MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) (29 page)

Flower-face lurched back as each shot hit home, but seemed mostly indifferent. Ryder watched on in morbid fascination as its arm—so easily blown away—crawled back to its master, moving with a will of its own. Using whip-like tendrils of emerald, the severed limb pulled itself along the stony floor, inch by inch, foot by foot, before finally worming its way up the side of the creature’s body and burrowing back into place like a prairie dog wiggling into its hole.

And then the bastard was a flash of movement, a blur of green, charging toward them while its flower mouth shook back and forth, a warble of rage filling up the air between them.

Ryder glanced toward Chuck.

He was already long gone, his back turned, his pack swinging, his lanky legs eating up the hallway, carrying him off and toward the right—down the hallway with the murderous plants. Toward the draft and the exit. That douche-bag, ass-faced bro-hole. Fucking chicken-shit coward. Not that she would’ve done anything different, but it was the principle that mattered.

Ryder wanted to follow suit, wanted to turn tail and haul ass, but if she turned her back, she’d never make it. So instead she steadied her hands as best she could and aimed for the creature’s churning mass of legs. Honestly, it was unrealistic to say she aimed for anything
specific
, but with that many limbs, she figured a round would have to hit something—there was just too much creature not to. She pulled the trigger a trio of times, and the gun barked,
pop-pop-pop-,
and kicked in her grip.

A spray of green followed: splashes of gooey sludge accompanied by chunks of meaty vine and shredded pieces of sunset flowers. The creepy son of a bitch was far from finished, but it did falter and slow, lingering as the missing portions of its body wormed across the floor and rejoined the party.

Ryder took a stumbling step back, wheeled around, and bolted down the right-hand path, following Chuck’s lead. Gas all the way to the floor, running balls out. The tangles of vegetation, lurking on the walls and ceiling, slithered and moved at her passing, vines reaching out while flowers extended their barbed-covered tentacles, fighting to ensnare and hold her. Her heart thudded as she ran, beating like the driving bass line of a heavy punk tune: anxiety and claustrophobia colliding against each other in a primal mosh.

As scared as she was of the probing, crawling vines, they didn’t hold a candle to her fear of the inhuman thing scuttling along behind her. She steeled herself, ducked low—head down, shoulders rounded, arms tight into her body—and barreled onward.
Fuck these weeds
. Every few feet something pulled at her: crawling lengths of green grabbing her hair or ankles or clothes. She ignored them all, plugging away before those tendrils could get a solid hold, and the whole while she screamed. A shriek, broken more than occasionally by a hysterical string of profanity.

Once in a while she paused her banshee wail to catch her breath, and in those quiet pauses she could her the rustle of vines sliding endlessly over each other: a writhing brood of hungry snakes, interrupted by the rhythmic scurry of giant arachnid legs
scritch-scratching
along the floor. Drawing closer every heartbeat. As bad as the probing feelers were, the sound was worse. Sometimes, if she had time to kill, she’d watch a horror flick with her friends. It was never the sudden jump scares that did her in—no, it was always the damned music. That terrible build up, as if the director were saying,
Something bad is coming to get you. It’s right around the corner, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop it
.
Not a single, damned thing.

Ryder couldn’t stand it, and so instead she kept screaming for all she was worth, blocking out the sound of her encroaching death.

She continued the madcap sprint, breaths coming in great pulls now, her pack swaying perceptibly and robbing her of speed. The tunnel continued to curve left for a hundred feet or so, apparently circling back on itself, then hooked hard right—a sharp ninety-degree turn. In the gloom, she almost failed to see the turn at all; only sheer luck and a hefty dose of adrenaline-fueled athleticism kept her from plowing, head-first, into the wall. She skidded to a halt just in time, killing outright all her hard-won momentum, and ducked right.

She let out a pent-up breath—this section of tunnel was free of the creeping vines. A small victory. She put on a burst of speed, hoping to break away for good, find that asshole, Chuck, then get the hell out of this terrible shithole. Screw the professor, screw answers, screw Levi, she just wanted out. Now.

The straps of her pack snapped tight around her shoulders, digging down and pulling her off her feet and into the air.

