Necropolis

by James Axler

  “Maybe staking her with some of these might work,” the girl said. “She’s been shrugging off bullets so far.”

  Grant slung the quiver over one shoulder with a practiced, fluid movement. “Thanks, Lyta.”

  And, in an instant, he’d drawn an arrow and nocked it and aimed at the she-beast.

  Neekra wasn’t going to take her beating for long. Somewhere along the way, she must have recovered from her blindness. Suddenly, she was wrestling with Nathan for control of the artifact. Grant took aim at her head, then thought better of it. They’d been shooting her in the head with bullets, but all that had really done was force her to readjust her facial features in the wake of those attacks.

  He aimed for a spot under her arm and fired. The arrow sang as it sliced through the air, rocketing to catch the goddess in the side. Neekra whipped her head around as the feathered end poked from her ribs, glaring at Grant.

  “I am growing tired of you stupid little apes,” she grumbled.

  Kane was almost to her, winging the two-handed machete around to take off her head. Unfortunately, her peripheral vision must have been as healed as her normal sight, because she ducked out of the way of the swinging blade and the point carved a crease across both of her shoulders. Even as the blade slipped free of her skin, the wound sealed, zipping up and healing with uncanny quickness.

  Between the arrow and the machete slash, her attention was off Nehushtan, and Nathan retreated from her.

  “Give me that!” she snapped, reaching out for the fleeing young Longa. She put her foot down, and the tremor of her stomp made Grant totter. Kane’s knees gave out from under him as the ground flexed under her impact.

  Grant quickly recovered his balance and nocked a new arrow. He fired again, catching her through the shoulder blade.

  Where the last had penetrated into a human heart and not drawn a single glance from her, this one staggered her. Neekra turned around; the point was visible over her left aureole. Her face twisted in agony.

  “I’m getting real tired of your shit, Grant,” Neekra rasped.

  Grant didn’t bother to nock another arrow, knowing that he wouldn’t have the time. He did, however, bring up an arrow point-first. He lunged out with it, as if it were a fencer’s foil, aiming for the spot between her pendulous breasts. As the arrowhead speared through her solar plexus, she showed no reaction, no pain. And then her hands were clasped on either side of his head, a mind-reeling clap resounding through the inside his skull.

  Grant collapsed, eyes blurred, brain reeling from the impact. His hood absorbed most of the concussion, but enough got through to stun him. He peeled off the face mask, just in time to prevent the induced nausea from getting caught in it and choking him.

  His shoulders shook as he heaved.

  Right now he was helpless. Any hope he had of standing up again was shot by that hammer blow to his head. He wished that he could do more, but he was folded into a fetal position, helpless, hurting.

  He hoped Kane and Brigid could do without him.

  Neekra stood over Grant, and Kane hurled himself back into the fray, realizing that she had reacted with much more discomfort when the point of his arrow had pierced the front of her chest. Something was wrong, even as another point burst out just to one side of her spinal column. This one elicited no reaction, so it had to be the shaft that pierced at this angle. He leaped on her back, grabbing on to the arrow’s jutting end with both hands.

  Neekra whirled to reach back for the human who’d grabbed on to her, but with Kane using the handle stuck to her back, he remained out of her reach. Her fists slashed through the air with such force, they whistled. Kane winced at the force he had to struggle against as he was whipped about like a scarf, the arrow flexing in his grasp.

  “Get off of me, Kane!”

  “Not until you walk away,” he growled. Of course, neither was willing to let the other be free. She needed something from him, and Kane refused to allow such a menace to wander unhindered.

  Neekra let out a grunt and jammed her finger into her chest. Suddenly the handle that Kane gripped splintered from within her torso. He slid off her back and landed lightly, leaping aside just as she brought her elbow down where she thought he’d be. The crash against the ground reminded Kane just how deadly she was, even without producing a litter of sentient blobs, blood-drinking amoebas that sought out the dead and took over their bodies to turn them into the thirsty undead.

  She turned around again, glaring at Kane, who pressed forward with the muzzle of his .45 automatic. Neekra wrinkled her nose and chuckled, then immediately regretted her overconfidence as Kane touched off the pistol right in front of her eye.

  The bullet’s impact was not enough to cause her any discomfort. Neekra rebuilt and restructured Gamal’s skull and head, keeping herself the same beautiful, seductive demoness that she’d been since Durga had first met her. The only trouble for the goddess was that she also was dealing with the muzzle-flash and heat from the end of the barrel. Once more, her vision blurred under intense light and heat, and she staggered backward, away from the belch of burning powder.

