The Dark Remains

by Mark Anthony

  And what if it wasn’t a phone number she had wanted to give you? There aren’t any limits on you anymore, Deirdre. So think. Marji was a psychic. Tarot cards. Tea leaves. Palms. Numerology …

  She picked up the phone, stared at the keypad. There were no letters on the one. Forget the last three digits for the moment then. She looked at the others. Two. That was a “B” on the keypad. Six was an “O.” She typed them on the laptop as she transcribed them. Then she leaned back.

  Farr studied her. “What is it, Deirdre?”

  She could not take her eyes from the word she had typed on the glowing screen:

  BOULDER 128

  “Boulder,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  She slammed shut the lid of the computer. “They’re taking Highway 128 to Boulder. Duratek. After they heard us talking, they must have been afraid of a full-on assault from the Seekers, and they bolted. Maybe they have another base of operations in Boulder. It’s only thirty miles north of here.”

  “Are you certain, Deirdre?”

  She gripped the yellowed bear claw hanging at her throat. “I’m certain.”

  Farr pressed the button again. “Cancel that last order, Driver. Get us onto Highway 128 to Boulder. Now. And don’t stop for anything.”

  Deirdre lurched in the seat as the vehicle made a hard turn. By the time she righted herself, she saw that Farr wore a fierce grin. He looked quite mad.

  But maybe he wasn’t. The Desiderata were rules set down in a musty, five-century-old book. What could they possibly have to do with the human heart? She set the gun on the seat beside her and touched the silver ring on her finger.

  “So what about Travis and Grace?” she said.

  “If you’re right, they should be calling us any minute to tell us Duratek has evacuated the complex. They’re perfectly safe at the moment.”

  Deirdre nodded. Duratek was headed north, and she and Farr would intercept them, stop them somehow. That was their choice. Besides, even if Duratek had left a few stragglers behind at the complex, she had little doubt Vani would be able to handle them.

  She shot a grin back at Farr, one she knew was every bit as mad as his own.

  “Here’s to free will,” Deirdre said.

  60.

  “You can handle them, right, Vani?” Travis rasped, as they backed toward the open doorway.

  Shadows undulated toward them slowly. Wet grunting noises echoed off bare walls. Grace shuddered. What could they possibly be waiting for?

  Vani held her hands before her, ready. “As I said once, these gorleths are different than any I have heard of. They are strong. And clever.”

  “That didn’t exactly answer my question,” Travis said through clenched teeth.

  “Three of them. Perhaps four, if I am fortunate.”

  Travis made a strangled sound. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are something more than four of them.”

  Vani kept her gold eyes on the sinuous shadows. “I had noticed, Travis. Surprising as it may seem to you, people from other worlds are indeed able to count.”

  Grace pushed clinging bangs from her damp brow. It was hard to keep hold of them with her eyes. The gorleths wove back and forth, vanishing and reappearing, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away.

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” she said, because if she didn’t say something she was going to scream instead.

  Travis ran a hand over his bald cranium, wiping away fine beads of sweat. “I think they’re playing with us.”

  “No,” Vani said. “Gorleths do not play games. I am not certain, but I do not believe their master is here. He must have commanded these gorleths to guard this space. If we leave, I do not believe they will be able to follow us, for that would violate what the sorcerer has ordered them to do.”

  Travis groaned. “That’s great. You’re telling me our lives our riding on the fact that these are anal-retentive monsters?”

  “I wouldn’t listen to him,” Grace whispered to Vani.

  “Do not fear, Grace. I am not.”

  They kept backing up. Grace felt a puff of air behind her. They had reached the doorway.

  Vani spoke in low, even tones. “You must retreat through the door. But do it slowly, so that they are not aroused.”

  “I thought you said they couldn’t leave the room,” Travis whispered.

  “That is my hope. But then, in addition to guarding this space, the Scirathi may also have ordered them to attack anything that runs from them. Do you wish to find out?”

  Grace gripped his elbow. “Come on.”

