City of Screams (4 page)

Jordan checked his weapon. He caught the matching frowns as his teammates did the same. Not good. They were going to run out fast.

Another feline scream came from near the door. Cooper and McKay swung around, training their weapons there. Jordan returned his sights to the window, staring out at the mist-shrouded ruins. “If you see them, shoot. But be cautious with your ammo.”

“Got it,” Cooper said. “Wait till you see the white of their eyes.”

“That roof isn't going to withstand many more attacks like that,” McKay said. “A few more poundings, and those leopards will come crashing on top of us.”

McKay was right. Jordan recognized the futility of staying holed up here. They didn't have enough weapons to hold off a pair of three-hundred-pound monsters, especially in such cramped quarters. They were as likely to shoot each other as the animals.

Jordan regained his feet, scooping the girl in his arms.

“Do you have a plan?” Cooper asked.

Jordan stared at the door. “But it's not a good one.”

“What are you going to do?” McKay asked, looking worried.

“I'm going to give them what they want.”

5:18
P.M.

J
ORDAN RAN THROUGH
the snow, through the night, staying low but carrying the burden over one shoulder, limp and silent. The girl's sleeve brushed his cheek, smelling of sweat and fear. He didn't know if she was the source of all of this, if the leopards were fixed on her scent. He didn't know if those whispers in the mists were echoes from far away or something else.

Right now, it didn't matter.

If they wanted the girl, let them follow his trail, his movements.

He fled
away
from the distant glow of Bamiyan and
toward
the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghola. He followed instructions given to him by Atherton, pointing him to the archaeology team's excavation site. It was only a fast fifty-yard sprint away.

That graveyard offered the only hope now.

He and his men had just a few weapons and a limited amount of ammunition left. And these beasts had proven themselves to be crafty, experienced hunters, definitely hard to kill, plainly wary of guns. His best hope was to lure the beasts away and trap them.

After he was done with them, he'd deal with whoever was out there whispering in the mists.

Or at least that was his plan.

As he raced, McKay kept to his heels.

He'd left Cooper back at the house, covering their flight from the window. Maybe the cats would get into his sights, and Cooper would bring them down and solve all their problems.

Jordan crossed the last of the way, dodging through a maze of wheelbarrows, mounds of excavated gravel and sand, and stacks of abandoned tools to reach the entrance to the archaeological dig site. Cold wind cut through his shirt. He missed his coat.

As he skidded up to the mouth of the tunnel, he shifted his burden higher on his shoulder, making sure his weapon wasn't compromised.

McKay panted beside him. The exertion didn't make him short-winded, nor the elevation here. It was simple fear.

“You know what you have to do,” Jordan said.

“I'll see what I can dig up—literally.”

Jordan grinned, appreciating his friend's levity, while still knowing the fear it hid. “If I'm not back in ten minutes—”

“I heard you the first time. Now get going.”

A screaming howl punctuated that order.

McKay slapped Jordan on the shoulder, then disappeared with a map fluttering in his hand. Jordan clicked on the xenon tactical flashlight mounted to his weapon and pointed it down the tunnel that had been excavated into the heart of the ruins.

Now to set the trap . . 
.

He ducked low to keep the girl's clothing from ripping on the rough-hewn walls and set off into the tunnel. He needed the cats to follow him, luring them with his bouncing light, his frantic flight, and the scent of the child's fever-damp clothes. The low ceiling required him to run in a crouch, his shoulders bumping the walls to either side.

As he chased his beam of light down into the depths of the dark ruins, he noted a warmer breeze wafting up from below, as if trying to blow him back outside. It smelled of damp rock along with a chemical sting, like burning oil. He was grateful for the warmth, until his eyes began to water, and his head spun.

He knew some natural caves
breathed
, exhaling or inhaling depending on surface pressures and temperatures. Was that how the archaeologists knew where to dig, had they noted a section of the Shahr-e-Gholghola sighing out, revealing its inner secrets, and dug toward it?

