Pointing to Spearhead, he gestured for them to start on the second floor, taking the stairs. Then for Ghost, he pointed to another stairwell at the back of the atrium. From the old building maps the science team had scrounged up, Fitz knew those stairwells would take them to the basement, where they would find the morgue, storage facilities, and research labs inside the hospital.
Neilson led Spearhead up the stairs. Their boots slurped on the webbing covering the floor.
Fitz followed Dohi toward the steps that would take them to the basement. He strained to listen for any growls or clicking joints. But all he heard was the drip of water and creaking in the walls between the distant sounds of the ongoing battle.
The team descended into the basement.
In the depths of the building, it was too dark even for their NVGs. No light penetrated the corridor, forcing Fitz to flip up his optics and turn on his barrel-mounted light. The others did the same. White beams of light pierced the cloak of black, revealing patches of webbing and the occasional knot of tendrils formed over a long-dead body.
Dohi halted, raising a fist, then signaled he had seen movement in a room to their left.
Fitz felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Corrin, eyes glued straight ahead. Corrin pointed toward the room Dohi had indicated, then at his flared nostrils.
You can smell them? Fitz thought.
As if reading his thoughts, Corrin nodded urgently toward that door, his limbs trembling.
At Fitz’s signal, Dohi went in low. Fitz followed, clearing Dohi’s blind spots.
A growl exploded from the back of the room. Fitz raised his rifle, the light revealing two beasts with wormy gray lips, yellow eyes, and bony armor.
Juveniles.
He blasted their armor, rounds punching into the flesh of the first monster. The second leapt out of Fitz’s aim, but Dohi unleashed a burst that took off a chunk of skull.
Clicking joints caught Fitz’s attention, and he aimed toward the webbing-covered ceiling. A third beast they had missed before crawled like a spider over the webbing, dropping toward them.
It landed between Dohi and Fitz. Dohi went for his hatchet, and Fitz slammed the stock of his rifle into the juvenile’s jaw, cracking bone.
Corrin lunged in from behind, using his claws to slit the sliver of unprotected flesh between the armor plates of the juvenile. Blood pumped out and the creature collapsed, jerking.
“They have a weak spot there,” he said.
“Damn,” Ace said. “I’m really starting to like this… guy.”
Fitz signaled to advance into the room.
Flashlight beams danced over the stainless-steel doors of body-sized drawers. Two huge metal slabs stained dark by blood were at the center of the space. Taut vines laced into the drawers, and Ace pulled one out to reveal a corpse that had fed those vines.
“Let’s get the fuck out of this hellhole,” he said.
Dohi was about to open the door leading out of the morgue when the comm channel crackled to life.
He signaled for Dohi to pause.
“Ghost One, Spearhead One,” Neilson said, his words firing quick as an automatic rifle. “We got contacts! Need backup! Now!”
***
Azrael walked through the lines of two-meter tall banks of supercomputers covered in red vines at his Citadel. The air was sweltering and choking with humidity. This had been the birthplace of his communication network, back when he had relied on manmade computers.
He no longer needed most of them, although they had kept a few personal computers around for pedestrian tasks. The world of information technology he had created relied not on silicon computer chips, but rather engineered neurons, such as those in the behemoths that towered at the end of the two-story computational lab.
The bulbous mastermind pulled on red vines and let out long, rattling breaths, filling the air with a fetid odor.
Scions and human faithful alike moved about the space, using a few of the personal computers that Azrael still needed operating. Loyalists monitoring the communication network relayed updates on the battle in Vegas as well as their operations elsewhere.
He clasped his claws behind his back, soaking in the musty, bloody smell of the place. Along the walls, a few human prisoners writhed in nests of red. Their pained moans filled Azrael with great pleasure.
A human kneeled in front of him. “Prophet, I have news of the special operations teams.”
“Speak.”
The loyalist bowed his head. “Our guards captured a group of soldiers infiltrating the University Medical Center.”
A jolt of shock shook through Azrael, but he refused to let it show. “Were they coming after me?”
“I believe so.” There was fear in the human’s voice.
“The humans listening in our network truly did track down those signals,” Azrael said. “But that is exactly as we had expected.” He placed a claw under the human loyalist’s chin, forcing the man to look up at him. “Was this the infamous Team Ghost that our guards captured?”
The human shook his head. “No, Prophet. It was another group with the Canadian flag on their uniforms.”
Azrael scratched at the scars along his jaw. “This is unexpected, but we may be able to use it to our advantage. Alert Elijah at once.”
“Yes, Prophet.”
Azrael lurked behind the other human loyalists and Scions monitoring battle reports.
“Prophet,” said a Scion named Gabriel. “The heretics are still flooding the main strip.”
Gabriel tapped on a monitor showing a map of Vegas.
“They are closing in on the Venetian. Should I execute the final orders for Operation Darkness?”
Azrael glanced at the monitor. Red blips showed where collaborators and Scions were reporting current enemy positions. He pictured the faces of those humans that had constantly stood in his way. Reed Beckham. Team Ghost. The infidels who refused to submit.
“Has anyone confirmed that Beckham and Team Ghost are here?” Azrael asked.
“Not yet, Prophet.”
“Then we must wait.”
“If we wait too long, the humans will—”
Azrael slashed out with his claws, drawing four scarlet lines
