Daisy grunted, releasing a string of muffled expletives through the gag shoved in her mouth. He shifted his gaze to Oleander, who stood a step in front and to the side of Daisy and the two male students restraining her. “Although, I am disappointed Oleander has invited three sets of eyes into personal laboratory.”
Oleander lost her smug look, suddenly apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t, it’s just that I couldn’t leave her up—”
“No matter.” He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “What is done is done, да?” She clapped her jaw shut and nodded, fear dripping from her eyes. “Now, back to Miss Lickter. How is it you have strayed from father’s watchful eye?” More muffled curses.
Oleander inched forward. “We ran across her in the lobby while exiting the building. She took a shot at me,” she paused, looked across at the two guys who chose to ignore her. “So we thought we should bring her along, just in case.”
“In case what, my dear?” Oleg kept his eyes riveted on Daisy’s.
“In case… in case the others get too close.”
Oleg moved to within a foot of Daisy’s face. “But dear Oleander,” he breathed out slowly. “I want them to get too close.” Finally he broke his stare and panned across to clutch his former number one with the same glassy expression. “You forget lesson of scorpion already. I want them to put nose up to flame and taste death before it comes.” Oleander’s shoulders drooped as she sank into herself.
“But this is good improvisation.” He put a finger beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. “I have perfect plan. Come.” He snapped his fingers at the mute muscle standing like statues behind Daisy. “Strap her down.”
Loose and fight ready, Oleg crossed the cramped cavern to the far wall. Violently shoving benches out of his way, he cleared a space in front of an examination table tilted almost vertically. Encasing both sides of the table, two radial arms bristled with an array of various gauged needles.
He nodded toward the contraption, and the muscle thrust Daisy against it, strapping her down. “Now go.” Gratefully they retreated. Oleander started to follow them out. “Not you, dear.”
She flushed. “But shouldn’t we be getting ready for—”
“There is time. But first,” he worked a foot pump, drawing three separate liquids toward a single reservoir. “Last trial produce mixed results. Poor Brutus.” He shook his head, watching Oleander’s eyes grow. She glanced back and forth between the struggling Daisy and the calm Oleg. The contrast panicked her more. “Is fitting, да? That Brutus betray me. He gave map to sheriff.”
Having filled half the glass orb with the swirling mixture of liquids, he stopped pumping and put his arm around her. “But not my Oleander.” Flinching at his touch, she shook her head. Frightened and brittle, she forgot all spoken language.
Momentarily he ignored her, turning his attention to Daisy instead. “Miss Lickter,” she ceased her struggle against the restraints as he engaged her with his piercing gaze and dripping voice. “You see laboratory before you. I did not build laboratory. I did not carve space from rock. But I fill it with life. I give it function. I work here to forget past.”
His voice rose, his English losing its polish as sweat began to bead on his cheeks and drip from the tips of his mustache. “Without family, without wife, without daughter, without name, I invent and I teach miserable American youth. Pathetic, wasteful, they treat education like filth.” He jabbed the air with his finger, lecturing her. “Then they come. Just like Russia, they come. They threaten me. They spit on Oleg Rodchenko,” spittle and froth were ejecting from his mouth as his speech escalated to rant.
“They treat me like filth. Stupid Russian, they say behind back—weak, desperate. They pull strings, watch Oleg dance. Нет! I pull strings.” He clutched Oleander and yanked her to his side, grabbing her by both shoulders and positioning her next to the rack while continuing to address Daisy. “I invent machines for greedy, stupid Americans to kill each other. I spit on American money. So many mindless sheep!”
He stamped his foot, clutching at the air, veins pulsing through his temples and filling his ears with the throbbing sounds of the womb. He lowered his voice, slowed his breathing. “I invent machines to get family back.” He glanced at the needles, now dripping with solution, and smiled.
Daisy struggled, doubling her efforts, thrusting at the gag in her mouth with her tongue. He rested his hand on the table’s arm. Leaning forward, he prepared to engage it and its dozen deadly needles, each filled with liquid fire and seeking human enzymes as the final catalyst. He whispered into her ear, “But I kill to get Oleg Rodchenko back.” Smiling, he closed his eyes just before sinking the needles into flesh, and with several thrusts of his foot he pumped the fluid home.
