DIRE : BORN

by Andrew Seiple

  I ran for cover and he vaulted the railing, leaped down. A silvery mask gleamed on a seven-foot giant... he was muscled, stocky, wearing a black shirt with torn-off sleeves and sweat pants. He wore a broad leather belt, with various knives and hatchets hanging from it. They provided a clinking cacophony as he moved, that I barely heard through my ringing ears. He moved in front of me, and I turned the forcefield off. I'd have to take this on the armor, or he could cook me alive with only a few hits.

  And as I analyzed his threat, I remembered where I'd seen him before. The church... Sangre had called him 'Sir.' Given what I knew now, that meant that he had to be—

  “BARBATOS.”

  “Yes.” And that was the voice I remembered. “You've done well to get this far,” he said, stalking forward as he pulled out two knives. He spun them in his hands, as I backed up.

  “AND YOU'VE DONE WELL TO BOX DIRE IN.” I confirmed, sidling around him, looking for an advantage. “DIDN'T EXPECT TO SEE YOU THIS EARLY IN THE GAME.”

  His mask turned to track mine. It was round and featureless save for eyeholes and a few circles punched in for airflow. Someone had called it a hockey mask, I remembered. That didn't help me right now, though.

  Then he leaped for me, and I met him with a fist to the face. After that it was a slog as we danced back and forth across the floor of the atrium. I'd punch at him and hit with about half my blows. Or try to clinch or grapple him, and those he'd dodge or take it on an arm and twist free. He'd respond with a flurry of attacks with the knives, chopping and hacking at my armor with hideous strength. And as we traded hits I realized I was losing.

  The flamethrower tube had been hacked open and fuel spilled, coating the area beneath us. The stungun's circuitry had been split by a deep hit, that came close to getting to my flesh. My gauntlets and arms were getting wrecked, and the torso armor was battered and dented all to hell and back. I was starting to lose synch as circuits became damaged, and he... he wasn't slowing at all. I was hitting him with blows that should be breaking bone, or throwing him around like a ragdoll. But the worst that happened was that he'd stagger back a step or two before coming back in swinging, or turn so that I couldn't hit him in the same place twice.

  As we fought, my hearing slowly returned, and I realized two things. One, that people had gathered on the third floor railings. They were looking down into the atrium and howling, cheering, yelling at him to finish me off. Black Bloods, by the look of them, at least twenty. That worried me. If he felt confident enough to bring in this many and keep them out of the fight outside, it meant that the fight was done and they'd won. Or that or he wasn't worried about it whatsoever.

  The second thing that I realized, was that the bastard was laughing. Every time I hit him, he'd laugh. Every time I dodged or parried a strike, he'd laugh louder. And as I stumbled, as I showed signs of fatigue, his moves became more exaggerated and mocking. He was enjoying this. Aside from the dent I'd put in his mask from the first punch, I hadn't landed a serious hit on him. This was not going well, and I needed a game changer. Fast.

  I flicked on the forcefield, and a split-second later his knife slammed into me, rebounded. He hesitated, and I knelt and slammed my stungun into the ground, tried to trigger it. Only sparks... but sparks were all I needed. I kicked in the gravitics and went airborne, as the fuel I'd spilled all over the atrium floor ignited.

  A bellow of pure rage, and I smiled under my mask as the crowd around me roared their displeasure. I rose, grinning, and watched him stumble as his clothes caught and burning. Then he glared up at me and crouched, and my eyes widened as I realized what he was going to do!

  I twisted too late as he leaped skyward, a missile of burning meat and anger as he caught me by the cape. He carried us right through a shop window.

  We hit the ground, and I screamed as my skin sizzled in the surge of heat, and shut down the forcefield. But the momentary distraction left me open, as I skidded to a stop among empty shelves. He rained down punch after punch on me. I felt the armor creak and groan with every hit, and the arm I raised to throw him off shook, and wavered. But I got it under him, and threw him into a wall.

  He fell to the ground and rolled, doing his level best to extinguish his flames. I found my feet, staggering, lurching. I watched as he ripped off his mask and threw it away, the hot metal sizzling his skin as he did. And I managed to grab the main support of a shelf and rip the metal loose, closing my own burned and throbbing fingers as I closed the gauntlet around it, ignoring the pain as I lurched forward.

