Dusk Territories: Always Burning (20 page)

Graham withdrew from his cover and fired twice, both hitting the men in the back of the necks. The first one died instantly, the bullet slipping through their only true weak spot and crashing into the spine. The second, however, missed the sweet spot. That soldier fell to the ground by the force, holding the back of his head. Cursing, Graham dashed forward, seizing the man by the crown of the head, and then stabbing him in his throat with the knife. “Sloppy,” the Marine whispered to himself, lying the man down.

A closer look allowed him to see one of the bands of the Descendants. It was a simple black cloth on his bicep, marked with a strange arch symbol. He frowned. He couldn’t worry about that now. Outside, the battle still raged. Sound scarcely breached the stone walls. Waves that did were that of washed out gunfire, roars, and explosives. He couldn’t stay here for long.

If only I brought the rest of the team,
Graham thought again.
No. You can’t doubt your decision.
His core team wasn’t ready for a fire fight of this caliber. Someone would have died or worse. No, this was the best possible outcome. That was if he could do this quickly. Haggis, Pub, and Crisium were important to the Drifter’s team. Them lost would severely cripple further operation.
I have to act fast.

Taking the corridor at a little faster pace, still careful, Graham wheeled around the corners. He made notes of the surroundings. The bunker was a labyrinth, ever growing in his mind. Some corridors led to others while some just looped around to the throat of the layout. What he did know was shadows were friends. Sneaking was still a fresh concept in his head. Built for outright fire fights was how he had been taught. But, this was fresh and he…enjoyed it.

He saw another man walking through the corridor. This one, a bald man with a stringy white and black beard, had no helm and was chattering
something over the radio. Ammo couldn’t be wasted, nor could this Intel
. He waited, crouched. “What’d you mean we may have an infiltration? And why’s it taking so long to take out a small party,” the soldier barked. “Lieutenant Brink would be
furious—not to mention those two nutcases.”

Graham took a step forward, sheathing his weapons.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
His prey’s heartbeat that had a sound and a taste touched his senses as he kept forward. His boots made no sound, his breath held, and fingers itched to clamp around his unsuspecting victim in a bloody urge.
That’s right. Just stay there.
The moment that he was behind the man, the man turned. He must have felt death creep on him. “Intrude—“

Snap. Crunch.

Graham snapped his neck and smashed the man skull open with the sole of his boot. Like a melon being thrown into a wall, blood sprayed into the ground and meat leaked from the open wound. Broken teeth, spittle, and bile lined the man’s contorted face. The impact was hard, almost barbaric. One stomp left him hardly recognizable, just twisted flesh and broken bones. A few stomps later, there was
nothing
left of the man’s face.

“Shit,” Graham whispered to himself. He hadn’t expected that. The man was dead before he had even hit the ground. The added brutality was rattling. Blood stained the black leather ridges of his boots. He couldn’t risk the man living.
He might have made some guttural sound through the radio
, he reasoned. Instinct took over, the very closest thing to human bloodlust. Why his bare hands, though…why the urge? ‘
Cause that’s what you wanted to do to these men. That’s what you want to do. This world’s changing you.

No.
Removing the thought from his head, he pressed forward. Killing was something he did. There was no use crying about it, even if it bothered him.
The center room,
he focused on. The center room.

Seconds stretched themselves thickly over his mission. The outside party couldn’t last much longer, he knew. Acting fast felt essential. He needed to—

Wait.

At first, the sound was just echoes. He couldn’t quite make them out. Graham pulled his gun from its holster and looked through the gun’s sight in slow steps. The closer he got, the more that the voice cleared up. It was singing.
Female, young,
Graham noted. She was younger than twenty, he knew. She sang a song without any lyrics. Somehow, that made her sound innocent. Innocence had died in this world, though. Graham cleared another corner. The singing was getting louder, closer. She was close. She was…

Swooooosh.
Right behind him.

A trail of fire, a deep teal, licked against the ground blazing. It was almost alive, twitching and swaying like seaweed underwater. There were no crackling sounds. Embers screamed with high pitched voices as they died. That was no ordinary flame. That was a demon power. Graham turned to see the lady from which this flame came. The singing stopped.

