by Brian Fuller
Dread Uprising
Ash Angels Book 1
BOOK 1 of 3
Brian K. Fuller
[email protected]
If there is no demon within,
the demon without can do us no harm
—African Proverb
Copyright 2019 © by Brian K. Fuller
All Rights Reserved
For my Mom, the reason I believe in angels
Prologue
Cassandra
Cassandra’s pink stiletto heels struck the patchy asphalt, tapping out a nervous rhythm. Just a little too fast. A girl lost in the night. A runaway about to sell herself into prostitution and trying to put on a brave face about it.
A drunk in the dark alley to her right lay slumped next to a dented dumpster. His bleary eyes followed her as she passed, empty liquor bottle slipping from his hands. It skittered in front of her feet, and she kicked it away. Her destination awaited just across the street. It was time. She took a breath and stepped off the curb.
Click clack, click clack, click clack. Twenty feet to go. A thug standing by the club door took a drag on his cigarette, eyeing the blonde bombshell coming his way. Cassandra smiled tentatively at him, though he wasn’t looking at her face. She threw in just the right sway to her hips to keep his attention there.
Her pink mini dress hugged her curves, her cheap makeup caking a pretty but intense face. She had morphed herself from a girl of fifteen to one who could pass for eighteen—strung out, hopeless, and naïve, yet trying to exude a veneer of toughness even the thickheaded brute pegged to her curves could see through.
The tiny comms unit in her ear crackled. “I’ve got you in sight, sweetheart. We’re in position for exfil as soon as the extraction is complete. Last time we had eyes on Stu was an hour ago. He went in the front and has not exited. You’ve got one normal to get by out front, but just keep on that line and talk your way past him. Once you’re in, it should be a cakewalk. Cut Stu’s heart out, and we’ll be gone in thirty seconds.”
Cassandra ignored Goldbow’s unnecessary encouragement as she added a few more red spider veins to her eyes and subtly plumped the puffy bags beneath them as she neared the door. Midnight had long slipped by, and she needed to look tired.
The dark-haired thug’s eyes moved from her chest to her face, and he threw his arm out in front of the door, blocking her.
“Where you goin’, precious? You lost? Need me to show you the way?”
His hungry eyes slid over her body. Perfect.
Cassandra retreated a step but stood her ground, a calculated mix of vulnerability and attitude. She had to seem real, one of a hundred girls told they could get a start with King Stu.
A late spring wind gusted across her bare legs and she goose-bumped the skin, quickening her heartbeat and her breathing, just as a normal girl would do.
After unleashing her best “Whatever!” look, she put her hands on her hips. “I’m looking for a job. Heard there’s an opening here.”
“You heard right, precious.” The man smiled, flicked his cigarette to the pavement, and revealed a row of tobacco-stained teeth to go with his worn, discolored face. “And I’m the assistant manager. I’ll review your application and see if you got what it takes.” He stepped forward, eyes devouring her. Cassandra sighed mentally. She could crush him with one well-placed knee to the groin, but she would restrain herself. It was time to get a little tough, though; she didn’t have enough patience for this idiot.
With more force than her young frame might suggest she possessed, she shoved him away.
“I ain’t here to mess with no tool,” she spat. “I’m here to see Stu.”
Feet fumbling, the thug backed into the glass door to the Mash club—King Stu’s “place of business”—and steadied himself. Eyes flaring, he returned a slap probably intended to break her. Cassandra acted the part, stumbling sideways and welting the skin on the left side of her face to a burning red, adding in tear-stung eyes. The blow was forceful. She wasn’t the only one stronger than she seemed.
He moved his face inches from hers, the spittle carried on his sour breath peppering her cheek. “You show respect, you little whore—”
The restaurant door opened, a little bell jingling. A dapper, pale man with a thin, stringy goatee stepped out and regarded them both like he really was a king and they were both court jesters.
“That’s the target,” Goldbow announced through the com. Captain Obvious. They had all seen the pictures earlier that afternoon. There was no mistaking the Dread Stu. The red aura surrounding him shone like a beacon to every Ash Angel in sight. While normals might not see him for what he really was, anyone could guess his profession: pimp. Sharp clothes. Hard eyes. Crooked, slimy salesman oozing from him like grease on undercooked bacon. He didn’t even bother faking to breathe, not that many of his doped-up, dumbed-down associates in his dim establishment would notice.
“Don’t rough up the girls, Marty,” Stu scolded, proffering a handkerchief to Cassandra. “They pay your rent. Come on inside, girl. What’s your name?”
Girls. Exactly what Stu dabbled in. That ended tonight.
