The darkness twisted and flowed in the control room. Nemo’s vision flickered back to his own body as the shadows pooled and blossomed into ten yellow robes.
“Nemo!” Kaj shouted. “Cease this at once!”
The network buzzed blue, with expanding puddles of red interspersed. The mental barrier erected by the False Ones was breaking, dissolving. The red grew thicker and wider. “You will not interfere,” Nemo seethed out through his filed and rotten teeth. “You will obey me.”
Kaj lifted a finger toward him. “Subdue him!” he thought. “Administer the methohexital into his IV, quickly!”
Dyn and Rith raced forward, their robes billowing behind them. The world blurred, and again came the flashes of red through the mental thoughtways. The blue receded to nothing. The wall was crumbling. The psychic shackles that held Nemo in place ruptured.
Nemo strained his shoulders and thrust his neck out toward the False Ones. “Insects! You will bow, or you will die!” His thoughts plunged into the thoughtstream, tracing the strands of consciousness to Dyn and Rith’s cells. He found them, seized them, and—with a single mental motion—crushed them. The network again bloomed red, this time brighter and fuller. The two Vant’therax recoiled, their bodies convulsing. Nemo’s teeth ground euphorically. He watched in sadistic pleasure as blood erupted from the two False Ones’ eye sockets and frothed from their mouths, staining their blasphemous yellow robes. Beckoned by a single thought, the Nothem moved. They skittered and linked, reconstructing the neurons within the now-demolished brains. Nemo split off two more portions of his soul to fill the vessels.
“I am in control!” he bellowed, his voice booming off the walls and panels. The False Ones’ muscles became his own, and two more robes enshrouded his skin. In that moment, he beheld the look of utter terror written upon Kaj’s features from three angles. He licked his lips, savoring the taste, as Dyn and Rith faced off with the remaining Vant’therax. Nemo’s vision flashed between Dyn and Rith and Nal, each of their bodies reacting to his commands. “Cower,” he seethed with all four mouths at once. “Tremble. I am free. No one can stop me now.”
“Retreat!” Kaj intoned, and in a moment the yellow robes were replaced by spiraling strands of darkness, and then nothing at all.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Faul. “This Conduit will ruin everything!
“Is this what you hoped to accomplish with a slave Conduit?” Silt asked.
Kaj growled. “Be silent, all of you!” The panic that dripped from his thoughts brought a sadistic smile to Nemo’s lips. He who sought to use him, to subjugate him—this fear was delicious irony, rich and well-earned. “Something has gone terribly wrong,” Kaj said. “Everything is falling apart. We must work quickly.”
A grunt from Silt. “I do hope your next idea is not so catastrophic.”
“Silence!” A desperate gasp lit the strands of the network. “Dirge, contact what’s left of the Marauders and send them to scour the area near the Bulwark. The rest of you, split up. We must find the children of the Fifth while we have time!”
“What of the intruders?”
“They are of no concern to us any longer! It is the children that matter! Now, quickly, while we may yet open the gate to the Web!”
Heathen False Ones, Nemo thought, vignettes of madness unfurling before his scoured eyes. Run while you can. When I am finished with Mark, you will be the next to taste my wrath! Buried in the minds of Rith and Dyn, he summoned the shadows of the control center to bathe his new puppets. And then they, too, vanished into the aether. Mark Warren, he seethed. I hope you are prepared to die. I have waited so long for this.
Just as suddenly as they’d appeared, the Vant’therax were gone. Mark stared at the last remaining robe before them. The blood running from its punctured temple had already been choked off by the spread of new chitin growth. The tusk-like appendages that burst from its jaw glistened in red hues. As the thing took a ponderous step toward him, babbling incoherencies, Mark slid a step back to keep his distance. “What the hell is this?”
At his side, Arthr was shaking. Ralph seemed pale and dumbstruck, but otherwise unaffected. Annika wheeled about to stand beside him and raised her revolver slowly. “Well, that was weird,” she said under her breath. “And it looks like you were right. They’ve got a new Conduit after all.” Her free hand went to her pocket. “You know what they say. You want something killed right, you’ve gotta pull the trigger yourself!” She extracted a speedloader from her jacket pocket and threw the cylinder of the Ruger open.
