by Brian Fuller
Trace gathered the empty clothes and stuffed them behind a gravestone. Scattering the piles of dust on the wet road and grass would prove messy and ineffective, so he jogged back into the dark, leaving the two cars running behind him.
Would the others come?
“I’m in,” Goldbow reported. “Leaving the weapons now.”
“Good,” Trace acknowledged as he reached the mausoleum. Having Goldbow on site calmed his nerves. “Coming up,” Trace warned as he scrambled back to the roof and grabbed his rifle.
“Did you kill them?” a wide-eyed Tela asked as he settled into position.
“These are bad people. If they find us, they’ll do worse.”
She didn’t reply, and he hoped she hadn’t seen him disintegrate the Dreads with the syringes.
He squeezed her arm. “I’ll keep you safe. A little help has arrived, so things are looking good. I’ll get you out of here as soon as I can.”
“I know,” she said, tone reverent.
The graveyard went quiet and still. Water dripped through the leaves, pattering others on its way down. Watching the cemetery entrance through his scope, Trace kept his ears trained for the distant hum of car engines. A light mist steamed up from the ground, mingling with the gravestones.
“I’ve parked the van,” Goldbow reported. “Where do you want me?”
“Come to the large mausoleum near the center—”
“Someone’s coming,” Tela whispered.
The roar of engines chased away the tranquil quiet as four cars poured into the cemetery. They were out of time.
“Just take up any good position,” Trace advised. “We’ll drop as many as we can before they figure out our little surprise.”
The cars—two sedans, an SUV, and a compact—parked behind the other cars. A host of red auras glowed dully behind the wet windows. Eight Dreads of every size and description piled out dressed in jeans and sweaters. These were the concert-goers, among them the first female Dread Trace had ever seen. As their companions before them had done, they pulled weapons and approached the two cars. Two had BBGs.
“The ones with BBGs go first,” Trace whispered to Goldbow. “I’ll take the one to the left; you take the one on the right,” Trace ordered.
“Roger.”
“Ready . . . execute!”
The volley of bullets ripped through the night. The Dreads froze in confusion as the first two fell, heads crumpling with the force of the heavy bullets.
Trace yanked his rifle around, firing at everything that moved. Five more went down before the rest bolted for cover. They had only incapacitated two, the others rolling or crawling behind the cars. “Watch the road,” Trace instructed Goldbow. “You take the runners, and I’ll keep them off the cars.”
No one moved. Save for the purring engines, the graveyard returned to a blanket of silence. Would they try to escape or press the attack?
“You see anybody?” Goldbow asked.
A Dread flashed across Trace’s scope, darting into the gravestones with inhuman speed while another broke for the trailing compact car. Trace took two shots at the one going for the car, one bullet buckling the Dread’s leg, the other punching into his side. He skidded to his hands and knees but clambered back up, clawing for the door handle. Goldbow nailed him the lower spine, and he dropped. Hand over hand, he moved off the road before either of them could finish him.
“It’s a good bet the other two know where we are now,” Goldbow speculated. “Look sharp.”
Another vehicle pulled into the cemetery, turning left instead of right as the others. Trace tried to raise Cassandra on his earpiece, to no avail. “Goldbow, check behind us. I’ll cover the front.”
The other car was moving fast. “I’ve got a black SUV. Looks like three—no four! There are four Dreads inside!”
This was going south fast. Where were Cassandra and Corinth?
“Got it,” Trace said, trying to keep calm for Tela’s benefit. Four more Dreads from nowhere! “I’ll keep the ones out here occupied.” Trace released the spent magazine and locked in a full one.
Another Dread ran out of the protection of the cars, straight at the mausoleum. Trace fired three times, the massive bullets ripping the Dread in the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. He went down, lost under the cover of the grave markers, but Trace couldn’t be sure the damage was enough to incapacitate him.
“Can you see the SUV from your position?” Goldbow asked. “They’re getting out.”
“No. The tree is blocking my view to the rear.”
“Firing.”
