The Terminals (19 page)

“You sure?” he asked, looking down. Stubble ran over his slender jawbone and crowded his lips.

For a second I hesitated, and smiled to myself. How was it a difficult decision when I'd be dead in an hour? Going terminal was one hell of a form of birth control.

“My last meal,” I replied.

He didn't ask twice.

My fingers laced in his chest hair, and as he drew my tank top upward, I arched my back and let it slide past my breasts.

I never shut my eyes during sex, but the men I've been with have. Until Attila. Attila watched every part. I felt like a voyeur, but if he was self-conscious, he didn't show it. He watched the gradual warming of my flesh, the goose bumps smoothing, the pores opening, and glistening with globules that linked to trickle over my ribs. He watched as my lips swelled from where he tugged at them. His eyes seemed like velvet as I watched him watch, neither of us smiling or talking.

Attila was practiced, but did not linger, so that just as I had him in the right spot, he'd break away, slowing to dip his tongue into the crook of my neck. Beneath him, I was a private with an itch for the field, and just as we'd fall in again, he'd slide out, AWOL at my nipples, or sucking blood into my lips.

Taking Attila's wrist I swung him around so that he was face down, and I sitting on the small of his back. From here, I was in control. I waited a moment. And finally, when he began to struggle, I rolled him over and settled into a tortuously slow cadence, gradually faster, his thumbs hooked around my hips, his eyes beginning to smolder, the welts from my nails on his stomach muscles rising. Finally, me burying my face into the pillow to keep from crying aloud.

I surrendered beside him on the narrow bunk, soaked and slippery as a semen-coated sacrificial Borborite whore. I ignored the intrusive thought.

“Shots fired,” I said with a wry grin.

Attila just panted and studied my face.

Nothing stayed talk of suicide faster than sex. Nothing stayed talk in a man faster than sex.

He started to trace the edge of my burn with his index finger, and I flinched from this new intimacy.

“Now I've got work to do,” I said.

Dopey-eyed, he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. With his toes, he hooked the underwear still stuck in his pants.

“Seriously.” I drew a fresh t-shirt over me. “The general's suspicious enough already.”

Attila stumbled in one pant leg, and I snorted.

“You're like a car crash,” he said to his sandals.

“Out,” I told him. I had another minute before his post-coital euphoria wore off.

His buttons were askew as he worked the shirt on, and suddenly, with one foot in a Birkenstock, he stopped.

I tried to keep focused on the computer screen.

“Chris,” he said.

“It was good, Attila.” I smiled at the screen. “Really nice car crash.”

“No.” He waved an arm. “Your nose. It's bleeding.”

Blood tracked down the front of my shirt and spattered the bed.

Chapter 30

Ming had roused when the
woman defecated, and again when she banged something at the roof of the ladder, clearly angered. But much of the time Ming drifted in a world of uncaring. Susan, Jake, Jackie and Luke. All dead. But now Ming woke again to their captor's snores. The snoring sent a shot of adrenaline through Ming, and despite hanging for days, and the lack of food and water, she retained a moment's lucidity. The woman slept.

Ming's arms had long ago numbed. In complete darkness, braced against the ladder cage, she worked her wrists at the metal handcuffs. Twisting them until they seemed to lubricate, one passed over her thumb knuckle and slipped out. In a minute, her second hand was free and both fell to her sides. As she leaned against the ladder cage, her legs shuddered. Blood flowed into her wrists and fingers and the pain built. She couldn't see her hands, but with the pain came the knowledge of the sores that banded them. Her clawed fingers resisted flexing. The ladder seemed like an insurmountable mountain. She barely had enough strength in her legs to keep upright, let alone climb out of the hellhole and find help. But she must.

With the decision made, Ming ducked beneath the ladder cage and rested her wrist over the first rung for support. As she lifted one leg, her other gave and she slipped, stumbling back against the cage; the resulting gong sent her heart into her mouth. She held her breath.

The woman's snores stuttered and then caught again, soon regaining a steady rhythm. This time Ming used her elbows to hold herself tight to the ladder and managed to gain another rung. Slowly, at a tortuous pace, Ming climbed. At various points she almost blacked out, as if she had risen to a great altitude. But each time, she hugged the ladder close, and woke miraculously still clinging to the rungs.

She heard a knock against the ladder. Had the woman roused? The knock came again and the ladder shook. Ming's heart raced, adrenaline clearing her mind. Then came a strong snore—their captor still slept! So what of the knocking?