She landed with a
whuff
of expelled air—the fall knocking all the breath from her lungs—and the clatter of metal on stone. Her gun bounced and slid out of reach. She craned her head back, stealing a look through a miasma of hazy, swirling dust: a questing vine, thick as her wrist, had wrapped itself around one of the straps crisscrossing her pack. Worse still, the pursuing plant-beast was only feet away, its tearing, crustacean claws scissoring furiously while its beak chewed at the air.

A single strap, connected by a plastic buckle, ran across Ryder’s chest, securing her pack in place. Sweat ran down her face in rivulets while her trembling hands frantically worked at the buckle. Her hands were clumsy, uncertain things that refused to cooperate with her—all her fine motor reflexes seemed to have bailed at the worst possible time. After the longest handful of seconds in her life, the buckle gave way. She tried to wiggle her shoulders free of the padded straps, but it was too late.

The arachnoid-plant loomed above her, flowered-face regarding her for a brief pause—did she see hesitation in that pose?—then lowered its claws, stretched wide.

She
wanted
to clench her eyes shut. She had no desire whatsoever to watch this thing rip the limbs from her torso while she howled. The thought that this crime against humanity would be the last thing she ever saw made her sick in the stomach, but she couldn’t stop watching.

When she’d been a girl, cowering in the closet, peering through the canted slats as Cesar Yraeta butchered her family, she’d wanted to close her eyes, too. But she couldn’t then and she couldn’t now. Her place, her destiny, she understood in a flash of morbid insight, was to bear witness. Not to change anything, but to watch carnage unfold over and over and over. She’d failed at almost everything in life—pissed every lucky break she’d ever had down a busted, shit-filled toilet—but she
could,
at least,
bear witness to the end.

So she stared, unblinking, as black-plated claws descended.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack
. There was thunder in her ears and lightning in her eyes. A warm green mist splattered against her cheek.

What the hell?
She reached up with a badly trembling hand and traced her fingers through the sticky droplets on her face.

The creature’s arm retreated in a blur of motion, and the creepy shit fell away, its chest obliterated; several of its legs flopped on the floor; only a single arm remained attached to its body, and even that hung only by a gristly strand of vine.

Chuck stood dead ahead like some sort of ol’ west gunfighter. Feet planted, shoulders square, back straight, eyes squinted, hand cannon smoking—a faint wisp of white curling at the end of the barrel. The hallway was a straight shot for fifty yards, so she had no idea where he’d come from. Frankly, she didn’t have two fucks to give.

Assuming she lived, she could enquire about the
how
later. She shimmied out of the shoulder straps—not wasting a second of this precious extension on her life—and scrambled onto her knees, then feet. She bent low as she moved, scooping up her fumbled revolver, the heavy-duty flashlight, and the pickaxe she’d taken from the work site, then broke into an all-out sprint, this time leaving Chuck to catch up with her.

TWENTY-TWO:

Ulterior Motives

A hand clamped down on Ryder’s shoulder a few seconds later. She screamed, swinging around, gun outthrust, finger bearing down on the trigger, while she held the axe upraised in her other fist. She let out a breath of relief when Chuck’s stupid, leave-you-to-die face came into view. The lanky-legged son of a bitch was faster than he had any right to be.

“Whoa, girl,” he said, one big hand shooting out and wrapping around the pistol, currently snuggled into his guts. “How’s about we put this little thing away before
someone
makes a mistake …” He backed up a step and eased her gun to one side.

“Who says shooting you would be a mistake? You left me back there, asshole. Left me for dead. Now get the hell outta my way.” She turned, hands tightening on her weapons, and ran.

Well, she tried to run.

But she couldn’t because Chuck’s stupid hand snaked out again and bit down hard into her shoulder. “Ain’t no need for that,” he said, voice low and muted. “It’s not following us anymore.”

Ryder pressed her eyes shut for a long beat, then turned, searching the hallway, prepared to see the freaky-fuck tearing its way toward them. It wasn’t. Flower-face stood at the edge of the tangle of growth running along the walls. Its body was repairing itself from the damage Chuck had dealt it, but it made no move to follow. She turned back to Chuck, forehead furrowed, the question plain on her face.

