The Plague Forge (Dire Earth Cycle #3)

The Plague Forge (Dire Earth Cycle #3) Page 24

When Clarke’s finally came into view, the lights were off. This didn’t surprise her, given the predawn hour. Sam took one last glance behind herself, saw no one, and strode forward into the small square in front of the storefront.

“Wouldn’t do that,” a voice said. Just a whisper. Prumble.

She turned, couldn’t see anyone, and stepped back into the shadows anyway. “Where—”

“Here.”

A movement in a nearby doorway. Sam jogged across the street and slipped into the dark space. “Are you okay?” she asked. She couldn’t see him but felt the girth of his belly press against her own in the tiny alcove.

“They’re inside, waiting.”

The words alone were bad enough, but when their full meaning hit her Sam felt a cold despair, like a dead bolt clicking into place. Not only were the Jacobites one step ahead, they knew where to fucking go. She thought they’d been careful. Perhaps they had and someone talked. She shuddered at that idea and buried it deep. “How do you know?”

He jerked his chin upward. “Second-story window on the left.”

Sam looked. It was hard to see in the darkness, but on a small sill that extended out from below the window was a white bucket. This was not unusual in Darwin, where it rained almost constantly for half the year and external sources of water had all failed. Sam glanced farther up the side of the building, and nearly every window and balcony had similar containers out now that the winds had died out.

“Renuka’s signal to me that the cafe is not safe,” Prumble explained.

“Where’s Skadz?”

The big man shrugged. “Aboard still, I hope. If he’s in there we have a big problem.”

“Another big problem, you mean.”

“Quite. Problems seem to be breeding like rabbits this evening, don’t they?” His last word ended strangely, as if he’d just stepped on a thorn.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Bit of a scratch. Took a knife to the gut. Relax, it’s not deep and I have ample padding.”

She slipped a hand into his coat and prodded until her fingers found a wet, sticky spot. He grunted when she put pressure there.

“We need to stitch you up.”

“That’s the least of your worries. Soon the sun will rise, and I don’t exactly blend in, Sam.”

“Nor do I. We need to get off the streets.”

“Not without Skadz,” he said.

Sam grinned at that. She’d been on the verge of saying the same thing.

A minute later, Skadz found them.

She heard him first. Rapid footfalls on the tortured streets, echoing off the vertical man-made canyon walls. He raced into the square in front of Clarke’s as if he intended to burst through the door. Sam was about to call out to him when Prumble’s finger curled around her arm.

Skadz ran past the cafe and kept going. He had the bulky duffel bag that contained Prumble’s environment suit slung over his shoulder.

Another set of footsteps grew. Four people, maybe five, giving chase.

Before Samantha could even think what to do, Prumble moved. His speed was remarkable given his girth, his wounded belly. He ran into the square toward the abandoned wreck of a food cart. Every useful part had been yanked off the thing, leaving just a skeleton behind. A rat scattered from beneath it as the big man approached.

Prumble lowered his shoulder at the last second and propelled the metal and plastic carcass into the path of the oncoming Jacobites. His timing had a poetry to it. The first thug into the square yelped in surprise and smashed into the thing, toppling it.

Three others followed into the pileup, unable to slow themselves on the wet asphalt. An object clattered across the square and slid to a stop near Sam. She knew the sound of a pistol being dropped and went for it.

Prumble was on the newcomers in an instant. He hefted one into the air and tossed him into a nearby concrete wall. The others were scrambling to their feet. One ran. The other went at Prumble’s midsection, as if he had some hope of knocking the giant man over. Instead he stopped as if he’d rushed into Nightcliff’s fortress wall. Prumble grunted, his wounded belly no doubt on fire.

Sam hefted the gun, flipping the cold metal around in her hand to get the grip right. It was a small thing, an antique police-issue type, she guessed. Glock, maybe. She just hoped it was loaded and not a showpiece.

Skadz emerged from her left, coming back after no doubt hearing the crash of the food cart. Prumble was tangled up with two Jacobites, his body preventing Samantha from getting a clear shot. She was about to whistle for Skadz’s attention when the door to the cafe flew open.