Anya—Ming realized—Anya was having another seizure. The jerking stopped as suddenly as it had begun and Ming readied to mount another rung when an odd glottal throb, as if someone swallowed hard, erupted from below. Ming listened and it came again, in a rhythm. It took a moment for her to decipher it. Anya was vomiting into her gag. She would asphyxiate. With no one to remove her gag, she was going to die.

Ming looked up. A thin line of light edged a hatch above, the light doubled and blurred, the dryness of her eyes taking its toll. Below was darkness.

The glottal throb came again, but weaker. Freedom above. Death below. Above she might save everyone, below only Anya, and then only a temporary reprieve. What should she do? What would her father do?

Ming lowered herself a foot to the next rung. That she was forced to descend hardened her soul, but she knew it was right. Climbing down was easier than up. Soon she steadied herself with her feet back on the sticky metal floor. Anya's sounds seemed almost distant, but Ming pawed over the hair of her friends, some shifted, others didn't react. When she felt Alistair's curls, she paused, traced his neck and its faint pulse beneath her fingertips before moving on.

Anya's gag wrapped tight to her scalp and Ming had to work her fingers beneath it at Anya's nape and then around to her mouth. Finally, vomit leaked around the edges, hot and viscous over Ming's fingers. Not much. She slid the gag down to Anya's chin and bile hit the floor. Suddenly, Anya gurgled and gave a choke before taking several hiccoughing breaths. She muttered something and her breathing eased. Ming's heart did not. The echoes of Anya's gasps still echoed in the chamber.

Ming's mouth was too dry to swallow. Her eyes stinging. The reek of Anya's barf filled her nostrils. Ming glanced up once again toward where she had seen the thin light, but it was gone. Her legs trembled at the thought of another attempt. She couldn't do it. But maybe, maybe she could slit the woman's throat.

“I'll protect you,” she whispered to where she thought Alistair hung and ducked back under the metal ring. Blind, she needed to find the knife the woman wielded and then her neck.

Ming let her senses expand, picking out the whistling breaths of her friends and trying to separate out those of the killer. A soft snore came from the edge of the chamber. Ming took a tentative step toward the sound. Every movement seemed impossibly noisy. Whenever the killer's breathing hitched, Ming halted and waited for it to regain its rhythm.

Would she be able to slit a throat, she wondered. They'd done anatomy. The throat was protected by cartilage. It wouldn't just split under a dull blade. The big artery where she'd checked Alistair's pulse, Ming decided. That's what she'd cut. And she took another step, before lowering herself to her knees so she wouldn't faint. Her fingers crumpled a wrapper. The snorer stirred. Rolled.

Something knocked into Ming's forearm. Weak, Ming collapsed to the floor, face pressed against cold steel. Stars played in her vision.

Rubber soles chaffed at the back of her scalp. The woman had flipped over and went on sleeping. Ming slid her hands forward and swung one in a broad arc in search of the knife. Her sleeve swept over the floor and her fingers touched the rough canvas of the bag where the woman kept her supplies. Ming dipped a hand inside, feeling for a weapon or the bottle of chloroform. She pricked her finger on a needle and bit her lip. The anesthetic was missing. She splayed her fingers on the floor and pushed herself up. Once back kneeling, she felt with her hand at the woman's back pockets. A long lump. The knife.

Hope surged in Ming and with it strength, the strength to plunge the blade into the woman.

Ming slid a finger into the pocket. The woman's breathing changed. It was as if everything had gone silent. Ming withdrew her finger, breath held. Suddenly, the woman's legs swept back and she spun where she lay.

Ming fell back on her hands and shuttled backward like a crab. The wind of the woman's swipes in the air reached Ming.

“Where are you?” the woman screeched. And in the noise of the scream, Ming reached the metal ring. There came sounds of fumbling. Ming grabbed the rung as the light flared. It waved back and forth in search of the culprit. It was erratic with fury.

Ming worked her hands back into the handcuffs. Hanging again. As the woman neared, Ming let her weight fall against the cuffs, her head drooped and she tried to steady her breathing. She didn't need to fake the hopeless hang of a prisoner with no will left to escape.

