Terminal White. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ the Cerberus personnel had speculated that they may work on a proximity basis as well as needing the ferrous content to fuel them.

      Suddenly, Kane saw where this oddball ceremony was leading—and his stomach twisted in knots as the realization dawned. Surely they could not revive Ullikummis through his depowered stones. That could not be done—could it?

      Kane and Brigid watched as two great heaps of stones were shoveled into the caldron pit, spitting out sparks as the flames touched them. As one, the crowd of pilgrims stepped back, watching in awe as the flames lit the sacred temple, turning the walls a richer shade of orange.

      Then the senior acolyte stepped forward, his arms straight, holding the chalice aloft in both hands. “Our love is rock,” he chanted, “and rock never breaks.” Then he tipped the scarlet contents of the chalice into the flaming pit, moving the stone cup in a circular motion, draining it of its blood. The flames were doused in places as the liquid struck, and a hissing sound echoed through the temple as steam billowed from the caldron pit.

      For a moment nothing happened; the flames kept burning, igniting higher as they recovered from the dousing that they had received. The acolytes stepped back from the caldron pit, watching it through the haze of smoke.

      And then Kane saw it—something moving amid the flames. It looked like a man, head rising, shoulders, chest and arms slowly emerging from the fire.

      The other people in the room saw it, too, and they stood transfixed as the imperfect figure seemed to pull itself from the flames.

      It’s some kind of illusion, Kane told himself. Gotta be.

      But it wasn’t. The manlike figure drew itself higher, lifting its torso out of the fire. It was rough, unfinished, its skin—if it was skin—lumpy and incomplete. There were gaps between parts of its flesh—open gaps through which the flames of the caldron could be seen. And something else became clear as it drew itself out of those flames: it was big; bigger than a man, broad-shouldered and towering to nine feet in height. That was the exact same height as Ullikummis when he had first walked the Earth, before his legs had been hobbled by Enki’s sword, leaving him a full foot shorter.

      A deathly hush filled the room as the figure emerged from the fire. Kane and Brigid watched with the others as the figure took its first unsteady step out of the fire. It was made of stones, malformed and lumpy. It looked like someone had spilled pebbles into the shape of a man, a lumbering pile of shale staggering slowly across the temple. Its face was just an impression, deep, lifeless sockets for eyes, a gaping maw for a mouth.

      “Our love is rock,” the acolyte leading the ceremony chanted, “and rock never breaks.” Around him, the other acolytes took up the chant, and so did the pilgrims.

      The stone man took another lumbering step away from the flame pit, its footfall like a landslide smashing against the slate. Then it raised its right arm and reached for the closest pilgrim—the well-dressed woman with the hat, blond hair cut in a bob.

      “Me?” the well-dressed woman gasped. “My lord, what am I to you?”

      The answer wasn’t an answer; it was an action—swift, sudden and deadly. The stone figure’s arm seemed to extend, breaking apart, the gaps between each pebble-like component becoming wider, and its fingers rammed through the woman’s face, smashing through her skull in the blink of an eye. The woman let out a bleat, then her flailing body was dangling from those weirdly extended fingers, dancing like a string puppet.

      A mutual gasp fluttered through the room as the pilgrims watched, and Kane and Brigid took a surreptitious step back, adopting ready poses.

      The woman’s body seemed to dangle for a moment before stiffening again as the spine arched, thrusting the woman’s breasts forward while her feet slipped backward on the temple floor on pointed toes. A whimper seemed to emanate from her throat, and Kane saw blood rushing along the shaft of stones that now crossed the temple chamber, leading from the woman to the stone monstrosity that had emerged from the caldron. The woman shivered, shook and dropped, unleashing one last gasp of pain as she crumpled to the deck.

      Across the room, the stone figure seemed to become fuller somehow, more substantial, sinews forming between its broken body of stones.

      “Take me next!” cried one of the pilgrims to Kane’s left, stepping forward.

      “No, take me!” a man demanded from Kane’s right. “I lost my wife to the west snows!”

      Beside him, a woman stepped forward, ripping open her cotton blouse. “No, me. My children were taken by the snows. Let my unquenched love for them power you, oh lord,” she implored.

      “This is getting out of hand,” Kane muttered as more of the pilgrims offered themselves to the stone monster.

      The stone figure thrust its arms forward again, and those limbs broke apart into tendril-like appendages as they sought their next victims. The Cerberus people had seen the individual stones do this before, under lab conditions, but never anything on this scale. One of those snaking, tendril-like arms reached toward Brigid Baptiste, cutting the air like a handful of tossed stones held in freeze-frame. Kane saw it coming, shoved her back protectively with a swift jab of his arm. Brigid fell to the floor and the arm hurried on, touching the pilgrim behind her, burrowing into the poor deluded fool’s face even as he screamed in pleasure.

      “Take me, oh lord,” the man cried, tears of joy and pain pouring from his eyes like an overworked storm drain. “Let me live in y— Argh!”

      The man and another pilgrim stumbled back, giving themselves willingly to the artificial man. Their legs buckled, knees folded, and they sunk to the floor as their blood and life was sucked from their joyful frames, feeding into the patchwork body of the stone creature who had emerged from the fire.

      Then the stone monster tilted its head back, blood rushing visibly between the mass of stones, and it cried out, an eerie, inhuman howl—the first cry after birth.

      “The lord lives,” the senior acolyte cried joyously. “He lives in all of us, in all of you.”

      “Not for much longer he doesn’t,” Kane muttered, powering his hidden Sin Eater pistol into the palm of his right hand from its hidden wrist holster. He had had enough of this.

      The Sin Eater’s holster was activated by a specific flinch movement of Kane’s wrist tendons, powering the weapon into his hand. The weapon itself was a compact hand blaster, roughly fourteen inches in length but able to fold in on itself for storage in the hidden holster. The Sin Eater was the official sidearm of the Magistrate Division, and his carrying it dated back to when Kane had still been a hard-contact Mag. The blaster was armed with 9 mm rounds. The trigger had no guard, as the necessity had never been foreseen that any kind of safety features for the weapon would ever be required. Thus, if the user’s index finger was crooked at the time the weapon reached his hand, the pistol would begin firing automatically.

      Beside Kane, Brigid was sprawled on the floor, her head spinning where it had struck the hard slate there, trying to shake the muzziness that occluded her thoughts. Wake up, she told herself. Wake up and act. If her body understood the words, then it didn’t seem inclined to play along.

      All around Kane, people were dropping as the life force was sucked out of them by the stone abomination. Pregnant woman; bald man; teen with acne and dyed hair; overweight farmhand with a beard that touched his belly—all of them fell as the stone monster touched them with its distended fingers, exchanging their lives and strength for its own. The stone thing was buoyed with every СКАЧАТЬ