by Nathan Long
I stepped forward, smiling and raising my hands like I’d been cornered by the cops. “Hey, guys. No hard feelings right? I mean, thanks for the ride home, but—”
They backed off, shouting. One of ’em fired his piece by accident, and the bolt pinged off the ceiling.
“A demon!”
“A demon has come through the portal!”
“Sound the alarm!”
I frowned, confused, then remembered. People on Waar thought demons were big pink chicks with red hair. Not real flattering, but what the hell. If it worked, I’d take it. I leapt toward them, laughing like the wicked witch of the west and shouting, “Swallow your soul! Swallow your soul!”
It wasn’t much of a leap. I was still dizzy and not used to being a featherweight again, so I veered off like a bottle rocket and crashed into the left wall, spraying blood everywhere, then picked myself up, hissing in pain. That seemed to scare them even more and they turned and bolted down the white hall that stretched straight out from the teleport room door.
I ran after ’em, grinning. This was gonna be easy. All I had to do was run down one of these little goobers, beat the tar out of him, and get him to tell me where Lhan was.
They reached a T-bone intersection ahead of me and turned left. I bounced after them and caught the slowest one in a flying tackle, slamming him to the ground and sending his spear flying as we skidded across the floor to smack into a wall. I came up straddling him and got a hand around his throat, then raised the other in a fist. My ribs hurt like fuck, but I did my best not to show it.
“Alright, you purple pipsqueak, where’s Lhan?”
“Wh-who?”
I bounced his head off the linoleum. “Lhan! Dhan Lhan-Lar of Herva! You know, the guy who was with me the night you and your fucking inquisition kidnapped me and sent me back to Earth!”
His pals had stopped by this time, and were looking back, weapons raised, but didn’t look like they wanted to come any closer. One of ’em ran to another ATM on the wall.
Pipsqueak squirmed under me. “Please, demon! I—I know not this person! Let me—”
WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!
A deafening siren went off right over my head and I cringed down like I’d been slapped by the hand of god. Pipsqueak’s pals fled down the hall and I looked up and around, taking in where I was for the first time.
The hallway we were in now was wider than the first one—much wider—and curved away to the left and right in a way that made me guess it would eventually make a circle at some point. In both directions, orange-robed priests stood staring at me with slaves cowering behind them, carrying their books and papers. Directly to my left was a pair of giant double doors with big looping silver symbols inlaid in them, but they only held my attention for a second, ’cause the wall they were set in stopped me cold.
Actually, it wasn’t the wall that had me staring, even though it was pretty amazing—a seamless floor-to-ceiling glass window that went left and right down the hall as far as I could see. That just made the whole place feel even more future-seventies theme-park than it had before. And it wasn’t the view behind the wall either. That was just a big circular open space, more than a football field across that looked like the atrium of one of those fancy hotels where all the floors look down to the lobby below, except so high and deep that it seemed to go up and down forever. No, what was making me gape like a hooked trout was that the floors on the far side of the atrium were all warped and distorted like I was looking at them through a bottle. The atrium was filled with water! I was looking at the biggest aquarium I’d ever seen, but there were no fishes. What the hell was it for?
The sound of running feet brought my head around. More guys in orange and white were jogging up the hall from the left, but these were wearing armor, and looked like they knew how to use their weapons.
“Fuck! Sorry, pal. Gotta go.”
I hopped up off Pipsqueak, grabbed his spear, then jumped to the doors with the silver squiggles on them. They didn’t open. I looked around for a button or switch and saw a glowing white circle to the right of the door at about shoulder height. I pressed it and the light pulsed a little brighter, but nothing else happened. The spear guys were jogging closer.
“Goddamn it.”
I ran right, taking wobbly ten-foot strides and sending panicked priests and slaves scattering, but before I’d got more than a few steps I saw more guards coming in the other direction—a lot more. There musta been twenty of the fuckers.
