Angel of Doom (28 page)

The door shook as fists struck it.

“You are trapped, humans! Surrender!” came the shout from the other side. Domi recognized the alien resonance, as if the voice were echoing in upon itself, vibrating along different wavelengths. This was akin to the tones of the Annunaki, although these creatures hardly had the depth and power of the overlords. These must have been subordinates, mere minions, though their challenge was one of malice, so these weren't emotionless drones or thralls. “Throw out your weapons!”

“All right,” Domi conceded, shouting loud. “Give 'em weapons.”

Edwards smirked, his Sin Eater snapping into the palm of his hand. “Bullets first?”

“Duh,” Domi responded.

Edwards winked at Smaragda. “That means we blow the crap out of these alien scum.”

Smaragda chuckled. “I was hoping you meant that.”

CAT Beta aimed their weapons at the door but only Domi and Edwards fired, the feral girl's .45 and the Magistrate's pistol having the punch to cut through the door between them and their opponent. The two gunshots were loud in the small room, even with their hoods on to filter their hearing, but the audio pickups rewarded the two shooters with the sound of strangled pain and a body dropping to the floor.

While it might have seemed more impressive for all four of them to cut loose, hosing streams of bullets through the door, they wanted to maintain their coverage as much as possible. Such a vulgar display of firepower would have been a waste of ammunition and weakened their first line of defense. Rather, the marksmanship of Domi and Edwards had eliminated one of their opponents without compromising the door.

That did not prevent their foes from opening fire, and from the racket, Domi could tell that the Stygians were using the captured rifles of the Olympians. The door's thickness absorbed most of the volley of return fire, only a few projectiles here and there managing to punch all the way through, their energy spent and turning them from lethal bullet into impotent rain clattering on the stone floor. Already, Domi was glad at their defensive position being an advantage that grew. As long as the humanoid minions of Vanth and Charun wasted their ammunition, they would be less likely and capable of bringing the fight to
CAT Beta, while the cooler, calmer heads of the four defenders waited for an opportunity to fight back effectively.

“Brains
and
brawn,” Domi growled as she let the Stygians spend their energy and time in their futile initial assault.

* * *

B
RIGID
B
APTISTE HEARD
Kane speak the words of her posthypnotic suggestion, the key word that would break the conditioning that she'd unfortunately inflicted upon the others. She took a step away from Vanth as they entered one of the libraries she'd been boasting about.

The half-naked goddess casually followed Brigid's defensive movement, her efforts to create distance between them, and her lush, beautiful lips turned up into a smile.

“So, you've finally dropped your pretenses?” Vanth inquired.

Brigid narrowed her eyes. “You are the one who has been lying and subverting minds, my own included.”

“Subverting my mind,” Vanth mimicked, except as she spoke she turned Brigid's tone higher, whinier, showing disdain for the human woman. “Your minds? You were built from the ground up to be slaves, servants to alien gods.”

“And yet we've sent them scattered to the four corners of the Earth, stripped of their power and superiority,” Brigid challenged. She pulled the TP-9 from its holster, leveling it at Vanth. “I will not fire upon an unarmed, helpless opponent, but if you prove that you're not harmless…”

“You seek to instill fear into me?” Vanth asked. “As a child, I hunted the mightiest of beasts, naked, unarmed. The creature's tusk marks still line my belly, but I broke its neck.”

Brigid glanced down to the stomach of the seven-foot woman, seeing the faint lines of a long-healed cut. She
focused on the sights once more, matching Vanth's glare. “So, you believe you can take a spray of bullets without harm?”

“I am she who mothered the legends of Artemis and Atlanta,” Vanth growled. “These limbs have shattered tree trunks as if they were twigs. Without a weapon, I am mighty. With them, I am invincible!”

Brigid circled back toward the doorway, relying on her impeccable photographic memory to navigate without looking where she stepped.

Vanth's lip curled in dismissal. “You threaten me with a rain of lead and fire, and yet you cannot pull the trigger?”

“And you just see me holding my firearm with one hand, not wondering what the other is doing,” Brigid returned.

