The zombie went right on grinning and yanked the ork's head clean off its body. Then the creature sank down on top of the headless corpse, twitching and gibbering, splashing itself in the fountains of blood pouring from the neck.
Serrin forced vomit back down his throat. Half-blindly, only needing to know that Kristen was still there, he raced after Tom and Gunther. Mathilde looked back at him and urged him on with a desperate gesture. The elf had to grit his teeth against the scream of pain in his leg.
They rounded the corner and ran straight into the path of Martin crouched behind his control rig. His shotgun disposed of Gunther with a blast that exploded the samurai's chest into a mass of bloody, ragged flesh and protruding shattered bone. But Tom had already leveled his H amp;K and blown Martin against the far wall. A limp rag doll with a shattered torso, the body slid down the wall, smearing it with a huge streak of brilliant blood. It then lay slumped and broken on the floor, the head lolling almost comically to one side as a trickle of blood dripped from red-purple lips.
I can't risk assensing but I've got to find him, Serrin thought desperately. Where the frag is Luther?
Tom was hammering at the far wall, ramming his fingers into the elevator buttons. The elevator didn't respond.
"Stand back," the troll yelled.
"No! No! We'll never get down there if you blow the thing to hell!" the elf shouted at him. Mercifully, the troll hesitated. He seemed at last to be calming down a little. That made Serrin a lot happier. Sharing an elevator with a berserking troll wasn't the most inviting prospect in the world.
"Must be isolated," Serrin mumbled, trying to figure out the bank of displays where Martin had been working. "Where are the fragging controls?"
He looked over the console in dismay. There were thirty screens, mostly blank now, and enough keypads to keep him busy pressing them for hours. "Oh drek."
As the elevator doors hissed open, Tom was inside before Serrin had time to realize they were being operated from below. Worse still, everyone was inside before they realized it, thinking that Serrin must have something brought off a fluke at the controls.
Gas filled the elevator as it sped downward. Serrin desperately cast a barrier for them; if gunfire came streaming into the cramped elevator when the doors opened below, they'd be rats caught in a trap. Their respirators bought them safety until the doors opened. Then they poured out of the elevator and paused for half a second, trying to take in where they were. Serrin sensed Mathilde strengthening herself, magically boosting her reflexes, he guessed. He would have followed her example if he'd gotten the chance.
The passage led only one way, straight ahead to a pair of open metal doors gleaming with brilliant metal and glass. Tom had his machine gun aimed to blow away whatever was in front of him, but his finger couldn't even reach the trigger. They all stood, stupidly, frozen. Serrin could feel the immensity of the thing, paralyzing his mind, holding him in its hand and amused by their hubris.
"Excuse me, won't you," the figure before the doors said. He removed the white coat he was wearing and handed it to a red-haired elf who slunk out of the room behind him on all fours. Magellan gibbered and preened in the coat like a child who'd just been given a new toy. Luther ran a hand back over his bald skull, then gestured at them to approach.
"Now, I feel better dressed to receive you," he said, flicking a speck of dust from his immaculate gray Italian suit. "Oh, except for that ork. I do find orks most especially distasteful, to be frank. Magellan, will you do the honors please?"
The elf dropped the coat and got to his feet, drawing a long knife from the inside of his jacket. Stealthily, as if creeping up on something unseen, he slunk forward and drove the blade clean through Mathilde's belly and up into her heart. She dropped to the floor in a lifeless heap. The elf pulled the blade out and licked it clean, cutting his own tongue on the serrated metal as he did.
Tom felt rage unlike anything he'd ever known. Furiously, it tore at the iron grip the nosferatu had on his mind and railed impotently against it. He could hardly see now, the anguish was so intense.
Their feet moved without their willing it. A shambolic, pitiful trio, they lurched forward into Luther's domain, aware of everything and able to do nothing but his command.
Niall watched the battle rage until Luther called the toxics from the earth. Toxic spirits bound into corpses, their fire and acid scorching everything, destroying anyone and everyone in their way. The magical barrier did not extend beyond the building itself. Filled with hate, the elf called spirits of the forest to rise up and destroy these abominations. He had his own power to summon things from the earth, and from the forests they advanced, destroying the toxic creatures, though several were themselves destroyed in the doing.
Niall shook with fury and impotence. He knew he could still not enter the place; the iron defense held firm.
"Wait," the ally spirit said slowly. "There may be something. There may be a way in. Wait, Niall. Hold to the power now. Take everything left to you, and wait."
The grip on Serrin's mind relaxed, infinitesimally. His mouth dropped slightly; he realized he could move his facial muscles as he wanted.
"Is that better? I think it would amuse me to talk with you," Luther said contemptuously. "Please sit down."
He made their bodies sit down on one of the benches. Then he walked up and down before them, strutting, for all the world like an august lecturer before a group of slightly dense students on whom he is about to squander some nuggets of his precious wisdom.
He took Kristen's chin in his right hand and bent down to kiss her. Her face muscles contorted, unable to move away from him. Moving along, he squatted on his haunches to meet Serrin's gaze.
"Quite a pretty one. Perhaps I might have my pleasure with her in front of you? Would that be amusing?"
Serrin would have given his life to be able to strike the thing down at that moment. His head and heart filled with black, bitter hatred.
"But, as you probably know, that wouldn't be of much pleasure for me," Luther smirked, getting to his feet again.
"You can ask questions if you like." Then he corrected himself. "No, from what Magellan has told me of you, that would be a waste of time. So, I will tell you what I have done."
"You fragging bastard," Serrin managed to get through his lips.
"Oh, do hold your tongue," Luther said irritably. "I don't have time to waste on trivial insults. In the next twenty-four hours the world will be forever changed and you trouble yourself with insults? Be silent, I say." Serrin's mouth clamped shut.
Tom felt something within him break irrevocably. Later, he was never able to put it into words that others could understand. It was something like plunging over the summit on a roller coaster ride, at the point where your guts turn inside out. The fury in him seemed almost to invert itself and in that instant he realized what the killing of Mathilde, and the threat to the girl, were for. He's feeding on hate, Tom realized. That's what he wants, to get our emotional energies as cranked up as he can, so he can take it all into himself when he kills us.
He felt the fur on his back and the clamping at the nape of his neck. He knew that the meat body wouldn't work, but he was outside even his own mind. He let it go. It wasn't the same as before, when it had been passivity, surrender, awareness of something else, awareness of Shakala or the call of a dead zone where Serrin was hidden. This time, he emptied into nothing.
He felt himself dissolving. For an instant, he panicked, and then he just totally let go.
"What is it?" Niall cried out. "It's inside. I can reach it!"