Ibenus (Valducan series) (38 page)

"We're good. Used a lot of ammo," she said.

"Any idea where you are?" Malcolm asked.

"Not really. They've changed it."

"Well, we're getting close. Signal is getting better." Malcolm paused, shining his down a crawlway, then continued on. Victoria glanced through it as she passed, seeing the back of another trap door.

A faint
coo
trailed up from the passage behind them. Victoria swung her light around, searching the hall but seeing nothing. She held her breath, listening. She flinched as something touched her shoulder.

"Come on," Orlovski whispered, his eyes scanning the tunnel. "They have to know we're here. Let's find the others before they come for us." He cracked a bright green glow stick and dropped it on the floor. "Maybe we'll see shadows if one moves past it."

They continued on, Victoria regularly checking behind them. The green light faded as they rounded a turn. The hall split several times, opening into various chambers, traces of old graffiti still clinging to the freshly-furrowed walls. An elaborate gossamer construction dominated one chamber, completely covering three walls. Geometric tubes, like some over-sized wasp nest, studded the far side. Most of the cells were empty, but a few were sealed with rounded caps.

"Christ," she breathed.

Orlovski's light played across the sealed chambers, revealing pale doll faces, as if preserved beneath cloudy cling wrap like packaged toys. "Fuck this."

One of the eggs shuddered, the screamer inside writhing. The surface stretched. Twin pincers emerged, slicing through the membrane, unleashing a gurgled cry. Malcolm rushed inside, his palm up. The creature froze and Hounacier slashed across, killing the monster in its womb. Black froth sizzled out. More of the cells began to twitch. Malcolm hacked and chopped, shredding the nest and everything inside it.

Screams erupted behind them, coming both ways up the hall.

Victoria spun, her chest tightening. She moved the light up the hall, searching for the first sign of movement.
Here we go
.

"Let's move," Malcolm snapped, steam wisping from his bloodstained machete.

They hurried down the passage. The cries grew closer, rising and falling in waves. The tunnel opened into a domed chamber. Patterns of white stones crusted the upper curve like a cathedral mosaic. Screamers seethed out from the far doorway, spreading out across the etched walls. Victoria fired into the mass of legs and faces pouring in but hit nothing.

The light on Orlovski's gun zeroed in on a single bug among the throng. He fired, splattering black, and moved to the next. "One at a time. Pace your shots." He killed another, then another, the shots in rhythmic time.

Circling back to back, Victoria focused on one moving along the ceiling. She fired, blasting stone.
Damn it
. Clenching her teeth, she sighted it again and blew it in half with a perfect shot.
Don't get cocky
, she joked in her mind. She moved to the next one, firing as it lined up.

More wailing bugs poured in from the doorway they’d entered. Victoria shot two of them before they joined the ranks swirling around them.

Pausing his firing, Malcolm threw out his palm to a wave surging across the floor. The front line reeled back, the ones behind them spilling over only to recoil at the eye tattoo’s power. Malcolm and Orlovski peppered the ranks with bullets before they could recover.

Dust trickled down through the beam of Victoria's light. She looked up. Several of the screamers dug at the ceiling stones, pincers gnawing between them. The sheet of stones sagged as it peeled free. It rippled and bulged, more loose rocks shifting beneath it. A fist-sized stone fell, thudding between her and Orlovski. The Russian didn't appear to notice as he emptied his magazine in a closing wave.

"Roof," she yelled. "They're bringing it down!" She shoved Orlovski out of the way as dust and rocks began to fall.

"Move," Malcolm shouted. Palm out front, he ran for the exit, shooting and stomping bugs as he cut a path. A crackling rip thundered above and stones rained down as they fled. Dust billowed past, enveloping her and dimming their lights. A flat wedge beamed off Orlovski's helmet, eliciting a grunt. Victoria lurched to the side as a head-sized rock smashed down right in front of her.

A screamer scuttled toward her, jaws open. She lifted her gun just as a falling rock smashed the screamer to pulp.

Eyes stinging with dust, Victoria charged toward the glow of light moving ahead and dove through the exit.

"This way!" Malcolm shouted.

