Absolute Zero (The Shadow Wars Book 4) (16 page)

Nothing but rows and rows of razor teeth.

“Jesus,” Drake whispered.

“Another new asshole on the playground,” Gideon murmured. “This is great.”

“Come on, we need to keep moving,” Trent said.

* * * * *

They came to the power center without seeing much else. Trent dispatched a handful of Spitters along the way, and he had the feeling that the local nasties had their attention focused on the men in dark armor up top. Which was fine by him. When they got to the main power relay center, they found it empty. Trevor hurried up to the primary workstation once the mercs had cleared it and settled in, doing his thing.

Trent walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. He felt lethargy tugging at him. They'd been at it for only a couple of hours, but he was emotionally and physically tired by now. Hours of this nightmarish freak show. He wanted to sit down for a minute, get a drink, take a nap. But whatever, he could keep going.

He made himself straighten up.

“Really looking forward to hitting Mezzanine after this,” Gideon said.

They looked over at him.

“Oh yeah?” Trent asked.

“Yep. There's this resort, a five-star place, right on the beach, man. This perfect, golden beach that's beset on all sides by the clearest blue water. I've been there several times before. It's so fucking peaceful. You can drink in peace and silence, read a book, and there always seems to be someone who's up for a good game of chess. I tell you, there's nothing quite like that old cliché: lying on a beach beneath a golden sun, sipping some booze. Nothing too heavy, you know? Something light, get a soft, pleasant buzz going on...”

“You know, you aren't a typical mercenary,” Drake said after a moment's silence.

“Goddamn right, I'm not. I'm eighty six and I plan to hit one hundred in style. I might consider retiring once one thirty rolls around. I did that whole party scene for like thirty years, man. Sleep with all the whores, get fucking blitzed out of your mind on a sixteen-day binge. Do all the drugs, hit all the clubs, get into all the fights...shit man, it gets old. You might not think that now, but it does. I love peace and quiet.”

“Fuck, I hope I don't live to see middle age,” Trent muttered.

Gideon stared at him for a long moment, then let out a long laugh. “You say that now, but you'll see it my way once you're on my side of the looking glass.”

“Maybe,” Trent admitted after a moment. “Maybe.”

They glanced over as Trevor began laughing. “Oh, man. I think I really fucked those guys over.”

“Oh yeah?” Tristan asked as they gathered around.

“Yep. Just opened every door in the structure above us. If there's anything unfriendly up there, it now has access to every room in the building. Are we all ready for darkness?”

He glanced around. Everyone responded by flipping on the flashlights mounted on their suits and their weapons. He nodded.

“Good...here we go.”

Trevor hit a button. They were all immediately plunged into darkness.

* * * * *

“This is it,” Trevor said.

They stood at a fork in the tunnels. One veering off to the left, the other to the right. Neither passageway looked particularly safe. One was bathed in blood, the other was lit by a crimson strobing effect from broken emergency lighting.

“Fantastic,” Trent murmured.

“Remember the plan?” Drake asked.

Everyone responded affirmatively. Trent had made sure everyone knew what to do, just in case one or more of them died, then they split up. Trent wanted to say something to Drake, he always did at moments like this, but being a mercenary meant that you put up with this shit. And, pretty often, you put up with it silently.

So, he just caught the man's eyes, nodded once, received a similar nod in return, and then they went their separate ways.

He and Tristan made their way down the passageway. For a long moment, they were silent. Then it occurred to Trent that it was something of a miracle they had both made it alive this long and that maybe that miracle might not be ongoing. He supposed he had a few questions for his fellow merc, but only one really came to mind.

“Why'd you sleep with me?” he asked, his voice echoing in the lonely darkness.

Tristan was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, he could hear a small smile in her voice. “Well...why not?”

“I don't know. You just seemed above me. I mean, I get the feeling that you looked at me like some big, dumb jock or something.”

“Who's to say that I don't still look at you that way?”

“You
did
agree to let me inside you.”

“And? Sometimes I can sleep with idiots.” Her voice held no malice, only a small, slight coyness that seemed vaguely alien to her.

“I guess so, but it doesn't really hold up.”

“You're not all that dumb,” she said. “I don't know. You were pretty spot on at first, but there's just something about you. I mean, I'm pretty turned off by big, dumb meatheads. But you're not that. I think you try to act like you are. I'm not saying you’re some secret genius or something, but it's not all smarts. I mean, obviously you're a great mercenary. But I think there's more there. I don't think you're nearly as cynical or basic as you put on.”

“Well...” Trent began. “Maybe,” he said after a long moment.

“Ha. I knew it. What secret are you hiding? Do you love romance vids? Do you long to raise a puppy ranch and you're just too scared to do it because it isn't 'manly' enough?”

Trent laughed. “No, nothing like that. I just...I don't know. It's hard to put into words. I guess, I just feel like there's more I could be doing. I feel like all my life I've just been watching out for myself, well, and for Drake.”

“Well, the fact that you're looking out for even one other person is a step up the ladder for most people. Especially most mercenaries,” Tristan replied, vaguely encouraging.

“Yeah, and that's pathetic. I guess I just feel guilty. There's a whole galaxy of problems out there and I'm just adding to them most of the time, playing in corporate bullshit or mercenary squad fights that's tantamount to tribal warfare...but I don't know just what it is that I want to do. Nothing has really come to mind, I've mostly given up on the notion.”

“How does Drake feel about this?”

