Drawn

by David Alan Jones

  “Yes, sir.” Rose fought down her embarrassment and kept her eyes on Matt’s exec. Everyone else in line had received a weapon of war to defend the team and the village. Watts would issue those to her as well, but not before the hard-plastic case he handed her now.

  It contained six jet-black quadcopters no larger than Rose’s hand, fully charged and programmed to follow her every movement. Connected to a satellite feed and backed up to secure hard drives in three of the team’s vans, the tiny voyeurs couldn’t fail to capture Rose in exquisite detail. She hated them. They made her feel like a prima donna. And she couldn’t escape the subtle, and the not-so-subtle, stares she got when the drones buzzed into the air to float forty feet above her head, each positioned to catch a different angle.

  “It’ll be worth it,” Watts said, giving her a sympathetic look and a slick, black rifle. “I’ve been collecting Pruett comics for years. They’ll make something amazing out of all this.”

  “I guess.”

  “Gringo!” Mayor Rodriguez stormed toward Matt until she stood almost in his face. “You’re going to fight them? In my village?”

  “If we don’t, they’ll capture you,” Matt said over the tumult of running feet, shouted orders, and distant gunfire.

  “And what happens then?” Rodriguez put her hands on her hips and bared her teeth.

  “Then you’ll wish you had listened to me.”

  16

  Overrun and Overwrought

  Rose pressed her armored back against an adobe wall, her sub gun held muzzle up before her. The sounds of automatic rifles echoed strangely through Guadalupe Victoria, masking their origins, but the strident pock-pock-pock of bullets striking the other side of the wall left no doubt. The Indrawn Breath held the road.

  “How are you doing up there, Phelps?” Matt asked over the shared channel. He, along with Valerie Satterfield, crouched next to Rose, pinned down by heavy fire.

  “Good, sir,” came the sniper’s terse response. An instant later her M40A5 coughed from overhead—a distinct crack and hiss that cut through the din.

  Rose couldn’t see Leslie’s target, but considering the girl’s skill with firearms, she assumed the shot found its mark.

  The Breathers sent a storm of bullets flying back in response to Leslie’s shot, striking the tower, sending puffs of smoke into the air and showers of ancient adobe clattering to the cobblestones. One bullet hit the bell. Its peal echoed low and dull through the village.

  “Dammit, people,” Matt shouted into his radio. “Keep up the suppression fire. We’re outgunned, and Phelps is the only one keeping us alive right now! Phelps, you okay?”

  Leslie didn’t answer, but her rifle barked three times in rapid succession. A man screamed on the second shot. He fell silent on the third.

  “That girl’s good,” Satterfield said, nodding.

  “Yeah, but she needs help,” Matt said. “We’ve been at this too long. The Breathers are getting antsy. I can feel it. They’re not going to mess around with us much longer. With our forces split, there’s nothing stopping them from launching a frontal assault. They probably haven’t so far because they don’t know how many people we’ve got in the village.”

  “You think they’re waiting for full dark?” Rose asked.

  “Definitely.”

  Though the sun had already dipped below the horizon and the first stars twinkled overhead, a dusky glow persisted. It cast Guadalupe Victoria in a fading red light as ominous to Rose as the encroaching gunfire.

  “We can’t let them seize the initiative.” Rose lowered the infrared monocle attached to her helmet, her one solace against the oncoming night. “They’ll slaughter us in the dark. They’ve got the numbers and the equipment advantage. Our best chance is to strike first.”

  Matt stared at Rose. She saw fear beneath his stony expression. Not fear of combat, or even death, but rather the sort of fear experienced by a parent whose child is in danger, or a military commander who realizes he has led his soldiers into a no-win situation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head, fingered the mic at his throat, but hesitated.

  Suddenly the gunfire outside Guadalupe intensified. Rose’s draw-enhanced ears picked out the sound of running feet. “They’re charging.”

  Watts’s voice rang over the common channel. “We’ve got at least fifty enemy incoming. Assault rifles, body armor, night vision goggles.”

  An explosion rocked the east side of town, sending a plume of dust and heavier soil skyward. The scent of freshly turned earth mixed with the already acrid odor of spent gunpowder.

