Infestation Cubed. James Axler
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thoughts, but her will had proved too much to be kept tamped forever, not when the half-god was working to coordinate the New Order, his rapidly growing cult that had proved mighty enough to breech the walls of Cerberus and leave it in ruins.
Right now Kane had directed them toward the swamplands of what used to be the southeastern United States. Rosalia wasn’t happy with this mission, a run through a dangerous, treacherous terrain that was filled with inbred, crazed outlanders and the remnants of genetically altered species that strove to endure in the freshwater marshes and waterlogged hammocks at the southern end of what used to be called the Wiregrass Region.
This was a running feint by Kane. He and the others had left a trail that even the blind could follow. Her mongrel dog, padding stealthily beside her, turned his attention toward her.
“I don’t like being a target, either,” Rosalia answered him.
A soft whimper escaped the dog’s throat, and it turned its dark eyes toward the shadowed canopy that left the sinking marsh ahead of them in eternal dusk. Fingers of sunlight managed to penetrate, so the swamp wasn’t pitch-black even at noon, but the shadows were long and prevalent, providing hiding places for people or things. Rosalia rested her hand on the hilt of her knife, knowing that with the trail they’d left behind, it was likely that they could have been anticipated.
The New Order might be waiting ahead of them, ready to pounce. Though she still had the alien seed that linked her to Ullikummis’s will, she wasn’t certain if she, or her companions, would be taken alive for reprogramming or outright killed.
Either way, Rosalia didn’t want to press her luck. There were too many enemies in this world for her to let down her guard. Even if Ullikummis wasn’t in wait, there were rumors of vampiric raiders to complement the normal bandits and cold-bloods who stalked the corners of postapocalyptic America. Kane might have enjoyed drawing the ire and fury of Ullikummis’s machinations, but Rosalia had signed on to assist in resisting the godling.
Rosalia’s brow wrinkled as she looked in the shadows of the cypress trees sticking out of the slowly deepening water. There was movement flickering between the trunks, and it took her a moment to categorize them as birds and other small mammals flitting up and down bark, or leaping among the rare “low” branches of these waterlogged trees.
She looked back toward the two men who had been left behind, tending the boat that they had bought a few miles back when they were still working their way along a river toward the wetlands. Rosalia had volunteered for this stretch of scouting, scurrying across the length of spongy, muddy land that was only covered by an inch of water, rather than dipped down into two to three feet depths, teeming with leeches or microbe-laden mud that literally burned skin on contact.
Rosalia dipped her head in disbelief. Here she was, in a place filled with alligators, poisonous snakes, even bull sharks who had swum through the river delta as far as five hundred miles from the ocean to seek prey. Even the river mud seared the skin so that boots immersed in the mush had to be pried off so that bacteria and microscopic fauna could be scraped away from the skin. Rosalia wasn’t sure if such a concoction would eat even through the shadow suit she wore beneath her clothes, but she wasn’t willing to risk that. She was too experienced with swamps to think anything was bulletproof, self-contained environment or not.
Bandits and pirates were known qualities of this region, as well, and there were rumors of beast-men, both apelike and reptilian, who haunted the forested wetlands. The creatures could have been related to the so-called scalies, who had been hunted into extinction once the remnants of humanity in North America had been consolidated in the nine baronies. She’d never heard of any furry muties, but it hadn’t been something outside the realm of possibility. Kane also had delivered a warning about the swamplands of Louisiana, where there were small colonies of the nigh unkillable mutants known as “swampies.” If one pocket survived, then it was likely that the difficult terrain of intermixed marshes, ponds and hammocks would protect the swamp dwellers.
Rosalia turned back to see if the others were in sight. Between the long grass and the fifty-yard stretch of spongy ground she’d crossed, and the fact that the two men were seated in the scull to maintain a relatively low profile for now, she couldn’t spot her companions.
“Sure, Magistrate Man, hide when I’m checking for my backup, but not when a stone god’s hunting for your ass and mine,” she grumbled. She returned her attention to the cypress swamp ahead. Something was in there, and even her dog could sense the ominous stench of wrongness coming out.
There was a rustle behind her and she whipped around, dagger out of its sheath and lashing toward the figure’s throat.
Only Kane’s lightning reflexes prevented her from opening a deadly gash from ear to ear. His fingers locked around her wrist while the blade was still inches from his neck. “I know you’re mad about me being out of sight, but that’s no reason to take my head off.”
“Not funny, Magistrate Man,” Rosalia said with a sneer. “This stretch of river stinks worse than the rest. And not in the traditional sense. This…has a weirdness to it.”
“I feel it, too,” Kane said. “We’d heard about something going on here, something strange, even amid all the stuff we’ve been doing with alien overlords, extradimensional conquerors, even a tribe of dimension-hopping hackers.”
Rosalia shook her head. “Anyone else said any of that, I’d have called them a fused-out tangle brain.”
“Before or after you met Ullikummis?” Kane asked.
Rosalia nodded. “Before. I have to say, the weirdness really took off after I ran into you, Magistrate Man.”
“Don’t blame me,” Kane answered.
“So, you brought us here, leaving a trail of bread-crumbs for the New Order to follow, even when you knew that there was trouble already waiting for us?” Rosalia asked.
“I’ve been at this long enough to know that when you’re on the menu for two enemies, they’ll end up taking bites out of each other to get to you,” Kane said. “And since I’m still here, having two enemies at each others’ throats seems to be a good strategy.”
“Seems, Magistrate Man,” Rosalia answered, her hazel eyes scanning the shadows amid the cypress trunks and roots, “this won’t be just two opponents. We’ll be an open buffet for anything with teeth, and there’s lots of them in there.”
“This isn’t my first dance in a swamp,” Kane replied. “If anything, the terrain is on our side, in that it’s on its own side. It’ll eat anyone and anything that stumbles in.”
“What was the weirdness you’d heard from this stretch of swamp?” Rosalia asked.
“People disappearing, and reptilian creatures,” Kane said. “Sad thing is, we can’t narrow down what kind of lizard men we’re dealing with. A colony sent by Lord Strongbow, a missing detachment of Nagah, maybe even an overlord and his Nephilim followers.”
“Nagah?” Rosalia repeated, hoping for an answer.
Kane shook his head. “Want nothing to do for you. Or me. Or any human for that matter.”
Rosalia’s full, soft lips pursed in frustration, then she looked back. “Dog doesn’t like this.”
“I know. Neither does Grant,” Kane added.
“So, you promoting the mutt or demoting me to animal sidekick?” Grant rumbled over his Commtact. Kane repeated the comment of his grouchy friend since Rosalia couldn’t hear anything broadcast by the implanted communication device.
Rosalia looked down at her belt, noting the conventional radio that she’d had clipped to it. While small and handy, it was nowhere nearly as convenient as a cybernetic transmitter installed in the mandible, capable of transmitting words even if the speaker was whispering. The vibrations of the voice through bone were translated by the small, solid-state technology residing along the bone, pintles connecting the contact plate to the jawline. Kane and Grant could hear everything