Up ahead, the two soldiers at the point position halted.
They were at the entrance to Arc 1701-D, and it wasn’t what Dorian expected. Mounds of black dirt covered the corridor, and where a door should have been, twisted metal snaked into the arc. It had been blown open.
Is David fighting someone down here?
Dorian motioned for his men to put their boots on and form up on him.
He crept to the arc entrance and peered in. Damp, warm air floated out, and he didn’t understand what he saw: large green and purple plants. It was some sort of biosphere. Was it an aeroponics lab? A greenhouse? He had assumed the vast chamber was storage or perhaps another repository of resurrection tubes.
He selected a man to lead the way up the narrow dirt tunnel, which was likely a trap. He could lose one man; it would still be Dorian and three others to David. Good enough odds.
But there was no trap waiting on them, only a dense rainforest at sunset. David and Kate had cut a path through it. That would make it easy to catch them.
David glanced at the rock face directly ahead. He could only see the flamboyantly colored exadons now. Either the others were already in flight, or they had engaged their cloaks, preparing to hunt when the last rays of sunlight faded.
They were the perfect predators. There was no moon, and with no shadows in the dark night, they could strike when and where they chose. David hoped they were lazier than that.
“We should be quick,” Sonja said.
“I agree.” David adjusted his sights, marking his target.
“You think this will work?”
“We’ll know soon.”
Sonja spread out on the grass beside him and began firing the instant David did. Seconds later, the slow-flowing river ran red.
From the treetop, Dorian heard the shots ring out, but it took him several seconds to find their source: David and an African woman—almost perfectly camouflaged—at the opposite tree line, across the plain, lying flat. What were they shooting at?
Then Dorian saw it—massive beasts, not quite as big as elephants but with no snouts—rising out of the mud that bordered the plain and the river. They wailed as blood spilled out of them.
Are they out of food? Hunting? Dorian wondered. Their folly would make them the hunted now. Dorian slid down the tree.
“They’re in the tree line across the plain. Hurry, we can take them by surprise,” Dorian said. His men fell in behind him as they stormed up the path.
Mary sank into the bed and closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired. Well, maybe after unpacking, when she and Paul had moved to Atlanta. Her things, combined with his, and carrying it all up and down the stairs had been thoroughly exhausting.
Why had she thought of that? Just the exhaustion? That was a time of excitement and the unknown too.
The code. They would know soon.
She reached her hand over, across the narrow space that separated the beds and put her hand inside Paul’s.
He sat up slightly. “Everything okay?”
“I’m glad you came for me, got me out of Puerto Rico.”
“Me too. It’s probably underwater by now.”
Outside the tent, they heard shots fired.
Milo was too excited to sleep or even eat. He sat cross-legged in the tent Dr. Kate had made from the case. It was yet another miracle, and he wanted to enjoy every second of the journey. He was sure he had a role to play.
Every second that passed, Kate became more convinced: she would spend her final hours with David. Here and now, at the end of her life, it all became clear, what was truly important, what mattered. Relationships. Love. How she lived her life. Who she really was. She couldn’t wait for him to return.
She was asleep when the first shots were fired.
David began belly crawling back from the tree line, just enough to hide their position, but still in sight of the large animals thrashing in the mud, crying out in agony from the bullet wounds. Sonja joined him.
“Them or us,” David said quietly.
“It usually is,” she replied.
David waited, hoping the exadons would descend and devour the easy prey.
When David had seen the large animals at the river sink into the mud at sunset, he had formed his theory: the exadons hunted at night, principally via infrared, seeking heat and motion. The mud and earth served to cloak the great beasts from the exadons, balancing the ecosystem, except for when one wandered out at night, or in this case, screamed and rose out of their hiding place in pain.
David watched for any flicker of light, any moment—
The closest of the wailing beasts exploded in streaks of red, as if three massive steak knives had been drawn across its side. It rolled and threw mud in every direction—perhaps another innate defense mechanism. Patches of mud large and small flew through the air; some proceeded to fall, but many stopped and hung in the air.
Wings formed from nothingness, then long tails, and heads with a sharp spike at the end. David saw the mud-coated exadons in all their glory, ripping two of the large beasts apart. The other half of the macabre scene concerned him even more: three of the flying monsters were dragging another wounded animal away. They broke its legs and held it down, pressing their sharp talons into it. David saw it now: they were trying to lure out the remaining mud-bound animals who were forced to watch the others die.
David hoped they could resist, remain safe, stuck in the mud.
The exadons were smarter than he imagined—and more brutal.
David crawled backward on his belly, Sonja by his side.
When they couldn’t see the bloody scene at the river anymore, they stood and began jogging back to the camp.
The first shot grazed David’s shoulder. The second hit a skinny tree three feet away, shattering it, spraying David with splinters and throwing him to the ground. He was vaguely aware of Sonja returning fire, her hand on him, pulling him to cover.
