On the floor, covered in blood, they saw Fachimundi lying limp atop Wodan. Both were covered in blood. Wodan cried out once more, flailing in panic, while Pete crouched nearby, pale-faced and covered in black blood. Finally the Captain of the office burst in and shrieked, “What the hell is going on in here?!”
“Oh g-gods!” said Wodan. “H-he attacked me! Oh-h-h gods…”
The Captain could see that the dead Ugly’s legs were still tied to the chair, but his arms were free and the rope that was used to bind him was loose on the floor.
“This… this is unbelievable!” the Captain screamed. “You said you were Jerry’s man? We’ll see what he thinks about this, then!”
“Not so fast,” said Pete, rising. “I want to know who tied those ropes.”
The Captain stared at him in silence, then shouted, “You’re not even supposed to be here!”
“I want to know who… tied… those… ropes.” Pete stared the Captain down, then slowly drew a cigarette and lit it. “We came down here because we received information that someone’s been talking about selling this Ugly back to his group. We didn’t find any proof of that – and you’re lucky that we didn’t – but it looks like we found evidence of… gross, gross incompetence.” Pete bent down and retrieved the blood-caked Blade of the Engels, then screwed up his face and said, “Did you guys even search the prisoner?”
The Soldiers cast their eyes to the floor. In the terrible stillness, Wodan continued his act of crying and sniffling as he awkwardly pulled away from the dead man. “Uh-h-h, oh gods,” he muttered. “I had t-to… defend muh-myself… oh, gods, the n-negotiations, the exchange! It’s r-ruined! I’m… I’m suh-sorry…”
When he mentioned the exchange, the Captain stiffened. It was obvious that he knew that there was no longer going to be any exchange of hostages. “Just… just get out of here,” he said, disgusted by Wodan’s craven display.
Wodan leaned on Pete and they stumbled out of the office, dripping blood the entire way. Once they left the building, Wodan righted himself and clapped Pete on the shoulder. Pete shook his head and laughed nervously.
“Well done, Pete,” said Wodan, smiling. “The Captain’s jacket that that man was wearing – it’ll be yours someday.”
* * *
Wodan decided to take the rest of the day off. He no longer cared about Jerry’s wrath, and filing papers seemed unimportant in light of the war looming over Pontius.
Wodan thought about these things as he walked home. Hunley’s car pulled up beside him and Jens leaned out of the passenger side window, laughing and waving. “Good news, man!” Jens shouted.
“Yeah?” said Wodan.
“Yeah! You’ll never believe it! That war – the rumor was wrong! There’s not gonna be a war! We’re not gonna die after all!”
A cloud passed over the sun. Wodan stood numb with shock.
“Oh, sorry man,” said Jens. “I mean, I know you kind of wanted to fight the Ugly, but this is good news, too, when you think about it, right?”
* * *
Hunley drove them to pick up Ullrich and Pete, then they went to a bar and Wodan drank and only heard his friends celebrate as if he was at the bottom of a deep well, their voices echoing and unreal. Anne found them, but ignored Wodan. A strange young man with dark hair lingered near their group, then within a few minutes he and Anne became inseparable. Pete soon left with a group of Coil Lieutenants in plain clothes. Wodan watched Anne with the dark-haired young man, her face practically sparkling in the dirty neon glow of the dingy bar. He saw open invitation in her eyes, and he knew that he knew nothing.
It grew late and Wodan stumbled out with the others. Hunley pissed loudly against the side of the building and calmly explained the points that he felt detracted from the bar’s atmosphere. While Jens and Ullrich whooped and wrestled on the sidewalk, Wodan glanced up at an apartment window and saw a figure quickly move away. “I’m sorry,” Wodan whispered at the window.
Wodan looked up at the stars, then thought, I’m not beaten yet. I still have a gun. I can use my wounds to get into the granite mansion. I can get close to Boris. One of those Hands will kill me, but at least… at least I can…
“Guys! Guys!” They turned and saw Pete racing down the sidewalk as if chased by a demon. “Not going to believe this shit! That rumor about a war in two weeks – it wasn’t true at all!”
“Yeah, dumbass,” said Jens, laughing. “We’ve been drinkin’ to that shit all night!”