  Together, Grace and Travis moved back through the doorway into the empty corridor beyond. They waited several heartbeats.

  “Vani—” Grace started to call out softly.

  At that moment the air melted, then resolidified, and Vani was there. Grace never saw her hand move, but all the same the steel door swung shut behind her, closing with a solid thunk.

  Travis pushed his sunglasses up. “So, when are you going to teach us how to do tricks like that?”

  Vani snapped her black-leather jacket into place. “I could teach you, Travis, but—”

  “Then she’d have to kill you,” Grace finished with a smirk.

  Vani cocked her head. “How do you know so much about the ways of the T’gol?”

  “Lucky guess,” Grace said, trying not to choke. “Can we get out of here now?”

  “Yes. I do not believe they are following.”

  Grace shut her eyes and reached out with the Touch. The shadow reared all around her, but she let it slide over her, past her. Right now there were more pressing fears than those of the past.

  There. Eight—no, nine—twisted blots moved through the fabric of the Weirding. Grace felt her gorge rise in her throat. They were abominations: life that had been twisted, misused, made a mockery of what it once had been. With a gasp she let go of the thread and opened her eyes.

  Travis was watching her, his expression solemn. “Are you all right, Grace?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “Come on. Vani is right—they aren’t following. Let’s get out of here and find out where they’ve taken Beltan.”

  Grace started jogging down the corridor, back the way they had come.

  A high, electronic wail pierced the air.

  She turned around and pressed her hands to her ears, but the sound cut through flesh and bone like tissue paper.

  “What is it?” she shouted.

  “Some sort of alarm,” Vani called, her voice barely audible above the siren.

  “That doesn’t make sense!” Travis shouted. “Why didn’t it go off on our way into this place?”

  “Because they wished for us to get into the building. Not out.”

  It came a second later: a boom as something struck the other side of the heavy metal door.

  Again Grace reached out with the Touch, then her eyes flew open. She had seen it against the brightness of the Weirding: a black, seething knot just on the other side of the door.

  “They’re trying to get out!”

  Vani backed away from the door as it shook under another blow. “It seems the alarm has invoked a second command given by their master. A command to hunt us.”

  For one more heartbeat the wail of the alarm paralyzed them, making it impossible to think. Then they were running.

  Another boom behind them. Grace glanced back over her shoulder in time to see the surface of the metal door bulge outward. She turned back, running on Travis’s and Vani’s heels. Openings flashed by to either side. The door they had entered the building through grew in her field of vision: a rectangle of gray light.

  The light turned black.

  Thirty feet ahead of them, dark shapes slipped through the door. Pale eyes locked on the runners. Two hunched forms began loping down the corridor toward them.

  Gorleths. Even as she watched them come, more shadows appeared.

  Grace nearly ran into Vani and Travis.

  “Turn,” Vani s
aid, her words as piercing as the siren. “Run the other direction. Now!”

  Thought connected with nerves and muscles. Grace spun around, and she and Travis lurched down the corridor together. Her feet felt like they were made of lead. Ahead of them, to the left, the door that held back the other gorleths deformed further with another boom. Behind Grace, masked by the sound of the alarm, came wet, popping noises, then a piteous cry that was not human in origin. A black comet seemed to streak past her, then Vani was there, running just ahead of them.

  “I have removed the two gorleths,” she called over her shoulder. “But more come that way.”

  Grace had no breath to respond. They had reached the door that led into the empty warehouse space. Even as Grace dashed past it, metal shrieked, parted, and a long arm punched through a gap, scrabbling for her with gleaming claws.

  It would have sliced her jugular if Travis hadn’t grabbed her sweater and jerked her toward him. Her limbs tangled around his. They both nearly went down. Then Vani was there, steadying them with strong arms.

  The sound of rending metal echoed behind them, merging with shrieks of hate and hunger. Grace didn’t need to look back to know that dark forms slunk through the mangled door, joined with others that loped down the corridor, and turned to pursue their fleeing prey.

