Stone Soldiers 6: Armageddon Z (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The fight was not going well for Decklaa. She could ignore the sandpaper-like texture of the concrete, skinning up her
feet, knees and elbows when she was knocked down. She could even repair the bone-crushing punches and kicks from the soldier in black. But not for much longer.

The soldier was beating her to a pulp.

Decklaa slashed with elongated fingernails, kicked and punched with her own inhuman strength. The soldier was unstoppable though. His dense flesh and tough bones resisted most of her attacks. And when she did manage to break something, the soldier pressed on, oblivious to the injuries. He was as inhuman as she was.

The soldier was swinging her by her hair now, spinning her around in an arc. He released her and she sailed through the air, crashing into a baggage cart and knocking it over. That broke several ribs.

Decklaa climbed to her feet— she wasn't as quick now as she’d been when they'd started their fight. Her stolen body was covered in cuts and bruises—she only had the energy and time to heal the most major of injuries. Her dress was in tatters, a sequined rag that left one augmented breast exposed. She looked like she'd been run over by a truck.

Kenslir leaped at her, clearing twenty feet of tarmac in a single bound. The elemental tried to twist out of the way, but she wasn't quick enough. A military boot caught her in the shoulder and bone crunched and spl
intered as she was spun in place and sent sprawling to the ground.

Decklaa landed on all fours, knees and palms scraping painfully on the rough concrete, then the Colonel was on her again. He landed on her back and looped an arm under her chin, placing her
in some kind of choke hold.

She had to get out of here.

Decklaa tried to liquefy herself, but the instant her skin started to dissolve, green light flared. Where Kenslir's sleeves were torn and ripped from their fight, his skin could touch hers. And the touch of his skin burned like a white-hot brand on her liquefied body.

Decklaa screamed in agony and reverted to flesh form.

That was his secret—the soldier's. He was somehow able to cancel out her powers. If she kept a natural form, she was safe, but the instant she tried to turn into something else, his touch cancelled out the control she had over her own molecules. It was like pouring herself into a fire—a fire that burned a bright green.

Decklaa bucked and kicked, trying to get Kenslir off her. She ma
naged to rise to one knee, despite his superhuman strength. Then she drove a hand behind her—right into the Colonel's groin.

He was a man after all, Decklaa discovered. She squeezed as hard as she could, her sharp nails puncturing first fabric then flesh.
Kenslir grunted in pain, releasing his grip around the elemental's neck.

Decklaa twisted around, maintaining her grip on his privates. She could feel warm blood running down her fingers from where they had mangled flesh. "So, you are a real boy."

Kenslir answered by driving his fist into Decklaa's jaw. Her jawbone splintered and teeth exploded from her mouth as her head swung violently around. She released her grip and staggered backwards, vision blurring for a moment. The blow had nearly knocked her unconscious.

Decklaa sensed something then—behind her. She turned in place and started running, back toward the terminal. Her vision cleared as she ran and she felt a thrill and a relief. Her infected were spilling from the broken windows of the terminal now.
Some were being shot as they fell, others before they could jump. But there were too many for the soldiers inside the terminal to stop. Their machine guns and some weird blue-white light flashed and flickered, but they could not keep the undead from escaping. And running to their mother.

Decklaa smiled as she ran. This was what she needed. This body wasn't strong enough to beat the soldier. But with enough bio-mass, she could make one that was.

The thought was almost knocked from her head as she was tackled from behind. Not only was the soldier stronger than her, he was faster.

Kenslir smashed into Decklaa and drove her into the pavement. They rolled and twisted on the ground, the elemental a clawing, biting, kicking ball of sequined fury, desperately trying
to break free.

Covered in her own blood and sweat, half-naked, she was slippery, and finally managed to break free. Kenslir grabbed at her, catching a trailing edge of sequined fabric. Decklaa twisted against the fabric, tearing free from it, leaving onl
y a shred of the cheap dress in his hand.

She stretched out her hand, her fingers lengthening into miniature tentacles as she resumed running toward her creations. She collided against the lead undead servant, and they collapsed into a heap on the tarmac.
Two more quickly leapt onto the pile.

Colonel Kenslir ran up and grabbed at the first zombie, ripping it free—most of it. Pulled by the ankle, only the zombie's leg came free—the hip joint a gooey stringy mass. The elemental and her minions were merging—m
elting together.

