Odd Girl Out (25 page)

I had never taken a motorcycle apart before, and the very first thing I discovered was that my multitool wasn’t much of a substitute for a proper mechanic’s kit. Many of the parts came off with difficulty, or thoroughly mangled, or both. Other components never did give up their death grip on the bike, despite the force, ingenuity, and threats I threw at them.

One thing was crystal clear, though: this particular bike would never run again. I hoped the owner had popped for the full-coverage insurance.

Somewhere midway through my work, I heard the first faint thudding sounds from the other side of the vestibule. The walkers had made it past our crate barrier and were tackling the pressure-locked door.

Our time was running out.

The rhythmic banging had been going on for probably half an hour by the time I decided I’d stripped everything I could from the bike. The front fork and rear shock absorbers would serve nicely as clubs, the wheel rims could be used as throwing disks, and I’d worked a section of the exhaust pipe into an arm protector for my left forearm. I’d also collected enough bolts and nuts to make for a couple of good barrages with the slings I’d constructed from the rubber of the tires.

As the final touch, I cut some long pieces of safety webbing and attached the remainder of the bike frame to the crate stacks on either side of the vestibule, leveled at the center of the doorway. With Bayta’s help, I hauled the machine back and up, securing it high off the floor with more webbing fastened with a quick-release knot. The first walker to come through that door was going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise.

And after that, there was just one more thing to do.

“I can’t,” Rebekah protested, staring into the now empty crate that had once housed the Harley. “Please don’t make me.”

“You have to,” I told her firmly. I could understand her reluctance—the crate wasn’t shaped like a coffin, but it didn’t have much more than a coffin’s worth of space inside. But it would be light-years better than being out in the open when the walkers broke through the door. “The Modhri wants to get his hands on you. We don’t want him to. It’s that simple.”

“Trust us, Rebekah,” Bayta said, her voice low and earnest. “We’ll be back to get you. I promise.”

I winced. Unfortunately, there were only two ways that we would be able to keep that promise: if we won the imminent fight, or if the Modhri captured us alive and made us talk. I wasn’t counting too heavily on the first, and I didn’t much want to dwell on the second.

Maybe Rebekah was thinking about the two options, too, and their respective odds of becoming reality. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “If I have to.” Bending over, she eased herself into the crate.

I gave her a couple of seconds to settle herself in as best she could, then slid the panel down to close her in. “Start moving those foam spacers somewhere else in the car,” I instructed Bayta as I smoothed the safety webbing back into place along the side of the crate. “I’ll give you a hand as soon as I’m finished here.”

The crate’s appearance was back to normal, the foam spacers were on the other side of the baggage car, and we were in position at the door when the Modhri finally broke through.

The first in line was a Halka, probably the biggest walker the Modhri had available at the moment. He came charging through the door, faltering a bit in obvious surprise to find the floor in front of him clear of crates or other obstacles. His eyes flicked upward, the Modhri clearly wondering if one of the nearby stacks was about to come down on top of him.

He was still standing like that when the Harley frame swung in from in front of him and nailed him squarely in the chest.

With a grunt of agony he fell backward into the doorway, slamming into the next Halka in line. Before they could untangle themselves I was on them, hammering at both heads and every limb I could reach with my fork club. The longer I could keep them trapped in the vestibule, where they had limited freedom of movement, the better.

But the same lack of space that hampered the Halkas also limited the amount of power I could bring to bear with my club. The Halkas shrugged off my blows with surprising ease, regained their mutual balance, and started back out at me.

“Frank!”

Bayta called. I dropped into a low crouch as a swarm of nuts and bolts came flying into the lead Halka’s face. He snarled something, the snarl followed immediately by a bellow as I swung my club backhand across his knees. He fell forward, landing full-length with a resounding thud, and instantly rolled onto his side as he clutched at his knees.

One down. God only knew how many to go.