Dorian watched David fall, but he kept firing. He wouldn’t take any chances.
The woman was returning fire, but she was only one; they were five.
He could easily cut the woman and David off, even lure them out. The camp had to be just down the path they had cut into the forest.
Dorian wanted to fire the final shots himself. He wanted to finish it.
He instructed two of his men to stay at the outcropping. “Keep firing on Vale and the woman. Pin them down. I’ll take the camp and then their position.”
Dorian led the other two men across the plain. The woman took a few shots at them, but they missed widely—she was shooting blind.
At the top of a ridge, Dorian got his first glimpse of the carnage at the river. Winged monsters coated in dirt and gore were ripping large animals to shreds in a convulsion of mud and blood that horrified even Dorian. What is this place?
He pumped his legs harder. He was almost to the opening. When he fired on the camp, David and the woman would have no choice but to attack, to come to him.
CHAPTER 20
The rapid blasts of gun fire woke Kate. She listened. Two sources. Back and forth. Shooting at each other.
She leapt out of the bed, grabbed her pack, and found Milo, Paul, and Mary outside their tents.
“Pack up,” Kate called to them. She ran from tent to tent, quickly entering the collapse command on the control panels.
The night was complete now, pitch black; the only sounds were gun fire, the rustling of the thick leaves and branches in the forest, and the wail of beasts in the distance. It made Kate’s skin crawl.
She tried to focus. The four of them scrambled to gather their things as the tents folded in on themselves.
“What now?” Paul asked Kate.
There was only one thing they could do. “Hide,” Kate said.
David was starting to get his breath back. Some of the splinters had penetrated the Atlantean suit, but it had kept a remarkable number out.
The group of rocks at their back took ano
ther barrage of bullets, showering them in pebbles and dust.
David searched his pack. What could he use?
Yes.
He pulled together some pieces of dead, dry underbrush, struck a match, and started a fire.
“Don’t let this go out,” he said. He took a grenade from the pack. “And cover me.”
He stayed low, running as fast as he could for the exadons at the river.
Dorian and the two soldiers were almost to the opening in the tree line when the man on his right lifted off the ground and screamed in pain. Blood spilled out of the soldier, and his feet kicked Dorian to the ground. For a few seconds, he floated there, just off the ground, then began thrashing back and forth, his blood coating…
One of the creatures.
Dorian opened fire, tearing into the monster and his own man, then swung the gun from side to side.
Two of the abominations fell to the green prairie. They flickered and popped, their scales like little mirrors. Were they machines or beasts? They bled. They were alive. And they could become invisible.
The field seemed to erupt at once.
A grenade blast at the edge of the plain. A wave of mud rose, the outlines of a half-dozen more winged creatures formed, and the massive animals that had been wallowing in the mud stormed out, catching the wrath of the mud-coated gargoyles.
Across the field, one of the men who had been firing on David from a rock outcropping cried out and flew into the air. The other turned and ran for the forest behind them, but he too was also taken, lifted, and shredded. His wails fading seconds after the beast caught him.
Dorian spun around, searching…
Where David and the woman had been, fire sprang up at the edge of the field, growing each second.
The monsters hunt via body heat. David’s trying to blind them, Dorian thought.
Behind him, he saw his salvation. Dorian pointed. “The cave. Hurry,” he said to his last soldier.
David grabbed another log, lit it in the fire, and hurled it into the field. The knee-high grass was green, but he hoped there was enough dead grass near the ground to burn. At the very least, maybe the underbrush at the tree line would ignite. All they needed was a line.
Kate could sense the jungle around her changing. It seemed to move: every leaf, branch, and tree crawled with creatures, as if they were fleeing some unseen enemy. Then Kate heard the explosion and smelled the smoke. What had happened? A new danger occurred to her. Here in this closed environment, they could suffocate. There was only one thing she wanted to do: run back toward the fire and find David. He would be furious with her if she did. She knew that, and she knew what she had to do.
She looked back at Paul, Mary, and Milo. “We need to hurry. If we don’t make it to the exit…”
Paul stepped forward and took the machete from Kate’s hand. “I’ll take the first turn. Rest.”
Dorian crept slowly up the rocky terrain. The smoke filled the air now, and the beam of his laser cut into it like a red line from a lighthouse crisscrossing the night. Any break in the line and he would fire instantly. It was his only chance to hit one of the beasts if it was coming for him.
But none did. They reached the mouth of the cave, which was about four feet in diameter. He poked his head inside and clicked his flashlight on quickly. Clear. And it was deep enough.
“Gather rocks,” he said to the soldier. “I’ll cover. We need to block the entrance so they can’t see our body heat.”
A few minutes later, a pile of stones lay just inside the cave. He and the man climbed in and arranged the rocks at the mouth, completely blocking it. They were safe, if they didn’t suffocate.
Dorian leaned against the wall, opposite the soldier. He thought he heard the man gurgle. A snore? Dorian couldn’t remember if the man had thrown up on the flight. Hopefully he was down to his best soldier. He would need one against David and his she-warrior.