Several more charged over, diving head first into the blob of flesh and bone.

Kenslir began to back away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ONE DAY BEFORE INFECTION (4th Attempt)

When the darts of the taser hit him, it was far more painful than Kenji would have ever guessed. Being tased that was something that had not yet happened to him in all the many futures he'd experienced.

Of course, he'd seen the effects on TV and in movies. He thought he knew what to expect. But like so many things, the
reality was just too different to really imagine.

If he got to do this over, Kenji knew he would avoid being tasered again. It was an experience he did not enjoy in the least, despite its non-lethality. However, luck smiled on him as it always did in his
visions, and the incredible pain of the taser actually helped his cause. It knocked him out.

It wasn't the electricity that made him lose consciousness—that wasn't how tasers worked. No, it was the ground that did it. The cold, hard ground he fell to whe
n he lost control of his muscles. He collapsed in a heap, his skull slamming painfully into the ground. The world went black.

A second later, and Kenji was back in the van, staring vacantly into space as Colonel Kenslir and Agent Keegan watched over the su
rveillance monitors. That was surprising. He’d expected to wake back up outside the Gr33ng34r warehouse again. Instead, he'd once again gone a little further forward in real time.

"Colonel!" Kenji said, inhaling and sitting up straight. It was a weird sens
ation to return to a time in a vision where he was awake. He'd done it before, but it had been quite a while—normally, the visions started with him waking up from unconsciousness.

"Yes, Mr. Nakayama?" Kenslir seemed surprised that Kenji was speaking up.

"Call off the Ghost Walker—I know where she is."

Pam Keegan swiveled around in her seat, skepticism on her face. "What do you mean you know where she is?"

"I had another vision."

"Is this guy for real?" Pam asked, looking up at her boss.

"He's been pretty accurate so far. You sure about this, kid?"

Kenji nodded. "She can detect the Walkers. It leads to a fight—the whole airport gets infected."

Again, Pam gave Kenslir a skeptical look.

"Fell have been known to possess a sixth sense when it comes to others wi
th abilities," the Colonel said. "Command? Let's do what the kid suggests. Pull back the Walker."

"Fell?" Kenji asked.

"Descended from the Fallen—Nephilim," Kenslir explained offhandedly.

That was new. In all the visions he'd had in this terrible future
nothing had ever come up about that before. Was Kenslir referring to Fallen Angels?

"Hey! Sleeping Beauty!" Pam Keegan said, snapping her fingers in front of Kenji's dace. "Where is she?" She pointed to the monitors in the van, that showed the interior of
the airport.

"Sorry," Kenji said, snapping out of it. He leaned forward, looking all the monitors over. "Brunette. Long legs, big hair, fur coat and a gold-sequined dress."

"Well," Pam said, turning back to the controls that let her take over the airport's many cameras. "That shouldn't be too hard to find."

“Then what?” Kenji asked.

“Then we watch and wait for a chance to get her away from all these civilians,” Kenslir said.

***

"Any carry-on, ma'am?" the pretty blonde at the check-in booth asked Decklaa
as she stamped her ticket.

"Nope."

"Enjoy your flight," the girl said, handing the ticket back.

Decklaa smiled and walked down the long gantry to the airplane. This was going really well. No sign of the soldier or any other authorities. She might just make
it out of the state after all—fall back to a more secure location and try again.

The plan was still viable. She had enough spores in her stomach to make it work somewhere else.

"Welcome aboard!" the Captain cheerfully greeted Decklaa as she boarded the lane.

She smiled as she walked by, following some old gambler with a ridiculous combover and muttonchop sideburns, dressed in snakeskin pants and way too much jewelry. Humans were so ridiculous.

A stewardess inside the plane checked her ticket. "Oh," the young girl said. "I believe we've upgraded you ma'am." She checked a list tucked into the pocket of her vest. "Yes. Right this way."

Decklaa bristled for a moment, her suspicions aroused. She hadn't lasted thousands of years by being sloppy. She peered into
the girl's mind.

Nothing. Not a sign of anything out of the ordinary. Decklaa's body had been upgraded to first class by the airline. She relaxed.

"I hope you don't mind," the young girl said, leading Decklaa to her seat. "We have to seat someone by the door—and you're the only one in first class."

