Wolves

TWENTY-THREE

Mags, wake up.

The nasal voice in her dream sounded oddly familiar, but no face showed itself in the darkness of her mind. She was stuck in limbo between consciousness and oblivion. She had experienced sleep paralysis before, but this was different. This time, she wasn’t stuck in a dream. The voice calling out to her seemed real, but it couldn’t be. The voice belonged to a dead man.

Wake up. Come on. Wake up!

Her swollen eyes opened enough to let in a sliver of sunlight. In the past, she would have confused the view with a dream, but it took her only a fleeting moment to realize that this was real. The fruit trees and the sunlight glinting off the blue-green waters reminded her where she was and how she had gotten here.

“Miles…” she muttered. “Miles, where are you?”

The wet fur that brushed up against her filled her with relief. She reached out and pulled the dog close. His wet tongue lapped at her arm, and she forced her eyes open to see him looking up at her.

The bright rays hitting their cage made her squint. She tasted blood. Reaching up, she felt the goose egg forming on the center of her forehead. A thin line of dried blood ran down her face and onto her exposed neck and chest.

She remembered then. There was the throne made of bone, the metal sculpture of an octopus hanging above it, and the cage to the right.

But the king and his servants were absent. Only one guard was present. He stood facing the cage on the other side of the throne, by the only door she had seen on her way in.

She scanned the rounded platform jutting from the castle. The other soldiers were gone. Beyond the castle, smoke filled the blue skies, threatening to block the sun. She couldn’t see much more. But she knew that X was out there, fighting to get to her and Miles.

She checked the dog for injuries. Blood matted his coat in several places, though she couldn’t tell what was his and what was her own.

“You’re going to be okay, my friend,” she whispered.

Miles whimpered and followed her as she crawled on all fours toward the cage’s barred doors. Something sharp on the floor stuck her palm, and she pulled it back to find a drip of fresh blood.

Her eyes fell on the human bones strewn across the floor.

Her sense of dread grew. The former occupants of this cage had been eaten, and she and Miles were likely next.

The scent of ripe fruit helped her put thoughts of her fate aside for the moment. She crab-walked over to the bars of her prison.

Stooping down under the barred ceiling, she looked out over the platform. She couldn’t see beyond the canopy of trees, but she could see to the right, and what she saw looked like chaos.

At least fifty boats had taken to the water. Some were sailing toward the burning oil rig while others headed for the castle. The gunfire had paused, but she could hear raised voices in the distance.

She pushed her face up against the bars, desperate to see what was happening on the open water. White wakes crisscrossed the ocean like cobwebs.

The carmine bow of a large vessel caught her eye. The ship with the Siren cargo was heading toward a platform in the distance.

A new chorus of voices rang out, then more gunfire. X was getting close.

Magnolia moved to the other side of the cage, but she couldn’t see any better.

As the clamor of voices and clatter of armor grew louder, she looked for something to protect herself with. She picked up a jagged long bone etched with teeth marks.

Miles growled to her left. She looked but could see only the top of the other cage, right of the throne. There was movement inside, and she remembered the body she had glimpsed earlier.

The guard near the door didn’t seem interested in what she was doing.

The shouts and clatter seemed to be coming from several directions. She looked back to the edge of the platform, where cable spooled onto the wheel handle, raising a cage probably filled with Cazadores from the docks below.

She concealed the bone under the sleeve of her tattered shirt, ready to plunge it into el Pulpo’s other eye if she got the chance. Miles barked, but when she turned, he was still staring to her left, toward the other prisoner’s cage.

From a battered, bearded face, large brown eyes blinked at her.

“Mags… is that you?” the man said.

“¡Silencio!” the guard shouted.

The prisoner looked submissively to the soldier.

“Lo siento, lo siento,” he said, his voice quavering.

She knew this voice.

“Rodge… Rodger Dodger?” she stammered. “It can’t be.”

The resurrected corpse stood in his cage, exposing the raised scar that snaked across his upper torso. Whoever had stitched him up didn’t have an eye for aesthetics.

The guard left his post, crossing the platform to meet the cable-operated lift.

