It was pandemonium. The first wave of cultists dashing for the main gate smashed against it, finding it barred, struggling to move the bolts and swing it open with so many crowding in from behind. Cries went out for people to stop surging, to step back and allow space for the doors to be pulled apart, but of course few cooperated. From her position towards the back, Misha saw sentries on the wall either side of the gate frantically waving people back, but any attempts to drag the gate open were stymied by the weight of bodies pressing against it. The sentries would break off from attempting to direct the crowd and sight their rifles on the greys heading towards them, dropping individual Judges with remarkably efficient headshots, but the uniformed ghouls were too many, and the H-wagon still in the air had the advantage; Misha watched with horrible inevitability as the craft came swooping back and vaporised the gunmen on the wall with a few well-placed laser blasts. The people crushed up against the gate wailed and started to trample over each other, an animalistic, hysterical bid to escape taking hold.
She knew they were outgunned and overwhelmed—nobody was going out the main gate any time soon. Misha ducked down a side road and sought relief from the crowd, hoping to find shelter in a quieter area of the town that the greys hadn’t yet swarmed over. Maybe those folk that had run for cover in the houses had had the right idea: look for a bolthole, stay out of sight. It seemed you were dead if you went out in the open; the screams and sounds of massacre behind her were testament to that. She spotted a narrow alley and squeezed herself between its walls, hurriedly edging sideways until she emerged into a deserted courtyard, onto which three different buildings faced. The stillness was almost as disconcerting as the chaos she’d just left behind.
Misha leant against the nearest wall and sunk down onto her haunches, putting her face in her palms. In the darkness behind her eyes, all she could see was Hawkins being shoved off that platform, her body disappearing over the lip of the wall, the look of final fury in her eyes as she realised she was going to have to relinquish her life to the asshole that killed her. The Judge had been through so much since the Fall, so much trauma—permanently scarred by something that happened before they even met, she’d put herself in the way of danger repeatedly; mostly to protect her young ward but also in the determination to find that resistance movement she was so convinced existed. Her bravery—which Misha too often equated with stubbornness—was without question. Funny: before the end of the world, the girl had been no champion of the Judges, had pretty much loathed everything they stood for; yet in the last dying gasps of the planet, she’d counted one as her friend and protector. Her partner in survival.
The teenager didn’t know what she was going to do without Hawkins if she survived the next… what? Hour? Twelve hours? Was it worth it, to keeping fighting for every breath when you had no idea where that life you were so desperately trying to save was going to go? She suspected Hawkins would say yes: snatch every moment till the last drop. But then the older woman had been a natural fighter, a pragmatic soul undaunted by what the world threw at her. Misha thought of herself as one that sheltered under the strength of others—first Kez in their hideout in the farmhouse cellar, and then Hawkins, when she was lost and alone. She needed that assurance, she realised, that dominant figure that she could rely on. Like an older sibling, or a proxy for one; someone to fill the absence where one once was. Like her sister. Like…
…Rachel.
—Yessss—
Misha dropped her hands away from her face in an instant. The voice had sounded as clear as a bell in her head, yet hadn’t originated from anywhere nearby. She looked around, her eyes roving the courtyard, but she could see nothing out of the ordinary; she was alone, as far as she could tell. She eased herself back up to full height, still cautiously checking her surroundings.
—Missshaaa—
She gasped, putting a hand to her temple. Those creatures that for a time had sought to invade her mind, that had been pushing at the tendrils of her consciousness in a bid to locate her… they’d found her. They knew she was there. Their background presence had faded away somewhat, as she and Hawkins had journeyed from the capital—and, by extension, the Hall of Injustice, which is where she believed they were based. She’d presumed they’d lost contact. This far north, they’d disappeared entirely. Yet unmistakeably that was them: the Sisters. As if the thought of Rachel had opened a door, or a channel, and they’d slipped through it.
