Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2

by Jody Wallace

  She decided not to tell him about Zeke. It would give rise to too many questions, and she couldn’t concentrate on a tricky conversation right now. She had to remain alert. Guarded. Single-minded.

  Adi’s warnings against trusting the curators hadn’t made complete sense at the time, but the curator was unlike any Somnium employees she’d met. He had lofty goals and a unique perspective. She supposed he had to be different, though why he showed so little fear in the face of almost certain disaster was a mystery.

  She peered nervously through the glass window in the door. Nothing. The reddish emergency lighting provided better visibility than the purple flashers at the coma station.

  “I wonder what’s keeping Zeke?” At a normal pace, she could ascend the stairs to the surface in four minutes. Zeke had left had a dead run. “He should have notified us by now.”

  Though he’d probably prefer not to be hailed when there was no emergency, Maggie flicked on the walkie. “Maggie speaking. What’s happening upstairs?”

  Static. Had Zeke run into problems before he’d reached the surface? Palms sweaty, Maggie eased open the kitchen door so she could stare up the corridor toward the main entrance.

  Still nothing, except her own fingers tapping nervously on the door, her own breathing, and the curator crunching a pickle. Leaving the kitchen door open, she eased into the depths of the outbunker. She heard no cave-ins, moans or monsters. She returned, passing the kitchen, and headed for the main stairwell. She could pause at the first landing without leaving the curator too vulnerable.

  As she walked, she listened closely to the sounds in the building. Again, all she could detect were her own footsteps and breathing.

  Until she realized she seemed to have twice as many footsteps as she should.

  Maggie halted. Still heard noise.

  The hasty thumps of running feet echoed faintly through the corridor. Some wraiths could travel that fast. The damn T-Rex certainly had, but a dino would make a lot more racket.

  In moments, Zeke bolted through the stairwell entrance. He waved his arms. “Get the curator, we gotta go!”

  Behind him, Maggie heard more footsteps. Bigger footsteps. Lots of footsteps.

  And howls. Growls. Slavering.

  Above it all, a female voice, screaming commands at the top of her lungs.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Zeke. “Where’s everyone else?”

  He grabbed her arm, whirled her into the kitchen. “Karen’s behind me. And she’s really fucking pissed.”

  Without ceremony, Zeke yanked the curator out of the chair, where the old man sat with half a pickle poised at his mouth.

  “Sorry about this, sir.” He tossed the curator over his shoulder and scrammed out of the room.

  Maggie didn’t ask for details, she just followed. Though Zeke was lugging the curator, he nearly outpaced her as he raced deeper into the outbunker.

  “Put me down, young man,” the curator wheezed. “I’m too old for this sort of thing.”

  “Be quiet,” Zeke said, not even winded. “Maggie, open and slam the next door.”

  Maggie nearly skidded past, grabbing the handle to stop herself. The door flung itself open, catching her sprained wrist between handle and wall. She let out a cry, stifled it, and kicked the door closed.

  The boom of metal reverberated through the dusty corridor. The howls and moans of the horde seemed closer. What was Zeke’s plan? She had a sword, he had his weapons, and the curator…

  Had an attitude.

  “You little piss-ant, put me down,” the curator complained. As Zeke sprinted, the words were jounced out of the older man. “That’s…an…order.”

  “Emergency exit,” Zeke growled. “Now shut up.”

  So there was a secret exit. Maggie hoped it wasn’t in the section of the outbunker that had collapsed, though surely Zeke had considered that.

  They ran as silently as they could down the next flight of stairs. Many footsteps marred the dust in the floor. Karen and her mob wouldn’t be able to track them that way, but there were only a few places in the outbunker anyone could hide. The trick with the door wouldn’t confuse them long.

  An eerie, ululating cry Maggie had never heard before crept up her spine, giving her a horrible case of the shivers.

  “That’s a banshee,” the curator observed. “I haven’t heard of one of…those manifesting in… How unusual.” The fringe of white on his head bounced up and down as Zeke ran. “Ach, my ribs are never…going to be the same…after this.”

