by Jack Conner
Hildra tackled the feet of one of the priests, rolled out from under him and slashed him across the throat with her hook. Even as he flopped and floundered, spurting inky blood, she wrenched his gun free and shot another through the skull.
Avery, stunned by the suddenness of it all, looked for a way to help. Darting forward, he shoved the back of a priest coming up on Hildra from behind, unbalancing him and giving Hildra time to recognize the danger and kill the priest, opening up his guts with her hook.
By this time a dozen of the slaves had freed themselves, and more were being loosed by the moment. They leapt on priests and wrestled away their weapons. Several were shot, stabbed or melted, but the survivors were not deterred.
Avery’s gaze strayed to the Altar. To Layanna. He knew he wasn’t much use in a fight, but there was something he could do. While the others were occupying the priests, he had to get her out of there.
Legs trembling, he wove through the chaos toward the Altar. He stepped around a priest fighting a former captive, dodged a hurtling body—he wasn’t sure whose—and pressed forward. He kept his head down and his feet fast.
He stopped at the line of machines that ringed the Altar and studied them. They were bigger than he’d thought, huge and bulky. Bits and pieces hummed and sparked, and several seemed to vibrate. He could feel the throbbing in his feet. It all seemed unstable to him. Jury-rigged.
Various hoses and pipes snarled across the floor from the machines, then vanished upward into Layanna’s cell, or aquarium, huge and banded in brass, filled with unearthly chemicals. Inside it, she twisted and screamed soundlessly. I’m coming, Avery thought. Just hang on a little longer.
He crouched over one of the hoses and began sawing on it with his stolen dagger. A priest saw him, broke off his attack on a freed woman and rushed over, reloading his pistol as he went. Avery sawed through the hose and lifted it just as the priest raised his gun. The yellowish fluid from the hose blasted the priest right in the face. He staggered back, clutching at his cheeks, which came away in slimy strips. Steam trailed up from his head, and his eyes ran like jelly from their sockets. He toppled backward and didn’t move again, save to deflate.
Avery snatched up the pistol—delicately, making sure there was no fluid on it—and shoved it through his belt.
He dashed from hose to hose, sawing through them, sweating more with each one, and letting the fluid spew across the floor, where it steamed and hissed. It stank like rotting meat crossed with battery acid, and he had to resist the urge to retch. Sweat stung his eyes. Steaming rivers of the fluid ran across the floor, pooling and creating barriers for combatants to navigate around. Where he could Avery aimed the streams at groups of priests.
As the last hose was cut, he looked up to see a gratifying sight: Layanna lay pressed against a grime-streaked glass panel, stirring weakly in the now-emptied aquarium. She looked too weak to free herself.
Avery wished Janx or Hildra were at hand, but they were off fighting and rallying the former sacrifices against the priests. Avery saw bands of former captives pour from the Altar Room and spread violence through the rest of the Temple. Screams and howls echoed from down the halls.
Having no choice, Avery grabbed one of the hoses snaking from Layanna’s cell and began hauling himself up, hand over hand. He grunted and strained. At times he thought he would simply fall off, but he began to make progress.
Closer, closer ...
The cable shook beneath him. He glanced down. A particularly large priest scaled the hose right under him, knife clamped between his razor-sharp teeth. His red-tinged gills pulsed angrily. His bulging eyes glared hate. He ascended, swift and sure.
Avery reached for his gun, but the priest’s ascent shook the cable too violently, and Avery, with only one hand on the cable, the other going for the gun, nearly fell off. Hastily he grabbed on with both hands.
The priest closed the distance. Avery climbed. The Altar seemed very far below now. The priest was faster than he was, and gaining. Avery feared any moment now he would feel one of its red-tinged claws grab his foot.
Avery reached the aquarium, pulled himself up, fingers digging into the edges of a brass band, and fought for purchase with his toes. A clawed hand swiped at him, skidding off his shoe. The priest clawed again, and Avery kicked the hand away, nearly losing his balance on the thin ledge. The hand reached up one more time—
Avery shot the priest through the head. The man fell away, seeming to spin forever before he struck the floor. Gasping, Avery sagged back against the aquarium.
