Shadow Scourge: Book Summary
The novel begins in the swamps of Louisiana. A man named Falconer is heading through the swamps with a woman named Mama Minuit. They are leading a band who intend to take out a man named Ocajnic. While traveling they encounter a group of swampies and take them down. Only twenty years have passed since the Skydark and only now the sun is starting to come back, even though the land is still enshrouded by darkness.
Falconer
has spent six days with Minuit and her people and has learned that they think
that science is more monstrous than the voodoo that they believe in. They
approach a church that the creature has set up as his home.
Minuit tells him it’s an evil place and has been defiled.
He enters it and inside he sees a number of robed people chanting around
a man who’s the pinnacle of male beauty. As he watches a beautiful young woman
is brought to the man who appears to kiss her.
She has ritual scarring around her eyes like the others that are in the
church. The man, Ocajnic literally
sticks his tongue down her throat. When that happens the robed figures around
him strip out of their robes and start screwing.
Minuit’s
people choose this time to attack. They
start to slaughter the man’s followers. Falconer tired to fire on the creature
but feels a strange paralysis take over his hand. He switches eyes in the scope and the paralysis disappears.
He can’t get the head shot he wants so settles for hitting the creature
in the chest.
Once the creature falls Minuit goes to him and covers him in a powder that causes his true form to show. They speak for a bit before she leads Falconer over to the creature. They appear to kill it but all they are doing is sealing it up so it can’t harm anyone. The church is on fire and Minuit believes it will be a suitable resting place for the time. Falconer comes to the realization that there is something far worse in the world other than the genetically engineered mutants and radiation.
In
the present time Kane, Grant and Domi are in the Amazon basin. They are
investigating a redoubt and a military base they read about in the Wyeth codex.
They have been in the Amazon for three days now and were staying with the
natives who were very friendly to them up until they decided to leave.
As
the group headed back to the redoubt the natives attacked with blow darts in
order to subdue them. They get Grant and Domi but miss Kane. He leads them on a
chase through the jungle. He is able to elude them long enough to capture one of
the men.
Domi
and Grant are under the influence of a drug as they are prepared for the
ceremony that will wed them to the native’s god. They are treated gently and
have their bodies painted and then are brought to the top of the pyramid.
Using
the prisoner Kane makes it into the ville and makes his way to the temple.
Pretty much all the natives are there for the ceremony. He is able to knock out three more of his pursuers and is
able to capture a priest and dons the man’s robes.
The
noise of the ceremony attracts the attention of the ‘god’ of the natives.
Kane is shocked when he sees the feather serpent until he realizes that the
feathers were actually attacked and not part of it. But the snake is still
gigantic. It goes straight for Domi
and Kane attacks. Grant finally
snaps out of the drug induced stupor and grabs Domi and pulls her to safety. The
snake almost gets Kane but when the chief interferes he is killed by the snake.
Kane
finally kills the mutant snake by shooting out some stone supports and crushes
the snake. Kane tells Domi to act
as if things are perfectly normal and they walk out of the ville unmolested.
It
is now a year to the day that Kane and Grant went into the canyon where they
found the mat transmitter that changed their lives forever and turned them into
exiles.
Brigid
is on the plateau outside the redoubt and is firing at a silhouette to improve
her firearms skill. As she fires
she sees Ambika’s face on the target and uses her anger and rage against the
woman. She empties the weapon and sees Auerbach and Banks. They are coming back from visiting Beth Li’s grave.
A week before Auerbach was finally released from his cell.
Brigid
returns the weapon to the armory and then heads to the control room. She meets
up with Dafore, Bry and Lakesh. All of the people’s Transponders stopped
relaying at the same time. It seems that about two weeks before they started to
get reports of an outbreak of the black plague around Samariumville and
Lafayette.
At
this time an Archavist named Doyle from Samariumville as well as an escort of
mags. They are in the swamps
talking to an old man about the disappearance of a team that was sent in weeks
before. The old man is a Hougan who
is the descendant of Mama Minuit. He
tells them about the old one that is trapped in the swamps, in his Sepulchre.
He brings them some ancient papers and warns them not to go to where the
old one is kept. He warns them that
his minions want them, outlanders to release their master.
After
they leave he goes back into his hut. Two swampies have his grand daughter. She
is naked and bound. The swampies
threatened to kill her if he didn’t give the people from the ville the way to
find their master. The girl’s
name is Esther and she is a Doomie. She
predicts the arrival of what surely has to be Kane and Grant as well as others.
One of the swampies decides to try and kill her but he ends up shooting the
grandfather instead. Her huge mastiff dog kills the mutant and the other
apologizes for the un-deserved death. She
sets the hut on fire and leaves as well.
Baron
Sharp and Samurian are standing together and talking. They are at the Mesa which
suffered horribly from the crash of the Aurora nearly two months before. They
meet the small hybrid woman who Kane and Grant allowed to live. Her name is
Quavell and she informs them that it has been exactly 53 days and 9 hours since
the destruction. ¾ of the base’s personnel were killed. Only ten days before
they finally got the power restored.
Sharpe
points out that they face extinction and that he is curious as to why the Archon
directive hasn’t stepped in to investigate the disaster.
They realize that they need help in order to survive and come to the
conclusion that Grant and Kane might be the only ones who can provide it.
