No Mere Zombie: Deathless Book 2 (11 page)

Blair landed on a neighboring outcrop, dropping into a crouch to stabilize himself. He was majestic somehow, with his silver fur and amber eyes. He glanced in her direction. “I never dreamed we’d be able to do something like this. We just scaled an entire cliff face in less than a minute. Sometimes it still catches me off guard.”

She couldn’t help but smile. Despite everything they’d been through he’d somehow retained his enthusiasm, something she needed desperately right now. Everything was going wrong, but there he was in the middle of it keeping despair at bay.

“It still blows me away,” Liz admitted, turning to the moonlit trail threading its way north. She started loping in that direction at a ground
-
eating pace. Blair fell into step beside her. She glanced at him. “I think what gets me most is not knowing everything we can do. I feel like there are so many surprises still ahead of us. Especially if we’re really going to live for thousands of years.”

“I know what you mean,” he replied, leaping over a fallen tree. “When we first saw Ahiga he’d transformed into a wolf. What else could he do? I feel like we haven’t even scratched the surface. I was hoping the Mother would teach us, but…”

“But she’s too focused on saving the world to give two shits about us?” Liz finished, a deep rumbling laugh welling up from her chest. It felt good.

“Unfortunately,” Blair conceded, shaking his head. “I get the sense that she expected Ahiga to prepare me and with him gone, she doesn’t have a contingency plan. Which leaves me on my own. At least she treats your opinion with something approaching respect. A little less for Bridget and Cyntia, but still more than she gives Jordan or I.”

“Her whole culture centered around the divide between the sexes,” Liz replied, bounding over a rise. A wide valley stretched below her. The trail led that direction, toward a ramshackle town nestled in the valley’s farthest corner. “I have to admit I do like that they were a matriarchy, and it’s kind of nice being the stronger sex for once. But it’s also interesting seeing her casually dismiss you as useless. I half expect her to tell you to get in the kitchen and make her a sandwich.”

“You know I’d get in there and make it,” Blair replied, grinning wolfishly as he started down the trail into the valley. The wind surged for a moment, then faded to a low keen as they descended the ridge. “I’m actually okay with the way she treats us. I’m sure our culture must baffle her just as much as hers confuses us. Besides, shaping is pretty amazing and I never really cared about being bigger and stronger. I think men made out all right in this deal.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty happy with my end of of it, too. Makes you wonder where the deathless come down on split powers. From the little the Mother’s told us, they came first,” Liz said, sending up a cloud of dust as she slid down the trail. “If that’s true, then they were the prototype for this virus. She may have modified it based on what she’d learned with the deathless. The culture she built here must have come later, along with the werewolves.”

“That would make sense,” Blair allowed, dropping thirty feet to the next switchback. She leapt after, landing in a crouch next to him. He still seemed to be chewing on his ideas. “We need to know more about the deathless. The beast says their shaping is different. How? What exactly can they do? The green bolt Irakesh hit me with was agonizing, and the wound was difficult to heal. I’m wondering if there’s a theme to their powers, just like there is to ours.

“Theme?” Liz asked. The possibility that their powers had one hadn’t even occurred to her.

“Shaping seems to focus on two primary areas. Mental powers, like fooling and controlling the minds of others,” Blair explained, sliding down the hillside to the next switchback. “The second is altering DNA. Changing my physical appearance, becoming a wolf. Possibly even altering the DNA of others.”

“Whereas females focus on ferocity and stealth,” she added, landing next to him in a crouch. “I guess there are themes.”

Conversation dwindled as they picked their way from switchback to switchback. Blair seemed focused on the village below, though she couldn’t say why. He seemed apprehensive, as if he expected to find something bad there.

“Do you see that?” he asked, pausing on a switchback near the valley floor. He stabbed a finger towards the edge of the village.

Something moved in the darkness. A lot of somethings. Dozens upon dozens of zombies shambled in their direction. A horde of ravenous corpses, all moving with the same driving purpose.