Within a few more yards, he had his answer. The excavated walls turned to natural stone. He discovered steps carved into the rock underfoot. The archaeologists must have broken into a section of the secret passages that once riddled the ancient citadel.

But what had they found?

A scream of fury chased him, echoed by another.

He pictured the two cats crouched at the entrance, sensing their quarry was trapped. He breathed a sigh of relief for McKay.

They're still coming after me . . 
.

Spurred by that thought, Jordan rushed deeper, knowing where he must reach, a place roughly described to him by Atherton, even though the professor had never been there himself.

Within a few steps, the tunnel ended at a large cavern, a dead end. He slid slightly on damp stone, coming to rest at a pile of bones, a deadfall of limbs, skulls, and rib cages. The scatter of bones covered the stone floor of the cavern, forming a macabre beach at the edge of a pool of black water. More bones glowed up through the shallows.

Jordan remembered Atherton's story of the citadel's subterranean spring—and the slaughter that took place here centuries ago.

But the deaths here weren't all ancient.

Resting atop the bones, at the water's edge, were the bloody bodies of fresh kills. The corpses were torn, gutted, and broken-limbed. Here lay the remains of the archaeology team, and what appeared to be the girl's mother. From the gnawed state of their bodies, Jordan knew he had found the lair of the leopards. They hadn't waited long to take over the newly opened cave.

As if sensing his violation, a yowl echoed down to him, sounding much closer than before. Or maybe it was his fear accentuating his senses. His head also continued to spin from the fumes that filled the space. By now, his eyes wept, and his nose burned.

He had to work fast.

He stepped to the edge of the boneyard and tossed his burden far. The girl's clothes fluttered open, scattering straw that he'd stolen from the mattress and stuffed inside. If the beasts hunted by scent or sight, he'd wanted to do his best to convince the hunters that the girl was with him.

Or maybe it didn't matter.

Maybe, as with Azar earlier, it merely took his own flight to draw the beasts.

Cats hunted things that ran from them.

And if he had failed to draw them after him, he had left Cooper back at the mud-brick house with the girl and the professor. It was the best plan he could muster to keep them safe with their meager resources.

Jordan unhooked the flashlight from his gun and flipped it to the opposite side of the cavern. The beam flipped end over end, a dizzying effect with his head already spinning. The light landed near the far side of the underground spring, glowing like a beacon.

Jordan fled away from it, to a cluster of boulders at the right of the tunnel entrance. He crouched down, drew his weapon, and waited. It didn't take long.

He smelled the muskiness of the leopards before the first brute stalked into the cavern. It was a sinewy monster, nine feet long, all fiery furred and marked with black rosettes, a male. It flowed like a tide into the space, silent, purposeful, unstoppable. A second beast followed, smaller, a female.

He caught a glimpse of its dark eyes as it surveyed the room. They burned with an inner fire, much as the girl's eyes had earlier.

Jordan held his breath.

The world turned watery, his head more muzzy.

Movement became smudging blurs.

The male rushed to the discarded clothing, snuffling deeply, intent on its focus.

The second animal slid past its mate, drawn to the light, stalking low toward it.

A rippling of the water drew his attention to the spring-fed pool. He watched the male cat's reflection shimmer, wavering. For the briefest flicker, he thought he saw another image hidden beyond the fiery fur, something pallid and sickly, hairless and hunched. Jordan blinked his burning eyes, and it disappeared.

He shook his head and tore his gaze away.

He dared not wait any longer.

He slipped as quietly as possible out of hiding and toward the open tunnel, sneaking back the way he had come. He had to steady himself with one hand on the wall to keep upright.

Then sudden movement made him freeze. The male leopard, its back still to Jordan, lifted its head from the mound of discarded clothes and yowled its frustration at the roof, knowing it had been tricked.

Under its paws, the bones began to shift.

To Jordan's addled senses, they seemed to stir on their own—scraping against one another, knocking hollowly. He gaped, trying to convince himself the movement was merely the massive beast shifting its weight.

