Adrift 3: Rising (Adrift Series) (22 page)

Something was playing with Bravo Team.

Tracking them.

Jerome had suspected as much back in the suite, when he had maybe-heard-maybe-imagined something tapping on the outside of the window, but as he led his team down the service stairs, his suspicions slowly became certainty. The four remaining members of the 190th Chemical Recon Detachment were a ball of yarn, being batted around by vast claws that he could not see.

But he could feel it.

The constant attacks by civilians were too regular, too convenient. On virtually every floor, the exit door would burst open moments before they reached it, and an attacker would charge out into the stairwell, brandishing a rudimentary weapon of one sort or another.

None of the attacks had much of an effect beyond horrifying Jerome, but killing Bravo didn’t seem to be the point.

It was slowing their progress, expending their ammo. Making them sweat. Pushing a splinter of fear deeper and deeper into their minds.

The pattern wasn’t random. There was no way for all these civilians to even know that Bravo were there, and despite how quickly Jerome wanted the team to move, he had also kept them quiet. Yet something was observing their progress and throwing obstacles in their way.

After they had descended fifteen floors, he conjured up that ball of yarn image.

After twenty five, he conjured another. A sadistic child, pulling the limbs from an insect one by one.

What would happen when there were no limbs left to pull?

He kept an eye on the narrow windows in the stairwell as they descended, searching for a sign of movement, but never caught anything other than in the corner of his eye. But increasingly, he was certain that there
was
something out there watching them, communicating with something else on the inside of the building.

Toying with us.

The game being played was, in some ways, more terrible than the violence they had initially encountered. It hinted at arrogance and superiority, at an enemy that believed—perhaps correctly—that it had almost godlike control over the situation.

But what enemy?

Monsters?

Jerome couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

Not until he checked the dial on his watch, and
saw one
. Reflected in the glass, moving past the window a floor above them.

His pace faltered, just a little.

Don’t let it know.

He suppressed the urge to spin around and fire up the stairwell. The creature had only been in his sight for a moment; it would already be gone. He had no target, but at least now, at last, he had a little intel.

What was it?

The creature was unlike anything Jerome had seen before. If he had to guess, he would have said it was an animal, all angular limbs and teeth beneath fierce red eyes. Yet the monster was clearly intelligent, capable of strategy. Capable of pulling the limbs off the entire human race.

He continued forward and down, readying himself for the next service exit to spit out another horror.

It didn’t disappoint.

On the tenth floor of the Bellagio, it was a child. A pudgy little boy who looked about ten years old at most. The boy skipped out into the stairwell just a few feet ahead of Jerome, holding an enormous knife in one hand and a woman’s severed head in the other.

The sight was clearly intended to shock, but the games being played had lost some of their power over Jerome now—now that he knew there was a design behind them. The situation had threatened to unhinge him when he believed that all the horror was purely random. It had made descending past each floor like taking another step down a stairway to Hades.

But this boy, clutching what Jerome presumed was his own mother’s head between gore-drenched fingers? He wasn’t part of the horror. He was part of the game.

The little boy launched the severed head toward Jerome and charged, lifting the knife above his head, shrieking.

He made it a couple of paces before Jerome buried the fire axe in his skull, cleaving his forehead right down the middle, almost splitting his round face in two.

The pudgy boy fell backward, slumping onto the stairs with a moist
thump
, pulling the handle of the axe from Jerome’s grasp.

He’d already used the axe on several floors, pulling it free of the meat that clenched around the blade on each occasion, but this time, he just couldn’t face it. Let the dead boy have the axe. Jerome had plenty of ammo left, and Bravo was almost at the casino floor.

Where, some part of him knew, the game would end.

Memories of blood and delicious suffering.

Dan walked through them, piecing them together. Some said that the human brain was a miracle; that it remembered everything. If we could only access our memories reliably, we would have every minute of our lives recorded for us in ultra-high definition. Every moment, from the mundane to the miraculous, frozen in place, exhibits in an eternal museum.

If that were true, he reasoned, then the time he had spent in the vampire’s mind—however fleeting—would have shown him much more than he realised.