Someone was firing a few feet away but she couldn't see through the dust. The screams were lesser now, most of the brood killed serving as distraction. Spidery legs clawed at her calf, the pronged tips digging into her skin. It scrambled around to the outside of her leg. Yelping, Victoria swatted the flat of Ibenus down, knocking the creature free before its jaws found her.

The lights ahead cut to the side. Choking on dust, Victoria rounded a corner to find Malcolm and Orlovski.

"Are you okay?" Malcolm coughed. The white powder completely covered him.

Victoria rubbed at her teary eyes. "Yeah."

"Thank you," Orlovski panted. Crimson spread across the dust on the back his hand from a ragged cut.

"No problem."

New cries called from the darkness behind them. Victoria raked her gritty tongue along her teeth and spat. "They're still coming."

Malcolm checked the bottle. Five red spheres moved inside the plastic walls, three behind them. Two were ahead. "They're just sending the minions. They could do this all day. We need to find them. Put `em down." He peered up the corridor ahead. "Come on."

They hurried down the tunnel, their lights bouncing along the walls. Fresh cries joined the ones behind them. The hall split and Malcolm chose the left passage. It led to another egg chamber, though the cells were all empty. Victoria wondered if their former inhabitants had been the ones they'd faced in the cathedral. The tight hall continued on, winding through several turns before it ended at a blank wall.

"Shit." Malcolm shone his light around, searching for an exit. "Wrong tunnel."

Victoria glanced down the passage behind them, the incessant wails growing louder.
I fucking hate that noise
.

"Back," Malcolm ordered. "Before they trap us."

Weapons ready, Victoria led the retreat, charging toward the advancing cries. The narrow walls scraped her shoulders as she ran, pausing long enough at each turn to make sure it was clear before continuing on. The egg chamber was just ahead. They only needed to get there first, spread out side by side, and kill the bugs at the entrance.

Victoria checked the next corner and froze. Spindly legs curled around the far corners. Too late.

"Contact." She brought the gun up as the doll face emerged into view and she fired. Another screamer launched itself into the hall before the first blackening corpse hit the floor. Victoria fired, missing it by a hair, but the next shot splattered it.

She moved forward, pistol trained on the corner. A screamer lunged out as she drew near, its jaws open. Victoria fired, knocking it back, but still alive. She squeezed the trigger but nothing happened.

Damn it
. She'd forgotten to reload. "I'm out!"

The screamer staggered to its feet, inky blood running from a gash in it side.

"Down!" Orlovski shouted behind her.

Victoria dropped to a crouch and Orlovski's gun fired above her. The screamer tumbled backward in a mist of black slime and Victoria was up, Ibenus before her as she charged the last few feet before turning into the egg chamber.

Screamers raced from the shadows, closing in. Victoria swiped, blinked, and lopped one off the wall. Spinning, she blinked again and appeared behind another. The bug halted, looking around for its now missing prey. It started to turn but Victoria's boot crunched down on top of it, squirting an arc of foul guts across the floor.

Orlovski rushed in beside her, his pistol
popping
. Within three seconds of entering the room, the cursed screams had silenced.

Victoria stole a moment to load her last magazine as Malcolm checked the door. She'd have given anything for those shots she'd wasted earlier.

Luiza's team was chattering in Victoria's ear as they fought their own wave of monsters.

"Come on." Malcolm surged into the lead. They hurried back to the last intersection and started down the path.

A loud
boom
came through the radio, followed by an echo up the hall.

"That Dämoren I hear?" Malcolm asked.

"You know it," Matt replied, a second shot punctuating the sentence.

"We have to be close," Malcolm said. "Everyone keep an eye out for lights so we don't shoot each other."

They hurried down the tunnel, crouching as the ceiling shrank lower and lower. Infant wails and the muted
pops
of suppressed gunfire sounded ahead. They passed the back of another trapdoor and emerged in a tall, narrow tunnel. Human bones, dry and yellow with age, accented the stones along the walls and floor, arranged in wavy lines like some impressionist seascape. Red and blue lights moved in the darkness ahead.

“Luiza, that you?” Malcolm called.

“We see you,” Luiza replied in the radio.