Sam hesitated long enough to see the flash of a gun barrel and the hint of a Jacobite robe behind it. She fired without sighting, letting the sparks that erupted from the side of the building refine her aim as she continued to pull the trigger. The first Jacobite out the door smartly dove to the ground. The one behind him froze, fell, and toppled to a heap. There were shadows of more behind that one, but they retreated as Sam’s clip ran empty.

The one on the ground rolled to the side and took aim. She ducked back into the alcove just in time as the machine gun barked thunder. A short burst, professional. The ones inside the building were trained, then. Elite. She wondered with dismay if they’d been there since before or after the explosion at Selby Systems.

Another burst of fire slapped into the far side of the alcove, suppression fire. Between bursts she heard footsteps. The gunman was moving toward her.

Then he cried out. Surprise more than pain. She heard bodies tumbling and chanced a look around the corner. Skadz had tackled the man.

Sam rushed forward, tossing the empty pistol aside. She reached them as both men got back to their feet. The gunman was readying to shoot Skadz when she drove her foot into his groin from behind. She kicked so hard that he lifted a few centimeters off the ground, yelping like a dog. The effort made her slip on the still-wet ground and she toppled back, cracking her skull against the ground.

Skadz must have followed her kick with one of his own because the Jacobite thug was pushed backward, off his feet, toward her. She raised her arms and caught him as he landed on her; she clasped her hands around his neck and rolled to get on top of him.

More gunfire. Sam winced at the sound, expecting the worst. Then she realized it was Skadz. He’d managed to yank the machine gun away as he’d kicked the man she now held. Skadz concentrated his fire on the open doorway of the cafe. As for Prumble … she had no idea. No such thing as a fight without chaos and confusion, she thought as she choked the life out of the enemy under her.

The man squirmed. He got an arm free and clawed at her eyes, muddy fingers clouding her vision. She tightened her hands and let the anger pour into that hold. He gagged, gurgled. Something in his neck gave in and crushed under her grip with a sound that made her stomach lurch, but still she clamped down.

A hand was tugging at her shirt from behind. “Let’s bounce!” Skadz shouted. He fired again and the rifle finally clicked, empty. “Now!”

Sam released her hands and surged to her feet. She blinked but it was useless. The man she’d strangled had rubbed mud into her eyes. Frantically she swept her arm across her face but it only made the situation worse. Skadz was pulling her and she didn’t bother to argue the direction. In four steps they were in an alley again and running as best they could. She could hear footsteps in front, heavy. Prumble, good.

“This way,” the big man said. Skadz shifted direction and Sam allowed him to guide her as she tried to wipe her face clean with her shirt. There were shouts coming from behind them, but they sounded distant already.

A door opened somewhere ahead. Sam tried to look but the world still resembled a bad watercolor left out in the rain. Skadz didn’t slow, though; he went in. There were steps going down, and the smell of sewage.

Sam asked no questions for the next half hour. She just ran, between the bulky confidence that was Prumble and the lithe paranoia that was Skadz. They were outlaws now. No doubt about that.

They’d gone underground and Samantha wondered if they’d ever come back up.

Chapter Fifteen

Darwin, Australia

30.MAR.2285

An hour later Sam found herself in an underground bunker. The walls of the tiny room were lined with shelves and cabinets, mostly empty. A table—no chairs—dominated the center of the space. Spread out across that surface were the contents of a white first-aid kit Prumble had pulled from a shelf. The duffel bag that contained his environment suit lay on a high shelf near the back.

Skadz leaned against the far wall, sitting on the floor cross-legged and eyes closed, though she knew he was awake.

Prumble paced, his face scrunched up in concentration. The bottom half of his shirt was soaked with blood, but he seemed in no pain at all. When they entered the room he’d simply sprayed it with some bonding anesthetic and slapped a bandage over it. Then he’d started to pace.

He stank, they all stank, of sewage and sweat. Finally, after a long silence, the big man spoke. “I’ll be back,” he said, and left the way they’d entered. It was the only way in or out, save for a hatch on the roof.

