Planet Hate, page 21
Hurrying up the cliff side, Domi pulled herself tighter against the wall as the dark shape of the monster went sailing by, plummeting to its doom far, far below. “That’s two down,” she muttered.
A moment later Grant’s head appeared over the ledge, a dark blob of shadow in the darkness as he reached down for Domi.
“You okay, kiddo?” Grant asked as he helped Domi clamber the last few feet onto the cliff path once more.
“Define ‘okay,’” Domi snapped, irritation in her voice.
But there was no time for celebration. The snarling sounds of battle came from just a little way ahead as Grant and Domi hurried to help Rosalia, who was struggling with the last of the crocodile-like creatures. Grant’s hands brushed the spittle from his polymer lenses as he ran, and when his vision cleared he saw something he could not quite believe. Sure enough, there was the slender form of Rosalia, ducking and weaving with all the grace of a ballerina as she drove the blade of the katana at the creature’s hide, piercing it multiple times in quick succession. But that was not the unbelievable part. Rather, as Grant watched, arms and legs pumping to meet with this lizardlike foe, he saw Rosalia’s dog suddenly lunge at the creature’s exposed neck. Perhaps something had become damaged in the polymer lenses during his own struggle, or perhaps the night vision had confused Grant’s brain for a moment, making him hallucinate something that wasn’t quite there. But what he saw was the dog double and triple, turning into a pack of ghostly images, each dog wrapped in the one beside it, insubstantial and yet whole and complete unto itself. The multi-image blurred and enlarged, a multitude of wolflike hounds lunging at the exact same point on the beast’s throat, tearing at it with a thousand savage teeth.
“The hell?” Grant muttered, stopping so suddenly in his tracks that Domi slammed against his back.
“Grant?” Domi asked urgently.
For a moment Grant said nothing. Instead he simply stood there, watching in astonishment as Rosalia and the dog attacked the monstrous croc with untold brutality. Its scales tore away and chunks of its flesh sailed from its body as the dog—or dogs?—dug teeth and claws into its throat. Rosalia continued slashing at the thing with her katana, cutting hunks out of the sinewy muscles of its forelegs and torso.
It was over in a matter of seconds. The slithering form of the reptile was pulled apart, flaps of flesh flopping from its torso, throat and limbs, its tail writhing as it was pulled apart by its relentless attackers. Rosalia stepped back, breathing hard, her blade dripping with blood, and a moment later the dog scrambled to her side, looking up at its mistress for approval, just one dog once more. Where ten seconds before a fierce reptilian monstrosity had lurked in the tunnel, battling savagely with the dark-haired woman, now there was just a splatter of ruined flesh, the contents of an upturned butcher’s stall attached to the still-writhing remains of the swishing tail.
“Grant,” Domi asked again, her voice coming from just behind him, “what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Grant admitted. “Just—” He stopped, unable to explain what he thought he had seen through the night lenses, already unsure if he had really seen it.
Wiping the bloody sword on her skirt, Rosalia leaned down and stroked her dog behind the ears. “Good dog,” she soothed. “Good boy.” The dog yipped happily, enjoying the attention as it chewed on a morsel of flesh.
Grant and Domi joined Rosalia amid the blood and gore that lined the tunnel, Grant’s eyes flicking to the croc’s tail as it continued to spasm against the ground despite no longer being connected to anything that could be termed a body.
“What did—” Grant began, but he stopped himself as Rosalia looked up.
“What was that?” Rosalia asked, not catching his first words.
“Just wanted to say that you did good there, girl,” Grant told her. Whatever he had seen or not seen, now was not the time to discuss it—not while Kane’s life may be at stake.
As that thought struck him, Grant reengaged his Commtact unit, calling on Lakesh for advice. “Lakesh, how close are we to our man?” Grant asked.
For a moment the connection was silent while Lakesh refreshed and triangulated the transponder signals being picked up by satellite and relayed to his computer laptop over a hundred miles away. “By my reckoning you’re almost on top of him now, Grant,” Lakesh informed his friend. “You should be able to see him. He’s less than two hundred yards ahead of you—to the west of your current position.”
