Hunted (Asylum Chapter 18)

[Content Warning: strong language / violence / gore]

The atmosphere in the rec room was thick with a multitude of emotions. Deakes was not sure which would break first, Harris’s frustration, Theo’s disgust or Eddie’s rage. Whoever erupted, Deakes knew Zhu and Fletch would side with Harris, Jaq with Theo, and Sloane and Pippa would support Eddie. As the most neutral person present, he had to take control of the situation before it became a bloodbath.

‘I’m taking the kobaloi back home,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘I urge you not to do that,’ Harris said.

Deakes held his stare. ‘You don’t want them here and they don’t want to be here. You can’t stop us.’ He turned to Eddie. ‘I can fit you, Sloane and Pippa in the car too.’

‘Why should I trust you?’ Eddie snarled. Though Sloane had used her vampiric talent to calm him, his fury still threatened to burst forth like rain from a storm cloud.

She stepped to Deakes’s defence now. ‘He’s a good man, Eddie. If he says he’ll help us, he will.’

Deakes’s heart lifted at her words. Why had he been so frightened of her when they first met? She had proven her moral character and, right now, was the only one in the room with faith in him.

‘I made a promise to Dust I’d try to reunite you,’ Deakes said. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe in me, because she does.’ He turned to Theo. ‘And I really don’t care what you think of me. I brought you here on your insistence, now I’m going to take you home so we can find Cruise. Go get Gil and meet us outside.’

‘I’m not leaving without Martan.’ Eddie’s demeanour was warmer, his ire in check.

‘How long will it take to get him here?’

‘Forty minutes. An hour, tops.’

‘We’ll wait,’ Deakes said.

The kobaloi clasped hands and rushed from the room, with Eddie and the vampires close behind.

Harris leaned to Fletch and said, ‘Keep an eye on Theo,’ before turning to Deakes. ‘I implore you to rethink this. It’s not safe out there for cryptids.’

Deakes thought about the splicing experiments Harris had admitted to conducting. Even if they were ultimately for the benefit of all non-humans, had those cryptids already genetically altered had any say in their fate? He remembered something Sloane had told him earlier in the year. Some of the residents of the Asylum felt they were living in a prison rather than a refuge. Was it any safer for the cryptids to remain here?

*

Theo pulled Jaq to one side, letting Eddie, Sloane and Pippa head off to the entrance. He gave a furtive glance around, then pulled out an ID badge.

‘I took this from an office earlier. Fool humans will never learn.’

‘What are you planning?’

‘You go to Gil. Get him ready to leave with Deakes.’

‘They said we shouldn’t move him for a few days.’ Jaq’s concern for her brother was etched in her expression.

‘They said a lot of things I don’t believe,’ Theo said with a snarl. Jaq nodded her agreement and Theo went on. ‘I’m not leaving here until I have searched everywhere for Cruise. If she’s here, we’re not going to abandon her.’

With nothing more to say, they went their separate ways. Theo headed back to the underground area where he had chanced upon Eddie. There were other cells that he hadn’t investigated, and Cruise may well be in one of them.

He passed Zhu’s office and lingered at the window to the laboratory to watch the men inside. One had his back to Theo so the kobaloi could not see what he was doing. The other was removing tiny white discs from a machine and placing them in a plastic container, the same size and colour of the one Harris had presented at the tea ceremony.

Before he could follow this train of thought, the door marked Authorised Personnel Only opened and someone called his name. He turned to see Fletch rushing at him. Theo may have had the leg length of a nine-year-old but he also had the energy levels. He sprang forward and was through the basement door before the human reached him. As he slammed the door shut, he heard Fletch’s phone ring.

Part of him wanted to sprint toward the cells, but his curiosity got the better of him. He stopped to listen to Fletch’s side of the conversation.

‘Yes? … But what about the kid? … Yeah, I can find it. … No, I’ve read the legends, I know how to deal with one. … Okay, as soon as I can.’

Fletch muttered something under his breath then his footsteps receded. Theo didn’t put much stock in Cruise’s guardian angel stories, but he whispered a thank you to whoever had called off his pursuit.

