“Zach,” he bellowed, as loud as he could. Zach’s hair actually ruffled.
Zach opened one eye. It glared at Cade.
“If you woke me just to say I told you so, I’m gonna be seriously pissed,” he said.
Cade’s lip curled. “I need you on your feet. I can’t carry you and fight at the same time.”
Zach struggled up against the wall. Cade didn’t help him. He knew he had to get him to medical help, and soon. But he also knew Zach had to walk, and the sooner he found out if that was possible, the better.
Zach wobbled, but stayed upright.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “Any girl who works for the Shadow Company offers to show you a good time, you tell her—”
He vomited.
Cade noticed Zach was shuddering all over. He wondered what he’d seen in that room. He stank of fear and regret in a way Cade had never sensed before.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Super,” Zach said, lifting his shoulders as if pulled by a crane. “Don’t suppose you have any gum?”
Cade started walking for the access shaft.
Zach followed. “No? That’s fine. Touched by your concern, though.”
LEVEL TWO
On the other side of the Site, Marsh stood in a long line of Snakeheads, filing toward the surface. Their twisting path had taken them all the way up to Level Two.
Marsh was far at the back of the line. He wanted to follow the trail of scent to whatever was waiting at the end. Even though the blood of his first victims was still wet on his snout, he was hungry. He hoped there would be something left when he got there.
The line came to a complete stop. The Snakeheads jostled and crowded one another, but none of them moved. Marsh knew what that meant: there was something in the way.
Marsh was curious. He moved forward. He seemed to have retained more of his own mind than the others. Maybe they recognized this, because they made room for him, let him pass ahead.
The stairwell above them was blocked. The other Snakeheads scratched furiously at a steel plate that covered the opening to the landing. Marsh began pushing, and the rest of them followed his lead.
Strong as they were, it was no use. The plate didn’t budge.
They had no way of knowing the plate was a steel shutter from the fail-safe system. Or that an Archer/Andrews Armored Personnel Carrier, along with desks, office equipment and the wall—much of it broken slabs of concrete now—lay on top of it, sealing the passage shut.
Cade had seen no reason to leave the stairs open. After finishing with the strike team, he’d used the freight elevator to bring the APC down. Then he put one of the merc’s tactical batons against the gas pedal. It tore through the interior of the Site, finally ramming into a steel shutter and knocking it loose from its housing before crashing into the stairwell.
The APC alone weighed 12.3 tons. It would take hours and heavy equipment to open this pathway again. That was time Cade had already ensured the Snakeheads wouldn’t get.
Their frustration became a yowling, thrashing rage as they hurled their bodies against the metal over and over.
Marsh felt like he’d let them down somehow.
Then he heard something. Like the other Snakeheads, he’d lost his ability to speak English, but these words resonated with him. They seemed to drill right into his brain.
A figure appeared below them at the door.
“You want out. You want food,” he said. “I can show you the way.”
He turned, and they followed without hesitation. Marsh and the others knew, on some basic level, there was no questioning this. It was simply the natural order of things.
FORTY-THREE
THE BLOOP is a cute and harmless name for what might be the largest sea creature on the planet. In 1997, an ultra-low-frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound was detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The sound was several hundred times louder than the call of a blue whale, the largest known creature in existence, and human sources—such as underwater detonations or submarine propulsion—were ruled out. Some have suggested that the location of the sound—50° S 100° W, off the Pacific coast of South America—is near the fabled underwater city of R’lyeh, the home of the massive underwater creature Cthulu in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. Of course, Cthulu and R’lyeh are completely fictional. The true source of the sound remains unknown.
—Cole Daniels, Monsterpaedia
LEVEL ONE
Bell and Tania waited at the top of the access shaft. Tania eyed Bell as if she contemplated snapping her head back like a Pez dispenser and sucking her dry.
“What is this?” Tania asked.
“Emergency escape route. Graves had it made, off the blueprints. I oversaw construction.”
“You are just full of surprises.” She gave Bell a completely neutral look. Somehow that was worse than Cade’s active hate. Bell mattered less than zero to Tania, except as food, and, currently, as a key.
She checked a watch. Bell noticed it was Hermès.
“How long are we supposed to wait?” Bell asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I plan on giving myself plenty of time to get out.”
“Before what?” Bell couldn’t help asking.
“Before this entire place goes up in flames,” Tania said. She seemed almost eager to tell Bell what she’d done. Unlike Cade, Tania was chatty.
When a fire broke out, the Site’s fire-suppression system sprayed inert gases through ceiling-mounted nozzles, smothering the flames by removing oxygen.
Tania had rerouted the Site’s natural gas line into the system. Now when a fire broke out, the nozzles would spray pure methane into the air all over the Site.
Everything inside would be cremated almost instantly.
“I’m not sticking around for that,” Tania said. “Sacrifice is Cade’s problem, not mine.”
