Wolfen (56 page)

“Home,” Sinna voiced on the next round, and Granny paused,
tilting her head. She signed the second word. “Friend,” Sinna repeated. And
finally, “Family.”
Jesus Christ!
She was talking to a convert!

No, this was wrong. All wrong.

Granny’s smile widened a little.
Clever,
she signed.

“You can talk.”

All things talk.

Sinna shook her head. “No. Not all. Not you.”

All things.
Granny moved back to the bed and sighed
tiredly.
No fear. No die. You. Me. Same.

Sinna’s knees went weak. “W-what?”

You. Me. Same.

“We are
not
the same.”

Born cave. Hurt cave. Learn cave. Same.

On the ledge, the male mirrored her.
Same.
His sign
language skills were even worse than Granny’s, but his intent was there. He
understood, and he could reply. Only he wasn’t old enough to have learned it
from humans.

Sinna shook her head. “No.”

Granny groaned.
You strong. You, me, same. Talk. No die.
She
pointed up.
Son.

At that, the male pushed to his feet, making himself as tall
as he could.
Son. Strong.

You. Him. Son. No die.

Be alive, be alive. Come on, little bit, don’t give up on
me now. You don’t have to be strong, just strong enough. Just a little longer.

~

The horde thinned, and the going got easier. Aiden gunned the
engine, but the damned thing was so low on batteries, it barely crawled over
sixty.

Bryce bristled in his seat, silent, tense, watching for
threats from the corner of his eye, but Aiden knew his focus was straight
ahead—trying to see beyond the bend, looking for the caves, any sign of Sinna.

“Yo, Xena, I need a status report!”

“Who the fuck is Xena?”

“Seriously, dude, where’d you pick this one up?”

Bryce unclenched his jaw for a handful of words. “Klaus’
daughter. Wolfen.”

Aiden shook his head. “Klaus, you naughty, naughty boy.”

“They call her Hellraiser.”

Helena screamed something awful, and convert blood sprayed
the back of Aiden’s head. He shuddered and wiped it off. “Really? That gentle
flower back there?”

Something clanked to the floor, then Helena crawled in,
leaning forward between them. “They’re not following.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Aiden slammed his hand against the
steering wheel. “What the fuck is it with these things? It’s like they’re
trying to mess with our heads.”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but praise the Lord and
hallelujah that Sigma Nine came through.”

Aiden made a face at Bryce. “
What?
”

“Sinna sent the car down with Big Bertha. It’s still on the
truck.”

“Bro, you wanna translate here?”

Bryce huffed. Apparently his talk time was done.

“Rocket launcher,” Helena said. “Picked it up back home.
Figured it might come in handy. I was not wrong.” She elbowed Bryce. “Your
brother’s kind of slow. What’s up with that?”

Aiden gaped. “
Excuse me?
”

“Knock it off, both of you!”

“Hey, chill, man,” Helena said, the picture of nonchalance.
“I saw them take her. She’s alive. We’ll bust her out and have ourselves a
convert barbecue.”

If possible, Bryce tensed even more. Helena was as ignorant
of the world as Sinna had been. She had no idea they’d taken Sinna alive for a
reason, and it sure as hell wasn’t for a prisoner exchange.

“We’ll get her back,” Aiden said, “no matter what.”

Bryce’s jaw muscle twitched.

At the edge of the clearing, the ground became uneven,
overgrown with dry grass and low brush. The battered mule did fine for a while,
even with a creaky suspension, but then they hit a fallen tree. Front wheels
went over, back wheels wouldn’t go. The mule stuck, and the engine quietly
idled down. End of the line.

But Aiden knew where they were and he got out to inspect
what was left of their gear. Rocket launcher—check. Like they’d ever get a
chance to use it. He didn’t say anything when Helena strapped it to her back,
just shook his head and moved on. He opened all the storage compartments not
warped beyond recognition. Most were filled with the tech supplies they’d
carted over from San Francisco. Ah, the good old days, when all they’d worried
about was more RAM for their hubs.

A couple of hand guns, but no ammo; extra magazines, but for
the wrong guns; a machete cracked down the middle—
How the hell did that
happen?
—and a few hand grenade pins, but no grenades. “Please tell me the
grenades are gone.”

Helena tossed him a look like he was stupid. “Of course
they’re gone. What, you think I was keeping them for souvenirs?”

Aiden’s eye twitched. “I will hurt you.”

She grinned. “Try.”

Bryce shoved her aside to get at the packs, and dumped
everything out on the truck—clothes, pots, waterskins, a couple of eating
knives, fire starters.

“And that’s all folks.”

