Planet Hate, page 16
Kane watched the dog traveling away down the hole, and he wondered how mad Rosalia would be if he lost the animal.
“How long have we been partners, Grant? Was I ever able to wait?” Kane teased.
“You be careful,” Grant warned. “With that trick eye and whatever the hell’s going on with the monster birds out here, this is all starting to get a little too screwy to go off half-cocked.”
“Roger that,” Kane confirmed. “I’m just going for a recce, nothing doing.”
“ACKNOWLEDGED,” Grant said, an irritated reluctance in his tone. He had known Kane too long to attempt to hinder the man’s curiosity once something had piqued it. Up in the nest, the ebony-skinned ex-Magistrate was adding several strips of antiseptic gauze to Domi’s arms and side while Rosalia kept watch.
“They’re coming closer,” Rosalia warned, her eyes on the network of branches all around them. “Naturally, a bird won’t enter another’s nest but they must sense that this one’s been—” she looked down dismissively at the oversize bird corpses and dead wolf scattered across the nest “—vacated. We need to get out of here pretty soon.”
“Yeah, and as long as we’re up here Kane’s off playing maverick Mag on his lonesome,” Grant grumbled, winding another strip of gauze around Domi’s scratched arm. “You have any idea where these bird things came from, Domi?” he asked. “Something to do with—what did you say it was called?—Luikk…”
“Luilekkerville,” Domi corrected.
At the edge of the nest, Rosalia nodded knowingly. “From the Dutch,” she said. “It was a fairy-tale utopia, a home for the idle.”
Grant looked at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. “You sure know a lot,” he said.
“You sure don’t,” Rosalia shot back.
For a moment they glared at one another, then Grant turned back to Domi. “Well? Any ideas?” he asked.
“I didn’t see any birds in the ville itself,” Domi recalled, “nor any of the kind of tech a person might use to mutate normal birds, assuming that’s what they are.”
“It’s a reasonable assumption,” Grant allowed. “They’ve either been enlarged through an unnatural growth agent, or there’s some kind of genetic tinkering going on at a more basic level.”
Rosalia spit with irritation. “Look at them, Magistrate,” she said, “use your eyes. They’re not any kind of bird I recognize. You?”
Grant took another look across to the man-size corpse of the mother bird. “Kind of reminds me of a falcon,” he said, shaking his head a little with uncertainty.
“The beak’s not right,” Rosalia told him, “and the plumage is too dark. It’s more like an eagle’s coloring.”
Domi winced once more as Grant placed the last of the adhesive strips on her arm. The strips would help prevent the wounds from becoming infected, but she would be wise to wash them thoroughly as soon as she got to a clear water source. “So what do you think they are, then, Rosalia?” Domi asked, nodding at the birds.
“Hybrids,” Rosalia said, fixing Grant and Domi with her cold stare.
WARILY, Kane followed the ragged-looking dog as it trotted down the steep incline and into the trench that ran between the trees. After a few steps, the dog turned back to check that Kane was still there, before trotting on. The mangy thing continued to do this with every ten or so paces, making sure Kane didn’t fall too far behind.
“Whatever you can smell down here,” Kane muttered, “it sure has put a tick up your butt.”
The dog padded on, watchful of the least-steep slope that would take them both down into the trench.
Kane switched off his xenon beam, allowing his eyes to adjust to the encroaching darkness as they continued on. He didn’t want to alert anyone down here of his approach; for the moment he just wanted to figure out what it was he was approaching.
The strange-smelling, amber-colored mist continued to float close to Kane’s feet, reminding him obliquely of the Annunaki but with no clear comprehension of why. He must have seen this mist before, perhaps while on the mother ship Tiamat, but he was damned if he could place where.
The mismatched pair continued downward, and when Kane looked up he could see that they had gone beneath the lip of the crack, the sunlight now filtered at an angle and directly lighting only the wall behind him. He continued to follow the dog, wondering what this canine had detected. It was a strange beast, to say the least—it seemed to be attracted to all things Annunaki, or at least to all things alien. Kane couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was beginning to suspect there must be more to the scruffy dog than its appearance implied.
