The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) Read online

  “The door!” he shouted about half a heartbeat before the door in question swung open to reveal two silhouetted figures standing in the open doorframe.

  Kelly bolted up from the chair, at the same time grabbing her M4 rifle as it was falling off her lap. Keo braced himself for the inevitable—for Kelly to turn her weapon on him—but instead she began to spin toward the wide-open door to her right and he thought, Oh, thank God something’s going right for once!

  Either the invaders didn’t know where Kelly was stationed inside the room or they had no clue she was even there, because the first man through the door was clearly searching for—and finding—him and never looked anywhere else. The hallway lights danced off the long, smooth barrel of the suppressor attached to the end of the man’s submachine gun as he raised it in Keo’s direction.

  The bang! of Kelly’s rifle shattered the quiet, but instead of waiting to see what happened next, Keo kept running even as the first man through the door collapsed in front of him, revealing his partner in the background. The second man was also armed with some kind of submachine gun, but he wasn’t nearly as ready as the first, and his eyes went down instead of up and it took him awhile to see Keo’s charging form.

  So Keo kept running, except this time he was focused entirely on the door (You picked the right guards this time, Rhett!) even as Kelly tried to step away from the wall to get a look at the second would-be killer. The man finally glanced up and saw Keo and began to raise his weapon when Keo launched himself and barreled into the man, striking him perfectly in the chest with his shoulder.

  Fuck me! Keo’s mind screamed as a nuke went off inside his skull as he and his victim tumbled through the open door and into the hallway beyond. Keo landed on his chest and chin (but thank God not his forehead!) and let out a pained grunt.

  The first thing he saw was Jackson slumped awkwardly nearby, back against the wall, a red line running from one side of his neck to the other, and blood dripping down his tanned uniform. The poor bastard probably never knew who had sneaked up behind him and slit his throat, or if he did, he hadn’t been able to do anything to defend himself against it.

  Pounding footsteps alerted Keo to a fourth person inside the hallway. He twisted his head just in time to witness a pair of fleeing boots going the other direction and he wanted to shout, Yeah, you better run!

  But he didn’t get the chance because the man he had slammed into was already scrambling to his knees in front of him. The man had dropped his weapon during the collision (Second time’s the charm!), but instead of going for his holstered sidearm, he went for the knife in his left hip, and Keo glimpsed small strips of blood clinging to the blade’s edge as it came out of its sheath.

  The man was in his thirties with dark brown hair, and if there was a name on his tag, it was impossible to read with what looked like black tape placed over it.

  “Fucking die!” the man spat out through clenched teeth as he lunged at Keo.

  Keo rocked backward on his heels as the blade went for his chest, slashing from left to right.

  It missed—barely!

  The man didn’t let his first failed attack stop him and was already moving again, bringing the combat knife—all twelve inches of it, seven of that making up the actual killing part—back up for another strike. Before he could, Keo reached forward with his left hand and grabbed the wrist with the knife and jerked the hand up, then drove his fist into the man’s chest, aiming for the spot where his target’s heart would be.

  The assassin’s face seemed to bug almost comically for a split second as his heart skipped a beat. He also lost all momentum and strength in his knife hand, which allowed Keo to push forward and invade the man’s defenses and punch him in the nose. Blood splashed Keo’s knuckles, but he ignored it and hit the man again. And again.

  He didn’t stop until the body went slack and fell to the floor, the knife clanging to the hard floor next to it.

  Keo let out a sigh and sat down next to the door. He checked the hallways to make sure no one else was coming—or that the guy who had fled, returned—before allowing himself to lean against the wall to catch his breath. He thought about reaching for the dead man’s weapon, but his head was pounding, not helped by the large dose of adrenaline still racing through every inch of him.

  He barely noticed Kelly coming out of the door to his left. She swept the hallway with her rifle, said something when she saw Jackson, then stepped over Keo’s splayed legs and crouched next to the other guard.

  Kelly didn’t do something stupid, like feel for a pulse. She didn’t have to. One look at Jackson’s throat told her all she needed to know. Instead, she stood back up and glanced down at the second attacker. “Is he dead?”

  “Not yet,” Keo said.

  The man just looked dead with the thick layer of blood covering most of his face, almost all of it coming from his shattered nose. But he was still very much alive, even if he was barely breathing, and didn’t seem to be moving at all except for the slight rise and fall of his chest.

  “Jesus, how many times did you hit him?” Kelly asked.

  “Relax, he’s alive. Thought Rhett might want to ask him some questions.”

  Kelly crouched next to the man.

  “You know him?” Keo asked.

  “Pollack,” Kelly said. “The other guy”—she looked back into the door—“is Stans. Or was Stans.” She poked at Pollack’s name tag with the barrel of her rifle, noting the black tape over it. “Why’d they cover their names?”

  “I’d guess it has something to do with that,” Keo said, pointing at Pollack’s right arm.