“Wait,” Mark said. Annika froze, ammunition half-inserted into the emptied cylinder.
The thing in the robe ambled an unsteady step forward. Its gaping jaw ran with congealed ichor and broken bits of chitin. “Warren. You’ll pay for what you did to me.”
Mark narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”
The thing gave a shrill cackle. Then, in a gesture of false grandeur, the robed thing spread its arms apart. “I am the master of the brood. All these creatures are my children. I am the hand of the King. I am the voice of the Mists. I am the shepherd of these wayward children, and the path of Raxxinoth!”
Annika’s mouth fell open and she began to shake. “No,” she said. “That can’t be. Dwyre.”
Mark started at the name. “That’s impossible. Dwyre was killed.”
The thing made a sharp hissing sound through its teeth. “Dwyre. Dwyre!? I am he, and he is I! I am Talm . . . No, I am Dwyre and Talm and Repton and Griffith. I am all, and yet I transcend those who came before.” The confused creature’s damaged mouth turned up in a mad grin. “I am Nemo.”
Mark stared into the eyes of the seething beast before him. They were dim, distant, and yet alive. Behind those eyes, there swirled the chaotic abyss of the mind that linked the self-proclaimed master of the brood and the creatures that served as his marionettes. Crackling, sparking in phantasmal arcs, those webs of neural focus spelled out a reality that was all too real. The thing that was now pulling the strings was not the same Simon Dwyre who had been killed by the purple-suited man the night everything went to hell. It was something else entirely, a tortured soul whose very life had been swallowed by NIDUS’s ambition. But he was now their enemy, just as Dwyre had been and just as Griffith and Repton would have been had they yet lived. The hate in those eyes was real, even if the mind behind it was a chimera of ghosts and memories.
“Annika,” Mark said in a low tone, not taking his eyes off the grotesque, shaking figure. “Forgive me, but I need you to do something for me.”
Annika sighed. “Let me guess. You want me to go and make sure your Spinzie is alright.”
Mark paused, wrestling with an internal dilemma. “No. I am loath to say it, but those two are on their own for now. These things and their Conduit will not let us leave here alive. Which makes it all the more fortunate that we now have the opportunity to break them once and for all. I shall keep this one busy. But I need you to find the Vault.”
“The Vault?”
“I haven’t time to explain, but it is the cause of all of this. I don’t know precisely where it lies, only that it is down, deeper. I need you to find it and destroy what you find inside. And in doing so, I need you to get the attention of as many Vant’therax as you can, and take them out.”
She stared at him, all humor draining from her. “Take them out? As long as their Conduit draws breath, they’re as good as immortal.”
He smirked. “That is precisely what I am counting on.”
Annika’s eyes went wide, as though disturbed by his perverse logic. She then gave a numb laugh. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Arthr, still shaking, looked back and forth between the two of them. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Annika turned around and grabbed Arthr’s hand. “Shut up and let’s go!” Her other hand snaked out and grabbed hold of Ralph’s shoulder, forcibly turning him down the hall toward their uncertain destination. And with that, she took
off running, dragging the boy and his father behind her.
Their footsteps receded further down the hall behind Mark. He scowled at the robed beast. “You intend to let them get away? How very kind of you.”
The Vant’therax growled. “You’re the one I want.”
“Very well.” Mark widened his stance and let a crackle of the Flames lick its way up his arms. “Let’s see what a Conduit can do.”
The beast halted its steady advance as though it had been struck. “Conduit?” it spat. “Conduit! Choke upon that word, Warren! Do you understand what it represents? What I have sacrificed by taking on the title of a mere Conduit? Can you possibly know what I have endured? I have been beaten, broken, enchained by this blasphemous sect. My honor has been stripped from me, my birthright stolen, all under the banner of that damned word!” A harsh growl rumbled through the walls. “Insects. What hubris to believe they could bind me. For I am no mere Conduit. I am the last in a long line of those charged by the Yellow King to carry forth His will! And that is why they have failed. I was meant for more. I have always been meant for more. And now I have become what I always knew I was meant to be. Conduit? Conduit!? No. I am the Helixweaver. And your entire bloodline is forfeit before me!”
