Tunnels 02 - Deeper

  She didn't answer.

  "They've got him prisoner?" he asked.

  "Worse," she said, a tautness to her voice. "Tom Cox... he's there. He's gone over to the other side... he's working with the Styx..." She lapsed into a croak that was swallowed by the howls of the wind.

  "What are they doing to Drake?"

  As she continued to look through her rifle scope, Elliott could hardly talk. "If it's really him, they're... a Limiter is..." She lifted her head from the rifle and shook it violently. "They're torturing him on a stake. Tom Cox is... is laughing... that evil smear of a—"

  Another wail of agony, even more dreadful than the last, cut her off.

  "I can't watch any longer... I can't let this go on," she said, gritting her teeth determinedly and staring straight into Will's eyes, her pupils turned to the deepest, darkest amber through his night-vision device.

  "I have to... he'd do the same for me..." she said as she adjusted the magnification on her scope. Digging her elbows into the dirt and bracing her arms to steady the rifle, she inhaled and exhaled several times in quick succession, then held in the final breath.

  Will watched her dumbly. "Elliott?" he asked, his voice quavering. "You're not—"

  "Can't get a shot... the clouds... can't see..." she said, letting out a breath.

  The seconds passed, as long as years.

  "Oh, Drake," she said, her words lost to the wind.

  Then she inhaled again and took aim.

  She fired.

  The crack of the rifle made Will jump out of his skin. The report echoed around, rolling across the plain and back to him, time and time again, until there was just the whine of the Levant again in his ears.

  Will peered into the inky distance, then at her.

  She was shivering badly.

  "I don't know if I did it... the bloody, bloody clouds... I..."

  She worked the bolt of the rifle to chamber a new round, then suddenly pushed the weapon at Will.

  "You look."

  He drew back.

  "Take it," she ordered him.

  He reluctantly held the rifle just as he'd seen Elliott do and, flipping the lens up over his eye, peered through the scope. It felt cold — and wet — but he couldn't think about that now. He was getting his bearings on the group down in the base of the crater. The scope was set on a high magnification, and in his inexperienced hands he panned it erratically as he tried to locate them.

  There! He caught a glimpse of a Limiter!

  He panned back. Another Limiter! No, it was the same one, standing by himself. Will held the rifle steady on him, they Styx's terrifying face in pin-sharp focus. Will's stomach fell through the floor: The Limiter was looking up, looking up at the ridge where he and Elliott were lying. The Will saw other figures, other Styx, running behind him. He moved the scope.

  Where's Drake?

  The wizened form of Tom Cox came into focus. He was holding a blade — it shone in the light. Then Will saw the stake. On it was a body. He thought he recognized the jacket. Drake!

  Will couldn't bear to look too closely, and he was assisted in this by the distance and the remaining clouds from the Black Wind. Just as he was getting a grip, he noticed that there was a darkness sprayed around Drake, all over the ground. Through the scope it was not red, but darker, and it reflected the light, like molten bronze. Will broke out in a cold sweat.

  This is not real. I am not here.

  "Did I get him?" Elliott pressed Will.

  Will angled the rifle up so he could see only Drake's head.

  "I can't tell..."

  Will couldn't see Drake's face; his head was bent forward.

  Distant reports of shots echoed toward Will and Elliott. The Limiters were returning fire.

  "Will, concentrate — they're homing in on us," Elliott hissed at him. "I need to know if I did it."

  Will tried to hold the scope steady on Drake's head. Clouds swirled in his field of view.

  "Can't see..."

  "You must!" Elliott snapped, her voice distorted with desperation.

  Then Drake's head moved.

  "Oh God!" Will exhaled with horror. "Looks like he's still alive." Try not to think.

  "Put another round in him... quickly," Elliott begged.

  "No way!" Will spat.

  "Do it! Put him out of his misery."

  Will shook his head. I am not here. This is not me. This is not happening.

  "No way," he gasped again, feeling as though he was going to cry. "I can't do that!"

  "Just do it. We don't have time. They'll be coming."

