I shook my head. “No, Chief. Agamemnon left the compound back there and said he was coming back for them. I don't know if he actually found them, but--” A glimpse at the forest below showed me a landscape scored in ribbons of fire. Large swaths of vegetation were burning, and if I really squinted I could make out small pockets of what appeared to be disoriented zombies. From up here I couldn't make out much else. If Joe, Percy and the rest had survived, then they were probably further out. I hoped that they'd made it out of the woods before the necromancer got to them.
I donned a wicked smile as I imagined Agamemnon failing to capture Joe and the others. And then he'd be going back to his little outpost in the woods, to discover Kanta and I missing.
The necromancer still had the upper hand, but he was having a pretty shitty day, all things considered.
Down below, a parking lot came into view. There, at the very edge of the park, were the SUVs we'd left behind on our march into the woods. Several commandos were stationed beside them, unloading their guns into a wall of incoming undead. A few had loaded up their flamethrowers and were keeping the advancing army from overcoming the vehicles.
And who did I spy with my little eye? It was none other than Joe, holding the front line and manipulating the bursts of fire coming through the flamethrowers. He rained fire down upon the undead, toasting them up like s'mores. From way up in the air he looked rough and exhausted. But he was very much alive.
“There they are!” I said, motioning to the lot. “Let me out, Chief! I'll take it from here.” I could see someone holding a big sword down there, too. Percy was leaning against one of the vehicles, appearing rougher than Joe. The way he held himself up on the hood, feebly holding out his sword, told me he'd been wounded, perhaps seriously.
There wasn't much time. Kubo instructed Harris to lower the chopper. The plan was to have me and Kubo jump down and help beat back the horde while the others piled into the SUVs and drove off. Then, when everyone else was out of harm's way, Kubo and I would get picked up by the whirlybird and sail off into the night like proper action movie heroes.
Well, that would have been cooler than the actual plan, anyway.
“Once the others have made it out, you and me will take the last SUV, Lucy,” said Kubo. “No theatrics. We just want to get everyone safe and back to HQ. Got it?”
“Got it.” I threw open the door and jumped out of the chopper at around twenty feet, landing hard on the pavement below. Kubo waited till it hovered a little lower, and ended up hitting the roof of an SUV.
The fight was on. Harris and Kanta remained in the helicopter, hovering twenty or thirty feet up and distracting the zombies with pot-shots from an assault rifle while Kubo and I swooped in like relief pitchers. Thankfully, there was no sign of the necromancer. Apparently he'd been held up somewhere in the woods.
Hammering through a ripe zombie head with my knuckles, I pulled to the front lines of the fray and used up some of that aggression I'd built up during my imprisonment. The wall of fire sent up by the flamethrowers made the creatures easier to manage; a few stragglers made it through the line, but the minute they started for the SUVs or the handful of rifle-wielding commandos, I stepped in to dismember them.
Kubo smacked the blade of his machete against the roof of the SUV, like a dinner bell. “Pull back!” he shouted. “Get inside, we're out of here!” He dropped down onto the pavement and started throwing open the doors, waving nearby commandos inside. They were told to abandon their weapons to make room, and the beleaguered forces packed themselves into the vehicle like sardines. Percy was helped in, hobbling on one leg, and the door was shut behind him. That was one SUV's worth of guys. The vehicle peeled out of the lot. Now the only ones left were the guys with the flamethrowers, Joe, Kubo and I.
Joe's face lit up as he noticed me coming up on his six. “Fuck,” he said, pointing at me. “I never thought I'd say it, but I sure am glad to see your stupid ass, Lucy.”
I laughed aloud, stopping a sprinting zombie with a pound to the face. A bit of black blood leapt from the newly-hewn cavern in the thing's skull and landed straight on my tongue.
Words just can't convey how shitty that tasted.
Joe started falling back, edging his way over to a nearby SUV while still manipulating the flames within his reach. The three guys with flamethrowers started sending out intermittent bursts, intended to scare the remaining undead into a retreat. The plan would have worked perfectly if all hell hadn't broken lose at that very moment.
