Resigned, I almost did. But at that point I realized that the sound of the helicopter was getting stronger. And then I saw it, rising above the line of naked trees behind the kneeling soldiers to the east. They turned their heads towards it, then their bodies, then their guns. They began shooting, but it was no use. I saw the helicopter’s sides light up, and bullets began to rain on the black roof once again. The soldiers shook and lurched, as pieces of their flesh flew in all directions. One tried to run back to cover, but a bullet took him in the back of his helmet, separating the top of his head from the rest of the body. He ran several more steps before collapsing with arms outstretched.
I turned away, which afforded me a view of the western squad. They had scrambled back and were now firing on the chopper from behind cover. Ignoring them, the pilot spun the chopper and unloaded on their transport, which was trying to take off from the pad. There was a pop and a crash. The other helicopter landed again. Brome (I figured it could only be our very Special Agent) brought the machine towards us, landing it so the elevator chamber was between him and the second squad.
I saw Brome’s grim face through the side window, as bullets hit and bounced off the glass. Unbuckling his seat belt, he rushed to the back and slid the door open.
“It’s Brome,” I said hollowly, still not quite believing his timing. Seemed Paul believed it well enough, though.
“Brome!” he shouted. “A bottle of the best vodka in the world is on me! If the rich boy pitches in, that is.”
“Come on,” Brome urged from the chopper. He was still dressed in his civvies-civvies, but there was a big rifle in his hands. He lifted it and popped off a few rounds in the direction of the black-clad gunmen.
Iris went first, ducking inside head forward. She must have bumped her knee; I saw her wince and rub it as she turned. Next Paul, with Brome’s help climbed into the cabin. I was about to follow, to leave, to complete the half-successful rescue, when it dawned on me that the gunfire had stopped. Brome, who had stretched his hand out to me, froze, staring over my head. His face lost color.
Now what? I thought, turning around reluctantly. Immediately, I wish I could undo the move, but unlike the previous encounter, this time I couldn’t even avert my eyes.
About fifty feet away, in the open area between me and where the second squad had found cover, so black that the roof suddenly seemed gray, its tentacles stretching outwards like spikes, stood the seven-foot-tall nightmare I’d seen once before at the house of the man whom I’d just failed to rescue. “Dog,” Dr. Young and Lloyd Freud had called the creature. Now one was dead and the other as good as dead. And the dog found the last hidden bone.
Chapter Forty-One
The human inside the crude flying machine began to fire his weapon. He felt the stings, some quite painful, but this time he would not be distracted. All he saw was his target. Every white strand, which blind humans could not see. Every feeble limb, which he intended to pull slowly out of the still alive body.
The bullet that hit him in the head was the cue. His fury, kept in check for so long, was set free.
He launched forward and in one easy leap was on top of his prey. A piercing cry, one that had frozen so many in place, arose and fell. Fear, thick and juicy, flared up and quivered before him, emanating from those inside the helicopter. He stared into the human’s eyes as his tentacles wrapped around the body and squeezed, pushing air out of the puny lungs.
The human gasped, trying to draw the air back in, and he squeezed harder, but not too hard. He wanted him to be alive. To feel what was happening to him. Sure, this was the end, but just this once a Seeker’s quarry would not die quickly. As he continued to squeeze, the human’s eyelids began to flitter and close. Yet even as the consciousness was leaving him, as his lungs were prevented from refueling his life force, the human continued to resist. His muscles, feeble as they were, remained tense. His veins bulged. There was no hope, but still the human fought.
The Seeker squeezed too hard. The body in his embrace suddenly went limp. The fight was over. Over too fast. The human’s head, lifeless, fell forward. In a second, the white strands would disperse like fog. Stunned, he relaxed his grasp momentarily.
Then something else happened. Something that was impossible. The head moved. The eyes of the human snapped open and a steady, determined gaze confronted him. Furious, automatically resolving the problem as misinterpretation of symptoms on his part and discarding the solution immediately, before he remembered that Seekers didn’t make mistakes, he squeezed again, discovering that this time the flesh would not give. In fact, he suddenly realized, he was no longer touching the flesh at all.
He saw the white strands, those that no human could see, wrapped around each of his tentacles, holding them at bay as easily as though he was a human. It could not be! Another cry echoed across the fields. Fear rose again: three threads inside the helicopter, twenty-seven from humans down below, who could not see him, but none of it came from the target who was no longer in his grasp. Engulfed in fury and simply unable to comprehend something that was impossible, the Seeker squeezed with all his power, snapping at the human’s head at the same time with his maw. It did nothing. His maw, open and wide enough to swallow the entire skull, froze inches from the target’s face, as those eyes continued to watch him calmly.
After a pause, the white strands that held him started pushing him away. He struggled and tossed, managing only to leave two of his tentacles in the white clutches, spraying steaming bodily fluids on the roof. Ignoring the lost limbs he continued to try to free himself, until a loud and clear voice spoke in his head in his own language.
“You cannot defeat me, Seeker of Sobak. Go and tell them what you saw here.”
The human’s eyes closed, and the Seeker was thrown backwards. He slammed through the top of the squat concrete box directly behind him, causing pieces of stone to burst in all directions. The impact interrupted his momentum, but only that. His flight continued until, at last, the fiery remains of the other helicopter stopped it.
In an instant he was up again, prepared to resume the battle he could not understand to be already over. The human was inside the flying machine, which was rising up, beyond his reach. He rushed ahead anyway, but was stopped dead in his tracks by a sudden command.
“Do not reveal yourself to humans on the ground, Seeker.”
The Guard. Four of them rose and landed on top of the black roof. Not five. Their target had somehow evaded them, too. As he, they returned empty-handed. The helicopter was receding in the distance. His target was inside, but the seeker would not follow. Because a Seeker obeyed. For now.
Chapter Forty-Two
I was flying. That was the only thing I knew for a long time. Years, maybe. I suspected I was dead, and it occurred to me that it wasn’t so bad after all. Unless what I had taken for flying was really falling.
As I pondered that possibility, another truth was revealed to me. My head was pounding. As though it was bulletproof and someone had shot it from a submachine gun, I thought. Then it all came back to me in a single large wave, and I opened my eyes and ran. Tried to run, really. I was flat on my back, so my heels kicked at the floor. Hands grabbed at my shoulders and I screamed.
“Luke! Luke!” a familiar voice was calling. “Calm down, man. It’s over. It’s over.”
It’s over. That short sentence popped the stopper and I slumped to the floor like a deflating air-mattress. It was over. We were in the helicopter. The blades were rotating. We were in the air. We made it. But why does my head?