“No, listen,” said Pete, stopping and leaning against a wall to catch his breath. “It was all misinformation! The war was never supposed to happen in two weeks – that was a lie the Master Thieves spread to throw off the Ugly in case they found out!”
“Found out what?” said Wodan.
“It’s tomorrow!” Pete cried out. “We’re goin’ to war tomorrow! We’re all gonna fuckin’ die!”
Chapter Twenty
Wodan’s Revenge
By sunset cars and vans bearing flag of the Coil serpent filled the streets of Pontius and for the first time in anyone’s memory Coilmen wearing their black-and-greens marched through the city bearing arms openly, and if any Ugly youth stood in their way they were shot down and the Lawmen stood by, glaring at the scene but making no move to stop the slaughter. Groups of Coil gathered into larger groups, then in large troops, then into an army marching toward one point – the granite mansion of the Ugly. Shops closed and citizens ran into their homes and barred their doors and mashed their faces against windows.
Zeppelins flew overhead, each bearing black flags with the golden gear of the Smiths. Magi gathered in the streets carrying heavy rifles and grenade launchers, chanting and marching alongside heavy artillery pieces and trucks weighed down with massive speakers blaring out drums of war and the voices of Zealots shrieking propaganda. “Blessed is Epimetheus, Bringer of Ice! Blessed are the Gears and Cogs, who are with us now! Blessed are the brothers who die today, for theirs is the glory of Machine Eternal! Death to the brother of Barkus, stealer of technology, betrayer of the Crusade! Death is his inheritance! Death, death, DEATH!”
Far from the gathering horde, in the mansion of the late Utrecht Sera, Paul the Seer sat at dinner with his most trusted guards. Two berserkers loyal to Senki crashed through the doors. Paul’s fork froze and he lifted his brow over his lidless eyes.
“Sir!” one of the berserkers shouted. “Lord Senki is on the radio! It’s an emergency!”
“Bring the radio set in here,” said Paul, returning to his meal.
“Sir - it’s urgent!”
“Then bring it in here!” he shouted violently, glaring at the berserkers. They ran. Paul chewed a bit of steak, washed it down, then the two Ugly returned carrying the giant radio set, its long antennae bobbing wildly. They slammed it onto a table nearby, then found Senki’s frequency again and adjusted the volume.
Paul seethed at the intrusion. Senki had only barely beaten him in finding the Coil Captain heads and was now leader of the unified Leg of the Ugly. Paul was allowed to be a sort of commander under him and remained at Sera’s mansion, and while he had many men in the former Right Leg still loyal to him, some of Senki’s own men stayed with him and they were a constant source of trouble.
“Yes, lord,” said Paul.
“Paul!” shouted Senki. “Listen, our spies were wrong, there are Coil and I think Smith marching on Boris’s mansion fortress. Get your ass over there - NOW!”
“Do you require zeppelins, lord?” Paul said calmly, gloating at the fact that his mansion alone held air power.
“Fucking of course! I want EVERYTHING at the granite mansion, and I mean NOW!”
“Yes, lord!” Paul shouted emphatically. He slashed a hand across his throat to the two berserkers, who glanced at one another before they turned the radio off. “Go and prepare yourselves,” he said quietly. They looked at one another again, then ran out of the room.
Paul returned to his meal. His men watched him - then some smiled and
others continued eating. “We’ll let them sweat for a few minutes,” said Paul. “No sense in doing all of Senki’s work for him, now, is there?”
* * *
Wodan drove a van packed full of Coil Soldiers, and Jerry sat in the passenger seat beside him. Wodan careened down the streets, laughing as Jerry bleated and held onto the dashboard, then they came to a street packed with Coil automobiles inching forward. Harsh Smith music from giant speakers nearby shook their windows, and the Soldiers in the back pounded their feet in expectation. Coil on foot walked by on either side of them.
Wodan glanced at Jerry and stifled his laughter. Over his black-and-greens, Jerry wore a bulky bulletproof vest that dwarfed his limbs and made him look like a frog, plus he’d found some sort of ridiculous leather helmet with a shiny metal top and long earflaps that jerked about every time he whipped his head around nervously. Jerry nervously unzipped a bag at his side and removed a massive revolver – a Coil magnum – and loaded six rounds into it. His hands shook so badly that it looked as if he was trying to use the bullets to scratch his name into the gun.
