The Demon Crown: A Sigma Force Novel Page 11

Standing in the sunlit parking lot, Gray watched a small helicopter land in the neighboring soccer field. Another aircraft—a medevac chopper—sat in the middle of the baseball diamond. In the trampled outfield, temporary medical tents fluttered in the stiff morning breeze.

  All around, a fleet of emergency vehicles lined the roads. They had arrived throughout the night, traversing the twisted and torturous Hana Highway, which hugged the rugged coastline. Bullhorns continually shouted orders, adding to the noisy chaos.

  By now, the dead had been removed, but the injured were still being triaged. The worst afflicted were being shipped and distributed to various hospitals in Maui, some critical cases even to other islands. But with both Honolulu and Hilo attacked, beds were running low.

  Out in the soccer field, a pair of figures climbed from the helicopter’s cabin. Gray lifted an arm. They spotted him and headed over, bowing beneath the spinning blades.

  As they approached, Gray recognized them from Director Crowe’s description.

  Professor Ken Matsui clutched a leather messenger bag to his chest as he hurried across the field. The toxicologist appeared to be in his mid-thirties, but from his tanned features and sun crinkles at the corner of his eyes, he had spent a good measure of his research time in the field. He also looked ready to work, dressed in khaki pants, boots, and a utility vest over a long-sleeved shirt.

  He was trailed by an agent from Japanese intelligence. Aiko Higashi was whip-thin and crisply dressed. Her gaze swept across the commotion. Gray didn’t doubt she absorbed everything in that single glance.

  He had also been informed as to why the pair had been sent here: to evaluate the threat level posed by the swarm’s colonization.

  Gray’s job was to make sure they accomplished this as quickly as possible—which meant first getting them clear of the chaos in Hana and circumventing any red tape that might slow them down.

  When Professor Matsui reached Gray, they shook hands, but the man’s eyes remained on a patient being stretchered toward the medevac helicopter. “What are they doing? This whole area should already be under quarantine.”

  “It’s too late for that, Professor,” Aiko said as she joined them. “A local quarantine would be a waste of resources at this juncture, especially with multiple islands affected. Later, if your evaluation proves as dire as anticipated, federal emergency services will need those resources—and more.”

  Gray frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Hawaii will need to be under quarantine, even blockaded. At that point, no one must be allowed to leave these islands.”

  Gray took in this grim news as he led the pair toward his Jeep. Earlier, Painter had informed him about the professor’s belief that the only solution to this danger could be a nuclear one.

  And if no one’s allowed to leave these islands . . .

  Gray stopped the professor at the Jeep. “How long will it take for you to make your initial assessment?”

  “Less than a day. But if I confirm my worst fears, we’ll have no more than three days before we’ll be faced with the inevitable.”

  The professor looked hard at Gray, leaving no doubt as to what he was talking about.

  “Trust me,” Matsui said as he turned to the Jeep, “if we reach that point, those left on the island will be begging for us to drop those bombs.”

  A doctor in blue scrubs caught the tail end of the conversation as he passed their group. He looked quizzically back at them.

  Not wanting to create a panic, Gray hustled everyone into the Jeep.

  Palu was already behind the wheel. Gray had needed someone who knew the local terrain and had recruited the Hawaiian fireman. Palu agreed after Gray explained the seriousness of the situation. It hadn’t been hard to convince the big man. He had a wife and two children in town.

  As soon as everyone was aboard, Palu took off. He drove them cross-country toward the rental cottage, skirting the main highway. They traveled dirt tracks and, at one point, cut straight through a coconut farm owned by a local nursery.

  Professor Matsui clung to the door handle in the back as he was bounced about, but his gaze remained on the verdant landscape of lush green meadows and vast stretches of rain forest climbing up to the clouds that hugged the top of Mount Haleakala.

  “Dear God, I hope I’m wrong,” he mumbled to himself.

  As do we all.

  The Jeep finally reached the cottage. Palu parked at the foot of the porch. Kowalski sat there with his boots on the rail, the satellite phone crooked by his ear. He nodded to Gray as the group climbed out, but he didn’t let their arrival disturb his call.

