God War

by James Axler

  Grant and Rosalia pushed their way along the corridor toward the next room, hurrying past the squirming bodies of the dying Annunaki, their clawed hands clenched and twitching, legs bent in pain. Whatever was going through them was causing their bodies to spasm, ripping into them like a stun gun. At the end of the corridor lay a doorway, its hexagonal shape lit in a rich red the exact shade of spilled blood. Lightning blasts came from beyond that open doorway, illuminating the walls of the corridor in staccato bursts of whiteness.

  “Come on,” Grant said as he hurried toward the open door with Rosalia dogging his heels, the bodies of the felled Annunaki twitching in pain all around them.

  Rosalia nodded once, checking that her portable comm device was in place over her right ear.

  As they approached the doorway, the two Cerberus teammates heard the distinct sounds of fierce combat over the crackling lightning, grunts and blows as whoever was beyond continued their merry dance of death. Grant checked his Sin Eater with a glance, ensuring it had enough ammunition for whatever he and Rosalia were about to encounter.

  Passing through the doorway, the Cerberus warriors stepped into a vast, high-ceilinged chamber laid out in a hexagonal shape, towering arches of bone knotting together high above them. In the middle of the room, two Annunaki masters fought for supremacy, Ullikummis driving one of his powerful fists into Enlil’s chest as dark smoke billowed from his face and torso.

  Grant took in the room with a quick glance, recognizing the thick rock spikes that lined one wall as the same ones that had smashed through the water room; seeing the way the arches had been bent and cracked where they had been struck. Enlil and Ullikummis were waging a bitter dispute in the center of the room, but there was one thing missing, Grant noted: Kane.

  Chapter 17

  “Kane, we’re here,” Grant shouted into his Commtact, striving to hear himself over the sounds of combat. “Where are you?”

  Kane’s voice came back over the Commtact with an amused edge to it. “Hard to explain,” he said, “but trust me I’m right with you. Baptiste is in the next room, prepping a chrysalis-type egg. I need you to get her out of there and stop that from happening.”

  “Saw that over the displays,” Grant replied. Then he scanned the chamber again before he spotted the doorway he would need to access. It was now behind the barricade of rock shards. “Got a wall in the way, though,” he explained.

  “I’m on it,” Rosalia acknowledged, brushing her dark hair from her face.

  Grant had no idea what she had planned, but he knew better than to ask for details right now. He watched as Rosalia’s lithe figure stepped closer to the fray, stalking around the combatants like a cat as she searched for an opening.

  “What about the clash of the titans here?” Grant asked, watching incredulously as the two mighty figures struck each other with savage, bone-jarring blows. Even as he spoke, Enlil snatched something from the deck and seemed to throw chain lightning from his hands, striking his son across his already smoldering rock face.

  “We need to split them up,” Kane said. “You have any ideas?”

  “Hell no,” Grant admitted. “But we’ll work something.”

  As he spoke, Rosalia spotted a gap in the fighting. Ullikummis had dropped back under the lightning assault and crashed into one of the towering pillars that held the ceiling arches aloft. She charged through the room toward the spiked rock wall.

  Grant watched her run and saw Enlil’s head dart to follow her, his clawed hands lashing out to grab her. Grant didn’t hesitate; the Sin Eater was already bucking in his hand, sending a dozen 9 mm bullets at his foe. The bullets struck a line along Enlil’s outstretched arm, throwing off his aim as the serpent lightning lashed out toward Rosalia. With a snakelike hiss, Enlil spun, fixing his wicked gaze on Grant like a rattlesnake spying its prey.

  Grant inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Long time no see,” he said.

  “Apekin,” Enlil spit venomously. “You shall die this day.”

  “My schedule’s full already,” Grant snapped as he fired off another burst of bullets from the Sin Eater at the charging Enlil, giving Rosalia ample time to reach her destination unmolested.

  Then Grant was rearing back as Enlil kicked out with his clawed foot, the sharp talons sweeping through the air and missing Grant’s face by just a quarter inch.

  * * *

  DUCKING BENEATH another burst of electric flame, Rosalia sprinted across the room toward the jagged spears of rock, skidding to a halt before them. Shaped like stalactites, each structure was as thick as a man’s torso and placed in such a way that left just an inch or two gap between each. Effectively, the door to the chamber was blocked.