But there was no logical order to the vampire mind; no chronology, no hierarchy. Just the seething sea of chaotic sensation. Vampire memories weren’t visual in quite the same way that human memories were; they were emotional.

The vampire remembered power.

Triumph.

Fear.

Dan honed in on the fear.

What had the vampire been afraid of?

It had certainly been afraid of the black river, but there was another fear in that hideous mind too; an old, distantly remembered terror.

The fear of extinction.

Dan drank the memory in, tasting it. Smelling it.

Fear of humans.

The vampire had lived long. It had known a time when humanity had been easy prey, when its kind had grown fat on their blood. But evolution had a way of changing the rules of the game.

Over eons, the humans had become larger. Stronger. To the vampire’s eye, they evolved at a frenetic pace, always breeding, always changing. They began to use tools. They began to build. Communication made them stronger. With each iteration, evolution made killing them more difficult—and in some ways more enjoyable. Thrilling, even.

Until one day, a human had found a way to fight back.

A vampire died on the point of a spear.

An aberration.

Until another died with a hatchet buried in its skull. And another. In different times, in different parts of the world.

The black river saw all, it felt each and every death. It fed the news of vampire losses back to its children.

Humans weren’t just prey; not anymore. They had become dangerous. One particular breed could look a vampire right in the eye.

And kill it.

He searched further, prising open the memory, and then, all of a sudden he was looking at it. The river itself. Something like a vampire in shape, but liquid, amorphous. A rippling obscenity; an entity that had crawled from the time before time. An ancient parasite that had survived in the shadows, hiding its power from sight.

It was real.

Dan’s eyes flared open, and he vomited blood onto his lap.

He was in a moving vehicle, sitting in the back seat. A familiar face leaned over the seat in front of him.

Herb.

The younger man stared at Dan with eyes full of concern. Herb was talking, but for a moment, Dan couldn’t hear him over the rushing of blood in his ears.

He vomited again.

Wiped at his mouth, his hand coming away red.

So much blood.

“Dan...Dan? Are you still with us, mate?”

Reality snapped back into place: a sensation that felt to Dan like his ears popping as if he were sitting aboard a plane as it climbed far too steeply.

He shuddered, remembering the dream.

Nodded.

“I’m okay.”

“What happened?”

“I was trying to remember….what it felt like...to be inside the vampire’s head.”

“Why?”

“To see if there was anything I missed.”

“And was there?”

Dan shook his head. It felt like his brain might fall out of his ears at any moment.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I think Mancini is right. There were others, like me. Maybe still are. I think the vampires were afraid of us.”

Herb nodded, his eyes widening a little as Dan coughed out another mouthful of blood.

“Hang in there,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

Dan slumped back in his seat, his head lolling. Each time he wanted to access the ability that the connection with the black river gave him, it got easier, but in the way that an addict might find it easier to take a drug. The effect on his body and his mind was worsening.

He felt fatigued now, old and tired. Sick in his bones.

He focused on the road as Mancini swung the jeep off the highway onto a smaller, private road. Up ahead, a sign read
Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

“You think they’ll let us in?” Herb asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Mancini said. “But maybe hold off on the vampire talk until we’re inside, okay?”

Herb gave a noncommittal murmur by way of response.

“Doesn’t look like much,” he said.

“It’s not much, at least, not above ground. Just an entrance. All the action happens underground, behind twenty-five ton steel doors.”

“Uh-huh. So I suppose we need to attract their attention somehow?”

“I doubt it. If the place is operational, they already know we’re here. They knew the minute we left the interstate.”

Mancini steered the jeep along the winding road toward an innocuous-looking security hut alongside a wooden barrier.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Herb said grimly. The guard hut was empty. Beyond it, past a wire fence, there was no sign of movement.

“Looks that way,” Mancini agreed.

He smashed through the wooden barrier without slowing.

