His head looked like the burned tip of a safety match and the rest of him was hardly any better—a charred, gray-and-black caricature of an elongated tar baby with skin like soft asphalt. He limped around to the back of the van and opened the rear doors.
“Hey,” said The Kid, “nice flivver, man. Needs some detailing but if you’re ever in the market to sell—”
I swung my attention back to Mr. Hep-as-hell. “I thought you were dead.”
He grinned, displaying fangs that were long and strong. “I am, Big Daddy! I’m dead as hell and I’m not taking it anymore! I’ve got it made in the grave.” He moved toward the rear of the van.
“No,” I said, “I mean, I thought they had staked you or something.”
“You jiving me, Daddy-O? We’re too tough for these GI-Joseph wannabes. Ask ole Bubba, here.”
Matchstick man turned his crispy head and wheezed something unintelligible.
I stared at him, at them. “You’re telling me this is Mr. Montrose?” I turned to the crispy cadaver. “Billy Bob?”
He bobbed his charcoaled cranium.
“You’ll have to pardon my associate’s lack of lingo, Gringo,” J.D. explained. “His throat hasn’t yet recovered from imitating a blowtorch. He needs a month in the ground with a hemoglobin IV drip going full bore. Too bad war ain’t more convenient.”
As he spoke, the ground opened up a few feet away and a corpse rose up from the earth like a passenger on a sidewalk freight elevator. He wore a tattered wool greatcoat with a shredded six-button cape. Piping that might have been white over a century ago lined the outer legs of his trousers, formed “V"s above his cuffs, and striped his collar. A tarnished officer’s sword and scabbard hung below a faded red sash that circled his waist. On the opposite side a pair of yellowed gauntlets were folded over the sash near his hip. A nearly fleshless hand came up to a ghastly brow and I heard a muffled “chik,” the sound of bone striking bone as the dead man snapped off a smart salute.
“Muh men are at the ready,” the cadaver said, holding his salute. “With yuh permission, suh, we will engage the enemy.”
It took a moment but I finally remembered to raise my own arm in a return salute. “Uh, certainly, Captain. Whenever you are ready, of course.”
“Of course, suh.” The official exchange completed, he turned to the crispy vampire who was emerging from the back of the van and tugging on a long, wooden case. “Sergeant, have you brought us our ordnance?”
Montrose bobbed his head and lowered one end to the ground as the earth behind the captain opened with three more popping sighs. As the case was opened, three more dead soldiers approached in varying stages of recomposition. The hideously burned vampire handed a tarnished, tan-handled revolver to the officer and gurgled something.
“You’re giving them antique weapons?” I asked incredulously, thinking of the modern armament carried by the general’s paramilitary troops coming around the corner of the building.
“Nothing but the best,” The Kid answered. “He says that’s a Cooper double-action percussion revolver—he got it on eBay a couple of years ago for twenty-two hundred dollars.”
Two corpses, one wearing a gray sack coat with four brass buttons, the other a faded blue frock coat with a two-inch collar—stepped forward and hefted the box. Inside were ancient long-barreled weapons. “1842 Springfield muskets,” The Kid said. “Twelve hundred and fifty dollars apiece if you buy from a collector who’s legit.”
Another dead guy stepped up, wearing a twelve-button shell jacket of indeterminate hue. Only the red wool twill taping had retained sufficient color from its previous excursion above the ground. He was given an armful of handguns—flintlock single-shot pistols and a couple of later model percussion single-shot versions.
A squad of corpses approached and one of them opened the van’s sliding side door. More boxes were hastily unloaded, and their museum-exhibit armaments hurriedly distributed. Carbines manufactured by Starr, by Sharps, by Smith. Muskets bearing the imprints of Enfield and Greene. P.S. Justice and Mississippi rifles. Even a couple of short-barreled minié rifles. It was a treasure trove of firepower, The Kid explained. Here was a Colt Model 1852 Police Revolver with a thirty-six-hundred-dollar price tag, there a Springfield Model 1863 Type 2 Rifle musket worth twenty-five hundred dollars on the collectors’ circuit. Powder and shot were flung to waiting, anxious, and fleshless hands. Some of the ammo boxes tumbled to the ground and I picked up the lid of one that had burst open.
