They took a right off Marylebone Road and raced through several back roads because the driver of the first minibus had spotted trouble up ahead. Then they emerged at the start of the Marylebone Flyover and sped up the incline.
They had all turned their radios on so they could hear Parry’s directions as he spoke into his throat mike from the first minibus, which was also carrying Stephanie, Sweeney, and the Colonel. “I’ve received a report that there’s a disturbance in Shepherd’s Bush, and the army is out in force there. So we’re going to leave London on the M3, then cut across country to the M4. We’ll maintain radio silence from now on, unless there’s a hiccup.”
“Hiccup?” Mrs. Burrows asked as there was a click and their earpieces went ominously quiet.
Drake swiveled around in his seat beside the driver to answer her, glancing at Will, then Chester and Mr. Rawls in the process. “My old man means if they hit a problem, they’ll open up with their weapons and take the heat so we can bug out. One of the vehicles has to make it through.”
“Gosh! I’m so glad I came with you,” Chester piped up.
One of the first to be born, the Styx Warrior larva was barely recognizable as the stumpy little maggot Vane had cradled in her arms only days earlier.
Having sprouted two pairs of legs and a muscular tail, its appearance bore more than a passing resemblance to a tadpole making the transition into a frog. Only no lily pad could have supported this brute’s weight; measuring more than three feet from tip to tail, it was more on a par with an overgrown Gila monster.
And as the Warrior larva had grown, building up reserves of protein for its impending pupation, food was all it thought about. It slept only sporadically, nearly every minute of its day spent trying to satisfy its insatiable hunger.
So when the Warrior larva chanced upon a pool of warm blood that had seeped under the doors to the warehouse, it began to lap at it energetically with its gray, darting tongue. The regular meat deliveries were all well and good, but not a touch on living or freshly killed quarry. Having licked the concrete floor clean, it began to investigate the source of the blood.
Like a dog outside a pantry, it scampered up and down as it probed the gap under the doors with its tongue. As the larva’s olfactory receptors picked up traces of the body on the other side, blood-flecked drool leaked from its maw. It snorted in frustration. It didn’t know how to get at the juicy meal and had begun to scuttle up and down again when it bumped into one of the doors. It observed how the unlocked door hinged open a fraction.
The Warrior larva paused for a moment, its slitted black pupils considering the barrier in its way. Then it began to ram its head against the door. The larva battered it harder and harder, until there was finally enough room for it to squeeze through. And it couldn’t believe its luck as it surveyed the dead Limiter stretched out on the floor. The door had swung shut again behind it, but the Warrior larva didn’t care — it had no intention of communicating its find to its sibling brothers. Keeping the whole body to itself was far too tempting.
It began to gorge itself on the delicious corpse. It was oblivious to its surroundings while it nipped off strips of flesh from the Limiter’s face with its needle-like teeth and gulped them down.
The minibuses parked at the rear of the two-story building, and everyone clambered out and followed Parry inside. Eddie and one of his men were waiting for them in a room filled with cardboard boxes. Will looked for Elliott, but there was no sign of her.
“Your Old Guard have the factory surrounded. We haven’t seen anything to suggest that anyone inside is aware of our presence yet,” Eddie reported to Parry. “And we’re ready to lock down the whole estate.”
“Perfect,” Parry said. “Go ahead and seal the place. From now on, nothing goes in or out.”
Eddie spoke to his man in Styx. After he’d hurried off, Eddie addressed Drake and the rest of the party. “The floor below is a half basement used for storage. I’ve established it as one of four Objective Rally Points for the Old Guard. You can see the target location from there, but don’t venture too close to the windows.” He turned back to Parry. “And my surveillance team is waiting for you on the roof, Commander.”
“Excellent — I’ll come and take a dekko. But first I want to hear from Celia,” Parry said, swiveling to Mrs. Burrows. “That thing you do — can you do it from here? Because I need you to tell me what’s over the road.”
Mrs. Burrows nodded, then tipped her head back. Will heard Stephanie’s sharp intake of breath as his mother’s eyeballs rotated upward so that only the whites were showing.
