Blood and Stone (6 page)

CHAPTER
TEN

Thirty five minutes later, Victor began to get terrified again. The AF-12 had begun a steep dive, slowing only slightly. The altimeter was scrolling so fast on the TTV, Victor couldn’t even read the numbers. He imagined the aged aircraft shaking itself apart.

>>>STAY CALM<<< Kenslir said. >>>ALMOST THERE<<<

Seconds later, Victor heard the bolts and pins holding his transport tube disengage from the belly of the hypersonic aircraft. He felt oddly weightless for a moment as the tube slowed, no longer being propelled at such terrific speeds towards the earth.

They were still twenty-thousand feet above the ground, plummeting at supersonic speed, head first, toward Alcatraz.

At two thousand feet, the transport tube shook violently as a large braking parachute deployed below Victor’s feet. Looking to his right, he could see the head-up image of Kenslir’s tube, its chute deploying as well.

Their rate of decent slowed dramatically.

>>>HERE IT COMES<<<

At five hundred feet, the tube suddenly burst apart, separating into two halves. Victor was now flying through the air, his rifle case held onto his vest by the safety strap. The ground was rushing up at an alarming rate, and Alcatraz was looking very, very big.

At two hundred feet, the parachute on Victor’s back billowed out and he was jerked around, his feet swinging down below him, his head now up. His rifle was aimed upwards, pulled by a cable connected to his chute harness so the stock hung at his waist level. Victor wrapped his arms around the weapon, holding it close against his chest.

>>>USE YOUR LEGS!<<< Kenslir cautioned.

Seconds after his main personal chute had deployed, still fifty feet above the ground, Victor felt his himself detach from his chute. He was in free fall.

Victor braced for impact as the ground rushed up to meet him. His stone feet, wrapped in leather and ballistic nylon boots, smashed into the parade ground on Alcatraz’s southern tip, sending up a spray of dirt and grass. Victor tumbled forward and barely caught himself.

Beside him, Kenslir had landed more gracefully, staying upright on his feet. In one fluid motion, his rifle, a magazine-fed USAS-12 autoshotgun, already tucked against his shoulder. He spun in place, sighting down the barrel, quickly surveying the area for any sign of their prey.

Victor fumbled with his rifle, glad it was attached to him by a strap. Despite hours and hours of training, he held the autoshotgun at waist level.

>>>ALL CLEAR<<< Kenslir texted.

***

In Miami, on the twelfth floor of Argon Tower, everyone in Detachment 1039's Command Center breathed a sigh of relief. High speed combat drops were always a source of anxiety for the Detachment, even after years of doing them.

“Holy shit,” Jimmy said, his face pale. “That’s how we deploy?” He wasn’t sure if he was gripping Josie’s hand tighter than she was gripping his.

“Not always,” Captain Smith said. “That’s our immediate response method. We don’t use it often.”

“What about the plane?” Colonel Phillips asked. He noticed that on one of the displays the aircraft was still proceeding west, gradually climbing to 35,000 feet.

“It’ll meet up with a refueling tanker over the Pacific then swing north for a return flight over Canada, where it’ll refuel once more. It should be back to base in a few hours.”

Phillips was impressed. “In my day we rode in the back of Blackbirds—but we sure as hell didn’t jump out of them.” He still remembered the confining pressure suit he’d had to wear on those special flights. Of course, these aircraft weren’t two-seater Blackbirds. They were single seat, A-12 interceptors, officially decommissioned years ago, but which the Detachment had managed to transfer back from NASA—and which had been extensively modified.

The four members of the Detachment stood in the back of the Command Center watching quietly as the mission continued. A dedicated spy satellite was directly over the prison, following Kenslir and Victor Hornbeck’s progress as they swept north, toward the exercise yard.

“Has anyone ever been hurt on one of these drops?” Josie asked. She’d thought her heart was going to explode watching the transport tubes plummet toward the ground after the multi role, MA-12 released them. Even though they were just green dots on a computer display, it had made her terrified.

“Colonel’s broken a leg once or twice,” Captain Smith said. “Nothing that slows him down though.”

Josie paled at the idea and held Jimmy’s hand tighter. She remembered all too well watching him fall from the roof of Argon Tower and smash into thousands of pieces on the ground below.

“Ha!” Phillips said. “I remember one time in Vietnam, on a HALO drop, Mark’s chute didn’t even open. He hit the ground like a missile. Took him a half hour to heal. Hilarious.”

***

They had been running for several minutes, following the shoreline of the island as they headed northwest. When they were below the exercise yard, they began a series of high jumps, rapidly ascending the steep slope of the island before they reached the high wall surrounding the exercise yard.

They hadn’t seen a single soul.

>>>UP AND OVER<<< Kenslir said, motioning at the wall.

Victor bent his knees and sprang upwards, as the Colonel had taught him. He cleared the top of the twenty-foot high wall with ease. Landing was more difficult.

Victor came down hard on his knee in the Courtyard, and heard a cracking sound. He panicked, until he realized his stone knee hadn’t cracked—the concrete he’d landed on had.

Kenslir landed fifteen feet to his right, on the balls of his feet, his rifle held to his shoulder, sighting down the barrel. He was like some kind of super acrobat, Victor thought.

The courtyard was a mess. Bodies were everywhere, their orange uniforms soaked in blood. A few stray birds were picking at the corpses. Victor was glad he’d been to so many crime scenes for the FBI, or else he was sure he would have thrown up. Even with a stone stomach.

A ghostly silhouette drifted across the courtyard toward them, almost invisible. Daisy. The astral scout hovered in place, making gestures with her hands.

“She says the island appears deserted,” Kenslir said, reading the sign language. “Give her a thumbs up, then point to the sky with one hand, and make a fist with the other.”

