Ragnarok (34 page)

Good.

The first man she had hit—the overweight man—began to stir on the floor. Asya lifted her leg, as if she were about to perform a simple ballet move, but then sprang up in the air and landed on the prone fat man’s neck with the bone of her knee and upper shin. The man made a sickening gurgle and grunt when his neck broke, and his eyes bulged from their sockets with the ramming impact of Asya’s entire weight, dropped from a five-foot height.

She stood again and quickly checked the man whose head had smacked against the stone wall of the room. His skull was cracked. Congealing blood coated the edges of the wound. It looked a brighter red than she would have expected.
Like a young girl’s nail polish, thick and glossy.
He wouldn’t be rejoining the fight either.

Asya looked at the live video feeds on the monitors around the room. One showed a room full of people sleeping on beds laid out like in an orphanage.
The lab scientists
, she assumed. Another showed the glowing sphere in the main room and a few of the creatures sniffing the air around it. Another showed the empty office where she had collected Rook at gunpoint, earlier in the night.

She saw more empty storerooms and offices. She had yet to come across tunnels or corridors, though. Some of the cameras showed views of doors outside, leading into the lab. One of those doors was ajar in the snow. She didn’t see any rooms that looked like they might have rope or weapons, so she would check the cabinet at the back of the room next.

A monitor screen with rows of electrical switchboards caught her eye. The room was filled with thick electrical cables. Another screen showed the entrance to the tunnel where she had taken Rook to the pit. Then she realized something and checked all twenty screens again. Fossen, the man that ran the place, was not on any of the cameras. Neither was Queen. And neither was the entrance to the lab she had used with Rook and Queen.
A lot of blind spots in the surveillance.
Asya walked over to the plastic map and looked at the floor plan. The tunnel back to the abandoned part of the lab was not even on the schematic.

She stepped around one man’s extended leg, and made her way to the black cabinet. She opened it slowly and it creaked with a barely audible squeal. Inside were a few of the Walther pistols like the one she had used on Rook, and two AR-15 rifles with black canvas straps. A hook on the inside of the cabinet door held a small hand towel. It smelled of machine oil, but she used it to wipe blood off her face and out of her hair. On the floor of the cabinet was a navy blue nylon bag. She knelt and unzipped it to find a black braided nylon rope.

Perfect.

She took the bag and threw it over her shoulder and then put two of the pistols in the pockets of the ridiculous lab coat she wore. She thought of taking the rifles, too, but she didn’t think she could conceal them well enough under the coat and they wouldn’t fit in the bag. She left them and made for the door. On a small hook by the door was a 6-inch plastic-barreled flashlight. She pocketed it in one smooth move.

Back in the large main lab, she once again skirted the wall in a slow shuffle and made for the tunnel back to Rook, forcing the glazed look back into her eyes. She kept expecting the creatures to see through the ruse. But the beasts ignored her as she walked.

When she reached the tunnel entrance, she almost slipped on a small puddle of liquid. She grimaced.
Urine, maybe?
She sighed and continued into the tunnel, figuring the beasts had to piss somewhere. A few steps further in, and she was concealed in shadow. She breathed a sigh of relief that she had once more passed the notice of the bulky white monsters.

That relief flooded away as she was grabbed from behind in the dark. A powerful limb wrapped around her throat and squeezed. Hard. The kind of hard that left her little doubt about what was going to happen next.
I’m going to die
.

FIFTY-NINE

Outside the Gleipnir Facility, Norway

4 November, 0130 Hrs

ANNA BECK TUGGED hard on the toggle of her parachute with one hand and pulled her 9 mm Browning from her leg holster with the other. She fired several shots at the dire wolves on the fringe of the melee, not wanting to risk hitting Queen by firing too close to the center. In another two seconds, her feet hit the ground. She quickly released the harness of the parachute, but the dire wolves were ignoring her and still rushing for Queen.

As she freed herself from the harness and rolled in the snow to take up a firing stance on her knee, she saw Queen viciously head butt a dire wolf under its chin, sending its head back in a whipping arc, and a spray of white liquid squirting from its snout. Before its head hit the ground, Beck put a bullet in it. She fired twice more before she heard automatic fire from behind her.

