Wings of Death

by James Axler

  “More of those things are waking up,” Durga said, pointing back the way they’d come.

  “That’s why we’re up here, in a more defensible position,” Kane countered.

  Durga narrowed his eyes. “You want to treat me as a simpleton?”

  Kane closed his eyes and took a cleansing breath. “No. But the queen seems to like competition. If we keep working together, if we find a way to destroy these things en masse, then she loses a major asset when she wakes up.”

  Durga paused, and Kane could see realization dawning. “She’s upped our testosterone levels.”

  “Yes,” Kane returned. “Why should I be pissed at you? You protected my ass down there!”

  “And if you two don’t stop arguing, I’m going to have to save you,” Nathan said. Even as he spoke, he triggered his rifle, punching two shots into a newly awakened kongamato who’d grabbed the edge of the hole they’d jumped through.

  Kane turned his attention back toward the vat chamber. Allthe lids were open, and the kongamato, slick and green from their nutrient baths, spread their wings tentatively. He plucked a grenade from his belt and lobbed it back down among the rows of vats, then grabbed Nathan by the shoulder and led him down the corridor. Durga stayed on their heels as the gren detonated, cracking the air like a thunderbolt.

  Kane looked at the ground. His implosion charge had sucked up whatever weapon the remaining guards wielded, but there were still a few bodies strewed on the ground. He scanned the corridor, hoping to see a sign that would give him a destination. He glanced back to Durga.

  “Do you know if there’s a self-destruct in this place?” Kane asked.

  Durga nodded. “But it’s not going to be pretty.”

  “You’ve got the Threshold, so we can get out,” Kane urged. “Where is it?”

  Durga pointed the way, and the three men took off in that direction. They moved at a quick jog, not speeding up even as one of the vat clones appeared in the corridor behind them. Kane stopped and turned his Sin Eater against the creature, triggering a burst into it.

  Even as the kongamato fell, another lurched through the door behind it. As the thing unleashed its ultrasonic bark, Kane winced, feeling the whine of the high-frequency sound moving across multiple waves, both what he could hear and what he could only feel as vibration stinging inside his skull. Kane fired the Sin Eater again, batting the creature down, before turning and racing after Durga and Nathan.

  They finally reached a room at the end of the corridor, and all three of them swung the door, a metal hatch with a locking wheel in the center of it, closed. As the wheel turned, bolts an inch-thick slid into notches in the heavy steel frame. This door was a bulkhead, and it wouldn’t be opened by anything less than a phenomenal pounding.

  The only trouble was that the kongamato had proved that their strength was up to the task. There was no telling how long they would have.

  Durga took Kane by the elbow and led him to a console. “This is the emergency shutdown for this facility,” he said. “There’s tanks of kerosene, which feeds out through sprinklers.”

  Kane nodded. “The makers of this knew what could go wrong if a clone batch got out of control. They saturate the facility with flammable fumes, light a spark....”

  “This place looks as if it’s got enough fuel to match a two-kiloton atomic warhead,” Durga murmured into Kane’s ear. “I don’t know how much damage it’s going to do to the whole complex....”

  “Meaning that we blow this joint, we could take out the other redoubts,” Kane concluded.

  “Do you want to risk that?” the Nagah asked. “You might not be able to get home if the mat-trans chambers are knocked out.”

  Kane shook his head. “No problem there. We’ve got the interphaser to get home.”

  Nathan looked over the console. “But there is the problem that if we blow this up, Lomon, Jonas, Shuka and the rest of the Zambians in the redoubt across the way.”

  Kane nodded. “The explosion’s overpressure will take the path of least resistance, going through any connecting tunnels. Our allies could end up crushed by the blast we intend to use to save them.”

  Durga smirked. “I remember an old saying, to save the village, we had to destroy it.”

  Kane glared. “I’m sure that Lomon and his men would willingly give their lives to protect the rest of Zambia, but I’d like to save them.”

  “Then call and get them to move to a safe location,” the cobra man suggested.

  Kane spoke. “Kane to Grant, over.”

  He adjusted the pressure of the Commtact plate along his jaw. “Grant?”

  Durga dropped his gaze, putting his hand to his scaled forehead. “We’re too deep to call the others.”

  “Look for an intercom system,” Kane ordered. “Maybe we can reach them....”

  The hatch shook violently, as if a bomb had gone off on the other side.

  Time was running out.

  Chapter 25

  The hammer blow against the steel hatch focused Kane, Durga and Nathan Longa as surely as a gunshot over their heads. The kongamato were here, and they began the savage effort of beating the door off its hinges. The three men could see the door shake, saw the iron rods flex under each impact.

  “Intercom. Find one,” Kane said.

  The three spread out through the room, but there was nothing. The place was not much more than a suicide bunker. There was even a sprinkler above their heads, bearing the international symbol for inflammable, so it wasn’t a fire-control device. Kerosene would spray down, most of the droplets so small that they’d vaporize before striking the ground, saturating the air with fuel, creating the perfect environment for a single spark to turn every cubic foot of atmosphere in this facility into an explosive charge.