Bayta’s second salvo, and my second kneecapping, took out the second Halka, dropping him on top of the first. But the third walker in line was a much smaller and quicker Juri. Instead of trying to bull his way through the doorway as the first two walkers had, he leaped up onto the suspended bike’s front fender, grabbed the safety webbing rope tied to the handlebars, and swung himself onto the floor on the far side of the double heap of Halkas. I jabbed my club at him over the bike’s saddle, but I was only able to deliver a glancing blow to his back before he skipped out of range.

I had just slammed my club across the face of the next Juri in line when the escapee ran around the wounded Halkas and hurled himself at me.

I ducked back, swinging furiously back and forth to try to keep him at bay. But this was a walker, and none of the normal instincts for self-defense applied. He took three punishing swipes across the head and torso before I managed to put him down for good.

But by then it was too late. My forced inattention to the doorway had allowed in three more walkers, two Halkas and a Juri.

And in that handful of seconds I was suddenly on the defensive.

“Bayta—retreat!” I shouted as I ducked into the maze of narrow passageways between the stacks. Over the clacking of Quadrail wheels I could hear the thudding of heavy Halkan feet as the walkers took off after me down the passageway. “Rebekah, get on top of the crates and hide!” I added.

There was no reply from either of them. But then, I hadn’t expected any. Rebekah was hidden away in her crate, as safe as she would be anywhere, with no reason to go anywhere else. As for Bayta, she knew perfectly well what my coded retreat order really meant. I passed a distinctive pair of stacks and braked to a sudden halt, turning around and raising my club as if I had decided to make my stand right then and there.

And as the line of walkers charged toward me, the first Halka hit the trip line that had magically snapped up to knee height between the stacks.

He hit the floor with an even more impressive crash than those of the two I’d laid out by the vestibule. The Halka immediately behind him was going way too fast to stop, and landed full-length on his companion’s wide back.

The Juri behind them didn’t even try to slow down, but merely charged up onto the downed Halkas’ backs and leaped at me like a gymnast coming off a springboard. He got a crack across the side of his rib lattice for his trouble, and another across the back of his head as he hit the floor in front of the Halkas. I stepped to the Halkas and gave each of them a crack on the head to keep them quiet.

Bayta was still crouched by the side of one of the crates, gripping the end of the safety webbing trip line. She dropped the line and jumped to her feet as I came up to her, and together we headed off into the maze.

We had just completed the second zig of a planned three-zigzag maneuver when the Modhri nailed us.

It was a well-planned and well-executed attack. The walkers, mostly Juriani and Bellidos, came at us from three different directions, three assault lines of three aliens each, all of them charging ahead with the by-now familiar disregard for their own personal safety. Bayta and I fought them off as best we could, the confined fighting space around us becoming even more cramped with every fresh body that staggered and then fell stunned or unconscious at our feet.

Fortunately, like most of the beings the Modhri had chosen to infect with himself, these walkers were from the upper classes; rich, powerful, up in years, and not in particularly good fighting trim. Even with their numerical advantage Bayta and I held our own, keeping our attackers back as we steadily whittled them down. I managed to clear out one of the lines of attackers, opening up an exit vector, and grabbed Bayta’s arm with my free hand. “Come on,” I panted, pushing her behind me as I turned to cover our retreat.

And without warning, something slammed into me from above, bouncing the back of my head off the nearest stack of crates and shoving me to the floor.

The next few minutes were a blur of hands and bodies and movement. By the time the haze lifted from my mind, I found myself back in the relatively open area by the baggage car’s forward door and the suspended Harley, sitting on the floor with my back to one of the stacks of crates. There was a Juri towering over me on either side, and a line of Halkas and Juriani and Bellidos staring silently down at me from three meters away. Halkas, Juriani, Bellidos, and one lone Human.

Braithewick.

I took a careful breath, checking out the state of my chest as I did so. There was some serious bruising down there, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. “Well, that was fun,” I said casually, focusing on Braithewick’s sagging face. “Round One goes to you. Shall we set up for Round Two?”

“Where is the Abomination?” he asked.

“That’s hard to say,” I said. “I think I may have misplaced it.”

Braithewick cocked his head, and from my left came a muffled gasp.

