James Axler - Infestation Cubed

The half-breed let out a pained gargle, leaning away from Domi and giving her the room she’d needed before. With a twist, she had her knife in an ice-pick grip and she threw all of her weight behind its point as she aimed for the marauder’s lower abdomen. The blade had trouble penetrating between the opponent’s ribs as she couldn’t get her weight behind it, but with only muscle and scaled skin to resist, Domi sunk the knife in, her face sprayed with hot gore signaling the creature’s aorta was opened up. Clublike fists rained on the back of her head and shoulders, but the strength of those blows was lessened by shock and rapid blood loss.

Domi wrenched the knife free, turning a six-inch stab into a wide, yawning gulley through skin, organ and muscle. With the blade loosed from the restraining flesh, she was able to back up, her enemy doing likewise.

The mutant’s retreat wasn’t to regather itself, only to keep coils of intestines from pouring out into the Vegas sands. Lakesh fired his handgun again, and the mortally wounded beast was thrown to the ground.

“Stop shooting!” Domi croaked through her adrenaline-tightened throat.

Lakesh lowered the pistol, his hands trembling.

Domi reached out and shoved the web between her thumb and index finger in the V formed by the hammer and the back of the pistol’s slide. That movement happened just in time to keep the hammer from striking the firing pin as a flinch on Lakesh’s part tripped the trigger. He glared down at the weapon as blood trickled from Domi’s alabaster skin around the metal.

“You’re bleeding,” Lakesh said.

“Let go,” Domi whispered.

He did so, and she was able to cock the hammer back, thumb the weapon on safe, and tuck it into her belt. The damage wasn’t much, a minor U-shaped cut where the pistol’s hammer tried to scissor the skin on its way to make the gun fire. Still, Domi licked away the rivulets of her blood and wrapped a relatively clean cloth around it.

Lakesh looked shell-shocked as he realized that he’d nearly shot Domi out of frightened reflex. She’d stopped a tragedy from happening, but his eyes were wide and unfocused.

“Snap out!” Domi shouted, giving him a slap. “Over there.”

She pointed him at the half-wrecked hotel that the pair had come from. Obviously the noise must have alerted others, so she had to get Lakesh into hiding as he was in no condition to deal with another fight. Domi paused long enough to pick up her pistol and fallen goggles. She wanted to leave as little evidence of their presence as possible. There was nothing she could do about finding the small brass casings in such a hurry, but she doubted any predator could get a scent off the hot metal, unlike the sweat-dampened elastic of her goggles or the grips of her pistol. As satisfied as she could be under the circumstances, she dragged Lakesh along by the hand, leading the way into the shadows of a collapsed building.

THE TWO PEOPLE RUSHED through the triangular entrance of Priscilla’s domain without pause, the small girl pulling the larger man behind her. Once in the shadows, the man seemed lost while the girl’s ruby-red eyes glinted in what little light there was. She was moving deftly and pointing out spots where her companion could trip.

Priscilla may not have had a lot of experience with humans, but she knew it was rare for a person to have such sharp senses or crimson-tinged eyes. Could these two have been others like her, creatures who had been altered in such a way that they were not quite human?

Again temptation tugged at her. She’d been lonely since she’d left Area 51, not that she’d felt camaraderie among the more savage of her kind wallowing in the pits of the abandoned complex. Still, there was something inside of her, a need to communicate. She had language, something more than what the others had, and she could hear the brief whispers of conversation between the two. She could understand them, and somewhere in the fog of memories was the recollection that she had been educated in their language while she floated in the nutrient baths. Priscilla wondered if she was meant to interact with these beings. She could understand snippets, words here and there, at least those that she could hear. They’d probably come under attack by the savage mutants themselves.

She also knew the sound of gunfire, and didn’t doubt that the two humans killed their attackers. Priscilla, looking as disheveled and alien, almost as freakish as her brethren, could easily be seen as one of them, perceived as a threat. The murmurs in the nutrient bath spoke of how humans were enemies, dangerous creatures not only to other races, but also to themselves. The only responsible way to handle them was to cull their numbers when they grew too numerous. The thoughts inserted into her brain by Tiamat were that the hairless apes were to be servants to the Annunaki.

Whichever the situation, two sides had told her that interaction with humanity was dangerous. Humans were an implacable enemy, suitable only for controlling, and even then, only in numbers their masters could handle.

Priscilla grimaced. She’d just have to hang back, stay quiet. If they showed that they weren’t a threat, maybe she could present herself. And if they were…

She’d hidden from the hunter mutants for this long.

If her bestial brethren couldn’t track her, no humans ever could.

Kane felt lucky that Rosalia had come along when she had. Sure, she had been operating under the aegis of Ullikummis’s New Order, but when the time came for a rebellion, she had aided him. Indeed, she was a gun for hire, and she had a piece of the Annunaki prince of stone inside of her, but she’d proved immune to his psychic influence, able to take him off guard during the battle to expel him.

It wasn’t much, but it had been enough for Kane to figure that Rosalia could be useful. She remained aloof, keeping her distance. Even the part-coyote dog that accompanied her hadn’t been given a name, a sign of her reluctance to draw a close attachment to anyone or anything. In the postapocalyptic Earth, while animals had proved useful, even loyal as they had before the fall of humankind, all lives had the potential to be brief, ending in violence or illness. She rarely referred to Kane by his name, either, but it hadn’t affected the former Magistrate much. The legendary security men of the baronies were known only by their family names, better to sublimate their individuality and remind them that they were only a small part of a much larger picture. While Kane had willingly lived that kind of existence, separated from his parents and raised in the academy, that veil of impersonality had been broken by his friendship and the mentoring of the bronze-skinned giant behind him, Grant. In an uncommon instance of loyalty between two Magistrates, Kane had risked his life to protect the injured older man, forging a bond that gave them the strength and will to resist the tyranny of the hybrid barons who had ruled the villes.

Kane had met another who had close ties to his soul, a bond that transcended romantic and sexual interest, becoming a spiritual connection above all else. Brigid Baptiste had been revealed in a jump dream, and in other realities, to be bonded with him across multiple lifetimes.

It had been Lakesh’s opinion that the timeless loyalty between him, Grant and Baptiste had formed a confluence of probability that could defy nearly any odds. The proof had been in countless battles with beings who could rightfully call themselves gods, beings of immense power who had ruled nations, even worlds, or traveled among universes at their whimsy. Kane worried, not for his own safety, but for Brigid’s. She had been a deciding factor in repelling conquest by all manner of monstrosities with her great intellect and her unwillingness to fail, going from academic to warrior in a few short months, ultimately becoming as skilled and battle-hardened an adventurer as any three men Kane had met.