Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (70 page)

“I’m fine.” Hanging on Elei’s arm, he managed to put his legs under him and straighten. “Let’s go.”

And they did, lurching off, half-carrying Kalaes, shots ringing, deafening, colors flashing — like that would ever stop — and making little progress.

Cat meowed, small body flashing red in rapid beats, rubbing on a wall and again vanishing... where?

Without a word, Elei swung Kalaes right, toward the opening.

“What’s this?” Hera snapped.

“Safety”, Elei ground out. “Hurry.”

It was a narrow passage and at its end loomed a double metal door where Cat stood, purring.

This door was uncarved, a plain metal sheet that flashed blue in Elei’s possessed eye. He had no clue what lay behind it, and right now he didn’t particularly care. All that interested him was safety. A glance over his shoulder showed him Alendra and Sacmis hurrying after them, looking unharmed, and that was all he needed to know.

He left Kalaes with Hera and moved to the door. No handle, no cavity to sink your fingers into. He pushed, earning himself nothing but more stinging sweat. Damn the builders of this place anyway, for making everything so difficult.

A symbol glistened on the wall beside the door, and he touched it, fingers trembling. Nothing happened. They couldn’t open the door, couldn’t get in, couldn’t escape.

“Go to the hells!” he spat and banged his fist on the symbol, wanting to crush it, break it to pieces. “Go to—”

Slowly, ponderously, the doors swung inward, left him gaping.

“Snap out of it,” Hera said, “and help me.”

Kalaes hung in Hera’s arms, shivering. Elei caught him before he fell. Together they entered the cavernous place. Steps echoed behind them, and then Alendra and Sacmis pelted through, pushed the doors closed and snapped a lock into place with more presence of mind than Elei could muster.

The clank that followed, echoing deeply, had a finality to it. Elei slumped, Kalaes dragging both him and Hera down. They dropped to the floor, gasping for breath, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care about where he was or what might follow.

***

Cat was licking himself, meticulously rubbing a paw over his face and ear. Elei wished he could do the same; his face felt oily, his scalp itched with sweat, and he stank.

“What do you think of it?” Alendra sat cross-legged next to him, blond hair pulled back from her face in a high ponytail. It glittered like gold in the light from a bioluminescence tube above them in the domed hall.

Elei quickly turned away, looked back at Cat and the other three cats that were curled in a semi-circle. They gazed with bright blue eyes, their tails lashing the floor. If that was what Alendra was asking about... “There has to be a way out of here. These cats didn’t come through the door with us.”

“They must’ve found another way,” Alendra said.

But his mind was hardly on the pissing cats, or even the purpose of the domed ceiling towering over them and its dark recesses. He twisted to see Kalaes who lay on his back, his head tilted to the side, dark hair falling in his eyes. He seemed asleep, features slack, but for the glitter underneath thick lashes. Shivers traveled up and down his body, making him twitch, and he mumbled under his breath.

Sick. Burning up slowly
. The pills in the medic kit hadn’t beaten the fever. It was getting worse.

Fine white trails wound up the side of Kalaes’ neck like the patterns made by surf foam on a beach. Seated in relative peace for the first time in the gods knew how long, Elei frowned.
Palantin
.
Marks on the skin
. Why did he have a feeling there was something he ought to know, ought to realize, something vital he was forgetting?

And Rex was still beating inside his temples, shifting his vision from the surface of things to their inner reality and back, making him dizzy and confused.

Behind Kalaes, behind the parapet, the hall dropped sharply into a deep well, wide as the dome above, wide in fact as a building.
A hive
. Or so Hera had said. She’d recognized the symbol on the wall outside and had pointed at one such symbol on the map. Not that it meant anything good. They’d deviated from their course and there were no stairs here leading down to any tunnel across the straits.

Trapped
. The cats could saunter about as they liked, nobody would care to stop them, but humans weren’t that lucky.

He looked up. There were observation cameras, of course. Sacmis and Alendra had set about shooting them as soon as they’d shut the door. Probably too late, though, and besides, they couldn’t be sure they’d located them all.

He slid his fingers through his hair and returned his gaze to Cat who’d finished bathing and now blinked at him. “Where in the hells are Hera and Sacmis?”

Alendra sighed and reached over to pat a cat’s head. The cat eyed her hand with suspicion and licked it. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I think they went down there,” he said. His head throbbed dully. After they’d locked the door and backed away from it, after they’d made Kalaes comfortable and left him to rest, he’d had an argument with Hera. Elei couldn’t quite remember the words, only that it boiled down to this: Hera wanted to explore the place. Elei argued they had to rest. What was it with Gultur anyway; did they have dakron cubes in their chests, some sort of infinite energy source?

