Why hadn’t they called for help? Flynn wondered. Why hadn’t they abandoned the base and made a run for it across the desert?
It would have been difficult, but certainly not impossible. Vargas made it. It just didn’t make any sense that they would have chosen to face off against an obviously superior foe.
His musings were interrupted by a call from Ortega, who found something of interest on the other side of the room. Flynn walked over and as he drew close he could see that it was a man’s body, spread-eagle on a table. Unlike the rest of the bodies in the room, this one had been methodically dissected rather than torn haphazardly limb from limb. The man’s chest had been split down the middle and then carefully opened up. His internal organs had been removed; they were all now neatly arranged at the man’s feet, as if briefly studied and then put to one side for later consideration.
“Why would someone do this?” Ortega asked, and in his voice Flynn could hear the hours of tension beginning to take their toll. Death was one thing; being dissected afterwards was entirely another.
Flynn could understand how he felt. First the odd tableau in the subway car and now this; both events seemed to be designed for maximum shock value, as if their architect was trying to keep them off balance and uneasy rather than focused on their investigation.
They gave the room a thorough search, including the bodies of the dead. Afterward all they had to show for it were a few magnetic pass cards, like those used as hotel room keys. None of them were marked and there was no way of knowing what they were for, but Flynn figured it couldn’t hurt to take them along in case the team could find a use for them later.
Riley passed through the room with his digital camera, taking pictures of the dead in case they could use recognition software later to reconstruct what they had looked like, and once he was finished Cade led the group away from the carnage in the cafeteria to the rear doors on the far side of the room.
Flynn breathed a sigh of relief as he passed into the hallway beyond, happy to be away from the dead and the atmosphere surrounding them.
The corridor was bisected by three others, each of which had a series of rooms on both sides of the hall. Echo searched them one by one, conscious that their enemy had passed this way before them and might be waiting in ambush anywhere up ahead.
The rooms were nothing more than a small living area with a desk, nightstand and a bed. A small television hung from a wall stand in the corner of each. Photos hung in a few of the rooms, but every single one of them was a landscape shot, none were of family or loved ones. More than a few of the rooms had plaques quoting Bible verses hung on the walls and one even had a prie dieu in the corner. Small closets set next to the bed seemed to be the only storage areas available and from the cut of the various blue jumpsuits that had been left behind inside them, the rooms seemed about evenly divided between male and female occupants.
Simple and plainly decorated, the rooms could have been straight out your typical college dorm just before the incoming class took up residence.
Yet there was something about them that bothered Flynn and it took him a bit before he figured out what it was.
There wasn’t a single computer or telephone in sight.
He brought it to Cade’s attention. “There’s no way for these people to reach anyone on the outside. No computer means no email. No telephone means no personal calls, no way of staying in touch with anyone. Who lives like that?”
Cade thought about it for a minute. “It’s really not that uncommon, is it? I know of plenty of high tech companies who wouldn’t bat an eye at such restrictions. Keeping outside communications to a minimum greatly reduces the possibility of that someone might be tempted to walk off with a couple million dollars worth of intellectual property.”
“Yeah, but have you seen anything that would give you the idea that these people were involved in cutting edge industrial research? So far all we’ve got is a missing preacher who took his most devoted followers into the desert and hid them away in an abandoned military base for heaven knows what reason.”
Cade reminded him that they’d probably only seen the tip of the iceberg at this point and Flynn couldn’t argue with that, but he was still unsettled. He had this mental image of a bunch of monks hiding in the wastelands while their clearly whacked-out leader tries to draw down the apocalypse. He didn’t like fanatics, religious or otherwise, and everything here seemed to scream that to him, from the setting to the inhabitants’ decision not to abandon the place when things clearly went to hell.
There was a lot here that wasn’t making sense.
But one thing was certain.
This place was starting to get to him.
Chapter Sixteen
It took Echo almost three hours to properly clear and search the twenty-five rooms they found in that intersecting set of corridors and by the time they were finished Cade was ready to call it quits for the day. The men were tired and tense and he knew it was at that point that mistakes start to happen. They needed some hot grub and some down time to return them to their usual focused readiness. The only problem was finding a secure place to bunk down for the night, someplace that was defensible in case their enemy chose to come at them while they rested.
The individual living quarters were too small and didn’t offer a back door. Using any of them would effectively corner the unit and Cade was far too good a tactician to allow that to happen unless there was no other choice. On the other hand the cafeteria, while the right size and arrangement, wouldn’t do either, as the presence of the dead would prevent any of them from getting the rest and relaxation they needed to return to top form.
Fortunately, there was another option.
On the far side of the dormitory, as his men were calling this set of interconnected corridors, they discovered another room about the size of the cafeteria. Filled with a variety of exercise equipment, including treadmills, Nautilus machines, and free weights, it obviously served as the facility’s workout area. The rear wall was made entirely of glass and overlooked a second room that held an Olympic-size swimming pool. Doors on the right and left of the pool led to a men’s and a women’s locker room respectively. Beyond the pool, the locker rooms connected to a central corridor that held the stairwell and elevator to the other levels.
