As if recovering from a light shove, she regains her balance.
There’s a strange whirring sound in the dirt a few feet away. Something hand-size and metallic is spinning in circles, like a mad fly with a broken wing. But it’s some kind of machine. A small, bug-like machine unlike any he’s ever laid eyes on before. The sight makes him think of godless films like The Matrix, of tears in the fabric of reality that recognize no distinction between heaven and hell, and he soothes himself by telling him those are the very type of things a demon like this bitch would want him to see. First she’ll snap his bones; then she’ll take his faith.
It’s one of those things, he realizes, one of those things that came out of the sky and tore my guys to shreds.
The demon’s standing over him again. Once again, her foot’s centered over his chest.
“Where is Luke Prescott?” she asks.
“If you’re gonna take my soul, you’re gonna have to break it first, bitch.”
“OK.”
The pain is so sudden and total at first he doesn’t realize where it’s coming from. Then, when she once more centers her foot over his chest, he realizes she just shattered his right knee with what in a normal world would have been a light tap.
“Fuck you in hell, cunt,” he groans. “Fuck you in hell.”
He’s prepared for it this time, at least as much as anyone can be prepared for pain so bad it sends sounds from your throat like your tonsils are being torn out. When he stops gasping and wheezing and letting out guttural groans, he sees the demon’s face inches from his. The bitch isn’t even sweating.
“I am running out of patience with you, you pathetic, caveman piece of shit. And you have a lot of bones in your body for me to play with. So tell me where your sick friend took my boyfriend or I will break you again and again while the only thing you can do is watch and scream.”
“Fuck you, you—”
Real quick, one after the other, like she’s snapping twigs, she breaks both of his ankles in a two-handed grip. He smells his own piss before he feels it wetting his underwear. Shit, too, it smells like. Everything. He’s lost all semblance of anything anyone might call control. His mind gropes for words to express his agony, but there aren’t any. The pain is so total and complete, he feels skinless, like a raw nerve writhing in the dirt, and then he realizes his screams are organizing into words against his will.
One word, over and over again.
Limekilns. Limekilns. Limekilns.
It’s possible she’s flying, but she doubts it. She’s just going faster uphill than any human can because there’s barely anything in her path that can stop her. Some of the redwood trunks slow her down a little, but mostly her shoulders gouge chunks from the ones she fails to avoid.
She’s tempted to try some running leaps, but those usually end with her feet cratered in the earth, which might slow her down or throw her off-balance. Instead, she keeps her arms thrust out in front of her so that the branches and the occasional tree limb break across her chest as if they’re light snowdrifts and her body’s a locomotive.
These men have cut a crude uphill trail, probably for use by the two ATVs she saw parked just uphill from the clearing. She’s not sure where else the little trail could go except the old ruined limekilns, but even though they’re isolated and overgrown and there’s no clear trail there from 293, they’re listed on a bunch of hiking maps and outdoor adventure blogs. So whatever torture shop this Milo has managed to set up there has to be either highly portable or temporary. No way would he leave equipment or evidence behind to be discovered by some intrepid backpackers during the day. And that’s good, because it means his fortification will be flimsy at best. By her current standards, at least.
When she smells smoke, she goes still.
There’s a small lantern glowing through the trees up ahead. She almost missed it. And that’s because someone’s turning it off, someone who probably heard her approach. The thing must be electric; it doesn’t gutter as it fades.
If memory serves, the limekilns are actually four structures, one main kiln with a large brick base and a metal chimney about as thick and tall as a Mack truck turned on one end, and then three smaller outbuildings, all with tall metal chimneys, but none of them as big as the main structure. Now, she wishes she’d paid more attention to Marty’s lecture about the place when they hiked here years ago. But she’s got eyes on the entire site and can make out the structures she remembers. That’ll have to do.
The lantern on the ground was in front of the largest structure, the one with the fattest chimney and the giant crumbling brick base. She can’t be entirely sure, but she’s willing to bet it’s also the one putting out the smell of fire. It’s too dark to see smoke, and the steel chimney’s relatively intact, so there aren’t a lot of holes that could give off light within.
Priority one is not alerting anyone who’s close to Luke to her presence before she’s got eyes on them. All the strength in the world won’t allow her to stop what she can’t see.
As quietly as possible, she snaps off a nearby branch in one hand. Then she turns to her right and throws the branch with all the force she can. It spears a tree trunk with a loud thwack. A shadow lurches forward from the spot where the lantern just went out. Just one.
She had plans. Plans to crush the guy’s windpipe or try to knock him unconscious without breaking his skull, but as soon as they both hit the dirt, she realizes the sheer force of her impact was enough to knock him out cold. But he’ll be a problem if he wakes up, so she rolls him onto his back. He’s not wheezing, or coughing, or groaning.