Читать книгу Dark Goddess - James Axler - Страница 6

Coral Cove, the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Kane raced through the night, cursing the heat and cloying humidity that sapped most of his stamina. His legs felt as if lead weights were tied to his knees. The sweat that stained his camo-striped T-shirt and flowed down from his hairline stung his eyes.

He wanted nothing so much as to fling himself facedown in the palmetto scrub and drink from his canteen. He also wanted to forget why he had agreed to lend Cerberus’s support to a rebellion against the coastal pirates led by the ridiculously named Billy-boy Porpoise.

Over the rhythmic boom of the surf, the faint baying of hounds and shouting of men reached his ears. Kane swore beneath his breath, but he continued to run. Twice bullets had skimmed very close to him, and once he had nearly been caught beside the waters of the drainage canal that cut in from the Gulf of Mexico and served as a moat around the Porpoise estate. Only the fact that he could dive and swim like an otter saved him.

The pillared trunks of cypress, pine and palm trees surrounded him. Palmetto plants, their fan-shape fronds gleaming with patterns of ebony and silver in the moonlight, rose up on either side of the narrow trail. Insects chirped and buzzed from the shadows. His chest feeling as if it were pressed between the jaws of a tightening vise, Kane halted in the murky lee of a log overhang, where lumber had been piled to use as palisade walls in the settlement.

He breathed deeply, regaining his breath. He ran a hand through his longish dark hair. It was soggy with sweat, stiffening with salt. His clothes reeked of sewage and brine, but he took a little solace in the fact he knew he had smelled worse.

A hoarse male voice bellowed beyond the far edge of the canal. The words were unintelligible, but the tone was angry. Kane’s palm itched where his Sin Eater would have fitted if it were not packed away with the rest of his equipment in the settlement. He stepped deeper into the shadows, his movements fluid but cautious, like a man in a jungle wary of poisonous snakes. He often thought of the world in which he lived as nothing but a snake-infested jungle.

Kane struggled to tamp down a surge of homicidal fury at his pursuers, but he was honest enough to admit that distaste at playing the role of prey fueled his rage, not that his attempt to breach the Porpoise estate had been stymied.

Fleeing didn’t come naturally to a former Magistrate like himself. He was a tall man, as lean and sinewy as a timber wolf, and his pale eyes were the color of dawn light touching a blue-steel knife blade. A three-inch hairline scar cut whitely across his clean-shaved left cheek.

Kane had considered growing a beard for the op, so he could infiltrate Porpoise’s crew, but he couldn’t stand to go without shaving for more than a few days. His years as a Cobaltville Magistrate had instilled in him a loathing of whiskers longer than an eighth of an inch.

He heard a dog bark and he clenched his fists. It was bad enough he had been discovered while trying to climb the wall around Porpoise’s compound, but now he felt the hot breath of death on the back of his neck.

When Kane heard the men’s voices again, their words drowned out by the baying of the hounds, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. They were much closer, and he knew he had to start running again.

The brief rest had done him little good, but his anger added renewed vigor to his muscles. The men and the dogs probably viewed him as little more than a weary fox, fleeing before the hounds, but he felt more like the timber wolf. A wolf was a wise animal that had learned all the tricks of staying alive, spinning out the odds with a gambler’s skill to continually outwit death.

Kane sprinted full-out, achieving a long-legged, ground-eating stride, running on the balls of his feet. He swatted at the mosquitoes that made strafing dives at his eyes. Straight ahead, past a row of gnarled cypress roots, lay a stretch of mudflats that led directly into the ville of Coral Cove. There he would find alleys and doorways in which to hide until he could make his rendezvous.

The soles of his high-laced jump boots sank into the muck, releasing the sulfurous stench of marsh gas. Behind him rose the frenzied yelping of the dogs. Kane lurched into a shadowed area just inside the half-completed log wall surrounding Coral Cove and risked a glance backward.

Three bearded men held a trio of long leather leashes in their right hands, and rifles were slung over their shoulders. At the ends of the leashes strained and slavered six of the biggest mastiffs Kane had ever seen. The black-and-tan dogs yipped and bayed, eyes rolling, tongues lolling, froth dripping from their fang-filled jaws.

Kane wasn’t sure if the men had seen him, but they released the leashes. The mastiffs bounded forward, a line of red maws and yellow teeth pounding right through the mudflats at blinding speed.

