James Axler - Judgment Plague

“Lone mag,” he mused, “or maybe there’s a partner inside, operating the guns. What were they doing here, I wonder?”

Brigid glanced up at him. “Maybe gathering data by remote,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Grant stated. “We need to investigate while the coast is clear. Who knows how soon they’ll return.”

“Grant, no—that’s inviting trouble,” Brigid told him.

“Then what?” he asked. “It’s the only sign of life we’ve seen so far, which makes it our only lead.”

Brigid’s mind raced. “Satellite,” she said, thinking aloud. “Cerberus can track it.”

Grant watched the SandCat slowly pull away. Its rear fender was toward them now, which meant the driver wouldn’t spot them easily. “I don’t like it,” Grant said. “I’m going to go check where they’re going.” He stepped away from the wall. “You and Kane follow when you’re ready.” With that, he turned and began sprinting up the street, sticking close to the buildings, using their shadows and his own dark clothing to mask his movements.

Brigid muttered a curse about impulsive partners and their knack for getting into trouble, then activated her commtact.

“Cerberus, this is Brigid,” she said to the empty air.

Brewster Philboyd’s cheerful voice responded immediately. “Brigid, do you have an update for us?”

“Major update,” she replied, “but we’re still putting the pieces together. Can you get a spy-eye trained on a magistrate SandCat that’s just left our location?”

“A what?” Lakesh cut in over the shared comm frequency.

“Just put the eye on it,” Brigid said. “You can triangulate from my transponder, right?”

“On it,” Brewster confirmed.

The transponder device was surgically fitted for all Cerberus field personnel, designed to broadcast their location, as well as details on their health, such as heart rate and brain activity, to the home base in real time. Back in the Cerberus operations room, Lakesh and his team could access such details about Grant, Kane and Brigid even as they went about their mission, relayed over the satellite links and interpreted via a sophisticated computer program.

As Grant sprinted away down the street, Brigid followed at a more leisurely pace, checking the side doors and watching for snipers or other would-be threats. “Kane?” she said into her hidden commtact. “We’re splitting up. SandCat has departed. Grant’s checking out where it’s heading.”

* * *

KANE HEARD BRIGID’S words softly over his commtact, but he sensed it wasn’t the time to respond. He didn’t want to spook the girl in the shower.

“Tell me your name,” Kane said, holding his other hand out as he brushed the woman’s dark hair away from her face. The black tears glistened on her cheeks, pooling in the hollows beneath her sunken eyes.

The woman shook, clearly agitated as he met her gaze.

“I’m Kane,” he said, trying to reassure her. “I only want to help.”

The woman unleashed an agonized shriek, then suddenly moved, head tilting rapidly toward Kane’s face as if to butt him. He pulled back, but she grabbed him, both hands reaching for his face.

“Wh—?” he began, as the woman was dragged back with him, her face rushing at his.

Then she struck him, her nose against his, mouth pressed on his, lips parted.

Chapter 7

The woman crashed down on Kane, her face pressed against his. She was trying to kiss him.

With a little effort, he pushed her away. Though she was skeletal, she still had strength in her limbs, strength enough to cling to him as he tried to lift her.

“Get off me,” Kane snarled, shoving the woman aside.

He had seen this before, the sudden wave of adoration for a rescuer; in magistrate training they had called it shining knight syndrome. At least, that’s what he thought this was.

The corpselike woman lay there on the floor at the base of the open shower cubicle, not moving. Kane could see the floor of the shower now; it was smeared with black, congealed liquid, thick as oil. The blackness circled the drain in a spiral, like a child’s drawing of a firework.

Kane stood up, watching the woman as she lay there, perfectly still. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just...it’s just that you took me by surprise, is all.” As he spoke, he wiped at his face where she had struck him, her mouth on his in that desperate kiss. The rebreather was still in place, but it was smeared with liquid, and when he pulled his hand away, Kane saw the tacky black ooze glistening on his fingers.

“What is this stuff?” he muttered, studying it closely.

On the bathroom floor, the woman watched through the strands of her hair, realized her mistake. A moment later she leaped away, moving with unbelievable speed, issuing a groaning scream from deep in her throat.

* * *

GRANT RAN, HUGGING the shadows, his eyes tracking the retreating SandCat, then flicking left and right to check for any sign of threat from the buildings to either side of him. They were almost silent, but he could hear low voices as he ran past them, mumbled pleas and agonized groans like the one Kane had gone to investigate.

Grant was two-thirds of the way down the street when something stepped from a shadowy alleyway between houses and stood in his path. The figure was tall and thin, head bowed so that its chin touched its throat. It was dressed in street clothes—not a magistrate. Grant’s eyes flicked ahead, watching the SandCat continue to roar away as he slowed his pace. Should he ignore the stranger, run past him? Or should he stop and interrogate him, see if he knew anything about the bones and the strained voices?

The figure opened its mouth as Grant approached, issuing a terrible groan, followed by something else: vomit, black as midnight, running from its mouth like tar.

Grant stopped, bringing himself up short before the vomiting man. “You okay, man?” he asked. “You need...something?”

The man doubled over, vomiting more forcefully, and a gush of black ooze spattered across the street between his feet. There was more ooze coming from his eyes, Grant saw now, and a dark trickle ran down from his left ear and both nostrils.

“What happened to you?” Grant asked, keeping a wary distance. “Did...did someone do this to you?”

* * *

BRIGID, MEANWHILE, PROCEEDED more slowly down the empty street, peering in the windows of buildings for signs of life. Three doors down she found what looked to be a meeting room or a saloon, shades drawn halfway down. She had to crouch to peer inside, and when she did she saw chairs arranged in a circle, with a dozen pairs of legs sitting in them. There were people in there, a ville meeting, maybe. Could that explain the sense of the place being abandoned?

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