"Too late," he said with a smile. "This is best."
A guilty pang tightened in Victoria's chest. "Thank you."
They covered the targets' holes with black stickers and were about to send them out for silencer practice when the foam-padded range door opened and Luc stepped inside.
"Hold," Chaya called. "You come to practice?"
"The Masters called a meeting," Luc said.
Allan set his weapon on the table. "What's going on?"
"They've approved the hunt."
"Paris?"
"Paris."
Allan cocked his arm, hand clenched in a fist. He patted Victoria's shoulder. "You found it. Both of you," he added, looking to Sam who was giving him an excuse me stare. "All right, Gerhard, come with us. Chaya, can you…?"
"I'll take care of them," she said.
"Perfect. Thanks." He turned to Victoria. "You and Sam stay here. I'll catch you up once we're done."
"Oh." A prickly burr of resentment seemed to roll through Victoria's stomach. He was ditching her. "I'll see you then."
Allan and Gerhard gathered their things. The door thudded shut behind them, and the burr swelled like a puffer fish, the heat of its venom running through her veins. So much for, 'I trust you.'
Chaya cleared her throat. "Go ahead and attach your suppressors."
"So they're a bit of a boy's club, eh?" Victoria said, fighting the tight knurled knob affixed to the end of her barrel.
"How do you mean?" Chaya asked.
The knob gave and she unscrewed it. "All the men go off to plan but we don't. It was the same way in the department."
Chaya straightened. "It's not like that at all."
She removed the boxy silencer from the tray and began screwing it on. "Then why did they leave when—?"
"Let's get one thing straight that Allan obviously hasn't explained to you." Chaya strode over to where Victoria stood, chin up, and stopping just in front of her. She squeezed the handle of the scimitar at her belt. "The weapons see no difference in people. They choose the worthiest. So that means we don't have whatever hang-ups you're used to. When a weapon makes the decision, we agree to it. The Order was based on that."
She touched the scimitar at her hip. "My sword, Khirzoor, did that. And as far as why I'm here, it's because I'm the Arms Master. You don't have a holy weapon, so the only one you get is from me. It's my job to make sure you know how to use it. You're about to deploy on a hunt. You haven't been trained. I have more firearm experience than anyone here so I'm the most capable at teaching you how to shoot. Allan can't shoot for shit, so I'm not at the meeting because if you're going to go hunting, I have to vouch that you can hold a pistol in the off chance that you'll need to. Is that understood?"
Victoria nodded, trying not to shy away from the Chaya's glare. The Israeli was a good two inches shorter but carried herself like she was ten feet tall. "I apologize. I was—"
"Is that understood?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now load your weapon and impress me."
Chapter Eleven
Gerhard stared out the van's window, not seeing the dark and shuttered shop fronts sliding past. Paris called itself the City of Lights and, while they were beautiful in some fairyland fashion, there were no lights here in this part of the city, and not at three in the morning when only the truly committed partiers were staggering home or already in bed. The city was sleeping, only minimal body functions of its legendary nightlife were keeping it alive. Absently, Gerhard rubbed his hands. Clammy. Numb. They didn't feel like his, like someone had stitched the hands of a dead man onto his wrists when he wasn't looking.
A dead man.
He might be dead soon. This might very well be his last car ride, sitting beside paramilitary cultists, which he'd only just realized had reeled him into their insanity. He'd tried not to believe them. How could he? This was madness, hunting monsters. He'd laugh at his situation if it wasn't for the piece of him, that deep and elemental shard, that believed that tonight he'd see a monster and plunge Umatri into it.
It wasn't the videos that convinced him. Nor the fervor in which his new contemporaries believed. It wasn't even Schmidt strolling up walls and across ceilings, though that undeniably had helped. Umatri had convinced him. The dreams. His belief had begun crystallizing in his dreams, and when he'd first entered Paris two days ago and saw the streets and buildings, he knew the significance. They were different in that way in which all dreams altered familiar places, but it was undeniably Paris, and now he was here.
"Are you all right?"
Gerhard blinked and turned to see Orlovski beside him.
The Russian watched him over to tops of his glasses. "Nervous?"
