Bruk had silently done the same with one of the others, but the third and fourth were a different matter. We’d made almost no noise, and the things were completely deaf, but somehow the other two became aware of what was happening and before either of us could approach our next victims they sprang quickly up and faced us with wide, hissing mouths, and saber filled jaws, apparently ready to battle.
But when they saw what Bruk and I had already done to the other two, our blades dripping red with Grigori blood, the remaining pair changed their minds and made for the doorway in a mad rush to escape. But we were built for running, and they really weren’t. So as the things went off, half hopping, half flying, scurrying and stumbling back up the corridor the way we’d come, we were right behind them, hot on their weird little asses.
If either of them escaped our plan was ruined, our deaths guaranteed. Knowing this made both Bruk and I move like the wind, he a little ahead of me; but even at my best I could do no more than keep pace. A sprinter I’m not.
Probably recognizing his inability to escape, one of them suddenly turned into a compartment on the left side of the corridor, and assuming my friend to be the faster of us, I waved Bruk on.
“I’ll take this one!” I said, turning in through the open doorway.
I rushed in, and found myself facing two of the damn things, both facing me with stunned expressions.
“Shit,” I said.
The one who was in the room when we entered had been working at a lab bench with a bunch of glass containers filled with powders and liquids. Beside it was an open, leather volume filled with text and images.
All around us hung tubes and hoses and jars and containers of various sizes filled with thick, viscous, slowly bubbling liquid, flowing slowly into larger, glass vessels—each of which held a developing Grigori.
I realized instantly what I’d stumbled upon. This was the room Milton had been quizzing me so hard for, hoping to find; the sacred chamber, which held the Great Secret of the Grigori race, and the book on the table was the thing he most wanted to find. If it really controlled the reproduction of the Grigori, I could understand its incredible value, not only to the flying reptiles, but to anyone who hoped to wipe them off the face of Pangea.
I looked around and saw that there was no exit from the room other than the doorway I stood in. I set myself and knew that any escape plan was now secondary. That book could put an end to Grigori dominance forever. I raised my blade and smiled.
It would be mine.
Cornered, and probably fearful of my damaging anything in this room, I knew that these two would fight like demons, and they were well equipped for it—slicing teeth, jagged claws on both hands and feet. Fear for personal survival was one thing. Fear for the survival of their entire race was something else entirely.
Each of them glanced nervously at the book, as did I, and as one they flew at me. I ducked and thrust upward impaling one through the heart, killing her instantly, as the other fastened its foot-long fangs onto my left arm above the elbow. Clamped on tightly, she immediately ripped into my abdomen with her sharp talons and raked downward into my thighs, probably trying to open my guts to the air. I couldn’t free my arm from the powerful, viselike grip of her jaws, and felt her twist her head in an effort to rip my arm from my body. The pain was intense, but rather than slow me down it only motivated me. She was desperate. She was afraid. I wasn’t.
Rolling backward to throw myself off balance, we fell across a table, glass beakers shattering all around us, metal instruments flying in all directions, liquids and powders exploding everywhere as we somersaulted across the surface of the desk and onto the opposite floor.
Back and forth across the room we struggled—the Grigori digging in deeply, shredding my torso with her feet, while I fought like hell to protect my body with my free hand. Feeling the blood leak from my abdomen, I stopped being defensive, and went offensive, jabbing my free fingers deep into one of the thing’s eyes until it popped.
Horrifying and disgusting, but effective as hell.
She shrieked loudly enough to be heard back on the outer surface of the planet. She also stopped digging her fucking talons into my entrails. She rolled off me and thrashed madly about the room. Her pain must have been agonizing, but I didn’t care. We saw each other the same way—as lesser animals in a kill-or-be-killed world.
She flopped wildly about, blood pulsing out of her own body with each thudding heartbeat from places I hadn’t even realized I’d cut. I got to my feet holding my insides in place with my shredded left hand while readying my blade in my right. I walked over to her as she twitched across the floor, smears of blood staining the concrete surface in a path behind her—trying to crawl to where, I have no idea. Her movements slowing even as I watched, I realized I probably needed to do something first, before killing her.
I stepped over the Grigori’s jerking, dying corpse to triumphantly, and with great flourish, snatch up the most powerful secret of this inner world.
I held the book out in front of me, showing her one, good eye that I knew what—and how important—it was, and she stopped twitching long enough to focus her remaining good eye—first on it, then on me.
Knowing that she’d gotten a good long look at both the book and its thief, I raised my right hand, and jammed my blade down into her heart, twisting until she lay absolutely still.
With a last, hissing expulsion of breath she died.
As I let go and stood, breathing heavily over the Grigori’s lifeless body, I thought how this book, and this book alone, could make Nova, and Milton, and I—and all our children, and all our children’s children—safe from the fear of the Grigori forever and ever, for the rest of our lives.