“He doesn’t, not really. I mean, he sympathizes, but I think he gets a lot more life satisfaction out of this lifestyle than I do.” Trent shrugged, feeling a little helpless.

Something let out a low moan that caused the hairs on the back of Trent's neck to go rigid. Neither of them spoke the rest of the way there.

* * * * *

It was still dark by the time they reached the hatch that would bring them up into Research Two. More concerning, they didn't hear much in the way of gunfire or conflict. Which meant that someone had likely gained the upper hand. Which wasn't good either way. Trent went first, climbing up the ladder they'd found.

He activated the hatch at the top and peered up and out. He couldn't see anything, but his light only provided so much. He didn't hear anything, anyway. Trent climbed up and out, then offered a hand to Tristan. As soon as he'd pulled her out and began to straighten back up, lights suddenly flared into existence, blinding him.

“Don't move!” a mechanically augmented voice snapped.

“Freeze!” another said a second later.

Trent kept his gun to his shoulder and automatically put his back to Tristan's.

“Drop your weapons!” a third, or maybe one of the first two, voice demanded.

Trent sized up the situation. There were easily a dozen Dark Ops troops in there with them, all strategically positioned around the room. The light was coming from several different sources. They hadn't fixed the power yet, he realized, but had instead opted to wheel in mobile work-lights. He was just considering what to do when, abruptly, one of the lights snapped off. Followed immediately by another, and a third.

The men began to look around nervously as something new seemed to enter the room, some invisible wave of dark energy that sent jagged bolts of terror shooting through Trent's nervous system. He had no idea where it might have gone, (well, he had one, he just didn't like it,), if the rest of the lights hadn't gone out all at once.

And then someone started screaming.

Several flashlights pointed in the direction of the screams. Focus became divided between the two survivors and this new event. Trent found his own eyes inexorably drawn to this as well. He blinked several times, as though his eyes were trying to compensate for the impossible sight before them. One of the men seemed to be surrounded by a living, seething patch of raw darkness. It was curling around him and, Trent saw with horror, lifting him up. He was screaming, his voice reaching a high, keening wail.

And then blood sprayed against the inside of his faceplate.

Tendrils of pure obsidian shot out, punching through the chests of two of the nearest men, who also began to lift.

Trent took advantage of whatever the fuck was happening. He fired a three-round burst, bursting the faceplate of one of the Dark Ops troops.

“Go!” he snapped.

He and Tristan bolted for the nearest exit. There were a few half-hearted potshots in their direction, but they made it through without anyone giving chase.

“What the fucking hell was that?” Tristan asked after they'd put some distance between themselves and the room they'd emerged in.

“I don't know,” Trent replied, listening to the gunshots and the screaming. “Another one of the experiments I imagine. Some kind of living fucking darkness....shit, I hope we don't have to fight that thing. Come on, we aren't too far away.”

They pressed on, deeper into the bloody heart of the building.

Chapter 14

–
The Blood & The Death
–

“Bad news,” Tristan said. She'd been scouting the next room while Trent was watching her back. They weren't entirely convinced the strange cloud of darkness wouldn't come after them. “You'd better come in here and look at this.”

Trent slipped in through the open door. They were back in a Cyr building, with awkward Cyr architecture. Curving rooms, too-white paneling, much bigger than necessary. But what was waiting for them in the next room was more interesting and eye-catching. The thing that Trent had come to think of as the Flayer was back. Its handiwork was visible everywhere. Blood painted the walls, and the bodies...

Nearly a dozen and a half of them, all dumped on the floor in random positions, tossed aside like old, broken dolls. All of them perfectly without an inch of skin left on them. They could have been base personnel or Dark Ops.

He supposed it didn't matter now. At least not to them.

“Well,” Trent said. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

He still had a good idea of the map in his head. They had to pass through this room, then down a long corridor, take a left and the door to the room they wanted would be somewhere in that corridor. He and Tristan began making slow but steady progress through the alien slaughterhouse. As they pressed on, Trent began to hear the low, heavy thud of what he imagined was a titanic heart, hooked up to machinery, pumping black blood.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Tristan murmured.

“What
is
that?”

“I think it's The Presence,” Tristan said after a long moment's contemplation.

Trent blinked in surprise. He honestly didn't know how he hadn't pieced that together for himself. It made perfect sense. But was it an actual heart? The sound of a base coming to life with dark, awful energy? Or something manufactured? A sound to make the place seem that much creepier? Trent wasn't sure which was worse.

They reached the far side of the room and passed through the door there. Trent went through first this time. They decided it would be best to switch off. So it was he who first caught sight of the terror that was waiting for them in the corridor beyond. For a second, Trent froze, his mind unable to comprehend, yet again, what he was seeing. That seemed to be happening a lot just lately. He couldn't do anything but stand there and stare.

“Is it clear?” Tristan asked from behind him.

He kept staring. This thing...it must have been the Flayer. There seemed to be some kind of dark central mass, though it didn't appear to be made of flesh. At least not any kind that he had seen before. It stood on four bent blades, where its legs should have been. A dozen, maybe as many as two dozen, silvery blades extended from the central mass of its 'body'. It was in the process of working on a corpse.

Trent watched in horror.

It held the corpse aloft by its feet. The body was naked. It ran several of its blades together in a sharpening motion, then set to work. The work was well and truly horrible, and yet there was an awful eloquence to it. The blades moved with smooth, controlled precision. Once it began, the dance of the Flayer didn't cease. Skin began to come off the body in smooth strips. As it did, it never touched the floor.