by Justin Sloan
She scoffed. “I’d rather parade you through the local cities on a leash like the dog you are while you beg forgiveness. How many people have you killed in this quest to feed your ego and prove to yourself that you are some amazing god?”
“People’s lives are what you care about?” He spat. “They are nothing to us.”
That was both what she had wanted him to say to condemn himself, and what she hated to hear. “You disgust me.”
“So that’s a no to the bedding, then?”
Leering, she shook her head. “That’s a big fat no. And this is a middle finger, in case you can’t see very well with the one eye.” She held up her middle finger to add to the insult.
His good eye narrowed and his mouth moved as he searched for words, but finally he just shouted, “Kill her already!”
Chaos erupted with those words. More ran for their lives while others turned on Valerie. Those who had been following her were now stuck in the middle, but eventually ran—all but Berg, who fought at her side, she was pleased to see.
In that instant she removed her fur coat, tossing it to the side to land on an old cannon, and hefted her sword, ready for business.
Her goal was to separate the serious ones from those who weren’t, and that goal had been accomplished. Everyone remaining here would be dead soon, and she imagined the others would be too afraid of her return to cause real trouble any time soon.
She was a tornado, spinning and taking down Weres left and right, but after a few moments of this she saw Barskall turn as if to simply retreat to his chambers and be done with it. No way was that going to happen.
With a shout, she snatched a pistol from one of the Weres, cut off his arm and then his head, and threw the pistol at Barskall. It hit him upside the head so hard that it sent him sprawling, war hammer slamming into the floor in front of him.
He grabbed the hammer and leaped with a growl, landing with a thud a few feet from Valerie.
That war hammer missed her by inches as he swung, and it shattered the cement at her feet. She moved in to attack, and faster than she had expected, the war hammer came back at her. This guy wasn’t a god, but he was damn fast and strong.
She leaped back, keenly aware that the Weres behind her were preparing to attack as well. As soon as she landed, she rolled sideways and came up charging.
Barskall parried attack after attack, but Valerie was done playing games. She might not be a goddess, but she was anointed by Michael himself—the Dark Messiah. She had no intention of letting this Were leave this place alive.
As the war hammer came at her again, she smiled, darted to her right, and cleaved one of his arms clean off. The momentum of the war hammer continued to propel both the weapon and his arm into the surrounding crowd.
His eyes burned with fury and hatred, and there was froth at his mouth. Now she got why he wasn’t showing pain—he was on the drug. He turned to charge her, and transformed mid-step. She crouched, ready for a wolf, but instead she got a giant bear. It lunged, mouth wide open and trying to get her, but a sidestep and kick combined with the fact that it had only one front leg sent it to the ground at an odd angle. The bear twitched as his body tried to give out. While he wasn’t likely feeling pain, fear sure was starting to show on his face.
Changing back, he leaped up and screamed, “Defend your god!”
She half-expected the Weres to laugh at him or retreat. They had seen him humbled; they had seen his weak side. However, to his credit he had apparently built himself quite the following.
Weres charged from all directions, transforming into their wolf forms as they ran. A group of large ones with shaved heads had grabbed Barskall and were helping him run, the coward!
Here she was, cleaving these sons of bitches in half while their leader fled.
She hacked at one, turned to kick another and, without letting her foot touch the ground, mule-kicked one behind her. There were so many though, that even with her speed, she was being overwhelmed. Not physically, but mentally—she didn’t know where to attack.
A realization hit her—if there were so many that she didn’t know where to attack, she could attack anywhere and hit her mark.
Now, instead of trying to hit them, she fell back into one of the old martial patterns she had practiced over and over in France. The sword swept around her, kicks and punches following; she was a tornado of steel that sent Were blood and body parts flying in all directions.
They couldn’t touch her.
A click sounded, then she noticed movement on the general’s balcony.
She couldn’t stop moving—she was in the zone—but a sense of danger came over her as she felt new confidence in the air, coming from the Weres farther away.
Even as the Weres in the courtyard attacked, the ones on the balcony opened fire. Bullets tore through her flesh, and they took down the Weres around her too. Soon her attackers had backed off, but the shots kept coming.
Valerie felt her body convulsing, her lungs tearing open, other body parts giving out.
FUCK!
She rolled aside, piling Were bodies on top of herself to block the assault, pulling on more and more as she struggled to breathe with the collapsed lung and the blood pouring out of the wound in her throat.
Anger flared and she gave a hoarse, blood-gargling shout. Pain shot through her in new ways as her body pushed out bullets and arteries and tissue worked to knit themselves together. Had she been the old Valerie, before Michael had given her extra power, she would have been a goner.
As it was, this was the closest to death she had been since that day long ago when Donovan’s men had left her to die. That was the day she’d decided to leave France behind, to stand up and fight for justice.