The corridor widened to over ten feet. A side passage broke off to the left before the hall ended at a narrow, floor to ceiling fissure in the far wall. Lined with tiny finger and toe bones, the crack opened to no more than nine inches at its widest, tapering at the top but continuing down, as if forever. Pale blue light flickered on the far side, showing the wall to be over six feet thick. A figure stepped into view, silhouetted by the ghostly demon fire, a red light atop its head shone through the fissure cutting a crimson path across the passage.

“Mal?” Luiza called.

“Yeah,” Malcolm replied. “Everyone all right?”

“We’re fine. We can’t find any way through.”

Mal glanced back at the side passage. “They have to meet somewhere.”

“Listen, we found a hidden door that goes deeper into the nest. Do they have it all tiled on that side?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re hiding doors behind it. The demons have been holding back there and sending all their drones out. We were just lucky enough to see them using one, otherwise we wouldn’t have found it.”

Victoria scanned the paved patterns in the walls and floor, suddenly hyper-aware of how easily a door might be hidden. How many had they passed? How many demons and screamers waited on the other side, readying to swarm out once their backs were turned?

“We almost caught TommyD,” Mal said.

“Where?” Chaya asked.

“Just before we found the nest. Dumb bastard was trying to catch one in a trap.”

“Did they get him?” a hopeful edge to her voice.

“Got away. Dropped his gun and Gerhard’s pistol.”

A distant giggle pulled Victoria away from the conversation. Orlovski must have heard it as well, his pistol light coming up, scanning the floors and entrances.

“No Umatri?” Chaya was asking.

“No. But he stuck a demon with it so we know he still has it.”

Another giggle. Listening, Victoria stepped away from the crack.
What is that? Scratching?
She pulled the bud from right ear and cocked her head. A faint scurrying, like a hundred tiny rat claws within the walls. But she knew they weren’t rats. “Mal.” Fear tinged her voice more than she'd intended.

Malcolm turned. A
coo
drifted from some indeterminate direction.

“They’re coming,” Matt said. Wails sounded in the distance on their side of the wall.

“Mal.” Urgency sharpened Luiza’s words. “Listen, intel was wrong. They can make more than six screamers. A lot more.”

“We found nurseries,” Malcolm said. “Like bullets in a gun. Kill one, another hatches.”

“Three beads,” Matt yelled. A tidal wave of baby screams surged up through the crevice.

“Don’t waste your time on the drones,” Luiza shouted. “Follow the compass to the demons. Kill the masters.”

Chaya tossed a glow stick down the crag. It tumbled between the narrow walls, briefly lighting a mass of black-eyed doll faces before being swallowed up beneath the spidery mass.

“Contact!” Chaya shouted.

More wails sounded from the halls. Malcolm glanced at the compass and stabbed Hounacier toward the side passage. “Two that way.”

Ibenus in hand, Victoria hurried after Malcolm as screaming bugs boiled out from the gap and far tunnel. Shots sounded behind her, and voices squawked through the rubber bud dangling beside her ear.

The passage curved around. More infant wails came from ahead. The tunnel split Screamers poured up from the right-side passage. The left appeared clear.

“Down here,” Malcolm shouted bringing his palm up at the closing bugs. “They’re trying to herd us the other way.”

The screamers recoiled from the warding tattoo and Victoria lunged forward, cleaving through the ranks.

“Keep moving.” Orlovski’s gun popped, blasting one as it peeked out from a crevice in the wall. “They’re right behind us.”

Victoria chopped a screamer and front kicked another scurrying across the wall, crushing it into a row of vertebrae. Hot steam filled the passage like a sauna. Tears welling at the stink of rotten meat, she moved onward, deeper into the tunnel as they fought their way through the swirling horde.

Orlovski's shots continued behind them, but Victoria didn't look. They rounded the hall, entering a circular chamber, its walls tiled with the faces of human skulls. Jagged clusters of teeth jutted from the eye sockets, glistening like ivory crystals.

Victoria scanned her light across the room. “No exit.” She eyed the ceiling but the morbid tile-work didn't cover the entire dome.

"Son of a bitch," Malcolm yelled. The twin beads of his blood compass pointed straight down. "They're under us."

Following the compass' direction, Victoria searched the floor for a seam, but only for an instant before Orlovski charged in, running backwards, his gun trained on the flood of screaming bugs.

"I'd give anything for your old sawed-off," Orlovski panted. Black blood speckled his cheek and glasses.