Ibenus (Valducan series) (39 page)

"Close up." Malcolm stepped toward the doorway, dropping the bottle and drawing Hounacier. "Don't let them get inside."

Nearly two dozen screamers closed in, a dizzying mass of legs and cherub faces. Victoria's chest tightened.
Too many
. Her arms and legs ached. She couldn't keep this up.
No!
I'm not dying here
.

Victoria looked again at the blood compass, following the line from the beads to the bone-tiled floor, and fired. The round shattered a domed skull cap by Orlovski's foot, opening a black hole.

"What the hell are you doing" he shouted, flinching away.

Rapid clicking sounded from the floor. A jagged-edged trapdoor flew open as a gold-striped mantismere lunged out toward the Russian. Orlovski stumbled back, yanking his boot away before a bony scythe arm speared the floor.

Victoria lunged for the demon, but Malcolm beat her to it. He spun, cleaving his machete blade through the top of the mantismere's emerging head and brought his palm up to halt the closing horde.

The scalped demon spasmed, arms flailing. A plume of blue fire erupted from its open skull, cascading down its body as it slid back down into the open hole. Several of the closing screamers withered and fell from the tunnel walls and ceiling, plopping to the floor.

A second demon clambered over its fallen brethren. Black eyes locked on Malcolm, still fighting the surviving screamers. It raised its forelimbs to strike.

Victoria swung, appearing beside it. She chopped Ibenus into its back, splitting the chitinous plates with a meaty crack. Squealing, the monster fell to the side as Victoria wrenched the bronze blade free.

The demon raised its four arms to shield it from the next blow but Ibenus cleaved through two of them, sending the severed ends flying and burying the blade into the demon's chest. The mantismere arched, legs kicking, and then ghostly fire burst from its mouth and wounds.

Dead screamers thudded to the floor, steam spewing from their blackened shells. Malcolm chopped the last survivor as it tried to scuttle away. He spun on his heel, his eyes blazing with rage. He scanned the room, the red beam of his headlamp panning across the ceiling and walls, before his gaze fell on the dead demon. He looked at Victoria, her sword sheathed in bloody demon fire. "Good work."

"Thank you." She panted, not really sure what else to say.

Orlovski stood above the half-open trap door. Pale demon fire flickered up from the pit, lighting his face. Victoria cautiously peered down into it. The demon copse lay sprawled eight feet below beside a pair of melting screamers. Crouching for a better view, she saw a sloped passage leading deeper, its curved and carved walls reminiscent of an intestine.

A clatter sounded behind her. Victoria wheeled to see a sagging section of tiled wall, peel from the rock face. Streamers of milky goo trailed from the falling bones like melted glue.

"Nest is dissolving." Keeping one eye on the pit, Orlovski checked his pistol and slid it into his holster. "More we kill the more it'll crumble."

"Luiza," Malcolm said, "We found an entrance."

Remembering she'd removed her ear bud, Victoria pushed it back in to place to hear Luiza say, "…to the party."

"All right. You heard her." Malcolm picked the blood compass off the floor. He nodded to Victoria. "You found it. You want to go first?"

"Damn right." Ibenus in hand, Victoria carefully lowered herself into the tunnel. The freshly cut channels in the wall offered plenty of purchase. She dropped the last two feet and landed beside the dead mantismere. Burning brains oozed out from the demon's open skull. Matt was shouting something in her ear bud, his words lost beneath a machinegun's roar.

The oval passage coursed gradually down like a lava tube or subterranean river, though Victoria knew there were no natural caves here. The chaotic uniformity of the spiral-cut grooves and diamond-patterned tiling made it difficult to gauge the tunnel's length. Keeping her gaze down the tunnel, Victoria drew a glow stick from her vest, cracked it one handed, and hurled it as far as she could. The spinning orange light bounced off the ceiling and followed the wall, skating along the curve like a funhouse slide. In the final moment before slipping out of view, it silhouetted a screamer hugged along a far wall.

"Got one bug," she called up, spotlighting it in her pistol's white beam. The screamer hopped to its feet, cooed, and scuttled away.

Malcolm climbed down and stepped over the demon corpse. He held the blood compass out. A cluster of red beads formed at the bottom like caviar. "Looks to be the place."

"About damn time." Orlovski swung down, boot clomping on the floor. His lip curled as he eyed a tiled section of floor. "Watch out for trap doors. Just warn me before you start shooting them."

