Chapter 17

With a very sleepy Carly in tow, Daniel retreated to the fire stairs and up to level three. He had the solution to the flies and now he had to save the kids.

Carly might have looked like she was about to collapse it any moment, but she didn’t complain at all. She knew it was going to be terrifying, but she let herself be strapped to him and then it was on Daniel. All he had to do was climb the rope while carrying the extra hundred plus kilograms most of which was Iris.

With determination, he tugged down confirmed that it would hold his body weight and climbed. It was immediately harder than he imagined. This was not like gym class in school. The vine was far longer, and it swayed significantly with his movements. Daniel ignored the spinning and swaying and focused on putting one hand forward after the other along with gripping and pushing with his legs.

Blood Drinker was a constant presence and basically acted as a safety valve. While Daniel climbed the club made sure that at all points, he was secured to the main rope with multiple safety vines.

He reached a third of the way up and grunted as he slapped into one of the support beams. Each swing was taking himself over five metres horizontally and if it wasn’t for the support beams… well it would be worse. The other times he had gotten a foot out to slow them down rather than colliding helplessly.

Carly whimpered from where she was strapped to his back.

“There is no reason to be afraid. There are three safety lines attached.”

With a grunt, he pulled himself up and briefly dangled held just by upper body strength, before his legs clamped down on the vines significantly higher up than they had been before. It was exhausting but effective.

The girl on his back stopped whimpering, but he was not sure the sharp intake of breath followed by the nasal slow breathing out was much of an improvement. He put it out of his mind and focused on his own techniques. After five minutes of climbing, complete with regular rests, he reached the eighth floor and with biceps burning. It was a relief to step from the vine rope onto semi-solid ground. He stumbled slightly his legs not quite functioning properly, and was brought to an abrupt halt by the safety vines.

“Thanks,” he said to Blood Drinker while stretching his quad and testing the muscle to confirm that he had blood flowing through it and it would no longer cramp when he went to move.

With his leg recovered, Daniel walked across the floor and in places he could see right down into the cavernous space the flies had carved out of the building. It was not as dangerous as the first time as he had taken the opportunity to jury rig supports linking the precarious sections of flooring to the more solid structures in the roof.

Daniel still sighed in relief when he reached the fire stairs and made his way up. There was no swaying to contend with this time, as the effort to secure them from earlier was still active.

Once they reach the top level, they heard a distant thump.

“Yep,” Daniel concluded after a moment. “At least one.” The thumping thankfully was irregular and nothing like what had first greeted them when they came up.

“Rogue flies.” Carly said immediately.

This time, rather than panicking Daniel, still carrying Carly and Iris, jogged briskly across the floor.

The two flies were captured by Iris promptly, and Daniel knocked on the door.

“Is that Daniel?” The hysterical voice from earlier asked though it was more in control last time.

He supposed that previously she had been terrified that the defences were about to fall apart. The removal of thirty flies by Iris would have removed the pressure and allowed her to compose herself a little better.

“Yes, it is.”

“You’ve returned.” There was a hint of excitement and joy in her voice. “The kids were so worried they thought you had abandoned us… I told them you hadn’t and they believed me but then the flies came back. That caused some tears.”

“We’re back.” Daniel interrupted. “We still have a few hours’ work before we can get you out. But I’ve learnt how to ward the doors so the rogue flies won’t attack it.”

“I can come with you. I’m useful.” A male voice stated more hopeful than demanding.

“No Rob, you can’t.” the woman said sounding exasperated. “We can’t can we?” she then asked through the door.

“No, you can’t,” Daniel agreed with a smile. “I’ve got no way to get you from floor nine to the ground or to protect you from rogue flies.”

“Your ward?”

“Is stationary and can’t be used for that purpose at least not yet.”

“And once you create it you’re sure it will work?”

“Probably.” Daniel answered a little too honestly, if he was being candid with himself. “The wards have only been tested in clinical settings. We haven’t used in the wider–”

“It’ll work.” Carly interrupted with a definite tone.

“Thank you.”

“But once they’re in place, you won’t be able to open the door without breaking them.”

“I’ll make sure no one opens it by accident.”

“We need him to commit to a time.” Daniel heard Rob whisper. “Ask him.”

Thankfully, the woman he had been speaking ignored the other man and Daniel started growing leaves all over the exposed door. Unfortunately, he didn’t have access to pots and water, but he had brought up two bottles of wine, which would help along the purpose while priming the leaves. The vines went into the bottle and then grew out of it while taking the alcohol with them. In short order, a slightly red tinged leaf covered the door and the concrete on either side.