  The corridor ended in a door. Travis got there first. He threw himself against it, pressing the latch bar.

  He stumbled back. The door was locked.

  “Stand away,” Vani said.

  She leaned her body against the door, hands splayed out on steel, and shut her eyes. The alarm still sounded, but along with it came a new, shrill, scraping sound that shredded Grace’s nerves. It reminded her of fingernails on a chalkboard. Only louder. Much louder.

  “You might want to hurry it up, Vani,” Travis said, his face ashen.

  Vani did not answer. Her jaw was clenched. Beneath her hands, the surface of the door began to warp, ripple, like paint on fire.

  Dread pulled at Grace, and she looked behind them. The creatures moved swiftly down the corridor. A knot of five coursed some distance ahead of the others. Their long arms dragged as they ran, their talons digging deep furrows in the floor. That was the source of the horrible sound.

  “Vani …” Travis said, voice rising.

  Grace snapped her head around. The door looked as if it were fading in and out of being. Here and there she caught glimpses of things beyond: a patch of gray sky, part of a parked car.

  “Now!” Vani cried.

  The door burst open.

  They dashed out into the gray afternoon, feet pounding against asphalt. It was a parking lot on the opposite side of the building from where they had entered. Beyond a high, wood fence, Grace could hear the sounds of traffic. She looked back at the open door. Vani had shut it, but already it shuddered under a blow. She backed away. They had seconds at most.

  “Run,” Vani said, still backing up, hands before her, ready to strike. “Climb over the fence, get to the road, and flag down a vehicle.”

  Grace reached out a hand. “What about you?”

  “I will delay them.”

  “No,” Travis said. His face was hard. “There are too many. We won’t leave you, Vani.”

  Vani turned around, a strange, soft light in her gold eyes. However, before Grace could decide what it really meant, the light was replaced by sparks of anger.

  “Do not become a fool, Travis. I will be slowed if I am forced to protect you and Grace. The only way you can help me is to go.”

  She was right. Grace grabbed his arm. “Listen to her, Travis. We have to—”

  Her words were cut short as something dark and heavy struck her from the side.

  Grace rolled to the pavement, stones and bits of broken glass gouging into her hands and cheeks. A sunburst of agony exploded in her stomach, radiating outward from her solar plexus. She managed to raise her head, grimacing in pain, unable to breathe.

  It crouched over her, maw open. Ichor drooled from tusklike fangs. It ran a talon over her chest almost gently, as if deciding exactly where to make the incision. Then it pulled its spindly arm back, talons extended, ready to tear her guts out.

  The air shimmered behind the gorleth. Before it could strike, its arm bent at a queer angle, eliciting a sharp crack. The thing threw its head back to scream, but there was another blur, and its head twisted on its neck. The gorleth slumped to the asphalt next to Grace. The air grew smooth, and Vani was there.

  “Travis!” she called out. “Drop. Now!”

  Twenty feet away, Grace saw Travis fling himself to the ground. A snarling shape lunged for him. Vani extended her arm in a precise motion, and a trio of small objects flew out from her coiled hand. Only when they struck their target did Grace see what they were: three sharp triangles of steel.

  The gorleth staggered back from Travis, the steel triangles protruding from its chest. It scrabbled at them with its talons, ripping its own flesh, then toppled backward onto the asphalt. The creature convulsed a moment, then grew still, foam bubbling from its gaping mouth. The triangles had not bitten deep. Grace didn’t need to ask to know they had been poisoned.

  At last she drew in a ragged breath. The two gorleths that had attacked them were dead, but where had they come from? Then her eyes moved to the roof of the building.

  “Yes,” Vani said. “They came at us from above. You must go before more follow.”

  She helped Grace up. Travis had climbed to his feet. He started to speak, but at that moment the door of the building flew outward with a sound like thunder. Huddled in a black ball, five gorleths loped toward them across the parking lot.

