CHAPTER 35
My heart thuds in my
ears.
I’m conscious of each
footfall, each scrape against stone. We try to move as a unit,
permitting no space between us, but the soft hum from Dina’s sled
echoes down the corridors. Can the Teras detect vibrations? Each
meter feels like a kilometer since I expect at any moment to hear
the terrifying sound of wings.
“The passage will not
permit them to swarm us,” Vel says.
He’s right. We can’t
even pass two abreast, and from what I recall, the Teras have a
two-meter wingspan. So Vel will bear the brunt of a first attack.
Perhaps his faux-human skill will shield him somewhat.
That’s no guarantee
he’ll survive, however, if they rend him limb from limb. I wonder
how his unique body chemistry will affect the monsters. I can’t
ask, though.
“Can that thing
detect movement?” I nod at his handheld.
“Ordinarily. The rock
interferes somewhat with the readings, however.”
Dina glances back at
me over the rim of her sled. Her eyes glow with an odd radiance,
echoes of the torch-tube. When she turns back, the light paints her
fair hair with oily green streaks.
“If it comes down to
it,” she tells me, low. “If it’s life and death and I’m slowing you
down, you leave me, Jax. They already had a taste of me, so they
may as well have the rest.”
A chill shivers
through me. I remember Loras on his belly, shoving March toward me.
I recognize self-sacrifice.
I’ll be damned if it
happens again.
“No. We’re not
leaving anyone behind.” Not this time. “We’ll find a way to fight
them.”
“Better hurry,” Hit
says, jerking her head at the red blurs on Vel’s data screen. “We
got two, just around the corner.”
“We have a way,” Jael says, pushing past me. “Jax, stay
back, and keep the other two safe.”
The pilot glares at
his back. “You think I need your protection? I killed one of those
monsters topside with nothing but a knife. I just need a
ride.”
“Then you guard Jax and Dina,” comes his response. “You
ready, Vel?”
The bounty hunter
responds by tossing a weapon to Jael. They take up a position just
around the corner, and I shudder, barely registering a keen of pure
hunger from the beasts. I remember the way their song nearly killed
poor Loras.
A burst of orange
lightning zags from their hands, igniting the very air before them.
The Teras’ camouflage fails under such duress, and for an instant,
I watch their silhouettes inside the pocket inferno, watch them
writhe. Heat washes over me.
Fearing an explosion,
I hit the floor, and Dina guides her sled over me. I appreciate the
gesture; even now she’s got my back. When I’m greeted by the stench
of sizzling meat, I chance a peek. Hit stands her ground, watching
the monsters burn. Jael and Vel have designed something that
propels an incendiary cloud.
“We will burn a path
out.” Vel holsters the oddly shaped weapon. “They cannot swarm us
in the tunnels, and if we move cautiously, they will not detect us
easily. I believe they utilize sonar to locate their prey.”
I can’t be the only
one thinking this. “Will their screams draw others?”
The bounty hunter’s
answer drifts back to me over the hiss of smoldering flesh. “It is
possible.”
“Then they can just
line up to die,” Jael says. “I’m so tired of this planet.”
“That makes two of
us. Any chance you made a spare?” With a nod, Hit indicates the
weapon in his hand.
“Only these. Sorry.
We can take turns if you prefer.” Trust Vel to be scrupulously fair
about who gets to barbecue the horrible things.
Personally, I don’t
care. I’ve seen what they can do; so has Dina. I suspect she and I
are content to watch the action from a safe distance this time.
After checking his handheld, Vel maneuvers past the smoking pile
with a precision that once again reveals his inhuman nature, once
you know what you’re looking for. He waves us on.
The smell damn near
makes me sick. There’s no climate control down here, no
ventilation, and the smell of charred meat flashes me dangerously
close to the Sargasso. By itself, the dark
was bad enough. Add this stench to it, and I struggle to stay in
the here and now.