It was exactly what Cade had been looking for. They could hole up in the pool room and have a clear view of the fitness center, so nothing could sneak up on them from that direction. A guard posted in either of the locker rooms could see into the central corridor and the pool room at the same time, keeping their rear secure. Either direction gave them a means of retreat. Even if the enemy came at them from both directions at once, Cade was confident that they could fight their way out.
After a complete search of the area, he let his men know that they would be bunking down for the night and arranged a watch schedule that gave them all at least six hours of rest while still allowing him to keep two men on guard duty at any given time. Chen and Duncan had first watch and he placed one of them in the corner by the glass wall looking out into the fitness room and the other was stationed by the rear door of the men’s locker room looking down the central corridor toward the elevator and stairs.
Satisfied with the arrangements, Cade found a spot of his own and dug through the Meals-Ready-To-Eat, or MREs, in his pack, hoping he had something other than Beef Stroganoff.
Riley had third watch. Callavechio shook him awake as he returned to grab some additional rest and Riley then relieved Ortega from his position by the locker room door. He was sharing a watch period with Flynn and he took a moment to check in with him by radio. Both of them were experienced veterans and there was no chance that they would be so derelict as to fall asleep while on duty, but they both knew a friendly voice in the face of danger could often make even the most tedious of jobs more bearable, so they agreed to contact each other every fifteen minutes to remain focused and alert.
The emergency lights were on in the pool room a
nd the corridor leading to the elevator, but the locker room was in darkness and Riley was confident that by sitting just back from the door he had propped open he couldn’t be seen by anyone approaching from that direction.
The time passed slowly. Riley kept alert by constantly changing his focus of attention; first he’d watch the staircase, then the doors to the elevator, then the corridor leading back into fitness area, and so on. Staring at one thing for too long was often what caused more junior soldiers to lull themselves to sleep, Riley had learned, and he had long ago devised little tricks and methods like this to keep that from happening.
Which was why he was focused in the other direction when a sound came out of the darkness of the locker room behind him.
Riley turned, aiming the muzzle of his Mossberg in that direction as he did so, and listened.
Nothing.
Remembering the shadowy form that had escaped from them on the staircase earlier that afternoon, Riley climbed slowly to his feet, his attention locked on the thin shaft of light that shone into the locker room proper from the doorway, his ears straining as he tried to hear it again.
Only silence greeted him.
He had just about convinced himself that he had imagined it when it came again.
The gentle sound of a footfall.
That did it. “Hey Patrick, you out there?” Riley whispered into his mike.
The response was immediate, “Yeah?”
“Heard something in the locker room. I’m gonna check it out.”
“Roger that. Touch back in two or I’m gonna call out the troops.
“Sounds good. Riley out.”
He flipped the switch of the light clamped to the barrel of his shotgun and moved cautiously into the locker room proper.
The first portion of the room was devoted to a changing area, U-shaped with a double row of lockers running around the outside edge. He shone the light around, confirming his first impression that the room was empty. Beyond the changing area were a set of shower stalls which led to a single row of sinks bolted to the rear wall.
Even in the dim light coming from the front entrance, Riley could see that there was someone standing in front of the sinks.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, shining his light directly onto the figure.
The man had his back to Riley, leaning with both of his hands on the sink before him, but Riley could tell it was Cade, could see his scarred face and eye patch in the mirror above the sink. In response to the challenge, Cade glanced up and raised a hand to ward off the light reflecting from the glass but didn’t say anything.
“Sorry, boss,” Riley said, aiming his light at the floor so it wouldn’t be in his commander’s eyes anymore. “Didn’t see come down the hall past me.”
Cade looked back down at the floor. “I came in the other way.”
Riley frowned and then remembered there was another entrance into the locker room from the front of the fitness center; Cade must have used that. The Knight Commander sounded tired; his voice had that same harshness to it that he’d had when he’d first come out of the hospital. “Are you all right?”
Cade didn’t reply.
Riley stood there for another moment, waiting for his answer. When it was clear he wasn’t going to give one, Riley decided he’d best get back to his post.
He turned and walked back toward the entrance to the locker room, keying his mike as he did so. “It’s clear, Flynn,” he said. “Turns out it was just Cade. Guess he couldn’t sleep.” He saw no need to mention his commander’s odd behavior, even to his teammate. Some things were just better left unsaid.
Behind him, in the darkness, Cade said something.
“Hold one,” he said into the mike and turned back to face his commanding officer. “Sorry, say that again.”
“Where did Vargas go?”
He must be more tired than I thought, Riley said to himself, but he answered the question nonetheless. “He’s with the medics at Ravensgate, where we left him.”
His commander seemed to think that one over and then asked, “Will he be returning to Eden?”
Eden? Oh, right. The inscription over the door; the patches on the uniform. “Your guess is as good as mine, boss, but I really doubt it.”
Cade finally looked up, catching Riley’s stare in the surface of the mirror. His good eye seemed to gleam strangely in the dim light and there seemed to be something subtly wrong with his face, but Riley couldn’t quite put his finger on just what it was. Cade’s next question was even stranger than his first few.
