“What happened?” Bishop asked. The boy didn’t look any older than Mouser, although it was hard to tell from a face that was bunched with pain.
“Wanted to fight demons,” the boy said, weakly. “A security guard shot me. Tried to make it back to the train, fell down the steps. Nobody noticed.” The boy’s eyes fluttered and his head started to drop. “Am I going to die?” he asked weakly.
“No you’re not.” Bishop knelt next to the boy and heaved his limp body over one shoulder. The kid was heavier than he looked but Bishop managed to pull himself back to his feet using the railing along the wall as a brace. He could tell by the boneless sprawl that the boy was unconscious, which was probably a blessing. The armed Deepers guarding the train saw him the minute he came around the corner. One pounded on the door of the third subway car and two heads poked out of the opening to see what was going on.
“Bring him in,” one of the heads said. The guards helped Bishop get the boy through the door. Inside the car, wooden pallets covered in clean sheets had been lined up across the tops of the seats.
A familiar voice said, “Put him here, Frank.” The speaker was dressed in a faded sweatshirt and jeans.
“Catie!”
“Mr. Kale called me,” Sister Mary Catherine said. “He thought I should know the Deepers were going to get my kids back and I insisted he let me come along. I wanted him to give me a gun and let me fight those monsters but he said I’d be more helpful taking care of the wounded. I’m still not above doing some serious damage if I have to. I’ll worry about penance later.”
“Sister Catherine, you are the scariest nun I have ever met, and that includes Sister Mary Teresa who taught Geometry at St. D’s School-For-Boys-Destined-To-Be-Damned-To-Hell-For-All-Eternity. And may I just say as far as guts go: Boo Yah!”
An older man in green scrubs looked up from examining the boy’s side. “Through and through,” he said. “Losing more blood than I’d like, but we can stop that. I’ll stitch him up and give him some antibiotics. As long as he doesn’t go into shock, he’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.”
“It’s Taylor Brown,” an older woman in patched scrubs said. “He’s just fifteen and too headstrong for his own good. His mother’s going to ground him until he’s twenty five after this little stunt.”
“Let him be, Gwen,” the doctor told her. “He was trying to help, and he’s only the first of the wounded we’re going to see tonight. We should thank God it wasn’t worse.”
On the wall of the car, one of the monitors suddenly switched from Zaki standing below a video of swarming nanobots to a wide angle view of the arena floor. Zaki’s face took on a look of alarm. A demon in the back row stood up, his suit coat splitting at the seams as his chest swelled and his arms lengthened to inhuman proportions. Before he could make a move, something spinning too fast to be seen took his head off at the shoulders. Other demons began to leap from their seats. A cocktail waitress dropped a full tray of drinks and started to run for one of the exits, only to be trampled by a group of screaming caterers. The big screens in the arena switched to a bird’s eye view of Greggs’ troops pouring into the stadium from the tunnel, firing their weapons as they split into smaller groups. More demons shed their glamours, ripping off their party clothes to free wings, horns, claws, second sets of arms. The fact that no sound was coming through the speakers made it all the more surreal. Even the doctor couldn’t look away.
On the stage, Zaki dropped his portable microphone and reached into his suit jacket to bring out a small metal tube. He compressed a button at the top and the stage around him started to sink into the floor. The little knife thrower was quick. Grabbing his jacket, he leaped onto the descending platform just as Zaki completely disappeared from view.
“Gotta go,” Bishop said. “Take this.” He pressed the coin the fortune teller had given him into Sister Cate’s hand. “It heats up when it gets near a demon.” Bishop stepped out the door and almost collided with Cassius who was standing right outside the train, cloth satchel over his shoulder, a cross bow in his hands.
“I’m coming with you,” Cassius said.
“What? Who’s going to watch the screens?”
“I’ve got people. I can’t let Zaki get away.”
“What if Zaki sees you, but still gets away? He’ll know you’re alive.”
“I’ll deal with that if it happens. Right now I’m joining my crew on the surface. End of discussion.”
