Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  Outside, in the hall, she grabbed one of the nearby knights and asked him to take a message to Major Hale.

  "Tell him Cade is awake," she said, "and that I'll lead the mission in his stead."

  28

  Just after midnight, Gabrielle found herself in the lead assault vehicle, sitting up front in the command seat with Sergeant Dean acting as driver to her left. Behind her, in the main body of the truck, were the twenty knights that would be under her command once the assault got under way.

  Behind their vehicle came two more, also full of troops, which were in turn followed by a pair of lorries they intended to use to transport those they rescued from the work camp.

  As the vehicle bounced along the forest track, Gabrielle felt oddly comfortable. Maybe it was just muscle memory from her body's former "life" as a Marine; maybe it was just the fact that they were taking the battle to the enemy in a way she'd longed to do for some time now. Either way it felt good; she was ready.

  They had picked out a clearing in the woods about a click from the camp and would use that as a staging area. A small squad of troops would remain behind to guard their transport, while the rest of them would split into three squads, each with a mission of their own to carry out.

  The drive took about an hour and by the time they arrived at the clearing the moon had almost set, reducing the light that could potentially give them away. They dismounted, checked their gear, and then headed out for the short hike that would bring them closer to the camp.

  The camp was situated in a low valley and Gabrielle brought the assault teams to a halt just within the treeline on the ridge just above. Using their only pair of night visions goggles, she and Sergeant Dean took a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the place.

  To Gabrielle, it looked like nothing so much as a World War II internment camp. The entire site was surrounded by wire fencing ten feet high, topped with an additional five feet of barbed wire. There appeared to be three sections once inside. One for the men, where large vegetable patches were tended during the day. Another for the women, who sewed clothing and helped cook for the community as a while. And a final one that consisted of the barracks for the guards and a small headquarters building where the camp commander lived and worked.

  When Gabrielle gave the signal, all three of her teams would head down to the fence line. There they would cut through the wire and cross the open ground just beyond - a stretch of about a hundred yards - before reaching their individual objectives. Sergeant Dean would handle the barracks and headquarters building, hoping to keep as many of the enemy troops inside as possible. Another knight, Lieutenant Lopez, was in charge of the men's section, while Gabrielle would handle the female prisoners.

  Their plan was to strike fast and hard, then hightail it back out of there as quickly as possible with the freed prisoners in tow.

  With the element of surprise on their side, it should work, she thought.

  When they were all in position, Gabrielle gave the signal and the assault began.

  They hit the wire without any trouble. Men came forward with bolt cutters and quickly cut through it. As soon as the holes were big enough to admit at least one man fixed figure, Gabrielle began waving them through and sending them across the open ground between the wire and their destinations.

  Finally, only she and Sergeant Dean were left.

  "Good luck!" he said softly, then bumped his fist with hers.

  "You, too," Gabrielle replied, then turned and headed for the women's barracks as Dean ran off into the night toward his own objective.

  Three minutes later she was standing next to Corporal Helms, who was crouched in front of the door to the barracks, working to open the lock they'd found threaded through the chains that held the doors shut on the outside.

  "Come on, come on, Corporal," Gabrielle whispered, knowing they were terribly exposed just standing there, bunched up and waiting to get inside.

  "Working on it, ma'am," the young man said through clenched teeth and then, as if on cue, the lock popped open and he caught it in his hands before it could hit the ground.

  "Yes!" he said beneath his breath, as he pulled the chain free as quietly as he could.

  Gabrielle patted him on the shoulder. "Never doubted you for a moment, Corporal."

  Gunfire split the night somewhere off to their left, but Gabrielle ignored it. Dean had made contact with the enemy, it seemed, with meant the clock was ticking. They had no idea how quickly the garrison stationed here could reach out for reinforcements, if they could at all, but there was no sense in waiting around to find out.

  With the doors open, Gabrielle and her squad headed inside.

  The building had a central corridor off which there were at least a dozen doors, maybe more. Behind every door were six to eight women, locked into their rooms each night and only let out again each morning when under supervision by various quislings loyal to the demon cause.

  Gabrielle expected them to be thankful that they were being rescued.

  To her surprise, many of them cowered at the back of their rooms and refused to come forward when she told them that she was there to rescue them.

  "Get out of here before we call the guards," they cried, and Gabrielle could scarcely believe it. The prisoners were so afraid of what they captors would do to them if they were caught trying to escape that they refused to even try. For some, the fact that they'd get three meals a day and a place to lay their head down at night was a far more attractive option than hacking out a life in the ruins beyond the demon run civilization that they were used to.

  Fear had them paralyzed.

  Even worse, it made them complicit.

  Gabrielle freed those who were willing, sending them out with members of her squad to cross the open field and find their way through the woods to the rendezvous point. Those who refused to come, she left behind.

  She wasn't their mother; they were free to make their own choices.