Sacmis had offered a compromise — she and Hera explore, the others rest. But when the time came to lie down, Elei hadn’t been able to, his heart racing, colors flashing and Hera’s face twisting. At least he’d been too exhausted to try and slit her throat, thank all the gods.

And Hera... she’d shoved him down next to Kalaes and ordered Alendra to lie on his other side, both keeping a hand on him, on his arms, just like they’d done in the aircar leaving Gortyn. It had worked. He’d finally calmed down and fallen into sleep so deep he couldn’t remember any dreams.

He glanced up at Alendra and quickly averted his gaze, heat rising in his cheeks, because she’d practically had to hold his hand to get him to sleep. Oh gods, he hoped he hadn’t drooled in his sleep, or said anything embarrassing, or tried to touch her. Hells.

“Do you hear something?” Alendra tilted her head to the side, ponytail swinging.

Low voices and steps. He stood and peered over the parapet. Narrow stairs made of metal spiraled down into the hole, bordering its vertical walls. Hera and Sacmis were climbing up, talking in whispers. He thought he could see the fine snakeskin, the mark of Regina, glittering on their throats.

“Maybe they found a way out.” Alendra’s mouth twisted. “Fat chance, huh?”

A door leading out to a passage, free of lurking enemies. Yeah, right. Another worry gnawing at his concentration was why the Gultur hadn’t broken down the door and killed them yet. They knew where they were, cameras or not. They’d been running right on their heels.

What were the Gultur waiting for?

Unable to hold still, he went to meet the two women at the top of the stairs.

“Elei,” Hera said in greeting. “You have to see this. All of you must.” Her face was a pale bloom in the darkness. Too pale. Frightened.

There wasn’t much that could frighten Hera. Elei’s stomach knotted. “See what?”

“I cannot... cannot tell you.” And Hera stuttering was even scarier. “You have to see it for yourselves.”

Elei nodded, hiding his fisted hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Fear and uncertainty gave Rex fuel, and a tic had started under his possessed eye. The colors flashed faster. Hera’s face was distorting, turning into that of a nightmarish foe.

Elei took a step back. He had to keep calm. He could. Rex might be strong, but without sweet to feed on, the parasite couldn’t get much stronger.

Hear that, Rex? I’ll fight you
.

At least he’d do his best.

Chapter Sixteen

“K
al, hey.”
Elei shook Kalaes’ shoulder. Feverish heat seeped through the sweat-soaked cloth. “Wake up.”

“Are we leaving?” There was hope in Kalaes’ rough voice, gleaming through the exhaustion like a bullet inside a wound. “Found the damn tunnel?”

Elei shook his head and tried to help Kalaes sit. “You need to drink some water.”

“You should leave.” Kalaes resisted Elei’s tug. “Get outta here, head back. To a place where the damn Gultur can’t find you.”

“There’s no such place, Kal.” Well, apart from death, he guessed. Hadn’t they had this discussion before? “We need to—”

“You’ll be fine.” Kalaes was staring at him, his dark eyes bright. “You’re tough. That’s why Pelia chose ya, I’ll bet. Near indestructible. And you got Hera and Alendra. Hells, even Sacmis could turn out to be an okay person, you never know.”

“What are you...” Elei stopped trying to move him, ice trickling down his spine. It sounded too much like a goodbye. “Shut up, Kal. I’ve got you, too.”

Kalaes snorted, gaze going inward and hazy. “I’m no good anyway. Told ya. Not the best of big brothers.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one I got.” Elei gritted his teeth and forced Kalaes to move with him. He propped him against the parapet. “And I’m not letting you off the hook so easy, so forget it. We’ll find a way out, get treatment for you, and we’ll go home.”

Kalaes said nothing — or if he did, Elei couldn’t hear it above the static in his head. This couldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t let it happen. Gods, what in the hells did Hera want to show them that trumped the need of finding an exit right now?

He gave Kalaes water and practically forced him to eat a piece of blue bread. Hera was already going down, Sacmis’ blond head barely visible in front of her. “Elei, are you coming?” she called. “It’s a hive. A hive.”

As if that was supposed to mean something to him. He shrugged, eyed Kalaes’ sweaty face, the way his chest rose and fell rapidly as if he’d been running for miles. “What about an exit?” he called back.

“None that we could see,” Hera said, her voice fading into an echo as she climbed lower and out of sight.