“You should be safe from now on.” Daniel assured them. “I’m going to go downstairs and build a stairwell from three to eight.”

“A what?” She asked in surprised.

“Umm stairs.”

“I know what you said, but how is that even possible? That should take weeks.”

“Should be done by morning.” Daniel interrupted.

“But how?”

“The short answer is magic.” Carly interrupted tiredly. “The longer version is that Daniel’s ridiculous.”

The voice giggled slightly at that.

“We’ll be back, but for now we have to get to work if we’re going to extract you before dawn.”

“And one of you can’t stay?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Daniel answered when Carly shook her head vigorously to indicate she didn’t want to stay by herself. “I need Carly to get me down safely to build the stairwell.”

They departed and abseiled down, which was far easier than the climb up. Then Daniel went to work to construct the stairwell. Once he was safely in the contraception he had created to abduct the queen and had his link to the trees below he no longer actively needed Carly to protect him from rogue flies. The wood was thick enough that they would see it as solid and go around. With complete freedom, he went about balancing his mana pool while growing the special leaves to secure what would be a flimsy construction from the fly’s attention. Carly curled up in the space he left her and fell asleep immediately. Iris perched on top of her, either standing guard or also sleeping. It was difficult to tell with the compound eyes being permanently open.

Daniel focused on efficiency. The internals had to be strong enough to support multiple adults, but the outer shell. That was primarily there to act as scaffolding for the leaf barriers to ward off rogue flies. That and to stop four-year-olds from falling out of the spiral staircase. As a result, he made the cladding of the thinnest wood he could create. Each piece was only a little thicker than a piece of paper, but tough enough to survive a four-year-old from hitting it.

There was a distinct lack of mass available which flowed through into strength. This was not a design that would handle one of Cindy’s tests. If you got a dozen people to jump on this, it would break. They were far flimsier than those ramps. But then again, those ramps had survived almost unlimited people jumping on them, including monsters.

The purpose here was different. He was building a disposal stairwell with the only performance requirement was that it was robust to support a couple of adults. That’s what he guilt to and if all the survivors went one by one it would be perfectly safe.

The stairwell extended metre by metre. With the special leaves covering every surface, the construction proceeded safely. Daniel had positioned the stairwell to maximise the efficiency of the future extraction. One end exited onto the fire stairs which led to the basement carpark and the other directly onto level eight. That meant the construction was not straight but was at a slight angle, which he managed via the addition of some extra vines to provide support for the midsection of the staircase.

As he expanded the stairwell, Daniel worked from within it. He kept pace with the top of the build and when it reached floor seven; he was suspended five metres from level eight and fifteen from the ground.

It gave him a firsthand appreciation of how claustrophobic the design was. It was cramped with nowhere to move, but he would build another metre and then walk up the resulting supports. He had chosen a spiral design the type where your head was always touching the ceiling and you’ll take a step down and your hair would still touch the roof. That repeated repeatedly for the almost two hundred rungs and twenty-four complete circles.

Finally, the last piece of the build was ready, he extended it and exited out onto floor eight. Fresh air greeted him, and he virtually sagged in relief. He had done it and the sun hadn’t risen yet. For a moment he considered getting Carly, but she had been exhausted and unlike him she required sleep to function. It was important to have rescued everyone by morning. There was going to be a push to get out of the garage as soon as possible. Richard was not the only one who was scared about the building collapsing on top of them all.

And Daniel also knew he needed to get back there to the hotel to take charge. The croldlics changed everything and Daniel wasn’t sure how to deal with them but something warned him that retreating up to the top floors of the hotel was only a short-term solution. Those things would have no trouble climbing to higher levels once they realised that there was prey up there.

Daniel moved quickly to floor nine and was relieved to discover that there was no thumping anywhere. He picked his way across from the floor and kept Blood Drinker ready to destroy any flies that appeared. There were no telltale glints of silver.

Either closing off the entrance to the toilets with his special leaves or Carly collecting all the rogue flies had been successful in clearing this space.

When he reached the door, he knocked quietly.

“Daniel?”

He recognised the voice as the man who had spoken earlier who had been told to be quiet.

“Yes. Rob?”

“That’s me.” the man’s voice rose louder than he expected. “Do you have good news?”

“Yes. I have built a staircase up. We can escape.”

“That’s great. But why aren’t we using the fire stairs. They were pretty solid.”

