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  She pivoted the gun’s muzzle, aimed at another and fired.

  “What?” Thurpa asked.

  “Monsters,” Brigid said. She ripped off a burst into the third of the creatures, but even as she did so, she could see the first of her targets reassembling itself. It’d been hurt, yes, but she was firing into gelatin-like bodies that could reassemble themselves.

  Thurpa shouldered his rifle and looked through the scope. He let out a grunt of dismay at the image of the newcomers. “Enki help me.”

  “They’re bulletproof,” Brigid shouted. “Move!”

  Thurpa grimaced and triggered his weapon.

  “I said—” Brigid began.

  Thurpa glared at her. “That little gun doesn’t have the punch this does. I can at least break them up, stun them.”

  Brigid glanced back and saw that the creatures that Thurpa had struck were down. They still showed signs of life, but the heavier rifle that the Nagah expatriate had used on them had left them stunned and confused.

  She glanced after Nathan, who was leading Lyta away as quickly as his legs could carry them both. Thankfully for Brigid, they weren’t enhanced by the ancient staff’s power. She could catch up. “We both go, now.”

  Thurpa kept shooting. “Aim for their center line. That seems to disturb and stagger them the most! I’ll hold this line as long as I can....”

  Brigid grimaced. She took off, realizing that she could not allow Nehushtan to fall into the wrong hands.

  Durga and his queen, Neekra, were definitely the wrong hands.

  She sent a silent prayer of hope to Thurpa, knowing what he was risking for their sakes.

  The big rifle kicked hard against Thurpa’s shoulder, and he knew that each bullet he put into one of the strange creatures coming up the underworld path bought more yards, more seconds for his newfound friends and allies to get away. He didn’t want to think of what horrors would befall him once they got to him, but, dammit, the fallen prince Durga had led him astray, pushed thoughts into his head and brought him to this countryside.

  He dumped the spent magazine from his gun, pushed another one home and worked the bolt. Even as he did so, he realized that two of the things had survived his rain of lead. Technically, they’d all survived, but these two had avoided his shots and had not been slowed. They were only thirty feet away, and they showed no sign of slowing down.

  Thurpa let out a roar of frustration as he tracked one of the slippery pair of translucent, stretchy foes, firing bullets to chase it down. As he did so, he felt a hand grasp him by the throat. Within moments, he was sailing through the air toward one of the underground horrors. Thurpa tried to scream, but the elongated limb around his throat cut him off. The strength of the creature was such that it pulled him through the air, feet airborne.

  Those fingers clutching at his throat were as strong as iron, and he struck the ground behind the pair of gelatinous assailants. Thurpa blinked, struggling to bring his thoughts back into line, to get his limbs to respond to commands.

  The two leapers continued on their path, having forgotten the cobra man after they’d unceremoniously dumped him on the ground. He twisted himself, rolling from his back to where he could get his hands and knees beneath him. Even as he did so, a hammer blow struck him between the shoulder blades, and his face was mashed into the ground, dirt digging into his nostrils. He turned his head, exhaling and clearing his airways, but another rubbery paw pressed down on his cheek and neck.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Thurpa could see it was one of the horrors. It had fissures through its flesh and cracks on the surface of its skin. It looked vaguely male, but inside bones hung like pieces of fruit in dessert gelatin. His nostrils were assailed with the sickening, ugly stench of copper and salt, a cloying reek of decaying and drying blood.

  The creature’s face lowered nearer to Thurpa’s, and it seemed to sniff.

  “No,” came the order from another. “She says...no.”

  Thurpa felt a moment of relief, but even so, the slimy, clammy grip on his neck and face was steely, rigid, unforgiving.

  “Lucky,” Thurpa’s captor growled. “Lucky you.”

  Thurpa wanted to say something, but he knew better. These creatures had some intellect, but they were following the orders of another. Someone who wanted living captives.

