Darkest Before The Dawn (The Second Dark Ages Book 3)

by Michael Anderle

  The girls scuffled.

  The gun went off and everyone jumped.

  Except Jacqueline, who was quite accustomed to gunfire by now.

  Jacqueline looked to see who had the gun so she could grab it, and she noticed blood on her hand.

  She backed away from the two girls to see Akari’s horror as she was left holding up a slumped Ichika. She panicked, laying the girl down and hyperventilating.

  A second later, gun still in hand, she was sprinting down the corridor.

  Jacqueline watched her and then went to Ichika. “Hey! Hey…” she called, trying to get the girl to revive.

  Ichika could barely keep her eyes open. “Tell grandpa I’m sorry…” she said before her eyes closed properly and she slipped away.

  Jacqueline wasn’t accepting it. “No! You’re going to live. Get it together. Eyes open!”

  Ichika obeyed, her eyes snapping open.

  Jacqueline inspected her quickly. The blood was all coming from her thigh. “You’ve been shot, but you don’t have to die. Mark can help. You just need to stay awake. I’ll be right back, I promise. Can you do that for me? Just stay awake?”

  Ichika nodded. “Yes,” she responded with the quiet passion and determination Jacqueline knew she was capable of.

  Jacqueline nodded, scrambling to her feet. “I’ll be right back,” she repeated before sprinting after Akari.

  She charged back down the corridor to the waterlogged cavern where they had come in and saw Akari disappear underwater. Jacqueline dove in after her, her limbs powered by anger at the betrayal. She swam as hard as she could, trying to reach the traitor before she could escape into the lake.

  Jacqueline felt her arms and lungs burning from the exertion and lack of oxygen, but she pushed harder and harder. Her eyes stung as she tried to see through the water; Akari had disappeared from her view.

  She would not let her escape.

  Not with the only lead they had on the ship pieces.

  Then her eyes clapped onto Akari just ahead of her.

  Akari raised her wrist and hit a button on a device. An explosion blasted through the water like the gates of hell had been opened on top of her, and then all went black.

  She didn’t know how long she was out, but it couldn’t have been for long because she came to choking for breath. She flailed her arms and felt the water. Opening her eyes, she saw rocks and concrete debris falling all around her. She got her bearings from the direction of the falling debris and pushed her way to the surface, breaking into the air and the aftermath of the explosion that had knocked her out.

  She caught a glimpse of Akari’s limp body twenty yards away, obviously caught by her own blast. The chamber had been breached, and water was pouring in, the levels rising.

  She dove again. She had to make it back to Mark and the others to warn them.

  Swimming as hard as she could, coughing up water and swallowing more as she tried to suck in air, she made her way to the steps and pulled herself out.

  Once out of the water, she glanced back to see a slab of concrete fall from the collapsing chamber onto Akari’s already limp body. She winced, scanning the water for it to resurface before coming to terms with the inevitable. She turned on her heel and scrambled back to Ichika.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “How you doing?”

  Ichika had dragged herself across the corridor and propped herself up, and was currently trying to stop the bleeding from her leg. She’d managed to remove her t-shirt and was tying it around her thigh as a tourniquet.

  She looked up. “What did you do?”

  Jacqueline shook her head, jogging toward her and helping her tie the knot. “I didn’t do anything. She blew the entrance so we couldn’t get out. The water is pouring in.”

  Ichika’s eyes were filled with fear. “We’re all going to die then?”

  Jacqueline was already on her feet and helped Ichika to hers. She slipped a little in the blood, putting her hand against the bunker’s wall to catch herself, and heaved Ichika up. “Not if I’ve got anything to do with it. Mark can help you…stop the bleeding. Then we need to find another way out of here.”

  Ichika cried out in pain as she put weight on her leg.

  Jacqueline started her moving down the corridor, holding her around the waist to help support her. “You can do this. We’ve got to move fast.”

  The two women hobbled back through the corridors to find Mark.

  Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France

  Yuko dropped out of their Pod the last twenty feet to the ground, shooting two soldiers in the back on her way down. She stood up and jogged to the building, following the bodies and smell of explosives.

  Upon entering the building, she called, “Sabine? Akio? Michael?”

  A weak voice replied, “Yuko?”

  Moving quickly, Yuko made it to the destroyed furniture and kicked some aside. On the other side she found a bloody Sabine, her right hand gripping a pistol, her left arm useless, broken. Yuko’s eyes flared red and she called over the radio, “Eve, bring an injection.”

  “Which one?”

  “Whichever is the best we have,” Yuko answered and reached down to lift Sabine’s body up. She was whispering as her eyes closed.

  “At least I saw the view. Please have that written on my tombstone, I took the time to watch the view…”

  Yuko turned and headed back toward the entrance, hurrying to meet Eve as the little EI made her way into the building.

  —

  Moments later Eve continued farther into the building, dashing toward Akio down below.

  It took her a couple minutes to race down the steps, following the building schematics she had in her memory. She accessed several shortcuts her smaller body could take.

  When she met up with Akio, he pointed to the controls. “Stop this machine. Do not kill Michael.”

  She nodded her understanding. “Routing the communications from this place to my tablet.”

  She nodded again. “Done.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Japan, Below the Kurobe Dam

  The two girls stumbled back into the server room. Ichika had left a trail of blood along the corridor and, now pale and fading, slumped in Jacqueline’s arms.

  “Mark!” she called desperately.

  Mark appeared, bedraggled and the worse for wear but alive, albeit with an enormous hole in his forehead. “Yes, dear?”

  Jacqueline was in no mood for humor. “She needs some of your blood.”

  Mark quickly forgot his own woes and hurried over, his eyes anxious at the sight of all the blood. “What happened?” he asked, biting his wrist.

  “Akari happened,” Jacqueline explained quickly as she laid Ichika down and then held her head up so Mark could feed her from his wrist.

  Mark shoved the bloody mess to Ichika’s lips and pressed. “What d’you mean?” he asked, glancing up and then readjusting his position on the floor.

  Jacqueline kept her eyes on Ichika to make sure she had started to suck. “She had a gun. Ichika got caught in the struggle. She also blew the entrance.”

  Mark’s eyes filled with horror and his wrist moved, slipping away from Ichika’s lips. He suddenly felt hands gripping his arm and looked down to see that Ichika had revived and clamped down on his arm to continue feeding.

  Jacqueline pulled the girl’s hands off. “Easy! Slow down. You don’t want to turn all vampy.”

  Mark pulled his wrist away, watching Ichika.

  Jacqueline looked at him. “I have some good news, and some very bad news.”

  Mark rubbed his head as he looked at her, his eyes clearly showing that the bullet was giving him a headache. “Tell me the good.”

  “That traitorous bitch is dead,” she said simply.

  Mark nodded. “And the bad?”

  “The very bad,” Jacqueline corrected. “The very bad news is she blew the chamber that was holding the water at bay. We can’t get out that way because water is filling the entire bunker. We’ve
got to get out of here. Now.”

  Ichika had opened her eyes and was struggling to sit up. Jacqueline and Mark helped her. “Steady, take a moment,” Mark told her.

  Jacqueline’s eyes flashed. “Haven’t you been listening? We haven’t got a moment.”

  Mark nodded and scurried away. “We might have.”

  Jacqueline followed him around the mess of destroyed computers and shelving.

  “Careful!” Mark warned. “There are some live power cables around there. Well, kinda. The circuit breakers turned off whatever power was running through them, but if there are in capacitors – they could still pack a bite.”

  Jacqueline trod carefully as she scrambled over to the terminal Mark was using. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear me?”

  Mark pulled up another screen. “Well, I was thinking… If Riku was going to escape, he wasn’t going to be able to use the Pods, remember. Not without alerting Eve, and Eve wouldn’t let him get too far once she knew we weren’t with him.”

  Jacqueline frowned. “So?”

