Limbus, Inc., Book III

by Jonathan Maberry

  Harry flopped back and immediately began slapping at his face to remove the dying ends of the tentacles. He screamed and screamed.

  I was busy with the Japanese man—if he was even still a man. He went wild with either pain or fury, or both, and came at me like Bruce Lee on a bad day. Kicks and punches, and a dozen kinds of chop-socky moves that I’ve never seen. And they all damn well hurt.

  But, let’s face it, I’m a werewolf, so I get to play that card. And I played it hard.

  As he went after me I went for him. No need for the details, but the bottom line is that when they bury him it’ll be a closed casket.

  He tasted fucking awful. Even the human parts.

  Jeez.

  A body crashed down beside me and I saw that it was one of the Brotherhood goons. Or what Violin had left after going all Ginsu knife on him. The wolf in me was impressed. Maybe the human guy, too. She was one hell of a woman.

  Harry Bolt was still being hysterical, so I took the moment to shift to a mostly human form and do half of the job I was sent here to do. I quickly opened my backpack, removed the fake book, swapped it out for the one in Harry’s pack, and tossed my pack out of sight behind an overturned desk. Then as I rose I kind of kicked the other pack toward Harry. It hit him and he stopped swatting at his face—which was long-since clear of any of the tentacle bits—and looked at what had hit his shoulder. His eyes went wide and he grabbed it, hugging the thing to his chest as he knee-walked away from the melee.

  Feeling a little smug, I wolfed out and rushed at the Closers. No way I wanted to get involved in the fight between Violin and the Brotherhood. Not only didn’t she need my help, she looked like she was enjoying herself. Who am I to be a killjoy?

  The battle between Priest and his two remaining goons and the Closers was hot and bloody. The blond woman was down, her head and right arm gone. The other woman, the petite brunette, had a Closer down and was doing the same nasty mouth tentacle soul kiss with him that the Japanese guy had tried on Harry. The Closer’s body thrashed and twitched and blood sprayed out his eyes, nostrils, and ears. The woman’s body trembled as if she was having the mother of all orgasms. I could smell it, too. She was definitely having a sexual encounter with the guy she was killing. And, hey, I dig porn as much as the next fellow, but that’s a kind of kinky that is six miles beyond weirdsville.

  One of the Closers swung his metal-pronged gun thingee in my direction and I flung myself sideways as it went tok! The air around me went instantly white hot and I could smell my fur burning. I rolled over and over to put it out, then wheeled on the guy, teeth bared, really fucking pissed. He tried to take a second shot but I took his hand off at the wrist instead. The guy screamed and staggered, blood shooting from the ragged stump. He collided with another Closer hard enough to spoil the man’s aim and the shot hit the ceiling. Burning plaster rained down on us and the heat triggered the fire alarm. Suddenly all the sprinklers kicked in and now we were having the world’s most violent wet t-shirt contest.

  Good times.

  I rose up under the shooter and gutted him. Then pivoted and went for Mr. Priest.

  He saw me coming and snapped a kick at me that caught me in exactly the way you don’t want to be caught. A shockingly hard shot with the point of a steel-reinforced toe on the hinge of my jaw.

  It hurt.

  It hurt a whole damn lot.

  I staggered sideways and the bastard kicked me again, this time hitting my ribs at an angle that sent a shockwave through my lungs and diaphragm. It was almost like he understood how to fight a werewolf. We don’t have a lot of vulnerabilities but we’re not indestructible. My grandmother and aunts taught me how to fight my own kind, because not all werewolves are benandanti. Most, in fact, aren’t. If you know how to attack in just the right way, even a human can cripple us. Sure, we’ll heal, but not always fast enough.

  Priest kicked again and again, breaking things, sending shocks through my heart, hitting nerve clusters on my spine.

  Yeah, he knew what he was doing. He laughed while he did it, too, and said a lot of very vile things in Spanish. I know just enough of that language to understand the gist of what he was saying.

  I fled from the attack. Running, falling, crawling.

  Priest followed me, kicking at my balls hard enough to lift me off the ground.

