Ways of Darkness (Wolves of the Apocalypse Book 2)

by LC Champlin

  The hall walls shifted to black at the next intersection. Continuing took him past rows of skulls behind glass, flush with the walls.

  Since all the doors had either opened or unlocked, the door at the head of the basement stairs posed no issue.

  The dark stairwell yawned before him. “Lights on.” Nothing. The P2X’s beam turned night to day. No cameras covered the lower level. Pistol in the right hand, light in the left, he edged down the stairs.

  Outside, the Humvees had halted to assess the situation.

  Rounding the next corner brought the kennels—two rows of free-standing cages that reached nearly to the ceiling—into view. The map claimed the exit lay beyond them, at the lab’s far end. The LED beam skimmed over the cages. They looked like Marvin’s video, except now all eight doors stood open. Why the hell did Ken have kennels? He’d never seemed like the dog type. He didn’t build them over the weekend, either.

  Ssssssaaaahhhh.

  Left! Weapon and light swung toward it.

  Rustle of tarp, shuffle of feet.

  Following the wall to the right, he crept around the kennels, away from the sounds. Beyond the .45’s sights, the light licked over chain-link fence and heavy steel work tables. Tool chests dominated a section of wall between metal shelving. A few lighter tables jutted from between them. On the far wall glinted a glass screen like those in the computer lab.

  Sssssaaaahhh.

  Chain-link rattled from—above? A humanoid dropped from the kennel’s roof. Reflex made Nathan leap back, but a table caught him at the thighs. Momentum and adrenaline carried him over. Roll! Pain tore through his chest. Coming up on one knee blasted more fire through his nerves.

  Sssssaaaahh! From the left. Howls and snarls filled his ears to block out his jackhammer pulse.

  Teeth clenched, he heaved to his feet and kicked the table forward. It crashed into the first cannibal as the pistol swung left.

  Bang!

  Gray matter and black gore splattered the wall. The cannibal toppled.

  Back to the right. Over the table scrambled a Dalit.

  Bang! Bang!

  Head and chest shots. Kinetic energy unbalanced the creature, sent it crashing to the ground backward. Two down, six to go, assuming each kennel had held a cannibal.

  The ringing in his ears drowned out Hati’s growl. Wincing, he shook his head.

  Splashes of gore glistened across the walls, black in the P2X’s light, as iron and spent gunpowder put a tang in the air. A new problem emerged: if the bio-hazardous material contaminated him, he wouldn’t have to worry about the other cannibals. He would join them.

  Grabbing a nearby table leg with his flashlight hand, he flipped the table onto its top. As he crossed the bridge, the Surefire’s beam dropped to the corpse. A hole annihilated the bridge of the nose. In its first life, it had worked as a pool boy, judging by the Bay Pool Care across its T-shirt. Male, twenties—Stop. “It’s a cannibal, and it’s dead now.”

  Nathan sidestepped a winch hook that hung from the ceiling. Another hook dangled over the corpse on the table. The air felt ten degrees colder, probably from the sweat that dampened his shirt.

  Cue the outside camera feeds. The Humvees rumbled to a stop along the road, thirty yards south of the Oshiro. Two soldiers in full battle gear exited each vehicle.

  As Nathan neared the faceless corpse, a shudder of revulsion seized him. Muscles lay bare, silvery in their sheaths under the LED beam. Lipless teeth grinned at him.

  Its cranium’s cap lay to one side, along with half the brain. The left hemisphere remained in the skull. Nathan angled the light for a view of the intact section of gray matter. Ken had further dissected the frontal lobe. The tissue resembled stale bread: porous, and crumbling where the scalpel had sliced. No wonder the Dalits acted with minimal thought.

  The next body wore a Y incision, the flaps of skin reflected to either side like lapels. An open vise formed a rib spreader, revealing heart and asphalt-black lungs. Either the lungs’ owner smoked four packs a day since birth, or the cannibal oil permeated them.

  Damned indeed.

  Why had Ken left them in the open like this? The basement made a poor meat locker—

  Sssssaaaahhh!

  Chapter 57

  Spill the Bean

  Villain - Wild Fire

  Nathan’s pistol snapped up, locking on the nearest kennel. Pulse throbbing in his ribs, he crept to the side of the cage. Shuffling and wheezing emanated from inside.

