Angel - Shakedown Part 25

Whatwas the point of that?Baasalt thought as they walked away.

"I despise the self-righteous. I want him to go to his death wondering if it was all worthwhile, or if he's thrown his life away trying to help those that didn't deserve it. I want him to agonize over his choices. . .

They had gone no more than a dozen paces when two Tremblors appeared from a side pa.s.sage. This time, the volume of their thoughts was perceptible to Rome.

Baasalt. The Grounding requires your presence.

Of course. I was just on my way to see them.

Why is a Skin-Dweller with you?

That is a question I will answer when the Grounding asks it.

Very well.

The Tremblors took up positions on either side of Rome and Baasalt. The four of them continued onward.

At length they came to the chamber of the Grounding. The pool of lava in the middle of the six columns of rock glowed a h.e.l.lish orange-red and made the air in the room s.h.i.+mmer with heat waves.

The two Tremblors that accompanied them took up positions at the mouth of the tunnel. Rome and Baasalt approached the first and largest of the columns. Baasalt put down the crate he was carrying at the foot of the column.

Great Batholith,he began.I am here to beg forgiveness.

Forgiveness? Is that why you have brought a Skin-Dweller here, to our most sacred place?

This is no ordinary Skin-Dweller. He is a representative of our allies on the Skin of the World, the one who made it possible to obtain the Four.

We see. And the reason for his presence?

He simply wishes to observe. One of the Four is his enemy, and witnessing his destruction will give him great pleasure.

You are in no position to ask for favors, Baasalt. You have much to answer for.

I have the answers you require right here.Baasalt knelt and opened the crate.

Inside, packed end-to-end, were six stainlesssteel pickaxes.

Baasalt picked one up, hefted it.I had planned to do this during the ceremony itself,Baasalt thought.

But I see now I was merely bowing to tradition.He moved suddenly behind the Batholith.

Before either of the Tremblors at the entrance could move, Baasalt swung, sinking the pickax into the Batholith's brain.

Rome felt the surge of psychic energy, but he'd taken the precaution of having a warding spell performed before he left the surface; his mind was unaffected.

The other Tremblors were not so lucky.

The minds of the Grounding were the oldest and most powerful of all their race, and the Batholith was the strongest of all. If he'd had time, he could have frozen Baasalt with a thought; but Baasalt had done something the Grounding would never have suspected a Tremblor capable of. He had acted impulsively.

The mental backlash arced from the Batholith to the rest of the Grounding, then to Baasalt, then to all the other Tremblors. The Grounding did their best to suppress it, but the effort of battling their most powerful member left them weak and dazed.

Baasalt felt only invigorated. This was his fourth exposure to such a mental rush, and he welcomed it.

Leaving the pick embedded, he grabbed another from the crate. He approached the next column.

"Well," Rome said. "This certainly isn't what I expected . . ."

The Tremblors weren't the only ones affected.

The previous mindstorm that flooded through the brains of the captives had poured through Sarah first, her psychic defenses being lowest. Her perceptions had colored theirs, giving rise to the mall scenario.

This time, it was different.

It was Baasalt's mind that focused the psychic torrent. It was Baasalt's vision they suddenly found themselves living in.

Thick, choking clouds of volcanic ash swirled around them. A blood-red sun shone dimly above. It took Angel a second to realize they were standing in the middle of a city street, the pavement cracked and dusty. Parked vehicles on the side of the road were almost unidentifiable under a thick layer of ash, and the buildings that rose beyond them were only hazy mountains. The air was hot, dry, and thick; Sarah and Fisca immediately started coughing.

"Whatisthis place?" Sarah choked out.

Before Angel could answer, a loudKLANG!reverberated through their heads. They didn't so much hear it as feel it, as if their bones had becometuning forks. It sounded like the death knell of a G.o.d.

And the ground began to rumble.

"Earthquake!" Fisca yelled. There was no chance to run, and nowhere to run to. The earth moved beneath them like a runaway elevator, throwing them all to the ground. There was a sickeninglywrong feeling to the movement, as if some natural law had just been broken.

The air filled with the death-screams of dying skysc.r.a.pers: the screeching, rending noise of overstressed metal, punctuated by staccato bursts of shattering windows. Razored shards of gla.s.s dropped out of the sky in a deadly rain.

KLAAANG!Again, the ominous sound reverberated through them-and again, everything changed.

Angel was in a line of men and women, slowly shuffling forward, all dressed in filthy rags. They were in a narrow stone corridor, moving toward an open doorway outlined in flickering light. As Angel drew closer, he saw that people who reached the doorway weren't so much stepping through it as falling.

When he reached the doorway, he saw why. It opened onto a deep underground pit, with a pool of red-hot lava waiting far below. There were three other doorways s.p.a.ced around the perimeter across from him; he saw three other haunted faces that had reached the end of their lines.

And then the line moved forward, and all of them were falling.

KLAAANG!.

Angel shook his head, disoriented. Where was he now?

The same thick clouds of dust hung in the air, obscuring visibility. Angel looked down and saw neatly trimmed, even green gra.s.s between his feet. He was in a park-or on a playing field.

"Sarah? Fisca?" he called out.

"Over here!" Fisca's voice-followed a second later by a meatythump!and a shriek of pain. Angel broke into a run, heading for the sound.

The first rock caught Angel square between the shoulder blades, turning his run into a headlong plunge into the turf. He had barely scrambled to his feet when the next one hit, glancing off his shoulder and knocking him down again.

"Stop it!" screamed Sarah, somewhere to his left. "Stop it, juststop it!"

The dullthudof rocks came all around him now. He heard a few crunches, too.

