“I think I can put on a spectacular show with this sort of fighter. I’m ready to deal if you are.”
Argent produced a pelican case and laid it on the table before him. One of Sarkhov’s bodyguards walked forward and laid a briefcase next to it in exchange. Argent smiled.
“We call it the Feral. Had my top researcher on the case for months, you’ve no idea how rare and precious this stuff is. Small doses only at first, if you overload one of your fighters, you’re gonna end up with something like I have standing behind me. They’ll change for good, and won’t be people at all anymore.”
Sarkhov grunted.
“People are yesterday’s news. Isn’t that the philosophy of your kind? Besides, people will pay top dollar to watch something like this fight. You have to keep re-inventing yourself if you want to remain fresh, Isaiah. You mentioned that you had something else for me?”
Argent gestured to one of his Feral, the one who held the box. Argent walked over, opened the lid, and took something small out between finger and thumb.
“Not so much for you Dmitri. I want you to pass this on to our shared friend Mr Styx. He will know what to do with it. But I assure you, it will benefit your enterprise too. It will certainly make the procurement of new talent a lot easier. Give it to him, and look after it until you do.”
Sarkhov reached out his hand and took the item. At first Usher thought it was a grenade of some sort, but then he thought it looked something like an acorn. Sarkhov grinned and put it in his pocket, then looked up at the Feral that held the box.
Usher followed Sarkhov’s gaze to the nearest giant bodyguard. The ape-like skull was raised up and it seemed to be sniffing the air. Argent’s eyes narrowed and he began to slowly circle, peering out into the darkness. Usher realized that one of the beasts had picked up a strange scent. Their scent. They had been forced to enter this building with almost no intel on these creatures, and now they had learned one important thing about them. They had an acute sense of smell.
They had to act now to maintain any semblance of surprise.
Usher gave a signal and Stromberg cut the power. The warehouse was plunged into darkness. Each Empire One operator threw a flash bang grenade into the midst of their targets, and an instant after that the team activated their night vision goggles and attacked.
The humans all fell to the ground stunned but the four bodyguards roared in pain and clutched their faces. In that instant the team learned another important fact about them. Those red nocturnal eyes were highly light sensitive.
The only being to remain still and standing was Isaiah Argent. He just leaned quietly on his cane and peered out into the gloom as if taking a morning stroll. Usher took out one of the Bleak Team operatives with a double tap to the head. Beside him Brock and Kruger had targeted another, who fell limp across the table, peppered with automatic gunfire. The third had regained some composure and returned fire, taking cover behind a shipping container.
Sarkhov had instinctively run back, blindly feeling for the exit. To their credit, two of his bodyguards lay down covering fire wildly in all directions but they still kept close to their leader and covered him with their ample frames.
Sarkhov’s two remaining bodyguards had only just managed to stand up when Charlie and Isaac shot them at point blank range.
Turning to Argent, the team noticed that the four Feral had closed around him like walls of flesh. They were moving backwards towards the warehouse door as a single unit, seeking to escape and protect their master.
Usher didn’t mind shooting through that to get to the target. He let loose a volley of controlled fire at the nearest giant. The rounds penetrated the massive body, spattering blood across the walls and floor, but the soldier did not fall. To Usher’s amazement, it simply laughed, a gargling throaty laugh then spat a mouthful of blood at them.
At his side Usher heard Isaac. “Same as London boss, they just don’t go down.”
Usher gritted his teeth and re-took his aim. “Everything goes down eventually.”
The team advanced from cover to cover, laying down suppressing fire and attempting to flank the targets. The four Feral drew their enormous machetes and spread out in front of the door, allowing Argent to slip out to their waiting vehicle. Usher cursed and tried to press forward.
“Jesus, they’re going to attack us with knives?”
Suddenly two of the Feral reached to the side and grabbed one of the metal racks that reached forty feet up and were stacked with cargo. With a roar of supernatural strength they wrenched the entire structure off balance, sending tonnes of crates, bundles and palettes down upon Empire One. The team were totally unprepared for an enemy with this level of unnatural might, and it was all they could do to dive for cover to avoid being killed by the falling debris. With an almighty crash and a cloud of dust and splintered wood the merchandise crashed down around them. For a moment they were disoriented, but then the training kicked in and they tried to get to their feet and take aim through the dust.
Argent and the Feral were gone.
Usher got straight on the radio.
“Control this is Empire One. We have several X-rays down but both Sarkhov and Argent have escaped the locus, and currently have access to vehicles. We will pursue on foot but request satellite surveillance on the ground to follow.”
A moment’s silence.
“Negative Empire One, head for extraction point. Egyptian authorities are alerted and are on route to your current position. We need to avoid an international incident here. Get yourselves out of there ASAP. All received?”
Usher cursed under his breath. One of the highest ranking Unseelie beings on earth and they had let him go. This was not their week.
Isaac appeared at Usher’s shoulder, limping a little and propping himself up with his rifle.
“Shit day out boss. I don’t know about you, but I want to get very drunk tonight. And if I’m honest I want to stop running into those big bastards.”
8
AYIA NAPA, CYPRUS.