  One, two, three—He launched around the corner and grabbed the gate. The door clanged shut, the lock engaged.

  Even if the two corpses on the tables counted toward the eight cannibals, at least three more remained. He slammed the kennel behind him, then closed the other six.

  The computers on the back wall beckoned with blinking status lights. At the workstation, he woke the glass-panel screen. Perhaps Ken’s Oshiro password would work. Success!

  Outside, the Soldiers advanced on the Oshiro. A pair of cannibals broke from the group to shuffle in the men’s direction. One of creatures crouched, head weaving side to side like an owl’s. It crawled a yard, crouched again, before taking a diagonal route toward the Soldiers.

  The other cannibal twitched and jerked in a minor seizure as it advanced. It lacked its partner’s bestial carriage. Both wore T-shirts and skinny jeans. Teens? Cannibals. They’d never again qualify for the student rate at the movies.

  Brrrrt! The Humvee’s .50 cal reduced them to dog meat. Unfortunately, noise would draw more cannibals.

  Camera feeds filled the glasses’ screen. A third showed Access denied against the black background. As he watched, another camera feed changed to Access denied. Damn Ken, sapping system access privileges. Soon all the cameras would go dark.

  Back to the computer. Open network drive—Unable to connect. “Fuck!”

  Leaning on the desk, Nathan looked up. An ogre oni mask looked back. “What are you grinning at, ugly?”

  His fist lifted of its own will. Crunch. White wood shattered under the blow. His breath hissed between teeth bared liked the oni’s.

  He pulled his fist from the wreckage. As he did, a round, yellow object two inches long fell from the ruined mouth. A giant . . . bean? With a growl, he launched it down the hall to the exit. It ricocheted off the wall as the passage turned left.

  Time to go. Weapon and P2X up, Nathan followed the bean. The yellow legume rolled back into the hall.

  Ssssssaaaahhh.

  From around the passage’s corner appeared a pallid, bullae-covered face. Oil glistened on the jaws.

  Sssssssaaaaahhh.

  Behind him! Pistol sights whipped around to lock on another oil-drooler. Flanked!

  Dropping to a crouch, the lab’s cannibal heaved like a dog working up vomit.

  Bang-bang!

  Its head snapped back, rust-red eyes rolling upward. It hit the concrete with a thump.

  Nathan jumped over the corpse, landing an inch from the spreading pool of blood. About face.

  Bang! The slide locked back—empty.

  The shot went low, into the cannibal’s gut. The monster threw its head back and gurgled. Its upper body whipped forward. Projectile vomit flew.

  Reflex dropped Nathan to his knees. He rolled left, pulling into a ball, then came up on hands and knees.

  Dropping the mag from the XD-S, he located the partial one. He slid it home. Rack and fire.

  The cannibal froze as half its brain blew out the new backdoor in its skull. With a wheezing sigh, the monster dropped to its knees.

  “Kneel before your God,” Nathan grated.

  The cannibal hit the floor face-first.

  Nathan’s body pushed to its feet. It was like watching someone else. No pain. No emotion.

  The end of the hall twitched like a jittery camera shot. Movement from the corpse. It pushed to its feet, just as Nathan had done. It flickered in his vision.

  Chapter 58
>
  Follow Me into the Dark

  Hearing Voices - Amberlin

  Nathan shook his head. When he looked again, the meat sack remained where it had fallen in the hall. “Blasted drugs.” It’s the opioids. It has to be.

  According to the map, the passage exited outside the perimeter wall. It would take him clear of the cannibals and the mercenaries swarming around the Oshiro.

  Sarge had more to worry about than fugitives and monsters, though. Grenade-Launcher Humvee fired at a group of three cannibals. White fire annihilated white flesh. Humvee #2’s M2 buzzed, a rattle of death as it dispensed hot lead.

  Small-arms fire popped. The cameras didn’t show the targets.

  Nathan pushed another table to the hall to repeat the bridge trick. Around the corner . . . Clear. Relief warmed his chest, thawed the ice, let reality settle in. The hall stretched ahead to end at a flight of steps.

