by Jake Bible
“We’ll be out shortly,” she said. “Once the threat has been eliminated on this stretch of road.”
“The kobolds?”
“The kobolds. And the namazu.”
“Namazu?”
“The catfish,” Harper said. “Shit.”
“I woke them, but I do not control them,” Violete said. “They will turn their attention to us once the other food source is gone.”
“That makes sense,” I said to her then turned to Harper. “Right, Harp?”
“Maaike?” Harper called over the walkie.
“Prepping now,” Maaike said. “I’ve been through this before.”
“Good.” Harper said. “Lightning?”
“Not with all this water,” Maaike responded. “Going conventional. They’re huge, but they’re only fish.”
“Who we thank for their sacrifice,” Violete said.
“Totally,” I said.
The flood waters lowered quickly and we felt the jolt of the truck going from boat mode to truck mode again. Tires squealed and we swerved hard as the truck tried to get traction. Then we were speeding away in about two feet of water, the flood lost behind us.
“Too easy, right?” I asked no one specific.
“Too easy,” Harper said.
From out of the flood waters came the namazu. On legs. Thick, powerful legs. They looked like the missing link you see in all those evolution posters of the fish crawling up onto land. Except they were over a dozen feet tall with wide open mouths and closing on us.
“Every solution brings its own set of problems,” Violete said.
“Ya think?” I snapped.
30.
“OPEN THE REAR doors!” Elias shouted at Teddy.
Teddy did as he was told and the doors swung open as Elias and Harper took positions at the back of the truck, their weapons up and aiming at the incoming catfish from Hell. Above, fire rained down at the soaking wet pavement, creating a steam cloud that quickly encompassed the finned pursuers.
“Any special trick to killing namazu?” I asked Violete.
“No,” she replied. “The trick is in staying alive long enough to do it.”
“Isn’t this exciting,” the One Guy said. “All of my plotting and planning comes down to whether or not I end up fish food. And there are folks that think the Universe doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
The creatures broke through the steam and came for us. Twelve-foot-high legs carried them on, cracking the pavement with every wet sounding slap of their webbed feet. By the time they were twenty yards away the truck physically shook as chunks of road were sent flying up into the air.
“Don’t stop firing,” Elias said to Harper as he let loose with his shotgun.
“I never do,” Harper replied right before she opened fire as well.
Teddy joined in, as did Maaike and Diane above, and the closest of the namazu became a bloody mess of fish flesh that flew in every direction as its head was shredded to nothing. White fishbone shone in the glaring lights of the interstate; translucent fish scales peppered the ground as the creature continued to lumber towards us, its body driven by its living momentum, none of it aware it was walking dead.
The beast fell and tripped up the next closest namazu, but the four following close behind were able to leap out of the way and keep after us. The kill bought us maybe a few seconds lead, but that was all.
“Last of the RPGs,” Maaike called.
Three rockets, one after the other, flew from the truck and collided with two of the giant catfish. The first impact obliterated the targeted namazu, showering the entire area with fish guts and fish flesh that stank so bad I thought I’d snorted a gallon of Thai fish sauce. The second target took an RPG in the back hip and lost its rear left leg and most of its tail.
But that didn’t slow the creature. The namazu dragged its wounded hind end after us as the rest of its brethren passed it, their fish eyes focused on the truck.
“Maaike,” I called into the walkie. “A fish fry would be nice right about now.”
“The area is too wet,” she replied. “We’ll get blowback. We do not want blowback.”
“She’s right,” Elias said. “We don’t want that.”
His shotgun clicked empty and he threw it back towards me.
“Reload that,” he said as he pulled a large pistol from the back of his jeans and opened fire.
“I have something way better,” I said, ignoring the shotgun.
I staggered my way to the open doors and elbowed Harper.
“Hang on tight,” I said as the Dim began swirling from my palms. “Got an idea.”
“Chase, those things are huge,” Harper said. “The amount of Dim you’ll need to stop them will put you down.”
“Trust me, Harp,” I said. “Keep me from falling out and we’ll be fine.”
She growled, but grabbed the back of my pants as I stepped right to the edge of the truck. I needed the space.
The Dim flowed from my hands easily and it did exactly what I wanted it to. Grid by grid, piece by piece, I assembled the mesh net of Dim so that it lay out behind us as the truck continued racing along the interstate. The namazu were oblivious to what they were running across until it was too late.
“Chase,” Harper snarled as the closest of the giant catfish was almost within biting distance.
I turned, smiled at her, then yanked my hand hard.
The Dim net cinched up around the namazu, trapping the monster catfish into a ball of flapping fins, kicking legs, and gasping mouths. I continued to pull on my end of the Dim and the net tightened, tightened, then began to cut into the creatures.
They wailed in pain and anguish and the cocky smirk I’d had on my face faltered. I looked at the beasts then back at Violete.
“All beings must die,” she said to me.
“She ain’t wrong,” Harper said.
