Arkangel, page 39
Elle lifted her palms. “We’ve come this far. Do both.”
Harper nodded. She grabbed some gauze sponges and soaked them thoroughly, keeping her nose turned away from the stench. She then placed the dripping compresses over the puncture wound under Jason’s jaw. She left them there and shifted over to fill a measuring spoon from her med kit. Grimacing, she dribbled the sludge past Jason’s lips, across his tongue. He failed to swallow, so there was no telling if anything reached his stomach. It appeared most of it drooled back out.
Anna knelt next to him, one hand clutching her throat with worry.
Elle resumed her pacing.
Harper checked Jason’s pulse and blood pressure.
“His vitals are getting worse,” the doctor concluded.
Anna covered her face. “Then it’s been a waste of time after all.”
Elle didn’t have the strength to console her. Anna sought solace elsewhere and shifted her hands to lips, whispering a prayer.
Still, Elle knew their effort hadn’t been a total waste. The exertion, the movement, even the flicker of hope, had stirred her enough to think more clearly, to push her panic further back.
She took a deep breath and pictured that steamy garden. She remembered her earlier quandary, wondering how such a garden could be so deadly, so invasive, yet the ancient gardeners here had harvested those fields on a regular basis. And from the old Greek legends, Hyperborean emissaries had visited foreign lands. Yet, none of those stories told of a sporulating affliction that spread wider.
“Maybe the Hyperboreans were naturally resistant to the toxic spores.”
Harper heard her. “What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know. Somehow the Hyperboreans were able to live with the sarkophágos species and not fall ill. Back at the garden, I saw copper boats that the harvesters must have poled across those hot mudflats. And there were those hanging leather outfits, likely meant to cover skin. Still, the gardeners must have occasionally gotten stung by those poisonous tendrils.”
“I would think so,” Harper admitted. “If the Hyperboreans were smart, they’d have had an antidote handy. Back on the beaches of Australia, during the summer months, we’re plagued by box jellyfish, which deliver a burning, deadly sting. Kills people. So the beaches installed these metal stanchions full of vinegar bags to counteract the venom. Saves many lives.”
Elle nodded, then more vigorously. “Of course . . .”
“What?” Harper asked.
“Remember, the Hyperboreans were smart.” Elle turned to Anna. “I need your help. I’m not sure how much I can carry on my own.”
Anna looked confused, but she stood up. “From where?”
“We’re going back to that infernal garden.”
Elle rushed for the exit, drawing Anna with her.
Harper called after them. “Hurry. His body’s starting to tremor.”
Elle glanced back. Jason’s arms and limbs were quaking against the stone. She turned to Omryn. “Help hold him down. Keep him safe until we return.”
She didn’t wait for confirmation and set off at a fast walk, then a run.
Anna chased after her.
Elle didn’t slow when she reached the chamber with the mudpot. She angled to the side and over into the vine-encrusted corridor. She continued along it, breathing hard, driven by fear, but also by hope.
The distance to the garden was easy to gauge. The reek of decaying flesh grew richer with each passing meter. When it finally watered her eyes and churned her stomach, the end of the tunnel appeared.
Elle slowed as she neared it, not wanting to run headlong into the bubbling mud and the dangers growing there. As she crossed the threshold, she ducked to the left, to where a pair of copper boats were beached on the stone apron. Next to them, a rack held an entire outfit of leather, made to cover a gardener. She ignored it all and dropped to a knee before a row of stone-corked jars, each a foot tall. Earlier, she had thought they were primitive canteens, clay water jugs.
But they’re not—hopefully they’re not.
She slid one closer, struggled with its stone cork, but she had no better luck than she had with the amphora pot. She grumbled and resorted to Omryn’s technique. She grabbed a rock and smashed the neck off the jug in one swing. The cork and the top of the jug bounced and rattled into the mud. Some of the container’s contents—a blue-green oil—splashed out.
She sniffed at it, appreciating the wintergreen scent. “This sure as hell isn’t water.”