  “I paid good money for it,” Kowalski said. “Tell the bastard that the poolside cabana is yours. If he gives you any trouble, I’ll take one of those beach umbrellas and shove it where there’s no goddamn sun to worry about.”

  His girlfriend, Maria, had offered to stay nearby in Wailea. With her background in genetics, her expertise could prove useful during this crisis.

  It seemed a prudent precaution at the time—but now that Gray had learned the true level of threat posed by the swarm, he might be needlessly risking the geneticist’s life.

  Seichan appeared in the doorway. She squinted between swollen eyelids at the pair of strangers. Her focus lingered on Aiko Higashi, clearly sizing her up and evaluating this potential adversary. While Seichan had recovered her sight from the attack, her skin was a patchwork of bruises, all crisscrossed with scrapes and cuts.

  Gray mounted the steps to join her. “We have drinks and food inside,” he informed the others. “We can compare notes while you fuel up. I want to be back on the road within the hour.”

  Professor Matsui nodded. “The sooner, the better.”

  With everyone on the same page, Gray made introductions all around.

  The professor shook Seichan’s hand. “You can call me Ken. Especially considering what we’ll be facing together.”

  He extended this invitation to the group by glancing around, but his gaze settled back on Seichan. She had that effect on most men, not to mention a few women.

  To clarify matters, Gray slid an arm around her waist as they went inside. It was for the professor’s own good.

  She’d eat you alive.

  Gray led the group to a narrow dining table constructed of koa wood. A wicker ceiling fan slowly churned the warming air. As everyone settled, Gray remained standing, leaning on the back of one of the chairs. He fixed the professor with a stare.

  “What exactly are we facing here?” he asked.

  11:28 A.M.

  Ken opened his bag and removed a laptop and folders. He shuffled through them, buying himself time to collect his thoughts. He felt the scrutiny of these strangers and the weight of his responsibility.

  Where to start . . . ?

  He finally settled on a folder of photos and read its tab.

  “I’ve named this species Odokuro horribilis. And while I don’t know everything about this creature, what I do know is indeed horrible.”

  Seichan shifted in her seat, wincing slightly. “I recognize the name Odokuro,” she said, her voice hoarse after whatever injuries she had sustained. “That’s a monster out of Japanese mythology.”

  He nodded. “Gashadokuro is an ancient spirit, said to rise from battlefields, a skeletal giant made of the disarticulated bones of the dead. The only warning of its approach is the rattle of bones.”

  Ken looked down at the folder again, drawn back against his will to Queimada Grande. He pictured the dark mist rising above the island’s rain forest. He remembered the strange hollow knocking that had accompanied the swarm’s appearance. He recalled even thinking at the time that it reminded him of rattling bones.

  But that wasn’t the only reason he picked that monster’s name.

  “Once gashadokuro has your scent,” Ken continued, “it will hunt you down, letting nothing stop it. Made up of loose bones, it can even break up into smaller pieces to squeeze through tight spaces, only to re-form again
on the other side.”

  “Like a swarm,” Gray mumbled.

  Ken nodded. “And after it catches you, there’s no appeal, no way to stop it. It will devour your skin, organs, and blood, and add your bones to its own at the end.”

  The big man named Kowalski leaned back in his chair with a groan. “Something tells me I’m not going to like the rest of your story.”

  No, you’re not.

  “Enough with ghost stories,” Gray said. “Tell us about these wasps.”

  “Right.” He cleared his throat. “First of all, this species wasn’t born in any lab. From my initial study of its DNA, it doesn’t appear to be a genetically engineered monster, but a natural predator, something ancient, likely prehistoric. Wasps have been found in the fossil record going back to the Jurassic Period. Since then, the species has diversified and multiplied. Today there are over thirty thousand different species. Which proves how supremely agile they are at surviving. To accomplish that, they’ve adapted all sorts of strategies, often incorporating other insect traits and skills into their own arsenal.”