Muffled shots rang out from Goldbow’s position. Trace scanned everywhere. He’d completely lost sight of the speedy runner. Dread auras were muted in the dark, and with any kind of cover, they would be invisible to his scope. Worse, Goldbow’s aura would give him away easily, and he didn’t have the benefit of Trace’s lofty perch.
“Only got the driver,” Goldbow spat. “The other three are in the stones somewhere. This is gonna get ugly now, Trace.”
Trace shook his head. This was a mistake. He had underestimated how much heat the Dreads could bring. He should have taken Tela and driven somewhere far away. She lay quietly on the roof, eyes expectant, as if waiting for him to signal it was all over. He had to get her out at all costs.
“Look, Goldbow. Stay low and quiet. Cassandra and Corinth are—”
Chunks of marble flew up as a bullet struck the edge of the mausoleum roof and whizzed off into the night. Tela shrieked and Trace lay flat. “Stay down,” Trace cautioned her, though she had obediently pasted herself to the roof like a postage stamp since the beginning. At least one Dread had figured out where they were. Trace pulled his BBG out of his pants and rolled onto his back. Another shot spit marble into the air, little bits falling and clicking on the roof.
They were pinning him down. With any luck, they were unaware of Goldbow’s position. Worst-case scenario, they were holding him up so they could take Goldbow out first and then come for him.
He had to risk it. “Scoot to the center and don’t move,” he told Tela.
The shots came from her side in the front, so he rolled off the roof on his side, slipping on the damp grass and letting himself go down. Pistol in hand, he army crawled to the wall of the mausoleum and then rose to a crouch. Eyes and ears sharp, he worked his way toward the front. Another shot rang into the night, and he poked his head around the side, hoping the darkness would mask his movements. And he waited.
“They’re closing on my position,” Goldbow whispered.
Another shot. Trace saw the muzzle flash come from behind a large rectangular gravestone near where he had shot three holes in an approaching Dread. Squinting, he raised his gun, dull-gray metal nearly invisible in the night. He aimed at the gravestone, which sat about fifteen yards away. The runner was still out there somewhere, and Trace checked his six periodically, biding his time.
The red aura rose above the granite stone and Trace fired, the BBG’s thunder echoing through the graveyard. Another Dread down with a mushy face.
“Can you get to the mausoleum?” Trace asked.
“I’ll get shot, but this is mostly small-arms stuff. I’ll see what I can do.”
Trace tucked the gun in his pants and jumped back up to the roof, Tela startling as he came over. Gunshots tore through the night behind them, and Trace grabbed the sniper rifle and moved to the rear to see if he could cover Goldbow’s approach.
He heard the rustling sound above him too late.
A Dread dropped from a tree branch, landing hard on Trace’s back and pressing his gut and head into the stone.
Tela screamed.
The Dread’s arms and legs seemed to be everywhere at once as Trace fought to find a handhold. He was too fast. Trace reached inside and called on his Strength. With a yell he arched, then whipped his head backward, smashing the Dread’s face with the back of his skull and sending him tumbling over the side. Trace didn’t hesitate, following his attacker to the ground.
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He was gone.
Small-arms fire erupted behind the mausoleum, and Trace whipped his head around. Where did that stupid Dread go? He was scoping out the tree when pattering feet tore by him and wrenched the gun from his hand. Like a shot, the Dread rounded the mausoleum and passed out of sight.
Trace only saw the briefest flash of a red aura. Now the Dread had a BBG. He had to take him down, and fast. He needed the sniper rifle. Double-checking the tree, he had just turned to leap back to the top when the sound of feet pulled him back around. The red aura careened around the back of the mausoleum, BBG barrel flashing. Trace dropped as three BBG bullets blew three descending chunks the size of softballs in the mausoleum wall, grit peppering his face.
Goldbow raced around the corner, aura brightened with some gift. In a blur, the Dread’s arm came around, and he fired. Goldbow rocked backward as it hit his left shoulder, but he stayed upright and raised his BBG.
With a precise shot, Goldbow took the Dread in the knee and a half second later blasted its forehead. The Dread fell, the BBG rolling away in the damp grass.
