No Hero (24 page)

I hear a crashing sound. Regular. Pounding. In a moment of nearly-grasped verticality I see the archway we came through contracting, slamming down the ground, a great blunt guillotine. The floor bucks again, sends me sailing toward it.

I scramble on the rough rock, find purchase in the space between floor slabs, jam my fingertips into the gap. The floor heaves under me. I hang on. Then the floor slabs slam together crushing my fingers.

I howl in pain, release my grasp. Then the floor bucks and I sail through the air once more. The gnashing doorway looms.

I snag my foot on a vine, spin away from the door. I’m still falling. Falling sideways. And then I stop.

I don’t know if I hit the wall or it hits me. It closes like a catcher’s mitt around me. Then I’m thrown. Then I’m flying down the length of the wall, a great propelling hand of stone, shoving me in a stumbling sweep. The doorway. It’s pushing me toward the doorway.

I do rather wish that fighting psychotic animated temples wasn’t in my job description. Or, at least that I was prepared to deal with it.

I can see Tabitha, Clyde, and Kayla all bunched in the center of the room, trying to keep out of range of the sparring plinth. Pillars detach from the walls, sweep in long arcs, try to crunch their bones. Jags of floor try to spear them.

But they survive, they succeed, they fight back. Kayla and Clyde can do this stuff. They can achieve things against these odds. They have talents here.

I heave myself away from the wall. For a moment I stand still. A tiny oasis of calm in the madness. I can see Kayla actually blocking blows from the wall with her sword. And they drive her back, they physically move her, but she’s OK. She’s on her feet. She’s mastering this situation, whatever it is.

Clyde has his hands up, has batteries hanging out of his mouth. Stone is hitting something invisible around him, some force field, some magic bollocks. Tabitha is huddled at his feet, clutching her laptop, as if somehow that will help, will let her survive, but it’s Clyde that is keeping her safe, doing the white knight shit. He can do it.

Me? All I can do is stand here until my feet get taken out by a stone a rock wall spits at me.

Another blow to the head. The world spins. I can’t tell if it’s really spinning or if it’s just my consciousness skipping a few beats. And there’s the wall again. I taste it. Feel it. I hear the archway slamming down. I fight for finger holds, for any hold. Heave myself off the wall again. Jump something. Trip on something else. Crawl away.

And then feet are running past me. Clyde holding Tabitha’s hand. Ta-ta, see you later. Nice knowing you. The pair of them fleeing the scene. And then I’m up, off the turbulent floor. Not sure how, until I realize it’s Kayla grabbing me, pulling me.

“Feck this for a laugh,” she says.

“The doorway—” I say, but then the doorway explodes. Stone dust fills the air. Kayla bats chunks away with her blade. Clyde is running forward, one arm outstretched, spitting batteries. More rock shatters itself on the invisible battering ram he holds out in front of us. I stagger along in their wake. And not for a moment does Clyde let go of Tabitha’s arm. And if he was looking to impress a girl, that is some pretty bloody impressive white knight behavior right there.

The masked monks’ room passes in a flash, then we’re all through the next archway. Into the next corridor. Running hard. Pushing past roots. Everything still. All quiet.

Then the light disappears. Behind us, the archway closes up. Shuts tight as a sphincter. We flick our headlamps on. We don’t need to know what’s happening. We hear the rumbling, the rock roar. The tight knot of rock is coming closer, the corridor clamping down to nothing, closing up, coming to crush us.

Kayla bodily shoves Clyde out of the way. Her blade is already a blur. Roots fly everywhere, and she carves a path forward. My head is still spinning. Tabitha loses grip on her laptop. Clyde pulls her on even as she grabs for it, even as the collapsing rock crushes it to a few plastic splinters. All the data, all the intel, all gone.

Then I’m gone too. Running. One foot in front of the other. Desperately trying to keep up with Kayla. Roots she missed explode behind me as the corridor shrinks and shrinks.

Then our headlamps light up a wall. A dead end. There is no welcoming archway, no light at the end of the tunnel. The other end of the corridor has closed up too. We’re trapped in a shrinking pocket of stone. As if two hands are squeezing the ends of the corridor. Coming to squeeze us. Trapped. Dead.

Clyde lets go of Tabitha’s hand. He pushes out with both his arms, braces his legs. He bellows something. Sprays batteries as he does it. The smell of ozone is crisp in the air. Static crackles in my hair. The air shudders, becomes dense. Like the book on the plinth. Everything is still. Then everything quakes. It’s like looking through a heat haze.