  Balls are balls are balls. Find me any creature—human, animal, or monster—who can shake off a full-power steel-toed kick to the nutsack and I will worship him as a god.

  In the moment, though, I prayed to whatever gods may be to take me from a world of hurt and bring me sweetly into any dimension, including death, where I could not feel my balls.

  Priest laughed out loud, the sound of it magnified by a moment of silence as no one fired a gun or screamed. It froze the whole room for a second, and all eyes turned toward him.

  He flung away his empty pistol and snatched the Manifesto from the cart, then he turned quickly and rushed at Harry Bolt, who had taken that unfortunate moment to peer out from behind his cover.

  Violin was on the wrong side of the room, and as soon as Priest moved the whole dance began again. Guns roared and men died. So did the little brunette, who was down on all fours over her victim. A line of heavy caliber bullets stitched her from hip to temple. She died quickly and badly. Four of the Brotherhood closed in around Violin and I lost sight of her, while the last three of the Closers went stomping across the floor after Priest. One of them fired his gun, but Priest ducked, warned by some sense or awareness. The air above him shimmered and the doorway burst into flame, sending a hail of burning splinters into the backs of the men attacking Violin.

  I shifted back to human form and rose naked and sick to trembling feet. Then I vomited onto the floor as pain and nausea punched their way from my groin to my gut. I staggered, caught myself on the corner of a filing cabinet. The cool metal was the only steadying thing in my world. I gripped it hard and then forced myself back into wolfshape.

  The transition was agonizing.

  It was also healing.

  Not entirely, but enough so that the pain no longer crippled me. Instead it fueled my rage.

  Snarling, I pelted across the room to where Priest was kicking the shit out of Harry Bolt. The young agent was putting up a fight, though, holding onto the backpack with one hand and trying to Jackie Chan his way out of the moment. Maybe in a bar fight or an attempted mugging the kid might have won. But he was fighting a guy who’d just kicked a werewolf’s ass. My ass, and that is kind of saying a lot.

  Priest hit him from thirty different directions. His arms and legs were blurs and the sound of those blows was like a butcher chopping up a cow carcass.

  Before I could even close the five steps to reach him, Harry went down, his eyes rolling up, blood pouring from his nose, his limbs completely slack. He went down and he went out.

  I leapt into the air to try and hit Priest from the blind side and maybe break his back. It’s a good move that I’ve done before.

  Priest crouched, spun, and smashed me aside with the backpack.

  I fell hard but came up quick, but by then Priest was heading for the burning doorway. One of the Brotherhood guys tried to stop him, but Priest slashed him diagonally across the face then foot-swept him so that he fell into my path. I dodged, but then the floor under me exploded and like an after echo I heard a double tok-tok!

  I fell to one side, again having to smother flames.

  A hand closed around my ruff and pulled me up, and I very nearly took the arm attached to it, but then realized it was Violin.

  “Get the books,” she snapped.

  We had another microscopic moment of connection and I got a flash of something behind her eyes. Something very, very old and dangerous. When she smiled I saw that her teeth were sharper than they were before.

  Holy shit.

  Then she was fighting. The Brotherhood and the Closers tried to kill her and kill each other. Violin just wanted to kill all of them.

&nbs
p; She looked happy about it. So I left her to it.

  I ran through flames into the hallway and followed Priest’s scent. He had blood on his shoes and the stink of rotting fish filled the air. I could have followed him blind.

  He made it all the way to the employee exit before I caught up with him. I couldn’t see the Manifesto, but since the backpack was thicker now, it wasn’t hard to put two-and-two together.

  I put on a burst of speed and then hurled myself at him. Priest turned and tried another kick at my snout, but it was too late. My weight was already committed to the jump and midway through it I turned into a man. The new configuration made the kick land on my shoulder rather than my jaw. It hurt, but it wasn’t the pinpoint precision that he needed to stop me.

