by M. K. Gibson
Grimm half said, half growled something that sounded like it had to have been the First Tongue.
“No, no. You are right. I cannot. I am not able to tell you, am I? Not directly. An oath we swore, all that time ago, to never reveal one another to anyone else. Pity. I would have thought you two closer. No matter. It is time.”
As if on cue, the door to the control room was opened, and the blue-skinned Pride demon girl I saw with Ricky and the human girl some weeks ago came in. Several large cybernetically-enhanced bouncers were behind her. I recognized one of them as “broken wrist guy,” one of the bouncers I’d beaten up when I’d come to see Ricky when this all began.
“It’s time,” she said.
“Indeed.” I felt Ricky’s will leave me and I could come out of my chair. Grimm had managed to make it to his feet.
“Gentlemen. Always a pleasure. Stay safe,” Ricky said. Then he slammed the palms of his hands together. The room was filled with a sudden blinding flash of white-hot light. The light overloaded my senses and I was stunned. Rough hands grabbed me and hauled me out of the room. I heard Grimm yell. Ricky’s goons had gotten him as well. Fists lashed out all over my body. Driven by the ARCTech implants, the blows hit like hammers. I tried fighting back, but I was overwhelmed. Due to Ricky’s lightshow, all sight and sound was blurred and all I had was touch. And I felt every blow. Before I went unconscious, I heard one of the bouncers, while my ears were ringing.
“Not so tough now, are you?” Broken Wrist Guy said.
“Laugh now, asshole. If I live through this I am going to make the ass beating I gave you before seem like a pillow fight.”
One final punch and I was out.
********
A long time ago . . .
The man known as Isaac was no more. He had to vanish. Isaac MacMillan had connections. Connections that led back to his father and the corporation from which he was a legacy. The corporation that spawned the Anti-Christ. No, Isaac MacMillan had to be dead. As did his parents. They had to go into remote hiding for a time. The family had an old hunting cabin in then-western Maryland, in the deeply wooded Garrett County. Abraham and Elena MacMillan would be safe. For a time. Isaac died so that “RJ Doral” could live.
The world was chaos then. Fiery pits had opened, portals in space-time to the dimension known as Hell. Later humanity, under demonic yoke, would learn that Hell was a parallel dimension to our own. A horrific reflection. It existed in its own space, and yet in time with ours. Hell could whisper and influence and wait. Hell could come over from time to time when properly summoned, and exercise its will in our world. And also, Hell existed as a place of penance and punishment. Not just a lake of fire for non-Christians, but a place of torment for those who were truly wicked.
Mankind quickly rallied to suppress Hell’s forces. But countless demonic spawn bred for millennia was a daunting opposition. Hell’s forces were fueled by the souls of the damned, and they’d had eons to amass. They came into being into our world when God left. The curtain was lifted and they were now among us.
Yet the forces of Hell didn’t seem to know that they were being unleashed. They were rampant, chaotic. Leaderless. When the shock wore off, on both sides of the conflict, man had gained the initial upper hand. Mankind had cruel weapons, created and mastered by those whose souls had already been earmarked for the pit. But now, without divine oversight, those same souls had renewed vigor, free of damnation. Mankind slaughtered waves of demons. But Hell kept coming.
The princes of Hell were the last to come through. Soon, the demon legions had their leaders. And mankind was now in for the fight its life.
“RJ Doral,” like many other humans, quickly joined up with local militia. And those militia forces were eventually conscripted into a larger military force. RJ had a knack for getting out of desperate situations, which earned him the nickname “Lucky.” The first Demon War raged for years, destroying huge sections of the world. And eventually, mankind lost. Hell saw it as a triumph. Mankind saw it as only a lost battle in a bigger war. RJ “Lucky” Doral saw it as a chance to get rich.
********
Now . . .
I came to fairly quickly. My new and improved bodily functions had me on the mend faster than ever before. The Collective must have been working overtime. I could feel a gnawing sense of hunger coming.
