Azrael scratched at the scars along his jaw. “This is unexpected, but we may be able to use it to our advantage. Alert Elijah at once.”
“Yes, Prophet.”
Azrael lurked behind the other human loyalists and Scions monitoring battle reports.
“Prophet,” said a Scion named Gabriel. “The heretics are still flooding the main strip.”
Gabriel tapped on a monitor showing a map of Vegas.
“They are closing in on the Venetian. Should I execute the final orders for Operation Darkness?”
Azrael glanced at the monitor. Red blips showed where collaborators and Scions were reporting current enemy positions. He pictured the faces of those humans that had constantly stood in his way. Reed Beckham. Team Ghost. The infidels who refused to submit.
“Has anyone confirmed that Beckham and Team Ghost are here?” Azrael asked.
“Not yet, Prophet.”
“Then we must wait.”
“If we wait too long, the humans will—”
Azrael slashed out with his claws, drawing four scarlet lines down the side of Gabriel’s face. To the Scion’s credit, he didn’t flinch.
“If you hold the faith, you will abide my words,” Azrael said.
“Yes, Prophet,” Gabriel said, eyes lowered. “It was foolish of me to speak like that.”
One of the doors to the lab opened. Four Scions marched in with their cutlasses strapped over their backs. Between them limped a hulking form.
All the way from across the room, Azrael could smell the beast’s festering wounds in his diseased flesh. It was the general, finally returned from Canada.
The Alpha stumbled toward him. One of his arms hung useless at his side.
“I am sorry to… interrupt, Prophet,” the general said, dropping to his knees before Azrael.
His massive chest expanded and deflated in heaving gasps. Blood caked the rim of a bullet hole in his shattered elongated jaw.
Azrael looked at Gabriel, who was staring straight at him. “You have come at the perfect time. We are approaching victory in Vegas… and elsewhere.”
“Yes, Prophet.”
Azrael spun, holding his claws wide to the rest of the room. “Soon we will all taste victory! And even sweeter, we will feast on the flesh of our enemies.”
A few monstrous howls rose, and human loyalists cheered.
“But only those who do not fail me will feast.”
The general dared to look up at Azrael with eyes that sparkled with a hint of fear.
“Please, Prophet, I almost…” he began to say.
Azrael snapped his claws. Red vines from the floor and wall slithered around the general. They snaked into his nostrils, ear canals, and the bullet hole in his jaw, prompting the general to screech in agony. More vines wrapped around his wrists and legs, yanking him off the ground.
All the chatter in the operations center ceased, except for a few squawking radios. Even the mastermind was watching.
“You failed me once,” Azrael said.
He gestured toward the mastermind. The vines stretched until the general’s bones started to crack. The wounds he had sustained from his attack on Banff opened, fresh gouts of blood drizzling out.
Azrael snapped his claws together again. This time the vines continued to stretch, and the general’s roars shook through the room. A violent tearing sound ripped through the space as his limbs pulled free from their joints, bones and flesh torn apart by the gruesome contractions of the webbing.
The torso of the general dangled in the air, vines still holding him up by his head and neck. Rattling gasps escaped the creature as he let out agonized moans.
Azrael ignored the beast, facing his followers again. “We are close to destroying the Allied States. Do not let failure become a distraction. While the human armies are focused on Las Vegas, we will deliver a strike that will paralyze them forever.”
The final breaths escaped the general’s broken body, and the vines released him. His corpse slapped against the floor.
Azrael turned away from the dying creature. He had no more time to waste dealing with insolent fools.
He looked back at Gabriel and the others. “Bring me Beckham. Bring me Ghost. Bring me victory.”
— 12 —
Dohi crouched at the entrance to a windowless second-floor corridor. They had traveled back up from the morgue through the hospital when Spearhead had called for backup.
The shrieks of Variants had sounded throughout the climb, but now the beasts had gone quiet. There was no sign of the Canadians. No streaks of blood. No bullet casings. Nothing to indicate where the team had gone.
Dohi was no longer sure going after them was a good idea.
The mission to find the Prophet far outweighed the lives of a single team, including even Team Ghost. But Fitz believed finding where the beasts had taken Spearhead would lead them to the Prophet.
For now, that was their game plan.
Sweat matted his ACUs and saturated his gloves as he gripped his rifle. The temperature in the hospital seemed to be rising.
Dohi clenched his jaw, holding his breath, waiting for orders.
“Should we try them on the comms?” Rico whispered.
Fitz shook his head.
Ace surveyed the area with his rifle, cutting through the darkness with his barrel-mounted tac light.
Corrin sniffed at the air. He leaned in close to Fitz, then whispered, “Variants are close.”
The air only got hotter as they made their way deeper into the hospital. Dohi blinked the sweat from his eyes. He came up on a corner and put his back against the wall, then snuck a glance around.
The coast was clear, and he shot a gesture to the team to relay the info.
Fitz signaled to continue.
Striding out with his rifle shouldered, Dohi finally saw the first tracks from Spearhead across the webbing covered floor.
Bodies hung from vines on the walls. Most were nothing but ragged corpses, a few pieces of leathery flesh hanging over tooth-marked bones. One man moaned, somehow alive despite his shriveled body.
