The fire’s intensity was limited by the amount of air that could get in through the doors to feed it, but it still did a thorough job of incinerating everything in the tower that would burn—including the revenants trapped inside. When the upper floors collapsed and fell to ground level, Old Jack took station in the solar of the manor house, now the most defensible building in the village, and kept watch for the rest of the night.
He stayed in the village for three more days until the remaining villagers returned. Although no more revenants appeared, the threat was not entirely abated, so Old Jack gathered the details he needed before setting out for the abbey.
“This sort of problem is exactly why I need the Crusader,” the lord abbot expounded. “Dealing with outlaws is something ordinary men can do. But revenants? You saw how well Sir Hugh managed.”
“Sir Hugh was a brave, noble knight, but he was never especially clever.”
“Perhaps. Tell me about the crone.”
“The villagers called her Anne atte Gate. She is not as tall as my cart’s wheels, and has blue eyes, thin white hair, and a mole to the left of her nose.” Old Jack paused to take a bite out of the leg of chicken he held in his hand. “She left the village less than a fortnight ago, walking south on the road to Oundle.” He waved the drumstick at the lord abbot. “Why do you ask?”
“Because if the villagers spoke the truth, she was responsible for creating the revenants that cost me the services of Sir Hugh, several soldiers, and almost the entire population of one of my manors. If she did it once, she could do it again. That must never happen.”
“So what can you possibly do about her? Who in his right mind would stand against her? Certainly not I.”
“Sending you would be an incredibly bad idea. Can you imagine a revenant with the Crusader’s powers?” He paused for emphasis. “No, I plan to set Brother Osbert to the task. He will have no trouble dealing with her.”
“Which one is he?”
“He is sitting alone at the second table behind me.”
Old Jack looked him over: short, very thin, and very young. “That is your champion against the black arts?”
The lord abbot looked around, glanced at the man, and nodded. “Like you, he is more than he appears.”
“One shouldn’t judge from appearances, I suppose,” Old Jack said, and drained his cup of ale.
The Puppet Master Strikes
by
Anthony Giangregorio and Rebecca Besser
The Cowl brooded in his lair, his eyes scanning the files on the massive computer screen before him.
There had been a rash of bank robberies lately, and though hard to believe, the eyewitnesses stated the robbers were zombies.
One security guard had even managed to get off a shot into one of the backs of the robbers, and the robber had taken the shot without flinching.
At first it was thought the man was wearing body armor, but later, as the police studied the crime scene, bits of flesh and bone were found splattered on the wall, exactly where the guard had shot the robber. The guard swore up and down his shot was directly over the robber’s heart, but if that was so, and the bullet had connected with the heart, then what other explanation was there as to why the robber remained standing?
Above the Cowl’s head, bats slept, the massive cave of his lair a giant tomb, hiding him and all of his secrets. Above the lair was his mansion, where he played the lay-about playboy, but his true personality, the heart of him, was revealed when he was the Cowl.
After a tragic carjacking when he was a boy, the Cowl found himself an orphan. Inheriting a large corporation, he soon found ways to channel the rage he had bottled up from the unfair and tragic death of his parents.
Now, he prowled the streets of the city, searching for evil wherever it might rear its ugly head.
The police scanner began to crackle static and the dispatcher called out an all-points bulletin. There was a robbery being reported at the Gathton City Bank and the robbers were there at that exact moment.
Without a second to waste, he slid on his leather mask to cover his face, jumped from his chair, and dashed across the lair. His car was waiting: a large black sedan, tricked out with more gadgets than anyone could imagine.
The top slid open as he approached and he jumped into the driver’s seat. With a blast of fire from the jet-powered engine, he tore out of the lair and down the long winding tunnel that took him to an exit a half mile from the closest main road.
It had cost millions to make the tunnels and the lair itself, and he’d made sure to do it in piecework to prevent each contractor from knowing what each tunnel was for. Few had asked questions; after all, the whims of the rich are many and extreme—Who would ever understand their crazy projects? But when secrecy wasn’t a guarantee, legal forms and money had done the rest, ensuring the security he needed.
The black sedan cut through the dark streets like a scythe, the headlights slicing the cold winter night. The Gathton City Bank was on the north side of town and it was the tail end of rush hour.
He used his extensive knowledge of the city to avoid any traffic snarls, and with a little bit of luck thrown in for unexpected obstacles, he still pulled up in front of the bank within ten minutes of the call.
Jumping out of the car, he ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time; his black cape flowed behind him, fluttering in the wind.
Pulling the far right glass door open, he entered the bank warily, but no sooner did he enter did a piercing scream rent the air and bullets began to fly, peppering the glass doors behind him.
One door shattered, spraying glass shards onto his back, only his cowl and cape protecting him from serious harm. He rolled across the marble floor and hid behind a large marbled-topped desk. He felt his left arm pulse with pain and noticed he’d been hit by a stray round. Checking the wound with his glove-encased fingers, he noted it wasn’t serious.
Poking his head around the side of the stone desk, he took in his surrounding in a glance; he had a full view of the lobby of the bank, and the tellers and customers, too.