“They haven’t acted like this before,” Liz said, flexing her claws.
 

“They’re coordinated, like a swarm,” Blair growled, pacing restlessly as their foes approached. “This isn’t accidental. I can control minds, so it stands to reason that Irakesh might be able to do something similar. He left them to stop us. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. We can just go around them.”

“We can’t, actually. If we circle around, they’ll head back to the Ark and trash it,” Liz said, suppressing a sigh. “He out maneuvered us like children. They’re a threat and he knows it. This is a way for him to get ahead of us.”

“So I guess we deal with them,” Blair said, leaping to the next switchback.
 

There were perhaps two hundred zombies. Not insurmountable, but a definite drain on their energy. Exactly what this Irakesh had intended, no doubt. Damn the cunning bastard.
 

“We’re going to be too weak to pursue him if we cut them all down,” Blair said, with a frustrated sigh. “We’ll need to retreat to the Ark and tell the Mother what happened. Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

“How far away is he?” she asked, grinding her teeth. The last thing she wanted to do was face the Mother and tell her how badly she’d failed.

“He’s farther north by at least a couple miles and moving quickly. We could probably match his pace if we followed, but I don’t know if we could narrow the gap,” Blair said, clearly as annoyed as she was. “How do you want to handle this?”

Liz dove into the approaching zombies, rending and crushing a path. She vented her frustration, ripping off limbs and crushing skulls with powerful blows. Blair followed, cutting down any that got behind her as she tore a path through their ranks.

Chapter 18- Suspicious Behavior

Director Phillips clasped his hands behind his back, watching dispassionately as the room echoed with amplified gun fire. The wall screen showed the perspective of a helmet cam, its occupant manning the side mounted gun in a DC-16 Mohn chopper. The weapon streamed death at a young tourist in a floral print dress. Her auburn hair was matted with blood, and her pale shoulder bore long jagged scratches.

The woman took a half dozen fifty caliber rounds to the midsection, which tossed her body back like a toy flung about by a retriever. Yet she rose to her feet, giving a screech of rage despite the hideous wounds. She began limping towards the camera. The gun fired one more time, this time obliterating everything from the neck up. The body toppled to the ground and lay sill.

Then the camera tilted crazily, turning until it was focused on a soldier with a thin black goatee and haggard brown eyes. Yuri Filipov, Commander Jordan’s favorite subordinate. “Is shit, command. Cut them down, but zombies just keep coming. Don’t have many rounds left.”

The Director was silent as he considered. So many unanswered questions, but the man was in a firefight.

“Corporal Filipov, I know you’re in the thick of it, but we need a status. Where are you?” The Director said, arms falling to his sides. His fists clenched as he suppressed the urge to take a step closer to the screen.

“Is Panama,” the Russian replied, glancing over his shoulder then back at the camera. “Peru status unknown, but bad when left. Werewolf tore off Yuri’s leg.”

“Acknowledged. Yuri, is the package secure?” It was amazing that the man was still conscious, much less manning a heavy weapon with that kind of injury.

“No. Is still in hangar,” Yuri replied. His head turned and the camera spun wildly. There were a flurry of gunshots, then his face returned. “Cannot breach perimeter. Is impossible. Have enough fuel to make Houston, but need extraction from there.”

“Acknowledged. Get back in the air and get as much footage as you can in Panama. We’ll dispatch another team to secure the package,” The Director ordered, face dispassionate despite his roiling emotions. It was all going to shit so very quickly.

Yuri gave a tight nod. Then the screen went black. The Director spun to face the room. “Get me viable extraction options. I want that package back in our hands and I don’t want to lose anyone doing it. Estimates and full brief in two hours.”

Mark turned on his heel and strode up the center aisle, not pausing as he stepped through the automatic doors. He knew their timing to the millisecond and had made every motion as efficiently as possible. Many people would have laughed had they known it. Such a small thing, passing through a door at the optimum speed.

