The Lilitu (The Lilitu Trilogy Book 1)

by Toby Tate

  Gabe knew they were also potential killers.

  David reappeared, his eyes lighting up at the sight of his friends. “Ah, glad you all could make it.”

  Gabe now stood in the midst of the four of them. The blonde woman stared at her as if she was looking over a new recruit in the Australian Army. She liked this whole arrangement less and less. She was thinking that maybe it was time to get the hell out.

  “So this is her?” the blonde said.

  “Yes,” David answered. “She came right to us, just as we thought she would.”

  “What’s she calling herself?” one of the men asked.

  “Joanna Duncan,” David said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  Gabe looked from one to the other, seeing the animal cunning in their eyes, the beast that lay there just beneath the surface, ready to strike. She could feel her heartbeat quickening, a sudden flash of heat-like fear that made her want to bolt. But they were blocking the door. She couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. And she did want to.

  She knew then that her only chance was to move first, and to move fast.

  She side-kicked the man nearest the door in the groin, kneeing him in the nose as soon as he doubled over. Blood sprayed across the floor at her feet as he groaned in pain. Gabe lunged for the door, grabbing at the handle.

  But there were four of them, and they were too fast and too strong. The other two men were on her before she even knew what was happening. The man she had kneed in the face stood up, a hand over his broken nose, eyes flaring with rage.

  “Give me a few minutes alone with her,” he growled.

  “No, we have other plans for her,” David said. “She’s going to be of immense help to us. Aren’t you…Gabrielle?”

  Gabe glanced up at him as he held her arm with his. She could feel the power there, like corded steel cables. Had all this been a trap, a ruse to get her to come to them? Now that they had her, what would they do with her?

  It was something she didn’t want to think about.

  Then, the woman stepped around in front of her, eyes like two sun-bleached sapphires that seemed to drill into her skull.

  “Now we just need to make sure little miss CIA is going to be compliant. Hold her.”

  The two men tightened their grips on her arms, and she could feel the blood circulation almost stop from the pressure. Then the woman was so close she could feel hot breath on her face.

  “We’ve got a little something for you, Gabrielle.”

  The kiss came so quickly, Gabe had no time to think or react. The woman’s hands cupped both sides of her face, her kiss deep and passionate, like that of a lover. Then the woman’s tongue was inside her mouth and she fought to back away, but the hands that held her were too strong. She considered biting the woman’s tongue, but feared that might only serve to get her killed.

  When the cold liquid began to slide down her throat, she started to gag, and remembered: the parasite. They were going to use the parasite to control her.

  She tried to close off her throat, to block the creature from moving down her esophagus, but found it impossible—the thing was already over halfway down. There was nothing she could do but let it happen, and hope that she would eventually be able to fight it off with her own willpower.

  She struggled desperately to draw a breath, wanting to get this bitch away from her, get this fucking thing out of her body. Then, the woman was backing away, watching her with eyes like crystals of blue ice.

  The last thing Gabe remembered was falling into a deep, black void.

  Four months later, she was on the run.

  Chapter eight

  January

  Somewhere in Oz

  The sun beat down like a million-watt heat lamp hanging over Gabe’s head, roasting her porcelain skin like well-done Angus. She headed east in the hopes that eventually she would see some sign of civilization. But with a land mass nearly the size of the continental United States, she could wind up lost in the bush without ever seeing a living soul. Humans were nearly impossible to spot from passing aircraft, even planes that were looking for you, so she couldn’t count on being rescued at any point by a passerby. She was going to have pray that she was close enough to a mining camp or a town to find people before she ran out of supplies.

  She figured she was probably either in Queensland or New South Wales, and at least a thousand kilometers from Brisbane, the Gold Coast, or Sydney. There had to be someone in between. There was a good chance she could come across a nature reserve, a historical site, or a national park somewhere along the way. If so, there would probably be park rangers around. Right now, however, she needed to concentrate on conserving energy, and conserving water and food. She had youth and physical endurance on her side, but that would only get her so far. Her brain was going to be her most vital asset in this situation.

  She heard a noise in the brush and snapped her head to the left, grabbing the hilt of her knife. A huge, brown bird-like thing stood a hundred yards away, staring at her. An Emu. The first sign of life she had seen outside of the compound. The smaller birds didn’t seem to be too awfully fond of the Big Red any more than she was at the moment. But Emus could go weeks without eating, and were known to gulp down glass and metal shards to help digest their food. They were also very tasty. Gabe considered chasing the bird down or waiting until it became curious and approached her, as they often did with humans and other animals. But she still had food and had no place to carry large quantities of Emu meat. Reluctantly, she resumed her trek.

  * * *

  Ethan White had been a free agent since he had “retired” from the Australian Army’s 2nd Commando Regiment, an elite special operations force where he had spent his tour in the hellholes of Afghanistan and Iraq doing what he loved to do most—killing. The crazy thing was, they had trained him to be the best killer he could be, and they actually paid him for it.