Lifting his head toward the ceiling, he invited the brittle screams of agony to wash over him—to rinse his skin of shame and guilt and loss. The heat of the flames curled the hair on his arms as the crispness of mortal pain peeled from human lungs like husks from corn.
Purging weakness and corruption from humanity restored him, if only temporarily.
EIGHTEEN
Hell’s Gates
After a brief debate in which both men argued they should give it up and head back, they both lost and decided to push on. Starr felt they’d buried themselves so deep that tunneling through to China would be the fastest way out. Still, crunching over the lifeless husk of the scorpion he’d riddled full of bullet holes grated on him worse than nails on a blackboard.
Lickter felt they were close, that Oleg had sprung the scorpions as the final trap outside his secret underground lair. As the sheriff stopped the rattling, one-eyed wreck of a streetcar at yet another junction, Starr felt like saying, “I told me so. I’m never going to see the sun again.”
For a moment they sat there listening to the diesel engine idle, sputter and shimmy. “Hold on.” Lickter exited the car. Moving around in front, he stooped to look at the rails, repeating the process for all three options. Starr rubbed soot and grime from the back of his neck. Finally Lickter slumped back in the driver’s seat. “We’re in luck. The moss covering the tracks heading left has been disturbed recently.”
Starr exhaled, simultaneously glad they’d picked up the trail and anxious at what they might find waiting for them around the next bend. Lickter eased the car up to cruising speed as they rattled their way forward, pushing the darkness aside, only to be swallowed by it again as they passed.
“There.” Starr pointed straight ahead.
“I see it.” Lickter slowed their pace.
“Looks like a reflector.”
Lickter drew his .38 before remembering it was empty. “Here, reload. Ammo’s in a metal can beneath the seat.”
Starr lifted the padded bench behind them, locating the ammo box. “Nice. You packed the sonic gun.”
Lickter grunted. “Too bad I didn’t pack extra toothpicks.”
“Mind if I take it?”
“Help yourself. I like to hear my gun go off.” Lickter engaged the brake. “End of the line.”
Starr tried the sonic gun in the shoulder holster and found it fit, a little cock-eyed, but close enough. “You think we missed a passage?” They had stopped a hundred feet shy of the dead end.
Lickter reached for an invisible toothpick, swore when he didn’t find it. “No, I think this is the place.”
“Alright then.” Starr stepped out of the streetcar for the first time since getting on it. The solid ground felt good beneath his boots, but the lack of armor plating made him feel like a clam without a shell at a seagull party. “What are we looking for?”
Lickter followed right behind. “Hell if I know.” They crept forward, guns drawn. “A footprint, a crack in the wall.” Starr lifted his gaze to the ceiling, half expecting to see scorpions pouring out from cracks in the mortar. Lickter seemed to be shaking the same feeling. “Just no bugs.”
Starr stopped. “How about a bull’s head? There.” He pointed at the wall just shy
of the end.
“Hmm. That’ll do.” They approached the ornate relief cautiously, stopping a foot short. The single light from the streetcar cast their shadows on the dead end wall. “Horns look like levers.”
Starr stooped, his shadow following his lead, and ran his hand along the base of the wall. He lowered his voice to a raspy whisper, “The rails go straight through, and there’s a breeze too.”
“So these levers open that door.” Lickter stepped closer to the bull.
“But why two?” They debated in hushed voices.
“Two horns. One to open, one to close.” Starr raised a brow while Lickter spit. “Damn, I hate all these puzzles. Where’s the instructions when you need ‘em.”
“And what are those.” Starr pointed at the roof of the tunnel.
“Ah hell.” Two circular openings in the ceiling the size of quarters housed metallic nipples glinting in the light. “Whatever they are, I’m positive I don’t want to find out while standing right beneath ‘em.”
“What now?” Starr rubbed the scruff on his face. Remembering his vow to get a little dirty, he made a mental note to ignore himself from now on.
