Detonation Boulevard

by Craig Schaefer

  Marie couldn’t focus for a second, jolted out of her senses. A horn blared, the hood was billowing steam on the other side of a windshield painted in spiderweb cracks, and the air split with the muffled sound of gunshots from all directions.

  “Get down and stay put,” one of the agents shouted as he flung his door open. “The SUV’s armored, you’ll be safe here!”

  He jumped out, raised his gun—and a bullet caught him right between the eyes, spitting blood against the window as he slumped to the street. His partner followed, ducking low and returning fire over the hood. Marie squeezed Nessa tight and pulled her down; they huddled low in the back seat as slugs crackled against the Explorer’s hull.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay.” Nessa wriggled free of Marie’s grip. She lifted her head, peeking out the back window, then ducked down again. “We are not safe here.”

  “I know.”

  Marie craned her neck, looking for an escape strategy. The storefronts lining the street were becoming a nightmare of broken glass and splintered wood as their attackers laid down a curtain of gunfire. No alleys, no side streets—they’d been bottled up inside a perfect kill box.

  At one end of the street, a white minivan pulled up between the two abandoned pickups, swerving hard and turning its side door toward the fight as it screeched to a dead stop. The door rattled open. Inside, a pair of yellow-eyed men worked fast to set up the van’s cargo. A heavy tripod snapped into place, legs springing and locking, and the two of them lugged over its payload: a gas-operated machine gun, fed by a belt of heavy ammunition. Heavy enough, Marie guessed, to tear through everything and everyone on the street like they were nothing but paper targets.

  Marie pulled her stolen pistol from the mirror bag and shoved open the side door.

  “Stay close, stay low,” she said to Nessa. “I’m going to carve us a way out of here.”

  * * *

  The back door of the sideways SUV wrenched open with a squeal of twisted metal. Jessie poked her head inside.

  “Can you stand up? Have to get you out of here, tank’s spitting gas all over the damn street.”

  Daniel grimaced as he inched his way sideways in the wreckage. Pebbles of broken glass clung to the leg of his pants and his torn-up sleeve.

  “Get my cuffs off,” he told her. “I can help.”

  She reached in, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him out with inhuman strength, pulling him over the edge of the wreck. Harmony was crouched down next to a spinning tire, her back dangerously close to the gas leak, snapping off shots from her Sig Sauer. A couple of locals were on the run, stampeding down the sidewalk in a blind panic. A gunman popped out of cover, opened up with a machine pistol, and raked the civilians with bullets. Harmony took careful aim, one eye squinting shut, and returned fire with a single shot. The gunman pitched to the blood-spattered asphalt face-first. Nyx didn’t bother changing course: her hoof came down on his spine and crushed it like a matchstick as her rampage carried her toward the next SUV in line. The surviving agents were falling back in waves, their nerve on the edge of shattering as round after round pelted the demon’s scales with no effect.

  “Is he clear?” Harmony asked, not taking her eyes off the battlefield.

  “He’s clear,” Jessie shouted. “Let’s go, we need to move! You got eyes on the other two?”

  There they were, up ahead. Marie darted from cover, laying down fire, Nessa right on her heels as they ran for the bullet-riddled door of a liquor store.

  And there was the open belly of the minivan, where one of the hunters squared his footing and locked the ammunition belt into position.

  The machine gun opened fire with the thrum of a jackhammer. Rounds plowed into the crashed SUVs, chewing through armor, blasting apart engine blocks, and shredding run-flat tires to rubber confetti. Jessie hit the pavement and hauled Daniel down with her, while Harmony threw herself flat behind the wreck.

  “Listen to me,” Daniel shouted, “you know what I can do. You need my help.”

  Harmony and Jessie locked eyes.

  “Do it,” Harmony said.

  Jessie uncuffed him. He thrust his hand high. Inside the wreckage, the door of the glove compartment burst open and a stream of playing cards riffled through the air, landing in his open palm.

  “Out of curiosity,” he said, “you assholes manage to take down an actual demon yet?”

  “No,” Jessie told him. “I was thinking we’d start today. Want in on this?”

  “You’re goddamn right.”

