Planet Hate, page 14
DOMI GLANCED UP, checking that the mother bird was still tangling itself as it searched for Domi. Then she looked back at the hideous little bird chick. The baby bird let out a noise from its sharp beak that sounded like a cross between a shriek and a burp, and then it lunged at Domi, pecking at her with that pointed beak. The first peck caught Domi high on the left breast, and she staggered backward with the impact as a line of blood bloomed there.
When the fledgling went for her a second time, Domi weaved aside, bringing herself up and around the jabbing little neck before grasping it with both hands. Behind her, Domi could hear the fearsome mother bird squawk with irritation as it saw what the albino girl was doing. Securing the chick’s throat in a firm grip, Domi employed a savage twist of both arms, breaking the creature’s neck with an audible snap. The baby bird twitched in her grasp for a moment before shuddering itself to the bed of the nest.
Domi let go, turning her attention back to the mother even as, behind its immense form, the third egg began to hatch, a sharp-clawed foot poking out from its side.
“Dammit, come on, Grant,” Domi muttered as she jumped aside even as the mother bird’s pecking beak threatened to pierce her.
THIRTY FEET BELOW, Grant used his left hand to push the tails of his coat aside and reach for his belt as he watched the branch cover above him. Another of the man-size birds was plummeting down from the higher branches, cawing angrily as it hurtled toward these intruders in its territory. A second bird followed in its wake, this one appearing even larger as it detached itself from a lower branch.
“Any ideas?” Rosalia asked, raising the blade of the katana over her head in a two-handed grip.
“A couple,” Grant told her as he found the belt pouch he was searching for and pulled out a small metallic globule roughly the size of a ball bearing. The globule was called a flash-bang, a simple defensive weapon employed from time to time by the Cerberus personnel as a quick way to wrong-foot an opponent. Once deployed, a volatile mix of chemicals inside the flash-bang would cause it to explode in a bright burst of light and noise—literally a flash and a bang. Like the firecrackers employed by magicians, the explosion looked impressive but was largely for show, incapable of causing any noteworthy damage.
As the first bird came close to Grant, he flipped the flash-bang in the air toward it, shouting to Rosalia to close her eyes.
Rosalia looked away, but she couldn’t help but hear the tumultuous detonation as the explosive went off. The fearsome bird of prey, unprepared for what was happening, shrieked and reared away from the crashing burst of light, temporarily blinded by its brightness. Grant turned back in time to see the bird hurtle off into the ground just a few yards from where he stood, the glistening fuse of the flash-bang charge hanging in the air for a moment before finally burning itself out.
However, the larger bird was still rushing groundward, its eyes locked on Grant. This creature had been behind the other as the flash-bang went off, and its companion’s body had been enough to shield it from the full effect of the noisemaker. Grant whipped his Sin Eater around, but as he did so the blaster clicked on empty.
“Damn!” he said, skipping backward out of the bird’s path.
Rosalia favored more of a hands-on approach than that of her ex-Magistrate companions. As the bird closed in on the retreating Grant, she began to run, leaping into the air with a graceful swish of her tanned legs.
The hulking bird flinched, seeing Rosalia’s shadow as she sprang from the ground. By then it was too late; the razor-keen katana cut through the monster’s throat as easily as it cut the air, hacking a great chunk of flesh from the beast and spraying gore across the nearest tree trunks.
Rosalia landed with catlike grace, spreading her arms to retain her balance as the wounded bird struggled to take off again, a trail of blood spattering the air behind it.
Grant looked at her, his eyebrows raised with amazement. “Nice moves,” he said simply.
“You know the best thing about a sword?” Rosalia replied as Grant pushed home another clip into the Sin Eater’s loading port. “It never runs out of ammo.”
WITH LONG-PRACTICED accuracy, Domi leaped aside as the mother bird’s beak jabbed at her again. Just two feet away, the last remaining egg was splitting apart down a jagged line, and a trilling caw could be heard echoing from within.
The large bird’s head twitched again as it jabbed its open beak at Domi, as if the full-grown woman was a worm. Domi spun but she wasn’t quick enough. A line of red blood appeared in a slice along the top of her arm as she hurried to evade that sharp beak. She needed a weapon, something to force this feathered brute away from her.