Malcolm drew Hounacier and started down. "No promises."

They'd made it only a few yards when the mewling cries started ahead. A mantismere scuttled around the far wall and dropped to the floor. A second moved in the shadows behind it. Screamers surged past them, their quivering jaws wide.

"I'll make a hole," Malcolm shouted, running toward them.

Victoria ran after him, her foot nearly slipping on the smooth, uneven stone.

The screamers were almost on them. Malcolm threw out a hand, palm wide. The closing bugs recoiled. One lost its grip and fell from the ceiling. Victoria charged past, Orlovski at her heels. She leaped and swung Ibenus, blinking forward. The sloped tunnel matched the arc of her jump.

The mantismere raised its twin spears, ready to impale her. Victoria swung just before they met. A whoosh and she was now behind the demon, her sword cleaving into the side of the second mantismere behind it.

The wounded demon hissed and lurched to the left. It swung its arm, clubbing Victoria's hip as it tried to pulled away. Fighting to keep hold of the sword, Victoria wrenched Ibenus free with a wet
crunch
.

The demon behind her turned, mandibles clicking like a rattle. Victoria swung Ibenus, blinking away as the saber arms came down. Hissing, the demon took a step toward her, but then Orlovski slammed into it from behind, his kukri chopping into the back of its head as it fell.

Blue firelight filled the tunnel, little comets slinging from the Russian's still hacking blade. The demon Victoria had wounded tried to rise, feebly pushing itself up by the forelimbs, blood pouring from the open chest wound. It crumpled and began to burn, the last of the screamers withering at its death.

Malcolm didn't even slow as he jogged past. "Come on." The passage continued down. Pieces of silk-mortared rock and bone slid free, their builders now dead. "This way," Malcolm said as he reached a split in the hall. Cries echoed ahead but there was no sign of more screamers as they moved deeper, the passage so steep they had to make small steps to keep from falling.

The tunnel leveled out below. Victoria jumped, falling ten feet and swung Ibenus. She blinked and landed with no more impact than from a slight hop.

A wide round chamber opened up before her, its walls completely covered in honeycombed nest. Victoria coughed. The vinegary reek burned her throat. Most of the chambers were empty, a few still dripping slime from recent hatchings. Sealed cells twitched and stirred as Victoria's light passed over them.

Not waiting for the others, Victoria sprang into the room. She chopped and hacked at the birthing monsters, slinging goo and bits of shattered nest as she worked.

Feeble cries came from around her as more screamers struggled to free themselves. Blinking around the chamber, Victoria killed as many as she could.

"Christ," Malcolm growled as he dropped the last few feet into the room. He immediately started on the neighboring wall, cutting his way the opposite direction as Victoria. "Taras, get your ass down here."

Orlovski slid down, cursing as he landed. He drew his pistol and began clearing the bugs racing across the ceiling. The gun's slide locked back. "I'm out."

Victoria chopped the last of the hatching bugs and drew her pistol. "Here," she said, ejecting the magazine. "Full mag."

Orlovski winced as he stepped toward her, favoring his right leg. "You need that."

"You're a better shot." She patted her mag pouch. "I have a half one left," she lied. It only had two. Of course there was also TommyD's two-tone pistol in her pack, the gun that had crippled Allan and killed Gerhard, but she knew she'd never fire it, not even if the devil himself came for her.

The Russian's brows knitted as if about to protest but he simply nodded. He reached out, accepting the mag. Red clumps of caking blood ran from the back of his hand and soaked his shirt sleeve to his elbow pad.

"You're hurt."

He nodded. "It's nothing." Orlovski popped the magazine in and thumbed the slide shut. "Thanks."

They followed a curving tunnel down toward the sounds of wails. Gunshots echoed in the distance. They were getting close.

A few screamers emerged from an intersecting passage, but the hunters quickly overtook them with now practiced efficiency. The tunnel opened into a great vaulted chamber, far larger than anything they’d encountered; easily a hundred feet across and just as wide. Their lights played off the murky water that hid the floor, casting rippled reflections along the forest of support pillars.

“Fucking hell.” A terrible mixture of awe and hopelessness swirled in Victoria’s guts as she halted at the edge. A narrow, stone ledge ran along the right wall, leading to a broad landing, a dark passage beyond.