I skidded to a stop and looked around for a way out. There. A door on the outer wall. It was smaller and plainer than the others, but at least this one whooshed open when I ran to it. I looked in. A little hallway, dark and empty.
I ducked in and the door whooshed closed behind me as I ran on. There were more doors along both walls and one at the end. All the curved white smoothness was missing here, replaced by unpainted concrete and exposed lighting fixtures, and a muffled roar came from somewhere below that sounded like an air conditioning system.
I tried the doors on the walls, which, though they were as big as the ones in the main hall, were just plain old doors, with plain old latches. They all opened into plain old store rooms. No way out.
Whoosh.
The door from the hall opened behind me and the spear guys stepped in, crouching low, with crossbow guys behind them, aiming over their heads. I ran for the far door, expecting to be a pin cushion at any second.
“Archers! Bring her—!”
“Wait! Don’t kill her!”
I don’t know who said it, but I was on their side. I felt exactly the same way.
“Wound her only! She is to be taken alive!”
Okay, so not exactly the same.
I slammed through the door as crossbow bolts zipped past my ankles and skipped off the floor. A blast of cold air hit me like a frozen fist, and the air-conditioning noise went from distant vacuum cleaner to in-your-face jet engine.
I squinted my eyes against the wind and ran out onto a metal catwalk that hung in the middle of a huge dark open space which went down so far I couldn’t see the bottom, and up so far I couldn’t see the top, and curved around to the left and right so far… Well, you get the idea. It was a big place, but also funny shaped. It was like a big hollow ring that encircled the water-filled atrium and the hallways around it like the space between the inside surface of a thermos and the outside, if you can picture that. And it was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
The noise was coming from huge turbines which filled the ring like—okay, how am I gonna describe this? Have you ever seen the redwoods, up in Sequoia National Park? All those huge-ass trees, all standing a little bit apart from each other and going up forever before they have any branches? Well, imagine you’re halfway up one of those big bastards, with miles of trunk above you and below you, and you’ll get the general feeling, only here, the tree trunks are huge stacks of turbines, piled one on top of the other in endless columns and big around as houses, and all roaring like dragons inside heavy steel superstructures. Now imagine that, in between all the sequoias are other, thinner, trees, just as tall, but only as big around as your average grain silo, and looking like gigantic chrome Slinkies—big silver coils, dripping with condensation, that go up and down into the darkness just like the turbines. I don’t normally have much fear of heights, but all that black space below me was making me a little weak in the knees, and I felt like clinging to the railing like it was a life preserver. Seriously, the place had a sense of scale like the Grand Canyon.
Unfortunately, the guys behind me weren’t giving me any time to pull myself together. They spilled out of the service hall like an orange and white tide and started taking more potshots at my legs. I jumped to the end of the catwalk as bolts shot past me into the void, and found a spiderweb spiral staircase twisting down out of the darkness above and screwing down into it again below. It looked about as sturdy as a tinker-toy fire escape, but I didn’t have much choice. I skimmed down the steps
four at a time as I looked for a way out. It was freezing in that place and I wasn’t wearing a stitch. My goosebumps were getting goosebumps. On top of that, the roar of the turbines felt like it was shaking me apart. My teeth were rattling in my head like castanets.
There was another catwalk a few twists down, but more guards were charging out of the service door at the end of it, so I kept going as they shouted after me.
“She’s heading for the nineteenth floor!”
Was I? Okay.
The next catwalk was empty. I took it, hissing in pain as I ran across the cold grating with my ice-block feet. A bolt shot down from above and I flinched into a railing. It’s amazing how cold makes every pain worse. I felt like I’d been rung like a bell. Everything throbbed. I picked myself up, groaning, and kept going.
The guards charged onto the catwalk behind me. I threw open the door at the end and stumbled into another service hall, moaning with relief as my frozen body hit the warmer air. This time I didn’t bother checking the doors on either side. I just ran for the big door at the end. It whooshed, and I was back out in another glass-walled hallway exactly like the one I’d been in before. Where the fuck was the exit to this place? Was I gonna have to go all the way down to the bottom to get out?
