by Devin Hanson
Eric’s phone chimed and Raveth bit off a curse.
“Sorry. I’ll mute it,” Eric muttered. He pulled his phone out and thumbed the volume down.
It started as just a tingle, then a pulse, then a rush. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth against a moan. Energy poured into me, orgasmic in its intensity. There was a stabbing pain in my hand and I felt the broken bone realign in a wash of heat. All the exhaustion, all the pains and aches and bruises faded away. I panted at the intensity of it and couldn’t help but writhe against my chains.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” I opened my eyes and looked up at Raveth. He was leaning over me, a frown on his face.
Eric was looking at his phone, swiping through pictures. Then he stopped and zoomed in. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Raveth demanded without looking away from me.
“It’s her! She’s the one in the photos!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look!” Eric ran over and shoved his phone into Raveth’s hand.
“Yes, very nice, but I…” His eyes narrowed, then he jerked his head up to look at me, shock on his features as he understood the ramifications.
I grinned at him. “Surprise, asshole.”
The handcuff chain made a pinging sound as I broke it. I ripped the tire chains away, the hardened steel squealing and tearing. The servitor had gone back to Dimitri, but now it turned toward me, crouched low, hissing and snarling.
Raveth started backing up, his face a confused mixture of rage and fear. “Stop her!” he shrieked. “Someone shoot this bitch!”
I turned to look at the mercenaries. They were already terrified of the servitor, and now they had witnessed a girl rip her way through hardened steel chains as if they were made of taffy. Worse, Raveth, their employer, and supposed protection against the servitor, was retreating.
“Run while you still can!” I screamed at them. That was all it took. The mercenaries broke and scattered, making a beeline for the side exits.
“You won’t take this from me!” Raveth screamed. “Eric, shoot her! Shoot her or you’ll get nothing!”
I saw Eric raise his gun toward me. The sudden, dizzying influx of lust might have given me super strength, but it hadn’t made me impervious to bullets. I flung the tattered remains of the tire chains at him then broke into a sprint, trying to close the distance to Eric.
The flying chains knocked his rifle to the side, and then I was on him. I caught the barrel of his rifle as he swung it toward me. I felt the gun barrel crush beneath my fingers and I ripped the gun from his hands.
Eric took half a step back and went for his pistol. I acted without thinking and swung the rifle like a club at his head. The blow knocked his helmet askew and he tumbled to the ground in a senseless heap.
A great impact in the back of the head knocked me to my knees. My vision pulsed and disorientation swept through me. Another blow across my shoulders hammered me flat, and I rolled over, trying to make sense out of what had happened.
Raveth stood over me, a five-foot wrecking bar in his hands. He snarled and swung the bar at my head. I twisted aside and Raveth ripped a furrow into the concrete where my head had been. Raveth reached back and swung again, and this time I caught it as it came whistling down at me.
The last time Raveth and I had fought, we had been evenly matched. I had come out on top through luck and by having a little bit more experience brawling than he did. This time, our brief contest of strength was wholly one-sided.
Even on my back, I was able to wrench the bar away from him easily. He fell on me, raining blows down onto my face. It felt like I was getting slapped by a toddler. I blocked, locked his arm out and rolled. There was a splintering crack as his arm broke. I rolled to my feet, grabbed him by the ankle and flung him at the front wall.
Raveth screamed. I expected him to hit the wall and fall, but I had over-estimated how strong the walls were. Or perhaps under-estimated my strength. He ripped through one of the sheets of steel sheathing, leaving a ragged rent ten feet off the ground, and his scream cut off abruptly.
“Take that, you piece of—”
“Alexandra!” Dimitri cried.
I turned and saw the blur of the servitor coming at me. I got my arms up, but I still weighed barely over a hundred pounds. One taloned forelimb swatted me across the chest and I went flying. I felt a flash of searing pain and I smashed into the vehicle lift that I had been chained to earlier.