My beautiful Nova. Safe from slavery. Safe from being eaten. Safe from the dominant race. I pictured her beautiful, tanned face, gazing up at me with crystalline, blue eyes, surrounded be a waving mass of jet-black hair. I thought of those dark, red, lips, and remembered the feel of them against mine—and how she would thank me with them for making her safe from the Grigori.
It was at that moment that I realized how much I genuinely and deeply loved Nova the Beautiful, and how that love meant I never again wanted to leave her side, never spend a moment without her, never return to my home on the outer world so I could forever and always be by her side.
I also understood deeply and profoundly how what I had just done meant that as much as I wanted a life with her, it could never happen, and I would never live to see her again.
* * *
THE EVIL QUEEN
* * *
FOR AN INSTANT I STOOD there thinking of Nova—and only of Nova—until, with a sigh, I found some skins and rags and wrapped them around the book until it looked like a lumpy, fur pillow. Then I turned to leave the weird little lab.
In the doorway I took a brief look around the room, and felt revulsion at the sight of the tiny, twitching Grigori bodies in their bizarre, artificial uteruses. I considered for a moment running through the large space and smashing the glass surrounding every unborn monster in the room. But I knew that what had just happened in this room was going to make me enough of a target for the Grigori that our simple plans of escape were now a thing of the past. No need to make it worse.
Five dead Grigori, the sacred lab ruined, the greatest secret of a race stolen and missing—possibly forever. If there was a way to make this situation any worse, killing these unborns was likely the only way.
Bruk returned from down the hallway, smiling at me.
“It took longer than it should have. I was trying not to ruin the skins for our escape.”
He reached me in the doorway of the lab, looked inside and smiled at my accomplishment, then scowled at my wounds.
“Those are bad,” he said, and I looked down at them for the first time.
“Yes,” I agreed. “We have to change our plans,” I told him, ignoring the blood and muck. “Those Grigori in the sleeping chamber knew we were there as we were slau
ghtering the first two.”
“I noticed that,” Bruk nodded.
“They were communicating soundlessly.”
“As Milton has often said.”
“And I don’t know how far a distance that communication can cover,” I told him.
“I…” he began, but only shook his head, “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I’m saying that as we killed these Grigori they may have been speaking to other Grigori here in Emibi, not necessarily in this room. Warning them. Calling for help. Sending images of our faces.”
“Is that possible?”
“It is possible… in my… land,” I said. “Where I come from images can be sent many, many miles.”
Bruk turned a little pale. But then he scowled and looked determined.
“So more Grigori are coming,” he snarled. “We should escape now.”
“No,” I said. “You go. And avoid Milton. At least for a while. With your beard and clothing you look about the same as most slave men in Emibi. I’m hoping the Grigori won’t know you from any other slave. Me, however…”
“You are quite distinct,” he said, looking me over.
“And I made them remember me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, looking back into the room at the dead, one-eyed Grigori.
I turned back to Bruk and handed him the pillow.
“Take this and hide it,” I said. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere Grigori will never look. When the craziness I think is about to come has finally ended, and the Grigori have settled down, give it to Milton. He’ll know what to do with it.”
“What is it?”
“The end of the Grigori.”
Bruk looked at me with wide eyes, his mouth hanging slack. Are you serious, I could hear him thinking, and then his face stiffened as the bloody, exhausted expression on my face gave him the answer.
“Can’t you hide it yourself?” he asked.
“I don’t have time,” I said. “I have to clean up this mess before the army arrives—and I think it might be better if when they get here, I don’t actually know where it is.”
“But Brandon…” he objected.
“Hurry, Bruk. There’s no time. It’s crucial that the Grigori focus on me and not you. You have to hurry. For Milton, for Elia, for you… for all of Pangea.”
Bruk stood a moment, holding the precious cargo, and just stared at me. I watched a great sadness creep across his face as he realized what I was saying.
“You are a good man, Brandon.”
“Tell that to Nova, if you ever see her, again. And tell her that I really, truly loved her,” tears surprised me by squeezing free of my eyes. “With all my heart.”
Bruk touched my shoulder, nodded, I told him to go, and after watching me as he backed away for a few steps, he finally turned and ran away from me down the limestone corridor with all the speed he could manage, disappearing around a corner.
I turned and surveyed the carnage behind me.
“Now,” I said to no one in particular. “Think fast, Brandon. What are you going to make out of this mess?
I HAD MORE TIME than I’d expected, but my guess was right; the Grigori could speak to one another over great distances, and the cavalry arrived just as I was cleaning up the last of the blood trails.
The corridors flooded with armed Angara and anxious Grigori, all looking around to confirm what they’d probably received in some form of telepathic communication. But things didn’t match up. There were no bodies, and very little blood—and what blood there was seemed to be mine. The lead Angara stepped forward and placed a hand around my throat, but only to hold me in place while he inspected the lab. He dragged me around like a rag doll, and I had to struggle to stay on my feet with his nervous, searching tour of the place.
