They stood back-to-back, pointing their guns into the bowels of the maintenance area, their bodies tense and alert.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Don’t know, Cap’n,” said Top. “Heard something weird.”
“Weird?”
Before he could answer there was a clickety-click sound somewhere near. Like toenails on concrete.
“Guard dog,” Bunny said.
“He ain’t barking,” Top said.
“Not all of ’em do.”
I sighted down the barrel and did a slow sweep. Suddenly something moved from left to right, breaking cover from behind the steel case of a big blower and darting behind a row of stacked crates.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Dog?” Bunny said, but this time he made it a question.
“Didn’t look like no dog to me,” Top said.
I had to agree. The silhouette was all wrong. The body was big, about the size of a mastiff, with thick shoulders and haunches, but the head shape was wrong and the tail was . . . weird. Too big and curling all the way over its back to beyond its snout.
The scuttling sound came again. This time to our right.
“Two of’em,” Top said.
Then we heard it behind us.
“Three,” Bunny said.
I turned. “More than that,” I said. At least four of the weird shapes filled the darkness of the ramp that led outside. They ran toward us with frightening speed.
“Jesus Christ,” Bunny said, and I turned as one of the creatures moved through a patch of light.
It was a dog. Or it had started out that way. God only knows what you’d call it now. The body was as broad and solid as a bullmastiff, the hair midnight black. The face was a twisted parody of a dog’s, but the snout and head were covered with what I first thought was some kind of armor like they used to put on fighting dogs centuries ago. I could have dealt with mastiffs in armor. That was scary, but it wasn’t nightmare stuff.
But as the creature moved back through the lamplight I saw that the armor ran all the way down its back and covered its sides, where it eventually thinned and blended with the dog’s natural fur. The armor plating gleamed like polished leather. But what sent a flash of horror all the way down through my brain and heart and guts was what rose above the dog’s back. It wasn’t a dog’s tail. The appendage that curled over the massive back and shoulders of the dog was a huge, segmented scorpion tail.
There were at least a dozen of them now . . . closing on all sides.
The one in the spill of light paused, its tail trembling above it, the stinger dripping hot venom. Its muzzle wrinkled back to show rows of sharp white teeth and it glared at us with eyes as black as the Devil’s.
With a monstrous howl of unnatural hate, the creature ran at us.
And then the others rushed at us from all sides.
Chapter One Hundred Seventeen
The Chamber of Myth
Tuesday, August 31, 2:28 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 32 minutes E.S.T.
There was a sharp crack, and a bullet cut through the darkness so close that Grace could feel the heat. She threw herself to one side and crashed into a row of thorny shrubs. Needles jabbed her and plucked at her clothing as she rolled over the shrubs and scrabbled to find solid ground. She kept her pistol by sheer luck and was glad of the lethal promise of it as she fumbled her way through the absolute blackness. All around her exotic creatures screamed in voices never before heard outside of nightmares.
“What happened to the lights?”
“It’s a fail-safe,” Hecate said. “If there’s gunfire in the building the whole facility goes into a forced lockdown.”
“Did you hit her?” someone asked. Grace thought it was Otto.
“I don’t know,” came the reply. Both voices were off to her right, so Grace kept moving to her left. The ground sloped under her and she crouched low, using her free hand to feel for obstacles.
“The security lights will be on any moment,” said Hecate, and as if to punctuate her words several overhead lights flared on. The light was weak but more than enough to see by. Grace dodged behind a mound of clover and flattened out.
Hecate led her father to a cleft in a rock wall. Otto squeezed in with them. Tonton and Veder found cover behind nearby foliage.
“Who was that bitch?” demanded Otto. “Was she one of yours?”
“No,” said Hecate. “I thought she was one of yours.”
“I don’t care who she is,” snapped Cyrus. “Veder, kill her.”
The assassin moved off without a word, melting into the foliage and vanished without a trace.
“Tonton,” said Hecate, “hunt.”
The Berserker grinned broadly and ran in the direction where Grace had been. As soon as he reached the waterfall he stopped, bent low, and sniffed; then he turned and ran down the path.
“What’s he doing?” asked Otto.
“He has more than ape strength,” said Hecate. “We’ve been experimenting with them, giving them additional combat useful skills. His olfactory senses are much sharper than a human’s. He’ll sniff her out.”
GRACE HEARD THE big man coming. She was down several rounds, so she quickly swapped out her magazine and found a spot with limited access from behind. She could command a three-sided view. While she shifted she processed what she had learned. One point was the name of the man who looked like Haeckel and Brucker. Cyrus had called him first Conrad and then Veder. Conrad Veder was another of the assassins of the Brotherhood of the Scythe.
A strange idea occurred to her and as she thought it she somehow knew that it was true. Haeckel and Veder were two of the four assassins of the Brotherhood. They looked identical, and it was no stretch under the present circumstances to accept that they were clones from the same cell line. It seemed likely that all four of the assassins of the Brotherhood were clones. The same level of skill because they were all, in essence, the same person. Was deadly accuracy and a coldness of heart hardwired into the genetic code? She didn’t know and would have to explore that with Hu and Rudy one of these days.
