Division Zero: Thrall (66 page)

A dam of crystallized muck crunched at her touch, resulting in cold, greasy slime dribbling onto her face. Her squeak, what bit of a scream escaped before she clamped her mouth closed, reverberated in two directions. She huddled to the forward wall, shivering as the substance slid over her hair and down her back. The scent of metal filled the air.

At least it doesn’t stink like the sludge from the Beneath.
She swallowed the urge to vomit from the sensation of touching it and pulled herself up. Once her hips cleared the edge, she leaned flat on her chest in the higher section. A boot to the wall propelled her forward, and she continued to crawl.

“Twenty more meters.”

Nina’s voice vibrating in her earbud made her jump. “Okay,” she whispered, voice quivering.

“What’s wrong?”

“I guess I don’t like being trapped in tight spaces.”

Nina grinned. “Who does?”

Movement was more difficult in this portion of pipe. Whatever substance dribbled all over her lubricated it to the point where her hands slid more than pulled her along. After a laborious several minutes, the nauseating sound of Konstantin’s voice murmured through the metal above her.

“Stop. No, back up six feet… There.”

Kirsten shimmied around to lie on her back, biting her lip. “There’s nothing here, just pipe.” She could not sit up, turn around, or run away from danger.

“Use the key I gave you.”

“Duh.” Kirsten wiped the sweat from her face with her right sleeve.

A hand on the Nano knife made her shiver. Sure, she had used a Nano-edged uti blade before, but the edge was tiny―barely two inches long―and encased in a protective shroud. It was meant to cut seat belts and rope. The sliver of transparent doom she stared through now was a good eleven inches of synthetic diamond. A military weapon of last resort―something the police weren’t even permitted to carry on Earth.
I wonder if it’s really true the edge is only a single atom wide. Sounds like marketing bullshit.
She stuck the tip in the pipe over her head and braced her left hand under the handle. Grunting, she shoved the blade up to the hilt through the half-inch thick metal.

Holy shit.

With extreme care, she pushed the knife forward. Stabbing proved far easier than cutting―at least, to someone of her strength. However, cut she did. She rocked the handle back and forth, inch by tedious inch. A surrealist’s impression of an oval fell onto her when she connected the line, pinning her under twenty pounds of plastisteel. Fortunately, her body muffled the sound of its descent. She propped up the slab with one hand while her other trembling arm put the combat knife back in the scabbard. As soon as a reassuring click said she was no longer in danger of sneezing and lopping off her own arm, she resumed breathing.

Kirsten worked the cutout past her head, easing it down and pushing it out of her way. Squares of light gleamed above, some manner of grating. It blinded her until she released the astral sight. The urge to rub her eyes was strong, but the ooze all over her hands made her hesitate. Pale fingers threaded over the edges of the pipe above, and she pulled herself up through the hole. Sliding her boots underneath her, she squatted in a space just tall enough. Feet in the pipe, her hair teased at the underside of a metal grating. Now she understood why Nina had been so precise with her position.

She was under a four-wheeled moon rover left over from when the installation was operational. Its shadow kept her out of sight in a drainage trench meant to catch spills or runoff fluids from vehicle maintenance. Judging by the discolored wall in front of her, she would have been neck-deep in lubricant years ago.

Lifting a section of grate, she eased it to the side and slipped into the room with a belly crawl that took her out from under the rover and behind a mass of boxes covered in grey tarpaulin. Konstantin paced at the edge of the pentagram, orbiting a metal podium that held two datapads and some old papers. Gleaming light caught her eye amid the strange writing. The fist-sized violet gem lay at the center of the glyph, still pulsing.

The gem didn’t show up on vid.
That’s really weird.

Energy surrounded it―the presence of souls. She could not help but stare, hearing whispery voices begging to be set free. Amid the wailing and crying, one stood out as different―cursing.

Dorian.

Kirsten almost leapt over the boxes, but hesitated as Nafiz approached bearing the black mask. She tugged her E-90 out of the holster and aimed. Shooting at Konstantin would go right through him and hit a dazed, black-haired woman dangling from a column. All of the hostages’ clothing had markings of Lunazoom, a trans-city tram system.

Her hand shook, putting that wrinkled, awful face right in the ring-dot sight.
Shit. Konstantin, you bastard, I’m gonna make you pay for what you did to me.

“Mom, you should break Konstantin’s heart.”

She scowled as Evan’s words echoed through her memory.
Breaking his heart is the least of his worries now, kiddo. Come on, you piece of shit, one step to the left.

Konstantin took the mask from Nafiz and held it aloft in both hands, chanting in some unknown language. The sight of his wrinkled skin burned red into Kirsten’s face, and she crept to the right in search of an angle. It did not chirp when the tip of her finger touched the trigger. She leaned to the right, finding the blue light no longer sliding up and down the barrel.

I didn’t forget to charge the E-mag. God dammit.
She squeezed the release and caught the dead Meissner-cell, trading it for one from her belt.
Still dead.
Oh, shit, whatever he’s doing is sucking power like Dorian can… just from everything. Fuck. It’s gotta be that gem. What did Kwadwó call it… the heart of Eannatum?