Abruptly, the dog halted, ducking low as it peered at something up ahead, its body held rigid, tail upright. Kane lowered to a crouch, following the dog’s line of sight.
A vast underground cavern opened out in front of Kane, only slightly lit by the burning of three candles spaced at intervals around a wide circular pit. The pit was fifteen feet in diameter, and the amber mist seemed to gather over it like a blanket of gold, swirling in eddies as the breeze caught and toyed with it. Kane could just barely make out the glint of metal at the edge of the circle, marking it out more formally. The metal strip was inscribed all the way around its surface, a pattern of glyphs that Kane recognized as Annunaki but had no way of translating. If Brigid Baptiste had been here, she might have been able to figure them out, but left alone he had no chance of knowing what the writing said. A simple wooden jug waited by the far edge of the circle.
Kane was about to lead the way into the cavern when he sensed a movement. He waited for a moment until a woman paced into the lit area from the shadows, reading from a heavy-looking hide-bound book, its leathery pages whispering as she turned them. The woman was wearing a long dress of crimson and black that enshrouded her body, hem brushing at the ground as she moved. She wore a hood over her head like a wimple, covering her hair so that only her ears stuck out at the burgundy material’s edge. Kane could see a few wisps of the woman’s hair where it had broken free from the wimple, and it trailed in several black streaks like cats’ tails that reached down past her shoulders, curling in on themselves to make spiraling patterns at her breast.
The woman walked around the wide circle in the ground as if marking her territory, before coming to a stop by a large rock, beside which a patchwork blanket had been lain, a simple cloth bag propped at its edge. As she turned, Kane saw her face properly for the first time; she was young and striking, perhaps thirty years of age. Furthermore, something glistened on her cheeks, reflections of the candle flames catching twin streaks that seemed to emanate from her eyes. Kane narrowed his own eyes, conscious that his left was still sightless, and tried to make out what it was that glistened on the woman’s face. It moved down her face slowly, like liquid, and it glistened a red so dark as to be almost black as the candlelight caught it. It was blood, Kane realized with a start—the woman was crying tears of blood.
As Kane watched, the bloodstained woman bent with supple ease and placed her heavy book atop the blanket. Then, to Kane’s surprise, the woman reached behind her and began to untie her dress, pulling at it until it fell away from her, pooling around her legs. Still wearing the hood, the woman stepped out of the dress, revealing her young, athletic body only slightly masked by her simple underwear, and a necklace with a pendant of smoky glass hanging between her breasts.
Beside him, the dog stood and issued the lightest of whimpers. Kane placed a firm hand on its back, settling the mutt before it could run to investigate.
In front of them, the woman bent to reach for the wooden jug that had been left at the edge of the circle, and Kane watched as she dipped the jug into the circle itself. It was a pool, Kane realized.
The woman with the bloody tears raised the jug and tipped its contents over one outstretched arm, laughing as the amber liquid sloshed over her. At that moment, Kane knew where he had seen a pit like this before. It looked like—
“HELL!” Grant said. “We’ve had more than our share of trouble with hybrids. The Annunaki hid among us as the barons, their hybrid DNA providing the ideal starting point for their ultimate rebirth. If these birds have been created by mixing DNA then it stinks of Annunaki involvement.”
Rosalia herself had been a part of a group that traded in genetic material not so long ago, and she understood what Grant was referring to. “You’re jumping to conclusions, you realize,” she warned him.
“Get used to it,” Grant shot back. “Unfortunately where we’re concerned there’s not always someone sitting at the far side of the room waiting to explain precisely what it is we’re fighting.”
Rosalia’s eyes darted left and right, and her hand went to the hilt of her hip-mounted sword. “Speaking of which,” she advised, “it’s time we got moving. White-face, you okay to move or you need someone to carry you?”
Domi glared at Rosalia. “I can make it under my own steam,” she said. Like Grant, Domi had tried to be welcoming to Kane’s new recruit, but she had a history with Rosalia that was less than pleasant. Six months ago, while Rosalia had been in the employ of a gang of brigands, the dark-haired mercenary and her partner had cold-cocked Domi, leaving her wounded as they made a break for it. Domi had avenged herself on Rosalia’s partner, severing the man’s spinal column and leaving him for dead. Rosalia, however, had somehow escaped the woman’s revenge—for now.