*

Sloane supported Eddie as they passed the two kobaloi and made their way to the building entrance. His display of strength had been a show for the humans and she knew that he was close to collapse. There was no way he had the energy to travel all the way to Martan’s underground home and back.

She suspected he would not listen to her. She had been looking for him for so long that she felt she already knew him. Today was the first time they’d met and he had no knowledge of her. When she had sluiced his anger from him, Eddie would have sensed that she was a friend. She doubted that it was enough to make him trust her. She could tell him that she had been sent by Dust, but why should he believe that unless it came directly from the siren’s mouth?

Handling Eddie was going to take all the tact she possessed.

They stepped through the doors into what appeared to be a warzone. The tarmacked road had been reduced to rubble. A great crater gaped like an open wound.

‘What happened here?’ Eddie asked.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Pippa answered. ‘And we won’t be around long enough for it to concern us.’

‘Let’s take one of the Land Rovers,’ Sloane said. ‘It will easily get round this mess and we’ll get to Martan quicker.’

They stumbled to the parking bay. As usual, the keys were in the ignition. Sloane climbed behind the wheel, manoeuvred around the broken road and headed to the cryptid village.

Eddie tensed beside her. ‘This is the wrong way. Where are you taking us?’

Pippa placed a hand on his knee, drawing out his fear. ‘We’ve got to pick up our things, then we’ll get your friend.’

They spent twenty minutes collecting the vampires’ personal belongings and a further ten chatting with Pax and his friends. Eddie remembered him from the time before he was incarcerated. The young satyr was a favourite of everyone who met him.

Pax explained that a monster had erupted from the ground outside the Asylum building and how the humans had scared it away. His eyes shone with the adoration he clearly felt for Harris and his team.

Sloane loved Pax as much as everyone else but she knew to take what the nine-year-old said with a grain of salt. Had a monster truly been present within the Asylum grounds, surely their stone sentinel would have made an appearance. Hunter was more than a gatekeeper, after all.

With everything of sentimental value loaded onto the Rover, they made the fifteen-minute drive to collect Martan. Eddie’s strength was returning and he eagerly jumped into the pit that led to his friend’s home. Sloane and Pippa followed carefully, phones out to light the way through the dark tunnel.

Sloane heard Eddie swear ahead of her. As she turned the last corner, her stomach fell. The vault door which shielded Martan from intruders – and also protected the world from him – was open. It took only moments of frantic searching to confirm that the gorgus was gone.

*

‘The Asylum for Relocated Cryptids? Sounds like someone’s pulling your leg, Quinn.’

Harland Benson rolled his eyes and said into the phone, ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, Flash. I just need to know if you can find any trace of it.’

He’d already considered what he was being told was a fairytale. The children he had traced while looking for Deakes – children who introduced themselves as kobaloi, whatever that meant – were insistent that Deakes and three of their kin had gone to look for Cruise at the mysterious Asylum for Relocated Cryptids.

Common sense told him that anything with the word cryptid in the title was obviously a hoax. But common sense didn’t explain his encounter last year with a pumpkin that had moved by itself.

Flash gave a disgruntled sigh, then clacked on a keyboard. Three minutes later, he said, ‘Nothing. I’ve searched all official military departments, and the unofficial ones. Have you tried Teflon?’

This time Benson couldn’t suppress his groan. ‘He suggested I speak to you.’

‘You say it’s based in England,’ Flash asked.

Benson recalled the routes logged on Deakes’s mileage app. ‘Somewhere in North Yorkshire as best I can figure.’

‘Let me try this. It’s a long shot.’ There was more tapping on the keyboard before Flash gave a doubtful, ‘Hmm.’

‘What you got?’

‘No known terrorist cells or foreign intelligence agencies…’

‘Square one, then.’ Benson’s frustration was clear in his voice.

‘…but there’s an interesting foreign charity with links to England.’

A charity? Benson could see the connection; asylum seekers often depended on charitable funding. Maybe Flash was on to something.

