Slayers (Jake Hawkins Book 1)

by Matt Rogers

  …nothing.

  CHAPTER FOURTY

  Somehow, he woke up.

  Jake came to slowly, burning with some kind of energy. The first thing that swam into focus was the rooftop overhead. He had just fallen four floors, and landed in the middle of a small, square lawn, directly in front of the Old Executive Office Building. He had hit the ground so hard the dirt around him had been compacted, squashed into a small crater. But he was alive, and awake. He wiggled his fingers and toes. Nothing was broken.

  I should be dead.

  The lawn opened out onto an empty road. The sign on the footpath read “State Place”. Jake guessed that normally it would be busy, but the city-wide curfew had resulted in everyone locking themselves inside.

  He stood up. Archfiend had been walking away. Now, he heard the movement behind. Jake saw him turn and stare. For a moment, the all-powerful monster was frozen, completely perplexed.

  “How…?” Archfiend said. Then realisation spread across his face. He smiled knowingly. “Oh.”

  “What’s happening to me?” Jake demanded.

  Archfiend said nothing, but he knew. Jake could see it in his eyes.

  “What’s happening?!” he roared.

  “I just unleashed you,” Archfiend said, mulling on his own words.

  Behind him, slayers began to stream from the trees. The street filled with them. There were at least a hundred still left over, that had made it out of the pit. They were amassing by their leader. As soon as the first ones reached the footpath, they came to a halt like dogs on a leash. Archfiend had raised a hand in the wait signal. Jake had never seen slayers exhibit such control. It was strange to watch.

  Archfiend turned to face the horde.

  “Go!” he roared. “This fight isn’t yours. Move into the city. Kill everyone you see.”

  The pack snarled its approval and began to disperse. The first to move took off along State Place, heading into suburbia. Jake watched them go with a knot in his gut. There was nothing he could do to stop them. He was unarmed.

  A dozen slayers fell under a barrage of gunfire. Jake recognised the familiar whine of Snowdogs. A parachute swooped in from the left and touched down on the asphalt. It was Jake’s dad. Wolfe emptied the rest of his Snowdog ammunition into the horde with the canopy billowing over his head. Jake hesitated.

  Not Wolfe anymore, he thought. Dad.

  Alongside him, Thorn and Felix crashed down and rolled to their feet. Crank landed on his one good leg and it buckled underneath him. There was no sign of Zoe.

  Crank levered himself up by the torso into a sitting position and raised his Snowdog. Together, the four men unleashed their ammo into the slayers.

  More than fifty fell in the space of a few seconds.

  Archfiend pounced.

  Jake saw him coming, and dropped low in an attempt to pass underneath the flying attack. Suddenly, he found himself on the ground, with a good half-second to spare. He realised his reflexes were now heightened. Something was definitely odd.

  He sprung back up, taking advantage of the newfound speed. His shoulders hit Archfiend’s legs mid-air, who flipped onto his back and smacked into the grass. He came up on the other side of Jake, slightly disoriented.

  Jake moved within range and let go with a devastating punch. If he missed this, it would dislocate his shoulder.

  His fist crashed into Archfiend’s face and he felt the beast’s jawbone rattle under the blow. It would have killed an ordinary man. But Archfiend was not an ordinary man. He smiled maliciously, seemingly unaffected, then kicked Jake’s legs out from underneath him.

  Jake fell hard. Pain flared through his coccyx, but he forced the discomfort to the back of his mind. Archfiend wasn’t playing around anymore; he was ready to kill. If Jake slipped up once, or hesitated for even a second, he would die.

  You adapt, or you die.

  Link’s words came back to him. He reached down and plucked the last remaining weapon from his belt. A US Navy MK3 knife, with a six-inch stainless steel blade. He lunged out and stabbed Archfiend through the upper thigh, who roared as the blade sank to its hilt in his leg.

  A glint of panic flashed in his eyes.

  Jake saw. For some reason, he was now matching pace. He had been faster than Archfiend; he had hit him in his weak spot, and now the creature was experiencing something it hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  Fear.