She watched Skadz for a long time, hoping his eyes would open with some kind of bright, lightning-bolt revelation. A plan, a way forward, something she could follow without having to think for herself because that would require using her brain, and that lump of gray meat wasn’t up to the challenge just now.

Her eyes drooped, slipped closed. She must have slept, because when she opened them again Prumble was back and he was eating. Fish stew, from the pungent smell of it. A staple of Darwin’s ground dwellers that she normally shunned due to the often dubious ingredients. Here and now, though, it seemed perfect. Her stomach growled so loudly that Prumble turned to face her, spoon hovering halfway to his lips. “Top of the morning, Sam. Breakfast?”

“Please,” she said. The word barely escaped her dry throat.

The first-aid kit had been tidied up and returned to its shelf. On the table now, she saw, was a chipped red Dutch oven resting on a camp stove, curls of steam wafting up from the edges of the lid. Next to it was a thermos, a few bowls, and mismatched spoons. She went to the table and scooped a bowl full of the stew from the cookpot, inhaled the salty aromas, then grabbed a spoon. “What’s in the thermos?”

“Coffee.”

“You’re a magician.”

Prumble shook his head, chewing on a piece of stubborn meat. “I’m a scavenger just like you, Sam. Only you work the Clear, and I work the city. Usually I find buyers, but sometimes it’s necessities. Like coffee.”

She smiled at him. “Those days are over, I think,” she said with as much sadness and nostalgia as she felt.

He glared at her with mock incredulity, gesturing to her bowl and the thermos. “You’re the one lazing away in this palace while I forage.” At her wrinkled nose his expression became more serious. “You’re right, of course. Still, the day I can’t scrounge a cuppa is the day I’ll consider myself unworthy of the Builder’s filtered air.”

The stew tasted wonderful. Scalding hot broth thick with chunks of fish that must have been hauled in recently near Aura’s Edge, not by the coast where the waters were filthy. But the soup paled in comparison to the coffee. It was like drinking liquid focus. Each swallow chipped away at her exhaustion and the fog it brought. “Holy hell that’s good.”

Skadz stirred. A sharp intake of breath, followed by a catlike stretch of his arms. “Do I smell what I think I smell?”

Prumble spoke before Sam could. “Better hurry before it’s gone, mate, because we’ve still got a job to do.”

“Bollocks,” Skadz said. He hauled himself to his feet and came to the table, going for the coffee first. “Cloak-and-dagger time is over. If Nightcliff wasn’t already locked up tight as a Jake’s ass, it will be now. The streets up there must be full of—”

“The streets,” Prumble said, “are a powder keg. And about”—he glanced at his wrist—“twenty minutes ago I lit the fuse.”

Samantha glared at the big man, impressed despite herself at the smug satisfaction on his face. “Prumble? What did you do?”

His grin grew wider. “Do you recall what our good friend Jaya said about the current landscape of Jacobite politics?”

She grimaced. “Er. Not really.”

“Tsk-tsk, Samantha. Luckily I was paying attention. Jaya spoke of a growing rift. Grillo on one side and Sister Haley, the so-called girl who talks to God, on the other. And while it’s true that the three of us are at the top of the most-wanted list, a rumor will be spreading like wildfire through Darwin today that we’ve holed up inside Temple Sulam, under the protection of our dear friend, the lovely pariah herself, Sister Haley. Eyewitnesses will swear they saw us enter to open arms.”

The room went so quiet that Sam could hear the flow of runoff water in the sewer main ten meters outside the door.

Skadz wiped a hand across his face, as if trying to banish his own smile. The effort failed. “Bloody. Brilliant.”

Prumble’s face lit up at the praise. He rocked from foot to foot in his excitement, his fingers twitching with nervous energy like a drummer tapping out a mentally composed riff. “With any luck,” he said, “by nightfall Grillo’s forces will have the temple surrounded. Haley will deny our presence, of course, but she’ll never let Grillo in to search the place because she fears he’ll never leave. Meanwhile …”

Sam leaned forward now, her hands on the table. “Meanwhile, we go after the object.”

“Precisely,” the big man said.