Threader war, p.23
Threader War, page 23
He scanned his Threaders. Even though the cords weren’t needed anymore, the groups stayed together, working as one against the advancing Skends. Red Threads flew across the water and up the cliff face toward the creatures. From what he could see, their attack barely slowed down the onslaught. What they needed was Gail or Darby to be where he had recommended instead of farther away.
More Threads flew across the water, and the Skends kept running. This wasn’t going to work. They would be at the dam before his team could do any serious damage.
“We’re useless here,” he shouted at the Threaders. “We can’t help them, we’re too far away. Create a hole to the dam and let’s move.”
None of the Threaders budged. Darwin turned his back on them and created a hole, darting into it the moment it was finished. The sudden shade cast by the elevator he’d used in his escape dropped the temperature into a more manageable range. He didn’t stop to enjoy it, moving out of the way to make room for the others coming through.
“Half of you go to the far tower. The other half, follow me.”
Crossing the road at the top of the dam, he jumped over the steel mesh gate that was once used to keep tourists off the bridge that connected the towers to the dam. Inner gates around the first tower had already been opened, and he ran through them to the second tower. A dozen Threaders stood on the other side, all but two driving thick red and blue fibers into the base of the tower. Each Thread vibrated at a high frequency, blurring their edges as the concrete slowly crumbled around them. Jose turned as Darwin came to a stop.
“Skends coming from both sides of the river,” Darwin gasped out. “We couldn’t stop them there. Maybe we can do better here.”
Jose nodded. “They’ll have us surrounded, then. These towers apparently have access for inspection and repairs. Once we stopped the flow of water, the Skends started up. You should be able to feel them. We’re trying to stop them, but every time we set them back a bit, more come up. It’s like they have an endless supply.”
“Maybe not endless,” Darwin said. “Maybe just more than we expected. I would say they’re doing the conversions here.”
“My thoughts as well.”
“Are we going to be able to take down the towers before they get here?”
Jose shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What if we start the water flow again?”
“We thought about that, but there are two problems. One, we don’t have anyone here that knows the right frequencies. We’d be guessing, and I’d rather keep the Threaders working on breaking this thing apart. Two, any water rushing in will dampen the vibrations we’re creating. It’ll take even longer to tear the thing down. Besides, that would only work on the outer tower. Skends are almost to the top of this one.” He patted the wall behind him.
“I’ll work on that.” As Darwin concentrated on the tower, he saw the Skends racing closer along the edge of the river. He’d never seen so many. Even with the three teams now on the intake tower bridges, they didn’t have a chance to stop the flow. If they didn’t collapse the tower and hole out in the next few minutes, they were dead.
The first impact against the steel doors holding the Skends inside the tower sounded like a gunshot.
Darwin faced the people who had followed him, not surprised to find Estra and the others who made up the Six looking at him. There was fear in their eyes, but none of them hesitated as he issued his order.
“Whatever it takes, keep them inside the towers.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the Threads drawing toward him as effortlessly as he remembered. As they always had before he had shut down the QPS.
His breath caught in his throat as he Saw the full force of the Skends climbing up the inside of the towers. There were too many! He pushed the thought away. His job was to protect Jose and his crew so they could get their job done. The Threads around him turned pink before transitioning into a deep blood-red. He threw them through the wall of the tower, felt them cut through living flesh as the wave of Skends fell back. Each Skend that fell was immediately replaced with a new one, and the onslaught continued.
For all he knew, one of them could have been Baila.
Even if it wasn’t, each one of those that he killed was once a mother or father or sister or brother or friend. Each one once had feelings and a life. Each one would never have the chance to return to the world they once knew. All because of Salem and the Qabal.
The golden Thread inside of him remained as cold and distant as it had since SafeHaven. He begged it, pleaded with everything he had for it to come back to life. With it he could stop the killing. He had done it before, when the Source was still inside the machine. Though it had almost cost him his sanity, it was a price worth paying. Especially now, with so many of them rushing to kill everything they saw.
The doors to both intake towers turned red with heat and he focused his attention to reinforcing them, weaving blue Threads through the door’s structure and into the surrounding concrete. The reinforcement wouldn’t last forever against the onslaught, but with a bit of luck, it would slow them down enough for Jose’s work to be completed.
Half of the Six turned their attention to the dam as the Skends flowed off the steep terrain and onto its smooth surface, while the rest stayed with the Skends climbing the service access inside the towers. Darwin felt their loss like a physical blow as the door’s temperature increased. Without warning, the bridge behind him began to vibrate violently, throwing concrete dust into the air until he couldn’t see the far tower. The bridge between the intakes collapsed, sending a wave of debris into the water below. The far tower folded in on itself, crumbling in massive chunks of concrete that fell, churning the water below into a wild froth.