“People . . . humans . . . maybe five hundred and fifty . . . no, more, I think. Maybe six hundred — I can’t tell precisely,” Mrs. Burrows said.
“And Styx?” Parry asked.
“Yes . . . but not many. I don’t know . . . three dozen or more?”
“It would be helpful to know the exact number,” Parry pressed her.
A bead of sweat broke from Mrs. Burrows’s hairline and trickled down the center of her forehead. “It’s no good — I’m getting jumbled signals,” she whispered. Then a shudder ran through her as her eyes suddenly righted themselves. For a moment she seemed to be in a daze, then she turned to Parry. “This is strange — it’s as though I can’t tune in.”
Parry stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Don’t worry — you’ve given me enough of a confirmation. All those people must have been bused in for the breeding program. What else would they be doing there?” He started toward Eddie. “Even if there’s a full regiment of Limiters inside, we’ve got to get the job done.”
“No, wait!” Mrs. Burrows said sharply. “You don’t understand — there’s something in there that doesn’t want me to find it. Something more than Styx. Something dark.”
Parry merely nodded.
“OK, everybody downstairs with me,” Drake said to Will and the others.
Eddie held up a hand. “Before you go . . . Elliott’s in the rooftop Observation Post, and if it’s all right with you, she’s made a request.”
“What’s that?” Drake said as Will and Chester exchanged glances. They both began to move toward Eddie, believing that Elliott would want them with her.
“She’s asked that Stephanie join her up there,” Eddie said.
Will froze as he heard Chester whisper, “Wha —?”
Once up on the flat roof, Stephanie and Parry kept low as they approached the parapet with Eddie. The former Limiters were there in force and had strung a light blue camo net a few feet above the parapet so that their silhouettes wouldn’t be outlined against the sky.
“Commander,” Harry Handscombe said when Parry ducked under the camo net, and they shook hands vigorously. “Piece of luck, wasn’t it — me locating the target so early in the running?”
“Certainly was,” Parry said, smiling at his old friend. “But not so lucky that you almost got yourself slotted by those Darklit troops. I never asked you to stick your neck that far out, you know.”
Harry would have shaken his head if he’d been able, but instead gave Parry a wry grin. “Enough of the neck jokes, you old reprobate!”
Parry moved to the edge of the roof, his binoculars in hand. He checked the position of the pale sun to make sure there’d be no telltale reflection from his lenses before he began to scrutinize the factory opposite. “Ah, yes, there they are,” he said under his breath when he located the Limiters and New Germanian guards patrolling the parking area.
Stephanie had been standing back from the parapet, not sure what she was meant to be doing, when Elliott beckoned her over. As she crept to Elliott’s side, Stephanie eyed all the former Limiters with some trepidation.
“Don’t mind them. They may look pretty spooky, but they’re on our side,” Elliott confided in her.
“Cool,” Stephanie swallowed, then frowned at Elliott. “But why do you want me here? Your two boyfriends are, like, gagging to be with you.”
“Back in the Complex you told me that yo
u could deal with anything. So here’s your chance to prove it.” Elliott wasn’t being confrontational, and Stephanie recognized this as the girl continued to speak. “In a moment, we’re going to neutralize every single living thing outside that building opposite.”
“Neutralize?” Stephanie said.
Elliott inclined her head. “We’re going to snipe all those men as quickly and as cleanly as we can. Will you help me?”
“Is this some sort of sisters’ thing?”
“If you want to call it that.” Elliott shrugged. “I never had a sister.”
“You want me to shoot people, too?” Stephanie asked, glancing at Elliott’s long rifle, which she’d camouflaged with white tape and now had a chunky silencer affixed to the end of the barrel.
“No, I want you to spot for me,” Elliott said, indicating the scope beside her. “I’m relying on you to get a fix on the guards’ positions, because when we open fire from up here, we can’t afford any slipups. If one of them raises the alarm, we lose the element of surprise.”
“OK, I suppose I could do that,” Stephanie said, going over to the scope.