POST COMBAT DECOMPRESSION WEEKEND
Usher raised his pint of beer and cheered it with the remaining members of his team.
This was their first opportunity to raise a glass to Davis and Timmons.
“The Fallen.”
Their remains had been flown back to the United Kingdom ahead of the team, and appropriate stories concocted for their families. A helicopter accident and an improvised explosive device had been given as the official causes of death. Sometimes it was hard to explain the kind of wounds sustained during the STG’s missions. The families usually knew that their spouse or son was SF but the details of the group’s work were never revealed. It was bad enough to have the officer turn up at the family home with a death message without having to explain that it was caused by a demon from another world.
They sat at a corner table in Ginny’s Irish bar in the heart of the party strip of Ayia Napa and glugged their beers.
The bar was rammed, full of young women glistening with glittering body lotion, groups of teenagers and twenty something’s in their best party shirts, downing Jaeger bombs and grinning from the ecstasy flowing around their systems.
Empire One was not the only military personnel in the establishment. Usher could spot the squaddies from a mile off, the way they wore their shirts, the haircuts, the desert boots and jeans. This bar, along with every other pub and club along the strip, was a pressure release destination for many servicemen coming back from their tours of Afghanistan. It was something the brass had come up with a few years ago, christened Decompression Time. The British military bases in Cyprus meant that this was the ideal decompression hotspot.
It acted as a buffer zone between the adrenalized six months of a tour, and the mundanity and minutiae of everyday life back home. When a soldier has spent half a year wondering if his next step will be the one that lands on an IED, getting nagged for forgetting to take the bin bag out doesn’t seem so important.
It was the same
with every member of Empire One. After a live operation they needed a pressure release before being allowed back into civilized society. It had been many years since any one of them could be described as normal people. Brutalized, traumatized and scarred, particularly those in the tactical teams. Prior to joining, they had all survived tours of Afghanistan and Iraq, Northern Ireland, some of the older veterans in instructor roles had even seen action in the Falklands back in ’82. They had all had their war, seen the very worst that humanity had to offer, watched friends die, been sent to places they had no right to be, acted with professionalism and still got home in one piece. From those wars, what woke them screaming in the night was not what had been done to them, but what they had done to others in the name of Queen and Country. Some of those wars were bayonet work, where you had to watch the life fade from the enemy as they cried for their mothers and pleaded with you. No push button PlayStation drones in those days.
They thought that was the worst of it. That in war were the greatest horrors that a person could see. Then they were recruited into the STG and their eyes were truly opened.
Realizing that monsters really lurked in the dark, that it wasn’t enough that humans preyed on one another, but a violent, nefarious force skulked in the background trying to finish humanity off altogether took its toll.
Depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, risk taking behaviour, sometimes criminal behaviour. Soldiers who had been asked to deal with what Empire had been asked to deal with had all sorts of strange ways to try to process the experience.
Usher and his team had already imbibed five or six pints of crisp lager, and the bustling bar was fuzzy around the edges. As Christi brought a fresh tray of beers to their table, Usher raised his half-finished pint glass.
“Davis and Timmons. Gone on to the other side ahead of us.”
Christi, Kruger, Brock, Stromberg, Isaac and Charlie all raised their own pint and knocked glasses then took large swigs that ran down their chins. Christi finished hers in one long draught and set her glass upside down on the table. Usher nodded at his best mate in approval and she winked and nodded back.
Brock finished his own glass in one long dribbling draught then wiped froth off his blond goatee. “They’ll be in Valhalla those two. That’s where I’m going when my bullet finds me. I tell you.”
Kruger took out his softpack of cigarettes and flicked one up into his mouth. He noticed the barman out the corner of his eye shaking his head and making a slicing gesture with his hand that the big South African took to mean no smoking in here. He held the barman’s gaze with his own dead eyes as he flicked open a lighter and sparked up his cigarette.
“You think you get to choose which afterlife you go to? Like booking a holiday Brock? You’re food for worms is all my friend. Circle of life. Only reward is what you take, now, while you draw breath.”
Isaac rolled his eyes.
“Circle of life eh Kruger? So speaks the Lying King.”
Brock shook his big head at Kruger.
“You are one unlikely candidate to not believe in the supernatural Kruger. After what you’ve seen in the last few days alone.”
Kruger blew smoke out over their heads and pointed his cigarette at Brock.
“We belong in our world and they belong in theirs. Spells and gobbledegook is their stinking way, not ours, and I have no intention of going to some Harry Potter theme park in the sky when my guts get ripped out. I’ll rot, right here, in the soil of this good Earth. Where I belong.”
Brock shrugged at Kruger and stroked his big blonde chin beard. “Valhalla. It’s a big endless drunken banquet that you never tire of. Only the best soldiers get a ticket in to that party. I tell you.”
Stromberg raised his pint, slicked his surfer’s hair back from his face and took a swig. In his thick Australian accent he spoke.
“Big party, that’ll do for me mate.”
Christi raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Is there pussy?”
Brock laughed a deep baritone rumble. “Yes there’s big titty serving wenches catering for your every need.”
Christi drew an imaginary mark in the air with her finger. “That’s the one for me, big fella. I tell you.”
