Five Suns Saga II

by Jim Heskett

  Dave’s arm was extended, his finger still on the trigger. His whole body quivered and the weapon in his hand danced like a puppet on a string.

  “You okay?” Sutter said as the moaning woman gurgled, heaved one last gasp and then died. She was dead even before her chest finished deflating as the air leaked out of her lungs.

  Dave stuttered, trying to get the words out. “I’ve never killed a woman before.”

  Sutter stuck his gun in the back of his waistband, then walked to Dave. He put a hand on top of Dave’s, helping him lower the gun to the ground. “You ever killed anyone?”

  “Yes,” Dave said, still staring into space. “But not in a long time.”

  “Well, you just saved our lives. Thank you.”

  Dave stared at him, a blank look on his face. His lips moved in the shape of words, but no sound came out.

  Sutter held up a hand and snapped his fingers. Dave blinked.

  “Come on, Dave, we need to go.”

  Dave closed his eyes, cleared his throat, then they crossed the room to the window. Sutter peered out, with a perfect view of the Red Streets below. There had been four, but now, three more had joined them, hiding behind a moving van next to the other car. He couldn’t see the Infinity from here, but judging by where the gang members were shooting every few seconds, they hadn’t moved.

  Sutter raised the window and caught sight of Isabelle out of the corner of his eye. She looked up at him and raised a hand to get his attention.

  Sutter started firing, then Dave appeared at his right, squeezing off a few shots. The sound of Dave’s gun blasts in Sutter’s ear made him dizzy, but he squinted to keep his focus.

  They’d killed three of the gang members before any of them knew what was happening. The last one hiding behind the car hit the ground and started crawling toward the moving van, but a perfectly-timed shot from Isabelle put a stop to that.

  Two of the Infinity popped their heads up, looking confused. Sutter seemed to remember there being three of them. Maybe the third one was still hiding, or maybe he’d already been shot and killed.

  Sutter tried to locate the Red Streets hiding behind the moving van, but they seemed to have disappeared. “Shit. Where’d they go?”

  “There,” Dave said, pointing at a foot sticking out from under the van. They’d crawled underneath it.

  “I got this,” Sutter said. He pointed his pistol at the van’s gas tank and spit three shots at it. He didn’t think he could actually blow the thing up, but if those gang bangers knew where he was shooting, they’d leave their hiding place in a hurry.

  And they did. But they must have panicked because instead of backing out under the van to the safe side, they all three scrambled out into the street, where the Infinity cut them down in a matter of seconds.

  When the gunfire in the street stopped, a moment of quiet hung in the air. Then the Infinity members started shouting at each other.

  “Let’s go,” Sutter said. “Time to find out what these cultists do with their freedom.”

  They raced back through the blood-soaked hallway and down the stairwell, where they met Isabelle in the lobby.

  “They took off down an alley,” she said. “Follow me.”

  Out into the street, Sutter felt his chest constricting, and the cut on his arm throbbed. His ears were still ringing. But he ran with everything he had, chasing Isabelle as she ducked around a building and sprinted along the pavement.

  At the end of the building, they came around to see a Subaru station wagon peeling out of a parking lot.

  And another, identical Subaru, sitting right next to it.

  “That was nice of them,” Isabelle said. “They left us a car.”

  Sutter huffed a sigh as the adrenaline of the last few minutes bled out of him. “With half their crew dead, they only needed one.”

  The front door was unlocked, and they all slid inside. But no keys in the ignition or above the visor. Isabelle popped the glove box and fished around for a few seconds, but shook her head.

  “You don’t know how to hotwire a car, do you?” she said to Sutter.

  “I was a cop,” he said, “of course I know how to hotwire a car.”

  14

  Victor paused in the hallway to admire an oil on canvas painting of a man holding a bouquet of flowers. The man smiled out of one side of his mouth, with dimmed eyes, as if he knew something. What did the old man in the shabby clothes know that the painter or the rest of the world didn’t know? Victor would never gain the answer to this question.

  He angled his wheelchair to reach the door, then knocked on it.

  “Come in,” said an excited voice.

  Victor rolled the wheelchair inside, and the young man with his laptop stood. The screen behind him flashed a sequence of colors, casting a haze of light on the nearby walls in this darkened room.

  The young man’s chest pulsed. “Hello, sir.”

  “Good morning,” Victor said. “Anything new to tell me?”

  The young man grinned, practically bubbling over with exhilaration. “Yes, Leader. I’ve managed to ping the Effelsberg array in Germany. It’s modem to modem, so it’s terribly slow, but I believe it’s the first step in diagnosing the satellite problem. I no longer think it was solar flares or general device failure. I think it’s nothing but a communication problem, and we can solve that from here.”

  “Can you estimate a timeframe for the necessary repairs?”

  The young man’s smile faltered. “I’m afraid I can’t give you specifics. But if all goes well, we might be able to have the satellite phones reconnected and operational within a few days. There’s still much I don’t know about the situation.”

  “Excellent. You’ve done well.”

  The look of pride on the young man’s face threatened to swallow him up. He was glowing. Were it not for the burn marks on the young man’s neck and left side of his face, he might have been beautiful.