Decklaa looked around. Sure enough, she was all alone in the front of the plane. Combover and the few other passengers on this red-eye were all headed for coach. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Once more, she looked into the young girl's mind. But again, there was nothing suspicious. The girl had been told to make sure to seat someone by the emergency exit—some kind of new regulation.

Decklaa relaxed. Humans. Always adding on new rules and regulations
, micro-managing their insignificant lives. She would be glad when they and their bureaucracies were gone.

She slipped off her fur coat and stashed it in an over head bin. Then she settled in for the long flight to Vegas. She wondered what the
in-flight movie was.

***

"You sure about this?" Pam Keegan asked.

"She's likely able to read minds—this is the only way to get me onboard, undetected," Kenslir said. "Just make sure they land at the site I selected. And that the team is ready."

"Okay," Pam said, then
closed the lid.

It had been a tough call, scrounging up a casket shipping case at the last minute. But luckily, the airport had some, ready to receive any caskets that would need to be loaded onto an airplane. With some blankets, a pillow and plenty of br
icks, the Colonel had weighted the metal shipping container down enough to make up for the fact a coffin wasn't going inside it. He was.

Pam climbed into the seat of the small luggage tug and eased it out from the loading area of the terminal. She drove ar
ound the airfield slowly, finally drawing alongside the plane the elemental was on. She hoped their luck held and the creature on the plane wasn't scanning the ground crew.

Pam pushed the thought from her mind and handed a clipboard over to one of the gro
und crew. He signed for the coffin and unhitched its cart from Pam's tug. She stowed the clipboard and drove away, concentrating on the images of her family as she did so. Behind her, the crew continued stowing luggage in the belly of the passenger jet. Before too long, they'd be ready for the shipping container with Colonel Kenslir inside it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

An hour and a half into the flight, and Decklaa was feeling antsy. She hated sitting for long periods like this. The humans and their fast-paced, modern world had definitely left a mark on her.

She stood and stretched, looking around at the empty first class section of the plane. As much as she loathed humans, times like this they came in handy. Like little trained monkeys.

"Can I get you anything, ma'am?" the stewardess said, suddenly appearing beside her. They were like ninjas sometimes—mainly when you didn't want them. Decklaa smiled, imagining a monkey in a ninja uniform.

"Just going to stretch for a bit."

"All right," the stewardess said. "Let me know if you need anything." She turned and walked back to the little galley between the first class and coach sections of the plane.

Decklaa snatched up her purse and headed for the bathroom at the front of the cabin. Maybe it was time to try so
mething fun. It'd been a few decades since she'd checked into the mile high club.

She ducked into the bathroom and touched up her makeup. Combover would do. The woman who's body she had taken might not have thought so, but really, all these primates looke
d the same to Decklaa. One was as good as another.

She stepped out of the bathroom and shut the door behind her, then set off at a brisk pace down the aisle. She pushed past the curtain sealing off the first class. Then her shoulders slumped in disappointm
ent. Combover was asleep.

In fact, all the passengers were asleep. What a bunch of boring stiffs.

Decklaa turned and went back to her seat. Maybe the stewardess could find her some decent magazines.

As she sat down, Decklaa realized something. The stewarde
ss wasn't around. She turned in her seat and looked back. No one was in the galley.

Great. Once again, when she needed a human, they weren't available. Flying sucked.

Decklaa dug through the seatback in front of her. As she expected, the only magazine was one the airline put out. Full of boring articles and the same kind of mail order crap she had been selling environmentally-conscious humans for the past eight months.

"This seat taken?"

Decklaa nearly jumped out the stolen skin she was wearing. Stewardesses—sorry, stewards, the males liked to be called. Always skulking around like nin-

It wasn't a steward. Or a pilot. Or any employee of the airline. It was him. The man in black. The soldier.

He was still wearing his combat uniform and assault vest, and the weird tactical goggles that concealed most of his face. Decklaa swallowed nervously.

Colonel Kenslir sat down beside the elemental, filling even the large first-class seat. "Been a while since I flew commercial."

Decklaa was tensing up, her muscles bunching, ready to fight.

"You afraid of flying?" Kenslir asked. "You seem a little tense."

"What happens next?" Decklaa managed to ask. Her stolen heart was hammering away in her augmented chest. She could feel the adrenalin surging in her veins.