This isn't real,Angel thought. He closed his eyes and tried to shut it all out.

KLANNNGG!.

Angel opened his eyes.

What he saw didn't make sense at first. Gradually he realized that what he was seeing was part dream, part plan. It was a Tremblor's-eye view of the entire planet.

It was a labyrinth that went on forever. Tunnels that not just honeycombed the planet but erupted from the surface in huge earthen pipes that snaked their way across the landscape, through the ruins of cities that had been shaken apart by multiple quakes. Hundreds of volcanoes spewed molten rock into the air, blanketing the Earth in a cloud of ash, choking the rivers and turning the ocean to sludge. Tremblors stalked the land unafraid, and humans were kept like cattle.

The visions had grown stronger with each succeeding toll of the unseen bell, and this latest one was the strongest of all. It came with an emotional flavor, one that Angel recognized. It was the pure, heady taste of obsession, bringing with it a clarity of purpose that erased all doubts, all fears, and replaced them with a fierce joy.

It was a taste Angel had known all too well. It was the secret drug he was ashamed to admit he sometimes still craved, and as that joy tried to impose itself on his soul, he felt the Angelus inside him welcome it with open arms. Welcome it as he began to rise to the surface . . .

"NO!"Angel rejected the imagery with every ounce of his will.

It was enough to snap him free; there was noplace in the shared mind for dissension. There was only a single, terrible sense of purpose, and Angel felt it recede from him as if he were falling from a burning aircraft.

He was in his cell once more. Fisca and Sarah had joined the lifeguard in unconsciousness; that, or they were still trapped in the Tremblor's vision of certainty.

Angel was certain of only two things: first, that the Quake demons were now unified in a new and terrifying way.

Second, they were now all insane.

"He'll be all right," Doyle said. "Angel's a pro." His group was taking a break topside, while another team of five Serpentene kept digging. Buckets of dirt were emptied into side pa.s.sages, of which there were quite a few. Doyle just hoped they were on the right course.

"Sure," Cordelia said. "I mean, two of the things generally in short supply in underground caves are sunlight and wooden stakes, right? So down there he'll practically be Superman."

"Well, there is the matter of lava," Doyle said.

"What? n.o.body mentioned lava! What does lava have to do with anything?" Cordelia demanded, pacing back and forth. "These are supposed to be earthquake demons, not-not Hawaiian volcano demons! And Angel's not even a virgin!"

Maureen handed her a gla.s.s of Scotch and led her to a chair. "Just take it easy," she said. "We're working as hard as we can."

Cordelia sat, then gulped her drink. "I know, I know. I just wish I could do something useful."

"Well, you could help dig," Doyle said.

"Doyle, I'm trying to be serious," Cordelia said.

"Sorry."

"Perhaps I can cheer you up a bit," Galvin said, emerging from the mouth of the tunnel. He'd been supervising their progress, organizing the work details and arranging for supplies. "I understand you had a bit of trouble at the office. Well, I think that comes under the heading of expenses, which makes it my responsibility." He fished in the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a check. "I had someone go over there and do an estimate on repairs. I know it's cold comfort, but at least it's one less thing to worry about." He handed the check to Cordelia.

"Thanks, Galvin," Cordelia said. She tucked the check into her pocket without even looking at it.

Now Doyle knew just how worried she was.

Angel was truly on his own now.

He used Fisca's Zippo to take inventory. He made a decision.

First, he took apart one of his wrist harnesses. He removed the short, hollow metal tube that awooden stake was usually seated in and examined it critically.

He took it over to where the lifeguard sat slumped against the rocky wall, breathing shallowly. He tried to fit the hollow tube over the steel bar, but it didn't quite fit. Angel spent the next few minutes using a small rock and his own strength to crimp the tube into a more square shape.

Finally, he was able to slide the tube over the bar. He took the modified tube and used Fisca's keys like tongs to hold it over the flame of the Zippo. He got it as hot as he could, then slid it over the metal bar like a sheath.

"Sorry about this," Angel said to the comatose lifeguard. He used the keys to slide the heated tube down the bar, and into the wound itself.

The stink of burning flesh was immediate. Angel held his breath, hoping the heated metal would both sterilize and cauterize the puncture, preventing infection and bleeding. The squared tube was barely long enough to reach all the way through the wound.

Holding the tube in place with the keys, Angel slowly pulled the bar out.

It worked. The tube plugged the hole, there didn't seem to be any additional bleeding and the lifeguard never twitched. Angel had a weapon.

The bar was almost two feet in length, longerthan the stakes he usually used. Angel was pretty sure he could modify his two wrist harnesses into one that held the bar, letting him conceal it up his sleeve.

He got to work.

"I think I'm through," Doyle said.

He dug faster, clearing dirt away from the growingopening. The other members of his crew shone lights through, revealing another long, dark tunnel. It seemed unoccupied.

"Well, what do you think?" Ian said.

And then the rumbling began.

"Oh,s.h.i.+te,"Doyle said.

A tremor shook the ground, knocking both of them off their feet, while dirt rained down from above.

Doyle huddled against a wooden support, waiting for it to come cras.h.i.+ng down.

Angel felt the tremors, too, but he ignored them. He was preparing himself.

The Zippo had run out of fuel, forcing him to complete the last of the harness modifications in the dark.

He'd worked by touch, taking his time, being as deliberate and thorough as he could. A mistake now could prove fatal later.

He was done. All that was left was to wait.

He sat cross-legged, his hands open at his sides.He cleared his mind. The tremors that shook the earth did not matter. The smell of blood from the lifeguard's wounds did not matter. The gnawing thirst in his throat, his stomach, did not matter.