  “So,” he continued, “I figure he must have found another way out.”

  Jacqueline was still frustrated, and now confused. “But where?”

  Mark had pulled up the schematic Eve had given them earlier. “I’d love to play a game and get you to guess what’s out of place, but since we don’t have time I’ll tell you. There is a door over there that isn’t on this map.”

  He looked from the screen to Jacqueline, stumbling a little over the precarious position with the damage around him.

  Jacqueline raised one eyebrow. “What are you thinking?”

  Mark smiled despite his dire headache. “Would the Japanese, the most technologically astute people on the planet, really build an underwater bunker with only one way in and out?”

  Jacqueline’s face relaxed. “Good point!” she agreed. “And where is that schematic from?”

  Mark grinned. “Eve pulled it off a government server.”

  Jacqueline smiled. “So those are the official schematics, then. My money's on that door leading us out.”

  Ichika interjected a comment into the conversation. “Or to something very, very secret!” she exclaimed dryly.

  Jacqueline pursed her lips. “That’s a good point,” she conceded, “but we’re running out of options. No way we can hold our breath long enough to get through all those corridors; they’ll have filled with water by now. We can’t get to the original chamber we came in through.”

  Jacqueline and Mark started back through the rubble toward Ichika. “Well, you two might be all right,” Ichika observed, “but those of us who are human would struggle.”

  Jacqueline headed straight to her. “We’re all getting out of here alive,” she said firmly, bending down and placing her hand firmly on the girl’s shoulder. “Are you ready to move yet?”

  Ichika nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this,” she said, putting her weight on her leg. She stumbled a little, her face creased in pain.

  “Just one second,” Mark told them and dove over the mess to the server he had resurrected.

  Jacqueline scowled. “What are you doing now?” she asked in an almost scolding tone.

  “Just grabbing the data we came for,” he said, a hint of cockiness in his voice. His butt went up in the air as he bent over and retrieved what he’d been working on. Reappearing from behind the stack, he showed them the dongle he’d just pulled out and then placed it into his pocket.

  “But…I thought Riku took it?” Jacqueline asked, bewildered.

  Mark grinned at her. “And what kind of tech nerd would I be if I came down here with only one dongle that would fit this setup?”

  Jacqueline stood and headed over to him. She grinned, pulling him close and giving him a quick but warm kiss on the lips.

  Ichika was already making her way toward the door. Jacqueline grinned at Mark again, then quickly followed her. Mark caught up with them and, seeing that Ichika was struggling, put his arm around her waist to help her.

  “I’ve got you,” he told her. “And you can always have some more blood.”

  Ichika screwed up her face and shook her head, then quickly changed her expression. “Oh, I mean, I’m very grateful, but I don’t—”

  “Want to be like me?” Mark smiled.

  Ichika looked sheepish, lowering her eyes and continuing to move toward the inconspicuous door. “I’d like to stay human if at all possible.”

  Mark squeezed her waist a little tighter for a moment. “It’s totally cool. I get it,” he told her. “Really,” he added reassuringly.

  Looking satisfied that she hadn’t offended him, Ichika put all her effort into moving as fast as she could to keep pace with Jacqueline. The Were had already gone through the door and was jogging down the corridor with her flashlight jumping all over the place.

  Japan, Below the Kurobe Dam

  “Just through here,” Jacqueline called back two corridors and a narrow passageway later. “Good thing the weasel went out this way before us,” she remarked as she pushed open a final door to a tiny room with nothing more than a vertical ladder.

  She shined her flashlight up, examining the ascent, and sniffed the air.

  Fresh air, she thought. We’re there.

  Just then Mark and Ichika stumbled into the room. The young female warrior looked distraught. “Dead end?”

  Jacqueline smiled, a hint of Mark’s geeky cockiness rubbing off on her. “No, a climb to safety.” She looked up and shined her flashlight upward again. Ichika followed her eyes.

  Jacqueline shined the light on Ichika’s leg. “How’s that leg doing?” she asked seriously.