  At the stairs, Nathan hit the PPT. “Albin?” Nothing. “Albin, do you copy?”

  Silence washed in to smother him. Darkness congealed around him, clung to him like oil. Soft as silk and strong as steel. Relax, it coaxed. Join us in the dark. There’s no pain here. The dark is of you and you are of the dark. From the dark came the amarok, your savior.

  “I don’t need a savior. I am Hati.”

  He pushed through the curtain of black plastic strips—a butcher’s back room curtain. Sunlight filtered through the camouflage netting over the passage opening. The brilliance bathed the steps, burned his eyes. He pulled the net aside and climbed out.

  Cannibals hissed near the Oshiro. Gunfire cracked. Boom! Grenade. It reverberated in his chest more than a bass subwoofer’s beat.

  “Albin, do you copy? Rendezvous where Badal met Josephine and the cannibals.” Maybe the adviser could hear but not reply. A check of the cameras showed all of them displaying Access denied.

  He crept along the fence until Campbell’s shrubs came in range. Bent double, bracing his chest with his left arm, he plowed toward the bushes. Next up, the tennis court wall.

  Ordnance detonation and gunfire rattled reality’s hold. Upscale Silicon Valley neighborhoods under the blue sky and sun of California didn’t make believable battlefields.

  Static in his ears drowned out the explosions. He staggered to a halt at the tennis court’s rear wall, pressing his back against the concrete. No connection, the glasses reported—before they sailed over his shoulder.

  Around the wall, eight cannibals ranged over the direct route to the rendezvous point. Cutting left, past the in-ground swimming pool and patio, then angling northeast would work.

  Chopper rotors thrummed in the distance. From the west sped a hulking Black Hawk gunship. It bore down on him like a demon. Images clouded his vision: A Cobra attack helicopter’s nest of missiles firing, its minigun blazing. And all of it aimed at him.

  Brrrrrrrt!

  The Black Hawk’s Gatling gun buzzed like a hornet the size of Godzilla. Lead tore the four closest cannibals to pieces. Meat and dust mingled. It all happened before he could do more than duck.

  Then the chopper pivoted to face the Oshiro, where a terrorist in combat gear dashed along the outside of the perimeter wall. He broke from it and sprinted north in a bid for the tree line.

  Brrrrrrrrt!

  Grass exploded as bullets chased him. Ahead of him, four cannibals loped from the woods.

  A dome protruded from the ground between him and the cannibals. It looked like . . . a propane tank riser.

  Fire blew from the rear of a rocket pod under the chopper’s left sponson.

  Survival instinct overrode pain: Nathan sprinted for the pool. He took as deep a breath as he could. And jumped.

  BOOM!

  Splash! Down, away from the shrapnel of an exploding propane tank. It should mostly go up thanks to the dirt around it. Debris splashed into the pool.

  Chlorine stung his eyes as he squinted about for the ladder. A kick carried him to it. Bracing himself against the lowest rung kept him safe under four feet of water.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. His pulse drummed in his ears, rattled his skull. Relax. Tension burned oxygen. His stomach tightened under a diaphragm that ached to inhale.

  Air! Launching off the pool bottom, he burst through the surface. Gasping and gagging, he clung to the ladder. Pain, enraged at being ignored for so long, stabbed him, twisted its beak into his nerves. His fingers slipped off the ladder as his body curled into the fetal position.

  Instead of sinking, he jerked to a halt. Agony blotted out thought as a muscle spasm seized his chest. Something hard scraped over his right side and thigh. The pool edge? Pressure on his upper arms, pulling him from the water. The stench of burning propane stung his lungs as he gasped for air. Water blurred his vision.

  Someone grabbed his left forearm and yanked it behind him. In the ensuing pain, he offered little resistance. He twisted his head around to see—which saved his teeth from the patio as his chest slammed into the concrete. Something round and solid dug into his spine. Cold, hard bands clicked around his wrists. Handcuffs? What the fucking hell!

  “I told you to come out and surrender. You have no one to blame but yourself for making your life hell.” Sarge.

  A bomb of agony exploded on his right side. By reflex he curled into a ball at the kick. Red, then black overwhelmed his vision. His ears rang. Nausea grabbed his stomach.