“I’m going after Mouser,” Bishop warned.
“Fine with me,” Cassius told him. “I hear the kid’s quite a hacker. I might need some extra help.”
* * *
Zaki and the Great Constantini stepped off the descending platform as soon as it came to a halt. They were in the staging area under the stadium where performers and heavy equipment could be sent topside without going through the tunnels. Zaki pressed the button at the top of the metal tube one more time. The platform started back up, sealing off and locking access to the floor below. There was a control room under the stage. It housed his security monitors and special effects team who managed the technical part of the events both on the grounds and inside the arena. A bank of computers controlled the sound boards, the lights, the big screens, staging effects and even access to the building when necessary. The techs appeared frozen with shock at what they were seeing on their monitors. They swung around when Zaki slammed into their glass paneled cubicle. Constantini hung back, almost unnoticed. Zaki pushed two of the techs aside to make room for himself at the control panel.
“Show me the grounds,” he ordered. A tech roused himself and pressed a few keys. “And shut that fucking klaxon down right now or somebody’s going to lose their head!”
Several views of the grounds came up the monitors. Wolves carrying automatic weapons were running across the parking lot toward the arena, some were firing into the air at a cloud of gargoyles who were being chased by adolescent flying lizards. One wolf stopped to aim a small rocket launcher, blowing a descending lizard to pieces in the air. Lizard parts bounced off the asphalt and a few small ‘goyles were knocked to the ground by the concussion.
“What are the Lasurii doing out of their cages?!” Zaki demanded. “And where did all those God-dammed werewolves come from?”
“An alert went off at the Zoo, Sir.” One of the techs said. “Somebody threw the switch that opens all the cages. There’s about thirty or forty gargoyles out there and maybe twenty exploding lizards. There seems to be something else in the trees but we haven’t gotten a good look at it yet. If the wolves find a camera, they take it out.”
“The Lasurii are exploding? They must be binge feeding. Too much food stimulates them to reproduce. At this rate they’ll be producing twins any minute. Do you have any idea how much their DNA modifications cost me? Where’s security?”
“I think they split, Sir. When they saw those things on the monitors they hit the siren and ran down that tunnel. We’re the only ones down here now.”
“You.” He pointed at one of the techs. “Turn the perimeter lights on and open the stadium roof.”
“But, Sir . . .”
Zaki back handed the tech, knocking him to the floor. “Do. It. Now!” he yelled at the rest of them.
“We need to get out of here,” another tech said nervously, typing in the commands. “We’re geeks not soldiers, we won’t last five minutes if those guys get down here.”
“Which guys?” the tech on the floor muttered. “Take your pick.”
“Then get out!” Zaki had taken the chair vacated by the tech on the floor and was typing rapidly on his keyboard. “Before I kill you myself.”
“But, where . . .?”
Taking one hand off the keyboard Zaki reached into his jacket, pulled out a small automatic and shot the man who was speaking in the head. Eyes back on the screen, he fired a second shot into the ceiling. His left hand never stopped typing. The remaining techs fell over each other trying to get out the door of the control room.
<
br /> “I’m surrounded by fools and idiots,” Zaki muttered.
“I sincerely hope that won’t interfere with our business arrangement,” said a voice behind him.
Zaki spun in this chair. A tall, orange demon in a spotless blue silk robe stood in the control room doorway, several other demons were clustered behind him. He seemed unruffled by what was going on upstairs.
“Of course not. I have everything I need to deliver the product. I’m just assuring that no one interferes with that.” Zaki extended a finger to push the final key that would execute the commands he’d just typed. As he touched it the screen went blank. He frowned. He’d just entered the sequence that would delete all his research data and take the system down, but what just happened seemed improbably fast. He attempted to reboot. Nothing. The entire bank of computers had gone down, but they seemed to have done it one second too soon. In any case, he was done here. His eyes landed on the knife thrower. Zaki had always found the Gypsy brothers repulsive, but useful. He had no idea which one of them this was, but it didn’t matter. Tesslovich had told him they were interchangeable.