I grit my teeth until
pain shoots up my jaw to my temple. I won’t lose it. I’m stronger
than that. March would’ve known how bad this is for me. I could’ve
counted on a touch on the shoulder, a reassuring nod. So would Doc,
for that matter. But those days are gone.
And I have to deal
with what is, not what was. Story of my life.
“Watch your step.”
Jael guides us around the corpses.
Dina slaps at him,
which improves my mood somewhat. I’m not sure she’s all right with
the battlefield medicine that went into saving her life, but we
don’t have a Psych on hand. Just as well, most of them are crazy
bastards. After all, look what they did to me in the name of mental
health. When we get out of here, I’ll fix her the Jax way: loads of
liquor and some pretty girls.
Vel leads us out of
that hallway and into the next turn. It’s a maze, and I’m
hopelessly lost, just as I was when Doc found our way in. Dirtside,
I have no sense of direction, something Kai loved teasing me about.
When I got lost at the Gehenna starport market, he never let me
live it down.
Oddly, thinking about
him takes my mind off March. An older loss doesn’t sting as much.
The memories offer some comfort and distraction as we creep along,
slaves to Vel’s handheld.
Listening for the
rasp of talons and claws against the rock. A dragging sound or a
leathery flap of wings. Sonic shrieks echo in the distance, making
the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. My nipples perk from
the chills running over me steadily, like I have a fever. But I
don’t think fear counts as an illness.
They’re here with us.
Hunting. Coming closer, each turn we make. Mary help us, will I
never see the sky again?
In Jael’s hand the
torch-tube starts to flicker, casting odd shadows along the floor,
and then it winks out. At first I’m just blind; it’s like that long
moment after I jack in, but before we jump. And then the walls
kindle with their own light, a pale, ethereal twinkle that reminds
me of the stars.
“The stone is full of
phosphorus,” Vel says in a hushed tone.
Once my eyes adjust,
it’s better than the tubes, more pervasive. I feel less like we’re
scuttling along in the oily dark, huddled in our tiny isle of
illumination. It also smells fresher now that we’ve moved away from
the funeral pyre.
“Does that mean
something?” Hit asks him.
Vel lifts his
shoulders. “Probably. But I lack the time for extended
study.”
“No shit. You remind
me of Doc sometimes.” Dina sounds more herself, less the
sacrificial lamb.
“I will take that as
a compliment.”
“It wasn’t meant as
one,” she mutters.
Ahead of Dina, Hit
smothers a chuckle. “Should we leave you two alone?”
Now I laugh. I sense
more than see the puzzled look the pilot casts over her shoulder at
me, so I explain, “Dina doesn’t like men, and Vel, well . .
.”
As a Slider, he can
grow human skin to pass among us, concealing his mantis form. But
I’m not going to out him since Hit hasn’t seen him au naturel. No
more than I’ll tell her about Jael being Bred. Like I told him
before, we all have our secrets.
Vel surprises me by
finishing the sentence with a flicker of that dry sense of humor
that occasionally rears its head. “Let us say she is not my
type.”
For the first time, I
wonder what that would be. He said he left Ithiss-Tor because
sexual relations between his people sometimes became deadly. So
that means he’s been alone this whole time? Not that it’s any of my
business.
On some level, I’m
aware I’m losing myself in these inane speculations in order to
distract myself from the soul-scouring fear engendered by the
echoing shrieks. The Teras sound so goddamn close now; they should
be on Vel’s screen.
Two red signatures
blossom on his handheld, dead ahead. Then two more, except they
aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
The ceiling above us
shakes, disintegrates like the dry dirt of an insect hive. Crumbles
down on us in great clods that shimmer with the eerie light. I
can’t see them, but I can hear them overhead, claws working. Their
terrible keens reverberate inside my skull, making me feel like my
brains will bleed out my nose.
“Behind!” Hit
yells.
And then they come at
us from both sides in a terrible rush.
