True Dark

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I’ll join Jacob when I’m done in the valley,’ June said from the doorway. ‘My shield works for more than just me.’ Then she stepped out of the door and lifted into the air.

  ‘It’s going to take a while to get used to that,’ Andrea commented. ‘But at least she didn’t skimp on her costume.’

  ‘Don’t you mean she did skimp?’ Cygnus asked, smirking.

  ‘Or that. So, I’m going after Xue and you’re going after Guàiwù. Xue has a couple of tanks, so be careful. What are you planning to do to stop Guàiwù anyway?’

  Cygnus smiled. ‘Do you remember Ripple Effect?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember… Oh! You think you can do that?’

  ‘I’m going to give it a damn good try.’

  ~~~

  Men in red uniforms sat around the sides of the command AFV Xue was using. Each of them was wearing a radio headset and receiving updates from the units around the village. The uniforms were red to match General Xue’s, except that his had a lot more gold decorating various parts of it. His was also decorated with a lot of medals, most of which he had not earned but thought he should have.

  So far, Xue was happy with the progress of this operation. It was all going as he had foreseen. Soon, Guàiwù would engage the American woman in the white costume. She was powerful, but she would be distracted from her attack by the assault on the village from the slopes above the valley and, when Guàiwù was able to close with her, she would die. The woman with the shadow powers would engage with Xue directly and she would discover that his abilities were far greater than hers. She would make an excellent concubine. The male with the black skin and the glowing eyes would die with the villagers when the two women were down. The entire exercise would take no more than thirty minutes.

  ‘Great General,’ one of the men sitting nearby said, ‘unit two is not responding.’

  ‘What?’ Xue asked, his brow furrowing. Unit two was the group on the northern side of the valley. They should have been ready to unleash bullets and rockets on the village below them by now. There had been no indication in his visions that they would be countered. ‘Regain contact with them, immediately!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Have unit three move up,’ Xue ordered, knowing his command would be relayed to the group on the eastern road. ‘I must attempt to see our future. No one is to disturb me.’ Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, pushing his mind out to see what had changed and how it would affect him. Something had certainly changed since his last vision, and forcing another always took far too long, but…

  ~~~

  June looked around at the various soldiers who had recently thrown down their weapons in a show of commitment to peace. It was not going to last forever, but they would spend at least a couple of hours singing ‘Kum Ba Yah’ and not attacking the village. Not a bad bit of work.

  She turned and looked down the valley to the east. Jacob would be down there by now, trying to keep the villagers from doing anything too dangerous while also making sure Xue’s troops did not flank Cygnus and Twilight. June briefly considered whether she should refer to Twilight as Andrea now, given what had been said about the woman’s state of mind, but then she decided that names did not matter anyway. Especially now when she could just make out a column of troops marching toward the village. Andrea had thought they would hang back, but they were approaching.