  After passing a grueling Special Forces entry test that consisted of copious amounts of pushups, sit ups, and chin ups, a two-point-four kilometer run in less than eleven minutes, two minutes of treading water and a fifteen kilometer march, all completed in one day in full battle gear, he endured over four months of special forces training, itself another kind of hell. During intense, focused training, Ethan learned sniper techniques, advanced demolitions, close quarter and advanced close quarter fighting, parachute jumping, urban operations, heavy weapons operation, and more. His training continued once he was assigned to the battalion.

  When his time was up in the army, his choices were to either reenlist, or join the civilian world and try to find work as a contractor. Ethan didn’t want to stop doing what he was doing. Killing was like a drug—once you got on the high, it was impossible to get off. But he had hated the army, hated being told what to do, despised most of his commanders and teammates. He wanted to make some serious money, and didn’t really care who was paying the bill.

  He was dabbling in cage fighting when he began to hear mutterings around the gym of a nebulous organization looking for some local talent to help with their “operations.” He sought them out and was hired on the contingency that he would have no curiosity about their dealings. He couldn’t have cared less—they were offering big money, more than he had made in a year in the army, for a few weeks work. If he did well, there was a chance he would get more work.

  As Ethan stared at his friend lying in a pool of blood, his throat cut ear to ear, he realized he wasn’t doing so well. While he was out picking up supplies, the woman he was supposed to be keeping a watch on had gotten away. But it wasn’t all his fault. She was supposed to be under some kind of mind control that would keep her from having any thoughts other than what they told her to think. The whole reason for bringing her all the way out here was so she could work in private, and in case she started regaining her memory. It seemed that Gabe had regained her memory, and being in the middle of nowhere without a vehicle hadn’t stopped her from leaving.

  Ethan scrambled into the back ro
om and checked the laptop. The flash drive was gone. He looked around—open files lay on the floor as if papers had been hurriedly removed. If she managed to get back to civilization, there was no telling what damage she could do to his employers. They would not be happy, and from the coldness that he had sensed when he had looked into their leader’s steel blue eyes, they were not the type of people you wanted to disappoint.

  Ethan knew he would have to track her by foot. She would hear a Land Rover coming from a kilometer away, and he wouldn’t be able to follow her trail from a vehicle, especially in the desert. That was fine with him—he wasn’t above roughing it. He thought of how much he would relish killing the bitch and that made the hunt even more thrilling—the anticipation of blood. She was good, but he was better, and he would find her. When he did, she would die a very slow and painful death, of that he was certain.

  Chapter nine

  Gabe wished she had a compass. With the sun in the middle of the sky, it was difficult to judge if she was still heading east. She was pretty sure she was. By dusk, she would be able to tell, but until then, she would do her best to walk in a straight line. At least she had thought to bring the big guy’s watch. If she had to walk at night, she was fairly good at reading the constellations, unless there was cloud cover. Some rain would be nice right about now, but thick clouds would obscure the sun and she would have no idea which direction she was walking.

  That reminded her—it was about time for some water. She grabbed the canteen off her hip and took a big swig, then screwed the cap back on. That would have to do. She couldn’t afford to run out of water—she would eventually be forced to dig for groundwater, and that was a situation she definitely did not want to be in.

  The ball cap was keeping the sun off her head, but she was still feeling like she was slowly being roasted alive. Gabe never was much of a sun-worshipper. Leathery skin didn’t really appeal to her and she hoped to maintain her youth for as long as possible. Also, if she didn’t get out of this sun in the next couple of hours, she might get heat stroke, and that could be fatal. She would have to keep her eyes open for some kind of shelter. So far, there was nothing but rocks, trees, and grass.

  A picture of the man she had killed back at the compound suddenly flashed into her mind. Gabe didn’t like the idea of taking a person’s life, even one that she knew would take hers given the opportunity. It never set well with her. She wasn’t a religious woman, but she had always been taught that all human life was sacred. The vision of him grasping at his throat, struggling to breathe as he drowned in his own blood, shriveled up her insides. Maybe that was a good thing. If she ever stopped feeling remorse over taking human life, it would probably be time to get out of the business.

  But she also knew that whoever else lived with them at the compound would return and find his dead comrade. If it was another mercenary, and she was sure it would be, he would come after her. Otherwise, he would have to answer to his employers, and setting off into the outback after a dangerous woman was preferable to facing them. He would be angry, cunning, and well-armed. And when he did eventually come, she would be ready.

  * * *

  Ethan grabbed a survival backpack out of the back of the Land Rover, and a few extra items he would be using to hunt his target—an advanced individual combat weapon, or AICW, which was basically an F88 Austeyr assault rifle coupled with an M203 grenade launcher, high-powered sight, and night-aiming device, and which also had the advantage of being very light weight; a Heckler and Koch USP semi-automatic pistol; and a Smith & Wesson M9 Special Forces Bayonet, for close-up work.