Daniel laughed at that suggestion. “Because they’re gone. They’re there from nine to eight and then from three to garage.”

“Wait are you telling me six floors have been knocked out?”

“Yes.”

“We need to get down and out. With that much damage, I don’t know how the building is still standing. We’re going to die. What we are waiting for. There’s no time to waste… we have to go, immediately.”

“Stop panicking. It’s not that bad. Our expert thinks barring something catastrophic like a fight mid building or a major storm it should last to winter.” Daniel kept his voice serious while imagining how please Ivey would look being described in those terms.

“Or that lizard using the structure a scratching post.”

Daniel did some quick calculations and realised that like the hotel this tower was right on the edge of its hunting zone. “We’re out of its zone, but yeah, anything like that will not be good.”

“Six floors.”

“It’s fine. It’s stable.”

“The stairs of the support structure. There is no time to talk. This is ridiculous. I can’t believe you don’t understand–”

The toilet started to swing open.

“Wait.” Daniel whispered. “What are you doing? We’re not ready.”

“Coming out.”

The door swung inward and the delicate vines linking the leaves all tore.

“We’re not ready to evacuate.” Daniel tried again. Then he gagged as the stench from the confined space hit him. Faeces, sickness, rot it was all mixed into a potent aroma that caused him to visibly step backwards.

The man stumbled out, tearing through the leaves. “FREE!” He screamed.

“Shut up.” Daniel hissed at him. There was a glint of motion out of the corner of his time. “Now you’ve done it,” he cursed and engaged Speed. His eyes flicked around to determine which enemies were assaulting them. Luckily, the shout had not disturbed the entire nest and there were only a couple of flies coming. He could defeat that many. He didn’t want to be forced to retreat into the putrid bathroom.

The idiot who had barged out yelling looked to be about forty and should have known better. Rob possessed a sizeable gut that had mostly wasted away and seemed completely unaware of the approaching threat. Daniel guessed that like most people he couldn’t see in the dark.

Daniel stepped forward to fight the fly that was targeting the man’s gut. The fly was focused on the loudest noise, and he was thankful for small mercies. For once, it was not his life on the line. The man, unaware of the danger, was stretching and praising the fresh air. Blood Drinker calculated optimal movements for him to win without resorting to magic. It summarised all those calculations down to the simple instruction: don’t target the body but focus on crippling the wings.

A third fly appeared.

“Free.” the man said loudly apparently more than willing to ignore Daniel’s order to be quiet..

The third fly oriented on the noise, which meant he could take a few risks and win without resorting to magic. His body protested as he brought his weapon down on top of the first fly, all the muscles complaining about the speed he was forcing them to function at.

He gasped as the shock of the collision reverberated through his bones and the club deformed during the blow. To Daniel it was like hitting a metal dumbbell in mid-air. The club bounced back from the fly, with a vestigial mouth and teeth that held scraps of slivery tinted wing briefly on display. It was no more than a line and the impression of teeth and if Daniel had not been aware of the club’s capacity, he would have not believed his own eyes and he also knew there was no point checking. By the time he did, it would be long gone.

The struck fly now minus all the wings on its right side was knocked off course and missed its target by five centimetres. Between the sound of the collision and the wind of the flies passage, Daniel wondered what the man was thinking. He hoped he wised up to the fact they were under attack and used magic to protect himself.

Daniel controlled the weapon from the heavy bounce back and checked the new instruction. It would not work even if he used his extra speed boost techniques to speed up further. He still couldn’t cover sufficient ground. Blood Drinker realised it at the same time. A request for lightning magic reached him because the club was not sure it could head off the two remaining enemies. The angles were not in their favour. He brought the club down on the second fly.

This time Daniel watched eagle eyed to make certain he witnessed what was happening. A gaping mouth appeared that stretched across the entire club. It had teeth and the fake jaws opened wide enough to bite a grapefruit in half. The fly ran into those gaping teeth just as the mouth shut upon the wings. There was a wrench of force and then a jolt of a collision. His club called for lightning. Daniel shut his eyes tight and released the magic.

The flash of light was blinding, searing his eyes through the eyelids.

BOOM!

There was a scream next to him, but Daniel was blinking lights away from his vision while mentally he prepared to release another lightning bolt.

Behind him from the toilets, he heard kids yelling. “SHUT the DOOR,” Daniel bellowed.

“My shoulder!” Rob hollered. “I’m hit.”

Through the blurry eyes, there was a flick of silver to his right. Blood Drinker guided his actions. It seemed hesitant to engage in it head on and instead quietly encourage lightning.

