by J M Hemmings
‘It’s like a dream,’ Chloe murmured to herself, staring around in awe and wonder. ‘A dream … or a nightmare.’
Most of the seven or eight thousand partygoers at this Halloween bacchanal were dressed up in costumes of varying degrees of intricacy, so neither the beastwalkers nor Chloe looked at all out of place in their respective outfits. Chloe stood on tiptoes to peer across the dancefloor at the bar where William was, and she saw him immediately; his motocross helmet was easy to spot. He was playing his part with ease; one arm was draped casually over the shoulder of a scantily clad Australian blonde who was dressed as a character from Mad Max. Sharaf, attired in a full Batman suit, was seated with a bevy of attractive young men and women on a plush sofa on a mezzanine level above the dancefloor. Zakaria, meanwhile, in his full suit of fifteenth-century plate armour, was engaged in an intense conversation with a man dressed as Trapjaw from The Masters of the Universe at the opposite end of the bar to William. Kimiko, clad in her seventeenth-century samurai armour, was dancing in the middle of the dancefloor with a muscular, half-naked European man. Sweat was flying in glistening beads off of his smoothly shaven torso, and his too-white teeth glowed with unsettling brightness under the ultraviolet light.
Awang, who would not be in the thick of the fighting and who therefore did not need the same level of body armour as the others, was dressed in a lighter costume; he was drinking alone in a dark corner, attired in simple monk’s robes. Beneath these, however, he wore a bulletproof vest.
Only one beastwalker was near Chloe: Njinga, who was standing next to her at the ground-level bar, sipping on a gin and tonic, while Chloe was drinking a simple glass of water.
‘I can barely breathe inside this stupid helmet,’ Chloe whined. ‘It’s so fuckin’ hot and humid in this place, even with the aircon. I’m literally suffocating in here. Can’t I please take it off, just for a second?’
Njinga scowled at her, but all the teen could see of her face was a hollow of inky blackness inside a terrifying spiked helm of steel; the beastwalker was wearing an impressively frightening outfit modelled on the cloak and armour of the Witch-King of Angmar from The Lord of the Rings. She carried an oversized flail and a huge sword, but these were mere plastic props that she would discard later. The real weapons she would use tonight had been stashed inside the club, smuggled in by the Rebels’ allies hours earlier. Njinga couldn’t see Chloe’s face either, for it was hidden within the claustrophobic confines of a gleaming white stormtrooper helmet. She could picture the teen’s crumpled frown clearly enough in her mind, though.
‘I’m sorry kid,’ Njinga said, sipping slowly on her drink, ‘but you know damn well our faces are completely covered for a very good reason. The Huntsmen have detailed files on all of us, you included. There are biometric scanners hidden all around the club, an’ the Huntsmen have programmed absolutely every detail you can imagine about all a’ us into their systems. If you expose your face you’ll not only give yourself away, you could potentially give all a’ us away an’ ruin any chance this mission has of success.’
‘I know, I know,’ Chloe muttered, her voice muffled. ‘But couldn’t I have been something a little more bad-ass than a stormtrooper? And um, I dunno how many Star Wars movies you and your friends have watched, but at the rate stormtroopers literally get slaughtered, I uh, I don’t think this costume is gonna do wonders for my luck of surviving the night.’
Njinga had to have a chuckle at that, as grave as circumstances currently were. When she spoke after her laughter had subsided, though, her voice had a hard sternness to it.
‘That costume you’re complaining about ain’t no toy, Chloe. It’s been put together by our best engineer, an’ it’s been constructed with space-age materials an’ technology. You’ve probably got the safest suit outta all a’ us, you know. Bulletproof an’ light as a damn feather too, even if you’re sweatin’ your ass off inside it.’
‘I get it,’ Chloe grumbled, ‘and you don’t need to give me another lecture, all right? I just … it’s really hot in here, and, and … I’m, I’m freakin’ out a little. I … I’m … I’m…’
Njinga knew how much the teenager looked up to her, and understood how difficult it had to be for the girl to admit to her that she was frightened.
‘I’m terrified right now, Chloe,’ Njinga admitted, setting her drink down on the bar. ‘I might not look it, an’ I might not be actin’ like it, but inside, my stomach is twisted up into knots, my mouth is all dry an’ shit, an’ I can hear my heart thumping in my ears, even over the crazy bass they got in here. Why do you think I’m drinkin’ a fuckin’ gin an’ tonic, girl? You’d be insane if you weren’t feeling like this too.’
For a moment Chloe’s whole body seemed to stiffen within the glossy white suit of armour, but then her rigid muscles all slackened at once.
‘I’m really scared too,’ she murmured.
‘Come here kid,’ Njinga said, pulling Chloe into a tight embrace. ‘I know this is scary, hell, I know it’s downright terrifying, what we’re about to do. I get it, seriously, I do. Just remember, though, the suit you’re wearing, that composite is totally impervious to M-16 rounds, even at point-blank range. All a’ us got some a’ that stuff on us. Light as plastic, but stronger than titanium. An’ outta all a’ us, you’ve got the most a’ it on you. You’re totally bulletproof, girl! And those lenses in your helmet, they’re tiny LCD monitors, an’ they’ll kick in with full night vision once we kill the power in the club. Well, once we blow up the transformer for the whole damn city block; the power outage has to look like an accident.’