  They had cleared most of the room and Gabrielle and Corporal Helms were working on the lock to one of the cells when a loud siren began blaring across the compound.

  "What's that?" Gabrielle asked the woman on the other side of the door.

  "Reinforcements are on the way," she heard through the wood of the door. "You'd better get out of here while you can."

  "Not without the rest of you," Gabrielle replied.

  Helms was bent to the task, working the lock, and never even bothered to glance in her direction.

  Good man, she thought. If they got out of this she'd see he got a commendation for courage under fire. She knew plenty of other men who would have turned tail and run.

  "How are we doing, Helms?"

  "Almost there."

  She kept watch on the door as he fought with the lock. When the first of the enemy troops stuck their head in the door, she blew it off with a quick burst from her rifle. She took down two more before a shout from beside her indicated that Helms finally had the lock open.

  The room beyond contained six woman, five of which were willing to be rescued. Gabrielle put them in the center of the group of soldiers still with her - Helms and three others - and as a group they crossed the room and checked out the situation outside.

  For the moment, the coast looked clear.

  "Go, go, go!" Gabrielle shouted, and the group burst through the door and headed for the fence line at a run.

  They were halfway there when lights flashed on directly in front of them, revealing the line of vehicles stationed between them and the fence, vehicles carrying enemy troops and mounted weaponry that made the rifles Gabrielle and her team were carrying look like toy guns in comparison.

  When a loudspeaker crackled on and told them to surrender, Gabrielle didn't see that she had any other choice.

  She let her rifle fall to her side on its sling and put her hands over her head, directing her troops to do the same.

  At least they'd live to see another day.

  29

  They were
herded over to another group that had been captured and Gabrielle stood there, unable to do anything as the prisoners were divided into two groups by gender. She counted two dozen men and another ten women, including herself, which, thankfully, meant the majority of the attack team had gotten away. She could breathe a sigh of relief over that, at least.

  The men were forced to stand at attention in two rows under the watchful eyes of more than a dozen of the Regent's troops while the woman were rounded up in another group and moved off to one side. A pair of fomori soldiers began moving among them, forcing the women into leg and wrist irons that were linked together by thick chains designed to prevent escape.

  Once the shackles were in place, the guards grabbed the lead woman's chains and began pulling her along behind them as they marched forward, so that all the others had no choice but to follow. Those near the front of the line, caught unawares by the sudden motion, stumbled and tripped. Several fell. Other guard descended on those unlucky few, kicking them with their heavy boots until the prisoners regained their feet and moved forward once more.

  Positioned as she was in the middle of the group, Gabrielle had time to see what was happening and was ready when those chained in front of her began moving. She kept her steps short, knowing her shackles wouldn't allow her full stride, and was able to keep up with the others and move without too much difficulty. When the woman in front of her stumbled, Gabrielle grabbed her arm before she could fall and steadied her.

  "Thanks," the woman said, but before Gabrielle could reply the sound of gunfire split the night. She spun about and was just in time to see the first row of male prisoners collapsing to the ground, cut down by semi-automatic fire from the rifles held in the guards' hands.

  "No!" she cried, but her shout was drowned out as the guards opened fire a second time, mowing down the second row of male Templars even as they tried to run.

  None of them made it more than a few steps before their bodies were riddled with bullets, causing them to jerk and twitch like puppets on a string.

  Within seconds it was over.

  "Keep moving!" a pig-faced Fomori guard shouted at Gabrielle and her companion, grabbing the chain that connected them at the wrists and giving it a good tug, forcing them to move forward or risk falling.

  Knowing she couldn't do anything for her fallen comrades, and that she would readily join them if she put up resistance when there wasn't any immediate plan for escape to go along with it, Gabrielle swallowed her retort and stumbled along in the wake of the woman before her as they were marched around the prison building from which she'd just freed most of these people and out onto a wide stretch of blacktop just beyond.

  There they stood for several long moments, clearly waiting for something. The guards kept looking up into the sky with an earnestness that belied the Second Coming which was only explained when the steady thrum of an approaching aircraft reached Gabrielle's ears. She looked skyward herself, catching sight of the bird's running light moments later. At first she thought it was a helicopter of some kind, but as it settled down to earth she recognized it as a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or VTOL, specifically a Marine V22 Osprey, in fact.

  The massive rotors were turned vertical as the craft circled and then began descending not far from where they are standing, kicking up dust and debris from the ground as it did so.

  With her hands shackled together she couldn't reach high enough to shield her face, so she settled for bending her head forward and closing her eyes to mere slits to protect them against the grit. From that position, she watched the aircraft settle onto the blacktop, open its rear cargo door, and then lower its ramp. No sooner had the door fully settled that the guards were yelling at them to get moving once more.

  Apparently, they were going for a ride.

