Gemini Cell: A Shadow Ops Novel (Shadow Ops series Book 4) (12 page)

“Throw ropes!” one of the men behind him shouted. Schweitzer could hear him muscling the thick hawser into position. Schweitzer stood their shared body up, toes out over the edge, put out a hand to stop him. He heard the man freeze, the dull thud of rope dropping to the deck.

Ninip didn’t bother to speak, his lust a silent rising in all of Schweitzer’s senses. The building’s roof looked impossibly small, a postage stamp in a field of gray.

“Sir . . .” the man began.

Schweitzer jumped.

Ninip’s instincts leapt into control of their shared body, beating down Schweitzer’s effort to go belly down, pointing their toes, flexing their hamstrings until their thighs rose above their pelvis. Instead, they folded in their arms and legs, bent their head, and arced through the sky, an arrow racing toward its target. Schweitzer knew he should be frightened, but Ninip’s confidence suffused him. He felt alive with the heady power of the creature at the top of the food chain. They would strike that building headfirst, split it in half, and rise laughing from the rubble.

Ninip unfolded them at last, angling their body outward. Schweitzer felt them slow, the roof speeding toward them, the draft against their body moving them in at an angle. He overcame the instinct to shut their eyes. That was for the living.

Their core muscles engaged again, their feet cutting through the racing air, slicing through the pressure as if it were nothing, getting their soles underneath them just as the roof arrived to embrace them.

They hit.

Schweitzer felt the muscles in their legs tense, taking his weight, sending tremors up through their shared skeleton. He felt Ninip’s presence focus inward, coiling around the fragile bones, holding them together by sheer force of will.

The corrugated metal surface didn’t fare as well. Their boots punched through, the cells of fluid in the armor hardening at the impact, locking around their ankles. The concrete beneath receded, sending a spiderweb of cracks spreading out until they disappeared beneath the whole surface of the steel above.

And then they bounced out, heels ripping the rents wider, tucked their head, and somersaulted until the momentum was spent, coming up into a crouch just before the freight elevator housing. Schweitzer asserted himself, smacking down the jinn’s bloodlust.
Let me drive!
Ninip growled, but acceded as Schweitzer popped the carbine up into the sweet spot, getting on the sights as they rose, scanning the roof for threats.

You got infrared on these guys?
Schweitzer sent up to Jawid.
We must have made a pretty loud bang when we hit.

A loud bang on concrete with fire-retardant foam,
Jawid sent back.
We’re not seeing any indicator they heard it. The building has central HVAC. It’s pretty loud.

Schweitzer turned his attention to the outside world, could hear the loud humming of the climate-control system, the elevator mechanism, the gantry cranes.
I think you’re right,
he sent.
Looks clear, we’re moving.

Pent anger flared in him. He knew this target wasn’t responsible for his family’s death, but it didn’t matter. It would feel so good to do
something
with all this . . .
Stop,
he told himself.
That’s Ninip talking. You’re a professional, and this is a job, nothing more.

But the jinn’s influence could not be denied, and he felt the carnivore lust in the back of their throat as he moved to the elevator-housing doors, swelling their tongue, lengthening it until they were forced to open their mouth, let it slap against the helmet’s faceplate.

Report,
Jawid said.
Status?

Ninip sent a feral growl back up the link, and Schweitzer felt the Sorcerer’s fear traveling back down.

On deck and in position,
Schweitzer managed.
Entering the elevator shaft.

Jawid tried to link Schweitzer to his vision, give him a look at the map, but Schweitzer was pulled along by Ninip’s eagerness and rejected the image.
That shaft leads to the . . .
Jawid began.

Shut up, goatherd,
Ninip growled.

Schweitzer reached out, their fingers brushing the seam between the doors, their fingertips responding, claws extending, prying between. Schweitzer couldn’t hold back the growl as Ninip engaged the muscles of their shared arm, peeling back the three inches of steel as if it were cardboard. The metal shrieked, opening just enough to admit them, and Schweitzer slid them into the cramped, dark space beyond.

Their vision compensated instantly. In life, his NODs had lit the darkness with a pale green hue, a tunnel that distorted distance and depth. Now he saw in red, the outlines and details of his surroundings as clear as if it were broad daylight.