Grant looked around, grinding his teeth in irritation. “We’re in darkness and we’ve got a wall on one side of us and a sheer drop on the other,” he explained.
“Can you go forward?” Lakesh suggested.
Grant peered into the darkness through his night lenses, seeing the path continue into a tunnel cutting through a towering rock face. “Looks like that’s about all we can do,” he said.
“Good luck,” Lakesh said and signed off.
Within seconds the trio was hurrying down the path toward the tunnel with Rosalia’s scruffy dog running alongside them.
MARIA HALLOWEEN crouched on the floor where she had left her cloth bag, glancing up as Kane muttered something in his disturbed sleep. She had sensed him so long ago, heard rumors of the anam-chara, the joined souls, before then. But she could only dream of the power they might bring.
It was a world of hidden forces, of gods walking the Earth. The woman had heard the story told several times, of how the hybrid barons had changed, physically and mentally altering to become some ancient tribe of gods. Their tech was all over; King Jack had shown her some of the strange devices that he had amassed while she stayed with him in his own hidden barony.
In theory, by channeling the soul power through her, Maria could cease her ongoing dance with time, turning young-then-old-then-young-again in her dangerous quest for survival, and finally lock herself and her pattern.
Carefully, the woman with blood tears on her cheeks unfolded the bag, pulling at this tab and that tie until suddenly the whole thing flopped open like a tablecloth. Brushing the contents aside, she assessed Kane’s position once again before moving the bag-turned-sheet to a position near the back of the Chalice of Rebirth. She had remained here for the sake of her aging, utilizing the pool’s effects to pull her back to youth, but the process was flawed; it could not hold forever. She had needed to dip into the pit over and over to keep her limbs supple. Otherwise, in just a few weeks she found that her old aches came back, old-woman pains hiding beneath the lustrous skin of her false youth. But, by converting the energy of the anam-chara, the soul bond that linked Kane to Brigid Baptiste, the bruja would ascend, altering her own genetic structure to something closer to the Annunaki themselves.
The sheet that had been a bag lay on the floor of the underground cavern, its pattern revealed. The pattern was surprisingly simple, just a series of concentric circles stitched into the fabric like the orbits of the planets. She paced out the space between Kane and the sheet, flattening one rumpled corner with her foot before finally being satisfied with the arrangement.
Then something began whining in the pile of belongings that had come from her bag, an alarm going off.
It was time.
GRANT WAS FORCED to duck several low-reaching stalactites as he led the way through the narrow tunnel beneath the earth with Domi and Rosalia following right behind him. Rosalia’s dog panted and snuffled as it looked around, then weaved through the ex-Mag’s legs and trotted on ahead of the three humans it accompanied.
“Guess he knows where he’s going,” Grant muttered as he watched the dog through the night lenses.
Grant was feeling increasingly wary as the tunnel narrowed and they came to a point in the natural hollow where he had to walk sideways like a crab to actually get through. “Tight squeeze,” he advised his companions as his back scraped against the rough wall.
Domi had less trouble, thanks to her smaller frame and natural litheness. Even so, she was getting uncomfortable with the claustrophobic feeling the tunnels elicited, finding the warm darkness oppressive.
In the rear, Rosalia trekked on, thinking nothing of the passageways or the discomfort they brought. Like Domi, Rosalia was small enough to weave through the narrow passageway fairly easily, keeping her hands spread and running them along the walls so she could “see” after a fashion, feeling her way like a blind person. When the dog hurried off, she found her mind soothed—the mutt had been her companion for more than half a year, and she had never yet known it to go headlong into danger of its own accord. Though no guarantee, the dog’s hurrying ahead suggested that there was no immediate danger to be met.