"Well, I gav
e the girl the night off," Kenslir said. "No in-flight meal, I'm afraid."

He reached up to his vest, and Decklaa jerked reflexively. The soldier opened a pouch on the vest and pulled out two candy bars, offering one to her. "Snickers?"

Decklaa smacked the offered candy out of his hand. "I'll kill everyone on this plane!" she hissed through clenched teeth.

"Why? The service isn't that bad."

Decklaa lunged at the Colonel, her hands going for his throat. He sat there calmly, and let her. When her fingers touched his skin, she hesitated, surprised. The soldier wasn't fighting back.

She squeezed as hard as she could. Several of the fake nails on her fingers broke off. The soldier's skin was dense—far tougher than a human's.

"You have a lot of hostility in you," Kenslir said, watching her through the tactical goggles.

Decklaa leaned back, pulling her hands down. Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. "I'm serious. I can kill them all."

"That would be a shame. I mean, there's only fifteen people on this plane—you and me included—but it would still be a terrible waste. I find all life to be precious. Well, all human life."

"You shouldn't play with mother nature," Decklaa growled. She was grinding her teeth now, ready to explode. She hadn't been this mad in a long time.

"Is that your name? A little presumptuous, don't you think?"

The soldier was infuriating—sitting there, calm and collected and talking to her like she was a child. How dare he.

Decklaa couldn't bear it any more, she swung her hand around, moving it faster than any human eye could track, intending to backhand that placid look right off the soldier's face.

Instead, he caught her hand.

"Didn't your parents ever tell you to keep your hands to yourself?" Kenslir asked, squeezing the hand.

It was like putting her h
and in a vice—or so she imagined. Not many things had really hurt her in her long life. She'd been shot, stabbed, burned, electrified, and even mauled. It was a long list of pain she'd experienced, some as entertainment. But having her hand crushed was something new. She winced as the bones in the hand cracked and splintered.

Decklaa tried to pull free. She even used her other hand to help. But there was no breaking the soldier's crushing grip.

"You can have this back when you agree to behave."

Decklaa swu
ng with her free hand—a roundhouse with a clinched fist. The soldier caught that too. And promptly crushed the bones in that hand as well.

"I take it you’ve never heard the story of the Br'er rabbit?"

Decklaa slammed her head forward now, aiming right for the soldier's face. She struck the thick goggles he wore with her forehead, breaking them into pieces and fracturing her stolen body's skull.

The soldier sat still, as though carved from stone. He didn't even flinch at the blow.

Decklaa's vision swirled and blurred for a moment. She'd nearly knocked herself unconscious. She quickly healed the damage to her head.

"You're quite the little spitfire, aren't you?" Kenslir said. The goggles he still wore were cracked and broken, pieces of the bullet-resistant
lenses missing.

"Agh!" Decklaa screamed. She stomped her feet and thrashed around, trying to break free of Kenslir's grip. But to no avail. He simply sat there, holding her hands.

Decklaa opened her mouth and a long tentacle, tipped with a smaller mouth that was lined with human teeth, snaked out. Kenslir released her hands as the tentacle rushed toward him. He caught the wriggling appendage, keeping it away from reaching his face. Then he tore it loose.

Decklaa's eyes went wide and she tried to scream as
the tongue-tentacle was torn loose from her mouth. Having it torn loose was incredibly painful. Her mouth filled with her own hot blood.

But she had her hands free. That was the important thing.

Decklaa extended her nails—growing them into long claws in a split-second. She raked the nails at Kenslir—her right hand slashing at his face, her left jabbing down, toward his groin.

The Colonel caught the right hand, but the ripped tentacle in his own right kept him from preventing Decklaa from impaling his groi
n. He grimaced as the long nails speared into his thighs and privates.

"Your kind always fight dirty," Kenslir said. Then he headbutted Decklaa.

Where before Kenslir's head had been like an unyielding brick wall, actually cracking her skull, now it slammed into her with the force of a large truck. She felt several vertebrae in her neck crack as her cheekbones, teeth and nose were crushed from the impact. Her head was knocked back, slamming painfully against the emergency exit door she had been sitting beside.

Then something even more painful happened. The soldier tore her arm that he was holding out of its socket.