Anna joined her. “Will this help Jason?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Elle grabbed a fresh jug, shook it to make sure it was full, and passed it to Anna. She considered giving the nun a second jar, but her thin limbs struggled with just the one.
Frustrated and scared, Elle hauled a new one for herself, while cradling the open jar under her other arm.
I can carry two.
She didn’t want to be frugal. Jason was deep into his affliction. She didn’t know how much antidote he might require at this point. Unfortunately, the ancients had never carved a formulary of dosages into a wall.
They should have.
“Let’s go.” Elle stood up, hefting her two jugs.
They set off again, moving slower with their burden. Each laden pot weighed more than thirty pounds. Elle’s heart pounded with urgency. She pictured Jason’s limbs quaking, while blurring his features with young Fadd’s.
We can’t lose him, too.
She considered abandoning the jar she had broken into, to lighten her load, so they could move faster. But she hugged it tighter, knowing Jason would not likely last another lap back to the garden if she needed more. She planned on bathing his entire body in this elixir and forcing as much down his throat as she could without drowning him.
I need every drop.
They half-trotted, half-plodded their way up the tunnel.
As they rounded a curve toward the exit, hushed voices echoed back to them. She flinched, fearing she was already too late and that Harper and Omryn had come to tell them as much. Then shouting erupted, followed by rifle fire, and heavy blasts of a shotgun.
Someone found the others.
Elle paused, but Anna continued ahead, plainly intent on delivering the antidote even if it meant getting caught. Already committed at this point, Elle followed. She couldn’t let Anna go alone.
They passed around the curve, and lights shone brightly at the end, illuminating two men in body armor. The newcomers stared toward the magnetite chamber. Elle had no trouble identifying the two, especially the giant.
Anna recognized them, too. “Sychkin . . .”
The vehemence she poured into each syllable of the archpriest’s name was palpable. This was the man who had killed her brother, Igor. Maybe not directly, but he was definitely as much to blame as the one who had pulled the trigger.
Unfortunately, that anger was not just tangible to Elle.
Yerik turned toward the tunnel. He either heard Anna or spotted their arrival. His scarred features hardened, and he swung a huge pistol toward them.
Elle dropped a jug. Before it crashed to the floor, she grabbed for her holstered sidearm with her free hand. Still, her reaction was too slow.
Another was not.
Anna held forth her yellow flare gun and fired at the pair. In her fury, the nun’s aim was poor. The flare struck the floor, ricocheted off a wall, and bounced into the next chamber with a flare of crimson fire.
Still, it proved enough.
Yerik bellowed, covering his face, already gnarled by an old burn. Panicked, unnerved by the flare’s fire, he tumbled backward. He snatched at Sychkin for help, but it was no use. Gravity had hold of his massive frame.
Yerik twisted and fell, one arm still reaching for Sychkin. A single word burst from this throat, breaking his vow of silence for the first time. “Papa . . .”
Then he crashed headlong into the boiling quagmire.
Sychkin got dragged to his knees by that last desperate grab of the terrified man. He fell at the pit’s edge as Yerik’s bulk struck the mud. A heavy, steaming wave splashed up, striking his upturned face. He screamed and rolled away. His fingers dug at his cheeks and eyes. He bellowed through the scorching mud, while writhing on the floor.
Anna lowered her flare gun, showing no remorse, only satisfaction.
Before they could move, another armored figure ran into view from the magnetite chamber. It was a lone Russian soldier. He had lost his helmet. Blood covered one side of his head. Though panicked, he grabbed Sychkin by the wrist and dragged his screeching body toward the main tunnel. With his other arm, he pointed his rifle. The soldier fired toward the lodestone chamber, failing to note the two silent women in the side tunnel.
Then the soldier and his burden were gone, trailed by Sychkin’s screams.
“C’mon,” Elle urged and crossed the last of the way.
Reaching the mudpot room, she shied from the body sprawled facedown in the molten clay and sulfuric water. A scuffle of boots drew her attention. Omryn stumbled out, clutching an arm around his stomach. Blood soaked around his limb.
