by Jack Conner
"And if they jump off the roof?" Cloire said.
"Then we jump, too—remember, we've just fed and will probably be stronger than they will."
"I don't like it. The blast will make too much noise. In fact, you know what I think? I think you just want to alert Danielle so she can run away."
"He's right,” Sophia said. “Going from bottom to top is the most strategically sound idea in this situation."
"Oh, and we're supposed to trust you?"
"Yes."
Cloire snorted. "Fine, but if this thing goes sour, I'm through, Jean-Pierre. The team will have one less member."
Loirot and Kilian agreed.
Jean-Pierre headed back to the van. "Let's get it over with, then."
They broke out the hardware—grenades, automatic weapons, a variety of pistols. He knew Laslo was a chalgid and probably had some zombies at his disposal, though surely not more than half a dozen or so, and if Laslo was friendly toward Ruegger and Danielle, that meant the death-squad had to be prepared.
After arming themselves, Jean-Pierre said, "Remember: if you come across any zombies, aim for the head, just like in the movies."
As they started in the direction of the hangar, he lobbed several grenades at the great wooden door. The death-squad barely broke stride as the explosives went off, blowing a hole. Almost casually, they strode inside … but then their resolve broke. Holy hell, what happened here?
As he crunched over the debris the explosion had made, Jean-Pierre became aware of walking on top of long wooden beams—crosses—and beneath them—nailed to them—bodies. Bodies being ground into the concrete floor as the crew made its way into the hangar.
“Fuck!” Cloire said.
Through the smoke Jean-Pierre saw the forest of living skeletons and bodies, and along the walls crucifixes. He tread on a dried gooey substance. Damn it all, he was walking on the dried-up liquids these bodies had released on dying.
He noticed a large group of hooded monks, just visible through the swaying forest, clustered near one wall, around a cross with someone on it—
Danielle!
His heart thumped.
At that moment, the monks (zombies, he realized) saw him too. The deaders’ heads had snapped in his team’s direction at the explosion. Now, in unison, the things turned from Danielle and ran, howling, toward the death-squad.
“How can there be so many?” Loirot said.
Most of them were armed, Jean-Pierre saw. And there was Laslo, the sick puppy, wearing a priest's get-up and reaching for a rifle—
The door leading into the mission burst in. Jean-Pierre turned to see another group of zombies descending a flight of stairs. At their head was Singer, a man the albino recognized. With a start, Jean-Pierre realized he himself could join their ranks if he wasn't careful.
He turned to his crew. As always, they looked up to the task, even Kiernevar and Sophia.
“Form a barricade,” he said.
He fired at some of the chains that the bodies were suspended from, breaking the metal links and causing several corpses to fall to the ground, striking it hard. With the quickness of an immortal, he arranged the bodies (some of which stirred slightly) into a little mound, then squatted behind it, setting his various guns out on the floor around him for easy reaching.
Turning, he saw that some of the other members of his crew had done the same. Pride surged through him, and he felt the sting of sadness at the possibility of losing them. It all depended on whether or not he was willing to kill Danielle.
The zombies charged. He paused to light a cigarette, possibly his last, then raised his automatic rifle, took aim, and fired.
* * *
From his perch on the wall, Ruegger had a clear view of the action. He was high enough to stare down at an angle on the rotting forest of flesh and the demons that warred among it. Those that were down there would have their sight obscured by the bodies, but not him—if he cared to look. Mainly he watched Danielle, battered and bruised and crucified. Crucified.
How could he have gotten her into this? She’d been right when she had said they should leave.
Suddenly he wished that Hauswell hadn't saved him all those years ago, had let him go off on his merry way to hell where he surely belonged. But then what about Danielle? Hadn't he, in some small way, saved her from a drug overdose or a suicide attempt at some point? Maybe that simply his ego speaking. Well, he would atone for his sins now. Either the death-squad would get him or they would join him here on these crosses to die, slowly and painfully—then be resurrected as a slave to Laslo.