“You’re dead,” Magnolia said once they were alone. “I saw it happen…”

Rodger’s eyes roved back and forth as he gripped the bars. “You left me, Mags. You and X left me on that ship.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You died in my arms.”

His big brown eyes seemed to narrow as he tilted his head, looking like a puzzled animal. “Did you finally come back for me?”

The guard banged the butt of his spear against the floor, but Rodger held her gaze.

Magnolia scrutinized him for a moment, looking for the clue that this was just a figment of her overworked imagination. But this was no illusion. The only thing missing was his glasses. His dark beard clung to his sunken cheeks.

“We came to avenge you and find the Metal Islands,” she said, grabbing the bars with the bone still in her hand. “I’m so sorry, Rodge. I didn’t know…”

She looked to her right, where the cage had clattered up to the top again. Several Cazador soldiers wearing full body armor piled out, bearing rifles and spears. Behind them was the king himself.

“Do as they say,” Rodger said softly but urgently. “You have to. They kept me alive for a reason, but I’ve seen them kill others… and eat them. These people aren’t who you think they are, Mags.”

He ducked down before she could respond, and Magnolia backed away from the bars, the bone still up her sleeve. She couldn’t believe her eyes or ears. Rodger Dodger Mintel had returned from the dead. But what did he mean about them not being who she thought? They were pirates, cannibals, freaks. That was obvious.

She felt a flood of emotions whirl through her, not the least of them guilt. It was even worse than the guilt she felt for sending Katrina the coordinates for Red Sphere, which likely got Hell Divers killed. She had left Rodger to these monsters—when he was still alive.

But how…? All she knew was that she had been given a second chance to help him. Bending down, she eased the bone back onto the pile. She would heed Rodger’s counsel and bide her time, even if it meant pain and suffering, until X or the other Hell Divers came to rescue them.

Boots clanked on the metal platform, and she turned to look at el Pulpo, his guards, and the robed servants. The king had removed his helmet, and his single eye roved toward her.

But the grin was gone, his scarred face a mask of anger. Looking away, he yelled orders to his soldiers, who took up positions at the edge of the gardens, spears out.

El Pulpo stalked up the steps and sat on his throne, growling to himself. Imulah folded his arms across his chest, his hands vanishing inside the rough brown robe. He avoided Magnolia’s gaze, but the king looked her way a second time.

He said something in Spanish, and pointed at Rodger as Imulah translated.

“Tonight, we feast on the flesh of gods. Tonight, we dine on the flesh of the sky people—starting with that one. He is ripe.”

X had no idea whether Timothy would be able to get his transmission through to Michael, but it was out of his hands now.

His mission was to find and save Magnolia and Miles.

He wasn’t sure what he would do after that—improvise, as usual, he supposed.

For now, his luck was holding as he homed in on their location. The Cazador soldiers still hadn’t made him, but it was only a matter of time before he must engage them.

The piers at the bottom of the castle ahead were thronged with warriors. This wasn’t just a castle; it was a fortress. And he had no idea how to find his friends here. One thing was certain: he wouldn’t be using the piers.

And he no longer had Timothy’s help, either. The AI had gone offline twenty minutes ago after telling X that the Cazadores were inside the command center. For all X knew, Timothy was nothing but a memory.

The boats ahead picked up speed toward the dock. X felt the tendrils of panic, a feeling he hardly recognized. He had seconds to figure out what to do.

One of the boats veered sharply. X followed and saw a door opening under the structure right of the docks. Moored boats bobbed gently in the slow current running under the metal behemoth.

He gunned the WaveRunner’s engine to catch up. Of the four men in the back of the boat, only one looked in his direction, but he seemed to pay scant attention and went back to looking ahead at the widening doors.

X looked subtly left, to the docks, thick with soldiers and the men in robes.

He looked casually at the marine garage. If he could get inside unnoticed, maybe he could fight his way to Magnolia and Miles. A long shot, but it was a plan. As long as he was breathing, he would keep fighting.

The boat ahead slowed and drifted into the gloom of the enclosed garage. X eased off the throttle and followed.

