Hank heard Elick bark a series of arcane words, then the dark mage was gone, as if he’d never been there.
“Frag me,” Hank muttered under his breath, not sure what to do next, until he heard the thud of Selah falling to the floor as the tentacles holding her disintegrated into nothing. The sound snapped his mind’s focus back to his surroundings, and he rushed to Selah to see if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” Selah growled, despite the torn places on her arms and legs where she’d fought the tentacles holding her. “Check on the vamp!”
Hank could see that Tonya was already recovering, so he ran to where Katherine lay sprawled on the floor. She was badly burned, and Hank figured the damage to her body was even worse on the inside. Fire could mess up vampires as bad as it could anyone else. Electrical burns were no different.
“Eddie! This is Hank,” the tele-mechanic yelled over his comm. “We need immediate emergency evac for Katherine. She’s down and I don’t know…”
The psycho-porter came bursting out of a still-forming portal. He looked at Hank and Katherine. “How bad?” he asked.
Hank shook his head. “No idea. Just get her out of here.”
“Will do.” Eddie scooped Katherine’s limp body up into his arms and vanished back through the portal that had brought him there.
“Glad you got her out,” Tonya said, walking up to Hank. “That blast hit me pretty hard, but I think I’m okay.”
“Good, because with Katherine gone, and Ringer not on the field yet, that puts you in charge,” Hank told her.
* * * * *
Chapter 15
Scott looked around at the other surviving Psi-mechs. Gibson, Stanley, and Hayworth were the three pilots left alive with functional suits. After blowing open the doorway into the bunker-like base of the dark mages, Scott and the others had held their position. The swamp around them was littered with the bodies of those they’d gunned down in the earlier battle.
“Hey, boss,” Hayworth said over their shared comlink.
“What is it?” Scott asked.
“Have you checked your sensors lately? I got movement closing in on this base from all sides,” Hayworth reported.
Scott quickly ran a scan of his own. It confirmed what she’d told him.
“Doesn’t matter,” Scott said. “We hold our ground until the Psi-squad is finished up in there.”
“And here I thought we might actually get a break.” Gibson snorted.
“Form up with your backs to the bunker,” Scott ordered. “Defensive formation, but leave room to maneuver if we need to.”
“Roger that,” Hayworth answered as the Psi-mechs took up positions outside the doorway they’d destroyed.
“What the frag is that noise?” Stanley asked.
“Is that moaning?” Hayworth asked.
“Zombies,” Scott answered quietly. “Hundreds of them.”
“We can handle zombies.” Gibson sounded relieved.
“Remember, head shots are the only things that count in terms of sending them back to hell,” Scott told the others. “Conserve your ammo. We don’t know how many we’re up against yet.”
The zombies came pouring from every direction, emerging from the trees, some even from the water of the swamp. There were indeed hundreds of them. Their hungered moans were so loud that nothing else could be heard until the Psi-mechs opened fire.
Gibson was first. The wicked-looking modified SAW he carried roared to life, cutting down zombies by the dozens. Hayworth opted to use her suit’s rocket launchers. Twin volleys of rockets streaked from them into the ranks of the more distant zombies. They detonated there in flashes of heat and shrapnel that sent severed and mutilated body parts flying. Scott’s railgun joined in, each of the rounds it fired pulping the upper body of a zombie and sometimes that of the creature behind his intended target, too. Stanley, despite being a newbie to the squad, held his own. He raised both of his Psi-mech’s arms, hosing the charging undead things with streams of fully-automatic fire from his suit’s wrist-mounted autocannons. The zombies fell in droves, but those behind them came on, their numbers seemingly endless.
“Don’t panic,” Scott ordered the others. “We’re holding them. No need for us to do anything stupid.”
The battle raged for over a minute as the Psi-mechs held the zombies at bay. Their combined firepower was enough to keep the zombies from closing, despite the monsters’ numbers. The zombies were basically just dead humans, and the weapons of a Psi-mech were designed to fight more powerful enemies. As two minutes of full-out combat came to an end, Hayworth’s wrist cannons clicked empty. She’d emptied her rocket launchers as well.
