Sveta slapped her.
“You wearing a transmitter?”
“No.”
Sveta hit her again.
“Tell me.”
“I’m not wearing a transmitter,” screamed Zoe.
In a sudden spasm, she doubled over and grabbed the spot where she had been bleeding earlier. Her face seemed to turn pale white.
No time. Drogol in the tube. Zoe hurting. Mishka and his men coming at them.
A scream and more weapons fire. How many wolves did Drogol have?
Think. How did Mishka find them? And then it hit her. The car. Mishka’s car had a GPS. She hadn’t thought of it when they were on the run. So now she’d be facing Hauck’s team and Mishka’s gunmen.
I should have just sent out party invites, she thought.
“Shut the machine off,” she said.
A bullet whined off a nearby panel board, and Sveta dropped straight to the metal platform.
“Down,” she yelled. “Get down.”
Sveta played it out in her head. Accidental shot. No one was firing at them. They were too far out. Mishka wasn’t that stupid to let them open fire over such a distance. Wild shot by one of Mishka’s men bitten by a wolf? Maybe worse. Maybe Hauck’s team had showed up and they were fighting it out for who got to take Drogol’s head home in a jar. Maybe that was better. Confusion was good when you were making a break for it, and Sveta had to make a break for it.
How long before they got to the platform. Five minutes?
A tight pattern of shots fired from a few feet away.
Sveta looked up to see Zoe with an automatic weapon firing toward the stairway.
“Stop,” yelled Sveta. “What the fuck are you doing? You’re telling them where we are you dumb bitch.”
But Zoe, who had in the period of two nights been stabbed, died and resurrected, attacked by a giant wolf beast and having betrayed the man who brought her back to life, had gone over the edge. In the middle of the pulsing Tesla tube light show she stood like a madwoman firing bullets at men she could barely see. Her shots clanged and careened off electrical junction boxes and shattered glowing quartz crystals.
Return fire came and all around the area Sveta heard bullets winging off of nearby equipment.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she yelled.
Save your bullets, save your bullets, save your bullets, she thought.
A break in firing by Zoe.
Sveta brought her pistol up and was about to shoot her, when she saw the tears rolling down the girl’s face and figured there was no point. Everyone knew where they were now. The tube behind them began to emit high pitched sounds and bright sharp colors and she saw Drogol shaking and shaking and she thought he would die in there for certain.
“Shut that fucking thing off,” Sveta screamed.
Zoe looked down at her and seemed about to say something when she bucked backward as though an invisible hand had hit her. Her mouth opened wide in surprise and Sveta saw a bloodstain spreading out from her chest. The girl dropped her rifle, brought her hands up and began to stagger.
There was a sound that Sveta recognized instantly and she clapped her hands over her ears as she closed her eyes. Twenty feet away a projectile exploded. When she opened her eyes again she saw Zoe fall back against the pie-shaped dial that controlled the Tesla tube. As she continued falling, it moved with her until it stopped at the position marked “Maximum.” A screeching cacophony of sound and searing light screamed from the tube and Drogol twisted and turned so fast inside its vortex that he looked like a life sized doll thrust into a blender.
Vibrations surged across the platform like angry waves. Sveta reached for a floor clamp to keep from being tossed over the edge without her duffel. She saw it sliding, let go and rolled toward it. It slid away but she kept after it and finally grabbed it with an outstretched hand. She began wiggling like a snake toward the edge of the platform, her body pressed down as much as she could to avoid catching a bullet. Behind her, a round hit the Tesla tube with a bright crack and pinged off like a cushion-shot without damaging it.
She risked a quick glance over the edge of the platform and saw that the men were closer than she thought, firing at the platform in steady bursts to keep her pinned down. She heard shouting and even though she couldn’t make out what they said she just knew they were saying, “There she is. I see her, kill the bitch.”
Keep moving.
If she slid over the edge without getting shot, she could make it underneath the machinery below and run out the other side and find one of the many exits Drogol had hinted could be used to escape. A blast of quartz crystal flashed past her before she could move. She closed her eyes and pressed her face down reflexively as a wave of heat passed over her. The smell of burnt hair filled her nostrils.
When the press of hot air passed, she started crawling toward the edge again. She was about to roll over when she realized that the entire complex had gone quiet. Then men who had been storming forward stopped moving. She saw one of them lower his gun and extend a finger toward her in fear. No one moved. Sveta held her breath as though by doing so she could prolong her safety.
Behind her, she heard a loud wail begin low and soft and rise in a powerful crescendo until it filled the cavern like a fire alarm.
Standing by himself where the tube used to be was Drogol. Iridescent energy seemed to ripple over him like a radiant blanket. She saw him look around, bewildered, hopeless. His eyes found hers and, for a moment, he seemed alarmed, as though he did not recognize her. He turned his head to one side, and then stopped searching when he saw Zoe lying flat on her back. Shaking like an alcoholic deprived of drink, he walked toward the girl. Crouching down next to her as the room remained quiet as though a truce had been declared for just a few moments, he touched his finger to her stained blouse. He stood again, and held that finger before his face like he was checking the wind direction as he stared at her blood.
