. He was a devil I knew.
“Everyone that fought him, yes,” he sobbed, but sent a guilty glance at the corpses lying around us. “And then he went after the survivors from the escape tunnels.”
“Escape tunnels?” Stewart barked, stepping closer. “We have no intel on escape tunnels.”
The small man shied away from Stewart’s gruff interjection, scooting closer to me. Our survivor’s gaze darted between me and the sergeant, his preference clear in his alternatively cringing and pleading expression.
Stewart looked meaningfully toward me and nodded.
“Where are those escape tunnels?” I asked delicately, keeping my encouraging smile fixed.
“You can’t get out that way!” he declared with a shrill cry. “He rigged them to collapse. They’re blocked now, full of dead bodies.”
He shuddered, and his hands shot up.
Instinct wouldn’t be denied anymore, and I lurched backward to my feet, fearing an “attack” like Dalal had experienced. To my relieved surprise, his grimy hands didn’t reach for me but clutched his head. He alternated between tugging on his limp, hair plastered scalp, and boring into his ears with grubby fingers.
“He laughed while he killed them!” he wailed. “I heard the big voice laughing over and over again while the other two argued. Even in the lowest maintenance shafts, I could hear it.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out exactly what I’d just heard. The big voice? That had to be Kezsarak, but the others? And they were arguing?
Stewart leaned over and growled into my ear.
“We need to know about those escape tunnels, now.”
I nodded and asked the man, “The other voices, what did they sound like?”
The survivor stopped scrabbling at his head and stared at me, and I wondered if he’d heard me clearly between his spasming attacks on his ears. The wretched little man began to bob his head, slowly at first, but with growing speed and ferocity.
“Yes-yes-yes-yes,” he gibbered. “Two other voices besides the big one. Three! Three voices. I heard them before, when he saw me and then again when he went to the escape tunnels.”
He pointed to a door on the wall opposite the one he’d come through.
“Even down that tunnel I could hear all three of them. Two argued with each other while the big one laughed as everyone died.”
Stewart began to bark out directions for the point team to investigate. I crouched down again next to to the man, trying to hold his attention as soldiers moved around us.
“The other two voices,” I pressed. “What did they sound like?”
His eyes followed the first members of the point team toward the door, and he began to shake his head vigorously.
“Can’t get out that way. You can’t!”
“Look at ME!” I snapped my fingers. His gaze ripped toward me, his expression wary.
“Tell me about the other voices.”
His lip trembled, looking for all the world like an oversized child caught playing with matches.
“One was hard, sharp … sounded angry, but also a little scared. It was telling the other voice to shut-up so it could do what had to be done.”
It sounded like Sark. The end justifies the means; that was gospel to the self-serving traitor.
“And the other?” I urged.
He scratched his face. “It sounded almost um … tired, kind of old. Maybe like a grandfather. It was that voice that saved me when he spotted me.”
“Saved you?” I asked.
“I was trapped,” he moaned and began wringing his hands. “He’d trapped me even as he killed everyone else in here. Then, when he was about to kill me, the old voice told me to run and set me free.”
He clutched his legs and resumed rocking.
“I ran and hid.”
My heart gave a painful thud at the evidence given supporting what I had feared. Lowe. My ghostly mentor and friend had been caught in a kind of dual possession with Kezsarak in Sark’s body. Lowe’s strong soul vying with Sark and Kezsarak for control in a perpetual struggle. Despite the horror of Lowe’s position, I couldn’t help feeling some relief. Lowe wasn’t gone, and unwittingly or not, he’d saved a messenger to pass that information along.
“Tunnel’s blocked, like he said,” Bordeaux reported over the wire. “Mess of casualties too.”
“Acknowledged,” Stewart grunted, and then he was at my shoulder.
“Ask about Ninurta, and then we’ll get out of here,” the sergeant commanded.
My mind still buzzing with the news about Lowe, the command jarred me back to the present.
“Was Ninurta here when he attacked?” I asked the survivor.
A dramatic and chilly change swept over the little man at the mention of Ninurta’s name. The terror which had shone in his bulging, bloodshot eyes began to bleed away, and something like adoration or even longing took its place. The transformation was out of place yet so complete that an uncanny sense of wrongness crept up my spine.
“You know of the god-king?”
“Yes,” I managed to force out. “Was he here during the attack?”
“Of course not,” he cried, looking at me as though I’d suggested it was raining fish and chips outside. “If the bright and glorious one, the untarnished king, had been here, things would have been different … very different.”
The utter conviction, fanatical as the gleam of the dying woman in Fes, had me hiding another shiver. “Where is he then? Where is Ninurta?”