  Rosalia had seen this before, when Ullikummis had constructed Life Camp Zero over the Cerberus redoubt, reshaping the innards with growths of rock. Each one could be moved by Ullikummis’s mental command, she knew, but there was another way. Those loyal to the rock giant were implanted with a living stone that operated like a key, sending a pulse to the hidden doors on the user’s command. Months earlier in the fishing village called Hope, Rosalia had had one of these stone keys implanted beneath her flesh, but she had teased it away from final bonding again and again by use of a sewing needle. Now she glanced down at her left wrist, searching for the almost insignificant ridge that showed there under the brightest of lights.

  With a smile on her lips, Rosalia swept her wrist across the stone bars that masked the chamber doors, willing them apart. For a long moment nothing happened, and Rosalia peered back over her shoulder, scanning the hexagonal room. Grant was struggling in hand-to-hand combat with Enlil, lightning firing all about them and Grant’s Sin Eater spitting bullets as he shoved the lizardlike Annunaki away. Ten feet from them, Ullikummis struggled on the floor, inky smoke curling up from the wound on his inhuman face. He spotted her in a second, his eyes glowing fiercely through the smoke.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” Rosalia spit. “You want a fucking dance-off? Then show me your moves.”

  Ullikummis had drawn himself to a crouching position, poised like a sprinter on the blocks. Contemptuously, Rosalia turned back to the barred door, sweeping her wrist across it again and willing it to part. Without warning, her wrist stone found the sensor and the jagged stone shards began to bend outward, shunting out of her way until a two-foot-wide gap appeared in their center.

  As Ullikummis began his charge at her, Rosalia worked the lock on the main doors with her hand, commanding Tiamat to open them. Ullikummis’s tread was as loud as an earthquake as his stumpy feet pounded against the decking, hurrying across the room to where the dark-haired mercenary stood.

  Seeing this, Grant ducked in place as Enlil aimed the serpent lightning at his face, arching his back as the lethal cord cleaved the air, crackling with white-hot energy.

  Across the room, the newly revealed doors opened and Rosalia dashed through them, slapping her hand against the lock as she did so, commanding the doors to close. Behind her, Ullikummis was just three feet from the ridged bars of stone, reaching for her with his long arms, determined to protect his mother in her chrysalis state. As Ullikummis reached forward, the snake of lightning tickled across his back and shoulder blades, slamming him forward and down with the power of a thunderclap.

  * * *

  ROSALIA CLOSED HER EYES with relief as the doors shut behind her, drawing a steadying breath. Her heart was pounding in her chest, beating against her ribs like a metronome. “Shit, that was close.”

  Her eyes snapped back open in an instant as she became aware of the sound of boot heels striking against the metallic decking before her. The red-haired woman was running at her, drawing the chunky handgun from its low-slung hip holster, her face a portrait of rage. The woman was Brigid Baptiste, Rosalia recognized, dressed now in black leather with a long, heavy cloak of furs hanging from her shoulde
rs. They had met many months earlier out in the fishing village of Hope, and more recently Rosalia had been present when Brigid had attempted to kill Kane in a cavern beneath the rebuilt city of Luilekkerville.

  Without conscious thought, Rosalia dived aside, launching herself across the room even as the TP-9 in Brigid’s hand kicked, blurting a burst of 9 mm titanium-shelled bullets at the space where the dark-haired mercenary had stood. The bullets slapped against the wall and door like cruel rain, missing Rosalia by inches. The Latina hurried on, tracing the curving wall of the ante-nursery chamber, her long strides eating up the space even as Brigid tried to get a bead on her.

  Lit in a tranquil violet, an indentation dominated the room, a pool full of swilling liquid the iridescent color of pearl. The pool reminded Rosalia of the Chalice of Rebirth she had seen beneath Luilekkerville, where the young-again-hag known as Maria Halloween had tried to tap the power source of the anam-chara. The pool burbled contentedly to itself, and in its center Rosalia saw a great ovoid shape carved from dark stone. Shorter than a man, the stone ovoid looked like an egg.

