The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (43 page)

"As much as I hate to
disagree with Marcus and the United States Military, I think Fayd is
right," Otis finally said. "I was hoping one of you would make the
suggestion. I just can't sit out here and do nothing."

Dennis, Fayd, Otis and Jace were
in agreement. They looked at Gary and Mark.

"Guys?" Dennis said.
"What do you think?"

Gary looked at them, one by one.
"I think we need to go in there and kick some demon ass."

"We're not kicking
ass," Dennis reminded him. "We're going in to find Kathlyn."

Mark stood up from the boulder he
had been sitting on. "The way she is, she's probably kicked all their
asses by now and is running the whole damn show." He laughed at the
thought. "I say we go get her and save the demons from her
dictatorship."

There was no further need for
discussion.  It was unanimous and the adrenalin started flowing. While they ran
around finding wood to burn, Jace checked his weapon and thought about what
they were going to do once they were in there.  Dennis began lighting the
pieces of wood with a lighter he used to spark up his cigars. Fayd, his torch
lit and feeling a true sense of purpose now that they were taking some action,
went over to Jace.

 "The cave is dark and
close," he said. "The shafts are the worse. If they catch us in
there, we'll be like sheep to the slaughter. We must stay spaced apart and
alert for anything."

Deverona could feel his heart
pumping. "Since you know more about the cavern that I do, maybe you should
take the lead."

Fayd nodded. "I'll do that.
I know where Kathlyn and I have been; that's the route Marcus and the others
took. We'll take a different route and be sure to mark the trail. I'd hate to
get lost in there."

"So you think they've had
enough of a head start?"

"Probably enough to raise an
alarm."

"Good." Jace switched
on his flashlight. "Then let's go in and get her before they know what's
happened."

***

The gun went off and Marcus dove
for cover. But as he threw himself behind a natural rock formation, he caught
sight of a huge pair of wings carrying off one of Ellsner's men.  The seaman
screamed as he was lifted up into the heights of the cave by something that
looked like a fried-brown skinned man with wings that must have had an
eight-foot span. They never flapped, however; they only glided, aiding in the
stealth of the sudden appearance.  There had been no sound at all.

The seaman fired the gun in
panic, ricocheting bullets off the cave walls. Startled, the rest of the team
seemed to be having trouble grasping what they were seeing. It was like they
were frozen with shock. The older Marine on point finally aimed his rifle and
with one clean shot, took out the winged creature. Both it and the seaman
tumbled a couple dozen feet to the ground.

The creature hit the earth, dead.
The seaman was extremely lucky and only suffered bruises. But as Marcus and
Tony and Ellsner crowded around the fallen demon in astonishment, a deafening
hissing rose up through the cave. It seemed to come from the very walls, a
chorus of noisy air coming from the black heights of the cavern. Marcus' hair
stood on end as he listened to it.

"Christ," he muttered.
"What in the hell is that noise?"

Tony rolled the creature over,
studying the crispy dry skin, the dark red blood seeping from the wound to its
abdomen.  "I've got a better question," he said grimly. "What in
the hell is this?"

Ellsner cocked his rifle. The
rest of the team did the same, eyes wide with anticipation and fear as they
listened to the hissing.

 "Goddammit," Ellsner
breathed. "That doctor was right. This cave is full of those bastards.
What in the hell are they?"

Marcus knelt beside the creature,
trying to be as objective as possible as he studied it. Truth was, he was
spooked.

 "I've never seen anything
like this," he said. "It's got to be some sort of mutant. I couldn't
even begin to guess."

"I thought this was your
specialty, doctor?" Ellsner's gun was up and his eyes were scanning the
heights.

 Marcus shook his head. "My
specialty is Egyptology, not evolutionary biology or anthropology. This thing
goes against every rule of evolution I was taught." He held up one of the
hands, with long fingers and long, sharp nails. On the palm of the hand near
the wrist, it looked as if there was a primitive dew-claw. Letting the hand go,
he ran a finger over the protrusions over each eye. "I'll be damned. I've
never seen anything like it."