"I'm…I'm fine," Gerhard said with the weakest lie in the world.
Orlovski patted his shoulder, the sensation muted through the Kevlar vest and holster strap. "You'll be good."
"Still look better than I did," Luc said from the front seat.
"How about you?" Gerhard asked Orlovski.
The Russian shook his head. "Just happy to be back in the fight."
"Ah," he said with what he hoped was tact. A year before Orlovski had suffered a mishap, explained only as some asshole tried to amputate my leg with a shotgun. The blast had shattered his femur. With this being his first hunt in thirteen months, and Gerhard and Victoria's first ever, it was decided that Luc, being Gerhard's handler, an appropriate if not irritating term, was to come as well.
"Well I'm glad you're back," Sam said from the driver's seat. "No more moping. Now you'll be happy, I'll be happy, and once Chaya gets her dog, I'll be even happier."
"Dog?" Orlovski turned to Allan in the back seat beside Victoria. "What dog?"
"No one told you?" Sam asked. "Chaya's getting a dog to commemorate her first kill."
"And I'm getting a cat," Luc said.
"No, no one told me this. Allan, you know I have a problem with those things."
"With cats?" Luc asked.
"With dogs," the Russian said, his voice rising several octaves.
"You have a problem with strange dogs," Sam said. "This one will be ours. You'll love it."
"I mentioned it to Master Turgen," Allan said, his voice calm. "He's in favor of it."
"So no one thought about asking me? I live there, too."
"And if it becomes a problem we'll deal with it," Allan said. "It's a big house."
"And if it bites me?"
"If it bites you, you deserved it," Sam said.
"It'll be dealt with," Allan assured. "I'm sure any dog Chaya gets will be the most behaved dog you've ever seen."
Orlovski's tightened lips writhed like something was trying to wriggle free. He turned back in his seat with a quick motion and he glowered at his knees as if something disgusting had slithered onto them.
"All right," Allan announced as they passed through a roundabout. "We're almost there. Stay on the lookout and get ready. We're exiting hot."
The mood in the vehicle instantly changed as if some switch had been flipped. Everyone's posture straightened. Fingers moved, checking equipment. A faint tang filled the vehicle. Fear? Adrenaline? Maybe both. Gerhard couldn't tell. His face felt hot and the body armor sweltering, like an oven. He needed air.
Still clutching Umatri in his lap, he moved his other hand, following their lead. The silenced pistol holstered beneath his armpit felt huge but partially calming. He traced the metal bead chain around his sweat-slicked neck to the plastic GPS unit shoved awkwardly beneath the vest.
The van turned onto a narrow street. The hunters peered out the windows, scanning the empty lanes. The principal lights came from the nearby high-rise apartments a block away. Orlovski and Luc had spent the night before gleefully shooting out the streetlamps with an air rifle in preparation.
"Here," Allan said, leaning forward behind Gerhard. He pulled the coil of plastic tubing from Gerhard's shoulder and let him loop it over his ea
r and push the bud in snugly. "Key up your radio."
Gerhard twisted the knob atop the little radio at his belt. The channels, they had told him, were specially encoded so no one might eavesdrop. Allan explained that the commanding view from apartment towers made cell-jamming useless, but it at least allowed for radios and the police scanners that would normally be rendered useless when running the jammer.
"You ready for this?" Allan asked Victoria, seated beside him.
She nodded. A long microphone extended from her headset, curling at the edge of her mouth. There was an uneasy hardness to her. Same as it had been that first day when they'd both arrived. Stiff and quiet. She'd livened up so much the last few days in Paris, especially with Allan and Sam. But that was gone.
They turned onto an even narrower street, the buildings' faces less than a meter from either side. A weight suddenly dropped in Gerhard's stomach as the building, the building he might die in, came into view.
"Looks clear," Sam said. She continued past it, giving Gerhard's stomach a surprise reprieve.
Were they not going in? Was this a practice drill? Maybe a joke.
"Okay," Allan said. "Circle back. Everyone, gloves on and masks ready."