  Tasked to defend the cocoon, Brigid tracked the retreating mercenary, blasting shot after shot at her from the TP-9 pistol. In her first life, when she had been known as Brigid Baptiste, she had been trained in the arts of combat, and using a pistol remained second nature to her. As Brigid Haight she had not been made to forget that life, after all, merely to leave its trappings behind her, to be reborn as Ullikummis’s hand in darkness.

  Rosalia, too, was trained in the arts of war. Younger than Brigid, she had been schooled in a nunnery close to the border where North America met its southern neighbor. An accomplished sharpshooter and gifted with a longbow, Rosalia preferred an edged blade. Long or short, she felt most satisfied by the silent invasion of a knife to an enemy’s gut, or the decapitation of an enemy by sword strike.

  Right now, however, as she hurried past the pool, Rosalia reached for the Ruger she carried, sprinting across the chamber as Brigid’s bullets followed her. The furious sound of the redhead’s blaster was loud in the enclosed space, while the room itself was small, with curving struts running along the walls like spinal columns, each one as thick as a man’s torso and twisted in a knot. Rosalia dashed behind these, running around the room as Brigid tried to shoot her, using the weird columns for cover.

  After a moment, Rosalia stopped, slapping her back against one of the columns as Brigid continued blasting where she thought the woman would next appear. Bullets drilled through the air, smashing at the walls past where Rosalia had halted, and the mercenary smiled. Checking the magazine of her Ruger, Rosalia whipped out from behind the column and fired at Brigid. Her gun spit three quick shots at the redhead, cutting past the strange stone egg that dominated the room’s center.

  Brigid moved with breathtaking speed, hurtling across the room as that triple burst of bullets zipped past her, charging along the circular edge of the nutrient pool.

  Rosalia had the redhead in her sights, confident that it would be the matter of a single heartbeat to execute her with a well-placed bullet. But she hesitated, making a split-second decision as Brigid’s own bullets slapped the walls all about her. The woman was Kane’s best friend, Rosalia knew, his anam-chara. Kane had spent months searching for her, and no matter how Brigid was acting now, Kane would never forgive Rosalia if she killed her. In the blink of an eye, Rosalia shifted her aim, squeezing the Ruger’s trigger and sending a bullet toward Brigid’s legs instead.

  At the same moment, Brigid leaped, springing from the deck as she lunged over the edge of the pit. Rosalia’s bullet whipped past her, kicking up sparks as it caught the edge of the pool. Then Rosalia ducked back behind the spinelike strut she was using for cover as Brigid’s TP-9 spit again, sending a burst of bullets in her direction.

  Bullets struck the walls in front of Rosalia, gouging splinters of metallike cartilage as they pierced the grown surface of Tiamat’s interior. The mercenary paid them no attention, instead glancing down at the Ruger P-85 pistol in her hand. “Dammit,” she cursed, knowing Kane and Grant would never forgive her if she killed their wayward partner. “It sucks being a temp.”

  Then Brigid was beside her, diving between the columns and drawing her own weapon up to shoot Rosalia in the head. The dark-haired woman ducked and turned, feeling the column disintegrate behind her under the barrage of 9 mm fury.

  Rosalia backed away, swinging around the pockmarked column and lashing out with a well-placed kick. The blow slammed against Brigid’s flank, knocking the redhead off her feet and sending her sprawling into the wall, her pistol still belching titanium-tipped tragedy.

  Brigid growled as she slammed into the wall, recovering instantaneously and whipping her gun back up into ready position. Just a few feet away, Rosalia dropped her shoulders, reaching out with her empty left hand in a blur of speed. Brigid’s blaster snapped off another burst of fire at her lithe opponent as Rosalia’s hand grabbed her below the wrist, forcing Brigid’s aim to go wide and sending a half-dozen bullets into the walls.

  “I’m really not supposed to kill you, hermanita,” Rosalia said as her dark eyes met with Brigid’s, “but you sure as shit are going to have to stop shooting at me if you expect me to observe that proviso.”

  Brigid snarled, her lips pulling back from her gritted teeth. “Get your hand off me, bitch,” she barked, flipping her arm.

