Galefire I : Fade Rippers

by Kenny Soward

  Two more gunshots blew through the speaker followed by another squall of noise, and the phone died, leaving Lonnie standing in front of the security panel with the code punched in and his finger poised over the ‘Enter’ key.

  Lonnie hated decisions like this. The Brit’s word versus Selix’s standing order. She'd emphasized the importance of him remaining in the shadows and out of view. If their rivals discovered him, they’d beat or kill him, removing an important, if expendable, cog in the gang's operation. He was the one who kept them supplied with food, information, and a fair quantity of their drug sales, working through intermediaries.

  If he went outside now, it would put his three years of anonymity at risk. Everything they’d worked for to make Lonnie useful. What happened when he wasn’t so useful anymore? Let him go? Give him a bigger role in the gang? Kill him?

  He knew too much, and he lacked the leadership skills and violent demeanor to take on certain responsibilities.

  That left only one option.

  He pounded his head lightly against the door three times, saying “shit, shit, shit.”

  Fuck it. He punched the button to disable the alarm and twisted the thick, well-oiled deadbolts.

  Chapter 2

  As Lonnie turned the last lock, a wave of nausea struck him. He rested his head against the door to stay upright. Closed his eyes to let the wooziness pass, but it didn’t. No, it pressed in, squeezing him dizzy.

  “Not now, damnit!”

  This would be his second vision in less than—

  A gust of wind from nowhere caused him to sway, and the fantasy world burst into vibrant vermilion color. He saw a sky streaked with dark, ash-colored clouds that reeked of sulfur. That feeling of vertigo as he re-balanced himself on the dragon’s back.

  “Jesus fuck!”

  The ground loomed an eternity’s breadth below as they banked left through a pocket of turbulent air and dove toward a strange landscape dotted with edifices hundreds of feet tall and half-buried in crimson sand. Valleys cut into massive rock formations displaying layers like a red velvet cake. He was nauseous, but adjusting. The wind whipped past him as he pressed himself as close to the polished leather saddle as possible.

  Yet, he wasn’t just along for the ride. His knees remembered how to guide the beast, pressing together in combination with the reins to provide direction. Still, the dragon moved of its own volition, wings spread wide and gliding. Descending with languid grace.

  The gigantic head swung from left to right as its crystalline eyes searched for damaged air ships to pick off.

  Conversely, Lonnie searched the dark red sands for the escape pod.

  There! Darting in from the right. Lonnie momentarily lost sight of the pod beneath the beast, shifted his weight to the left, and found it again as it shot out from beneath them. The ship’s landing wings had sprung open, and it wobbled and puttered while its auto-mechanics sought a safe spot to land. The mechanics were good, but the chances of them slamming into a rock formation or pitching into a scarab pit remained quite high. And those ships were like eggshells. Anything other than a soft sand landing and they’d be crushed. If that didn’t do it, the violent and unforgiving landscape would put an end to them.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  He didn’t know how he knew these things, but he did. He leaned forward, speaking loudly enough for the dragon to hear him above the roaring wind. “We’re following them, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”

  The beast grunted, rumbled deep in its chest, and went back to ignoring him.

  Lonnie’s top lip curled in anger, and he raised a hand—a hand encased in a gauntlet made of some lightweight ebony metal—and swatted the thick neck. “Fuck the flotilla and follow the escape pod,” he said, pointing. “There’s someone important on board, but…” Lonnie trailed off, emotion getting the best of him. “I don’t know who. I just know. I need to get down there. I need to save them.”

  The dragon huffed an indifferent cloud of gold-flecked steam.

  With a yell, Lonnie lifted his boot from the stirrup and kicked repeatedly at the impenetrable scales, for all the good it did. When he was done, huffing and puffing and tired, he leaned forward, shouting at the head way down the neck. “It’s my dream. My vision. You’ll do as I say. You’ll fucking do as I say.”

  The chest rumbled once more in annoyance, yet the dragon did turn. The dragon did follow the escape pod.

  Lonnie found himself staring at a knot in the heavy, oaken door. Breathless, his stomach still turned from being so high in the sky. Was there anything he could do to keep the visions from returning unbidden?

