We plodded a little distance from the airfield to a camp, which LeSoeur had set up in advance.
“Here are your quarters,” the supervillain continued, still enjoying the sound of his own voice, “not quite up to the standard of Le Grande I fear, but you’ll only be spending one night here.”
Any optimistic thoughts I might have entertained about stealing away undercover of night were lost as LeSoeur swung open the door of a small cage that had been designed to hold a large dog. There was a blanket and a bowl of water. I hesitated.
“In.” There was no mistaking the edge in LeSoeur’s voice if any looked like disobeying him.
I crawled in through the door and it clanged shut behind me.
“Knox will fetch you some food.”
I stared out through the bars of my prison at the camp around me. When we had been on the island of Lareo, I had gotten some sense of there being more to LeSoeur’s operation than the man in the Panama hat – Knox – and a few bikers, but there his men had been diluted by the number of native islanders. Plus, it had been night and I had mostly been running away from them. Only now did I get a real idea of the scale of this.
Why was it that insane supervillains were so well funded and so well organized? The camp must have housed at least fifty people, most of them guards, striding around at the perimeters with guns slung over their shoulders. There were vehicles, a generator providing electricity, a shower block, a storeroom for guns, ammunition and explosives, what appeared to be a games room, and more. This was a small army and I was forced to wonder how a man intent on raising zombies got this many followers. Jobs were hard to come by in the current economy but who the hell answered that ad?
When I had first joined this expedition – a week ago, though it seemed like a year – I recalled one of the guys saying that LeSoeur’s followers might not be entirely human. Looking at them now, I started to wonder. They all looked human in shape, but there was something in their eyes that made them seem… not entirely real. Like animated dolls.
I shivered and sat back in my cage.
Food was delivered, as promised, and it didn’t look that bad, but I couldn’t force myself to eat even a bit. My stomach was tied in knots, my mind was weighed down with depression. I could see no way out of this.
What had I done?
Night swallowed up the camp and fires were lit. The guards continued their mechanical pacing, making me wonder still more about their nature. On top of the blanket, I curled up in a fetal ball and tried to get some sleep. I couldn’t imagine that I would be able to sleep but what else could I do? If a chance occurred tomorrow, I had to take it, and being well rested might be the difference between life and death.
Life and death were much on my mind. One thought that had occurred to me was that it would have been much easier for LeSoeur to have brought me here dead. My blood was not enough; it had to be my living blood. That was why the guys had been under orders to kill me if LeSoeur got hold of me. That meant that while my own fate was no longer in my hands, the fate of the world might be.
One way or another, tonight was likely to be my last night on earth. I could still make my life count for something by stopping LeSoeur. All I had to do was die.
I wasn’t sure how I might do it, but the thought that I could still save the world gave me some strange, thin hope as I lay there in my cage. Perhaps that was what allowed me to sleep.
I was awoken by a hand over my mouth and I started, thrashing out at the owner of the hand, who held me tight until I saw his face and stopped. It was Red.
“I know you don’t like me doing this,” he whispered, “but it seemed best in the circumstances.”
“I’m sorry,” I hissed, speaking not just to him but to all three of them as Campbell and Drake emerged out of the gloom.
“No,” said Campbell, “we’re sorry.”
“We should have been honest with you,” said Drake.
“And everything that happened between us was real,” Red assured me. “I swear.”
“We all do.”
“I believe you. But is this the best time for apologies?” I asked.
“Potentially not.”
Without another word, the guys ushered me out of the cage, the lock of which they had easily dispensed with, and we headed for the beach. As the guards passed, we hunkered to the ground, the guys seeming almost to fade into the background.
But once we were past the perimeter of the camp, a thought struck me. “The jewel, the dagger – he’s still got them both. We have to go back.”
“The hell we do,” said Red.
“We came for you,” said Drake.
“What?”
“You think we’d risk anything happening to you?”
Campbell took my hand, guiding me through the dark. “Some days you save the world, some you have to save the one you love. That’s what being human is all about.”
I smiled. I thought it was his way of saying; we’re none of us perfect, we make mistakes, tell lies we shouldn’t, do dumb things that end badly, but in the end the way we care for the ones we love is what defines us. He didn’t say that, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant. It was certainly what I felt. I don’t think I mattered more than the world, but to know that I mattered more than the world to them? That was everything.
Chapter 19
There were a lot of things that should have been going through my head as we stole out from the tree line to the beach. I should have been worrying about the jewel and the dagger, which we were leaving in the hands of a madman. But I wasn’t. All I could think about was the four of us getting away safely, and of what happened next. For the first time, I allowed myself to dwell on a future that might contain these three guys. Nothing had changed as far as I knew – there hadn’t been time for me to say, ‘so, still working at the same place?’ – but anyone who comes halfway across the world to rescue you from the clutches of a supervillain is clearly into you.
Yes, they were saving the world, as well – but I now had no trouble believing that I was their top priority, because they had left the other elements behind. They weren’t taking any chances going back for them because they did not want to risk me. Maybe that wasn’t wise, but it did make me feel special.