  “But you might be alive,” Maggie panted. What had happened to the other soldiers? To Adi and Lill? Did Zeke’s solo flight mean everyone was dead? “If the monsters after us scare Zeke, sir, our best bet is to outrun them.”

  They flew past the common room and entered the portion of the outbunker where cracks marred the walls, pipes whistled, and masonry cluttered the floor. Dust gathered in the air like a sandstorm, and the emergency lighting flickered. Maggie nearly tripped over a wire strewn across the floor.

  The hallway became difficult to navigate. Parts of the ceiling had chunked to the ground, and the corridor ahead appeared to be blocked.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Zeke dumped the curator off his back and started shoveling into the barrier with his hands. “We cannot be trapped. I won’t allow it. Maggie, check the other side.”

  Stomach clenched, she smiled tightly at the exasperated curator and inspected the mound of dirt, rebar, pipe, ceiling tiles and block that filled the hallway. In the bottom corner, a large beam of metal buttressed the unbroken wall, creating a crawl space.

  She’d rather die crushed by tons of rock than at the hands of Karen, a T-Rex and a banshee. “Found a hole. Going in.”

  She dropped to her knees and crawled. After a few feet, the space opened up. She fumbled around with her hands, praying she wouldn’t wind up electrocuted. An area almost high enough to stand and about three feet wide existed between the wall and the rubble.

  Even better, it continued in the direction they needed to go, but it was too dark for her to see how far.

  “It’s stable,” she called. “Hurry.”

  Zeke and the curator followed. They slid along the wall. Maggie tried to make as little noise as possible while listening for the sounds of pursuit. Zeke half-dragged the curator, and the old man’s protests condensed to pained mutters.

  “The rubble should slow them,” Maggie whispered to her companions. “Where’s the emergency exit?” The only thing Maggie remembered at this end of the outbunker were bunk rooms and the armory.

  They escaped the rubble into a larger area. Fresh scrapes zinged Maggie’s skin from the wriggle through the wreckage. Frayed wiring and broken pipes hissed in the darkness, and the building moaned an audible protest at the damage done to it by the dinosaur and the grenade. When Maggie’s eyes adjusted to the meager light from the crack they’d traversed, she realized they were near the junction.

  “I can’t fucking see,” Zeke cursed.

  “Hold on, son. I may be old, but I know how to prepare.” Soft, patting sounds issued from the curator. “Ah, here it is.”

  A penlight flickered in Maggie’s direction. “Margaret, my dear, you’re holding up very well. I’ll be proud to call you my student when this is over.”

  Maggie opened her mouth to answer, but muffled detonations rocked behind them. She ducked instinctively, holding her arms above her head. Zeke protected the curator.

  Unfortunately, the uproar wasn’t their crawly hole caving in and separating them from Karen. After the third shuddery boom, a familiar bellow flooded Maggie with terror.

  Another T-Rex. Any intact room she, Zeke and the curator barricaded themselves in, the dinosaur could bash open. The dinosaur could gouge through the buckled walls and ceiling too.

  This secret exit had better be functional. And well-hidden. And unknown
to Karen. Though when they reached the surface, would the rest of the horde be waiting to receive them?

  Zeke led the way in the opposite direction of the armory, toward the sleeping quarters. The curator’s penlight glinted on cracks and bent pipes instead of cascades of concrete. Maggie helped the curator hobble along, probably faster than he ought to be going. She could swear she heard his bones creaking—over the roars and howls behind them.

  From the sound of it, the horde had reached the rubble. Bashing, crashing and rumbling drowned out the more animalistic noises. They didn’t have much time—unless the horde brought down the ceiling and they all died.

  After entering the next to last bunkroom, which was missing its door, Zeke released a small lever and shoved the top bunk toward the wall. On hidden hinges, it folded at an angle, creating a ramp that led toward the ceiling. He flung the thin mattress out of the way.

  “Watch out—the lower edge is sharp,” he cautioned. He hopped onto it, popped out a standard white ceiling tile, and revealed the bottom rung of a ladder ascending into a narrow tube.