The passageway turned a sharp corner—sharp in more ways than one, Grant thought, given the way the pointed rock walls jabbed at his clothing. Then, as quickly as it had narrowed, the path flared out again and Grant realized that they had entered a vast cavern even as his night lenses blossomed with a brilliance that threatened to blind him. Grant closed his eyes, letting the electrochemical adjust to the increased light in the room, holding up a hand to warn the others to absolute stillness. They could see him now, for the cavern ahead was lit by three wide-spaced candles that stood at the edges of a circular pit. When Grant opened his eyes, the room was painted in lime and chartreuse via the night lenses, but it was brighter, more details clear in the picture. Grant recognized the pit instantly as a Chalice of Rebirth like the one that Shizuka had used all those months ago.
His eyes roved the darkness, spying the woman leaning over the blanket, her long dress brushing against the floor, a wimple over her head. Slumped beside her, Grant recognized the unconscious figure of Kane.
“Hello,” Grant mumbled. “What have we here?”
As he spoke, a strange glowing seemed to form above the blanket where the woman was standing, twin cones exploding above and below the blanket like blossoming water lilies. For a moment, baffled by the night lenses, Grant didn’t realize what he was looking at. Then Domi’s voice came from behind him.
“Grant,” she whispered. “It’s an interphaser gateway.”
Grant pushed back his night-vision lenses, looking at the glowing swirl of colors with his own eyes unencumbered. His breath caught in his throat as he realized that they were positioned above a parallax point that had opened a rip in space and was drawing something to it like a magnet.
“Just what the hell have we stumbled on?” Grant muttered as the lotus blossom of color became brighter and two solid figures began to form in its center.
Chapter 17
The hollow echo of her boot heels resounded through the empty streets as Brigid Haight hurried Little Quav out of Balam’s home and into the underground city of Agartha. Behind them, the pale form of Balam lay in a heap next to the smoldering remains of Brigid’s cloak, the ASP emitter sprawled across the black basalt floor. Little Quav’s short legs stumbled as she hurried to keep up with the fierce pace that Brigid set. Outside, past the little garden that surrounded Balam’s home, a street of similar buildings stretched off toward the towering core of the city. Each of the buildings looked the same, and despite being unoccupied, Balam had clearly made some effort to tend to their gardens, making this deserted city more homely for himself and his precious charge.
As they ran, Little Quav clutched at her rag doll’s arm, and the doll swung from her hand, its legs dragging along the ground. “Why…are we…running, …Briggly?” Quav asked, her voice stuttered and breathless.
“We need to get help for Uncle Balam—he’s hurt himself,” Brigid told the girl, glancing down at her for just a moment. In reality, Brigid was very conscious that they needed to get away from Balam’s dwelling in case the bulbous-headed alien recovered. Brigid was pretty sure she had shot him dead, but she had no idea how his alien physiology worked. What she did know was that Balam was ancient, and she concluded that he had to be pretty tough to have lasted so long.
As they turned a corner, skirting past the towering center of the underground city, Brigid heard a scraping movement from behind her. She stopped, flattening herself against the nearest wall and indicating for Little Quav to stay quiet.
Quav looked at Brigid with imploring eyes, fear making her shake. “What is it?” she whispered.
Brigid placed a finger to the girl’s lips, warning her again to remain silent. Then the flame-haired ex- archivist silently stepped to the edge of the building and peered out, trying to locate the noise. Something was moving back there, scraping noises against the basalt rock from which the city was carved. A row of buildings lined the street on both sides, old abandoned dwellings that had once housed the citizens of Agartha. Brigid held her breath, counting the buildings in her head to work out which was Balam’s. She need not have bothered; after a few seconds she saw the figure moving in the doorway, stepping out warily into the pseudo sunlight of the street.
Balam was swaying unsteadily, his large head rocking on his shoulders as if a rock teetering in a landslide. A smudge dusted his forehead on the right side, blood from where he had crashed into his floor. Just then Brigid saw something glint in Balam’s long- fingered hand, and she recognized the ASP emitter immediately. She doubted that Balam would fire on the girl, of course, but if he could get a clear shot at her then all bets were off.