Victor obeyed, but was confused. “Uh, why am I doing this?” he asked as Daisy flew away, disappearing from view as she gained altitude.

“She can’t see me,” Kenslir explained. “But she can see you.”

“Why?” Victor asked. It sounded familiar now that he thought about it but there was just so much to remember in the past month of intensive training. Great, now he looked stupid.

“Part of my resistance to the mystical.” Kenslir was moving about the yard now, checking the various petrified guards. “Check a corpse.”

Victor nodded and moved to the closest body. He knelt down and pressed his stone fingers to the cold flesh. It was nice to have to concentrate to do this now. Before his petrification, the slightest touch triggered his ability to see psychic impressions of the past.

The memories from the corpse flooded into Victor’s head, distorted and blurry. The inmate, John Davis, had shuffled out in the morning, then stood simply watching the clouds—his senses dulled by some kind of medication. Then there were the sounds of screams. Finally, a red haired guard had approached John, then ripped his heart out.

“He was disguised as a guard,” Victor said, breaking contact with the corpse.

Kenslir was following a blood trail now. Tezcahtlip had been so blood soaked, he left a shuffling series of bloody scuffs as he walked. Right into the prison.

“Were they drugged?” Victor asked, walking up beside him.

“Keeps them under control. And it suppresses their abilities.”

Victor didn’t think that sounded very humane. Of course, it could have been worse. At least the government didn’t slaughter the inmates like the shapeshifter had.

Kenslir led the way up the stairs, out of the exercise yard, and into the prison.

***

They had been inside for some time now, clearing rooms as they searched for any sign of the giant. Kenslir was sure the shapeshifter was gone, but he wouldn’t let anyone else on the island until he was sure.

“We’re going to be at this all night,” Victor said, walking slightly behind the Colonel. Alcatraz was a huge place.

As the Colonel checked another cell, Victor happened to glance ahead. He saw a dark form dart out of sight.

“Target!” Victor hissed. He raised his weapon and activated the laser sight.

Kenslir pushed the gun barrel down. “Relax. It’s just a ghost.”

Victor blinked—an unnecessary action for a person who’s eyes were made of stone and didn’t need moisture. “A ghost walker? Like Daisy? I thought they were transparent?”

Kenslir moved on, continuing to check cells. “No, a ghost. As in a dead person.”

“There’s ghosts on Alcatraz?!”

“Have been for years. Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you.”

Victor felt scared—which he knew was ridiculous. He was made of living stone and could bend steel with his bare hands. “Are they the inmates?”

“Not the most recent ones, no,” Kenslir said. They only had a few more cells to go, then they’d move on to the medical wing.

“Inmates from before the Rock became such a super place,” Kenslir continued. “Rapists, murderers, the like.”

“Why are they still here?”

“Because they can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

Kenslir frowned. They had a mission to do. But he knew Victor was an inquisitive kid—who at twenty-one should be in college, not fighting monsters for the Army.

“We’re surrounded by water. Ghosts can’t cross it. That’s why the Rock was chosen for the paracriminals. They can’t get out without a boat or a helicopter either.”

“Ghosts can’t cross water?”

“Nope. It’s stay here or move on,” Kenslir said. “And given their incarceration, unless they found Jesus, they probably wouldn’t want to move on.”

Another thought occurred to Victor. “Are this many locked up in other countries?”

“No. Most countries lock up their dangerous parahumans in regular prisons, or execute them. Assuming they actually have any.”

Victor remembered more of his training. The United States had more parahumans than anywhere else in the world. A result of the melting pot of people who had emigrated to the U.S., bringing different bloodlines, and dormant Fallen genes with them.

“What about soldiers? Like us? Are there other parasoldiers?”

They finally reached the doors to the medical wing. Like all the other security doors in the prison, they were wide open. Tezcahtlip had strolled around, opening up whatever he wanted.

“As far as we know, we have a monopoly on petrification,” Kenslir said, easing through the doors. A long corridor stretched beyond them. “There are some paranormal forces out there—the Russians and the Chinese in particular have large programs.”

At the end of the corridor, they finally came to the door to the infirmary. Kenslir held up a finger to his lips for Victor to be quiet.

>>>I SMELL BLOOD—LOTS OF IT<<<

Victor took up a position beside the door, with Kenslir facing it. They paused a moment, then Kenslir lunged forward, kicking the steel door.

The door exploded off its hinges from the kick, bent in the middle and torn free. It clanged onto the floor of the large infirmary beyond. Kenslir ran in, over the door, slightly stooped over, cheek against his rifle stock, pointing the weapon everywhere he looked as he quickly checked every corner.

“It’s about time,” a woman gasped from the far end of the room.

Victor was startled. Daisy had indicated no one left alive on the island.

The survivor was slouched in a chair at the far end of the room, her green blouse torn open, a gaping wound in her chest. She wore a stained doctors coat and slacks. She had long red hair.

And she was drinking blood from an IV bag, sucking the tube like a straw.

“Laura?” Kenslir asked. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“This is my office isn’t it?” the vampire said, coughing. She could barely hold herself up in her chair. She was clearly weak and barely holding on.

In Victor’s TTV an information box sprang up beside the woman, scrolling out information on her. Laura Olson, MD. Body Temperature 85 degrees.

Kenslir crossed the room quickly, setting his rifle on a table and moving to the woman’s side. He looped an arm around her shoulders and helped her up.

“You’re too late, Mark,” Olson said. “That dickless bastard left hours ago.”

Kenslir helped her over to a table and laid her down. Victor crept closer, baffled by what was going on. And the gaping wound in Laura’s chest.

“Take a picture—it’ll last longer,” the doctor said, feebly pulling at her labcoat to cover herself.