The only weapon Wodan was armed with was the Captain’s automatic he’d stolen long ago, and he wasn’t about to pull that out with Jerry nearby.
“Jerry,” said Wodan. “You better let me have that hand cannon of yours. Have you ever even fired it before?”
“Y-you concentrate on driving!” said Jerry. “You’re a secretary, Wodan – not a Soldier! Y-you just worry about getting us th-there, and we’ll do the real work… isn’t that right, boys?”
The Soldiers bellowed and pounded their feet, then Jerry’s radio chimed and he shouted, “Sh-shut up! Be quiet, all of you!” He jammed the radio against his ear, then said, “Our advance units are there already! They’ve met with r-resistance at the granite fortress! Oh, gods! Oh, gods, this is it!”
Wodan felt his soul flying on fear and white light; he gunned the engine and hit the brakes, constantly trying to inch his way forward through the traffic. He could hear distant gunshots, explosions, the whine of some kind of alarm, then a shadow passed over them and they saw Smith zeppelins crawling overhead. Jerry muttered nervously about the zeppelins flying too close for his comfort.
A Smith truck blasted an intense, shrieking metal song and the Soldiers pounded their feet once more. “Rather martial in tone!” Jerry cackled, wiping sweat from his forehead. Jerry turned to those in the back, then waved a finger in the air in time to the beat of the song and said, “Nya-ha! Has a nice ring to it!” and then there was a terrific explosion on the road directly ahead as artillery rounds slammed down, throwing cars and pavement into the air with indescribable violence. Vans swerved wildly and in minute detail Wodan saw a chunk of pavement the size of a cinder block arc through the air before it slammed through the windshield and careened into the back of Jerry’s head, blasting through it like a ripe watermelon, then another explosion followed and the world upended and Wodan tasted blood in the air as they flipped over and over and crashed into the tortured earth.
* * *
A Coil Soldier woke on the sidewalk and saw Wodan pulling one of his comrades from the upended van. Others were already laid out on the sidewalk, bleeding and rubbing their limbs. Broken glass fell from Wodan’s shoulders as he pulled the young man free, who flailed about weakly and complained that part of Jerry’s face had gone into his mouth. Wodan crawled into the ruined van once more, and their Lieutenant called out, “That’s the last of them, there’s no one else in there.”
Wodan returned moments later covered in blood and carrying Jerry’s bulletproof vest and bag. Wodan removed his jacket, slipped on the vest, then buttoned the jacket over it. The Coil Soldier watched in fascination as their office secretary removed a beautifully decorated automatic handgun from a concealed holster at his ankle, then removed Jerry’s massive Coil magnum revolver from its bag and hefted it in one hand. He checked to make sure there was ammunition in the bag, then slung it over his back.
“What do you think we ought to do?” said the Lieutenant, sopping up the blood from a Soldier’s head with his Coil jacket.
“I know running and hiding seem like a good idea now,” said Wodan, “but if we don’t destroy the Ugly now, they’re going to regroup and hunt us down. I suggest that you pick yourselves up and go make a name for yourselves.”
With one gun in each hand, their secretary nodded, then ran deeper into the night toward the sounds of battle.
* * *
Pelethor stood atop his armored limousine and looked at the Coil cars stretching as far as the eye could see. He carried a long rifle and wore the long jacket of a Captain emblazoned with a shining silver lizard. The streets shook with distant explosions, as if a beast sleeping beneath the surface of Pontius was turning about in a violent nightmare. He stomped the hood of the car twice and shouted, “Everyone! Out! On foot!” Immediately a crew of hardcore goons stepped out, shotguns and submachine guns ready to rock. Pelethor marched forward, leaping from car to car, and his goons followed on the street below.