Trace jumped up and retrieved it. One less form to fill out. “Glad you could make it.”
The seasoned veteran didn’t slow, pulling Trace around to the side. “They’re coming hard,” he said. Bullet holes decorated his leather jacket.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. The Toughness Bestowal is like having Kevlar skin.” He rolled his shoulder. “The BBG was nasty, though.”
Making a stirrup with his hands, Trace signaled for Goldbow to step in, then hoisted him to the top, quickly following. “This is Tela Mirren, Goldbow.”
“Hi,” he said, flashing her a grin while reloading.
“Hi,” she squeaked, a note of fear in her voice as she strained to remain confident. “It sounds like a war.”
Trace grabbed her hand and squeezed it. It was cold. “It’ll be all right.”
He lay back and began reloading the sniper rifle when his earpiece crackled. “Trace, are you there?” Corinth asked, voice panicky.
“Yeah, still here.”
“We’re two minutes out, maybe less at this speed.”
“We’re pinned down by three to five Dre—er—assailants. When you come into the cemetery, Goldbow left some weapons by the tombstone closest to the entrance. We’re near the middle of the cemetery on top of a mausoleum. Go east when you pull in. You’ll see the van Goldbow came in and an SUV. You should be able to come up on them from behind, though they will likely see you coming.”
“Okay. Hold tight, dude. Is she hot?”
“What?” Trace exclaimed.
“Shut it, Chumpkins,” Cassandra interjected.
No sooner had the conversation ended than bullets flew above them from below, chipping away more marble and sending up orange sparks. A loud report preceded a thunderous crack on Tela’s side, and Trace dragged her over to the center and covered her head with his body.
One of the Dreads had a BBG. Time passed at a crippled pace as they sat and let the Dreads waste their ammo. Trace kept an eye out for anyone trying to ascend the side of the mausoleum or the tree, but the Dreads seemed content to take potshots at targets they couldn’t possibly hit from their vantage point.
Were they waiting for more reinforcements? Trace clenched his jaw. He had miscalculated horribly. If the Dreads’ original plan was to sucker them to a killing floor just as Trace had suckered them, then there might be dozens more on the way from somewhere else. He and Goldbow might need to clear a path and get out with Tela, but they had to thin the Dreads first.
“We’ve got the guns,” Corinth whispered. “We’ve ditched the car and are coming through the graveyard, moving south. We should be coming up on your north side. We can see the weapons fire.”
A wave of relief washed over Trace. Cassandra had come. For some reason, Trace could never imagine her ever failing a mission or even being taken out, for that matter. Something about her was indestructible, and he hoped it wasn’t just her facade. But whatever the reality, their odds had improved dramatically.
Trace scooted over to the ledge and grabbed the scope from his pocket. It was too dark, and Corinth’s and Cassandra’s approach too stealthy to be seen until Cassandra abruptly jumped up on top of a tombstone some fifty yards away. Had she lost her mind? To make matters worse, she pointed her BBG in the air and fired off two shots.
Almost immediately the Dreads returned fire, chipping her stone perch. Her body rocked with the impact of the small-arms fire. Trace grabbed his BBG and was about to hop down when a radiance grew about Cassandra even as the bullets pounded around and into her. A white, holy glow exuded from her and suddenly blasted outward, filling the graveyard with a searing, divine light only Dreads and Ash Angels could see. All firing stopped, and the brief blast of glorious radiance briefly hinted at Rapture within him.
“Let’s move!” Goldbow urged when the radiance died, flinging himself over the edge. Trace followed. In moments they found one of the Dreads, wobbly, wide-eyed, and out of his mind, as disoriented as Trace had been from Spirit Shock. Probably worse. Goldbow caved his head in with a BBG blast. The hunt was easy, and after a brief search, they had wiped out two more in a similar fashion. Corinth and Cassandra strode up, both having morphed into their early twenties before arriving. Cassandra had taken three bullets, two to the chest and one to the leg, but was unfazed.
“Is that all of them, Jarhead?” she asked grimly.
“There were fourteen—”
“Fourteen?” Corinth exclaimed.