Yet it was from the simplest actions that one’s core self arose. The standards you set. If you held yourself to excellence in the little things, you quickly realized that big things were just an accumulation of all those little things. So Mark made the little things count.

He ducked into an elevator moments before it closed, eyes widening as he identified the car’s other occupant.

“Heading to your quarters?” the Old Man asked. That nickname was most definitely at odds with Leif Mohn himself. He wasn’t an old man so much as he was eternal. His platinum hair and stern face hadn’t aged in the entire time Mark had known him. The bastard was even more timeless than Patrick Stewart.

“Yours actually. We just received a live combat report from Panama,” he said. The Old Man always liked knowing as soon as data was obtained. “Peru sounds bad. The package was never delivered.”

Mohn stabbed the button labeled 24 for Mark then 26 for his own quarters. Mark had always wondered why he kept an entire level between himself and the senior staff, but he’d never asked. He wondered what the Old Man would say if he did. The man clearly valued privacy, but when the world ended that kind of paranoia was just too expensive.

“Where is it now?”

“We have confirmation that the package is still in Panama. An extraction team landed, but faced heavy resistance from these walking corpses,” The Director replied, eyeing the Old Man sidelong as the car began to descend. “We haven’t created an official term for the creatures, though Z, zombie and zed have been suggested repeatedly.”

“Draugr, Mark. They’re called draugr. I don’t care about the package. What I do care about are the Arks. I want a bird assigned to every one and I want hourly reports detailing everyone coming or going. That includes the one in Peru,” the Old Man ordered. The car slid smoothly to a halt and the doors opened. Mark made no move to exit.

“What about the package? That’s a live nuke, sir,” he protested, surprising himself.
 

“It’s in hostile territory. Recovery will cost us and we have twenty-one more.” Mohn gestured for Mark to exit the elevator car. “Focus on the Arks. We need to know everything.”

“Arks?” Mark asked, stepping into the doorway, but not quite exiting. “You’re talking about the pyramids, right?”

Something like surprise flitted across the Old Man’s face, the sudden realization that he’d made a verbal slip. Mark had seen it hundreds of times on just as many faces, the mark of a man who’d revealed information he’d intended to keep secret.

“Yes, Mark, the pyramids. They’re the pinnacle of an entire civilization. If they’re all occupied like the one in Peru, we’re dealing with some very dangerous people. So focus our resources there and forget about the package,” Mohn ordered. His gaze hardened, but not before Mark caught something else there. Deception. The Old Man was throwing him off the scent about something. But why?

He stepped from the elevator and turned to face the old man. “Of course, sir.”

The doors slid closed.
 

“Benson, this is The Director,” Mark said, the sound picked up by the sub-dermal microphone inserted into his throat. “Get two researchers, one on the word ‘Draugr’. The other on the word Ark, with a capital A.”

"Yes, sir,” she answered instantly. “I’ll have reports compiled within the hour.”

Mark didn’t bother replying. He headed up the corridor towards his quarters with slow, deliberate steps as he contemplated the unthinkable.
 

Chapter 19- Tracker

Cyntia raised her muzzle, tasting the night air as she sought Trevor’s elusive scent. She’d found it three times now, but each time it had vanished as quickly as she’d discovered it. Brief hints that the man himself was close, just out of reach. Each time a more conventional search had shown two sets of tracks making their way north.
 

The familiar musk of sweat reminded her of leaning against Trevor back before the final assault in Cajamarca, one of the last times she’d seen him alive.
 

Do you taste that, Ka-Ken? His scent is sickly. Tainted. He has become one of the deathless. Your quest is futile. Your He cannot be reclaimed, cannot be redeemed. He has become the ancient enemy, terrible and cunning.

Cyntia ignored the voice, as she often did. It rarely told her anything useful, though it had taught her to track by scent. It had claimed that she was a tracker, one of the Ka-Ken gifted with the supernaturally enhanced senses. That was proving useful, as she’d have otherwise lost Trevor’s trail long ago. Even still, the quest seemed futile and she understood why the others thought her foolish to pursue it.