Blinking back the sweat from his eyes, Kane whirled and sprinted into the ville, the snarls and yelps of the dogs loud in his ears. Coral Cove’s buildings were old, many of them close together, arranged around a makeshift town square, the centerpiece of which was an old, immense and deep-rooted live oak. He glimpsed a slatternly woman dumping a pail of slops out of an upstairs window of a big frame house. When she caught sight of him running across the square, she retreated quickly, snatching a curtain closed.

The settlement wasn’t very large, but according to the Cerberus database, Coral Cove had been a small fishing village turned vacation resort. Of course, that been a very long time ago, before the skydark.

Kane’s eyes darted back and forth, looking for cover. He didn’t care for the idea of digging in and standing fast, since the dogs could surround him and tear him to pieces. He had not gone armed on the recon mission, taking the precaution that if he were apprehended, he wouldn’t provide more weapons to the enemy’s arsenal.

But Kane was never completely helpless. He dug his hand beneath his shirt to the waterproof utility pouch at his waistband and carefully pulled out a metal-walled sphere about the size of a plover’s egg. The pressure-fused CS powder grenade, usually employed as a diversion in a limited area, would cause extreme discomfort in a small room. To have flung the grenade back at the dog pack would have been useless—there was not enough concentrated spread in the vapor.

Kane sprinted to the trunk of the oak tree and leaped high. He caught hold of a thick, leafy branch and managed to swing up and balance himself precariously upon it. The limb swayed like a hammock under his weight.

Looking across the town square, he saw the first of the mastiffs bounding into view, tongue lolling, savage eyes glinting. The other dogs raced behind it, their smooth dark coats clotted with mud. Their teeth gleamed like ivory daggers.

The dogs milled around uncertainly, sniffing the ground and whining quizzically. Far back across the mudflats there were shouts, the thump of running feet. Kane held the grenade tightly in his left hand as he watched the mastiffs casting about in confusion.

The first dog to have entered the ville growled and slowly advanced on the tree with a twitching muzzle, nose still to the ground.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Kane breathed. “Nose to the dirt. Don’t look up.”

The limb upon which he crouched suddenly creaked. Kane grabbed a branch overhead as the limb sagged half a foot. Wishing he were fifty pounds lighter, Kane kept absolutely motionless. The dogs would know he was nearby through scent alone, but if their attention wasn’t drawn upward—

The limb suddenly bent and the splintering crack of wood filled Kane’s ears for an instant.

With a startled growl, the mastiff circling below looked up, caught sight of him and barked ferociously. The other dogs clustered around the base of the tree, yipping and yelping. They slammed into one another as they all tried to squeeze around the trunk.

Kane wasted no time. He dropped the grenade straight down into the mass of milling dogs. One of the mastiffs snapped at it and the casing burst open, the small explosive charge within it detonating with a low, smacking explosion. A heavy cloud of white CS powder erupted, spraying in all directions, like a miniature blizzard.

Instantly, the baying of the dogs turned to high-pitched whines, whimpers and squeals. Pawing frantically at their eyes, the mastiffs reeled away, staggering, snorting and sneezing. Kane jumped down from the limb, landed on the far side of the tree and ran toward the nearest house, a rambling two-story structure built in the old antebellum style. The windows were boarded up, so he decided the door was mostly likely secured and began to angle away.

A black mass shifted in the shadows cast by a balcony overhang. “Kane!”

The urgent whisper cut through the cacophony of the distressed dogs, and Kane darted into the murk. The black shape was a small figure huddled within a mass of rags and tatters, decorated with gray streamers of Spanish moss. Under green stripes of camouflage paint he saw streaks of milk-white flesh.

“Inside! Be quick!” The figure scurried sideways and a door opened and closed.

Panting, Kane groped over the door, searching for a knob. His fingers touched nothing but damp, slightly warped wood. He pressed a shoulder against it, then the door swung inward and he stumbled into an unlit foyer. A small hand clutched at his right wrist with surprising strength and hauled him forward.

“In here, idiot!”

Kane caught a whiff of mildew and urine. The door closed, and he heard the faint snick of a locking bolt being drawn. Fingering his nose, Kane whispered, “And I thought I was the only stinkard here, Domi.”

“Shut up.”

Kane stiffened at the angry intensity of the girl’s voice, but he fell silent, listening to the yowling of the hounds. He heard men’s voice raised in breathless curses, the cracking of whips and the piteous yelps of the dogs.