She twisted in the foot-deep snow to see Black Six firing short bursts with an MP5 submachine gun. The muzzle flash lit up the snowy white expanse of the field between the hills in splashes of orange. They had muzzle suppressors for the MP5s back in New Hampshire, but no one thought this mission would involve stealth. They were here to do some damage. She watched him drop four dire wolves, their bodies contorting in agony after the bullet impacts, and then dying far more abruptly than a human would.

She fired her Browning a few more times, dropping dire wolves with headshots. She heard Queen growl like a feral animal and saw her knock one of the dire wolves away from her with an uppercut.

“Good God,” Black Six said, his voice a mixture of fear and awe. “Look at her.”

“Now you know why she’s in the field and I guard an underground bunker,” Beck replied.

Beck raced over to the center of the fight. She fired the last few shots from her weapon at point-blank range as the dire wolves still attempted to dog-pile Queen, ignoring Beck completely.

Beck recognized the situation. Even if she didn’t know why, she would take advantage of it. She fired until her magazine was empty, then holstered the weapon and drew her knife—a wide, curved blade, Gurkha Kurkri Plus manufactured by Cold Steel. More machete than knife with its swept 12-inch blade, Beck hacked at the first few dire wolves she could get to and then stabbed two more in the backs of their necks. She couldn’t believe that the creatures were ignoring her until she got closer to Queen and smelled the woman.

“Oh dear God,” she shouted. “What the hell is that funk?”

“I know,” Queen growled while striking a dire wolf in the throat with her knuckles and then stabbing a thumb into its eye. She was coated in sticky white fluid and bleeding from several places as well. “I know! I caught one in the crotch and it sprayed me with its fuckin’ goo like a skunk!” Beck could hardly hear the woman over the bursts of MP5 fire from Black Six, as the man kept the remaining oncoming horde of dire wolves further away from the skirmish.

Then Beck had an idea. She sheathed the Kurkri, inserted a fresh magazine into her Browning and started firing at the approaching dire wolves, aiming for their nether regions. Gouts of white fluid burst and pulsed from the wounds as the beasts went down to the snow, and she soon saw some of the other dire wolves going to the injured ones, instead of after Queen.

She ran over to Black Six’s position, where he stood knee deep in snow, and she took up firing next to him. “Aim for the balls.”

“They don’t have balls!”

“Well there’s something there. Some kind scent sack.”

Black Six calmly adjusted his aim and mowed down the next wave of the creatures, firing at waist level. A few of the creatures’ genital areas burst when the 9 mm rounds ruptured the milky white skin at the groin. White liquid sprayed.

Black Six groaned. “Fuckin’ nasty.”

The next wave of dire wolves, about seven of the beasts, stopped at the row of freshly dead and began clawing into the corpses. Black Six and Beck exchanged a look. “I got this,” he said.

Beck raced back to Queen to help her dispatch the last two creatures, but she needn’t have bothered. Despite the multiple wounds on Queen’s body and the muck that coated her, the woman still moved with quick grace and powerful strikes, taking down one more beast with an eye jab and then the last by leaping up onto its chest and twisting the creature’s powerful neck until a loud crack rang out. Beck counted twenty-two bodies piled on the ground by Queen’s feet, and several more around the main fight, that she had shot after ditching the parachute.

Queen looked at her, breathing hard, covered in a mix of red and white gore, the bright red skull on her forehead glaring through the muck.

Beck couldn’t hide the shiver that ran up her spine. She’d heard stories about Queen’s hand-to-hand combat skills, but never imagined that she—or anyone else aside from some mythological God of war—could be capable of such carnage. It was horrifying, yet in these circumstances, a thing of beauty.

Queen stood bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. Beck walked up to her slowly. She stopped a few feet away. The stink was horrendous. “You gonna be okay?” Queen nodded. Beck took a step back scrunching her nose. “Ugh. Maybe roll around in the snow for a few minutes or something.”

Queen stood and wiped the muck from her face and flung her arm to the side. A long sticky strand of thick white viscous liquid shot off her fingers until the strand snapped and the glob went into the snow. Beck made a face.

“Who
are
you?” Queen asked. She looked like she might be readying for another fight.