“You’re just going to leave him here? I thought you were—I don’t know, what do vampires call it?”
Tania gave her a cold smile. “We don’t call it anything. We don’t fool ourselves like you.”
Then Tania laughed. At her, Bell realized.
“What?”
“I said ‘like you.’ I know what you did to Zach. I don’t have to explain a thing about survival to you, do I?”
Bell didn’t say anything.
“I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve had a good girl talk,” Tania said. “I might even give you a head start when we get to the surface.”
“I’m touched,” Bell said.
“My pleasure.”
Bell thought about what it meant that she was being judged by a creature whose only purpose was to kill.
She thought about a lot of things in the next few minutes.
TANIA HAD MARKED the way to the top levels by painting arrows in the phosphorescent goo from a broken glow stick.
Cade stayed a few steps ahead of Zach. He tried to keep him talking. He never imagined that would ever be a problem.
“So. Tania?”
“Yeah, you figured that out, did you?”
“She asked me not to tell you.”
“I thought you’d freak out if you knew. How did you think she’d been showing up on your assignments lately?”
“I assumed she was stalking me.”
“Get over yourself,” Zach said. He was panting. Cade didn’t let him stop.
“Then what does she get out of it?”
“Mainly the chance to stalk you,” Zach admitted. “Although I think she’s also interested in our pension plan.”
“Do you really think you can manage her? Make her an employee? There’s no one who can administer the Oath to her. Even if there were, she’d never agree to it.”
“Maybe she’ll come over to our side.”
“You didn’t learn anything from your experience with Bell, did you?”
Silence. Then: “Thanks, Cade. That’s a big help.”
; CADE EMERGED into a narrow passage, less than five feet across, made for one person at a time. Tania and Bell were there.
It was Zach who couldn’t meet Bell’s eyes, as if embarrassed.
The elevator was right where Bell said it would be. Its door was as narrow as the tight passage. They moved fast.
Bell put her hand on a biometric scanner. It beeped, and the elevator doors opened.
Cade reached for the fire alarm on the wall. He prepared to yank the handle down. In minutes, the air would be saturated with methane.
The Snakeheads would all burn.
Someone grabbed Cade from behind and slammed him into the wall. Cade, drained from his fight with the Shadowmen, didn’t even hear it coming. He lashed out wildly, throwing the attacker off him and back down the tunnel.
Bell looked back from the elevator and screamed.
Book stood there, but he was no longer human in every way it counted.
He was naked before them, covered with plated armor, a row of spikes running from the crest on his head down his back.
He’d been fully transformed. Snakehead 4.0. More like a dragon than any reptile living today.
Book’s staring yellow eyes retained a cruel intelligence, and Cade was not at all surprised when he opened his mouth, revealing a human-shaped tongue, and spoke.
“Did you think you were the only one who knew about this exit?” Book asked.
His voice was the only thing that remained unchanged. He didn’t even hiss on the s in “this.”
Cade hit him. Book’s head bounced back as if attached with bungee cord.
Book smiled.
Cade noticed the others behind Book for the first time.
Snakeheads, lined up behind him. Watching him, crowding forward, eager to help.
They’d found a leader.
“You can’t stop us,” Book said.
His arm snapped out, whip-quick, and he slapped Cade. Cade felt bones break. He went skidding into the floor, stopped only by Tania’s body behind him.
He shook himself and regained his feet.
Book just stood there. He waved Cade on. Inviting him to try again.
“See? You can’t even slow us down.”
FORTY-FOUR
Of course, it’s entirely possible the reason Cade is so formidable might simply be due to individual temperament: Cade is unusually stubborn and willful, dedicated and tough; what some people call—and I mean this with all due respect—a total bastard.
—Dr. William Kavanaugh, Sanction V research group
What’s the matter, Cade? Nothing to say now that you’re in a fair fight?”
Cade looked up at Tania. She nodded. She understood.
Whatever improvements Book had undergone, the vampires still thought faster than he did.
She swung the pack of weapons off her shoulder, into Cade’s hands, and turned for the elevator.
Zach realized what was happening, a moment behind.
“Cade, no,” he said. “I order you to—”
Cade shoved him hard enough to send him flying into the elevator.
Bell and Tania were already inside. The doors closed.
In one smooth motion, Cade reached into the pack and pulled out the last thing he’d taken from the mercenaries.
Book found himself staring down the barrel of the AA-12 automatic shotgun.
“I have no interest in a fair fight,” Cade said.
THE ELEVATOR STARTED its slow ascent to the Mall.
Zach got his wind back. “Get us back down there,” he ordered Bell.
“Not a chance,” Tania said. “You touch that button and I’ll tear your arm off.”
“Shut up,” Zach said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bell said. “We have to reach the top first. It’s an elevator. We can’t turn it around.”
“Cade’s doing his job,” Tania said. Bell realized she was speaking to Zach. “He’s probably been dreaming about dying for his country for a hundred and forty years. Let him.”