  Archfiend stumbled back into the middle of the road and wrenched the knife free from his leg. It was followed by a torrent of black blood. Jake figured it had been a long time since he had been wounded like that.

  Jake leapfrogged over the low fence surrounding the lawn and followed Archfiend out onto State Place. He struck out with a front kick, putting all his weight into it. It was a stupid move to try.

  Archfiend reached up and plucked Jake’s foot out of the air, and now he was teetering on one leg, completely off-balance. He saw a fist flying at his face. There was no time to block it. The claws were hard and cold, and when they smashed him in the nose he heard a sharp crack of breaking bone. The warm trickle of blood started deep up in his sinuses and flowed down out through his nostrils. The pain was incredible. His nose was pounding and throbbing and aching all at the same time.

  Archfiend took the advantage. Jake was protecting his face, but a fist crashed into his gut and drove all the breath from his lungs. He dropped his arms instinctively. Five claws slashed his face, cutting bloody lines across his cheek. The world started to spin.

  Archfiend threw another punch. If this one hit, he would pass out. Somewhere deep inside, Jake dug up a reserve of inner strength and ducked away. Just in time. Outstretched claws sliced through the air where his neck had been a second earlier. They would have slit his throat from end to end had they connected. He breezed away, then came back with a punch of his own. A hard right hand that Archfiend hadn’t been expecting, that crashed against his jaw and once again shook his skull. This one did damage. Jake felt something break under his knuckles. Archfiend staggered back. Shock was plastered across his face.

  Jake sensed an opportunity and went for it. He sprinted up and kicked out, like punting a football out of a stadium. His foot hit Archfiend square in the temple. There was an almighty crack.

  He snatched two handfuls of Archfiend’s jacket. Spun him round. Tried to heave him off his feet. Archfiend didn’t budge. He was like a statue, fixed to the ground, an immovable object. Jake tugged with all his might, and achieved nothing. When he looked back, the monster was grinning at him.

  Archfiend wrapped a hand around Jake’s throat and began to squeeze. He felt the life start to ebb from his body. He was locked in a death grip and there was no escape.

  Archfiend opened his mouth: a row of sharp teeth protruded from his snarling lips. They started to move towards Jake’s neck.

  Panic shot through him. Archfiend was about to bite.

  “This is just to make sure,” Archfiend said, and Jake felt the teeth scrape against his skin.

  Just as they were about to sink in, Jake heard something whistling through the air. There was an impact and the teeth left his neck. He tried to focus, and made out the shape of a woman standing above him, gripping a crowbar between shaking hands. Zoe.

  Archfiend remained unaffected. The hit had been nothing more than a distraction. He spun and kicked Zoe in the stomach, and pushed her away nonchalantly. She fell, too winded to react.

  Jake urged himself to move, but for a second his brain was unresponsive, like a stalled car. A deep throbbing started behind his temple. Archfiend turned.

  There was a flash of movement and a huge arm shot out of nowhere and tightened around the monster’s neck, crushing the life out of him. Mark Hawkins grunted with exertion, veins pulsing on his forehead, squeezing with everything he had. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Jake sat helplessly on the ground and watched, willing his brain to shake off the concussion.

  “Die!” his father roared, his biceps strainin
g against Archfiend’s throat.

  “No, thank you,” Archfiend hissed.

  “Jake!” his dad cried. “Help me kill him.”

  Jake went to rise, but he saw that Archfiend had other plans.

  Archfiend got some room to move. He whipped his head back in a blur. The back of his head hit Mark in the mouth, and Jake heard a tooth break off. The headbutt stunned him. Next thing Jake knew, Archfiend had broken free from his father’s grip, and in one motion leapt airborne and spun, his right foot coming round in a twisting roundhouse kick, scything through the air and striking Mark in the side of the head. It knocked him out cold.

  Instantly, Jake was flooded with a primeval rage. The energy coursing through his muscles reached a crescendo. It was a foreign feeling. He felt powerful beyond measure. Archfiend had released something when he had thrown him off the roof, and now the monster was going to regret it.

  Archfiend saw it in Jake’s eyes. He saw the anger, the hate, the malice, and he decided that enough was enough.