He blinked and got himself together. Desperate, he searched the side of the aquarium. It must have some means of entry.
There! A brass doorway with ornate hinges and a subtle knob. He scaled over to it, all the time telling himself not to look down. He reached the door, fired a round into the locking mechanism, and wrenched it open.
Gas billowed past his face, hot and foul-smelling, and he swung away from it. It continued to pour out, a great billowing cloud, and he could feel its heat, smell its briny, acidic stink. It took forever to empty. At last it stopped gusting out, and, sucking in a deep breath, he climbed into the aquarium. Heat enveloped him. Steam hissed around his shoes. Touch nothing.
Quickly, he scrambled over to Layanna. From here the aquarium looked like a huge multi-faceted insect eye staring down on the Altar and the chaos of the chamber, and Layanna lay at the apex of the eye. He shrugged off his jacket, wrapped it around her, and lifted her up. She was heavier than she looked, though, and he couldn’t help a grunt. She stirred in his arms but did not speak or open her eyes. What had they done to her?
He waddled, half-climbed back to the door, then, very delicately, leaned out and grabbed a cable. With one arm securing Layanna to him, and her arms half-consciously around his neck, he swung out and down. Part of him felt like some hero in a picture show, and he almost smiled as he settled down to the ground, the maiden safe in his arms. Then he looked up and saw that several of Layanna’s phantasmagorical tentacles had clung to the cable, helping him.
“You’re awake,” he said, staring down at her face. She looked flushed and fevered, and a strand of blond hair hid one brilliant blue eye. The other stared up at him, and a feeble smile trembled on her lips.
“Francis,” she said.
At the word, something happened in his chest. He had the overwhelming urge to kiss her, but as he pressed his lips close to hers she put a hand against him and said, “Let me wash first.”
The slimy gel still coated her. It had even soaked through the jacket he’d wrapped her in so that he could feel a burning on his fingertips.
He laid her down gently. Around them raged chaos, but for now, for this one moment, they had a sphere of calm.
“There’s an Elder coming,” he said.
“I can feel it.” There was a rasp in her voice that might be fear.
“Is there any way to fight it?”
She smiled sadly. One of her hands rose to trace his jaw, but she stopped short. “No,” she said. “I’m afraid this might be the end. All we can hope for is to send off the message before it arrives. Though ... there might be time for you, in the confusion—”
“I’m not leaving you.”
A look of dread—even shame—crossed her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“They ... got it. They got it out of me.”
He couldn’t breathe. “The plans for the Device?”
“No. The location of the Black Sect. They pulled it out of me, out of my mind. I had no way to resist. They’re planning an attack even now. I must warn them. And ... give them the plans for the Device. I must ... get to the Altar.”
“Of course. But you’re so weak ...”
She grimaced—it might have been a smile of sorts—and struggled to her feet. The jacket fell to the floor, but she didn’t seem to notice.
The sudden shuffle of footsteps made Avery look up, and saw that a group of priests had seen Layanna. As one, they
rushed toward her.
“Layanna, I think—”
She pushed him to the floor and changed. Her amoeba-facet crossed over, superimposed over her, and spread to engulf a large area. Strange lights radiated out from her, illuminating the faces of the oncoming priests. They hesitated, but only for a moment, then charged in, their lances sparking. She seized several in stinging tentacles and squeezed. They screamed and writhed in her grip. Blood sprayed. Some stabbed her with their lances, lighting her up at the places of impact, and she screamed inside her sac, her phantasmagorical flesh withering and flaming where she was hit. Her tendrils shot out, grabbed up the offending priests, and squeezed. Dripping bone shards jutted from between her coils. Others she passed poison into, or electrocuted, or set afire. The worst fate was reserved for those she drew within her sac and began to feed from.
