Children of Blood (Kat Drummond Book 13)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  “Albert,” Conrad replied. “Was content initially to just report the contents of meetings to his employer. I’ve been watching him for a while, alongside other suspects. He was quiet. Too quiet. Jane may stereotype us hunters, but stereotypes exist for a reason. This guy didn’t fit the archetypal hunter. After our last meeting, I tailed him. Followed him to a place up the mountain. And I must add that I’m too old to be hiking up mountains! I need a raise. But yeah, I followed him to an old pump station in the woods on the mountain. He left something in the piping and then left. Good thing too, as my cloaking had run out. I searched the pipe, probably got bitten by a rat, and found a thumb-drive.”

  Conrad pulled said thumb-drive from his pocket. There was a plaster on his thumb. Albert’s eyes went whiter. He was shaking. Conrad grinned, evilly.

  “This yours, Bertie?” he goaded. “Well, I hope you don’t mind if we listen to it…”

  Conrad inserted it into a laptop as Albert began rocking on the chair, protesting.

  On the drive was a sound file. Conrad played it.

  I heard my voice, some of Cindy’s, and muttering from Crusaders. The ambience was that of the Mosh-Pit during meetings. And the contents, from the last meeting we had before the Battle.

  I shook my head. “Why not just email the file, Albert? Trying to play spy in this day and age? Ridiculous!”

  I turned to Conrad. “Have you set up a watch for the dead drop?”

  He nodded. “I did, for a few days. I have known about Albert for a while. But I wanted to flush out his handler before I confronted him. Unfortunately, no one came to pick up the drop. But, with all that’s going on, I felt we needed to get this out of the way.”

  “Good work, guys. I might even forget about this place in light of it, Conrad.”

  I looked at Albert, who froze under my gaze.

  “I think it’s time we talk to him and see what he has to say. It’s too bad we don’t have his handler. It means we’re gonna have to go even further to get the truth out of him.”

  I glared at him, staring him in the eyes. “Unless you want to come clean, that is.”

  I pulled on a bit of the ball of socks, pulling it out of his mouth. Spittle and a bit of vomit followed.

  “I’M BEING HELD AGAINST MY WILL!” he suddenly shouted, rocking on the chair. “I’M A PRISONER. HELP ME!”

  I slapped him across the face, silencing him. “You think you were being gagged so no one could hear you? Hah! It was just so Conrad could moisten his socks. No one can hear you down here. And if you don’t play ball, no one will hear you again. Capiche?”

  With Conrad and Jane both looming over me with their arms crossed, I was beginning to feel very much like we were in the Mafia.

  Tears started streaming down Albert’s cheeks. He nodded, pained. I felt a twinge of guilt. Treth was hurting. This wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t what he signed up for.

  Perhaps, of the two of us, I needed to be the ruthless one. For the Crusaders.

  “Let’s start with a simple question: who do you work for?”

  “I don’t know! I mean…the Crusaders. You, Commander!”

  “Lies won’t get you far,” Jane interjected. “Tell the truth or we’re breaking fingers!”

  Even I was shocked by that. Fortunately, Conrad ushered her back, and leant in to speak to Albert more closely. Seems they were playing good cop, bad cop.

  “Forget fingers, Bertie. You don’t tell us who you work for, and you’ll soon become acquainted with a wonderful mer who lives at the bottom of False Bay!”

  Ah, bad cop AND bad cop. A diverse pair.

  I shoved them both back and pulled a chair in front of Albert so I could face him at eye-level.

  “I’m gonna say what I think, Albert. And you’re going to tell me if I’m right.”

  “I really don’t know…”

  “And I don’t believe you. You work for the Council. A guy named Phillip Brown, possibly. Foreign Affairs agent. A real piece of work.”

  Yeah, I still didn’t believe Phillip was on our side, despite his statement to the contrary.

  “You mean that guy who was in the Mosh-Pit the other night? I hadn’t seen him before. Honest! I’ve never worked with any Council ticks.”

  Well, he was speaking the right lingo to me.