Closing his eyes, he tried channeling his power, but the mindthrust wouldn't come. He was simply too weak, drained of blood.
Suddenly, he saw something, something that chilled him to the core: Junger and Jagoda walked through the hole the death-squad had created, unfolded two lawn chairs and sat down in satisfaction, each holding a long-necked beer. Jagoda produced an enormous joint, lit it, and they began taking hits.
Junger saw him, pointed him out to Jagoda, and they both smiled and raised their beers to the Darkling in a toast. Bullets whizzed about them, even striking them, but they took no notice, and the combatants took no further notice of them.
Chapter 19
Zombies rushed at Jean-Pierre, firing what weapons they had, their rounds slamming into the flesh of the corpses in his mound, some into Jean-Pierre himself. He fired back, aiming for their heads. Three crumpled to the floor. He swore. He'd delivered five good brain-shots, meaning that at least two of the remaining five had been immortals in life and still retained some of their power.
Just before they came over the barricade, he grabbed a Magnum .357 semi-automatic and a large knife from off the ground.
One leapt for him. He swung with the blade, slicing through its neck, feeling the spray of its deathly juices. He hacked again, cutting off its head and kicking the corpse out of his way to put five rounds into the face of one of the zombie-shades.
The others fell on him. One started to eat into his stomach and he broke its skull open with his elbow. It still lived.
He stabbed his blade into the chest of one of the others (to no avail) and lost it there. Feeling their hands on him—digging into his back, his groin, his throat, his belly—he twisted and writhed, emptying his gun uselessly and then unable to reach his other weapons.
DAMNIT, I will NOT die like this.
A gun fired nearby. One of the zombies fell off him, deader than ever. Jean-Pierre grabbed another creature, this one a zombie-shade, by the throat. He could hear the last one wheezing and grunting a few paces away.
Once freed from the constraints of the other undead, he tore into the zombie-shade, decapitating and dismembering it.
Gasping, he turned in time to see Sophia finish off the other one, knocking it to the ground and stomping on its skull. She was completely covered in putrid zombie-grime, and he knew that he must be, too.
"Thanks," he wheezed.
"No problem. They only sent three after me."
A volley of bullets tore into both of them. Crouching back behind the mound of corpses, they exchanged nervous looks.
"Are you going to kill Danielle?" she asked, a few bullets whining over the top of her head. The zombies seemed to be holding off on another all-out assault for the moment.
"I don’t know,” he said.
"If you kill her, you'll never be able to get her out of your mind. Only by letting her live can you deal with your feelings for her."
A bullet struck a corpse near Jean-Pierre’s head, spraying his hair with blood. “Now isn’t the time for this!”
“It’s the last time.”
She was right, of course. “What about my crew? Vistrot?”
“You’ve hit what they call a defining moment, Jean-Pierre.”
The rounds of an AK-47 slammed into his disintegrating mound of the living dead, and he figured the time for conversation was about up. Still, he hesitated.
“They’ll aba
ndon me,” he said.
"I won't.”
She was serious.
Glancing over the mound, he saw that the zombies were employing his own technique—taking down the bodies from the hooks and building mounds to hide behind. Their mounds, however, stretched longer and higher, making Jean-Pierre think of his days in the First World War. Trenches and razor-coil …
He searched through the forest of bodies until he saw Byron and Cloire. They’d finished killing off the zombies that had attacked them in the first wave and were looking for him, too.
"What now, Frenchie?" Cloire shouted when she found him.
"Take down more bodies. Extend your mound and I'll come over."
As they obeyed, Loirot darted out from his own shelter and dove behind Cloire’s, receiving a barrage of bullets for his trouble. Together, Kilian and Kiernevar rose from behind their barricade. Firing from the hip, they sprinted to Cloire and Byron.
A de facto cease-fire fell among the two sides as they fortified their barricades. Several zombies broke open the heads of some of the more dead ones and worked on fastening the skulls to their own heads, making gruesome helmets to prevent brain-shots. When the mound Cloire and the rest had been working on became large enough for the albino's tastes, he grabbed Sophia's hand.
