Patterns in the Dark

by Lindsay Buroker

  “…think it’ll quiet down now?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t mind the excitement. This is the most boring post in the world.”

  “I’ll take being bored over being dead.”

  “True, but living is no guarantee around here. Every morning I don’t wake up sick, I’m thankful. This place is creepy. Wonder what those fools thought they were doing coming up here.”

  “I don’t—where’s that smoke coming from?”

  The sound of footsteps drifted around the corner, one man jogging forward to check on it. Tolemek rolled onto the balls of his feet, ready to charge down the corridor and deal with the men if he had to, but the grenade had another twenty seconds’ worth of sedative to spit into the air. If he ran in, he risked receiving a whiff himself. Better to let the men take the full dose first.

  “This ball thing.” A thump sounded, and Tolemek’s smoke grenade flew past his intersection and disappeared down the corridor, ricocheting off the walls.

  So much for a full dose.

  Holding his breath, Tolemek charged around the corner. The closest guard, the one who had kicked it, was leaning against the wall, his eyes drooping shut. But they popped open when he spotted Tolemek.

  The guard reached for a pistol holstered at his hip. His movements were slow, and Tolemek had time to throw a knife first. It struck the soldier in the wrist, and his pistol fell from his grip. Tolemek grabbed him by the shoulder and punched him in the gut. The man might have fallen, but Tolemek kept him upright, aware of the second soldier racing down the hall at him, a weapon raised. This one’s reflexes had not been dulled, but with the other Cofah blocking the way, the guard did not fire.

  Tolemek leaned out and flung one of his goo webs at his face. These two were wearing normal uniforms, not the heavy suits and helmets, and it would have worked, but the man ducked. The web flew past, plastering to the wall instead. But the distraction gave Tolemek time to dig out a vial and hurl it at the soldier’s feet. Glass shattered, and thin liquid splattered across the floor, lubricating the stones. The guard’s boots flew into the air, and he landed hard, his head striking the wall on the way down. Careful not to lose his own footing, Tolemek kicked the soldier’s hand, sending his pistol flying down the corridor.

  The first man had recovered his wits, and he grabbed Tolemek’s arm, trying to twist into him for a shoulder throw. But enough of the sedative had hit the guard’s senses that his movements were sluggish. Tolemek read the attack and deflected the groping arm. He ducked and slammed his elbow into the man’s sternum, then followed by ramming him against the wall several times. The brutality made him uncomfortable, and he wished his sedative had knocked the guards out instead, but the man’s eyes eventually rolled back into his head, and he slumped.

  The man who had fallen had not struck his skull hard enough to be knocked out, but he was struggling to get to his feet, the passage all around him more slippery than ice.

  Tolemek caught a flailing arm and pulled the man to his feet, then pressed a knife to his throat.

  “Where is my sis—the girl?” he asked, making his tone as cold as possible. “I have vials that contain far deadlier substances than lubricants.”

  Usually that would be a bluff, and Tolemek would shy away from seriously harming his own people, but the fact that the soldiers were forcing his sister to interact with that dragon, to risk catching that disease, while they hid in the laboratory and wore those protective suits… It infuriated him. The rage flowing through his veins made him want to run through the base, shooting everyone in sight.

  The guard set his jaw and glared back without saying a word.

  “Do you know who I am?” Tolemek whispered.

  The man’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his jaw clenched.

  “The pirates call me Deathmaker.” Without moving the knife from the man’s throat, Tolemek dug into a pouch on his belt. He withdrew a tiny gray ball less than a centimeter thick. “If I throw this on the ground at your feet, you die. Oh, I could simply cut your throat and save my tools for later use, but I enjoy seeing my gases work, melting the skin off my victims, burning through muscle and then down to organs, eating them—eating you from the outside in, while you live to experience every moment, until your heart finally stops. After hours of torment.”

