The Creation: Let There Be Death (The Creation Series Book 2)

by The Behrg

  I have sold my estate, transporting myself to the furthest clime imaginable. Evidence is mounting that causes me to believe my trip has not been in vain.

  That evidence must have been the man’s growing liquor cabinet.

  Donavon closed the book. The lunatic ravings of diseased minds. But find the right screenwriter and this could make one hell of a movie. Like that Da Vinci Code with Tom Hanks, it could be an international globe-trotting thriller with Donavon as the lead, uncovering clues in a global conspiracy. Though he’d have to change it from aliens or demons to some evil corporation trying to remake the world.

  Sci-fi had never been his thing.

  He set the book on the low glass beveled coffee table, wondering if he could get it to fit in his luggage. Of course, first they’d have to get out of this jungle, then out of this country, but such thoughts led him back to Faye and the manslaughter charges for drunk driving that surely awaited him at home. An idea for a movie wouldn’t change the course of a breeze, let alone a hailstorm.

  Just as he decided to get up and go in search of Kenny, something bit him on the leg. He jumped — Spree woke at the sudden movement and abandoned him for an empty chair. Donavon stood, swatting at his pants, wondering whether the spider or insect was still hidden beneath his cargo pants. His hand brushed up against the rock he had taken from the attic.

  It moved.

  Donavon pulled it from his pocket. The specimen no longer resembled a rock but looked like a thicker casing of an eggshell. At its end, two sharp points protruded like fangs.

  “What the hell?”

  Donavon unbuckled his belt, dropping his pants, and searched his upper thigh. Twin trails of blood trickled from two raised bumps on his skin. The swelling grew until the two mounds merged into one.

  The shell moved in his hand.

  Donavon dropped it, the fragment knocking against the glass tabletop. Only it wasn’t a shell, it was back in the shape of a rock. Smooth edges, no protruding fangs.

  “Time to lay off the weed.”

  He pulled his pants back up, wincing as the denim rubbed against the swollen bite on his leg. Rocks don’t bite, he thought.

  It moved.

  In the next moment, he was falling.

  His knee slammed against the low table, pants dropping back down, causing him to trip and fall even harder. His head connected with the seat of a rocking chair before dumping him to the ground.

  His shirt had risen up with his fall, and Donavon stared at the black trail of veins floating up his abdomen. He reached down, lifting the elastic of his boxers, and almost cried out in terror. His entire inner thigh was coursing with wriggling black veins just beneath the skin’s surface.

  They climbed higher up his stomach and Donavon ripped at his shirt, tearing it over his head. Like a spreading inkblot, the lines pushed higher and higher.

  They’re going to my heart, he thought.

  Spree screeched in the background, knocking something to the floor.

  Donavon raised his tangled feet, pulling his belt through the loops in one quick motion. He removed the heavy golden buckle, its three sharp prongs sliding out from the cover still attached to the belt.

  The black lines continued to spread almost to his ribcage. Donavon sucked in a breath, then plunged the belt buckle into his stomach, the prongs puncturing skin. He pulled it back out, examining the holes. Two were higher than the black ink had spread, but the lower one had split a dark vein in two. Instead of blood leaking from the wound, a dark vapor poured from the hole, rising in a thin tendril.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

  The monkey screamed behind him.

  Just as the black veins reached the other wounds, more dark smoke spinning out, Donavon heard something else in the room with him.

  Someone else.

  “Oh god, oh god.”

  Footsteps.

  The monkey leaping up and down on a piece of furniture. Its tiny scream.

  And then a woman looked down at him. Her hair draping towards him. She smiled, razor teeth coming together in wicked points as she held out the rock he had left by the desk, the rock that had been within her grasp.

  Little help?

  Donavon gasped — the dark lines were connecting on his torso, coming together into a single spool of silky black oil. His right leg, where the rock had bit him — It did bite me! — was as dark as if he were wearing black tights.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

  “God. Yes,” the woman said. “But not your god.”

  Verse XXIX.

  The thermal imaging goggles were useless in the underground caverns. The problem had nothing to do with heat signatures or low levels of light but rather the winding tunnels and stalagmites mushrooming up from the ground that concealed body heat until you were practically tripping over it. Zephyr left his pair with one of the downed soldiers he had taken out. He’d rather rely on his own vision. Half a second of reaction time could mean the difference between life or death.

  Of the three guards he had disabled, only one had a firearm. A small Colt 9mm that looked like it had been dropped more often than it had been shot. Zephyr had taken it, along with a ring of keys which he wrapped in a handkerchief from one of the fallen soldiers to keep the noise to a minimum. At least the priest had been right — that suicide swim had been as effective as the wooden horse in Troy. No one suspected they were here.

  He aimed to keep it that way.

  Ahead, the narrow tunnel opened into a larger cavern. Zephyr approached cautiously, tucking the pistol into the front of his pants. The gun would be a last resort.

  He kept to the shadows, peering out at a giant shaft which ran vertically through the ceiling to the floor of the larger room. Wooden beams and rickety metal casings held it together, ropes and pulleys connected to bolts in the ceiling.

  An old mining elevator. Thing had to be a hundred years old.

