by Jak Koke
Quetzalcoatl.
The walls and ceilings were a mosaic of tiles, depicting the sacred rituals of the ancient Aztecs in glorious reds and blues and golds. The main entrance was a huge archway, situated at the far end of the large chamber, beyond the sculpture. Next to the archway was a security station complete with weapons and cyberware scanners, and a lot more Leopard Guards.
The whole chamber was packed with people—acolytes and priests, guards and Aztlan military. There were perhaps a hundred metahumans between them and the main entrance at the far end of the chamber.
Frag me, Ryan thought.
A hundred people who wanted them dead.
Ryan gathered his focus and stepped toward the first guard. Lei’s see if these Azzie slots are as tough as their rep.
34
Blood gurgled inside Lucero. It boiled in her ears, reddened her vision as the pain of her death lived on and on in her mind. The vicious cut of the macauitl slicing its way from her sternum to her crotch. The sickening lurch of her intestines as they burst forth from her wound.
This pain defined her very nature, and it repulsed her.
Yet she must obey her master; she was bound to him now as she planted soul after soul, spirit after spirit into the tip of the outcropping. Somehow, the sound of drums reached her from across the metaplanes. The primal beat of an alien heart that drove her to snatch up the bloodless specters of the sacrifices as they piled up behind her. Drove her to heft the souls and slam them into the earth.
The rock beneath her was new ground, freshly created from earlier sacrifices that hardened beneath her feet as she advanced. She walked on spirits, on the ghosts of those who would remain trapped in the bridge forever.
Oscuro’s commands made her move faster and faster. She created the bridge, extending it like a thin feeler across the bottomless Chasm between planes. How much time had passed? She had no way to judge.
How many sacrifices? How many spirits had come, channeled up from the Locus, through the column of fire and blood maintained by the Gestalt? She had no way of counting, but judging from the incredible distance she had come, it must be in the hundreds now, perhaps thousands.
She felt the presence of the tzitzimine, the creatures from the other side. They were much closer now, nearing with every passing beat of the drums. They spoke to her in delicate whispers, pleading for her to listen.
Winnowing their way into her mind. Lying to her with such sweetness. Telling her that she could be free of Oscuro. They could make her free.
When she glanced up, she was surprised at how narrow the gap had become. In the absence of Thayla’s light, the creatures had redoubled their efforts. They had made much progress.
But it was Lucero’s side of the arc that had grown at a phenomenal rate. She moved faster than she ever could have while alive, tireless in the completion of her duties.
She paused for a beat as she saw them clearly. Hideous monsters of sharp bones protruding through skin, alien shapes, flesh-ripping teeth and claws. But as she looked, they transformed into creatures of wonder, of misunderstood beauty. They were going to make the universe a marvelous place.
The eels in her mind slithered toward control.
The tzitzimine would free her. They would give her power. Whatever she wanted.
She believed them. For a fraction of an instant, Lucero succumbed.
The eels coiled around her sanity.
They yanked at her will then. Terrible, bone-crushing pain shocked through her.
She worked harder and the pain lessened. She plucked up the sacrificed souls and plunged them into the earth, moving faster and faster.
Blood dripped from her, bits of gelatinized flesh and chunks of internal organs flying as she tore into a frenzy. She began interring sacrifices, two and three at a time, then rolling over them to plant the next group.
Lucero’s agony dissipated.
Her pain was gone. Her will was gone, giving way to a mounting ecstasy. A sublime shock of pleasure that increased as the bridge grew under her onslaught. The gap was only meters wide now. Soon the distance would be closed.
Soon the bridge would be complete, and the world would be forever altered.
35
Ryan sprang forward, leaping off the narrow ledge in the elevator shaft, and into the small alcove. Before he and the others could make a run past the dragon sculpture and across the entrance chamber, he needed to incapacitate the guard.
Red-blonde hair, chrome eyes narrowing on him. This close, his magic couldn’t hide him. She could see him—a hazy shadow against the dark background of the elevator shaft.