  Gathering up as many rifles and grenade launchers as she could carry, June lifted into the air and headed for the eastern end of the village. Maybe the villagers would stand a better chance with some modern weapons.

  ~~~

  Five hundred feet up, Cygnus circled the company of troops who were marching toward Honai. She figured there were about a hundred. There were three armoured vehicles: the command vehicle at the back and two just behind the monster. Those two AFVs had turret-mounted machine guns that looked like they might be painful, but it was the hulking form of Guàiwù that Cygnus was interested in.

  The creature – it might have been human once but, like The Freak, it was hard to imagine that now – was around sixty feet in height, a tailless, reptilian monster with a body built somewhat like a human who had abused steroids to the point of idiocy. Its head was massive, especially in the jaw which was elongated and came equipped with rows of very large teeth. It likely had a prodigious bite. It had forward-facing eyes, more so than you saw on most animals, which added to the impression that this was some twisted form of human rather than a mutated animal. Thick, heavy fingers ended in ten-inch, razor-sharp talons. Andrea was right: getting hit by that thing was going to be fatal. Well, she would just have to not get hit.

  Flying out until she was around three hundred feet ahead of the column, Cygnus dropped to the ground and lifted her arm, fingers spread. Doctor Ultimate had suggested a likely mechanism for how Ripple Effect’s direct attack worked. Somehow, he had been able to reach inside her, ignoring her defences, to crush organs and rend flesh. Ultimate had suggested a focused gravitational pulse. No one had seen her, so she took her time and aimed. Then she let the energy she was holding go and a shimmer of light sprang forward, hitting the monster right between the eyes. For a brief instant, a massive gravitational force existed inside Guàiwù’s skull, tearing at the grey matter within. The monster let out a roar of pain and collapsed, crashing forward onto the rough road surface.

  Cygnus pushed up into the air as chaos erupted among the troops. They knew they were being attacked, but not precisely from where. Then again, despite all the damage it had taken, the monster was not staying down. It lurched to its feet, pushing itself up on its huge arms, and let out another roar. Cygnus took aim for another attack, and that was when the two machine guns opened up. Bullets zipped through the air past Cygnus as she focused on the monster and the monster lurched toward her. Another burst of energy hit Guàiwù in the chest and he roared in pain, but this time he kept up his steady plod toward her, slowly picking up the pace.

  ‘Damn thing,’ Cygnus muttered under her breath, and set to firing again. Guàiwù was around two hundred feet away now and still accelerating. She would have to break off if he got too much closer. How far could those arms reach? He was moving really fast now; by the time she was ready to fire, he was no more than thirty feet away. She was aiming for a head hit and she got one, and the monster’s eyes rolled up and it crashed to the ground as Cygnus pushed herself upward to avoid being hit as it fell. Its jaw carved a huge rut into the broken tarmac of the road, and Cygnus figured it had to be down this time. Its arm moved, pushing it over onto its back. She watched as it drew back that same, massive limb ready to take a swipe at her as she hovered above it.

  ‘What the Hell do I have to do to kill you?!’ Cygnus screamed, snapping her hand out to blast once again at the monster’s head. There was a truly sickening crunch as the upper part of Guàiwù’s skull collapsed inward and one of his eyes vanished into its socket. The huge arm continued its upward swing for half a second and then dropped to the ground. Cygnus felt a lurch in her stomach at what her attack had done to the monster but, well, it was a monster. ‘Apparently, that’s what I have to do to kill you,’ she said.

  ~~~

  There were a dozen soldiers making their way up the road toward the eastern side of the village. They were using whatever cover they could find, but there was not very much of that; even though they had turned off the flashlights they had been using further down the road, June could spot them easily enough. She dropped into the cover of the overturned cart the villagers had said they could use as a barricade. ‘They’re coming. Maybe fifty or sixty feet away, at a guess.’

  Jacob was checking over one of the RPGs June had brought down with her. ‘That’s quite close enough,’ he said. Then he hoisted the weapon onto his shoulder, stepped out from behind the wagon, set his feet, sighted, and pulled the trigger. Flame roared out of the back of the launch tube and there was a sound like a bottle-rocket on steroids followed by an almighty explosion. The wagon rattled and Jacob gav
e a grunt as the concussion hit him. Then he was stepping back behind the cart. ‘Your turn,’ he said, grinning behind his faceplate.

  June stepped around the other side of the wagon, leaving enough room for a villager to stand beside her. A second man moved to her left and both of them raised their new QBZ-95-1 assault rifles. They were a little nervous, standing there with no obvious protection and, if she were honest, June was a little nervous too. She was fairly sure she could take most of the sting out of the rifle bullets the soldiers would be firing their way, but something might get through. Andrea had explained to the men that there was a risk; they had said that there was a risk either way.

  The soldiers seemed to be in a state of disarray. Jacob had landed the rocket just behind the lead pair, knocking them down but not killing them. The RPG was designed for anti-tank work, not anti-personnel, so most of its force had been directed into the roadway. Still, there were bruised, burned, and battered men struggling to get their act together as the villagers opened fire. Unfamiliar with the odd bullpup design of the rifles, the villagers weren’t hitting with every shot, but the two fallen soldiers were killed in the first attack and another went down before there was return fire. Bullets spattered against June’s shield and the villagers seemed to brighten as the jacketed lead flattened and dropped harmlessly to the ground in front of them. Their shooting grew more confident and faster.