Eventually he stopped and seemed about to ask me something when the crowd parted and what I have to assume was the queen Grigori strode regally in, head swinging slowly back and forth to survey the room. She froze a moment with her eyes on the table where the book had once lain, then turned to stare directly at me. After a few moments of silently boring her eyes into mine, she purposefully stepped right up to me. She was very tall—a good two feet taller than any other Grigori I’d seen—and the rough skin around her eyes was colored differently than that of her sisters.
She stopped very close to me, my Angara guard taking a nervous step back, the queen’s head ratcheting around for one, final scan of the premises. Then she aimed her eyes directly at me and fixed her intense, unblinking gaze on mine.
Suddenly a searing pain split my skull, and a voice rose up from the depths of hell to fill the inside of my head.
Where is it?
I looked around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from, not yet getting that it was coming from the mind of the queen. Eventually it sunk in, and I tried to re-affix my eyes to hers, but the pain was incredible.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to sound coy.
Faster than I could even see, her mouth was open and her jaws clamped around my skull. She had grabbed me with a precision that prevented her teeth from doing more than lightly breaking the skin. The effect was terrifying.
Do not play with me, the voice said.
“I’m not playing,” I said, trying to prevent my head from being crushed, and probably swallowed. “There were several things in here, and all of them are gone. Which thing are you referring to specifically?”
The book. An image of the book blasted in my mind’s eye.
“Someone came and took that from me,” I said.
I felt the teeth press inward, penetrating further into my skin. Against my will I screamed. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, but she knew what she was doing. It hurt like fuck.
“I’m telling the truth!” I said. “Some caveman I’ve never seen! He and his friends took that thing and the Grigori bodies and ran off!”
Why do you say caveman?
“What?” I said, surprised.
The Grigori queen suddenly released me, and focused her eyes on me once more. After an intense, fear-filled moment, she turned to the Angara still holding my neck.
Who is this human?
“Just a human,” the Angara said, looking at me as if trying to understands the question. “No different than the others, though he claims to be from another world. A world outside this world. He works with the smart one who does the work in the library.”
The Grigori queen snapped her gaze back to mine.
Bring in the other, I heard in my skull.
Again the crowd parted and a human slave stepped forward. He raised his head as if listening to the queen, then turned and smiled at me.
It was Hajah.
What do you know of this? The queen’s voice demanded. Is this one truly from a world outside ours?
“That’s what he claims,” the betrayer said. “He knows nothing about Pangean culture or lands. Does it matter? He’s tricky, and a troublemaker. Do away with him. It’s best for us all.”
He claims another human took something of value from this room. Would that be the one you told us about?
“I doubt it,” Hajah said, and I wondered how long we should have been watching our backs with this asshole. “It would mean nothing to Bruk. But they could be working together, this one and that.”
The queen seemed to consider this, and as she did, I glared at Hajah wishing I could take the knife that was still in my hand and embed it in his smarmy fucking face. The prick saw me glaring at him, and just smiled with that arrogant, shit-eating grin of his. I wanted nothing more than to beat the smile off his face. Preferably with a torn off body part of the queen.
As if sensing my thoughts, the evil leader of the Grigori turned back to me.
Where is the book? she repeated.
“I told you…” I began, then stopped as a razor of pain shot through me. I felt images and memories bubbling up from somewhere
deep inside me, unbidden, and realized she was trying to read my mind. I fought her, thinking of Nova, her beauty, how much I loved her, and how desperately I wanted to see her again. Underneath the occasional image of Bruk, blurry and unfocused, came forward holding the ‘pillow’ but I fought it down before it could clarify, overlaying it with pictures of Nova and I making love, her naked body, her holding me, her breathtaking smile. The thoughts were pleasant and powerful, the best I could come up with for keeping my mind off of Bruk, but even as much as they meant to me, and as powerful as they were, those thoughts were nearly impossible to hold onto. The queen’s brain was ripping mine in two.
We struggled like that for what seemed like hours, but was more likely only seconds. Just as my skull was about to crack apart to reveal Bruk full blown between us, the queen abandoned her search, the pain vanished, and my head cleared.
I fell forward into the Angara’s grip, breathing deeply, exhausted and spent.
Chain him, the queen said, angrily, but weakly, my mind flinching at her slight re-entry. Then… take him… to the… arena. She was apparently as depleted as I. Gather… all the slaves.
I felt her mind drift out of mine, and sighed with appreciation. Hers was an ugly presence, and my head felt cleaner having her vacated. Obviously a little unbalanced, she strode out through the parting crowd, and vanished into the hall. Hajah gave me a last, evil smirk, a tiny salute of goodbye, and followed her.
“So, what now?” I asked the Angara still holding me by the throat.
“Now, they’re going to throw you into the pit,” he said, smiling, “and we’ll see how well a man from this ‘other world’ you claim to come from can do in a fight for his life.”
“Trust me,” I said, smiling. “We fight the same as you. And if we lose, we die… the same as you.”
The Angara laughed loudly, and shoved me toward the open doorway.
* * *
The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) Page 16