A weight settled on Elei’s shoulders. “Damn.” He left Kalaes sitting with the bottle in his hand, leaned over the rail, and it was mostly to hide his face from Kalaes.
You’re tough. That’s why Pelia chose you. Near indestructible
. The words buzzed in his head. Was that why Pelia had taken him in, then? Not because he looked frail, but because he looked strong?

It left a slightly bitter taste in his mouth, but what the hells. He squared his shoulders. He could live with that. He could be strong. For Kalaes, he could. “I’ll be right back.”

He went down, the cold seeping through the metal rail into his hand. Dust particles floated on the air, caught in the light of overhanging fungi, like clouds of crystal fragments.

The steps led to a landing, and then a platform at least twenty feet wide which wound around the void. Sacmis stood on it, her longgun hanging loose in her hand. Beside her was Alendra, head tilted, hands gripping the straps of her backpack. Neither of them seemed to notice his approach.

Elei stepped past. Hera stood a few paces ahead. She held up a glowing mushroom cap she must’ve torn from a wall and in the spectral radiance of its bubble of light, he could clearly see the curvature of the wall, and on it... no, not on it.
Inside
. Inside were long, man-sized niches and...

Elei sucked in a sharp breath and sidestepped Hera, sure his gritty eyes were playing tricks. He scrubbed a hand over them, but when he looked again, the niches were still there, and in them the human bodies.

“What in the hells.” Sacmis’ whisper drifted to him. A scuffle of foot against stone, a rustle of cloth, an exhale. “Are they...?”

“Dead.” Elei licked dry lips, swallowed down bile. “I think so.”

“We cannot be sure,” Hera said, coming to stand next to him.

“Can’t be sure?” He cocked his head to the side, the words cawing inside his head like crows, shrill and meaningless. He took a few steps closer to the wall. The bodies were sealed in semi-transparent boxes, stacked one on top of the other, their heads toward the passage. He trailed his fingertips on smoky glass. “What about this one?” The top of the case was cracked, spiderweb fissures fanning out, and the head... desiccated, yellowed, skin sunken into the bones. The bile rose again in Elei’s throat and he had to fight to keep it down. “Looks dead to me.”

“A malfunction perhaps,” Hera said, “or something broke the case. But all the others might be still alive.”

All the others
. Elei stumbled back. Rows and rows of cases, neatly stacked, lit here and there by bunches of hanging fungi, following the curve of the wall around the pit, spiraling down. “Pissing hells. How many?”

Hera rolled her shoulders, squinted up. “Hard to be sure. Hundreds. In this hive alone.”

“What is this place?” Alendra muttered. “These aren’t just tunnels and storerooms, are they?”

“This is a colony.” Hera’s expression was distant as she brushed dust off the wall, revealing an inscription engraved in the stone. “Was a colony. This is the same language as the manuscript we found in Hecate’s box. But look at this.” Below the inscription, smaller letters were etched into the gray material. Elei thought he recognized words.

“A bilingual text,” Alendra said, a flutter of excitement in her voice. “A way to decipher it.”

“What does it say?” Elei tried to see but the angle was wrong. “A colony? You mean this underground place?”

“No,” Hera said, “I mean the Seven Islands.”

Silence greeted her words. She didn’t look at any of them as she brushed her forefinger over the engraving. “Just listen.” She hunched her shoulders as if bracing for something. “You stand in Hive 31, tower 5, Ert. Date of construction 2294.”

“I don’t understand. 2294?” Elei glanced from Hera’s stony face to Sacmis’ eager one. “That was like a thousand years ago.”

“That’s not all, is it?” Sacmis breathed. “What else does it say, Hera?”

Hera swept off more dust, carefully, delicately, her fingers trembling. “Location: South Atlantic. Greco-Egyptian Underwater Colony, due to Emerge in 2912. Information at any GKL800 point.”

“That’s us?” Elei blinked. “The colony... it’s this island? These people,” he gestured at the niches, “were supposed to wake up and live here?”

Sacmis shook her head, blond ponytail whipping her neck. “Does it mean the islands used to be completely submerged and then emerged? Why would they be underwater in the first place?”

Hera reached out and caught Sacmis’ forearm, silencing her. In the ringing quiet, she said, “I promise you all, we’ll find out.”

***

“Well, here we are.” Sacmis took a sip from a bottle. They’d climbed out of the hive, and rested in the great hall. “Nobody has broken down the door, and we’re still alive.” Her gray eyes followed Hera who paced like a caged animal. The rest of them sat on the floor, looking morose.

Nobody had spoken another word about the inscription, the bodies, the implications and the questions raised. Elei was grateful. It was too much to process, and his worry about Kalaes blotted out everything else. Right now, he only cared about getting out, finding a doctor and medicine. The riddles could wait.