“I’m out!” Hayworth yelled over the comm.
“Me too!” Stanley chimed in.
“Down to my last hundred rounds, boss man!” Gibson called out.
Scott watched his own ammo counter ticking downward and made the only call he could.
“Everybody switch over to your blades!” Scott ordered. “It’s time to get up close and personal.”
“You don’t have to sound like you enjoy it so much, boss!” Hayworth quipped over the comm.
All of the Psi-mechs popped their arm blades, preparing themselves as they allowed the zombies to close. The zombies continued their hungry moaning as their forward ranks reached the Psi-mechs. There was no need to put more power into his swings, Scott saw as he began to slash at them. The normal power of the suit more than served to deal with the zombies. He cut a zombie in half, took the head of another, crushed a skull with the flat of his blade, and impaled a zombie, only to yank his blade upward and out of its body, destroying the monster’s head in the process. His fellow pilots were doing the same. Piles of savaged, rotting corpses grew where the four of them stood.
So far, they were still managing to block the destroyed doorway leading into the base, but Scott knew that wouldn’t last.
“Katherine!” Scott shouted over his suit’s comm. “We’re under attack out here!”
It was Tonya who answered him.
“Under attack?” Tonya asked. “By what?”
“Zombies!” Scott yelled more loudly than he’d attended as one of the undead things slipped passed the kill zone of his arm blades and threw itself against the front of his Psi-mech.
“Zombies?” Tonya repeated the word. It had to be the zombies from the towns the Dark Mages had converted, and she knew if it was, their numbers would be more than even four Psi-mechs could hold at bay. Tonya wasn’t worried about Scott and his squad, inside their suits there was no way for the zombies to get at them. Her concern was what would happen once the zombies entered the base. They’d just defeated the leader of the Dark Mages and there was no sign of any of his minions still within the base, but she’d hoped to get a look around before being forced to bug out. Elick had spoken of having already given Mavet what he needed. She needed to find out what that was before retreating. “Can you hold them, Scott?” Tonya asked, knowing that even if he and the others could, it wouldn’t be for long.
“No, ma’am,” Scott barked at her. “Some of the things are already starting to get by us and into the base.”
“Dang.” Tonya frowned.
Hank placed a hand on her shoulder, overhearing what was being said between the two of them.
“Call Ringer in,” Hank advised her.
“That’s a really good idea.” Tonya smiled. Closing her eyes, she sent a telepathic message to Ringer.
Outside the base, one of Eddie’s portals opened in the sky. Through the shimmering doorway flew Ringer. He came out of it like a missile moving at high speed. Ringer swung around in the air and adjusted his course.
“Sir!” Hayworth shouted to Scott over the comm of her Psi-mech upon seeing the telekinetic’s arrival.
“That’s Ringer!” Scott told the others. “Do not fire on him. He’s here to save our collective butts.”
Ringer landed behind the nearly overrun line of Psi-mechs.
“Just can’t st
ay out of trouble, can you, Scott?” Ringer asked.
“About time you showed up!” Scott replied. “Mind getting rid of these things?”
Scott lifted one of his Psi-mech’s arms. Several zombies were clinging to it, breaking their teeth on the metal of its armor.
“Hold steady,” Ringer cautioned the Psi-mechs.
A wave of telekinetic energy washed over them, sending the zombies toppling away from their armored forms.
“Now get out of my way,” Ringer ordered.
“You heard the man,” Scott said. His mech and the others parted, two moving off to each side.
A mass of zombies came running toward Ringer while those he knocked away from the mechs were still recovering. Ringer unleashed a second wave of telekinetic power that pulped zombie bodies all the way back to the tree line. The swamp’s water was thick and black with the bits and pieces of the creatures. Ringer wasn’t done, though, as there were still more zombies to kill. He moved forward, blasting away the monsters that continued to emerge from the trees.