“They caught us off guard,” the man explained, waving them toward the chamber. “When I was holding Jason down.”
He led them back inside, then remained posted at the exit, leaning on the wall.
“Omryn . . .” Elle mumbled.
“Go.” He nodded to the jug in her arms. “Try your medicine.”
Inside, two men lay dead from huge wounds. Omryn’s shotgun was designed to drop polar bears in their tracks—and apparently, Russian soldiers, too.
Harper rose as they entered. She had thrown her body over Jason, protecting her patient with her life. The doctor snatched up a six-inch roll of gauze and stepped toward Omryn.
She glanced back at Jason. “Gave him a shot of valium to calm his seizures. Nothing more I can do. Time for you two to play doctor, while I see to a patient I can help.”
Elle didn’t argue. Omryn needed his belly wound wrapped. And from here, Jason’s survival was mostly out of their hands. It was up to the Hyperboreans.
She and Anna rushed to Jason’s side. Elle still held the jug she’d broken open. She dropped to a knee and poured its contents over his face, across his neck wound, and down his body, baptizing him with the blue-green oil.
Without being told, Anna snapped the neck off her jug. “What now?”
Elle took her jar. “Hold his head up.”
The nun dropped and pulled Jason’s shoulders across her knees. As Anna cradled his neck back, Elle tipped the jug and washed the oil across his lips, dribbling it down his throat with as much care as she could manage, trying to time it with his exhalations. Again, there was no swallowing. She might be drowning him, but she poured until the last drops fell away.
She then tossed the empty jug. “Better pray this works.”
Anna took her words literally, lifting her fingertips to her lips, bowing her head over Jason.
They waited for some sign.
Elle studied his body. At first, there was no reaction. Then a slight flutter of his eyelids and fingers. She feared he was starting to seize again. Then the movements became more purposeful. His eyelids blinked. His palms pressed against the stone. His knees bent. It was like he was trying to push himself out of the toxic storm within. Finally, his body relaxed. His legs extended, dropping flat.
But not in defeat.
Jason mumbled, and the roll of his eyes focused, staring up at Anna’s bowed face.
“You’re awake,” Anna whispered.
“I . . . I was never asleep.” He groaned. “Heard everything. Saw most.”
Elle cringed, realizing the toxin must have been a powerful paralytic, trapping him in his body—but not numbing him.
“Hurt so bad. The burning.” He tilted his face. “But worst of all. That black sludge. It was horrible. Tasted like sh—”
He was cut off by a huge blast, then another, and another.
Elle turned toward the exit as the salvo built into a deafening barrage. She recognized the source.
Grenades . . .
50
May 14, 5:56 P.M. ANAT
East Siberian Sea
Tucker ignored the explosions. He was again on his stomach, hidden high in a second-story roost. His rifle was at his shoulder, his cheek at the weapon’s stock. Through his night-vision goggles, he stared down his sights.
Below and directly ahead of him, a narrow street ran between two homes.
C’mon, Kane, you can do it.
For the past half hour, the trio had led a game of cat and mouse across the city’s maze. With the dog’s cameras, Tucker’s vision expanded for blocks. It had allowed him to identify three hunters, whom he had led deep into this labyrinth, away from the others. More soldiers were probably heading into the city, using the cover of those grenades and rockets.
With those forces moving in, Tucker knew he had little time left. Still, the soldiers on his tail had proved challenging. He couldn’t shake them. Plus, there had been a few close calls. His side burned from where he had failed to roll out of the way fast enough.
The game was taking its toll.
And not just on me.
Finally, movement drew his eye. A dark shape rushed into view on the street, running low, but limping badly on one limb. It was the foreleg Kane had injured last year.
There’s my good boy. Knew you wouldn’t let me down.
Tucker flinched as a soldier appeared behind Kane. The Russian stayed hidden around a corner, surveying the street.
Move it, Kane.