Dorian’s mind drifted to the cave, an unfocused thought occurring to him: what kind of beast would live here?
The man gurgled again.
“Hey, no mouth breathing.”
The gurgle morphed into a wheeze.
Dorian kicked the man’s leg. The muscle was hard. Too hard. Dorian felt it with his boot. Too slender as well. The leg felt no more than eight inches around. The soldier was far bigger. The skin was smooth, almost slippery.
Dorian realized the truth a second before another thick cord closed around his neck, slithered between him and the wall, and coursed all around him, pinning his arms tightly to his body and pulling him to the ground. The enormous snake squeezed him, and Dorian felt his breath go out of him.
CHAPTER 21
David and Sonja marched back to back through the jungle, taking turns raking the red beam of the sight on the sniper rifle in oval circles, watching for any sign of the exadons. The smoke was closing in and so was fatigue, yet they pushed on, one foot after another.
Kate marveled at Milo. He had a well of energy she had never witnessed before. He had wrapped cloth around his hands where he gripped the machete. The blisters were the only thing slowing him down as he cut plant after plant and vines that Kate thought would never end.
Behind them, she heard rumbling in the jungle, the scattering of creatures from the trees and ground.
Paul, Mary, and Milo turned to look at her.
“Hide.”
Dorian could feel the life flowing out of him. The snake had wrapped itself around him from his neck to his knees, squeezing tighter every second.
He had enough for one move. He squirmed, rolled to his side, and bent forward, pushing, crunching, and then throwing himself back against the wall of the cave.
The snake held on, but the cord of muscle spasmed, relaxing for a fraction of a second—all Dorian needed. He drew the knife from his belt and stabbed down.
The snake’s mouth closed on his arm, the jaws crushing it. But the bite would be its undoing. Dorian took the knife in his other hand and stabbed again, plunging the sharp blade through the snake’s head and into his own forearm. He ignored the pain as he drew the knife out, the serrated back side ripping the vile creature’s head to pieces as it went. He stabbed once more with less force, and the snake went slack around him.
He reached for his pack, fumbling quickly in the dark, still holding the knife, ready for another attack.
He grasped the small cylinder and struck it. The flare illuminated the cramped space, smoke rolling off of it.
Dorian only caught a brief glimpse of the man before the smoke blotted him out, but the eyes stopped him cold. They were blank. The snake twisted, flailed, and released the man. It brushed Dorian as it retreated deeper into the cave, away from the fire and smoke.
Dorian lunged across the dead snake and felt for the man’s neck. A faint pulse. He needed air.
Dorian crawled to the stack of stones they had piled at the mouth of the cave and pushed through. An inferno raged outside. The field in the middle of the freak show arena burned brightly, a sharp contrast to the dark smoke rolling off.
Dorian dragged the man out of the cave and laid him out. He would live, for how much longer, Dorian didn’t know.
He picked him up and made for an indention in the rock—a place Dorian thought he could defend. He set the soldier aside, retrieved the two packs, and gathered another pile of stones.
Dorian tucked himself in the crevice and pulled the man on top of him, draping his body like a shield. If the man died, he would at least provide some camouflage. And if the gargoyles did attack, he would provide padding from their claws. Dorian stacked the rocks around them, hoping to blot out some of their heat.
He gripped his gun but didn’t bother waving the laser sight back and forth. The snake had taken the last bit of energy out of him. He felt drained, almost as badly as he felt every time he spoke with Ares. The Atlantean had him—had the entire human race—like the snake had taken Dorian in the cave: silently, unseen, in the dark, seizing him, squeezing, hoping to
take the last bit of life out of him and then devour the carcass.
He watched the fire consume the last of the field. As the flames subsided and the embers glowed, Dorian felt a new fire rising inside him.
Relief washed over Kate when she saw David gliding through the forest, following in the path they had cut.
“David,” she called, leaving her hiding place and running into his arms.
He grunted and turned his head slightly.
He was hurt. Her hands began searching him, finding where the blood was seeping from.
“I’m fine. Just some splinters.”
David surveyed the rest of the group.
“We need to hurry,” he said as he and Sonja took the lead and the others fell in.
Two hours later, the group was staring at the exit to Arc 1701-D.
There was only one problem: it was almost twenty feet from the floor.
David walked to where the last of the dark dirt met the hard composite the arc was made of. The soil was fine here. It was so bizarre.
The group focused on the two challenges at hand: getting the explosives up to the arc door then, assuming the blast broke through, getting everyone out. They exchanged ideas rapidly about how to reach the door; specifically, how to cut down a tree they could use to climb up: we use the machete; it would take too long. Use a bit of explosives; too risky—we might need all of them to get through. We come up short, we’re stuck here. Shoot the tree; we need the bullets for Dorian and the exadons, and the noise could bring trouble.