  Matt stared at Rose, his face ashen. “Proximity bomb.”

  The Indrawn Breath’s forces had reached the city. They both knew her duty. She had been chosen for this. For a moment, he looked as if he might say more, but she shook her head.

  “Reserve, counter on my mark,” Matt said, using channel two on his radio. He got his feet under him, ready to rise. Rose and Satterfield followed suit. “Three, two, one. Mark!”

  Order ops boiled from the surrounding buildings. Rose dashed from her hiding spot to join their number at a dead run, leaving Matt and Satterfield behind. She assumed her place at the fore, spearheading the Dog Ears’ counterattack meant to slow, perhaps even stop, the Breather offensive. Her heart twanged in her breast as she surged forward, outpacing even the fastest of her fellow ops. She screamed defiance, vaguely aware of the buzzing cadre of drones jockeying for position above her.

  A tide of black-clad, masked figures charged into the plaza. The Breathers wore full night vision goggles, not the monocle style favored by the Order, making it easy for Rose to distinguish between friend and foe as she caught them out in her single-eye display.

  She let her sub gun hang on its strap as she ran, preferring her less cumbersome Kimber in this sort of close-corridor fight. Drawing dexterity, sight, speed, and discernment, Rose rushed the oncoming horde, placing shots with preternatural precision. From ten yards away, she put a bullet in the gap between one Breather’s face mask and the Kevlar at his collar. Another she dropped with a shot under his arm as he aimed at one of her teammates.

  Bullets whizzed past her like streaking comets. Moving without conscious thought, she jigged and juked, stepping out of harm’s way milliseconds before hurtling death could take her. Dust and gun smoke filled the air, turning the narrow corridor between buildings into a miasma of twisting shadows and recursive echoes.

  Rose sprang from the murk in a swirl of blazing gunfire. With a deft twist, she executed a spinning layout, bullets missing her by inches, and took one incredibly long, silent moment to drop the spent magazine from her Kimber and reload on the fly. Literally.

  She landed atop a Breather. The woman never knew what hit her. Rose pummeled her to the ground, rolled, and leapt again, lower this time, angling her trajectory toward a weathered wall. She kicked off it, bullets razing the spot nearly the instant she moved. She landed amid the enemy.

  The main comms channel buzzed in Rose’s ear. Matt was still alive—still giving orders—though he sounded winded, harassed.

  The Breathers nearest her turned Rose’s way, but they seemed so slow in reacting. Evading them was a trifle—the barest of a dodge here, a blocked blow there. These were not the fear-drawn foes she had expected. With an efficiency that would have astonished her only weeks ago, Rose set about dismantling the Breathers’ front ranks.

  She holstered the Kimber, lifted the nearest Breather by the weapons harness on his body armor, and spun him around in a circle like a pool noodle. A swath of bodies went flying. Rather than let the man go, Rose allowed his weight and momentum to spin her about so that she momentarily resembled a discus thrower. With a savage yell, she flung him further into Breather ranks, clearing a lane for the Dog Ears to fill.

  Several bullets scored on her chest, arms, and helmet as she performed this maneuver. The concussions were powerful, the impacts staggering. Though her Kevlar kept the projectiles fro
m penetrating her flesh, pain blossomed in her temples, up her right arm, in her left knee.

  Rose shrugged these off, exchanging for a moment her draw of stamina for one of healing. The hurts faded, the stiffness disappeared. She drew her Kimber and dove toward the next wave of foes.

  For several minutes the world dissolved into a staccato series of precisely timed punches, kicks, and trigger squeezes. Matt’s reserve force had caught up to her. They engaged the Breathers in the narrow alleyway between a grocer’s brick store and what smelled like an herbalist’s shop.

  Rose lost herself in a blanket of discernment. She felt like a robot, acting out a predetermined series of commands that kept her just ahead of danger while doling out mayhem on every side. As she moved, she could feel Leslie’s precisely timed shots backing her progress. They worked in fluid concert, Rose dancing between her enemies as Leslie cleared the way.