  “And this species?” Gray pressed.

  “I’ve never seen one so versatile and resourceful. For example, most wasp species can be divided into social animals or solitary hunters.” He noted their confused expressions and tried to explain. “Social wasps—like hornets and yellow jackets—build nests, have a queen who lays eggs, and employ a whole slew of drones that forage for food or are involved in mating or in protecting the hive. The venom of their stings is usually defensive, meant to induce pain as a warning to back off.”

  The Hawaiian, Palu, rubbed his stomach. “Yep, got that message loud and clear.”

  “Exactly. And if you ignore that warning for too long, additional stings can pump enough toxin into you to turn deadly.”

  Gray grimaced. “As we witnessed last night.”

  “But social wasps are relatively tame compared to solitary wasps.” Ken found himself staring at Seichan, somehow sensing this woman could relate to such a species. “These lonely hunters have developed a unique and deadly survival strategy. They don’t have nests or swarms like social wasps. Instead, the hunters of these species—all females—use their stingers for two purposes. The most important being the task for which the stinger was originally designed.”

  “What do you mean?” Seichan asked.

  Ken backtracked a little to clarify. “The stinger of all Hymenoptera species—whether a bee, a hornet, or a wasp—was originally an ovipositor, a biological syringe meant to poke through tough tissue and inject eggs beneath it. But over time, the ovipositor evolved into a weapon.”

  “How?” Palu asked, still rubbing the spot on his belly.

  “Once a queen became the exclusive egg layer for a hive, the other female wasps had no need for an egg sac at the base of their ovipositors. Instead, they transformed those sacs into a more useful purpose: to inflict damage.”

  Gray understood. “By filling those sacs with venom instead of eggs.”

  “Precisely. It’s also why you don’t have to worry about male bees or wasps. Being non–egg layers, they have no stingers.”

  Kowalski shrugged heavily. “I’m not about to look under a wasp’s skirt to decide if it’s a boy or a girl. If it lands on me, I’m squashing it.”

  Gray waved to Ken. “Go on. Back to these solitary wasps. With no hive queens, I’m assuming these female hunters continue to use their stingers—their ovipositors—to inject eggs.”

  “They do. Like I said before, their stingers serve two purposes. To lay eggs, but also to inject a poison that subdues their host. Such a venom is seldom painful. In fact, sometimes it can trigger a euphoric high that leaves the host entranced. There are caterpillars who fall so deeply under the spell that they’ll willingly allow themselves to be dragged down a hole and buried alive. But the toxin’s effect varies by species. Some paralyze a host. Others can trigger a baffling neurologic effect, where the host will actually fight to protect the larva inside it. But all these different venomous strategies have the same purpose.”

  “Which is what?” Seichan asked.

  “To leave the host alive.” He saw the others understood the implication, but filled in the blank anyway. “Once those eggs hatch, the larvae inside have a ready-made meal.”

  Sickened expressions spread around the table.

  Better they know the truth now.

  He pictured the storm of white larvae boiling out of the dissected lancehead.

  “And the species dumped onto these islands?” Gray asked. “I’m assuming from its arrival as a swarm that we’re dealing with a social species.”

  “No.” Ken slowly shook his head. “This species is both.”

  “But wait? How can that be?”

  “As I said before, this is an ancient species, one that likely existed before wasps differentiated into those two camps. Instead, this species shares characteristics of both evolutionary pathways.” He let that sink in before continuing. “And despite the damage wrought last night, you’ve not seen the worst that this species can do.”

  Gray straightened. “What do you mean?”

  “The swarming behavior of this species has one goal, one purpose.”

  “Which is what?”

  “To seek out and establish a lek.”

  Kowalski frowned. “What the hell’s a lek?”

  “It’s a mating territory.” He swept his gaze across those gathered at the table. “Which we must not let happen.”

  Gray frowned at him. “Why?”

  Ken allowed the group to see his seriousness and terror. “Because once that happens, this place will become hell on earth.”