  On the other side of the cart, Jacob stepped out with a second rocket grenade. Ice had formed over the surface of his suit, providing another layer of armour; he had plans for when he had fired this shot. Picking his spot, he took careful aim, ignoring the three bullets that blasted into his chest, and fired. The soldier standing more or less where the rocket hit the ground was blasted into the air and did not move after hitting the ground. Others staggered and let out oaths. When they recovered from the shock, they looked around to see Jacob running toward them.

  He came to a stop as he saw them raising their weapons and lifted his right arm. A beam of blue-white light burst out from an emitter on his wrist and hit one of the men in the chest, the light then flaring out into a sphere about twelve feet in diameter. The three men caught in it let out gasps, their breath frosting in the air. Their hands began to shake as they lifted their rifles to fire.

  Back at the wagon, one of the villagers hissed as a bullet managed to break through June’s shield to score a line along his ribs. The second flinched as a shattered bullet hit his chest. Two rounds aimed at June broke through, one bruising her ribs, a second ripping a hole in her suit and cutting the skin beneath. It was a little surprising to her that the wounds did not hurt as much as she might have thought, but things were getting dangerous. ‘That was really cool, Frostburn,’ she yelled, ‘but we need to take them out.’

  Jacob fired off another beam of freezing cosmic energy, dropping the three soldiers he had previously cooled. ‘Great,’ he yelled back, ‘but I have no idea how to ask them to surrender.’ He turned his aim toward the last group of soldiers and…

  The last four of them threw down their rifles, dropped to their knees and raised their hands over their heads. June reached out and put her hands on the barrels of her personal marksmen. They turned their heads to look at her, nodded, and lowered their weapons. June gave them a smile and, a little tentatively, they smiled back. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s get those wounds tended to and we’ll see how everyone else is doing.’

  ~~~

  The shadows at the back of Xue’s command vehicle shifted and then spoke. ‘Your monster’s dead.’ Four pistols were aimed at the rear doors. No one fired because they could not see anyone there, which was likely a good thing since they would be firing at a metal surface in a closed box. ‘Your two armoured cars are trashed,’ the voice went on, ‘and your troops are dying, which is really not something my friend wants to be doing. Give up now and all we’ll do is take your powers away.’ The two men closest to Xue, the ones not on radio duty, drew long, serrated knives and prepared to defend their leader.

  ‘I saw you coming,’ Xue said, his voice still confident. ‘I saw you entering this vehicle. You will not win.’ His English was pretty good, if thickly accented. ‘You cannot know the power I hold!’

  ‘Right,’ Andrea said, and the room was plunged into darkness. Someone let out a wail which was cut off suddenly. Something swished through the air in the confined space of the AFV and there were the sounds of bodies hitting the metal floor. Then the light came back and Andrea was standing in the middle of the floor, surrounded by six bodies. Not a shot had been fired, but three of the guards had had their heads removed entirely. Andrea flicked the blood off her sword and looked up at Xue. She had kept the fear away from him deliberately; she wanted him to sweat. ‘Well? Now do you give up?’

  His hand was shaking as he raised it toward her. ‘I do not. You will… You will bow before me.’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Andrea warned him.

  ‘You will–’ he began as he pressed his command into her mind… And he found himself standing in total darkness. ‘Where…’ He could see nothing, not even his hand in front of his face, but he could feel and hear. He could feel the cold breath on his neck and hear footsteps as something walked around him. Not something, someone.

  ‘I hope you aren’t afraid of the dark, General.’ It was Andrea’s voice, but harsher. There was a cruel edge to it. ‘Because you’re going to be locked in here for a long, long time. Here. In the dark. With me.’ Xue let out a scream and tried again to force his mind upon the woman he could not see. ‘That won’t do you any good, Xue,’ the voice purred. ‘I’m going to be playing with you forever.’

  General Xue fainted.

  Back in the command vehicle, Andrea watched Xue fall to the deck and shook her head. She slid her sword into its scabbard and turned toward one of the radios.

  ‘You’re not going to let him live, are you?’ Midnight asked. ‘You know what will happen if you do. This country is in chaos. He’ll be back with another army in days. He’ll be forcing more women to–’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Andrea said. She drew her revolver. ‘Yes, he deserves to die. You realise that I won’t be listening to you when we get home, I hope?’ Midnight did not reply. ‘Good.’ Then Andrea pulled the trigger, putting a bullet through Xue’s right eye and splattering his brains across the metal floor.