Should I have told them to go back? Should I have insisted that we go back? Was I just being selfish by allowing them to rescue me?
Maybe, but you don’t get to judge me unless someone has threatened you with death by zombie.
On the beach up ahead, I could see the dark outline of a sleek boat, clearly built for stealth, and it was towards this we were heading.
We were about halfway down the beach when the boat exploded.
“Going somewhere?”
The four of us all spun around at the sound of LeSoeur’s voice, and we found our enemy standing behind us, flanked and backed up by his glassy-eyed minions, their guns trained on us. I glanced back at the burning boat and saw a shadow wearing a Panama hat, silhouetted against the leaping flames.
“It would be such a shame for you to leave before the main event,” said LeSoeur, his voice perfectly suited to delivering veiled threats. “In fact, it wouldn’t be a party without you.”
“Are we on the guest list?” asked Campbell, keeping his cool – I imagined that he, Red and Drake had faced down many a polite psycho in their careers.
“Maybe not for the event itself,” said LeSoeur, evenly. “But I daresay there’ll be room for you at the buffet afterwards. I’m sure someone will be able to squeeze you in.”
“You won’t get away with this,” said Drake.
“What a horrible cliché,” sneered LeSoeur. “And how exactly will I not get away with this? The people who’ve come to stop me are now my prisoners. What sort of cock-eyed optimism makes you imagine that you can still win?”
“Experience,” replied Drake, laconically.
“We always win,” explained Red. “It’s a habit.”
“Well, I hope you enjoy seein
g things from the other side for once.” LeSoeur looked up at the night sky. “Well, it’s early, but since we’re all up and there’s not many hours left till dawn, we may as well make a start. You are privileged,” he addressed the guys, “you will be here to witness the ushering in of a new era of humanity. You won’t be witnessing it for long or telling anyone about it, but I still think that has value. Of the many millions who will die in the turning over of the old order, you will be amongst the first. That makes you special.”
Maybe it was because I had been hanging around with the guys so much that I had started to see the world as they saw it, but I immediately recognized the weakness in LeSoeur’s words. An ordinary villain – a street mugger or mob enforcer – would have taken this opportunity to gun the guys down where they stood; there was nothing to prevent it. But that was not good enough for the supervillain; they had to be seen to be doing evil on a massive scale. Where was the point in being a supervillain if no one knew about it? In the world of villainy, the supervillain was the one posting pictures of their secret lair on Instagram just to show how cool it was. That was the weak spot of the supervillain; that was why they shared their plans with James Bond before condemning him to the slowest death possible, rather than just shooting him in the head.
Would that make the difference today? The fact that LeSoeur insisted the guys be eaten by zombies rather than just shot? I didn’t know. But it gave them a chance, and right now any chance was worth grasping at.
The guys were patted down and any weaponry they were carrying was confiscated. Then we were marched back up the beach, away from the burning boat and into the jungle, back in the direction of the camp.
“Keep a close eye on them,” LeSoeur instructed his brain-dead minions. “If they take a step, kill them.” He looked at the guys. “I really wouldn’t take a step. My guards do not have sophisticated thought processes – the results of my early experiments in raising the dead have not been very successful. They take instructions extremely literally. I once told them to shoot a man if he moved a muscle – all the fellow did was scratch his nose. Brain matter all over my wallpaper. It never comes off, you know, I had to redecorate entirely. Jane, you’re with me.”
“And if I refuse,” I said, bluntly.
“Then I will kill one of your friends. And even though you know they’re all going to die shortly, that will be enough to convince you, I think.”
He was right, of course. I went with him, watched by the gun-toting guards on either side. Was suicide still my best plan? That opportunity had probably passed. Now if I ran then they wouldn’t shoot me, they’d shoot one of the men I loved. Damn.
A short walk from the campsite, the ground started to trend upwards into the slopes of the volcano. We started to climb. About halfway up, an alcove had been carved into the mountainside, and in here was a shrine. It was nothing spectacular, nothing to compare with the temples of ancient Egypt or the famous city of Petra, used in so many movies. And yet there was something about it. An atmosphere perhaps that clutched around you as soon as you entered, something that squeezed at your soul. The flickering candles caught a red tint in the rock of the walls and made the whole place glow like the mouth of hell. Ancient images were carved into the walls, painted and repainted by successive hands to keep the magic fresh. The heat was palpable, making my head throb as it radiated out from the molten core of the volcano. In front of us was a stone altar, carved from the living rock, and on it, between the candles, were the dagger and the jewel, placed there as if to absorb the sacred energy of their surroundings.
“They were made on this island,” whispered LeSoeur, caressing his bounty. “And they have been away from here for too long. Christian missionaries came here in the nineteenth century to convert the islanders and considered it their religious duty to take these artifacts away. Incidentally, they sold them for quite substantial sums. The islanders then threw the missionaries into the volcano, and shortly afterwards died of a flu virus the missionaries had brought and against which they had no natural immunity. Isn’t history fascinating?”