“He left, flew from here to carry the great news of his return. He stayed here only a few days to learn of the changed world and to learn some of our languages. Who but a god could learn so much so fast?”
Stewart and I shared an unsure glance.
“He is on his great mission, his great quest. Soon his wayward children will be gathered to him, and then they, under his guidance, will make the world anew. Upon the bones of the old world, will his
kingdom rise, but he must have his children first. With them it will be a rule that has no end!”
Stewart gave a singularly dismissive grunt behind me, but I couldn’t shake the sense of dread that crept over me when I heard those apocalyptic words. Gather his children? Did that mean the Inconquo? Make the world anew? What did that entail?
“Sarge,” a voice hissed through the headset. “We’ve got movement back here.”
“Copy, what are we—”
Stewart’s words were drowned out by the roar of “Contact!” over the line and the sound of gunfire ripping out from the rear-guard.
The survivor screamed, high and frantic as he threw himself down, arms raised over his head.
“He’s back!”
Six
Gunfire hammered out a furious staccato tempo, both from the rear-guard and some unseen foe in the chamber beyond. Most of the incoming fire deflected off the vault doors, but enough of the shots came whining through the opening that everyone in the room ducked and scrambled for cover.
Hadlynne hauled me by my shoulder behind an overturned steel table.
“Stay down, mum,” my guardian barked as he dared a peek over the top of the table.
I pushed back the irritation at being directed to stay out of the fight, instead I focused my whole attention on my metallic sense, pushing through the bonded Rings and outward. I could hear Stewart issuing orders over the headset, recalling the point team, I think, but it was just another distraction, so I popped the earpiece out.
When I first heard the call for contact and the survivor’s panicked declaration, I’d been momentarily convinced that possessed Sark or even Ninurta had returned. My body clenched in terrified preparation for a supernatural onslaught, but as the rear-guard traded fire with an unseen enemy, I realised that didn’t seem to be the case. Even if Sark or Ninurta had brought gun-toting cronies, they wouldn’t waste their shots on the vault doors when they could simply rip them open.
No, at least for now, these seemed to all be ordinary men, however well trained, using ordinary weapons of war. Metal weapons of war.
A smile broke over my face.
That smile was quickly paired with sweat because it was a strain from the rear of the chamber to sense anything that far away. Thankfully with so much metal, from combat rifles, ammunition, and body armour, I could drag out a clearer picture of at least six enemy combatants.
I pegged their presence but I needed to get closer.
“I’m moving up,” I shouted to Hadlynne as stray shots zipped around our cover like hellish wasps.
“What?” Hadlynne asked, but I was already in motion.
With an outstretched hand, I drew the steel table up with me as I rose, shaping it into a domed shield with a diameter my full height. Stepping over broken bodies, I moved toward the entrance, wincing a little less each time a shot glanced off the infused steel.
I was halfway to the entrance when Stewart’s voice roared over the chug and chatter of gunfire.
“Bashir, get down, damn your eyes!”
He was crouching in a doorway, nursing a wound in his arm that had soaked his sleeve in blood. His face was pale and drawn with pain, but his expression was a mask of outright rage.
“Trust me,” I shouted back, resuming my advance.
He looked about to give me a profanity-laden piece of his mind, but another shot sparked off his doorway, and I’d already moved too close to the rear-guard to hear him. The thunder of their combat rifles filled my ears, and the flash of their muzzle flares was enough to dazzle in the unsteady light.
I didn’t bother with my typical sense, though, instead drawing my powers up behind my fabricated shield.
The six I’d pegged were the first to see my presence on the battlefield. Gun barrels twisted like snakes to join with trauma plates on chests, rendering their weapons useless while impeding their owners’ movements.
The amount of enemy fire decreased, and I had a few seconds to feel proud of myself. I stretched my metallic senses outward, thinking to handle the next batch of hostiles the same way and realised with a start that the enemy had us vastly outnumbered. The six I’d first latched on to were only part of the vanguard.
We had them bottlenecked here, but even with me assisting, they were about to come pouring into the chamber beyond, and by sheer numbers we’d have a hard time keeping them out. We needed to find an alternative exit, fast, or this would turn into a bloodbath.
“Grenade!” someone screamed.
A trio of silver-grey spheres spun down into our midst.
On instinct, I threw two of them back with my powers, where they’d detonate among the confused enemy. The third bounced off the opening in the vault door and landed between two soldiers.