Feelings of blind idiocy slapped her into an open-mouthed gawk.
Break Konstantin’s heart… He didn’t mean love… Oh, no. He really is a precog. I can’t tell anyone.
Elation and worry sparred.
Wait, no, this involves me. It could still just be strong emotional clairvoyance.
She clung to the edge of the pile, leaning around the side and staring at the glimmering jewel. Lightheadedness came on as her feeble telekinesis gathered itself around the sense of the stone’s weight. When Konstantin looked away to bow at Nafiz, Kirsten let a surge of psionic energy go. The gem swiveled in place, wobbled up on end, and fell toward her. She strained, and the huge rock came bouncing, rolling, and skittering across the floor into her hand.

No sooner had she touched it than her head flooded with voices: two men wailing, two women screaming, and one man, Dorian, cursing. The emotions almost overwhelmed her, but she forced herself through it. Spectral winds whipped around her as if the Heart of Eannatum sensed her intent. Kirsten set the gem on the floor, bracing it with her left hand. The E-90’s handle bounced off it. The sound of the strike echoed. Konstantin looked over. Nafiz snarled; fortunately, the electronic firing circuit in his pistol was as dead as her weapon.

“Shit,” she rasped, dropping the laser and going for the Nano knife.

Holding the blade in both hands, she raised it over her head. The unnatural wind whipped her hair into her eyes.

“Nyet!” shouted Konstantin.

She did not even look at him as she drove the tip into the wobbling violet rock. The blade glanced off, digging into the steel ground and sending the gem sliding away.
Dammit, how do I break this―

“You are too late,” howled Nafiz.

Kirsten looked up in time to catch a fist in the nose. The hit knocked her flat to the side; warm blood dribbled over her lip. He yanked a short vibro knife from his belt and tossed it to his left hand. She rolled on her back, crab-walking toward the gem. Her eyes flashed bright white; Nafiz reeled as though shot in the head. Coppery blood dripped onto her tongue as numbness throbbed through her cheek.

Nafiz wilted to his knees, staring into space. The mind blast left him swaying on his feet.

“Do not kill her, Nafiz!” shouted Konstantin, before throwing a pair of metal restraints into the side of the man’s head. When it knocked him cold, he roared. “Clumsy fool!”

Kirsten touched her face, staring at the blood on her fingers. The light came on in her head. Trembling with fear, she smeared it with extreme care over the side of the Nano knife. She concentrated; the red liquid flared to brilliant light and wisped off. With Nafiz out of it and Konstantin stomping toward her, she scrambled on all fours to the gem and drove the blade downward.

A sharp crack preceded a roaring explosion. She left the knife stuck in the floor and crossed both arms over her face to shield herself from a gale of spirit energy that flung stinging gemstone shards at her.

Dorian slid to a halt at her side as the naked ghosts of the four prior victims squeaked over the smooth metal. He sat up and gasped at her, surprise and relief in his eyes. For the tiniest instant, he seemed ready to yell at her for being blind, slow, or cutting it too close.

“Sorry I’m late; I was a little tied up on Earth.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but pointed past her. She whirled. Konstantin roared at her and the freed spirits, eyes bulging behind the mask, clenched fists shaking. With a primal howl, he yanked the ceremonial dagger from his belt and turned toward the nearest hostage. Nafiz moaned, clambering back to his feet and flinging his arms to the side. Three narrow, ten-inch blades slid through the knuckles of both hands and locked. Trickles of blood ran down each one.

Out of reflex, Kirsten aimed and squeezed a useless trigger. The woman at whom Konstantin charged remained delirious and unaware of death coming for her.

Kirsten screamed. “No!”

orian thrust his hand into the E-90, focusing. The blue lights flickered on into their endless march along the sides. The weapon spat a thin streak of laser. Kirsten’s frantic trigger clicking put a shot into Konstantin’s cheek. Sparks and smoke sizzled from the curved mask; the laser staggered him to a confused halt. The deranged maleficar’s glare shifted toward her, through smoke that poured from the eye holes.

Despite failing to pierce, the interaction of laser and paranormal artifact had left him stunned. For a few seconds, a thumbprint-sized patch glowed red-hot, searing his cheek. Kirsten recovered from the shock of her weapon coming back online, albeit with a meager eight percent charge.

Konstantin spun on the hostage, knife raised. Kirsten fired again without a word as Nafiz dove at her.

This time, the shot caught Konstantin in the left side. An azure line connected the E-90 to the far wall, through his chest, for just shy of a full second. Smoke and flames licked at the edges of a finger-wide tunnel through his body. Konstantin froze, the blade slipped from his grasp, and he sagged limp. A second later, he collapsed as blood squirted several feet in two directions. The mask bounced loose, clinging to his cheek by a strand of molten skin.

Nafiz tackled her, but a well-placed knee sent him sliding away before his claws tasted blood. Kirsten sat up as the near-skeletal man flipped over and sprang through the air, blades first. She lit off a blast from the E-90 in time to scorch his leg. He fell just short of her, claws sparking over the ground. She scooted backwards as he crawled, kicking at his arms to deflect blades. Armor panels in her boots stalled the tips; Kirsten snarled and twisted as she scampered. She thought of Brooke as she stomped him in the face, knocking him on his ass. Claws retracted as he cradled his bleeding nose. Kirsten pointed the E-90 at him one-handed, using the other to steady herself as she got back up.