  If the shimmering monstrosity hadn’t been resting its weight on his shoulders, neck and head, he would have been able to move, to shift the creature’s weight atop him, but the thing was either too well balanced on him or it had somehow laid down roots to make any motion on the Nagah’s part impossible. Seeing glimmering pseudopods digging into the dirt before his eyes confirmed his second suspicion, and he realized that he was a prisoner, pinioned and helpless.

  He watched as translucent legs raced past, heading into the forest after Brigid Baptiste, Nathan Longa and Lyta.

  Thurpa’s stomach churned with regret that he couldn’t protect the young woman.

  * * *

  GRANT HEARD THE RATTLE of gunfire and grimaced. He was separated from his friends and allies by the rift in the earth. Kane was gone, down through the pit, and while he was concerned for his friend, he knew his partner was wearing his shadow suit and had the devil’s luck when it came to surviving bad situations and the same devil’s cunning when that luck was not enough.

  Right now, Grant knew that Brigid and the others were in combat. With what, he couldn’t tell, but everything he observed told him that this was not the work of a simple militia, even one with as much manpower and firepower as the Panthers of Mashona. This was more akin to the work of the Annunaki or the Tuatha de Danaan, ancient technology, and perhaps a subterranean city. He’d encountered many such hidden societies. One was lodged within a bubble in the basalt that separated the surface of the earth from its molten, fiery interior, a true lost world of dinosaurs, cast-off pan-terrestrial humanoids and ancient horrors.

  Whether in the depths of space or at the center of the world, there were millions of secrets still strewn about the planet in multiple forms, and most of what they had encountered was deadly and dark.

  Grant looked up and down the rift between him and his friends, and he saw that there was a tree, tottering with its gnarled roots showing out over the drop-off. The trunk of the tree was thick enough for him to walk on and long enough to use as a bridge. Running in either direction, looking for a better crossing, would eat up valuable time while his allies fought against the unseen force.

  He rushed to the tree and hurled himself at the trunk with all his might. The shadow suit helped protect his shoulder from potential dislocation by the amount of force he’d thrown at it. Dirt broke and cracked, and he listened to the snap of roots.

  One blow and he’d loosened an already half-uprooted tree. He immediately wrapped his arms around the trunk and pulled back. The tree rocked toward him, more cracks, more snaps echoing the distant gunfire, reminding him of the countdown he fought against. Grant surged with all his muscle, weight and leverage, and he felt the tree begin to loosen.

  Pushing the tree down straight across the chasm wouldn’t do much. All it would do was rip out the tree by its roots, and perhaps send his only bridge toppling into the depths of the rift. Toppling the tree “inland” would take the ungraceful roots and make them into a grapnel, then leave the upper branches and trunk to rest on his side of the improvised bridge.

  Grant moved nimbly out of the path of the toppling tree, letting it crunch down. Boughs were reduced to splinters if they weren’t simply bent out of the path of the falling trunk. There was a crook that he could use to drag the tree out and across the crack in the ground. Using his prodigious strength, he tugged the trunk. Luckily, the bent branches formed runners, taking up much of the weight. With a final powerful tug, he jammed the roots into the far side of the chasm.

  He’d aimed the tree
right; the roots shoved into the chunk of ground where half of its roots had been torn out in the splitting of the earth. Grant turned and leaped behind the crook and pushed, throwing all his might into lodging the bridge into the recess on the far side. He then got onto the trunk.

  In four strides, he was across his improvised bridge, leaping over the roots and onto the far side just as the roots gave way. Grant glanced back and watched the tree slither off where he’d rested it, sucked down by gravity.

  “Kane, Brigid?”

  Nothing on the Commtacts. He frowned, realizing that he was alone.

  He raced faster to reach Brigid and the others.

  Chapter 7

  Nathan Longa looked back as the roar of Thurpa’s assault rifle died out. His stomach took an ugly flop, and he clutched Nehushtan, the ancient artifact of Moses and King Solomon, tightly until he could feel his knuckles crack. He turned to Lyta.

  “Take this stick, and don’t let go of it. Run and hide!” Nathan told her.

  “What?” Lyta asked as he shoved the staff into her arms.