"We're going to make a run for it," he said. "Keep your head down and your gun up. On three: one, two, THREE!"
They broke cover and ran to the others’ mound. He felt rounds tearing into him but didn’t pause. He and Sophia ducked behind the mound, gasping.
"You're out of shape, Jean-Pierre," Cloire said.
He stuck his head over the mound, feeling a few slugs slamming into his forehead but ignoring them, and saw again through the swaying bodies the long, low barricade the opposition had erected. The zombies apparently realized how vulnerable they were to head-shots and were staying undercover. Accordingly, they showed no signs of sending out another wave, and why should they? They could just sit and fortify their position indefinitely, waiting for the werewolves to attack or go away. Every minute the werewolves didn't strike, the zombies’ position grew stronger. He turned to the crew.
"What's the plan?" Byron said.
"Kill Laslo. He’s controlling the zombies. Singer, too, because he looks just ripe enough to be becoming a young chalgid himself.” Jean-Pierre popped his head up again briefly. “Laslo and Singer are at opposite ends of the mound. Laslo’s closest to the door that leads up into the mission to the left. It'll take at least four shades to kill the bastard, and that’s being optimistic. So Cloire, Kiernevar, Kilian, and Byron—when the time comes, you chase him up into the mission, kill off his escort and do him in. Loirot, Sophia and I will try to take out Singer and any others that get in our way. First, we make a run for their mound, divide them up into two groups and then you four scare Laslo up into the mission. You do your thing, while we three stay down here and do ours."
"Sounds half-assed to me," said Kilian.
"Can you think of anything better? All right then, get your grenades ready. Throw them right before we hit the barricade. Throw them all. Okay, on three: one, two, THREE!"
They sprinted toward Laslo's wall of flesh, shooting even as rounds tore into them. They threw their grenades seconds before breasting the barricade. The explosions rocked the zombies, destroying many and creating large gaps in their mound.
Once over the barricade, the crew fired with abandon, scattering zombies in every direction. One fired into Jean-Pierre’s chest. He shot just beneath its bone-helmet, right into the forehead, and it dropped like a stone.
“Blasphemers!” Laslo shouted. “Heretics!”
Snarling, the chalgid gathered a small contingent and made his way toward the stairwell, disappearing into the mission. Cloire and the other three followed.
A long burst tore into Jean-Pierre. He ducked behind what once had been the barricade of his enemy and which was now vacant of them; they were playing it very conservatively, which would make it that much more difficult to eradicate them. Loirot and Sophia crouched as well. Shifting a leg of one of the mound-corpses to create a window, the albino chanced a quick peek at the opposition.
The remaining zombies—about twenty—had taken cover behind the several smaller mounds that the death-squad had made. Since there were only three of the crew left, it would be next to impossible to flush the zombies from their hiding places—positions which even now were being fortified—because the mounds were scattered and the death-squad couldn't afford to divide up their forces. Jean-Pierre couldn’t even see Singer, so no point in making a run to kill the man. Plus, no more grenades. They would have to wait for Cloire and the others to kill Laslo and break the psychic hold over the deaders.
However ...
Turning, Jean-Pierre saw that the crucified Danielle wasn't very far away, about fifty feet to his left and behind; he would still have the cover of the rotting barricade for several yards and then the swaying bodies would obscure the zombies' line of fire.
Loirot saw his look. "Are you going to do her, Jean-Pierre, or has Cloire been right all along?"
The albino shot him.
Loirot swore. "What'd you do that for?"
To Sophia, Jean-Pierre said, "Help me get her down from there."
They moved off at a brisk crouch to the wall where Ruegger and Danielle hung, surely dying. Jean-Pierre glanced over his shoulder, trying to determine his vulnerability to enemy fire, and saw that it was as he’d hoped. He couldn't see the zombies because of all the hanging bodies, and if he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t shoot him.
