Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (35 page)

The curator, braced against the doorjamb, pointed at Zeke’s sword on the floor. “I believe you dropped something.”

How could the curator be so freaking detached? If Zeke and Maggie failed to protect him, who knew what fate awaited the old man? Karen wouldn’t take him to some Master. Her wraiths would devour him bite by bite like the other bodies, so she could pretend the Master had used him for its evil plans, or whatever the fuck she felt like claiming.

Zeke feigned a lunge toward Karen. She squawked and ran behind the banshee. He grabbed his sword and decapitated the zombies. He couldn’t concentrate with Maggie struggling to defend herself.

Maggie cast him a brief, appreciative smile. Flailing around with the blade one-handed had barely kept the zombies off her. She’d never survive a banshee, much less a spider attack.

It was time to take that freak down. Zeke tracked the source of the green glow.

It wasn’t where he expected it to be.

The spider clung to the ceiling, halfway to the intersection. It humped wildly, web spurting from its spinnerets. A thick skein began to fill the corridor on one side, like a sliding door of goo.

“Trying to trap us in here, Karen? You afraid?” Years of practice had allowed Zeke a great deal of ambidexterity with weapons. He shifted his sword to his left hand and pulled out a knife, ready to end this—even if he ended himself along with it. Spiders were no easy kill.

“That’s not what I’m doing at all.” Guarded by the remaining wraiths, Karen peeked around the banshee’s floating hair at Zeke. Emotion wrinkled her face into a mask of hatred. “You’re too late.”

Too late for what?

An erratic rumble awoke in the distance and grew louder. Louder. A massive roar quaked the corridor. Karen’s wraiths moaned, chittered and wailed in response.

The T-Rex.

Bloody hell.

Karen scampered behind the column of webbing, followed sluggishly by her monsters. She smiled at him. Her teeth seemed too large for her mouth. “Don’t worry, my love. I won’t let it hurt you. You’ll love me again after I save you from the Master. But you can do nothing for the whore and the old man.”

If he was going to make a move, he had to do it before the dino arrived. Already he could hear the thunder of its feet on the floor, it head on the ceiling. Masonry crashed. Wraiths keened.

“Force the curator into the tube,” he told Maggie, still panting after her dances with wraiths. “Help him. Brace yourselves in there. I’ll take out the climbers.” One spider, two Nosferatu, one banshee, one Karen—and who knew what might arrive with the T-Rex?

“And you?” she asked, eyes filling with tears. They couldn’t use the ladder if the climbers weren’t dead. A spider in that tube was more than a match for any human. But they couldn’t face down a T-Rex either. It would destroy this whole place until it razed them out of any hidey hole they found.

No grenade. No C4. No tank. No chance.

Zeke forced himself not to look at her face. “Protect him. It’s our duty, Maggie. Leave space at the bottom of the ladder for me. I can carry him up after I deal with the spider. I’m willing to try if you are.”

He knew she didn’t believe him, but this time she complied. “I understand. Hurry.”

He raised his sword and knife, rolling his shoulders to loosen his tension. This would be the fight of his life. The last fight of his life. The T-Rex stumbled into view.

This one was bigger. It ran stooped over, almost doubled. The ceiling shuddered as it slammed into it. Walls cracked. It rebounded and roared. Its tiny front arms practically scrabbled the floor. A few other wraiths, smaller ones, tumbled along at its heels.

“My goodness,” the curator exclaimed. For the first time, alarm colored the old man’s voice. “He might bring the whole building down on our heads.”

Indeed. The ground trembled beneath their feet. Tiny rocks bounced off the webbing over Karen’s head. She crowed with glee. The spider continued to spurt out silk, protecting its mistress from a cave in.

Zeke heard Maggie utter a tiny whimper, but then she was hustling the curator to uncertain safety. “Let’s try the climb, sir. We’re too stubborn to give up easily.”

Karen, tucked safely under the spider’s webbing, flung an arm toward them and screeched. “No, no, no. She can’t go anywhere. Kill her!”

The spider skittered along the ceiling. Webbing trailed behind its ass like a kite. The banshee spread its arms and uttered a flinch-worthy wail. Zombies and Nosferatus coasted across the concrete floor. The T-Rex clobbered a wall, shaking its head in a daze.

The daze wouldn’t last.

“Don’t just stand there, Zeke,” Karen yelled at him. His ears rang from the stupid banshee, and he had no earplugs to ward off the sonic attacks. “It may crush you accidentally. Come to me. Save yourself!”