At the moment she had to focus on the big killer who was coming her way. The one Hecate had called Tonton. The Berserker moved with a surprising economy of movement, leaping over rocks, climbing with simian ease, hopping from rock to rock across a stream. Grace steadied her pistol and waited until he was within perfect pistol range.
TONTON SUDDENLY STOPPED and crouched low, his eyes scanning the ground. He followed the path the woman must have taken, and he knew where it led. If she got into the cleft by the south corner, then she would have solid rock at her back and a flat shooting platform. He smiled. If he’d taken three more steps, his head would have risen above the hump of the next hill and that would have been the ball game.
“Smart bitch,” he murmured.
He turned and ran to his right into the brush. She may have the better position, but he knew every inch of the Chamber of Myth.
VEDER HAD NO intention of trailing the woman through the dense jungle environment of this chamber. It was foolish and it was a waste of his skills. Instead he scouted the terrain and picked out the three or four best places to set an ambush. If this woman was smart, she would be in one of them. Veder carefully surveyed the angles of each. They were all good, but there was one—a ledge that was partially screened by tendrils of Spanish moss—that offered an angle to the other two. If the woman was not there, then he could crawl onto the ledge and wait until that ape found her. If the Berserker killed her, so much the better. Veder wasn’t being paid extra for this. If the woman killed the Berserker, then Veder would be able to find the spot from which she fired and then he’d take her out.
The decision was a practical one. Once he made it, Veder pocketed his pistol and began to climb.
Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
The Dragon Factory
Tuesday, August 31, 2:35 A.M.
Time Remaining on
the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 25 minutes E.S.T.
The creatures howled like demons as they closed on us. The nearest was thirty yards away and its tail whipped back and forth, clanging on the overhead pipes. I hit it with a short burst and the creature slewed sideways, blood and pieces of its shell flying into the air. The others stopped for a second, but then the wounded one hissed and scuttled forward, bleeding but far from dead.
“Oh, fuck,” said Bunny, and opened up into the mass of them.
“Frag ’em!” I yelled. Our M4s were fitted with the new M203 single-shot 40mm grenade launcher mounted under the barrel forward of the magazine. It had a separate handle and trigger, so I grabbed that with my left while holding the primary rifle hand with my right. It gave me two guns at once—and I needed all of the immediate firepower I could muster. The downside was that the grenade launcher was a single-shot.
I aimed for the center of the biggest mass of them and fired.
The explosion tore three of them to pieces, and I suppose it was comforting to know that beneath the insect carapace there was a flesh-and-blood animal. Not sure if it could still be accurately called a dog, but it could die like one.
Top turned and fired up the concrete ramp. The confines of the ramp maximized the force of the explosion, and it tore the creatures apart and blew a hot, wet wind back at us that painted us with gore.
Far above us there was a rumble of thunder and all at once every light in the underground flared and then winked out.
“EMP!” I yelled.
“This is not a good fucking time!” bellowed Bunny. He dug desperately into his pockets to produce a handful of chemical flares. He broke and shook them and then threw some of them in all four directions. The creatures had been as startled by the darkness as we had, and I realized that their eyes were still canine. Dogs could see in poor light but were as blind as we were in total darkness.
“I think you just turned on the EAT AT JOE’S sign,” I said.
The creatures immediately began rushing at us again.
“Frag out!” Bunny yelled, and threw his grenade. It hit the back of one of the animals just as it flicked its tail, and the round took a little hop as it burst. The downblast flattened one monster and tore the guts out of the pipes above. Water and steam showered the animals and there were even higher-pitched screams as they were scalded. In their confusion and fury two of the scorpion-dogs turned on each other in a murderous frenzy, the stingers stabbing over and over again until they both staggered away on trembling legs and then collapsed, victims of each other’s poison.
Top had his back to mine and we fired continuously as more of the creatures swarmed out of the darkness.
“Aim for the head!” I cried.
At first the sheer numbers of them that rushed toward us pushed along the corpses of the monsters we killed, but then Bunny got into the game and threw a hand grenade first to Top’s side and then to mine. The blasts deafened us but decimated the creatures. On both sides the front ranks were blown to bits, and the creatures backed off for another hesitant second and then rushed us again.
“I’m out!” Top called, and Bunny started firing while Top switched magazines. As soon as he started firing I went dry and Bunny covered me.
There were ten left.
We emptied another magazine each.
Then there were seven. Fifteen feet away.
Too close for another grenade. Bunny opened up with his rifle.
Four. Ten feet.
Top burned through an entire magazine as they nearly reached our firing position.
Two. One whipped its tail at me and the sharp stinger stuck in the Kevlar chest protector.
Bunny jammed his rifle against its head and pulled the trigger.
It leaped at Top and bore him to the ground. The scorpion tail whipped around Top as he screamed and twisted to one side, then the other. I couldn’t risk a shot, so I kicked the monster in the face, once, twice, drawing blood, hurting it, but it snarled in pain and fury and tried to bite my foot.
