Foam flecked the Queen’s long, eyeless muzzle, and her abdomen convulsed as another pulpy egg dropped onto the slide and was automatically carried away by the vast machines that pumped and churned behind the walls.
The female thrashed and bared her teeth in rage when her egg failed robotic inspection and was consigned to the furnace. But before the conveyor reached the fiery chamber, the skin of the egg peeled back, and a pale white face hugger emerged, eager to escape its leathery cocoon. But the machine was pitching the rejected egg into the fire. Extending a robotic arm, it shoved the struggling infant into the conflagration, along with its leathery pouch.
Mewing piteously, the newborn face hugger was instantly consumed.
Witnessing this atrocity, the Queen went berserk. She thrashed and strained at the metal chains, testing their tensile strength to the limit. Even though chunks of masonry and the dust of millennia had been dislodged from the walls and vaulted ceiling by her furious convulsions, the indestructible chains would not give.
Tilting its crested head back as far as the restraints allowed, the Queen opened its slavering mouth and unleashed an awesome, ear-shattering shriek of rage, frustration and utter despair, which reverberated throughout the pyramid.
The alpha-Alien with the net-ravaged hide was pounding its fists against the stone door in a futile effort to reach Scar and Lex when it heard the keening distress call. Pausing, the Alien lifted its misshapen head to listen.
When the Queen’s cry came again, the alpha-Alien hissed and bared its teeth, alert for danger. His entourage folded into the shadows, where they swayed like coiled pythons, watching and waiting for its lead.
Tail-stump thrashing, the alpha-Alien turned and hurled itself down the passageway in the direction of the Queen’s chamber. The swarm followed, their ebony claws scouring the stone as they scurried into the gloom.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the slab, Scar continued to sheathe Lex in a crudely fashioned battle suit. Using the rib cage of the dead Alien, the Predator created a chest plate, holding it in place with the Velcro straps from Lex’s backpack.
Scar had retained his own face mask and the metal powerpack he wore on his broad back. He also kept his shoulder armor with gun mount. These seemed to be the most vital components of his original battle armor, the ones that contained his life-support and internal power systems, and the sensory equipment the Predator relied upon to hunt down its prey. The mesh heat-netting was in place under the Predator’s makeshift suit, and Scar also gripped his long, barbed spear in one fist. The other fist was encased in armor, studded with the shattered blades from the Predator’s ruined throwing disk.
Lex was smaller, lighter and far less powerful than the Predator, and as necessary as it was to wear this hastily assembled protection, she groaned under the weight of it. Her chest was covered in a segment of Alien plate that had formerly sheathed the creature’s thigh. On her extremities Lex had strapped pieces of Alien forearm and shin armor, and she kept them in place with waterproof adhesive tape from her first-aid kit.
Scar had fashioned a large, curved shield out of the Alien’s skull for her to carry, and Lex had made a helmet from bits and pieces of chitin held together with rope and Velcro, along with shoulder pads formed from hollowed- out Alien ribs.
In her gloved hand Lex gripped a long, wickedly sharp slashing club made from the piercing barbs of the Alien’s segmented tail. She’d also arranged the pitons in her utility belt so that she could pull them out and stab or slash with them in a single easy, quick motion. Next to them, she kept her few remaining flares and her survival knife, unbuttoned and ready for instant use.
Finally, Lex and Scar were ready. They stood side by side, weapons poised, as the Predator’s long fingers danced on the ancient keypad. With a grating rumble, the stone slab rose again into the ceiling as the newly attired warriors leaped into the passageway, weapons poised and ready for the savage Alien attack. But to their astonishment, it never came. The corridor was empty, the Aliens gone.
CHAPTER 28
Feet pounding on the stone floor, the Predator raced through a dark passageway lined with pillars. Lex struggled to keep up. Though a phenomenal athlete in her own right, she was incapable of matching the brutal pace set by Scar. His massive strides more than doubled her own footsteps. Lex was sweating under her winter jumpsuit and heavy Alien armor, and she was also taking in great gulps of frigid air.
Thirty paces ahead, Scar paused at an intersection, as if uncertain which direction to take. Suddenly he bolted to the right.
“No! No! That way,” she pointed. “Go left.”
The Predator whirled around and spied one of the strobe lights, still flashing where Lex had left it hours before. Lex caught up with him and recognized the area—it was the corridor that led up to the sacrificial chamber where they’d left Thomas, Adele Rousseau, and several archaeologists.
“It’s this way up!” she cried, gesturing as she hurried forward.
For a moment it looked as if Scar wasn’t going to follow her. Then he took off, running past Lex, leading once more.
“Slow down a little,” Lex huffed. “Let me catch up.”
To her surprise, he did. After that, Scar paced himself to match her stride, and they ran side by side. It seemed the Predator was beginning to regard her as an equal. Lex didn’t know whether she should be flattered or appalled.
Ahead of them a black doorway yawned, two strobes blinking on either side of it.
“The sacrificial chamber,” Lex cried.
They slowed and cautiously entered the circular chamber. On the floor, Lex spied a blood-splattered handgun—Adele Rousseau’s Desert Eagle. Lex scooped the weapon up and checked the magazine. One bullet left.
From somewhere inside the chamber, Lex heard a faint, ghostly echo. Scar heard it, too. Lex strained to listen, and finally she could make out the sound of a human voice calling her name.
“Lex…”
“Sebastian!”
Eyes darting, Lex peered beyond the slabs and the mummies. In an antechamber, she saw a cluster of ghastly statues mounted on the wall—statues she did not remember seeing the last time she was in this room.
The voice called again.
“Lex… Help me…”
She looped her club to her belt and pulled a spear fashioned from the tip of an Alien’s tail off her back.
Then she slowly approached the stone sculptures, her weapon raised and ready. As her eyes strained in the half light, Lex could make out some of the repugnant details of a horrific, terra-cotta mural. It appeared to be the three-dimensional image of a mythical beast with a hard shell for a body and a tiny, humanlike head.
“Lex… Please…”
Only when the voice called again did the truth become clear. This wasn’t a mural. This grotesque tableau was actually alive. The mythical beast was really a human being—Sebastian De Rosa.
The archaeologist was encased in a monstrous Alien cocoon, his arms, legs and feet completely enmeshed in a near-impenetrable shell. On the stone floor lay a deflated egg sack and the translucent shell of a spent face hugger, belly up, its legs stiff with rigor mortis and pointed at the ceiling.
“Oh, God… Sebastian…”
The man tried to smile, but the effort died on his lips. When he spoke, the words did not come easily. Each breath was labored. He retched, and red foam flecked his pallid cheek.
“Lex… I…”
“Hold on, I’ll get you out of there.”