  So they were on the lowest level of this place. He wondered if he’d need to find a way up. And just how far up he might need to go.

  Scanning the ceiling for signs of cameras, Zephyr entered the open room, keeping to the walls. A single corridor continued on the opposite side of the room.

  A large rusty crank was embedded into the earthen floor on the other side of the elevator shaft. Zephyr continued past, noticing a stark glow of light from the opening in the ceiling. He thought he saw a shadow flicker between the light, from whatever room was above this one.

  The opposite corridor was more of the same. Tunneled walls with false offshoots where miners had apparently found veins of gold. Those deep enough had bars drilled into the cavern walls, creating makeshift cells. One of the offshoots he passed had collapsed in on itself, ceiling coming down in a pile of rock and dirt. He wondered if someone had been inside when it happened.

  Zephyr paused as a noise carried from further down the tunnel, the soft scrape of a foot or shoe against stone. He crouched behind a thick stalagmite, pressing his back against it and letting his mind empty of all thought. He was instinct only.

  He waited, barely breathing, until the soldier took the first step into his line of sight. Zephyr shifted, swinging his outstretched arm toward the man, his fist cocked. His strike was delivered with practiced efficiency, the soldier dropping beneath a spray of blood.

  Zephyr fell with him, cradling his arm around the man’s neck as he planted his feet, ready to snap the head back with only one arm.

  But it wasn’t a man he held in his grips.

  It was a woman.

  Dugan’s daughter.

  “Don’t scream,” he said.

  She stared up at him with wide eyes, giving a slight nod of her head. Blood curdled from her smashed nose, painting her face a swollen red. Definitely broken. Though cradled awkwardly in his grasp, there was strength in her stance, her legs slung out as if he were dipping her at the end of a tango. Zephyr released her and she scrambled back from him, hitting into the dirt wall.

  “What are you �
�”

  “How’d you get out?”

  Their words stammered over each other. Zephyr waited for her to begin. She wasn’t the type to wait.

  She brought a hand to her face, either to cover the blood or assuage the pain. Though she wasn’t accomplishing either. Breathing through her mouth, she tilted her head back, brushing at her hair to get it out of her face.

  “I thought you were one of them,” Zephyr said. It was as much of an apology as she would get. With a sigh, he pulled his tight-fitting shirt over his head, taking care with his injured arm. He held it out to her. “To staunch the flow.”

  Faye took her time before reaching out across the invisible threshold between them to snatch it from his hand. Before pressing it to her face, she spit a big glob of blood. “What … what happened to your arm?”

  “It’s nothing.” Zephyr turned away, keeping his bandaged stub from her line of sight.

  “Doesn’t look like nothing,” she said, clearing her throat and spitting again. “Is my father alive?”

  “What do you think.”

  “Is he alive?”

  Zephyr made a quick calculation. He would gain nothing in telling her the truth. “No.”

  Faye searched his eyes. “Then you’re not here for me.”

  “Even if he was alive who do you think I’d be here for? How’d you escape?”

  Faye glanced away. “The Shaman …”

  “Where is he?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Zephyr. Now where is he?”

  “Zephyr …” She chuckled between sniffles. “He told me Dugan was alive. I guess … I almost believed him.”

  Zephyr let out a sigh. He should have just snapped her neck when he had the chance.

  Dugan’s daughter must have seen the murder in his eyes. “I’ll take you to him but you have to promise me something in return.”

  She waited for him to respond. He didn’t.

  “Will you? Promise me?”

  “No.”

  Her eyes darted, a mouse realizing a snake was before it. “There are women trapped down here. I think they’re … I don’t know, trafficking them. Or their babies, maybe. We have to bring them out with us.”

  Again Zephyr didn’t respond. Didn’t even move.

  “Are you hearing me? Do you even care?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She pulled the shirt from her face, throwing it at the ground. Crusted blood clung to her upper lip and cheeks. “This is not up for negotiation.”

  “Now I see him in you. Your father.”

  “Then you should know I don’t bluff. You won’t make it out of here without me. Not with him.”

  Zephyr knew they needed to move; this was taking too long. Dugan and the others would be along shortly. If they made the swim. “Take me to him and I’ll help you get the women out.”

  A line of spittle dangled precariously from Faye’s open mouth. “I don’t … trust you.”

  “These women, they’re locked up?”

  Faye nodded.

  “I know where they keep the keys.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “You’re not the first person I’ve stumbled into down here. Though you might be the first I keep alive. There are always other ways to get what I want.” Zephyr removed his pistol, cocking it with one hand.

  “Save your threats. If you’d seen what I’ve gone through in the past twenty-four hours, you’d know they wouldn’t change my mind.”

  Zephyr watched her with a detached admiration. She was brave, this little one. Too bad it wouldn’t save her. “Then we have an agreement.”

  It wasn’t long before they were moving again, back in the direction Faye had come from. As they walked, she told him what she knew of the place, which wasn’t much. How she had escaped, or at least the version she wanted him to believe. The only thing he took at face value was the abject fear she expressed regarding the Shaman.