Dan peered around the compound as the jolt of impact ran through the vehicle. He’d read plenty about Cheyenne Mountain, too. It seemed like every part of America had its own attendant conspiracy theory. In this case, the NORAD installation was supposedly a front for an alien coverup. It wasn’t the US military who occupied the giant bunker in the Colorado countryside. It was the Greys. Or the lizard-men, he couldn’t remember.

Right now though, Herb’s initial assessment looked accurate. There were a handful of vehicles on show on the road leading to the main entrance but all looked abandoned. There was no sign of life; alien, human, vampire or otherwise.

Mancini aimed for a gigantic metal mouth carved into the base of Cheyenne Mountain, and suddenly they were powering through a tunnel large enough to accommodate a train. Two-lane blacktop bordered by rough-hewn granite walls.

Mancini steered along it for a hundred yards before it swerved suddenly to the right, and he slammed on the brakes. The jeep screeched to a halt just yards away from the enormous steel door.

Mancini stepped out of the driver’s seat, leaning back in to press on the horn. Three long, loud, echoing blasts.

There was no response.

Dan lifted his eyes to the roof of the tunnel. Far above it, out of sight, the skies were already darkening.

“Shit,” Herb said. “I think it’s time we started talking about what we do now. We’ll have to head back to the ranch. Meet Conny at the bunker. It’ll be dark soon. We can’t do anything without light. We can figure out our next move, come back out in the morning.”

“I doubt there’ll be much left in the morning,” Dan said quietly.

Mancini glared at them both and shook his head.

He leaned on the horn again. A single press.

“Hey!” he roared, screaming at the giant metal door. “We know how to stop them!”

Mancini stood, his head cocked to one side.

Waiting.

Waiting.

And just when it seemed like wasted breath, spotlights above the huge door flared on, and a beeping alarm rang out.

The door began to open.

It had taken an almost painfully long time to reach what Andrew Lloyd claimed was the lowest level of the bunker in the Rocky Mountains. The tunnels and cracks in the rock seemed endless, but she had seen no sign of vulnerability as she headed down to the bottom of the complex. By the time the ever-narrowing tunnels finally opened out into a series of huge, flat caverns, even Remy’s head had dropped with exhaustion.

Conny’s back ached, and her feet ached even more, but she was satisfied. She hadn’t quite seen all of the bunker, she was sure, but everything she had seen had backed up Lloyd’s assessment: the walls were solid rock. There was no way in.

Safe at last
.

The first of the huge caverns on what Conny thought of as the ground floor contained enough food to make her dizzy. Enormous sacks of rice and dried pasta, nuts and seeds sat alongside seemingly endless stacks of canned goods.

Remy seemed to know what was in those cans. He stared up at Conny with pleading eyes until at last, she laughed, and picked out a can of
Campbell’s
meatballs with a ring-pull opener.

“Want this one, Rem?”

Remy cocked his head to the side, staring at Conny like she was a crossword puzzle that he almost had the answers to, until she laughed again and deposited the meatballs right onto the rocky ground. Almost as soon they landed, they were gone. Remy devoured the entire contents of the can in a half-dozen enormous bites, and continued to lick the floor clean until Conny opened up another can. Stewed steak.

Remy’s tail wagged uncontrollably.

The steak didn’t last much longer than the meatballs, and Conny left Remy rubbing his face on the floor in happiness, getting the last of the gravy all over himself. She opened a huge bottle of water that was far too big for her to lift, and she tilted it slightly, cupping her palm to catch the falling liquid; alternating between splashing it over her grime-encrusted face and taking long, delicious mouthfuls until she felt like her stomach was going to pop.

When she pulled her hand away and wiped her face, she found Remy’s face directly below the huge bottle, eagerly lapping at the trickling water. She tilted it a little further, splashing his face and making him jump.

“Turned out to be a good day after all, huh, Rem?”

Remy sneezed the water out of his nose and carried on lapping, and Conny wished that her life could be as simple as a dog’s. Right now, Remy was about as happy as any living creature could get. Food and water in his belly, and a chance to take the weight off his feet for a minute. That was all it took.

