The Weapon Bearer's Son

by Steven F. Warnock

  The body of Xhw’t surged. Human made things were in the way. Xhw’t was not bothered, much less hindered. Such was the power of Xhw’t!

  “FOLLOW ME,” ALPHA COMMANDED, throwing her original game plan to the wind. With the Terrible Twins flanking her, Alpha strode from the office, signaling her cousins to fall in with her. “Clan Mac Balor, we’ve got one more Welsh Child of Lugh to slay!”

  She stopped long enough to consult a map of the Mini Storage’s layout. Unit 27 was near the middle of Aisle B. Alpha clicked on her radio. “Daishi!”

  “Hai, Alpha-sama!”

  “Aisle B. Secure the back end.”

  “As you command, Alpha-sama!”

  “Garcia, have three of your men cover Aisle A and another three cover Aisle C,” Alpha ordered. “The rest of your coven will lead the way into Aisle B.”

  The Mini Storage lot wasn’t overly large. Storage locker units lined the sides and back of the lot. Three rows of back-to-back units ran down the middle forming four aisles. Aisle B was left of center as Alpha was facing it.

  Unlike the ill-fated raid on the lawyer’s beach house, Alpha made sure she was better prepared this time. The two covens of Soldiers and their Cutter commanders were still outfitted with the Type IIA armored body suits that were standard issue within the Frateco, but they’d been allowed to add on a Type II vest over that, effectively turning their torso armor into Type IIIA or Type III armor depending on what they got shot with. The standard issue firearm among the Soldier covens was still a 9mm SIG MPX submachine gun. Alpha had insured, however, that every soldier had armor piercing rounds for their weapons. Such munitions were highly illegal in the United States, but the Frateco had their own factories to provide them with whatever kinds of bullets they needed.

  Alpha and her cousins were likewise equipped with the bodysuits, but instead of Type II vests, wore Type III vests capable of stopping most military rifle rounds. Instead of her usual Ruger SR22, Alpha had upgraded to Ruger Security-9, the 3816 model with the laser integrated into the trigger guard. Her cousins were likewise armed with a variety of 9mm handguns, except for the Terrible Twins who each carried a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum in his non-whammer hand. None of them were bothering with longer guns. They were depending on their speed, strength, or magical powers instead.

  “That’s far enough, Alpha!”

  MacDuff’s voice came from the only open locker on Aisle B, Unit 27. Some kind of barricade made of plastic storage bins was clearly visible just a foot or so inside the locker.

  “Garcia!” Alpha snapped. “Go!”

  The other Cutter nodded. The six Soldiers selected to cover the flanks had already deployed to either side, which left Garcia with seven Soldiers. She had four of them form a tactical stack on one side of the alley, and she and the other three formed a stack on the other side where Unit 27 was located. Garcia was grateful to see that Daishi was mirroring her maneuver with eight of his men. Daishi himself was hanging back with the remaining five Soldiers as a reserve. The big ogre had drawn his no-dachi, though, in preparation for a sudden charge.

  The four stacks of Frateco enforcers moved into the alley. All of them had their weapons trained on the open doorway and its mysterious improvised barrier. They should have been paying attention to the command detonated Claymore mines placed above them just under the roof lines of the blocks of lockers. Four mines went off simultaneously, each facing a different stack. Twenty-eight hundred steel balls hit the sixteen Fae humans in the alley. None of them survived. Ricochets bounced out of the alley on either end.

  “Charge!” Alpha screamed, putting action to her command.

  At that moment the earth in front of her tore apart and a... thing emerged.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Thursday, July 4, 2019

  MACK AND KC WERE ON the roof of Unit 27. Liam and Pilar occupied the opposite roof. Hiding on the roof had been and still was uncomfortable, but it had been a strategic necessity. The barricade inside the locker, useful though it could have been, was merely window dressing on a distraction. During the day, Mack had rigged an intercom speaker that tied him to the office and a high-quality speaker inside the locker so that he could throw his voice where needed to bait the trap.