‘The Asylum for Relocated Cryptid is a foreign charity?’

’Not quite.’

Benson closed his eyes and silently counted to five. He and Flash has seen action together in the army and, as with all his ex-squads, he would take a bullet for the man. But his tendency to tease out information was infuriating.

‘The Asylums,’ Flash continued, most likely oblivious of his effect on Benson, ‘are a project of The Horatio Foundation.’

‘Asylums?’ Benson repeated. ‘There’s more than one?’

‘At least two dozen worldwide. And there’s one in England. I have the name of the local director here.’

Benson committed the name to memory: Scott Goodyear.

*

Worried that Fletch or someone in his stead may return, Theo scurried along the corridor and slipped into the circular passage. He wasted no time with the rooms he had already checked, rushing to Eddie’s cell to continue the search from there.

He saw more abominations – the head of a jackalope on the body of a basilisk, a lobizón crossed with a kelpie, a roc bearing the wings and tails of a phoenix – and was about to pass by an empty cell when a small voice called him from inside.

‘Theo? What are you doing here?’ Cruise crawled from under the cot and rushed to the door. ‘Can you get me out?’

Tension drained from Theo’s muscles. He had not realised how uptight he had been at the Sage’s disappearance. His hands shook with relief and it took three attempts to successfully swipe the stolen ID against the card reader.

The door swung inward and Cruise dashed out.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘The Asylum, but we’re getting out of here. Come on.’ He led her back to the exit. As they ran along the basement corridor, he said, ‘Andrea had better not come back, otherwise I’ll not be responsible for my actions.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean?’ He rushed up the stairs, opened the door and looked along the corridor. Empty. They fled past the lab. ‘She brought you here.’

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Yes, she did. She trapped you and Eddie.’

‘I don’t know who Eddie is,’ Cruise said, her voice stern, ‘but do you really think I couldn’t talk my way out of a confrontation with Andrea? I studied her reactions when I told her the dragonslayer tale. She has no quarrel with us.’

Theo didn’t pause despite this news. They could discuss Cruise’s kidnapping and escape at the same time. He unlocked the final door before the straight run to the outside.

‘So who was it then?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. A human man.’

‘Deakes?’

Cruise scoffed. ‘No. He’s a pussy cat. Someone I’ve not seen before. That’s the only reason he got the jump on me.’

*

Eddie’s roar of frustration reverberated in the small rooms. If Sloane and Pippa combined to feed on his anger, they would do little to reduce his rage.

‘Somebody’s taken him,’ he seethed. ‘I’m going to find out who and I’m going to rip their fucking head off.’ He stormed out of the residence, heading back to the surface.

Sloane hurried after him, thoughts racing through her mind. Until an hour ago, only she and Click-Tut, the hindi-ardilya who had led her to Martan, had known of the gorgus’s existence. Had someone followed her and the Filipino rodent? Unlikely, she reasoned. A more probable answer was that somebody attending the meeting with Harris had beaten them here. But who?

Deakes could have come to liberate Martan if not for being preoccupied with Harris and the kobaloi. She doubted Zhu would leave the main complex for a trip into the Asylum grounds. Which left Darwin Fletcher or Thomas Harris.

She climbed out of the pit to find Eddie studying the ground. Tyre tracks led to the north.

‘Do we follow them?’ asked Pippa.

‘No,’ Sloane answered and received a glare from Eddie. ‘They went that way,’ she said, ‘to avoid crossing our path. The only choice they have is to double back to the Asylum proper. We go straight there and wait for them.’

Eddie smiled, though his expression was as chilling as a rainstorm.

Sloane took the wheel again, turned the car around and sped along the dirt track. The Land Rover jostled wildly as she drove, forcing Pippa and Eddie to brace their arms against the dashboard.

‘Slow down,’ Pippa yelled as the car left the ground for a moment.

Sloane eased off the accelerator when the main building came into view but the earth continued to shake and jump around them. She struggled to hold the steering wheel, fighting to keep the vehicle pointing straight. In the rearview mirror, plumes of earth exploded into the air.