“Britney.” She daubed her eyes and wrinkled her nose; the handkerchief smelled like it smoked two packs a day. Dreads gravitated toward the vice. Why deny yourself the cloudy pleasures of tobacco when stench was the only consequence? She returned the smelly rag, and he pocketed it, waving for her to follow him inside.
Marty glared at her until the door clacked shut behind her.
Stu crossed through the lobby with a self-important strut as she trailed behind.
The weathered brick-and-mortar exterior of the Mash hinted at nothing of the trendy bar’s modern interior aimed squarely at rich hipsters. Polished white tile floors blushed with the colors of neon tubes that snaked around the walls in meaningless squiggles. The obsidian, glassy-black chairs and tables reflected the same hues, though at four in the morning, they were unoccupied. The musk of sweat, cologne, and alcohol hung in the air, the reeking ghosts of that night’s patrons.
This was the hard part. She couldn’t fit a normal gun in her purse or conceal it in her ridiculous, slutty clothes—much less one of the anchor-heavy, high caliber Ash Angel guns that could blast Stu into a broken pile in seconds. She just needed to immobilize the Dread pimp long enough to cut his heart out, ditch the heels, and run back to Goldbow and her team. She needed something blunt, something heavy, and the element of surprise.
King Stu seemed in no hurry, his back to her as she followed meekly behind. She surveyed the area for something she could swing to break his neck. After that, she needed five seconds to plunge her hand inside his chest and do a little coronary extraction.
The chairs? Too unwieldy. The big bottles of liquor behind the counter? Too unreliable—some were as thick as nerd glasses, others thin as paper. She cast about for a custodial bucket. A good old-fashioned wooden mop would do the trick, but no luck.
Then she spied it. Facing the bar on the opposite side of the room was a dance floor in front of a raised stage. A metallic microphone stand with a weighted bottom stood alone on an empty corner of the stage. But how to get to it without raising Stu’s suspicions?
“Cassie, evade and escape!” Goldbow’s warning broke in over her com, sending a jolt through her body. “Five Dreads—repeat, five Dreads—just exited the building across the street and are inbound to your location. They’re armed with bats and chains. One has a firearm. Probably a .44 revolver.”
Five Dreads? All together? She wanted this guy badly, so she kept going, but she wouldn’t escape five Dreads. Whistling to himself, Stu walked like he had all the time in the world. Did he know? Had he actually set a trap for an Ash Angel? Were they all here for her? No one had seen
six Dreads together in one place in sixty years. The operation was blown. How could Dreads have possibly known her Ash Angel team was coming?
“Forget the heart. Drop the Dread and take the rear exit,” Goldbow said.
“That’s a negative on the rear exit,” Arbor said. He was a Gabriel operative like she was. “A car just pulled up in the rear alley with five more Dreads! They’re piling out and going in the back. Wait. Two are headed my way. I’ve got to clear.”
“Do it, Cassie!” Goldbow said, tone hard. “Requesting a Michael Fire Team now.”
Goldbow was a Michael! He needed to grab his gun and get in the game. Her eyes darted around. Their layout of the building said there was an emergency exit behind the stage. The door to the club banged open roughly behind her. A few more seconds and the Dreads would see her.
She checked Stu. He was still striding toward a door to the side of the bar without a care in the world. His tailored coat didn’t quite slide right against his back with his exaggerated gait. He had a gun tucked into the back of his pants. That was her only play. Normal bullets didn’t do much to Ash Angels or Dreads unless you could crack bones and shred enough muscle to biologically immobilize them, but if she could get a direct hit on his spine, it would do.
Cursing her impractical footwear, she lunged forward. In one smooth movement, she reached under Stu’s coat and grabbed the gun with her right hand while yanking the waistband of his pants with her left, pulling roughly to keep him off balance. She quickly unloaded three shots down the center line of his neck and back at close range before he could squirm free, the .44 banging out a horrible echo in the stillness of the deserted club.
The gun felt like a toy compared to Ash Angel guns, but it did its work. Stu collapsed. While Dreads felt no pain, the shattered spine and compromised spinal cord ensured the creep wouldn’t marshal any sort of retaliation. He flopped about on the floor like the broken puppet of a novice puppeteer.
Breaking the stiletto heels off her pumps with two quick stomps on the tiled floor, she dove behind the bar for cover just as the first group of red-auraed Dreads barreled into the room with all the subtlety of a herd of stampeding cows.
“Where are you, Trash Angel?” one of them called.
Back pegged to the bar, she bared the cylinder of the gun. Three shots left. It wouldn’t do. Despite her hours on the range, crippling even one of the Dreads was a remote chance without an Ash Angel weapon. Five Dreads from the front. Three more from the back, unless the two gave up chasing Arbor around outside and were coming for her. Where was Goldbow? He had a Big Blessed Gun in the car and could take out a knee at twenty paces with as much ease as most people could hit a barn.
