Hell's Maw (16 page)

“You said plague,” Grant muttered over the Commtact.

“Never good,” Brigid acknowledged. “She had three children—Nungal, Ninazu and Namtar. I don't want to worry anyone, but the latter's father was Enlil.”

“Had to be,” Kane grumbled, shaking his head in irritation. “Damn inbred family if ever there was one.”

“I think she was maybe a little bit unhinged,” Brigid said. “She tried to kill her own sister, and the reports vary on whether she succeeded.”

“She wouldn't be the first Annunaki to try to assassinate a sibling,” Bry pointed out reasonably.

“True,” Brigid agreed.

“So we've got a reborn Annunaki goddess,” Kane stated, “who rules the land of the dead, scares the other Annunaki shitless and is maybe on a recruitment drive. Like there ain't enough dead people around, she's gotta add extra.”

Brigid tilted her head sympathetically. “We don't know why,” she reasoned.

“Do these guys ever need a reason?” Kane growled angrily. “Seems like every Johnny-god-come-lately can't wait to start screwing with the human race at the drop of a hat.”

“No, there's always a plan,” Lakesh said, “a pattern.”

“Lakesh is right,” Brigid confirmed. “Enlil wanted to subjugate mankind for adoration. Ullikummis came to kill his dad, building an army of human cannon fodder to help him achieve that. Lilitu wanted to regain full possession of her body,” she recited, reeling off their three most recent encounters with the Annunaki. There were others, but the point was made.

“So, what do you think Little Miss Underworld is after?” Kane asked.

“The physical makeup of the dead body,” Lakesh mused.

“That would be the same chemical structure by and large as a living body,” Bry pointed out.

“But easier to control,” Lakesh stated.

“Something in the physical body, then?” Brigid proposed. “Fuel, maybe—nutrition or… I don't know.”

“In my experience, reborn gods have a habit of being unfulfilled,” Lakesh said. “They are born with aspects
missing, still forming. A problem with being brought to full term as an adult, I suspect.”

“This is all real interesting,” Grant's voice growled over the Commtact frequency, “but I need to know how to tackle this woman. Seems she can get inside people's minds like an infection. And her people throw blades at anyone who gets in her way, don't forget. Well?”

“Don't tackle her,” Lakesh said. “Not yet.”

Kane nodded. “Lakesh is right. We've taken on Annunaki before but it's not easy. You try to do that alone and you'll get crushed.”

“I don't crush easy, partner,” Grant reminded him.

“Never said you did, partner,” Kane assured him. “Just be careful until we can get out there.”

Brigid continued to go through the documentation, describing to Grant the image of the stone carving she had found.

* * *

G
RANT GRIMLY LISTENED
to Brigid's recital. He and Shizuka had returned to their rooms at the Hotel El Castillo on the west bank, care of the Pretor escort provided by Corcel and Cáscara. The local Pretors had the discretion to wait outside while Grant and Shizuka went to their suite, ostensibly for a change of clothes and a shower.

While Grant discussed the matter of Ereshkigal with his teammates at the Cerberus redoubt, he was also checking through his travel pack for two items—his shadow suit and his preferred handgun, an old Magistrate Sin Eater, which could be affixed in a wrist holster that he then strapped to his arm so it could be hidden beneath the sleeve of his jacket once he had replaced his clothes with the shadow suit.

Shizuka, too, was switching her attire. She chose a loose cotton jacket from her wardrobe colored a creamy yellow with a brocade pattern that emulated the leaves of
the lotus flower. Beneath this she wore a white sleeveless top, loose-fitting pants and shoes that were like ballet flats. She placed a shoulder rig over her arms, specifically designed to hide a weapon under the left arm sufficiently that it would be disguised by the hang of her jacket. The leather holster was decorated with an intricate pattern showing cherry blossoms floating on the breeze past an ancient Japanese pagoda.

The shoulder rig was made to hold a very specific weapon, which Shizuka withdrew from a hidden compartment within her travel case. Contained inside a long scabbard was her katana sword, twenty-five inches of razor-sharp steel with a molded handle that was beautifully decorated with golden filigree. Beside the sheathed sword in the travel case was a small wooden casket, just six inches by three, like a musical box.

