Читать книгу Shadow Born - James Axler - Страница 11

Chapter 3

Stopping for the night, the six companions set up a secure camp for themselves. They had things to do aside from resting themselves and keeping their pickup truck from overheating; first among them was finding the location of the tomb that Neekra had sought.

Once the campfire was lit, Brigid sat Kane down across from her.

“I’m going to hypnotize you, Kane,” Brigid informed him.

Kane nodded. “You think part of the reason Neekra wanted me so bad was that I might have a clue as to where her body is.”

Brigid smiled. “Correct.”

“You’d think I’d remember something like that,” Kane returned.

“Not necessarily,” Brigid explained. “You were affected by the staff in your dreams, intertwining your memories with the memories of a predecessor of yours.”

“Solomon Kane, the Puritan,” Kane stated.

“His adventures here in Africa had been related but imperfectly. However, his connection to the staff Nehushtan and his encounters with non-terrestrial and pan-terrestrial entities have, so far, given us an inclusive view into the secret history of this continent,” Brigid added. “However, locations in those missives are vague at best.”

Kane looked to Nathan, who had fallen into the role of bearer of the artifact. “I thought only weak minds could be hypnotized.”

Brigid turned Kane’s attention back to her. “Willing minds can be put under, as well. In fact, just the very act of focusing on a subject, distracting the part of the mind that can be distracted, works. Just falling asleep is a form of self-hypnosis.”

Kane nodded.

“Get Zen,” Brigid ordered, giving him a backhanded slap on the chest.

Though outwardly Kane didn’t change his stance or position in the slightest, inside his mind he put his intellect to work, ordering his thoughts so that he could enter the mental state Brigid requested of him. The woman lifted her hand, holding her index finger straight in the air. His eyes locked on that finger, and even as he did so, he heard her voice, soft, soothing, a low, constant beat in his hearing. He didn’t know what she was saying, and it could have been gibberish syllables, her way of creating a metronome-like beat to keep his ears focused as his eyes. He allowed himself to mentally drift.

The next thing Kane knew, he was in chains. His clothes had changed. Previously, he had worn a spare shadow suit to replace the one that had been left mostly tattered by the events at the necropolis Neekra had chosen as her base. Now he was clad in folded-over leather boots, belted just below his knees, and, except for the white, simple shirt he wore beneath his vest, he was clad all in black. His hair seemed longer. He felt for his Sin Eater, but it was nowhere to be found, nor was his hydraulic forearm holster. He took inventory of his face, and he became aware of bruises that hadn’t been there moments ago. His wrists were bound together by iron manacles, and the weight of chains pulled hard on his shoulders.

He tried to activate his Commtact, but neither the plate nor the implanted pintles were present. All he had was whiskers there.

He glanced to one side and saw several well-dressed Africans and Arabs, some of them possessing familiar arms. He recognized the fine Spanish steel sword, complete with its simple basket handle, and his belt dangling from the shoulder of a tall, burly African. His pistols were stuffed into sash-belts of others.

And an old Arab man held the shaft of Nehushtan. Kane realized that the man was speaking to him.

“...and Suleiman, he who you were named for, Kahani, chased the demons from his lands into Africa,” the old man told him.

“Enough, you superstitious old lout!” the finest dressed of the Africans, the one who now owned Kahani’s sword, snapped. It didn’t take a genius to figure that the black man earned his clothing and sense of authority from one of the foulest sins of mankind: slavery. Kane did not know if the slave master put his own tribesmen into chains, sending them around the world to toil away until death, or whether he profited from war and conquest, sending the surviving warriors of other nations to buckle under to the white man.

Something about the swagger of the African slave master set Kane’s teeth on edge. Maybe the bastard didn’t give a damn who he imprisoned and condemned to lifelong servitude. As long as the gold that crossed his palm was good, as long as it paid for the rings in his ears and on his fingers and adorned his back and head with the finest silk shirts and turbans, perhaps the slave master would throw anyone in chains.

The Arab who spoke of the legends of Nehushtan, the rod of biblical King Solomon, cringed at the bark in the slave master’s voice and could not meet his gaze.

