Joe Ledger: Unstoppable

by Jonathan Maberry

  MindReader could identify people from the way they walked now? That machine got spookier every day.

  “Send me the GPS location.” With the phone still to my ear, I held out my hand to Chang. “Give me your car keys.”

  “Don’t fucking think so,” Chang said.

  “Church, say hello to Inspector Chang and tell him it’s in his best interest to give me his car, right now.”

  I offered the phone to Chang. He hesitated, then took it.

  “This is Inspector Chang.”

  To this day, I don’t know what Church said to him. I knew my boss, though, and knew MindReader would instantly cough up every little sin this guy had done, both on the clock and off.

  “No shit,” Chang said into the phone. “Um … what if I told you I didn’t know she was married, and that wasn’t even my wheelbarrow?”

  A moment of silence, then he hung up. He handed me both the phone and his car keys.

  “That guy can fuck your math teacher, then fuck math, then give physics a reach-around and a Chang Bang while he’s at it,” Pookie said. “Try not to wreck my ride.”

  His car drove like shit. My cell phone and the map had me to the Presidio in minutes—the wonders of modern technology. The lights of San Francisco quickly faded away, vanishing as I drove into the Presidio. Houses gave way to trees, to a surprising level of darkness. Cloud cover hid stars and moon alike. And, of course, there was fog and plenty of it. I felt more as though I were in the hills of Pennsylvania than in the midst of one of the world’s great cities.

  The cell’s GPS took me far up a winding road to a parking lot that overlooked the city. Ghost and I got out. I drew my SIG Sauer and scanned the area. Darkness on all sides save for straight ahead, which was a sprawling view of house lights, car lights, and streetlights struggling to be seen through the fog.

  Just one light pole here: and on it, a small closed-circuit camera. That was how MindReader had seen the Orc Brothers. Two immediate thoughts: one, MindReader was some seriously frightening Big Brother stuff; and, two, if this one little camera could spot the Orc Brothers and we had no other MindReader-based sightings of them in El Paso or anywhere else, Tres Hermanos Orco were very, very good at not being seen.

  Ghost began to growl. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Ghost took a few steps from the car, body low, hackles raised—he was on point, nose aiming toward the dense shadows on the side of the parking lot.

  I’d made a mistake: I had my SIG Sauer, I had my Wilson Rapid Response knife, but no body armor, no night vision, and no backup.

  Ghost’s growl changed to a bark of challenge just as something—something big, too big to be a normal person—burst out of the woods.

  I didn’t bother with questions: I started shooting. Seven rounds in less than a second, then the shadow turned and fled back into the woods.

  Ghost went after it. I’d just started to give the stay command when I heard a horrible crunch of metal and breaking glass, and something hit me so hard it threw me through the air.

  Half-stunned, I slid across the pavement, shredding both my shirt and the skin below it before I managed to roll to my knees. The Buick’s passenger side was caved in, a crater like a wrecking ball—an Orc Brother had hit the car so hard it smashed into me. And leaping over the Buick’s rear, lit up in the single streetlight, that same Hermano Orco—a big-ass, hunchbacked man wearing a camouflage raincoat.

  Flat nose flaring, mouth open, two lower teeth sticking up like spikes of bone, he rushed me. I emptied my magazine. I capped off the last round from not even a foot away. It should have blown his heart straight out his back, dropped him like a bag of concrete—the fact that he didn’t even slow scrambled my thoughts for a moment, long enough for his huge fist to deliver a crushing body blow.

  I felt ribs snap. The blow lifted me off my feet, threw me back, sent me tumbling across the pavement. I rolled to my feet for the second time, trying to brace for the pain, compensate for it, but no matter how tough you are broken ribs jam up the way you move.

  The Orc Brother came straight in—hunchbacked, shoulders wide as a door, a steamroller with a raincoat trailing like a supervillain’s cape.

  Knowing how bad the move would hurt, I feinted right, then stepped wide left. Orc matched the feint, but when he corrected, it was too late—I was already outside his right shoulder, my right hand driving my knife up into his chest. The point slid home just below his sternum; I had a flash of satisfaction that I’d pierced his heart just before his momentum slammed into my arm and shoulder, spinning me around, tearing the knife from my grasp.