The light lingered over Nate. She heard the click of handcuffs tightening. Ming flexed the muscles in her forearms and hands. The light swung to her. Its glow pained Ming's eyes. They felt dry and fissured like clay left out too long. Everything was double as if one of her eyes was stuck and didn't move in tandem with the other. The woman grunted and pressed the arms of the cuffs tighter before moving on.

The light dimmed to sickly yellow. She walked in a slow ring before coming to stop back at Cordell. Ming dared a glance. Cordell's moon face was blotchy and lines of caked blood trailed from his eyes over his cheeks.

The flashlight had a fuzzy blur about it, distorting the woman's expression. No longer pleasant looking, it had grown twisted and haggard. She went back to her nest of lantern and satchel and rooted in the bag. When she returned, she held a roll of tape.

The sound of duct tape being unwound drew Ming's attention. She swung her chin up to watch as the tape was applied to Cordell's forehead and wrapped about his head to tether it to the ladder. It kept his face upright, the eyes threaded open and staring at the woman. From the angle, Ming could see into the depths of Cordell's left eye.

The woman breathed in quick excited pants.

“Waited long enough,” she said. “Natural death, organic, no additives.” And with the word
additives
she closed and tucked into her back pocket the knife she'd used to cut the duct tape.

The reek of vomit and blood and urine and shit, now growing stale, had diminished as Ming became used to it. But she felt it sticky at her feet and heard it as the woman marched around their prison. Ming listened to her heartbeat throb in her ears and kept the pumping blood company as it counted off the remainder of her life. Her lost opportunity to save everyone settled in her guts. But she'd saved Anya, she told herself, that was something.

When the woman's eye was an inch from Cordell's she switched the light back off. Past caring, Ming drifted in the darkness, thinking of the light above, and waking to the woman's excited voice.

“So near, so near … die …”

And there was light, but it wasn't harsh or glaring.

The woman's face was lit with it, and she seemed younger, her eyes glistening beneath lush lashes. The lines of her crow's feet smoothed, the careworn frown gone.

Ming twisted her head and realized the light was from Cordell. His eyes were iridescent, and the intensity growing.

“My, my. What have we here?” the woman asked, but Cordell was silent, only his eyes communicating.

The spark of them reflected in her pupils and for a moment before the light faded, the woman seemed warmer, not a killer at all, but a pleasant stay-at-home mom with a chef's apron, spattered with cake batter rather than drying blood.

The light flared and was gone, the glow of it lingering green in Ming's vision.

The flashlight overwhelmed the darkness.

“But what does it mean?” The woman turned to Ming, her crimson-stained teeth barred. “What does it mean?”

The knife was out and menacing Ming's face. The woman swung it broadly and suddenly, with a frustrated cry. It caught Cordell in the throat.

Ming knew what the light meant, but said nothing. There was no escape for the killer or for Ming. It had been too long. The light meant they were all going to die.

Chapter 31

Charlie panted, eyeing Hillar with
grudging respect and a modicum of fear. Clad in muscles and bony spikes at his shoulders, elbows, and knees, Hillar had swelled through the deeps while Charlie had wasted. As they fought, Hillar tested the circular walls of their cell with Charlie's skull. They'd fought for what seemed hours in this cage, a column of indeterminate height and some eight feet across, and no matter what injury Charlie sustained, it was transient. Within a moment, the wound closed, the bone mended, and the battle restarted. The only thing that changed was the sweet stench and the growing number of bone-bats.

One hung from Charlie's triceps. It swung at its perch as he throttled Hillar. Its wings weren't black, but translucent and flimsy; it was a baby.

Hillar mashed Charlie against the wall. He fell forward into the larvae. Several mature bats plunged their beaks into his spine and skull to sap him of strength and will. Even Hillar struggled to swat at them, his tattoo hangers-on unable to keep the dozens of tiny youths away in the confines of their cylindrical prison. Charlie felt his ribs pop back into position.

“We have to work together,” Hillar said, drawing deep breaths.

“My mother taught me never to trust a psychopath.”

“Met your mama earlier,” Hillar laughed, “and I'm not sure you wanna take her advice. Besides, we really all that different?”

Charlie roared and tackled Hillar, only to be pile-driven head first into the maggots.

Hillar pointed at the larvae. “It's a trick.”

As Charlie watched, one of the larva's exoskeletons split and a tiny bone-bat emerged. He lunged for it and clapped it between his palms, letting the carcass fall back into the mass.

“The demon is under this all,” Hillar explained. “Can't hear us, so it don't have to let us go.”