“You,” he said, “my guests need transportation. I still have a few more details to take care of. Escort them to the boats. I’ll meet you at the heliport on the north shore.”
Connie gave a brief nod. Once again he would survive his stupid brothers. Fate had allowed him all the luck in their family. It was a sign of the greatness that would come.
- 16 -
The glass roof of the arena was blazing with light. A loud emergency siren was making an unbearable racket. On the ground, two dozen werewolves had begun to howl along. As Ariel watched, something hit the roof from the inside. It was beating at the glass like a trapped moth. It was soon joined by other ‘moths’ carrying what looked like clubs, metal poles, and in one case, a stadium seat. They were pounding uselessly against the panels when suddenly the roof began to roll back, opening the building to the sky. The moths pulled themselves toward the gap, huddling together impatiently until it had spread wide enough for them to breach the space.
Ariel watched the demons escape. Someone inside had thrown the switch to let them out. Below, the outside doors to the arena crashed open and more demons poured out into the night followed by a rag tag group of humans armed with swords, cross bows and clubs.
“Oh, crap,” she said, mostly to herself.
* * *
Once up the stairs to the arena lobby, Cassius and Bishop followed the noise. The piercing wail of the klaxon was echoed by the howling of werewolves and angry demons. Bishop led the way to one of the lobby alcoves where the two of them could look through a glass wall to the floor below. The stadium was total pandemonium. Small groups of Deepers were fighting their way across the floor toward the tunnel to the training rooms and lab buildings using swords, crossbows, and axes. Others were doing their best to block demons from getting up the stairs to the lobby and out onto the grounds.
The demons were ripping up seats and pulling apart railings for weapons. Small arms fire and the sound of an occasional automatic weapon added to the din. Blue emergency lights were blinking in sequence with the klaxon, giving the chaos a surreal, silent movie jerkiness.
Bishop watched as several hunched, ape-like demons leaped onto the backs of the top row of seats and began to run back and forth, taking swipes at invading Deepers with pieces of furniture, drink trays, claws. Two of them heaved a dead colleague into the middle of a group of Gregg’s soldiers on the tier below them. A bullet pinged off the pipe one demon was carrying and ricocheted into the demon next to him, causing him to fly backward on a trajectory that that took out a walk-up bar and three cases of champagne. In the middle of the floor, Zaki’s demonstration subjects were struggling to escape the restraints used to strap them to their boards. Ignoring the young men’s pleas to be cut free, demons were pulling out the knives Connie had stuck into their bodies to use as weapons.
Cassius pulled out his GPS. “There’s a utility stair further down the lobby to the right. It should take us to the space under the arena. Maybe we can get to the other side that way.”
When they got there the metal door was bolted shut. “Move back,” Bishop pulled the Glock out from under his coat and fired at the lock. A hole appeared in the door the size of his fist. Lock parts could be heard bouncing down the metal stairs. “Demon load,” he explained, deadpan. It was a great line. He’d been waiting to use it.
Behind them the klaxon finally went quiet. The last thing Bishop saw before pulling the utility door shut behind them was a crowd of demons crashing through the lobby doors with several of Greggs’ men behind them.
They met no one on the stairs. The passageway at the bottom led straight to a large space under the middle of the arena. The door to a glassed in control room hung open. Chairs had been tipped over and there was a body on the floor. The bank of computer monitors inside was completely dark.
“Zaki came down here and now he’s gone.”
Cassius felt one of the monitors. It was still warm. He tapped a few keys. “Looks like he took down part of the system before he left.”
“He’s not leaving by air. A car would be stopped before it made the gate. The train is being guarded. What else could he do?”
“Take a boat,” a voice said. “I heard him order somebody to get it ready.” A young man in jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt crawled out from behind the console. His glasses were smudged and his hair and clothing were covered in dust balls and bits of petrified fast food.