Poultney’s Patent Metallic Cartridges
Patented December 15, 1863 12 Caps
For Smith’s Breech-Loading Carbine
No. 1 50-100 Caliber
Address, Poultney & Trimble, Baltimore, Md.
“Here they come!” someone yelled.
A musket was flung into my hands, a .69 caliber smoothbore from all appearances. On the lockplate the date 1849 was clearly visible as was the cartouche. There was some pitting at the breech from the mercury fulminate and there were a few “dings” here and there in the wood and metal, but it was remarkably well preserved and, with a start, I realized it could do more serious damage at close range than the modern, hard-jacketed, high-velocity ammo that was about to come flying in our direction.
Too bad I didn’t know how to load and fire the damn thing!
I suddenly remembered the silver-loaded Glock in my glove compartment. I ran back to my car and flung open the passenger door. It was easier to slide onto the bench seat while I groped for the zippered carry case. As I opened the glove compartment the door beside me closed. A moment later the lock stem sank down with an emphatic clack.
“Mister Chris . . .” said a familiar voice.
I turned and looked behind me with equal portions of fear and annoyance: I really had to start checking the backseat before getting into my car at night.
Mama Samm’s white robe and turban seemed to shed a soft light, more than equal to the full moon on a cloudless night. Sitting beside her was a tall, thin man dressed in a black frock coat and top hat. His blue-black skin was daubed with white paint in a pattern that approximated a crude skeletal motif on his face and shirtless torso. He sat in a rigid pose and, after a moment, I saw that his arms were bound to his sides by dozens of loops of scarlet thread.
“So, dis is de one,” he said, considering me as one might regard a social introduction to a professional telemarketer. “He don’ look de type.”
“Nevertheless,” she admonished him. She turned to me. “Christopher, may I introduce his royal highness, Baron Samedi of the Gédé clan.”
I started to extend my hand out of polite habit and then stopped as I noticed the threads precluded any kind of practical handshaking. High-fives were definitely out of the picture.
“Nice to meetcha,” I said, nodding my head. I turned back to my friendly neighborhood fortune-teller. “Does this mean we can get this whole mistaken identity thing settled and close out the cemetery tours to my doorstep?”
“Do not think I am ungrateful for your assistance while I was indisposed,” the Loa of the Dead said, “but as soon as I am free I will reclaim my rightful place as adjudicator for de dead!”
“Great,” I said. “I think I have a pocketknife—”
“He cannot be freed by physical means,” Mama Samm explained. “He is bound by foul sorceries. Only powerful, sympathetic magic can free him. You must free the others, the Gédé and Ogou that the witch has taken hostage. She has turned their power against him and against each other.”
I looked out at the confusion that was unfolding beyond the Merc’s tinted windows.
Captain Worthington’s cadaverous corps had engaged the gray guard and, while the general’s men had the advantage in numbers and weaponry, the Civil War dead had the benefit of already being dead.
And then there was the home turf advantage. “The South shall rise again,” I murmured as, here and there, the turf split open and rotted hands and arms came thrusting out of the ground to grab mercenaries�
�� legs. Trousers would begin to smoke in the grasp of those chemical-laced fingers and it wasn’t long before the screams of the living drowned out the Rebel yells of the dead. Lasers and tracers lit up portions of the churning grounds, igniting an emerging corpse here and there. Some fell and were quickly consumed where they lay, their desiccated remains serving as wicks for the combustible witches brew that had permeated the earth. Others ran into the midst of the troops trying to load the trucks and took them down in fiery embraces. One vehicle caught fire and its subsequent explosion set up a chain reaction queue of blazes down the length of the idling caravan. Drivers ran to separate one of the trucks as yet untouched from the rest of the burning transports.
I reached for the door handle. “We’ve got to outflank those remaining trucks,” I said. “Nothing else will matter if even a portion of the virus leaves these grounds!”