Will was surprised by the sheer number of Old Guard present in the dimly lit basement. Although their faces were obscured by ski masks, he sensed the nervous expectation that hung over them as they chatted quietly among themselves.
“Shotguns?” he asked as he noticed what some of them were carrying.
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us across the road,” Drake explained. “For close-quarters combat, a semiauto twelve-bore is right on the money.”
“And what are those tanks they’ve got?” Chester asked, observing that a number of men had twin cylinders on their backs.
“Flamethrowers, for the final stage of the offensive,” Drake replied. “You see, simply leveling the target building doesn’t cut the mustard. Things have a way of surviving in air pockets under the rubble. We really don’t want any of the Warrior grubs — if they’re actually in there — to crawl out after we’ve left the scene. If a single one were to get loose, it could find more humans and . . . we’d be back where we started.”
“I see,” Chester said, while Will and the others listened.
“There’s no alternative but to get inside and do the job up close and personal. We have to make sure nothing is left alive,” Drake continued.
“You mean kill everyone?” Mrs. Burrows interjected. “What about the humans I sensed in there — they could be Colonists or innocent Topsoilers who through no fault of their own have got caught up in this. Can’t we decondition them with Danforth’s Purger, then take th —?”
“Not going to happen,” Drake cut her short, his face grim. “We don’t have that luxury. This operation is all or nothing — we have to stop the Phase in its tracks, whatever it takes.”
Mrs. Burrows started to object, but Drake had moved away to speak to Parry over a private frequency on his radio headset. Once the conversation was finished, Drake returned. “Everybody’s in position around the target building, and we’re on the final countdown.” He swung his Bergen from his back. “I want you all to strip down to tactical kit — weapons and ammo only. Stow everything else here. Then you can watch the first stage from the windows.”
Armed with their Stens, Will and Chester went to the front of the basement and stood on tiptoe to peer through the dusty windows.
“Bloody Limiters,” Will growled as he saw a pair of them at the gates. “They look like they own the place.”
“Those other men — do you reckon they’re New Germanians?” Chester said.
Will gave Colonel Bismarck a glance as the man watched from another window. Some of the soldiers over the road were his troops from the inner world, and Will wondered what the Colonel thought about Drake’s no-prisoner policy. Will also knew that if the Colonel hadn’t been shocked from his Dark Light programming by the explosion in the city, right now he could be one of those brainwashed soldiers patrolling the factory.
His thoughts were interrupted by Parry’s voice coming over the headsets. “Alpha, I say, Alpha,” he enunciated clearly, initiating the first stage of the operation. “Remove the designated targets on my mark.” He paused for a beat, then began to count down. “Five — four — three — two — one — FIRE!”
There wasn’t a sound, but the men Will could see in the parking lot simply dropped from sight.
Up on the roof, Stephanie swiveled the spotting scope around. “Next target’s on the move — he’s turning — he’s going toward the entrance,” she said, her voice becoming shrill with the urgency.
“I see him,” Elliott replied calmly, then pulled the trigger. Her silenced rifle bucked in her hands, but the only sound was a small rush of air. As the round found its mark, the Limiter pitched forward, his head exploding scarlet over the white snow.
“Ohhh,” Stephanie said, putting her hand to her mouth. “That was totally a bull’s-eye.”
“Bravo,” Parry’s voice announced. “I repeat — Bravo. We’ve cleared the sentries.”
“Right, all of you outside,” Drake ordered.
Having taken off the top of the Limiter’s cranium as if his head was a hard-boiled egg, the Warrior larva was scooping out the last of the man’s brain with its prehensile tongue. Its eyes flickered in ecstasy at the delicious gray matter, as the larva’s hyperefficient digestive system absorbed the proteins just as quickly as it could gulp them down.
Will and Chester started across the road with Drake and Sweeney flanking them, and Colonel Bismarck, Mr. Rawls, and Mrs. Burrows following behind.