  In an instant, Grace judged the distances and made the calculations. Even Vani would not be able to move swiftly enough. The gorleths would reach Travis first. She steeled herself, preparing to watch her friend get torn to bits.

  A sound rose on the air like a scream. The sound grew louder, and something swung into view around the corner of the building. There was a deep roar, followed by another squeal. In a green flash the thing hurtled forward. The gorleths turned their heads, their lidless eyes staring, just in time to see it strike them.

  Five hairy bodies flew through the air, gangly limbs flung wide. Blood sprayed out in a glittering arc, misting Travis with crimson as he turned his head away. The gorleths seemed to hover in midair, so long that for a terrible moment Grace thought the things could fly. Then they came crashing to the pavement in five tangled, oozing heaps. They did not get up.

  The thing raced back around in a tight circle. Only as it squealed to a halt between her and the others did realization cut through Grace’s dullness. It was a truck—a big, green, double-cab pickup truck, blood smearing its now-dented front hood. Two rifles were nestled in a gun rack mounted on the back window, and a rainbow air freshener swung wildly beneath the rearview mirror. On the truck’s front bench sat two men.

  No, not men, Grace. Look at the hats. They’re cowboys.

  The lean man on the passenger side let out a whoop as he squinted through the windshield with crinkly blue eyes. “Now that’s what I call roadkill, Mitchell.”

  The driver didn’t answer him. Instead, he turned to gaze at Grace through the window, his eyes serious behind wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Need a lift, ma’am?” he said in a deep, melodious drawl.

  61.

  Travis glanced out the rear window of the pickup, but all he saw were cars and pavement. The industrial building was at least a mile behind them now. Even if the Scirathi had ordered the gorleths to pursue, they could not run so far so fast. He felt another hand squeeze his. Grace. He forced himself to turn around.

  “So, Travis,” Davis Burke-Favor said, leaning over the back of the front seat, “are you going to introduce us to your friends or not?”

  They had all tumbled into the back bench of the pickup in a frenetic dash to escape before more of the creatures burst out the door of the building, and Mitchell had peeled out of the parking lot be
fore they were completely inside.

  “This is Grace Beckett,” Travis said. “She’s a doctor. And this is Vani. She’s …”

  His words faltered. What exactly was Vani. A spy? A protector?

  “I am their friend,” Vani said.

  Travis gazed at her. She raised a single eyebrow, and he smiled.

  “That she is,” he said.

  Davis tipped his gray Stetson, his lean, tanned face crinkling again in a grin. “Pleased to meet you both.”

  “All right, Travis,” Grace said. “Now it’s our turn.”

  She leaned back on the seat, her face pale, her ash-blond hair a snarled mess, but her eyes strangely brilliant. Her face was scraped in several places, and Davis’s handkerchief was wrapped around one of her hands, which had been bleeding after her fall.

  Travis finished the introductions. “Grace, Vani, these are friends of mine from Castle City, Davis and Mitchell Burke-Favor. The funny one who laughs at everything is Davis. The good-looking one with the radio voice is Mitchell.”

  “See, Davis?” Mitchell drawled, not taking his eyes off the road as he drove. “I told you I was the handsome one.”

  “No, you’re the old one.”

  “I’m just getting better with age.”

  “That’s not fair. I’m handsome, too.”

  “No, you heard the man. You’re the funny one.”

  “That’s funny as in comedic—you know, the life of the party. Not funny-looking.” Davis looked back over the seat. “Isn’t that right, Travis?”

  Travis glanced at Vani and Grace. “In case you couldn’t tell, they’re sort of together.”

  “I believe we had gathered that fact,” Vani said, a faint smile on her dark red lips.

  “That obvious?” Davis said.

  Grace nodded. “The his-and-his rifles are dead giveaways.”

  Davis let out a hoot of mirth, slapping the seat, and even Travis laughed, though it hurt; his lungs still ached from their mad sprint. Then, gradually, his laughter dwindled.

  “So how did you know? How did you know where we were, and that we needed help?”