The three-strong party of warriors made its way to the edge of the nest, close to where Grant’s microline still hung from the bole of a nearby branch.
“I had to guess which tree you were in,” Grant explained as Domi spotted the line hanging from the neighboring tree just a few feet away.
“Good guess,” Domi replied.
At that moment there was a hideous screech from nearby, and the three companions spun in time to see another of the gargantuan birds come swooping down through the leafy branches toward the nest. Rosalia pulled her sword in an instant, as two more of the squawking birds came into view behind the first. “I’ll handle this,” she assured the others.
“No, we’re in this together,” Grant said as he powered the Sin Eater back into his hand from its hidden wrist holster.
Seconds later the attack was upon them once more, and Rosalia’s sword swept forth, hacking wildly at the first of the birds as it attempted to pierce her torso with its sharp talons. Rosalia dropped to one knee, leaning backward and letting the vicious bird swoop over her, its fearsome claws just three inches from the swelling of her breasts. Her flashing blade carved an arc through the air, and a clutch of fluttering feathers was snipped from the retreating bird’s dark plumage.
Beside the swordswoman, Grant closed one eye as he targeted the next of their avian attackers. His Sin Eater spewed hot lead as the creature got closer, its huge wings beating at the air with the sound of thunder.
As the battle proceeded behind her, Domi carefully stepped out of the nest and walked with pigeon steps out onto the five-inch-wide branch, stretching her arms out to her sides as the tree limb trembled beneath her. The albino outlander had a remarkable sense of balance, preternaturally aware of her surroundings at some instinctual level. As the three mighty birds of prey swept down to attack the lurkers in the nest, Domi picked up her pace and hurried along the tapering branch, her feet becoming a white blur as she sped toward the hanging thread of the monofilament.
As Grant and Rosalia battled with the others, the last of the birds spied Domi with hawklike eyes, and it flapped its massive wings once, subtly altering direction and lunging at Domi as she scampered along the branch. Domi leaped into the air as the creature knifed toward her, flipping herself over it as its sharp beak snapped closed on the spot where she had been standing. Then she was rolling across one of its wings, using it to lever herself up and away from the nest where the other birds struggled with her companions. A moment later, as the bird hurried away with a graceful beating of its mighty wings, Domi began plummeting toward the ground, gravity taking hold. But the albino woman was not worried; her hand snapped out and in an instant she had grasped the dangling cord of Grant’s climbing line, letting it play through her clamping fingers for a moment to expel her extra momentum. A second later Domi was rappelling down the monofilament line bare-handed, speeding toward the ground like a hailstone.
Meanwhile, in the nest above, Rosalia pulled back her sword in readiness as the giant birds regrouped for a second attack. Beside her, Grant was holding his blaster rock-steady, watching the patterns that the birds made as they swirled through the towering branches of the redwoods.
“You want to know something strange?” Grant said after a moment.
Rosalia kept her eyes on the birds as they turned and began to drop. “What?”
“They’re keeping to a very tight area,” Grant told her, “like they can’t leave this part of the forest.”
“Maybe,” Rosalia mused. “You have any theories why?”
Grant pumped at the trigger of his Sin Eater as the birds closed in. “Not yet,” he snarled, the weapon bucking in his hand as a stream of 9 mm bullets burst from its barrel at the swooping birds. “But I’ll bet if we leave this forest we’ll be safe—they won’t follow.”
At his side, Rosalia lanced the two-foot blade of her katana upward, driving it into the leathery wing of one of the birds as it lunged at her, squawking its irritated babble as the sword pieced its appendage. Then Rosalia ducked, dragging the blade out as the bird swooped away. Here’s a meal that fights back, she thought bitterly.
Down below them, Domi was just reaching the ground. Grant risked a glance over the side of the nest.
“We need to keep moving,” Grant opined as the birds turned away, already preparing for another try at the humans in their midst. “You want to go next or do you want me to?”
Rosalia didn’t bother to look at him as she replied, “Whichever. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Fine,” Grant said. “I’m the one with the distance weapon. Get moving and I’ll cover you.”