Why isn’t he dead? wondered Sveta. That thing went to maximum. It should have killed him.
He looked at Sveta, who forcefully shook her head and pointed toward the men who had been shooting at them. It was an instinctive action, decided on with neither strategy nor tactics, but the effect on Drogol was dramatic. He tilted back his head and screamed, lifting his arms upward as though calling down a rain of fire.
When his cry had echoed throughout the cavern for the second time, one of Mishka’s men fired a burst at Drogol, who lowered his arms slowly to point a finger at him. The man stopped firing, but others started. It was too late. Drogol began to change. A dark rippling, a gasp as he covered his stomach where a bullet struck him and Sveta saw something dark moving within his form like before. It was a more powerful, demanding writhing energy, charged beyond sanity with the compounding effects of the Tesla tube.
God no, thought Sveta.
She rolled over the edge as a giant blackness of bristling hair and razored claws leapt over her toward Mishka and his men.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Mishka’s men started firing as soon as they’d been attacked by wolves. In the confusing maze of machinery and electrical equipment, it was impossible to tell how many wolves there were. When the first wolf sunk his teeth into one of the men’s thighs and ripped off a huge chunk of bloody flesh, the man’s screams initiated a firestorm of bullets. Most simply hit equipment, bouncing off and hitting still other machinery. But the occasional stray bullet hit one of the men.
It was impossible to tell what was going on as wolves snarled and attacked the men firing at them.
There must a hundred of these damned things, thought Mishka. It’s like a fucking army.
He didn’t have to worry about his own men shooting him if he tried to get away because all of them were doing the same thing he was—trying to find something to climb up on to hide from the sharp teeth and snapping jaws and manic yellow eyes. As if he didn’t have enough trouble, someone near the flashing cylinder up ahead on the platform was shooting at them wi
th an automatic weapon.
Mishka ran with his pistol stretched before him.
As he turned a corner near something that looked like a mutated hybrid of a bulldozer and a radio headset, he saw a wolf crash into a man, knocking him completely backward onto the floor. Before Mishka could aim, the wolf was at the man’s throat, grabbing hold and shaking him. With a quick, lucky shot to the back of its head, the wolf was dead.
They are huge beasts, he thought, big as Siberian wolves.
The wolf fell away and Mishka saw blood gurgling from the man’s throat. Even with that horrific wound, his eyes blinked at Mishka, as though sending him a message in Morse code with his eyelids because he could not speak.
Mishka shot him between the eyes, then stepped over the man and the wolf and kept on going. He was looking for a way back to the stairs they had come down. But around the next corner, he saw something that looked like a flammable chemicals cabinet. It was made of thick metal and was about the size of a large bookcase but twice as deep. He could fit in there, he reasoned, close the door behind him, and be safe from both wolves and stray bullets.
It was at that moment he heard another explosion reverberate throughout the room.
Mishka peeked back around the corner and saw a tall dark man standing where once had been the glass tube that flashed a dazzling light show across this underground world. He knew instantly that this dramatic figure was Drogol by the power that emanated from him like the electricity in the air near a powerful generator.
In a gesture of despair, Drogol raised his arms and began to wail and such was its effect that Mishka felt an urgent need to raise his arms, too, and cry out with this man.
But a few seconds after the wail ended, the howling of the wolves echoed throughout the complex. It was as though they felt their master’s grief. Mishka could not understand the source of such agony, but the howling quelled when the transformation began.
Drogol’s body looked like it was in motion while standing still, as if something inside him were trying to burst out. Mishka could feel the rage struggling to consume this man, but a split second later when he saw the beast that destroyed his warehouse and slaughtered his men leap out from within that man, Mishka screamed.
He dropped his pistol, jumped inside the metal cabinet and slammed it shut behind him.
*****
Mishka closed his eyes and pretended he was not there.
Outside the thick walled metal cabinet he heard more automatic weapons fire and the sounds of flash-bangs. The faint smell of tear gas tendrilled into the cabinet, so he covered his mouth and nose with his coat sleeve as best he could. An explosion nearby actually sent a tremor through the heavy cabinet, but Mishka could handle that, too.
What were more difficult to endure were the screams.
So many men.
So much screaming.
And outside, splattered everywhere, would be so much blood. This thing could not be killed. He should have begged Ivan to shoot him instead of sending him down here. A bullet in the back of the head would be mercy compared to being ripped apart by this monster. It was the same creature, no doubt, but now it seemed bigger than it had been in the video he’d watched. Something had caused it to grow more massive and powerful. As it leapt from inside Drogol, Mishka had immediately felt the rage and lust to kill radiating from it.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, somebody shoot me,” he heard a man scream.
It was close, too close.
He could smell the odor of wet fur and blood. Heard heavy movement. He could hear whimpering. He couldn’t tell how close, but it was enough that, moments later, he heard more plaintive screams followed by the snapping of bones. A pause, and then a very, very large crunching noise followed by a cracking noise and something else. Mishka did not want to know what it was; he did not want to think about what it could be.
Pacing.