“Others must fight that battle,” she announced more than said. “You must resist the Whore of Babylon.”
“Yeah, well I’ve already knocked the wind out of her sails.”
“Listen to me!” The fortune-teller was large and in charge, and her voice was suddenly sharp: “You cannot physically gainsay her, you can only do damage to the vessel she inhabits! If you kill the horse that she rides, she will only abandon it and seek to straddle another. You must resist her! Do not engage her in a physical contest, for you cannot win and you will not accomplish your objective!”
“You know, your on-again, off-again accent isn’t just slipping—it’s gone on an extended vacation.”
“You need to focus on your objective,” she snapped.
“And my objective is to free the hostages?”
“Speak of de she-devil,” the baron said. A bloody and unsteady Marinette Bois-Chèche in the avatar of Chalice Delacroix staggered out the front door of the BioWeb building. She stopped and looked out over the series of skirmishes that sprawled across the grounds and parking lot.
“Go!” Mama Samm urged, “Go now! Do not turn to the left or the right! You must go down into the pit and free them before she can stop you! Do not stop to help the others, their support will come from other quarters! Do not allow yourself to be turned aside by The Beast!”
The passenger door lock popped up.
“The Beast?” I asked. “What—”
The ground trembled and a network of cracks and fissures spread across the parking lot like an Etch-a-sketch gone berserk. Asphalt buckled and heaved as Marinette/Chalice capered and danced upon the staired entryway. A reptilian skull the size of a Volkswagen popped up in the midst of Row F, scattering a dozen advancing mercenaries.
“What the hell is that?” I yelled, popping the door open and sticking my head out for a better look.
“The dragon,” PFC Blankenship informed me, running past with a rust-eaten bayonet affixed to his musket.
“The Beast,” repeated Mama Samm from behind me. “Or one of Its Shadows, at least.”
It shouldered its way up through chunks of blacktop and bars of concrete retainers, scapulae like giant kite-shields flinging artificial stone in deadly arcs onto hapless men and vampires, alike. I tried to unzip my pistol case but the zipper was jammed.
“Run!” Mama Samm yelled, “Your gun is of no use for the task that you must do! Go and do it quickly! Before it is too late!”
I started to move toward the building but stopped and turned back. “Where are these hostages?” I called.
“In de pit!” Samedi answered.
I started to open my mouth when he added, “Dey are not human, Cséjthe; dey are Zombi!”
Okay. Sure. It was all coming together for me, now.
Not!
I started for the building anyway. What else was there for me to do? I had a handgun with silver Glaser loads that I couldn’t get to, an elite paramilitary force that wouldn’t be threatened if I could, a fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex doing Jurassic Park meets Night of the Living Dead in the parking lot, and a bunch of dead hostages I needed to rescue before they—well—got any deader.
So help me, if I got through this in one piece I was going to find a safe line of work—maybe testing bulletproof vests or repo-ing motorcycles from the Hell’s Angels.
Bloody Bones rampaged to the western end of the parking lot and lowered its gargantuan, toothy skull to the steps where its Dark Mistress waited. Marinette/Chalice climbed up its inclined snout and turned to seat herself upon its grooved cranium as it reared back up and turned in search of fresh prey.
“Chris!”
I looked across the blacktop battlefield and saw Deirdre in dark pants and shirt, motioning for me to come and join her. A cluster of unhuman companions surrounded her: Pagelovitch and his lieutenants, Father Pat in ecclesiastical garb with the requisite collar, and Brother Michael wearing his rough, brown homespun robe and leaning upon his great staff. My three Fates stood together, clasping hands, looking like nothing so much as the Powerpuff Girls, all growed up. I even fancied I saw Marilyn floating a few inches off the ground!
Back behind them was an indistinct mass, like a gathering thunderhead that had settled to the earth. I couldn’t be sure at this distance, but I had the distinct impression that every grave in the parish had opened and an army of the deceased was marching on the BioWeb complex.
But would they get here in time?
I wasn’t the only thing that turned to look at the sound of Deirdre’s voice: Bloody Bones and his dark rider were taking note of my comrades, as well.