  “You...” she gurgled.

  Brigid cut her off by lashing out with her machete, swinging the two-foot blade in a lunge. She’d also seen the painful response that Neekra evidenced. And the keen edge of the machete struck Neekra across one breast, cleaving it in half, horizontally.

  The goddess let out her wail of pain, reaching out and clutching the steel blade of the machete. Her fingers closed on it and mangled the length of solid metal. With a shrug, she pushed the garbage that used to be a steel weapon to the ground, then embedded the crumpled mess deep into the dirt.

  “You’re not...the only ones...who can blind people,” Neekra growled.

  Brigid and Kane struggled to see her outline through the sudden wave of dust filling the air. Light amplification and telescopic vision were one thing, but penetrating the dense cloud of airborne particulate temporarily stymied the two people.

  With a sudden shrug, Neekra clapped her hands together, creating a sharp boom akin to a grenade going off. Luckily, their hoods’ audio filters protected them from the bulk of the sonic assault, but the pressure wave still shoved them away from her. Unfortunately for the goddess, it also cleared the air of her smoke screen.

  Nathan was up again, spearing at her with the semi-sharpened end of the ancient staff. He saw that Brigid’s assault on one of the goddess’s breasts had given her pause. Yet even as he lunged, her torso reconfigured, and Neekra brought up one of her arms to block the point. Nathan grunted as he was jarred off Nehushtan by the sudden crash.

  As Neekra deflected Nathan’s assault, Kane watched her torso grow heavy plates around the rib cage, evolving.

  “I’m not going to be seducing anyone for the rest of this night,” she growled. “So might as well draw those in and armor up.”

  Kane swung the two-handed machete again, and the blade caught Neekra across her upper arm. Flesh separated and bone snapped under the chop, but when he struck her chest, it felt as if he’d struck a brick wall. Vibrations rolled up the handle and his forearms, sending a wave of numbness through his fingers. Kane toppled back from the assault, cursing himself for losing the weapon. Even though it didn’t work on that armor-plated torso of hers, he could still do something about the rest of her limbs.

  Brigid waved him off of keeping up the attack.

  Kane decided to give her a kick to remember his presence, aiming at the side of Neekra’s knee. Though the joint popped like a boiled chicken leg bone, she didn’t show any discomfort at that.

  Still, she went down into the dirt, and that would buy him time.

  Except as she lay on her face, her leg straightened, and a tendril began to grow from the stump of her upper arm.

  “Where’s Thurpa?” Kane growled. “Maybe he can do someth
ing about her.”

  Kane turned and saw Thurpa standing, blank-eyed, perfectly still and off to one side. No, not perfectly still. He was trembling but not from fear. His back was straight, his legs straight, as well, hands down at his sides. Something held him still, binding him.

  “I’ve been burned once by his kind’s spittle,” Neekra snarled, rising from the ground. The tiny stalk grew thicker, becoming a branch, complete with twigs generating fingers, muscle and skin flowing down the limb. “You think I’d let you—”

  “She’s distracted, split in concentration between holding down Thurpa, and maybe Durga, and battling us,” Brigid whispered quickly to Kane over her Commtact. “That’s why she hasn’t simply obliterated us.”

  Nathan blazed away with his pistol at Neekra, drawing Kane’s attention back toward the goddess. He could see the ebony staff lying on the ground, and he rushed at it and scooped it up.

  Neekra whirled and lashed out to strike Kane, but he brought up Nehushtan. It was her uninjured fist, and it landed like a falling tree, but strength flowed from the ancient object and into Kane’s own arms. He held, blocking her attack.

  “This is the weapon of demon slayers,” Kane spat. “And apparently, their souls live on in me.”

  With a mighty surge, he pushed her back. Her newly grown hand wrapped around the staff in an effort to wrest it from him, but Nehushtan kept pumping might into Kane. Even with that strength, he gritted his teeth and sweat trickled down his naked arms, though the environmental effects of his shadow suit hood whisked the sweat from his eyes.

  Neekra’s lips curled back from her teeth, curved canines that grew even as she strained against him. Her pupils were vertical slits, catlike or reptilian, their red glow capturing his attention. Her thoughts were creeping into his mind, but he held his ground. He focused his thoughts, putting up a barrier against her intrusion. He opened the gates of his lowest emotions, letting hatred flush through his brain and lash against her. Tingles ran along his cheeks, like ants crawling all the way into his ears. She wasn’t going to give up, and with each moment, she drew on more psychic energy, increasing the pressure to penetrate Kane’s thoughts.