Three Wolfen about to storm a convert hive with two swords
and a frying pan. Some higher power up there somewhere was having a nice big
guffaw at their expense right about now.

Bryce handed Aiden the solid sword and kept the broken machete
for himself. He knocked off the dull edge to keep the blade.

“So,” Aiden said to Helena, a wild-eyed, gore-covered female
of no more than sixteen or seventeen. “You’re Klaus’ spawn.”

“And you’re the golden boy, Alpha. Abandoned ship before it
went down, huh?” She rolled her shoulder, adjusting her armor. Where she’d
managed to score a getup like that, Aiden had no idea, but from her neck to the
fingertips of her left hand, she was covered in metal, molded collar rising up
from the shoulder pad to cover her jugular—close enough to protect, but not to
chafe. Good craftsmanship, he had to admit. Fine hammer work, and clearly
custom made to size. Like a skintight shield.

“S’right. Took your pop’s head off along the way, hope you
don’t mind.”

Helena shrugged a shoulder. “I was kind of hoping to do the
honors myself. But, oh well.” She winced and adjusted the strap on her armguard
to scratch an itch. “Out of curiosity, though, you didn’t happen to see a lame
girl running for her life while you were offing him, did you?” Her tone was
aloof, but those creepy, half-glowing eyes were trained on him, unblinking. A
predator ready to pounce.

Aiden’s skin went taut over his bones. Matching her
nonchalance, he replied, “Don’t remember. Why, you wanna have a go at her,
too?”

“Let’s move out,” Bryce said, taking point. The air was
thick with eau de convert; they just had to follow their noses. Around a small
outcropping sat the cave, maw open wide, bats shrilling high by the ceiling. No
trace left of Klaus’ fallen; not even a smear on the ground. Converts sure did
clean up quick.

“There’s a tunnel over there.” Aiden jerked his chin in that
direction. “Leads right up to Haven.” The dead guard was probably long gone,
but his gear might have survived. There could be a gun or a knife on him Aiden
had missed on his way out.

“We go that way.” Bryce pointed straight back into darkness.
The stench was strongest there.

Aiden nodded. “Right. We got a plan?”

“Go in, grab Sinna, make Big Bertha sing, get out,” Helena
answered.

“You do realize the second that rocket goes off, this whole
system might cave in, right?”

She didn’t say anything.

“
Right?
”

“Shut up,” Bryce snapped.

They moved slowly, winding in between rock formations, stopping
at every rustle of unfamiliar noise. Aiden kept a close eye on Bryce. He didn’t
like the set of his mouth, the way he strained to go faster. Bryce’s pulse
raced in his jugular, and Aiden had a bad feeling if he happened to brush Bryce
the wrong way, his brother would go off. The guy was on the wrong edge—frantic,
scared—and that kind of mindset could get them all killed in a hurry.

Where the ceiling sloped down and a tunnel appeared in the
shadows like a hellish sphincter spewing noxious fumes, Aiden called a halt.
“Stop. Just hold still for a second.”

“We don’t have time for this!” Bryce hissed.

“Shut up and listen.”

There was the non-sound again…a repeating wave of air
pressure thrumming against his skin. It was everywhere—in the rocks, on the air
he breathed, covering his bones like a compression bandage, making his teeth
itch from the inside out. It was a hundred times stronger than it’d been in his
cell, and he couldn’t pinpoint the source.

“Do you hear that?”

“I hear it,” Helena said.

“Let’s go,” Bryce pushed, undeterred.

It got worse when they stepped into the tunnel. Pounding
pressure inside his brain, driving him crazy, distracting him into falling
several paces behind Bryce and he almost lost him at an intersection.

“Bryce, goddammit, slow down!”

He didn’t. Whatever he’d picked up on, he was following
after it as if nothing else existed. Christ, for Bryce’s sake, Aiden hoped it
was Sinna.

Helena came up to him, her armor scraping the wall where the
tunnel narrowed. “How sane is he right now?”

“Says the girl wearing metal armor and a rocket launcher.”

“He could be leading us into a trap,” she insisted.

Yeah, the thought had crossed Aiden’s mind, too. “Like it or
not, he’s our best bet for finding Sinna.”

She harrumphed, and fell back to single-file. “Don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”

A few steps ahead, Bryce slowed to a stop.

Aiden signaled for silence and crept up to see what Bryce
was looking at. His jaw went slack. The tunnel was a dead end. Not a wall of
rock, but a sheer drop-off into a massive cave at least eighty yards below
them. From so far up, the cavern looked like it was moving. And it was—with so
many converts Aiden couldn’t count them all.

“Fuck me,” Helena breathed, looking over his shoulder.