  “A little too much smack in the needle next time would do it,” he murmured.

  He steadied himself and pushed open the door. It was built to withstand police rams and even a small C-2 blast. He had never crossed this threshold, had only been in the alley once or twice. But the Brit had been insistent, and the sounds blasting over the tiny phone speaker, the gunshots and squalls, made it clear the gang was in real danger.

  Lonnie stepped out, pulling the XDS from its holster. Held the weapon at the ready. He scanned right, toward the empty street. Early morning light crept over the city. This part of town didn't bustle like the rest. People here made crime at night. Sure, a few small businesses in the warehouse district opened each day but many of them masqueraded as fronts for more nefarious enterprises.

  Lonnie checked the long dark alley to his left. It was littered with crates and garbage. A dumpster with both lids thrown open and some trash cans. Only a couple of back doors. A Chinese food place (the idea of Chinese food again made him want to retch) and a storage facility owned by the same people.

  He put his phone in his pocket, wondered if he should shut and lock the door. Decided to leave it ajar in the event they needed to flee inside. Yeah, that was smart. Gun pointed at the ground like the Brit taught him, Lonnie sidestepped to a stack of crates nearby, bumping his hip against them for reassurance.

  A dangerous silence loomed. His hands shook, palms sweaty around the gun’s grip. The XDS packed a punch with its three-inch barrel and .45 caliber rounds. He’d shot plenty of tin cans and glass bottles with it in the basement, which left him with a discomforting thought. Whoever he faced today would be flesh and blood, not tin or glass. He’d need to shoot at them, probably. Had never done that before much less killed anyone.

  The gang might require it. Might demand it.

  Could he shoot someone for them?

  In a dangerous situation, sure. A valid decision if he valued his own life. But what would it do to his relationship with his wife and little girl? Unless they checked the evening news, they'd never be the wiser. Yet, in his own mind, Lonnie would never measure up again. Not even if he kicked the drugs, found them, and made everything right somehow.

  He had a feeling there was no good answer here, but Lonnie’s junkie instincts voted for the survive-now-ask-questions-later option, and that's the plan he’d carry out regardless of the damage to his conscience.

  So, okay. Shoot to kill.

  He jumped at a gunshot.

  It was close now. The danger real. His bones resonated with it.

  Shouts echoed. Two more gunshots. He squinted through the dim morning light, peering down the alley at a crosshatch of smaller passages. Fog burst and billowed from one followed by a group of shadowy figures rushing toward him. Lonnie leaned forward and strained his eyes to discern friend or foe. He kept his finger off the trigger because of its light pull. Didn’t want to kill one of his own people.

  Smart move, too, because two recognizable figures strode confidently from the rolling cover. Tall, lithe forms in black flowing skirts and velvet sleeves. Shiny, knee-high boots with silver buckles. Inverted crosses hung from their necks in sharp contrast to the black corsets they wore. Raven-haired beauties from another age and time. Victorian gothic visages armed with Glock 33s. They were Elsa and Ingrid of the Eighth Street Gang.

  The Drear Sisters.

>   They stopped ten yards from Lonnie, turned together, and pointed their guns back down the alley, ripping off six shots between them. Beneath their cover came Crash, a huge man with teeming dreadlocks and massive shoulders. He carried a thin waif of a woman in his arms. It was Selix, limp and lifeless, maybe injured. And while Lonnie couldn’t say they’d exchanged many words or had anything resembling a close relationship, some gang-loyal part of him wanted to fight for her.

  An unexplainable lump formed in his chest.

  Crash rushed past the goth sisters with his shoulders hunched, wincing against the gunfire erupting in his direction.

  The sisters calmly returned fire into the smoke, ejected their empty magazines, and popped in new ones.

  Dodging obstacles in the alley, backpack in one hand, came the Brit in his ragged camos. He fired his Beretta once into the fog before turning and jogging past the women. “Thanks for the cover fire, ladies.” Then he winked at Lonnie, his calm blue eyes belaying his earlier panic on the phone. “Little help, Lons?”

  Lonnie nodded, staving off a wave of passing weakness. He lay his arms on top of a crate and pointed his weapon. Something moved in the fog, and the gang replied with a hail of reports. Lonnie added his own lead to the mix, unsure if he hit anything or not.

