John’s heart began to hammer as he realized what they were up against. Plague Queens. His supposed mortal enemy, now facing him at last.
The largest abomination pinned John with her hot, furious gaze, seeming to ignore everyone else. "You were a fool to ever cross us, Johnathan Reacher. And yet again you dare to come here, into the heart of our power. My power! For you face Lilith, deadliest Queen in all of Jordia! I will delight in the shrieks of your tormented lungs as I crack your bones and devour your flesh. I will laugh as you curse my name with your dying breath! The children are doomed. Now join them once more, as you have every time before!"
Mason’s eyes widened. “How the fuck does that thing know your name, boy scout?”
But there was no answer a stunned John could give him.
"No!" screamed Agneta. "Those are thirty innocent children! Please, I ask only for their safe return. Surrender them, bother our town no longer... and I swear to you, me and mine will hinder you no further."
A single flash of her haunted gaze, and John instantly understood. Her expected duty was to purge the threat, regardless of risk or personal conflicts. What she was offering broke all the edicts of a Dominion officer. But for the sake of her niece, her sister, the family she loved, she was willing to throw it all away, and perhaps risk far worse than dishonorable discharge.
John felt a sudden unexpected swelling of pride for this woman he so admired, moved by her natural instinct to put the lives of children beyond the expectations and promises of duty or rank. But it really shouldn’t surprise him at all. She had been a loving mother for decades before she had ever donned an officer’s uniform. To choose a child’s well-being over her own would be second nature to her.
She forced herself to speak on as her men gazed upon her with looks ranging from relief to outrage. "I'll grant you a further boon that no other opponent ever will. As far as High Command will be concerned, you will be dead. The threat you represent, neutralized. You will have a clean slate, a fresh start, to do whatever it is you would like in this world, all its possibilities now open before you. But accept, and we can wring triumph from tragedy, together!"
John felt her hand squeeze his own in a tight grip. “If they accept, I'll have no place here. Do you truly want to see what the future has in store for us, Johnathan Reacher?"
John gasped and blinked. "I... I think I do."
"Good! I'm retiring the moment we get out of here, before anyone can question us on a damn thing! Perhaps a life of adventure by your side is in my future after all.”
John was struck by images of the pair of them exploring all the natural beauty and wonders of Jordia, majestic vistas of snowcapped mountains glowing red-gold in the setting sun, discovering ancient ruins filled with magical artifacts and wonders undreamed, making their mark as treasure hunters before retiring in comfort together. The pair of them would live safely hidden within prime Jordian woodland groves only she could find, the bounties of the forest and field at their fingertips, as subtle magical gifts Agneta had never before shared with anyone save her sister kept them safe and hidden against all the madness now infecting her world. Just him and her and the family they might one day forge together, John somehow knowing, just as she did, that they were a perfect match. A truth his heart had understood from the moment his lips had first caressed her own.
And in that desperate moment, just a heartbeat away from horrific violence, trapped in a nightmare cavern complex that might or might not be tied to an alien realm, he realized how very much he wanted to make Agneta's precious dream come true.
Mocking laughter filled the massive cavern. "Oh, do not worry on my account, wench,” said the largest of the Plague Queens. “No one will be reporting anything to anyone. When I am done with you, you will all be faithful slaves, eager to embrace my every command, your ruined minds playthings for my amusement!" A cold wind seemed to blow through the chamber as the spiders hissed in unison. "Save for you, little captain. I sense my nemesis favors you, so your death shall be particularly exquisite."
Agneta's eyes widened in terrified alarm. And six spiders simultaneously shot silken strands, covering her face in a horrific sticky mass.
Agneta collapsed, writhing, unable to see, to act, to breathe.
John's mind was flooded with her terrified panic.
"Agneta!" he screamed, 14 Quickness letting him duck under a second hostile spray of choking death as he tried desperately to yank the webbing free of Agneta's face.