Vanth's eyes glanced to Brigid's other hand, which was empty. She looked back along the Cerberus archivist's path and saw a small disk lying on the ground.

A moment later a brilliant flare of light blazed in the room. Brigid Baptiste didn't delude herself that she'd carry enough firepower to wound a god, but if Vanth's vision and other senses were of the same superhuman nature as her physique, then the brilliance of one million candle-power blazing into her eyes would buy her moments, if not minutes.

Vanth screamed, agonized by the flash, and Brigid whirled, ducking into the hall. Though her own vision had blurred, Brigid relied on that photographic memory to map out her course of escape and evasion. Behind her, Vanth roared in fury, furniture shattering under hammer blows from those “bare hands” the demigoddess boasted of.

“Witch! I shall peel the flesh from your scalp, crush your skull and drink your brains!” Vanth bellowed.

Now I see the species resemblance to Charun, Brigid
mused as she hurtled down one corridor after another. By the time she'd run a hundred yards from Vanth, her emerald eyes could clearly take in her surroundings once more. Vanth's rantings and crashing fists were still distant behind, which meant Brigid had the opportunity to find the detour Charun had led Kane and Grant off upon.

That bit of navigation was simplicity for her, and she charged on, finding a stairwell that throbbed with the continuous explosions of distant gunfire.

“Domi and the others are awake, as well,” Brigid mused as she descended the steps. “And Vanth lied about being the only two entities from her world to be on this side of the wormhole.”

Taking the steps quickly, jumping when she could, Brigid was glad for the brace she'd wound around her formerly sprained ankle, as well as the day's worth of rehabilitation of the tender joint. Each landing was a spike of discomfort, but it was nothing more than a reminder of her mortality, not a crippling loss of footing.

Reaching the floor where the gunfire resounded most strongly, Brigid entered the corridor. She paused only long enough to pull more of her package of surprises from its hiding space inside her boot and the wrap at her ankle.

Vanth's screech at the top of the stairwell informed Brigid of the demigoddess's arrival. After seeing the way Charun had armored up, she knew that Vanth was also likely to be fully decked out with armor and her other gear.

Brigid put an adhesive patch on the back of her slim, flat automated munition, set it to motion-sensor mode and continued onward. The hi-ex device was designed for use in multiple manners, almost all of them antipersonnel and capable of damaging light armor upon detonation. In some instances, it could be used for demolition, could be buried and would go off with the vibration of a group of
troops walking past, or stuck to a wall, utilizing infrared beams as trip wires.

It was amazing how clever mankind had been in the production of weapons of death and destruction, Brigid thought, but then she was thankful. There was an enraged goddess on her heels, so showing disgust at the aptitude of humanity toward warfare and armory was intellectually dishonest and incongruous. She glanced back to see Vanth hover down to the entrance to this level, glowing, feathery white wings unfurled behind her back.

“Now what toys do you hav—” Vanth began, floating forward. The munition on the wall detected her and the corridor shook as if a thunderbolt had struck it. Brigid kept going, knowing that Vanth's armor would provide more protection than the light mine could overcome.

Brigid entered an armory, seeing their lost Manta as well as a group of slender, pallid humanoids looking on toward some spectacle. She changed direction, letting the bulk of the transonic craft cover her movements, but as she neared the nose of the Manta she saw that Kane and Grant were engaged in a pitched battle with each other.

“Oh, that is unfortunate,” Brigid murmured as Grant lifted Kane from the ground by his throat with both hands.

* * *

G
RANT FELT THE
flutter of fingers along his jawline, and then he was no longer in contact with the outside world via the cybernetic communicator he'd been wearing only a moment before. The plate, worn outside and attached via pintles to the bone beneath the skin, was another of the wonders of Manitius base technology that the explorers of Cerberus had added to their adventuring kit. They were meant to maintain a constant flow of communication between the CAT members and Cerberus Redoubt, ensuring that no one would be lost or out of touch for long.

