Successors by James Axler

Author:James Axler [Axler, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2022-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Kane was not so overwhelmed with pain and surprise that he neglected to hold his Copperhead up one-handed and pump a burst into the bat-winged thing with a baron’s face. It blew out like a balloon full of ink.

The corridor filled with flapping wings from waist height up, all driving furiously for Kane’s face. One bounced right off the visor of his helmet. Its eyes stared into his, wide and placid. Then it opened its fanged mouth and added its squeaky voice to the cacophony of mad laughter, which Kane now realized was mostly in his mind.

Thunder enveloped Kane as Grant practically laid the muzzles of his blasters to either side of Kane’s helmet and triggered bursts into the seething mass of flying things. Yellow muzzle-flash lightning seemed to wash out Kane’s vision from both sides. Had he been relying on the helmet’s low-light vision capabilities they might have overloaded, and at the least would have blanked most of his field of view filtering out the flashes. Had he not had on the visored helmet, the flames and fragments of unburned propellant, hot drops of lubricant and tiny bits of metal shaved from the bullet jackets ejected at high speed from the weapons’ muzzles would have endangered his eyes.

The bullet sprays tore into the swirling cloud of bathorrors like scythes. Yet even as a dozen or more of the small monsters were ripped to pieces, the laughter continued in Kane’s head, undiminished by the gunfire roar.

“Enough!” he shouted. He couldn’t hear his own voice. But Grant heard him somehow, or else sensed it was time to let Kane beat a strategic withdrawal. The storm of light and noise and high-speed metal cut off. Kane sensed Grant moving back and to the side to clear his retreat.

Hurriedly he took advantage of it. He fired a last triburst from the Sin Eater now in his gloved right fist as he jumped back around into the corridor down which they’d approached the T-junction. A flapping monster followed, fluttering wildly and erratically on a broken wing. He smashed it against the vanadium wall with the back of his armored fist. It squeaked piteously as it burst in a spurt of dark juices.

The laughter within Kane’s head ended. The chittering and shrill laughter of the flying creatures pursued him.

“Baptiste!” Kane bellowed. “Get back! These things’ll rip you apart like a school of airborne piranhas if they get at you!”

“Piranhas actually pose small threat to humans,” she said primly, but she backed off quickly.

“Two hundred years ago they didn’t,” Grant muttered. He was digging in his belt pouch. “Who knows what they’re like now? Mebbe they fly, too.”

He held up a huge fist. “Suck a deep breath down, hold it and jump back,” he commanded.

The mental laughter had cut off when Kane pulled back out of the corridor. Now it began again, more wild and unhinged than before, yet slightly musical, and he realized with a start that it sounded like the amplified laughter of a child.

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