  Kane knew full well the scale of a fuel-air explosion. It was the same basic mechanism of the implosion grenades he used. The small hand weapons popped, releasing a sphere of microscopic, flammable particles that spread a radius of ten feet. A secondary explosion lit those particles, and the resultant flash of fire created a vacuum effect that gave the implode gren its nom de guerre. Durga had been right in stating that this self-destruct had near-nuclear levels of devastation.

  “Grant, damn it, you’d better find a way to talk to me,” Kane murmured.

  He looked toward Nehushtan, the very artifact that had haunted his dreams, drawing him here to Africa. Since then, he’d been caught up in a war, meeting with old enemies such as the Nagah prince Durga, who’d been hunting through the wilderness in search of a means of restoring his body to health.

  Well, at least the staff had solved Durga’s predicament, though he and Kane nearly didn’t survive it. As soon as the artifact worked its healing power on the cobra man, they’d come under assault by a psychic entity that plucked them from their bodies, trapping them in a dream state. Originally, they’d thought they were on a journey across the multiverse, but the truth was far more insidious. Durga had told Kane he was seduced by a succubus that called itself the Queen.

  In the meantime, Kane himself had been put through tortures no man with a body could hope to survive. The only thing that kept him alive was the fact that it was a psychic state. No acid ate his flesh, no saw had hewn his limbs, no crucifix had hung him in a strangling position. Nehushtan had awakened the spark of an old memory in him, a DNA pattern of his heritage, from the artifact’s owner in the sixteenth century.

  The man had been called Solomon Kane, and he, too, had traveled Africa and the world, seeking to deal with dark forces. It was just a memory, not a true ghost, but it had focused him enough to fight the queen. That, and the whispered prayer of Brigid Baptiste for her anam ch
ara to return to the waking world, had galvanized Kane to turn his imprisonment into a battle in the dreamscape.

  Nehushtan had granted him other gifts, too. It was a tool of healing, and enhanced the abilities of those who held it, making Nathan Longa, its current caretaker, strong enough to battle kongamato in four-to-one odds and survive. It had given Brigid Baptiste the speed, agility and stamina to run a kilometer in thirty seconds to bring its healing powers to a badly wounded Nathan. And Nathan himself had mentioned how the staff guided him though dreams, his quest bringing him to this flash point at Victoria Falls, where two armies gathered.

  One army had been Gamal and the Panthers of Manosha, a bandit force hired by Durga and the Millennium Consortium as their local guides. The other army was made up of clones of a creature known as the kongamato, a hideous blend of gorilla and bat, possessed of great strength and talons, the ability to fly, and the savagery to tear a man in half. Gamal was in command of these creatures now, and his forces assailed the surviving contingent of Zambian soldiers who had welcomed Kane and his allies. Somewhere, aboveground, Grant, Brigid Baptiste and the other warriors of Cerberus redoubt were engaged in a battle to protect the ragtag force.

  Kane held out his hand for the staff. “Give it here.”

  Nathan looked to Nehushtan, then once more ceded it. “You’re not going to try to throw me through the wall, are you?”

  “No,” Kane answered. He touched the haft of the black stick. Nehushtan, according to myth, was an object of brass, but in truth, it was made of orichalcum—an alloy whose secrets were at once dangerous and lost to antiquity. Kane squeezed the staff. “Please have the ability to boost radio signals,or else—”

  “Kane!” Grant’s stentorian bellow rocked Kane’s skull through the Commtact. The signal was loaded with static, but at least now he was in contact with his friends.

  “Damn it, Grant, I kind of need my eardrums!” he answered. Despite the complaint, he was glad and relieved to hear his friend’s voice.

  “Well, we need a surefire way to deal with the clones,” Grant countered, crackles of white noise accompanying each word. “What have you got?”

  “Durga’s located a self-destruct mechanism for the cloning facility,” Kane replied. “It’s a pretty simple fail-safe. Kerosene is released through sprayers, and then it’s ignited by a timed charge.”

  “Kerosene,” Grant murmured. “The clone facility will turn into a fuel-air explosive underground.”

  “Send them here!” Kane ordered.

  Thurpa’s voice came over the radio waves. “I’ll do what I can. Tell Durga I found his control crown. Makoba stole it.”

  Durga and Nathan, however, were both listening in. The communication signal was being translated by Nehushtan.

  “Where is that traitor?” Durga asked.

  “Dead,” Thurpa answered.

  Durga smirked.

  “I’ll send the kongamato home,” Thurpa announced over the radio link.

  Durga looked at Kane again. “You’re certain you want to destroy this facility? There’s no telling what kind of wonders are in storage in other parts of the complex.”

  “Grant, make sure that Lomon and the others get the hell out of their redoubt,” Kane said. “When we set off the self-destruct...”

  “I know,” Grant answered. “Fuel-air-explosions are known for two things. Being almost as powerful as a nuke, and for the blast and fire to spread through systems of caverns, looking for every nook and cranny.”