Dohi shuddered, remembering his own experiences in the webbing. This man wouldn’t survive being taken down from the vines, but Dohi couldn’t just let him suffer.
There was only one thing to do.
He pulled out his hatchet, but then decided not to spill blood.
“Do you want me to end this?” Dohi whispered.
Sunken eyes focused on Dohi, full of relief more than fear. He gave Dohi a nod.
“I’m sorry,” Dohi whispered. He held the man’s gaze as he pinched his nose shut and pressed his hand over his mouth.
Dohi waited a few moments to make sure it was done. The other soldiers didn’t say anything and continued past empty hospital rooms and gurneys left in the hall. A few windows allowed the team to flick off their tac lights and put on their NVGs.
Another dark three-way intersection waited for them at the end of the corridor.
This time Fitz motioned for Corrin to take point and listen. The Chimera exchanged places with Dohi who could already hear the soft squish of claws digging into webbing down the passage. The air reeked of rotten fruit.
Corrin sniffed at it, gesturing to confirm there were Variants nearby.
Leaning around the corner, Dohi saw the footsteps in the webbing led toward the end of the hall. Another set of stairs there provided access to the third floor.
In between his position and those stairs were six well-fed Variants. The beasts prowled along the webbing and pulled a few bodies from the tendrils.
Dohi focused on the faces of those human corpses, but their skin looked parched and curled off their bones. These people hadn’t died recently.
Spearhead might still be alive, and if they had made it to that stairwell, that meant their last calls had been sent from at least one more floor above them.
After signaling to the rest of the group what he’d seen, Dohi looked down the hall without any monsters. An elev
ator shaft beckoned to him. One of its doors was jammed open by a gurney. He could see that behind those doors, there was no carriage.
Fitz signaled for Dohi to go up first and check things out, while the rest of the team waited here to avoid making extra noise.
Dohi snuck down the hall and slipped into the shaft. As quietly as he could, he climbed inside and started the ascent up to the next floor, hearing voices near the top.
Human voices.
He stopped near the bottom of the next open doors, listening.
It sounded like just two men, posted somewhere down the hallway.
Collaborators.
They were discussing the Canadians and how easy it was to capture them. Dohi’s heart picked up a beat. The Canadians might still be alive.
“The Prophet is going to have fun with those heretics,” one of the men said.
An idea bloomed in Dohi’s mind, and he retreated down the shaft. By the time he got there, the Variants had moved on to sleep off their full bellies.
He explained what he had overheard to Fitz and the rest of the team.
“Let’s send Corrin to talk to the collaborators,” Dohi said. “See if we can find out where Spearhead is.”
Fitz looked to Corrin.
“I’ll do it,” the Chimera said.
“Okay, go up the stairs,” Fitz said. “We’ll cover you from the elevator.”
The team moved out. Dohi watched Corrin leave. In a few minutes, they would find out if the Chimera could truly be trusted.
By the time he got to the top of the elevator shaft, Corrin was already approaching the two collaborators at the nurses’ station. One was a man with a black baseball cap, and the other had a matted beard.
The collaborators bowed their heads, shrinking back at Corrin’s arrival.
“Sir, did Elijah send for us?” asked the man with the cap.
Dohi noted the name, guessing Elijah must be a Chimera leader.
“No, he sent me,” Corrin said. “I need to see the prisoners. Take me to them.”
The two collaborators exchanged a look.
“Take me to them,” Corrin said, this time a little more fiercely.
The man with the beard looked up. Suddenly, the look of fear melted into one of skepticism.
“Where’s your cutlass?” he asked.
The capped collaborator began to raise his rifle. “I’ve never seen you before.”
Dohi raised his rifle out of the shaft.
“Elijah sent me,” Corrin said. He growled.
“Prove it,” said the man with the cap.
Both pointed their weapons at Corrin.
Dohi sighted up the guy with the cap and blew it off, along with part of his skull. Corrin lunged over the counter of the nurses’ station and tackled the bearded man.
Glad we decided to let Corrin live, Dohi thought.
The team climbed out of the shaft and set up a perimeter while Corrin held the bearded man down, claws to his throat.
“Where’s the Prophet?” Fitz asked. “And where are the prisoners?”
The collaborator shook in Corrin’s arms. “If I tell you… if the Prophet…”
“The Prophet is the least of your concerns right now.” Fitz stepped close to the collaborator. “You won’t take another breath if you don’t tell me where the prisoners and your Prophet are.”
The collaborator raised a finger, pointing overhead. “We… we took the prisoners upstairs. Up where the Scions went.”
“Where upstairs?” Fitz asked.
“The lecture hall.”
“If you’re lying to us, this beast will rip out your throat,” Fitz said. “Do you understand?”
The collaborator gulped, but nodded.
“The Prophet is with the prisoners?” Fitz asked.
“With our prisoners, yeah. That’s right.”
The man’s eyes twitched, and he nodded a little too vigorously. But Dohi wasn’t sure if he was lying. He had already pissed his pants out of fear, which made it difficult to tell.
Corrin yanked him up.
“Take us to them,” Fitz said. “You scream, and you’re dead.”