“What were you doing behind the console?”
“Mr. Kirienko was really angry. He knocked me off my chair. I crawled under the console. Stuff falls behind the board all the time and people pull out the wires trying to get it back. If you don’t know what you’re doing you can plug something into the wrong outlet.”
“You the only one down here?”
“Yeah. Right after that Zaki fucker shot Jeff the rest of the guys split. Is Jeff dead?”
Bishop glanced at the body. “Yeah, I’m afraid so. What did he do to piss Zaki off?”
“He kept talking. Jeff always talked too much at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Man, he’s dead? He got me this job.”
“Did you know you guys were working for demons?’
“Not ‘til tonight. Everybody on the crew assumed the effects were CGI. I know CGI and I thought there might be something extra weird going on, but weird is what FX techs do. We come in, set up, do the job, and get out. Booze and food is one of the perks. Dave tried to get upstairs earlier and score some brew, but the door was locked. We couldn’t get out.”
“Did Mr. Kiriyenko crash the servers?”
“That seemed to be where he was going. He was crazy tweaked, muttering to himself like it was a mantra or something.”
“So he deleted the database?”
“Naw,” the kid was looking at his friend’s body. “We brought in a backup server and linked it into the main system so we would have a double control of the mechanics. I waited until he was almost done, then I shorted out the monitors. He thought his server was purged. The data’s still there if you can figure out how to get to it.”
“You said boat?” Bishop interrupted.
“Yeah. This little stripey guy and a bunch of freaks went down that passage. Mr. Kirienko said there was a heliport on the other side of the lake.”
Bishop touched his ear piece. “Ariel? Ariel!”
“Little busy right now, Bishop.”
“This is important. Zaki’s got boats. Demons are headed to the lake through a tunnel that connects with the arena. We’ve got to stop them before they get to the heliport on the other side.”
“Any suggestions? . . .Oh, no you don’t! Yeah, that hurts, doesn’t it?. . . Bishop, you still there?”
“Ez, or Ham, or Shep the Wonder Dog have rocket launchers. Do you know how to work one?”
“I’m a quick study. And it’s Juke not Shep. Stop that!”
“Can you stop playing
with the demon and find him! We don’t have much time.”
“Just a sec. There! Now who’s sorry?”
* * *
Ariel scanned the ground for Juke. It was hard to tell one Dog from another from the air. She tapped her headset. “Juke?”
“Here,” a growly voice answered.
“Zaki and some demons are headed to the lake. I need a rocket launcher.”
“Got one. Meet you on the dock. We’ve been using ‘em on these damn lizards. You gotta blow their shit totally up or you just get more. And there’s demons and ‘goyles all over the place. Any chance of reinforcements?”
“I wish. But I think we’re on our own.”
“We surprised ‘em, El. But there’s too much coming at us at once.”
Juke was waiting on the dock with a long tube in his paws. He was upright but very much a wolf. The silver fur on his chest and muzzle was matted with blood. The grey-pink skin on his belly had four, long diagonal scratches that had already begun to heal. Under the scratches, an elaborate blue tattoo traced a pyramid of swirling lines and angular symbols upward from his groin to end in one final tendril just below his breast bone. Except for two heavy revolvers in a double shoulder rig, he wasn’t wearing another thing.
“No boats,” Ariel frowned. Her insides had made the tiniest little humming sound for a fraction of a second before her concentration returned. Tattooed naked werewolves. Distracting.
“I don’t think they’d leave ‘em out in the open. There must be a boat house or another dock somewhere. Once out on the lake they’ll be hard to miss.”
Juke set the rocket launcher on Ariel’s shoulder. Standing behind her he reached around, flipped open the laser sight and showed her how to aim and fire.
“You’ve got four small rockets in there.” His muzzle fur tickled her ear. “The next one will load as soon as you fire. Lead the front edge of your target, point and shoot. Keep the back end of the tube away from your wings when you fire or you’ll . . .”
Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir Page 33