  Rose ducked, allowing her friend’s wickedly accurate sniper round to take out the incubi before her. Then she jumped high into the air and Leslie’s rifle coughed five times in a row, surgically removing a commiserate number of the enemy.

  Unfortunately, the Breathers’ numbers were too great to sustain this forward progress. For every one Breather Rose and Leslie dropped, two more took the one’s place. And though Rose had yet to reach the limits of her vast votaries, already her fellow Dog Ears were slowing. Two went down on her left, victims of fatigue as Breathers bowled over them, guns blazing. Rose surged that direction, covering the sudden gap in the Order’s lines, and unintentionally opened another since the ops she thought were behind her had already been overrun.

  “Fall back,” came Matt’s voice over the radio. “You can’t hold that line alone.”

  Rose reversed course toward the plaza. She felt deafened by gunfire, her lungs burned from the acrid smoke, and her uncovered eye leaked tears like rainwater down one cheek. Yet, despite it all, Rose Carver felt more alive, more vibrantly necessary to the workings of the vast universe than she had in all her life. Her heart sang with the melody of battle.

  Was this what it meant to be a succubus? Was she not obligated to defend those who gave her power even if they would never realize their danger? What was a votary save an innocent willing to lend her strength, vitality, speed, and all the rest so that she might fight where they could not?

  “ALCON!” shouted a frantic voice over the radio, drawing Rose from her near trance-like state. “Cure is gray! Rally point at the fountain.”

  Rose’s footsteps faltered. A bullet struck the thin Kevlar at her throat. She gagged, reeling back, pain a raw current centered on her trachea and spreading out like jagged hooks into her head and down her spine.

  Someone tackled her to the ground, a large man with enhanced strength and speed. A knife materialized in the Breather’s hand. Rose flinched aside in time to avoid taking its point through her uncovered eye. It skittered off the cobbles with the flinty sound of steel on stone.

  “Hold still, bitch,” her assailant grunted, as he pitted his strength against hers.

  Cure is gray. The words rebounded through Rose’s mind, their meaning teetering on the cusp of her understanding. But she didn’t want to understand them. Cure for this mission was Matt Snow. Gray meant compromised.

  Matt was either dead or at least incapacitated. Either way, Rose needed to reach him.

  All at once her mind snapped into sharp focus. Her thoughts narrowed in on the man lying atop her, endeavoring to take her life.

  He was in her way.

  Rose drew. She drew it all. Every attribute at her disposal suddenly blossomed into white-hot intensity. Her mind blazed with mental acuity, her body surged with strength, and her limbs blurred with speed.

  With little effort, Rose sat up, lifting her assailant over her head as she did so. With a growl, he swung the knife at Rose’s upraised arm. Bolstered by his draw-enhanced strength, the blade bit through Rose’s armor, piercing deep into her flesh where it lodged between the radius and the ulna.

  The pain registered as an ache in her forearm. Rose flung the man to one side, sending him hurtling into a gaggle of Breathers harassing the Order’s retreat.

  She did not later remember sprinting to the plaza’s fountain. She must have done it while avoiding both aimed and stray bullets because inside ten seconds Rose was crouched over Matt Snow, her heart in her throat.

  “What happened?” she demanded. She saw no blood—no signs of entry or exit wounds. But Matt’s face was pale, his hands cold as winter night, and he was unconscious.

  “I didn’t see,” Satterfield said. “One minute he was giving orders, the next he was on the ground. I dragged him out of the fight and called the team to rally. Where’s Watts?”

  “Dunno.” Rose pulled the knife from her arm and dropped it, bloodstained and sticky, on the cobbles next to Matt.

  “We don’t have time for triage,” Satterfield said. “You’ve got to fight, Rose. We need you.”

  “I’m not leaving him.”

  Satterfield’s face darkened, taking on an expression Rose hadn’t seen since basic training at Camp Den. “You get off your ass and take it to these sons of bitches or you’ll be staying with him in a fear factory! I don’t have time to argue. You make your choice.”

  With that, the buxom succubus took up her sub gun and joined the last vestiges of the Dog Ears in trading fire with the oncoming Breather forces.

  Rallied together like this, the Order had managed to slow the enemy’s progress, stopping them just inside the village proper.