—We’ve been looking for you, Missshaa—
She grunted in pain. Their voices sounded huge in her skull; there was no way of resisting them now. Her head throbbed with the echo of them, pulsed with the reverberation of every sibilant word. She stumbled forward, vision blurry like the onset of a migraine; it felt as if her mind wasn’t big enough to contain these entities that had seeped inside, that they were curling around her brainpan, filling every nook and cranny with their malign presence, and it ached from the pressure. To make matters worse, it sounded as if there were two voices speaking simultaneously, one weaving in and out of the other.
“Get out!” she screamed, aware even as she did so that the order was futile. They had their hooks in and were immovable; she felt powerless to shift them. “Get out!”
—We’re going nowhere, Missshaa… We’ve been looking for you for too long—
“No…”
—But we found you, thanksss to Rachel… Ssshe’sss been reaching out, trying to help usss connect—
“Rachel…?”
—Sssshe joined our causssse, wasss vital in the war againssst lawlessssnessss… A Pssssi-Judge, capable of rooting out the guilty… But sssshe rebelled, reasssserted her humanity… BETRAYED USSSSS—
Misha winced at the sudden screech, and felt wetness on her top lip. She touched it, and her fingers came away tipped with crimson—her nose was bleeding. She ran the back of her hand against it defiantly.
“So she fought back against you evil fucks. Good on her.”
—Her genetic make-up overcame the Dead Fluidsss… the ssssemblance of the woman that once wasss emerged... We had never ssseen that before… The Fluidsss ssshould have wiped everything of who sssshe wassss, but her mind cracked thankssss to an exsssperiment we conducted on her, and her identity floated to the top… releasssed from itsss mooring—
The Sisters’ voices seemed to be competing for dominance now, like two children eager to tell the same story and speaking over each other in their hurry to relate it.
—But through our invessstigationsss into how Rachel came to be… Our very thorough invessstigationssss… We learned of the exissstence of you, dear Misssshaa… The long-lossst ssssibling, who ssstill held a psychic tether to her ssssisster… We need to know more about you, too, Missshaa… We need to know if you are asss unique assss Rachel… We need to pick your brainssss, dear heart… There issss ssso much we can learn from each other—
The voices in her skull dissolved into cackling laughter. Misha shook her head, trying to dispel the noise before it split apart entirely.
—Come to ussss, Missshaa… It would ssssave ssssso much time if you ssssubmitted willingly—
“Fuck you,” the girl snarled. “I’d rather die.”
—We do not have to have you in one piece… Your sssstudy can be achieved posssst-mortem, if necessssary—
“Then you’ll have to try to come get me. Or are you creatures only good for skulking in the Grand Hall, issuing threats?”
—Oh, you misssunderssstand, my dear… We’re already here… We would not rissssk the chance of lossssing you again… We have travelled here in persssson… Indeed, thissss whole assssault on thissss nessst of criminalssss wassss purely for your benefit… You let ussss into your head and allowed usss to find you… And thissss conversssation—
Misha heard a commotion heading in her direction.
—hassss ssssimply been a method by which to pinpoint your location—
“Oh, shit.” The words escaped her lips as she saw a wormy grey Judge emerge from the s
ame alleyway that she herself had squeezed down moments ago and fix its putrescent gaze upon her. Its Lawgiver was already drawn and it took aim just as Misha started moving—she took three long strides, then launched herself through the ground-floor window of one of the buildings that edged the courtyard. The glass shattered and the frame splintered as she bowled through it shoulder-first, her back and left forearm lacerated with several long cuts, and she hit the bare tiled floor of the room she’d dived into with a bone-jarring thud, knocking the wind from her. Agility wasn’t her strong point, she thought, as she scrambled to her feet, keeping her head down as gunfire raked the outside of the building and tore through the wrecked window. She hurried over to the nearest interior door and tugged it open, throwing herself into the hallway beyond. It was one of the cultist’s houses, she figured, eyeing the muted décor and knick-knacks adorning the shelves, and it appeared to be deserted.