  Gabrielle shuffled along with the rest of them; across the blacktop, up the ramp, and into the interior of the aircraft, where they were directed to take seats on either side of the fuselage. As soon as they were all in place, the ramp was drawn back up into position via its hydraulic controls and less than five minutes later, they were airborne.

  "Where do you think we're going?" asked the woman on Gabrielle's right, while casting fearful glances at the guards seated at the end of the row by the cargo door, afraid of being caught speaking.

  Gabrielle shook her head, as if to say she didn't know.

  That wasn't actually the truth, though; she thought they were most likely headed for the Regent's command center in New York City, but didn't see any point in talking about it. They'd find out sooner rather than later and calling attention to themselves now wouldn't serve them any good. Better to conserve their strength for the long run.

  So instead of talking, she feigned disinterest and leaned her head back against the bulkhead behind her, letting her eyes fall to half-mast. In truth, she was watching the guards, trying to judge what she and the rest of the prisoners were in for given their reactions.

  One thing was immediately clear; the guards didn't think the women were any kind of threat. They sat within reach of the last woman in each row, their hands only loosely on their weapons. For a moment Gabrielle considered ordering those closest to try and overwhelm the guards, but what would they do after that? Assault the cockpit? Order the pilot to turn the vehicle around and take them back to the base?

  She supposed they could fly the craft to a neutral waypoint and abandon it, so as to not pinpoint the location of the commandery, but again, that depended on their ability to take control of the aircraft without damaging its controls or its pilot.

  Not an easy proposition, she thought.

  In the end, the decision was taken away from her. She was seated by one of the two hatches on the side of the aircraft and through the small window set in the middle of the hatch she could see the lights of New York City coming up in the distance. She turned in her seat slightly and looked down out the window, noted that they were leaving what looked to be Roosevelt Island behind and crossing the East River. Moments later they made landfall over Manhattan, which she saw with surprise was now a walled community. Much of the area beneath them was dark, but as the aircraft turned she could see the southern half of Central Park and all of Midtown lit up like a Christmas tree.

  The VTOL banked sharply and then straightened before beginning to descend. From her position Gabrielle could see that they were headed for a rooftop landing pad and she thought it might be the one atop the old Trump Tower building, though she couldn't be sure.

  A few minutes later they touched down with a hard bounce and she heard the hum of the rotors start to wind down. The rear cargo door opened and the prisoners were led down the ramp and out onto the rooftop, where more Fomori troops led by a human captain were waiting for them.

  "This way, move it along," the captain shouted in a bored voice, as if he'd done this hundreds of times before.

  Once again, they were taking the prisoners for granted and were showing little concern that they'd just brought nearly a dozen trained rebel fighters to their inner sanctum. If their laxness continued, Gabrielle knew she could put it to their advantage when the time to break out finally came.

  They were taken from the rooftop landing area, still in chains, and into a freight elevator which then descended several floors. When the door opened, they were ushered into a large room with half a dozen guards standing about, waiting for their arrival. Unlike those on the rooftop, all of these guards were human.

  The guards looked on as the prisoners' shackles were removed and then leered in anticipation as the captain ordered the women to strip. One of them hesitated and received a rifle butt to her back for her troubles, which prompted the others to get moving. Their clothes were collected and carried out of the room by one of the guards and then they were directed into the next room, which turned out to be a communal shower, like you'd find in a health club locker room. As the prisoners entered the room and turned around to face their captors, two of the guards activated the thick hoses they held i
n their hands, blasting the women with high-powered streams of cold water.

  When the "decontamination" procedure was finished, they were given small towels to use to dry themselves off and then marched, still naked, down the hall and into another room.

  This one looked like the living room of a former suite, all plus carpets and tasteful lighting, but all of the furniture had been removed so it was hard to be certain. Gabrielle stuck to the middle of the group, trying to reassure the others with her steady stance and air of confident resistance.

  They were ordered to line up against one wall and there they waited until a door quietly opened and a tall, silver-haired man entered the room. As he did so, the guards snapped to attention.

  The Regent, I presume, Gabrielle thought, as he looked him over.

  The newcomer was dressed in a well-tailored suit and had the kind of healthy sheen to his skin that spoke of fine food and a pampered lifestyle. His hair was combed, his nails manicured, and his teeth gleamed beneath his lips.

  Gabrielle dislike him at first sight.

  The captain of the guard intoned, "The Lord Regent, Viceroy of New York, Conqueror of the Northern States and Grand Master of the Knights of the Iron Fist."

  Gabrielle clenched her jaw to keep from adding more titles to the list, Dickhead Supreme being high on her list.

  The Regent preened for a moment and then stepped over to the line of Templars and began examining them from head to toe, feeling their biceps, breasts, and buttocks, sticking his fingers inside their mouths as if they were livestock, dehumanizing them with his every motion.

  Not once did he say anything to them, simply indicating his pleasure or disappointment with a nod or shake of his head. The captain followed along behind him, making notes on a slim pad of paper he'd produced from his pocket.