  Nyx snatched up another agent, grabbing him by the throat. Her coiled fist smashed into his face—and through it, blasting out the back of his skull. She let out a raspy laugh and wore his corpse like a bracelet around her wrist, wriggling her arm to make it dance before she tossed it aside.

  Then a stray round from the machine gun sliced her shoulder open, spitting a gout of black ichor across the pavement. The scales rippled, knitting themselves back together, but she spun and screeched at the van. The gunner cringed, holding his fire long enough to give an apologetic wave. He swung the barrel left, out of her path.

  “Listen up,” Harmony said. “We’re going to keep her distracted. If the three of us use hit-and-run tactics and cover each other, we should be able to throw her off-balance for a minute or so. Nyx’s biggest weakness—her only real weakness, as far as we know—is that she’s got the patience of a toddler. We can use that and buy some time.”

  Daniel latched onto her plan. He cupped his hands to his mouth, an improvised bullhorn.

  “Marie! Nessa!” he shouted. “You’re closest to the van, take it out and get on that gun!”

  He braced himself for the charge, then froze. He locked eyes with Harmony.

  “You realize that if we make one single mistake, Nyx is literally going to tear all three of us to pieces, right?”

  Harmony considered that. Then she shrugged.

  “Easy solution,” she said. “Don’t make any mistakes.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Marie lunged from the back of the crashed SUV with her gun blazing. The muzzle flashed as she laid down a curtain of fire that pinned their attackers down, forcing them back behind cover. Seven shots covered the four-second sprint to the sidewalk; her hammer snapped dry on an empty chamber and she barreled through an open doorway, the door hanging twisted on its hinge, and into a hole-in-the-wall liquor store. Nessa was right behind her. She grabbed Marie’s shoulder and hauled her to the floor a second before a fresh fusillade of gunfire ripped through the shattered window, chopping the air above their heads.

  “Are you okay?” they asked at the same time.

  They rolled to face each other on the floor, holding each other tight. Marie picked a pebble of broken glass from Nessa’s hair. Maybe it was the stress, the adrenaline, the terror of standing on death’s doorstep, but she had to blurt out a laugh. Then Nessa was laughing too, a high-pitched giggle that ended in a sudden hiccup, and Marie had to squeeze her eyes shut to keep from going into hysterics.

  “Not dying here,” she said.

  Nessa kissed her. “Not dying here.”

  The ambushers had turned the entire street into a shooting gallery, and the liquor store was no exception. Shards of broken bottles lined the shelves, glistening over a lake of spilled booze. It smelled like gunsmoke and gin, a chemical tang that lingered in the hazy air. An unlucky customer was down on the floor in the middle aisle, back-shot, and the cashier lay slumped over the counter.

  They heard Daniel shout out to them. Marie risked a quick peek, poking her head up, then ducked back down as a bullet flew close enough to ruffle her hair.

  “How bad is it?” Nessa asked.

  “Well, they know we’re in here, and every single one of them is getting paid to kill us, so…” Marie shook her head. “The van’s about fifteen feet to the right, and they’ve got backup. There’s at least three shooters using the pickup trucks for cover and they’re all watching the window.”

  “
Back door, then. Has to be a back door. Let’s run before they think to circle around.”

  That was the smart choice. The safe choice—safer, anyway. But as she took another split-second look over the broken windowsill, watching Daniel, Harmony, and Jessie charge into the fray, Marie knew she couldn’t leave.

  “They’re not going to make it,” she told Nessa.

  Nessa tilted her head, blinking at her, and asked a question with her open hands. Marie sighed.

  “We have no idea where Carolyn is. Our only lead is this woman who wants to meet with us, and if Daniel dies, we don’t know where to find her either. And as far as these agents go, they’ve got resources—” Marie pressed herself to the floor as another shot whined overhead, blasting a bottle of whiskey to wet amber shards. “Okay, not super effective resources, but we can use all the help we can get right now.”

  “Point conceded,” Nessa said, though she looked anything but happy about it. “Do you have any bullets left?”

  Marie knew the answer before she checked her magazine. She tossed the empty pistol aside. Brow furrowed, she took a look around, hunting for resources. Anything they could use to survive. She rolled onto her belly and crawled toward the cash register like a soldier in a trench.