The weight returned, heavier now with the moment's disappointment. Sam circled the block as everyone adorned black latex gloves. The clammy hand-sweat made it even harder for Gerhard to pull them on. The hunters clutched their black, stretchy masks, rolled up like giant condoms. Gerhard twisted his around, trying to figure out where the eye slit was.
"Pull `em on," Allan ordered as they turned again into the narrow street.
Gerhard pulled the mask over his head. The snug fabric trapped his breath, making it hot and humid against his face.
They rolled to a stop. Orlovski and Luc opened their doors in unison and hurried out. Adrenaline shot through Gerhard's veins, the weight instantly gone. Clutching Umatri, he scooted onto the brick street. Cool nighttime air blew across his bare arms and through the eye slit in the suffocating mask. He moved toward the green wooden door, scrawled with black spray-paint. A padlock hung from one side above a chipped scar where a previous one had been torn off.
"Be safe," Victoria said to Allan as she moved into the front seat.
"We will," Allan said. "Just listen to the scanner. Sam, circle around and plug the alley so no one else can come through."
"You got it, boss."
Allan shut the van door and hurried to where the hunters waited. The van rolled away, tires thumping over the uneven bricks. He drew his khopesh and a flashlight and gave a nod.
Luc slammed his mace into the door. The wood cracked loudly and came undone, bursting inside like confetti. Before the splinters had finished falling, Allan snapped on his light and was through the door, Orlovski on his heels.
"Go!" Luc whispered and Gerhard stepped through, fumbling for his light.
A narrow hall stretched before them, its stained floor made of white hexagonal tiles not much larger than a euro coin. Doors on either side stood open and dark. Brown smears ran down the stairway to the right, almost blending in to the layers of grime and graffiti. At the end of the hall, a paper-thin sliver of light peeked around the door to the rear courtyard, leaning in its frame as if it wasn't broken from the hinges. A wet, musty and fetid reek permuted through the stretchy mask.
They moved toward the first doorway, the plan to clear out the first floor before moving up.
Gerhard yelped as Umatri moved beneath his grip.
"Allan," Luc said, staring down at the keris. The blade slithered like a live and angry snake. Barbs bristled and smoothed along the waving steel and it bent toward the furthest doorway.
Terror and exhilaration stole Gerhard's breath as he watched the steel dance. Umatri was alive. He wasn't crazy. An angel. I knew it. But if Umatri was real…
As if on cue, a baby's coo sounded from the dark opening where Umatri pointed. Gerhard shivered, an icy terror coursing through his veins.
The hunters wheeled to face it.
A second coo came from up the stairs beside Gerhard, accompanied by a scuttling patter. Umatri's blade bent upwards. Gerhard lifted his gaze to see a white, chubby-cheeked doll face peek over the edge. Pincers unfolded out from its bristle-filled maw as a baby's laughter issued from that hard, unmoving mouth.
Gerhard screamed.
Infantile wails erupted from the neighboring room. Someone shouted but Gerhard didn't know who.
The doll-faced insect sprang. Its size rivaled a cat. Gerhard stumbled back into Luc. It landed against Gerhard's vest, the hooked feet grabbing hold. He shrieked and fell on his ass. The open pincers moved toward his face and it was still giggling that innocent laugh. Pulling his head away, he instinctively slapped at it, training forgotten and the blow ineffective. Umatri whipped down and struck like a scorpion's tail. The point skewered through the side of its head, bending somewhere inside its body and coming out its back. Its legs quivered, one still tangled in the fabric of his vest. Gerhard flung the insectile thing as hard as he could and it hit the wall with a solid thump, splattering inky blood before it tumbled to the floor.
He yelped as a hand grabbed him by the loop at the back of his vest.
Luc pulled him to his feet. "Get back!" He maneuvered Gerhard against the wall, one giant arm protectively across his chest. "You did good."
Umatri wriggled and danced, steam rising from the black ichor coating the blade. Gerhard's eyes followed the movement to where Allan and Orlovski hacked at more of the screaming bugs. Allan swung, vanished, reappeared over a meter from where he’d been and chopped one of the creatures in half. One flew from the darkness at him but Orlovski lunged forward, his kukri a silver blur. The doll-like head separated from the body with a spray of black goo.