Clyde’s nose is bleeding. His ears are bleeding.

Then a detonation. An explosion. The rocks before us explode back, crash away. And there, right there—I can see our way out.

Now that is bloody impressive white knight behavior, right there.

But then rocks are falling. Earth is falling. Everything is falling. The whole place starting to give away, to cave in around us.

Our charge out is blind and panicked. I trip but don’t stop. I scrabble on all fours, on just my legs, just my hands. Anything that will propel me. We’re in the final chamber, then in the final tunnel out to fresh air, grubbing forward, onward, out, and up. Not thinking of anything but escape.

Then open air. Then sunlight. Then I breathe. A great gasp of air. I can feel everything shaking. My face, my arms, my hands. Exertion and adrenaline. I can feel a hundred cuts on me. My face, my arms, my hands. I can barely see in the sudden light. I can barely stand.

Around me, shadows flicker. Only slowly do they take shape. Surroundings and... People? Things that are moving for sure. They must be people. But which people? Who else is halfway up this mountain?

I try to make the newcomers out. I blink and my vision tears. I wipe with dusty, bleeding hands. I try to make sense of things. Then Clyde yells.

Things come into focus with an immediacy that startles me. I take a step back. Then what I see registers, and I take another two.

Olsted is there. The runner is there. And not just them. More Progeny. Our driver. Our pilot. And, Jesus, were they Progeny all along? On the flight over here? But why didn’t they just kill us then? Ditch the plane?

But there’s a dead body on the ground too. Someone I don’t recognize. And I realize that, no, the pilot and driver weren’t Progeny. They’ve been infected. Here. A Progeny came with Olsted and shot himself in the head. Simply sacrificed itself to propagate the species. Like an insect or something.

And, of course, there are their shock troopers as well. Their mutated monsters. Things like the student. Except these weren’t people once. They were animals. A couple look like cows, horns drooping around Minotaur faces. One was maybe a monkey, thick fur covering its limbs, a lashing tail, oddly human eyes. A spotted cat creature. Muscles move, almost ripping their flesh. They are awkward, hulking, trapped in their new frames, baying and howling. They are in pain. I can see it.

The runner is holding Tabitha. His fingers like steel wire on her throat, holding her up one-handed. And I wait for the crack of bone, for the spine to go. I can’t quite look at Tabitha’s face.

Something flashes in the runner’s hand. Something white and gray. His hand lances toward Tabitha’s side. A knife. He has a knife.

Tabitha arches. Clyde bellows. The runner’s hand flicks back and forth, twice, three times, stabbing Tabitha in the side. Then red blooms against the blacks and grays of Tabitha’s outfit. A brief splash of color in this bleached world. And then he lets Tabitha fall.

The runner stands over Tabitha’s crumpled body. There is no expression on his face. No leer of victory. No sorrow. Utterly impassive.

“Give us the—” Olsted starts.

Clyde lets out a roar next to me. He’s a mess. Dirt and blood-smeared, half doubled-over, hand blocking the sun. But he sees, and he bellows. Something in the guttural nonsense language he uses to sling his spells. His hand comes out, and Olsted never finishes the sentence. He flies through the air. Slams into the monkey thing.

Clyde yells again. Another invisible shove sends the runner tumbling head over heel. Then the monsters close in about Clyde. About me. About all of us.

Kayla goes to work. Her sword flies. Blood splatters. I’m backed against the wall. Something with fists the size of my head, with fingernails the size of my palms, with great big bloody horns the length of my forearms protruding from its kneecaps, closes on me. And then it’s going down with a guttural scream, with something silver jutting from its throat. I’m soaked in blood. To the skin. It drenches my clothes and hair in one long hot arterial spray. I am screaming something incoherent even to myself as the thing lands next to me, the earth shuddering at the impact. Blood drips from my fingers. I stagger away.

Then something is around my neck, squeezing. An arm. I cough and more blood sprays from my lips. The arm squeezes tighter. I remember basic self-defense. Back from being on the force. Back from when my days were sane. I stamp my foot down, swing my head back. The toes crunch. The nose breaks. The arm releases. I push away, spin round. Our driver is there. No. Not our driver. Something wearing the skin of our driver. Our driver is dead. This thing will be too, very bloody soon.