The shadows shifted in the hall once more. Mark turned and found two puddles congealing into robed figures that barred the path behind him. Like the first, their eyes were dead, yet shone with a restrained malice. One’s head was caged by curving tusks that resembled meat hooks, and the other was short in stature, only notable for the two large but uneven spider legs that curved over its shoulders like the pincers of an unfortunate crab.
“Come, Warren,” all three of the undead Vant’therax said at once, creating a discordant melody. “Your death awaits.”
Mark smirked as contemptuously as he could. “Only three of you?” He lowered his stance and glared into the soulless eyes of the Helixweaver and the gleaming soul network beyond. “Surely you do not expect me to be scared. Send three, send five, send them all—it matters not!” The Flames burned into luminous orbs in his palms. “As sure as the moon rises, I shall be the last man standing.”
Chapter 36
Skeleton Crew
The wall-mounted radio churned with crackling static, ripping Edgar from his dream. His heart was at once racing. The shifting sounds coming from the corners of the barracks told him the others had heard it, too. Soon, a raspy voice cut through the static and confirmed the forfeiture of their lives.
“Wake up, Upsilon. Go to the B4F Bulwark. Sweep the area, and locate the children of the Fifth Project. Do not harm them. Kill anyone else you find. Repeat: go to the B4F Bulwark and find the children of the Fifth. Kill anyone else you find. Now move.” With that, the voice and the static cut off, leaving the harsh memory of Dirge’s voice to ring through the Marauders’ ears.
Carl sighed and climbed out of his bunk. “More of this shit, huh.” The formerly sedulous block captain had lost all his passion, it seemed.
Ronald gave a hum of confirmation as he dropped to the floor. Edgar was the last to rise. The feeling of impending doom was too pervasive to shake. As Carl and Ronald went about their routine dressing maneuvers, Edgar only sat with his head in his hands. “This isn’t right,” he said. “It’s still too early. The night shift should be closer to B4 than we are.”
“Thinking too hard again, fag,” Carl spat at him. “There’s no point in thinking anymore.”
Edgar rose, not answering Carl’s fatalistic vulgarity, and pulled the portable radio from the small pouch on the side of his bunk. He clicked it on, and hissing static greeted him. He took a shallow breath and pressed down the thumb switch. “Lou, are you there? Over.” As the line cut into static again, the others in the room stopped what they were doing to listen for a reply. And for a few moments, they seemed to be mesmerized by the constant hissing. Edgar pressed the button down again. “Lou, Roger, Miles, are any of you there? Please answer. Over.” Again, only the haunting white noise answered. “Nothing,” Edgar said. “What happened to them?”
Ronald dropped his coat to the floor. “Do you think those bugs ate them?”
Edgar stared at the radio for a few moments before finally turning it off and muting the grating sound. “They’re intent on picking the bones clean.” He sighed, and the insurmountable dread gave way to an ambivalent clarity. “We’re heading to our own deaths, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.” He knew just as the others did that they were—and had always been—trapped. Now that they were the only three remaining, they were more vulnerable; if they tried to leave now, it wouldn’t be a merciful bullet from another Marauder that would end their lives, but the wailing and gnashing of inhuman teeth. The very thought of it made Edgar shiver.
“Well,” Carl growled, “nothing we can do anymore, is there?”
Edgar trembled a little. “No,” he said, “there isn’t. I think this is the end.”
“Kara, get back here right now!” Spinneretta yelled down the hall. The younger girl, however, did not even break stride. Spinneretta bit her lip and cursed at nothing and everything. The corridor Cinnamon had chosen to flee had grown narrow as they passed through a cluster of interlocking rooms and hallways. Ahead, she could see smoke billowing forth from the mouth of yet another passage. It seemed they had, at last, discovered the origin of the noxious plumes. She took a deep breath as they got nearer the burned-out room and held it. The smoke thickened to a dense screen. Only when they’d put the fire a good ten seconds behind did Spinneretta exhale the rest of the stale air in her lungs and take another liberating breath. “Goddammit, Kara! Stop!”