  I barreled into him and we hit the service door with crushing impact. His hip struck the crashbar and we went spilling out onto the pavement. The backpack went flying into the street, where it burst apart. The fake Der Vermis Mysteriis went skidding under a parked car, while The Cloister Manifesto flew straight up in the air. Priest dove for the fake worm book and I scrambled up, shapeshifted back to human, and went long to catch a touchdown pass with the Manifesto.

  Priest rose, clutching the other book. He tried to kick my hands to make me drop the Manifesto, but I turned, took the shockingly painful blow on my hip and simultaneously flung the book in through the open doorway. Then I dodged a second kick as I jumped and slapped both hands against the door, slamming it shut. I turned and leaned back against it, hearing the lock click shut.

  As a human I am not protected against the cold, and the sidewalk was frigid. Cold air blew knives across my skin. I changed halfway back to wolf, still standing on two feet, but now they had leathery pads and long claws. I flexed my claws and snarled at him. My body was trembling from pain and damage and I wasn’t sure how long I could stay on my feet. Priest looked ready to rumble, though, but uncertainty flickered in his eyes. He’d have to get through me and get inside the door. I don’t know how he’d managed it earlier, but if he had to pick the lock it was going to take time and we both knew I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  Impasse. We stared at each other, both ready to continue the fight but uncertain how to proceed. Mr. Priest had the fake book and me and a locked door were between him and the real Manifesto.

  Priest held the book in his hands and stared hot nuclear death at me. Not sure I’ve ever had anyone focus that much pure hatred in my direction, and I have three ex-wives.

  “You’ll scream for this,” he said. “You will burn in a pit of fire and beg to die.”

  “Stick it up your ass,” I said, gasping from the cold.

  “Open that door and I may let you live.”

  “Suck my dick,” I suggested. My legs were a half-second away from giving out and there was a bell ringing in my head from his earlier kicks. Even with the healing abilities I’d inherited I was all the way out on the ragged edge of collapse.

  Then Priest suddenly straightened and looked down at the book he held. His eyes went big and round and his mouth slowly opened.

  “No…” he breathed. “God…no…”

  Overhead in a cloudless winter sky there was a heavy rumble of thunder. Lightning forked above us, but it was as red as blood.

  Then two tears, every bit as red as that lightning, broke from the corners of Priest’s eyes and fell down his cheeks.

  “No…” he said again. I saw the horrible realization come into his eyes. He knew that what he held was a fake. Both books were inside the museum. He would have to get through me and through Violin to retrieve them, and if he’d seen that woman fight he would have to know that even with his skills, she’d turn him into cold cuts.

  “You’re done,” I said, and it came out as a wheeze.

  Priest let the backpack fall from his hands. It thumped onto the ground and lay there, inert and useless.

  Another bolt of red lightning ripped across the skies chased by heavy thunder. Priest pointed a finger at me.

  “You are cursed,” he said and my heart nearly froze when he spoke because it wasn’t his voice. Whoever or whatever spoke through him did so in a voice as heavy and deep as the rolling thunder. “You are damned.”

  I tried to speak, but couldn’t. My mouth would not work at all.

  “We know you, wolf,” spoke that voice. “We know you and we have marked you. Look for us in your dreams and despair, for we are coming for you.”

  The words were melodramatic, corny, bad scripting from a cheap pulp horror story. That’s what I told myself later.

  But in the moment?

  Shit.

  My heart was hammering so bad I was afraid it would explode in my chest. Despite the cold there was sweat pouring down my face and chest and thighs.

  Mr. Priest backed away from me, still pointing his finger. Then he turned and walked away.

  I could have gone after him. I could have caught up to him.

  Sure.

  Yeah, I could have.

  Like hell.

  -24-

  Sam Hunter

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  I kept a spare set of car keys in a magnetic box in the wheel well of my car, and extra clothes in the back. I changed into sweats and sneakers, then grabbed some tools and picked the lock on the museum door. The Manifesto was on the floor where I’d thrown it. I propped the door open and ran the damned thing over to my car and stowed it in a heavy corrugated steel lockbox. Then I took the backpack inside and made my way downstairs.

  Violin was kneeling beside Harry Bolt, doing some kind of massage thing to wake him up. She paused and looked across the sea of corpses that lay between us.