He heard a burst of gunfire nearby, then turned and saw a group of wild-eyed Ugly berserkers charging from an apartment building across the street. Any Coilmen who thought that their distant position from the granite fortress would keep them safe were soon shown otherwise as the Ugly emptied their guns through car windows, spraying glass and blood everywhere. Pelethor dropped to one knee, aimed down his rifle, and blasted open the side of a berserker’s head. His goons followed suit, taking partial cover behind gridlocked cars as they fired. Many of the berserkers returned fire without even bothering with cover.
Pelethor fired again and felled another berserker, then felt a subtle warning and rolled from the car hood just as several Ugly fired on it. The way forward was blocked as the berserkers filled the avenue, but Pelethor spied an alley directly behind him.
“Cover me!” he shouted. One of his goons nodded as he reloaded a magazine. Pelethor ducked, ran and weaved through cars as bullets whizzed past, then disappeared down the alley. He hated abandoning his men, but he had to get to the fortress. He had to save little Scorpio, his son, before the granite asylum was brought down and everyone was buried inside.
* * *
Zeppelins blotted out the stars overhead, then lit up the streets as their heavy machineguns fired down into the battle below. Wodan saw the tracers of heavy guns from the fortress tearing through the skies, blasting zeppelins that caught fire and crashed into buildings, igniting and spitting flames on all sides. He came to a row of buildings surrounding the blasted no-man’s-land that laid before the walls and main gate; each building was packed full of Coilmen, firing from every window and every roof onto the sections of the great wall that were not yet ruined by artillery shells or zeppelin bombs. Ugly fighters were hunkered down all along the wall, returning fire in a flashing, endless strip of dancing lights. For every Ugly that was blasted, two more came to fill in the gap.
Wodan ran low beside the brick buildings and, as he drew near the battle at the main gate, he saw Coil Soldiers and Captains hunkered down behind armored vehicles. Wodan ducked into an alleyway and found it full of wounded Coilmen, a narrow strip of concrete filled with the echoes of pitiful, incessant moaning. He stepped over the prone bodies and hoped that his friends were still alive.
“Coilman!” someone shouted behind him.
Wodan whirled and saw a lone rifleman in a long Captain’s jacket approaching.
“Pelethor!” said Wodan.
In the flashing light of gunfire, the Captain’s face shone as hard as ice. “You said… that you would help my son.”
“I meant it!”
Wodan clutched his guns tightly. He knew that Pelethor must be thinking that Wodan was the one who opened the door to this Hell. Pelethor nodded, said, “We find a way in, then,” and passed by Wodan.
They reached the edge of the alley and Wodan peered around the corner. Nearby, a group of Coilmen crouched behind a dumpster and a ruined car and fired on a group of U
gly clustered around a large crater into which a section of the wall had fallen. A Coilman inched around his cover and fired, then his head jerked back and he slapped into the ground, his shattered skull emptying out bucketfuls of blood and meat onto the pavement. The other Coil saw the flailing body and abandoned their cover in a mad rush for the alleyway. They crouched beside Wodan and Pelethor.
“There’s too many of them!” said a Soldier.
“It’s worse at the front gate,” said Pelethor. “Where’s your Captain?”
“Dead!” said another Soldier.
“Then I’m your new Captain,” said Pelethor.
“You need a secretary?” said Wodan, peeking around the corner.
“No - I need a Lieutenant.”
* * *
The Ugly gathered like ants along the wall near the front gate, firing and lobbing rockets at the Coil pinned down behind a mass of ruined vehicles. All at once the Coil ceased firing and pulled back. The Ugly cheered, then six men in dark robes with green sashes strode into the blasted area before the gate. The Ugly fired, but none of their bullets ever seemed to find their mark – then a great concussive force tore through the front gate and blasted a wide section of the wall around the gate into a storm of rubble. Limp bodies fell in a shower and the Ugly fighters lucky enough to not be torn to pieces choked on dust and crawled away, their ears ringing and sense of balance lost in the terrible blast.
The boy Jared led the Cognati toward the new opening in the ruined wall. He raised his hand and the Coil crouching nearby heard a strange humming sound as the dust was whipped away. The Coil cheered as the Cognati strode calmly into the granite courtyard.
“They’re going straight for the fortress!” shouted a Captain. “We have to take that wall and hold it until reinforcements can arrive!”
Demonworld Book 3: The Floyd Street Massacre Page 23