Avery made himself watch as their bodies dissolved and began to swirl among and through her organelles. As she absorbed them, she grew visibly stronger, her colors more vibrant, her sac larger. She floated in the midst of it all, serene, her hair billowing around her as if in an underwater current.
She met Avery’s gaze once, nodded, then—her tentacles dragging her apparently weightless amoeba-body—climbed the dais toward the Altar. Surrounded by violence and with the Elder on the way, she plunged her tentacles down through the black slab and unleashed a stream of power. Avery felt the charge in the air. She straddled the Altar in her amoeba-self, but more than that, she had plugged into it. She would commune with her comrades in the Black Sect, transmit her knowledge to them, and her warning.
Avery felt a spring of hope well inside him, but he didn’t let himself think about it. He shot another priest who trained some bulky, surely extradimensional weapon on Layanna. He had to protect her while she transmitted the plans. This was the most critical time of their whole plan. Everything depended on her getting off that message.
Avery shot another priest, then another. Gods, what have I become? he thought, even as he fired at the second one. I’m a doctor, not a killer! And yet he didn’t stop firing for a moment.
All around him, former sacrifices tore into the clerics that had abused them with an almost mad glee, seeming to revel in the carnage. Janx and Hildra fought not far away, both covered in blood, much of it their own. They looked weary and grim, but they left a trail of bodies in their wake.
Suddenly, submachine gun fire split the air, organized and overbearing. Avery spun to see, coming from one of the two main entrances to the Altar Room, a phalanx of Octunggen troops.
Chapter 11
Damn it, Avery thought. And we were so close. Disappointment drove the breath from his lungs.
The Octunggen laid waste all about them, submachine guns spitting fire. Slaves and captives pitched over backward, blood jetting across stone floors already heaped with bodies. The Octunggen stormed in, a great black wedge, visors and shields glimmering with light, and all opposition crumpled in their path.
Sheridan strode at the phalanx’s head, submachine gun clutched in firm hands. She fired, gun smoke coiling up, her square jaw clenched firmly. She shot one mutant down, then blew half of another’s head off. With every shot she took she advanced further into the room. Her eyes speared Layanna, taking it all in, and Avery had no doubt she guessed what was going on, guessed how high the stakes were.
Avery picked his way down the steps of the tiered dais, stepping over and around bodies as he went. When he reached the floor, he put his back to one of the carapace-like machines, shielding himself from Sheridan’s gaze. His heart beat like a drum. Screams echoed all around him.
Above, Layanna glowed, pulsating. She floated in her sac, eyes closed in concentration and surrounded by otherworldly lights, even as her tentacles stabbed down through the surface of the Altar and vanished from view. How much more time did she need?
Avery glanced around the edge of the machine, trying to get a glimpse of Sheridan. The Octunggen advanced, step by step. When their submachine guns ran out of bullets, the soldiers threw them down and withdrew pistols or shock-prods. With grim determination, they continued their march toward the Altar. Sheridan tossed down her own submachine gun—empty—and pulled out a pistol. It was the same one she had shot Layanna with, Avery saw, or one identical to it, overly long and odd-looking, certainly extradimensional.
No, Avery thought. Please no, please no—
Sheridan came within range. She wasted no time, but checked the slide, thumbed the safety off, and raised it to sight on Layanna—
Avery began to throw himself out from behind the machine and fire at her. He didn’t expect to hit her, but he might distract her long enough for Layanna to send off her message. Of course, Sheridan would probably shoot him for the trouble. Before he could so much as take a bead on her, however, one of the freed men lunged at her, a man with suckers growing along his arms, and she had no choice but to dodge aside and strike him down, clubbing the butt of her pistol against the side of his head.
Other mutants swarmed all around. Now that the Octunggen’s submachine guns had run dry, the men and women that would have been sacrificed to the Elder were emboldened to throw themselves on the soldiers with greater furor and numbers. Even Sheridan could not escape their attacks. Desperate close-quarters fighting broke out. The former captives attacked with gun and blade, fist and lance, and the orderly advance of the Octunggen became a writhing mob.