Tucker reinforced this, subvocalizing a command. “KANE, SHELTER RIGHT.”
The dog hobbled into that turn, nearly losing his balance. But he rushed through the home’s door on that side. The soldier ran to follow, sticking close to a wall, intent to eliminate one of the stubborn targets.
Tucker swallowed and checked Kane’s video feed. The home was a single room, a blind alley, trapping the dog.
The soldier swept to the doorway, still cautious, sheltering to one side.
It was right where Tucker wanted him.
“MARCO, TAKEDOWN BRAVO ONE.”
From the door across the street, a huge sleek shadow burst forth. Marco leaped through the air and slammed into the man’s back.
“KANE, TAKEDOWN SAVAGE.”
The older Malinois lunged low out of the doorway. Kane hit the soldier in the legs, sending the Russian flipping through the air. When he landed, both dogs savaged him, ripping the soft flesh between armor. The man screamed, garbled, then gurgled.
Another two soldiers rushed in, coming from both flanks.
Clearly, as Tucker had used a dog with a fake limp to lure the first soldier into a trap, these two had sent their man as a forward decoy to flush the enemy.
Like I wasn’t expecting that.
All this time, Tucker had never moved his rifle’s sights, even when Kane had limped past and the first soldier closed in. He squeezed a three-round burst at the closest man. Before the soldier fell, Tucker shifted on his elbow and fired a second burst at the other target.
The shots had been clean, raising not even a cry.
Tucker gathered his gun and leaped to the ground. “TO ME,” he ordered his two partners.
Marco and Kane broke free of the soldier, though Marco gave the man a final shake, like a dog with a snake.
Once together, Tucker dropped to a knee, offering pats and reassurance. “Good boys.”
He stared off toward the city ahead of him, where the barrage of grenades had waned into occasional blasts, suggestive that the enemy was closing in on it.
Got to get back there.
Tucker had lured this trio far into the labyrinth, but now he had to return. Earlier, he had caught the lightshow by the waterfall. Even from a distance, the twirling light had blazed through his enhanced vision like a solar flare.
Someone had made a break for it.
Gray? Seichan? Maybe both?
He knew the commander must have heard the earlier firefight up top. The man would’ve come to investigate—running himself full tilt into trouble. And now someone had to get him out of it.
Tucker straightened and pointed in the direction of a rocket blast. “MARCO, KANE, TRACK FRIENDLIES.”
They set off together. By now, the two dogs had spent enough time with this crew to hopefully register the others’ scents, to know who was friendly and who was not, odors distinct from the borscht-swilling Russians.
The trio rushed swiftly, moving in unison.
But Tucker knew the battle ahead would be tougher than the one played out here. There were many more soldiers, likely hunting with night-vision and thermal gear.
Knowing this, Tucker needed a wider scope of view.
“MARCO, FLANK CLOSE RIGHT. KANE, FLANK CLOSE LEFT.”
The two dogs split off, forging their own paths across the dense urban jungle. Through his goggles, their eyes became his. He followed their camera feeds, while whispering orders, coordinating their paths.
He found an easy rhythm with the pair.
While this might be new for Marco, for Kane and Tucker, this was as familiar as an old dance, one they knew well, a cadence forged in the sands of Afghanistan. As Tucker ran, he sensed a fourth flowing with him, the one who had once danced with them, but no longer.
You were a good boy, too, Abel.
Tucker ran onward.
Some called him a lone wolf, but he knew the truth.
I’m never alone.
Especially now.
Kane races over raw rock and across carved stone. He lifts his nose as he fords a bridge over a chasm. The air rising from below burns his nose. Not from heat, but acid. His ears prick to the deep-throated belches calling from down there. He feels the heat buffeting through his fur, even with his body covered in a hard vest.
He spans onward. His pads find rough rock, and he is off, nose dropping low or riding high, sifting through each note.
—the melt of ice that releases old musk.
—the mold off rock that is fungal and ancient.
—a nest of desiccated bones that still have the iron scent of marrow.
