Spitting angrily, the Alien clambered to its feet and faced the battered Predator. Its black, misshapen body smoked and sizzled where the razor net had cut it. The Alien was determined not to be dominated. Its segmented tail-stump flailed from side to side, beating the stone walls.
The humanoid was clearly overmatched, for the Alien was far more powerful and formidable than the Predator had thought possible. Now there was little to do but face death with honor—and die fighting.
The Predator threw back its arms, extended its chest, and roared in the face of doom.
With a final spitting hiss, the Alien was on him, driving the humanoid to the ground and crushing him under its weight. The Predator struggled against the onslaught, but there was no defense. Clawed hands grasped the Predator’s dreadlocks, holding its head fast.
Then the Alien’s inner mouth punched through the broken faceplate to smash the Predator’s flesh and bony skull beneath. A fountain of gore erupted from the shattered head, spraying the walls and flagstones with clotting brain matter and a steaming green fluid that glowed with a sickly radiance.
Abruptly, Lex and Sebastian—with Weyland draped limply between them—staggered out of the labyrinth and into a vast chamber lined with stout, rough-hewn stone pillars. The room was a maze of pitch-black shadows, but a dim illumination radiated from an unseen source, though it was still difficult to penetrate the darkness for more than a few yards.
Lex was starting to think like the survivors she’d lived amongst—the Sherpas of the Himalayas and the subsistence hunters of Alaska. She knew that anything could be hiding in this forest of carved stone cenotaphs. For the first time in her life, she wished she had a weapon.
They found a wide stone staircase lined with ornate square pillars. After climbing several steps, Lex and Sebastian slowed and released Weyland. He leaned against the wall, avoiding their eyes.
“What was that thing?” Sebastian croaked, rubbing his bruised throat.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
Lex drew a compass from her utility belt and, with the sleeve of her coat, wiped the Day-Glo green blood from her face. She read the compass, then glanced around the column-lined stairway.
“What now?” Sebastian asked.
“We keep moving and stay on this heading.”
Weyland clutched his chest and moaned. A cough wracked his frail body. He dropped to his knees and began to hyperventilate. Lex hurried to the man’s side.
“Take it easy,” she said, grabbing his shoulder.
Weyland’s face began to turn blue. His mouth gaped like a suffocating fish.
Without breaking eye contact, Lex took Weyland’s head in her hands and held it. It was clear that he had taken too much air into his lungs and that they were beginning to freeze.
“You have to control your breathing,” she coaxed. “Take slow, steady breaths …”
She took shallow breaths herself, to teach Weyland by example, and soon his own breath became less forced, less labored.
“Slow, steady… that’s it,” Lex said as the tension drained from Weyland’s face and he visibly relaxed. Finally, Lex led Weyland to a step and sat him down.
“I’m okay… I’m okay,” Weyland croaked, trying to wave her away and rise again.
Suddenly a looming shadow appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come on, we have to get out of here,” Lex cried, hauling Weyland to his feet. Hobbled, the billionaire tried to use an ice axe as a cane, but his arms were as tired as his legs—too exhausted to support him now. Slowly, Weyland slumped against the wall, teetering on unsteady limbs.
“No,” he gasped. “I can’t… it’s hard enough to stand…”
Every word Weyland spoke seemed to sap more of his waning strength. Lex could see that the strain of the chase and the constant exposure to the frigid air had ravaged what little remained of the man’s disease-ridden lungs.
“Weyland—”
But the man cut her off.
“Save it,” he said with some of his old authority. “This is all my fault.”
His intentions were clear. Weyland was going to sacrifice himself in order to give her and Sebastian more of a head start.
“I’m not letting you die down here,” said Lex.
Weyland grinned. “You didn’t, Lex. Go. I’ll buy you whatever time I can.”
The Predator was coming, moving very deliberately up the stairs. Weyland spied it and grabbed the ice axe, brandishing it like a weapon.
“Go! Go now,” he cried.
Lex reached for Weyland, but Sebastian grabbed her arm and dragged her up the stairs. Weyland and Lex shared a final look, then the man turned to face the presence growing nearer.
Not bothering to cloak itself, the Predator walked right up to Weyland. The human rose to his full height, staring impassively at the otherworldly creature. For a long moment, Weyland faced the Predator squarely, eye to eye, then lifted the axe and charged.
The Predator reached out, snatched the axe out of Weyland’s hand and tossed it aside as Weyland’s futile swing carried him past the Predator and set him stumbling down a step into an elaborately etched wall panel.
The creature turned and stared down at Weyland. As blank eyes on the Predator’s faceplate glowed with crimson fire, the human felt a strange warmth inside his chest. Reaching out, the Predator clutched Weyland’s shoulders, held him fast and examined him from head to toe.
Then, snorting contemptuously, the creature pushed Weyland aside and turned his back on him.
Weyland understood what that meant. Somehow the Predator could sense his frailty and did not regard him as a threat—in fact, Weyland was sure that, to this monster, he was nothing more than a sick, helpless animal!
Choking on a rush of helpless rage, Weyland clenched his teeth and searched for a way to strike back. He had no weapon, but his fingers closed on the oxygen tank slung over his back.
Ripping the cylinder off his shoulder, Weyland set the tank down and propped it against his foot. Kneeling, he opened the valve until it was gushing full blast. As pure oxygen filled the chamber, he yanked an emergency flare from his utility belt and held it up.
“Don’t you turn your back on me!” he cried.
At the sound of the human’s voice, the Predator spun—and Weyland ignited the flare.
The combustible oxygen instantly exploded in a bright yellow fireball that engulfed the Predator. Clutching the tank and directing the oxygen flow, Weyland doused the thrashing, flailing creature with blistering fire.
When Weyland heard the Predator’s pain-wracked cries echoing off the walls, he laughed like a madman. “That’s right, you son of a bitch! Burn…”
The black silhouette in the center of the conflagration screeched again. Then, still wreathed in flames, the Predator lurched forward as it unsheathed twin wrist blades. With one quick thrust the Predator plunged the long, wicked knives into Charles Weyland’s soft, unprotected belly.
Weyland died with scarcely a sigh, blood starting from his nose and mouth. Snarling, the Predator hauled the limp, bloodstained body into the inferno to be consumed. But with Weyland’s corpse came the oxygen tank, still clutched in his dead hands. Licked by the flames, the pressurized contents of the cylinder detonated like a bomb. A billowing orange blast and a bright yellow fireball surged along the stairway, scorching everything in its fiery path.
Lex and Sebastian stumbled blindly through the semidarkness, once again lost in the maze of stone corridors. The pyramid rumbled as it shifted shape yet again, shaking the dust of millennia loose to choke and blind them. Over the noise and the pounding of their boots on the stone floor, they heard Weyland’s cries, then the explosion.