The giant metal cylinder of the elevator’s mechanism dominated the room, thick steel cables wrapping around it to descend through the floor. Schweitzer brushed past the controls on the wall, and Ninip immediately moved them into a squat, clawed fingers prying at the machinery’s base.

Dude,
Schweitzer said.
Chill. There’s a goddamn hatch.
He forced their head to turn to see it, thin outline barely visible at the machine’s edge. Ninip’s feral impulse almost turned him back to the machinery anyway, but Schweitzer pushed them back to the panel, allowing the jinn to rip it from its moorings, hurling it over their shoulder.

Whatever floats your boat. We’re not going to surprise anyone this way.

Warriors do not skulk like thieves,
Ninip answered.

With the prospect of battle so close, Ninip was becoming harder to control, his influence so strong that Schweitzer found himself swept along. All this power, locked into one tiny body, it was only fair to let it out to stretch its legs.

They dropped through the hatch, landing on top of the elevator on the balls of their feet, silent for all Ninip’s efforts to throw caution to the wind. The jinn ripped open that hatch as well, dropping them into the elevator below. Their vision compensated again as they fell into the lighted space, a single uncovered fluorescent bulb washing all in harsh white.

We’re making a lot of noise,
Schweitzer sent to Jawid.

I know,
Jawid replied.
So far, so good.

Before Schweitzer could process their surroundings, Ninip was clawing at the seam in the elevator doors. The metal came apart, scraping loudly against the housing. Their swollen tongue found the seam between faceplate and helmet, forced through. Schweitzer could see it lashing the air before them, gray and impossibly long.

This was not the SEALs’ way. The clumsy noise of their entry was an affront. They had paired him with Ninip to bring his years of training to bear, but it was buried in the jinn’s raw eagerness for blood.

Status?
Jawid asked again. Ninip’s eagerness overcame him, and Schweitzer felt himself pushed to the very edge of his own body, his presence shrinking as Ninip’s enlarged to fill the darkness they shared. He felt the boundary of his own corpse, felt himself slipping across it. Cold washed over him, biting deeply. He heard distant screaming, the chorus of billions of shrieking voices tangled together. Schweitzer clung to their shared space, forced his way back into it.

Are you on the second deck?
Jawid again, urgency in his voice.
We need your position.
Schweitzer could not answer, his energy funneled into the fight to cling to his corner of the ground he still held in his own corpse.

He felt Ninip give grudgingly, a fraction of their shared space opening to him. He slid gratefully into it as the jinn ripped the elevator doors from their moorings and leapt into the hallway beyond.

Schweitzer managed to get the carbine coming up, head down on the sights. They were already moving, the painted cinder-block surface of the walls sweeping by them, spaced by green metal doors at regular intervals.

Status!
Jawid said.
Where are you?
The Sorcerer again forced the floor plan of the building down the link between them, but Ninip batted it aside again, picking up speed.
On the second deck, passageway outside the elevator. Moving to junction on north side,
Schweitzer sent to Jawid.

Shouts. Silhouettes at the end of the hallway, moving toward them.

Contact,
Schweitzer sent up to Jawid.
Multiple . . .

Ninip hauled on the trigger and the carbine barked. One of the silhouettes spun, dropped. Schweitzer had no idea where the round had impacted. SEALs took pride in knowing precisely where each round was placed, making them as effective with a .22 as they were with a monster-caliber weapon like the one they were holding now.

But Ninip would not be denied. The jinn drew on the fragments of gun lore he had learned and hauled on the trigger again, sending a large-caliber round digging into the floor a foot before the target. The silhouettes vanished, the shouts louder.

Ninip threw back their head and answered them, their shared throat constricting to let out a howl that channeled all of the jinn’s predator joy. Schweitzer knew that howl didn’t sound human, knew it would cause the hairs of whoever heard it to stand on end.

Your boy is out of control,
Schweitzer passed up to Jawid, felt Ninip’s scorn as the jinn leapt forward. Return fire now, the whining of rounds streaking off the walls. Amateurs, then. One lucky bullet clipped their side, the liquid armor hardening at the blow, sending the round skimming off. Even the glancing hit would have put a normal man on the deck, but their magically augmented core locked up, keeping their body stable, moving them forward as if they’d never been hit.