  I landed on my broken ribs. What air I had left in my lungs took a fast exit. I couldn’t tell if one of those lungs was punctured. If so, I still had a good chance of living longer than the asshole I’d just stabbed.

  My enemy was down. Still rolling around a bit—it might take him a few minutes to die.

  “Fuck you,” I said through clenched teeth.

  And then, the asshole got up.

  He stood slowly, but he stood. The knife was still sticking out of his chest. With one gray hand, he gripped the handle and pulled it free. Blood spurted once, twice … then stopped.

  “No,” the Orc Brother said in a voice that—like his body, like his face—wasn’t quite human. “Fuck you.”

  He smiled, staggered toward me, his balance becoming more sure with each step.

  I had shot this prick at least five times at close range.

  I had stabbed him in the goddamn heart.

  And he was still coming.

  A flash of white: Ghost jumping between me and the Orc Brother, fur raised, lip curled back to show wet teeth, a low growl gurgling in his throat.

  A second flash of white—white with black spots. It was Emma, Erickson’s dog, at Ghost’s side, the two of them barking madly. Smaller than Ghost, but equal in projected ferocity.

  The combined canine warning made the Orc Brother stop. Maybe he’d have come right at Ghost, but the pair gave him pause.

  “I hate dogs,” he said. “Gonna kill your dogs. Gonna eat ’em while you watch, then gonna eat you.”

  Fantastic.

  I struggled to my feet, one hand holding my ribs. No weapon—I had to find a way to stop this bastard.

  A hiss of air slipping past my right ear.

  A thunk.

  The Orc Brother looked down at the arrow shaft sticking out of his chest. He seemed confused.

  “Burns,” he said. “Never burned before.”

  A voice from behind me: “Welcome back to San Francisco, shitbird.”

  The Orc Brother fell to his ass, still staring at the arrow shaft.

  I recognized that voice: Jebediah “Bryan” Erickson. Whoever the hell he really was. I turned, expecting to see that pale face with the red stubble, the same black hair. Instead, I saw a man wearing a black navy pea coat, black jeans, black gloves, black skullcap with a black mask dangling from it—eyeholes and death grin poorly stitched in white. He held a black carbon fiber compound bow.

  This circus sideshow had just jumped up to a full-on freak exhibit. What the hell was all this?

  “You’ve got good moves, but the wrong weapon,” he said. “If the other two assholes come, use this. Stick it where it counts, leave it in.”

  He handed me a sheathed KA-BAR. I took it.

  “Watch my dog for me,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He stepped between Ghost and Emma. Bryan/Jeb pulled an identical KA-BAR from inside his pea coat. Black anodized blade. Only the edge caught the glow of the single streetlight.

  The Orc Brother saw him coming. For the first time, I saw fear in the monster’s eyes.

  “No,” the monster said in that inhuman voice. “No, not you!”

  The man in black closed the distance. He kicked out a booted foot so fast I didn’t see it move, just saw the Orc’s head snap back, one long tooth spinning into the night.

  Bryan/Erickson grabbed the Orc by the throat. He stabbed the lon
g blade into the Orc’s left eye, so deep I heard the tip hit the inside of the skull.

  The dark wood rang with a sudden howl of anguish, a pair of inhuman voices combined into one. The trees at the edge of the parking lot erupted—the other two Orc Brothers came at us.

  One rushed the man in black, one rushed me. Both screamed nonsensical words of hate, or revenge.

  Ten meters from me. Broken ribs. A bulletproof foe, or at least one that bullets didn’t bother. I’d already stabbed his brother in the heart, to no effect.

  Seven meters.

  Stick it where it counts, leave it in.

  Five.

  I gave Ghost a hand signal: hamstring.

  Ghost sprinted wide of the oncoming enemy, then turned sharply and bit at the back of his ankle. Canine fangs punctured cloth and leather.

  At two meters, the Orc Brother turned to swipe at Ghost, but his forward momentum brought him stumbling straight at me.