Skends poured from the gaping hole that remained. Pushed by the ones below them, they tumbled down the jagged concrete walls in a steady stream. The water boiled as the Skends hit it, throwing steam into the air, trapping the dust in a fine mist that coated Darwin’s skin and plugged his mouth and nose. Those that hit the water never resurfaced.
The Skends inside the first tower were almost through the steel doors when they stopped and silence descended.
A voice called out from the dam.
“There’s no way out of here. You know that. Surrender and you’ll live. Fight, and I promise you’ll die.”
Darwin edged around the remaining tower. Heat emanated from the walls in waves, pushing through the thick concrete from the Skends bottled inside. Behind him, one of Jose’s team created a hole and pushed through the first person he could find.
She made it halfway before whoever was on the other side of the tower collapsed it. What was left of her legs still kicked as if to push the rest of her body through the nonexistent hole.
Jose forced his way past Darwin, stopping at the side of the tower overlooking what was left of the Colorado River. Darwin followed him.
A single man stood where the bridge met the dam. Behind him, over one hundred Skends ranked like statues, the air above them undulating in the heat they threw off. Silence descended over the two groups, broken by a loud splash from behind Darwin. He ignored it as the man on the dam spoke again.
“You’re one of the Forsyth people.” It wasn’t a question. “I should have gotten rid of you months ago. You’ve created quite a mess here.”
Jose didn’t move or speak.
“I didn’t think you people were brave—or smart—enough to try a stunt like this. I won’t make that mistake again. Who’s that standing behind you? Anyone else I should know before I destroy all of you?” He squinted against the bright sky and took a step back, his face losing all expression. “I know you!” he whispered, his voice carrying across the open space. “You’re the one that shut down the Source and put us into this mess. You’re the reason we need all these stupid creatures.” He paused, his expression hardening. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Darwin didn’t answer.
“My name’s Nico, and you killed my brother.”
Time stood still, and it felt like minutes had passed before Darwin registered a single beat of his heart. There was only one person from Salem that he had killed. The man who had taken him and Teresa prisoner, tying them together like animals. Without him realizing it, his thumb moved to his wrist and traced the fine white scar left behind from the trap wire that had bound them together.
“You’ve made a huge mistake coming here, and for what? You’ve gained nothing. You haven’t even slowed us down.” Nico sneered as he stepped back into the Skends. When he got closer to them, they separated and reformed in front of him, giving him the illusion of melting into the crowd.
Without a sound, the Skends rushed forward, squeezing themselves onto the narrow bridge. At best, they could fit only three across the path, and the ones behind kept pushing on the leaders pressed into the locked gate. The metal holding it upright began to buckle under the pressure before the whole thing softened and melted around the Skends’ bodies. The horde crashed forward in a cresting wave as Jose pushed Darwin back to the far side of the tower.
Over thirty people stood on what was left of the bridge to the second tower. Chunks still fell into the shallow channel below. No more Skends sacrificed themselves to the water from what was left of the destroyed tower.
Threads from Jose’s group flew over Darwin’s head, deep red and curving around the intake, racing along the bridge to the advancing Skends, and blue reinforced the chain link gates, blocking access across the path. It wouldn’t hold. There were just too many of them. The roll-up doors in the remaining tower began to glow red again as the Skends inside surged.
Darwin faced the Six and the rest of his team, pointing to two of the new people. “You and you, start a hole. I don’t care where it goes, just get us out of here. The rest of you, watch the Threads. If anything comes within six feet of the hole, you stop it. Even if you have to throw yourself in front of it, I want it stopped and the hole kept stable. Is that clear?”
One stepped forward. “I don’t know how.”
“Then find someone who does. We need an exit.”
Estra pushed two others together, one from the Six. “They’ll get it done.”
They both started babbling in unison. Darwin had already turned his back on them. He ran back to Jose and the others, drawing Threads along with him as the Six did as he asked. Darwin grabbed Jose’s shoulder.
“We have a hole, let’s get out of here.”
Sweat coated Jose’s face and soaked through his shirt. He barely offered a backward glance, motioning for his team to round the tower and enter the hole. The Skends continued to advance, pushing against the blue Threads, climbing over the bodies of their fallen, their only thought to get closer to their enemy. To destroy them. To convert them.
One by one the Forsyth Threaders entered the hole until only three people were left on the remains of the bridge. The blue wall faltered. Darwin and Jose rebuilt it as best they could, concentrating on protection rather than fighting. One of Jose’s team struggled to keep the small hole open. The Six had already gone through.
“Go through,” said Jose.
“You first.”
“That’s not going to happen. You need to get your ass through that hole. We’ll be right behind you.”
Darwin hesitated. He knew the chances of making it through were small. They were already losing ground, and the Skends were close enough to almost touch. Jose gave him a push and he twisted, diving through the shrinking hole just as the Skends broke the front line and rushed around the tower.
As he entered, he Saw that the hole wasn’t stable.