Now the men in the boat were looking at him. Three of them talked to one another in low voices. He had hoped to buy a little more time.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness as he steered the WaveRunner inside. The hangar held at least thirty boats, most of them hard-used and covered in rust and grime. Steel columns wider than some of the boats supported the structure above.

This fortress, too, was an oil rig. But unlike the others, it had been completely retrofitted with towers over the platforms that once held a petroleum pumping station.

A hundred feet ahead, a dock extended outward from a platform a few feet above water level. On it, two helmeted Cazadores stood guard. Both were looking in his direction.

The vessel he was following ran up along the dock, and a man jumped out. He grabbed a rope and threw it to a man in the stern, who hitched it to the cleat. Now all the other sailors were looking his way.

One of them yelled, “Detenga su motor.”

X had a feeling they wanted him to shut his engine off, but he looked over his shoulder as if he hadn’t heard them. He would get only one shot at this.

When he looked back to the docks, the two men in armor held up their hands for him to stop. He did as instructed, killing the WaveRunner’s engine. In a smooth continuation of the same motion, he brought up the submachine gun. The automatic fire would attract others, but he would be long gone before they came.

The first trigger pull sent a three-round burst into the armored man on the left, spattering the next man with his blood. As the second soldier lifted his spear, the next burst shattered his helmet and the face behind it. Then X turned the submachine gun on the soldiers from the boat, who were still scrambling for cover. They had nowhere to hide. He cut them all down with short bursts.

In seconds, it was over.

X brought the WaveRunner up to the dock, grabbed his pack, and jumped off. Only one Cazador was still moving, crawling hand over hand down the dock, dragging his shattered legs.

A shot to the back of the head, and he lay still. X ejected the spent magazine, pulled another from his vest, and palmed it home as he trotted to the doorway at the end of the dock.

It swung open, and he halted in midstride as a man stumbled out, eyes widening at the submachine gun muzzle pointed at his chest. The blast sent him stumbling back into the staircase.

X limped into the passage, gun angled up toward the next landing. Finding it clear, he checked his wrist monitor again. Both beacons were still blinking. Mags and Miles were still alive.

Come on, old man!

He rushed up the first flight, adrenaline fueling his movements. Candles in sconces lit the way, but his injuries flared with every step. The bullet graze along the outer edge of his foot, the cut palm, and the old wound from the octopus—everything hurt.

He didn’t pause at any of the landing doors to check for contacts or even to rest. The sooner he got to the top, the better his odds of finding his friends alive.

About five flights up, he heard voices. He stopped at the next landing. Listening, he realized they were coming from above and below.

He kept moving, with the submachine gun pointed up the stairs. Two more floors up, footfalls echoed in the stairwell. He flattened against the wall and waited.

A Cazador man with a ponytail moved into view, and X shot him through the neck, painting the metal wall red.

Screams of horror rang out. But they weren’t male.

X moved his finger off the trigger as a woman and several children rounded the landing above. He bounded up the stairs with the submachine gun pointed at them, eyes scanning for weapons. None of the four women or three children appeared armed with anything but sharp teeth.

He considered expending a few more rounds, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill noncombatants, even cannibals.

Moving across the landing, he swung the gun up the next flight. Seeing no other contacts, he moved back to the group, with his gun on them.

One of the women knelt wailing beside the man X had shot. X felt the pang of empathy but quickly pushed it aside and grabbed the man’s rifle. He checked to make sure the magazine was full, then palmed it back in. He also had the blaster holstered on his thigh, loaded with two shotgun shells and a flare, and the fully loaded carbine slung over his back. Two pistols with fresh mags were tucked into his belt. He had a lot of firepower, and he had a feeling he would need it all.

But he also needed something more than bullets.

Looking the group over, he decided to grab one of the kids—a boy no older than Michael had been when he wore his twisty foil hat.

“No!” one of the women yelled. They hit at him as he pulled the boy away, until he brandished the submachine gun.

“Get the hell off me!” he yelled. “Back!”