The head Queen mocked him with her laughter. "Sorry, Johnny-boy. Only fire will save your whore. Though she won't look nearly so pretty then. Not that I will give you any chance to save her at all. Kill the intruders!"
"Mason!" shrieked a panicked Sophia.
"Jump, baby, Jump now! Para—"
And Mason stumbled back, a look of horror on his features as he tore at webbing clamping his mouth shut, his quickness alone sparing his nostrils and eyes. But for now, he couldn't say a damn thing.
“I’m not leaving without you!” In what was for her an act of supreme courage, Sophia raced to help a frantically struggling Mason, love and terror both writ large upon her features, her fierce resolve not to abandon the man she loved giving her an almost transcendent beauty.
Gone forever in an explosion of blood and gore as a massive revenant that looked more like a wereboar than a man clamped down upon her skull and tore it off with a furious yank, Sophia's decapitated body collapsing in a crimson shower upon the cold cavern floor.
Then a blaze of sparkling light as the remains not already devoured by the revenant disappeared before their eyes.
Mason’s gaze widened with inconceivable horror, instantly transformed to a black hate that transcended mere fury, savagely striking the revenant even now stumbling back as his cleaving blade tore through his foe a showers of black blood as Mason embraced a berserker's frenzy.
For John, time seemed to stretch like a nightmare unending, Mason's horrific ordeal instantly captured in his mind's eye by a perception that transcended mere sight, suddenly sensing all the pieces on the board once more even as he tucked and rolled as mandibles plunged for his neck, terror for Agneta's plight burning through his soul as his blade whipped free of scabbard, plunging and twisting into the multifaceted eyes of the closest spider before he abruptly ripped it free.
Critical strike against Deathspider! Deathspider has perished! Experience earned! Kill on!
Terrified he would be too late, John channeled his horror into a hot, killing rage, his blade arcing through the air as he carved vicious swaths through the necks, skulls, and limbs of the suddenly swarming revenants, a mist of crimson washing over him as yet another horror collapsed, skull exploding in a spray of black gore.
Duck!
Twisting and rolling as razor-sharp claws sought to dismember him before blasting through the limbs of a stalking revenant with a spinning backhand slice then slamming forward with shield before his lurching foe's skull exploded with the force of his savage onslaught, taking maximum advantage of his odd sense of the battlefield as a whole, harrying enemy after enemy in the heartbeats his allies kept them distracted, as skillfully as he had in the woodlands.
But now they were surrounded by spiders and horrors both, and somehow John was never able to get to his girl's side before revenants that seemed to mock him with Lilith's laughter would hinder his desperate press forward, forcing him to dart and pivot and weave a deadly dance of death even as he sensed Agneta suffocate.
"Agneta!" John screamed. "Marcus! Burn the webbing off her face!"
Terrified he was already too late, bitterly accepting that desperate cry was all he could do, John channeled his panic into a furious assault that cleaved through the horrors before him, thanks to his skill, strength, and being far too furious to fear for his own life.
"Got it, John!" Marcus cried out even as an agonized cry filled John with desperate hope and torment both, knowing the awful price Agneta was paying just to breathe.
"Back,
motherfuckers!" John snarled at the pair of revenants between him, the healer, and the woman he was desperate to rescue.
Shield bash, spin, cleave and pivot! Feint with thrust, moulinet with compass step, and off with the fucker's head! And John was through, having slammed one zombie off its feet and pivoting around the second before decapitating it, pausing only long enough to smash in the skull of the first revenant struggling to its feet before rushing to Agneta's side.
She sobbed, her brows burnt completely off, gasping for breath from a mouth that was third-degree burns and blisters, and John's heart soared, never having thought her so beautiful in all his life.
"Come on! We're getting out of here while we can!" John screamed.
Beautiful golden eyes latched onto his with such desperate hope. John’s heart clenched and soared all at once, knowing he would never forget that precious, poignant moment for so long as he lived.