A young girl sat on the shoulders of a giant, her index finger still aflame. “Graham-cracker! It seems like we finally found you.” She giggled. “Or we could say that you found us. Either way, we’re here and we’re meeting, so hi!”

This had to be her. “
How do you know my name, River?”

“
Spying
,” River said, swinging her legs. “For a
big bad Marine
, I thought you would’ve noticed. How do you know
my
name?”

“Reputation,” Graham said simply.

“Ain’t it a fun thing to be recognized?” River looked down, swinging her legs. “You and Raggy know each other, right? Not knowing, not like best friends knowing. But, the guy you met in the mall last Tuesday type of knowing. Raggy say something. It’s rude.”

Ragnar remained bitterly quiet. Apparently, Graham wasn’t the only one disgusted with this girl.

“Stop pouting. Drifter isn’t going anywhere without his tank drivers. So,” she pointed her flaming index finger at Graham, “We get to play with Mr. Zombieface for a while.”

A simple flick of her finger sent another fireball, bigger than the first, hurdling through the air. Graham pressed himself within a crevice of the wall to avoid the blast. The roaring screams howled down the corridor. The flames had no physical heat. Graham felt, however, the heat that it did possess.
It’s the burning souls,
Graham thought. Not even within its grasp, burning swept through him like a plague. He would die if he touched it.

“Mr. Graham! Don’t make me come over there.”

Graham heard the woman jump from Ragnar’s shoulder on to the ground. The tapping of heels against the stone got louder and louder as she approached.
I have to act.
It was good cover. Yet, when cover became a cage was when you had to move. Pinned down between the fire and the pan, he needed to act. She wasn’t a fighter or a soldier, but she was a demon. He would have to show her no mercy.

River turned into his line of sight, her childish like features lighting up with glee. Her eyes glowed in the dark, hand fully aflame. “Looks like you acted—“

“You talk too much.”

With a stiff right jab out of the space, Graham knocked the girl in the jaw, causing her to tumble back. She recovered quickly, but not quick enough to capitalize on the soldier slipping from out of the situation. He fired several rounds as he increased the space between the two of them. The suppressed bullets disappeared in the cloak of flames surrounding the pig-tailed River. They slapped away the bullets instead of burning them, causing a pool of metal to swim at her feet.

“Mr.Graham.” He heard her say, tinged with anger. “You really shouldn’t head that direction.”

Graham slid to a stop, realizing that Ragnar taken a different route to cut him off. The giant stood, battle axe raised. He was trapped, cursed that he had allowed himself to be so sloppy. He danced backwards, getting his feeling for the situation. “Bit of a pickle you got me in. Took a different route, did you?” Graham eyed a corridor linking through a backroom he had passed to get here.
Of course he’ll use that.

“It’s a shame that you’re so predictable.” Ragnar swung his axe the only way that he could in this corridor, in a broad downstroke. Graham jumped back to avoid the swing, only for the heel of his boot to nearly touch a sea-colored flame. “I must say, I expected more from Drifter’s new pet.”

“My my. You aren’t fun, Mr. Graham,” River growled, wiping the blood from her mouth. “I thought you would last longer.” She snapped her jaw back into place, grinning, red staining her teeth. Angry flames curtained her arms. “Look at you. You’re a hamster going round and round a wheel with no real objective in mind. Just do what you are told,” she whipped a flame to the right wall, “A puppet in the grand scheme of things.” She did the same to the left wall beside Graham, leaving him no movement room. “Just dancing a tune that you don’t even know the notes to...”

“This world isn’t for you,” River added. A flame bird conjured itself in her palms, screeching loudly. “People like you, the good people, had your chance. Look what happened. The world still died. Only the wicked survives here. This is our playground now.”

There are points in a person’s life where they knew death caught them. He had cheated it once. The grim reaper always found its way back.
Haha. You’re afraid, even after what you did to that man. Survive, you told yourself. You don’t want to die, as much as you want to believe you’re willing to.
Graham touched a grenade on his side. This may be his time, but hell if he was going to let these two walk away from this. “You won’t get away with this—“

“Fair fight? I think not.”