The women and other children cowered on the landing, baring their sharpened teeth like cornered dogs. They were all filthy and reeked of sweat. Tattered clothing hung off their sun-bronzed skin, and bracelets of seashell and bone decorated the women’s necks and wrists.

He had started to retreat when a women pulled a knife from under her rags. As she lunged at him, X put a bullet in her thigh. The knife clattered to the floor, and he kicked it down the stairs.

Then he grabbed a fistful of the boy’s shirt and pushed him up the stairs. They climbed for several minutes, the kid squawking and biting at him.

Voices rang out below.

X was starting to lose his patience when he saw they were almost at the top. He didn’t like using a hostage, especially a kid, but it was the best he could come up with on the fly.

They stopped at the next landing, and X grabbed the doorknob. He put a finger to his lips, and the gun barrel to the boy’s head.

That finally did the trick.

“Don’t make me hurt you, you little demon,” X said.

The kid’s lip curled, showing pointy yellow teeth. Voices and footfalls continued below them, and X twisted the knob. It clicked—locked—and the kid lunged, biting X on the arm.

“Son of a…!” X shouted, nostrils flaring in rage. The boy took a piece of his forearm with the bite. Unable to afford any more tolerance, X punched him in the side of the head.

The boy crumpled to the landing, out cold.

X looked down at his bleeding arm. The teeth had sunk deep. He should get the wound wrapped before he continued, but the voices and footsteps were getting closer.

Ripping a strip from his shirt, he tied it over the wound. The unconscious boy was heavier than he looked, but X still managed to give the door a kick that sent a brilliant jolt of pain through his wounded foot.

But he had been hurt far worse before. These were just inconvenient flesh wounds, and he needed something to help.

X propped the boy against the wall and pulled out one of his favorite remedies: an adrenaline shot he had recovered from the Sea Wolf before swimming out to the WaveRunner. He jammed it into his left leg and exhaled.

Then he raised the submachine gun and gave the door a solid piston kick. The rusted metal broke open. Sunlight exploded into the stairwell, momentarily dazzling his eyes.

When his vision cleared, he was gazing at the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Trees rose toward the sky, their branches weighed down by ripening fruit. A pool of water sparkled between gardens of flowers and colorful foliage. Scents of fruit and nectar filled his nostrils.

But this wasn’t Eden, and it wasn’t God sitting on a throne amid the gardens—it was the devil in the flesh. Above him, a metal octopus the size of a boat hung from the bulkhead, its eight long arms reaching out in all directions.

A half-dozen warriors in armor contoured to resemble musculature came streaming out of the trees with spears and firearms leveled at X. He had time to grab the boy and pull him outside, using his flesh as a shield.

“Get back or I kill him!” X shouted.

The soldiers closed in, forming a phalanx around him. His finger moved to the trigger as the human noose tightened.

“X!” shouted a voice, followed by a familiar bark.

His eyes darted to a cage a few yards left of the throne.

“Get back!” X shouted again, firing a bullet into the sky. Then he pointed the gun at the king of the Cazadores.

“El Pulpo, I came for your other eye—and your head! But I’ll make you a deal. Free my friend and my dog, and I won’t kill anyone else. Refuse, and you’re all going to die.”

A robed man translated the message aloud. El Pulpo finally got off his bone seat, laughing so loudly the noise echoed off the metal walls.

The only other sound was the eerie clacking of jaws all around X. He swept the gun back and forth over the warriors.

Another voice shouted from across the platform. This one came from a cage to the right of the throne.

“Do what they say, Mr. Xavier!”

X squinted at a half-naked man standing inside the cage. The bearded figure yelled again.

“Don’t fight King Pulpo. You can’t beat him!”

The crackling voice sounded a lot like…

“Rodger?”

The boy in his arms had come to and was squirming in his grip. A Cazador soldier jabbed the air with his spear, advancing closer and closer.

Their king walked down the steps from his throne and used a key to open the cage where Miles and Magnolia were being held.

“Let me go!” she shouted, punching and kicking with little effect. Miles bit at his armored leg, but el Pulpo shook the dog off with ease.