“Will you take me to him, then?” he asked.
On the other side of the fitness center, Flynn lowered the volume on his radio and turned his attention back to watching the front entrance. Riley seemed to have things under control, so Flynn felt there was no need to wake up the troops. As he had done repeatedly since he’d started his watch, he glanced behind him at the others resting peacefully in the semi-darkness, unconsciously mimicking Riley’s habit, which was how he spotted Cade lying fast asleep on the floor between Davis and Chen.
If Cade’s asleep, then who…
He was up and moving before the thought had fully formed, racing between the rows of fitness equipment for the entrance to the locker room that he knew was against the far wall. Even as he ran he was shouting at the others and trying to raise Riley on the radio without success.
Riley stared at his commanding officer, trying to understand the turn the conversation had just taken. Cade’s questions made no sense and just hearing them set Riley’s nerves on edge. Had something happened to the Knight Commander that he wasn’t aware of? Had he been injured at some point? Had his earlier problems caused some damage that they weren’t aware of, that was only coming to the fore now under the pressure of the mission?
He was about to ask if Cade was feeling all right when it finally dawned on him just what it was about the Knight Commander’s face that was bothering him so.
The black eye patch Cade habitually wore was covering his left eye.
But the damage the Adversary had inflicted to his face had been on the right!
“I asked you a question,” the imposter said.
Something in Riley’s face must have given him away, for the imposter suddenly smiled at him and Riley felt his blood run cold at the sight. It was a terrible smile, a smile full of all the horrors of the world rolled up into a single expression, a smile full of families destroyed by death and disease, of abused children and beaten wives, of war and famine and drug abuse and...
It was a smile that never should have graced the face of a man.
For just an instant, the barest flash of an instant, he thought he saw something else standing there, something with taloned feet and great looming wings of tattle-tale grey, something that filled him with fear and a certain sense of his own puny worthlessness, and then it was gone and only the Cade imposter remained.
The mirror behind the imposter suddenly drew his attention as it went smoke dark and frost formed at its edge. A fog began to billow from deep within its depths, filling the surface with a twisting, churning cloud of grayish white. Even as he watched something swam up out of that fog and a face formed behind the frosted glass, a long gaunt face of winter grey. The face had started out as vaguely human, it seemed, but that’s where the similarity ended. It was as if the Creator had grabbed the creature’s lower jaw with one hand and pulled outward while simultaneously hooking the finger of his other hand through the nasal cavities and wrenching upward, warping the face into a twisted parody of something that might have started out as human and was now anything but. Its oversized mouth gaped wide and he could see that it was filled with multiple rows of different sized teeth. Its nose, little more than holes that seemed to have been gouged into the top of its snout, was mated to eyes of liquid green that glowed with a light of their own in the semi-darkness of the room. Atop its head was a wriggling mass of hair that twisted and turned as if possessed of an intelligence all its own, reminding Riley
of the Greek legend of the Medusa.
Those eyes pinned him to the floor.
It reached an arm forward and Riley watched as the surface of the mirror rippled and then allowed that arm to pass through it without resistance, as if the glass had become as fluid as water. Unsurprisingly, that arm was capped with a foot-long sickle-shaped claw instead of a hand.
Riley could only stand there, staring, as it slowly dragged itself free, clambering over the sink to stand upright on the floor not ten feet from him. Below that face was an equally hideous body; a thick neck and muscular torso that ended in two sets of arms equipped with those long scythe-like claws. The thing’s lower torso resembled that of a huge bloated spider, a fat ovoid body from which sprouted six legs covered in some kind of chitinous shell.
The master sergeant had seen many things in his thirteen years with the Order. He’d faced down demons and devils, shape-shifters and sorcerers. He’d been cursed by a voodoo hougan and had felt the cold kiss of the grave when a barrow wight had seized him in its iron grip. He’d long ago come to grips with the fact that there were a good many things out there in the darkness that did not have humanity’s best interests at heart and he had dedicated his life to keeping them at bay.
This, he was sure, was one of those things. He had never personally encountered one, but the tomes of the Order’s library contained accounts of those who had. Known for their ferocity and identified by their scythe-like claws, reaper demons were one of those creatures that Riley would have been happy to have gone his entire life without running into, never mind facing in solo combat.
Behind the demon, the surface of the mirror wavered once more and then shot back into solidity with a loud snap.
The sound shook Riley free from his paralysis.
His Mossberg swung up, the barrel centering on the reaper’s chest, and Riley pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession. The gunshots were thunderous in the small confines of the room and he had the satisfaction of seeing the demon thrown backward with the force of the impact against the very mirror it had just crawled out of. In the half-light its purple blood looked black as it splashed across the tiles. Without hesitating Riley swung the gun back to his left, intent on pouring several more shots into Cade’s doppelganger, only to have the thing vanish right in front of his eyes before he could even get off a shot.
Angels Scream (Echo Team Book 2) Page 10