  “I appreciate the extra time you gave me to work, sir.”

  “Successes are rewarded,” Victor said. “When we’ve reconnected and brought everyone home, you’ll be given a title. Something… important. Would you like that?”

  The young man’s lip quivered as he bowed. “Absolutely. Thank you, Leader.”

  Victor nodded and rolled his wheelchair out of the room. Next, he thought he might visit the kitchen and talk to this new cook about the quality of the eggs. Too salty.

  A noise behind him caught his attention. At the far end of the hall, his assistant Norman was hustling, his tie flapping against his shirt. “Sir,” he said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. The scouting party is back from Trenton, and they have some interesting news.”

  Victor waved him forward.

  Norman rounded him and rolled his wheelchair into the main hall, where two of his flock were standing by the front door. They were both admiring the chandelier hanging above their heads. Someone had once said it was like a thousand swords of Damocles poised up there.

  Victor cleared his throat to get their attention. “Where are the others?” He remembered sending out at least four or five of them.

  “They are dead,” said one of the flock. He kept his back straight and eyes forward, not looking at Victor. Had this man been ex-military? He couldn’t be sure since he hadn't initiated this one personally, but Victor seemed to think this one had been in the Army or the Navy.

  “And why are they dead?” Victor said.

  “We were in Trenton, preparing to return here when we came upon a freshly-killed group of young people in the street. We searched the area and found a hideout for some kind of gang. Fifty or sixty strong. We observed them and discovered they had resources worth taking. Gasoline, weapons, motorcycles.”

  Victor smiled. Motorcycles were always a welcome addition to the stockpile. He waited for the scouts to continue, but they stood silent. Victor assumed this meant whatever they were going to say next was not good news. “And where are all these resources? How much did
you bring back?”

  The military man pursed his lips, then drew in a breath. “None, Leader. There was another group there—I assume also to steal the bikes—and we didn’t discover them before they attacked us. We barely escaped.”

  “I see,” Victor said. “And if I give you a much larger scouting party to return and take these resources, do you think you might not fail us this time?”

  Victor watched the concern sink into Norman’s face. Obviously, they couldn’t spare a large group to rush to Trenton right now. Norman knew that, but this military man didn’t need to know that. He could send five or six, and maybe that would be enough.

  “Yes sir,” the military man said. “We can take them. I know we can.”

  “Good,” Victor said. “Await my instructions, but prepare yourself.”

  The two remaining scout party members bowed, then went up the stairs to the second floor.

  Victor waved Norman close, and Norman took up a spot behind the wheelchair. “Where would you like to go, sir?” Norman said.

  “Kitchen. No, to the sunroom, I think. Let’s check in on the plants.”

  “Of course, Leader,” Norman said as he pushed the wheelchair through the foyer. “I have good news.”

  “What is that?” Victor said.

  “A different scout also returned this morning, regarding our asset to the south. They’ve made contact and the invasion has begun. I’ve recorded the details for you and left them in your office.”

  “Excellent. Anything else?”

  “There’s just one more thing we need to discuss.”

  “And that is?”

  “There have been some problems with the cargo.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  Norman made a grumbling sound. “Some… spoilage. I’m afraid we’ve lost a great deal.”

  Victor put his hands in his lap, then squeezed the thighs he could no longer feel. Spoilage. How many more complications would he have to endure?

  Just as some things appeared to come together, others fell apart. Too much of the world needed to burn, and every day it wasn’t on fire was a wasted day.

  15

  On a winding road on a steep hill in Red Bank, a lone car sat parked by the curb. Inside, Isabelle, Sutter, and Dave watched the house with the wrought iron gate as the car they’d pursued across New Jersey pulled inside.

  As they’d drawn closer to the Infinity home base, the amount of graffiti had grown exponentially. They’d seen hundreds of dead and burned bodies stacked on the roadsides. Even without tailing the other car, they probably could have found their way here just from the stench. Just when she thought she couldn’t be any more disgusted with these people and the things they’d done, all of those corpses made Isabelle want to retch. She didn’t feel as conflicted as she had about coming here, after seeing the destruction.

  Sitting in the back seat with Sutter, she pulled down the car’s center armrest and opened the hatch into the trunk.

  “What are you doing?” Dave said, watching her in the rearview.

  “I’ve been listening to something rattling around in this trunk for the last hour. I think I know what it is.” She poked her head inside and discovered several rolls of duct tape, two blankets, a shotgun, a submachine gun, a small object like a soda can but with a handle, and a briefcase. She moved the guns, the duct tape, and the briefcase to the back seat.

  “What’s this?” she said, holding up the soda can thing.

  “Smoke grenade,” Sutter said.

  Sutter popped open the briefcase, which contained some clips for the submachine gun and four shells for the shotgun.

  “Shit,” he said. “This isn’t going to be enough.”

  “It’s more than we had before,” Isabelle said. “Plus, we have to assume we can pick up weapons and ammo from the dead as we go.”

  Sutter sighed. “That’s fine if we’re moving through the mansion, but if we’re pinned down somewhere, we can run out real quick.”

  Dave turned in his seat. “Guys. What’s the plan here?”