Charlie gave Usher a long sombre stare. His shoulders deflated a little.
“Boss, how much longer do you reckon we can keep this up? Fighting like this I mean. Those things. Those giants in Egypt. How can we beat things like that? I’m spent boss, and I don’t think I’m the only one.”
There was an awkward silence around the table. Everyone took a sip of their beer or glanced across to the dance floor. They had all been thinking it for months, mission after mission, with almost no down time to recover. The incursions had been happening a lot more regularly of late, as if they were leading up to something. Usher shrugged.
“We’re all pretty strung out Charlie. We just have to dig deep and carry on, because they just keep sending things through to try and kill us. We can rest when the world goes back to us just trying to kill each other.”
Kruger laughed.
“Ah the good old days, tribal violence, religious bigotry, pointless genocide. You knew where you were back the day.”
Isaac shook his head.
“He’s insane, but he’s got a point. What I wouldn’t give for a stand up fight with an enemy I could at least understand. It’s strange what you’ll long for when the world’s gone crazy.”
Usher downed his pint.
“Isaac, you were right. Up close, those things, in London and Cairo. I’ve never seen anything like them. They weren’t just something paranormal, they were like us too. I think something big is about to happen.”
Isaac sighed. “All we can do is our bit boss. You really getting sent undercover with those Russians?”
“Soon as we touch back on British soil. They run a fight gym in south London. That’s my way in.”
Isaac put a firm hand on Usher’s shoulder.
“Be careful mate. Nasty bastards.”
“Trying not to think about it. Hey it’s my round.”
Several hours passed, their perception of time stretched then condensed, stories and conversations flowed and merged, arguments became jokes and they all collapsed laughing around the table, throwaway jokes became heated debates. Undying friendships were declared, cigarettes smoked, and pints drunk. Then it was onto shots. Colourful chemistry experiments randomly chosen from the drinks menu.
Usher sat in the booth with Stromberg and Kruger, putting the world to rights and discussing the strangest things they had ever seen cross over from the Unseelie side. It would have sounded insane to anyone listening in, the vast unaware masses who didn’t know what waited for them in the dark. Vampires and Living Dead, Shapechangers and Warlocks, Shadow Elves and Redcaps. And Ghouls, those disgusting Ghouls. They reminisced about shattering Djinn in the Omani cave like glass ornaments.
Around them the world danced unaware.
Charlie, Brock and Christi were also up on the dance floor. The resident DJ was in full swing and pumping out some of the summer’s most popular beats that would soon filter down into the club lands of London and New York.
Brock, massive square jawed Catalogue-John that he was, had three drunken girls grinding up against him. He was whispering in their ears as he danced and they were falling onto him and giggling too loud. Charlie was beyond hammered, and had commandeered his own little area of the dance floor, or had simply scared off everyone within a seven foot radius, and was having what Christi usually described as a “spaz-attack”. His head was lolling drunkenly off his chest while each of his arms and legs performed independent breakdance routines.
Usher then looked at Christi, who he had to concede, had pulled a cracker.
A tall Nordic looking girl with waist length white-blonde hair and freckled skin who couldn’t have been more than twenty one and would have looked at home on a Milan catwalk. Christi, a good foot shorter and built more like a solid gymnast, with her short ruffled hair and
handsome but slightly masculine features could not have been more different. She was however, snogging the face off this willowy beauty.
Usher smiled to himself and nodded. “You go girl, you go.”
Stromberg finished his whisky and coke and Usher slapped him on the shoulder.
“Let’s get a cheeky one in before they come back. Jack and coke?”
Stromberg pointed to his empty glass and nodded as he swallowed.
“Isaac. Same again? Or something a little stronger to mix with those painkillers?”
Isaac looked dejectedly down at his glass.
“Another water would be grand, boss.”
Usher slowly made his way through the inebriated and partying throng towards the bar. He could smell a cocktail of overdosed perfume from each group of girls he passed, and entire bottles of aftershave from the guys.
The thumping music from the dance floor pulsated through his flesh until he could feel it vibrating his diaphragm like the skin of a drum. All around him people partied and drank, some escaping the mundanity of their office job existence in Britain, some escaping the ugly reality of service life in Afghanistan, a mixture of tedious boredom and routine peppered with moments of utter terror and violence.
Usher reached the main bar, slowly jostled his way through the throng of people, and stood there trying to attract the stressed bar staff’s attention.
Usher looked at all the people around him, and envied them, even the battle fatigued squaddies.
He knew their lives were hard, war always was, but Usher wished he could wipe his own mind clean of what he now knew. His head swam with a sudden rush of alcohol. He looked up at the throng gathered around the bar.
For a moment he thought he saw her.
Usher shook his head, rubbed the boozy haze from his eyes.
There she was again, drifting effortlessly between the partygoers on the other side of the bar, gliding with her dancer’s grace between the drunken masses, smiling at him.
Everyone else seemed to slow down and blur. The music softened to a distant slurring heartbeat. Was it her? Was he hallucinating? Usher tried to recall how much he had drank. Perhaps it was the conversation earlier in the night that had sparked his imagination.
The Last Line Series One Page 7