“Anna Beck, callsign: Black Zero. Deep Blue sent me.”

Queen nodded. “I remember you, now. From the fight with the Hydra, right?” She wiped another stream of thick glop from her face. “Too bad Deep Blue didn’t send the others too. We could use them.”

“He and King and the rest of the team are two hours out,” Black Six had stepped up to them, the threat of the oncoming dire wolves diminished as they all scrambled to attack the piles of their recently deceased brethren instead of Queen. “I’ve got extra firearms. You need anything?”

Queen looked back to Beck and smiled. “I’ll take that knife, if you’re willing to part with it.”

“No gun?”

Queen shook her head, no. “I’m a hands-on kind of girl.”

Beck nodded. “I noticed.”

SIXTY

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

4 November, 0200 Hrs

ASYA MACHTCENKO COULDN’T breathe. Something was crushing her windpipe. She fumbled a hand into one of the oversize pockets of her coat and her fingers grazed the plastic barrel of the flashlight. She had been going for the gun but couldn’t reach it. The light would have to do. She swung it up, trying to pummel her assailant. She struck something solid, but all she managed to do was switch on the light, which flashed over the walls as she continued to fight.

She struggled to get even a small breath in, but the arm clamped onto her tighter with the crushing power of a bulldozer. Then she heard a gruff whisper near her ear. “Turn that friggin’ thing off or I break your neck.”

Rook!
She recognized his voice. She complied with his request, plunging the tunnel back into darkness. She still fought and struggled to break free from his powerful grasp. Her lungs were screaming at her now. She thrust her cranium back, smashing him in the bridge of his nose, and his grasp loosened, but he didn’t let go.

“Let go,” she hissed. “I am okay. I am not being controlled!”

Rook’s vice grip loosened, but didn’t let go.

“I nearly died in that pit,” he grumbled.

Asya could feel the back of her clothing soaking through. Rook was completely wet. He was also vibrating with anger.

“I was being controlled,” she whispered at him in the dark, “but I was still trying to help you.”

“You mean that little flashlight? Lotta good it did me down there.” His voice was petulant, but he let her go.

“Why did you not climb out? I did.”

“Up that brick wall? You must be Spider-Woman.” Now the man only sounded tired.

She paused a moment, in the dark. All she could hear was Rook breathing. “Then how did you get out of the pit, if not up the walls?”

“You wouldn’t friggin’ believe me if I told you. You’re sure you’re free and clear from the pheromones, now?”

“I came back to get you out. I have a rope and two guns.” She held out the pack. “Here, take one.”

The small LED flashlight she had given him lit up. Rook was covering the end of it with his hand, so it would only cast a dim red glow, but it was enough for her to see. He was soaked and covered in mud. She reached out to him, handing him one of the Walther pistols. He took it then doused the light.

“I had to fight the influence of these ‘pheromones.’ It comes from the energy ball—not from the creatures,” she told him as he expertly chambered a round in the Walther.

“The dire wolves,” Rook corrected.

“They are in the main room. Six of them. I had to pretend to be under the influence still. Walking like a hypnotized woman. Glassy eyes. They let me pass, but they still paid attention. We have to be careful. Do not get too close to the light ball. But if it gets you, you get very happy. You feel everything will be fine. The antidote is to get very angry. Frustrated.”

“Getting angry is rarely a problem for me. Where’s Queen?” There was a note of deep concern in Rook’s voice.

“I do not know. I have not seen her.”

“And Fossen?” Rook’s voice took on the glistening edge of a razor.

“I saw only four guards, in a security room. They are all dead now. I haven’t seen any of the people in lab coats for hours, but I saw them in the security feeds, sleeping in beds. Also, one of the doors to the outside was open. Perhaps we should just get out of here.”

“That open door was me coming back inside,” Rook said. “Listen, you already figured out that Stanislav was not my real name. Queen and I are a part of an American military team. We deal with this kind of stuff. Evil nutjobs like Fossen. Weird crap like the dire wolves. It’s all part of the job. I don’t know exactly what’s coming through that portal out there, but Fossen believes it will destroy the entire planet. We’ve got to stay and try to stop him.”