Others were in the caravan, and they appeared all too similar to the procession of Zambian prisoners whom he, Grant and Brigid had rescued from another group of African human predators. Kane could feel his ancestors’ ire at his own impatience.

The bruises were the only result of his assault on the slavers. Although his sword and pistols had accounted for some of the security force, it had not been enough, not this time. He could still feel the vibrations rolling up his forearms where he’d brought down the knurled butt of a pistol, breaking a shoulder or crushing a jaw. His other hand had swept and sliced, but an injured African slaver trapped the blade against the side of his body, wrenching it from Solomon Kane’s desperate fingers.

The weight of the slavers was too much for even the fanatic’s strength that drove the Puritan to protect and liberate his fellow man, no matter the skin color.

The leader of the caravan had demanded Solomon Kane be taken captive, alive. His reputation preceded him, and the African slave master knew that there were many who would pay exorbitant prices, either to slay him, or to take him as a captive. For now, Kane was trapped in the skin of a defeated warrior, about to be sold for a king’s ransom as enemies would undoubtedly assemble, seeking his hide, tattered or intact.

“Great place to wake up,” Kane muttered to himself.

“Kahani?” the old Arab asked.

Kane narrowed his eyes. Nehushtan had gone through yet another change. Now it was a cat-headed obscenity, almost as if the original face upon the top of the staff had been erased with chisel and sandpaper. No matter the new appearance; the “cat-head” was merely redesigned, but the blasphemy beneath still remained.

It was an unusual aspect, Kane noted, for a many-storied scepter wielded by prophets who were the chosen emissaries of God. Nehushtan, as far as Brigid related, was a holy relic. But in this form, the “juju stick” had an air of dark magic.

“You are to carry this juju staff with you, brother Kane,” came half-remembered words from a witch doctor.

N’Longa, the seer of his tribe, had fought alongside Kane’s Puritan ancestor, just as Nathan Longa, his descendant seven hundred years from now, battled shoulder to shoulder with him, against Neekra, against the Panthers of Mashona, against the inhuman Kongamato and vampire-like blobs and reanimated corpses. After their first battle, side by side, N’Longa handed over the cat-headed staff as a walking stick to guide the Puritan on his journeys for the rest of his days.

The staff returned to N’Longa and remained under his family’s protection since or at least long enough for Nathan to recall it being in his family’s possession for generations.

“Kahani?” the Arab asked, interrupting Kane’s thoughts.

“Why are you so concerned for me?” Kane asked him.

The old Arab looked back to Nehushtan. “This is an amazing piece of history. This stick came from the age of Atlantis. It was entrusted to you, Kahani.”

Kane was getting tired of being in chains, even though he’d been here for what felt like only minutes. Then he realized that it wasn’t boredom but actual physical toil upon the body he was remembering. This empathy swept over him, causing him a transfer of nausea and exhaustion to strike him even harder.

And suddenly, he was fallen back, watching as a helpless observer as the caravan came upon a small stone structure in the jungle. The Puritan watched as the greedy slave master ordered his men to hack at the stone doors, calling for the treasure hidden within the crypt.

He recognized the tomb top, the alien writings carved into the jamb around the slablike doors. Kane could not read the glyphs, but their shape was unmistakable. They were the letters of the Annunaki, and each of them had an eerie glint reflecting in the moonlight. Kane realized that the blue-white tint was not the echo of a full moon, for the sky above was starless.

Something in those runes held their own unholy power.

Solomon Kane’s voice, sounding much like his own, barked a warning, telling the slaver to turn back, to flee this dark place.

The old Arab’s eyes were wide with horror, also realizing that the cuneiform scrawls portended far greater evil than he could comprehend. He turned toward the captive Puritan, fumbling with keys for his manacles, even as hammers bashed at the slab of granite covering the door.

“What are you doing, you old fool?” the African caravan leader asked. In moments, the Spanish steel sword was out, piercing the old man’s back, its point prickling the front of his tunic, turning white cloth dark as the poor bastard was run through.