I ran to the glass wall and looked down. There was no bottom to see. The distortion of the water blurred everything. But I could see something I hadn’t noticed before. There were clear-walled tubes running down the aquarium walls at various points, and there were little capsules moving up and down inside them. Elevators! That was what was behind those big doors with the silver squiggles on them! Perfect!
I ran left toward the nearest one, and just like last time pushed on the glowing circle beside the door. Just like last time, nothing happened. I grunted, anxious, and looked back the way I’d come. The guards hadn’t come out the door yet. I stepped to the glass wall and looked down into the aquarium again. Was it coming up? I didn’t see it. I looked up. It was coming down! Finally! But then I saw through its glass walls. It was filled with guards!
Crap.
I looked right again. The guys from the turbine room were racing toward me out of the service door. I started left, past the elevator, but more were coming from that way too. The only direction open was a side corridor identical to the one that had led to the teleport chamber two flights up. Goddamn it! I didn’t want to go back that way! I wanted to take the elevator!
But there was nowhere else to go. Pointy things were pointing at me from every other direction. I bolted down the side corridor, looking for doors to my left and right. There were none. Just the big door at the end. Two purple guys were guarding it, but they weren’t guards. They were priests, and they were more hiding behind their spears than threatening me with them.
I leapt at ’em, raising my stolen spear like it was pool cue, and swatted theirs out of their hands as I came down. They yelped and tried to run, but I nabbed one and slammed him against the door.
“Open it! Now!”
He just whimpered. I looked over my shoulder. The guards were pouring into the hall and running straight at me, spears leveled.
“God dammit, if you don’t open this door, I’m gonna feed you your own nuts!”
With a squeal of fright, he touched his hand to a circle next to the door—just like the one on the elevator—and the door whooshed open. Why did it work for him and not for me? Whatever. Now was not the time to figure it out. Inside was another teleport room with another marble disk and a glowing gem. Where the hell did this one go? Krypton? I dragged the priest into the room and shoved him at the ATM machine.
“Now, lock it! Hurry!”
He spread his hands, helpless. “The guards have the key, demon. I cannot keep them out.”
I pointed to the ATM. “Come on. Can’t you override the lock? Can’t you break it?”
The priest frowned, confused. “Using the speaking box?”
Well, how was I supposed to know it was the intercom? It looked like a big deal.
The door whooshed open again and the guards stepped in, ranked up and spears ready.
“Shit!”
I jumped to the priest and got him in a hammer lock, then put the blade of my spear to his neck and started backing away from them. “Stand down or he gets it! I’ll cut his throat!”
The spearmen stopped, but spread left and right. A priest with a neck like a turkey wattle stepped in behind them and raised his hands.
“Let him go, demoness. We mean you no harm, I promise you. Put down your weapon and let us talk.”
“You put down your weapons first.”
I took another step back and tripped over the lip of the raised disk. I flailed to keep my balance and lost my grip on the little priest. He squirmed like a cat trying to avoid a bath and ran behind me, straight for the gem. Fuck! He was gonna blip out and leave me without a hostage!
I spun around mid-fall and grabbed his ankle as he dove for the gem.
“No you don’t, you little—”
The little priest’s hand slapped the gem and I was back in the void, falling and frozen and wondering why I’d thought that room with the turbines had been cold.
CHAPTER SIX
CHASED!
We popped back out of the blackness into a stone room about the size of a walk-in freezer, only it wasn’t cold in there, it was broiling, and it stank like an outhouse in July. There was nothing in the room except the teleporter disk and a heavy door in one wall with a pull chain beside it.
I came up hacking and choking and hauled on the little priest’s ankle, pulling him away from the gem. “Where did you take us, you little fuck?”
He kicked at me with his other foot and cracked me on the jaw with the heel of his sandal. Sandal? Hey! He used a teleport gem and was still wearing clothes! What the fuck! He scrambled to the gem as I was staring and grabbing my mouth and, pop! He wasn’t there.