“Where’d the son of a bitch go?”

“Guess for your own self, Lucas! Got my own problems with this goddamn hound—”

“Billy-boy ain’t gonna like it if we lose ’im.”

“Shit, tell me something new…but he’s gonna have to live with it.”

Ear pressed against the door panel, Kane listened to more whining, whimpering and cursing as the men got the dogs releashed. They didn’t intend to continue the pursuit. Although the citizenry of Coral Cove put up with a great deal from Billy-boy Porpoise and his gang, they wouldn’t tolerate a midnight door-to-door search. After a few minutes, the sound of the dogs and their masters faded away.

A flashlight suddenly glowed, startling Kane so much that he jumped and cursed.

“Relax,” Domi said softly. “Windows boarded over—nobody can see.”

Kane squinted toward her as she flung back the hood that shrouded her close-cropped, bone-white hair. An albino by birth, Domi was a small white wraith of a girl, every inch of five feet tall. Eyes like red rubies stared up at him through the mask of combat cosmetics she had daubed over her cream-white complexion.

“Had you goin’ there, huh?” Laughter was in her high-planed face, and the faint mockery added piquancy to her features.

“Yeah,” Kane said dryly. “You’re a gifted comedian. What would you have done if the dogs had caught me?”

Domi’s small right hand eased out from beneath the ragged cloak. Nestled within it lay her Detonics Combat Master .45. The stainless-steel autopistol weighed only a pound and a half and was perfectly suited for a girl of her size.

“Shoot ’em,” she replied frankly. “Then kill the men who made them killers.”

Kane nodded. “Figures. Where’s Grant?”

Domi shrugged out of the tattered cloak, letting it drop to the floor. “Upstairs. He was keepin’ an eye on you, too.”

Stepping around the heap of rancid rags, Kane pinched his nostrils shut. “Why does it stink so bad?”

Domi shrugged. “Cover up my own scent, in case the dogs got after me. Old Outland trick.”

Kane regarded her gravely. “You peed on it, didn’t you?”

“Among other things.” Domi turned toward a stairwell, casting the beam of the flashlight ahead of her. She wore a black tank top and tight-fitting denim shorts that only accentuated her compact body, with its pert breasts and flaring hips.

Kane followed her up the stairs, reflecting that after five-plus years of working with her, he shouldn’t be surprised by anything Domi did, even wearing a cloak soaked in her own urine.

The stairs opened onto a small room that led out onto a balcony. Grant stood there, peering through a screen of oleander leaves. The buttsock of the heavy Barrett sniper rifle was settled firmly in the hollow of his right shoulder. He pushed it forward on its built-in bipod as he leaned down to squint through the twenty-power top-mounted telescopic sight.

Without turning toward Kane, he said in his lionlike rumble of a voice, “I thought you were going to be in and out of here like the wind.”

A big man standing several inches over six feet, Grant had exceptionally broad shoulders and a heavy musculature, but with a middle starting to go a little soft. Beads of perspiration sparkled against his coffee-brown skin like stars in the night sky. Gray dusted his short-cropped hair at the temples, but it didn’t show in the sweeping black mustache that curved fiercely out from either side of his grim, tight-lipped mouth. Like Kane, he wore camo pants and T-shirt.

In response to Grant’s sarcastic question, Kane replied, “That was the plan. I guess they smelled my wind.”

Carefully, he moved to the balcony’s rail and looked down into the ville. He could still detect the chemical tang of the CS powder.

Grant stepped away from the Barrett and tapped the scope. “They caught more than that. Take a peek.”

Obligingly, Kane stooped and peered through the eyepiece. He glimpsed a tall figure standing just outside the log wall, trying to hide himself in the shadows. The rifle he cradled in his arms looked like a lever-action 30.06.

“They left one behind,” he commented. “A spotter.”

Grant nodded. “They want to see which house you come out of. And to find out if anybody in town is helping you, so they can be made an example of.”

Kane shrugged. “I don’t think they got a good look at me. And since you two didn’t arrive until after dark, they most likely don’t know you’re here.”

“Porpoise is probably sure it was you creepin’ around his place,” Domi stated matter-of-factly.

Kane cast her a quizzical glance. “Why do you say that?”

The girl shrugged. “He only saw you and Brigid together—stands to reason he’d figure you’d be the one to try and sneak in and steal her back from him.”