He failed.

Numb with primal terror, he stumbled backward toward the mouth of the tunnel. The shaking of the bones grew worse. He watched one of the archaeologists' bodies rise, belly up, back broken.

He wanted to look away, but horror transfixed him.

As he stared, the carcass lifted up on limbs twisted the wrong direction. It scuttled across the bone field like a crab. Its head hung askew, mouth open. From that gullet, gibbering whispers flowed. Words in the same archaic language as on the recording.

A second corpse stirred, missing a lower jaw, throat bared open.

It added to the chorus of madness.

Can't be . . . I'm seeing things.

Grasping at this thin hope, he turned and fled up the tunnel, rebounding off the walls every few feet. The world continued to churn around him, betraying his steps. He fumbled for the penlight in his pocket.

He found it, flicked it on, and lost it as it slipped from his fingertips.

It bounced away behind him.

Still, the glow offered enough light from behind to help illuminate the way up.

He ran—while a howl arose behind him.

As it echoed away, he heard a faint whispering in his ear.

“
. . . hurry. All done here . . .”

McKay.

He forced himself upward: buffeted by that foul wind, chased by howls, pursued by things that scratched rock with rotted nails and bone.

Shadows cast up from below danced on the walls around him, ahead of him, capering up from the fires of Hell.

Heavy footfalls rushed up the tunnel behind him.

No more howls now.

Just the silent hunt.

Jordan ran his palms along the wall to keep his legs under him. He tore his skin on the coarse stone, but he didn't care. The pain meant he had abandoned the smooth natural cavern walls below for the excavated sharp edges of man-made work.

Behind him, a harsh panting echoed.

The penlight's glow vanished.

Darkness collapsed around him as the beasts closed in.

He ran faster, his lungs burning.

He smelled the creatures now, the stench blown up to him by the foul breath of the cave: stinking of meat and blood and horror.

Then light shone ahead.

The exit.

He fled toward it, diving through it from a yard away to freedom, landing hard, almost forgetting to make that last leap to save his life.

McKay caught him in his arms and rolled him to the side.

A howl burst forth from the tunnel, full of frustration and the promise of bloody vengeance.

As Jordan tumbled away, he caught sight of the male leopard stepping to the mouth of the tunnel—then the world exploded.

Fire.

Smoke.

Pelting rocks and stinging grit.

Jordan shook free of McKay's embrace but stayed on his knees.

He took in deep gulps of fresh air, trying to clear his head.

He watched for any sign of the leopards through the smoke, but the tunnel had completely collapsed. As he stared, an avalanche of rock continued to flow down from above, further sealing the passageway, reburying those bones along with the two leopards inside.

“How many land mines did you use?” Jordan gasped out, his ears still ringing from the blast.

“Just one. Didn't have time to dig up more than that. Plus, it was enough.”

Before him, the mass of Shahr-e-Gholghola steamed and shuddered. Jordan pictured the subterranean cavern collapsing into stony ruin below. More explosions ripped through the ruins, blasting smoke and rock.

“The quaking is triggering other land mines to blow,” McKay said. “We'd better haul ass out of the way.”

Jordan didn't argue, but he kept a wary eye on the ruins.

They retreated to the thatched-roof house. Cooper came stumbling out to meet them. Blood ran down one side of his face.

“What happened?” Jordan asked.

But before Cooper could answer, Jordan hurried past his teammate to find the home empty.

What the hell . . 
.

Concern for the girl spiked through him.

Cooper explained. “As soon as you went into the cave, the girl dove through the window. I tried to go after her, but that damned professor clubbed me, screaming, ‘Let her go! Let the demons take her.' That guy was a whack job from the beginning.”

“Where are they now?”

“I don't know. I just woke back up.”

Jordan sprinted out of the hut. Falling snows filled in their tracks but he could see that the girl's tiny feet pointed west, the professor's east. They'd gone in opposite directions.

McKay caught up to him.