  Ichika looked down. “Painful, but… How far do you think it is?”

  Jacqueline shrugged. “Can’t be that deep. I think we’ve been climbing on those last two corridors. That’s dry land up there.”

  Ichika nodded.

  Jacqueline pushed her forward to the ladder. “You first.”

  Ichika looked at her in horror. “But…I’ll be the slowest.”

  “All the more reason,” Mark chimed in, giving her another nudge toward the ladder. “No time for arguments. Got to get this done. The water isn’t far behind us.”

  Ichika was in no state to argue. She placed her hands on the cold metal bars of the ladder and started climbing, trying not to telegraph her pain to the others.

  Mark and Jacqueline watched like parents when a young child toddled precariously close to a fireplace. When she was a body-length above them, Jacqueline turned to Mark. “Why isn’t she healed already?” she hissed urgently, her air of calm having evaporated.

  Mark shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve never done this before, but if I had to guess, she probably needed a bit more blood.”

  Jacqueline glanced up again before looking back at Mark. “And you didn’t think to give her some?”

  Mark put a hand on the ladder and pulled Jacqueline toward him. “She didn’t want to risk it.”

  Jacqueline nodded. “Silly girl,” she said, still anxious and sensing the water coming through the tunnels.

  Mark put Jacqueline’s hand onto the ladder. “Up you go. This structure is likely to collapse before the water ever reaches us,” he added, hearing the cracking of concrete several hundred meters away.

  Jacqueline looked panicked. “You better be right behind me!”

  Mark had a glimmer of humor in his eye. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be enjoying the view.”

  Jacqueline looked annoyed, and then the tension of the situation dispersed. She slapped him gently on his body and started climbing. Mark followed, careful not to catch up too quickly for fear of being kicked in the face with her feet as Jacqueline climbed.

  They ascended for a while. Jacqueline slowed down when she up caught to Ichika. Eventually, they reached the surface and found that the grid that had covered over the hole had already been removed. Ichika emerged breathing hard, her face contorted in pain.

  She rolled over on the slightly damp grass, cat
ching her breath as Jacqueline and Mark scrambled out.

  Jacqueline was on her feet first. “How are you doing?” she asked the little human.

  Ichika opened her eyes and looked at Jacqueline’s silhouette against the background light of the moon and the nearby town. “I’ll live.” She smiled weakly. “Thank you for saving me,” she said, sitting up and looking in Mark’s direction too. “Both of you.”

  Jacqueline waved her hand. “Don’t mention it. We’re not out of the woods yet, though. Lemme get in touch with Eve, and then we need to get your leg seen to.”

  Jacqueline walked away a few paces and retrieved the communicator from her suit.

  Tokyo, Undisclosed Alley

  There was a chill in the night air, one that Riku was unaccustomed to in this land. Of course, on his travels, he had experienced everything from Siberian winds to tropical climes.

  But here in Japan? It seemed a little out of place.

  If he didn’t know any better he would have thought it was a foreboding that something was coming. Finally, he might fulfill his destiny and play his part in the protection of the Sacred Clan’s relics.

  He waited patiently in the alley for his master.

  It wasn’t long before he heard footsteps. He observed from the shadows, just in case it was an unwitting passerby who had stumbled into the alley by accident.

  The stranger moved toward the center of the alley with a confident stride and stepped into a sliver of light from the street. It was indeed Kuro’s face.

  Riku moved out from behind the big metal box and revealed himself.

  Kuro remained motionless. “You have news?” he called in a low, controlled voice.

  Riku moved closer. “Yes, sir. I have the data.” He produced the dongle and handed it over.

  Kuro looked almost impressed despite his attempts at maintaining a formal face. “Thank you. This was good work.”

  Riku bowed deeply, relieved to have satisfied his master. “The honor is mine, sir. May the vallitseva tila be upheld.”

  Kuro returned the bow, though not as deeply. “Indeed. To the vallitseva tila!” He paused, his face now accentuated by deep shadow. “Your funds will be deposited in the morning.”