The Dragon Factory

The security door on the next landing down was locked. Bunny tried to pick it, but even though the tumblers moved, the door held fast.

“Must be a drop bar or something,” he said.

“Let’s go one more level down and if that doesn’t work we’ll come back up and try to blow the door.”

We moved down two more flights into the underbelly of the building. Maintenance level. Poorly lighted, the ceiling crisscrossed with pipes, big generators rumbling with subdued thunder. It was hot and moist down here, and water dripped from the ceiling. The maintenance floor had a security door, too, but it was propped open with a chair. An ashtray and a copy of Popular Mechanics lay on the floor. God bless the lazy janitors everywhere. Once inside we found a second door that was similarly blocked, but there was a draft here and the sound of distant gunfire. I shined my flashlight up and saw a long concrete utility ramp that went all the way to the surface.

“Wait here,” I said, and ran up the slope. There was a heavy grilled outer door set with a pivoting drop bar, but the bar was in the upright position and the door stood up and open. I peered out and saw the backs of at least fifty Russians engaged in a firefight with some other force. From the ramp I couldn’t tell if they were fighting the Dragon Factory guards or our own boys, and I was in no position to participate in this fight. So I retraced my steps and found Top and Bunny.

They stood back-to-back, pointing their guns into the bowels of the maintenance area, their bodies tense and alert.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Don’t know, Cap’n,” said Top. “Heard something weird.”

“Weird?”

Before he could answer there was a clickety-click sound somewhere near. Like toenails on concrete.

“Guard dog,” Bunny said.

“He ain’t barking,” Top said.

“Not all of ’em do.”

I sighted down the barrel and did a slow sweep. Suddenly something moved from left to right, breaking cover from behind the steel case of a big blower and darting behind a row of stacked crates.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Dog?” Bunny said, but this time he made it a question.

“Didn’t look like no dog to me,” Top said.

I had to agree. The silhouette was all wrong. The body was big, about the size of a mastiff, with thick shoulders and haunches, but the head shape was wrong and the tail was… weird. Too big and curling all the way over its back to beyond its snout.

The scuttling sound came again. This time to our right.

“Two of’em,” Top said.

Then we heard it behind us.

“Three,” Bunny said.

I turned. “More than that,” I said. At least four of the weird shapes filled the darkness of the ramp that led outside. They ran toward us with frightening speed.

“Jesus Christ,” Bunny said, and I turned as one of the creatures moved through a patch of light.

It was a dog. Or it had started out that way. God only knows what you’d call it now. The body was as broad and solid as a bullmastiff, the hair midnight black. The face was a twisted parody of a dog’s, but the snout and head were covered with what I first thought was some kind of armor like they used to put on fighting dogs centuries ago. I could have dealt with mastiffs in armor. That was scary, but it wasn’t nightmare stuff.

But as the creature moved back through the lamplight I saw that the armor ran all the way down its back and covered its sides, where it eventually thinned and blended with the dog’s natural fur. The armor plating gleamed like polished leather. But what sent a flash of horror all the way down through my brain and heart and guts was what rose above the dog’s back. It wasn’t a dog’s tail. The appendage that curled over the massive back and shoulders of the dog was a huge, segmented scorpion tail.

There were at least a dozen of them now… closing on all sides.

The one in the spill of light paused, its tail trembling above it, the stinger dripping hot venom. Its muzzle wrinkled back to show rows of sharp white teeth and it glared at us with eyes as black as the Devil’s.

With a monstrous howl of unnatural hate, the creature ran at us.

And then the others rushed at us from all sides.

Chapter One Hundred Seventeen

The Chamber of Myth

Tuesday, August 31, 2:28 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 32 minutes E.S.T.

There was a sharp crack, and a bullet cut through the darkness so close that Grace could feel the heat. She threw herself to one side and crashed into a row of thorny shrubs. Needles jabbed her and plucked at her clothing as she rolled over the shrubs and scrabbled to find solid ground. She kept her pistol by sheer luck and was glad of the lethal promise of it as she fumbled her way through the absolute blackness. All around her exotic creatures screamed in voices never before heard outside of nightmares.

“What happened to the lights?”

“It’s a fail-safe,” Hecate said. “If there’s gunfire in the building the whole facility goes into a forced lockdown.”

“Did you hit her?” someone asked. Grace thought it was Otto.

“I don’t know,” came the reply. Both voices were off to her right, so Grace kept moving to her left. The ground sloped under her and she crouched low, using her free hand to feel for obstacles.

“The security lights will be on any moment,” said Hecate, and as if to punctuate her words several overhead lights flared on. The light was weak but more than enough to see by. Grace dodged behind a mound of clover and flattened out.

Hecate led her father to a cleft in a rock wall. Otto squeezed in with them. Tonton and Veder found cover behind nearby foliage.

“Who was that bitch?” demanded Otto. “Was she one of yours?”

“No,” said Hecate. “I thought she was one of yours.”

“I don’t care who she is,” snapped Cyrus. “Veder, kill her.”

The assassin moved off without a word, melting into the foliage and vanished without a trace.

“Tonton,” said Hecate, “hunt.”

The Berserker grinned broadly and ran in the direction where Grace had been. As soon as he reached the waterfall he stopped, bent low, and sniffed; then he turned and ran down the path.

“What’s he doing?” asked Otto.

“He has more than ape strength,” said Hecate. “We’ve been experimenting with them, giving them additional combat useful skills. His olfactory senses are much sharper than a human’s. He’ll sniff her out.”

GRACE HEARD THE big man coming. She was down several rounds, so she quickly swapped out her magazine and found a spot with limited access from behind. She could command a three-sided view. While she shifted she processed what she had learned. One point was the name of the man who looked like Haeckel and Brucker. Cyrus had called him first Conrad and then Veder. Conrad Veder was another of the assassins of the Brotherhood of the Scythe.

A strange idea occurred to her and as she thought it she somehow knew that it was true. Haeckel and Veder were two of the four assassins of the Brotherhood. They looked identical, and it was no stretch under the present circumstances to accept that they were clones from the same cell line. It seemed likely that all four of the assassins of the Brotherhood were clones. The same level of skill because they were all, in essence, the same person. Was