Stone Soldiers: City of Bones Read Online Free PDF

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    "Shut up you fool!" Saleel hissed, speaking for the first time. "The Goddess will strike you down!"
    "Goddess?" Kenslir asked. "Which Goddess?"
    "He means Oya," Kaleem said. "But not me- I believe in America. Go Yankees!"
    Over both men's heads, an info box appeared in the TTVs, scrolling rapidly scrolling out information about the Goddess Oya- a Yoruba deity from the region associated with the Niger river and alleged to be a master of the sky and storms among other things.
    "Goddess?" S mith asked. "Those real?"
    "Legends have to come from somewhere," Kenslir said, watching both gunmen with his dark, dark green eyes. "But it's generally a bunch of exaggerated bullshit."
    "Sir!" Cooper said, pointing at the corpse Kenslir had removed from the necklace from. The body seemed to be deflating, then the skin began to dissolve away, revealing gooey red flesh beneath- but only for a moment. The corpse's flesh was rapidly being consumed as well.
    "Doc! You seeing this?" Kenslir asked out loud.
    Saleel suddenly pulled his hands down and grabbed at Kaleem- he jerked the bird skull necklace off his comrade and dug in a pouch on his belt.
    "Stop!" Cooper yelled, raising his M-60 to his shoulder.
    "Allu Akbar!" Saleel yelled, showing he had a grenade in hi s hand now. Beside him Kaleem was in full blown panic and tried to grab the bird skull back.
    Kenslir took a step forward, quickdrawing his Bowie knife once more. With one swift motion he sliced through Saleel's wrist, amputating his hand- which fell, stil l clutching the grenade, to the ground. The Colonel kicked the hand and grenade, knocking them a dozen feet away.
    The sudden loss of his hand stunned Saleel, allowing Kaleem to grab at the former's bird skull. But it was too late- the talkative gunman was already starting to melt. He began screaming and thrashing- pulling off Saleel's necklace as he thrashed around. His flailing managed to knock his own necklace from Saleel's hand. It landed at Smith's feet.
    Saleel looked up at Smith then dove for the nec klace. Smith stepped on the skull, crushing it to powder beneath his stone foot.
    Kaleem was screaming now. Kenslir reached across his vest and pulled a large Desert Eagle automagnum from a holster on his left hip. He shot the melting gunman man once in the head, silencing him.
    Saleel's face was contorting now in pain as well. His skin began to dissolve away.
    "I ought to let you die slow," Kenslir said- then he put a bullet in Saleel's face.
    An info box sprang up above the men, filled with Dr. King's fac e. His glasses were off now, revealing his left eye that was forever petrified from an early experiment in turning men to stone. "Sorry, sorry- I was in the bathroom. What did I miss...? Oh. My."
    "This stuff is incredibly fast acting, Doctor," Kenslir said , holstering his pistol. He retrieved his second Bowie knife from the bones wrapped in rebel clothing that had been a gunman just minutes ago. "Too fast to be overly contagious, I'd think."
    "Yes, yes. The rate of mortality would make it extremely difficult for an infection to spread very far."
    Another info box sprang to life, this time of Major Campbell in the Detachment's Command and Control Center. "Do we reduce the quarantine zone, Colonel?"
    "No- not yet. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to engineer this- let's see why. Anything show up on those scans yet?"
    "Yes, sir," Campbell said. A map of the oil town appeared in place of his face, a green beacon flashing for Kenslir's position and a red one flashing to the north. "There appear to be several soldier s moving in and around a large warehouse structure. We believe it is some kind of vehicle garage. It's just inside the perimeter fenceline. "
    "All right," Kenslir said, cybernetically closing all the info boxes in the TTVs. "Reload and check your gear. We' re going to go see who these guys are."
    ***
     
    The warehouse was easily the largest in the town- a three story-tall building wide enough for several