  He gestured for Maggie. “You’re gonna move slow with a sprained wrist, so you go first. When you reach the top, the code to open the manhole cover is 1981.” He grimaced. “Some of the wraiths with Karen can climb. Don’t dally.”

  She recognized at once that the curator wasn’t going to be able to scale the ladder faster than the wraiths—if he could scale it at all. They’d run out of time for miracles. Zeke had led them to the only possible exit, the only possible solution, but it might not be possible after all.

  Could Zeke tote the old man up the tube or was he going to sacrifice the curator in order to save her? Would he bother to save himself?

  It should be the other way around. She might be a bellatorix, might be an L5, but she wasn’t a curator. The old man had priority.

  “He should go first,” she said gently. “With your help. Or none of us should go.”

  “I’d be a lot better off with a rope and a pulley system,” the curator observed. “I don’t think my knees can handle a ladder.” He seemed to be trying to make them feel better about the decision they had to make—a decision that would result in somebody’s death.

  The curator had all the reasons in the world to be furious, fearful and raging, but instead the old man remained calm. His bravery stabbed Maggie in the heart like a stake.

  “No rope. Sorry.” Zeke caught her arm. The curator’s kind words hadn’t softened Zeke’s grim expression. He glared at her, but the twist of his lips told a different story. “Maggie, you’re wasting time. Go up the fucking ladder.”

  She stared back at him. A hot ball of misery constricted her throat. They’d tried to survive. Tried to protect each other and the curator, who hadn’t had any idea what he was getting into when he’d flown to the US to adopt a new student. He’d been so pleased by his real-world adventure, so determined to enjoy himself.

  Now they were all going to die.

  An exultant cry shattered the heavy silence, unidentifiable but piercing. Something had made it through the rubble. How long before the horde arrived?

  Maggie considered the ramp. The ladder and the tube. The climbing wraiths. The curator. Zeke.

  She made her decision. She drew her sword with her good hand and faced the door.

  “No,” Zeke repeated, his voice cracking. “Maggie, please.”

  “Even if I scale the ladder, I don’t have a shot,” she said gently. “How long before the climbers out-climb me? At least down here I can swing a sword.”

  “I’ll hold them off.”

  “They can sense me, remember? Topside. We could already be cut off. Hell, they could be on their way down to get me.” On field missions to collar neonati, manifested wraiths had been able to locate Maggie wherever she’d hidden. Their team just hadn’t realized it was on Karen’s orders at the time.

  The only place she’d be safe right now was a place these wraiths couldn’t access—like Honolulu. Unfortunately, she had no way to get to Honolulu.

  “The monsters trail Karen like she’s the pied piper. They might all be underground by now.” He touched her jaw, and his hand trembled. “This could be your only chance. I’m begging you. Go.”

  “If we can’t all go, we need to stick together.”

  Zeke hoisted her bodily toward the ramp, trying to force her to ascend. Her sword clattered to the ground as she resisted. His eyes glittered in the dancing beam of the penlight, since the curator seemed disinclined to give them privacy for a goodbye. Well, the room was small, and the curator could hardly step into the hallway.

  “Zeke, stop.” Maggie brushed her fingers through his eternally messy hair. “It’s too late. I need my sword.”

  “Don’t say that.” He quit goading her up the ladder and rested his forehead against hers. “None of this is worth it if you don’t live, Maggie. I want to think I did something right.”

  Dust gathered in the laugh lines beside his eyes, the scowl line between his brows. That was who he was—a perfect combination of wry and serious and sexy. She’d never expected to find someone like him or become someone like she was now.

  Maggie closed her eyes, because looking at his face made her imagine foolish things—like hope. And love. And reasons to live. “I love you, and I’m standing beside you. That’s the right thing to do. It’s worth everything to me. We’ll guard the curator until we can’t anymore.”

  “You could crawl into the tube and be partly protected.” His voice cracked as he pleaded with her. “You help him, and I’ll protect the bottom.”

