and the world above her turned into a maelstrom of violence and terror.
Chapter 5
One thing that Kane had learned long ago was that his instincts were generally reliable. If there was a situation he stumbled upon, it was likely that the winning side tended to be the bad guys, especially when they were picking on women and frail old men. His shoulders wrenched and rippled with the effort of pushing the boat through the murky swamp water, his sharp, cold blue eyes locked on the struggle where he could definitely see that the group of attackers, though unarmed, wore a singular uniform hood that identified them as a cohesive force.
That was another thing the former Magistrate had learned. If a group had a uniform, they tended to be up to no good. He remembered his days when he wore the polycarbonate, bullet-resistant shell and merciless grim helmet as a Mag, and he recalled the things that he was not proud of doing under orders. There was the possibility that these men might not have been in control of themselves, perhaps even blackmailed into attacking others while their loved ones remained back home under threat, and Kane’s instincts buzzed with the possibility. It could have been wishful thinking, or it could have simply been colored by his recent encounter with Ullikummis’s minions and the familiarity he had with the mind control the Annunaki prince exerted over the New Order. He was about to leap from the boat, muscles steel-spring taut, when the scull coasted to within yards of the tiny islet’s shore.
Rosalia’s dog exploded into action first, its four legs and lighter mass giving it the advantage of clearing the still waters in a single bound, but Kane wasn’t far behind, determined not to let inaction be the cause of more lost lives. One of the hooded freaks pointed at him and an odd, strangled squeal, like a train engine skidding off the rails, assaulted his ears. All of the strangers drew sharp knives, as if they were possessed of a single consciousness.
That wasn’t good, nor was it good that each of these knife-wielding men had disappeared behind the trunks of nearby trees. As Kane landed on the shore from his initial leap, he let his knees buckle, reducing the shock of his impact on his body. Momentum kept him plunging forward, and he extended his legs, taking long strides. The Sin Eater was in his hand, launched there by a tensing of his forearm, ready to punch out twenty powerful slugs.
However, it was not going to be that easy. There were innocent bystanders in the mix, the very reason he’d bolted from the scull in the first place. One wrong shot, and a bullet could tear through one of the hooded men and kill a person he’d intended to rescue. Restraint was what he needed, which was part of why he was heading into the midst of the knife-armed killers.
Kane was putting himself at risk, making himself a tasty target for these faceless marauders so that they would ignore the refugees who’d been strewed around. In close, there was also the possibility that Kane could take a prisoner, bring down one with a minimum of violence, so that he could get answers. It was triple damned hard to have a corpse respond to your questions, though in some instances, it wasn’t impossible.
As he closed with the group, he saw Rosalia’s dog veer off and launch itself. While the animal might have been part coyote, it had the heart of a wolf, leaping at a knife-wielding stranger, fangs bared. Kane skidded to a halt, his point man’s instinct alerting him to the sudden swish of a mirrored ribbon of steel arcing through the air toward his face. The deep, sharp edge of the enemy blade came close enough to brush Kane’s semilong hair, a faint tug accompanied by the flutter of snipped locks hanging in front of his eyes. Had Kane not stopped, he’d have easily been blinded as the knife lashed across his eyes, if not killed outright.
Kane whipped his fist up hard, driving the protruded middle knuckle hard against the elbow of the hooded blade man. There was a dull crunch, and nerveless fingers released the handle of the fighting blade. Kane pressed his momentary advantage, lashing the tough frame of his Sin Eater against his opponent’s ribs. Again there was the subdued sound of bones breaking beneath muscle and skin, but this time there was no obvious reaction to his impact.
In the brief instant Kane evaluated the situation, mind locking onto his observations and sorting the data out as fast as any computer. There was little way that a hand could maintain a grip with the dislocation of the elbow joint, the strings of muscles leading through the arm veering wide and losing the tension that operated the fingers. A bone-fracturing blow to the ribs, however, might have produced a hard exhalation, but with the sheets of muscle surrounding the spine and the torso, it wouldn’t be that severe a skeletal trauma.
The man Kane was fighting hadn’t even breathed hard under the hammering force of his Sin Eater’s frame, which meant that something was blocking his nervous system. Someone with a normal working sense of touch would have been bowled over by the kind of searing pain produced by fractured ribs. The hooded man brought his other fist around, swinging for the center of Kane’s face.
A swift block with his forearm deflected the momentum of his enemy’s punch, but Kane was unable to make a countermove against the first man. Others had rushed to get behind him, and they hadn’t lost their knives in the brief first contact. Kane twisted as fast as he could, avoiding the stinging touch of one blade point but feeling the shadow suit blunt the impact of another tip. The shadow suits were capable of providing protection from knives, as well as giving the Cerberus warriors a self-contained environment as they traveled the deserts and arctic wastes of the Earth. But armor-piercing ammo would easily cut through the shadow suits and Kane was glad to note that the relatively blunt blade wielded by his assailant wasn’t keen enough to carve between the high-tech material. As it was, Kane felt himself pushed by the sheer strength of the knife man, literally lifted off his feet. If it hadn’t been for the reactive nature of his armor, Kane could easily see himself nursing his own set of broken ribs. As it was, the Cerberus rebel crashed against the trunk of a nearby pine.
“Just shoot the fuckers!” Rosalia snapped as she lifted her pistol.
Grant was out of the boat himself, as well, having picked up a four-foot length of log and using it as an improvised shield against a group of the hooded assailants and their blood-thirsting knives. The edges chopped sections of bark off the thick log, but Grant retreated one step and used the space to heave the chunk of wood at the trio of blade men.
They couldn’t get out of the way of Grant’s missile and were bowled to the ground in a tangle of limbs in the wiregrass. Another of the hooded raiders lunged into view toward the big man, but then Kane’s attention was back in the battle.
Utilizing his Sin Eater as a club, he lashed the barrel of his machine pistol across the jaw of the man who’d stabbed him with such force. There was too much strength in that man to show mercy, but Kane reminded himself that he’d come here as much to investigate the strangeness of this river basin as to lead Ullikummis’s forces on a merry chase. Steel met flesh-wrapped bone and snapped the mandible with a loud, ugly pop. The blow was enough to send his opponent reeling, and Kane turned his attention to the knife man who’d only barely missed him.
Kane brought up his forearm, wrist striking wrist and altering the path of the hooded attacker’s second stab, pushing the wicked point away from his body. The shadow suit had proved enough against one stabbing, but this time the attacker was instinctively aiming for Kane’s face. The thought of a moment before, that this group acted as one, returned even as Kane brought down the butt of his pistol on the side of the man’s neck. There was the crunch of a dislocating shoulder and collarbone, which could be relied upon to drop most men into a puddle of blinding pain.
This chop of the Sin Eater’s butt was loud and nasty, but it hadn’t even dented the determination of his foe. Sure, the hooded attacker’s arm hung limp and numb, knife lost from the failure of his good hand, but the man brought up his fingers, curled like claws, reaching for Kane’s face—his eyes in particular. Kane drove his knee into his foe’s stomach, but it was like trying to kick a tree trunk.