He only cared about saving Maggie. If the curator got saved too, that was fine by Zeke. He pressed himself against the wall beside the door, his sword angled to fend off the spider intent on Maggie.

And then the Nosferatu and the zombies and the banshee. And then the T-Rex.

Yeah, he wouldn’t last long against a T-Rex in open combat.

Climb, Maggie, climb.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The mutant spider couldn’t do shit with only one leg. It chittered at Zeke, incensed but stationary. The single claw Zeke hadn’t chopped off scrabbled at the ground, and all it managed to do was swivel its fat ass like a manic sit and spin. Couldn’t climb after Maggie in that state.

Zeke readied himself for the banshee, the Nosferatus and the zombies. The Nosferatus glided across the ground like hovercrafts. They’d reach him first. The banshee hung back, wailing and hooting. Banshees preferred to disorient their victims before attacking, and Zeke refused to be disoriented.

Karen cowered behind the column of thick webbing. Her head swiveled between the T-Rex trying to find Maggie and Zeke.

She called to him, her voice shrill and desperate. “There’s no way you can save her, but you can save yourself. I can save you.”

He didn’t want to save himself if Maggie were gone. Zeke growled like a werecreature and whipped his knife through the air.

At Karen.

She ducked. The blade chunked to a stop in the spider’s impressive webbing. Maybe he should kill the nasty thing, and Karen’s literal safety net would turn to dust.

But then, so would the only source of illumination in the corridor. The spider’s glowing legs were strewn about, lighting the place up like swamp gas.

“She doesn’t deserve you,” Karen fumed, wrenching at the knife. “I had you first. Me. You’re mine. We have a tangible. That has to mean something.”

It meant he’d been really fucking stupid. Now he was older, wiser and in love with a wonderful woman who didn’t deserve him—because she deserved better.

It also meant he got why Maggie insisted Karen wasn’t his fault. It was possible no one could have been smart or savvy enough to fix Karen. His judgment lapse hadn’t directly caused her breakdown or the chaos that resulted from it. She was so fanatical and distorted in her worldview, nobody could have prevented her from going off the deep end.

He still regretted everything about Karen, but figuring her out was no longer his job. Just stopping her and her monsters so Maggie and the curator could live.

Zeke grabbed the first Nosferatu by the cloak before it entered the bunkroom and slung it into the second one. Their hairless, grub-white heads pivoted to glare at him. They hissed through their curved teeth and flung themselves at him in concert.

“Not him, you dolts!” Karen yelled. “Kill the whore and bring me the old man.”

The Nosferatus shrugged off Karen’s orders like she wasn’t shrieking at them. Considering Karen’s shriek out-pierced the T-Rex and banshee combined, that was saying something.

The T-Rex was too busy digging through the pile of rubble it had created by colliding too hard against the ceiling to roar. Masonry scattered in all directions as it disintegrated the obstruction.

Zeke sliced off one Nosferatu’s head. The other swiped at him with razor-sharp fingernails, so he cut its hand off. Black blood spurted from its severed arm like a geyser, spraying Zeke with copper-scented liquid.

Holy fuck, he’d forgotten about that trick. This one must have fed on a human at some point after manifesting.

Bastard.

The Nosferatu stretched its wounded arm toward him, trying to spray his eyes. Zeke zigzagged and lunged, putting an end to the vampire’s tricks for good.

Two zombies and a wailing hag left between him and…

The T-Rex, finally past the rubble, stalked past Karen’s hiding place toward Zeke. Zeke took one step farther from the bunk room. Two. This corridor wasn’t much longer, but he could run to the end, duck into the last bunk room, and…

Die later, rather than now.

Using all her strength and patience—and trying not to panic—Maggie pushed and tugged the curator up the bunk ramp until he could reach the ladder in the tube. She’d been close to death several times since becoming an alucinator, but she’d never get used to the stomach-wrenching tension, the watery knees and the buzzing in her ears.

She probably wouldn’t have a chance to get used to it. The T-Rex roared ominously. The curator winced in response.

Well, actually, that was because she’d pinched his leg, trying to get him to hurry. The penlight was clutched between his teeth, and it wagged and wavered as he labored.

“Sir, lift your foot to the bottom rung.” Maggie heaved upward. The old man was thin and wizened but a challenge for her. This close, their bodies were way friendlier than seemed proper, and he smelled faintly of carrion.