  “Benandanti?” she asked.

  “Benandanti,” I agreed.

  She nodded. I held out the backpack and she came and took it. She weighed it in her hands and nodded. Harry Bolt got to his feet and looked like a schoolyard kid who’d been roughed up by bullies. He had tear streaks on his face.

  Violin glanced at the metal cart and back to me. “The other book?”

  “That’s mine,” I said.

  “For who?” she asked.

  I almost lied, but didn’t. “Limbus.”

  Violin studied me for a long, long time. “Fill a trash barrel with holly and hawthorn wood. Douse it with kerosene from a church. Any church. Strike a match at first light.”

  “You want me to destroy it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not give it to Limbus?”

  She wiped blood from her cheek. “Not to anyone.”

  “What about the other book?”

  She almost smiled and shrugged. “Maybe one day I’ll build a similar pyre.”

  “Same way?”

  “There’s only one truly good way,” she said. There was a look of barely controlled horror and disgust in her eyes, and it was clear it came from a deep and total awareness of what those books are. And what they could do. Maybe of what Priest would have done if he’d stolen one or both.

  Harry Bolt stumbled over and stood beside her, then flinched when his senses cleared enough to realize who I was.

  “Holy shit!” he cried and flinched backward.

  “Shhh,” soothed Violin. “There are no enemies here.”

  With that, she turned and steered a trembling, shambling Harry Bolt out of the room. I stood and watched them go, my head full of a thousand questions, but heart knowing that those answers would never be mine.

  I could hear them all the way up the stairs and I waited for the bang of the security door.

  The museum settled into a tomblike stillness.

  Everywhere I looked there was death. Grotesque and appalling. I had no idea in the world how the police and forensics teams were going to make sense of this. And, frankly, I didn’t care.

  The backpack I’d brought with me was where I’d left it, hidden behind a desk, soaked in blood. Intact.

  I bent and picked it up, and felt a wave of sickness wash through me. I was glad I coul
dn’t see the cover and didn’t need to touch it again with my own flesh. It was such an ugly thing.

  Acantha would want it and the Manifesto.

  That’s what she was paying me for.

  I stepped over the bodies and parts of bodies and went upstairs and out the door and to my car. All the time wondering where the hell I was going to find holly and hawthorn wood and church kerosene this late at night.

  There was one last rumble of thunder.

  We know you, wolf. We know you and we have marked you. Look for us in your dreams and despair, for we are coming for you.

  I started the engine and turned on the radio. Found some hillbilly rock and turned it all the way up. Loud enough to block out the thunder. Loud enough to block out the whispers in my head.

  I tried not to be afraid.

  I tried real hard.

  But you can’t win every fight.

  Fourth Interlude: Down the Rabbit Hole

  “Werewolves,” Malone muttered to himself as the American Airlines 757 cut through the clouds, somewhere over central Europe. The other stories had been weird enough. Disturbing, too. But the one that Samuelson had given him made him wonder how much he should believe about this Limbus group. Biologically engineered people he could fathom. Hell, that was right around the corner anyway. Time travel? Sure, why not. If Hawking believed in it, so could he.

  But werewolves? Maybe this was all some sort of sick joke. Maybe Samuelson had been lying to him about his personal experience with Limbus. Still, he was dealing with something far more profound than a few pranksters, even homicidal ones. The things he’d experienced were all the evidence he needed of that. So now he was on a flight bound for Prague, with a rental car waiting to take him to some town in the interior where they burned tourists at the stake.

  He was just glad he’d bothered to get a passport back when Sherrill decided a trip to Jamaica was just what they needed to get things back on track. Six months later, she was gone. He wondered where she was, what she was doing. But for the first time, he was glad she’d left him. Whatever he’d gotten himself into, it was bigger than the police force. And dangerous, too. Limbus, it seemed, had its tentacles in everything. Certainly Eastern Europe, where he was headed. And with the heat coming down from the office, maybe he’d just stay there, Limbus or not. Hell, it was likely there was no such thing as Limbus. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.