Doyle
reads over the history of the old one as they approach the ruined church that
has now become overgrown. He gets
the Magistrates with him to begin unearthing the ruins. They dig down to a stone that had a silver cross on it.
At this point it’s after dark. Doyle
suggests continuing in the morning but the Magistrates ignore him. He goes to
the wag in order to get some sleep. Six hours later he wakes up when it starts
to rain. He leaves the wag and goes to look for the magistrates. They
are not at the mound and he finally manages to find them. At first he thinks that they are dead but learns that they
are just comatosed. He panics and
runs blindly into the swamp but Ocajnic catches him.
Lakesh,
Brigid and the others are discussing the outbreak. Lakesh is actually hoping
that it will end up killing the Hybrids. They
also discuss Enterprise Eternity and the Cornelius family from Bloodlines.
Brigid
decides to go and check out Redoubt 47. She wants Dafore to go with her because
of the woman’s medical expertise. She agrees although reluctantly but lets her
know that she would rather jump out with Kane and Grant along as well. They
spilt up in order to gather what they need and plan to meet back in two hours.
Brigid
does some research on Ocajnik and comes up with a little data from the database.
She also digs up some information on the man called Falconer.
She
meets up with Dafore and they gear up, wearing the same environmental suits that
they had for the trip to Mars. They jump out and moments later Kane, Grant and
Domi arrive.
They
arrive in the redoubt. The walls are a deep brown, almost like mud in color.
Past the gateway they see what appears to be a medieval laboratory.
The whole redoubt appears to be done up like that. They find a man in the
advanced stages of the disease and Dafore takes a sample.
They leave him when he dies as there is not a thing that could have been
done to help him. They are about to head back to the gateway when a bunch of
rats prevent them. They are chased out of the redoubt and get trapped in
quicksand.
Kane
woke up after sleeping seven hours. He ended up taking a dart in his rump.
He learns of Dafore and Brigid leaving the redoubt and decides to go
after them. He meets with Cotta,
Farrel, Bry, Domi and Lakesh in the control room. They learn what Brigid and
Dafore are searching for. In a nutshell they learn about Ocajnik and decide to
go after them immediately.
Brigid
wakes up and discovers that she is bound and naked, same with Dafore. She
remembers the beating that they both suffered when a group of Swampies came out
of the quicksand and captured them. Doyle comes to talk to her. He tells her
that they are guests of the old one but she knows that it isn’t so. He tells
her that he, as well as the others under Ocajnik’s control is beasts. They are
also immune to the plague.
She
fights him, really delivering the man a severe beating but it doesn’t stop him
from trying to rape her. Only Ocajniks’ arrival prevents his.
Kane
and Grant arrive in Redoubt 47. They
explore and see the same things that the women spotted.
They go to head out and are attacked by a female swampie. It takes a head
shot to put her down and a second swampie attacks and is also killed. More
attack and they are surprised to see that one of the attackers is a Magistrate.
After the battle they head out to where Brigid and Dafore were captured
and head right into an ambush.
Brigid
is brought out of the hut and taken before Ocajnik. The old one is examining the medicine that they brought
before he hands it to a swampie and orders that it be destroyed.
Dafore compares him to a mutant, an ancient mutant.
He becomes enraged by her words and subjects her to his ‘kiss’.
Brigid
is helpless to do anything to stop him. What ever it is, Dafore finds herself
opening up to her primitive, primal side and urges. They leave her alone. The swampies then bring in another
young woman, equally naked and toss her up and down on a makeshift trampoline
until Ocajnik finally kills her.
The
swampies ambush Kane and Grant but pay a very high blood price for it. The
mutants retreat and the Magistrates continue. They get away from a huge pack of
rats and are forced to take to the water twice.
Four
Swampies meet them and they look like corpses from the wounds that the two
Magistrates inflicted. Suddenly a huge mutant like turtle appears and attacks
the wounded muties, as it was drawn by the blood from the wounds. They continue
to travel and run into Mama Esther and her Cajuns. She knows who they are as she
predicted their arrival. She forces
them to come along and when they refuse her people beat the living daylights out
of the two men. Kane wakes up and
finds himself on the back of a horse.
Doyle
has Dafore and Brigid dropped into a pit. Brigid does what she can to console
Dafore, getting into the other woman’s intellectual mind to try and figure out
what sort of power Ocajnik has over her.
Kane
and Grant are taken to see Esther. They
are in a shanty town built around a predark building. They’re led inside and
it has power and air conditioning. Esther inspects their bodies and then they
are fed. They talk about the Lao and their purpose and that the swampies seem to
have been bred for war. And it seems that the swampies might have been created
using part of Ocajnik’s DNA.
Before
they can go after the creature they have to be cleansed. They endure a long
ritual that is led by Esther. Eventually it leads to them being baptized. Once
that is over she announces that they are now ready to take on the creature.
Doyle
has a change of heart and kills the swampie that was guarding the two women.
He helps them escape but they don’t get very far before Ocajnik catches
them. Almost at that exact same time Kane and Grant arrive.
They
fight with Esther’s people and kill a huge number of swampies before they
finally manage to take the creature down. Esther
is killed in the battle as well as Doyle but Kane and Grant manage to rescue the
two women.
End of Shadow Scourge