She instinctively knew what was happening, even though her mind refused to accept the thought. Something under the ground was chasing them.

*

After six rings, the call diverted to voicemail. Deakes cursed and hung up. Why wasn’t she answering?

There was no denying that Eddie was convinced Andrea was responsible for his capture. However, before condemning her, Deakes wanted to hear her side of the story. An impossible task if she refused to take his call.

He pocketed his phone and made his way to the parking bay. Of the six identical Land Rovers ARC owned, one lay on its side in a ditch formed when the centipede – POC-17 he now knew – had burst from the ground. Three were parked up, which gave them ample opportunity of escape. He would prefer them all to travel in the same vehicle to keep them together. But if push came to shove, he trusted Sloane to drive a second Rover from the Asylum.

Now he just needed to wait for his passengers. He was debating going back inside to help Theo and Jaq with Gil when a tremor rumbled beneath his feet. Instantly alert, he jumped into the nearest Land Rover and started the engine. If POC-17 was to make a return, he did not want to be out in the open.

He moved the car closer to the entrance, making it easier for the kobaloi to climb in when they appeared. The ground still moved, but it was faint suggesting the monster centipede wasn’t nearby. He craned his neck in all directions, looking for signs of where the creature would emerge.

On the crest of the valley ridge, beside the road leading from ARC, the huge stone head was swivelling. Hunter the troll was turning to survey the land, apparently also looking for the source of the tremor.

Three hundred yards to the north, another Land Rover was careening toward him. A thick dust cloud trailed in its wake. No, he realised, not dust. Mud and earth. POC-17 was following the car and gaining rapidly.

The car had halved the distance when POC-17 struck.

In a geyser of dirt and rock, the creature erupted from the ground in front of the Rover. The car turned sharply to avoid a collision, tipping onto two wheels. Deakes held his breath, afraid the vehicle would fall onto its side and leave the occupants at the mercy of the centipede. Instead, POC-17 rushed the car, slamming into the roof. Even from this distance, Deakes heard the screech of bending metal.

The impact forced the Rover back onto its wheels but the rubble it landed on was uneven. The car fishtailed ninety degrees, pointing directly at POC-17. Then the tyres bit and the car shot toward the centipede.

The beast was fast. It managed to lift itself from the path of the Rover then curled half of its body onto the bonnet and roof. Giant lobster claws smashed at the sides, cracking glass and twisting metal. With its rear legs piercing the earth, POC-17 lifted the Rover from the ground. Wheels spun uselessly in midair.

The Rover was lifted higher, then hurled twenty feet. The thunder of it landing almost deafened Deakes, a sound that vibrated every bone in his body.

Instinct took over. He gunned the accelerator and raced to the strewn vehicle. The centipede got there first, repeatedly pounding it with its claws. Mixed with the scream of tearing metal were the cries of those within: horror and frustration in equal measure.

The only way Deakes could buy them the time required to exit the car was to distract POC-17. With his hand on the horn, he ramped up his speed and aimed for the monster’s rear section. The front of the Rover took out two legs but the centipede had dozens more. It danced away from him and brought its sting-ended tail down onto the roof. Deakes’s teeth rattled at the strike.

But he had succeeded in dividing the creature’s attention. Now he just needed to prove he was more a threat than a hindrance.

He turned the car around and approached POC-17 from behind. He had no idea what he was doing, he only hoped being rear-ended by two tons of metal would capture the beast’s focus. At the last second, he turned the steering wheel and ploughed through eight legs in succession.

With its support decimated, the giant body collapsed over Deake. The engine roared and the tyres whined but POC-17 was too great a mass for the Rover to maintain its momentum. Deakes was thrown against the steering wheel. Agony flared throughout his chest.

Though the vehicle was no longer moving of its own accord, the centipede writhed around it, moving it up, left, back, right. Beside him, the door window alternated glimpses of the sky, the ground, the chitinous body. Deakes’s head spun with pain and dizziness, and his stomach churned at the unpredictable motion.

He had to get out of the car. His chances of survival in the open were slim but if he stayed here he risked being shaken to a pulp.