  He opened a compartment under the floor and pulled out a set of MultiCams, the army’s latest and greatest version of the camouflage uniform, stripped off his clothes, and slipped them on. He opened a NATO camouflage paint stick and began applying it to his face, and then checked himself in the vehicle’s side mirror. He grinned at his reflection.

  You look like the devil himself, mate.

  Ethan glanced down at his watch. He had been gone for half the day, but his friend inside the shack couldn’t have been dead more than a couple of hours. That meant the woman was probably around eleven or twelve klicks away by now. He had a lot of catching up to do.

  He pulled a floppy boonie hat over his head, slammed the Rover’s hatch door, picked up all his gear and began following Gabe’s tracks into the wilderness.

  Chapter ten

  Gabe figured her pursuers would be getting close soon, but she had no way of knowing exactly how soon. They would likely be expert trackers trained in military tactics, and would think with military minds. They knew she was CIA, and would expect her to be highly trained, and hard to kill. That meant she would have to do something they didn’t expect.

  But what?

  She couldn’t just continue running and hope to make it to civilization before they recaptured or killed her. She would have to put herself on the offensive. The element of surprise was the best way to gain the upper hand in combat, something her father had taught her. If you could catch the enemy off guard, you immediately had the advantage. But you had to move quickly. If you lost your advantage, your enemy would become twice as fierce and twice as determined to take you down. And chances were they wouldn’t be fooled again.

  She had been walking for hours. It would be getting dark soon and her stomach was starting to grumble. She spotted a rocky outcropping and decided it would be a good place to stop and eat.

  She shrugged off the backpack and plopped down in the dirt, leaning against the rocks. She opened the pack and pulled out the jar of Vegemite, a butter knife and a loaf of bread. She wished she could have found some butter or cheese to go with it, but this would have to do. She spread the Vegemite on two pieces of bread, slapped them together and wolfed them down, then guzzled some water from the canteen.

  As she was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she glanced around at the scrub and bushes that made up the landscape for miles around. She imagined all the poor souls that had probably been lost out here with no food, no water, no shelter—the utter and complete hopelessness of their situation tearing at their mind like a windstorm wearing down a sand dune, one little grain at a time, until there was nothing left but insanity. Once the sun got to you, or the cold, the body would begin shutting down and the stomach cramps would begin. Every part of your body would hurt—your legs when you walked, your ass when you sat—and then the hallucinations would come, showing you pools of water, or the headlights of would-be rescuers, or whatever your mind wanted to see at that particular moment. Gabe knew that it happened much more often than anyone wanted to admit.

  As she stared at a lone bush about a meter away, she suddenly had a spark of inspiration, and quickly began packing up her backpack.

  * * *

  The good thing about tracking in the desert was that the prints would usually stuck around for a while, barring any rain or severe windstorms. Ethan knelt and looked over the tracks—fairly fresh, judging by the ridges in the prints. The woman was wearing sneakers and moving at a good clip, but walking, not running. Was it possible she didn’t expect anyone to come after her? If that was true, it would make his job all the more easy. But one thing the army had drilled into him was to never underestimate your enemy—you did so at your own peril.

  He stood up and grabbed the shades out of his front pocket, pulled them over his eyes. It was hot as hell, which was going to make this an uncomfortable trek. But Ethan thrived on discomfort—it made him feel alive, helped him focus on the task at hand.

  The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get out of this bloody fucking furnace.

  He thought about going back and getting the Land Rover, turning on the AC and cruising out into the bush after his prey. After all, what was she going to do? She probably wasn’t armed with anything other than that knife of hers, which he realized they probably should have kept hidden.

  But hey, what’s one more mistake on top of all the others?

  He could j
ust run her down in the desert and be done with it. But that wouldn’t be the manly way to act, would it? No, he had to give the lady at least a fighting chance. That was the gentlemanly thing to do.

  Before he killed her, though, he would like to have his way with her, just to say he had done it. She was a bloody looker, that one. He had wanted to ball her ever since he had been given this assignment, but they wouldn’t allow it.

  Well, they might have been his employers, but they weren’t the bosses of his sex life. After all, a boy had to have his fun.

  Ethan grimaced as he squinted up at the gleaming yellow ball that hung over the desert wasteland, giving life and taking it in equal measure. He glanced back at the Rover, still only a few meters away, and thought about the cool AC blowing on his sunburned face. After a few seconds, he turned back to the open desert, shouldered his backpack and took off at an even trot.

  Chapter eleven

  Before the beginning of mankind, the Lilitu and their strange gods ruled until the time of the great catastrophe that had destroyed half the known universe. Just as it had been written in the book of Genesis, the earth was indeed void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. But thanks to Lilith, the first wife of Adam, according to legend, they had been reborn and they had flourished. By procreating with humans, their bloodline had managed to survive down through the millennia, and now their time was coming to rule again. There was nothing the humans could do that would stop the inevitable. But there were bumps along the road, and Gabrielle Lincoln was one of them.