Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,27

balance; she overcompensated, but swung her arms, caught herself, and twisted around, upright, knives at the ready.

The second conduit was a woman, a large one, and carrying a woodsman’s axe. That was what had cleaved the air where Rose had stood moments ago.

Dressed like the man, in rough, sturdy hunting clothes and a cap, the woman hefted the axe and gathered herself for an approach – or maybe an outright attack.

Water sloshed as the other conduit moved toward them – and he had a gun.

Rose took a split-second to weigh her options. Took a deep breath. And dropped.

It was a controlled fall. She slipped down, belly-first, ducked beneath the water, stretched out her arms, and swam.

It was cold. The shock of it nearly left her gasping, but she bit her tongue and held her breath in, that precious last sip of oxygen. The current helped her along, even stronger as she treaded deeper down into the hollow the runoff had carved through this fissure between hills. Her goggles were fitted, and waterproof, and she could keep her eyes open. The water was dark, and murky with mud from the bottom, but she saw two shadows like tree trunks planted ahead – the conduit’s legs – and she struck as she passed him. She felt the knife bite flesh; felt the judder through her arm as the blade found bone. Felt the splash and displacement of water as he fell, the tendon severed, his balance compromised.

Then she was by, and rushing on. She kept her head down, clenched her knives tight in fingers rapidly going numb, and kicked and stroked for all she was worth, working with the current.

When the burn in her lungs became unbearable, she snagged a bit of branch dangling in the water, and hauled her head up above the surface, gasping and sputtering.

Her surroundings didn’t look familiar. It had been hard to tell how far she’d gone underwater, but the conduits weren’t in sight, and the banks rose steeply on either side of the stream – which was rapidly trying to become a river.

She took a moment, despite the hard chill of the water swirling around her, to regret the impending lecture: she’d taken her rifle in the drink, and all her gear, besides, Wraith Grenades and everything. Then she took a deep breath, and hauled her waterlogged self up the dangling branch.

The bank was leaf-strewn, and mud beneath, terraced from years of erosion. But webbed with tree roots, and she used those as toe-holds, and the branch as her lifeline, and she managed to pick her careful way to the top, no longer cold when she reached it, limbs burning.

She unslung her pack and pulled out her thermal binoculars to scan the area. Nothing at first, and then – a human signature. One of her fellow knights: Gallo, judging by his gait. She dropped the binoculars to dangle around her neck and pulled out her flashlight; fired off a quick signal, and waited. A few minutes later, Gallo stepped between two trunks and came to stand on the edge of the bank opposite.

He lifted his hands and shrugged in question. What happened?

She offered the hand signal for conduit. And then held up two fingers, and pointed upstream.

Angel or demon? he signed.

It was raining too heavily for her to have caught that distinct whiff of brimstone, but she’d seen the eyes. Demon, she signed back.

He nodded, lips pressing into a grim line.

A shadow moved behind him; a figure stepped from the trees. Metal glinted, faintly, flashing amidst the silver raindrops.

Rose shouted.

Gallo turned – too late.

The conduit woman brought the axe down, and took Gallo’s arm off at the elbow, one clean stroke.

Rose pulled her sidearm – all carbon fiber and polymer, waterproofed – and fired.

The round caught the conduit dead-center in the forehead. Rose saw the spray of blood and gore that fountained behind her, as the head kicked back, and the hands went limp on the axe. The conduit fell, down for at least a few minutes, as the demon inside the shell fought to repair all the nerve pathways that would allow the body to stand again.

Gallo had fallen to his knees, clutching the stump of his arm in his other hand; blood spurting through his fingers, spraying down his pants, gathering on the forest floor. He was screaming, a high, wild, animal scream of pain and terror she could just hear above the rain.

“Frankie!” Rose shouted, already scrambling for the bank. If they didn’t