  How long could Zeke last against a T-Rex? “Let’s find a room with a door. That will buy us time.”

  “So will going up the ladder.”

  “I already said I can’t handle the climb, son. Heroics aren’t necessary.” The curator patted Maggie’s shoulder. She wished she had an iota of his composure, but her whole body was a knot of panic. “Leave me here. While this does disrupt my schedule for the immediate future, I bet I can convince Ms. Kingsbury I’m worth more alive than dead. I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  “You’re a billion years old…sir. You’re not a field agent anymore, and you cannot handle this. Get your ass in the tube, and quit causing so damn much trouble.” As Zeke’s frustration and fear bubbled over, even the curator seemed daunted. To Maggie’s surprise, the old man took two hobbling steps to the ramp and peered up the ladder.

  Zeke continued, “Karen wants you almost as much as she wants Maggie.”

  “That’s right,” agreed a raspy voice in the doorway. “The Master will be so happy with his new pet curator. You’re going to free me from bondage, old man, and in a few minutes, the whore is going to be dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Zeke drew his sword and jumped between Maggie and Karen. How had the psycho silently crept up on them with a contingent of squalling beasts on her heels?

  And who cared? She’d placed herself within reach.

  He attacked.

  Karen squeaked with alarm and stumbled into the hallway. Zeke barely missed. She was a millisecond too quick for him.

  “Stay here. It could be a trap,” Maggie exclaimed, but Zeke pursued Karen out the door, retribution on the brain. If he killed her this time, like he should have earlier, the horde would lose focus. Then he might have a shot at saving Maggie and the curator after all.

  The darkness in the hallway concealed Karen, but he could hear her angry huffing.

  He jabbed. Encountered something soft. Karen squealed like a wraith.

  “Where are you?” she screamed. “Protect me at once.”

  Clearly, Zeke wasn’t going to protect her, so she must be yelling at…

  A surge of light blinded him as several wraiths galloped through the intersection and caught up to their mistress. Skittering at the forefront was a glowing, radioacti
ve spider, which cast a neon pall the length of the corridor.

  Spiders were eight times the hassle as most wraiths, and their climbing abilities were unparalleled. He had to dust that bugger before it reached the tube. The spider was accompanied by two Nosferatu, a banshee, and a werecreature.

  Karen had had a hell of a lot more than five wraiths aboveground. Where was the T-Rex? The rest of the horde?

  “What in the world?” Maggie’s voice, behind him. Her blade gleamed as green as the advancing spider.

  “Get inside,” he ordered. “I can hold the room against this bunch.”

  As long as he could take them on one at a time through the doorway.

  Karen lifted a finger, practically a claw, and pointed at Maggie. “You might as well give up, Zeke. This is the end. You can’t protect her anymore.”

  Karen’s other hand clutched her upper arm as she threatened them. Blood speckled the tattered remnants of her baggy sweat suit. The wound didn’t look deep enough to slow her.

  Damn.

  He feinted, hoping to get lucky, but the monsters closed ranks. They protected Karen with their bodies and menaced Zeke. The giant spider’s abdomen quivered as it crouched.

  Did it use webbing? Some did, some didn’t.

  He hated both kinds. Creepy fucks.

  “They’ll do anything for me,” Karen bragged. “I’m going to make sure your stupid whore gets what she deserves for putting you at risk. For bringing you to the Master’s attention.”

  The monsters milled around her, a wall of barely restrained wrath. The banshee crooned, soft and high and eerie. Its long, gray hair drifted like seaweed. The spider skittered sideways, away from the banshee. Green radiance fluctuated on the walls and floor as if they were underwater, in the fish tank from Hell.

  “You’re the one putting me at risk.” Zeke didn’t take his eyes off the spider. It was the wraith most likely to jump, the deadliest of Karen’s entourage. There was no way he could get to Karen until Arachnobeast was dead. “You’re the one summoning wraiths and killing people.”

  The werecreature blocked Karen from Zeke’s view. She shoved it aside and stared at him. “I have to get free of him, don’t you understand? I can’t let him possess me anymore.”