by James Axler
His neck ached, and the manacles were testing the durability of his forearm and hand scales. Thurpa’s shoulders and biceps protested as he bent, holding up the weight of his cuffs and chains, all the while his lower jaw feeling as if it were pinned to the rest of his head by rusted nails. His tongue dried out, and the flexor muscles in his fang burned as he tried to hold his tooth steady, trying to jostle the tumblers in the manacles.
He felt the tendons freezing, refusing to keep his fang extended. The rust on the manacles scraped across his tongue, but he couldn’t pull his head away. He needed to stay down in that lock, despite every instinct to spit out the flaked, oxidized iron.
Something popped between Thurpa’s neck and shoulder, and something hot spread beneath. He knew it was a tendon popping as the heat crawled up and down his tugged, pained neck. And yet he could feel the progress being made. The dull clicks within the lock, tumblers being moved. The grind of metal on his tooth was maddening, and his scaled lips were growing ever more raw.
Every bit of him felt like it was being crumpled up more and more, and his muscles begged to be stretched out, the kinks pulled and popped, freed from this tension. He could feel the salty sting of a tear crawling down his nose, dripping off it and onto the metal. The tear stung his lip, and he fought off the urge to wince away from it.
Enki, I’m sorry for complaining. Please, I need to get out of these chains, he began praying after an hour and a half of effort. The strain on his neck had crawled slowly inside his skull, the coils of a boa constrictor winding around his brain and causing his head to throb. He’d close his eyes, and, under the lids, he could feel them spasm, twitch, rattling side to side as his orbs seemed to twirl free at the end of rubber bands.
Thurpa’s will was draining, but he kept pushing, kept stretching to reach the keyhole. He ignored the split and cracking of his scales around his lips and wrists as the heavy steel yearned to obey the tug of gravity.
Biceps now had daggers poked into them, then slitting lines of fire up their centers. Holding up the chains was just too much.
Come on, you crybaby, he scolded himself. Lyta is half of your weight, and she survived six days with bindings like this digging into her. And she didn’t have armored scales!
It took every ounce of discipline he had. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost track of time.
Suddenly, there was a loud click. And his left hand was free. No more was he grinding, bent, pressing his skin against unyielding steel. Blood trickled between his scales, and many of them looked burst on his dermis. He felt the urge to brush away the broken skin, but knew he’d only be aggravating whatever pain was now simply a dull ache.
He also only had one hand free. Thurpa licked his lips, feeling the jagged flakes of scale and rust mixing on his tongue. He barely had the moisture to spit, but he managed to cough and blow out the detritus in his mouth.
Thurpa lay back, resting his head against the wall. He blinked, taking inventory of his hurts, his discomforts. He ran his tongue over the fang, and found that it had been chipped badly. He also realized his venom sac was empty. He’d need to get a closer look at the fang in a mirror, but at least the tooth hadn’t been broken off.
Rest, he told himself. They’ve left you alone for this long. Regain your strength. Maybe look for something that could be used as another tool.
“You know, maybe something showed up since you last spent an hour looking at everything in this cell,” he spoke out loud. His words felt slurred, but then, this was the third time in as many days that he’d sustained damage to his mouth. This whole trip to Africa seemed to be one smash in the face after another.
He rubbed his forehead. Knuckles cracked from disuse. He’d kept his fists clenched as he’d gnawed, probed, turned his tooth inside the manacle keyhole.
Thurpa examined the manacle itself as he ran his tongue over the raw, aching roof of his mouth. The chains were fairly dense and heavy, but not so bad. He could actually grasp it in one hand, providing support for his other wrist. He looked to see if the opened clamp could provide some sort of tool to undo the other side.
He rested the apparatus in his lap and manipulated the hinge of one of the bracelets, looking for a way to work out the pin holding it together. There was no such luck for him. Each end of the hinge was capped in a heavy metal fastening. To get even one side off would take a saw or a ton of hammering. He looked around and he noticed that he had plenty of solid stone to work against. There was also the candle port. Wire mesh and heavy bars.
Thurpa examined the manacle and the chain, then crawled over to the port. Maybe he could keep the chains on, using them as a weapon or tool against the door. As he crawled, he noticed that water had been poured under the door, filling a depression in the floor.
“Oh, no way,” Thurpa muttered. If they expected him to drink off the floor...
And, yet, he was parched.
Wrinkling his nose, sneering at his weakness, he stooped and lapped at the water. Grit scraped the inside of his throat as he swallowed, but even though it was full of dust and rust flakes adhered to his tongue and lips, he continued to lap. Thirst controlled him, and he hadn’t replenished himself in so long.
Finally sated, he sat back up, breathing deeply.
Just a little more time resting, Thurpa mused. Then I can get back to breaking my chains....
Thurpa closed his eyes, brain working even as he nodded off.
* * *
NATHAN LONGA WISHED that he hadn’t ceded Nehushtan, but then, while he was in charge of carrying the artifact, he felt less than helpful, no matter what abilities it imparted in him.