  “Don’t be dense,” Nathan hissed. “You need to keep this stick out of their hands. It’s our only chance right now.”

  “If it’s our only chance, why not use it?” Lyta asked.

  “Because I’ve been asking it and asking it for the past five minutes,” Nathan growled. “I’m getting no response. But we cannot let those things capture it!”

  Nathan pushed her, and the shove made her stumble back three steps. She glared at him, halfway between anger and disappointment. He knew that she was his cousin, but he’d only just met her. His father had barely mentioned her, so she was a stranger. And now he had to trust her with an ancient tool utilized by heroes of myth and legend to battle the worst demons on earth.

  Lyta took another step back as Nathan turned and brought up his rifle. Brigid Baptiste was bounding up the game trail they had taken, and she had her gun out and ready for battle. When she saw Nathan standing his ground, she skidded to a halt beside him.

  “You’re letting her have the stick?” Brigid asked. “Good idea.”

  “Protect her,” Nathan pleaded with the Cerberus archivist. “I’ll do my best to slow these things down.”

  She chewed her upper lip for a second, then nodded. “All right.”

  Nathan didn’t care much for how quickly she acceded to his request, but the woman had shown brilliance and quick thinking. Perhaps she would come up with some ploy that could protect the stave and its new bearer. “Good luck!”

  Brigid gave him a pat on the shoulder, then followed after Lyta.

  Brigid already had a plan, and that entailed pulling Lyta along toward the pickup truck that had been lent to them. The girl kept up easily despite the ache and torment of the past week. Brigid didn’t say it out loud, but she suspected that Nehushtan was speeding Lyta’s recovery along.

  They reached the truck, and, from there, Brigid opened the passenger side door and pulled out a pair of flexible conduits, entwined against each other and fastened off by metal belts. Lyta looked down at the conduits, then at her own staff. The girl’s eyes lit up with instant recognition as Brigid retrieved a long black section of pipe. With one hard shove, she perched the conduit cables atop the pipe, then affixed two bulbous heads on the ends of those conduits, plugging tail ends. Suddenly, a collection of spare parts was assembled into an imperfect version of the artifact. A second bar formed the cross at the top, pushed through the curves in the conduits.

  “You planned for this,” Lyta said.

  Brigid nodded. “I did. This ruse won’t work much, but I will give them reason enough to make them believe this is the real deal, giving you time to hide.”

  “And then what?” Lyta asked.

  “Then you try and locate whoever escaped,” Brigid ordered. “We’ve been scattered, and I can’t reach anyone.”

  “It’s going to be that easy?” Lyta asked.

  “With the staff, yes,” Brigid answered. “It’s already given you back enough stamina to keep up with us as we ran from those things. It’ll give you hints, intuitions.”

  “It can think?” Lyta pressed, holding the strange staff tighter despite her growing fear of it.

  “I don’t know what form of sentience it possesses. It could just be an automaton, nothing more than an autopilot, or it could be something much more. It’s helped us immensely so far, and it will help you. Now run!” Brigid ordered.

  Lyta swallowed as the flame-haired woman made certain she had items in her belt pouches.

  She turned, and, despite every emotion telling her she was being a coward, she ran into the forest of the night, leaving Brigid to her task.

  Brigid Baptiste knew she didn’t have much time, and so she was glad that her faux artifact had been so easy to assemble. Durga and others had shown an interest in the ancient weapon, and the Cerberus warriors all knew that having a false copy would buy them some time and effort.

  Brigid just hadn’t expected this to occur so soon. She was doubly confounded that the amorphous, pliant monstrosities were so quick and aggressive on the task of bursting from the ground. Certainly, the things had shown properties of the murderer that Nathan had mentioned, but she had not anticipated that the Panthers, or Durga, would have had such swift and easy access to them. And yet the militia brought prisoners for these creatures.

  Brigid could only feel a brief taste of relief that they had not encountered these gelatinous beings alongside the Kongamato, the huge mutants whose strength enabled them to weather gunshots, tear steel doors from their hinges and pull the limbs off grown soldiers as if they were mere insects.