“Look at that.” Will was referring to what must have been a hundred men from Parry’s Old Guard advancing in a line. And those were only the ones he could see; he knew there must be at least the same number again around the other sides of the factory. “I didn’t realize there were so many of them.”
Drake had overheard Will. “Yes, the perimeter’s in. My old man’s running the show by the textbook,” he said, his eyes full of admiration as he watched his father join the line of Old Guard farther along the road. “He’s even sent a couple of units into the sewers, in case anything tries to use the drains to make a break for it.”
The snow on the tarmac helped to deaden any sound the Old Guard made as they closed in. And when they reached the boundary fencing around the site, all that could be heard was the occasional bluster of the wind.
Then there was activity. The main doors to the office building swung open, and a Limiter emerged, clearly in a hurry. Something had rattled him. But he’d taken only a couple of paces before a crossbow bolt struck him in the neck. As he dropped to the ground, all the Old Guard seemed to be holding their breath, but no one else followed him through the doors.
“Charlie,” Parry’s voice crackled over the radio. “I say again, Charlie. Before we lose the advantage of surprise.”
Drake signaled to Will and the others to come with him through the gates and into the parking lot. The Old Guard were all around them, running to the various entry points of the factory that Parry had assigned them.
“Stay well back,” Drake ordered as he and Sweeney moved into the main entrance of the office building, covering one another. There was no one in the reception area, so Drake immediately advanced along the corridor leading from it, Sweeney checking the rooms on either side as they went.
“The boardroom,” Drake whispered into the throat mike as Sweeney slipped through the last of the doors. “I saw it on the ground plan.”
With their Stens at the ready, the boys kept their distance as Drake had told them, with Mrs. Burrows, the Colonel, and Mr. Rawls bringing up the rear. A couple of the Old Guard had also entered the reception area, but they remained by the doors.
When Sweeney emerged from the boardroom, he and Drake inched farther down the corridor. They stopped as a small explosion shook the whole factory, followed by the rattle of automatic weapons.
“Delta, Delta, Delta!” Parry’s urgent voice came over the radio. “
The gloves are off!”
Unscrewing the silencer from his Beretta, Drake turned to address everybody. “The Styx know we’re here now, but we’re still going to take it nice and easy,” he said.
He and Sweeney continued down the corridor until they came to a corner. Sweeney moved ahead, his back to the wall, while Drake slid along the opposite side.
Sweeney suddenly raised a fist, and Drake froze. The big man pointed to his ear, then up ahead. He’d heard something.
The Warrior larva could have pulverized what was left of the Limiter’s skull with its powerful molars, but other softer and juicier parts of the corpse were too inviting. It was moving toward the Limiter’s legs when it heard the explosion and the ensuing gunfire.
It paused momentarily, but then the smell of the blood from the two bullet holes Rebecca One had left in the man’s chest became too much for it to resist. The larva crept back up the Limiter’s body and began to lick at these, then nibbled the meat on the man’s ribs.
“What’s that?” Sweeney whispered to Drake.
Dappled with blood, the ivory-colored tail had been sweeping from side to side, visible to both of them. Then, as the creature clawed its way up the Limiter’s corpse, the tail disappeared from view.
And whether the larva had heard or smelled the two humans approaching along the corridor, it now reluctantly stopped feeding and lowered its body in readiness.
Sweeney was straining to hear what was there. But it was impossible with all the noise coming from the other parts of the building.
“Careful,” Drake whispered, taking tiny steps forward.
There was no fear in the larva’s mind — it wasn’t capable of that. All it felt was the excitement that more food, with beating hearts, was coming its way. It suddenly broke from cover and hurtled into the corridor.
“Jesus! Contact!” Drake cried, as the Warrior larva scuttled straight past him like a lizard, opposing legs clawing the carpet.
The speed at which the creature was moving was phenomenal, but so was Sweeney’s reaction time. He managed to get a shot off, clipping its tail. And although Sweeney was back at the corner of the corridor in the blink of an eye, with the retreating hindquarters of the larva squarely in his sights, he was unable to take a second shot. Will was right in the line of fire if the bullet happened to go wide.