That mother of all fuckers, Agamemnon, rode in just then on a wave of zombies. No, I really mean it; the guy stood atop a roiling heap of zombified bodies, twenty or thirty feet high, as though he were surfing in on the Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Scythe extended over his head, the mountain of undead surged into the sky, allowing him just enough reach to neatly pierce the exterior of the Black Hawk that was supposed to be our air support.
Have you ever seen a Black Hawk helicopter explode? Not a spectacle I'd recommend to the faint of heart. Especially from up-close. When the thing fell into two pieces and began sailing towards the ground, I froze in place. My momentary fear of getting struck by a few tons of wreckage was literally blown away as the chopper erupted into separate balls of flame. Kubo and I hit the pavement and were pelted in molten debris. The bang was so loud I wasn't sure I'd ever hear again, and the initial flash was so bright I felt like my eyes were being poached in their sockets.
The remaining SUVs were crushed by flaming wreckage, and then also exploded. As did the cases full of weapons and ammunition. The guys with the flamethrowers? Yeah, they exploded too, as their fuel tanks were damaged.
The whole parking lot was transformed into an inferno, and lingering on its very edge was a mountainous heap of contorted, rotting bodies. Agamemnon leered down at his work from on high.
He hadn't been late after all. He'd been just in time to wreak havoc and ruin everything we'd worked to accomplish. There'd be no rescue, no pulling one over on him. This had all been calculated. When he'd promised to use Kanta and I as bait, he'd meant it.
Kanta! She'd been in the helicopter. Rolling onto my back, I managed to sit up and survey the incredible devastation. Kubo and Joe were within arm's reach of me, and somehow the two of them were unscathed. Joe's powers were probably to thank for that. He had his hands up, and his dizzy eyes were trying to focus on keeping the encroaching flames off of us. He looked severely dazed, like the blast had knocked him senseless, and I could tell he was close to passing out at any moment. Kubo, too, was white in the face and barely able to stand.
Knowing we had little time before the necromancer started picking off survivors, I grabbed up both Joe and Kubo, threw their shell-shocked bodies over my shoulders, and bounded out of the flames. I took off running through the parking lot, my clothes and hair singed.
Percy and the guys in his SUV had made it out in time, just barely. But Kanta and the others were done for. I felt more awful than I can describe. The two of us had only just been getting to know each other, had only minutes ago begun to work as allies. This wasn't how things were supposed to go down, and as I turned and watched the mountain of surging dead return to the forest, I felt the most potent hatred I'd ever known.
I kept on running till we were more than a mile from the park, and then I set Kubo and Joe down in the grass. They moaned, palming at their eyes and ears like fussy babies.
“H-headquarters,” mumbled Kubo. “Need to... need to get back to headquarters.”
Joe sat up and clutched his knees. “How did... how did...” He couldn't finish the thought.
I knew what he was asking, though. He wanted to know how that goddamned necromancer had pulled it off. It wasn't a question any of us could answer. He was possessed of powers far beyond anything the three of us had encountered. If he was capable of stunts like that one, then there were really no limits to what he could do. Detroit would most likely fall to his might, and every other city in the Midwest
would soon follow.
We were going to be living in the United States of Agamemnon very soon now, I feared.
TWENTY
The three of us limped down the street, narrowly avoiding an entire fleet of fire engines speeding towards the park. Man, that would be a wild scene. What would the newspapers have to say about this mess? SECRET SOCIETY'S HELICOPTER SMACKED DOWN BY KING OF ZOMBIES? That is, if we even had any newspapers come tomorrow morning...
“We need to get out of the street, to some place more private,” said Kubo. “Things could go south any second now, and we need to hole up somewhere before Agamemnon's guys start looking for us.” He worked his jaw over in his hand. “Can't speak for the two of you, but I'm not going to get far without a breather.”
I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard the Chief talk like that. He'd always been one to charge ahead, no matter the cost. With Kubo there was never any stopping till the job was done. Possibly he'd really run himself into the ground this time around, or maybe the gravity of the situation had him reconsidering his usually relentless approach. At any rate, I agreed with him. Joe was limping along like one of the zombies. Some rest and food were in order. Kubo could try and get ahold of Amundsen while we got our strength back, maybe arrange transport to HQ.