‘Okay,’ Chloe murmured. She really couldn’t say much else; she knew that she was the most well-protected of any of them in this suit, but that certainly didn’t make the thought of going into battle any easier. The first two times she’d been caught up in a firefight, it had happened too quickly and spontaneously for her to do anything but react and survive. This time, though, the violence was premeditated, and it had a timed countdown attached to it. She felt like she was waiting for an appointment to undergo surgery without anaesthetic.
‘You good now, kid?’
Chloe waited a few moments before answering, tracing an invisible pattern on the gleaming black floor with the toe of her boot before speaking.
‘Why do we have to do it like this?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I get why we have to do this, as … as horrible and scary as it is. But why the guns and grenades and stuff? Couldn’t you guys just use your magic, whatever that weird shit you did back in the mountains was?’
‘No Chloe, we can’t,’ Njinga answered gently. ‘What we did back there, when the Huntsmen attacked, we were only able to do because of where we were. All a’ us, like I told you before, we all got different abilities, us beastwalkers. Many a’ us don’t have no special abilities at all, an’ you don’t just automatically get stuff like that when you become one a’ us; if you have the base ability for a gift, as we call ‘em, you gotta study an’ train that gift for many years. I’m talkin’ not just decades here, but centuries, an’ even then there are restrictions about where you can use it.’
‘Why would your abilities be restricted based on where you were? I mean, for a while I was really into playing bass guitar, and I got real good. I could play real well anywhere; it didn’t matter if I was at home in my apartment or in Central Park or on the subway or wherever.’
‘Maybe I’m using the wrong word to explain what I mean then,’ Njinga said. ‘Because it ain’t like playin’ an instrument. Actually, come to think a’ it, yeah it kinda is, in a way. Did you ever get to play your bass guitar in a live setting?’
‘I played in a band for a year or two, yeah. We didn’t really play many shows, though, just like, one or two.’
‘All right, well you did at least play in front of people once then huh? So, when you played in front of a crowd, did it feel different to when you were jammin’ at home on your own?’
‘Well yeah, it was literally a night and da
y difference,’ Chloe answered. ‘I mean, at home I could play so much better, up to a point … but then when I played in front of people the first time, I was almost like, crippled with nerves and anxiety. For the first few songs I could hardly play at all and I kept missing notes or playing the wrong notes. But the crowd, they really liked us and got into the music, and when that happened, like, I totally got over my stage fright, and when people were dancing and stuff, it was like, like me and the other guys in the band were literally feeding off their energy, and we started playing better than we ever had, like, on a whole ‘nother level.’
Inside the inky shadows of her hood, Njinga cracked a smile.
‘Then you know exactly what it’s like to tap into, channel and redirect energy. It’s a very minor, rudimentary form a’ it, what you an’ your band did, but it’s the same principle.’
‘But you guys didn’t have a crowd there in the mountains.’
‘We don’t need crowds, girl. What we need is the energy of complex interconnected ecosystems; the older the better. In the mountains where the cabin was, we were in our element: an ancient forest, filled with the potent energy of nature. We tapped into that power, which is immense in places like that, an’ channelled an’ redirected it.’
‘Why can’t you do that here?’
‘Look around you kid. You saw this city, an’ you can see the inside a’ this dump. Everything is dead here; concrete, asphalt, steel, plastic, rubber, drywall … Any trees nearby are weak an’ stunted, an’ they ain’t barely got any ecosystems around ‘em. The soil they’re growin’ in is almost barren, an’ only propped up with chemical fertilisers. It’s only got a fraction a’ the microorganisms that make up an old, truly complex ecosystem. There ain’t no animals nearby but rats, roaches, a few pigeons an’ sparrows, an’ some stray cats an’ dogs. We could probably draw on a little of their life energy, but they ain’t part of a complex whole, really, not like the animals a’ the forest. They’re more like people, tryin’ to scavenge a livin’ off this dead place. An’ besides, those trees an’ creatures are all outside. We’re in here, with walls all around us, an’ very little in the way of life.’
‘I guess I get what you’re saying … but what about the thousands of people in here? Couldn’t you use their energy?’
Njinga chuckled and shook her head.
‘Wrong kinda energy, kid. These people may as well be made of bricks, plastic an’ concrete for all the life energy they can give us.’
‘But the day I saw William fight that guy who turned into a rhino, he did something that was like, like magic. I remember Njinga, clear as day. There was this sound, like thunder … no, no, louder than thunder. And a shock wave that blew out a whole bunch of windows and knocked us over and stuff, and whatever it was, it was strong enough to throw a freakin’ rhino through the air. That was in the middle of the city, with no, like, old forests or ecosystems or wild animals or anything. Why can’t he do that now?’
