Emergence (15 page)

In the UnderRealms.

Yeah. That shit. Knowledge of a world he’d never even imagined before. A world of Hunn and Gnarrl. Of minions and Thresh. Of the Grande Horde and the Low Queens and
. . .

He shook his head.

It did not help to think about that stuff. About what it might mean. It was like stories of murdered kids, paedophiles, people with basketball-size tumours growing out of their nut sacks, and those special kinds of retards who liked to run lawn mowers over puppies.

You might see that sort of thing in the paper, but if you were smart, you let your eyes move quickly over it to the nearest convenient sports story. You didn’t want that poison inside your skull. It was like the images of that poor little bastard in the Prius. The look in his eyes just before all that fast-moving metal fell on him.

Better to look away.

Dave stretched back as best he could and ignored the vibration of the airframe as he leaned his head against the thin cushioning. He thought about his own boys, Toby and Jack. He still hadn’t had a chance to catch up with them yet, and he was starting to feel guilty about that. That was a bad sign. He knew from experience that he was a slow starter on guilt trips, and if he was feeling it only now, he was probably too late. Annie would have them out of school for a few days. He knew how that went, too. She’d cut them off sugar and gluten. Not that they’d ever tested positive for a gluten allergy. She just thought everyone should eat less gluten. She’d shut down the TV set and unplug the net and take the boys completely offline, reading bedtime stories to them about how everyone was different and that was okay. Making them watch the gay episodes of
Glee
, which seemed to be all of them as best Dave could tell. Oh, and there’d be no adventures with trampolines and tree houses for his boys, either, not so long as Anxious Annie had them in lockdown. And lockdown was her usual response to any Dave-related problems, even though this one totally wasn’t his fault. But he wasn’t there to explain that to them, was he? And for once, maybe, he had to admit, she might be right to pack them in Nerf.

‘Whatcha thinkin’, Dave?’ Allen shouted over the rotor noise.

‘I’m thinking my ex-wife has told my kids that I probably blew up the Longreach by drunk-driving a train into it.’

Allen mocked up a look of profound disbelief. ‘Yeah? Looked to me like you were thinking about the very serious talk you’ll be having with Captain Heath just as soon as we land.’

‘Oh, yeah. That, too,’ he shouted back.

He’d be on the platform tonight and most of tomorrow, at a guess, but he was sure Heath would let him get in touch with the boys when they’d done whatever it was that needed doing out there. Fucked if he knew what he was gonna tell them, though.

Lies, probably. He was good at that.

13

‘T
wo minutes.’

Allen kicked the toe of his boot and relayed the message from the pilot. The SEAL team, or whatever they called themselves, appeared to power up around him, with men checking their own load-outs before cross-checking one another’s. With nothing to check, Dave contented himself with scanning the ocean for familiar sights. He could make out Thunder Horse on the horizon. The red and white structure was the largest rig in the Gulf of Mexico. It had survived stormy weather and hurricanes. Would it survive an invasion from Dungeons & Dragons as well? A pair of ships from the navy sketched a lazy patrol around the massive facility. Destroyers, he supposed. Bigger than coast guard cutters, smaller than an aircraft carrier. He’d seen other ships on the way out to Longreach, including something that might have been an aircraft carrier.

Were any of his people still over at Thunder Horse? He hoped not. The casualties should have been evacuated to shore by now, and anyone who was good to go should be long gone.

What could the crew of that platform be thinking, though? Had Thunder Horse played host to a couple of survivors babbling gibberish about monsters and demons boiling up out of the water? Were they watching satellite news, scoffing at the ignorant crap the media always said about the industry, or talking quietly, fearfully, among themselves as the first hints of the truth leaked out in the wider world?

‘Yeah, Ortiz, he said something like that when we got him in off the Longreach. Poor bastard was burned up pretty bad, but he was talking some crazy shit about monsters, not fire.’

Allen held up his index finger: ‘One minute!’

Dave expected the SEALs to start cocking weapons, but nobody did. Allen appeared to check the safety on his M4, but that was all. Then he could see the Longreach as the Seahawk swung around on the final approach, and he knew they weren’t going in guns blazing.

The rig was lit up from top to bottom, with unfamiliar emergency lighting strung up around the most heavily damaged sections. The helipad was brightly illuminated and busy with military personnel, including a guy with bright paddles who waved them in.

As the big bird flared, Dave suffered a few flashes of recall from the last time he’d set down here.

Vince stiff-arming guys out of the way as they scrambled to get on the evac flight.

The burns. The open wounds.

You dare not you dare not you dare not
. . .

The chopper settled down with a dainty one-two step, and rather than rappelling down ropes or diving for cover, everyone exited as though climbing off a bus. The feel of the deck under his new boots was strange, familiar yet wrong. He stayed bent over for a little longer as he cleared the rotor blades. The Seahawk felt much bigger and more dangerous than the civilian models he was used to shuttling around on. He joined Allen and his guys off to the side of the helipad, waiting to be introduced, but Captain Heath had other plans.