  Hasturaddon’s timing was a bit off, though. Mack would have preferred getting the demon in the Claymore crossfire, but it couldn’t be avoided at the time. That was why he’d only set off a third of the Claymores. Ronnie had been kind enough to supply them with four more Program-issue Claymores. The other eight were the old-fashioned kind with steel balls, but that was alright since steel was toxic to Fae blooded humans most of the time.

  The demon popped up out of the earth right where Mack had predicted. He was suitably impressed with the accuracy of his instincts on that matter. Hasturaddon looked nothing like what any of them had suspected, and yet it was exactly what they had all expected. In simplest terms the demon’s natural physical form looked like a cross between a centaur, an armadillo, a squid, and a crab the size of an elephant.

  The lower body was heavily armored in thick skin and bony plates. Six crab-like legs with multiple joints sprang from the body, lifting it into the air almost level with the rooftops of the storage lockers. Rising up from the lower body was an almost humanoid torso clad in the same thick skin and bony plates as the lower body. The head atop the torso resembled an armadillo the most and would have come across as oddly “cute” had it not been for the glowing red eyes and the lamprey-like tooth-filled maw that opened to roar as soon as the demon burst forth from the earth. Six tentacles extended out of either side of the upper torso, twelve in all. Two ended in spade-shaped paddles. The other ten all ended in four grasping claws.

  Without hesitation, the demon’s grasping claws began lashing out to gather up the torn and bloody pieces of the Soldiers killed seconds before. Meat and bone alike were shoveled into the meat grinder maw. At the same time thick, viscous green fluid was blasting out of the demon’s anal sphincter. The fratoy on the near end shied back from the demon’s spewing scat.

  The Cutters facing the demon raised their collection of handguns and opened fire. A bald female Cutter lifted a wooden stick, spoke a harsh syllable, and a beam of intense light blasted like a laser from the end of the stick. The beam must have hurt Hasturaddon because the demon stopped feeding on the dead long enough to lash out with one of its paddle tentacles. The tentacle snapped like a whip, extending improbably long to reach the bald woman. The paddle must have been solid bone and incredibly heavy because it smashed the Cutter into pulp.

  The big ogre with the giant samurai sword had gotten his Soldiers under control, bolstering their numbers with the men who’d been assigned to the flanks. The demon was the main threat now. The ogre charged into the lead. Hasturaddon had finished defecating, leaving a puddle of green on the ground behind him. The ogre leaped high into the air, over the puddle, landing on the demon’s back, driving his sword down into the monster’s spine.

  Then, the world exploded again as Mack set off the rest of the Claymores in the alley. The four rearmost mines sent another twenty-eight hundred steel balls into a mere handful of Fae men and women, turning them into just so much meat. The other four mines were Program-issue, loaded with Kryptonite Omega balls instead of steel. For the samurai ogre, that didn’t matter. He was shredded either way. Hasturaddon, on the other hand, felt intense pain. The KO effectively metamorphosed into gold upon contact with his demonic flesh. Gold was as much a toxic anathema to a demon as silver was to a werewolf or brimstone was to a Celestial.

  “Now,” Mack commanded.

  Pilar had returned her borrowed weapons to Mack and KC after Silver Dollar City, and used her share of the bounty money to equip herself. Though physically powerful, she was still a petite woman with small hands, and she’d not been comfortable with automatics. In fact, she’d proven to be a very natural revolver shooter, so her first purchase was a Ruger GP100 of her very own,
and unlike Mack’s old GP100, the newest models have seven round cylinders. A pair of these revolvers were holstered on her hips.

  Her other major weapon purchase had been heavily influenced by Liam. He’d allowed her to use his M+M M-10X once, and she’d bought her own soon after. The two of them were lucky that 7.62x39mm was a round offered in KO to Program approved contractors. The round was actually more expensive than the larger 7.62x51mm or 5.56mm NATO rounds that were standard issue for the Program.