Then Bunny did something that was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. He jumped on top of the monster and used his body mass to pin the powerful tail to the dog’s back. The stinger shook and twitched inches from Top’s face.
“Get it off me!” Top screamed, and his voice was filled with pain. I couldn’t tell how or where he was hurt. The mastiff—even without the ponderous tail—had to weigh 250 pounds of powerful muscle, and all of that mass was crushing down on Top. And Bunny’s enormous body was piled on top of that. Fat drops of venom dripped from the stinger and splashed Top’s forehead and cheeks.
I drew my leg back and kicked the brute as hard as I have ever kicked anything. I could feel its bulging side collapse under the impact. Ribs broke and the creature let out a disturbingly normal dog yelp, but the kick did the trick and the creature reeled sideways. I shuffled in and kicked it again, just as hard. The scorpion-dog fell over and Bunny pulled at it, forcing the thing away from Top. The big young man and the dog rolled over and over and then Bunny locked his arm around the monster’s bull neck. He was growling more savagely than the dog. I could see his massive arm muscles swell under his shirt and then Bunny jerked his whole body up and back. The was a huge wet crack! and then the monster dog flopped into limp stillness.
Bunny rolled off it, gasping, saying. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit. . . .”
I knelt over Top, who was struggling to sit up. I was mindful of the venom on his face and I tore open a first-aid kit to find some gauze pads to dab it up.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a wince. “Think my ribs are busted.”
I undid the Velcro on the Kevlar and probed his sides. The hissed intakes of breath told us both the news.
“Your whole side’s cracked. Five, six ribs.”
“Fuck me,” he said, and tried to reach his right hand across to feel for himself, and then another jab of pain shot through him. “God damn it. . . .”
I felt wetness under my fingers as I continued to probe. “You’re bleeding.”
Very gingerly I lifted his shirt and looked at his back. I was almost sorry I looked. The brown skin of his side was slick with red blood, and in the midst of it two white and jagged ends of bone had torn through flesh and muscle.
“Is it bad?”
“It ain’t good.”
“Tell me, Cap’n.”
“You have a couple of compound rib fractures. I can stop the bleeding, but we can’t set them right now.”
“God damn it . . . I want to be in this fight.”
“Dude,” said Bunny, who was standing above us now, checking our perimeter, “you were just in a firefight with mutant monsters. You’re going to be able to brag about this shit for—like—ever.”
“If there’s a world to brag to, Farmboy. We ain’t caught up to them Nazi psychos yet, or did you forget?”
“Point taken.”
“You want painkillers, Top?” I asked after I was finished with a quick patch job.
“Just say no to drugs,” he grumbled.
“Let’s see if you can stand.”
We helped him up and there was no way to do it that didn’t hurt. Top called us names I won’t repeat. Bunny steadied him as he tried to walk. He could manage it, but there was no way he was going to get back into this fight. We all knew it.
“Look, Cap’n, you and Farmboy gotta get going. I’ll guard the stairwell.”
“You can’t fire a gun—,” Bunny began, but Top cut him off.
“I can shoot a pistol, son. Want me to show you? Bet I can kneecap you from here.”
“Okay, okay,” Bunny said, “grouchy old bastard.”
“Clock’s ticking,” Top said to me. “You need to be gone.”
“We are gone,” I said, and turned away to head into the complex. After a moment I heard Bunny coming behind me.
I looked back once and saw Top standing there in the doorway. The dead monsters were all around him,
and he looked like an ancient warrior on some battlefield out of legend. He sketched a small wave, and then Bunny and I rounded a bend and he was gone.
Chapter One Hundred Nineteen
The TOC
Tuesday, August 31, 2:39 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 21 minutes E.S.T.
“Blackwing Three to Deacon.”
“Go for Deacon.”
“Package has been delivered,” said the pilot. “It’s the night the lights went out in Georgia.”
“Roger that. Well done, Blackwing.”
Church leaned back in his chair and stared at the array of screens that had, until moments ago, relayed images from helmet cams of every DMS field operative on Dogfish Cay. Now all of the screens were dark except for the night-vision image from the satellite.
He heard someone come up beside him.
“What just happened?” asked Rudy Sanchez.
Church explained about the electromagnetic pulse bomb. “If we’re lucky, then Cyrus won’t be able to access a working computer terminal in order to send out the code for the Extinction Wave.”
“If we’re lucky?” repeated Rudy. “Dios mio.”
The satellite image showed hundreds of bright dots, milling around across the island. Every few seconds a brighter spot would flare.
“What’s that?”
“Thermal scans of the battle. Each dot is a signature for a combatant. The flares are explosions, probably grenades.”
“Which ones are ours?”
“We’ve lost all telemetric feeds from the island,” said Church.
“Which means what?”
“Which means we don’t know which ones are ours.”
The collision of the hundreds of dots made no sense to Rudy. Everyone seemed to be right on top of everyone else. All those soldiers, each person dressed in black, out of communication even with their own teammates. It was a frightening thought to him, and he could only imagine the terror the men on the island must be feeling.
“You’re a religious man,” said Mr. Church. It wasn’t framed as a question, but Rudy nodded.