  He had seen it earlier when the man was trying to slice him with the knife—a black patch with a white letter M written on it, surrounded by a white circle. The patch looked homemade, as if Pollack had cut out a piece from a black T-shirt and found a white permanent marker to make the emblem.

  “That’s new,” Kelly said. She stood up and went back into the room, then came out a few seconds later. “Stans is wearing the same thing. What do you think it means?”

  “Beats the shit outta me,” Keo said. He was out of breath for some reason and struggled to regain his composure. “There was a third guy. He took off when Pollack and me took our argument into the hallway. I don’t think he’s coming back—” He stopped when he heard footsteps approaching from around the corner and quickly reached for Pollack’s fallen weapon. “Spoke too soon.”

  “It’s okay,” Kelly said next to him. “I radioed in while you were out here with Pollack. They’re friendlies.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Keo grunted, wondering how sure “pretty sure” was when half of the island wanted you dead. Of course, Kelly was probably not taking that into consideration when she offered up her “pretty sure.”

  She was right, though, when a group of tan-colored uniforms turned the corner led by Henry and Pete. The group of men jogged down the hallway toward them.

  Keo relaxed his grip on the gun but was apparently smiling stupidly down at the weapon because Kelly said, sounding more than slightly annoyed, “Why are you so happy?”

  “Things are looking up,” he said, and ran his hands over the smooth side of the Heckler & Koch MP5SD resting comfortably in his lap.

  “Goddammit, Keo, will you fucking stop killing my people?”

  “Tell your people to stop fucking trying to kill me.”

  Rhett let out a deep sigh, though at this point Keo wasn’t sure if that was frustration with him or his own people. He guessed it was probably fifty-fifty, depending on what Rhett had found out before he showed up in sickbay two hours after Pollack and Stans were carried off.

  “Goddammit,” Rhett said again, and resumed pacing at the foot of Keo’s bed.

  “What did you find out?” Keo asked.

  “Like you said, they cut up black sheets and made those armbands. I don’t know how many there are. Maybe half of the damn island’s got black armbands hidden in their
mattresses as we speak.”

  “So search the mattresses.”

  “I can’t search the mattresses.”

  “Why not?”

  “That would just escalate the problem.”

  “How the hell would that be escalation?”

  “Because we’re sitting on a powder keg. All it would take is one more Pollack or Stans or Bellamy to decide they’d rather go out in a blaze of glory, and I’ll have a full-fledged civil war on my hands. When that happens, people will have to start choosing sides. Putting the place on lockdown and starting to search people’s rooms will be the spark that causes that. All the other Mercer loyalists hiding out there will feel like they don’t have any choice but to fight.”

  “Mercer would have done it.”

  “And look what happened to him.”

  “Point taken.”

  “I just have to limit my circle to those I can trust. And even then...”

  “You can’t be sure if one of them isn’t informing on you to the Mercerians.”

  Rhett gave him a wry smile. “Mercerians?”

  “Mercer loyalists.” Keo shrugged. “I coined the term myself. If you wanna use it, it’s gonna cost you a tribute.”

  Rhett walked over to a chair and sat down, and spent the next few seconds just watching Keo putting the MP5SD he had disassembled on a clean bedsheet and was now painstakingly putting back together. Both Pollack and Stans had been carrying identical weapons, though the one Stans had was noticeably more well-worn and chipped, and its inside parts as equally poorly maintained.

  He thought Rhett might balk at letting him have the submachine guns, but apparently two attempts on Keo’s life within two days had convinced him otherwise. The man had, in every way possible, fully committed to keeping not only Keo alive, but moving the island’s inhabitants onto a new era. Keo could see the strain of that commitment on Rhett’s face and wondered if he might not be having second (or hell, third) thoughts right about now.

  “What did Pollack tell you?” Keo asked.

  “Jack shit,” Rhett said. “He’s still unconscious. How many times did you hit him, anyway?”

  “People need to stop asking me that. I hit the fucker enough times to get the job done. If he loses a nose over it, tough nuts.”

  “I guess he had it coming.”

  “You’re damn right he did. Speaking of getting what they’ve got coming, what about the third guy?”

  “You sure there was even a third guy?”

  “I saw him take off while me and Pollack were in the hallway playing footsy.”

  “Did you get a look at his face?”

  “Just a pair of boots running in the other direction. It was a guy, though.”

  “You can tell that from a pair of boots?”

  “Can’t you?”

  Rhett shrugged, then nodded at the MP5SD. “You look like you know what you’re doing with those things.”

  Keo put the final piece in place, then slipped the long magazine back into the weapon and laid it on the bed next to him. “I’ve been around a gun or two.”

  “No shit,” Rhett said. He looked across the sickbay at the closed door. Kelly and Jackson’s replacements were outside, along with two more men. “There’s one good thing that came out of this…”

  “I’m still alive?”

  “Besides that.”

  Keo snorted. “What’s the other thing?”

  “Jackson’s death isn’t going to go down well with the island. The fact that they cut his throat… Jesus.”

  “You think the ones stuck in the middle might turn on the Mercerians after this?”