  Putting the KA-BAR in his throat was almost too easy.

  I felt the blade scrape cervical vertebrae, and then the huge man—what, maybe 140 kilos?—fell past me. I let the knife go.

  The Orc Brother hit the pavement. Blood sprayed everywhere, blackish red in the single light, but unlike when I’d stabbed his brother’s heart this blood didn’t stop spurting.

  Not for another ten or fifteen seconds. Not until there wasn’t enough blood left to spurt.

  I heard the sound of fists smashing into flesh, the cracking of bone. I turned to see the man in black straddling a prone Orc Brother, raining down blow after blow. Each time he pulled back a fist, it trailed an arc of blood.

  I thought of the movie Rocky, of Sly Stallone hitting that side of beef over and over again. Finally, Bryan/Erickson stood. Emma ran to him, tail wagging, tongue lolling as if this were nothing more than a walk at the beach.

  The man in black looked at me. “Ledger, you all right?”

  I nodded toward my fallen foe. “Better than him.”

  Bryan/Erickson pulled a rag—black, of course—from an inside pocket. He wiped blood, bits of bone, and, probably, chunks of brain from his leather gloves.

  “Why didn’t my bullets kill the first one?” I asked. “Or my knife? Why did your knife work?”

  “Ancient Chinese secret.”

  He came closer.

  “You owe me,” he said. “Let me hear you say it.”

  I glanced around at the carnage, but didn’t need to—he was right. If he hadn’t shown up, I’d be dead. Probably Ghost as well.

  “I owe you,” I said.

  “Give me your word,” he said. “You don’t talk about this, to anyone. Do that and we’re even.”

  I thought about what he’d told me at the big Victorian house: “This is San Francisco—things are different here.” A quiet little war, but this guy, this man in a psycho mask … we were on the same side.

  “You have my word,” I said. “You look like the kind of guy who doesn’t appreciate publicity. Want me to make these bodies go away?”

  He shook his head. The skull smile mask swayed slightly.

  “The bodies are mine,” he said.

  He moved quickly, carrying each Orc Brother body into the dark woods. The way he picked them up, as though they weighed little more than a bag of flour … this guy had serious strength.

  Inhuman strength.

  Enough to make me wonder if he had that Z chromosome, and what it meant.

  He walked back to me.

  “What, exactly, are you doing with those bodies?”

  “Bringing a truck, taking them to my basement.”

  His basement. Of course. I wanted the hell out of San Francisco.

  “Need a ride?” he asked. “Hospital, maybe?”

  “I’ve got it covered. Did you walk here?”

  I’d almost said, Did you fly here, as if he were some kind of X-Men mutant, but caught myself at the last second.

  He pointed to the edge of the parking lot, close to the winding road. There sat what looked like a sci-fi version of a Harley.

  “That an electric motorcycle?”

  The masked man nodded. “Yup.”

  “With a sidecar, for your dog?”

  “Yup.”

  “Might have to get me one of those.”

  “You owe Pookie a car first.”

  True enough.

  His eyes narrowed with anger, but not directed at me.

  “Emma! Stop sniffing that poor dog’s ass!”

  Sure enough, the dog had her nose jammed into Ghost’s butt. Ghost had that worried look on his face again.

  “Emma!”

  The pointer reluctantly ran to the sidecar and hopped in.

  “Listen,” I said, “I have resources. Whatever is happening here, if it gets out of hand, you can call me.”

  He thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

  “Fair enough. And if you have targets in SF again, I’m your huckleberry.”

  I offered my hand. He shook, and that was that. Two warriors, blindly trusting each other based on nothing more than a two-minute skirmish that had left three enemy combatants dead.

  In my world? Sometimes, that’s enough.

  He drove off in his motorcycle, which didn’t make a sound. No wonder I hadn’t heard him come in. I watched the man in black, whoever he was, fade into the night.

  A wet nose nudged my hand. Ghost, asking to be petted. As I scratched his big head, I called Mr. Church.

  “Joe, you okay?”