  ~~~

  The villagers insisted on a celebration of some sort. It was a little weird sitting around eating yak meat and sundry Tibetan delicacies which Andrea refused to identify to any of her friends. There was singing and dancing. It seemed as though the people of the village, not used to westerners in strange, often brief, costumes, did not really care about that: these people had saved their village from the army which had taken control of such a lot of the district. There was every chance that Tibet could once again control its own fate instead of being a vassal of China.

  Cygnus was not entirely happy about having to kill the soldiers leading Xue’s force. Then again, she had not had to kill as many as might be expected. Once she had reduced two armoured vehicles to scrap and cut down ten men with a burst of high-energy particles, the others had turned around and run. They had likely been running past the command AFV even before Andrea had killed Xue and his guards. And an afternoon spent taking the children of the village for rides along with June had settled Cygnus’s feelings about the deaths.

  It was sunset when they finally decided that all the necessary goodbyes had been said and they could leave. Dechen, the little boy who had run ahead of Cygnus and Jacob the night before and had ridden in Cygnus’s arms, giggling like a maniac, walked with them to Andrea’s little house. ‘What will we do if someone else comes?’ he asked Andrea. He was, of course, speaking Tibetan, and only Cygnus and Andrea could understand him.

  ‘You’ll have no more trouble with people like General Xue,’ Andrea replied. ‘I’ll keep an eye on things in this area. If the Chinese Army comes back here, I’ll come back.’

  The b
oy smiled. ‘Okay, Mù. We’ll miss you.’

  Andrea smiled back. ‘Maybe I’ll drop by for a visit now and then anyway. Goodbye for now, Dechen.’

  ‘Bye,’ Dechen called back, waving at all of them before he turned and ran toward his home.

  ‘Should I get on to the Union for a portal?’ Cygnus asked.

  Andrea shook her head. ‘I can get us back.’ She walked into the house and the others followed her. There was barely any light in the room. ‘Just don’t freak out.’

  ‘Wha–’ Cygnus began and then the darkness closed in around her and June.

  Jacob blinked at the empty space, wondering what had just happened, and then Andrea was stepping out of the dark again, heading for the small chest of drawers in one corner of the room. ‘Uh…’ he said.

  ‘I can only take two at a time,’ Andrea said. ‘Once I’ve got my stuff together, I’ll jump you too.’

  ‘You can do that? I guess you can since you said Midnight jumped someone into the air over the sea.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Andrea threw things into her bag. There did not seem to be much, but she emptied the drawers. Then she turned and looked around at her boyfriend. ‘Would you like to stay the night at my place? Uh, well, the morning. It’s going to be about five-thirty in the morning when we get back.’

  ‘I hate time zones,’ Jacob said, ‘but I like that idea.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, stepping forward and putting her hand on his chest. ‘I like that idea too.’ Then the darkness wrapped around them and they were gone.

  New Millennium City, MD.

  The night was a dark and wintery one. The sky was overcast and there was no moon in the sky. The temperature was cool without being really cold. Marty Koslowski thought it was a good night for business, and Marty’s business was scaring money out of people. He had taken a few other jobs for a while, mostly working on building sites in Churchton, but that was hard work. Mugging was a lot easier, and now that Twilight was gone, Marty had gone back to doing what he liked best. Oh, you had to keep an eye out for the Skadi girl and the new one, Astraea, but neither of them were Twilight.