* * *
• • •
The biting cold seemed to last longer than it should have. Darwin emerged out the other side covered in a hoary frost. He stood, shaking away the ice that penetrated his bones, and looked around, seeing nothing but desert. Just off to his left a double track—all that remained of a road—disappeared into the distance. The only thing to indicate it was man-made was the absolute straightness of it. Behind him, he felt the hole close before the Threads again disappeared into hazy echoes of themselves.
Jose and one of his people hadn’t come through.
“Where are we?” Darwin asked. Of the over twenty people who stood in front of him, only one stepped forward.
“Right where we left Phil. I couldn’t think of anywhere else. This was the first place that popped into my head,” the man said.
“So, in the middle of nowhere.”
The man bowed his head and took a faltering step back, as though expecting a physical attack. “I’m sorry, Darwin. It’s the only place I could think of.”
Darwin sighed and lowered himself to the ground, grabbing a handful of dirt and running it through his fingers.
“We’re not stuck here. We have more than enough Threaders to create a new hole. We could go wherever we wanted to,” Estra said.
“Then why aren’t we there yet? Why hasn’t anyone created a hole to Forsyth?”
“Half of them want to go back.”
“Back? To the dam? Did they see how many Skends were there? We wouldn’t have a chance if we went back.”
A man Darwin didn’t know stepped forward. “We can’t leave Jose.” The way you did. The words he didn’t say echoed on the wind.
“There’s nothing to go back to. The Skends had pushed past our defenses. If we go back, we’ll be just as dead as them.” If they were lucky. If they weren’t, they just increased the number of Skends in the world.
“We’re going back.” The man pushed past Estra, followed by a dozen of the Forsyth group.
Darwin grabbed the man’s arm. “No, I’m not going back to all those Skends and risking your lives. We’re going back to Forsyth. Sandra and the others need to know what we saw . . . what we did. We don’t know if Shan’s team from the Arizona tower made it out. Besides, I’ve seen what Skends can do. More than once.” Images of Baila’s tortured features rose from where he had carefully tucked them away. “Unless you want to become one of them, you don’t want to go back.” Without taking his eyes off the man, he spoke again. “Estra, start a hole.”
From the corner of his eye he saw movement that could have been another bow.
“We’re not your minions,” the man said. “To do what you say when you say it. We all heard what your people said about you, about how you were able to control the Threads like it was still the old days. Better, even. But look at you. You’re just an ordinary man, no more than any one of us. Maybe less.”
“Estra. Hole. Now.”
The Six grouped together with a few others of his team and a hole began forming in the air between them.
“That was too easy. We need to go,” Estra said.
Darwin glanced away from the man into the deepening gloom. Threads popped into view around him. Skends were close.
“Everyone through. Move it,” he whispered. “I don’t know if they know we’re here or not, but I want to be gone.”
The man who had wanted to go back was the first to step into the hole, followed quickly by his compatriots. Darwin turned his back on the hole and threw out a network of monitoring Threads. He found them less than half a mile away and moving toward them. Jesus, they were close.
As he touched them with his Threads, they picked up their pace. They’d be here in seconds.
“Move, move, move. Everyone through.” He pushed Estra and the others ahead of him, taking one last look back to make sure he hadn’t left anyone behind. He wouldn’t do that a second time.
The first Skend ran toward him, stopping so abruptly its feet left two deep trenches in the desert floor. Darwin froze. He could see the heat lift off of its body in waves, and they stared at each other, separated by less than ten feet. Behind him, the hole stayed open.
The Skend was Baila.
There wasn’t—couldn’t be—any doubt. Her transformation wasn’t complete. Hair still grew from her head in tight curls, matted from days of living in the wild. Beneath the skin covering her eyes he could feel her staring at him, her eyes occasionally flicking to the left and right. Her mouth wasn’t completely covered, and thin strands of skin stretched between her lips as she raised her voice in a scream that made his skin crawl in fear. He backed closer to the hole, and what was left of Baila took a step closer. He froze.
“Baila?”
The creature in front of him fell silent, the flaps covering its nose moving in and out with every fetid breath.
“Baila? I . . .” He couldn’t get the words out. His face flushed with heat and his fingers curled. How could she . . . “I’m sorry. I did—”
She screamed again and more of the creatures crowded behind her. By the way they shuffled and moved, he knew they wanted him. Wanted to reach out and burn his skin, turn him into one of them. Make him feel the pain he saw written all over them. Though they pushed and shoved each other, none came close. It was as though Baila had drawn a line in the sand behind her and they couldn’t cross it.
One of them bumped into her, withdrawing as quickly as it had come forward. The impact changed her balance and she shuffled forward again, forcing Darwin to take another step back, matching her in some sort of macabre dance.
The heat increased and the stench of her body washed over him. It was the smell of decay. Blood soaked what was left of the front her shirt and stuck to her face, coating the skin stretched between her lips.