Slamming into action so hard and fast that my eyes blurred with tears, I inverted my shield and clamped it over the grenade. The explosive went off and would have blown the shield into a cloud of shrapnel if not for my powers bearing down. Instead, the wave’s force rebounded between the floor and the straining particles of the shield. Distantly, the other grenades exploded, but I was barely aware of them as I focused on containing the blast in our midst.
By the time I let go with a gasp, the shield crumbled into glowing slivers of metal.
My head throbbed with the effort and my hands trembled as I looked around at our team. Crouched in protective postures and hidden behind what barriers they could find, but alive. The same could not be said of the attackers. Blinking around, my ears ringing, I saw the evidence of the other explosions from the enemies quarters… blood, smoke, and dust drifting through the churned air. More importantly, no one was shooting at us.
A quick sweep told me that the tunnels beyond were still full of enemies, but it seemed they weren’t keen to rush in.
The grenades had bought us seconds that should not be wasted.
“Step back!” I shouted as I threw both of my hands out to the layers of metal composing the ruined vault door. “Stand clear of the door.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I’d just saved their lives or something in my voice that made them listen, but every member of the rear-guard scuttled backward.
The violence done to the huge door was incredible, something which only Kezsarak could have managed. For all that, though, there was still a lot of metal lying around, and though it wouldn’t be like it was before, I could force enough of it back into shape to seal us off from the front half of the compound.
I threw my powers against the huge twisted spurs and peeling sheets of steel, iron, and titanium. A heavy groan issued from the metal and squeals of protest rose like a shrieking chorus. The sheer quantity of material I was moving made my limbs tremble as I bore down on the cantankerous auras. They gave way one after the other with gathering momentum.
Voices raised, some in alarm, some in awe, but I couldn’t spare the effort to decipher what they were saying. The pressure of the energy I poured into the vault door throbbed through my skull, my teeth grinding so hard I hoped they wouldn’t crack. It was almost there, the pieces being forced into alignment even as I drove spikes of focus, prepping sections to be welded together. A rush of heat stung my skin, and my legs began to buckle. I threw every last ounce of mental energy I could scrape for one last push as I fell onto my knees.
Half a dozen hisses rose and then were snuffed out as a great crash sounded from the door like a resounding gong.
My eyelids felt like they were weighted with lead, but I managed to drag them up enough to see the sealed portal. It was a mashed, Frankensteinian thing and not nearly as sound as it had once been, but it was solid, and the enemy would at least have to take the time to set explosives.
As if in impotent protest, the sharp klink of small arms fire deflected off the sealed door. Shakily, I climbed to my feet.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
Stewart advanced on me, his wounded arm dangling a bandage and medical tape. The team medic, a fellow named Ram
id, trailed after him, his normally genial features set into a smouldering scowl. He was juggling scissors and bandages from an open medpac.
“I sealed the entrance,” I said dumbly, keeping my eyes from wandering to the rest of the team for support. I’d taken the initiative, I couldn’t ask any of them to defend me.
“And sealed us in a damned tomb, you stupid bint!” Stewart roared as he reached me, his good arm raised with a clenched fist. I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but Ramid snatched his wounded arm and hauled him backward.
“Bastard!” Stewart bellowed and made an awkward crossbody swipe at Ramid, who hardly had to lean back to let it pass him. For his part, the medic seemed too preoccupied with finishing the bandage on Stewart’s arm to notice the sergeant’s fury.
“Hold still, Sarge,” Ramid instructed in a no-nonsense tone as he set to work. “If we don’t get this patched, you’ll be too busy bleeding out to bawl anyone out.”
A stream of caustic invective was Stewart’s only reply as he held still and let himself be tended to. As the tap of verbal acid trickled off, Stewart squeezed his eyes closed for a second, took a deep breath, and craned his head to look at me. The rest of him started to follow, but a tug and sharp words from Ramid held him in place.
“Ignoring that you’ve trapped us in here without even checking with your superior,” Stewart said through clenched teeth, “do you have a plan to go with your … rash actions, Ms Bashir.”
I couldn't keep from wincing a little at the way he said my name, but I squared my shoulders as I met his frosty glare.
“My ability to sense metal told me that we were about to be overrun,” I began hoping that my voice was pitched loud enough for everyone to hear. “They were in arms and had numbers that would have overrun us very quickly once they mobil—”
“You mean in your completely inexperienced, utterly untrained opinion,” Stewart interjected. “That’s how ya ken this situation. As a civilian.”
“Even a civilian can tell that being outnumbered five to one by an enemy armoured to the teeth is a good way to lose,” I snapped back, appreciating the slightest shift in the stance of the men around me. “And those were just the ones I was aware of in the tunnels. There may have been more beyond them that I couldn’t sense.”