A set of stairs led to a first floor, and ahead of her at the far end of the hall was what looked like the door to the front of the property. She balanced her options even as she heard a high-explosive round blow out the wall from the room she’d just left: go up, or take her chances on the street. She’d seen the kind of odds that were available to her out in the open so decided to dash for the stairs. She took them two at a time until she reached the landing, pausing to look over the bannister at the sounds of destruction below; the grey emerged into the hallway, rotten head turning this way and that as it tried to determine which direction his quarry had gone. A distant echo of dry laughter trailed in her mind, and she realised that while the Sisters had their claws in her, they could direct their soldiers to where she was; sure enough, the grey’s face turned towards the stairs and began to climb, gun still held out in front of it. Misha frantically gauged her surroundings and headed for the nearest bedroom, its furnishings as typically Spartan as the ward she and Hawkins had awoken in, and grabbed a wooden chair, lifting it above her head and backing up against the wall.
For long seconds she listened to the trudge of the thing ascending and redoubled her sweaty grip on the chair’s legs, waiting for it to take one step into the room before she struck. There was a moment’s pause, during which she held her breath, then bullets punched through the plaster, the first missing her head by millimetres, the second tearing through her shoulder, and the third blowing out her right elbow; she screamed and the chair clattered to the floor as Misha slumped to her knees, blood pooling around her. Again that cackle sounded in her head, and she admonished herself for her stupidity—she couldn’t have ambushed the grey while the Sisters were in residence; they’d told it exactly where to find her.
It came through the doorway and stood over her, smoking Lawgiver barrel trained on her as she sobbed and tried to readjust her position, her wounds afire. She met its gaze, trembling with pain and shock.
“I thought… your mistresses w-wanted me alive,” Misha said between gulps of air.
“They can work with what they have,” the Judge replied in raspy voice. “Life and death are sssomewhat fluid thessse daysss.”
She sighed. “Sh-shoot me, then. Let’s get this over with.”
The grey shuffled forward and sighted its weapon between her eyes, its finger on the trigger, just as Misha kicked sharply out with her feet and sent the upturned chair lying between them into its shins, which gave a brittle crack. As it stumbled on fractured bones, she swept her leg under its feet, toppling it completely. The Lawgiver went flying, clattering into a corner. The grey lay on its back, momentarily bewildered, and the girl grabbed the back of the chair with her left hand and with a cry of fury slammed it down on the Judge’s head, a leg penetrating the creature’s eye and impaling it to the floorboard in a fountain of brown ichor. It twitched, then was still.
She groaned and pulled herself to her knees, weak with blood loss. Her right arm was useless, dangling at her side, and a growing numbness was spreading from just below her neck. Her head felt heavy, her thoughts sluggish. She knew if she blacked out, she’d likely not wake up again.
—You ssssee what happenssss when you resssisst usss, Misssshaa—
“Fucking leave me alone,” she sobbed, snot and tears thickening her voice.
—There issss nowhere you can go… Our forcessss ssswarm over your world… It issss dying, and there’ssss nothing you can do to ssstop that—
“Why? W-why are you doing this? Killing everyone?”
—It issss the law—
She didn’t have the strength to argue, concentrating instead on pushing back against the deadness seeping into her limbs; she had to get up, get moving, or else she’d succumb to the exhaustion. She put one foot under her and pushed, forcing herself upright, left hand on the wall to keep her steady. She reached down and picked up the Lawgiver, slotting into her waistband, then she walked forward, out onto the landing and back down the stairs, each step measured carefully, pain and lethargy threatening to overbalance her at any moment.
“You… you said you’re here,” she said. “In person. Where?”
—You wisssh to deliver yoursssself to usssss at lassst?—
“Where?”
—On one of the H-wagonssss—
“I’ll come to you”—she hissed as sharp agony lanced through her—“if I can get there… unhindered.” Misha reached the hallway and limped to the front door, pulling it open. On the other side, multiple grey squads were combing the streets, moving through thoroughfares littered with bodies. They all turned to look at her as she emerged. “Let me pass.”