  Tolemek was preparing an answer to the next obvious argument, that he wouldn’t throw such a gas around while he was nearby, but some of the mulishness had faded from the guard when he had shared his infamous nickname. He licked his lips, his gaze darting both ways down the corridor.

  “No help is coming,” Tolemek whispered, hoping he spoke the truth. “Where’s the girl?”

  “In the lab.”

  “Which way?”

  Tolemek thought he was going in the right direction, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Of course, the man might lie to him.

  But the fight had gone out of the guard. He tilted his head to the side, toward the direction Tolemek had been heading.

  “Good.” He wanted to race off, but could not leave guards lying around, especially conscious ones. “Take off your trousers and give me your belt.”

  It took him a few minutes to tie up the men and find an alcove to stuff them in, and he lamented the loss of time. When he returned to the hunt, he had the guards’ pistols, one in each hand, and he ran in the direction the man had indicated. He was out of vials and knock-out grenades, and contrary to what he had told the guard, he didn’t have any smokes capable of eating human flesh. He would have to go forward with more conventional weapons—and hope he didn’t run into an army.

  Tolemek jogged down the corridor, feeling a sense of urgency, of limited time. He turned a corner, then two more, hoping he was still heading toward the center of the structure. Earlier, he had been sure, but with all the turns, he worried that he had lost his sense of direction.

  Finally, voices sounded in the distance, and the light grew brighter ahead. Soft clanks came, like a hammer banging on nails. Odd.

  Tolemek increased his pace, came to another intersection, and leaned his head around the corner, checking in all directions. A glint of glass caught his eye. The lab? He couldn’t see a door yet, but everything else down here was made from ancient stone. He barely kept himself from breaking into a jog. But as he strode down the hall, the voices and clanks grew louder. He heard at least two people talking, and who knew how many more weren’t saying anything? Tolemek wished he had saved the knock-out grenade and not wasted it back on those guards.

  When he leaned around the next corner, he spotted two men in those bulky suits standing outside of a glass door. They weren’t wearing the helmets, but they did have rifles. The door they guarded was part of a glass wall, and other uniformed men moved about inside, packing things in crates. A couple wore the heavy suits, helmets included, but most looked like soldiers who had been recruited to help. This was indeed the laboratory Tolemek had seen from above. The dragon’s bulky form was visible on the far side, beyond another clear wall.

  Unfortunately, one of the guards outside of the door spotted Tolemek, and he did not have time to count the exact number of people in that lab—or formulate a plan.

  “Harmek,” the man barked, jerking his rifle around.

  Using the corner for cover, Tolemek raised his pistol, hoping to fire first, then duck back before he was hit.

  Before he squeezed the trigger, a loud voice resonated in his mind, a fierce cry of, Intruders!

  Surprisingly, the guards seemed to hear it too. They both jumped, and the one who had been aiming at Tolemek stumbled back, smacking into the glass wall and nearly dropping his weapon. Tolemek took advantage of his distraction and shot with both pistols. One bullet slammed into one man’s chest, the suit doing nothing to deflect the attack. His aim wasn’t as good with his left hand, and he only clipped the other guard in the shoulder.

  He thought about charging out, anyway, trying to overpower the soldier before he recovered, but the men behind the glass had heard the fi
ghting. Tolemek threw his knife instead, then ducked back behind the corner. The injured man did not react quickly enough to dodge, and the blade clipped his throat. Tolemek did not know if it was a killing blow, but the guard should be out of the fight. Good, because the glass door slammed open.

  Expecting the men to race outside after him, firearms leading, Tolemek backed up a few steps and prepared to fire at the first person who rounded the corner. But something clanked instead, and a canister bounced into view. Tear gas. He remembered the brown canisters with their skull and sword symbol well from his army days. It was already spewing yellow smoke. Tolemek held his breath and squinted his eyes to slits, then rushed forward and grabbed it.

  The heavy glass door was swinging shut, the men inside waiting for the smoke to incapacitate him before charging out. He snatched up the canister, ignored the way it burned his palm, and flung it at the gap before the door closed. It glanced off the edge, and he thought it would bounce back toward him, but the obstacle only deflected the canister slightly. It still bounced inside.