Of course, now he missed the presence of the ancient device. He could have used a surge of strength sufficient to snap the chains, but those were just pipe dreams for now. He remembered his father telling him once, “Wish in one hand and shit in another, and see which fills first.”
Nathan couldn’t hear any of the others. Maybe they were attempting to break free.
Maybe? Nothing maybe about it. Those people hadn’t gotten this far, hadn’t battled their way around the world without having the drive to escape when imprisoned.
Nathan figured at least one of them would have a tool hidden away.
He wasn’t so certain that Thurpa would have a way out, but he’d known the snake for a shorter amount of time than he was familiar with the Cerberus heroes. But Thurpa had survived where others of the Millennium Consortium contingent had died, and had gone on to save the Zambians when he could have played possum and laid back, allowing a horde of monsters to ambush and overwhelm humans who would have no qualms about letting him die.
The two of them, Nathan and Thurpa, were young men who were far from home, and they had managed more than a little bit of camaraderie.
He’d spotted a pause in the young cobra warrior as he’d looked into Lyta’s eyes. Nathan could identify the beginnings of an attraction, especially since she’d stayed close to him while the group was setting up for their further investigation. Nathan didn’t care. Thurpa had shown himself to be a fine person, and Lyta was a distant, never-encountered cousin. He had others at home who had caught his eye.
Nathan looked over the chains. Maybe he couldn’t pick a lock, but he’d been around the artifact Nehushtan, a device that had granted him the strength to battle gorilla-size mutates that seemed to shrug off rifle bullets like raindrops. He felt them, looking for seams or imperfections. Nathan didn’t delude himself that any superhuman power he’d been granted would allow him to snap chains as if they were twigs.
For as strong or as swift as anyone had been while boosted by the staff, they still succumbed to injuries. Nathan knew that human flesh and bone were far more likely to yield when applied against steel than anything else. And so he felt a seam where one link wasn’t quite welded true. He put his thumbs against the inside of the circlet and push
ed.
Nothing. Nathan ramped up the pressure. He fought to bend the chain link, to break the weld. He kept going until he was certain his thumbs were going to break, and he stopped.
Nehushtan’s influence over his body was gone. He’d need to find a different means to enhance his physical might. That added up to a tool, and he was completely disarmed. Nathan rested his head against the wall, closed his eyes and thought.
If only the staff could hear me, he mused. Brigid was captured, but she didn’t have Nehushtan in her possession, only the improvised one. Chances are my cousin Lyta has it. And, hopefully, it’ll lead her to Kane.
I did lead her to Kane.
The whispered thought was in his own voice, but it had come unbidden to him. He opened his eyes, feeling the skin on his arms prickle, hairs rising to produce sheets of goose bumps all up and down his flesh. Nathan gnawed at his upper lip, looking around. Was he starting to lose it, after only a short time of being confined alone?
No, you are not, scion of N’Longa.
It was the staff. The rod that had been attributed to Solomon and Moses, which had its origins even further back in the history of the universe, all the way back to, allegedly, Atlantis. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again.
“You’re really there?” Nathan asked.
No answer. Then again, the staff had already provided its answer. He was not alone and still in contact with the artifact. The stave would not answer its question a second time, especially since Nathan knew in his heart of hearts that this was not imagination or fantasy.
“Let Kane know that we’re in good sorts,” Nathan responded.
He has seen you and your companions. He knows that you are prisoners of the devil’s avatar and the errant son of Enki.
Nathan felt his blood chill at Neekra being referred to as a devil. The staff mentioning that her body was merely an avatar added to his discomfort. Recalling his education from his father, his studies of comparative religions, he knew that avatars were mere slivers, essences of the Brahmic pantheon’s gods, which was where the term avatar originally came from.
So, Neekra was a mere shadow of her true self, and that meant her abilities were limited. Maybe that was why the four of them were now prisoners and not being hollowed out, killed and replaced by the gelatinous beasts that she referred to as her children.
Neekra probably needed them as bait.
To bring Kane and, most likely, Nehushtan itself.
“I’m trying my hardest to escape,” Nathan murmured. “But I’m not strong enough. I have no tools or resources.”
Faith, Nathan. They also serve who sit and wait.
The young man wondered what level of sentience the staff had. These transmissions could have simply been the equivalent of a standard computer’s automatic responses, an artificial intelligence, or perhaps the staff actually had some form of life. Nathan had seen enough over the past several weeks to realize that the nature of life and existence around the world were far from the limited concepts he was familiar with, at least outside a science fiction novel.
Nehushtan seemed to have no answer for that thought, and, for now, Nathan didn’t care.
All he could hope to do was try to save his strength and figure out another means of escape other than relying on the supernatural might of an ancient artifact.
It wasn’t going to be easy waiting.
* * *
DURGA STEPPED AWAY from the door. Only the young African seemed to be doing nothing to escape. Sure enough, the two from Cerberus, the beautiful woman and the giant of a man, had been working with smuggled tools, items that had been missed by less than completely thorough frisks of their half-clad bodies.
