Free The Iscariot Sanction by Mark Latham Page B

felt like he had run for miles.
    John cast the lantern about, praying for a way out. The meagre light fell upon a set of stone stairs up ahead, and John’s heart lifted, just for a moment.
    Even as he stepped forward, the door behind him burst open, and something—several somethings—scrabbled into the room. He saw shadows move and felt hot breath upon his neck.
    John leapt forward even as something grabbed at him. He felt his trouser leg tear and almost fell flat on his face.
    There was movement to his left and a pale shape leapt through the air. John saw it from the corner of his eye, as though time itself was slowed, but it was too late to react. The snarling thing crashed into him, and the two of them rolled across the stone floor before smashing into a pile of crates.
    The lantern rolled away, casting ghastly shadows dancing on the walls, and illuminating just briefly a writhing mass of grotesque creatures, pale of skin and bright of eye, scurrying about the shadows.
    John’s arm was pinned to the ground in the creature’s vice-like grip; he could not bring the derringer to bear. He kicked at his attacker as hard as he could, but it was strong, and did not withdraw. Instead, it turned an ugly, bestial face towards him, and let out such a low, keening moan that it chilled him to the bone. Its large eyes sparkled violet for a moment. Its features were unmistakeably human, though hideously deformed and pale. John yanked his knife from his jacket pocket and pushed it into the monster’s throat. He kicked at the brutish creature again, and this time it staggered backwards, clutching at the wound.
    John sprang to his feet and snatched up the lantern, turning about in all directions wildly, pointing his derringer at the shadows that even now leapt about in an amorphous mass of living darkness. The knife was lost, buried in the flesh of the creature that had attacked him. The single-shot pistol seemed so very small in his hand.
    He swept the lantern around the chamber again, and for a second caught a glimpse of those terrible eyes—dozens of pairs of them, in every shadowed corner. The crawling, scurrying movement of slender, pale bodies was visible only for a moment, and was then gone so quickly it appeared to be a trick of the light. The creatures, whatever they were, scrambled away from the light, hissing each time it fell upon their gleaming eyes.
    John felt the shadows converge upon him, the creatures taking heart in their superior numbers. He was surrounded, but he was not through yet.
    John unfastened the lantern and threw it hard against the floor near the pile of crates. Glass shattered, oil flowed, and the chamber filled almost instantly with firelight. The creatures checked their advance, shielding their unnatural eyes and screaming with rage as they tried to turn from the heat and light. There were twenty or more of them, naked and muscular, with skin so pale it was almost translucent. Some had grotesque, bulging deformities, whilst others had the unsettling look of half-rotted cadavers. They grunted and hissed in some guttural language, if indeed it could be called a language at all. Soon they inched closer, growing more used to the light by the second; whatever their aversion to the flames, it was passing rapidly.
    John’s eyes alighted upon the crates, which were filled with work-tools. He snatched up a heavy steel wrench before the fire could spread to them, swinging it about in a wild arc to fend off the creatures that even now snarled at his back. He squeezed a round into the chest of the nearest creature, which fell to the ground. The shot rang around the chamber deafeningly, silencing the creatures for a moment. And then the felled thing staggered back to its feet, a gaping, bloodless wound in its cadaverous chest. It glared at John with a look of such unimaginable, bestial hatred—with such an intelligent malevolence—that he was momentarily unmanned.
    John did not hesitate again. He turned and