‘He may just have to,’ Njinga answered grimly, ‘depending on how things go for us. But the bottom line, kid, is that that thing he can do, it’s a different kind of energy channelling altogether. It’s something that the old Grandmasters of the Councils learned to do, after centuries, hell, thousands a’ years a’ meditation an’ study. They learned how to tap into the most potent energy streams a’ the universe – I’m talkin’ stuff beyond this planet, beyond this dimension. William was one a’ the few younger beastwalkers who was able to learn how to do this in a relatively short space of time; decades instead of centuries. But he ain’t no master a’ it, not even close, not how the old grandmasters were. Sure, he can pluck it outta thin air, no matter where he is or what’s around him, but his, how do I put it, his grasp on it, if you wanna think of him being like, a lion tamer—’
‘A tiger tamer would be more appropriate,’ Chloe interjected, grinning to herself.
‘All right, all right, tiger tamer then,’ Njinga continued. ‘Well, it’s as if his tiger ain’t really tame at all, an’ might turn on him an’ maul him at any moment. You get what I’m sayin’? He’s got the ability to call the tiger, an’ to ask it do what he says … but it’s got a mind a’ its own, an’ sometimes it obeys, but sometimes it don’t. And when it don’t wanna do what he wants it to do, it hurts him. It hurts him bad. Hell, even when it does go where he wants it to, it takes a heavy toll. He has to use a lot a’ his own life force as well, you see, when he does this. If he pushes it too hard, he could kill himself.’
‘Oh, wow,’ Chloe murmured. ‘I … I guess I understand now.’
‘That’s why we have to do things this way, with guns, as much as I – we – all hate doin’ this kinda shit. If this whole thing was going down in an ancient forest, an’ we’d had time to prepare ourselves, it might be a totally different story. But it ain’t, an’ here we are, in the belly a’ the fuckin’ beast, fightin’ on their terms. I ain’t too happy about it kid, but desperate times, an’ all that shit.’
Chloe nodded.
‘I get it.’
‘I’m glad you do, an’ please believe me when I say that this is a last, desperate resort. I really, really wish there was some other way, but this is it. We’ve reached the end a’ the road, an’ there ain’t nowhere left to go.’ She paused and allowed these weighty words to hover for a while in the air, thick and pungent like cigarette smoke. After some time, she continued. ‘All right kid, I’m gonna give you a quick pop quiz, just to make sure you know your part a’ the plan backwards. Tell me, at what exact time are you going to retrieve your weapons?’
Despite the anxiety that was percolating like a virulent infection in her guts, Chloe answered with the unflinching rapidity and confidence of a trained soldier.
‘Eleven thirty-seven and fifteen seconds. Exactly fifteen seconds after the power outage.’
‘Where you gonna go to retrieve your weapons?’
‘At exactly eleven-thirty-five I’ll head over to the women’s bathroom at the back of the underground-level VIP bar. I’ll wait in a stall for the power to go out. There’s a janitor’s closet in the corner of the bathroom, which this key will unlock.’
Chloe pressed a button on the wrist of her stormtrooper outfit, and a small compartment opened on the wrist, revealing a key hidden inside. Njinga nodded and continued with her questions.
‘You got it kid, you got it. And what are you gon’ find inside the janitor’s closet?’
‘A combat shotgun, two bandoliers of ammunition, two nine-millimetre pistols, a belt equipped with three stun grenades, two smoke grenades and five assault grenades.’
‘An’ after you get the weapons?’
‘I’ll head out of the bathroom and turn left. From there I take the hallway that leads to the access door to the private section of the club.’
‘An’ then?’
Chloe breathed in deeply before she began to recite her perfectly memorised response.
‘After you and Zakaria have cleared out the first wave of Huntsmen troops, Ranomi’s gonna open the door from the inside. I’m gonna meet up with you guys then. You, Zakaria, Kimiko, Ranomi and me will storm the place. I’ll be covering your backs while you guys head straight for the main conference room, where the Huntsmen Board Members will be having their dinner and meeting with Sigurd, Hrothgar and Joao for Sigurd’s Winternights festival. Awang will detonate tear gas grenades in the club and in the streets outside, causing chaos and preventing Huntsmen reinforcements from getting inside. After that he’ll take up a sniper position on a rooftop nearby to cover our own retreat and pick off any Huntsmen troops who come after us. William and Sharaf will be waiting on the upper floors to cut off the Huntsmen Board Members’ escape, and cut ‘em down as they try to flee. We go in quick, strike hard, and get out just as fast.’
Njinga placed a hand on the shoulder of Chloe’s stormtrooper armour.
‘That’s it, kid. You know your mission parameters well. You got this.’
Chloe inhaled slowly and fully, hol
ding the stale air in her lungs as long as she could in a bid to try to stay calm. It worked to a degree, but the writhing, thorn-scaled parasite that was anxiety continued to loop and undulate its icy coils through her stomach.
‘Tell me more about the Mozambican guy, Joao Pelembe,’ she said to Njinga, talking just for the sake of trying to get her mind off the ticking clock and the slow-throbbing terror. ‘You already told me a lot about Hrothgar and Sigurd, but not so much about this dude.’
Njinga let out a long, slow whistle from between her teeth, shaking her head.
‘Joao Pelembe … now there’s a fine piece of work,’ she muttered. ‘You know anything about the Mozambican Civil War?’
Chloe shook her head.