“Don’t touch them!” X yelled, leveling the gun at the king. El Pulpo’s fighters shouted and stabbed the air with their spears, the tips coming within inches of X.

This was a battle he couldn’t win. He knew it, but he was willing to die if it meant giving Magnolia and Miles a chance. A chance he didn’t see…

The man in the brown robe walked through the gardens and stopped near the edge of the sparkling pool.

“My name is Imulah,” he said in perfect English, “and I am a servant to el Pulpo. My king remembers you and deeply respects your fighting skills. Normally, he wouldn’t offer such a thing, but he has a proposal for you.”

“Fuck him and his proposal,” X spat. “I have a policy of not making deals with cannibals.”

“I urge you to hear him out. Look around you. You don’t have any options.”

There’s always an option, X thought.

The Cazador king pulled Magnolia out of the cage and held a blade to her throat. Miles had a chain around his neck now, and el Pulpo snubbed a loop of it around one of the cage bars and planted his boot on the slack so the dog couldn’t move.

Okay, so maybe there weren’t any good options.

A dozen Cazador soldiers had him surrounded, and a glance over his shoulder revealed four more at the doorway behind him.

Some of the men were half naked, their bodies tattooed and pierced. Pointed yellow teeth gnashed and clicked together, and hungry eyes stared at his flesh as they waved axes and knives. Others wore the ceremonial armor and held long spears.

Memories surfaced of other battles that had seemed impossible: in Hades when he faced dozens of Sirens, or in the Florida swamps when a snake pulled him down into black water.

But back then, he had only his own life and Miles’ to worry about. Now he had Magnolia, Miles, and, apparently, Rodger, if his eyes and ears hadn’t deceived him.

For the first time in his life, X saw no possible way out of this—not one that ended in saving his friends, even if he should sacrifice himself.

“What’s the one-eyed freak proposing?” X asked Imulah.

“You will join the Cazadores. He needs men like you for expeditions to the dark world—men who can bring back treasures and able-bodied survivors and who know how to fight the deformed ones.”

Deformed ones? That must mean Sirens. So far, the idea of being a slave and fighting mutant beasts—and perhaps being obliged to eat them—sounded grim.

“And if I say yes?”

“Your friends can live and join the Cazadores, too.”

The boy squirmed, and X gripped him tighter until he whined and quit struggling.

“I joined them,” Imulah said. “They spared me, and in return I serve them. It’s not a bad offer.”

Serve…

X had been serving as a Hell Diver almost his entire life. But that service had always been his decision. It was not slavery.

El Pulpo smiled. X pictured blowing the top of his skull off with a squeeze of the trigger, but the fleeting satisfaction of taking his revenge wasn’t worth his friends’ lives.

“Lower your gun,” Imulah said. “Join us. You don’t have to die. I’ve met others like you, on expeditions where we plucked survivors out of hell holes. El Pulpo wasn’t always the commander and king of these people. They rescued him many years ago, from Ascension, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, when he was just a child. His ancestors were English.”

Had X heard correctly? El Pulpo wasn’t born here and was the descendant of people that lived on an airship?

Not that it mattered now. Not really.

X looked at the other Hell Divers and his dog with sadness. Joining the Cazadores meant enslavement. It meant losing their humanity.

But it also meant life.

Just as he was about to lower the gun, one of the guards thrust his spear into the boy’s chest, impaling him and plucking him away, leaving X exposed.

“No!” el Pulpo yelled, his gravelly voice barely audible over X’s gunshots.

Three neat holes appeared in the warrior’s armor, leaking blood like a punctured water bag. The man crashed to the dirt, choking and gurgling next to the dying boy.

A moment of uncertainty passed, the warriors looking at one another or at X, not knowing what to do. Even their king, who had walked several steps, stood still as if waiting to see what might happen next.

X made the choice simple by raking the submachine gun back and forth across the ranks of Cazador soldiers.

The close phalanx of armored bodies made it easy to cut them down, and difficult for the armed warriors surrounding el Pulpo to take a shot without killing their comrades. They all aimed their weapons, but none fired.

“Leave him alone!” Magnolia shouted.