A slender bridge extended before her, its surface pitted and glinting like a crystal sponge. It arched gracefully above the water's surface where it joined other bridges at a low island near the far side. A thick pearly column dominated the little mound, twisting upward like a giant unicorn’s horn riddled with wormholes.

Several mantismeres scuttled along its surface, weaving in and out of the large burrows. Demons and screamers swarmed across a single bridge linking the island to a balcony on the upper left corner, twenty feet above the water. Red lights and the pops of silenced pistols came from the tunnel just visible beyond the ledge’s rim.

A hulking mantismere with a brilliant red and purple shell clambered over the balcony’s edge. A gunshot boomed and the demon pitched backwards, body igniting before it splashed into the water. The burning corpse bobbled up to the surface, its blue light filling one half of the great flooded hall.

“Luiza,” Malcolm shouted into his radio. “We’re ahead of you.

“Thank Christ,” she grunted. “Chaya’s hurt and they’re overrunning us.”

Malcolm raised his pistol, the white beam spotlighting the monsters from behind. “Can you see that?”

“Yes. Hold it steady.”

Bracing his arm, Malcolm held the light in place. Several of the beasts turned, noticing the trio for the first time. A few broke ranks and started toward them, moving along the walls and slender bridges.

Amballwa in hand, Orlovski stepped out onto the brown water and fired his pistol at the closing screamers. Victoria eased up beside Malcolm, Ibenus ready.

Blood sprayed across the upper landing. Demons split in half as if some invisible scythe had just ripped through the mob. Burning corpses and severed limbs tumbled from the circle of Malcolm’s light. Across the room withering screamers fell from bridges and walls, splashing into the water like hailstones.

A four-foot span of bridge before Victoria began sagging under its own weight. Another, spanned between two columns crashed down, one end melted from its anchor.

Orlovski was still firing at closing screamers, their ranks noticeably shrinking. "They’re breaking for it." He motioned to a trio of mantismeres fleeing across the bridge that connected the tower island to the tunnel at the far right.

“Head them off,” Malcolm ordered. “I got this.” The monsters in his light now dead, he panned it to the side, catching two more demons in the beam. Just beyond them, Luiza stood in the hall legs apart and katana in both hands. Stepping to the side, she slashed the blade across the long shadows cast by Malcolm’s light. An arc of blood and demon fire and the two monsters fell as if the blade had struck them.

Setting her teeth, Victoria sidestepped along the narrow lip of stone as fast as she could. More shots echoed through the room, punctuating the mewling cries.

“They’re getting away.” Orlovski said, hurrying beside her his feet silent on the water.

The demons reached the landing and ran, escaping into the darkness of the far passage. The great tower sagged like a cone of ice cream under a summer sun. More demons fled out from the compressing burrows. Some retreated along walls and intact bridges while others scuttled to meet the hunters.

Matt stepped up to the balcony edge above, Dämoren out. Gouts of flame flashed from the holy revolver’s tip and demons fell. Mantismeres scattered, rushing for cover behind columns and crags. A trio charged across the bridge as Victoria and Orlovski reached the landing. Dämoren boomed and one of the demons crumpled forward, chest exploding in fire.

Victoria and Orlovski met the remaining two as they closed in, blades swinging. Side by side they fought, parrying blows from the monsters’ twin blades. Victoria blinked, appearing behind one and hamstringing it. The demon fell and Orlovski was on it before Victoria blinked back. The second beast thrust its spears at the Russian, but Victoria hooked them with Ibenus and kicked the monster. It stumbled back, trying to catch itself, but she rammed the blade up through its thorax, driving six inches of polished bronze out the demon’s back.

“Mal!” Luiza shouted through the radio.

Boot on the demon’s chest, Victoria wrenched Ibenus free. She turned to see Malcolm fighting a pair of mantismeres that had dropped from the wall above.

“I’m coming!” Orlovski sprinted across the water with a limping gait.

Tingles of being alone danced up the back Victoria's neck. Gripping Ibenus, she glanced nervously around. Burning corpses lit the chamber in hues of icy blue, hazy in the steamy air thick with the stink of vinegar and rot. Chaya stood slumped against the wall of the upper tunnel, arm wrapped in a red bandage and face pale. Matt loaded the giant revolver as Luiza stood near the edge, katana ready.