Corrin started walking with the collaborator, holding the man by an arm.
When they reached the floor where the collaborator claimed the lecture hall was, Dohi took point again. The doors to the hall were wide open, and he snuck inside. True to the collaborator’s word, he spotted Team Spearhead, but the Prophet wasn’t here and the room was free of Variants.
All three of the Canadians were pasted on the walls above the seats facing a podium covered in webbing. Toussaint and Neilson were struggling against their restraints, vines covering their mouths. Blood dripped from Daugherty’s nostrils. His head hung limp. Dohi noticed his chest was still.
He wasn’t breathing.
Dohi waved the rest of the team in, and Fitz gave the order to Ace and Rico to set the prisoners free. They hacked away at the cocoons holding Spearhead in place, then gently lowered Toussaint and Neilson out first. The two fell to their knees, gasping for breath and retching.
Dohi checked on Daugherty, pressing two fingers to the man’s neck. He held it there for a moment, hoping to detect a pulse, but his heart had stopped.
“Damn,” he whispered. He looked to Fitz and shook his head.
Fitz snorted with anger.
“Where’s the Prophet?” he asked their prisoner.
“I…”
Fitz grabbed him by the neck, and Corrin tightened his grip on his arm.
“Tell me or I’m going to make you wish the Variants had feasted on you,” Fitz said. He kept his voice low, but the ferocity in it surprised Dohi. He rarely heard the master sergeant this angry.
Dohi’s aim roved around the room, waiting for a pack of Variants to descend on them or more collaborators to spring from the doors at the back of the room.
“I don’t know, he was here…” the man suddenly jerked away from Corrin and Fitz, running for the exit yelling, “Heretics!”
Corrin tackled the man and tore his throat out, but it was already too late. An undercurrent of electricity cut the air. It was as if the vines were suddenly coming alive, sending a pulsating tremor through the entire building.
***
Kate watched over Sammy’s shoulder at the signals and words scrolling across the computer engineer’s screen. They had spent the past couple days since Beckham and the others left in the parking garage of the hospital outside Houston, connected to the webbing in the nearby gaping tunnel.
“Woah, did you see that?” Sammy asked.
She pointed at a sudden spike in signaling activity.
“It’s all coming from Vegas,” Sammy said.
Kate thought of her husband and her friends on the mission. She almost couldn’t bear the thought of them out there risking their lives, but she had to focus and play her part.
“Reed and the others should be at the sites where we think the Prophet is by now,” she said.
“Yeah, seems like this influx of activity could be related.”
“What can you tell so far?”
Sammy pointed at some of the words scrolling across the screen. “It seems like we’re advancing faster than the Variants’ expected.”
“Maybe they weren’t ready for us,” Kate said. The unease in her stomach made her question whether she actually believed those words.
“There’s something bad here, though,” Sammy said. She pointed at another message. “Some collaborators are reporting they captured a special ops team.”
Kate resisted the urge to cover her mouth.
“A Canadian team,” Sammy said.
“Oh, God.”
“You okay?”
Kate stepped away from Sammy’s computer. “No… but I have to be. I will be.”
She turned from the monitor. Leslie was still strapped into the network. She and Kate had been taking two-hour turns for the past six straight hours, trying to disrupt the Variants’ communications in Vegas by
sending fake messages and commands. So far, they had managed to divert a couple of packs of Variants and groups of collaborators, sending them into the outskirts of the cities where no Allied States troops were.
The more wild goose chases they went on, the better.
“The Variants sound desperate,” Sammy said. “They keep requesting reinforcements, and many have retreated out of the areas where our forces are pushing forward.”
A few guards situated around the parking garage were looking their way, sharing expressions of relief to hear the direction the battle was going.
“I think they might actually be scared,” Sammy said.
Kate hoped she was right.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs to the garage. Ron came running from the stairwell toward them, waving a notebook. “I found something!”
He was nearly out of breath when he slammed the notebook onto the table. On an open page were lists of names. Some were crossed out and others were connected by lines.
“I cross-referenced all the principal investigators of the biodefense and bioengineering related projects under DARPA’s umbrella,” he said.
“And you found a match to all the technologies we’ve uncovered?” Kate asked.
“Not exactly,” Ron said. “There were a few labs that worked with the strain of anthrax we found in that grenade. But there was no overlap with them and the neural engineering groups.”
Kate frowned. “Are you sure we aren’t missing a government lab from that list?”
“Positive,” Ron said. “Those labs in Seattle and Denver were the only places the computer interface and microarray research was taking place.”
“Damn. So how are they connected to DARPA biodefense research?”
“That’s the thing. They aren’t connected. Not really, anyway.”
“So the anthrax samples were—”
Ron flipped to another page in his notebook. “The particular strain we found was a lab-created strain that I tracked all the way back to a Soviet Union program—Biopreparat.”
“Wait, so this is some international plot now?” Sammy asked.
“No, no, no.” Ron waved his hands. “Not even close. Lab records indicate this strain was stored at Fort Detrick in Maryland with USAMRIID. The only people with access to it were biodefense specialists in the government—and a few federal contractor groups.”
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 111