Scott watched Ringer in awe. When Ringer had first joined Psi-Mechs, Inc., Scott had helped train him. Even in those days, the telekinetic had been powerful. Now Ringer seemed more like a god or natural force when he really let loose. And Ringer wasn’t holding back today. There were no civilians to worry about, and no prisoners to take among the dead and hungry monsters. Ringer had the entire area in front of the base cleared out in less than a minute. Instead of rushing to meet the zombies that were still coming from farther away in the swamp, Ringer merely waited for them to come to him, ready to dispatch them as they showed themselves.
Ringer used the lull to light up a cigarette, now that he had things under control.
“Those things are really bad for you,” Hayworth said through the speakers of her suit.
“This job is really bad for you, too,” Ringer replied with a chuckle, “but I don’t plan on giving up either anytime soon.”
Inside the base, Tonya was wondering why the other Dark Mages had fled. Had it been because of Elick’s defeat, or had he been telling the truth when he’d said they were done here? What was it that Elick had provided Mavet with from this swamp?
“The base is clear of all life forms,” Hank informed her, finishing up the scan he’d just run with a handheld unit. “I’m picking up a large concentration of organic matter behind the wall of this room, though. And there are lots of crazy energy spikes all over the building.”
“Dangerous?” Tonya asked.
“Not yet,” Hank frowned, “but I think they soon will be. My best guess is they are part of some sort of self-destruct spell those mages left when they bugged out.”
“How long do we have?” Tonya demanded.
“Impossible to know.” Hank shrugged. “Not long though. You can count on that.”
“Then let’s check out what’s behind the wall and get the hell out of here,” Tonya ordered.
“One wall, coming down.” Hank grinned, reloading his weapon with another cylinder-shaped round that had been dangling from the belt he wore. Slapping his weapon’s chamber closed, Hank aimed at the wall and fired. Whatever was contained in the round he’d fired struck the wall, melting it away into nothingness in a matter of seconds.
Hank’s proud grin vanished from his face as they saw what was behind the wall. Hundreds of human bodies lay stacked on top of each other. All of them were in various states of decay. Some looked fresh, and others appeared to have been rotting for months. One thing they all had in common was that their throats had been slashed and savaged in what looked to be a ritualistic manner.
The sight proved to be too much for the newbie, Selah. She dropped to her knees, vomiting onto the floor.
Hank and Tonya stared at the bodies.
“What the hell is this, Hank?” Tonya asked.
“Everybody keeps treating me like I know magic stuff,” Hank huffed. “I don’t, okay? I’m a freaking tele-mechanic, not a wizard.”
“But you’re also the smartest person we’ve got,” Tonya told him.
“I wouldn’t let Donald hear you say that,” Hank protested.
“Come on. Best guess?” Tonya pleaded.
“The Dark Mages were taking and collecting their souls,” Hank answered.
“Why?” Tonya continued to stare the corpses.
“Guess they must have needed them for something.” Hank shrugged. “I’d think a human soul would have a lot of power in the magical world.”
“And you think the dark mages collected all these folks’ souls and sent that power on to Mavet somehow?” Tonya pressed.
“That’s exactly what I think they did.” Hank nodded.
The handheld scanner Hank was carrying pinged. He looked at its screen, then back at her.
“We need to leave, Tonya,” he told her, “and I mean right now. This whole place in going to implode in the next few minutes if I’m reading this correctly.”
“Eddie!” Tonya cried both aloud and psychically at the same time.
Eddie appeared at her summons, looking tired. “You called?”
“Get us out of here, then come back for Ringer and the Psi-mechs,” Tonya ordered the psycho-porter.
“Sure thing,” Eddie snapped, “but don’t think for a second that I ain’t putting in for some R and R when this day is over.”
No one was around when the dark mages’ base collapsed inward on itself, taking a chunk of reality with it, as the whole complex ceased to exist.