In fairness, Conny decided, her own satisfaction wasn’t too far behind the German Shepherd’s, despite her reluctance to eat cold meatballs directly off the floor. After all, Logan was safe here. She was safe. One way or another, she had navigated her son halfway around the world while it fell apart all around them, and she had wound up with food and shelter.

Even Andrew Lloyd—after an initial period of sulking about being put in his place—seemed to have relaxed a little. Maybe he had come to the conclusion that Conny wasn’t interested in replacing Jennifer Craven as his personal tormentor.

More importantly, as long as the front door remained shut, she’d never have to look at a vampire ever again. The only thing missing right now was the presence of Herb and Dan, but they knew how to handle themselves out there, better than anyone.

She had her doubts about Dan’s
black river
theory—hell, she had her doubts about the guy’s sanity—but if it turned out he was correct, and if he succeeded in reaching the vampire ruler that he believed was out there, the next time Conny felt sunlight on her face, it might even all be over.

Andrew Lloyd hovered close by, shuffling a little impatiently.

“The archives are that way,” he said, pointing at a distant tunnel.

Conny nodded, and started to move when her eyes caught a can of sliced peaches in syrup.

She pulled it off the pile and sat, wincing at the pain in her feet.

“It can wait a few minutes,” she said, and she twisted the ring-pull, opening the can with a
pop
.

Remy’s ears perked up once more.

*

Shahana couldn’t eat.

She’d had walked alone for a while in the gloomy tunnels with her grief roaring in her ears like thunder. In her young life, she had never experienced emotion quite so violent as the despair she felt at being separated from Shaharun.

The two girls were twins—not quite identical in appearance, but identical in virtually every other way. Hana and Runa; two sides of the same coin. Their bond had been almost supernatural, the gift that only those grown together in the same womb seemed to receive. They did more than finish each other’s sentences: Hana could feel her sister’s joy or sadness or pain as if it were her own. The two girls were inseparable.

Until the woman in the British cop’s uniform
had
separated them.

And left Runa to die.

Violent spasms of emotion had wracked Shahana’s slender body as she drifted through the dark tunnels aimlessly. Until that moment in her life, she hadn’t realised that it was possible for thoughts and feelings to ache like this, to tear and rip at her like serrated blades.

She wanted more than anything to just turn her mind off, to stem the tide of agonising memories that made her want to scream until her lungs burned. If she had a weapon, she thought she would have ended the pain.

But she was too young to carry a firearm.

Shahana and Runa had been new initiates, barely three months at the ranch after being picked up on the streets of Salt Lake City. The plan, when the two girls had fled from their home in Seattle, had been to make it to Las Vegas. Shahana had harboured fuzzy notions of learning to gamble, maybe even getting a job in the casinos when she was old enough. Vegas was the city of fortune, and she and her sister were due a slice of that.

Still, when the clerics from something called the Order had offered the two sisters a home, and they had been hungry and cold enough to accept, it hadn’t seemed like a bad decision. The ranch was devoted to a strange religion, but the people there seemed content. None of them sought to do the things to Hana and Runa that a father should
never
do.

Now, the ranch was gone.

Runa was gone.

And only pain remained. Blinding, searing, inescapable.

When it felt like she might lose her mind in endless screaming, Shahana had followed the noise of distant voices through the unfamiliar tunnels until she came across a large dining area. She entered, just in time to see the hateful police bitch and her dog leaving the room, and took a seat at one of the long wooden tables.

She couldn’t eat.

But she could listen.

She let the voices of the other initiates and clerics wash over her, allowing the hum of conversation to push her turbulent thoughts aside. She wanted only to be numb.

Company helped.

She sat with her head bowed, staring at her slender fingers, and gradually her mind hushed.

The pain of her loss receded.

She drew in a deep breath.

And her fingers clenched into fists, her jaw dropping.

Runa was still alive. Shahana could feel her out there somewhere. Distant, yet the bond that had held the sisters together since birth wasn’t broken.

Without a glance at the people in the dining area, Shahana scuttled away, following her feelings through a maze of dim tunnels until finally she reached an area that she recognised: the five-way hub just inside the main entrance.