“Kahani, take...” the old man sputtered before the slave master pulled the blade away, freeing himself to take a lunge at Solomon Kane.

With all-too-familiar reflexes, the Puritan brought up both hands, still holding a length of chain between them. The links blocked the downward sweep of the deadly blade, and with a twist of his arms and a half pivot, he suddenly wrenched the trapped sword out of his opponent’s grasp.

He then lunged, grabbing for Nehushtan, bringing up the staff to counter any other attack that the richly dressed African could launch.

Unfortunately, at that time, the tomb thundered, its stone lid cracking violently. Screams filled the air, horror sweeping all around them as some slave takers took to flight. Others shrieked out throat-tearing wails of agony as they were sucked through the open doors. In the distance, the slaves were trapped, unable to break and run through the forest as their captors could.

The slave trader whirled, pulling one of his own pistols at the cacophony of suffering and terror rising from the opened crypt.

“I warned you to leave it alone!” Kane heard himself growl.

The African fired a single pistol shot at a shimmering arm of pink. Long talons sank into the slaver’s chest, and he shrieked, still alive even as bloodred nails poked through the back of his silken shirt. Kane moved forward, the only weapon in his hands being the juju staff.

Was this memory or reality?

It didn’t matter because there was Neekra. She resembled an Annunaki, except she was larger, more brutish. Her features were unmistakable, even though they were twisted into a rictus of fury. In one hand, she still held the slaver, red nails hooked around his back. His arms and legs moved less and less of their own volition and only bounced and jostled as she shook him around. She must have been fourteen feet in height, and she was still confined in the mouth of the crypt, only able to reach out with one arm as she bellowed in earth-shaking rage.

The Puritan knew that he was the only thing keeping the pink-skinned horror from escaping, and the closest prey for Neekra would be the slaves, the same helpless humans he had been trying to liberate when he had been captured. He clutched Nehushtan tighter; long, lean arms filled with corded muscle, strength surging through those limbs as he advanced toward the thing rising from the darkness.

He felt the kinship with his predecessor, be it through their mutual contact with the staff, or perhaps because they were all part of the same entity, an ever-existing time worm, each life and death being brief but forming a single segment that would renew, reincarnate and extend through the centuries of human history. Kane had a brief mental glimpse of that “time worm,” a familiar image he had spotted some time ago, when Grant was lost in time and Kane had traveled between dimensions to seek him out.

It was an amazing, yet weird, sight. He could see his spirit’s history, the flex and pump extending backward to the dawn of time, and a shadowy rumor of an image stretching forward.

And then he was fading, spiraling back into his body, hearing Brigid’s voice summoning him home. His hands were around the haft of the artifact, and it had gone from the two-serpent-adorned healing staff to the cat-headed rod, full of odd and dark omens.

“Neekra...she was there,” Kane muttered, still feeling the bruises and the ache of the chains from his dip into history. “She attacked a slave caravan...”

“We know. You related the tale, just as if you were there in person,” Brigid replied.

“Oh,” Kane said, frowning. He looked down at the ground, trying to get a better mental image of the horrific beast that had stood before him. It was indeed similar to the avatar that Neekra had molded Gamal into, but it was larger. The Annunaki scales were thicker, rougher, cruder, scales that Kane hadn’t seen on the goddess’s first simulacrum. The glare of anger and hatred in her eyes was soul chilling, something he never wanted to see again.

Grant managed a chuckle, the sound breaking him from whatever lost trance Kane was falling into. “It sounded like you were having a wonderful time.”

Kane acknowledged his partner. He noticed that he had Nehushtan in his other hand. “Did it give us anything on the location of that tomb?”

Brigid had out a notebook in which she scribbled furiously. “I had a difficult time since your ancestor’s experience was on a cloudy, starless night.

“How long was I under?” Kane asked.

“How long did it feel like?” Grant countered.

“A full evening. After the caravan stopped its march, I was allowed to kneel next to the caravan’s leader,” Kane answered. “He viewed Solomon as a great prize as well as a potential slave for sale. He took my...his sword.”