But Kara just continued flying down the hall upon her spider legs in pursuit of the Leng cat. The chorus of clicks and clacks resembled the sound of a radiation detector, growing more frenzied as it neared the source of greatest danger. The sloping hallway snaked left and right. Aside from the odd doors that punctuated the uniform metal walls, there was only the same sinking floor behind each and every turn.
After a few minutes of weaving in and out of interconnected halls and passages, Spinneretta’s patience ran dry. She called forth another trace of her Instinctual adrenaline and lowered her gait. Her muscles forgot their limits, and she picked up speed with each successive stride. Her burning right leg punished her at each step, but she inched closer to her sister’s fleeing back. And after rounding a final right turn, she held her breath and sprinted as fast as she was able. “Kara!” She leapt forward, closing the remaining distance. Her spider legs seized Kara about the waist. The girl stumbled, and the two fell. Kara struck the floor, deadening her impact with her own spider legs. At once the girl was struggling to break free.
“Let go of me!” Kara yelled. “Cinnamon is—”
“Cinnamon doesn’t fucking matter!” Spinneretta said. “She’s just a goddamned bloodthirsty animal, and you’re not throwing both of our lives away for a stupid spider cat, Kara! Don’t you understand what we’re risking? What Dad and Mark and Annika and Arthr are all risking by being here?”
“Let go of me!”
“Shut up and listen, Kara!”
To her surprise, Kara did. She fell silent, her big blue eyes filling with tears. Those eyes whispered the word traitor. Before Spinneretta could lay into her, however, another sound crept down the hall toward them. It was a high-pitched, guttural clacking. The two looked up toward the next intersection. There, Cinnamon sat in a restless crouch, clicking and snapping at them. It made a jerking motion with its head as though beckoning them down one of the halls that branched from the main passage.
“Is it . . . waiting for us?” Spinneretta asked the still air.
“Get off me!” Kara thrashed and slipped free of Spinneretta’s grip. She sprang back to her feet and looked down at her. For a moment, Kara just stood above her, taking shallow breaths. Then she reached out her hand toward Spinneretta. “Come on. I think she wants to show us something.”
Spinneretta stared at Kara’s outstretch
ed hand for a few lost seconds. A powerful curiosity wrestled with reason. Reason lost. Though she knew it was a bad idea, she began to nod. “Yeah. Okay.” She then took Kara’s hand and climbed to her feet.
“Alright, let’s go.” Kara brushed herself off and turned to follow the Leng cat.
“Wait,” Spinneretta said. “I’m having a hard time smelling them now.” The toxic reek of smoke was growing ever thicker behind them, blotting out the scent of the others. “If we don’t turn back now, we might not be able to find them again.”
Kara’s eyes lit up. “I have an idea!” She opened her mouth and tilted her head back a little. A moment later, Spinneretta saw the amber glint of resin in the girl’s mouth.
Four of Kara’s spider legs reached into her mouth and hooked thick gobs of precursor, pulling and stretching until it formed a thin, silvery strand of web. She walked over to the nearest wall, eyes set on a vent cover set within it. Her unbusy legs thrust out and pried an opening in the metal folds of the cover while her remaining legs wrapped her silk around the new anchor. “Rhere,” she said. “Rhow hwe hworn’ geh’ rhoss’.”
Spinneretta nodded, giving a nervous glance back in the direction they’d come from. She wanted to protest, but the only way Kara was going back without that stupid animal was kicking and screaming. She was certain Mark and the others were alright, but the longer they spent in this terrible place, the more uncertain that safety became. What value could there be in following this stupid animal, anyway? Not stupid, she reminded herself; Mark had commented on the intellect of the adults. But what could it possibly have been trying to show them? The question didn’t sit well with her.
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 44