A man hurled his spear, but X moved just in time, the blade cutting the air where his neck had been. He shot down two more soldiers behind him, and a spearman who lunged from the side.

The tip cut into his shoulder, and another nicked the skin over his ribs. Without his Hell Divers armor, he was vulnerable to their archaic weapons.

X smashed another soldier in the face with the butt of the submachine gun and grabbed the dropped spear in midair. Swinging it in a wide arc, he hamstrung one man and disemboweled another, forcing the others back.

Bringing up his submachine gun, he finished the magazine and drew the blaster from its thigh holster. The first shotgun round blew through the front of a soldier’s helmet. The second opened a gaping hole in a female warrior’s thigh. He squeezed the trigger again, firing a flare into the tattooed chest of another man, who let out a long howl of agony before his lungs melted.

X ran the next soldier’s neck through with the spear, leaving it there when he couldn’t pull it free. He fired his second shotgun shell into the belly of an axman, who dropped the weapon, severing part of his foot.

A boot to the back knocked X out of the path of a spear thrust that would have impaled him like the dead boy on the ground. Using the momentum to his advantage, he made for the gardens while a half-dozen screaming soldiers gave chase.

Gunfire cracked from the throne platform, the rounds lancing into trees and dirt. And as suddenly as it had started, the firing stopped.

A voice screeched over the noise. “¡Alto!”

X holstered the blaster and drew both pistols. He ducked behind a tree and leveled them at the half-dozen men running toward him. At this distance, he didn’t need to aim as he fired round after round, knocking them down as they came. A hurled spear sailed through his open stance, just below the groin.

He removed the threat with a .45 round that unhinged the spearman’s jaw. When the pistols clicked dry, he dropped them in the dirt and unslung his final weapon: the carbine across his back. He fired, and a crazed warrior with a machete fell at his feet.

Chambering another round, he looked around him for the man he had come to kill. Maybe if he could take down the king, it all would end. The thought that he might actually win this fight crossed his mind.

A blow from behind knocked the rifle free and sent him crashing facedown in the dirt. He looked up as they formed a circle around him once again.

X tried to push himself up, but a heavy foot against his back forced him back into the dirt.

He gasped for air, trying to look over his shoulder. But the soldier holding him down was strong and big, and X was out of steam.

Even his friends’ shouts and Miles’ frantic barking couldn’t incite him to his feet. He had finally met his match and couldn’t continue the fight. All he could do was shield his face from the blows and kicks raining down.

The pummeling suddenly stopped, and a boot in his gut flipped him onto his back. His blurry eyes stared up at the airship atop the fortress, and for a fleeting moment he thought it was his friends, coming to rescue him.

His focus narrowed to a scarred face with a hollow eye socket, looming over him. El Pulpo grinned and spoke as his slave Imulah translated.

“You have proven yourself as a great warrior, Xavier Rodriguez,” Imulah said. “One of the best el Pulpo has ever seen. He understands now why your friends call you ‘the Immortal,’ and believes it would be a waste of talent to eat you, especially now that you have killed so many of his soldiers. So you have one choice…”

X spat a stream of blood. “Let me make it easy. I chose death.”

“Death is not a choice for you, Immortal,” Imulah said. “You are a Cazador soldier now, and your friends are slaves.”

“You Cazador,” el Pulpo said, thumping his chest with his fist. With a clank of armor, the other guards repeated the motion as X looked around him and considered the odds.

This time there was truly nothing X could do. No good options remained—not even death.

He glanced past the servant and his king to the airship above. The aluminum skin glistened in the sun. He could almost picture passengers of the Hive peering out behind the grubby portholes.

No, you’re wrong. There is one good option left. You wait. You survive. You keep your friends alive.

His fate and the fate of his friends were in the hands of the sky people. Their only hope rested with Katrina and the remaining Hell Divers. Yet again those brave women and men would determine the future of humanity.

X had dived through countless storms, he had trekked across the poisoned surface, and he had sailed across a sea filled with monsters to find this place. Now he would serve so humanity could survive, and then he would kill every last one of these bastards.