They had the sense that this was a ghost town now. It felt like a museum exhibit, artificially aged to give an impression of how things might have been a hundred years ago, or a thousand. The buildings, too, seemed slightly off, not wrong as such but somehow not right, like something found only in dreams. The way their rooftops reached for one another, the way the streets twisted and curled back on themselves like a scorpion’s tail, it all seemed faintly unreal. Grant didn’t like it. He had trained as a hard-contact Magistrate and so was a man used to dealing with absolutes. Here, it seemed, there were no absolutes, just labyrinths within labyrinths, mazes within mazes.
Now and then Rosalia’s dog would stop in place and growl deep in its throat, as if seeing something that the others had failed to notice. Rosalia hushed the dog with a stroke and a few measured words, encouraging the willful hound onward as they went to find Hassood.
“How much farther to this guide?” Rosalia asked Grant when the dog stopped for the third time in a street so narrow that it could barely accommodate three people abreast.
Grant shook his head in irritation. “Hard to tell,” he said. “We keep getting turned back on ourselves. Should be close, though. Hassood said it was at the edge of the city.”
The Tigers of Heaven moved to one of the lower roofs that lined the alleylike avenue, where Kishiro gave Kudo a bunk up so that he could peer over it.
“Gotta be here somewhere,” Grant growled irritably. “Like a knitting needle, that’s what he said.”
Domi was about to add her own observation when her eyes became distracted by something. She twitched, her pale head snapping around as she tried to follow what it was, but the alleylike street was empty. There had been a flash there, a silvery trace of lines like…like what?
As Grant discussed their route with Rosalia and the Tigers of Heaven, Domi skulked away, the rubber soles of her soft shoes treading quietly on the uneven cobblestones. It had been here, near a twisting building that seemed gnarled as a tree root, that she had seen that flash of long silvery fingers. As if reading her thoughts, the line sparkled again, like a string of pearls catching the light before disappearing into the building. She knew what it reminded her of now; it was the effect sunlight created on a mirror, reflecting against the wall in a watery shimmer.
The building sprouted upward in sections, entwined like lovers’ arms, bending into one another in embrace. The walls were white like stucco, rough to the touch. Here, too, the doors and windows were boarded over, a pale wood it seemed—ash perhaps—blocking out light and unwelcome visitors.
Did anyone live in this place? Domi wondered. Did anyone live anywhere in this ville?
As she gazed at that twisted plait of tower, Domi saw the thing flash again, or she thought she did, up higher, in one of the upper windows where the boards were wider, leaving enough space to peer within. It was a third-story window, and Domi could not get far enough back to see inside. Turning a corner she spotted an opening at the level of her chest, a dark patch on the white wall roughly twelve inches across.
Domi ducked, peering through the square hole in the building’s facade. The hole was probably a ventilation shaft of some sort, Domi couldn’t tell for certain. Within the hole it was dark, black as a spider’s eyes. Had it gone in here, the silver thing?
Close up, the hole emanated a smell, a stench, in fact—the reek of stagnant water. Domi’s nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of it, rearing away without thinking. But it hadn’t looked wet. Warily the albino warrior got nearer once again, carefully touching her fingers to the bottom edge of the square hole. As she suspected, it was dry to the touch. Her fingers came away with nothing but a chalky, hard dirt. She pushed her hand back in, running her pale fingers along the walls and then reaching up and finding that it was a shaft. The shaft went upward into the building, for drainage or ventilation.
Her heart pounding hard in her chest, Domi pressed her ear to the slot, filtering out the sounds around her as she tried to listen for noises within. The hole opened into a pipe, and it had that pipe sound, like the wind whistling through distant trees, the ocean in a shell.
“Domi, what is it?”
It was Grant, standing just behind her shoulder, surprising her at coming so close. She had been distracted.
“Not sure,” Domi answered, the words muttered, emotionless, as she pushed her face close to the opening once more. She peered into the blackness, trying to see if there was anything within that shaft. What was it that she had seen, and was it that which was creating the smell?
“Need me to take a look?” Grant asked. He had the night lenses on—of course, they would be ideal.
“Borrow your lenses?” Domi asked, holding her hand out in expectation.
Grant handed them to her, watched as she poked her whole head into the gap in the wall and peered inside, rocking her shoulders to get a better angle. Domi looked up into the darkness, seeing the square shaft drawn in greens and grays on the surface of the night lenses, insects scuttling here and there in the gloom.
Domi heard low voices behind her as the Tigers of Heaven discussed something with the others, grit her teeth in irritation as she filtered them out and tried to listen to the empty shaft.
“We’re going to keep moving,” Grant told her. “We’re about two blocks away from this needle thing our man Hassood told us about. Kudo spotted it from one of the rooftops.”
Suddenly, Rosalia’s dog let out a deep growl, the sound coming from deep in the beast’s throat. Domi turned, shocked by the noise, her concentration broken.
“Dammit,” Domi muttered as she stepped away from the dark square in the wall. Had she seen something, high up in the pipe? Something shimmering like moonbeams? She couldn’t tell now, couldn’t be sure if she had seen it or imagined it.