“And the bone-bats will sap us dry if we let them hatch.” Charlie finished with a sigh.

“Need to work together.” Hillar took a larva between his fingertips, grimaced, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed and this time kept it down. “You can be my Theudas, like old times. He sure liked to watch. Just like you, heh?”

Charlie was shaking his head, resisting Hillar's baiting. But Hillar's words rang with possibility. Had Charlie merely watched that night so long ago, a night blurred by the mists of alcohol and rage? Or had he joined his true partner?

“Only way to clear this down to the bottom,” Hillar said. “Chow down. How else are we going to unbury the demon?”

Even as he shook his head, Charlie knew Hillar was right about their current predicament. A bone-bat drilled into his side and he gasped with pain.

“But I'm not going to eat another slug until you do,” Hillar added while the lion tattoo pounced on a hatchling.

Charlie plucked a small maggot from the roiling mess of them and held it to his face. Spiny hairs sprouted from its gray flesh. A needlelike beak hooked from one end.

“Fat ones taste better,” Hillar said and laughed. Shutting his eyes, Charlie placed the larva in his mouth, bit down on it to kill it and then swallowed. The taste that oozed over his tongue was like nothing he could identify, except that it combined all his worst imaginings. Oil. Excrement. Pus. Vomit. Nothing that could be swallowed without triggering regurgitation. And he threw it up.

“You need to do better than that.”

Two more larvae broke from their shells. Charlie reached down and brought a handful to his face.

“Now we're talking.” Hillar did the same.

Charlie tried not to think about it and stuffed them into his mouth, crunching once and then swallowing. The maggots surged around them, as if sensing they were about to be eaten, every single one of them. It wasn't until Charlie's third mouthful that he kept the bulk of it in his stomach. He knelt into the mass so that they squirmed about his chin, and drawing a deep breath, he plunged his face into them and chewed. Concerned that a psychopath wouldn't hold up his end of the bargain, he glanced toward Hillar and found him watching him, mouth bulging, blood and yellow goo smeared across his cheeks.

Charlie barked a laugh, spat out a crusty beak, and brought hands full of cupped maggots to his lips. Hillar accepted the challenge, sweeping his forearms together and letting their writhing contents slide into him as he chomped. They grinned at each other in a weird camaraderie.

Their stomachs swelled, and still they ate. The mature bone-bats lay eggs, and Charlie and Hillar fought to keep the pile slowly lowering, first to their waists, then thighs and now to their knees. His gun was free, but Charlie didn't bother with it, only ever watchful for the crystal. But it remained hidden. Finally, they swept the last of the maggots into their hands, keeping to the rhythm lest they stop.

Finally their hands were empty.

Hillar's body seemed to squirm as if filled with still writhing slugs.

A single larva remained.

“All yours,” Hillar said.

“Feels like a Monty Python sketch,” Charlie replied. “Just one more larva, sir.”

Except this larva had hardened and begun to hatch.

What emerged from the shell wasn't a tiny bone-bat, but the talons of a monstrous Archon. When Hillar first saw the blood red hook of its claw, he screamed with glee: “Horaios!”

And the mouth of the Daemon hatched from its shell, teeth gnashing, growing impossibly large as the thorax followed and then a wing. Hillar called its name again, and the mouth gaped further.

But Charlie remained silent, for about the neck of the thorax hung the crystal.

“Be damned,” Charlie said.

Hillar shot between the great mandibles of the creature and plunged into its stomach. A clawed leg hooked into Charlie's guts and tore a wedge, pulling maggots from his entrails. After the fire, the hooks, the wolves, Charlie was able to master the crippling pain, and he reached for the crystal. The larvae spilling from him immediately began to hatch. He dove beneath the arc of another claw, slamming into the cell's wall. The leg tore another gash in his stomach and more larvae spurted out.

The pain bent him forward. Bone-bats flapped free. Small piles of black eggs, like buckshot, hatched into larvae and the room began to fill. Already Charlie's ankles were hidden, and the thought of having to eat another maggot drained the last of his energy. As another talon impaled him, he reached to the dangling crystal, but it was too far, swinging several feet from his outstretched fingers. The larvae swirled at his knees. He had one last desperate chance.

“Horaios,” Charlie called.

It fell upon him, and he lunged for the crystal, caught the cool glass, and was swallowed whole into utter darkness.