This was going to be a similar day, she realized. A day when she remembered how much she really hated pain. She was going to teach all these bastards a lesson. From this day forward, she was going to do everything possible, even more than she had been doing so far, to ensure that the world was safe, that pain would be at a minimum for the population of Earth going forward.
If there was an alien force out there, planning a war that would bring trouble? She was damn sure going to do her best to fight it.
While going into space had been a bit of a question in her mind before, she was now committed. But first, she had to deal with assholes like this Barskall piece of shit.
A full breath of air told her the lung was healed.
Pushing the dead Weres aside, she leaped up just in time to see them mounting a Saw machine gun on one side of the balcony, a .50 cal on the other.
The words “Oh, shit” actually left her mouth without her having thought them first, and then she was diving as a fresh barrage of bullets came at her. It was almost too late when she realized these guys likely knew what they were doing, and were using the machine gun to lead her where they wanted her to be. She sprang sideways, pushing Weres out of her way and then…
BOOM!
The .50 cal had spoken, and Were body parts flew everywhere.
Weres were shouting, caught totally off-guard by this new tactic of not caring who was killed in this mad assault on her. They too were scrambling now to escape the courtyard, and Valerie ducked in with a group of them, then sprang onto the closest pillar and used it to push off, kicked against the side of the building, and leveraged her momentum to jump up to the balcony.
The two Weres manning the .50 cal saw her too late, and she sliced one’s head off before cleaving the other at the legs. As he fell, she stood and jammed her blade between his eyes with a crunch.
The Weres with the Saw were trying to turn it on her, but she was faster and damn strong. She picked up the .50 cal, smiled wickedly, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The kickback was intense, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Two Weres were blasted from the balcony, while another who had been running took her second shot in the head. His corpse collapsed over the side of the balcony to land below with a thud, th
e bloody mess that was his head following shortly thereafter.
She could get used to this.
A quick glance showed her Berg just outside of the courtyard, struggling with two Weres.
“Berg, get back!” she shouted.
He didn’t think twice before doing as told, and she let loose with a series of shots that left the two dead and several large holes in the wall nearby, one a little too close to Berg’s head for his personal comfort.
“Careful!” he shouted, then added, “Please.”
“Sorry!”
She spun, putting her sword into its sheath and grabbing the Saw as well, then unleashed both it and the .50 cal on the other side of the courtyard where several Weres were starting to climb the stairs that wound around the courtyard and would bring them to her.
Both the Weres and the stairs were obliterated.
“Where’s Barskall?” she shouted, and Berg’s head moved, searching.
“He went that way!” he replied, pointing.
If the guy was lying to her, he’d get his. But she had a feeling that, based on what he had just gone through for her, they were well beyond that point.
Machine guns at the ready, she leaped down, turned, and was off in pursuit. Other Weres appeared, a couple with rifles from upper windows of barracks, some on an old fort with a bit of a bunker to it. She ran through them all, blasting them with the two humongous guns as she went.
At this point, it is just sad, she thought.
While she was growing up she had learned about all the old religions, about a man who had come down from a mountain with tablets full of commandments or something like that and destroyed the false idols the people were worshiping. The story never made much sense to her, but running through this place killing these self-anointed gods left and right, she started to feel as that man might have felt. While she wasn’t here to deliver ten commandments or anything like that, and really had no idea if there was any sort of God out there, she was certainly enforcing her own three commandments:
No more terrorizing the innocent.
No more injustice.
Never fuck with Valerie, Michael’s Justice Enforcer.
The punishment was clear—complete and utter destruction.
At the end of the walkway between the now bullet-ridden buildings, she emerged into a field of old cannons and tanks, and saw the three bald men and Barskall climbing into an airship at the far end.
“You gotta be kidding me!” she shouted. How many damn airships did these people have? Well, she supposed she had only seen four now, but still, it was pissing her off. The pirates must have made off with antigrav technology, or done a good job of stealing airships from those who had.
She lifted both guns in front of her and shot as she ran, but halfway there a movement alarmed her. The tanks weren’t mobile, but two were aiming at her.
A heavy sigh left her lungs just before the first shot went off. She threw herself backward so that it hit the building behind, causing part of it to crumble. These buildings were old, and a shot like that could do some real damage.
The .50 cal had fallen from her hands in the leap for safety, but she still had the Saw. She didn’t think it would do much good against tanks, though, so she tossed it as the next shot came.
She imagined it would be a hard one to recover from if it hit her, so she threw everything into a leap forward, tucking as the shell flew by inches from her face. She landed with a roll as it exploded behind her.
No more playing around.
By the time the tank adjusted its aim, she had already closed the distance and leaped to the top of it. She pulled off the hatch and jumped in, and the Were inside turned and screamed at the sight of her with her red eyes glowing, pushing fear like crazy.
There wasn’t room for glory and show here, so she simply snapped his neck and tossed him out of the tank. Closing the hatch, she looked at the controls, debating…then decided that it was probably too big of a pain. Too bad, because it would’ve been great.