I’ve never really been in a fistfight. Except Clyde back at Olsted’s perhaps. Not that I’m sure I’d count that. Still, the punch lands square. Slams into the jawbone, snapping the head sideways. My fist throbs, so I punt the bastard between the legs. Not very sporting of me, but neither is infecting the brains of someone else, if you ask me. And anyway, I promised Alison, promised myself, I’m fighting to win this one.

The thing goes down. Good to see that still hurts as much if you’re an alien. I put the boot in. Once. Twice. Thr—

It catches my foot. Twists. I go down. Not as graceful as Kayla by far. Then it’s on me. Tooth and nail. Fingers burying themselves in the soft skin of my cheek. Clawing at me. One in my mouth and I bite down hard. Blood in my mouth. More blood. The Progeny is trying to grapple me, but the blood of the monster makes me slippery and I wriggle from its grasp. One hand grabs my foot. I stamp down into its face. Again. Again. It releases me. I struggle to stand.

Then it tackles me low, and I’m down again. My head smacks dirt, and the world loses focus. I turn, groggy. Something hits my chest and the wind bursts out of me. I lie wheezing, coughing, trying to make sense of things, like why there is grass pressed on my cheek instead of beneath my feet.

I work out which way is up and look there. The driver is standing above me. He’s holding a very large rock over his head. I have enough sense to know where he’s aiming. I try to roll but can’t get my limbs to work. The Progeny kneels, one leg on either side of me, the massive rock still suspended above his head.

Kayla comes from nowhere. Some sort of kick and the Progeny is flying—literally flying—through the air. Six, seven yards. He’d go further if it weren’t for the vertical slab of rock.

The Progeny’s head caves. Caught between the rock he held and the rock he hits. Cracks like a coconut in a vice.

Eggs fly out. Tiny beads of infection, of infestation. They cover the area. I scramble backwards as they shower down to earth. Kayla is away.

“Look out!” someone is yelling. “Look out!” I look in the direction of the voice. Clyde has Tabitha in his arms, is shoving her away from the cloud. He leaps after her.

Then a massive fist obscures my view. I duck under the swing, roll beneath colossal hoofed legs. Kayla is on the thing’s back, hacking at its spinal column. I can see bare vertebrae as the thing falls. I look for Olsted, for the runner. I don’t see them. I pray Kayla has ended them. The pilot is still there. He and Clyde are going at it tooth and nail.

Then Clyde says something and the man flies away. Slams to the earth. Clyde is chasing after him, bellowing words in a language time was meant to forget. The pilot’s body is tossed like a rag doll. Back toward Kayla. She swings her sword. The man’s head comes undone.

More eggs. In the sky like a cloud. Clyde running toward them. He collapses. Lets his feet buckle under him. Rolls under the cloud. Kicks out his legs and jumps away

“Shit!” he’s cursing. “Shit!”

I look around. Dead bodies everywhere. Chunks of flesh and shards of bone. No sign of Olsted or the runner. Cowardice proving the better part of valor and all that.

“Clyde!” I call. He is still cursing. He looks at me, hollow-eyed. “Are you all right? Did they get you?” Not the swords. The eggs. I don’t think they got him. He was free and clear. “Are you all right?” I say again, insistent.

He looks at me as if I’m insane. “Tabby,” he says. “They stabbed Tabby.”

And if Tabby’s still his main concern, I’m pretty sure he’s fine.

We move toward where Tabitha has fallen. Kayla is already there, which surprises me. She’s as drenched in blood as I am.

“Shouldn’t touch her,” she says to me. “Clean up.” And she’s right. The last thing Tabby needs is some hideous bloody disease I’m a vector for.

She doesn’t talk to Clyde. He’s not as bad as us. Only spattered, not soaked. And he wouldn’t listen to us anyway. He’s pulling off his shirt, balling it up, pressing it to the wound. He cradles Tabitha’s head in his lap.

She’s just about conscious, muttering something. She and Clyde talk back and forth with words I can’t catch.

“I’ll clean up,” I say. “Get the first-aid kit.” No one listens to me.

Clyde is still raging. He paces back and forth, around and around Tabitha. She’s stabilized almost more than he has.

I pick up the satellite phone, dial Shaw. Explain as best as I can. Another disaster. I wait for the reprimands to start.

“A mole,” she says, instead. Her voice is flat, carefully controlled. “They knew where you were. We’ve got a mole.”