Then her eyes widened with a look of surprised wonder, both of them looking down at the obsidian sickle bursting through the solid steel breastplate protecting her chest.
14
John screamed in horror
"Agneta!"
Looking up to meet the vicious smile of a girl who looked hauntingly familiar, though he couldn’t say why. The upper part of her body, anyway. The torso turned to twisted roping strands of knotted flesh, fusing to a shiny carapace and half a dozen thick limbs supporting the weight of her mutated body, slender feminine arms ending in massive jet-black pincers that had torn through Agneta's steel armor as if it were thinnest parchment.
Agneta gazed at John through strands of hair matted with blood, helmet desperately torn free in her earlier attempts to get rid of the webbing that had almost suffocated her. Golden eyes filled with such terrible regret met his own, blood spurting from her mouth as she tried to speak.
John was frozen in horror. For endless moments he couldn't move, couldn't speak, trapped in a nightmare.
Her tormentor cackled like the hideous abomination she was. "Sorry, Johnny-boy. Your bitch can't come to the phone right now. Care to leave a message?" She flashed a cruel grin as two of her limbs grabbed Agneta's legs, and began to pull.
Agneta's agonized screams tore through John's soul.
"NO!" John cried as her eyes rolled back in agony with the sickening crack of bone, drops of her blood splashing down from her armored legs onto the cold stone ground.
"This is your fault, asshole! You could have walked away. You could have left us alone! Instead, you took your father's banner, declared yourself our enemy, and killed my sister! For that, John, I will butcher everyone you care about, everyone you love!"
At that very moment, Mason cried out, his shriek somehow ripping through the silken cords that had bound his mouth. John's horrific gaze was forced to head that call, seeing his companion spitting out blood as no less than four revenants pinned his limbs, a fifth disemboweling him before John and the spider queen's eyes.
And everyone else, every single soldier that had dared those caves, had been bound up in silken cocoons, writhing and struggling even now, save for those who had been utterly eviscerated, their mangled corpses littering the ground.
John howled with a black, homicidal fury unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Wanting nothing more than to swim in his enemies' blood.
Everything took on an eerie crimson glow, lighting up like bloody ornaments in the darkness.
He could see it then. Sense it. Taste it.
The heartbeats of his enemies. The flows of blood and power roaring through them.
Sensing the knots of arcane power animating and binding his foes to their horrific mistress, sensing just where to strike.
And a heartbeat later, it was gone. All was blackness and gloom and horror once more as Marcus's light died out with the last wheezes of his perforated body.
But not before Lilith, smiling into John's eyes, tore a shrieking Agneta completely in half, drowning him in a shower of her blood.
John howled, crashing to his knees, crushed by a pain so awful, so hideous, he couldn't move.
"That's what you get for crossing me, fool. All your toys broken, everyone you cared about, dead!"
Despair burned away in the hot cauldron of blinding fury. John roared, dashing forward, cleaving out with his blade—to hit only air, seeing nothing in what was now inky darkness.
Lilith's scythe cleaved into his side. He crashed to the ground, his abdomen on fire.
Mocking laughter surrounded him. "And now you are as blind as a bat, helpless before me! Scream and wail and gnash your teeth as I sup upon the flesh of your chosen, maggot. For I swear the agony this whore felt is nothing compared to what I will do to you!"
And that's when John felt pain unlike anything he had ever experienced before as Lilith's pincering legs speared him through the darkness, pinning him in place. He spat out blood before flashing a furious smile. He might be blind and new to his gifts, but he could taste her malice like an inky black presence, and he shouted his hate with every last fiber of his being.
Save Versus Critical Failure made! You have successfully boosted your Ego Crush! Your foe takes 125 damage to Health and Stamina! Your foe is temporarily stunned! 40 Psion spent!
You have successfully quantized Psiboost Rank 1!
John groaned as he crashed to the ground, his foe's supersonic shriek near stunning him in turn.
And then she was gone.