Domi dived to the roughly weaved floor of the huge nest as the bird flapped its wings, rolling out of the way as the bird squawked with irritation. As she dropped, Domi’s ruby eyes searched the nest for something to arm herself with. The broken parts of eggshell were sharp, but they would likely break apart under any pressure; there were jagged bumps visible in the base of the nest, thorns or other simple protrusions, but none of them were at the surface where they might be reached for and snapped off.
Then, from behind, Domi heard the remaining egg break open and the chick hurry forth on short legs, cawing as it greeted the sunlight for the first time.
Another one, Domi thought with irritation, wondering how she’d deal with yet another of these ferocious monsters. She need not have worried. The chick paused for a moment, then hopped over to the bloody corpse of the teenage girl, pulling a strip of flesh from her face with a swift lunge.
Despite her strong stomach, Domi felt disgusted by the maneuver, seeing someone who had been alive less than an hour ago turned into food like that. As Domi tamped down the rising nausea in her stomach, the mother bird flapped its wings again, swiping at Domi and knocking her over. The albino girl slammed against the floor of the nest with a resounding thud, struggling to remain conscious as the world seemed to swim around her.
As Domi lay there, willing herself to just keep her eyes open, dammit all, she felt one of the larger bird’s mighty feet press into her back, the sharpened talons cutting a line through the thin material of her dress.
“Come on, Grant,” she muttered, her lips just barely moving. “Come on, Kane.”
GRANT CHECKED the branches above them once more, scanning the area for any more of the fiendish birds. Satisfied that they were safe for the present, he sent his Sin Eater back to its hidden sheath. Then the formidable ex-Mag pulled a long coil of wire from the inside pocket of his coat, looping it five or six times over his hand with quick, easy twists. The wire was a monofilament as thin as fishing wire, yet it had the strength of tensile steel.
“Stand back,” Grant instructed as he leaned down and plucked a mid-size stone from the forest floor. Then, attaching this weight to the other end of the monofilament, he whipped it around his head like a lasso. The rope spun faster and faster, and Grant added to its length, careful not to hit any of the nearby trees.
An instant later Grant slackened his grip and the weighted end of the monofilament went shooting up into the air, passing through the lower branches before wrapping itself around a tree limb about twenty-five feet above the ground. With the other end still wrapped around his hand, Grant tugged on the wire, making sure it was secure. Then he loosened the tautness around his hand and turned to Rosalia as the dark-eyed woman resheathed her sword.
“You any good at climbing?” Grant asked.
Rosalia nodded. “I’m lighter than you are. You need me to go first?”
“It’ll take both our weights,” Grant assured her, “but you have a point.” Actually he was thinking that he still didn’t entirely trust the olive-skinned woman, despite what he’d said to Shizuka. For now he would rather not turn his back on her if he didn’t have to.
With two sharp tugs, Rosalia tested the wire for herself and then began clambering up it, using the trunk of the tree as a push-off point, walking up the trunk as she went hand-over-hand up the monofilament line.
Grant let her get ten feet up before he began to follow.
Chapter 11
Domi squirmed as the pressure on her back increased, crushing the air out of her lungs as the huge avian held her in place. She was blacking out, the black spots of hypoxia blossoming before her vision like raindrops. Above her, the enormous bird cawed again, yet the sound seemed more distant to Domi, as if she was suddenly hearing things from under the surface of a swimming pool.
Something brushed against Domi’s side then, nuzzling at her, a tiny point like a pin being dragged along her arm. That was the chick, she realized, not large but still large enough—and hungry enough—to hurt her. Its own cry sounded like a scream this close to her ear, and yet she couldn’t seem to locate it through the black wash that was painting itself over her vision.
I…need…to…breathe, Domi thought, each word taking an eternity to form in her mind.