  You’re not learning shit from me, became the taunt that he spray-painted on the wall he put up in the goddess’s path, drawn in ten-foot-high yellow letters.

  Thurpa suddenly appeared over her shoulder, and Kane realized that moments had disappeared as he was focused on battling her. His fangs swiveled into place, and he bit down on her neck. Neekra was wracked with spasms as the venom plunged into her system, and her eyes and skin turned from crimson to dull gray.

  That didn’t do anything to her strength. She shrugged, and Thurpa grunted, one tooth snapping off in her neck. Blood poured from his mouth as he fell.

  “You—you can’t...” she sputtered. Tar-like froth bubbled over her pallid lips.

  She pushed against Kane again, and he backed up. Obviously the power in both of them had died down dramatically, drained by their battle and Neekra’s sudden affliction from Thurpa’s Nagah venom.

  Kane regathered himself and charged forward, point straight out.

  Give me one more boost, he prayed, hoping the staff could still acknowledge him.

  Her torso shell cracked, and the blunt point crashed through her armor and plunged deep through her torso. Nehushtan grew hot in his grasp, and Kane let go, his palms seared by the sudden flare of energy. Neekra threw back her head and howled, a blast that reverberated through the underground city, forcing Kane to his knees from the trauma.

  Things went black for a moment. At least it felt like a moment.

  And then he was aboveground, in the sun. It was midday from the position it hung in the sky, and Lyta and Nathan were attending to him, Grant, Brigid and Thurpa.

  “You took a beating,” Lyta told him. “We were all knocked out.”

  Nathan stood, leaning on the artifact. It was back in its original form, a cross with twin serpents wound about it. The healing light.

  “Nehushtan helped my eardrums, woke me up. We’ve been restoring everyone’s health all morning,” Nathan admitted.

  “We were that bad?” Kane asked.

  “Your eardrums were ruptured, not to mention all manner of stress fractures up and down your arms,” Lyta said.

  Kane looked at his arms, taking a deep breath. “The staff told you?”

  “It gave us a triage,” Nathan answered.

  “And Neekra?” Kane inquired.

  “She’s a greasy smear on the floor of that underground cavern,” Grant said. He sat on a blanket, sipping water. Kane could tell that they’d all been through the wringer. And rather than all of them being hospitalized, or permanently deafened, thanks to Nathan’s crazy ancient stick, they all felt more like they’d gone a week without sleep.

  Kane lay back on his own blanket. The sun felt good on his skin, and he closed his eyes.

  “You say that she’s a greasy smear,” Kane spoke up. “But that was Gamal’s body she used. He’s finally dead.”

  “Her avatar is defeated,” Brigid said. “But she herself is somewhere. Out there.”

  Thurpa’s voice rose from a trembling whisper. “Durga’s looking for her. Still looking for her.”

  Kane lifted his head and looked toward the young Nagah.

  “At first I thought that maybe I was brainwashed, hypnotized,” Thurpa continued. “But things haven’t been adding up.”

  “Like why Durga brought only one Nagah with him to Africa?” Brigid asked. “A young, inexperienced but still trained warrior?”

  Thurpa nodded.

  “And then when Durga tried to stop Neekra...I felt him. I felt the injuries he suffered,” the young man continued. “When the staff healed me, I became a transmitter. I helped him recover.”

  “I knew he was missing,” Kane mentioned, sitting up and turning to his Nagah companion.

  Brigid nodded, her emerald eyes alight with this new information. “He made a brute squad full of half-Nephilim, half-Nagah warriors, but he wanted something else. He wanted a son....”

  Thurpa’s eyes were glistening with tears.

  “Despite whatever nurture and genetics he put into you, you still fought for us. You still fought to protect us,” Kane added. He reached out.

  Thurpa took Kane’s hand.

  “We won’t let your father ruin whatever life you choose to make,” Kane told him.

  Thurpa managed a smile.

  Kane lay back again. “Once we rest up a little more, we’ll take the rest of the militia’s explosives and blow up that cavern.”

  “Not going to save any for Durga and the real Neekra?” Grant asked.

  Kane took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  * * *

  TO BE CONCLUDED...

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460331774

  First edition May 2014

  NECROPOLIS

  Copyright © 2014 by Worldwide Library

  Special thanks to Douglas Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

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