There was nobody around.

Shahana raced up the gently sloping exit tunnel and threw herself at the huge steel door, lifting onto her tiptoes and pulling open the viewing hatch.

She peered through the narrow window.

Outside, day was beginning to turn to dusk. Among the rocks and trees, the shadows were long and deep. Impenetrable.

Shahana squinted.

Someone
was
moving out there. A small figure, stumbling toward the door as though injured.

The figure stepped out into a shaft of fading sunlight, and Shahana’s breath caught in her throat.

It was Shaharun. Barely able to walk with the gunshot wound in her thigh, and now her T-shirt, too, was stained dark with blood, but she was
alive.

“Runa,” Shahana whimpered, and her eyes darted to the control panel next to the door. It had been a four-digit code that the Grand Cleric used, hadn’t it? Like an ATM.

Shahana frowned.

She had watched the door being shut, but hadn’t been paying much attention. Her mind had been filled only with that crippling grief.

She tried to replay the memory in her mind.

8453.

She jabbed at the buttons, and the control panel offered an apologetic
beep
.

8435.

Beep.

Shahana felt like screaming. She would have to find her way back to the maze; find someone who could open the door and then persuade them that her sister was still alive outside. By the time she managed it, Runa would surely be gone, or dead.

4853.

Ping!

Clunk.

The door unlocked with a sound like a hammer beating on steel and Shahana let out a triumphant gasp. She wrapped her small hands around the handle and heaved, pulling the door with all her might, pressing against the frame with the sole of her boot, putting her entire body weight into it.

The thick steel door opened slowly.

And, at last, Shahana was able to rocket out of the bunker into the cool late-afternoon air.

She clambered down over the rocks next to the waterfall, never taking her eyes off her injured sister, afraid to even blink; certain that, at any moment, Runa would turn out to be a hallucination.

Finally, she threw her arms around her sister.

Not a hallucination.

Real.

Alive
.

“Runa,” Shahana cried, unable to do much more than choke out sobs that felt like they were trying to rip her lungs right out of her chest. She felt her sister’s arms wrap around her tightly, pulling her close.

Too tightly.

Pain spiked in Shahana’s back. It felt like Runa was trying to crush her ribcage.

“Runa...what are you...doing?”

Shahana struggled, trying to break free of the vise that her beloved sister’s arms had become.

Runa lowered her head as though moving in for a kiss, and drove her teeth down into the soft meat of Shahana’s throat.

The pain, as Runa’s teeth pierced muscle and tendon, was excruciating, but it was nothing compared to the agony that exploded in Shahana’s mind when her sister’s jaw clenched and she began to pull away slowly, tearing out a chunk of flesh by increments. Pulling and pulling, until finally Shahana’s throat let it go with a sucking, popping sound.

Shahana’s mind howled.

She thrashed, unable to break her sister’s grip.

Watching in horror as her body’s precious red fuel pumped away at an obscene rate, drenching Runa’s impassive face.

Watching Runa
chew.

Swallow.

She’s...eating me
, Shahana thought, as Runa eased her terrible jaws forward and began to take another bite.

Shahana’s knees liquefied, and she slumped, held upright only by her sister now.

She watched helplessly as Runa devoured her and, finally, when her beautiful sister had taken a fourth large mouthful, ripping off Shahana’s cheek like a slice of cured ham, the world began to flicker and fade, and Runa released her grip.

Shahana tumbled to the rocky ground, and she saw a shape that she didn’t understand, and which had no business being a part of the real world. It was, she decided numbly, a hallucination. Clearly, when some people were on the brink of death, they didn’t see long tunnels and white lights. They saw monsters.

Shahana saw a monster.

A hideous, angular demon made of spikes and barbs, like a giant insect walking on two legs, clambering up the rocks alongside the waterfall.

Making its way toward the door that she had left open.

Almost as soon as she had glimpsed it, the creature was gone, and Shahana’s last sight before death finally took her was Runa’s blank and bloodied face, hovering right above her own, moving in closer.

Jaws widening to chew out her sister’s eyes.