The truth was that, as with any technology, there were
times when it wouldn't or couldn't work. Especially in the face of opposition that had its own communications networks and a modicum of electronic countermeasures and radio jamming. Still, the ease of the Commtact over bulky, regular radios was worth being stuck with a metal plate on your cheekbone that could be reduced to an expensive decoration rather than a phone to home.

Charun, beside him, had been jarred from his reverie in showing Grant around the Stygians' armory, turning and looking on in shock. “Oh no…Kane has fallen under the control of Vanth, Grant!”

The words had landed inside Grant's brain like an avalanche, the stones sharp and heavy as they battered against any thoughts he tried to entertain.

“…under the control of Vanth,” Grant repeated. His vision blurred and his heart rate suddenly accelerated. Genuine shock and surprise bubbled up within him and suddenly Charun staggered, his chest splashed with blood. Grant easily recognized the chatter of a Sin Eater, which made his confusion all the stronger as he turned back and saw Kane, gun in hand, smoke wisping from the end of the barrel.

“Vanth betrayed me.” It was a soft whisper in Grant's ear. He imagined it as a whisper, but in all probability Charun was speaking to him directly, mind to mind.

“Kane? What do you think you're doing?” Grant asked, stepping between the staggered, bloody Charun and his friend. He looked Kane over, but there were no words from his friend. If anything, Kane clawed at his throat, as if something was stuck there.

Anger flashed in Kane's cold blue eyes as he lifted the Sin Eater again, leveling it at the wounded demigod, his finger taking up the slack on the machine pistol's trigger.

“Kane?” Grant asked. “Kane! Snap out of it! Don't shoot him! Kane!”

With that shout, Grant hurled himself forward, heedless of the danger to himself. Kane raised his gun once more and Grant charged in, his fist a piston of steel slamming into his friend's stomach to keep him from pulling the trigger and gunning down the helpless, wounded demigod. The blow knocked the wind out of Kane, much to Grant's relief. The shadow suit's protective abilities prevented the possibility of an organ rupture, but also allowed enough force through to keep the gunman from firing at Charun.

Charun had just said that he'd been betrayed by his lover, Vanth, and that the selfsame goddess had seized command of his friend's thoughts. No matter what kind of control the alien witch could have wielded over Kane, there was little chance that he'd gun down Grant. Even so, he was glad the shadow suit provided some measure of small-arms protection.

With a leap, he was atop Kane, shoving his arm aside. The gun didn't fire, so that meant Kane did have some measure of self-control. Grant squeezed hard on his friend's wrist in the hope of making the smaller man drop the weapon. “You're not in your right mind. You can't kill Charun!”

Gunfire resounded in the distance, almost as if the floodgates of sanity had shattered, waves of madness flushing through the hallways.

Kane could only issue a croak from his lips and Grant took that as a sign of Vanth's command of his mind. In a flash, something hard slammed against Grant's jaw, snapping his head up and back. It wasn't Kane's closed fist, rather his forearm. Grant recognized the martial arts maneuver, one that was meant to apply the most force possible to inflict a burst of sensory input on nerves and blood vessels at the juncture of neck and jaw.

Properly placed, the blow could render an opponent insensate without causing bone damage. The impact was
not delivered with a closed fist, as it would break knuckles and render fingers stiff and useless. Rather, a forearm or elbow—both thicker and more heavily protected than the lighter carpal bones—delivered the stunning attack.

Grant's instincts had kicked in swiftly enough that he'd avoided the bulk of the punch, but he was still dazed. Putting Kane down without killing him was going to be a challenge, as both men were equally well-trained, and where Grant possessed superior strength, Kane was faster and more agile.

Grant also possessed a longer reach, so he immediately pushed Kane away to his arm's length. The stiffened edge of Kane's hand sliced through the air, missing Grant's face. The karate chop was something a little more dangerous, but when focused on the side of the neck or that cluster of nerves and blood vessels, had the same effect as a forearm smash. The karate chop also had the potential of hitting
too hard
, possibly breaking an enemy's neck. Even with the non-Newtonian cushioning of his shadow suit, Grant realized that Vanth's mind control was pushing Kane to deadlier measures.

With a kick to the stomach, he vaulted Kane halfway across the floor.