Conscious of the burning sensation on her back where she had been hit before, Brigid leaned down and spoke quickly to Quav, keeping her voice just a whisper. “We’re going to play a game,” she explained. “We’re going to keep moving, but we have to keep really quiet so that the monster doesn’t get us.”
“Monster?” the blond-haired girl giggled, but she looked a little worried.
“Quietly,” Brigid reminded.
Together the flame-haired woman and the little hybrid girl made their way through the empty side streets, passing more of the black rock buildings as they made their way toward the incline that led to the outside world.
As they got closer, Brigid found herself having to remind the child to keep quiet, and the girl laughed and chastised both herself and her dolly, much to Brigid’s irritation. Then they were at the street that opened onto the incline itself, Brigid recalled, and she unconsciously kept to the shadows, eyes constantly flicking left and right as she searched for any other presence.
Balam was waiting there. His familiar, squat form was hiding, albeit badly, in the space between two buildings, watching the street as he waited for Brigid to appear at the only entrance and exit she knew to this secret world. Brigid cursed. She had been lucky to knock Balam down while the child was not looking, but to shoot him in front of Little Quav’s eyes—well, the girl would not be so trusting of her actions if she saw that.
Brigid’s mind raced, trying to recall alternate routes in and out of Agartha. It took a moment, but when it came, the solution was obvious. Rather than walk out of here with the girl, trekking through the Himalayas until they reached the parallax point that Brigid had used to get close to Agartha, she would use Agartha’s own parallax point. She had the interphaser with her in the leather satchel on her back, and using the parallax point as an escape window was the most graceful—and obvious—solution to her quandary.
IN THE STREET beyond, Balam was still waiting, swaying gently in place as he tried to remain conscious. Brigid’s attack had seriously wounded him and he was losing blood from his chest, as well as from a grisly damp patch that streaked the curve of his collarbone. He watched the street from his hiding place, the ASP emitter hooked over his wrist and hand like an extension of his arm. He was not used to involving himself in physical combat. Only recently, with the breakdown of the Ontic Library and the implications of that occurrence, had Balam chosen to arm himself, pulling an ASP emitter out of storage where it had been preserved in Agartha’s Museum of Artifacts. Even so, he felt awkward using the weapon, conscious of its lethal power and the consequences that a rogue shot could easily bring.
But his suspicions had been right. The hybrid child, Quavell’s daughter, was in trouble. Often seen as a prize in the ongoing war between humanity and the Annunaki, Little Quav held the key to the Annunaki royal dynasty in her DNA. It was imperative that she not fall into either group’s hands—for the humans could be as pernicious as the sadistic Annunaki, a fact Balam knew from firsthand experience when he had been held prisoner by a military group.
He had drifted in and out of consciousness for several minutes while Brigid had gathered up the girl, calming her before they exited his home. His head throbbed where his skull had smashed against the floor, and the wound in his side felt like an acid burn. He took a deep, steadying breath through his flat nares, feeling the threat of his own weakness as it tried to overwhelm him. He must remain strong, recover the girl-who-would-be-queen-of-the-Annunaki, and get to safety. But if Cerberus had turned on him like this, where could he go?
A telepath by nature, Balam had detected something out of sorts with Brigid from the moment he saw her. She held herself differently from the Brigid Baptiste he knew, a swagger to her hips that had not been there before, no longer exhibiting that playful manner he had noticed in their previous meetings. He had not needed his telepathy to realize she was mentally altered; his psychic abilities had merely confirmed the change. He had been unable to read her fully, finding prying on her thoughts impossible, but he had detected the dark cloud that had taken hold of her mind even at his most subtle reading. She was thinking differently, he saw, and that made her unpredictable. He concentrated, trying to guess where Brigid would go if she did not use the fixed exit. There were a number of hidden ways in and out of Agartha, but Brigid had been unaware of these so far as Balam knew, and each of them was treacherous, especially for the child Brigid was now traveling with. No, there had to be a more obvious reason that she had not appeared here.