The monster was pacing back and forth. The sounds of metal boxes tossed about. Snarling and glass breaking. An enraged howl so loud Mishka covered both ears to protect his eardrums from rupturing. He began telling himself over and over that nothing could get in, that the walls of his cabinet were too thick. His gun lay outside somewhere on the floor. If the beast moved away, if it left for long enough, he could chance getting his gun.
That way he would have something to shoot himself with when the moment came.
He pressed against the metal door gently, but it would not yield. There was no give at all. It was dark in the cabinet, so he probed for a handle with his fingertips. He began to panic when he realized that he had locked himself inside and the handle was on the outside.
Something hard hit the cabinet and it flew up and over and landed upside down on concrete with a bang. Sasha fell into deeper depths of darkness.
*****
Sveta ran hard toward the opposite end of the complex from where she, Zoe, and Drogol had entered because that’s where Mishka’s men were and, now, that was where the beast ran free as well. She needed a plan, should have already had a plan and cursed herself for listening to Drogol talk instead of taking action. Lots of ways out. He had implied as much, but was it true?
It had to be, she realized, because the air was breathable. There had to be active vents that connected this underground world to the surface. Otherwise the buildup of noxious gases would make the air un-breathable. So what was she looking for? She was looking for the ventilation system.
The screaming drove her to think more quickly than she ever had before. It was hard to see what was overhead or how high the ceiling was, but she saw no light coming in from overhead. But of course she wouldn’t—it was dark outside because it was night. Then how to find the ventilation system—that was the question.
The beast was keeping Mishka’s gunmen on the run, so she had a little while. This was slight comfort because she knew sooner or later it would run out of men to eat and would come looking for her.
She decided she had to get to higher ground to see exactly where she was and try to find the ventilation system. Scaffolding bracketed to the side of a network of steam and water pipes gave her a secure way to gain some height. Overhead she saw that there were service platforms roughly every twenty feet. The original engineers and construction people had been kind enough to weld in place a half circle protective cage onto the ladder rungs to prevent anyone from falling backward and killing themselves.
She took a quick look over her shoulder. Nothing. Up in the air she might be more of a target for Mishka’s men, but wolves didn’t climb utility ladders. And the half cage bolted to it was barely big enough for her and her weapons duffel. It wasn’t big enough for the beast to fit in. She was definitely going up. Switching the duffel bag to her other shoulder, Sveta began to climb.
Behind her, the shots, the screams, and the explosions continued.
Halfway up to the first service platform she stopped. The beast couldn’t fit inside of the protective cage around the ladder, but it could climb on the outside and reach in for her. The thought of it caused her to grip the ladder rungs so hard her hands hurt. She stayed there until she got it under control. No such thing as a perfect plan anyway, she thought, and started up again.
It was a better plan than she’d realized.
Each of the service platforms was four feet square and half a sheet metal wall three feet tall formed and welded inside the curved railing. She crawled out onto it and shoved her weapons duffel up against it, then shimmied the rest of the way and collapsed onto the diamond-backed floor. After a few deep breaths, she checked her AK and got to her knees to look over the edge of the sheet metal enclosure.
The beast crashed through structures and equipment like a giant wrecking ball with teeth and claws. Its rage filled the room like a presence as it snarled and barked, howled with released fury and bounded throughout the complex slashing and biting and tearing. It knocked over electrified towers like they were toys, and Sveta saw to her horror that fires had sprung up.
She realized that the s
moke might be a way to find the exhaust ventilation system. If the beast didn’t get to her first. It was beginning to rage in widening circles. She saw it hit one man with an open paw with such power that it completely separated his head from his body. Another man tried to hide beneath the upended train and it shot after him, lifting the entire car into the air and then dropped it on him.
But it suddenly reared up, sniffed the air, than began dashing toward something she couldn’t see.
It’s running straight into that bricked up portion of wall, she thought. What the hell is it doing?
*****
“Somebody blew up something,” said the Instructor. “Let’s get moving.”
They had some distance left to go by Hauck’s reckoning. The radio signal was still not getting through to either Yuri or Evgeny.
“What’s your problem? Faster.”
“I’m not risking falling down in this filthy water and ruining the gas gun. We’re almost there, anyway. Can’t be more than another five or ten minutes away.”
Hauck could still communicate with the Instructor via their fire and chemical suit radios. The suits made them look like sewer rat spacemen splashing through the water.
“Five minutes? Ten minutes? Screw your gas gun. I’ve got a shoulder fired rocket launcher back here.”
Hauck tried to move a little faster, but the water was too high.
“This water,” he said. “It’s almost up to my waist.”
“Fuck you. Your waist is as high as my armpits so get the lead out. I want to get there before this thing gets away.”
So they pushed forward harder. Little dark things hiding on the concrete ledges scurried away as they got close.
“Air’s getting worse,” Hauck said as he shoved a floating piece of darkness away from him. “Oxygen’s going down and the methane’s going up. I can’t see the numbers for hydrogen sulfide on this wrist detector, though.”
“What are you, the fucking weather man? We got filters and backup air tanks on so who the hell cares? Just get your ass moving.”
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