Instead she turned, about to jump out of the tank and move on, when she spotted several rifles and a grenade launcher with three grenades attached on the far wall.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
She snatched the grenade launcher and jumped out, leaping aside as the other tank lobbed a shell at her. Before it had even hit, she ran over and pulled the other tank’s hatch right off, tearing the metal. She smiled at the guy as he looked up in terror, threw a grenade into her launcher, and aimed.
“Should’ve run when I gave you the chance,” she told him, and jumped back and into the air as she pulled the trigger.
The grenade found its mark, and the explosion rocked the tank. Smoke came out of the open hatch, and she gave it one last look as she took a moment to be impressed with herself before turning back to her objective.
Damn, the airship was already airborne.
She reloaded the launcher and aimed, then shot. The first grenade missed, exploding at the base of a tree downfield and splitting it up the middle.
The second grenade, however, hit the rear of the airship and left a big hole where the captain’s quarters would normally be. The ship tilted but recovered, still moving forward. A gust of wind blew Valerie’s hair across her face, carrying with it the scent of death and explosions. What a smell, she thought as she eyed her target.
Valerie dashed after the airship, eyes searching for any way to give chase, and then she saw that, during the explosion, one of the ropes connecting the ship to the balloon had been cut and was hanging down. Her eyes moved to the building to her right, noting the trajectory of the ship in relation to the building, and then to the light post next to the building and the tank at its base.
Her legs moved by instinct, and she dropped the grenade launcher to hold her sword in place as she ran. She jumped onto the tank, leaped onto the light post, and shinnied her way up.
The airship was moving fast, and was almost at the building.
She reached the top of the light post and pushed herself into a crouch, then threw herself at the building. The closest window had bars and a ledge. She grabbed those bars, used the ledge to brace her feet for leverage, and thrust herself upward to grab the edge of the roof. As she pulled herself up and over, she saw the airship passing, out of reach.
But the rope was still hanging, and it was not out of reach—she hoped.
She had no idea how she would find that prick up there if she didn’t catch the rope, so she gave it her best shot. Running across the roof, she sprang off the far side, arms and legs flailing as she reached for the rope. She was falling…but her hand caught the rope at the last second and she held firm, refusing to let go even as she slid to its end and the friction tore away her skin.
With the arm that gripped the rope still weak from the earlier bullet damage even though she had mostly healed, she pulled herself up until her other hand was able to grab the rope. She scaled it hand over hand until she could wrap her legs around it and clench the rope with her feet. This action gave her a moment’s respite, and she was able to catch her breath.
Everything that had just happened ran through her mind, and she started to laugh. Here she was, dangling from the rope of an airship that was quickly leaving behind the insane amounts of destruction she had just caused, and all she could do was laugh.
It was absurd and she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. The ridiculousness of it all combined with just how fun it had been, in a disturbingly weird sort of way. Damn, she was looking forward to killing this son of a bitch.
The airship had left the Den of the Gods far behind by the time Valerie finally shinnied up to the level of the now-exposed captain’s quarters. Instead of going in that way, though, she pulled herself along the side of the ship with her claws and entered through a porthole that led to the main cabin, where sailors would sleep when they were on board, and where she figured she could hide.
While she wanted to just go in there and kill the bastards, she realiz
ed she needed to know where the ship was going. It only hit her as she was climbing that Berg was likely a low-level Were in this organization, and while he knew where the Den of the Gods as he had called it, was, Barskall might have another location, a hideout of sorts.
She laid low in the dark, watching the moon as they passed, listening for any sign that the Weres had found out she was aboard. Lucky for her—or for them, depending on how one looked at it—they were apparently up top, and the wind carried away any scent they might otherwise have picked up.
What this meant for finding Cammie and the others, Valerie wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t be easy to meet back up after this, at least not right away. That thought worried Valerie, giving her a sense of loneliness, of being cut off from the world, but she was better than that—bigger than that, really.
It wasn’t her role in this life to be the needy one, the one who had to be with her friends at all times. Her job was to deal with evildoers like this prick Barskall, and that’s what she was going to do.
As the night wore on she found herself leaning back in the darkness, closing her eyes, and getting some rest.
Her mind carried her off to dreams of New York, of Sandra waddling around with her belly protruding, and of placing her hand on that belly and feeling the baby kick. It was a pleasant dream, later interrupted by an image of Robin, in a Toronto that was being rebuilt, staring at the moon and thinking of Valerie.
When Valerie woke to feel the ship descending, she saw the moon lower in the sky now, approaching the horizon. The thought that Robin might be staring at that same moon on the other side of the ocean made her smile.
She stretched, cracked her neck back and forth since she had been sleeping in an awkward position, and then stood, preparing for the next phase in Operation Take Down Barskall.