That was the downside. Regeneration required food and materials. In this case, from myself. I rubbed my hand over my face and head, feeling another broken nose, a split lip, and general scalp lacerations. My ribs were cracked, and my breathing hurt. My body would perform a triage. That which needed attention first would get it. I reset my nose with an audible pop and a short yell, just as I had after the fight with Vidar.
As I gained my bearings I saw that I was outside of Dante’s, near the alleyway, by a dumpster. Fuckin’ classy. Father Grimm was next to me. He was groaning a bit. A few hellion lowlifes and wet-jockey street implant docs were looking down on us as spare parts. Maybe they thought we were easy targets. I took out my gun and they got the hint.
After a moment I realized the moans and groans from Grimm had a rhythm. He was chanting. No doubt putting himself back together in his own way. I checked on my pouches and pulled out some freeze-dried rations of my own design. High carbs, fat, protein, sugar, and raw materials. Everything a cellular regenerating cyborg needs. I munched my snack as Grimm slowly sat up.
“Nnnn. That…was not what I expected,” Grimm said. And for once, he didn’t sound like a pompous Oxford professor. Not that I know what one sounds like, but due to old movies, they seem patronizing and stuffy. At that moment he was just a regular guy.
“Yeah, no shit,” I replied. Ricky was off his rocker. I had never seen him act that way. And the words he chose, they bit deep. “Why do you think he did that?” I asked.
Grimm leaned against his elbows and groaned for a while. He dusted off his gaucho hat and put it back on his head. “Well, I have been thinking about that.”
“When? When we were getting the shit stomped out of us?”
“No, before that, obviously. When Rictus was performing his mad ramble. His attempt at a madman’s soliloquy. I was thinking about it when he began his berating tirade. And perhaps a little more when his goons were beating the hell out of us.”
I fumbled in my jacket for a smoke and a lighter. They had crushed my pack pretty good, but I found some that were mostly unbroken. I lit it and felt my split lip burn. I took a long drag and felt rather ridiculous lying in an alley, licking my wounds. Long time since that had happened.
“You have any more of that scotch?” Grimm asked.
“Heh, yeah.” I pulled the flask out of my coat and tossed it to him. “So, during all that time pondering, you come up with an answer?”
Grimm had caught the flask and popped the top. He took a pull off the scotch. “Nope.”
“Let me ask, in all your time knowing Ricky, he ever act like that before?” I asked.
“You mean bat-shit insane?” Grimm said.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“No. Well, not like that, anyway. Rictus has always been eccentric. However, everything I have ever seen or known of him doing was with purpose and plan,” said Grimm.
“Purpose and plan, huh?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then, I think I figured out his purpose for all that bullshit in there,” I said.
Grimm took another drink and passed the flask back to me. “Oh yes? What was his plan then?”
“I think his plan was to stall us until they arrived,” I said. I pointed down to the mouth of the alley. Soldiers and hellions were storming Dante’s. They wore the midnight blue and silver of Archduke Abraxas, the ruler of Ars Goetia, Central Kingdom of New Golgotha. This was big time. A score of soldiers and livery-clad hellions marched toward us as we lay there in the alley. They were armed with inferium blades, energy weapons, and traditional firearms.
“Son of a bitch pulled a Lando,” said Grimm. And I was inclined
to agree.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rocket-Propelled Explosive Toasters
Grimm and I put our arms up. There were simply too many. The surprise beating we took just a few minutes before had left us in no condition to fight back.
“Do not do anything stupid,” Grimm said to me.
“Oh, like everything I’ve done with you up to this point has been normal and sane,” I replied.
“No one likes a smart ass.”
The troops came up short of us. Professionals. They didn’t want to get within melee range, giving advantage to their numbers and firearms. The hellions flanked the humans, ready to pounce and rend flesh.
“You two, hands up!” said one of the soldiers. His voice was modulated and amplified from beneath his mech helmet, but he still sounded unsure. My guess was that he was a rookie to the guard. That’s why his comrades let him go in first. Trial by fire.