“Goddamn it!”
I looked around, wondering where the hell he’d left me, and saw the door again, and the chain. I groaned to my feet and reached for it, then heard a soft “fump” behind me and looked back.
An orange and white guard was standing on the disc. Fump. Another one. Fump fump. Two more. Fump. Mr. Turkey-Wattle.
“Seize her!”
I yanked on the chain and the heavy door edged open. I shoved it open, then ran through into a dark tunnel with brick walls and the worst smell I’d ever smelled in all my life. It was enough to buckle my knees, but I had to keep going. The guards and the priest were charging out after me.
Little knife blades of light sliced down from the roof of the tunnel as I ran on, and showed me that there was a wide gutter down the middle of it, with a thick, lumpy river running through it, and steam rising up off it. I was in a sewer, and I don’t think it had rained in a while. I gagged. There was a real danger that the Cheerios I’d eaten back on Earth were gonna come up again and mix in with the muck of wherever this was. Fuck. What if my breakfast combined with the local lunch to create some weird alien poop monster that destroyed the world?
“Catch her! Bring her back!” Turkey-Wattle’s voice echoed down the tunnel from behind me. “Duru-Vau will have our heads if we let her escape too!”
“Fat chance, pal.” I was skimming low so I wouldn’t crack my head on the ceiling, but I was still taking ten feet a stride. There was no way they’d catch me.
Then his words sank in. Too? Who else had they let escape? Did he mean Lhan? Did that mean Lhan was free? Did they know where he was? All of a sudden I wasn’t so interested in escaping. I had some questions to ask first, and I knew just who I wanted to ask.
There was an intersection up ahead, lit by a bigger shaft of light. I looked behind me. My eyes were tearing so bad from the smell I could hardly see a yard away, let alone fifty feet, but after blinking a couple of times I made out some shadows running through the blades of light.
If I could see them, then they could see me, so I made a big show of turning left at
the intersection, and ran through the big shaft of light on purpose. As soon as I was around the corner, though, I stopped and looked around, searching for a way to separate Mr. Turkey-Wattle from his pals.
That’s when I noticed that the beam of light next to me was shining down on a ladder that looked like iron staples half-sunk into the walls. I jumped to it and looked up. It went up into a little brick chimney, and the shaft of light was shining through a little slot at the top.
“A manhole. Perfect.”
Quick as lightning, I zipped up the ladder until I was hidden in the chimney, then waited, staring down into the tunnel. I felt like a jungle cat, though I don’t think any jungle ever smelled as bad. I put one hand over my mouth and nose and tried not to breathe. Didn’t help even a little.
A couple seconds later I heard jogging footsteps and Mr. Turkey-Wattle’s voice.
“Where is she? She’s gotten too far ahead! Speed up!”
I readied myself as all the guards thudded by below me, then tensed as I waited for Turkey-Wattle to appear. Finally he staggered into view, winded and gasping. Like a naked ninja, I dropped down on him, knees first, and knocked him flat. His head hit the bricks, stunning him, and one of his arms went in the stew. I winced, but I couldn’t be finicky now. I grabbed him by the collar and zipped back up the ladder like a rat up a drainpipe.
I was hoping to get away clean, but one of the guards musta looked back, ’cause suddenly I heard, “She’s behind us! She has Brother Aln!”
I hauled the priest up the chimney to the manhole cover, which was more like an iron grate, but so caked with mud and crap that there was only one open hole. I shouldered it up and climbed out, dragging Turkey-Wattle behind me, and only then thought about what I might be dragging him into.
All around me was screaming and shrieking and people backing away. I blinked around in the blazing sunlight and saw I was in some kind of street market, with purple-skinned customers crowding around colorful little stalls and kids running around in rags. We’d come up in the middle of it all, and people were taking it big, gasping and pointing and calling for the cops.