  Another blast of agony, this time on the left. A rib clunked out of joint where no joint should exist. His stomach heaved at the fracture, making him vomit. Darkness closed over him.

  Another voice in the last moments of consciousness: “That’s no way to treat a celebrity. We ain’t got time for that fuckery anyway.” Deep-South accent. So familiar . . .

  Nathan’s mind tried to cling to the thought, but it slipped. Wait! The voice belonged to . . . to the terrorist leader at the St. Regis.

  Red Chief.

  Chapter 59

  Thunder and Lightning

  Glitter and Gold - Barns Courtney

  In the Oshiro’s hall, Albin adjusted the AR-15’s butt plate against his shoulder as he rechecked the camera feeds.

  “Mr. Conrad,” Kuznetsov murmured from behind. “I can show you the exit through the basement.” He licked his lips and shifted his stance. Edgy at the best of times, the stress must be bringing him to his limit.

  “Where?” Behrmann asked, nose wrinkling as she squinted at the map on her glasses. “I don’t see anything.”

  Kuznetsov cleared his throat. “Different security clearances show different parts of the map. I can guide you.”

  “Go.” Albin waved him on.

  The engineer took point position. He led down halls of varying colors.

  Gunshots thudded from . . . impossible to tell where, but certainly from within the Oshiro. Mr. Serebus’s doing, perhaps?

  After what seemed like a kilometer, with chaos rising outside and the window for escape closing, they entered a red passage. Noh masks grinned, frowned, and gaped from the walls. Ahead, the passage ended in darkness: a stairwell.

  Albin touched Kuznetsov’s shoulder, then nodded for the man to cede the lead. Switching his torch on, Albin gripped it against the AR’s handguard. The beam illuminated stone walls as he descended the spiral staircase. His pulse thrummed in his skull, inserting a knife into the back of his eyes and twisting it at each beat.

  The stairs’ landing arrived. Across the doorway ahead hung strips of black plastic. Pausing, he turned to his followers and held a finger to his lips. Returning to the curtain, he edged along the rightward wall, then pushed the closest strip aside. Crimson light bathed the lab and kennels. All appeared quie—ah, dead.

  Weapon ready, he pushed between the plastic. Behind him emerged Kuznetsov and Behrmann.

  Albin led the way toward the rear of the room, where the exit lay. He emerged from behind the kennels to find the steel tables and their occupants. Examining them would only waste time.


  “Look at this!” Behrmann hovered over the corpse on the leftward table.

  Apparently they failed to see the two bodies ahead, in the exit hall. Blood splattered the walls and floor, and pooled around the corpses. Iron and bile stench stimulated Albin’s gag reflex, forcing him to gulp. “It appears Mr. Serebus did not require assistance after all.”

  Sssssaaaaahhh!

  Albin whipped about. A cannibal perched atop the cages. The AR-15’s ghost-ring sight encircled the pale face.

  Three gunshots exploded, but not from Albin’s weapon. The monster twitched as the lead tore into its chest. The third blew a section of skull and brain onto the ceiling. With a hiss, the cannibal toppled backward.

  Who fired? Albin squinted through the ringing in his ears—and the pain in his head that begged the question, did the bullets impact his skull? Kuznetsov lowered his rifle; the Russian lived up to his brutal heritage.

  Albin nodded in approval. “Well done.”

  Letting out a trembling breath, Kuznetsov turned with face flushed to smile in relief. “Thank you.”

  “Okay!” Behrmann blurted as she flashed her torch into the corners of the room. “Let’s get out of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, shall we?”

  He and the others crossed the puddles via the table Mr. Serebus had left. Soon they reached the steps.

  BOOM! An explosion reverberated in Albin’s chest. Dust sifted from the ceiling.

  “What was that?” Behrmann asked. “Oh, there’s a chopper out there! It blew something up.”

  The cameras that still functioned showed the way clear of enemies. “We will have to take our chances.” After a deep, slow breath, Albin peeked over the edge of the stairs’ opening. Four cannibals milled twenty meters away, beside the Oshiro proper. The drone’s-eye view offered an escape: he could travel southeast to circumvent the eight or more cannibals between him and the rendezvous point.