It wasn’t him, though. The whole outbunker smelled of carrion. Wraith rot took a while to air out, especially when living wraiths were actively trying to eat you.

“I’ll push,” Maggie continued. “I’m sturdier than I look.”

The penlight’s beam stilled, and the curator’s teeth clinked on the metal.

“I’m not as limber as I used to be,” he complained.

“Don’t answer me. Put the light in your mouth and climb.” The tube ascended into the dark—endless, claustrophobic and possibly populated by wraiths.

They were never going to make it, but Zeke was right. The high chance of failure was no reason not to try.

Maggie wriggled into a position where she could hoist the curator higher. The slanted ramp provided decent footing with a corrugated surface, but she had nowhere to brace and one functional hand. The banshee’s wails sounded like they were two inches from her ears. Every second, she expected a wraith to jump her from behind.

So far Zeke was holding them off. As promised.

The curator coughed. “I can’t…oopsie.” The flashlight plunked down, out of the curator’s mouth, and pinged off Maggie’s head. “Damn and blast.”

Her scalp stung but she didn’t yell. She had to encourage the curator. He was human, scared, elderly, and not cut out for this. There was no reason to be hateful.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We know where the ladder goes. We don’t need a light.” The tool clattered to the floor, its beam twirling on the far wall. She clung to the old man. There was no way she could release him to fetch the penlight.

He muttered something and then said, “Give me a minute, girlie.”

As if on cue, the T-Rex roared again. It was closer. The walls shuddered as it hurtled toward them—toward Maggie. She knew who the T-Rex was after.

“We don’t have minutes. If you could just…” She bent, clamped her arms around his knees, and elevated him, trying not to bellow like a weight lifter. Her back screamed at her almost as loud as Karen and the banshee were screaming in the hallway. “Grab, sir. Gotta get higher.”

Her legs trembled with the strain of holding the curator aloft. She tried not to decode the sounds of combat outside the shattered door but couldn’t help it. Metal clanged. Wraiths squalled. Zeke cursed. Karen raged at him, furious that he was putting himself in danger for Maggie.

For Maggie. He was sacrificing himself to give her a chance. He didn’t give a shit about the curator. But Zeke was right about more than attempting the climb—protecting the old man was their duty.

The curator’s weight eased out of her arms as he pulled himself into the tube. Her spine’s protests subsided to a bitchy moan. She caught his foot with her good hand and boosted him that last inch.

The earsplitting roar of the T-Rex crescendoed in indignation. What was its problem? Karen screamed again and again, as if the monster were after her instead of Maggie.

The doorway to the bunkroom rocked with an explosive boom. The bunks quaked.

“Shit!” Maggie lost her grip on the curator’s shoe. Luckily, he didn’t tumble onto her head like the penlight. He’d found a solid perch. At last.

Too late for Maggie. The dino slammed against the wall that separated it from Maggie, roaring like the devil was on its tail. The sound deafened her, a physical pain. Flailing, feeling like her ears were bleeding, she hit the deck and jounced down bunk ramp. The corrugations bruised her butt, adding insult to injury.

With a whump, she landed hard beside the penlight. Concrete dust billowed around her. A heavy silence descended along with the debris.

No screaming Karen. No banshee. No green spider glow leaching in from the corridor. No moaning zombies. No Zeke.

If he were alive, he’d call for her. Maggie’s heart thudded with loss, but she knew, since her heart was thudding, this wasn’t over. She couldn’t stop yet.

What now?

First, she heard the curator’s rapid breaths, echoing down the escape tube. He was alive. Then she distinguished the low, dangerous thrum of a giant beast just…over…

Darkness concealed it, whatever it was. But she feared she knew.

Trying not to whimper, Maggie rested tentative fingers on the penlight. She raised it, shivering with fear, to shine at the doorway.

The T-Rex’s huge head nosed through the rubble. Bigger than the first one by half. She’d never seen a wraith so large. Yellow eyes pinned her to the dusty concrete floor.

It lifted its lip like a prehistoric Elvis and growled.

The T-Rex continued its hunched course. It had figured out how to avoid bashing itself senseless against the ceiling. Serrated teeth glinted in the green light. It slowed its advance, plodding toward Zeke like a komodo dragon on a scent. Its head rubbed along the ceiling.

Karen raced after it. “Not him,” she yelled at the lizard. “Not him, not him, I order you, do not hurt him.”

The T-Rex roared in defiance. Zeke jogged backward, reluctant to run until he was sure the dino would ignore Maggie and follow. He was the only line of defense between Maggie and the wraiths.

