The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “Sure, we can bring a few of them along.” He changed his tone and asked, “Don’t you think it’d be better to allow your frustration to build during the march? Then, when we get to San Angelo, you can take it out on Traxx and his band of rejects. Wouldn’t that be more satisfying?”

  Her eyes flashed from their normal dark brown to almost black. “You can’t expect me to go an entire week without torturing someone. I’ll go insane! The longest I’ve gone was three days that time I had the flu. When I got better, I didn’t even torture that bastard; I just killed him and bathed in his blood. No,” she stamped her foot like a child. “A week is too long.”

  Sometimes Kendrick did indeed question her sanity. He liked to torture people too; it was cathartic to hear their screams and know that he held their very lives in his hands, but Starr took it to a whole new level. Her tastes ran towards long-term torture so she usually got a month or two out of each of her victims before they died. He’d already planned on bringing several hundred prisoners back with him. They could use them as slaves in the fields until they were called to the palace.

  “We’ll take a couple of inmates with us, then. It will be good entertainment for the troops,” he said, warming to the idea. “It’ll help to increase their blood lust. They’ll be foaming at the mouth by the time we get there, and when the walls explode, they’ll rush in and murder everything in sight.”

  “How many of them do I get?”

  “Hmm… Three? Four? What do you think you’ll need for the trip? It’s not that far away.”

  “No, my lord,” she replied, her dark eyes practically glittering in the light from the windows. “How many of the slaves from San Antonio do I get?”

  “The ones that we keep, we have to feed,” he reminded her.

  “Not all of them. Starvation is an exquisite form of mental and physical torture. Of course, I’ll need to keep some of them healthy so they can survive the cutting—” she stopped suddenly. “I want women. Lots and lots of women. I’m tired of the same things. Cutting off testicles and ramming things up men’s asses has gotten stale.”

  Kendrick nodded. Besides the occasional woman, most were kept safely away from Starr since they needed good breeding stock to replenish their population. If it came to it, one male could get every woman pregnant, so they were much more expendable. He reached out to his lover and pulled her close to him. “Then you will have one hundred women to experiment on.”

  “And little boys?”

  “Of course, my dear. Whatever you desire.”

  She pushed herself away from his embrace and whirled around to face him. “Oh my god. I am so turned on right now.”

  He grinned even wider than he had before. “Me too. We need to get going, though.”

  Starr didn’t pay any attention to what he said. Instead, she turned and picked up one of her homemade sex toys off the table beside the couch. A mischievous smile made her dimples appear and she tossed the object to him. He caught it and wondered how much longer the toy would be good for, they usually only lasted a week or so before they began to rot and the smell became a turn-off.

  The first time he used one of her toys on her, he’d been horrified. The implement had brought her to orgasm quickly and her level of passion afterward had been unmatched. Now, they rarely went more than a few days without one of them. She left her pistol belt on, sliding her pants down around her ankles and bent over the couch, presenting him with an ample view of her. Kendrick unbuttoned his own pants and adjusted his grip on the severed human arm. He knew what she needed.

  *****

  Aeric glanced at the sky. The early morning sun was still low on the horizon, but they’d lost about two hours of daylight. Given all the activity around the palace, the army should have left hours ago. It seemed like everyone was ready to go and something had caused them to delay. The Vultures didn’t seem concerned with how long they could march before they needed to make camp.

  A man walked into his line of sight from the south leading two horses. He stopped by the center door and waited for whoever was coming out. This is probably the moment I’ve been waiting for, he told himself. The horses were likely for Kendrick and his second in charge. The doors opened and he peered through the rifle’s scope.

  The old man had been telling the truth. It was Kendrick; the man he’d called his son. He’d filled out since he disappeared, much more muscular than before. Now that he was older, he looked like the man that raped his beloved Kate and impregnated her. He wore a sneer openly. Aeric remembered that it had begun to appear when he thought no one was looking during those last few years in San Angelo. Traxx wondered if it was his dissatisfaction at something that was happening on the ground or if he always wore the expression.

  He continued to watch him as he walked down the steps, arm in arm with a scantily-clad Hispanic or Asian woman; he couldn’t really tell at this distance. He wondered if she was Kendrick’s wife. What if she was pregnant with his child, would that only perpetuate the cycle of hate as another child grew up fatherless? Then, he thought of something entirely different, Why in the hell would anyone go into the wastes wearing a skirt and halter top? All of these thoughts jumbled through his mind until one question surged to the forefront.

  Could he do it? This was his best opportunity to kill Kendrick.

  The man who’d led the horses held out a stirrup for the leader of the Vultures so he could mount the horse. Of course he could kill him; he planned to murder everyone that Aeric knew in a few days. The thought of the death of his children and grandchildren, Veronica and Tyler, Lorelei and other friends galvanized him into action. He flipped the safety on the silenced 30.06 to fire and centered the crosshairs on Kendrick’s head.

  He’d already thought that the man was dead; what would a confirmation of all those years of wondering matter? The meaty part of his finger rested against the trigger and he exhaled his breath, pausing afterward like the Shooters had taught him. The flesh on his index finger spread slowly as he gently applied pressure on the rifle’s trigger.

