Джули Кагава – The Eternity Cure (страница 11)
Below us, about twenty feet down, the cement floor was a shifting, roiling carpet of pale bodies and jagged fangs. Rabids filled the chamber, growling, hissing, moving about the room like a swarm of ants. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, coming in from various tunnels and pipes near the ground. I hissed as their scent wafted up from the pit—blood and rot and decay and wrongness—and took a step back from the edge.
“Well,” Jackal mused softly, watching the rabid swarm with vague amusement. “I think it’s safe to say that we found the nest.” He shook the catwalk experimentally. It creaked, rust and metallic flakes drifting down to the horde below. Thankfully, they didn’t notice. “Doesn’t seem very sturdy, does it? This is going to be interesting.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do you see any other way across?” Jackal crossed his arms, shooting me a challenging smirk. “I thought you were so anxious to find the lab.”
I smirked back. “Fine. After you, then.”
He shrugged. Stepping onto the narrow bridge, he carefully eased out over the sheer drop, testing for weakness. The catwalk groaned but held, and he grinned at me.
“Afraid of heights, sister? Need me to carry you across?”
“Yeah, why don’t you save the smart comments until you’re on the other side?”
He rolled his eyes, turned, and began walking across the gap, moving with unnatural grace. Despite that, the catwalk creaked and groaned horribly under his weight. It shuddered and swayed, and I bit my lip, certain it would snap at any second and Jackal would plummet to his death.
Beneath us, the rabids had noticed the vampire trying to cross the bridge, and their shrieks and snarls rose from the pit as they surged forward, gazing up hungrily. Some of them began leaping for the catwalk, swiping at it with their claws, and though they couldn’t quite make it, some of those leaps came frighteningly close.
After several long, tense moments, Jackal finally reached the other side. The hisses and screams from the rabids were deafening now, echoing through the chamber, as Jackal turned and beckoned me across with a grin.
Keeping my gaze straight ahead, I started across the catwalk, putting one foot in front of the other as lightly as I could. There were no railings to grab hold of; I had to make my way across on balance alone. The bridge swayed and groaned as I neared the center, carefully stepping over the gaping holes in the mesh floor. Through the gaps, the rabids churned below me, glaring up with dead white eyes and gnashing their fangs.
As I was nearing the end, trying to move faster but still keep my steps light, a rabid leaped up from the floor, lashed out, and struck the bottom of the catwalk with a metallic screech that lanced up my spine. The walkway jerked to the side, nearly spilling me off, then let out a deafening groan as one side of the bridge shuddered and twisted like paper.
Fear shot through me. I gave a frantic leap for the edge of the tunnel, just as the catwalk snapped and plummeted into the hordes below. I hit the wall a few inches from the edge and clawed desperately for a handhold, my fingers scrabbling against the smooth wall as I slid toward the wailing sea of death below.
Something clamped around my wrist, jerking me to a stop. Wide-eyed, I looked up to see Jackal on his stomach, one hand around my arm, his jaw clenched. His face was tight with concentration as he started to pull me up.
A reeking, skeletal body landed on my back, sinking claws into my shoulders, screaming in my ear. I snarled in pain, ducking my head as the rabid tore at my collar, trying to bite my neck. I couldn’t do anything, but Jackal reached down with his other hand, drew the katana from its sheath on my back, and plunged it into the rabid. The weight clinging to me dropped away as the rabid screeched and fell back into the mob below, and Jackal yanked me into the tunnel.
I collapsed against the wall, staring at him as he glared down at the rabids. He … had just saved my life. Stunned, I watched him approach and hold the katana hilt out to me.
“So.” His gold eyes shone as he gazed into mine. “I think I’m entitled to a smart comment or two now, don’t you think?”
I took the sword numbly. “Yeah,” I muttered as his smug look faded into something that wasn’t completely obnoxious. “Thanks.”
“No problem, little sister.” The leer returned, making him look normal again. “Comment number one—how much do you weigh to snap the bridge like that? I thought you Asians were supposed to be petite and dainty.”
Okay, moment over. I sheathed my blade and glared at him. “And here I
“Well, that’s your mistake, not mine.” Jackal dusted his hands and gave the edge of the tunnel a rueful look. “Shall we continue? Before our friends start climbing each other to get to us? If that’s the nest, the lab should be around here somewhere.”
A clang from the pit below drew my attention. Walking to the edge, I peered out, just as a rabid landed on the tunnel rim with a snarl. As I snarled back and kicked the thing in the chest, sending it toppling back into the hole, I saw that the catwalk had fallen against the wall of the pit, and that rabids were scrambling up to leap into the tunnel. I drew my katana, slashing another out of the air as it flew at me, howling, but Jackal grabbed the back of my coat, yanking me away.
“No time for that! The whole nest will be up here in a second. Come on!”
The wails and shrieks intensified as more rabids entered the tunnel, snarling and baring their fangs. I spun, shrugging free of Jackal’s grip, and we bolted down the passage, the screams of the monsters close behind.
A few miles from the nest, we didn’t seem to be any closer to the hidden lab.
“You’re just guessing now, aren’t you?” I snapped at Jackal, who shot me an annoyed look over his shoulder as we ran.
“Sorry, I didn’t see the big X with the words
A rabid dropped down from a breach overhead, hissing as it landing in front of us. Jackal whirled his ax, striking it under the jaw and smashing it aside, and we continued without slowing down. I could still hear the horde in pursuit, their screams echoing all around us, reverberating from everywhere. We had definitely poked a stick into a wasp nest, stirring them into a frenzy. We were in their world now, and they were closing in.
I snarled at the vampire’s retreating back. “Yeah, well maybe you’d like to get that map out so we know where the hell we’re going!”
We ducked through a door frame into yet another narrow cement corridor, rusted beams and pipes lining the walls and ceiling, dripping water on us from above. Jackal yanked the map from his coat and shook it open with a rustle of paper, scowling as the shrieks of the rabids echoed behind us.
“All right, where the hell are we?” he muttered, squinting at the map in the darkness, eyes narrowed in concentration. I glanced nervously at the hall we’d just come through, hearing the rabids draw closer, their claws skittering over the cement. Jackal began walking down the corridor, weaving around fallen beams and pipes, and I followed.
“You know they’re right on our tail.”
“First you want me to look at the map, now you’re rushing me along. Make up your mind, sister.” He walked by a tall square pillar that jutted out of the wall; two sliding doors stood half-open in the front, and a cold breeze wafted out of the crack. “Okay, there’s the subway tunnels,” Jackal muttered, walking a little faster now, holding the map close to see it in the dark. “And there’s the entrance we came in … wait a second.”
He stopped and half turned in the corridor, looking back the way we’d come. I followed his gaze, but saw nothing except empty hallway and rusty pipes, though I could still hear the rabids, getting closer.
“Um, where are you going?” I asked as Jackal began walking again, back toward the approaching horde. “Hey, wrong direction! In case you didn’t know, we usually want to move
Jackal stopped at the long, square pillar jutting from the wall. “Yeah, I thought so,” I heard him mutter. “This isn’t on the map, and there shouldn’t be anything down there. Get over here and look at this.”
Against my better judgment, I jogged over to where Jackal stood, staring at the doors. Cold, dry air billowed out of a gap that ran down the center, and Jackal gave a snort.
“He’s been here.”
“What? Sarren?”
“No, the boogeyman. Look.” Jackal pointed to the sliding doors. The metal was crumpled along the edges, as if something had slipped ironlike fingers into the seam and pried them open.
I peered through the gap, following the narrow shaft as it plunged into the dark. It was a long, long way down.