Then again, after all we'd seen, was HQ really all that safe? A wave of rampaging zombies had batted a military-grade helicopter out of the sky. Somehow I doubted that the big gates outside of the Veiled Order's complex would keep Agamemnon out.
I paused on the curb, looking around. I knew this area pretty well; across the street was a McDonald's I'd frequented as a kid. There was a shuttered department store across the street from that, where I'd once shopped for school clothes. Realizing just where I was, I had an idea.
“Hold on, guys. I think I know a place where we'll be safe. For the time being. It's private, at least.” I plucked my smart phone out of my pocket. The screen was cracked. While going through my contacts, I glanced at Kubo in my periphery. “I'm gonna need the Veiled Order to replace my phone when all this is over with.”
Kubo spat on the ground. “If there's still a Veiled Order after today, I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.”
I hit the call button and put the phone up to my ear, pacing along the edge of the curb and trying to keep my balance. There was a groggy answer on the third ring. “H-hello?”
“Hey, dad,” I said. “I know it's late, and I'm sorry for calling. I don't suppose me and some friends could stop over, could we? We're in a bit of trouble...” I hesitated. “Friend of mine got hurt and needs a place to rest for a minute. We're nearby.”
My dad yawned. “Uh... sure thing, sport. That's no biggie. I'll leave the door unlocked for ya.”
“Thanks. See you in a bit.” I hung up.
“We're going to your dad's place?” asked Joe. “He lives near here?”
I pointed past the McDonald's at the cluster of tightly-packed neighborhoods beyond. “Yep. Less than a mile that way. Come on, guys.”
***
Oh boy, where to start.
My dad, Gary Colt, is... an interesting guy. These day's he's pushing fifty and living by himself in a decent two-story house. He's got a lot of hobbies, most of them weird, and although he's friendly, most of my friends over the years have thought him kind of a douche. Chief among my dad's hobbies is his passion for model train sets. I can't tell you just how much money the guy has spent on that crap over the years; frankly, if he'd spent half that much on funding my college education then maybe I wouldn't have ended up having to take on a demon's heart just to pay off my loans.
But, I digress.
I was nervous about introducing my co-workers to my dad, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and I didn't know where else we were going to get this sort of privacy on such short notice, and free of charge.
So, we came up on my dad's place looking like hot garbage and walked onto the well-lit porch. The smell of cut grass was a friendly reminder of home, and as I pushed open the door, calling out to my father, I found the living room exactly the way I remembered it. Big-screen TV in the corner, my dad's well-worn leather recliner that he'd had since I could remember, the collection of withered potted plants that he could never seem to keep from dying. It was all there.
“Heya, sport!” came my dad's voice from the kitchen. “How're you doing?” He stopped at the dim threshold to the kitchen and watched the three of us limping inside, about as put together as day-old dog shit. His expression hardened, the closely-manicured mustache he wore cozying up to the bottom of his nose.
Here it comes. He was going to ask me why it was we looked so rough, whether I was on drugs. My dad was always one to jump to conclusions.
When all three of us had made it inside, my dad walked over and squeezed my arm. “You been lifting weights, Lucy?” He leaned out towards me and patted his paunch, hidden beneath a baggy sweater. “Take after your old man, I see.” He nodded to the dust-covered piece of half-constructed exercise equipment in the corner. “You know, I picked up that great machine a while back, the one with the Chuck Norris commercials? Once this rotator cuff of mine gets on the mend, I'm going to start using it daily. You know, they say it only takes two weeks to see results?” He slapped me playfully in the belly. “Your old man's going to be swimsuit ready in just two weeks, bud. You'd better watch out.”
I chuckled nervously, glancing at Kubo and Joe. My face burned. This was the same kind of banter he always had with me; he'd talk about his stubborn rotator cuff, about all of the exercise equipment he'd invested in. I was pretty sure that heap of dusty crap in the living room was the exact same machine he'd been talking about during my last visit.