  BREEDER

  The tiny drone was nearly blind and deaf. Two pinpoint black eyes, no more than a dozen facets apiece, strained for visual cues, but the world remained a colorless blur, shaded in grays. Only when close to an object could he see any details.

  Instead, his head was dominated by a pair of antennae, each longer than his body and feathered at the end with puffs of delicate sensillae. As he flew, he waved those perceptive tools that he used to define his world by gradients of smells.

  He lit upon a petal, drawn by the sweet nectar. His antennae probed for the source, pulling his head deeper into the flower. Lacking the strong mandibles of the others, he extended a long tongue and lapped at the richness found buried in the heart of the petals.

  As he took his fill, he was content. The swarm had settled into a dense, shadowy forest—though to his weak senses, he could barely hear their hum and buzz. As he emptied the flower, he climbed to the edge of the petal and groomed the pollen from his limbs, fluttering his wings clean.

  He must be ready.

  Then he sensed it—faint at first, then undeniable.

  A pheromone that his fine sensillae had evolved to detect. His blind head turned, tugged by his antennae. He leapt in that direction, unable to refuse. Chemicals fired the tiny knot of ganglions in his head. He drove faster. His wings buzzed with ferocity, threatening to burn through the reserve of nectar in his body.

  He did not care.

  He followed the trail of pheromones. The complex broth of hormones and scents overwhelmed him, filled his drab world, forming a cloudy image in the distance.

  He raced others like him for the prize. They collided, rebounded, fought their way toward the source. Each struggled to be there first. The aroma fueled him as much as the sugar in his abdomen. Muscles in his thorax became fire.

  Ahead, scent became shadowy shape.

  Then, once close enough, those tiny eyes perceived the target—and shape became substance.

  A hundred times his size, she hovered ahead, exuding a pheromone of receptiveness, fluttering in a haze of evolutionary demand. He and the others dove through that miasma to reach her. They came from all directions, climbing atop her, scrabbling over her.

  He landed among them and clung with his hindmost legs, a pair of barbed claspers. Others crashed atop him, even broke his
wings. Still, he dug his claspers deep into the jointed armor of her abdomen and held fast.

  In turn, she fought them. She flung and contorted. Legs kicked and scraped.

  Finally, their combined weight and interference with her wings drove her into a tumbling spin through the leafy bower and into the soft litter on the ground.

  He and the others jostled and battled for position. From her flanks, pheromones continued to flow, rising like steam from scores of small pores lining her abdomen. He shifted to the nearest, intoxicated and drawn by that scent.

  Once there, hormones forced his own abdomen to contract, extruding his phallic aedeagus. He jabbed it through the pore and into one of her countless oviducts. Locked into her now, his entire body clenched. He emptied everything into her until he was a hollow husk.

  With nothing left to offer, he jackknifed his powerful claspers against her flank and threw himself off. The violence ripped the aedegus from his body, leaving it as a plug in her oviduct.

  He fell, broken and wingless, into the soil.

  Others did the same, shedding from her great body.

  Though empty, his duty was not yet done.

  Out of the haze and murk of his weak vision, a shadow pushed closer, becoming clearer to his tiny eyes. He recognized what approached.

  A set of mandibles.

  He knew what he still owed her.

  She was hungry.

  12

  May 7, 11:49 A.M. HST

  Hana, Island of Maui

  Gray leaned on the dining table. He stared as Professor Matsui pulled a set of photos from a folder marked ODOKURO and spread them across the patina of the old wood. Each picture showed a different wasp: some small, others quite large.

  Gray struggled to comprehend what he was seeing.

  “These are all incarnations of the same wasp species,” Ken explained as he organized his work. “The level of differentiation of these adults is fascinating. Their anatomy dictates their function. Each one serves a specific role in the swarm.”

  Moments ago, Ken had explained how he came to study these wasps, how he had harvested larvae from a snake discovered on a Brazilian island and grown them in a lab in Kyoto. There he had watched his subjects molt through a series of larval stages, instars, until the final pupae produced the adults in the photos.