Unable to choose an optimal time, he yanked on the door release and threw himself out with nothing but a prayer. He hit something hard, slid for a half-second then fell to the grass. Assessing any injuries could wait. He pushed against the ground, rolled for a dozen feet then lifted his head. Wordless hollering told him where to look.

Eddie and Sloane had escaped their Rover and were engaging POC-17 in hand-to-claw combat. Eddie gripped a lobster-claw at the tips, arms straining as he tried to prise it apart. Sloane alternated between ducking the centipede’s second claw and finding debris underfoot to pitch at the beast’s one undamaged eye. Behind them, Pippa was pulling herself from the car. Blood trickled from a gash at her temple.

Deakes got to his feet, wobbled, then went back on his haunches to wait for the vertigo to pass.

Despite being outmatched in size, Eddie was winning his battle against POC-17’s claw. The pincers were being forced wider, though the effort required was evident on the man’s face. The centipede pulled its limb back and Eddie was dragged five feet across the ground.

Sloane ducked another swipe of the lobster’s free claw and came up gripping a fist-sized rock. She drew her arm back to hurl the missile. POC-17’s tail lashed forward, the tip catching Sloane in the abdomen and sending her to the floor with a grunt. Pippa grabbed her arms and dragged her to the far side of the Rover.

Now free from the distraction Sloane had caused, the centipede turned all its attention to Eddie. It brought its free claw closer and fastened it around the man’s thigh. He yelled in pain as blood began to flow down his leg.

Knowing he had to help, but without an inkling of what to do, Deakes stood up again. The ground shook beneath him, bouncing in time with booms which grew louder with every instance. He took a tentative step forward, lurched and tumbled to the grass once more.

Eddie’s yell reached a new pitch as the flesh of his thigh was torn away.

It can’t end this way, was Deakes’s last conscious thought. The events of the next few minutes were too shocking and violent for him to think rationally.

A pillar of stone fell from the sky directly onto POC-17’s back. The beast hissed and spun around, discarding Eddie as though he was a rag doll. A second stone column, this one horizontal and fast as a train, shot into the side of the centipede’s head.

Deakes’s eyes followed the length of this column, past a wrist, an elbow and up to a giant stone shoulder. Hunter towered over them, his granite face carved into an expression of anger. The troll lifted his first fist and brought it crashing back onto the centipede. A crunch heralded the splitting of carapace and bright gore erupted from the wound.

POC-17 threw all its assault at Hunter. Claws snapped at his face, legs scratched at his torso, tail whipped against his back. But Hunter was made of rock and all POV-17’s attacks were in vain.

Punch after punch, Hunter struck at the centipede. Chitin cracked, limbs broke, guts oozed. The troll’s knuckles were covered in a sickly mess and still he pounded. Body segments that had already been twisted were pummelled flat. Even when POC-17 ceased to fight back, barely able to move any parts of it that remained intact, Hunter continue to bring his colossal fists down.

By the time he stopped himself, all that was left was a long stretch of foul-smelling blood and gore; nothing that resembled the giant centipede it had been.

‘You’ve been hunted,’ the troll growled at the mess.

He turned to Eddie and Deakes, gave a small nod then marched back to his post. His footfalls boomed, decreasing in volume as he stalked away.

Deakes’s military training kicked in. He scrambled toward Eddie, removing his shirt as he went. Wasting no time, he wrapped his shirt around Eddie’s thigh and pulled it tight. He ignored Eddie’s yelp of pain.

After tying off the impromptu tourniquet, Deakes hurried around the thrown Rover to the vampires. Pippa was on her knees, holding Sloane’s head on her lap. Tears coated Pippa’s cheeks.

Sloane’s face was grey, her lips blue. Blood covered her stomach where the centipede’s sting had pierced her belly. Her dim eyes widened upon seeing Deakes. Shaking lips moved but if she was saying anything it was too low to be heard. Deakes leaned closer, placing his ear close to her mouth.

Instead of words, all he caught was the quiet exhalation of Sloane’s last breath.

* * *

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