“Right,” I said as I gave one last yank on the Dim net, squishing the namazu into thousands of bloody fish parts. The interstate looked like the kitchen floor of a Florida fish camp. “Us or them.”
The stink reached us and nearly knocked everyone standing to their knees. Then the truck was far enough away that the offending aroma was simply an olfactory memory. A very strong memory.
“Kobolds taken care of and giant fish turned to paste,” I said as I stumbled to a bench and sat down. “What’s next?”
“You can’t but help tempting fate, can you, Chase?” the One Guy asked. “You know there is power in words, right?”
“Fuck you,” I replied. “How’s that for power in words?”
“Cute.”
“He’s right,” Harper said and slumped down next to me as she pulled her walkie from her belt. “Lassa?”
“Why do I have to be the one to break the bad news?” he asked as the truck started to slow.
“Because we all have our burdens to bear,” Harper replied. “What’s up?”
“Roadblock,” he said.
“One we can get around?” I asked, adding my voice to the walkie conversation.
“Yes, Chase, one we can get around. That’s why we’re slowing down,” the One Guy said.
“Want me to punch him?” Harper asked. “I haven’t punched him in a while.”
I waved her off and focused on the walkie. “Lassa? Talk to us.”
“DEX,” he replied. “Probably two dozen cruisers, at least as many SUVs, four semis hauling flatbeds with some serious firepower locked down and aimed at us. And a giant.”
“A giant? Like a fe fi fo fum giant?” I asked.
“Exactly like that. Maybe thirty feet tall and sitting on the back of a huge dump truck, swinging his legs like he’s at the lake and sitting on a dock. Kind of handsome in tha
t craggy way that giants have.”
I stared out the back of the truck as the vehicle came to a halt. A lot of destruction in our wake, but no chaos coming for us.
“We could go back,” Harper said, reading my mind. “But they’ve probably set up back there too. This whole stretch will have to be locked down and sanitized for general consumption. The DEX’s pressroom is working on the fake disaster announcement right now.”
“Yep,” I said, my eyes still locked on the mess of pavement behind us.
We’d been fighting so long that I couldn’t see another car from where we were to the dark horizon. Even the other side of the interstate was clear.
“Someone is walking this way,” Lassa called over the walkie. “What’s the call, dude?”
“Is it Ducheré?” I asked.
“Nope. Some guy. He stopped walking and is waiting about thirty yards away,” Lassa said.
“I’m on it,” I said and tucked my walkie away as I stood up and walked to the back of the truck.
“Coming with,” Harper said.
“I goddamn hope so,” I said. I looked at Elias and Teddy. “Watch the One Guy. He makes a move, put something deadly in his head. I don’t care what it is as long as it drops him.”
“Got it,” Elias said. Teddy only grinned.
I hopped out of the truck and swung around towards the front. Harper was right by me the whole way.
“Get me his name,” Goss said from the open driver’s window as we passed by.
“Good call,” Harper said to him.
“Why is that a good call?” I asked as we walked out in front of the truck and towards the waiting man.
“You’ll see,” Harper said. I noticed her hand going to her walkie and her thumb depressing the transmit button.
“Okay,” I said just before reaching the man.
“Special Agent Lonnie Bowman,” the man said and extended his hand. Dressed in a black suit, he was in his mid-thirties, close-cropped blonde hair with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. At night. What a douche.
I took the offered hand and shook then glanced past him at the considerable roadblock.
“Overcompensating for something, Lonnie?” I asked.
“Unlike my colleague Special Agent Ducheré, I don’t leave anything up to chance,” Bowman replied. “She thought she could play the long game and lure you in. I’m going the direct route.”
Okay. This guy had to be from the other faction. Maybe I could bargain with him.
“I don’t think either you or Ducheré know exactly what’s going on,” I said. “But I’ll tell you what. Move your little party here and I’ll fill you in.”
“You mean the One Guy playing all sides and expecting to get away with it?” Bowman laughed. “We know. The entire department knows. He’s the One Guy. We expected nothing less.”
“No, I get that, but I don’t think you quite get how good he is at playing all sides,” I said. “Seriously. You’re in the dark on this one.”
“I doubt it. Listen, Chase. May I call you Chase?”
“You already have, Einstein.”
“Yes, Chase, listen. I can offer you protection for eternity. That’s not hyperbolic exaggeration.”
“Hyperbole is exaggeration by definition,” Harper said. “Get to the point, crewcut.”
“Give us the Stolen, the One Guy, and these . . . others, and we let you walk away,” Bowman said. “You can continue doing business in Asheville as you have been and we’ll forget all about your role in this nightmare mess. You do realize we have hundreds and hundreds of people to hex memories from, yes? You shit the bed, Chase. You shit it bad.”
“Huh. Yeah, well, okay. That’s your offer?”
“That’s my offer. I’ll give you to the count of ten to decide what you are going to do.”
“You actually think I’ll let you take Harper?”
“Nine.”
“Or that I’ll walk away from my right to kick some One Guy ass?”
“Eight.”