“They’re waiting us out,” Hera said. “And that leaves one explanation.”

Elei had feared as much. He rubbed his chest, trying to ease his breathing; it felt like a rock had lodged behind his breastbone. “There’s no way out, is there? They’re leaving us here to rot.”

Alendra flinched and he wished he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t scared her, but things being as they were, it wouldn’t change anything.

“No control panels, no buttons, no levers, no data processors.” Hera stopped at the parapet, looking down, hands tight on the rail. “Either the controls are hidden or there’s a control room elsewhere. No doors apart from the one we crossed, no trapdoors, no windows or any other indication of an exit.”

“Nobody makes rooms without an emergency exit,” Alendra said. “A pity the cats can’t tell us how they got in here.”

The cats in question lounged nearby, five of them now, including Cat, blinking sleepily in the half-darkness, not excited to be talked about. Their eyes were eerie blue.

Elei scrubbed his face, as if that could erase the headache pounding in the back of his eyes, the colors playing on every surface, coming and going, disorienting and dizzying. “Maybe if we start walking they’ll show us the way.”

“Actually, that is not a bad idea,” Sacmis said, rising gracefully to her feet and bending to lift Kalaes. “Rex is supposed to make them help us.”

“Only if he’s in danger,” Alendra pointed out as Elei got to his feet. “Right, Elei?”

Hera took a step toward Elei, dark hair spilling over her shoulders like ink. “I could make Rex believe he’s in danger.”

“Oh yeah? So why don’t you try to strangle him again,” Kalaes wheezed, pushing off Sacmis and stepping in Hera’s way, “and see if Rex gets pissed?”

Hera blinked, her whole body vibrating. “You know I would not harm him.”

“Do I?” Kalaes lifted his chin. “Your marks are spreading,” he gestured at her throat. “How much control have you got over yourself?”

“Enough,” she countered, meeting his gaze unflinching, though a tremor went through her shoulders. “I can control Regina.”

“Can you now?” Kalaes frowned, opened his mouth to say something more, and bent over. Alendra steadied him.

Elei’s heart hammered. “Dammit, Kal.” He stood between him and Hera. “Stop this, both of you.”

“I just don’t want her trying to strangle you when I’m not here to stop her,” Kalaes wheezed, sweat dripping down his face. “Promise me, Hera.”

“Promise what?” Her brows were drawn over her eyes and her shoulders were hunched, but her voice was soft and miserable. “Kal?”

“Hey.” Elei gripped Kalaes’ arm. “Let it go. Please.” Whether Hera or himself would hold onto their control until the end wasn’t something they could foresee. The whole exchange made him feel raw with fear.

“Promise me that you won’t hurt him,” Kalaes said. “Promise me, Hera. I saved your ass in Dakru City. You owe me this much.”

“You.” Hera didn’t move, and her arms trembled. “Idiot. No need to promise you anything. You’ll stop me if I lose control.”

“But if I don’t, you...” Kalaes’ voice cracked, his lips twisted. “Dammit, promise me, Hera!”

Hera grunted, bowed her head, her long hair hiding her eyes. “I promise.”

For all the good it will do, Elei thought, and yet another exchange that sounded like goodbye,
dammit
, and if they’d just get moving....

He swayed. A blinding pulse went through the domed hall, and nausea churned his stomach. His pulse thumped in his throat, speeding, racing, and he wasn’t sure why, why now, what had changed—

Sweet sugary scent hit his nostrils, so strong he staggered back, his hold on Kalaes the only reason he didn’t fall on his ass.

“Gultur,” he croaked. “Lots of them.”

“Damn them.” Hera kicked at the parapet. “They were not going to wait us out, were they?”

Sacmis shook her head. “They were waiting for reinforcements.”

The scent rose and fell like an ocean wave, like music, sharper and lighter notes, sweeter and fruitier, flowers and fermented honey weaving through shrill acid notes, shifting on the still air. The cats seemed to notice, too. They stirred and stretched, arching their backs and hissing, and his tainted eye took over, switching to infrared.

“Elei, snap out of it.” Alendra shook him. He knew her voice but couldn’t see her face — all was lost to pulsing heat signatures, orange and yellow and bright red.

“I’m fine.” He pulled back from her grasp and glanced around. Cat meowed, tail up like a red flag. The other cats paced around Elei, leaving honeyed streaks in his vision. He knelt down, patted Cat’s bullet head. His pulse beat in his wrists, in his fingers, and Cat growled and licked his palm. “Do you feel it too?” Elei whispered.