  Before Rosalia knew what was happening, Brigid’s flip caused her to lose her grip, sending her backward in a stumble. She crashed down against the decking, her right arm and shoulder sinking into the nutrient bath with a splash of viscous gunk. Beneath the surface, Rosalia felt the Ruger slip from her hand, drifting slowly down to the bottom of the pool in a languid swish.

  Brigid was on her right away, leaping onto the mercenary’s back and slamming her chest down against the deck with unrelenting force. Rosalia’s breath burst from her lungs in a rush, exiting her mouth with a shout of agony.

  Rosalia struggled to throw Brigid from her as the redhead brought her TP-9 up toward the back of her skull. Still beneath the swishing liquid of the nutrient pool feeding Ninlil’s cocoon, Rosalia’s hand flipped up, throwing a handful of the gunk up and into Brigid’s face.

  “Not today, chica,” Rosalia growled as Brigid turned away from the liquid, her bullets going wild. Rosalia heard a familiar dull click, and she smiled inwardly as she continued her assault.

  Taking advantage of her opponent’s temporary confusion, Rosalia twisted her supple body, forcing Brigid from her back. Brigid rolled, combat instincts kicking in automatically to get her out of the path of Rosalia’s follow-through attack. Rosalia kicked out, but Brigid had already rolled away, scampering over the deck and pulling herself back to her feet.

  Rosalia lifted herself into a crouch, her dark eyes fixed on Brigid’s emerald orbs as the latter woman held her in the sights of her TP-9.

  Brigid squeezed the trigger, her teeth gritted as she sent a message of titanium-shelled death at her opponent—only to find her blaster out of ammunition, the trigger clicking on empty.

  Smiling, Rosalia reached for the sword she had secured through her belt, drawing herself up to her full height as the black blade was revealed. “Now then,” she said, “what say you and me cut to the chase?”

  * * *

  GRANT HAD SLAMMED into Ullikummis with such force that it caused both of them to collide with the closing cartilage doors. Grant rolled, bringing himself up into a fighting crouch a quarter turn across the room from where his opponent had landed, even as Enlil lashed out at his son with the serpent lightning. His eyes fixed on Ullikummis, Grant released the spent ammo magazine from his blaster, discarding it on the floor as he reached for a new one in the inside pocket of his long coat.

  Already beaten down by his father’s blows, Ullikummis lay against the doors for several seconds, gathering his strength to continue the fight. En
lil had nurtured him to be the greatest assassin of the ancient world, a Godkiller. But this battle had taxed him to his limits.

  His face smoldering with dark smoke, Ullikummis turned slowly to face Grant. Grant pounded the new magazine home, flinching his wrist tendons to bring the Sin Eater securely back to the palm of his hand. As if mocking him, Ullikummis mirrored the gesture, flicking his own hand forward as Grant depressed the trigger. A flurry of 9 mm bullets shot across the room from the Sin Eater, cutting through the air toward the stone monstrosity while, at the very same instant, a line of sharp rock columns pierced the floor, emerging from Ullikummis’s position across the deck and marching toward Grant like a porcupine’s spines.

  Grant leaped aside, his legs working overtime as he scampered away from the spiny rocks. He didn’t notice Enlil step from behind one of the bone arches, reaching out with one swift, bloody hand to block Grant’s path, striking the ex-Mag high in the chest. Enlil’s movement was eyeblink-swift and Grant struck his arm and flipped, his legs kicking forward as his head careened downward to the deck. He hit with a mighty thud, sprawling, his vision blurring for a long blink.

  When Grant looked up he saw both Enlil and Ullikummis stalking toward him.

  “Kane, wherever you are you’d better pull something out of your sleeve,” he muttered.

  * * *

  HAND OVER HAND, Kane climbed the tree in the middle of the darkness, working faster and faster to reach its topmost branch. The blossoms waited there, great multicolored circles swirling like glass baubles of mist. Still he could not see his foes. Had he lost them?

  Kane clambered higher, reaching out for the lone blossom that waited at the tree’s highest point, its sweet scent cloying his senses. As he reached it, his hand pressing against that multicolored ball, Kane felt the worlds shift around him, multidimensional planes renegotiating the way in which they bonded. The sky opened, the color of a hymn, and Kane smiled as a warmth washed over his skin. He knew that warmth, though he had felt it but very rarely in his thirty-odd years—it was the warmth of compassion.