Brigid had the easier time, her bindings being of leather, which she could slice through using a small razor blade. Grant, however, wasn’t an expert lock pick, and his struggles with his manacles were increasing the frustration on his features. Durga was relieved that the big man simply hadn’t flexed and burst the chains restraining him.
Durga thought he’d heard Nathan speaking, but the young man had grown quiet again.
And then there was Thurpa. The traitor Thurpa.
It must have been torture for that boy to pop the lock on his manacles with one long fang dug into the keyhole.
One free wrist, and then lapping water off the floor, like a dog.
Durga had not really offered him the promise of a life of leisure in exchange for Thurpa’s service, but the Nagah prided honor and loyalty.
That loyalty had shifted, drastically, to the very humans who had turned the cobra prince into a fugitive. All for what? A simple act of kindness?
Durga took a deep breath, watching his former minion lying on the ground.
The water was spiked. As much as Durga looked forward to seeing exactly how resourceful they were, he didn’t want any of these four getting away.
Not yet.
Neekra strode down the corridor, her crimson flesh glimmering in the torchlight.
“What are you thinking of?” Neekra asked.
Durga rested his hand on the door. “My disappointment.”
“Ah, the boy,” Neekra replied. “I could try to woo him.”
“No,” Durga responded. “He is dead to me.”
“And yet you’re drugging him,” Neekra said. “Why?”
Durga glared at her. “I do not want to have to deal with an escaped prisoner while Kane is still out and about.”
Neekra nodded.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, you’re good at that, but I know that you are up to something,” Neekra told him. She stepped closer.
“I’m protecting my ass,” Durga said. “I’ve dealt with Enlil, the one you tell me imprisoned you. I don’t trust so-called gods as far as I can throw the pyramids. So, forgive me for having something to keep me from ending up screwed to death.”
Neekra smirked.
“You think you can protect yourself?” Neekra asked.
Durga kept his silence, kept his thoughts buried deeply.
“How do you think that you are special enough to handle me?” Neekra pressed.
“Because you asked me for help,” Durga responded. “Right now, you’re not at your peak. You need your original form, and you need someone to help you get back to it.”
“So, you’re planning to kill me?” Neekra asked.
“What would be the use in that?” Durga countered. “You promised me a great reward. I’ll help you, until you decide that my reward is a shallow grave, if I get a grave.”
Neekra looked him over.
“I’m looking out for myself. I’m also smart enough to know that planning to take you out of the picture is a good excuse for you to kill me. I want whatever reward, whatever power you’re promising me, even if it’s just more of you using me as your boy toy,” Durga said. “Our relationship right now is good. You’re not trying to kill me, and I’m going to keep my ass in one piece. In case you haven’t noticed, my only friends here are the ones I cloned.”
Neekra looked at the assemblage of cobra men. “Is that why you’re showing such interest in your former minion? The one who showed confusion about me when last we met?”
Durga frowned. “Thurpa. What confusion?”
“He didn’t know how to take me,” Neekra stated. “It was as if he knew I were merely a psychic projection. He saw and heard me, but to him, something felt off. He could sense me within his skull.”
“So, is he sensitive?” Durga asked, suddenly growing more interested.
“I believe so. He’s not aware of what he is capable of, but then, most humans are not,” Neekra explained. “And as far as I am concerned, you and he are as human as the hairless apes you’re scuffling with.”
“I don’t care,” Durga replied. �
�What I do care about is what your children are going to need to eat or whatever you need from ‘sensitive minds.’”
“As in, do you think I want to eat your brain?” Neekra asked.
Durga nodded.
“Don’t worry about that. I need more than blood or any biological material you are composed of,” Neekra told him. “You are safe from being on the menu. As are any of your prisoners, if you wish to keep them alive.”
Durga looked at the cell doors.
“You want to keep them alive,” Neekra noted. “Why?”
“That is my reason to know alone,” Durga responded. “But we both agree we need them for our own private purposes.”
Neekra nodded.
Durga held out his hand to her. “Peace.”
“Peace is always good,” Neekra said.
Durga, though, could feel her thinking, her own little unspoken “for now.”
He could sense hers just as he knew she could feel his own, despite the discipline hiding his deeper emotions.
Cobra man and vampire goddess, dancing around each other, looking for a weakness, knowing any failure on their own part would lead to their destruction. Durga was reminded of Kali, the goddess of destruction, herself a drinker of blood, and she who wove the dance of life and death. Was Kali another name for the entity standing before him?
Either way, Durga knew that he was walking on a high wire over the apocalypse. If she truly did get her way, whatever world Durga inherited would be barren and lifeless.
Chapter 16
The dreaded sunset fell, and Kane braced himself. Darkness would be when the creatures ventured forth into the night. It made sense to him, now, why they avoided the shining blaze of the sun, not for fear of its burning rays, but because night made the dead bodies they took residence in seem less out of the ordinary. He recalled the sight of these entities as they had clothed themselves in the flesh of the recently killed, and he knew that in the daytime, there would be little to hide their hideous mockery of humanity.