“Great,” I replied.
LeSoeur smiled thinly. “You still believe in them. I can see it in your eyes. No matter how great the odds against them, you still believe they will save you. In fact, I suspect the greatness of the odds against them makes you believe in them more strongly. Ridiculous how the human mind works. And I use the word ‘works’ quite wrongly.”
I turned a smug smile on LeSoeur. “I think you believe it, too. I think you’re terrified of what they might do.”
For the first time, I was gratified to see LeSoeur a little rattled. “Nonsense. Why would I be scared? I hold all the cards.”
“Because you hold all the cards,” I stressed. “In the same way that I – quite ridiculously – think that the greater the odds against them the more likely they are to come through, you feel that the more overwhelming your advantage, the more likely they are to beat you. It’s not logical, but it’s the narrative we’ve been brought up to expect from this sort of situation. You already think you’re going to lose, and that’s why you will. They know, deep in their hearts, that they will win. And that’s why they will.”
LeSoeur glared at me. “You are ruining today for me.”
“Good.”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “I’ll show you who’s going to win.”
With one hand, he grabbed my hair, forcing my head down so my face was above the jewel, while with the other he snatched up the dagger.
“I think I’ll slit your cheek open for the blood. I’d still prefer you to be killed by the zombies than by me.” He leaned down to me, pressing the flat of the blade against my face. “Still think your friends will save you?”
“Yes,” I growled back, clinging to that belief like a life raft in a stormy ocean.
The answer irritated him. “How? How will they get past all my armed guards?”
I had been wondering that myself, and a thought had occurred to me.
“Did you happen to notice if any of them was wearing a watch?”
I could hear the confusion in LeSoeur’s voice as he said, “A watch?”
Outside the cave, from the direction of the camp, came the sound of an explosion.
It wasn’t a massive, earth-shaking bang, but it was enough to make LeSoeur start up, loosening his grip on my hair and moving the knife from my face.
I didn’t hesitate. I drove my fist into his balls as hard as I could, with a satisfying crunch. Then, as he doubled over in agony, I snatched the jewel from the altar and ran like hell.
Tripping, skidding and sliding in the loose stones of the volcanic slopes, I pelted downhill back towards the camp. I could see a large column of black smoke rising into the sky, which was just turning from black to grey with the gathering dawn. If my guess was right, Drake had used the low frequency sound waves generated by his watch to set off the explosives in the ammunition tent. Of course, it would have taken some time for him to find the correct frequency – and if he had taken much longer then it might have been too late – but he had gotten it, and now the end of this story was still up for grabs. Of course, all this was just conjecture, the guys might have done something else or the minions might have blown them up, but I liked my version.
I hit the jungle at speed, the momentum from my downhill run carrying me, and I kept going, dodging trees as I went. I had to find the guys and a sudden thought struck me.
“Sixty-nine!” In a life of varied experiences, sexual and otherwise, standing in a jungle on a volcanic island yelling ‘69’ at the top of my voice numbered as an odd one.
“Jane!” My heart leapt as I recognized Red’s voice and ran towards it.
Moments later, I was in his arms, hugging and kissing him.
“You’re okay?”
“He’s still got the dagger but I’ve got the jewel,” I exclaimed excitedly. “And I’ve got me.”
Red shrugged. “Well then, you got the important bit. And two out of
three ain’t bad. Come on.”
He grabbed my hand and we raced through the jungle. Gunshots rang out around us, bullets pounding into trees, but the main fight seemed to be happening up ahead. As we burst into what was left of the campsite, the scene looked like a battlefield; burning and smoking remains of tents and makeshift buildings, bodies of minions lying here and there, and the pool table from the games room split down its center. At the far side, Drake and Campbell crouched behind a jeep, ducking out at regular intervals to shoot at the minions who were defending the route to the beach.
Red and I skidded to a halt behind the jeep.
“You got her?” asked Campbell. “She’s alright? Are you alright?”
“I’m good. You?”
“Some flesh wounds but nothing that won’t heal. Drake used his watch to…”
“I know, I know,” I said dismissively.
“Fine. We thought it was pretty clever but okay.”
“How do we get out of here?” asked Drake. “We don’t have a boat anymore.”
“I know the way to LeSoeur’s plane,” I volunteered. “Can you fly it?”
Campbell scoffed. “I can fly anything.”
“This way.”
Drake and Red laid down covering fire for me and Campbell to reach the trees, then Campbell covered the others as they raced across the campsite.
“They’re going to follow us,” I said.
“We’re going to have a head start.” Drake pulled a grenade from his pocket – taken from one of his fallen adversaries. I recalled the accuracy of his aim when he was hurling rocks at the cougar in the mountains, so was unsurprised to see the grenade hit its target, sending more minions flying into the air in a ball of fire.
“Couldn’t have done that earlier?” asked Red as we ran into the jungle.
“Saving it for when we needed it,” explained Drake.
Her Shadow Harem: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance Page 14