  Across the way Mack racked the charging handle on the Hammer and nodded to KC who was doing the same with her HK416. Both weapons were automatic, and neither one of them shied away from long bursts. Liam and Pilar had semi-automatics, and while Mack and KC were engaging in suppressive fire, their job was to engage in directed fire against the Cutters, especially Liam.

  DISTRACTED AS THEY were by the demon and all the various explosions, Alpha and her cousins didn’t notice that they were being picked off from above until it was too late. Hasturaddon, prior to Daishi landing on his back, had engaged the Terrible Twins after smashing Linea into pudding. Jake had grabbed one paddle tentacle, and Drake had grabbed the other. The two of them had smashed their whammers into the paddles repeatedly and were quite successful in shattering the bony deposit within the paddle. They hadn’t counted on claw tentacles slashing out and stabbing them repeatedly.

  The Claymore blasts had staggered the demon. Alpha had dropped her pistol in favor of a stiletto in either hand. She fully intended to stab the demon in its red glowing eyes. Then, it staggered to one side, slamming against the damage storage units, and Alpha saw the commando guy, MacDuff, and a woman on the roof with machine guns blasting away at the demon. How odd that a common enemy would draw them together. Then, Drake’s dead body slammed into Alpha sending her flying through the air until she slammed into the back wall of the office. She sprawled on the ground.

  As she watched Tish and Luther fell away from the battle, mists of blood bursting from their heads. Then, Mel and Thad likewise fell. This was not at all turning out the way she had planned it.

  WITH ALL THE CUTTERS and Soldiers down, that left the demon. Liam and Pilar added their fire to Mack and KC’s. They frequently changed magazines, continuing to fire into the demon’s body long after it had stopped moving.

  “Cease fire!” Mack called out.

  “I’m out!” Liam shouted back.

  “Me, too!” Pilar added.

  KC set her HK416 down and picked up their FN SLP semi auto shotgun. “I’ll cover you.”

  Mack knew that the weapon had a mixed load of KO buckshot and some of the leftover 12-gauge grenades they’d scavenged from dead Trogs back in Silver Dollar city. He nodded to his wife and dropped off the roof. Mack could have easily handled the drop on his own, but anticipating a shocking amount of slippery gore he’d readied a rope to control his fall and let him keep his feet. Once on the ground Mack drew the Sword of Light from the sheath on his back. The blade glowed to life.

  He wasn’t sure of what the prescribed manner of insuring that a demon was truly dead was, but he figured the tried and true should work. He chopped what remained of the demon’s head off its neck. Then, he sliced open the upper torso and pulled out several internal organs, not entirely sure which one was the heart. Due to his lack of anatomical knowledge, Mack also cut open the lower torso.

  “Dammit. We made such a mess, I don’t know what’s the heart and what isn’t,” Mack griped.

  “You’ve decapitated it and drawn its insides outside. I’d say you’ve made sure it’s dead enough,” Liam called down.

  “Get down here and use your Sassy Gundam senses to figure out which is what,” Mack grumped.

  “On my way.”

  Mack turned and stalked over to where Alpha lay sprawled.

  “You still alive?”

  Alpha glared at him.

  Mack glared back at her. Then, he realized that her head was at a strange angle. “Broke your neck, did you?”

  “Yes,” Alpha hissed. “You should kill me now.”

  “You’re right. I should,” Mack agreed. “Can you heal back from a broken neck?”

  “No,” Alpha lied.

  Mack placed the blade of the Sword of Light on Alpha’s shoulder, the edge barely touching her neck.

  “Wanna try that again?”

  “Yes,” Alpha hissed. “I will heal completely given time and proper medical care.” Her eyes bulged. “How did you do that?”

  “The Sword of Light is also known as Fragarach, the Answerer. No living creature can tell anything but the unvarnished truth while questioned with the blade’s edge touching their throat. Do you know who I am?”

  “MacDuff, the last Welsh Llewellyn.”

  “Who was my mother? The one your brother killed.”

  “She was the Llewellyn known as the Weapon Bearer, prophesied to kill my father, Avidan Mac Balor.”

  “You believe that’s true, but it isn’t. Think about what her husband was. Your brother knew. He knew enough to have silver bullets in his gun. What was my father?”