All the customers were on the floor, and two security guards lay dead near them with pools of blood surrounding their still bodies. It looked like one guard had his throat torn out, but the Cowl wasn’t close enough to know for sure. It seemed the robbers had escalated to murder as well as armed robbery.
Three of the robbers were standing in the center of the lobby, each holding a gun—AKs, by the looks of them—guarding the customers, and three more hastily shoveled money into cloth sacks.
From the Cowl’s vantage point, he couldn’t get a good look at the robbers’ faces, but it appeared they wore rubber masks of some kind, which would explain the descriptions that had come in about zombies.
Panicked and terrorized customers, plus rubber masks of zombie faces, would make even the most rational person believe the impossible. Perhaps the security guard who said he shot a robber in the heart was wrong and the bullet hadn’t killed the man, or he’d died later after escaping.
All thoughts of “what ifs” went out the door when a teller screamed as a robber attacked her without provocation.
The Cowl wanted to help her, but because of the robbers’ heavy firepower he knew he needed to come up with some kind of plan first. But all thoughts of plans went out the window when the robber did something the Cowl couldn’t believe, even though he saw it with his own eyes. The robber pushed the bank teller—a woman in her thirties—across the counter and leaned over her so his teeth touched her neck. He bit into her, tearing her throat out with a yank of his head.
Blood shot forth as the bank erupted into chaos. The robbers’ AKs were the only things keeping people from simply jumping up and running away. With whimpering and screams for mercy filling the lobby, the robber fed on the teller like a lion would a downed gazelle.
Over the din, the crunching sound of the robber feeding filled the air, making the customers who saw it vomit on the floor. This caused others to do t
he same, mixing in with cries and pleas for help.
One of the robbers turned and started walking toward the slain teller, perhaps to get a piece of her flesh himself, but slipped in a pool of throw-up. As his foot landed on bits of hotdog, French fries, and a half-digested salad, his foot went out from under him as if he’d stepped on ice. He fell onto his back and his gun went off, his finger squeezing the trigger on instinct. The overhead fluorescent lights and the skylights shattered, bits of tiles and glass raining down, and for a moment, caused even more pandemonium.
The Cowl used the distraction to go into action.
He stood and spun on his heals while grabbing three Cowlarangs from his utility belt. He flung them through the air before anyone even spotted him, hitting the two remaining guards—one in the eye and the other in the neck. Moments after their sharp edges embedded in the robbers, they exploded, spraying the bank and customers with brain matter and blood. The beheaded robbers flopped to the floor like a dead fish.
The third ’rang flew beyond the robbers guarding the retching customers and ricocheted off a steel support beam standing between the teller area and the loan officers’ desks, right above the head of the robber snacking on the woman. It exploded, sending sharp shards of metal through the air in all directions, one entering the back of the eating robber’s head. He weakly groaned and dropped to the floor.
Metal shards shredded the face of the robber who’d slipped and fallen; he was pulling himself up on the counter, seemingly eager to join his comrade in the feast. The injuries didn’t slow him down at all. His head had tilted back slightly at first impact, but otherwise it didn’t even faze him; he continued where his buddy had left off.
The other two robbers close to the counter dropped their bags of cash and turned toward the Cowl, opening fire. He spun sharply, causing his cape to billow out and around him, making him a larger target. Multiple bullets zipped through the fabric, but none came close to hitting him. His trained hands extracted a small vile from another compartment of his utility belt, and as he faced the robbers again, he paused and threw it at their feet, before dropping and rolling closer to the counter. The contents of the vile exploded as it hit the floor, sending up a billowing cloud of dark purple smoke laced with tear gas. The customers screamed and groaned in agony as they tried to scoot away, blinded by the gas. It didn’t affect the robbers at all. They grinned, picked up the cash, and opened fire again without aiming as they charged for the main doors.
The Cowl stood and took a couple of steps toward them, but the sound of police sirens halted him; he couldn’t be seen by the local law enforcement since he was on their most wanted list. It didn’t matter that he’d help keep the citizens of Gathton safe; he was a vigilante and that was illegal, too. Thinking quickly, he withdrew a small gun from a holster on his hip. He raised his arm and pulled the trigger, sending a small grappling hook up and through one of the broken skylights, and gave it a quick tug to make sure it was anchored. He pushed a small button on the handle of the gun and was drawn upward. While in motion, he withdrew a small tracking device that looked like a barbed ball—about the size of a tiny gumball—and threw it at the departing robbers, hitting one in the back just as he stepped through the door. It stuck.
Smiling broadly, knowing he’d be able to track the ones who got away, the Cowl departed the bank through the hole in the roof and was out of sight as the first responding police officer came through the main doors. Yelling, the first officer ordered the robber attacking the woman to cease and put his hands up, but the zombie robber didn’t answer and kept on eating. Two loud shots rang out and the Cowl knew the last of the robbers within the bank had been taken down.
Staying low and out of sight on the roof, the Cowl watched the police scramble around the building, barricading and forming roadblocks below. To him they looked like ants that didn’t know what to do, but were working hard at it nonetheless.