“Come on, meathead. I’m right here.” Quick as a cat, he skimmed a throwing star at the monster. It buried itself in the dino’s neck, harmless but annoying. “Come and get me.”

The dino barreled into the zombies and banshee, knocking them aside. Karen leaped like the spider…and landed on the dinosaur’s back.

What the hell?

She plunged Zeke’s large dagger into the monster’s spine. Its huge, reptilian head thrashed. Its tail walloped the wall beside the bunkroom with a giant boom, followed quickly by its body, as it tried to shake Karen off.

The ceiling fissured. The wall began to crumble. She clung to the puny knife with grim determination, her face a mask of fury.

Zeke had never seen any alucinator, good or bad, experienced or noob, do anything as insane as what he was witnessing right now.

The T-Rex bawled out its pain. Its tail lashed, and its massive head connected with the weakened wall. Violently. Pieces of concrete landed on the banshee, the zombies, the spider and its detached legs, almost on Zeke. He dove out of the hail of debris.

After a terrifying moment, silence reigned. The banshee must be dead or it would be wailing up a storm. One down.

The rubble had crushed the spider parts, cloaking the area in near-darkness. Zeke slid along with a wall at his back. He strained to hear, strained to see. Grumbles. Creaks. His eyes slowly adjusted. A faint glimmer radiated from where he’d last seen the spider’s body, which meant it was alive under the rubble. Alive and kicking, with its one leg.

The dark outline of the T-Rex lingered in front of Maggie’s bunkroom. Or most of the T-Rex. The giant wraith’s head appeared to be inside the room itself.

A thin beam of light blinked out of the room and flickered over the T-Rex and its rider.

Karen shouted triumphantly. The spider managed to free itself from a large piece of wall, flooding the area with its eerie luminescence. The T-Rex roared.

“Bite her in half!” Karen kicked the T-Rex with her heels like a demonic cowboy.

Shit, Maggie must not be in the tube. Without a second thought, Zeke sprang into action.

The T-Rex roared two feet away from Maggie’s scrambling feet. The sound was a physical blow, launching her into the far wall. Wet gobbets of unknown origin smacked her clothing, her exposed skin. The hot odor of vomit and wraith poured over her like a bucket of dirty water.

She gagged. Karen’s voice shrieked something about biting Maggie in half. She could only see the T-Rex’s weaving head, but Karen sounded close.

“Are you all right, dear?” the curator queried. She had no idea how he could make himself heard over the T-Rex and Karen.

“Climb higher,” she yelled. Desperately, she stuck the penlight in her armpit and fumbled with the sword belted to her waist. She rose to a crouch so she could draw it. It looked like a stickpin next to the T-Rex’s bulky head.

“I can see you,” Karen crooned. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Maggie directed the penlight past the T-Rex’s toothy jaws, but there was no sign of Karen on either side of it.

The T-Rex grumbled but didn’t attack. Yet. Was Karen forcing it to eat its dinner in small bites so she could watch? Sick. Several zombies interjected moans into the proceedings. Quick footfalls approached. Werecreatures? Whedons? What new wraiths would appear beside the T-Rex to gloat over Maggie before tearing her to pieces?

She clamped her bad arm against her side, steadying the penlight in her armpit. When she died, she wanted to see it coming. Gingerly, she extended the blade, wondering if she could slice an eyeball like Zeke had with the first T-Rex.

Instantly, the T-Rex lunged. Its great jaws snapped two inches from the tip of Maggie’s sword.

She stabbed it in the nose. The metal point sank deeper than expected. The blow jolted her arm as if she’d struck concrete instead of wraith.

It drew back with a snakelike hiss, yanking her sword with it. Maggie staggered forward involuntarily, her fingers clinging to the hilt, before she let go.

Dammit—now she only had a knife and a penlight.

The T-Rex whipped its head back and forth, the sword wagging like a dog’s tail. Its stunted forearms pawed uselessly at its jaw. Frustrated, the dino proceeded to scrape its face along the crumbling wall.

“I said, kill her,” Karen yelled at the dinosaur, and kept yelling, a diatribe of hate.

But the dinosaur rubbed its head along the closest wall, intent on the sword in its schnozz. Chunks of concrete succumbed to pressure and gravity until the entire room was practically exposed to the corridor.

Karen’s screeching rose in volume until it sounded like it was right outside the room. Where was she? A flicker of motion on the T-Rex’s back caught Maggie’s attention.