  “W-werewolf.”

  “And werewolves are...?”

  Alpha’s eyes widened in understanding.

  “Say it, Althea.”

  “Weapons. Living Weapons.”

  “I am like my father, Althea. I am the Weapon my mother bore.”

  Alpha understood the true meaning of her father’s death prophecy now. The Weapon Bearer wasn’t the threat. The Weapon Bearer’s son was. The Living Weapon. For an instant Althea Baylor wanted to beg for her life, for the chance to warn her father that he wasn’t safe, that the prophecy was yet to be fulfilled. The impulse to protect her father was the last spark of life in her brain as her head tumbled to the pavement.

  “What now?” KC asked from behind her husband.

  “Now? I think we should make the Cassandra call. I honestly don’t think, even in this neighborhood, that automatic weapons fire will be mistaken for Fourth of July firecrackers, and there’s that mess to deal with.” Mack pointed to where Liam and Pilar were poking at the black and blue organs strewn on the pavement around the elephant-sized dead demon.

  “Not what I mean,” KC growled.

  “You mean, what about the fact that I’m prophesied to kill this bitch’s big daddy?”

  KC nodded.

  Mack took a deep breath, almost instantly regretting it as the scents hit his nose. He coughed for a minute, much to KC’s amusement. “Oh, god! I thought its shit smelled bad!”

  “Avidan,” KC insisted.

  “I’m not gonna go looking for that kind of trouble. The time will come when that trouble comes looking for me. Then, I’ll deal with it.” He waved a hand at the carnage. “I mean, he’s bound to notice this.”

  “That’s what has me worried.”

  “This is the work of Program agents,” Mack said. “At least, that’s how we’re gonna ask Ronnie to spin it. I mean, this was a Program contract, after all, and the Program often refers to mercenaries like us as ‘agents’.”

  “In the meantime, we need to prepare,” KC said. “You need to really learn how to use that oversized Bowie knife, and we need to up our supply of weapons, munitions, and explosives. And we really need to get Athena trained up, too.”

  “Billy, too, for that matter. He’s the same age I was when Silas first started teaching me, and didn’t Mama Karol start your training at five?”

  “Speaking of my parents, we need to make a trip to KC to introduce them to Billy and Athena.”

  “Yay. I can’t wait,” Mack said in a monotone as he pulled a phone from his pocket.

  “I’ll explain Athena to them,” KC promised.

  “Ronnie! Hope I didn’t wake you. Your demon is dead. Along with a platoon’s worth of Frateco Soldiers and Cutters. I mean, this is a damn mess.” He listened for a moment. “Roger that, but Hasturaddon’s remains are huge. I mean, like, woolly mammoth huge. You’re gonna need a dump truck or a garbage truck to haul it off.”
He listened for a moment longer. “Okay. No, thank you for the payday!” He disconnected. “She wants us to clean up any evidence that we were here, but we’ve gotta wait for the Cassandra officer to show up and take command of the scene.”

  “Let’s get busy, then,” KC said. “I want to go spend some quality time with our son before we head home to the Double M.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, and we might want to consider a more permanent situation there or somewhere more centrally located now that we’re building a family,” Mack said.

  “Now, are you thinking, maybe, I don’t know, somewhere in central Colorado, like, say, I don’t know, Silver Dollar City?”

  “We already know we fit in there.”

  “Let’s talk about it later.”

  “Roger that.”

  Don't miss out!

  Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever Steven F. Warnock publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.

  https://books2read.com/r/B-A-HGPH-LJEJB

  Connecting independent readers to independent writers.

  Did you love The Weapon Bearer's Son? Then you should read The Magog Gambit by Steven F. Warnock!

  Jordana Quinlan's life as a typical American college coed is turned upside down when she meets the mysterious and attractive Professor Gideon Shaw. When members of a shadowy death cult attempt to kidnap her, Jordana is drawn into a world of monsters, ancient magic, and epic destiny. In the world of Southern Magic the monsters are real.