Turning to Grant, Rosalia offered him a sly smile for just a second. “Such a gentleman,” she teased. Then she was away, vaulting over the high side of the nest and sprinting along the grand tree’s limb, the sword flashing in her hand as it caught the rays of sunlight filtering through the tree cover. The screaming sound of air passing over the birds’ wings became louder as Rosalia ran across the branch toward the monofilament line that hung from the neighboring tree, but she couldn’t look to see where they were—the tapering branch required all her attention or a deadly misstep would result in a thirty-foot drop and doubtless cost the mercenary woman her life. Instead, she had to trust Grant’s aim as she heard his Sin Eater come to life once more, blasting shot after shot at the attacking birds.
A dark shadow crossed Rosalia’s path as she reached the narrow end of the branch, and she leaped in the air, reaching out for the narrow thread that was the Cerberus teammate’s only way back to the ground. As she leaped, something squawked just a few feet behind her, and she felt her body buffeted by the wind as heavy wings flapped close to her back. Then her fingers were entwined in the monofilament, doubling it over her hand and wrist as she caught hold.
“Rosalia,” Grant yelled, “watch your six!”
With reactions honed to the level of instinct, Rosalia turned as she began to descend the thin rope, swinging the katana she still clutched in her right hand. Above her, the sounds of gunfire continued as Grant tried to kill or frighten the tenacious birds of prey.
In a flash, Rosalia’s blade struck the attacking bird as it pecked at her, slicing a gash across its face as she began to descend the monofilament line. The bird cawed angrily, pulling itself up and away from this challenger even as Rosalia dropped away, the thin line playing through her fingers with practiced ease.
A half dozen feet above, Grant’s Sin Eater was blasting a cacophonous stream of bullets at another of the birds, playing its lethal dispatch across the face and body of the grasping monstrosity. The bird’s wings beat at the air as the bullets struck it, swirling in place as chunks of flesh and armorlike feathers burst from its body. As it struggled among the branches, Grant sprinted across the nest, leaping over the corpse of the baby bird and the teenager who had been intended as its first meal. Then he was at the edge of the nest, clambering up its bowl-like side as he prepared to rappel to the ground.
At that moment, the bird that had tried to attack Rosalia swooped upward with a mighty beat of its wings, clawing through the air toward the nest. As it passed the edge of the nest, Grant appeared, and with lightning-fast instincts honed from numerous battles, the ex- Magistrate kicked outward with a booted foot. Grant’s foot connected with the enormous bird’s head with a solid, bone-crunching blow, causing the bird to shudder as it struggled up toward the branch.
Grant, however, was knocked backward by the force of his own blow, and suddenly he was falling, dropping over the side of the nest toward the ground.
“Crap!” Grant snarled as he toppled past the careening bird.
KANE KNELT SILENTLY beside Rosalia’s scruffy dog at the edge of the underground shelter, watching as the mysterious, striking woman poured something from the circular pool over her arms and body. It looked like liquid gold as it spilled over her curvaceous form, arching and dipping around her as it clung to each line, each curve. The contents of the pit misted as they touched her form, not quite liquid but not yet gas. And as he watched, Kane now recognized just what that pit was.
He thought back, recalled seeing an identical pool about a year ago, when Grant’s companion Shizuka had been wounded. At that point, the Cerberus team had found themselves in the clutches of the Annunaki, trusting a female hybrid called Rhea who owed her allegiance to Overlord Lilitu. The pit had been used to revive Shizuka, reknitting a vicious wound that had been inflicted on her midriff.
Kane thought for a moment, trying to remember how Brigid Baptiste had described the thing. She’d concluded by the markings on the metal circle that it was Tuatha de Danaan tech, acquired by the Annunaki as a part of their millennia-old pact. The Tuatha de Danaan were a humanoid race who had arrived on Earth after the Great Flood. More considerate than the Annunaki, the Tuatha de Danaan were characterized as scientists and poets, as well as warriors. They had settled in isolated Ireland, and had struck a pact with the Annunaki to oversee human development until the Annunaki were ready to return. Some considered the Tuatha de Danaan technologically superior to the Annunaki, and their more pacific approach to life had characterized them in legend as more beneficial than the Annunaki, whose own legends spoke of mainly blood and thunder.