  Kane glanced at the door. The kongamato had stopped hammering at it. Thurpa was usingthe control headset tosend a signal to all the creatures. And maybe, just maybe, Kane’s request to Nehushtan was making that possible.

  “Durga still has the Threshold, right?” Grant asked.

  The Nagah prince slipped the backpack he wore off his shoulders and removed the jewel-like artifact.

  “Yeah,” Kane said.

  “The Threshold stays with us. It doesn’t recall to the other side of the planet like your little toy.” Durga seemed disgusted, his ire rising, but then he gave his head a shake, flexing the sheets of muscle that made up his cobra hood. “Sorry. The queen...”

  “Get us ready,” Kane said. He decided to take a chance. The rods clacked from where they were rooted, and the hatch swung open.

  The corridor was empty, though the barks of the kongamato now permeated the air. And they were growing louder.

  “Grant, are they gone from your position?” Kane asked.

  * * *

  GRANT LOOKED UP into the sky. The brutish winged horrors had taken flight. Thurpa’s mental command had gotten through to the creatures, a simple urge that Thurpa understood all too well.

  Home. The Nagah was an exile from his own underground home, the city of Garuda. That thought was similar enough to entice the kongamato to take to the wing. Half of them dived to a spot in a grassy clearing. The others were flying straight through the sky, back toward the facility where they’d discovered Durga and the millenialists.

  Domi, Edwards and Sinclair had joined Grant and Brigid, and the feral girl pointed toward the clearing. “That’s where the access hatch to the tunnels brought us up.”

  “So they’re backtracking the way they came,” Brigid mused. “What about the others? The ones Makoba let into the redoubt?”

  Grant looked toward the Victoria Falls redoubt, but only two of the kongamato flew toward that entrance. The rattle of a light machine gun filled the air, and the beasts were swatted from the sky.

  “Thurpa, can you keep track of them?” Grant asked after a few minutes, keeping watch whether the creatures wound their way to this battleground.

  “I’m getting some feedback,” the Nagah replied. “Oh, damn. Yeah, my sinuses are burning. My ears are ringing, too. They smell kerosene, and they’re listening to each other. They’re confused by the urge to go home....”

  “They’re in the complex,” Kane announced. “Countdown is forty seconds.”

  Thurpa released a grunt. “Took off the crown. The kongamato are confused by the smell, but they feel safe now. Their bellies are full of meat, and they’re in the caves where they were born.”

  The air came alive with electricity. Brigid felt her hair rise, lifted by the static charge. A few moments later, the mistlike form of a plasma wave fogged the space next to them. A battered Kane, Durga and Nathan Longa stood there. Durga wielded the Threshold device.

  The cobra prince did not look happy. “I want Thurpa. Now.”

  Brigid and Grant kept an eye on the Nagah as they moved closer to Kane. The three entered a loose embrace, glad that they were back together again.

  “Did you hear me?” Durga asked.

  “He’s with Lomon’s men. And he’s injured,” Grant told him.

  “Then heal him,” Durga said to Nathan, who held Nehushtan.

  “I’m not your servant,” the young man from Harare said.

  “You insolent...” Durga began.

  The ground shuddered.

  “Lomon?” Grant called over his Commtact.

  “We’re above ground,” the Zambian officer answered. “We’re safe, for now.”

  “Thurpa!” Durga growled.

  The tremors continued, and a roar of thunder rose in competition with the rumble of the Zambezi River as it crashed down the Victoria Falls gorge. The access vent that the kongamato had flown through suddenly glowed brightly.

  A jet of flame shot into the sky, superheated fuel energized by a
spark burning and seeking an exit. The column of fire split the night, forcing all present to look away from it. It was so bright that they kept their heads down for several seconds, the afterglow still burning orange behind their eyelids.

  The heat, however, was gone after a full second, the rushing roar of the flames as well.

  The assembled travelers looked at each other with uncertainty.

  “Lomon?” Grant called over the Commtact.

  “We rode it through. No fire or heat from the vault doors,” the Zambian officer replied.

  “And Thurpa?” Durga pressed.

  “You have another track for that mind?” Kane snapped.

  “Grant, tell my prince that I resign from his service,” Thurpa croaked over the Commtact.

  “Nathan, you have your radio?” Kane asked the young guardian of Nehushtan.

  He nodded, took it out and turned it on, switching to the Commtacts’ common frequency.

  “Repeat what you said,” Grant requested. “He can hear you himself.”

  “Thurpa...come here—”

  “Piss off, Prince.” Thurpa cut him off.

  Durga’s amber eyes flared with anger.

  “I’ve got people here who’ve shown concern for me. Unlike you,” Thurpa added.

  Durga was about to say something in response, then turned his head, almost as if he were capturing a whisper in his ear.

  The Threshold glowed, then plasma mist surrounded him and swallowed him, spiriting him away as if he’d never been present at all.

  “Not even a goodbye?” Brigid asked. “I’m insulted.”

  Kane grimaced. “Good riddance.”

  “He should owe you his life,” Brigid said.

  “He saved my life when we went to the cloning facility,” Kane answered. “Besides, I don’t like holding debts. Let him go.”