Lickter put his ear up to the dead end wall. “What do you think is on the other side of this wall?”
Starr shrugged. The two men staged an odd shadow-puppet show in the unsteady light of their Cyclops streetcar. “Oleg’s secret lab, terrible monsters, and unspeakable evil.”
Lickter nodded. “And maybe their creator. If Oleg’s home, I don’t want to telegraph our arrival. Come on.” He started back toward the streetcar.
Starr hurried to catch up. “But what if it’s just another tunnel.”
“Nope.” Lickter holstered his weapon as he swung onto the car. “Those are hell’s gates, and we’re busting in.”
~~~
Lickter shoved the accelerator handle to full speed. After sputtering, the diesel engine sparked to life, spinning its steel wheels over the slick cast iron rails. “Hold on. This might get ugly.”
Starr sat on the bench, bracing himself with his legs. “Hopefully there’s not another wall on the other side of that wall.” At 25mph he watched the single headlight shrink its focus on the dead end until closing his eyes just before impact. A temporary sensation of weightlessness settled over him as they slammed into the barrier. Lurching forward in his seat, he pressed back against the railing with the heels of his boots and prayed he didn’t continue through the windshield.
The sound of screeching metal grating against rock filled the cabin and pressed against his ears like water in a tub. Shards of glass struck his face and chest before lingering there, stranded underwater like himself. Floating to the right, his body struck cold metal plating as the car jumped its tracks. After losing the initial battle with the wall, finally a weak spot gave way, and the streetcar began tearing through at an angle.
Rebounding back into his seat, Starr witnessed black smoke pouring through cracks in the car’s frame like sand through an hourglass. The ceiling glowed red hot. “Fire!” He rolled off the bench onto his hands and knees as the car continued to lurch forward through the shattered gap, the temperature in the cabin rising exponentially. Molten flame poured down the back window until the pressure in the tunnel shattered it.
In a wave of angry heat and glass, the fire surged up the length of the car, knocking Starr to his stomach. Finally bursting free, the car fishtailed into an open cavern. Broadside they slammed into several tables of equipment, shattering glass and splintering wood along the way. With one last impact the car rocked onto two wheels before settling back onto all four in a cloud of smoke and settling dust.
“Starr, you hurt?” Lickter stumbled from the driver’s seat. “Come on, gotta go.”
“Go on. I’m right behind you.” He croaked into the floorboards.
“Good boy.”
He heard Lickter jump down the stairs and into the cavern. “I hate fire.” He pushed off the floor and heaved his knees underneath him, choking on the oily smoke. Finding the sonic gun still in its holster, he drew it and staggered down the steps. The first thing he noticed was the gas lights, vague orbs choked by lingering dust and smoke. Looking back out the way they’d come, the spigots in the ceiling still dripped molten flame beyond the jagged hole they’d ripped in what had turned out to be a metal door with a stone fascia.
Looking forward, he could barely make out Lickter’s back being swallowed by the roiling cloud and decided to pick up the pace. Lickter had veered left into the middle of the room, so Starr kept to the wall on his right. Carefully, he stayed within sight of the sheriff. As he crept forward the cloud thinned until visibility returned just shy of normal. But all he could see were benches, shelves and racks laden with instruments. Most of it seemed mundane, not at all his idea of a mad scientist’s secret lair.
“Oh God, no.”
Lickter’s voice prickled the hair on his neck and arms. “Sheriff? You see something?” He worked toward the center of the room.
The sheriff bore holes in him with his eyes. “You said she was safe.” His nose flared, lips trembling.
“Who?” Starr followed Lickter’s drawn weapon, pointing toward the floor. At the base of his feet he saw something that filled his stomach with more oily flame—a shred of Daisy’s golden gown. “I,” he nearly wretched. “I sent her to find you.”
“Dammit, boy!” Lickter pointed his .38 at Starr’s head, the barrel twitching. “It was your job to protect her.”
Starr narrowed his eyes, focused on Lickter and not the .38 targeting his forehead. “The room was about to explode, and where were you?”