* * * * *
Chapter 16
The mood was somber as the core staff of Psi-Mechs, Inc. gathered in the large meeting room. Richard was present despite his wounds, still following Donald around like a puppy since there wasn’t much else he could do in his current condition. Katherine was noticeably absent. Word was she’d be fine but needed time to recover. Ringer hoped that was true. He’d caught a glimpse of her being brought in by Eddie before he’d deployed to deal with the zombies outside the dark mages’ base. She looked as rough as he’d ever seen. Her body had been scorched badly, inside and out, by whatever she’d been hit with. The company needed her more than ever, and Ringer could only hope she’d be back on her feet soon.
He stood in the corner of the meeting room, puffing on a cigarette. Selah, Tonya, Hank, Scott, and Richard sat around the room’s table, with Donald at its head. True to his word, Eddie had passed out almost as soon as he’d made the last run to bring the Psi-mechs back home. The last few hours had been rough on the old man. His power wasn’t effortless and making so many portals had drained him.
Tonya gave Donald her report on the bodies they’d discovered within the dark mages’ base before it blew. The young precog agreed with Hank’s take on what they’d been used for, which left everyone wondering why Mavet needed such a large amount of raw mystical energy at his disposal. Though not really the god the vampires saw him as, Mavet was perhaps the closest thing to one to ever walk the Earth.
“Can you track where the dark mages sent the energy, Hank?” Donald asked.
The tele-mechanic shook his head. “Not a chance,” Hank answered. “Maybe if they hadn’t destroyed the base, and I’d had more time to study it, but…”
“I understand,” Donald cut him off. “That is unfortunate. It seems our efforts have rendered us no new leads to pursue and brought the one we had to a dead end. Thoughts?”
Donald was a firm believer that everyone contributing could lead to something that would never have been discovered without all of them thinking it over together.
“We need to find Mavet,” Tonya spoke up.
“Yes, we do, but how?” Donald shot back at her. “Has he not masked himself entirely from your telepathy?”
Tonya slumped in her seat at the table. “For now, maybe…”
“We cannot wait for you to locate him, Tonya. Besides, even as powerful as you’ve become, you’re still no match for Mavet,” Donald told her.
“There has to be something we’re overlooking,”
Ringer said.
“I know a way we can find Mavet,” Hank admitted, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“If your idea can provide us with Mavet’s location, Hank, I don’t believe whether I like it or not should be a concern.”
“Uh uh,” Tonya shook her head, catching on to what the tele-mechanic was suggesting. “I won’t do it. She’s been through enough already.”
Donald looked from Tonya to Hank and back again, trying to grasp what was passing between the two of them.
“Your mother, Donald,” Hank reluctantly explained. “Buried somewhere in her head is a lot more than Tonya got out of her during the psi scan to see if she was fit for duty.”
The young precog glared at Tonya. “Is that true?”
“I did what I had to do in order to make sure she was still Katherine Grimm and not a threat to us,” Tonya said firmly. “She was close enough to snapping as it was. Pushing more could have broken what’s left of her mind altogether, Donald.”
Donald appeared to think over what Tonya was telling him. “I understand why you didn’t press then. However, once her body is healed from the conflict at the base, won’t her mind be stronger now? You had argued that getting her into the field again would restore her fully to the Katherine Grimm we once knew.”
“She’s stronger now, no question. But is she strong enough for her mind to survive what you’re asking me to do? I just don’t know.” Tonya shrugged. “Given more time. . .”
“A commodity we are sorely lacking,” Donald said, stopping her. “She’s my mother. I believe she would want us to make every possible effort to stop Mavet. What we’re doing here isn’t a game. The fate of this world and all who dwell upon it hangs in the balance.”
“Donald…please,” Tonya begged. “You don’t know what your mother has been through. Don’t ask me to do this to her, too.”
“He’s not asking,” Ringer cut in. “We all are, Tonya. It has to be done, and you know it.”
The Vampire War Page 9