Those were the only words that Graham heard as the wall beside Ragnar crumbled. Broken bones of the concrete scattered against the ground, bouncing off and colliding into one another. Dust hung in the air, surrounding the figure that uttered the words. With a few coughs, the small man stepped from the dust, staring at the three parties with steel-colored eyes.

He was a small man, on the lower ends of five feet. His body looked as though it had been strung together tightly with layers of wiry muscle and pale skin. Shaggy and curly brown hair fell from his scalp scruffily, reaching to his tight neck. A beard of the same features dangled from his small chin. The most noticeable feature was the man’s battle testaments. Around the bridge of his nose, down the side of his face, on his forehead, there wasn’t part of his face not covered in thick or thin scars. Bruises, old and new, lined his arms. Underneath the stature and the boyish grin was something dangerous.

Clothed only in some patch-worked pants, the young man took steps forward. His voice was low, muttering in what sounded to be Russian. Ragnar turned around, staring down at the man not even half his size. “Who are you—“

The punch was swift, punching clean through the giant’s armor, and against his rib. Ragnar doubled over, coughing up blood.

Like any good man, Graham took the opportunity to climb over the giant and avoid being singed alive—or whatever that flame did.

The Russian man cocked his head in the direction of the opening he made. Get away was the main plan. Ragnar and River were angry and annoyed now. Sticking around to see what happened next was unhealthy and counterproductive.

“You have a reason for helping me,” Graham asked, trying not to sound ungraciously frustrated.

“Does one need a reason to help someone?”

Graham took the statement with grace. “You have a name?”

“It appears that you are in luck. Indeed I possess one.” He gave a grin, showing a somewhat broken row of teeth. “Grigori Zachrov, comrade.”

“What is a Russian doing in America?”

“Sleeping mostly. Motherland, “Grigori searched for the English word in his head, “Motherland is cold.”

Somehow that seemed like an understatement, i
f America was any testament. Graham could only assume that Russia had taken a brunt of some nuclear winter and this man was a refugee.
But there were other questions. How did he get here? What was his real purpose? Was he leading him to a trap? Already, his body was preparing for the worst options.
Trust is a low thing for you. T
he voice in the back of his head reminded him.
Trust is a concept.
He reloaded his pistol, keeping himself aware.

Grigori noticed with an empty, if not lazy, expression. “Fair assumption, friend.” He eyed the metal, a smirk underneath the bush he called a beard. “What would I gain from killing you except more sin I cannot hold? So have no fear. I saved you because it was right, not of some ulterior motive.”

“How did you know—“

“That you needed help, not them? Good people know that they have sinned, and know it is wrong. Evil just takes more bites from fruits that does not belong to them.”

“But—“

      
“I will hear no more of this. Talking about it and worrying about my intentions, which are none, is not going to make you run faster from people who are currently attempting to murder you.”

The point slithered down his throat as stiff pill would. Silently, Graham followed him through the winding corridors. Sounds of the angered beasts howled behind them. They were coming up fast now. The hermit of a man knew the bunker like the back of his hand, taking him down several different corridors. The final destination was a small room to the side. A large bald man as well as a thin mutated creature sat in the middle of the relatively empty room.

As soon as Graham stepped a foot in the door, the bald man raised his AK-47 and spouted Russian. The armed fellow stood to his full height, towering over both men. He roared more words, fuming with spittle spewing on his Russian army fatigues. Grigori returned in his native tongue, nothing more than a sentence or two. Whatever he said worked. The gun lowered, and so did the man’s facial expression as though he had been kicked in the gullet. “Little brother Ivan says hello.” Grigori said. “Boris. Come say hello to our American friend as well.”

Boris crawled toward Graham using his hands and his feet. The mutant was some sort of hyena, fish, and bird hybrid. Long white hair trailed down his head and back.
His body was covered with fur mostly except his belly and shoulder, which was scaled and feathered respectively. He had no mouth, just a slit where it should be and his nose was flat.
Dark round eyes stared up, observing intelligently for a second before returning to Ivan’s side. A low almost musical sound uttered from the opening of his face.