"Not even a guess?"
Ellsner sounded strained.

 Marcus wriggled his eyebrows and
stood up. "My wife would tell you that it's a demon," he said.
"But as a more logical man, I can tell you what it's not."

"And what's that?"

"It's not one of us."

The hissing around them grew
stronger, or perhaps it was the reverberation in the cavern gaining momentum.
Whatever the case, Marcus didn't want to waste any more time examining the
fallen creature. There were several doorways cut into the rock.

"Let's get out of this
cave," he motioned to the nearest doorway. "Kathlyn's down here,
somewhere. I've got to find her."

Ellsner motioned his men to get
moving.  He didn't like this open cavern where they were ready to be picked off
like sitting ducks. As they neared the doorway, the hissing grew dramatic and
suddenly, there was a creature blocking their entrance. It was tall; teeth
barred and hands shaped like claws, it lashed out at the Marine at point and
raked him down the neck and into his chest. The man fell back, blood gushing
from a severed artery. As the S.E.A.Ls fired in response, Tony grabbed his man
and pulled him out of the way. There was no way to stop the bleeding, though he
and Marcus tried. Marcus even ripped off his shirt, tying it around the man's
neck while Tony and a medic struggled to seal up the artery with surgical
staples. More creatures came into view, swooping down on the team, getting
blown out of the air and falling to the ground in brown, bloody heaps. It was
instant chaos.

 The smell of gunpowder mixed
with the smoke from the fire made the air nearly unbreatheable. Tony and Marcus
had managed to pull the downed Marine near a wall, out of the line of fire, but
the man was bleeding out.  Leaving the medic with him, Tony took his rifle and
started picking off the brown, scary things swooping above him. The creatures
were hissing and moaning, dive-bombing on their great wings and using their
great clawed hands to inflict horrible damage.

 In addition to Tony's man,
several of the S.E.A.L.s had been wounded. One man had lost an eye; half of his
face had been ripped away. When two of the brown creatures jumped on top of him
and began biting him with their great sharp teeth, Ellsner shot and killed
them. When he turned around to see how the rest of his men were faring, a large
creature swooped on top of him and ripped his throat out.

"Tony!" Marcus shouted
above the disorder. "Ellsner's down!"

Tony glanced over at the
Commander, a mess on the ground. He cursed angrily, unloading on a creature
that went after a wounded S.E.A.L.

  "We need to find
Kathlyn!" Tony shouted back. "I can hold them here; you get in there
and find her!"

"You sure?"

"Go!"

Marcus was a crack shot. He aimed
at a creature heading right for him and punched him between the eyes. It was
enough of a break to let him dash back into a tunnel, out of the battle. But in
the shaft he met up with two more creatures and was forced to defend himself.
Climbing over the bodies, he started shouting his wife's name frantically.

He had no flashlight and it was
pitch dark. Groping along the walls, he could hear the sounds of the battle
fading further and further behind him. The shaft turned and dipped, leading him
on a maze only God-knew-where. The temperature was heating up, too.  He had
left his shirt back in the cavern on the neck of the dead Marine; in his jeans
and work boots, he was almost too warm. Sweat ran down his massive chest,
between his well-defined pectoral muscles and down his flat abdomen.  His dark
hair was doused with perspiration.

 The tunnel opened into a black
void. He could only assume it was another cavern. He had stopped calling
Kathlyn's name along ago, afraid it would attract more of the creatures. Still,
he had no idea where he was and only a minimal idea of how to get out.  He
groped along the wall until he tripped into another tunnel.  Feeling the narrow
walls on both sides of him, he continued on into the blackness.