The wind was knocked out of me, and I fell to the floor gasping after breath. There was a groan of stressed metal and I looked up to see the lift slowly toppling over. I rolled away and got out from under the lift platform as it came crashing down.
Before I could move again, the servitor was on me. It slammed one of its front talons clear through my shoulder and pinned me to the concrete beneath. Through the sudden red heat of pain, I saw its needle-filled maw gaping wide and coming down to close over my face.
I couldn’t move my left arm, but I caught the point of its jaw with my other hand and slammed its mouth shut. The lunge that would have torn my face off turned into a headbutt that sent stars fluttering through my vision.
The servitor snapped and snarled, its teeth gnashing wildly as it tried to reach my face. I fought it off as best I could, but it was a loosing battle. If my hand slipped as I struggled to keep it from reaching me, it would tear my face to ribbons in a heartbeat. The agony in my shoulder was sapping the strength from me. I could feel the creature’s talon grinding against my collarbone as it tried to lunge at me.
From behind the servitor, I heard a throaty roar and the tip of the wrecking bar spiked out through the front of the creature’s chest. It let out a piercing screech of pain and twisted to snap at its back. I saw Dimitri stumble backward, then the servitor ripped its talon from the concrete, bringing me with it.
With another screech at Dimitri, the servitor turned and sprang for the rent in the wall where I had thrown Raveth through. I was still impaled on the talon and the wrenching of the creature’s leap sent a blinding wave of agony through me.
I screamed as we crashed through the wall and careened into a stack of crushed cars waiting to be run through the shredder. The servitor shook me off its talon and flung me to the side. I smacked into one of Raveth’s SUVs and the window shattered behind me.
It took me a few seconds to gather my wits. The cubes of safety glass from the shattered window tinkled down around me. My shoulder burned like fire and I coughed wetly. Blood spattered the asphalt in front of me.
The servitor howled, an ululating shriek that scraped at my nerves. It wasn’t done fighting yet. I pushed myself to my feet and leaned back against the side of the SUV. The throbbing pain in my shoulder was starting to fade. I touched my shoulder gingerly, afraid of what I was going to find beneath my jacket. The flesh there was spongey and sensitive, but the hole the talon had punched all the way through was already closed up. Score one for being a lilin.
I looked up as the creature clambered to the top of the stack of cars, its talons punching holes through the sheet metal as it climbed. It twittered, its ears tilting back and forth, then its head turned and it looked directly at me.
Shit. This thing was like a bat and had used echo location to find me. I pushed off the SUV as the servitor dropped down to the ground. Its talons ripped through the asphalt as it dug in for traction and started charging toward me.
I turned and ran. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fight it. It had a five-foot length of steel driven through its chest and it had barely slowed down. What was I going to do? Punch it? The futility of that would have been hilarious if I wasn’t currently running for my life.
The servitor chased me through the stacks of cars; I could hear it behind me, crashing into things and snarling. Every few seconds it would let out a series of high-pitched chirps.
The rush of energy from the photos had peaked and now I could feel it start to wane. There was only so much lust that co
uld be generated from a dozen or so still images. It was only a little bit from each person who viewed them, but multiplied by millions had me feeling like I had just finished an orgy. As I ran through the corridors of stacked cars, the fear and panic began to fade and I started thinking again.
I couldn’t fight the servitor, not with my hands at least. If I had weapons and knew how to use them, I could conceivably stand my ground against it. Strangely enough, the darkness seemed to be more of a hinderance to the creature than it was to me. It was only by using its hearing that it was able to track me at all.
I needed to disrupt its hearing. I turned a corner and saw the crane tower at the back of the lot, and the obvious answer came to me: the industrial shredder. That thing made a true cacophony when it was running. If I could get it turned on, then the servitor would be severely handicapped and I might actually have a fighting chance.