  She waited for Sutter to take the lead and answer the question. This was his bold idea, so he’d better come up with the brilliant strategy that would have them take on a house probably overflowing with better-armed cult lunatics.

  The more she thought about it now, the less sure she was why she’d agreed to come along in the first place, despite that sensory overload of the dead bodies in town. Dave had wanted to honor the deal with Mrs. Rappaport on the hope that she could form an army. Isabelle could have talked him out of it, but she’d felt that same tug of duty, for some reason.

  “What if our camp’s already destroyed, or taken over?” she said.

  “We can’t think like that,” Dave said.

  Sutter took a few deep breaths and readjusted the piece of torn shirt that was functioning as the bandage on his forearm. Once again, it had soaked through with blood.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Isabelle said.

  “Hurts like hell,” Sutter said. “I can barely move my arm.”

  “The plan?” Dave said.

  “I’ve been thinking about it since Philly,” Sutter said. “Of course, it would have been better if…” he trailed off, but Isabelle knew what he’d almost said. If Zach had been with them, since he’d been inside the house.

  Sutter cleared his throat. “We have basically two options: the frontal approach, or something more stealthy. The frontal approach gives us the best use of surprise. We can take out a lot of them before they know what’s going on.”

  “But?” Dave said.

  “It also leaves us the most vulnerable if they’re prepared for that kind of thing. We could rush in there to find some sort of armored barrier with soldiers hunkered down behind it, who cut us down the minute we get inside.”

  “Or snipers on the rooftop who take us out before we even get there,” Isabelle said.

  “Right,” Dave said. “You’re not selling option one very well. What’s the stealthy option?”

  “We split up,” Sutter said. “Spend an hour or two at the edge of the property, collecting information. Whatever we can see through the windows, whether or not they have guards patrolling the outside. Then we meet up and exchange notes, and find the quietest way to get inside the house. Use knives and whatever else we can do to fly under the radar for as long as possible.”

  Isabelle watched Dave’s reflection in the rearview. She didn’t think he’d like the idea of splitting up, but he seemed to be keeping his poker face solid.

  “That also puts us at a greater disadvantage, though,” Sutter said, “if we’re all deep inside and an alarm goes off. We could end up surrounded.”

  Isabelle shifted in her seat. “I say we go in the front door, head-on and guns out.”

  “I say we go in quietly,” Dave said. “Knives only.”

  “Looks like you’re the swing vote,” Isabelle said to Sutter. “This is your gig. What’s it going to be?”

  Sutter sat back and picked at the fabric of the car’s roof for a few seconds. “I don’t see why we can’t do something like a hybrid. We observe, take notes, then do both.”

  “Both?” Dave said.

  “Yes,” Sutter said. “One goes in the front, like some kind of distraction. Then two go in through a back entrance, and we find a way to meet up somewhere in the house.”

  “I’ll go in the front,” Isabelle said.

  Dave spun around. “No, babe. You can’t.”

  Isabelle used her detached sniper scope to get a better look at the front of the building but didn’t see anything interesting. Then she picked up a submachine gun, checked the clip, and slipped it in the back of her waistband. “I’ll tell them I’m lost, or something. Keep them occupied for as long as I can. Wherever the kitchen is, that’s where we’ll meet.”

  Dave’s face pulled into a frown, but he didn’t protest any further.

  Sutter picked up the shotgun, wincing at his injury as he gripped the barrel. He collected
the four shells and slipped them into his pocket. “Okay, guys, let’s go do something useful.”

  16

  Trying to spy through the windows turned out to be a pointless exercise, even with the sniper scope. Many were blacked out with something like shoe polish, and the ones that weren’t showed nothing but empty hallways. Isabelle didn’t believe they actually were empty, but couldn’t find any evidence otherwise.

  They did find a door on one end of the house, guarded by a lone man. Sutter approached from the side with his knife out, then wrapped a hand around the guard’s head to cover his mouth while jabbing the knife under his armpit. Five solid thrusts and the man was dead. As he went limp, Dave helped Sutter lower the body to the ground.

  Isabelle admired how quick and quiet Sutter could be. If they wanted any hope of winning a war against the Infinity, they would need hundreds or thousands more like him.

  They disposed of the body in some bushes near the house, then returned to find that the door was not only unlocked, it also led to some kind of empty utility room. That’s where Isabelle left Sutter and Dave. Her heart ached to see the look on Dave’s face as she turned to go because she knew what he was thinking. And he was right, it might be the last time he’d ever see her.

  If they caught her, burned her alive and stuck a rose stem through a cut in her chest like that poor woman in the gas station bathroom, she hoped Dave wouldn’t have to see it. She hoped he would get away and find some other life far from these crazies.

  Sutter was a capable man; he could keep Dave out of trouble.

  She slipped into the forest behind the house to double back to the front so she could walk up to the main gate as a visitor. As she strolled along the path to the front door, she adjusted the submachine gun in her waistband and made sure her t-shirt covered it.

  She lumbered up the cobblestone steps to the front, pausing to admire the stone gargoyles on either side of the front porch. At the top of the steps, she thwacked the brass knocker against the door. Clack clack clack.