  Will raised the rifle and took in a shuddering breath.

  "Don't jerk the trigger... squeeze it off... smoothly..." Elliott said.

  He shifted the crosshairs from Drake's head, resting them squarely on the man's chest. Will told himself he would be less likely to miss him there. But this was all crazy, haywire. Will didn't have it in him to actually kill anyone.

  "I can't do this."

  "You must," Elliott pleaded. "He'd do it for us. You have to..."

  Will tried to silence his mind. This is not real. I am watching a movie. These are not my actions.

  "Help him," she said. "Now!"

  Will's whole body tensed, rebelling at what it knew he must do. The intersection of the crosshairs moved unsteadily, but it was roughly on the right place, aiming at the heart of the man he admired so much, now horribly mutilated. Do it, do it, do it! Increasing the pressure on the trigger, he shut his eyes. The rifle went off. He cried out as it bucked in his hands, the telescopic sight ramming his brow as it recoiled. He'd never shot a rifle before. Breathing rapidly, he lowered the weapon.

  The sharp tang of cordite from the shot filled Will's nostrils. The smell, so reminiscent of fireworks, would mean something completely different to him from that moment on. More than that, it was as if Will was now marked, as if things would never again be the same. I will carry this with me until the day I die. I might have killed a man!

  Elliott leaned against Will, passing her arms through his, their faces touching as she worked the bolt of the rifle. The intimacy meant nothing in that instant. The spent cartridge spun into the darkness as she rammed a new round into the chamber. Will tried to pass the weapon to her, but she pushed back, wrenching up the muzzle of the rifle. "No! Make sure!" she ordered in a hissed shout.

  Will reluctantly put his eye to the scope again, trying to locate the stake and Drake's body. He couldn't. The view zoomed this way and that, a blur. Then he found it, but his supporting arm slipped. He tried again. And saw...

  Rebecca.

  She was standing between two tall Limiters, somewhere to the left of Drake.

  She was looking in his direction. Straight at him.

  He felt like he was falling.

  "Did you get him?" Elliott asked, her voice a croak.

  But Will was locked on Rebecca. Her hair was drawn back tightly, and she was dressed in one of the Limiters' long coats with the blocklike patches of camouflage.

  It was her.

  He saw her face.

  She was smiling.

  She waved.

  More gunshots rang out, spits of lead reaming through what was left of the misty clouds. As the Limiters zeroed in, shots landed nearer to him and Elliott, one so close that shards of rock pelted them.

  "Did you?"

  "I think so," he said to Elliott.

  "Make sure," she pleaded.

  He scanned quickly over Drake's body and the stake, but Rebecca was again in his sight, large as life. She seemed to have taken off her coat in the short time since he had first spotted her, and had moved way over to the other side of the stake. Suddenly he thought how easy it would be to shoot her. But even though he might have just killed Drake, he knew he didn't have the stomach to kill Rebecca — despite the intense hatred he felt for her.

  "Well?" Elliott said, cutting through his thoughts.

  "Yes, I think so," he lied as he pushed the rifle back at her.
He had no idea whether he'd hit Drake, and didn't want to know.

  He just didn't want to know.

  And Rebecca. She had been there while the ghastly torture had been going on.

  His little sister!

  Her smiling face, her smug, self-satisfied face — the same face that had confronted him time and time again when he was late for dinner or tracked mud onto the carpet or left the light on in the bathroom... a disapproving and superior smile that spoke of authority and even domination...

  He had to escape, to get away.

  He got up, yanking Elliott with him by the rope. They ran wildly down the slope, as fast as they could, Will almost pulling Elliott off her feet.

  As they reached the bottom of the incline, there was a flash of light. Amplified by the lens of Drake's device, it filled his eye with a searing, painful brilliance. He yelped. But no, it wasn't the Limiters. It was the electrical storm that always followed a Black Wind. The exposed hairs on his head and forearms bristled with the static.