  “THE BRAIN OR THE HEART FOR DRAUGR, YES?” My mask still worked, at least. He'd avoided striking my head or face, for whatever reason.

  He shuddered, and pushed himself to the kneeling position with one arm. His face was burned and blotchy, and older than I expected. He had a short beard of grey, with a mustache above lips that had been tattooed black. Black teardrops under his eyes that I initially took for burns but no, they were more tattoos.

  Then he grunted and slid to the ground. He really had been burned, worse than I. I'd filled the flamethrower with greek fire, and the damage it had inflicted on him was horrific, now that I had a chance to look at it. Black, wet burns, and bone showing in a few spots.

  I raised the makeshift spear above my head.

  “THE LAST JANISSARY SENDS HIS REGARDS.”

  And my armor died.

  My mask filled with error messages, and I felt shock course through my veins.

  What? What the hell was this?

  I fought with the hydraulics, couldn't budge them.

  The raw strength that the augmented mechanisms gave me worked against me now. I had as much chance of shifting them as I did punching through a wall with my bare hands.

  He coughed laughter, and said something I didn't quite catch.

  Was it damage? Had he hit the core? Impossible. The core was on my back, under thick armor that hadn't been breached. Yet it was reading offline, and it had chosen this, of all minutes, as the minute to go out...

  “Heya, boss.”

  I twisted my neck as best as I could, and managed to get a good look at the figure stepping into my field of vision.

  Abes. It was Abes. Abes who I'd trusted with my tools. Trusted to work on my armor.

  “YOU.”

  She was wearing a grey outfit, now. A bodysuit, armored with black patches. I'd seen that arrangement before. She might not have a helmet on at the minute, but if she did I knew the symbol that I'd see.

  “YOU'RE WITH WEB.”

  She nodded, smiled that silvery smile. “Got it in one. Sorry, but I can't let you kill one of our allies. Well, one more of our allies, to be precise.” Then her smile faded. “If it's any consolation, I'm not too happy about this. But it's business, so oh well.”

  “SABOTAGED THE CORE, DIDN'T YOU?”

  “Got it in one.”

  “Enough.” Barbatos growled, and hauled himself to his feet. He staggered, planted a hand on the shattered counter, ignoring the way the glass bit into his palm. I noted that his burns were smaller than they had been a few minutes ago.

  “SO THIS IS WHAT VAMPIRES GET? SOME SORT OF REGENERATION?”

  He laughed, long and loud. Oddly enough, there was no malice in it. “Ah. Ah, girl. You make an old man happy.”

  And then he smiled, and there was every bit of the malice I had expected, and more. “For that you deserve a reward. Get her out of there.”

  “ABES—”

  She stepped forward, and found the hidden panel under the left arm. She opened it, and pulled the manual release. My armor hissed open.

  I slumped forward, trying to appear more hurt than I was. It made no difference, as a beefy arm reached in and pulled me out. Barbatos looked up at me, as he held me up by the throat, squirming and kicking at his head. He chuckled again, and planted me on the ground, shifting his grip to my shoulder. I hissed as I clenched my fists, and pain shot through me. A glance down confirmed that they were slick with wet burns as well... throwing a pu
nch would probably do worse things to me than him.

  I looked back up to find him studying me with those dark eyes. This close up I could tell that the pupils were highly dilated, just like Sangre's had been.

  “Not a vampire,” I muttered. “Not a draugr. Then what?”

  “I'll tell you, I think. You earned that much, girl. But first, come.” He shot a look over at Abes, who shook her head.

  “I'll catch up. Boss wants the mask too, and it'll take me a while to remove it safely.” She pulled out my toolkit, and I winced to see it. But then Barbatos' hand was on my shoulder, and he was pushing me forward.

  He marched me out into the concourse of the wall, and my despairing eyes counted the gangers lining the railings as we marched down it, heading to the eastern half of the mall. How many there were! For all we'd killed or defeated in our previous struggles, there were at least fifty here. They were jeering at me, pointing, cheering Barbatos on as he walked behind me, with his hand never leaving my shoulder.