  “Worked more than my share of liquor-store robberies when I wore a uniform,” she said. “More than a few bad ones. And I never, ever saw one where they didn’t have some kind of weapon behind the counter.”

  Nessa’s dour frown had turned into a look of quiet speculation. Her eyes darted in all directions, taking in the room, drawing mental calculations.

  “While you’re doing that,” she said. “I think I have an idea.”

  * * *

  “Hey, Nyx,” Jessie called out.

  The demon whirled, blue flames rippling along her spine as her scorpion tail slammed the pavement.

  “Not even gonna lie,” Jessie said. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  Nyx curled her lips back, baring rotten gums lined with the teeth of a great white shark.

  “Temple. This one has relished the thought of devouring you, piece by screaming piece.”

  Jessie whipped off her dark glasses and flung them aside. They sailed across the ravaged street to land with a clatter. Her turquoise eyes glowed in the sunlight like a pair of radioactive sapphires. She held out one hand, her open palm turned to the heavens, and beckoned with her fingertips.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Nyx charged, reaching for her with a rake of her iron-clawed hand, and Jessie ducked under the swing. She lashed out with a one-two punch, driving rock-hard fists into Nyx’s belly. Then she threw herself into a roll, landing on her shoulder and diving just out of reach. An electronic click echoed to her left. Nyx turned, distracted for a heartbeat, and Daniel held up his phone.

  “Sorry,” he said, “just had to get a shot of you getting your ass kicked. I’m sending it to your mom.”

  Nyx screeched, like nails on a dozen chalkboards at once, and barreled toward him. She didn’t see Jessie on an interception course, coming at her from the left. Jessie leaped, springboarding off the side of a bullet-riddled SUV, and the heel of her boot smashed into the side of Nyx’s skull. Nyx reeled and Jessie hit the pavement hard, her ankle slipping out from under her. She scrambled on her elbows to get out of reach. Too slow. Nyx’s tail snapped toward her face—

  —and collided with an invisible wall. The air hardened, turning pale yellow and crystalline. Harmony held her fingers hooked in a ritual gesture, the elements under her command, as she, Jessie, and Daniel flanked the demon in a triangle formation. Nyx whirled toward her and hissed. The flames along her spine burned hotter, darker, echoing her hunger.

  Nyx lunged for Harmony, and a brace of playing cards slashed across her face. One sliced her left eye and the demon stumbled to a stop, cupping her claws over the wound as she bellowed.

  “Uh-uh,” Daniel said, tossing his deck from one hand to the other. “I’m Harmony’s nemesis. Nobody gets to fight her but me.”

  Nyx whipped her hands down. The wounded eye had already begun to heal, knitting itself back together. She came for him with her claws out, teeth gnashing the air in a piranha frenzy, and slammed face-first into another shield of air.

  “Really?” Harmony called out. “‘Nemesis’?”

  Daniel dodged out of the way, stealing some breathing room as Jessie rejoined the fray. She’d scooped up a chunk of rubble from the shattered street, and now she brought it down with both hands like a pile driver against Nyx’s spine.

  “I have to think I’m your number-one most wanted target,” Daniel replied. “Number two? Top ten? Tell me when I’m warm.”

  He cradled his deck in one palm and raced his fingertips across the top, flinging card after card like a pack of razor-edged hornets. The cards sliced into Nyx’s scales, leaving shallow cuts that began to heal a moment later, but the pain distracted her and gave Jessie a split second to dive clear. He was down to half a deck when Nyx barreled toward him. Another shield of air drove her off, staggering her, but Harmony looked pale and her hands were starting to shake.

  “Operation ‘keep her busy’ is a success,” Jessie panted, clenching her fists and rallying for another attack, “but I don’t know how long we can keep this up.”

  Daniel flicked a glance up the street. Nyx’s hired killers were distracted, focusing their fire on the liquor store, but that would only last so long.

  And if Nessa and Marie couldn’t get control of that machine gun, no one was getting out of here alive.