The shock forces wore ARCTech Poly-9 combat armor. Enhanced vision, speed, and strength. Nowhere near my levels, but the next best thing for an average human to augment their abilities without going under the knife.
“I said, HANDS UP!” the soldier repeated.
“They are up, moron,” I said.
“Good idea, anger the men with the arsenal pointed at us,” said Grimm as he rolled his eyes at me.
“If they wanted us dead they would have killed us already,” I told him.
One of the other troopers had a hovering relay bot with them. A holo projector of Grimm and me floated in the air. The device scanned us, and the word “MATCH” came up in bold red. The lead trooper, who had issued the orders to us, took a few steps forward and placed his snub-nosed plasma sub-gun to my temple.
“On your feet,” he ordered.
Normally, whenever a gun is placed to my head, I’m compliant. I enjoy having my brain between my ears and not splattered along some wall. Nothing against modern art, but I find knowing that center of the known universe, my brain, is firmly nestled where it belongs. But ya know what? Today has been a shitty day. And the dumbass just broke the cardinal rule about firing distance and melee range.
“On your feet!” the trooper repeated.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, not looking up.
“Salem?” Grimm’s tone had a “what the hell are you thinking” quality.
“I am going to count to three, and then I am going to ventilate your skull,” the trooper told me. I looked directly at his visor. I knew the armor had a record function and that this was all being fed back to Archduke Abraxas.
“Hey, Abby, next time don’t let your troops get this close to a known dangerous suspect.”
“One.”
“I hope you don’t have a heart condition,” I told the trooper.
“Two.”
“Yeah, that is usually what comes after one. Congrats.”
“Three!” The trooper tensed, ready to fire. Before he could pull the trigger I was already up. And no matter how fast and tough the Poly-9 made him, I was faster.
I shot my hand out to his helmet and released an energy charge from my tech bracer and through my synth-skin glove. The trooper’s body went rigid. I relieved him of his weapon and tried to fire a few rounds. But nothing happened. The trooper’s weapon had to be DNA coded to the individual. Smart.
The remaining troops and hellions started to spring into action. I flipped the rifle, caught the barrel, and used it as a club. I broke the stock across the closest hellion’s jaw. As he went down, the next one was already leaping at me, its claws extended. I swung a hard left cross at the hellion’s mouth and shattered his teeth and fractured his skull. I would have to thank T for the micro force field and mass accelerator he built for me. The remaining hellions backed away. They knew better. But the human shock troops began to open fire.
The blasts never hit me. I looked back, and Father Grimm’s eyes were aglow. The air before me had solidified into an energy shield, spanning the opening of the alley. The blasts hammered the shield, but none got through. The shield lit up brightly in concentric circles with each blasting impact.
“Thanks!” I yelled back to Grimm over the roar of the weapons.
“Just so you know,” Grimm yelled back, “that shield is not a two-way barrier. Only stops incoming.”
“Oh really? Oh, that is nice.” I drew my pistols and took aim. My shots passed right though the barrier and found their marks. Soldiers fell and hellions scattered. The alley we were in created a choke point. With Grimm’s shield in place, we were holding them off. More troops came down the alley and they were just as ineffective.
“You want to yell ‘This is Sparta,’ do you not?” Grimm asked as I lined up another shot and brought down another of the archduke’s troops.
“I have to admit, I do.”
When the assault seemed to lull, I checked the alleyway behind us. It was clear. I motioned to Grimm and he dropped the shield and followed me. We sprinted down the alley and across the street. We ran blindly down the roads, avoiding people as best we could. We dodged hellion street vendors and prostitutes and vaulted over cabs, the troops on our tail. Grimm led us down another alleyway, pushing me into the lead. He turned and made a gesture with both hands with his fingers in crooked positions. The walls shot connective pieces of stone at odd angles, creating a weblike stone maze.
“We need to get vertical!” I yelled at Grimm, who nodded.