  “Call off Kraken Team,” I said. “The Orc Brothers are neutralized.”

  “Excellent news.”

  “Get an ambulance to my location, stat. Keep it quiet.”

  “You going to tell me what happened?”

  “Can’t,” I said. “I gave my word. And don’t call me until I return—I’m on fucking vacation.”

  This time, I got to hang up on him.

  Ghost and I walked to the edge of the overlook. Together, just a man and his dog, we stared out at the foggy night and waited for the ambulance.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Number one New York Times bestselling author Scott Sigler is the creator of fifteen novels, six novellas, and dozens of short stories. His works are available from Crown Publishing and Del Rey Books. In 2005, Scott built a large online following by releasing his audiobooks as serialized podcasts. A decade later, he still gives his stories away—for free—every Sunday at www.scottsigler.com. His loyal fans, who named themselves “Junkies,” have downloaded more than forty million individual episodes. He has been covered in Time, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Io9, Wired, the Huffington Post, BusinessWeek, and Fangoria. Scott is the co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his Galactic Football League YA series. He lives in San Diego, California, with his wee little dog, Reesie.

  BANSHEE

  BY JAMES A. MOORE

  Bug and MindReader did all the heavy lifting. I can’t clarify that enough. Without their work we would have never even had a case. The situations might have come across as natural circumstances or death by misadventure. Hell, there wasn’t even going to be an autopsy on a couple of the victims until MindReader suggested it.

  I was catching up on paperwork, which is to say, wishing I could find a way to blind myself or at least shatter all of my fingers so someone else could do the boring stuff, when Bug told me what was going on.

  “So, there are three confirmed cases and two maybes here, Joe, but MindReader thinks we’ve got an assassin on the loose.”

  “Bug?” I thought long and hard about a beer, but decided water would do the job. The weather was hot and it was only getting hotter. Summer in D.C. is like a special kind of roulette wheel where sometimes you win a perfect day and other times you win clouds, humidity, disgusting heat, and more of the same. Now and then, though, you get a quick rain that drops the temperature down by thirty degrees and makes you feel human a
gain.

  That wasn’t why I was drinking water. Beer probably wouldn’t go well on a mission and I had a feeling we were revving up for one.

  “Yeah, Joe?”

  “You want to fill me in on some details? It sounds like we’re dealing with three-fifths of an assassination.” Now and then I liked pulling Bug’s leg a little. He got so serious when he was working.

  “What? No. No, Joe. We’re dealing with at least three deaths and I think maybe two more that need confirmation. And if MindReader is right, we have at least five more diplomats who could be dead by the end of the week.”

  All the jest went out of me that quickly. No one likes the idea of that sort of national crisis. “Talk. Tell me why this is Department of Military Sciences, so I can convince Mr. Church.”

  We don’t get to pick and choose our cases. They are picked for us, but when something comes along and Bug tells me we should be interested, I do what I can. That means I need to be able to prove my point to the boss.

  “So, here’s the thing. A week ago, Hiro Tanaka, attaché to the Japanese ambassador, was found dead in a hotel room in New York. He was there for a business meeting with Walker Financial. Typical business. The same sort of thing he does all the time. He’s found in his hotel room, alone, the doors locked, the room high enough up that the windows don’t open.

  “Two days later, in Boston, Alejandro Humbre, a bigwig in the Spanish ambassador’s security detail, was also found dead in his room. Doors locked, windows closed, no signs of forced entry. No explanation as to why he was there, but the ambassador was supposed to be visiting so it’s a safe bet he was there just to do his job.

  “Next day in Philadelphia we have the same sort of situation with the personal secretary to Belgium’s ambassador.

  “Same day in D.C. we get the exact same scenario with the aide to the personal attaché to South Africa’s ambassador, only this time there’s a difference.”

  “Wait. All of these are supposed to be natural causes?”

  “Joe, most of these aren’t even supposed to get autopsied. I only have information about the cause of death because of MindReader. In three of the cases, the description comes down to internal organs that have been liquefied. As in several ribs not shattered but turned into powder, and the organs in the abdomen and chest turned into a meat frappé.”