It was a tower of bones.
A twenty-foot high, mile-long wall led away from the tower toward the upper plain before it abruptly stopped, as if whoever or whatever constructed it just lost interest. But the tower was immense, rising several hundred feet high-a massive monolith of death. As they neared, Knight suggested they kill the engine and proceed on foot.
After a ten-minute jog, they stopped at the wall’s edge. It was constructed haphazardly from a mix of white human bones, and larger, clear bones which Knight assumed had come from dire wolves. Some of the longer specimens stuck out from the tower as far as a foot. They saw femurs and skulls, ribs and spinal columns. Nothing was excluded. Even the small bones of a hand were visible. Some kind of mortar that looked like concrete filled the spaces between the bones. A layer of orange dust-blue to Knight, orange to Bishop-coated everything.
Bishop grasped one the large dire wolf long bones sticking out of the structure and tested it for strength. The bone was solid. He put his weight on it, and it held him. He turned to Knight.
“Up or around?”
Knight looked up to where the tower met the twenty-foot high wall. “Up, I guess.” He tested his weight on bones that stuck out of the giant monument and quickly climbed for the spot where the wall and tower converged. Bishop followed. Twice, when Bishop put his weight on a human bone, it cracked with a dull crunching noise, leaving behind a splintered stump, which he was still able to use as a foothold.
When Knight reached the top, and peered over the wall, he turned to look back at Bishop. His face was filled with tension. Bishop reached the top a moment later and saw what had disturbed Knight.
The plains continued on the other side and ran for miles to the horizon. But the span was filled with a vast army of dire wolves. Their white see-through skin added contrast to the landscape, almost glowing. Closer to the structure of the tower and the wall, there were hundreds of small bone walls, with cells built into them like in an underground crypt. Each cell contained one or more human bodies. Some were stuffed in with their limbs folded over in grotesque ways. Others were stored in pieces, with some cells filled with only one kind of body parts-all feet or all heads.
Thousands of people.
Not one of them living.
And the bodies didn’t seem to be decaying. Bishop noticed an absolute lack of insects like flies that would normally be buzzing and swarming around such a charnel house. Nor, could he smell the dead.
They’re being stored, he thought. It’s like a giant pantry full of human corpses.
Near the end of the bone wall that ran a mile away from the tower, a one-hundred-foot tall portal stretched into the sky. The army of dire wolves stood a half mile away from the tower, and equally far from the portal. They weren’t lined up in rows and columns like a human army might be, but it was clear to Bishop that they were ready to begin their fight.
Not far from the portal, a wide tunnel burrowed down into the soil-eighty feet wide and just as tall. A yawning cavity in the ground.
“That portal isn’t flickering.” Bishop said.
Knight looked at the scene and shook his head. “What’s that Elmer Fudd says?”
“I’m hunting wabbits,” Bishop said, enunciating the words, but not doing a full on impression.
“The other one.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Bishop said.
“That’s the one,” Knight said. “What are they all waiting for?”
Bishop put his hand on Knight’s head and turned him toward the cave in front of the portal. “They’re waiting for that.”
A massive form rose from the depths.
Knight had been trying to deal with the horror of this place through joking, but all trace humor fled his body as fast as the blood from his face.
“Let’s move,” Bishop said.
“Move where?”
Bishop motioned to the Humvee. “Let’s take a ride. See if we can’t lead the charge.”
“I don’t know if I love or hate the way you think,” Knight said, starting to climb down. “No, wait. I hate it. I definitely hate it.”
SIXTY-FIVE
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
4 November, 0315 Hrs
Queen dove to the side as wreckage rained down around her. She rolled on the floor and came up in a firing stance, ready to fight, but found herself in a cloud of choking dust and grit. It would have been the perfect time to take down all the dire wolves. She figured they were all frozen, stock still, waiting for the airborne particulates to clear, so they could see their prey.
But Queen couldn’t see them either. All the shooting had stopped as the giant slabs of masonry fell with explosive force, shattering on the floor. She scanned the area around her and found Black Six lying face down, his torso and upper legs pinned under a slab of the massive roof. She lay down on the floor, put her feet against the stone and prepared to pull the man out by his legs. She pulled and he came free easily. When she looked down, she saw that she had freed only the man’s legs, from the upper thigh down. The rest of him was crushed under the rock slab.
Man down, she thought, but there wasn’t anything she could do.
She dropped his legs, growled, stood and looked for something on which to vent her anger.
Sand and grit scratched her eyes. She pawed at it with a filthy, muck-coated hand. As the cloud began to clear, she could see the snowy sky above through the fractured, opened roof. The portal, which was not quite a sphere anymore, stretched up through the roof. Gunfire erupted again as those still living found targets in the murky air.
A shift in the dusty air alerted her to the presence of a dire wolf. She turned and found it right behind her, frozen in its macabre statue-like stance. Like a street-performing human statue. She swept the curve-bladed Kurkri from the sheath on her hip, slicing the stationary creature’s head off in one vicious swipe. The body strangely stayed erect on its feet as the head rolled to a stop next to gray rubble. The headless corpse disturbed her, so she kicked it in the chest and the carcass toppled over.
She could see the man that wore the earmuffs over by the now inactive M2. A six-foot tall spire of steel I- beam had killed him, impaling him through his chest. Falling wreckage had bent the M2’s barrel like a paper clip. Two of the white-armored troopers were hunkered down behind another pile of stones, firing at the dire wolves as they slowly emerged from the gloom, although most still stood motionless, waiting for the air to clear. Queen raised her MP5 and loosed a barrage of bullets toward every creature-statue she could see.
She held the trigger down as snow fell into the expansive room. She saw King helping Deep Blue remove his cracked black helmet. Beck was helping Asya up.
She lingered on Asya. The woman looked incredibly familiar, but Queen couldn’t put her finger on why. The way she fought. The way she moved. The look in her eyes, or her eyes themselves. The two women moved over to Deep Blue and King, and the idea that had been scratching at the back of Queen’s head since she had met the Russian woman burst into her frontal consciousness.
Son of a bitch. I know who you are, lady.
She didn’t see Rook anywhere, until she heard him, and his voice distracted her from her new revelation about Asya. He stood across the room, covered in dusty grime.
“Like it hasn’t been a bad enough day,” Rook shouted. “I had to drop the friggin’ ceiling on everyone. Goddamned, buck-toothed, white marshmallow lookin’ cocksuckers!” He sprayed bullets from the M-16, mowing down the stationary dire wolves, dropping three of them before his rifle ran out of ammunition. “Bastards!” He dropped the M-16, and charged toward the remaining six dire wolves that stood still.
“Rook,” King called out.
Rook ignored him, pounding forward. He drew a Browning pistol he must have picked up during the fight. He
