Inca Kings

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

Hayden fought her way to the cave door as the living quarters rapidly filled up. The crush worked against them; made up of attackers, defenders and those that wanted no part of it. They had nowhere to go. Some were being stabbed or crushed just to make space for more. Dantanion’s guards surged into and around the place, hunting out the insurgents.

Struggling, she tried to get the key into the lock. An arm swiped at her, making her lurch. She pushed the attacker in the chest, forcing him back. Aimed the key again and forced it into the lock. Yorgi kicked out at her side, forcing another away, doubling up a woman. When she looked up again her eyes were glowing, her face rabid. Hayden knew she’d ingested a ton of cannibal juice.

Cannibal juice?

Well, what the hell else would you call it? She twisted the lock, heard a click, and flung open the doors. Just in time. Another surge forced her down the narrow passage that was revealed and into a blast of cold air. Yorgi stumbled after her, then Fay. She’d already lost Smyth and Kinimaka, but assumed they were just trying to cope with the crush. She’d already checked and knew the Glock had six bullets remaining. Now, she pressed on, seeking out a niche or a junction where she might be able to stop and help her friends.

Above, she could only see rock and knew they were below the foundations of the house, its lower edge probably jutting out into space over them. Built as it had been against the mountain she knew it had to be anchored further up, and the concealed caves delved below. Two guards caught her first, and she beat them hard, rendering both unconscious in less than a minute. Fay stared in amazement.

“Why didn’t you do that before? At the feast?”

“Because I didn’t have backup then. And I thought I could find the keys alone. And—”

“All right, I get it. Jeez.”

Yorgi used the rock wall to gain forward momentum, running a few steps up at full speed and coming down hard onto another guard. Hayden backed further away. The cave entrance began to fill and then the passage. All manner of people followed her.

And attacked without conscience. Anything went in the caves. Men came low and she beat them down. Another slashed with a sharpened stick and she perforated his lungs with it. A spider creature crawled along the side of the tunnel where the wall met the ground, black and chilling. Hayden decided it was worth a bullet and saw it bleed red blood.

Thank God.

Still, they forced her backward. The tunnel opened out. Behind her came the sounds of a flowing stream. It crossed their path and continued underground. More attackers thrust forward. Hayden smashed one on the temple and then another. She fell atop them, forcing them under the water and kneeling on their heads. She fended a third off, catching punches and blows on her wrists and biceps, gaining bruises and not losing any ground.

Fay knelt beside her, crying.

“If you want to live,” Hayden panted between punches, “fight!”

A guard slipped in the stream, smashed his head against jutting rock. His weapon had been a baseball bat, so Hayden scooped it up and used it on the next. Yet another she smashed around the knees, three blows, until finally she felt the fight give in those she had drowned, and rose up.

Backing further away.

She took Fay by the jacket, pulled her back. The tunnel angled downward now, its walls moving further and further away. Hayden ignored her soaked feet, her soaked legs, and jabbed at another oncoming opponent. Beyond him now she saw the huge bulk that had to be Kinimaka, the shape of Smyth who grumbled even as he fought. The latter engaged a spider creature, pummeling it until it dropped, but failed to stop two guards sneaking around his back.

Kinimaka ended them with two shots.

Smyth jumped away. Hayden saw recruits coming now, the ones she’d arrived with and a dozen more, filing past Smyth and chasing after her; their eyes wild and petrified, their faces bruised and bloody.

“Nobody signed us up for this,” one yelled.

“I don’t remember signing up for anything!” another replied.

“Is it all part of the initiation?” Still another.

“Listen up!” Hayden cried out. “You’re now running for your goddamn lives. So believe that. And fucking fight!”

Fay stared up and down, left and right, eyes wide with horror. Hayden saw more than just fear of battle in that stare. “What’s wrong?” she asked, then gently patted the girl’s face. “What’s wrong? Fay!”

“Stories I heard earlier,” she whispered. “About flesh eaters that never leave the caves. Fed old meat through a hole. They’re just left down here to roam and… and…”

“And what?”

“To watch out for strays,” she murmured. “True monsters.”

Hayden looked down the darker tunnel that stretched ahead, knowing it led toward the long lost Inca treasure. “We must go deeper. We’re under attack. We have no choice.”

Smyth came up. “Get a fucking move on!”

“There’s more,” Fay breathed. “A story of two brothers gone mad and wild who live down here together, worse than the flesh eaters and far hungrier.”

“Sounds like shit to me,” Smyth said. “Move your ass.”

Hayden used another bullet on a spider creature and Kinimaka fired two into guards. With the bulk of the people out of the way now they could puck off their assailants with ease, forcing most of them back up the tunnel and toward the house. Hayden stared into the dark passageway once more.

“Stick together,” she said. “We go down.”

“Not me,” Fay challenged. “I’m staying right here.”

“Where you’re just as vulnerable,” Hayden protested. “From above and below.”

“I am not moving. You see, I’m starting to stand up for myself.”

At the perfectly wrong moment, Hayden thought. Like so many kids. “All right, then I can’t help you. Any of you who stay. I want to…” She faltered. “Come with us. Please.”

Fay refused; others sat beside her. In the end all of the recruits chose to stay, especially when all sounds of footsteps along the tunnel back to the chateau died away.

Hayden eyed her team. “Looks like it’s just us, guys.”

Yorgi inclined his head. “I will stay with them. I have a full weapon and I can protect these boys and girls.”

Hayden saw vulnerability in his eyes then, and guessed he saw much of his old self in the gathering of lost souls. He wanted to go with the team, but needed to protect the kids.

“Good luck,” she said. “We’ll see you soon.”

Smyth and Kinimaka followed her into blackness, trying not to hear the whisperings and slitherings that suddenly started up around them.