Retreating as fast as she could, shrieking for her sisters to kill him, panic for the first time in her voice.
Fury, grief, and horror all warred within him, jelling to one single, terrible certainty.
All of his allies were dead.
It did not matter how fiercely, how savagely he had fought, killing a handful of mutated arachnids and a hoard of twisted revenants, forcing Lilith to taste fear for perhaps the first time in her life on Jordia. She had claimed the battlefield, and could easily retreat long enough for her entire army to cut him to shreds.
Out of all those who had entered the cavern, he was the only one to survive. And if he couldn't escape this deathtrap, sightless and injured, the monsters who murdered all his friends will have won.
And the brilliant blue bar blinking in his mind's eye meant nothing as the bitter specter of his own inevitable death approached.
Lilith, his true enemy, was fleeing, even as her puppets and weaker siblings prepared to swarm him.
John did the only thing he could.
Holding tight to the remembered sense of the room entire that had allowed him to pivot around and cut down so many foes before they had fatally swarmed his allies, John twisted about on his back foot, racing for the leftmost tunnel leading ever deeper into what were now pitch black caverns. The faint glimmer of Elementium crystals now shining far above his head once more did nothing to lighten the darkness below.
Mocking laughter followed in his wake. "Run, fool. Run while you can! For my sisters live in the heart of these caverns. And your hybrid blood will catalyze the birth of yet more black queens to rule this world!" Cackling laughter followed John's desperate escape. "That's right, worm! All your potency, all your potential will be used to catalyze the very thing you swore to destroy! Now run, Johnathan Reacher! Run with the dying screams of your pet Jordian echoing endlessly in your ears. May the torments your friends suffered pale in comparison to what my sisters will do to you!"
John ran. Legs pistoning forward with frantic speed, exhaustion replaced with bitterest regret, furious terror. Knowing he had to survive, somehow, no matter that he was trapped in a nightmare. Survive until he was strong, whole, and able to face Lilith at a time and place of his choosing, not hers.
He could see nothing, yet his legs knew where to go. Knew the flow of these endless, winding tunnels he traversed in pitch blackness, the hideous skittering of arachnid horrors, future Plague Queens, just a single fatal pounce behind him.
Somehow, he just knew. When to pivot left, racing down a side tunnel that sloped at
a steep angle before ducking his head and squeezing into a narrow opening as his enemies hissed in frustrated fury. He knew just when to leap over broken ground as he raced ever faster, exhausted lungs heaving for air from a prolonged sprint not even his 14 Vitality could completely recover from. Somehow, he knew when to twist and dart around any number of bends, finding himself no nearer to an exit, just another cavern that had hosted its own last stand, countless months or years ago.
For there was no mercy in these endless corridors echoing through space and time, just death in all its hideous forms and permutations.
Turn left, John.
An echo of Mitch's voice. Once someone he looked up to, even admired with his jaded air, always three steps ahead of everyone else, amused condescension as much as genuine warmth in his voice as their friendship blossomed. John had always known Mitch had felt a certain amount of contempt for the entire world, himself included. But he didn't care. As long as a certain amount of Mitch’s sarcastic warmth was genuine, he was more than willing to forgive all of his friend's rough edges.
Until John learned so many of Mitch’s terrible secrets, his own as well. A friend who was a brother and no friend at all.
So many years’ worth of memories, and now he couldn't help wondering if they were real at all.
Because John already knew the path to take as he listened to the jovial echo of his brother that might be somehow communicating with him a world away, or just a ghost of a memory.
Another implanted dream.
"Dude, you can't cut for shit," Mitch had snarked, gazing at the rolled-up tatami mats John was using for cutting practice in his best friend's extensive backyard.
John remembered gazing at the sword in his hands like it was just yesterday. It had been surprisingly well-balanced despite its length, the massive blade was neither a zweihander nor the shorter, more maneuverable longsword. It was no surprise he hadn’t cut well with it the first time he swung it.
Queen Killer Page 19