Avery stared at the chaos, unnerved and out of his element. He had to do something, before Sheridan could break away, and he had to do it now. He hurried forward, gun clutched in hand.
Janx stumbled past him, reeling backward. Three priests sliced at the big man with bladed weapons, and fresh blood trickled down his chest. He was armed only with a knife and barely fending them off. Trying not to think about it, Avery shot one in the back. As that one collapsed, the one next to him turned to look, and Janx sprang, stabbing him in the throat. The third lunged, and Janx hurled himself backward. Avery wanted to stay and help, but there was no time.
Not far away a priest penned Hildra to the ground, one hand around her neck and the other grabbing her hook arm, preventing her from using it. She beat at his face, gouging long furrows in his cheek, and Hildebrand shrieked and bit at his skull, but the man was determined and little by little Hildra was losing strength. Avery wanted to shoot the man in the back, but he was afraid the bullet would pass through and hit Hildra. Instead he took careful aim and fired at the man’s arm. His first shot missed, but his second clipped the man’s elbow. The man yelled and released Hildra’s hook arm. She plunged the hook into his gut, and his eyes went wide. As she unearthed herself from him, two more priests approached her, and Avery tried to fire at them, but the gun clicked empty. He threw it away.
He searched for Sheridan. The Octunggen were wresting back control, or some of it, from the mob. Guns fired, and sparks exploded from electric sticks. The freed captives did not give up.
Sheridan picked herself off the floor, wiped a stream of blood from her face, blew the hair out of her eyes, and raised her gun toward Layanna—
Avery knocked the pistol aside and punched her in the face. Her leg came up and smashed into his knee, almost breaking it. He stumbled back, his grip so firmly on the gun that he tore it loose from her gasp. One of her men tried to shoot Avery, but a freed captive cracked his head with a stolen helmet, then set upon him.
Sheridan’s eyes took in Avery and widened. When her shock faded, she merely said, “So. You kept the appointment.”
Ani. “Looks that way.”
Sheridan stared at him with an expression he could find no warmth in, no trace of all their nights together. Had it all meant so little to her, or had she simply become adept at masking her true self?
“Except it’s not you that has Layanna,” she said, “it’s the Mnuthra. I’m afraid that won’t do your daughter any good.”
He had been trying to reverse the gun in his grasp, fumbling as he did so, but just as he straightened it out Sh
eridan kicked it out of his hand. Before he could recover, she punched him in the throat, nearly crushing his larynx. Choking, he lashed out, striking her in the jaw. Her eyes blazed.
He tripped over a corpse and sprawled backward. Felt his teeth click. Tasted blood on his tongue. He rolled aside as Sheridan’s boot came down at his head. He grabbed up the lance of a fallen priest. He didn’t know how to activate the sparking tip, so he swung the shaft at Sheridan’s legs. Swearing, she jumped back. Began scanning the ground for a weapon.
Avery climbed to his feet and thrust at her with the lance. Its tip was sharp, if nothing else. She glared at him and moved backward, out of range. She slipped in a pool of blood and nearly fell.
Behind her the Octunggen line was reduced to a shambles. It was an all-out brawl. Almost all the prisoners had been freed, and there were more of them than priests and Octunggen combined. Some of the soldiers still carried weapons with ammunition, and gunfire sounded periodically over the shouts and screams. Others had had their guns taken away by former prisoners, and more than one soldier flew backward riddled by gunfire.
Avery saw the fallen Octunggen pistol and launched himself at it as Sheridan recovered her footing. He slid across the floor, feeling something sticky smear his chest and throat, and grabbed the weapon triumphantly. He spun about to aim it at Sheridan just as she grabbed up another pistol and aimed it at him.
Still choking, his head spinning, he locked his gaze with hers. Hair fell before her eyes, and she downed quick, fast breaths. Her cheeks were red. Somewhere behind her something burned, but she didn’t seem to notice. They stared at each other, guns pointed.
Gingerly, Avery picked himself off the ground and put himself between Sheridan and Layanna.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Sheridan said. “Remember Ani.”