Ryan struck at her just as she brought her AK-98 to bear. He stiffened his fingers and hit her in the neck with a precise attack to a vital nerve cluster, hoping that in her particular case, the nerves were biological, not cyber.
She never got her gun up. Her jaw clenched in pain, her red lips pulling into a grimace of agony as paralysis overtook her body from the spot where Ryan had hit her. She collapsed to the ground.
The whole combat lasted ten seconds. Silent and nearly unnoticed.
Abruptly, the chamber shook from the force of an explosion. Gunfire followed, the rapid staccato that could only come from a minigun.
“Rock’n’roll, Bossman,” came Dhin’s voice over the tacticom.
The Wandjina drone dove through the main archway like a swooping falcon, bullets from its mounted Vindicator ripping up the floor, scattering guards and priests. Creating pandemonium and chaos.
“Perfect timing, chummer.”
Axler and Grind touched the floor and moved into the alcove, still somewhat hard to see because of the sustained invisibility.
Two guards who had been standing just outside the alcove glanced inside and saw their fallen companion. They stared for a second, bringing their weapons to a defensive posture as they took in the details—the open doors, the lack of an elevator.
Ryan knew they couldn’t see him clearly, and were confused by the activity out in the main hall. People running everywhere, trying to get out of the line of fire.
Ryan fired one of his darts into the first one, a troll, watching as the flechettes appeared in his warty neck, just above the collarbone.
The guard lost his balance and stumbled to the ground.
Grind nailed the other guard with a burst from his combatgun. The man’s chest blew out and he was tossed to the floor.
The troll guard didn’t get up.
Talon came just behind Axler and Grind, and as soon as there was enough room, Billy leapt from the pole and landed next to the mage, the cyberzombie’s form a waver of light.
“Let’s go,” Ryan said. “Dhin, try not to shoot us, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” came the ork’s reply. “Even though you and Billy are masked to my drones. I’ve got the thermal images of Axler, Grind, and Talon in sight. Just don’t stray too far from them.”
“Copy.” Ryan crouched just inside the alcove and slapped in a clip of concussion grenades. “Let’s help with the distractions,” he said. “Then we run straight for the exit. Stay together.”
“I’ll toss a couple of fireballs,” Talon said.
“Aim for the edges of the room,” Ryan said. “Now!” he fired his entire clip of six grenades in a wide spread toward the corners and walls of the large chamber.
Grind aimed his combatgun and used its undermounted grenade launcher to chunk several fire bombs. Axler and Billy brought machine guns to bear on the escape route.
Talon’s fireballs went off first, one blowing out from an unsuspecting acolyte trying to run out of the hall to the right. The second targeted one of the guards by the entrance, sending sheets of flame out to cover several other guards nearby.
The grenades went off then, shaking the structure with the force of their explosions. “Patience!” Ryan yelled. “We bolt on my mark. Axler and Billy in front, carving out a path. I’ll bring up the rear.”
The last grenade went off a few seconds lat
er, throwing bodies into the air. “Now!”
Billy’s M107 whined into action, and Axler’s machine gun spat lead as they ran for the entrance, a forty-meter sprint. Overhead, the Wandjina swooped and dove. Nearly everyone had taken cover now.
Bullets flew from all directions, but in the ensuing pandemonium, no one got between them and the exit. The Wandjina led them out, ducking under the main archway and into the night.
The entrance was three stories up from the ground, reached only by wide stone stairs that followed the steep angle of the pyramid. The drone showered the stairs with a hail of bullets, scattering guards and priests.
Billy and Axler followed in its wake. Outside through the archway and down the stairs. Behind them went Grind, then Talon, moving as fast as he could.
The drone exploded in a ball of flame just as Ryan reached the stairs. A missile coming from a guard near the base of the stairs.