  I took stock of what I had.

  One pistol holstered on my belt under my shirt and thank goodness I'd upgraded to a long sleeve shirt.

  Two vials of what the Last Janissary had called 'Essence of Entropy,' the stuff that had made the green smoke when he threw it at the draugrs on the beach. It was bad for vampires and draugrs, and toxic to people.

  And a small, golden vial of Greek Fire, that warmed my pocket. I'd taken a risk by carrying it in my jeans, but with the way my armor was built, I figured the actual jeopardy was small. Thankfully, I'd been right. Though if someone punched me on the wrong spot on my leg now, it'd be bad for both of us.

  I licked my teeth. I'd be best served by biding my time. Barbatos was clearly enjoying his victory. If I catered to that, drew it out, I'd learn more and possibly get an opportunity to act.

  We went up four escalators, to a long gallery facing the east. And I realized why he had brought me here, as I looked across several city blocks, and down onto the beach. It was distant, but we still had a fairly good view of it.

  He gestured to a long bench, and I took a seat. He released my shoulder, and stepped back. “Don't get foolish now, girl. You lost. Leave it there and you'll survive this.”

  A patter of feet to the side. I glanced back to see a familiar face approaching, his grin wide and yellow.

  “Rictus.” Barbatos nodded. He got a small wave in return, as Rictus walked over and studied me, pushing his sunglasses down his nose to do so. Like Sanguine and Barbatos before him, his eyes were dilated, showing way too much black.

  “Your eyes...” I muttered. “A side effect of something. Yes?”

  His backhanded slap threw me to the ground, and I screamed as I instinctively caught myself with my burned hands.

  “That was for Stig.”

  A boot met my side and I rolled with it, ending up across the floor, clutching my midsection in pain.

  “And that was for Sanguine.”

  I coughed, and tensed up, but no more blows came. With a groan, I made my way back up to my feet, a task made harder as I avoided using my hands to do it. I was trembling as I stood, but I stood nonetheless.

  Barbatos looked to me, looked back to Rictus. “Come now. We need her conscious to see this, eh?”

  Rictus turned his head back and forth, considering. “Fine. Yeah fine, we'll try it your way. C'mere chickie, something to show you.” He pulled out a phone, and tapped numbers in.

  I blinked, as it dialed. He had a working phone? How?

  My answer came to mind easily, even through my pain. “WEB's providing communications, aren't they?” I moved over to him, craning my neck to look at the phone's screen.

  He shifted it out of my view, pointed toward the window. “It's me,” he said into the phone. “Do it.”

  I followed his finger to the window, and blinked as I saw black vans roar out of the north, heading towards the camp. They stopped a block back, well out of range, and disgorged perhaps twenty Black Bloods. A pittance compared to what we'd fought thus far. But all of our fighters were out here, weren't they? Still fighting or scattered, far from the camp. I thrill of worry ran past me.

  “So. Yeah. Just so you know? Everyone over there is going to die. Everyone you made so much of a fuss about is gonna die, and it's your fault because you COULDN'T FUCKING LET THIS REST!” He roared into my face, as he closed the phone and put it away. “Couldn't take your lumps like a good girl. Had to try and stick up for a bunch of fucking hobos. Christ, kid. The fact that you managed to get two of my friends galls me. They got stupid, they got careless, and some jumped up little SHIT catches them on a bad night.” He shoved me, half-heartedly. “Well, at least I get the fun of watching your face as your friends all die.”

  My eyes focused on the beach, and the colored dots of people at the waterline. They'd heard the vans, and the sentries had seen the approaching gangers. They knew what to do, and they filed down to the piers, but it would take time to get the boats launched.

  And as the Black Bloods moved in, a glint of sunlight caught my attention from the overpass. Someone was up there on a bicycle, pedaling for all they were worth. I held my breath, it was the moment of truth now.

  “Huh. Movement?” Rictus snapped open the cellphone again, and pushed buttons.

  “Too late,” I whispered, as the first cars started to fall. The deadfall that I'd rigged by stacking and flipping cars, the lengths of chain and rope tying them together, the hour spent in engineering them so that the first one off would pull the rest of them, all of that paid off, now. Minna had done as I asked, and cut the knot at the place I'd told her to cut it. Tons of tension released, and physics left to take its toll on the mechanism I'd built.