She drew a cover from the bed behind her and laid it down on the floor, flattening it carefully. Onto this, Shizuka lay out the sword and the box, sitting cross-legged before them and stilling her mind, zoning out the sound of Grant talking to his allies via the Commtact.

Then Shizuka's delicate hands pushed open the lid and reached inside the box. The contents had been placed carefully within specific compartments that were a masterpiece of simple design and an economic use of space. There were sheets of thin rice paper, a soft square of cotton, a lightly chalked powder ball and a small bottle of oil. In the front of the compartmentalized box, resting across its longest length, lay a tiny brass hammer, held separate from the other items in the sword cleaning kit.

Shizuka reached forward, taking the sheathed katana from where it rested on the blanket. Gripping the hilt of the sword with her right hand, she pulled at the scabbard with her left, drawing the blade out into the open where its polished steel surface reflected the rays of sunlight
through the balcony window. The graceful movement was automatic, practiced so many times as to be a part of Shizuka's muscle memory, the weight of the sword moving effortlessly as if it were just another natural appendage of her body. She eyed the blade for a moment, scanning its length, observing the grain of the steel, checking for flaws. Then, careful to hold the sharp edge of the blade away from her, Shizuka took a single sheet of crackling, wafer-thin rice paper and began to slowly stroke the blade with it.

This was a necessary process, a chore that every samurai going back to the days of feudal Japan had performed to ensure that their katana—a weapon that was often referred to as the soul of the samurai—remained strong and clean, free from defects that might hinder a warrior in battle. But it was also a ritual, one that served to fill and calm Shizuka's mind after the disturbing events at the Pretor Hall of Justice.

Shizuka finally discarded the rice paper and began tapping the length of the finely honed blade with the powder ball, running a dusting of chalk along its flawless surface. Thoughts of the woman who had—died, killed herself, combusted?—ran through Shizuka's head with each tap of her sword, but she willed them from her mind, letting her thoughts still in meditation. If she and Grant were to face this Ereshkigal, with her monstrous and unfathomable ways, and survive, then she would need to be at the very top of her game, a modern-day samurai in tune with every sinew, every fiber of her being. For Shizuka knew that a warrior was defeated not by the enemy but by their own shortcomings.

Shizuka ran another sheet of rice paper along the length of her katana to brush away the powder, then reached for the bottle of oil contained in the box and dribbled a few drops along the katana blade. Then she tilted the sword
so that the oil ran along its length. With her free hand, Shizuka took the cotton square from the wooden box and began to clean the blade in a long, sweeping stroke down its length, following the lines of the grain of the steel.

Shizuka waved her blade before her, feeling its familiar weight in her hand as it swept through the air. She was ready now, ready for anything. She replaced the contents of the little wooden box and rested it back inside the hidden compartment of her case along with the empty scabbard that had held the katana. Assuming a standing position, she slipped the naked blade through the shoulder rig until it rested within the sheath there. When she turned she saw that Grant was watching her. He had changed, too, and was now wearing the shadow suit under street clothes. Shizuka detected the familiar bulge of the Sin Eater in its wrist holster puffing out the sleeve of his jacket—subtle and easy to miss unless you were made aware of it.

“We have an appointment at the Zaragoza Hospital,” Grant was outlining over the Commtact.

“We'll get out there as soon as we can and come find you,” Kane assured him over the Commtact. “Think you can stay out of trouble 'til then?”

“I'm not you, Kane,” Grant replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I manage to avoid trouble almost every day.”

“Yes,” Brigid spoke over the Commtact, cutting off the verbal sparring of the two friends, “well, see that you do. Annunaki trouble is too big for any one of us to handle alone. Even with Shizuka's assistance.”

Grant looked up at Shizuka as Brigid spoke the woman's name, and for a moment he couldn't help but see how frail her petite frame seemed; especially so when put in context with the towering Annunaki sadists they had clashed with before. “I'll take care,” he concluded before cutting the communication.