Lickter’s hand shook violently. “I was doing my job, and protecting her was yours!”
“I did protect her—”
“Don’t you stand here and lie to me, you sniveling little wuss.” Lickter narrowed his eyes to razors. “You pissed her off so she ran away, didn’t you? You stuck your foot in your mouth trying to be the damn hero. Tell me, what the hell are you good for now, hero? Now that my little girl’s…” Seized with full-body shakes, he crumpled to the floor in a blubbering heap.
“We’ve gotta find her!” Starr shouted louder than he had intended.
Lickter continued to sob, scratching angrily at his eyes while clutching his .38. Finally he pointed with his weapon toward the wall in front of them.
Fear gnawing at him like a gut full of rats, Starr followed Lickter’s gesture until he saw her. His pulse quickened. His face flushed, turning both hot and cold as tears and sweat formed simultaneously. “No.” Pulled by strings from the ceiling, he lifted one foot after the other.
A mummified corpse, still smoking, lay in a tortured heap against the far wall—like the statues left on the capitol lawn, but more fully consumed. Nothing remained but teeth and bone and a remnant of human jerky stretched taught on the frame.
This thing couldn’t be Daisy—this heap of lifeless carbon. Reaching the feet of it, he knelt. His tears splashed onto the cracked bones, hissing and bubbling from retained heat. He cradled his head in his hands, still refusing to believe it. The loss forced him to admit he needed her—not as a prize but as a partner, a friend, a rival, a lover. The depth of his shattering heart finally revealed the truth. He gritted his teeth. “No. This isn’t right.”
Scooting around to where the skull’s sockets still smoked, he used his sleeve to lift the jaw. But it resisted. Swallowing, he jerked upward. With a crack the bones in the neck broke, the jaw dropping open. Remaining gases vented through the opening, racking him with dry heaves. Finally he opened his eyes and focused on its teeth. Desperate, he clawed back at the gnawing in his gut. “Did Daisy have two gold fillings?”
Lickter had begun to crawl in his direction, dragging himself across the floor. “Huh?”
“In her teeth. Did she have—”
“No.” The sheriff caught on. “No fillings. She has perfect teeth. Gets it from her mother.”
Starr exhaled, wiped the tears from his eyes and s
huddered with relief. “This isn’t her. This isn’t Daisy.” Lickter shoved him out of the way, confirming it with his own eyes. “She’s still alive.”
“That Russian bastard has her.” Lickter stood and pulled Starr up with him, taking one last look at the body.
“Then who—”
“Oleander.” Lickter spit. “Her number was up from the beginning, a moth to a flame.”
Starr shivered as he remembered Oleg’s words to him in the ballroom. Someone had to put Oleg’s flame out before it could burn another, before he could hurt Daisy. And he wasn’t playing by Oleg’s rules anymore.
NINETEEN
Welcome to the Final Act
“It appears, Miss Lickter, you are new number one.” Oleg shoved Daisy roughly into the hatch of his greatest invention. Her hands freed, she caught herself on the rungs of the metal ladder descending several feet below the surface of the subterranean pool. But with her mouth still bound and gagged, she couldn’t voice her protests at being treated so poorly.
Oleg stepped onto the ladder directly above her, forcing her to jump down into the belly of the submersible. Frantically she tore at the gag, ripping it from her mouth as he turned to face her. “Monster!” She jabbed at him with her right before missing wide with an uppercut with her left.
Venom dripped from her barbed eyes. She contained boundless more strength of will than the whimpering Oleander. Such a disappointment. He caught her next punch, crushing her slender hand in his grip. Even the pain of it couldn’t extinguish her hatred. She gritted her teeth and twisted the limp hand from his grasp—tenacity enough to chew through her own arm if it were pinned beneath a boulder. He smiled.
“We share tight quarters for next hour, Miss Lickter. Is critical you behave.” Distracting her with his right, he slipped behind her on the left and twisted her arm. Blocking her left elbow he quickly bound both hands together behind her back, tying them off. “Enough play.” He had tested her spirit and agility, finding her sufficient in both.
The Austin Job Page 14