At street level it was too easy for these guys to follow. I saw an elevated magna rail train passing by. I grabbed Grimm by his cassock and fired a nano filament line into the passing train. The line went taut and yanked us both. I began reeling it in fast.
As we got to the train, I held us both for a while as we fled the scene. We were approaching an East side slum area and I released the line, kicked off it, and fired another line into a high-rise building. I reeled us in and then lowered us down to the elevated artificial turf.
In the slum area, we found a burnt-out building and grounds surrounded by chain-link fencing and orange tape. A neon green and black warning sign hung on the chain. Apparently the site’s fire had been the result of a Deep Ones possession. Well, perfect place to hide. We hopped the fence and hid in the shadows of the building.
I was drained. The beating, the fight, and the run had taken it out of me. I had one last food pouch with me. I ripped it open and gobbled it down.
“Before I let my mind get too crazy and overanalyze that scuffle, what did you think?” I asked.
“Too easy,” Grimm replied.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought also. The rear entry of the alley wasn’t covered,” I noted.
“I do not think the attack was meant to stop us there. We were supposed to run. To remove us from the safety of Dante’s. However, how would they track us after we left?”
“The drinks,” I said, realizing it. Damn me, why hadn’t I realized it then? I should have known that odd taste. I smacked my palm to my forehead. Damn damn damn.
“What?” Grimm asked.
“The drinks. The off taste of the drinks at Dante’s. They had a tracer in them. It was the same thing I did to you when you came to my home. I wanted to plant a tracker on you, but I figured you were too smart for that. So I put a radioactive isotope in your scotch. That was how Maz and I found your lair outside of NG.”
“How long does the tracer last?” Grimm asked.
“Depends on the isotope. But several hours to several days easily,” I said.
“We do not have that long,” Grimm said. “In fact, we are out of time. Listen.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, I heard it. The sound of plasma katanas being ignited. Quietly and low to the ground, I peered out from behind the building. Dozens of Cyberai were decloaking on the grounds. I didn’t know if it was the same group who had attacked me a few weeks ago. But with Jensen killing Kitsune, the group was leaderless. Without a replacement war chief, the Cyberai would be disorganized, easier to pick apart.
But of course that
would be too nice of the universe. To throw me a freaking bone once in a while. I saw their new leader stride through the warriors. It wasn’t like he wore a sign that said “New Cyberai Clan Leader.” No, his body language expressed dominance.
If you have ever met a real leader, you know it. They have a sense of purpose and drive you are compelled to follow. This guy had it in spades.
Where Kitsune had been a slender stealth warrior, embodying his name, this guy was a tank. He was pushing seven feet tall and wore a knee-length Japanese greatcoat without sleeves, exposing bare arms. His left arm from the forearm down had been replaced with an energy cannon that looked like it shot rocket-propelled explosive toasters for ordnance. The power lines fed from a power source embedded in his upper back. He was decked out in energy-shield-generating body armor and wore a kabuto helmet neuro-wired into his head. He carried a nodachi great sword and a kanabo war club on his back. From his size and bulk, it looked like he could wield the two-handed weapons with one arm.
The giant clan leader ordered the mercs to spread out to locate the source of the signal they had been tracking. They obeyed quietly. It was obvious what they were looking for.
Us.
I turned back to Grimm and whispered the situation to him. He shook his head. We both knew this was a bad way. If we chose to fight, the odds were against us. But the alternative, being taken in to Archduke Abraxas, seemed worse.
“Salem, come out. Your fight is over. If you persist in hiding, we have authorization to kill you,” the giant figure boomed. Definitely not like Kitsune. The Techkuza must have had this guy groomed and ready for command. In the old days I could have bribed Kitsune to give me intel on targets, and then scavenged any items of interest before the authorities could show. This guy seemed far less fun.
“It is not like we are well hidden,” Grimm said. “This project has only one freestanding structure and we are hiding behind it. No spell of mine or cloaker you may possess will mask the isotopes in our systems.”
“So the short answer is we’re boned,” I said.