“Domi?” Grant prodded, keeping his voice low.
“This place is giving me the creeps,” Domi growled in response. “Does anyone actually live here, do you think?”
“No intel,” Grant replied as he led the group down the alley, searching for an alternate route to the nearby stone needle. “People have been seen coming into the city, nomadic farmers mostly, hiding away from the cold nights. But fuck knows if they’re still here. I’m guessing not.”
“Well, someone’s here,” Domi said.
“The dog feels it, too,” Rosalia agreed. “He’s skittish, dumb animal. Not like him.”
Domi glared at the dark-haired woman. “Are you ever going to give that dog a name?” she asked, sounding peeved.
Rosalia arched an eyebrow as she replied. “I call him lots of names,” she said. “Maybe when he learns to speak we’ll settle on one.”
Grant hushed them then, raising his hand as he listened intently to the Commtact link. “Hassood? That you?”
There was a pause during which the Cerberus team continued hurrying through the twisting-turning streets, and then Hassood’s voice came back over the communicator, urgent and breathless.
“Mr. Grant, they’re coming. They’re coming now.”
Chapter 8
“Back up there, man,” Grant instructed over the Commtact as he hurried along the empty street, his footsteps sounding loud as they echoed from the hard stone. “What’s coming? What are you talking—?”
A scream came over the Commtact link, the shriek oddly doubled by Grant’s proximity to its origin.
“What was that?” Domi asked, searching for the source. The clawing towers of the buildings seemed to close in overhead now, blocking the moonlight and trapping them on the road like bars on a cell.
Rosalia’s dog bolted then, scampering ahead of them all.
“Come back!” Rosalia yelled, sprinting after the dog. “Stupid mutt.”
The scampering dog turned, its lithe body twisting into a side alley that was almost entirely hidden in the darkness, and abruptly disappeared from view. The alley was less than fifteen inches wide, just a narrow gap between the rough-walled buildings. Rosalia stopped in front of it, peering into the darkness, her nose wrinkling.
“The scream came from this way,” she announced. “The dog’s right.”
“Wait just a—” Grant began, but already Rosalia had ducked into the alley after her dog. “Shit!”
“Might be the quickest way to our contact,” Domi suggested to Grant as they stood at the entryway to the alley.
Grant eyed the narrow gap for a moment, estimating its width. He could tell it would be a tight squeeze for him, and in the darkness it was hard to see if it narrowed any further. “You follow her. The rest of us will go around,” he decided.
Domi didn’t stop to acknowledge Grant’s instruction but just started running, sprinting down the oppressive strip of alleyway, her lean shoulders snugly fitting between the walls. Up ahead she could see Rosalia turning sideways, skipping along crab-fashion to chase after her willful canine, calling for it in an annoyed hiss.
Behind her, Domi could hear Grant speaking urgently to Hassood via the Commtact, then trying to raise Cerberus.
* * *
B
ACK
AT
THE
MAKESHIFT
Cerberus headquarters, dour-faced Brewster Philboyd acknowledged Grant’s hail from the field.
“My contact’s in trouble,” Grant explained. “Can you locate him? We’re caught in a damn maze here—there’s no logic to this place whatsoever.”
“I can bring the satellite cam around,” Philboyd explained, his fingers already racing across his computer keyboard to do that very thing, “but it will take time.”
“Time is something we don’t have, Brewster,” Grant reasoned. “Any other ideas?”
Brewster Philboyd looked at the countdown clock on his laptop screen and made a quick calculation. “We don’t have anything on file,” he explained. “It will take…forty minutes to get a street view.”
“Damn,” Grant growled to himself, the word automatically relayed via the Commtact link.
Philboyd tapped at his keyboard again, hurrying past protocols to try to locate an older record of the dragon-shaped settlement. As he did so, something popped up on screen, a red flashing icon of a dog. Philboyd stopped in his tracks, doing a double take as he took the icon in. “That’s…Cerberus,” he said slowly.
“Repeat, Brewster,” Grant said. “I don’t understand.”
Philboyd spoke quietly, incredulity in his voice. “I’m getting hailed by Cerberus,” he said, almost unaware of the mike pickup he wore for the linked Commtacts. “But that’s impossible.”
Grant’s voice had a hint of irritation to it as it came to Philboyd’s ear. “Brewster, you ain’t making a lick of sense. What’s happening?”
Standing in his seat, Philboyd checked the small ops room that had been set up temporarily on the California site. Donald Bry was running a diagnostics check on two linked terminals, while Lakesh was flipping through the reams of printout that had been produced since Cerberus ops went back online, tracing his missing personnel. Philboyd called them both over, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.
“Brew?” Grant’s voice was in his ear.
“I’m cutting the call, Grant,” Philboyd said briefly. “There’s something happening here, and I don’t think it’s wise to stay online just now.”