—Very well… You will not be touched—
The girl swallowed hard and stepped out into the aftermath of a massacre, the butchers responsible silently regarding her as she hesitantly walked among them. Doing her best to keep her head high, breathing deeply, Misha staggered a haphazard path towards her rendezvous with the Sisters.
CHAPTER THIRTY
SURROUNDED BY SO much death, Misha had never wanted to live more. As she stumbled through the streets of Libitina, back towards where the H-wagons were stationed, she knew that the last of her was bleeding out, that these final few moments were all she had left. Her wounds were too severe from which to recover, and she was under no illusions as to what the Sisters would do to her once she was within their reach, but rather than resignation, she felt a raging grief that this was the end. Tears pricked her eyes at the injustice, at all that was being taken from her, of what she wanted to cling to now slipping from her grasp.
“I don’t want to go,” she realised she was intoning under her breath, every syllable punctuated by a hitch in her throat, a stagger, a fresh stab of pain. “I don’t want to go.”
But each faltering footstep followed the last as she circumvented the summary executions taking place all around her. Some of the townsfolk she passed lived up to their religion, quoting scripture from mouths set in beaming smiles, embracing the bullet to the head that would start them on the path to transformation and spiritual ascension. If this bemused the greys conducting the massacre, more accustomed to scared victims begging for mercy, they showed no sign, and went ahead with their task with dispassionate efficiency; it mattered not to them that the dead went willingly, only that they obeyed their masters’ orders. The majority of the cultists stood shivering and crying, the comfort of their faith colliding with the cold hard reality of the apocalypse, as they waited for the undead creatures to enact judgement. Misha couldn’t look them in the eye, her own fear too strong for her to contemplate herself, much less see it reflected in the faces of others.
“I don’t want to go… I don’t want to go…”
She was walking through rivulets of blood, tripping on limbs tangled on the path. Gunshots barked either side of her, and crimson sprays arced up the walls. All life was being ruthlessly purged, and she felt at that moment she was the sole keeper of something precious that others were trying to wrest away from her; even as she hugged it tighter to her breast, so they sought all the harder to steal it. With her energy dwindling,
she could resist no longer.
Misha approached the H-wagons, and there, standing at the foot of the boarding ramp of the central ship, was a skeletal figure, its bony fingers around Arnold’s throat, lifting him off his feet entirely. It was gazing at the cult leader’s expression, helmeted head cocked to one side as if curiously examining a specimen it had discovered, and only when it became aware of the girl’s presence did it turn its eyes in her direction. She felt herself gasping involuntarily, an instinctive reaction in the face of the figure’s rictus grin, desiccated skin and dark, impenetrable visor. She didn’t need to glance at the badge on its chest to know who this was.
It held her under its stare for several long moments, then looked back at Arnold, quietly choking in its grip. “Extinction isss not ssssomething to be taken lightly,” it said finally, once again studying its victim. Its voice was the sibilant whisper of dread; every terrifying moment of despair, every threat of violence, was imbued in the words that crept from its mouth. “I do not passss judgement purely for the thrill of it. It isss done for the good of the sssspeciesss. Only by exterminating all life can we eradicate criminality. Sssuch a Herculean tasssk has fallen to me to undertake, and I accepted it with due ssserioussssnesss.” It turned its attention back to her. “You underssstand that, don’t you, Missshaa?”
“I… I don’t know why so many innocents have to die,” she replied, her tongue dry.
The figure gave the approximation of a laugh, sounding unhinged. “But there are no innocentsss. You are all guilty. That isss why we must be even-handed and sssyssstematic in our approach, why it mussst be conducted with absssolute dedication and adherence to the law. Thisss missscreant, though”—it shook Arnold, who emitted a gurgle—“sssought to pervert the processs of natural jussstice with his messsssianic nonsense, belittling it, turning it into a ssssidessshow. An amateur”—it spat the word out—“sssselling the end of the world assss a lifessstyle choice. I have no time for sssuch chancssserssss.”
The Fall of Deadworld Omnibus Page 30