Then Grant caught Shizuka's eye. “All set?” he asked.

“With reluctance, I am, Grant-san,” Shizuka assured him. “I heard you speak of the Annunaki. It seems we may never be rid of their baneful influence.”

“Yeah,” Grant agreed with a shake of his head. “Not quite the vacation we had in mind, huh?”

“It seems that destiny had another vacation in mind for us,” Shizuka told him, “one it would be churlish to reject.”

Together they exited the hotel and joined the Pretors waiting in the patrol vehicle.

Elsewhere

Surrounding the entire city of Zaragoza was a twelve-foot wall that had been built during the dark days of the era known as Deathlands. Following the nukecaust, the population had been culled to just ten percent of what it had been before, and found itself in a newly hostile environment characterized by radioactive hot zones, mutated plants and animals, and, worst of all, mutated things that had started life as men. Stickies, scalies, swampies—the list of mutants was almost endless, and their mutations ran the gamut from useful adaptations, like the dual circulatory system of the swampies, through to picturesque but largely useless twists of the human DNA structure, like semi-sentient hair. To survive, humanity had had to battle with all of those threats and one more besides: itself.

Man could be the cruelest threat of all, his own worst enemy in times of struggle. The greatest survivors, the most adept, had gathered about them men of similar standing, and once they had banded together, many of those men had taken to ransacking the crapped-on, dust-strewn, ash-stained remains of the civilized world and woe betide anyone who got in
their way. This behavior had led to the emergence of the villes in the USA, walled settlements that had offered protection and security for such men and their families, tiny fiefdoms where cruelty and submission were often the norm.

A similar pattern had been followed in Europe, and the older cities—or those that had survived—had been cut up and fenced in, baron hiding from baron, playing out tiny wars over food and space and jealousy, the little things that wars are always fought over. Zaragoza had been walled protectively in spits and spots during this period, until the emergence of the grand ville, protecting its ancient architecture from the depredations of would-be attackers.

Around Zaragoza, the wall remained. It had been built tall and it had been built strong and it had been reinforced over and over back when the threat of mutie men taking your wives or your daughters had seemed very, very real.

Now those walls were guarded by Pretors, uniformed and armored, carrying their pistols in smooth underarm holsters from which the weapons could be launched into the user's hand in a fraction of a second. The Pretors worked in teams, four to a gate, placed evenly around the city at the cardinal points of the compass. There were guard posts at these points, with heavily armored walls and mounted railguns for use against possible attack. While the threat of a mutie army breaching the walls had subsided, the old precautions—and the old wariness—remained.

It was to one of these guard posts, the one to the south of the city, that the woman and her two assistants came, striding out of the heat haze of the barren desert, where dust-dry plants vied for space in the shifting sands, clinging obstinately to life long after the battle seemed to have been lost. The tanned woman came barefoot toward the guard post. Her dark-skinned retainers were barefoot, too. She wore a smear of blood and oil across her breasts, a train of feathers attached to her rounded buttocks and the crown of twisted antlers affixed atop her head. The tarmac of the road they walked on was already as warm as the
outside of an oven from the sun, but the woman did not flinch when she stepped on it—she walked instead like an actress striding the red carpet, the fan of feathers whipping behind her in the wind.

The two men with her were dark-skinned and muscular and wore only pants, no shirts or shoes. Their expressions were fixed and vacant, their eyes staring straight ahead. One's bare chest showed dark marks like the imprints of insect shadows on his flesh. It may have been tattooing or it could have been some disease; it was hard to be certain. Where the woman seemed animated by the wind itself, dancing and twirling as she paced light-footed toward the guard post, her associates barely moved at all—they were more like rocks being rolled along the road than people walking.

Pretor Cadalso watched them approach through the bulletproof glass of the guard post's window, a smile of disbelief forming on his lips. “Hey, you see this?” he asked, calling across to his fellow Pretors where they were monitoring traffic flow, checking weather reports and otherwise working at their designated duties.