“Or that I’ll let you lock up the people that helped me get this far?”
“Seven.”
“Do you have any idea what my week has been like?”
“Six.”
“You can stop counting.”
“Five.”
“God, you’re dick. I’ve got an answer for you.”
“Four . . . What’s your answer?”
I looked at Harper. “Show me.”
Harper smiled and nodded. “Goss?”
“Lonnie Bowman!” Goss’s voice called from the truck.
“Wha”—
That’s all the DEX agent could utter before he dropped to the ground. He crumpled onto himself and blood began pouring from every orifice. In less than two seconds he was a deflated husk of a man sitting in a pool of his own fluids.
“Oh. Wow,” I said.
“Never let a dullahan hear your name,” Harper said.
“Uh, they know all of our names,” I said.
“Then we should probably not piss them off,” Harper replied.
We stood there and faced the roadblock. Bowman’s death had happened so fast that no one seemed quite aware of what to do. That was bad prep, training, and a bad chain of command right there.
Then the roadblock opened fire.
I was expecting the attack and had already thrown up a thick wall of Dim in front of Harper and myself. Then we ran our asses off back to the truck.
“Now what?” Lassa yelled as we sprinted past the cab.
I would have answered, but that’s when the eight blood ghasts came screeching down the road from the direction of the DEX armada. Yikes.
I glanced back and saw that the blood ghasts weren’t being sent by the DEX, but coming out of the DEX agents and personnel.
Once again, the question of the goddamn century was: who was summoning the nasty bastards?
31.
HARPER SWUNG UP into the back of the truck, spun about, grabbed my hand, and yanked me in, then slammed the doors closed as the blood ghasts came for us.
“What the hell?” Maaike cried from up top right before her words were cut off by automatic gunfire.
But the gunfire from up top, and the blood ghasts slamming into the back of the truck, weren’t the main problem.
“I couldn’t trust you to do the right thing, Chase,” the One Guy said as he stood over the bodies of Elias and Teddy, their heads gripped in each hand.
“Jesus Christ, Leonard, did you tear their heads off?” I gasped and studied the carnage. “Fuck me. You did.”
Violete was down and unconscious, but she looked like she was in one piece at least.
“You screwed up,” Harper said, yanking her Magnum free from her belt.
“That so?” the One Guy replied as he let the heads drop. Before they hit the floor, he had two pistols drawn and aimed right at us. “You shoot, I shoot. Chase dies for sure.”
Harper didn’t glance in my direction, but I could feel her body shift an inch towards me.
“Pal, you picked a shitty time to make your move,” I said, nodding my head at the doors behind us. “There be blood ghasts.”
“Yes. There be.”
“You’ve been whining about blood ghasts coming to kill you for the past couple of days. Remember that part of all this?”
“I do.”
“Blood ghasts are bad, Leonard. We should tackle those then get back to resolving whatever this shit is.”
“It’s resolved. The blood ghasts aren’t coming for me.”
“Say what now?”
“I’m sure there may be some coming for me at some point in the future, but not these, not now.”
I was about to argue
then I noticed the deflated backpacks strewn about the floor. There was one still full, but the others were unzipped and obviously empty. And the full one hung over the One Guy’s shoulder like he was a teenager heading to first period.
“Leonard? What did you do?” I asked.
The lies were connecting, the truth was so close I could smell it.
“I made a move,” he said. “One you can’t counter unless you chop up our little Stolen friend here.”
The walls began to bulge in places as the gunfire continued up top. Not only up top, but everywhere outside. It sounded like Lassa, Goss, and Verber were waging war in the cab. The DEX was certainly fighting it out with the blood ghasts too as I heard their giant roar loud enough to shake my molars.
“What’s the angle, Leonard?” I asked. “How do you expect to get out of here in one piece?”
“By walking out,” he said. “The always delightful Harper will lower her hand cannon and the two of you will kindly get the fuck out of my way. I promise not to shoot either of you. I’m leaving you for the blood ghasts.”
“Jesus, was this the plan all along?”
“Of course, Chase. Well, one of my many plans. I had contingencies in place depending on how things worked out. And every contingency was designed to get my ass away from the DEX before someone did something stupid like try to lock me away in a dark room in some black site offshore. Don’t need that, thank you very much.”
“We were going to go back to Asheville, negotiate, and work out a compromise,” I snarled, my eyes on the pistols. “You weren’t going to a black site.”
“Do you know who was going to mediate this little compromise of yours?” he asked, his eyes flicking towards the back where Violete lay still and prone. Then he tapped his ear. Where the earworm had been. “I decided to find out for myself. Dragons, Chase. The Mars Hill dragons. They were going to decide my fate.”
“Dragons are always neutral,” Harper said. “They wouldn’t have screwed you. Duplicity is not in their nature. Unlike you.”
“Oh, ouch, that hurt,” the One Guy snickered. “Not really. And, yes, Harper, you are correct. Dragons are very neutral. Unless they have a beef with someone. I’ve covered all the angles. As usual.”