  “You were leaving recordings of our meetings for someone. If you had just emailed them or stored them, we probably wouldn’t have found out. Could have said you just wanted them to remind yourself of company policy. Nothing against that. But leaving the recordings in the woods! Data leaked, Albert. A lot of data! Data that got us in trouble with the Council and got Crusaders killed. Your colleagues!”

  “I…I didn’t know.”

  “Likely story,” Conrad growled, stepping forward. Jane held him back, mockingly wrestling with him as if it was to protect Albert from his wrath.

  “Why were you leaving the recordings, Albert? Tell me or I’m letting these two idiots play out their mobster fantasies on you. And, as far as I know, this room doesn’t exist. No one will find you.”

  “I…I…” he looked down, defeated. “I don’t know the guy. I used to be a freelancer. Just for some extra cash, you know? This guy approached me after a job once and told me he wanted recordings from Crusader meetings. I didn’t ask why. I just applied for the job, got it, and have been recording meetings ever since.”

  “Why the dead drop? Why not just email them to him?”

  “I asked the same question. But he said that he had his reasons.”

  Albert bared his teeth, angrily. “I think the fucker wanted me to get caught.”

  “Why?” I asked, incredulous.

  Albert looked like he wanted to shrug, but the mishmash of rope, cable ties and a bicycle lock made that hard.

  “I didn’t mean any harm. Honest! I love the Crusaders. I just needed the money. And, like, it’s not like the meetings were secret or nothin’?”

  “They are,” I replied, coldly.

  “I didn’t know that!”

  “Ignorantia legis neminem excusat,” Jane interjected, glaring. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You should have used some rifts-damn common sense. We are a family, and you let outsiders in on our affairs.”

  “I…I’m sorry!”

  “The question,” I added. “Is still who hired you. What did this man look like? Are you sure it wasn’t Phillip Brown? Someone from the Council?”

  He shook his head.

  “Was a young guy. Sharp features. Had those mage eyes. You know the type? That focus. He always looked like he was looking behind me when we spoke. Black hair. Hmmm, a business suit? I thought he was some MagiCorps guy looking to see what we were up to. But I didn’t really want to find out more. He…he scared me.”

  I froze. Albert was still talking. Conrad and Jane had proceeded to tag team with some more questions.

  “You’re thinking it too, Kat?” Treth whispered, even though no one else could hear him. I heard trepidation in his voice.

  It started to make sense. Why use dead drops that could easily be sabotaged? Unless you wanted your mole to get caught? And, if the Council had hired him, they wouldn’t have confronted me with what they’d discovered. Even they weren’t that stupid.

  You never showed your cards. Unless you wanted to make a statement. To show that you had a winning hand, regardless of what your opponents could do.

  He wanted us to know that he was watching us. That we could be infiltrated. That he could sow chaos. And there was nothing we could do about it.

  He had said our battle was yet to begin, but it seemed that he didn’t consider this the battle. Which terrified me for what he had in store for us…

  Before I could conclude my thoughts, the room shuddered. Shifting. Dust fell from the ceiling, raining down upon us.

  “Please tell me this basement is structurally sound!” Jane pleaded.

  Conrad was suspiciously silent.

  A boom, and another shudder. Albert looked
like he wanted to scream again, but his lips wouldn’t play ball.

  “An earthquake?” I suggested.

  “Unless the Titan is waking up, I doubt it,” Conrad replied. “Hope City doesn’t get earthquakes.”

  Another quake. I stood up, letting Ithalen fall into my hand. Treth also felt something. Something off. My blood started boiling. My breathing calmed. I sensed battle. My coat flared, bathing the dimly lit room in fiery orange.

  I climbed the staircase to be greeted by the muffled sound of screaming and gunfire. I ran towards the door, opening it to the sight of Crusaders sprinting for cover. Dust and ash filled the hallway. Alarms blared. And there was only one word being shouted above the chorus of violence.

  “Ghouls!”

  Chapter 12. Bus

  Albert yelled for help again. He went silent after a harsh, sharp thud. I didn’t wait for Conrad and Jane to follow.

  We were being attacked!

  “Scout ahead, Treth!” I yelled, surging forward. My coat flared in excitement.

  “Commander!” Voices called, seeing me through the ash. I was a beacon.