  *****

  “I’m so ready to get on the road,” Starr sighed.

  Kendrick threw his head back and laughed, “You’re anticipating the—”

  A scream of pain erupted from the page who’d brought his horse. The man fell to the ground, writhing in pain as a crimson smear spread slowly across his shoulder. Kendrick’s mind went through several instantaneous calculations to determine what had happened.

  After the page helped him into the saddle, he stood off to the side respectfully out of the way. Someone had been aiming a weapon at his head; when he’d laughed at Starr’s impatience to be on the road towards San Angelo it caused his head to move. The bullet traveled past his face and into the unfortunate man standing beside the horse.

  “Go!” Kendrick screamed, kicking the animal hard in the flank as he grabbed its mane and held on tightly.

  The horse took off like a rocket and then stumbled as another bullet slammed into its rump. Kendrick hadn’t been prepared for the movement and flew over the horse’s head, falling hard against one of the concrete-topped stone retaining walls near the second set of stairs. His shoulder impacted against the low wall with bone-jarring force. He didn’t wait for another shot and had enough presence of mind to decide that they were coming from somewhere in the city. He scrambled behind the stone, lying flat on his stomach.

  His shoulder was on fire. The sound of running horse hooves echoed in the morning; his horse lay on its side, back legs groping for traction on the cement. Kendrick recognized that the noise had come from Starr’s horse, which was upright and making its escape from the kill zone. Was she still in the saddle or had she fallen as well?

  He quickly forgot about the horse as men all across the palace lawn began to scream in panic. The Vultures were under attack! Several men already lay sprawled at odd angles on the ground, their blood puddling underneath them.

  “The city! The attack is coming from the city!” he shouted to the
Vultures huddled behind whatever cover they could find.

  “My lord!” someone shouted from around the corner of the palace.

  Kendrick turned towards the voice and the bones in his shoulder grated together. He screamed in pain. His arm was definitely fucked up. He saw Quellan, the captain of the palace guard peeking around the corner.

  “My lord! Come this way!” Quellan called.

  “The attack is coming from the city!” Kendrick grimaced.

  Quellan looked out beyond the long-dead trees that lined the palace walk. His eyes drifted upward towards the remaining high-rises. “The hotel, my lord! They must be shooting from the hotel.”

  Kendrick peeked up over the retaining wall and was rewarded with a massive cut from flying cement chips. He ducked his head down and ordered, “Have the buildings searched and anyone found inside killed.”

  “Yes, sir!” Quellan replied before he disappeared back behind the building.

  Kendrick adjusted his position behind the wall and probed his shoulder with his fingers. He winced in pain, the damn thing was dislocated.

  *****

  “Fuck!” Joseph muttered. “Goddamned prideful old bastard missed.”

  He peered through his scope and acquired another target. Then he squeezed the trigger, punching a hole through the chest of a Vulture standing near the steps that the man and woman had walked down before they mounted their horses. The Shooter assumed the man that Aeric had shot at was Kendrick.

  Joseph adjusted his aim and picked out another target, firing again before swiveling to a third person. He was on what Captain Griffith called “autopilot.” Apparently, before the war, the military could tell one of those computer-things what to do and then leave it alone to complete the task it was given. That was what they called autopilot.

  Aeric had stopped trying to shoot at the man behind the stone wall by the time Joseph had killed his fifth Vulture. Now the mayor was helping to pick off anyone who was still in the open. Joseph fired once more and then dropped the magazine on the M-2010 sniper rifle that he used. It had a five-round magazine. He’d been able to cheat on the first one by having a round already chambered to give him six shots. He rapidly went through the second magazine and replaced that one as well.

  Then it was time to move. He’d shot—and likely killed—eleven of the Vultures in under four minutes. He threw the sniper rifle over his shoulder and picked up the shorter M-4 carbine. The stairs flew under his feet as he raced down from the sixth floor of an old building of some kind. The layout had confused him when he first entered because he’d been expecting an apartment building like the ones in San Angelo. This was strange, though. Each floor was a wide-open area with pieces of old desks and chairs. It didn’t seem all that comfortable, making him wonder what the old timers meant when they talked about how nice the old world had been.

  Joseph’s upper body started to pitch forward as his momentum carried him faster than his feet could go. He grabbed the metal handrail to right himself and forced his legs to go slower. If he fell in the dark stairwell, he could easily break a leg and then it was over.

  He burst through the door into the office building’s lobby. Three men stared back at him in shock. Their eyes were impossibly wide as Joseph flipped the safety on the carbine off and fired four rounds from the hip into the two men on the right. The rapid crack of the rifle echoed across the lobby and out the broken windows to the street. There was no hiding his location now.

  His momentum carried him into the third attacker and Joseph dropped his shoulder. He hit with the force of a demonbroc attacking a child and the man went flying backwards. The Shooter fell forward onto his stomach, the rifle skittering away across the concrete floor.