  He ran.

  Jake burst into hot pursuit. His legs flew across the ground at an inhuman rate. Somehow, he was keeping up with Archfiend, possessed with an unparalleled strength and speed. He pushed faster.

  They dashed through the White House grounds. Jake brought up the map in his head and realised they were heading for the Ellipse.

  Archfiend ran across a narrow, one-way street. On the other side, the crater loomed. Down on street level the newly-created valley looked a thousand times larger than it did from above. Jake’s eyes widened at the sight.

  He kept up his blinding pace, and vaulted over the bonnet of a sedan that had been abandoned in the street. It reminded him eerily of Iquitos. Up ahead, Archfiend placed one hand underneath a Ford hatchback lying idle on the footpath, and hurled it at Jake. The car spun end over end, crumpling against the asphalt. Jake lurched sideways, diving laterally through the air. He cartwheeled one hundred and eighty degrees and the wreckage missed him by a hair’s breadth.

  Archfiend continued on, and halted at the very precipice of the crater. The gradient was clearly steeper than he had been anticipating. Jake took advantage of the slight hesitation. He picked up speed and closed the gap between them.

  Archfiend spun, with something edging on panic in his eyes.

  Jake stuck out an arm and hurtled at him. He clotheslined Archfiend across the throat, and the two went tumbling down into the abyss.

  Jake’s vision spun. His stomach bucked and heaved as he twisted end over end toward the crater floor. The slope was even steeper than the banks of the Napo River. He spent more time airborne that against land. His bones crashed and rattled and shook, and finally he finished side by side with Archfiend in a heap. The earth was still hot.

  They both rose amongst the surrounding devastation.

  “You know what this is, don’t you?” Archfiend panted.

  Jake didn’t respond.

  “This is an arena, boy. Only one of us is leaving here alive.”

  “Oh, so you planned this?”

  “I plan everything.”

  “Bull,” Jake spat. “I saw it in your eyes. You’re scared.”

  “Believe what you want,” Archfiend said.

  “You killed my mum.”

  Archfiend laughed cruelly. “Mmm, I see ‘Wolfe’ decided to take off his mask. A little elaborate, don’t you agree? I must say, I had great plans for the Amazon before you ruined it. I was going to kill you in front of him.”

  “You didn’t. You failed there, and now you failed here. Look around, Archfiend. It’s over!”

  Archfiend shrugged. It honestly seemed like he couldn’t care less. “Maybe so. But you won’t be alive to savour your victory.”

  Jake said nothing.

  “And after I finish you off,” Archfiend said, “I’ll go back for your dad and your girlfriend. You might have saved the city. But you won’t save your family, kid.”

  Jake charged.

  CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE

  They clashed together amidst the wasteland, with chunks of metal scattered all around and the smouldering fuselage of the plane lying off to the side, burnt to nothing more than a blackened shell. Jake was bleeding from the nose, and the side of his face, and aching all over. His clothes were a tattered, muddy mess. But he was far from done.

  Archfiend had been ready for the onrush. As Jake burst forward, he reached behind and came up with a blunt, twisted piece of steel, the size of a two by four. He swung it double-handed in a scything arc. Jake hadn’t been expecting the sudden move. The steel whistled through the air faster than he could react, dipped under his arms and hit him in the sternum. It felt like a direct impact with a charging bull. He felt one of his ribs shatter. An incredible pain. He yelled out and doubled over, clutching his side.

  Archfiend did not hesitate; he wound up and let go with another huge swing of the club. Jake, hunched over, saw the steel through his agony. It was on a collision course with his temple. He could move, or he could die.

  He chose to move.

  The pain in his ribs threatened to break him, but he ignored it and jerked back, just in time. The steel whipped through the air centimetres in front of his face. With nothing to halt the baseball-like swing, Archfiend overbalanced. The momentum sent him stumbling off a step.

  Jake accepted the fact that whatever he chose to do next would sent a crippling bolt of pain through his ribs. He push-kicked Archfiend in the chest. The power behind the kick was phenomenal, perfectly placed. Two hundred kilograms of force transferred to Archfiend’s solar plexus and sent him flying back. Jake didn’t know if slayers could get winded, but the same strike would have shattered a man’s sternum.