The crane stuck up over the stacks of cars and gave me a landmark to guide me as I ran. I was gaining ground on the servitor, and could hear the rasping chokes of its breath coming from the stacks behind me. Having a wrecking bar driven through its chest might not have killed it outright, but it was starting to wear it down.
I reached the clearing in the cars where the shredder was located. The shredder was set high on a platform so dump trucks or rail cars could be positioned beneath it to catch the scrap. Gantries ran around the rim of the shredder, and what looked like a control booth was set to one side. That’s where I wanted to go.
The straight dash across the clearing opened the lead I had on the servitor. I glanced back as I reached the stairs leading up to the platform and saw it bound out into the open. It paused and peered around near-sightedly before chirping.
By then I was banging up the steel stairway, taking it four steps at a time, and I didn’t need to look to know it would find me. I heard the servitor shriek as I reached the platform level. I didn’t even try the knob on the booth, just dropped a shoulder and blew right through the steel door.
I didn’t know the first thing about running heavy equipment, but there was a big, obvious lever labeled “power”, so I flipped that. With a groan a diesel engine coughed into life and the shredder started up. Through the reinforced glass, I could see the two drums at the bottom of the chute turning. Blunt teeth rotated, meshing together with ponderous inevitability. Besides the rattle and hum of the hydraulics and the background throb of the diesel, the shredder was quiet.
Of course. It needed something to chew on if it was going to make noise. Using the crane to drop cars into the shredder was beyond my skill, but there was a conveyer belt already loaded with a line of cars ready to feed into the shredder’s maw. I started looking for a way to get the conveyer started, then the servitor leapt onto the platform and shrieked.
Time to go. With the servitor here, I didn’t have time to figure out the conveyer belt and I certainly didn’t want to stay in the booth where I could get cornered. I ran out onto the platform and circled around the shredder, keeping it between the servitor and myself. My footsteps clanged on the expanded steel of the platform and the servitor tracked me with its ears.
I reached the first of the cars on the conveyer belt and paused, eying the servitor, wondering what it would do. It tilted its head around and its ears swiveled. Its fanged mouth hung open as it panted and dark blood ran from its tongue and matted the fur on its chest. It chirped uncertainly, then again, louder.
Time to make some noise. And find out how strong I actually was. I jumped to the first car on the conveyer belt. It had probably been some kind of mid-2000s economy sedan at some point. A Civic or a Taurus or something, but now it was smashed into a dark blue billet. I grabbed the front of the frame and pulled.
The expanded metal of the platform deformed under my feet, but I managed to drag the crushed car a few feet. A few more and it would tip into the shredder. I gathered myself, ignoring the stabbing ache in my shoulder. Then the servitor jumped. I heard the clang as it left the platform and twisted around in time to see it dropping toward me.
I dived to the side and rolled. The servitor came down, stabbing about with its taloned forelimbs, punching holes through the expanded metal as it chased me across the platform. I found my feet and made a wild leap, trying to clear the shredder.
I didn’t make it. It might have been a world-class standing long jump, but it was still a few feet too short. I hit the side of the chute around shredder and started slipping down toward the churning teeth. I scrambled frantically, trying to climb up the chute away from the shredder drums, then the servitor crashed down next to me.
With a swipe of its talons, the servitor knocked me to the bottom of the chute and numbed my left arm from the shoulder down. I could feel the rotating drum beneath my feet, pulling me toward the middle. I backpedaled, trying to keep to the edge of the chute. The servitor wasn’t done with me, though. It lunged at me, its gaping jaws snapping furiously.
I fell backward onto the rotating drum and felt my jacket catch on one of the teeth. There was a crunch and the servitor screamed in agony, but I was too panicked about my arm getting pulled into the maw of the shredder to pay attention.
The Kevlar plate on my shoulder caught between the rotating teeth and I strained against the leather of my jacket, trying to pull free. On the periphery of my awareness, I sensed the bulk of the servitor as it thrashed around, but it wasn’t attacking me.