‘If you’ll follow me, Mr Hooper,’ he shouted over the noise of the chopper lifting off. Allen gave him a brief wave before leading his men off toward the far side of the pad, where the SEALs appeared to have set up some kind of temporary command post in one of the converted shipping containers given over to the platform’s admin section. Heath, who seemed to have no trouble finding his way around the unfamiliar structure, led Hooper down the same path he had taken when following Vince Martinelli. They passed marines geared up for
Call of Duty
, more guys who looked like carbon copies of the SEALs, and a lot of support folks, both men and women. He had no idea what any of them were doing. That was the reason this place felt wrong. Or one of the reasons. He had exactly zero clues about what was happening here now. But at least nobody was running around screaming and dying, so that was a good start.

Captain Heath turned left instead of right after passing the small flight operations shack and took the steps down to the main canteen rather than the smaller crew lounge where Dave had found Marty Grbac. A couple of marines stood guard outside the heavy plastic swinging doors. They wore rubber gloves and masks. Heath collected his own protective gear and passed some back to Hooper. Dave thought the paper mask wasn’t necessary, but he put it on anyway. The smell coming out of the canteen was foul. It clashed with the odour of cooking food in the nearby kitchen. He could see marines moving in and out of the kitchen service doors with boxes of food from the freezers. Probably a good idea to get them away.

‘Excuse me.’ A young girl in a lab coat pirouetted past him carrying a tray full of what might have been liver. It looked and smelled wrong. The space where he’d eaten so many meals was unrecognisable. Heavy plastic sheeting covered all the walls and the floor. Temporary lighting burned harsh and white, throwing everything into hard relief. Seven or eight people in biohazard suits ghosted around four stainless steel trolley tables on which lay the remains of the Hunn and its acolyte Fangr. The science types had all pulled back the hoods of their white coveralls, and like Dave and Heath they wore only paper face masks.

‘We’ve tested for airborne contaminants,’ the officer said, as if reading Dave’s mind. ‘Nothing. A bad smell, but that’s what rotting flesh smells like.’

Dave knew the stench, but this was not just the foul smell of dead meat gone bad. He could stick his head into his refrigerator back in Houston for that experience. No, he recognised the stink of decaying demon flesh. A rank odour as old as the sediment through which they’d been drilling these last months. He had always known it.

Just as he’d always known these creatures. That was why Heath had brought him out here. He’d been worried that the navy guys would think him mad when he let them know a little bit of what was happening inside his head.

It was worse than that. Now they thought he was useful.

His feet seemed to be stuck to the floor, making it impossible to move toward the trolleys. The medical staff, or researchers, or whatever they were, had ceased their endeavours one by one as they took in his arrival. They were all staring at him.

More fans.

He felt Heath’s hand on his arm, urging him forward, but gently.

‘Come on. Tell me what you can.’

The human contact was enough to get him going again. He approached the largest trolley, on which lay the corpse of the Hunn. It was odd. He’d only had a few seconds when he’d first encountered the beast, and then he’d been in a hospital bed and everything had changed. So there hadn’t been time to note any details beyond the gross and obvious ones such as its size and inhuman features. Yet when he let his eyes travel up and down the corpse, from the massive horned feet to the crushed ruin of the face, he saw particulars that were entirely new to him, details he hadn’t had time to attend to before, such as the extent and meaning of the vivid artwork tattooed all over the Hunn’s putrefying hide.

He stared at the swirls and loops of black ink.

They told a story.

Yet in really seeing these things for the first time he also recalled them from a sink so deep and vast that it triggered an association from his own past, from some bullshit class in undergrad psych he’d crashed once because he was chasing some girl who was enrolled in it.

Race memory.

Dave shuddered and tried to step back, but Heath was there with his hand on Dave’s shoulder now. It wasn’t a physical barrier, not really, but it was enough to block his retreat.

‘What’s up, Dave?’ he asked with surprising care. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’

Hooper felt sick and dizzy with hot flushes.

‘I need to sit down,’ he said.

A woman in a biohazard suit dropped what she was doing to the creature. She bustled her assistants aside and pushed a stool underneath Dave.

Dave dropped onto the stool, letting his head fall between his knees and trying to control his breathing. He took long, slow breaths, ignoring the foul miasma of rotten meat. A few more of the researchers gathered around him, and one fanned his face with a manila folder.

‘Get him some water,’ the women in the biohaz suit said, perhaps a bit more loudly than she needed to. Her accent was very British. ‘Maybe a bucket as well. We do not need any additional contamination in here.’

‘English,’ Dave said, trying to distract himself from the nausea.

‘Once upon a time,’ she said. ‘Don’t make a mess.’

‘Are you hungry?’ Heath asked, ignoring the interchange. ‘Do you need to eat?’

‘No,’ Dave said, managing a grim chuckle. ‘For once I am completely off my feed, but thank you. Ma’am, I won’t need that bucket. Thank you.’

‘Doctor,’ she said without turning to face Dave. She was really into her autopsy or whatever she was doing. ‘Or Professor, not ma’am. Professor Emmeline Ashbury, Office of Science and Technology Policy. You may call me Professor Ashbury.’