  The fog calmed, the gunfire eased, and Elsa and Ingrid retreated to a set of trash cans across from him. The two snuggled in a tight mass of black behind the protective aluminum. Two arms stretched as one, pointing their guns. Faces, delicate and ghost white. Eyes, pale green. Twins except for Ingrid’s rounder shape and more demure countenance.

  “Hello, Lons.” Ingrid’s accent was clipped Germanic, her S’s sounding like Z’s. “Nice to see you have joined the party.”

  Lonnie numbly popped his spent magazine, pulled a new one from his pocket, and reloaded.

  “Do not have an accident in your pants.” Elsa spoke with the same accent, each sentence more-or-less accompanied by a sneer and wicked crease of her primly trimmed eyebrows. “This might be too exciting for you.”

  Lonnie adjusted his grip, trying to ignore the two. The XDS was small, easy to conceal, but it gave him only five rounds per magazine. He needed to make every shot count.

  He sensed movement behind him. Pressure against his foot. Glancing back, he saw Crash had placed Selix on the ground near the door. She appeared lethargic, but alive, and her killer blue eyes scanned him distantly before focusing on the canvas backpack the Brit had tossed to her.

  Selix tried to undo the buckles but proved too weak and confused to get the simple task done. Her hands pawed at it, fingernails covered with chipped black paint fumbling at the straps. Her hair was a wilted mohawk the color of white down shocked with red in the front. A pair of skintight jeans hugged her skinny legs, feet stuck into tightly laced combat boots. A t-shirt and leather jacket topped her off, a tall girl made more astonishing by a delicate, reserved power. Her voice, never brash, held a hint of whiskey scratch. “Help me, Brit.”

  The Brit helped her loosen the straps with one hand, flipping open the flap. He reached in and pulled out a two pound bag wrapped in black duct tape. Selix tore ineffectively at it until the Brit dropped his Beretta, turned, and ripped the bag between his fingers, exposing a block of sticky tar.

  A strong itch crawled across Lonnie’s skin, starting from his shoulders and working its way along his sides and arms. The kind of itch that made him want to break out a wire brush and scratch feverishly at it, and if he shredded some skin in the process, so be it. It’d been several hours since he’d fixed, and it took a ton of willpower to look away.

  Yeah, he was a junkie. Probably a six or seven on the junkie scale. Not desperate enough to murder someone for it, but inching closer every day.

  Elsa took a crack at something moving in the fog. Lonnie’s finger covered the trigger of his XDS and then eased. More things shifted in the rolling gray, but the Eighth Street Gang held their fire.

  “Be patient. ” The Brit’s tone was quiet.

  “Yes. Let them come to us.” Crash had tucked himself in behind the sisters and trash cans. His face was wide, top to bottom, and filled with dark freckles over his light brown skin. He’d come from the islands, from somewhere in Jamaica. A nice enough guy to Lonnie, but they especially valued his brute strength.

  Lonnie licked his lips and stifled the urge to glance behind him where Selix fiddled with her fix kit and the bag of drugs. “What happened?”

  The Brit talked as he reloaded his Beretta. “We went to do the deal. Phalan thought it would be a good idea to double cross us. We killed him and his guards. Took everything we could carry, but dropped most of it in the fight. All but this one brick.”

  The Eighth Street Gang warred continually with the Phalans. Skirmishes, turf fights, and raids.

  “Had a phase trap set for us, but we were ready,” the Brit said.

  “Selix channeled a surge from the Fade,” Crash said. “Turned the phase trap on him. Should have heard the fucker scream.”

  Elsa chimed in with a grin “It was quite bloody.”

  A phase trap? The Fade?

  “They hit us with silvershard grenades,” Ingrid said. “I got the worst of it protecting my lovely sister.” She shifted and flashed her pale shoulder at him along with a half smile. A tiny, bloody hole leaked beneath her collarbone. Scratches scored her neck. When she smiled, her lips and teeth retracted, exposing an underlying row of tinier, pointed teeth.

  “Silvershard grenades were supposed to be off limits,” the Brit said. “But no one's playing fair today.”