  Thud, thud, thud. Bullets collided into the wall behind me, just as I fell to my knees, sliding on now wet tiles.

  “Kat!” Treth exclaimed, appearing by my side.

  “What is it?!” I hissed, through gritted teeth. My coat was much less eager to glow and was now more reminiscent of cinders.

  “I can hardly see a blasted thing,” Treth continued. “But they’ve blocked the doors!”

  “Any vampires?”

  “Not that I can see…”

  Bullets whizzed through his ethereal body, not even displacing it.

  I ducked low, leopard-crawling to cover. I found some behind two Crusaders, lying on top of each other as if in embrace when they were gunned down. I was lying in their blood.

  “No vampires,” Treth continued. “But there’re a lot of ghouls. And they’re organised! All armed. Better than we are.”

  I gritted my teeth. We weren’t ready for this! We were still recovering from the miserable nights. The day was meant to bring us some respite!

  “The ash is blocking the windows. But how did they get in without being burnt?” I asked.

  Screams and shouting broke off my train of thought. Without waiting for Treth to reply, I shot upwards, Ithalen at the ready. I swung my shining blade towards the ash and smoke. The smoke smelled like fireworks. Not the acrid stench of fire. Smoke grenades!

  They really were organised.

  I cleared a wall of smoke and came face to face with three ghouls. They had dark grey skin, taut on their wiry frames. Their red eyes glowed, angrily, as they bared their vampiric fangs. They levelled their guns at me. Military-grade rifles. They fired.

  I ducked low, as Treth shot forward, shoving a ghoul off balance.

  Many people confused ghouls and zombies.

  Low to the ground, I swept a ghoul onto the floor, skewering it in the head with Ithalen before rolling to the side. The automatic fire turned the skewered ghoul into mincemeat.

  But ghouls and zombies couldn’t be farther apart.

  Treth teleported in front of me, deflecting a volley of rounds with his shield, disappearing as I lunged forward into the shocked ghoul. It gurgled on my blade.

  Zombies were mindless, slavering beasts. They did not feel pain. They couldn’t plan. They could only feast and ravage.

  The surviving ghoul backed up, ejecting its mag as it tried to reload. With a flourish, I separated its hand from its wrist. I drew my dagger with my free hand and stuck it in its belly. Again, and again.

  Ghouls were smart. They could plan. They could use tools.

  But they could also feel pain.

  I disembowelled the beast and let it fall. It may recover if its sire gave it some blood, but we’d have purged its corpse before that could happen. If we didn’t have the chance, then we’d have worse things to worry about by then.

  Before I could take a breather, a hail of bullets emerged from the smog. I felt a hot pain sear my leg as I dropped to the ground. More gunfire erupted from behind me, including the bang and clicks of Conrad’s pump-action. And I was caught in the middle!

  “How bad is it?” I asked, wincing as I felt wetness spreading on my legs.

  Treth manifested next to me, relief palpable on his face.

  “Just a graze!”

  Still hurt!

  I imagined Cindy’s voice, lecturing me.

  “You’re a healer as well as a fighter, Kat!”

  I focused on the wound and then muttered some words fed to me by Gorgo through the Vessel. The pain stopped. Handy, that. But it didn’t really save me from my predicament. The hail of bullets dancing above my head.

  A grey figure wearing a flak jacket appeared through the haze just in front of me. A storm of pellets from a shotgun was joined by other small arms fire. The bullets clinked against the chest-plate of the ghoul, and it didn’t seem fazed by the projectiles pelting into its unarmoured bits. Even as a chunk of its arm went flying. Ghouls could feel pain, yeah, but they were often too hungry to care.

  The armoured ghoul hefted a massive machine-gun. The type you’d see on top of an armoured car. My eyes widened.

  “Get down!” I boomed through the hall. Gunfire from our lines ceased as the ghoul let out a roar, followed by the deafening rattle of its machine-gun strafing across the hall.

  Not even Brett and Guy had a gun this massive!

  I dropped Ithalen, letting Treth place it back into the void.

  “What are you planning?” he asked, his ghostly forehead creased with enough worry you’d think he was an old man.