‘Okay,’ Dave said, a bit taken aback. ‘Ah, sorry.’

‘Apologies are unnecessary, and they do grow tiresome. That’s why I left England,’ she said, poking at something deep within the creature’s chest. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Ooh, this looks interesting.’

And with that she lost interest in Dave.

‘Don’t know how anyone could think of eating after seeing that thing,’ one of the techs said as he laid an unidentifiable green organ on an exam tray.

They were probably going to be skipping meals until they got the stench of death out of their nostrils and clothes. And skin. Dave drew in a deeper breath and rubbed his forehead, gratefully accepting the proffered bottle of water. It was cool and possibly the most delicious drink he’d ever tasted. Pure, clean spring water.

‘Sorry,’ he said in a cracked voice. ‘I just
. . .
It just got to be a bit much, is all.’

‘Take your time,’ Heath said.

‘Perhaps a medic,’ Professor Ashbury said over her shoulder, briefly taking her eyes off the body cavity. ‘He looks rather wobbly, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ Dave answered. ‘Seriously, I’ll be right. I just need a minute.’

‘Really?’ Ashbury said. ‘That long? I heard you killed it a lot quicker than that.’

He closed his eyes and concentrated on his heartbeat, slowing it down. It had been pounding away like a trip-hammer in his chest. He imagined himself on a beach in Bali, a nice spliff in one hand, a disgracefully cheap cocktail in the other. A day of fishing leaving a nice patina of relaxed exhaustion over him after a fine meal. Perhaps a couple of adventurous Swedish backpackers with giant Nordic breasts and
. . .

No, that was enough. He could feel the rebar coming back. He opened his eyes.

‘I’m good. Let’s do it.’

And he was ready this time as he approached the remains of Urgon Htoth Ur Hunn.

You dare not do this!

‘Slavaattun mal shastarr,’ he said to the corpse with a sneering leer.

‘What?’ Heath frowned at him.

Whoa. Where the fuck did that come from?

Dave repeated the phrase to himself, but slowly.

‘Roughly translated?’ he said to Heath. ‘I guess I do dare, bitch.’

The captain kept his expression neutral.

‘Yeah, sometimes I surprise myself, too,’ Dave said. He took his time circling the stainless steel trolley, and the researchers all moved aside for him. Along with the killing stroke he had delivered to the Hunn, Heath’s people had been nickel-and-diming it to pieces as well. An incision sliced here. A plug taken there. And in the centre of its massive chest an equally massive Y-cut scar where they’d opened old Urgon up, all the better to empty him out. Dave had no interest in what they found in there. Three stomachs, two hearts – a primary and a secondary – some really nasty digestive juices, and a long intestinal tract that pooped tiny little rock-hard marbles of demon guano when the monster was done digesting his meal.

A cloud passed over his face. The Hunn’s last meal had been a friend of his. He pushed the thought away. He was becoming practised at that.

‘This ugly-ass motherfucker,’ Dave said, ‘is a Hunn.’

The simple declaration seemed to cast a spell over the room, suspending everything. He gathered his thoughts from wherever they came and pressed on.

‘One of the six clans of the Horde. The Hunn are the largest, most savage of them. They are the shock troops of the Horde,’ he said, looking directly at Heath. ‘The heavy infantry, I guess you’d call them. And this one here, he was a BattleMaster of Hunn. They’re born, not made. Your average vanilla-flavoured Hunn Dominant, which is just a gay monster way of saying ‘warrior’, will run to about seven foot tall and weigh in at maybe 300, 350 pounds. Most of it, as you’ve probably seen, is pretty densely packed muscle. They probably have the strength of about a dozen men. Or maybe half a dozen Sergeant Swindts,’ he conceded. ‘I guess you’ve run your tape measure over this bad boy, so you already know that a Master of Hunn can top out at over eight foot and weigh another sixty or seventy pounds. Without armour.’

One of the researchers raised a hand and opened his mouth to speak, but Dave waved him off. ‘I’ll get back to the armour,’ he promised.

‘So. The really big, dumb bastards like to call themselves BattleMasters. They’re like you, Heath. Officers.’ Dave tapped the side of his head. ‘Sorry. Can’t Google up a direct comparison, but if you want to imagine them being about eighteen, maybe
nineteen
times stronger than a grown man, you wouldn’t be far off. They’re pretty fast and nimble – given they got all that mass to move around – and when they take a swing at you, holy shit, they do throw out the hurt bombs. Their bones are dense
. . .’

He looked around at the white suits for confirmation. A couple of them nodded, including Ashbury, who had abandoned her autopsy to take in his lecture.

‘That rhino hide they’re covered in is thick but strangely sensitive to UV damage. It picks up a lot of infections. The infections suppurate and rupture. It can make them vulnerable. Their hide is normally as tough as boiled leather, but when it ruptures
. . .
not so much. That’s why they wear armour. It’s also why they have tattoos in a dumbass sort of way. The ink our boy here got himself would have hurt like a bastard when it went on.’