Chapter Fifteen

The tunnels beneath Frontier Town were a maze of immense glass aquaria, ranks upon tiers of them, which had been empty the last time Kit had searched Shangri-La Station's basement. Now they held all the live fish the station could import through its gates. Between the flock of crow-sized pterodactyls and toothed, primitive birds and the enormous pteranodon sternbergi, whose wingspan rivalled that of a small airplane, pest control had been hard pressed to import enough fish. Sue Fritchey had turned the corridors and tunnels beneath Little Agora and Frontier Town into a miniature biological preserve where pterodactyl lunches swam by the thousands.

In this dim-lit world of glass walls and gleaming fish scales and the patterned reflections of water on tunnel walls and ceilings, the caged sternbergi's weird, primordial cries vibrated eerily against the stacked aquaria, each cry drifting through the basement corridors like the soundtrack from a bad horror flick. The noise set teeth on edge as once-extinct screams echoed and reverberated for hundreds of yards in every direction, distorted by distance, inexpressibly strange.

Kit hunted the alien terrain with a team of four, Sven Bailey and Kit out front with riot shotguns, Kynan and Eigil behind them with bladed weapons and a couple of old-style wooden baseball bats, to reduce the chances that an attack would put friends in the line of fire. They had searched about a hundred yards of cluttered corridor, finding no trace of Jack the Ripper or his manaical worshippers, when they came to an intersecting tunnel. Kit held up a hand. "Stay back until I've had a look."

He had just eased to the corner when they came boiling out of hiding, at least a dozen of them, brandishing knives and hurling murderous threats into Kit's teeth. Kit fired into the thick of them. Men screamed and went down as Sven, too, loosed off a load of buckshot. A baseball bat smashed into an aquarium at Kit's elbow. Water and wriggling fish flooded the corridor floor, stained red where several attackers had fallen, gutshot and screaming. Kit fired again, trying to drive the madmen back. Eigil was shouting in Old Norse; the Viking barsark was lopping off limbs and smashing more aquaria to the floor. Screams and moans echoed amidst the shattering noise of smashing glass. Then the Ripper cult broke and ran, with Sven and Kit hard on their heels. Eigil and Kynan, their borrowed weapons dripping blood, were right behind.

Pounding footsteps echoed, distorted by the piled aquaria. Kit put on a burst of speed, rounded a corner on Sven's heels, and piled into the middle of a seething mass of bodies. The Ripper cult had turned at bay, blocked by the massive bulk of the pteranodon sternbergi's cage. Kit slammed into a would-be killer and they reeled against the cage. The gigantic pterosaur screamed, shattering eardrums, and lunged in a state of maddened agitation. The immense beak, longer than a man's body, shot between the bars as Kit flung himself aside. The Ripper cultist screamed, impaled on a razor-sharp beak. The sternbergi reared backwards, scraping the body off against the bars. Kit staggered off balance, buffeted by the backdraft of immense leathery wings. One of the cultists snarled and slashed at his throat. Kit dropped to the floor, under the blow, and fired his riotgun upwards into the man's gut. Kit's attacker reeled backwards against the bars, then screamed and dropped his knife as the pterosaur struck again, its wicked eye gleaming like a poisoned ruby. Its beak snapped shut with a clacking sound like two-by-fours cracking, taking off the man's arm at the elbow. He screamed and went down in a puddle of arterial spurts.

Kit rolled, trying to come to his feet, and heard Sven's shotgun roar. More screams rose, then a group of men burst around the corner and slammed full-tilt into the battle. Kit caught a glimpse of flying burnooses and grim, dark Arabic faces, then Mr. Riyad, foreman of the Arabian Nights construction crew, was fighting his way to Kit's side. A group of his workmen, proven innocent of terrorist affiliations, mopped up the remnants of resistance. Kit staggered to his feet, wiping sweat and someone else's blood, and met Mr. Riyad's gaze.

"Am I glad to see you," he gasped out.

"We came as quickly as we could, when we heard the screams and the shooting."

"Thank God."

They'd taken five men alive, having left a trail of nine dead and wounded behind them. Kit fumbled with his radio. "Code Seven Red, Zone Eleven. We've got prisoners and a helluva mess, down by the sternbergi's cage."

"Roger, Zone Eleven. Sending reinforcements."

"Better get a medical team down here and tell Sue Fritchey to bring a tranquilizer gun. The sternbergi's out of control." The immense pterosaur was still screaming and trying to attack anything that moved near its cage.

"Copy that, we'll do what we can. We've got casualties all over the station."

"Roger, understood. Anybody find Lachley yet?"

"Negative.

"He's not with this group, either. We'll keep searching once we've turned these guys over to security. Kit out."

"Roger, security out."

As Kit clipped the radio to his belt, Pest Control arrived with a dart gun. They shot three separate tranks into the immense pterosaur, which gradually ceased hurling itself against the bars. Its wings and head drooped to the cage floor, its baleful ruby eye heavy lidded and closing. Security arrived a moment later, taking charge of prisoners with rough efficiency. The battered cultists stumbled off in handcuffs and shackles, too dazed to protest. Pest Control agents opened up the cage and began treating lacerations on the sternbergi's hide and wings. A weird grunting moan issued from the pterosaur's immense throat, then its wicked little eyes closed completely and it lost consciousness.

"We'd better regroup and keep searching," Kit sighed.

The construction foreman nodded. "Yes. We should perhaps search together, this time? These men are completely mad," Riyad gestured at the dead Ripper cultists. "They fight like demons."

Sven Bailey, who was wiping blood off Kynan's gladius while Kynan wrapped a shallow cut in his ribs with makeshift bandages, muttered, "You just said a cotton-pickin' mouthful. Never saw anything like it."

They sorted themselves out, then spread into a loose fan, moving down the corridor past the open cage. As they searched, grim and silent, Kit couldn't help worrying about Margo's safety in London and cursed himself for not asking Dr. Feroz. He'd have to wait, now, because he couldn't clutter up security channels with a personal request. Besides, he needed to focus his entire attention on this lethal search for the Ripper and his maniacal followers. So Kit thrust the worry aside as best he could, telling himself that she was in good company with Malcolm and Skeeter, and kept hunting.

"You want me to what?" Paula Booker stared.

Skeeter grinned. "I want you to make me look like Noah Armstrong."

She blinked at him, eyes still blank with astonisment. "Here? In Spaldergate House?"

"Yeah. Here. Tonight, after everyone has gone to bed. Mrs. Aldis, the housekeeper, will let us into the vault, that's no problem. It's a little crowded right now, because the Ripper Watch Team is down there, but we won't be in their way. They aren't using the surgery, in any case, just the computer facilities. The surgery's modern, has all the amenities. And Mrs. Aldis is a surgical nurse, assists Dr. Nerian all the time."

"I know that," Paula said impatiently. "I've been down there already. But... Tonight?" The request had clearly thrown her off stride. Clearly, she thought Skeeter had taken leave of his senses.