For a moment, I didn’t have the leverage to tear my jacket, then the armor plate shattered and the teeth cut through the leather of my sleeve. With the rip started, I tore my arm free with a cry of effort and flung myself up the side of the chute.
The steep slope didn’t offer much purchase, but with a final lunge I caught the rim of the chute and pulled myself to safety. Only then did I turn back to see what had happened to the servitor. One of its hind legs had been caught in the drums, and it was thrashing madly, trying to rip itself free.
I watched in nauseated horror as one of its front limbs got caught and inch by inch, it was drawn into the grimly relentless maw of the shredder. The teeth and drums were streaked with blood, glistening wetly in the light of the moon.
With one last, desperate effort, the servitor lashed out with its other forelimb and sank its talons into the chute at my feet. There was a wet tearing sound as it held against the draw of the teeth, and it started to pull itself free.
My heart leapt into my throat. I couldn’t let it escape. I reached down and grabbed the talons. The servitor looked at me, and for a moment I thought I saw understanding in its bestial eyes. Then I yanked its talons free of the chute and it tumbled back into the grinding drums of the shredder with a piercing scream.
I watched, my stomach in my throat, as the servitor was drawn the rest of the way in, inch by agonizingly slow inch. Then, finally, its skull crushed between the rotating drums and it was gone. The only thing that remained was the lingering gore stuck to the teeth.
Gradually, I became aware of approaching sirens. I didn’t know how long I had been standing there staring at the slowly rotating drums. I limped around to the control booth and shut the shredder down, then I went to meet the spinning red and blue lights pulling into the yard.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You sure you don’t want to come down to the station and give a formal statement?”
I looked up from my coffee and gave Friday a weak smile. “And tell them what?”
He shrugged and dropped another cube of sugar into his coffee. The waitress came by and delivered the breakfasts we had ordered. “I don’t know,” he said once we were alone again. “The truth?”
I laughed. “I did tell you the truth.”
“Oh, come on. A giant gorilla-bat was killing people?”
I poked at the rubbery eggs with my fork and decided to just eat the pancakes. “You saw the remains.”
“I saw a puddle of meat scraps. The techs are still running DNA tests,” he shrugged. “So far they haven’t found any matches. And that do
esn’t explain the thirty million in gold bars we found on the premises.”
“I told you who they belonged to.”
“Yeah. That Caradoc guy verified ownership and had it taken away.” He chuckled and slurped at his coffee. “Good thing, too. Having that much gold in the precinct was making the captain nervous. Still, it was strange that there was no report of the safe that was broken into.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Does it matter?”
Friday smiled a little sourly. “No. Not beyond my own peace of mind. I just don’t understand how a bullion heist was connected to dozens of random people being murdered.”
I had left that part out. Friday was a perceptive man. If I opened his eyes too far, there was no telling how much he would see and that wouldn’t lead anywhere but to his own death. “The killings stopped, didn’t they?”
They had. At least for now. When the cops had arrived at the wrecker yard, I was the only person left able to tell them what had happened. Raveth had taken one of the loaded SUVs and vanished with ten or fifteen million in gold. Dimitri, Frederick and Elaida had disappeared as well, taking the Shroud with them. They hadn’t taken the skull, maybe as a peace offering of sorts. Eric had been left behind, alive, but with his mind burned away. He was no better than a toddler, unable to form words or communicate in any meaningful way.
I didn’t feel sorry for him. Not in the slightest.
“We haven’t had any more reports of apartments being destroyed either.” Friday shook his head and sighed. Then he brightened up. “Oh! I have a check for you.” He dug through his pockets and came up with a folded envelope with the LAPD logo blazoned on it.
I peeked inside and raised my eyebrows. “I only invoiced you for six hours. This is a lot more than that.”
He shrugged. “I put in for your daily retainer for three days. Considering the services you’ve provided for us, it was well worth it.”