“Yeah. They’ve all been hit. I syringed two of them. There could be some still able to fire a weapon or stagger away.”
“Tela?” Corinth asked hopefully.
“She’s over here,” Trace said
Trace sprinted back and fetched Tela, lowering her from the roof into the eager arms of Corinth, who flashed her a winning smile before Cassandra pulled her away and looked her over.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m a bit shaky. Is it over?” she wondered, still looking cold. “Are you okay?”
Cassandra pulled her jacket over the bullet holes in her shirt. “I’m good. Body armor.”
“You’re safe now,” Corinth reassured her, leaning his rifle over his shoulder in a manly pose.
“Cassandra, can I have a word over here?” Trace requested.
She nodded. “What’s on your mind? We’ve got to get out of here, and we have a lot of clean-up to do.”
“I think more are coming.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Tela was bait to draw us into a trap,” Trace reasoned. “I turned their plan around, but most of these Dreads came from the concert. I think they were there to distract us from the switch and make us believe something would happen inside the hall. If I’m right, they wanted to lead us somewhere under their control with more Dreads to do the job. The last few Dreads just wanted to pin us down.”
Cassandra nodded. “We’ve got to get her out of here.” She ran back to the others, Trace following. “Goldbow, Corinth, take the car Corinth and I came in and get Tela to a hotel and keep her safe. Be sure to ditch the car somewhere. More thugs may be on their way. Trace and I are going to do cleanup. We need all the syringes. And get everything out of the van.”
“I’m all over it, Cassie,” Corinth said, putting his arm around Tela and leading her away into the dark while introducing himself.
Tela looked back. “Helo! Wait. I need—”
“Go with him,” Trace said. “It’ll be safe.”
“But—”
Corinth corralled her. “We’ve got to hurry. You’re in good hands.”
“Helo?” Cassandra said.
Trace shrugged. “Just a name.”
Goldbow stepped close to Cassandra. “Let me stay, Cassie. Let Trace go back with Tela. He’s not even supposed to be in the field.”
Cassandra shook her head. “No. This is his plan, and he’s staying till it’s do
ne. And your aura is a liability. Get going.”
Goldbow bit back some argument and nodded. They met at the van and collected the Stingers, fresh ammo, and an empty suitcase. Tela rolled down the window as he passed, and he stopped, trying to think of something comforting to say.
“Hey, it was nice to meet you,” he said, going for his best smile. “Everything’s going to be okay now. Oh, and I love your music.”
She reached out the window and grabbed his jacket. “When can I see you again? Can you come to one of my concerts? I’ll get you backstage and everything.”
“Sounds great,” he said. “I’ll let you know. Stay safe.”
Corinth put an arm around her and pulled her back in. A moody Goldbow hopped in the driver’s side and cranked the engine, pulling around the abandoned SUV and heading for the entrance.
“Let’s go, Jarhead,” Cassandra said. “We’ve only got eight syringes and probably twelve bodies, so we’ll have to take care of four the hard way.”
The hard way meant sawing hearts out of chests with a knife and burning them, an unpleasant and long process. “We need to collect what we can for the Scholus to analyze. Wallets, phones, jewelry, car registrations. Everything. And let’s not forget the BBGs they stole.”
“Got it.”
“Now, tell me how it all went down,” Cassandra said as they started with the bodies they knew the locations of. “We’ll be filling out forms until Christmas on this one. Any torchers in this group?”
“None of them tried it if there are.”
They made quick work of the five near the mausoleum, injecting them with the explosive liquid and bagging their personal effects. While the Dread Bestowal of Spirit Shock was rare, Trace feared one would unleash it on him while they worked. His skin crawled when the injured who could talk spat and swore at them, while the Dreads who could no longer speak glared hatred at them before they sent them on their way to hell.
Cassandra smirked. “It gets to be even more fun when you have to cut them open, especially if they can still squirm. Until a year ago, we used to always have to do it this way. Now, I’ve got to warn you that the Dreads can bleed if they want to, just like us. The mean ones will bleed all over you out of spite as you finish them off.”