Ordinarily, Decklaa could have matched the soldier's strength. Her control over flesh was absolute, after all. She could make herself considerably stronger, if need be. But he had taken her off-guard. She hadn't expected him to be that strong. Her left arm was suddenly jerked free, tendons, skin and muscle tearing like wet paper. It was like being drawn and quartered—something she'd done to many a human over the centuries.

Kenslir threw the arm over his shoulder, down the aisle, then leaned in, reaching past Decklaa—who still had her long claws plunged into his flesh.

"Let's take this outside."

***

Decklaa had always heard that the emergency doors to aircraft could not be opened in flight. It happened in the humans' idiotic movies all the time, but other humans declared it an impossibility due to the force of the air flowing over aircraft in flight. Decklaa had never cared before—she didn’t do much flying.

But now she cared. The soldier had just proved the door-opening doubters wrong—sort of.

The man in black didn't exactly open the door. It was more of a push—an opened-handed, palm-first blow against the door that exploded it from its hinges and sent it careening out into the sky.

This immediately depressurized the aircraft, sucking air, loose papers and just about anything not strapped down right out the open doorway. Quite unfortunately, Decklaa was one of those things not strapped down. She wasn'
t wearing her seatbelt.

In just a brief instant, she was sucked right out of the plane, tumbling and spinning in the air as the plane continued on without her.

As she spun head over heels, her shoulder still spurting blood, Decklaa screamed. It was an involuntary reaction, probably triggered more by the human physiology she had adopted than out of real fear. She could survive a fall from this height. Probably.

Decklaa concentrated, healing her mouth then quickly growing a replacement arm. To do this, she ha
d to sacrifice flesh from the rest of her stolen body. She reduced the voluptuous forty-something figure—turning it into something anorexic, and several inches shorter.

Now once more equipped with two arms, Decklaa extended her arms and legs, trying to co
ntrol her descent—something else she’d learned from the humans’ movies. Her tumbling slowed and she leveled out, falling spread-eagled toward the ground far below. She was amazed it had worked.

Something slammed into Decklaa, and once more she spun out of
control, several ribs broken. She managed to right herself and looked around. It was hard to see with the wind tearing at her eyes. When she finally saw what had struck her, she wished she hadn't.

The soldier was falling with her.

"Nice night for a jump," Kenslir yelled. He was in freefall with the elemental, just a few feet away from her.

Decklaa again twisted her face in anger and lunged at Kenslir, her nails once more dagger-like.

The Colonel, smiled, twisting easily out of the way. He circled around the sequined-elemental, perfectly at home in the air. He doubted the monster had much experience skydiving. He on the other hand, had been dropping out of planes for fifty years.

Kenslir swooped around Decklaa, jabbing out with a fist, breaking one of her le
gs. She turned, trying to slash at him, but he had already darted away. He was far more nimble than her. He moved as if he were actually capable of flight.

Decklaa screamed again in rage and tried to lunge at Kenslir once more, her hands extending into lo
ng tentacles.

The Colonel quick drew his two Bowie knives from the sheathes on his back, slicing off a foot of each tentacle-appendage. Then he batted them away. They spun and twisted, falling at the same speed as Decklaa but now well out of reach.

"Hope you didn't need those!" Kenslir shouted over the rushing air. He calmly holstered the knives, which locked into place in their magnetic sheathes.

Decklaa reformed her hands.

"I'm going to peel the skin off your bones!" she screamed, lunging again.

Kenslir
dodged the clumsy attack. Then he swooped in, spinning in place at the last minute and snapping a foot out. His heel crushed into Decklaa's face, breaking her jaw and most of her teeth.

She tried to grab the offending foot, but the Colonel was too fast.
Once again, he glided back, out of her reach.

Decklaa screamed again, kicking her arms and legs and balling her reformed fists in impotent fury. Kenslir swept in once more and this time slapped her across the face. Had he not already knocked most of her te
eth out, this blow would have. It jarred her, spinning her around and around, out of control again.

By the time she recovered, the Colonel had moved again. He shattered a hip with a hard kick, then drifted back out of reach.

The fight continued on like this for several rounds—the elemental screaming, punching and even trying to kick Kenslir as they continued on in free fall. The Colonel simply laughed, swooping in and out, jabbing, punching, kicking and even poking the elemental with fingers so hard they pierced her skin.