  Archfiend stumbled back and released the twisted steel, taken by surprise. The makeshift club spun once, and then Jake reached out and plucked it straight out of the air. Now, he was armed.

  In a life or death situation, one finds out what they are made of.

  Jake found he was powerful.

  He brought the club round like a batter lining up to hit a ball out of the park, then swung it like a dart. His arm muscles spasmed from the force of the swing, then jerked as the end smashed Archfiend full in the face. The clang echoed across the crater, falling against a thousand dead ears.

  Archfiend was staggering like a drunk. The blow had done its job. His eyes were wide and unfocused, struggling to concentrate. Jake advanced on him. He pounced.

  It was in desperation but it was accurate, and Jake ducked away, but he was nowhere near in time, for Archfiend slammed into him and pinned him to the ground.

  A pang of genuine terror seized him. He was helplessly trapped. Archfiend was resting on both his arms. He stabbed down. Jake saw the claws coming for him like a death sentence, and he knew they were what would finally finish him off. He had come this far, and he had failed.

  “You’re dead now,” Archfiend hissed.

  No. I haven’t done all this for nothing.

  Jake snapped his head sideways, just as the claws came within range. All five scraped the side of his face, cutting deep, drawing blood. But they were all glancing blows. None had sunk in. He was still breathing – barely – but he was alive.

  Feeling the blood start to pool on the ground next to his head, Jake roared with exertion and heaved. One of his shoulders came up off the dirt, spilling Archfiend away. He leapt to his feet.

  His ribs were screaming and his left cheek was saturated with blood and his head throbbed viciously. He put his foot down but suddenly the ground wasn’t there and he staggered a few steps.

  “I can see it,” Archfiend taunted. “You’re losing it. Big strong Jakey boy, about to pass out. Let it happen.”

  “Piss off.”

  Archfiend had missed the opportunity to kill him, multiple times. That was all that mattered. Jake was not going to let it happen again. He was angry enough to ignore his injuries and charge once more.

  The beast saw him coming; Archfiend slashed out with both hands,
but it was clear that he was moving much slower. With a start of surprise, Jake noticed the right side of his skull was partially caved in. It had been dented by the piece of steel.

  He ducked under the claws, running on empty, each movement taking a heavier toll than the last. He took two huge steps, one diagonally to the left and one diagonally to the right. Now he had cut around behind Archfiend, who was late to respond.

  Jake kicked his legs out from under him.

  As Archfiend fell, he caught him around the throat, wrapping an arm round his neck just as his dad had done.

  Archfiend struggled, and kicked, but it was useless. Jake summed up all the anger of the last few days into a single, spine-tingling moment.

  “This is for Mum,” he said, and wrenched with all his might.

  Archfiend’s neck broke with staggering force. His head rotated almost one hundred and eighty degrees on its axis. The move sucked up every last ounce of strength in Jake’s body. He put everything into it.

  They both collapsed, Archfiend’s head twisted at an unnatural angle, staring back at Jake with lifeless eyes. As Jake came down on his rear, he finally let out a sigh.

  It was over. The most powerful creature on earth was lying at his feet, dead. He had won. He sat in the crater, staring at the corpse for what felt like an eternity, completely spent.

  “Jake!” a voice cried.

  It took an enormous effort, but he raised his head. Zoe was sliding down the wall of the crater, headed straight for him. There was disbelief plastered across her face. Behind her, Felix and Thorn appeared. They saw Jake sitting upright, alive, and they saw Archfiend’s motionless body. That was all they needed to see. Felix dropped to his knees and roared to the heavens. Thorn pumped a single fist in elation. Zoe continued her descent.

  Jake closed his eyes and smiled.

  Everything’s going to be okay.

  With that thought, his brain flicked a switch and he sunk back into the earth. The ground seemed to swallow him up, envelope him in darkness. The battle had taken its toll. He slumped to the crater floor and gratefully lost consciousness.