Daniel pressed his forearm across his eyes.

There was a flash of pink.

Boom!

Arm down, Daniel searched the room.

A fifth and sixth fly was coming. He had stirred the nest… well, hopefully not… if that happened, he would be retreating into that tiny toilet and hoping Carly would work out the problem and come save him when she woke up.

“My shoulder.” Rob groaned.

Daniel said nothing. He was already crouching low in the hope the remaining two flies wouldn’t notice him and instead would target Rob. The fifth fell into his trap, but the sixth having potentially noticed him using lightning didn’t deviate and was flying at him.

Blood Drinker radiated quiet confidence and at the speed that he was operating all he could do was to trust the club.

He struck the fifth, and there was a corresponding boom and a flash of light as Blood Drinker used some of the energy it had kept from the last lightning bolt to fry the monster.

Then Daniel dropped flat, following hasty instructions as a fly flashed past centimetres from his wide-open eyes.

“So close.”

Up. the thought was mainly images.

Strength.

He pushed off with one hand and was launched up so high his feet hit the roof. Instructions were given, and he swung. The club hit a fly that didn’t exist in Daniel’s mental map. He had completely missed its approach. There was a muted boom and a flash of light.

Daniel landed with eyes fixed on the sixth fly and as far as he was aware the last of them that remained.

He threw himself to the side and briefly got tangled with Rob who had got himself back to his feet. Daniel kept his body iron rod straight. The other man crumpled, and because of his preparation he could get almost instantly into a squat position.

Instruction flashed in his mind as the club directed him and used its extensively upgraded battle tactic components to guarantee the best result. Like a snake, he lashed forward with his weapon. The club withered with magic visible distorting just before it collided with the fly. It bit down.

Satisfaction radiated from the weapon. The fly, assaulted with unnaturally hard wooden teeth and crackling lightning was torn in half.

The chaos that had probably lasted for under ten seconds was over. Rob was back on the ground nursing a probable shattered collar bone and extensive bruising on his legs from when Daniel had run into him. Now that he had time to check there were four dead flies and three that were still alive but crippled.

His eyes kept examining his surroundings as he searched for any emergent threats. Part of him expected to see a stream of hundreds boiling up from the lower floors.

It did not eventuate.

“You said it was safe.” the man on the ground whinged. “My shoulder.”

“I did not say that.” Daniel snapped. “In fact, I told you to stay where you were.”

“You said the exit route was ready.”

“Shut up.” Daniel ordered his eyes once more sweeping all the surrounding space.

“No. My shoulder. The fucking fly got me. Do you have any idea how much that hurts. You were supposed to protect me.”

“Be quiet,” Daniel hissed. He was still tense, but it seemed like the new wave of flies that he had feared was not going to eventuate.

“Don’t tell me what to do, mate. The last five days have been hell. I have a right to vent especially after your incompetence got me hit.”

Daniel barely bit down a response and decided to just ignore the unpleasant man and instead continued to spin slowly around to ensure that nothing was creeping up on him.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Is it safe?” the hysterical woman from earlier called out, but she seemed a lot calmer this time.

“Yes, but no kids.”

The door was open, careful to avoid tearing any of the vines, and she squeezed out. The woman a week ago, when this happened had been dressed in comfortable clothes street clothes, almost fitness wear and was almost certainly one of the day care workers. Now there were multiple rips all over her leggings, and her top was barely functional. Not that it mattered given that she had caked blood all over her, hiding her skin as effectively as the top used to.

“You let the fly hit me.”

“Shut up Rob.” the woman snapped at the guy on the floor.

“He invited me out to be bait.”

“Ignore him.” She advised. “He has been a pain in the butt since day one.”

With a look of distaste, she leaned down and touched him. Healing magic flowed, and a look of relief crossed his face. “I don’t know what you were hollering about. It was only a glancing blow. The one Ginger took was worse, and she’s only eleven and hardly made a whimper.” The worker looked around curiously, and he could tell she was counting all the fallen flies.

“Your ward is created from leaves? Where did the flies from earlier go? Did you kill them somewhere else?”

Daniel scratched his head, but did not lower his focus. “Yes, I have plant growth powers. The rest of flies have moved back to the hive. One of us bonded the queen as a pet and we can control them, but there are still dangerous rogue flies around.” Tom emphasised the point by killing the almost dead fly in front of him.

The woman who still hadn’t given him her name surprisingly burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve taken over the hive?”