  Someone inside the room fired. Tolemek threw himself back around the corner, afraid the bullet would cut through the glass and slam into him. But the thick wall cracked without breaking, and the men inside were the ones who had to duck. Someone shouted a curse at the unthinking soldier.

  Tolemek backed several steps down the corridor, made sure nobody was creeping up behind him, and yanked off his vest and shirt. He rushed to tie the shirt around his nose and mouth. The material would not do much to filter out the airborne gas particles, but it was better than nothing. The smart thing to do would be to run away and hide again—there were at least six men in that laboratory, maybe more, given that the tables, equipment, and crates inside made it hard to count. But he couldn’t back down, not when he was this close to reaching Tylie.

  Nobody had run out after him yet, so he took the moment to wipe tears from his eyes and to reload the pistols before advancing again. The yellow smoke tainted the air inside the enclosed laboratory. Tolemek was surprised the men hadn’t kicked the canister back through the door again, but he glimpsed motion in the distance and understood why they might have been distracted. Even through the smoke, he could see the dragon moving. It had risen to its feet, only part of the massive body visible—the laboratory ceiling was much lower than that of the big open chamber beyond it.

  The creature’s thick silver tail slammed into the glass wall, and Tolemek jumped back. He did not know if it was trying to attack the people in the laboratory, or if it was simply agitated. Intruders, it had called out, as if the Cofah were permitted here, but Tolemek and the others were not.

  Even with his shirt over his nose and mouth, he took a huge breath before advancing to the laboratory. He crouched low, where the smoke hung thickest in the air, and tried to open the door. They had locked it. He pulled out some of the caustic paste he had used to break himself and Cas out of the Cofah prison the night they had first met. He dabbed a line of it across the lower half of the door, even as the smoke attacked his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks and into the shirt, which did little to protect his nostrils from the searing gas. Tendrils escaped down his throat, too, irritating it so that he struggled mightily not to cough. He wanted nothing more than to flee from the smoke’s influence, but he made himself wait for his goo, as Cas called it, to burn through the glass.

  Fortunately, the door wasn’t as thick as the wall, and after a moment, he was able to remove the lower panel.

  “Got it,” someone inside said at the same time as a ker-thunk sounded in the ceiling. A vent fan turning on.

  Tolemek set aside the panel, hoping the door still appeared closed to those farther back in the lab. Once the smoke cleared, the evidence would be obvious, but he ought to have a few seconds.

  He crawled inside and headed for a solid stone wall on one side of the laboratory. He wanted his back to it, but he also wanted to check two curtained doorways he had spotted before the smoke had filled the room. Smoke that was now being sucked upward to a vent in the ceiling. If he wanted to eliminate some of his enemies, he had better do it soon. These people weren’t going to let him walk out of here with Tylie.

  “He’s in here,” someone barked.

  “Don’t—” The second voice broke off in a chain of coughs.

  Tolemek spotted the figure hunching over, shot, then quickly moved to the side, anticipating return fire. He wasn’t disappointed. Two soldiers shot at him, or at where he had been, the bullets ricocheting off the wall. He could barely see the men, so they had to be having trouble seeing him too. The one he had shot fell to the stone floor. More people coughed in the corner, and Tolemek fired in that direction, using the noise to guide his aim. His own throat and nostrils itched, with mucous streaming from his nose. He would not be able to hold back his own coughs much longer. He fired again, afraid his luck wouldn’t hold out, and that they would locate him and shoot him. All he struck was one of the chemistry worktables. Glass shattered, and some green liquid dripped out onto the floor.

  Another thump sounded, the tail striking the wall again.

  “What is the dragon doing?” someone demanded, the man’s voice sounding hollow, like he might be wearing a mask to protect against the smoke.

  “It’s acting crazy. Get the girl to talk to it.”