Billy had blown the guard’s chest out seconds later. A hint of the old Burnout showing through. Quick, decisive, extremely deadly.
“Dhin,” Ryan said. “You all right?”
The ork’s response was slow in coming. “Just a little dump shock, Bossman.”
Then Ryan and the others reached the bottom of the stairs and melted into the crowd. The people this close to the Locus hadn’t even noticed all the destruction around them. They merely stared at the lake bed, mesmerized. None of them paid any attention to Ryan and the others.
Ryan felt the pull of the Locus as he moved through the crowd. Its power was phenomenal, alluring in a dark and sinister way. Like a drug rush.
Axler led them quickly, silently, through the crowd and around the lake. Toward the hillside where the drummers continued to pound their hypnotic syncopation. Their tapestry of sound.
Toward the old tower that stuck into the clear sky like a rusty needle.
“Jane,” Ryan subvocalized. “Any word on the other runners?”
“Sorry, Quicksilver, but no. I haven’t had time to deck into the army’s communications to see if the runners have been captured or killed.”
“Perhaps they accomplished their mission, but their com was knocked out.”
“We both know how likely that is,” Jane said.
“Yeah. I just hope they got those Nightgliders in place.”
“Me too.”
The crowd thinned as they came around the edge of the lake bed, moving toward an old hotel and restaurant that was part of the ancient amusement park, which had long ago fallen into ruin. Ryan shuddered as he saw it. After his capture by Aztechnology, he had been tortured inside.
Axler picked a way up the hillside, moving invisibly, quietly away from the smattering of guards placed near the old hotel. Billy moved behind her, then came Grind and Talon in single file, Ryan bringing up the rear. No one noticed them as they climbed into the live oak trees and the mesquite.
As they climbed, Ryan looked back over the lake bed. From this vantage, he could see that most of the army was clustered tightly around the Locus, protecting whatever ritual was being performed. The crowds blocked his view so he couldn’t tell what was going on, but a feeling of nausea gripped him as he watched.
“Look at all those guards in the lake bed,” said Grind. “They only sent a tiny fraction of their total force into the teocalli after us.”
“They were far more interested in protecting the Locus than the temple,” Ryan said.
“That explains the ease of our escape,” said Axler.
They passed close to the drummers, hidden in the undergrowth on the hill above the hotel. Ryan caught glimpses of the musicians—men and women with naked chests, painted in swirls of color. Hair in long, thin braids, faces covered with carved wooden masks depicting demons and devils. They drummed with the abandon of the possessed. Never missing a beat. Coordinated chaos.
Their music pulled at Ryan, threatening to drag him under its hypnotic spell. Perhaps it is the drumbeat that sustains the spell over the crowd.
“Think about the mission,” he told the others. “Let’s just get the Nightgliders and get out of here.” He feared one of them would fall under the spell.
They climbed and climbed, nearing the base of the tower where he had first encountered Burnout. Where he had first discovered the Locus. Ryan held onto the hope that even if Cluster hadn’t made it out alive, he might have managed to leave the ultralights in position before being killed or captured.
“They’re not here,” Axler said.
Ryan caught up and searched the space around the concrete slab that served as the base for the tower. He and the others continued to search for several minutes before conceding that Axler was right.
No Nightgliders.
36
Under the knot of the tree canopy, Lethe watched as Ryan and the others searched for their missing Nightgliders. Next to him, the concrete slab rose five meters up out of the dirt, extending above the trees. Ivy and kudzu grew over the concrete, and out of the top the metal tower shot up like a huge needle into the dark sky.
The drumbeats formed a thickness in astral space around Lethe, tendrils of mana swirling into a vortex centered on the Locus. The tornado of blood that spiraled into the astral sky above the black stone sent electric shocks through Lethe. Dread and horror at what had happened to Thayla.