"Is everyone all right?" Victoria's voice cried through the radio bud.
"Fine," Orlovski snapped.
"Bit busy here," Allan said. "No chatter."
Their lights cut white beams through the thickening steam that hissed from the withering dead things. Gerhard coughed at unholy stench of rotted meat filling the air, growing fouler with each breath. His arm still across Gerhard, and eyes up at the stairs, Luc scooted them toward the other hunters. Torn and filthy clothes littered the empty apartment, splattered with rusty brown stains. Four of the dead insects lay around them, their pale shells dissolving to slimy black meat.
More baby wails erupted from the walls and other rooms. Umatri flicked to the left as a large shape, the color of lacquered bone and striped in candy red, scrambled through the top of a bathroom doorway, plaster raining from the ceiling beneath its claws.
"Allan," Orlovski barked as he swung to face it.
The creature dropped to the ground and rose. Four arms extended from its segmented carapace. Two were slender and short, ending in three-pronged claws. Above them, the two longer and barbed arms tapered into scythe-like blades. Antennae twitched atop its wedge-shaped head, its mouth a boiling array of clicking mandibles.
Three more of the wailing insects scuttled through the door behind it and sprang. Orlovski spun, whipping his kukri knife and cleaving the right legs off one as it flew. At the same time, Allan leaped and swung Ibenus. He blinked, appearing to the side of the giant insect. The creature spun to face him, its bladed arms a blurred arc. Allan dropped, hacking the khopesh toward the floor. He vanished before the blade hit and reappeared mid-air before the monster, the down-swinging blade splitting its head with a sickly crunch. He landed, stumbling a little, as the monster collapsed.
Ghostly blue fire plumed from the bleeding wound, casting long shadows across the room. Dark steam erupted from the remaining baby-faced bugs as they dropped, legs drawing up and shells melting.
Gerhard gaped, wide-eyed as the blue fire spread over the beastly corpse and flickered along Allan's bronze blade. Oh God, it's all true. This was real. Demons. His head swam. They'd told him. Umatri had told him but he hadn't wanted to believe.<
br />
"The hell is this?" Orlovski shone his light into the dark bathroom.
The beam refracted off of a milky texture caking the rear wall, spreading out like thick webs to the tub. A cluster of irregular chambers, the largest approximately the same size as a one-liter thermos, honeycombed along the bottom. The structure crackled and sagged before Gerhard's eyes, dissolving like a wax sculpture in a kiln.
"We saw this in Manchester," Allan said. "Some kind of nest."
Disgusted, but unable to turn away, Gerhard watched a section peel from the tiled wall and plop to the floor, evaporating.
"There's more," Luc rumbled, his voice distant.
Gerhard blinked. Umatri was still slithering, this time pointing upward where more baby cries were sounding, drawing closer with the clicking of claws on tile.
"Back from the stairs," Allan ordered. Orlovski charged toward them but Allan was faster in getting out of the room.
They were still too late.
Four of the wailing bugs scuttled over the edges of the stairway, through the white iron railing. One moved across the ceiling. Gerhard thrust Umatri at one scrambling across the tiles, but the bug leaped back and to the side. Luc swung his mace down like a cricket bat. Ooze and bits of shell exploded in a mist. The creature sailed into the far wall with a hard thock, sticking in place as a pulpy mass of crab-like legs.
"Back," Luc barked, pushing Gerhard's chest with his huge hand.
Wrestling the dual urges to run for his life, or the growing, alien need to kill these horrors, Gerhard hesitated. Umatri danced and withed, his desire clear.
Luc bashed at another, punching a hole into the wall. It scurried around and hopped onto his leg and darted onto the back of Luc's vest.
Yelping, the big man twisted to reach it before it could bite. Gerhard moved toward it, Umatri raised, but suddenly Allan was there before him. The Englishman slapped the bug off with the flat of his sword and chopped off two of its legs as it tried to run.
"Gerhard," Orlovski shouted, "get back!" He swung his kukri at a closing bug, not close enough to hit it, but just keep it away.
Ibenus (Valducan series) Page 12