By then, Domi had stopped struggling, her movements reduced to just the slightest of spasms in her leg muscles as she flinched away from the pressure on her spine. The newborn chick probed her with its pointed beak, peering at the albino girl as she ceased flailing beneath its mother’s toe. Its head twitched up and it looked to its mother for confirmation, twittering an ugly little squawk before turning back to Domi’s twitching form.
As the just-hatched bird opened its beak to take a bite from the warm flesh in front of it, the nest shook and Rosalia leaped over the ridged side, her katana blade cutting through the air in a wide arc. The blade cut through the young bird’s neck, whipping its head from its body instantaneously.
Above, the looming form of the baby’s mother cawed angrily, its feathers puffing out in an intimidating display.
Still moving, Rosalia’s blade continued in its long arc, and the dark-haired woman directed it upward and into the upper mound of the mother’s belly. A clutch of dark feathers burst free of the monstrous creature’s torso as the sword sliced through them, and the mother bird squawked again, head lunging to peck at this intruder to her nest.
Rosalia ducked low, the bird’s scimitar-like beak cutting the air just an inch above her, the sword still swinging in her hands. She turned on the spot, driving the kinetic energy of her momentum into the sword thrust as the blade swung around and at the bird once more. This time Rosalia aimed low, the sword cutting into the bird’s ankles—both of them as thick as the branch of an oak—where it perched upon Domi’s prone form.
The sword struck hard, but Rosalia hadn’t enough power to drive it through the creature’s limbs. Instead it stuck midway through the thing’s left leg, and Rosalia rolled aside as the bird’s fearsome jaw snapped at her.
The dark-haired woman kicked off, powering herself away from the creature’s path, leaving the sword where it was, stuck fast in the monster’s leg.
The bird flapped its wings as if to frighten away its new foe, and Rosalia leaped for the nearest wall of the nest, grabbing its edge and flipping herself over the side. The bird took two steps forward after the dark-haired mercenary, trotting off of Domi’s back in its haste to stop the murderer of its last child. Its beak darted ahead, but all the bird saw was the disappearing swish of Rosalia’s skirt as she dropped down beneath the level of the nest, hurling herself under the branch that it was propped upon.
Rosalia waited there, hanging horizontally, facedown on the underside of the nest, arms and legs stretched wide to hold her there, her hands entwined in the interwoven branches that made up the nest. The bird’s head appeared for a moment, upside down as the monster peered over the side of the nest, trying to locate its prey. Then, with equal suddenness, the bird’s head snapped back and disappeared.
Rosalia couldn’t know, but Grant had just reached the top of the monofilament line and, having assessed the situation in the space of an eyeblink, he had leaped from a nearby branch onto the back of the hulking bird. Grant’s hard landing had caused the bird to rear up, and Grant whipped one of his powerful arms around the beast’s neck, securing his grip like a rider taming some impetuous steed. The monstrous bird dipped and reared like a bucking bronco, wings flapping in place as it tried to shake the heavy and unwelcome passenger off its back.
With a practiced flinch of his wrist tendons, Grant called forth his Sin Eater pistol once more, the long-serving weapon of his Magistrate days, bringing the blaster around as the hulking bird tried urgently to fling him free. A moment later the muzzle of the fourteen-inch barrel was pressed flush against the bird’s beady black eye and Grant pulled the trigger. A stream of 9 mm bullets burst from the handcannon at point-blank range, obliterating the creature’s eyeball and driving half a dozen slugs into the thing’s brain as it continued to strut around its nest in frustration.
It took four seconds, give or take, before the bird finally keeled over, sagging to the floor of the nest.
Grant leaped from the shifting carcass, the barrel of his Sin Eater still trained on the hideous thing, which had landed right on top of Domi. Grant spotted someone else’s arm poking out from beneath the fallen creature, as well. Sending his blaster back to its holster, he placed both hands against the bird’s flank and pushed, shoving the thing off of Domi and the other person who was trapped beneath.
To Grant’s surprise, the other person turned out not to be a person at all, just a woman’s torso, her pretty face caked with dried blood and only the one limb attached to her body. With no time to spare, Grant turned his attention back to Domi, studied her for a frantic moment to see if she was still breathing. Her summer dress was torn in places, and a handful of scratches decorated her arms and back, several of them quite deep.