He was having a hard time
controlling his anxiety. It wasn't the fact that the creatures existed; being a
scientist, he was more open minded than some. In truth, it was rather
fascinating. But they were violent and bloody and it terrified him to think of
what they had done to his wife. Maybe they had been kinder to the female sex,
showing benevolence they wouldn't show a male. Most rational creatures were
that way, though he wasn't even sure they were rational. From what he had seen,
they had been mindless and brutal. To think of his wife at their mercy nearly
drove him out of his mind. But he knew one thing for certain; he wasn't leaving
this place without her, dead or alive.

He walked on for what seemed to
be miles until up ahead, he could see a faint glow. Marcus entered a cavern
with some type of bioluminescent algae growing in steaming pools, emitting
enough light for him to see by. It was an eerie pale glow, surreal in these
lost caverns beneath the Iraqi desert. Thoughts of Aladdin's Cave passed
through his head and had he not been so on-edge, he would have found the
scenery delightful. Moving through the low-ceilinged grotto, he came to the
other side and was confronted by two dark shafts. Being left handed, he
naturally chose the shaft to the left.

 It was another black hole that
he found himself feeling his way through.  But suddenly, a warm glow appeared
in the distance, growing closer by the moment.  Marcus backed up, as quietly as
he could, until he re-emerged into the glowing grotto. Pressing himself back
against the damp wall, he could hear the footfalls growing closer. With every
step, his heart rate increased. The gun came out and he pointed it at the opening.
He didn't want to end up like the men back in the cavern, and his finger
tightened on the trigger.

 The torch exited the shaft
first. A blond head was suddenly in his sights and he almost pulled the trigger
out of sheer reflex. With a gasp, the gun fell from his hand. Marcus almost
collapsed as he realized what he had nearly done. Kathlyn heard the gasp and
saw her husband standing several feet away, as pale as she had ever seen him.
But it wasn't the sight of him that astonished her so; it was the massive
shadow emerging behind him. She couldn't find her voice fast enough to warn
him.

"Marcus!"

CHAPTER
TWENTY

"I thought you knew where we
were going!"

Dennis' voice was loud in the
dark, warm shaft. Fayd was the object of his scorn, as usual.

"I have only been in certain
portions of this cave," Fayd said patiently. "I told you that at the
beginning. If we are lost, then it is not my fault."

"It's sure not my
fault."

Gary stood behind Dennis and put
his hand on the man's shoulder. "Relax, Dennis. We've marked the trail; we
can find our way back if we have to."

Dennis was twitching with nerves.
His blond hair was curly with perspiration. "We've been hearing gunshots
for the past ten minutes. I don't like this one goddamn bit."

"There's nothing we can do
but continue on," Fayd insisted. "The longer we stand here wasting
time, the more jeopardy we place ourselves in. Marcus and the rest of them can
only keep the creatures occupied for so long."

Dennis and Gary thought about the
mummified winged beings they had seen back in the upper caverns. Otis and Mark
had already observed them and had been given the chance to get used to the
idea. But for Dennis, Gary and Jace, the sight was still fresh and creepy in
their minds. Deverona pushed his way up to the front of the pack, gun in hand.

"Let's quit arguing,"
he snapped softly. "We'll just continue onward and explore every damn bit
of this place until we find Kathlyn."

He moved forward, his flashlight
casting a weak beam on the dark walls. It smelled like mold. The path of the
tunnel sloped downward and they found themselves slipping on the moist, slick
floor. The gunshots they had heard earlier were fading; only an occasional pop
could be heard now and again. Jace didn't like that at all; it meant whatever conflict
there was had drawn to a close and the creatures would more than likely be
disbursing. Even though he had no idea how many of them there were, he couldn't
imagine the Marines and S.E.A.L.s had killed them all in one blow. Which meant
they'd be trolling through these caverns at any time. He moved faster.

They came to a narrow cavern,
long and low-ceilinged. Picking their way across it, gingerly, there were signs
of habitation all over the floor. Dennis plugged his nose.