Flipping open the top of his watch, he pushed a small red button and smiled when he heard his vehicle below roar to life. Unlatching a little joystick below the button, he guided his car out of an alley and around the corner, through one of the road blocks, trying not to laugh hysterically at the ignorant police who jumped out of the way and hollered in surprise. Other police officers, who weren’t in the way of the car, shot at the tires, trying to deflate them and prevent the vehicle from escaping. The bullets bounced off the wheels with no effect, ricocheting back at them while they ducked for cover. Even the tires were bulletproof. Using the small arrow keys beside the red button, he set the car to drive for three blocks, knowing it would come to a stop on its own after the programmed distance.
With a sigh and a quick check of his injured arm, he set off, jumping and gliding from rooftop to rooftop to his car, knowing he was getting closer with each step to catching whoever was behind the zombies and their rash string of bank robberies.
Sitting in his lair, the Cowl studied the map on the computer screen in front of him where a small red light blinked in the center of the warehouse district. His arm bandaged and his battle suit repaired, he was almost ready to leave to finish the mission.
After some quick research, he found that the warehouse the robbers retreated to was owned by a dummy corporation, but the trail had gone cold once it led overseas.
Whoever owned the warehouse had money, there was no doubt about it. After the robberies, he knew the money wasn’t gained lawfully.
After restocking his utility belt and having a quick bite to eat, he walked across the lair. This time he passed by his car and continued down a long hallway. Eventually the hallway ended and he climbed a flight of steel stairs, his heavy combat boots echoing with each step he took. At the top of the upper landing was a reinforced metal door. His pressed his thumb to the print-reader on the side of the door and the latch clicked, the door popping open with a faint hiss.
Entering, he looked on his pride and joy, a slight smile creasing his lips.
His jet plane sat before him, painted black with sleek lines and an engine that could break Mach 1.
The entire hangar was built under the land he owned, the exit built into the side of a cliff. A massive sliding door hiding the opening was camouflaged with trees and rocks. Even when the door was open, from the ground it was difficult to see unless the viewer knew exactly where to look; the exit was recessed back into the cliff side so the natural rock of the cliff barrier prevented discovery.
He needed stealth on this part of the mission, and with the police on full alert after his car escaped the barricade, he knew he’d have to take to the sky to remain undetected.
Minutes later, he finished his pre-flight check and was soaring through the tunnel and into the night sky. Adrenalin filled his system as he flew over the treetops with the city’s skyline only a few miles away.
When he reached the city, he stayed below radar detection, flying close to the rooftops. Banking west, he aimed the nose of the jet toward the waterfront.
He was there in minutes.
Setting it on autopilot so the plane would circle the area, he pressed a button on the joystick and the canopy began to retract. As the jet slowed to stalling speed, he punched out when he was over the warehouse where he knew the robbers were hiding.
Even with his full bodysuit and oxygen mask on, he could feel the icy cold slap on his skin beneath the costume. His cape flapped in the wind until he flexed it just so, causing the membrane lining it to snap into position. Using the cape like a hang glider, he began his controlled descent to the buildings below.
Checking his wristwatch, he noted the round orb now had a small red dot blinking just off center, indicating the tracker was working and that he was in the right place.
It took mere minutes to reach the warehouse, and as he retracted the membrane, allowing the cape to become flexible again, he tucked into a ball when he was twenty feet above the roof and came in harder than he would have liked. He rolled for more than thirty feet on the gravel-covered tar, knowing his speed
could easily break a limb. He only spread himself out when he knew he was about to go off the edge of the roof. He calculated almost perfectly, but it still wasn’t exact, and as he opened his body, he found he was only mere feet from the edge.
As he slid off the roof, his hands reached out and he managed to grab the edge. Even with his thick leather gloves, the metal lip of the edge bit deep into his palms.
His legs flew over the side to stop with a jerk in midair and come back down, his entire body slapping the side of the building hard. He hung by his fingertips. Barely.
Though the wind had been knocked out of him, he slowly began to pull himself up, his mouth set in a tight grimace. Only his indomitable will kept him from falling, and a lesser man would have let go and tumbled to a painful death on the hard ground below.
As he pulled himself over the edge, he let himself take a moment to rest, inhaling the cold air as his heart beat in his temples.
For a full minute he did nothing but breathe, sucking in great lungfuls of air to suffuse his body with oxygen. But he couldn’t stay like that all night. He had a job to do.
Rolling to his knees, he scanned the rooftop for signs of movement. When he found none, he rose and walked until he found a skylight. It was dirty and he had to rub one of the glass panes with his glove to see into the building below.
Using a pair of night goggles taken from his utility belt, he peered into the warehouse. His mouth fell open at what he saw.
If he wasn’t seeing it with his own eyes, he never would have believed it. Below, more than a hundred people stood together in the center of what seemed to be a massive room. From what he could see, it looked like it was some kind of meat packing factory. There were long, stainless steel tables surrounding the crowd on all sides, looking as if they had been pushed out from the center; there were even large gouges in the floor where the tables had been carelessly dragged. On all sides of the group, the tables were still in neat rows, and he could tell the area in the middle had been cleared . . . but for what purpose?
Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Page 5