It took a giant step in their direction.
Then, another.
“Hey!” I yelled without thinking. What the hell, thinking was overrated anyway.
I dropped the zippered-up Glock and flapped the red dress like a matador’s cape. “Over here! Hey Tyro, Tyro!” Mama Samm had said don’t do battle with Marinette—but she never specifically told me I couldn’t fight The Beast.
And even in that I wouldn’t be disobeying her: as the mountain of fossilized bones turned and regarded me with empty eye-sockets there was no question that I would be giving it any kind of a real fight either. Just a momentary distraction if I was lucky enough to last another thirty seconds. Maybe that would be enough time for the others to scatter and take cover.
“Cséjthe!” Mama Samm called from behind me, “This is not your battle! Keep going!”
Yeah, right. Then whose battle was it?
As if to answer my question, Father Pat stepped forward and opened a book in his hands. I couldn’t hear his voice from where I stood but I could imagine the text was probably from the Bible. Even money on the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Revelation.
Then Brother Michael caught my attention by doing a most unusual thing.
He straightened his bent and hunched form.
He stretched and the hump across his shoulders bulged and strained the fabric of his robe.
The back of his garment tore open and a bundle of white tumbled out even as his large, powerful hands wrenched his staff apart.
There was a flash of silver as a long, double-edged blade emerged from its gnarled, twisted sheath. I barely had time to register that the hunchbacked giant’s walking staff was actually a great sword in disguise when my eyes were drawn away to the enormous white sails unfurling from his massive shoulders. They opened and spread, fanlike, behind him: two more kite-shaped forms like giant scapulae covered in swan’s down and white eagle’s feathers.
Like wings.
With a harsh cry, Michael launched himself into the air, brandishing a silvery sword that was now bursting into flame like a deadly Olympic torch.
“Holy . . . !” I yelled, at a loss for a second word. There are not many words you can use when you’ve seen your first angel.
“Cséjthe,” Mama Samm hurried up beside me and took my arm, “hurry! There isn’t much time!”
“But . . .” I said, starting to point.
“Have you lived so long among the creatures of darkness that you cannot imagine the existence of creatures of
light? Come! Even an angel may not turn back the Darkness if he fights alone. You must free the zombi!” She gave me a shove as six-inch teeth of stone clacked shut just inches from the snowy pinions on one of Michael’s wingtips.
I began to run again, fighting every impulse to turn back to watch.
“Cséjthe!” The voice belonged to Marinette Bois-Chèche: now I dared not hesitate nor turn back. I hurtled up the front steps and slam-danced through the front doors of the lobby.
The pit, the pit, free the zombies in the pit, they had said. But where was this pit? Downstairs was the obvious direction but the only space approximating a pit that I had seen was the hounfort and djevo that had served the Mambo’s terrible dark powers.
Well, I had to start somewhere. I turned and ran down the north corridor toward the back of the building.
>Cséjthe . . .< The voice of Dracula echoed through my head.
“Nag, nag, nag,” I groused. What is it, now?
>I did not want to leave without saying goodbye.<
What? You’re leaving? Now!?
>I think it in my best interests, whatever the outcome, to return to the shadows while some still remain.<
Now the temptation to turn around, run back out of the building, find him and throttle him became the greater temptation to resist. You run away now voivode, and it’s pretty well over between us!
>Ah, Cséjthe; no more Christmas cards?<
You candy-assed mothersucker! Let the word go out that Cséjthe stayed at the battle’s heart while Vlad the Pretender slunk off in the darkness like a frightened cur.
My head was suddenly full, then suddenly empty as I pounded around the corner at the back of the building, homed in on the extra staircase leading to the subbasement.
I stumbled to a stop three steps down. It was like stepping down into an icy swimming pool. A palpable force was flowing up from below, impeding my descent while assuring me that I was on the right track after all. Somewhere below was some kind of angajan gris, providing power for Bois-Chèche and her monstrous steed. And, presumably, the Zombie hostages that I was supposed to liberate.
Dead on my Feet - The Halflife Trilogy Book II Page 41