“Domi?” Grant urged. “You okay?”
The unmoving figure of Domi gave no response.
I’M LIVING somebody else’s life, Kane realized as he rested in the forest clearing. His left eye was still aching, but that terrible burning sensation seemed to finally be ebbing. For a moment there, it had felt like an acid touch, drilling through his optic nerve and burning into his brain. Even now, with the pain abating, he could still sense it, still recall that muscle memory as his eye had clenched upon itself, trying to escape the fearsome pain.
The vision in his right eye, meanwhile, seemed to be getting clearer, the play of light and shadow beginning to once more form shapes.
Kane blinked, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment to try to shift the feeling of discomfort that had overwhelmed him for several minutes. When he opened his eyes again, the left one remained dead, a dull ache around its edge. His right eye, however, flickered like a badly tuned television set, the picture finally righting itself in a misty, soft-focus way. Kane cupped one hand over his right eye, blinked repeatedly in quick succession, trying to properly clear whatever it was that had affected him. After a moment he took his hand away and looked around. Things seemed normal, albeit a little bright. He could see again.
He was in a grassy area surrounded by trees, many of them reaching two or three hundred feet into the air, their tops so high that it hurt Kane’s neck to look at them. He was propped on his elbows on the soft grass, his legs out in front of him. Rosalia’s charmless dog lay at his feet, and its ears twitched as it realized that Kane was stirring, turning its long muzzle toward him and sniffing at the air. Just beyond where the dog lay, Kane saw the interphaser unit poised beside its carry case, and as he looked further around him he detected the subtle ring of stones that marked the clearing. Some were missing but it was clear that this had once been some ancient site of worship. Yet again, the interphaser had used a site of forgotten mystic power as its focal point for transporting matter across the quantum ether.
With a yip, the scruffy-looking dog stood and trotted off into the trees, presumably, Kane thought, to take care of its toilet.
Whatever had been going on in Kane’s head, it hadn’t been his life. The life had belonged to the Annunaki called Ullikummis, who had been tortured and clad in stone from a young age, his very genetic makeup altered by the adept geneticists of the Annunaki race. Kane ran his hands over his face, pushing against the muscles as though to wake himself up. As he did so it became clear that his left eye remained utterly blind, no longer able to detect even the broadest of changes in light. His right eye, meanwhile, worked as it always had, and Kane deliberately changed his focus, checking that he could see both near and far, that nothing had been damaged.
His face felt different, too, a tightness against the skin by his left cheek. He probed his face, running his fingernail along the groove of the scar that ran alongside his left eye. It felt hard, not just the scar, but his whole face, the muscles fixed in one expression like a palsy.
There were a lot of things going on at once, Kane realized, but it didn’t take much imagination to conclude that it was all connected. Something had cut him a while back, and had infiltrated his flesh, affecting his muscles and somehow replaying another being’s life for him to watch as silent observer. The Annunaki were masters of organic technology, Kane knew. Most recently, he had chosen to have a living stone placed beneath the flesh of his wrist, a senseless thing that functioned in conjunction with other Annunaki tech to unlock doors and provide other basic functions. The sacrifice had been necessary for him to escape from Life Camp Zero, and Kane had had the so-called obedience stone removed at the earliest convenience, before it could fully take hold of his brain.
Kane’s mind raced, trying to recall just where he had received the scar. There had been a running battle in the now abandoned Cerberus redoubt between his colleagues and the faithful agents of Ullikummis. Kane himself had taken on the great stone god, using guns and ultimately his own body to try to fell this monstrous creature. Grant, Domi and Brigid Baptiste had fought at his side then, Brigid employing acid to damage Ullikummis and give Kane a chance to battle him on fairer terms. But Kane had failed, awakening in a cramped prison cell carved out of the rock. It must have been then, he realized, after the acid had burned through sections of Ullikummis’s stone face and chest, flecks of his stone cladding burning away like so much vapor. A tiny fleck, perhaps no bigger than a grain of sand, might have got caught in the cut in Kane’s face, infecting it somehow with a tiny part of Ullikummis.