  “Something — and I know how this sounds but I swear to god I’m telling the truth — something is … in him. Like possessing him. But it’s … it’s strong, and it’s … well let’s just say, not friendly.” She paused, unsure of herself or maybe of how Zephyr would respond. “Do you believe in God? Good and evil?”

  “I’m the wrong person to be asking that.”

  “I’ve been an atheist for as long as I can remember, but good and evil … that’s something everyone believes in.”

  Zephyr didn’t bother arguing with her, though he certainly didn’t agree. Not everyone was a slave to the same moral code.

  “But I’ve never believed in evil like this, evil that exists purely to … destroy.” She stopped in the middle of the walkway, grabbing onto his good arm. “You have to stop him. He can’t leave here alive.”

  “Last night you wanted to protect him.”

  “Last night I didn’t know what he was. Or what he can do.” Faye shook her head. “If there is a God, then what’s in him … It’s the devil.”

  Verse XXX.

  Faye had never felt a stronger conviction in her life. For someone who defined herself by her ideals, who needed to have a cause in order to keep the darkness inside at bay, it was an odd juxtaposition to cling to the necessity of murder.

  And was that the right solution? The only choice remaining?

  She wasn’t sure.

  She had always believed murder was never an option, never justified. Only men like her father were able to squelch their consciences in an effort to rationalize the taking of someone’s life, always, of course, for “the greater good.”

  What a scam. There was no greater good, only greedy men serving their own interests, never recognizing that their justifications brought about the greater evil in the world.

  So where does that leave me? If she let the Shaman live, would whatever force that was inside him no longer seek destruction?

  She had no such disillusionments.

  I should have killed him myself when I had the chance.

  With what, she didn’t know. Nor was she sure she could have actually gone through with it. Plotting murder and committing the actual act were two very separate things. But Zephyr — he was a monster who wouldn’t think twice about murder. She just wasn’t sure she could convince him to abandon his course in exchange for a new one.

  And what happens when we find the Shaman? Do I honestly believe he’ll keep me alive? Help me escape with them?

  Again, she came up empty. She had escaped one death only to be caught in the grips of another. If only her father had lived.

  The thought was a strange one, roiling emotions still so close to the surface she wasn’t sure how she felt. But would Dugan have believed her? Would he have changed his course based on her words? Her pleadings?

  In the end, she knew the answer. She was on her own, just as she always had been. And if she was going to make a difference — a real difference — for once in her life, it would be with the way she ended it.

  And who she took with her.

  The dripping plops of water grew mildly louder as they retraced her steps, moving back the way she had come. They had to be getting close.

  She kept her voice to a whisper. “Almost there.”

  The spacing of the lights bolted into the ceiling was at its furthest, the corridor blanketed in shadow. This time there was no warning before the hysterical screams began.

  “Ayúdanos!”… “Líbrenos!” … “Aye, Dios mío!”

  The combined madness was like the jolt of an alarm sounding, women cawing from behind bars on both sides of the corridor. Zephyr leapt backward at the first of the cries before him, ramming into the gate at the other wall. Pale arms wrapped around him, grasping and clawing. One of them must have hooked into the fresh tissue of his amputated arm as he let out a scream filled with pain.

  And rage.

  Something clattered on the ground with a rebounding ring.

  Keys.

  Dozens of them, secured on a large brass ring. A dirty
handkerchief had unraveled, partially covering the keyring.

  He had them the whole time. The thought was infuriating.

  Faye didn’t think, just lunged forward, diving onto the ground and wrapping her hands around them. Zephyr almost tripped over her as he turned around, slapping away the last of the dangling arms.

  The roar of a gunshot quieted everything around them. The women, the cries and shouts; everything but Faye’s beating heart. Time almost stood still, and then Zephyr staggered back, a look of surprise on his face.

  Had one of the girl’s gotten hold of the gun? Had they shot him?

  A young girl, barely in her teens, collapsed hard onto her knees, her body rolling forward into the bars. Blood pumped down her ragged white blouse as her arms fell loosely to her sides. The bump of her belly just beginning to show.

  Silence. Except for the echo of that shot, returning again and again.

  Then the wails began.

  Faye watched in horror as Zephyr raised his pistol back up and fired a second time into the cell. Though this time, it was with purpose. Demonic intent.

  Again and again he fired, Faye closing her eyes at the successive blares detonating in her ears. He emptied every round into that cage, killing women who were already trapped, hostages who had already been drained of hope.

  Faye opened her eyes, thick with tears, and saw that he was staring down at her. A blank expression on his stubbled face. Like he didn’t know who he was, or how he had gotten there, or why he just did what he did.

  Sobs and screams surrounded them.

  As his eyes moved to the keys she held in her hands, Faye scrambled up from the ground and ran. Not toward the Shaman but back through the tunnel, the way they had come.

  The fact that she couldn’t hear Zephyr in pursuit did nothing to slow her pace. The darkness was welcome, but no distance could drown out the noise of those women. Gunfire ripping through them. Flesh and muscle tearing, bones splintering, organs bursting. Life leaking out, from those who had so little of it to begin with.

  This was the caliber of men her father had chosen over her. Over his family. Men that would commit murder without a need for justification.