Zach looked like he wanted to slap her, if that wasn’t suicidal.
He pointed at Bell. “Once we reach the top. You are sending me back down there.”
Tania snorted. “What possible good do you think that will do?”
“He’s not dying alone. That’s good enough for me.”
“Idiot,” Tania said.
“Shut up,” Zach said again.
They rode the rest of the way in silence, except for an instrumental version of “Baby One More Time,” piped through the Mall’s sound system.
FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT. The crowds were pressed up against the glass of the Mall entrances now. At the east wing of the Mall, some people were pounding their palms, hitting the glass in rhythm, chanting, “Open up! Open up!”
A contingent of mall cops went out to calm them down and keep them from shattering the big panes of the windows.
Almost time. Four more minutes, and then they would stampede inside.
Like cattle on the hoof.
BOOK’S FACE was no longer human enough to register surprise as he looked down the 12-gauge barrel.
Then it was simply gone, along with the rest of his head, as Cade pulled the trigger and fired at point-blank range.
Book didn’t fall right away. He stood there, leaking blood all over the floor—more than it seemed possible for him to contain.
The Snakeheads behind him waited a moment, suddenly lost without their leader.
Cade took the moment. He shattered the fire-alarm glass with his right hand. Sirens and lights began blaring. Nozzles popped from the ceiling. Methane sprayed invisibly into the air. It was lighter than oxygen. It would take a while before it reached the floor of the passage.
The Snakeheads surged toward him. Whether they wanted out, or wanted revenge, or both, they were coming for them.
Cade pointed the shotgun again.
The Snakeheads stopped cold. They couldn’t rush him more than one or two at a time. The advantage of their numbers was removed by the narrow chute. While no longer intelligent, they recognized that something capable of removing their leader’s head was not good.
Cade had enough ammunition, he thought. All he had to do was keep them at bay until the air reached the saturation point. Then the muzzle flash alone would ignite everything around him in a fireball.
THE ELEVATOR FINALLY reached the ground level of the Mall.
Tania stepped out immediately.
“Hey,” Zach said. “Where are you going?”
Tania smirked. “Don’t push your luck, Zachary. Tell Cade goodbye for me.”
She walked quickly away. She could see the crowds outside, pressing against the glass of the Mall’s giant outer windows.
“Hey!” someone yelled from the crowd. “They got in early! No fair!”
“Morons,” she muttered to herself.
Zach paid no attention at all. He turned back to Bell. “Let’s go,” he said.
She got back in the elevator, pressed the scanner again, and they went down.
THE SNAKEHEADS GOT their courage back. One at a time, they came at him, running as fast as possible in the confined space.
One at a time, Cade pulled the trigger and blasted them into pieces.
They fell, and the next Snakeheads scrambled over them.
Cade fired again. They kept walking right into the blasts, gaining an inch for the next one in line.
The only problem was, Cade was going to run out of shells before they ran out of bodies.
Just a few more minutes, Cade thought. That’s all it will take.
THE SONG ON the way down was “I Will Always Love You.” Bell started giggling uncontrollably.
Zach even managed a smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. Some job, huh?”
She felt tears at the corners of her eyes. She was on the verge of losing it completely, she knew.
“You’re going to die,” she said.
“Everyone dies,” Zach said. “Just let me
out and close the door as fast as you can.”
“Why would you—?”
He shrugged. “Beats hell out of me,” he said. “Maybe the world needs you in it.”
The elevator chimed. The door opened.
CADE WAS ALMOST out of shells.
The Snakeheads had backed him to the elevator. The pile of bodies now almost blocked the narrow passage. They still came at him, only slower.
Cade picked off another Snakehead, barely three feet from him.
He heard a string quartet murdering Whitney Houston.
He didn’t have to look behind him.
“You Christ-forsaken moron,” he spat.
“Don’t blaspheme,” Zach said. He coughed and gagged on the sulfurous odor. The air was almost filled with methane now. “Get your ass on the elevator.”
“No,” Cade said. “They’ll get up the shaft. And someone has to be here to make sure the gas ignites.”
“I could order—”
The rest of Zach’s words were lost in the blast of Cade’s shotgun shattering the chests of two Snakeheads, one behind the other.
“You know it won’t work,” Cade said. “This is protecting the nation. Above all else.”
Zach muttered some curse lost beneath the hiss and shrieking of the creatures, the spray of the gas and the hollow boom of the gun.
He reached into the pack, still by Cade’s feet. He came up with a white phosphorus grenade.
“All right, then. Butch and Sundance time,” he said.
Neither Cade nor Zach realized that the door to the elevator was still open. Bell stood there.
She had her gun in hand, finger on the trigger, as she stepped into the passage.
AT THE EAST ENTRANCE, the regular mall cops had finally calmed the crowd. People still grumbled about the early birds, but when the security guards looked inside, they saw no one there.
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