Danielle was still unconscious, and it pained Jean-Pierre to see the wounds in her hands and ankles where Laslo’s minions had driven their nails. He glanced away, feeling hatred rise in him, and his eyes fell on Ruegger.
The Darkling observed him coolly.
Neither spoke. Jean-Pierre bowed his head in acknowledgment of his enemy, and Ruegger returned the gesture, as much as he could; he seemed terribly weak. Strangely, his attention turned to Sophia.
“Sophia …”
“It’s me,” she said. “I’m here.”
"Here," the albino said, ignoring the exchange. There would be time for explanations later. With the ghensiv's help, he lowered Danielle's cross to the ground, letting it down as gently as possible. As he started to remove the razor wire around her wrists, Sophia held him back. He flashed an angry look at her.
She indicated Ruegger. "No. Let him.”
Puzzled, the albino glared at the Darkling, who had eyes only for Danielle. Jean-Pierre understood. It would be selfish for him to play Danielle’s hero. Then again … hold that up to the ultimate ironic pleasure of Jean-Pierre, at last, being her savior, and it was pretty much a toss-up as far as he could see.
Heads, tails.
“Goddamnit,” he grunted.
With Sophia’s help, he lowered the Darkling’s cross. They released him, removing first the chains and then the thick, heavy nails; Ruegger gritted his teeth and sweated, but he made no sound. When he was free, he lay there, too weak to move, and Sophia helped him to his feet, where he swayed. Like Danielle, all his major arteries had been slashed, and he had been grievously wounded beforehand. Jean-Pierre was surprised he could even stand.
When he was stable, Ruegger nodded to his benefactors. “Thank you.”
Silently, almost in awe, they nodded back.
Without another word, the tall, lean vampire knelt beside Danielle and extricated her from the cross, carefully pulling out the nails from her wrists and feet. The pain evidently registered somewhere in her unconscious, and her eyelids fluttered. She let out a soft moan, and her eyes snapped open. When she saw Ruegger, a tired smile swept her face and was gone. She flung her arms about him and held him tightly, so tightly, and as she closed her eyes again tears spilled over and ran down her soiled cheeks.
Jean-Pierre glanced sideways at Sophia. She nodded.
Running a hand through Danielle’s tangled hair, Ruegger kissed
her forehead right on the cross-shaped brand and eased her back. Still one more nail to go. The one through her feet. She released him while he went about the painful business of freeing her, but after that first moan she made no other sound. Finally, he helped her stand, but they didn't break the contact, just stood there feeling each other and breathing.
Danielle noticed Jean-Pierre, but she didn't seem to know what to make of him, and she didn’t seem to recognize Sophia, or perhaps she was simply dazed. In any case, the battle had stopped for the moment, neither side wanting to go on the offensive, and the four had a few seconds of peace.
"Danielle ..." began Jean-Pierre, then stopped. What was there to say?
"You remember Sophia,” Ruegger said to Danielle.
“Oh,” she said. “Of course. The Ice Queen.”
“Good to see—” Sophia started.
With shocking strength, Ruegger belted Jean-Pierre across the face. Jean-Pierre reeled back, then placed his hands over his bloody nose.
"That's for trying to kill Danielle at your apartment,” Ruegger said.
“I suppose I deserved that.”
Ruegger offered his hand, as if to shake. “And this is for saving us.”
The albino stared at it. The hand stayed out there, and after a minute Jean-Pierre accepted it.
"Thank you," said the Darkling, and for a moment, just an instant, Jean-Pierre could see what Kharker saw in him.
Gunfire erupted. Somewhere Loirot issued a scream. A moment later the man himself staggered toward them through the bodies, bleeding badly, his arm almost severed. When he reached them, the sight of the four of them standing there rendered him speechless for moment.
"What is it?" Jean-Pierre said.
"Singer," Loirot gasped, finding his voice and glancing quickly, nervously, over his shoulder, "He and his zombies are attacking."
On cue, the zombies appeared, a band of about fifteen. They formed a ring about the odd flock and what remained of the death-squad.
