Hive II by Griffin Hayes

Author:Griffin Hayes [Hayes, Griffin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-17T22:00:00+00:00

-19-

We hit the Keep’s main entrance not a moment too soon. Surging behind us is a mass of darkened flesh, ebbing and flowing like a flock of birds, thousands of them, eyes glowing, mouths gnashing at empty air in anticipation of the time when those teeth will close around our throats. I feel a chill run through my body as Ret struggles to close the reinforced door behind us. It may hold them off for a time, but it can’t be the only way in here.

Dhal’s chest heaves and his face looks ashen and deathly. The only color comes from the streaks of Zee blood smeared across his forehead. Sneak lowers me into a chair. Oleg sits across from me and I can see him sucking in wind and favoring his side. We’re in a kind of waiting room, but this place isn’t like Attica, the Patriarch’s walled palace. The Keep is purely utilitarian, an army barracks on steroids. Except I wonder where the guards are? Almost in response, I catch sight of a severed leg poking out from an adjacent room, a shaft of white bone glinting off shafts of light. Yes, the lights are still on. Not much of a silver lining, but I’ll take it.

Outside the Zees are piling up against the entrance, doing their best to follow us inside. Even with inches of stone and wood between us, I still can’t help hearing the horrible noise they make. Sounds like a sickly cat being strangled.

Bron is checking us over for bites and none too gently I might add. He sees the bandage on Sneak’s arm and I catch the change in his expression at once.

“She’s fine,” I say, already feeling the strength coming back into my body. “It isn’t a bite.” Ret’s standing over me. He’s got that same look on his face he had years ago, on the Holson job. A wealthy Trader had hired us to rescue his eldest son from a band of kidnappers. We found the kid all right, except he was stuffed into a chest, his legs folded in at odd angles. A note on his body said: “This is what happens when you don’t listen.”

Ret had been the one to deliver the bad news and that somber look he’s wearing now is nearly identical. Like somebody died.

I look him square in the eye. “Something tells me that concern on your face doesn’t have anything to do with losing Gunnar.”

“I don’t like losing anyone,” he says. “Especially not to those… things. Not that way.”

“Sneak did what she could.”

“I’m not worried about Sneak. You’ve trained her well.”

I catch his fingers fiddling with the loose straps on his ammo vest.

“You wanna know what’s happening to me, that it?”

He nods.

“And if I tell you I don’t know?”

His voice is quiet now, just below the racket coming from outside.

“I’ll find it hard to believe. You don’t think I saw those Zees break their heads open? Maybe you take me for an idiot. Bet you probably

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