“And these are your friends, I take it?” He held out his hand to shake. Joe and Kubo offered theirs in return, shaking awkwardly. My dad eyed them curiously but didn't say much about their disheveled appearance. “Wild night, boys?” he said, nodding knowingly. “I had a few of those in my day. If you need to sober up I've got just the thing. Made a fresh batch of peanut brittle this afternoon. Lucy's favorite.” My dad wandered into the kitchen, leaving the three of us at the door.
Joe and Kubo actually chuckled, the bastards. “I see where you get your charm, Lucy,” said Kubo, smacking me in the back. “Why don't you go fill up on candy with your daddy while the world ends?”
I frowned. Hey, say what you will about my dad, but his peanut brittle is off the hook. These assholes were talking shit without even having tasted it!
“S-sorry, dad,” I said, “we aren't here for peanut brittle. We were hoping to crash for a little bit. Joe here got hit pretty hard and, uh... needs to rest. Mind if we go down to the basement for a while and let him lay on the sofa?”
My dad was leaning over the counter, carefully portioning out three paper plates' worth of peanut brittle. My mouth watered as I watched him work. “Oh,” he began with obvious reticence. “I don't know about that, champ. I've got something down there... something I can't have you or your buddies messing with.” He shot me a stern glance, and I knew he was serious. “It would be dangerous.”
“What, is Tammy spending the night or something?” I asked. Tammy was my dad's semi-serious girlfriend. She often stayed the night, and they'd hang out in the basement till dawn messing around like teenagers and tinkering with my dad's trains. Tammy was actually a really good-looking and likable woman, and I'd be the first one to admit my dad had quite the catch on his hands if not for the fact that her breath was wretched. I don't know what was wrong with her; my best guess is that she had a serious, unrestrained case of halitosis. Her breath could strip paint, and so I tried my best not to visit when I knew she'd be around.
“No, no, she went home earlier,” he replied, handing us each a plate of brittle.
“And how is she?” I asked, shoving a piece into my mouth. Holy shit, it was good. Perfectly crunchy and very evenly-poured. The uniform thickness of the stuff was unre
al. I operated in a world filled with magic now, but how the man could pour the brittle in such an even layer was simply beyond me. He'd been liberal with the peanuts this time, and had even dusted the finished product in a bit of sea salt.
My dad's hair was getting to be pretty thin so that the shiny crown of his head reflected the light coming in from over the sink. “She's fine,” he replied. “I've scheduled her for an appointment with a really good gastroenterologist this time, and I think he's going to be able to fix her up.” He cleared his throat, a little smile teasing his lips. “Do, uh... do you fellas really want to head into the basement? I'll allow it, as long as you promise not to mess with anything.”
While shoving another sheet of brittle into my mouth, I nodded fervently. I'd known this would be a part of the deal before I'd even called him.
He wanted to show us his trains.
Running for the basement door, he threw it open and led us downstairs. “Oh, just wait until you see what I've been working on, sport!”
Joe looked at me confusedly. “Is, uh.. is your dad going to show us something cool here? Like, some weapon we can use, or...” He spoke around a bolus of brittle.
Meanwhile, Kubo fell into step behind us, leaving his plate of candy on the kitchen counter.
“What do you think you're doing?” I asked him. “That brittle's a work of goddamn art.”
Kubo looked down at the plate. “I'm allergic to peanuts.”
“No shit? That sucks,” said Joe, walking over and emptying Kubo's portion onto his own plate.
We started into the basement.
TWENTY-ONE
My dad pulled on the old conductor's hat and switched on the train set with a grin.
“Dad, do you have to wear that hat every goddamn time?” I asked, shrinking into the background.
He ignored me, standing behind the enormous replica of the local railroad circuit he'd built. Having grown up in Detroit and knowing how anal my dad was about small details, I had no doubt of its accuracy. Small local landmarks, like post offices and strip malls were featured faithfully. With the turning of a knob, the cluster of trains on the track started to wheel around in a circle. He pushed a button, sounding a train whistle. “I picked up that engine there at a shop in Wisconsin. How do you like it?”
Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) Page 13