  Lonnie gulped, not sure what frightened him more, this weird talk, Ingrid’s mouth, or her lack of concern for her wounds. Made him wonder if his last fix hadn’t been cut with a hallucinogen or industrial chemical. “Holy shit,” he said, forcing his attention away.

  “Holy or unholy shit,” Elsa said with a sigh. “It hardly matters now. I’m bored. I wish they would just come.” She raised her voice, calling down the alley. “Come, little chickies. Come meet Auntie Elsa.”

  And then she wagged her head and cackled.

  Chapter 3

  “Look up, dearie,” Elsa said. “You’re about to become lunch.”

  Lonnie looked at her. Blinked. “What?”

  The goth nodded at something above him, causing him to turn his head and scan up the brick. Lonnie’s blood ran cold, spine chilling from neck to tail bone. Crawling down the wall came a segmented creature with a hundred spiny legs wiggling under its chitin shell. A flat carapace full of slim, needle teeth snapped. Two stubby eye stalks glared at him.

  Hips twisting, Lonnie swung his gun up and popped off a shot. There was a squall, a spray of shredded brick and ichor, and whatever the thing was twisted and disappeared.

  “Nice shot,” said the Brit. “Fast. That’s the spirit.”

  Lonnie didn’t feel very fast or very good. His stomach turned at the weirdness. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  “You know what’s going on.” Elsa said. “You’ve seen it before. Magic and death.”

  Ingrid clicked her tongue. “Shut up, sister. You think Selix wants him to know?”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. She can just ice him again.”

  Phase traps? The Fade. Ice? What the hell?

  “Both of you shut up. Focus.” Selix sounded like a mother talking to her two little girls; her two dangerous little girls. “I just need to get this.”

  Lonnie knew she was back there fixing. Cooking the tar in her spoon, drawing it out with a hypodermic needle, and tapping it to clear the air bubbles. He risked a backward glance, caught her with the needle poised over her bruised veins. “Careful,” he said. “You don’t have a lot of good real estate left.”

  “Ow,” Selix said in pained confirmation.

  The gray fog pushed forward again, this time engulfing them. The wetness clung to Lonnie’s skin, probing him, reeking with a pungent odor that tweaked his already jumpy nerves. He swallowed. Closed his eyes. He could just
run.

  No.

  Lonnie clenched his jaw, turned his gun on Elsa, finger poised to squeeze. “What the fuck don’t you want me to know?”

  “You see, Elsa?” Ingrid said. “You are making things difficult.”

  Elsa leered. “I am making things fun.”

  Lonnie wagged the gun. “What don’t you want me to know? Last time I ask.”

  Something touched his hip. His eyes slid down. It was Selix’s delicate hand, her expression listless with the heroin. “Go easy, Lonnie. Everything is fine. It’s all iced.”

  Her grip tightened.

  All the warmth left his body, replaced with brackish water blossoming in his head. It froze into a thick layer of black ice above him, pressing down with impossible force. His mind went numb, fear and doubt cast aside as easily as a hand wiping dew off the hood of a car. The itch to shoot Elsa, the itch for the drugs, all but disappeared. He shook his head. His grip on the gun faltered. His ears dripped with the ladies’ chuckles.

  “That knocked the questions right out of you, didn’t it, Lons?” Elsa crooned.

  “Iced again," Ingrid said. "I hope he can still shoot.”

  What had Selix done?

  “Ah, and here they come. Look sharp.”

  Shadowy figures surged forward.

  Lonnie recovered from the numbness, placing his arms across the crate and picking out a figure running wildly down his side of the alley. He tightened the grip on his gun, lined up the weapon for a chest shot, and pulled the trigger. The monster jerked, hit in the stomach just left of center. It stumbled into a trashcan but continued at them, undeterred. Then its head spasmed in a spray of dark gore, and it tumbled to the pavement.

  One of the ladies with an assist.

  From there on out, Lonnie could only react as things happened, thoughts escaping him as quickly as they entered. He lost count of how many shots he’d taken or how many bullets he had left. He reloaded once. Fired some more. Everything moved too fast while his brain crawled beneath the weight of the ice. Feeling seconds behind the action, Lonnie’s barrel twitched left and right as he tracked shadowy movement.