should have been straight. This creature, who could make short work of any living human being, had been mauled and folded up like an origami puzzle. “It’s a hybrid,” he said. “It’s been mauled something fierce.”
He looked over at Queen. She had found a body buried in the remains of a small structure. “This is one of the old mothers. Same story.”
Rook shook his head. For all the strength, speed, and instincts the hybrids had, the old mothers had double. “I think it’s safe to assume we were beat to the punch.”
Queen stood and activated her throat mic. “Deep Blue, this is Queen.”
She waited for a reply, but none came. “Deep Blue, do you read?”
“We’re too deep,” Rook said. “Go topside and warn the others. I’ll poke around here and try to figure out what happened.”
Queen didn’t like the sound of that and said so with a look.
“This place is a ghost town, twice over,” he said.
“It’s a bad idea.”
“If I get into trouble I’ll yell.”
“From a hundred feet below a mountain?”
“I’ll yell real loud.”
Queen shook her head, but couldn’t hide her grin. She headed for the exit. “I’ll be back in five minutes.” She paused at the large archway leading to the tunnel. “Hey, Rook, good to be back in the field with you.”
He nodded. “Likewise.”
Then she was gone, running up the slope.
Rook sighed, still concerned for Queen’s well-being, but also concerned over his own distraction. Queen took up too much space in his mind. As they had studied, sparred, and trained over the past year, he sometimes found his thoughts off target and on her. And in the field, that could get him killed.
Of course, they all had their distractions. Knight’s grandmother’s health was failing. Bishop was only sane because of a crystal around his neck. Queen had a cherry red stamp on her forehead. And King now had a foster daughter. “Course, none of the guys look as good in fatigues,” he mumbled to himself.
Shuffling through a sea of green-glowing bones, Rook made his way deeper into the city. He stopped occasionally to listen as every step he made created a cacophony of noise. He would be simple to find. If anyone were looking.
After counting fifteen bodies strewn throughout the ruined city, he decided that all the Neanderthals were either dead or had fled. But he’d still found no evidence of what happened. The bodies were crushed, dismembered, or impaled with bones, but it was as though something huge and blunt had been used to kill them.
The clunk of bone on bone spun him around, M4 tight against his shoulder. “That you, Queen?”
No reply.
He waited just a moment before an off-balance bone slipped from one of the half destroyed walls and fell. He relaxed for a moment, but another clatter of bones turned him around again.
Something was making the loose bones fall.
Then he felt it. A vibration.
Something big was approaching.
Bones rattled again, but Rook didn’t turn this time. He remained focused on the shaking beneath his feet, trying to determine its origin. It wasn’t until the rattle of bones turned into a crunch that he turned to look. And when he did, his head craned up as his mouth fell open.
“Holy mother … Que—!”
Rook didn’t get to finish his shout as something massive struck him in the side and sent him flying into and through the wall of one of the bone huts.
TWELVE
Uluru, Australia
AS KNIGHT AND Bishop arrived at the mouth of the valley, the sun had just begun peeking up over the horizon. The sandstone surface of Ayers Rock was well known for its ability, some believed supernatural ability, to change colors under certain conditions, most frequently at sunset and sunrise. Removing their night vision goggles, the pair saw the stone was beginning to glow red.
They paused at the valley opening, hoping to hear or see something that would give some hint about what they were about to run into. But only minutes after the attack had begun, the valley had fallen silent.
Bishop sniffed. “I smell the fire.”
Knight pointed to a wisp of smoke filtering up over the red rock. “I think it’s been put out.”
Sudden movement brought their weapons to the ready. Both men had opted for small, light UMP submachine guns over their usual specialized weapons. Without the rest of the team in tow, Knight’s sniper rifle and Bishop’s machine gun made a bad combination for standard combat. With fingers on triggers, both men nearly shot the small black-flanked rock wallaby as it hopped from the valley, its eyes wide. The small marsupial paid no attention to the two men it would normally flee from, hopping between them and into the desert beyond.
Knight took a step forward, but was stopped by Deep Blue’s voice. “Knight, Bishop, you read?”
“Go ahead,” Knight said.
“I’m patching Queen through.”
“Knight, Bish…” Queen was uncharacteristically out of breath. “We arrived too late. Our targets are down.”
Knight and Bishop both keenly remembered the strength and ferocity of the Neanderthal hybrids and their mothers. “Seriously?” Knight said, keeping his eyes on the valley ahead.
“Looks like they didn’t stand a chance. Listen, just—” A muffled boom sounded over the headset, followed by Queen’s voice saying Rook’s name. Then she was gone.
“I’ll try to get her back,” Deep Blue said. “The valley is in shadow with the sun rising so we’re not seeing anything on the visual scan.”
“Infrared?” Bishop asked.
“That’s the thing,” Deep Blue said. “I’m not seeing anything other than embers from the fire. Either everyone is gone, or…”
“Everyone is dead,” Knight finished. “We’re on it.”
Knight and Bishop crept into the valley, weapons ready. They focused on every crag and shadow where someone could hide. A series of petroglyphs caught Knight’s eye. He looked at the ancient pictographs. Some depicted ancient peoples and animals and others were simple swirling circles that he knew represented a watering hole. His eyes followed a streak of black algae that had grown in a water channel. Halfway up, the dry black surface became wet.
And red.
A small trickle of thick blood rolled down the stone and dripped at his feet. “Bishop!”
He followed the blood trail up and found a dark-skinned arm protruding from beneath a large boulder. It appeared the boulder had fallen on the person, but there were no cliff faces above it.
Bishop stepped farther into the valley as Knight continued looking at the crushed arm. “That stone must weigh a ton, Bishop. How—”
“Knight.” Bishop’s voice was quiet, but full of dread, which was an unusual inflection for a man who could not be injured or killed short of decapitation. Sensing the danger had passed, he lowered his weapon.
Knight joined him at a curve in the valley, which opened up into a large atrium. The back wall, covered in petroglyphs, rose up and hung over a large watering hole. It was fringed by adder’s-tongue ferns and mulga and bloodwood trees. A small clearing held a circle of crushed, smoldering ash. But none of this held their attention. It was impossible to see the beauty of the place amid the sheer carnage.
Counting the bodies was impossible because many were torn apart and intermingled. Several were squashed, like roadkill—bodies bent, faces twisted in disgust, entrails burst from stomachs. Others lay beneath massive stones, as though they’d fallen from the sky. And one man hung upside down from a tree, twenty feet above the