  * * *

  There was a back door to the liquor store. One of Nyx’s hired killers—one of the more clever ones—was already trying to sneak in that way. He was crouched down, working the lock with his picks, when it yanked out from under his hands and the door swung wide.

  The last thing he saw was the broken bottle in Nessa’s fist. She stabbed him in both eyes, then raked the ragged shard of glass across his neck. He dropped to the back stoop, clutching at his throat and choking on his own blood while he tried to find enough breath for one last scream.

  It was the first time Nessa had smiled all day.

  She grinned over her shoulder at Marie, almost feral, and scooped up a shopping bag full of the supplies she’d scavenged. Weapons, assembled in the heat of the moment. Marie had a weapon of her own, one the store’s clerk never had the chance to fire: a pump-action Remington, hidden under the counter. She racked the shotgun and led the way.

  The three gunmen using the pickup trucks for cover—one lying on his belly in the back bed, the others crouched behind the hoods—were watching the shattered storefront window for any signs of life. They didn’t see Nessa behind them, flicking a cheap plastic lighter. Or the gleaming arc of a bottle of 151-proof rum as it sailed through the air, a wad of paper towels jammed into its mouth and burning bright.

  The bottle broke against the prone man’s back, splashing across the pickup bed and dousing him in burning rum. His screams rose higher than the oily smoke as he rolled and thrashed in a pit of fire. One of the shooters by the other pickup turned, eyes wide, just in time to see Marie standing in the corner of his vision. He brought his pistol up. The first blast of the shotgun hit him square in the chest, flinging him back against the door of the pickup. She racked the pump and pulled the trigger a second time as his partner popped out of cover. He took a fistful of buckshot to the face and crashed to the blood-streaked pavement.

  The machine-gunner in the minivan, with his open door facing the wrong end of the street, didn’t have a line of sight. He scrambled to the front of the van, trying to see what the commotion was about, and hit the floor as Marie’s next shot blew the windshield apart.

  Nessa lit another towel-stuffed bottle. She sauntered, almost casual, around the front of the van.

  “Come out,” she called to him, “hands empty, now. Do it or I’ll roast you alive in there.”

  He didn’t take long to think about it. The yellow-eyed ki
ller gingerly stepped out into sight, his hands open and high.

  “Of course,” Nessa told him, “either way, never said I’d let you live.”

  She threw the bottle. It burst against his chest and he went up like a Roman candle, shrieking as the flames ate him alive.

  Marie jumped into the van, set her shotgun down, and got behind the machine gun. She’d never fired a weapon this big, but the principles weren’t hard to grasp. Down the street, past the wasteland of corpses and the smoking ruins of the convoy, Nyx reared back with a screech like a cavern of bats all howling in chorus. Her clawed fist punched through the side of an SUV, rupturing steel as Jessie dodged out of the way. The woman was wobbly on her feet, though, and her companions looked like they were about to drop. They’d done their best to keep the demon distracted and buy just enough time.

  Just enough time for Marie to line up the sights.

  “Get clear!” she roared.

  The humans scattered. Nyx turned toward the sound. Marie squeezed the trigger.

  Round after round of belt-fed ammunition—shells designed to shred armor and punch through engine blocks—slammed into the demon’s chest. Ichor sprayed in gouts as Nyx let out an ear-piercing wail, flailing, clawing helplessly at the air. She staggered backward under the impact. The recoil kicked Marie’s aim high, her shots going wild, and she took her finger off the trigger. This time, Nyx’s wounds weren’t healing. Not as fast, at least, with her scaled carapace ruptured like craters on the moon.

  Marie took aim, held her breath, and pulled the trigger again. The belt rattled almost as loud as the jackhammering shells, ammunition snaking from the metal canister at her side and feeding the gun’s insatiable appetite for war. Nyx stumbled, fell to one knee, and held up a hand to protect her face. A shell ripped through it, blasting a ragged hole in her palm and baptizing her cheeks with her own black blood.

  She ran. Marie tracked her with the barrel, firing in short, sharp bursts as Nyx scrambled on all fours. The demon leaped over the wreckage of an SUV, using it for cover, then climbed up the side of the crashed semi. She left a slug trail of midnight-black blood as she crawled over the top of the trailer, howling, and threw herself to the other side.