  “I’m hoping. Or at least push them further over to my side.”

  “Let’s hope.” Keo stood up and slipped Pollack’s gun belt around his waist and cinched it. “Thanks for letting me keep the weapons.”

  “Wasn’t my first or second choice.”

  “Always happy to be everyone’s third choice.” Keo folded the bedsheet he had been using to clean the guns and tossed it across the room. “I don’t have to tip housekeeping, do I?”

  Rhett grunted.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Keo said. “So how does this affect the Trident’s arrival in—” he glanced at his watch “—soon.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should call it off.”

  “What are the chances they might attack my friends?”

  “Not your friends, but Riley and the others onboard. The…Mercerians still consider them traitors. They hate you for killing Mercer, but they don’t have any love for Riley, Hart, and the others, either.” He shook his head. “I’m talking about it with the others. We were already set on taking it slowly anyway, but after what happened this morning… I don’t know, now.”

  “Don’t cancel the meeting,” Keo said. “You’ll want to hear what Lara has to say.”

  “About this plan to take back the planet.”

  Keo nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I have to tell you, Keo, I’m not optimistic. What can she possibly know that we haven’t already considered? Or found out in the year or so that we spent scouting the collaborators in preparation for R-Day?”

  “You’d be surprised what one well-placed source can find out.”

  “So that’s it. You guys have an inside man. Am I close?”

  Keo barely managed to suppress a grin. “Something like that.”

  “Has to be,” Rhett said. “Riley hinted at it, but he wouldn’t come right out and say it.”

  “Talk to Lara.”

  “I never said I wouldn’t.” He paused, then, “I’ll tell you one thing: The fact that it’s coming from her is one of the reasons so many people are pushing me to meet with your friends as soon as possible. It’s not just anyone, after all. It’s her. Lara. The woman on the radio. A lot of guys here still carry around iPods with her message in a loop.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t mention that last part to her.”

  “No?”

  “She doesn’t like the whole messiah thing. It makes her uncomfortable.”

  Rhett chuckled. “That’s just going to make people like her more.”

  Mary the pretty nurse, who in a previous life had been an EMT trainee, came to check his stitches about half an hour later. Sunrise was already filling the room, and he’d be damned if she didn’t look as good in the morning as she did every other time of the day.

  “Stop,” she said as she unwrapped the bandages around his head.

  “Stop what?” He sat on the bed as she worked. “I wasn’t doing anything but being a good patient.”

  “You were staring at my boobs.”

  “It’s not my fault you have very nice boobs.”

  “If there were still human resources around, you’d be so fired.”

  “Justifiable termination.”

  “Sit still.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He sat perfectly still as she checked the stitches along his temple, then did the same for the ones on his forehead. There was a little bit of blood in both places, but as long as it wasn’t pouring down his face, he wasn’t too worried about it. Even so, Keo had been doing everything possible to avoid his own reflection and took it as a good sign whenever Mary (or someone else) looked at him and didn’t flinch reflexively. Maybe one or two more scars would get him to Frankenstein territory, but he wasn’t quite there yet.

  “You’ve really been through a lot,” Mary was saying as she picked up a fresh roll of gauze from a nearby tray. “I’m not just talking about your head. You have a broken nose, too. It doesn’t look like it had the chance to heal properly.”

  “You’re worried about me,” he said, smiling up at her.

  “It’s my job to worry about my patients.” She stopped wrapping the bandage long enough to trace the long scar that went down his cheek. She had very soft fingers. “Does this hurt?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “But it used to.”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

/>   “Tough guy.”

  “Only in front of the pretty ones.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “You’re not going to stop, are you?”

  “It can’t be news to you that you’re very easy on the eyes.”

  “Makes me think you’re overcompensating for something.”

  “You don’t think it could just be old-fashioned lust?”

  “Oh, I know it’s lust. But you’re coming on way too strong. So what’s the real story?”

  Keo watched her finish her work, then pack up the medical supplies and return to a counter across the room. “I told you, almost dying gives you a new perspective on life. And I have so many friends on this island who want to keep giving and giving me those new perspectives.”

  She glanced back at him with a pitying smile. “I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more hated man in my life.”

  “But half the people on this island love me for taking out Mercer for them, right?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Not true? Not even a little bit?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Most people still don’t know how to feel about Mercer’s death. A lot of them are still in a state of shock and confusion about recent events. You killing Mercer, Rhett recalling everyone. We don’t even know if this is the end of the war we spent a year preparing for. Things are…uncertain, to say the least.” Mary walked back over and handed him a small cup with two pills inside. “In case of pain. Did they bring you water?”

  “Not necessary.” Keo swallowed them down and handed the cup back to her. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Have you figured out what you’re feeling about all of this?”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not a Mercerian, I know that much.”

  He smiled back. “Word’s getting around.”

  “It’s got a certain ring to it.” She sat down across from him, where Rhett had been sitting earlier, and seemed to really think about his question for a moment. Finally, she said, “Maybe grateful.”