He shrugged and shook his head,
Got me
. “I’m sorry for ditching you back there. Seriously. That was an ass move. My”—he held a hand to his chest—“instinct for self-preservation kicked into high gear. Body just started doin’ shit without my brain gettin’ on board, if you know what I mean. I came back, though, and that’s what really matters, am I right?”

“No,” she said, keeping one eye on the creature loitering behind them. “Coming back
isn’t
what really matters. Not leaving me to die in the first place ranks pretty high up there, you selfish prick.” She faltered for a moment, her anger dying away as the sense of immediate death faded a bit and with it the hard-edged adrenaline in her system. “And where the hell did you come from? This hallway doesn’t have a lot of hiding spots. In fact”—she gazed around—“yeah, I count none. Zero.”

“Oh that.” He sniffed and brushed at his baggy jacket. “Ain’t no thing, little miss. My people, the wee folk—”

Ryder couldn’t help but roll her eyes since Chuck was about as “wee” as an NBA center. She also wanted to punch him in the face.

He cleared his throat. “I saw that bullshit,” he said, “but I’m gonna choose to overlook your obvious prejudice. My people, the
wee folk
”—this time he emphasized the title—“have mad skills with glamours and illusions. We can disappear and shit, plus we’re sneaky. Whole family’s a bunch of quiet little bastards when they want to be. All part of my mystique, you feel me? Part of my hustle. Helps me get info, slip in places where I don’t belong.” He smiled and waggled his eyebrows at her. “I got into the Celtic’s cheerleaders locker room once.”

The desire to punch him intensified with every word. “Stop … just stop. I get it, you’ve got awesome disappearing powers, which, naturally, you use for pervy purposes. Trust me, I know all I need to know. Let’s just go and get the hell out of this place, okay?”

“Yeah, well about that,” he said with a nervous grimace.

“Shit.” She slapped a hand against her forehead. “What is it? What?”

“Maybe you should just see for yourself. Come on.”

He led her down the hallway, which terminated at another four-way intersection.

The passageway to the left was completely blocked off. A woven tapestry of vines and flowers had formed over the opening, making it inaccessible, unless they had a couple of machetes and a flamethrower. The hallway to the right was clear of vegetation, but held another of the walking temple horrors. This one swayed back and forth, legs stretching and bending, while its claws clicked open and closed. It made no move to follow, at least not yet. Instead it simply stood, barring their path and leaving them with only one option: straight ahead.

She leaned into Chuck’s side. “What’s it doing?” she whispered.

He stared at it for a moment, then shook his head. “I ain’t no Crocodile Dundee, but I’d say”—he paused, looking left toward the wall of green, then right toward the guardian—“that we’re bein’ herded. Can’t say I’m looking forward to arriving at our final destination. Some kinda crazy horseshit, I bet.”

Ryder grunted noncommittally then stepped out, keeping her eyes focused straight ahead and moving past the swaying guardian.

They walked for another fifteen minutes, and five more intersections, all with a varying number of branching hallways. Each was blockaded by thick walls of vine, barricaded by doors of spongy green metal, or guarded by flower-faced guardians. For all their menace, though, the guardians seemed content to watch, never making any overt move to harm them. Each hallway they were forced to take also angled up, the incline becoming steeper with each progressive passageway. Ryder couldn’t be certain about where they were going, but only one thing made sense: they were being “ushered” to the top of the pyramid and whatever lurked there.

Eventually, the series of winding, upward-sloping tunnels ended, dumping them in a room like nothing Ryder had seen so far:

A space the size of a huge ballroom—maybe seven thousand square feet—with sloped walls converging on a capstone high overhead. They’d made it to the top of the pyramid. Her gaze lingered on the pyramid’s capstone for a time. The biggest damned diamond Ryder had ever seen. Anywhere. Ever. Thing made the Hope Diamond look like the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.

A rock so impossibly large it couldn’t be natural. The gleaming stone was the size of one of those petite European cars—the egg-shaped ones capable of holding one person and a small cat—and hung suspended at the apex of the structure. Through it, she could see the sky. Blue, clear, and bright. Glimmering shafts of sunlight broke through the immense prism, shedding brilliant, unnaturally bright rainbow light over everything.