  I answered him with action. As the ghoul stepped forward, still firing his weapon, I lunged forward, grabbing a handhold on the machine-gun with one hand and letting my dagger find the ghoul’s neck with the other. My dagger clinked against metal as it shifted its weight. Well, fuck…

  Still firing, the ghoul tried to back away, bringing me into his firing arc. I stayed close, staring into its red, angry eyes and maw of fangs. It looked irritable.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I yelled over the noise, as I ducked low, releasing the machine-gun and ducking through his legs. “Am I interrupting your fun?”

  He turned around, facing his own lines, as I stuck my dagger into his leg, dragging it down and shredding his thigh. He collapsed with a howl, opening fire and letting the recoil send the rounds into the ceiling. I hoped it wasn’t hitting my office! I’d just gotten new carpets.

  “That won’t do at all! Aim properly.”

  I stabbed my dagger into his meaty trigger hand and pulled down. Treth dropped Ithalen into my free hand, and, in a single movement, I propelled it through the ghoul’s neck. It gurgled as I pulled its arm and body over my head, letting it fire above me towards its allies. Smoke rose from the barrel, until the chain of rounds was depleted, and the hall went silent for just a second, as ghouls filled with bullet holes charged through the smoke.

  I dropped Ithalen as it remained stuck in the now dead ghoul’s neck, letting it disappear into the void, then catching it again as Treth dropped it into my hand. I spun, beheading a ghoul with a single blow, but having the blade caught by a ghoul holding its rifle like a club. It grinned, satisfied. I grinned back, letting Treth take Ithalen again, before I caught it on the other side of the gun, letting it become physical as it lopped off this ghoul’s head.

  Conrad and Jane, accompanied by some other Crusaders, appeared through the smog. Conrad shotgun blasted a charging ghoul as Jane dodged to one side, letting the other Crusaders hack at the creature with axes and swords.

  No more ghouls charged from the smoke. But the sounds of battle had not abated.

  “We can’t see farther than we can spit,” Conrad growled, ejecting a used shell and reloading some more.

  “They were probably waiting for Kyong to get arrested,” Jane replied. “He would have made short work of them.”

  It was calculated. All of
this. Kyong could have cleared the smoke and ash, and even opened holes in the roof large enough for the sun to peek through. But, with all the protests, he was bound to snap and get himself in trouble.

  We were playing into their hands…

  I gritted my teeth. But little did they know how powerful my cards were!

  “Bethany, Andre, Jane…secure the reception. If the LMG hasn’t been deployed from under the desk, deploy it and hold the entrance.”

  They saluted and trotted off into the smoke. No gunfire erupted from that direction, yet. Good.

  “What about us, Commander?” Conrad asked, no hint of sarcasm in his voice. Just anger. He felt what I was feeling.

  This was our family. Our home. And they were attacking it. We’d make them all bleed.

  “We’re going into the Mosh-Pit.”

  Conrad didn’t argue, as we navigated the smoky halls towards the sounds of fighting. Bodies lay at our feet, eviscerated. Some had gaping wounds in their necks where ghouls had begun to feed. Some dead ghouls lay nearby. My men had given as good as they got. If I was so inclined, I’d know they deserved Valhalla. But that wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. All I could hope for was that those responsible paid the ultimate price.

  Gunfire and the grunting and shouting of a melee erupted as soon as we reached the doorway to the Mosh-Pit. I saw flashes of fire and heard the clanging of blades and slicing of flesh through the murkiness.

  A dark figure fell through the haze, landing at my feet. A Crusader! I fell to my knees, catching the Crusader and looking them in their eyes.

  “Cl..a..man..der,” he gurgled, growing pale as he clutched his neck. Blood poured liberally from the wound.

  I grew tense, as I tried to summon up the words to save him. I started casting them, letting golden light flow through my fingertips. But it wasn’t enough. He lay still. His body limp.

  I let him fall to the ground. Treth dropped Ithalen into my hand again, I held my dagger in the other. I charged into the fray.

  Dark bodies fought all around me. I spun, coming face to face with a pale-faced Crusader, desperation, and fear on his face. I stabbed towards him, hitting a ghoul that was going for his neck. Relief flooded through his face, just as a bullet caved in his skull.