A door flew open off their elbow. Schweitzer had been so focused on maintaining some purchase on his body that he hadn’t noticed his shooter’s vision taking over, his eyes beginning to rove instinctively in search of targets. The widened range caught the door, the face of the man beyond, contorted by rage, swinging a long-handled engineer’s wrench.

Ninip took the reins, reaching out one clawed hand, raking their enemy’s stomach open. The man’s face went white as his guts came out, filling Schweitzer with a queer sense of déjà vu. Not long ago, he’d worn the same expression, staring at his own life falling away from him.

Ninip lashed the lengthened tongue out, curling it around the man’s neck, yanking him in. Schweitzer felt their jaw unhinge, their neck tensing as their head jerked forward, the jaws clamping on the man’s face. It collapsed under the pressure, the screaming cut off, the bones crunching as their jaw muscles engaged, and the jaws snapped shut. Blood filled their mouth, their throat convulsing to gulp it down, spraying over their shoulders, trickling down behind their armor.

Their skin tingled at the touch. The metallic taste was ambrosia. Schweitzer knew he should be horrified, but he could barely feel the edges of himself in the midst of Ninip’s exultant storm.

He threw the carbine back into the sweet spot, hoping the familiar battlefield drills would anchor him, but it was useless. Ninip pushed the weapon back down, gnashed their teeth, and flexed their claws.
We do not need it.

Schweitzer drowned in the bloodlust as they raced the rest of the way down the hall.

The man they’d dropped was kitted out in secondhand gear. An amateur playing at war. The .50 caliber round had punched a dime-sized hole through his sternum. He stared sightlessly at the ceiling, lips still trembling.

Ninip put their boot on his throat and stepped down.

A rusted steel railing stood before them, flaking green paint, metal staircases descending from either side. Before them was a broad gallery that had likely once been a factory floor. It was now somewhere between a camp and a hospital. Foam bedrolls were laid out at regular intervals, some still sporting rumpled sleeping bags. Three steel, wheeled worktables stood in the center of the room. Each one bore a body wrapped in bloody bandages.

Men and women were scrambling from the gallery floor, dressed in the same patchwork military clothing as the corpse under their boot, wielding the same secondhand weaponry. The stink of fear was sharp in the air. The enemy did their best to look determined, but it wasn’t working. Schweitzer could see the panic on their faces.

Save one.

A man in a suit stood beside the worktables, bald head reflecting the gleam of the fluorescent lights. His face was warm and open, his forehead creased with concern as he bent over one of the bandaged bodies.

Jackrabbit.

Contact Jackrabbit,
Schweitzer sent to Jawid.
Engaging.

Jackrabbit looked up at Schweitzer and Ninip, his face registering resignation, sadness.

But not fear.

With that gaze, something punched through the cloud of Ninip’s hunger. The jinn snarled, and Schweitzer felt the current more closely, as if it were another presence, made of the same stuff as the jinn itself.

Jackrabbit reached a hand toward them, and the current intensified. He frowned. Whatever he’d expected to happen, it hadn’t.

Schweitzer felt one of the liquid cells on their shoulder go solid as a bullet impacted. Jackrabbit crouched, gathered his current in, then his thighs bulged impossibly large, splitting his pants along the seams, and he jumped.

He cleared the hundred feet between them easily. Schweitzer had enough time to slash to his left, laying open the throat of one of Jackrabbit’s followers, and then Jackrabbit’s arc brought him down onto the railing, his muscles returning to their normal size.

Schweitzer got the carbine up, not bothering with the sights at this range. The gun kicked.

Schweitzer felt the current intensify and Jackrabbit’s side folded inward, his rib cage suddenly gone to jelly, sucking the shirt with it to create a notch that let the round pass harmlessly through. Then the flesh shot back to its normal position with all the spring of a released rubber band, and he was upon them.

Schweitzer let the carbine drop onto its sling and took Jackrabbit’s fists in their balled hands, claws sinking into the backs, screeching against bones gone suddenly dense and hard as steel. Jackrabbit’s current rose, and his hands swelled to the size of bowling balls, until even Ninip’s magical strength broke and they stumbled backward. Schweitzer could see the crowd gathered behind Jackrabbit, watching, expectant.