“She was asking you...him...questions for the past hour and a half,” Grant returned. “He was reluctant to give exact locations, and he said that it was no place for a woman.”

Kane chuckled. “How did she take that?”

“My opinion of his chauvinism was noted and debated for a few seconds, and his chauvinism toward me was defrayed,” Brigid stated, continuing to run figures in her mind. “He found me far more formidable than others he had encountered in his era.”

Kane glanced toward Grant.

“I recorded it,” Grant answered. “It was fun. Especially your British accent.”

Kane grimaced. “British accent? And it’s already recorded?”

Grant nodded. “Back at Cerberus.”

Kane shook his head. “I think I’ll be staying with Sky Dog and the Lakota for a few weeks after we get back home.”

“You could always be eaten by Neekra,” Grant offered.

“Promises, promises,” Kane grumbled. He turned back to Brigid. “So, if the stars were behind clouds that night, how will you know where I went, Baptiste?”

“Solomon was a meticulous navigator. He was fairly good at estimating the distances he covered in a day, and he did have a track that he followed,” Brigid stated. “The only problem is that he came from coastal Africa, to the northeast, whereas we’re coming up from the south. Also, he was utilizing sixteenth-century maps, which were not analogous to current satellite tracking technology.”

“In other words, you’ve got a good start, but you’re going to be working courses for a while,” Kane returned.

Brigid glanced up from her calculations. “That was implied.”

“She’s figuring it out,” Kane surmised. “Otherwise, she’d devote brainpower to a smart-ass remark.”

Brigid waved the two men off, and Grant helped Kane to his feet.

“What’s our plan until she comes through with where we need to go?” Grant asked.

Kane shrugged. “Maybe we could hypnotize Thurpa?”

“Brigid’s busy on that front,” Grant returned. “I mean, I could try, but I don’t think I can put him into a trance.”

Kane looked down at the staff in his hands. “Maybe the stick could do something.”

“Or maybe we could ask Brigid to take a break and do her memory trick on Thurpa?” Grant asked. “Is it like she’ll lose her place?”

Kane rolled his eyes, then raised his voice. “Brigid? Can we interrupt you for a moment?”

Brigid looked up from her notes. “Interview Thurpa or, rather, Durga?”

“If the man’s inside that head,” Grant said, “we’ll find out just how much.”

“There’s one small stumbling block in that,” Brigid said. “Durga utilized Thurpa’s mind as a means of sharing the psychic load of Neekra’s assault on him. What is to prevent Durga from blocking my attempts at hypnosis? Indeed, what if Thurpa were already set up with a preprogrammed response to hypnotic interference?”

“Preprogrammed response,” Grant repeated. He looked to Kane. “That sounds like ‘go psycho and kill people,’ doesn’t it?”

“Even unarmed, he has his fangs and his venom,” Kane agreed. “Tying him up wouldn’t do much because he can spit his venom, as well.”

“We do have environmental faceplates, which we’ve been utilizing for their optic properties,” Brigid said. “But we’re not certain he’d cause harm to himself, or actually become a time bomb, with a delayed violence response.”

“Delayed violence response,” Kane echoed. “I’m surprised we’re not dead just for talking to the poor guy.”

“As am I,” Brigid returned. “I’m uncertain of the extent of Durga’s mental control over Thurpa, but if we try to find Durga through him, the very least of our problems would be alerting him that we know of their psychic relationship.”

Kane’s lip curled in disgust.

“I thought about hypnotizing Thurpa and unfortunately came to this conclusion before you did,” Brigid explained. “Even so, that was the two of you being proactive and insightful.”

“Thanks,” Kane said. “Not that it makes anything easier.”

Brigid shook her head. “But we’re thinking. And when the three of us put our minds to something, we’re generally successful.”

Kane nodded. “The key word is ‘generally.’ We can make all the plans we want, but life is what happens when plans go to shit.”

Grant clapped Kane on the shoulder in support. “Don’t worry. We’re good at surviving when things go to shit, too.”