* * *
G
RANT
MUTTERED
SOMETHING
to himself as Philboyd cut the radio link. It wasn’t in Philboyd’s nature to overreact, he knew, so something serious had to be going down at the Cerberus base. Cerberus had been infiltrated just weeks ago and the internal security remained heightened, frustrating though that could be. In the meantime, however, that left Grant and his field team out on their own.
* * *
R
OSALIA
RAN
AHEAD
,
RUSHING
after the scraggly-looking mutt who seemed to have adopted her months ago, whether she had wanted it or not. The dog had emerged from out of the Californian desert, a stray found in a destroyed settlement whose inhabitants had been mind-wiped and destroyed by an alien race called the Igigi, whose spirits were searching for new host bodies. The Igigi had once been the slave caste of the Annunaki, dispossessed by their master Enlil.
The narrow passageway ran between buildings in a tightening curve, the stony walls echoing weirdly, the rooftops touching here and there above her. Up ahead, Rosalia could see a hint of moonlight tapering into the far end of the alleyway, and the dog’s familiar form was a low blot, tail wagging furiously left and right like a psychotic metronome, its breathing sounding like a steam train as it bolted out of the enclosed space.
The passage itself was getting narrower still. With a grunt, Rosalia shifted herself again, swiveling her body so she could lead with her right shoulder, blowing hair out of her face as she hurried on. She heard footsteps clattering against the cobbles behind her; Domi was chasing after her, in second place as ever. Rosalia ducked her head into her body, driving herself on down the echoing passage before she lost sight of the dog.
There came voices then, from the far end of the passage. No, not voices, she realized—
a voice.
A man’s voice, the words unclear. And then the agonized scream again, the one she had heard before only louder now, closer.
Rosalia saw that the dog had sprung from the far end of the passageway and was running out into whatever lay beyond. “Wait, stupid mutt,” she ordered. “Stay.”
The dog ignored her, running off into whatever lay beyond the passage. Rosalia willed herself to go faster, her feet skittering across the cobbles as she lunged down the passageway, the walls scraping her, front and back. The voice was getting louder, authoritative. And the screaming had abated, an ugly, strained whimpering taking its place.
The next instant Rosalia burst out of the narrow confines of the passage and found herself in a hexagonal courtyard between buildings. The courtyard seemed vast after the tightness and darkness of the passage, despite being surrounded on all sides, the jagged struts of buildings clawing toward the moonlight above like a crone’s twisted hands. A towering spire rested in its center like an upended needle, a prodding lance made of white stone, and beyond that a wider gateway, an arch of stone across its top. Here was the location Hassood had described in his discussions with Grant. So where was he?
Rosalia halted, getting her bearings, looking all around for her dog. The man’s voice was echoing around the courtyard along with whimpering and foreign words, both coming from somewhere to her right. Warily, Rosalia made her way toward it, spying the shelter there between a balustrade of curving archways that shone like ice in the moonlight. Something was moving there, but as Rosalia approached the dog came hurrying back out, barking a warning.
The man’s words echoed from the covered passage, the words unfamiliar but the tone clear. “Help me,” he was saying. “Help me.” Rosalia felt sure of it.
Rosalia leaned down, touching her hand to the dog’s neck as it looked plaintively up at her. “What is it, boy?” she muttered, keeping her voice low.
At that instant Domi came running from the narrow passage entrance behind her, legs pumping as she rushed to join Rosalia and the mongrel. “Don’t…just…run off,” she stormed breathlessly. She was covered in dirt from the walls, her pale face powdered with white dust, her hair in disarray.
Rosalia glared at her, left hand raised for silence. Then she indicated the space between the archways. As she did so, a gurgling scream rent the air, echoing around the courtyard like tumbling waves crashing against the shore.
Rosalia hurried forward, drawing a hidden knife from her sleeve as she leaped through the closest archway. The man’s voice was loud in here, squawking off the walls like a parrot’s caw. There was a figure there in the darkness, a tall man, thin with narrow shoulders, a shimmer of silver glistening beside him like a full-length mirror.
It took a second for Rosalia’s eyes to adjust as the dog scurried over to her side, barking again. In that instant, the shadow she had taken to be a man became just another shadow against the wall, and the glistering mirror light winked out as if a cloud had smothered the moon.
Rosalia searched the walled area, hearing the man’s voice again, realizing it had an artificial quality to it. It was Grant, his words tinny over the transistor radio pickup—a compact unit no larger than a football crashed on its side against the wall, the microphone hanging loosely on a coiling wire beside it.
“Hassood?” Grant’s voice chirruped with urgency. “Hassood? Come in.” Water sloshed around the radio, disappearing down a drain.
Domi had entered the covered area now, engaging her hidden Commtact as she recognized Grant’s voice. “He’s not here.” She continued speaking, explaining about the discarded radio receiver, that no one was around.
Rosalia ignored the exchange. Her eyes had been drawn to the dark shadow on the wall, a shadow in the shape of a man, tall and thin with narrow shoulders. Pacing forward, Rosalia touched her hand to the dark stain, pressing her palm gently against it after just a moment’s consideration, her eyes narrowing. It was damp; warm and damp.