  Massive sparkling balls of electrical discharge bobbed and rolled around them. There came another blinding flash and a deafening whiplash crack. A huge serpentine tongue of blue lightning speared horizontally over the ground, then split in two, each prong multiplying into many more until the tiny forks disappeared into nothing. The air was thick with the reek of ozone, just as if it was a true Topsoil thunderstorm.

  "Turn that off!" he heard Elliott call, but he was already fumbling for the brass switch on the box in his pocket. He knew that intense light might damage the night-vision device. There were so many crackling spheres of angry light spinning out from the remaining dust clouds, rolling around the plain in all directions, that the whole area was lit up like an exploding fireworks factory.

  Will heard shots and caught the vicious barking of dogs.

  "Stalkers!" he yelled at Elliott.

  She snatched a leathery wallet from inside her jacket and ripped off the top. She scattered its contents over the ground as they went, then threw down the empty wallet and kept moving. A small electrical ball of spluttering sparks zipped not inches from her, like some delinquent Tinkerbell, but she didn't slow, almost passing through its circumference.

  They came to the edge of the Great Plain.

  Then they were in one of the lava tubes, and in darkness again, the glow of the electrical storm flickering faintly behind them. Turning his headset back on, Will saw that Elliott was again taking another of the leathery packets from inside her jacket as she ran.

  "What're you doing? What is that stuff?" Will panted.

  "Parchers."

  "Huh?"

  "Stops the stalkers dead in their tracks. Burns them something awful," she told him, pointing to her nose with a malicious grin.

  He looked back and caught the sublime glow of pure yellow as some of the powder fell in a pool of water. He knew he'd seen it before... it was giving off the same glow as the bacteria that he, Chester, and Cal had come across. Genius. If a dog sniffed it up, it would scorch its nasal membranes. He laughed. It would render them useless as trackers.

  They ran and ran. He fell, sprawling, knocking his chin against the rough ground. Elliott helped him up. As he leaned against the wall, trying to get back his breath, she rigged a charge across the tunnel.

  She shouted him on again.

  36

  Will blasted into the clearing and skidded to a halt. With his hands on his knees, he bent over, gulping hard to get air into his lungs.

  Chester and Cal both leaped to their feet in surprise. Will was an alarming sight: his face filthy from the dust storm and streaked with sweat, Drake's lens over one of his eyes, and the skin around the other smeared with fresh blood from the cut on his brow when he'd fallen.

  "Wh-what's happened?" Chester stuttered.

  "That's not Drake's, is it?" Cal asked at the same time, pointing to the headset.

  "I... had... to... " Will got out between breaths.

  Still gasping and swallowing air, he shook his head.

  "I... " he tried again.

  "We killed Drake," Elliott said flatly, stepping out from behind Will and into the weak light cast by Cal's lantern. "At least we think we did. Will finished him off." The air was thick with insects, swarms of them, the size of malnourished mosquitoes, and she waved her hand in front of her face to shoo them away. Then she glanced down around her feet and plucked a frond from a fern, which she crushed in her hand. She swiped her palm across her forehead and cheeks. The effect was miraculous, the insects immediately avoiding her as if she were protected by an invisible force field.

  "Will did what? " Cal asked as Chester, already itching with bug bites, took a frond from the same fern and repeated Elliott's quick ritual. Will seemed to be oblivious to the insects crawling all over his face; his uncovered eye was glazed as it stared into the distance.

  "We had to. They were torturing him. That scum bucket Tom Cox was there, too, helping them," Elliott said huskily, then spat on the ground.

  "No," Chester said, aghast.

  "And Rebecca," Will added, still gazing at nothing in particular. Elliott's head jerked toward him, and he continued, still puffing. "She was with the Limiters." He paused to gulp down more air. "Somehow she knew I was there. I swear she was looking straight at me... She smiled at me. She waved!"

  "Now you tell me!" Elliott growled. "With Cox switching sides it was risky enough us going to the base for the equipment. But now there's no way I'm going to take that chance. Not with that Styx out for your blood."

  Will bowed his head, still struggling to get his breath back. "Perhaps it would be better if I... if I gave myself up. It might put an end to all this. It might stop her."