I turned that direction, craning my neck to look around the Juri standing guard on that side. Bayta was two stacks down, being pressed against the safety webbing by a pair of seriously bruised Halkas. One of them was gripping her right forearm with one hand and bending her hand back at the wrist with his other. “Leave her alone,” I growled. “You want to torture someone, torture me.”

“I think not,” Braithewick said calmly. “You are a strong Human, Compton. I make you the compliment that breaking your bones will not gain me anything.” He gestured toward Bayta. “But you are not strong enough to stand by and watch the slow destruction of the Human Bayta’s life. Tell me where the Abomination is, or I’ll begin by pulling out her fingers.”

Bayta looked at me, her face taut but determined. “There’s no need to get melodramatic,” I told the Modhri. “Let her go, and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me first,” Braithewick said.

“Let her go first,” I repeated.

Braithewick seemed to consider. Then, almost reluctantly, the Halka holding Bayta’s arm relaxed the pressure on her wrist. “Where is the Abomination?” Braithewick asked.

I looked consideringly at the ceiling. “It should be right about… there,” I said, pointing upward.

Braithewick didn’t speak, but Bayta suddenly gasped again in pain. “Stop it,” I snapped. “I’m telling the truth.”

“The Abomination is not on the roof,” Braithewick snapped back.

“I didn’t say it was on the roof,” I countered. “I said it was out there.” I pointed again.

“You lie,” Braithewick insisted. “It is here. I can feel its presence.”

“Fine—have it your way,” I said. “There are probably three to four hundred crates in here. Go ahead—knock yourself out.”

Braithewick eyed me, his expression turning from angry to puzzled. “Why do you play such games, Compton? Do you truly believe I will hesitate to destroy the Human Bayta’s life?” He cocked his head. “Or is it that you fear her agonizing death less than you fear the other fate I hold within my power?”

A cold chill ran through me. Other Modhran mind segments over the years had threatened to infect Bayta and me with polyp colonies and turn us into two more of his puppets. It was a possibility that held a special horror for Bayta, one she would gladly and unhesitatingly give up her life to avoid.

When Braithewick had threatened torture, I’d hoped that the far more terrifying scenario had somehow passed him by. But I saw now that the torture gambit had been merely a game, a psychological ploy to progressively raise the stakes of noncooperation.

And with a supply of coral already aboard the train, this new threat was anything but idle. If I didn’t give him the Abomination, Bayta could be part of the Modhri within the hour. Probably we both would.

There was just one small problem. The Abomination really
wasn’t
aboard the Quadrail.

I was searching desperately for something else to do or say when, behind the line of walkers directing their cold Modhran stares at me, I saw something that made my breath catch in my throat. A shadowy figure was flitting between the stacks of crates, moving in the direction of the forward door.

Rebekah was out of her crate, and making a break for it.

“Turning her into a walker won’t do you any good,” I warned Braithewick, raising my voice a bit to try to cover up any noise Rebekah might make. “I already told you the Abomination’s not here.”

“Then where is it?” Braithewick demanded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lump of coral the Halka in the other baggage car had tried to throw at me. “Tell me. Now.”

I braced myself. If the Modhri had been angry before, this was going to make him furious. “The fact of the matter is—”

“Bayta!” Rebekah’s voice called from somewhere behind the walkers. “Bayta—
catch
!”

The Modhri sprang into instant action, half the walkers turning toward the sound of Rebekah’s voice, the other half surging toward Bayta, their eyes angled upward to spot and intercept whatever it was Rebekah was preparing to throw. At my sides, my two Jurian guards each put a hand on my shoulder, pressing me to the floor to prevent me from leaping to my feet and taking advantage of whatever the situation was that was about to unfold.

And as everyone looked and moved in all the wrong directions, an object came sliding across the floor, neatly passing through the gauntlet of shuffling feet, and came to a halt right in front of me.

It was my
kwi
.

The walkers jerked to a halt as one of their number spotted it, the whole bunch swiveling back toward me as my two guards dived simultaneously for the weapon.