Billy spoke to Ryan. “You must have a backup plan.” Ryan sighed, disappointment at not finding the Nightgliders evident on his features. “Yes, of course.” Then he subvocalized to his team. “Jane, Dhin, proceed to Plan B.” Billy wasn’t wired into the tacticom, but he could hear the subvocalizations. His cyberears were amazingly acute. “What’s Plan B?”
“Dhin will remote-pilot a helo to pick us up, and we run for it. It’s less subtle, and we have to take our chances against the Azzie choppers, but it’s better than staying here,”
Something distracted Lethe then, two comets streaking across the astral sky, coming directly toward them. The spirits of two mages, extremely powerful. “Ryan,” he said through his connection with the Dragon Heart, “we have company in the astral.”
“What?”
The mages stopped next to Ryan and made themselves visible. They both appeared as elves, one male with a painted face and archaic clothing. The other was a dark-skinned female with close-cropped white hair and a patched appearance to her aura that frightened Lethe.
“Harlequin,” Ryan said. “I’m glad to see you among the living. If indeed that is where you are.”
Harlequin gave a little laugh. “Yes, well, once again Aina has rescued me,” he said, indicating the other elf.
“Enough pleasantries,” Aina said. “We have no time for it.”
“That is true enough,” said Harlequin. “We must get you and this spirit”—he turned to look straight at Lethe despite the fact that he was masking himself to the best of his ability—“across to the metaplanes at once.”
“You want to perform the ritual now?” Ryan asked. "Here?”
“We have no choice. Thayla has fallen and the sacrifices that Darke is making on the Locus are extending the bridge. Even if we start now, we may be too late to stop the Enemy from coming.”
“Can you perform the ritual from astral space?” Talon asked.
“No,” said Harlequin. “You’ll have to do it.”
“What? I don’t have anywhere near the kind of power it takes.”
“Aina and I will assist you with that,” Harlequin said. “We can’t perform the ritual from astral space, but we can lend you some of our power and knowledge. I will teach you the symbols and their meaning. Do you have chalk or a candle?”
“I have a small candle,” Talon said. “I use it for emergency summonings, but—”
“Excellent. It will do.”
Ryan interrupted. “Okay, Talon will perform the ritual, but where? We can’t just camp out here for several hours. Someone is certain to find us.”
Billy spoke up. “The tower.”
Ryan shivered but said nothing.
“How wide is it?” Harlequin asked.
Ryan looked up, squinting into the sky.
Lethe followed his gaze. The tower was a metal cylinder that used to be white before the paint had flaked off. Now it was mostly rust. At the top, the observation platform bulged from the cylinder like a dark donut.
“I’ve been almost to the top,” Ryan said. “Before, when I found the Locus for Dunkelzahn. The platform is circular, it used to rotate so that people could see the whole area. It’s at least fifteen meters in diameter, at least as wide as the ritual circle you made at Chateau d'If.”
“Let’s go then,” Aina said. “Now, before it’s too late.” Her aura shot up into the sky, fading from physical view as she rose.
“See you at the top,” Harlequin said. He followed Aina up. Lethe watched him go, longing for the time he could move around at the speed of thought. But now, he had to use more mundane methods of getting to the top of the tower. Like the others, he and Billy had to climb the ladder.
Ryan led the way, climbing first to the top of the cement slab, then up the metal ladder. Billy followed in silence, the ground growing smaller and smaller beneath him.
And as they rose, Lethe tried to prepare himself. Thayla had told Ryan that Lethe would know how to use the Dragon Heart. That Lethe would be able to destroy the bridge with it.
The only hitch, Lethe thought as Billy continued to climb, is that Thayla was wrong.
Dead wrong.
37
The night air clung to Ryan like a wet blanket, causing sweat to prickle on his brow and run down his face as he climbed the metal ladder of the ancient amusement park tower. He tried not to remember the last time he had been on this tower.
The fall down the ladder was still a vivid memory, the sense of flying through the air just before crashing through the hard branches into the trees below. He had nearly made it out alive, and ironically it had been Burnout who had stopped Ryan then.