  “Really, it’s quite incredible what you’ve done with so few defenders,” said a deep voice over Rose’s shoulder.

  Gooseflesh dimpled her arms and neck. She spun, still crouched, to find David Lord smiling down at her.

  17

  Sister, Sister

  “Hello, beautiful,” Lord said. “How’s Snow doing? Funny how Kevlar can stop a bullet, but it’s shit at softening a good hard kick, especially one that could dent a tank.” Lord waggled one of his steel-toed boots.

  Rose tried to swing her sub gun to her shoulder, but Lord saw it coming. He caught the automatic by its chassis and wrenched it from her grasp with surprising grace.

  Drawing speed, Rose grabbed the knife next to Matt and sank it into Lord’s thigh.

  He screamed.

  She had moved faster than he expected.

  Good.

  “Leslie!” Rose shouted. “Shoot him!” Rose dove forward, her natural urge to press Lord back away from Matt. She took the Breather low at the knees. His head hit the cobblestones with a satisfying crunch when he fell.

  “Move, Carver!” shouted Satterfield, her weapon shouldered. “I can’t get a clear shot with you in the way.”

  Rose tried to spin free, but Lord rolled her atop him like a shield. He plucked the knife from his leg and pressed it to Rose’s throat, the tip puckering a spot just below her chin.

  Four Dog Ears led by Satterfield surrounded Lord and Rose, their laser sights jittering around the man.

  “Let her go,” Satterfield said.

  “I think not.” Lord exuded charm like an open spigot.

  Rose countered it with her own, protecting her friends. If they clenched now, they were dead.

  “You don’t think we’re good enough to take the shot?” Satterfield asked.

  “I’m sure you are,” Lord said. “But I’m good enough to evade, and then we’re right where we started. Instead, I propose an alternative.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I let Rose’s sister kill you.”

  A sword point suddenly blossomed from the chest of the man next to Satterfield. He screamed, the sound liquid and burbling.

  Before anyone could react, Melody had taken his place, a smile playing on her lips, a blood-soaked katana in her hand. Without looking, she flicked her blade to one side, striking Satterfield in the throat. The beautiful succubus crumpled to the ground in a spray of dark blood. Melody ducked under a cloud of bullets to pl
unge her sword deep into the thigh of the next nearest op, a succubus named Katherine. Melody took Katherine’s head as the woman fell.

  Rose screamed, struggling against Lord’s grip. This brought the attention of more Order ops who, without direction, spun to attack the new threat at their rear, dividing their line of defense.

  “No!” Rose shouted. “Turn back. Defend the village.” But it was no use. The Order’s line had broken.

  The resulting crossfire missed Melody, who had flattened herself to the cobbles. Instead, it engulfed the remaining Order op who had joined Satterfield in rescuing Rose. His armor soaked up most of the barrage, but a bullet caught him high on the cheekbone. He crumpled.

  The battle was lost. A vanishing number of Order ops still fired, but Breathers quickly overran them. Rose squeezed her eyes shut, shock and revulsion battling for dominance inside her head. If she had remained with the defenders instead of abandoning them to help Matt, they would still be holding the line, and she wouldn’t have witnessed her little sister’s wanton murder spree.

  You’re not dead, are you?

  The voice in Rose’s head sounded so like Matt that for an instant she thought it real. But no, this was her voice, her determination to fight, to win. It berated her without taunting, without malice, but with a quiet, simple question.

  No, she was not dead.

  Rose drew speed and strength in equal measures. Energy from her votaries filled her senses. Her blood sang with power.

  With all the force she could muster, she smashed Lord’s face with the back of her helmet. His head bounced off the cobbles with a crack like fireworks. In a flash, she was up, standing over him as he rolled away, his movements sluggish for one of the fear-drawn. He had left a bloody spot on the plaza stones.

  Rose was vaguely aware of Melody cutting a swath through the Order ops who had broken away to deal with her. Despite their superior firepower, not one marked her as she spun and leapt and dove amongst them, her sword flashing in the scant light of stars. Order ops screamed as she progressed, a lithe minion of death incarnate, striking them down faster than any human eye could have followed.