“Hard and sideways,” Aiden agreed. They’d seriously
underestimated the situation, though looking at Bryce, you’d never have known
it made a difference. To him, it didn’t. He was after Sinna. That was all he
cared about.

If Bryce went off, he’d leave Aiden and Helena in the dust,
and Aiden would have to compensate, adjust their strategy. Which was kind of
tough, considering they didn’t really have one.

“What is that down there?”

Aiden followed the direction of Helena’s pointing finger. A
thin shaft of light came from a hole in the domed ceiling. No way of telling
how thick that ceiling layer was; a small tremor could cause it to crumble. But
the light filtering down made bubbling pools of black liquid glisten at the
bottom. Converts crowded around them, smeared it on themselves.

“Tar pits,” Bryce said.

“Tar’s flammable, right? And this is the perfect vantage
point. I think it’s time for the fat lady to sing. Whaddaya say, boys?”

Aiden scanned the horde for a break in the sea of gray. The
converts hadn’t scented intruders yet. Not with the thick fumes and the three
of them coated in so much convert gore, they might as well have been wearing
camouflage. “I don’t see her,” he said to Bryce. “Do you?”

In answer, Bryce turned his back on the cave and doubled
back to the last intersection.

“I guess that’s a no on the fat lady, then,” Helena
muttered.

This time, they turned into a winding tunnel so small and
narrow, Aiden had to duck his head and turn sideways just to get through. At one
point, he got stuck so bad he thought he’d die in there. With a hard shove,
Helena pried him loose and shimmied through after him simply by sucking in her
stomach. Small, the girl was definitely not, so how the hell did she do that?
“We have a belly dancer back home,” she explained. “I can bounce a quarter off
of my abs, and hypnotize a battalion with belly waves. Wanna see?” She was
already reaching for the hem of her shirt to show him.

Aiden shook his head. “You’re a few cards short of a full
deck, aren’t you?”

Helena tucked in her shirt, grinning wildly. “Maybe, but I
make up for it with awesome.” And with her free hand, she put up rock horns,
sticking her tongue out as far as it would go.

“I am so going to need therapy after this.”

“Aiden,” Bryce called.

He’d found another dead end—a rock wall this time—but the
non-noise was stronger here. Bryce had his hand on the boulder, brows drawn in
concentration. When they caught up, he beckoned Aiden closer to feel for
himself.

The rock vibrated. Whatever was producing that sound had to
be just on the other side. Aiden traced the boulder’s contours to its very edge
and felt a crevice. It was loose, striking the walls of the tunnel with each
shiver, translating the tremor through to the ground.

“Step back, weirdo.” Aiden handed Helena his sword, and he
took hold of one side of the boulder, while Bryce grabbed the other. Together,
they rocked it back and forth, until it gave a little. The tunnel was too
narrow to slide it completely out, but they had just enough leeway to topple
it. “Get ready,” he warned. “Whatever’s on the other side is probably not going
to be pretty.”

Bryce nodded the count. One…two…three. They heaved, and the
heavy boulder fell over into the tunnel. Bryce rushed out first, but stopped
just over the boulder, making Aiden slam into him.

“Fuck, what now?”

A low ringing started in his ears; not a sound, but his
brain’s reaction to the overwhelming tide of non-noise. His eardrums felt like
they’d rupture, and he couldn’t open his eyes more than half-mast. The pounding
pressure intensified, doubled him over until his stomach turned, but he
swallowed back the nausea, forced himself to stand up straight and look ahead.

Torches flickered on the floor around the cave’s perimeter,
illuminating twelve pods shaped like bathtubs that circled the chamber at
not-quite-even intervals. They were rough, convert-made out of some material
Aiden couldn’t identify. It looked almost like beeswax, but translucent, each
one filled with some kind of liquid. Inside each bath sat a female convert,
facing the wall, eyes closed. They rocked back and forth, throats working to
make a perfectly synchronized sound, and they rotated in shifts, so eight were
always doing whatever they were doing, while four rested.

Four little convert girls tended to them, seemingly
oblivious to the noise. Deaf would have been Aiden’s guess, which would explain
why they hadn’t heard the rock give way. With their backs to the tunnel, they
were unaware anything had happened yet.

Aiden spotted movement across the cavern and swore, tugging
Bryce back into the tunnel. A male convert shuffled forward, head bowed as if
he didn’t want to look at the pods. He approached the very edge of the chamber,
toes lining up with the end of the tunnel, but no farther. Then he opened his
arms and dropped an armload of meat to the ground before he turned right around
and shuffled away.

The little girls scurried to take up the small pieces, dried
of blood, by the handful. Each ate exactly one piece and took the rest to the
pod people. They fed the females by hand without looking at them, heads down,
just like the male.