  And as the Black Blood line advanced toward the overpass, the hydrogen-celled cars I'd chained together fell like a string of explosives, each one pulling the one behind it.

  Even from here, I could feel the explosions as they went off one by one, a rolling fiery explosion that shook the windows, and rattled my teeth in their sockets. I let my laughter loose, high and rising into the air as I raised my burned hands.

  “Hmhmhmhmhhmh...HAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA!”

  I'd expected a blow for that, but none fell. And as the explosions wound down, I turned to look at Rictus. He was stuck with his phone half open, watching the burning cars, entirely flabbergasted.

  He breathed, hard. And turned his head to face me, lips twitching as they tried to frown, but whatever ailment had locked his visage wouldn't let him do anything but smile.

  “Your men should be more careful crossing the street,” I remarked. “Can be quite dangerous.”

  He raised a hand to me, and froze as Barbatos strode over and caught it in his own. His meaty mitts dwarfed Rictus' own, and Rictus looked back as the older man shook his bald head. “Ah no. Let her have this. What does it change in the end? Besides, I can respect a good trap.”

  “Good my ass,” Rictus snarled, glaring back at me. “Nice show. B for effort. But whoever you left up there triggered it early. I tell my guys to wait for the fires to go down, and the end result's the same.”

  “The boats will be far out in the Bay by then,” said Barbatos. “Just tell them to go around the fire and light them up while they're still close to shore.” He let go of Rictus' hand, and the smaller man nodded.

  “Fine. All right. I wanted her to see it, but I guess the end result is the same.” He walked over, made another call, and chattered into the phone. I ignored him, looked up at Barbatos. He looked back, smiling.

  “You have them fooled, you know.” His voice was soft, and I leaned closer to listen. Bloodshot eyes tracked my every move, darting back and forth with motions that should have seemed nervous. They weren't. His posture was calm. He was entirely in control. Nothing sane lived behind those eyes.

  “Fooled?” I stared at him, caught his eyes. They stopped darting around.

  “Oh yes. You never really know someone until you fight them. Until blood and death are on the line
. And now I know you. There is no hesitation in you. You think and you do it. There is no remorse in you. You kill and are done with it. You are a machine, who plays at being a human.”

  “Like you.” I offered.

  He barked laughter. “I am no machine. I am simply a dead man who cannot stop moving yet. I thought you might finish it, earlier, but no. Treachery stopped that.” He flicked his eyes back toward the floors of the mall below our position in the gallery. “It is fitting that he will get one last chance to end me, then.”

  I frowned. Then a flash caught my eye, and I darted my head around. Sparky's lightning!

  “He comes with his last minder, the last one I've left him after all these years.”

  “You know him?”

  He tilted his head, and smiled, and I remembered. Finally I remembered. Finally it clicked. “You—”

  His finger was on my lips, before I could say it. “Shush, now. Hush now. He gets one more chance. Let us see what he will sacrifice.”

  And with that he turned away, and snapped his fingers. One of the gangers standing in the back swallowed hard and moved forward. Barbatos drew a charred knife from his belt and cut him slowly, smearing bloody letters on the glass behind us. I turned my back, sickened, and instead found Rictus approaching me with a leer on his face. “I want you to listen to this,” he said. The sound of gunfire echoed through the phone, and he chuckled. “That's the sound of your boats getting shot to shit. That's the sound of the people on them dying.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “You know what gets me? You had a good shot. You knew there was a leak in the camp, you made us think you'd attack tonight. But you know what stopped you? A fucking phone call! We had phones, you didn't. Communications, you dumb bitch!”

  “Correction,” I whispered. “You had communications.” I opened my eyes, to find him squinting at me. Good. My left hand came out from under my shirt with my Sig-Sauer cocked and ready.

  BLAM!

  It was a painful shot with my wounded hand, but at this range I couldn't miss. The phone blew into shards that peppered the both of us, and he shrieked and jumped back, holding a bloody hand. My arm whipped out as I aimed—