Dirge Danorum

Chapter 27

I dropped through the hatch, and got the surprise of my life when I landed in about three feet of stinking water. This was the crawlspace beneath the laboratory. There was only about five feet to stand up in, so I had hunch over a bit.

"Is it wet down there?" Exile asked, crouching at the edge and pointing his light down.

"What do you think?"

"Should I just stay up here then?"

"No."

He scowled and lowered himself into the water. "Oh, it's cold."

"What'd you expect?"

"I don't know."

"Don't shoot us by mistake," I said to Grigor, who gave me a tired look.

"Let's get on with it."

"I know," I snapped, shining my light around. It was not an open space. There were corridors of a sort going in all directions. They were thick with wires and pipes. It was absolutely dark. Where had this water come from? We needed to get this done; I didn't want to be down here any longer than I had to be. I raised my light, and Exile did likewise.

"So what are you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked without turning around. I didn't like the looks of these confined spaces.

"What are you? I'm a spy. The Biker's spetsnaz. Grigor's a professor. What are you?"

"I told you, I dropped out."

"That's not what I mean."

"I don't care what you mean."

The truth was that I didn't know; maybe I'd come here to find out. This just wasn't what I'd pictured.

"I'll just go this way then," he said.

"You do that." I picked a path and started down, humming the tune to Melancholy Hill as I sloshed through submerged debris. It was like struggling through that gross garbage compactor from Star Wars, except dark, and without enough room to stand. My light revealed a lot of strange things, but nothing threatening, and there were no signs of organic life. Just a lot of rust and metal.

I turned a corner, and the light from Grigor's lab was gone. Moving made too much noise; I could distantly hear Exile splashing around somewhere. If there was something down here that wanted a piece of us, it would be on top of us before we could hear it coming. Maybe it would have been better to bring a few more men.

I used the pipes on the walls to help pull myself along; I couldn't count on my footing, and I really didn't want to be immersed in this water.

Everything was intact. There were other hatches in the ceiling, but they had been permanently welded or otherwise sealed long ago. Only the one in the laboratory was still usable – that had been one of the first things we'd confirmed. If there was another exit down here, I wasn't finding it – but the crawlspaces were larger and more labyrinthine than expected.

I had the most beautiful woman on the planet, no exaggeration, waiting for me, and I was down here crawling around in this stinking water. What was I doing with my life?

I ran into Exile presently; we were going in circles down here. You could almost get lost.

"Better have a look at this," he said, waving for me to follow. I splashed after him. My flashlight flickered off. I whacked it on my palm a few times, because that's what you see people do – and to my amazement, it worked. The light sprang back on, and I caught up with Exile.

Grating in the floor allowed some of the water to drain off, and a raised platform housed another trap door, this one more sophisticated. Above was a hatch like the one in the laboratory, long ago welded shut.

"What do you suppose is down there?" Exile asked.

"I don't know. And we don't want to. The area's secure."

"Agreed."

"And this hasn't been opened in decades. We don't have to worry about anybody coming up this way. Our drinker got in some other way. Let's get out of here."

We did. Grigor slammed the door down behind us, and chained it up.

"We're going to weld that," I said. "And put down more steel on top. If there is a way through down there, we don't want the enemy getting creative about getting past our defenses."

"I'll see to it personally," Grigor assured me.

"Our drinker got in another way. Get the Merc up and put him to work," I told Exile. "Until he finds this thing and takes care of it, we'll all have to be extra careful. Something's up here – so make sure everyone knows not to go off alone if they can help it."

"Roger that."

Time for me to get back to Velvet. Exile headed out, and I made for Velvet's room. The Biker was in the corridor. He stood aside so I could pass, and I slipped by him, only to stop a few paces down. Since when did the Biker get out of anyone's way? And this was the Zone, and our shower was running, but the Biker certainly didn't smell this bad. I turned back.

"Hey," I said. The Biker didn't stop. "Stop." This time I said it with feeling. He did stop.

The door to his left – the door to the sisters' room opened, and Tyrian poked her head out, looking curious.

"What's up?" she asked, stepping into the hall.

"Nothing," I said, very tense. "Go back inside." The Biker was staring at her, and she noticed him.

"Why? Hey," she said. "Why do they call you the Biker when you haven't got a bike?"

"It's not him," I said.

"What?"

The thing turned and looked back at me. I could see now the eyes weren't right. Too dark, too flat. Not at all like the Biker's. Not at all like any human's. It was as tense as I was.

"What are you talking about?" Tyrian said, cocking her head. The thing turned back to her, and she saw the eyes. She took a step back, bumping into the wall. Fear was suddenly thick in the corridor, and that was the worst case scenario. It couldn't hold back; it lunged at her. I hit it with my shoulder, and the illusion was gone. We went down in a tangle of gray skin, claws, and waving tentacles.

Tyrian did the sensible thing and screamed – but I didn't have time to pay attention to anything else. Immediately there were running footsteps, but the two hundred pounds of teeth and muscle on top of me was all I was interested in. I might actually be the first stalker to punch a blood drinker in the face, and it wasn't a good idea. The tentacles around the creature's mouth were whipping around like crazy, and I couldn't get a solid hit.

It was trying desperately to get those tentacles close enough to latch on to my throat, and it took all of my strength to hold it back. There was no sense trying to communicate with this one – I wasn't sensing anything from it, there was no connection, and I had a hunch why, but I couldn't think about it now. I managed to get my elbow between us and roll over, but the thing kicked me off. My back hit the wall, but I was on my feet again. The beast leapt up and lunged at me. I caught it by the arm and used its moment against it, slamming it into the wall. I drove my palm into the elbow – or what I thought was the elbow, but it didn't break. I don't know if the joint was formed differently, or the bones were too hard, or what. It backhanded me so hard that I saw stars, and rammed me into the opposite wall with so much force I didn't know what to do.

Someone leapt onto its back, but it threw them off like they were paper mache. Even so, the distraction was enough for me to push it back and draw the knife Grigor had given me. No one could risk a shot; they might hit me, and there was too much danger of lethal ricochet. We had to do this the old fashioned away. I opened up a cut on the drinker's arm, but it barely noticed. Its next grab was overcommitted, and I managed to get behind it, hooking my arm around it like it actually had a neck. That was a bad idea, because the tentacles immediately sank in, and I could feel the powerful paralyzing agent starting to take effect. A normal man's arm would have been numb in seconds, but I still had a little strength left.

I plunged the German knife into the chest where the heart should have been, then on the other side, then pulled it across my best guess at a throat. One of my strikes must have done the job, because black and stinking blood flew as though from a geyser, and the thing toppled backward on top of me, slamming me against the wall, then sliding to the floor and pinning me beneath it.

But the fight was over. Blood continued to spew the wounds I'd inflicted, soaking me, the wall, and the floor. I was gasping for breath, but breath wasn't easy to get with the carcass on top of me.

The corridor was full of people, and I saw that Velvet, fully dressed, was one of them. Then that was settled; I wiped some of the black blood from my eyes; I wasn't getting laid tonight.