  Tolemek had reached the first curtained doorway, and he thought about ducking into it, but he had to make these people leave—or take care of them in another way. Their mention of Tylie only convinced him further that she was nearby, that he couldn’t leave.

  “Forget the dragon. Get that damned pirate.”

  They knew who he was? Or was he simply being lumped in with the pirates that had attacked out front? Maybe they didn’t know about the Iskandian group yet.

  Tolemek leaned out from behind a cabinet and shot toward the corner the men were crouching in. They had found cover, as well, and his bullets did nothing but hit the worktables and other furnishings. One glanced off a centrifuge, and a nearby rack full of crimson vials rattled. Someone fired back, and he skittered farther along the wall. His elbow bumped a cabinet, and bottles rattled and clanked inside. He wiped at his eyes and looked at the contents. Numerous chemicals and powders. He spotted a bottle of hydrochloric acid and tugged it out. He found a pouch of potassium nitrate on the bottom shelf. If they had tried to drive him to distraction with tear gas, it was only fair that he throw some compound at them. But he needed a burner. And some copper.

  He fired twice more to keep them pinned down as he moved along the wall, searching for what he needed. Of course, they fired back, trying to keep him pinned down, as well. This was one of those moments when it would have been nice to have allies. Too bad he hadn’t waited for them to come along.

  Whispers came from the other corner. They had to be plotting something.

  As Tolemek spotted a burner, another thump came from the wall, this one the loudest of all. Glass shattered and broke, with shards flying inward. Tolemek ducked, but several sharp pieces struck his hands and bare chest.

  Fools! Is no one seeking the vermin that have invaded this place? Free me from this cage, and I will find them. My fate may be inevitable, but I will not die like this, intruders. Do you hear me? The powerful voice resonated in Tolemek’s mind, causing an instant headache. Someone groaned on the other side of the room. Because he had been hit by glass? Or because the dragon’s voice affected him even more strongly?

  All Tolemek knew was that the men were distracted. He flicked on the burner and found the copper he had been hunting for. He grabbed a jar and searched for a mask, so he would not end up killing himself with his concoction. If that other guard—or maybe he was a scientist—had one, there had to be more.

  Tolemek? came a soft call in his mind, sweet and gentle after the dragon’s roar.

  Tylie! Where are you? He kept working as he responded to her, pulling a mask with a filter off a rack, then returning to the burner. The urge to simply leave this mess and run b
ack through one of the two curtained doorways tickled his mind.

  Not there. Tylie almost sounded amused. Down here.

  An image entered his mind, one of the very laboratory he crouched in. But he was looking down at it from above. He couldn’t see himself—or the men. It was as if this was some picture that had been drawn earlier. Then it moved, the view shifting, almost making him dizzy as he struggled to focus on it and on what he was mixing on the burner. It took him to the far corner, where those men were waiting, and he spotted a large grate in the floor, such as might be used for draining water into a sewer. Except it was bigger than that.

  Not much bigger, Tylie thought dryly.

  You’re down there? Fresh anger surged through Tolemek’s limbs.

  Yes.

  Right now?

  Yes. I can hear you all shooting at each other. And something stinks.

  Most of the gas had been cleared by the fan, but the air was far from fresh. Tolemek looked down at his new project, with dread filling him. Are you right under that grate, or can you move to the side? So something wouldn’t drip on you? Drip, hell, his concoction would eat right through that metal…

  I’m to the side. In a little room, with some mummified corpses.

  Are you joking? Tolemek thought of the sarcophagi he had passed on the upper level.

  No, they thought the crazy girl would enjoy the company of the dead. Soldiers are strange, Tolemek. This last, she added sternly, a clear dig at his former occupation. She sounded incredibly sane at the moment, more so than she had when they had communicated twenty minutes earlier. What had changed?

  He’s awake, Tylie thought simply, as if that explained everything.

  All right, I’m getting you out of there. Stay back, far back, from the grate. Do you understand?