  For an agonizing few seconds all eyes were on Will, and he looked from one face to another, hoping none of them would agree with his suggestion. Then Elliott spoke up.

  "No, I don't think it'd make any difference," she said with the bleakest of expressions and, picking a fragment of fern from her upper lip, spat again. "I don't think that would help any of us. This Rebecca sounds like the type who makes a clean sweep of things."

  "Oh, she is that," Will agreed despondently. "She certainly likes everything to be tidy."

  37

  "Whoa, boy!"

  Sarah catered around a turn in the lava tube, her feet sending out a slew of gravel as Bartleby tore forward, almost wrenching her over.

  "Easy, easy!" she shouted, digging in her heels and using all her strength to try to rein him back. Within a few feet she managed to bring him to a stop. Still breathing heavily from the effort, she grabbed his collar had held him tight. She was grateful for the brief rest; the muscles in her arms were burning, and she sincerely doubted she'd be able to keep the cat in check for much longer if he didn't let up a little.

  As he stiffly twisted his head around, she could see a large vein throbbing under the flaking gray skin of his wide temple, and the flickering wildness in his eyes. His nostrils flared wide: The scent was strong now, and he was well on the trail.

  She rewrapped the thick leather leash around her chafed hand. Readying herself with a couple of deep breaths, she then released Bartleby's collar. He surged forward, the leash giving a resounding thwack as it snapped taut again.

  "Steady, Bartleby!" she gasped. This command struck a chord of sorts in the overexcited animal's brain, and he eased up slightly.

  As she continued to talk soothingly to the car, pleading with him to keep calm, she felt the disapproval radiating from the four shadows lurking a little way off. The quartet of Limiters, unlike her and the crazed cat, moved as silently as ghosts. They usually blended in so well with the terrain that they were invisible but, at the moment, they were allowing themselves to be seen, as if they wanted her to feel intimidated. If that was the intention, it was certainly having the desired effect.

  She felt profoundly uneasy.

  Rebecca had promised her a free hand to track down Will. So why the escort? And why had Rebecca gone to the troub
le of involving her at all, when she had absolutely no experience in this environment and when highly skilled soldiers were being deployed at the same time? It didn't add up.

  With this thought burning in the back of her mind, Bartleby lurched forward again, dragging her after him whether she wanted to go or not.

  * * * * *

  Elliott took them out of the clearing and through some dense scrub, Will stumbling and thrashing behind. They found themselves on a strip of shoreline again. She took them along the water's edge and a short distance into what, in the pitch-black, looked like the beginning of an inlet.

  Will was in a bad way. The effects of the root had worn off and his fatigue had caught up. He walked stiff-legged, like some sort of Frankenstein's monster, the headset only adding to this impression. Elliott watched him closely.

  "He's fried: he needs some shut-eye," she said to Chester and Cal, as if Will wasn't present — and indeed he didn't react to her comment, swaying where he stood. "He's no use to anyone right now."

  Chester and Cal exchanged looks.

  "No use?" Chester echoed.

  "Yes, and that's not good enough." She turned to Cal, running her eye over him. "How about you? How's the leg, kid?"

  Chester realized that she was evaluating them and it put him on edge. He didn't delude himself that they all needed to be up to the challenge of escaping from the Styx. But her question was more than a little ominous.

  "His leg's much better. He's been resting it," he put in quickly, throwing a sharp look at Cal, who was a little surprised at Chester's intervention.

  "Can't he speak for himself?" Elliott glowered.

  "Oh, yes, sorry," Chester mumbled apologetically.

  "So how is it?"

  "Like Chester said... much better," Cal replied, flexing his leg to try to put Elliott's mind at rest. In truth it was incredibly stiff, and each time he put any weight on it he didn't know if it was going to support him or not.

  Elliott studied Cal's face for a second, then switched her attention to Chester, who wondered whether he would come up to scratch. But before she could issue any judgments, Will mumbled the word tired — just once — sat down heavily, and flopped onto his back. Snoring loudly, he immediately fell into the deepest of slumbers.