  He was out of time. He couldn’t afford a long, protracted fight, so he pulled the pistol from the holster on his hip and fired a round into the man. The pop of the military M-4 rifle had been nothing compared to the explosion of the .45 handgun in the confined space. The rifle had been designed to be as quiet as possible to help conceal a soldier shooting the weapon; the .45 on the other hand was an up-close-and-personal killing machine with zero considerations for sound dampening.

  Joseph didn’t wait to see if the third Vulture was down for good; he couldn’t afford to waste the time. He pushed himself up awkwardly as the large rifle across his back threatened to off-balance him. He ran bent over at the waist to where his M-4 lay and scooped it up before straightening up and dashing through the doorway onto the street.

  He’d taken the time to rehearse his escape route, so he didn’t hesitate when he came out. The alley was off to his left and he darted into the gloom as chips of masonry from the wall on the corner flew towards him. More of his pursuers had found him.

  He sprinted down the alley, making minor adjustments to his path because he had no way of knowing if they were at the head of the alley, aiming rifles down on him. Behind, the rough coughs of several guns echoed down the alley. Somehow, they missed and he was spared.

  Up ahead, the narrow space ended at another street and Joseph darted around the corner. He paused to catch his breath, pulling a grenade from his pouch. He took a deep breath and pulled the pin, then spun back into the mouth of the alley. Several men were about halfway down and he threw the explosive with everything he had.

  He didn’t wait to see where the grenade went. Instead, he turned and ran along his pre-planned escape route back towards the school. The sound of the explosion in the alley only lasted for a second. The clamor of the screaming men, maimed and dying, carried across the Austin morning for a long time.

  THIRTEEN

  “It has begun.”

  “I’m sorry, what was that, sweetie?”

  Maria turned towards Veronica, scaring her. The little girl’s eyes were rolled back in her head, exposing only the whites of her eyes. “The war has started.”

  Veronica dropped her rolling pin, knocking coarse grains of wheat and oat in every direction from her cutting board. “Here? Now?” she asked in a panic.

  “The birds hunt for carrion. Soon, they’ll take flight from the nest. Then nothing can stop them.”

  Veronica had been privy to enough of the girl’s visions now to realize that she was talking about the Vultures. The “nest” was surely Austin where they lived; what did she mean by “carrion”? It was a word that she’d heard before, long ago when she was a teenager, the meaning lost to the years now. She stared at the little girl without seeing her as she tried to remember what the word meant. Finally, she dredged a definition from her memory. Her father had used the word to describe dead deer on the highway as they drove to Odessa.

  Dead deer? Did she mean animals or people? Who were the Vultures hunting? The realization settled in her stomach and she leaned backwards against the counter by the old stove. They weren’t hunting dead animals, that wouldn’t make any sense. Her vision must have told her that Aeric was already dead. Even if he was alive and being hunted, the end result was already decided.

  Had Lorelei Griffith’s bid to provide Aeric protection failed, then? The captain stopped by the day Aeric left on his fool’s errand to Austin and told her about Joseph. Had he been unable to protect Aeric and her husband was dead, murdered like some animal and left as roadkill for creatures to eat?

  A moan of despair escaped her lips as the visual of dogs picking at Aeric’s remains hit her. She screamed at the freak standing across the room from her, “You get out of my house! This is your fault, you did this to us!”

  Maria stared blankly at her, water dripping unheeded from her hands where she’d had them in the dish water. The girl was still in some sort of trance, which infuriated Veronica even more.

  She picked up the rolling pin and charged towards the girl. Veronica raised the weapon high above her head. “You little bitch,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “It’s not fair that you get to destroy our lives and act like nothing happened afterwards. If it wasn’t for you, Aeric would have never left and he’d be here with me.” />
  The rolling pin went higher as she prepared to bring it crashing down on the girl’s face. Slowly, the blue of her eyes began to roll back down and she blinked several times before realizing that Veronica stood in front of her with an implement of death in her hand. She screamed and threw her hands above her head.

  Her scream, the scream of a scared little girl, was enough to shake whatever craziness had taken hold of Veronica. She dropped the rolling pin behind her, the thud of the heavy wood on the tile echoed across the kitchen. “Oh my. Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry, Maria.” She pulled the girl into her arms and hugged her tightly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Did I have another vision?” Maria asked. “I was washing the dishes and then the next thing I see is you with the rolling pin. Were you going to hit me?”

  Veronica’s cheeks flushed and she felt a flash of heat rise up from the open collar of her shirt. The embarrassment that she felt at losing control of her emotions was palpable—and inexcusable. “I… I don’t know what happened, Maria. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  She squeezed the girl tighter than before. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she repeated.

  Maria’s arms slowly made their way up from her sides and she hugged Veronica back. “I don’t mean to make things worse,” she sobbed. “I can’t help it. When the vision hits me, it just takes over and I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.” The tears traced lines down her burning cheeks. The embarrassment of what she’d almost done hadn’t let up; she still felt terrible. “I promise you that I will protect you if your vision comes true.”

  She pulled back from Veronica and stared up at her. “What did I say?”

  Veronica wiped the tears from her cheek and used the back of her hand to wipe her nose. “You said that the war had started and the Vultures were hunting Aeric.”