  Brigid realized that if the murderous abominations were fighting alongside the brutal, powerful, winged Kongamato, the Zambians would have been exterminated, and she doubted that she and her allies from Cerberus would have fared much better. These creatures broke apart, were stopped and stunned by gunfire, but because of their strange anatomy, they seemed to regather their burst forms and stagger back to life. Her Copperhead at two hundred yards did little to them. Thurpa’s rifle proved to be a little better at stunning them, but his gunfire had died out.

  Brigid threw a silent prayer to whatever being might be listening that Thurpa had been taken alive, but her stomach churned at the ominous quiet. Nathan’s rifle blazed in the distance now, which meant that he saw their opponents, the grim, determined beings who ignored direct hits from bullets and continued on, stretching and bounding through the night, seeking out the living.

  At first, the concept of octopus-like abilities among the monsters seemed incongruous to any mythology that Brigid was aware of, but then she thought of all the creatures with seeming preternatural speed, or the ability to cling to walls or disappear in plain sight, as well as apparently being unharmed by most weapons. One thing she could count on was that human perception was unreliable, especially as these entities operated in the darkness. Brigid had only been able to make out their physiology thanks to the advanced optics installed on the faceplates of the shadow suits.

  Nathan’s rifle now fell silent, and Brigid strained her ears, waiting for any sign that he had suffered a mortal injury. The audio pickups in the hood were nearly as good as the optics, but, thankfully, she didn’t hear a death cry or the sound of shredding flesh. That much was good news. But these things seemed to operate on the same scale as vampires, draining blood. Those elongated limbs could also be keenly utilized at strangulation.

  The first of the monstrosities bounded into her line of sight, and Brigid “aimed” the false Nehushtan and fired.

  What she actually used was a 12-gauge shotgun whose shells were loaded with mini-grenades. It was incorporated into the girth of the pipe, with a trigger on the side. The micro-grenade leaped across the distance between her and the first of the pliant terrors, and when the shell struck, it
blasted the creature into a fine mist of mucus and rubbery, flapping skin.

  She spotted things falling from the creature’s burst form, but she allowed her subconscious mind to sort through the details of her surroundings. The monster’s allies were present, and she whipped the muzzle of the improvised grenade launcher toward a second and fired. The miniature grenade speared toward the thing, but its extending pseudopod deflected the shell; the tentacle itself spiraled out of control to the ground. The tumbling high-explosive slug cartwheeled through the night and struck a tree trunk, detonating.

  Broken wood and splinters flew wildly, and suddenly Brigid picked up on keening wails of terror among her opponents. Instantly, one part of her mind brought up the common “solution” to a vampire menace: the introduction of a wooden stake or the thorns of certain trees. Given the balloon-like nature of these beings, wooden splinters could be seen as a threat. Another section of her intellect correlated certain resins or the cellulose that made wood so firm and hard having a negative interaction with the biology of these beings.

  She was also reminded of the creatures that Kane and Grant had mentioned: mollusk-like creatures in which a sentient “virus” had been trapped. Snot-like octopoids that had not been seen on the planet—horrible things that had also served as parasites on humans once released into the Wiregrass forests of Florida. While it was possible that those octo-slugs could have been a form of submarine life undiscovered even by twentieth-century science, these creatures bore many similarities.

  They could have been from the same world.

  The Annunaki had deposited those things in an inaccessible ocean-floor research center called the Tongue of the Ocean, one of the deepest places on earth.

  For good reason, Brigid mused. The octo-slugs could have been aquatic versions of the standard subterranean species she was dealing with here.

  All these thoughts raced through Brigid’s burning brain. She was trying to quantify and identify these organisms, find their strengths and weaknesses, but in the forefront, she was all action, thoughts whipping at the speed of light even before she brought up her TP-9 and aimed for the odd, off-colored lumps floating in the soupy carcasses of the beings. She shot a creature through what she assumed was a brain, pumping rounds into it as fast as she could work the trigger.