“Goldbow! I need some help here,” Cassie hissed, readying herself.
No response.
Maybe he was on his way—or fighting for his life. Reaching down, she ripped off the rest of her shoes. She needed to hold off the first five until the rest got there, then she would unleash her divine gift, Glorious Presence, in a single, massive blast and bolt through the room. As yet, the Dreads on the other side of the bar wouldn’t know if she had a Big Blessed Gun or not. As soon as they realized she only had a peashooter, they would swarm her like hungry predators and beat her to a pulp.
After their noisy entrance, their footsteps had slowed, chairs and tables scraping the floor as they pushed in her direction. Closer and closer. Searching. She waited, hoping they would go looking in another direction.
“Come out, come out, little Trash Angel,” one said. They were almost to the bar.
It was time to try her luck. Using the bar as cover, she popped up and took aim at the first Dread, a disheveled Latino in a tank top holding a thick, rusty chain. The shot hit to the right of his forehead, tearing away part of his skull. Even that wouldn’t keep a Dread down. She took a quick bead on the pale face of the Dread next to him, a chunky biker type with a devilish grin. But before she could pull the trigger, the glowing red radiance around him blasted outward like the dawn of an evil sun, and a demonic red haze washed out her vision—Spirit Shock, a dark gift some Dreads possessed. Everyone in the field called it “getting torched.” Everyone who survived it.
The red wave engulfed her.
The eggshell-brown walls of Cassandra’s family’s bathroom materialized inside the stage of her mind with such presence that her enemies and current predicament completely faded.
This scene she knew only too well—an image carved into the hard places of her memory where the patient chisels of time and healing could never seem to chip it away. Guilt, horror, and sadness had rammed their barbed hooks into her emotions before she even faced the object that called them forth.
In a tub brimming with crimson water, pale and peaceful in her self-appointed place of rest, lay her younger sister. The sister who was torn up by the departure of their mother. The sister Cassandra had shunned and ignored. The sister she should have—could have—helped but didn’t. The sister who had taken her own life to escape the unremitting, merciless specter of loneliness and despair her neglectful family had forced her to endure utterly alone.
The pain of the memory crushed Cassandra, an iron boot grinding at her wounded conscience. Within the ghastly vision, some part of her consciousness beat against the bathroom door behind her to tell her this was past, that something worse awaited if she couldn’t throw off the agony of self-reproach and bring herself to focus. Cassandra pried her eyes away from the bloody razor blade on the floor and the pale corpse floating naked beneath the still sheet of water.
The Dreads were on her. She had to escape this mind prison as she had learned to do in her training.
Struggling against the overpowering desire to surrender and wallow in the addictive guilt and sadness, she forced herself to picture her sister in their yard where they used to play as girls, the hair of their plastic dolls gritty from the sandbox. The fluorescent-blue ice pops they had devoured left sticky hands and faces, their golden retriever padding over to lick their fingers and chins, tickling skin tanned by the sun in a clear summer sky. Her sister turned and smiled at her. She spoke the words.
“Wake up, Cassandra. Wake up.”
The chaotic bar scene was coming back into focus just as the Dread’s rusty chain whistled through the air and cracked her right arm. There was no pain, only the realization that the arm would no longer work properly. Her gun clattered onto the dark granite countertop and bounced to the ground.
Cassandra flinched backward, body crashing into the glass shelves. Liquor bottles tumbled and shattered against the tile, shards of glass skittering in the pungent liquid. The Dreads surrounded her with gloating, vulgar faces. She needed help. Now.
“Goldbow,” she said. “Where are you?”
“We’ve been ordered to pull back. Ten more minutes until the Fire Team is on site. Hang in for ten more. Evade and hide. They’re everywhere, Cassie.”
“Who’s Goldbow, sugar?” said a rather vanilla-looking Dread in jeans and a T-shirt as he approached from the left. “Your boyfriend?”
As a matter of fact, he was, but she ignored the Dread. “Goldbow! Get in here,” she begged. “I can’t do this alone.”
The Dreads laughed, and the chain-wielding attacker hopped up onto the bar. “Time to have some fun with the little trash angel.”
She couldn’t wait for the three Dreads to show up from the back. She would blast these and head for the front door. With any luck, Goldbow would already have the car there. Unless he really had pulled back. Would he do that? Would he really abandon her in a Dread-infested building?
Drawing from her Virtus—the store of divine power that was the gift of all Ash Angels—it was her turn to torch them. She called on Glorious Presence, flaring divine radiance outward, doing to the Dreads what the one had done to her. The glow burst forth from her in all directions in a wave of holy fire that would sear the consciences of all Dreads. Every evil creature nearby would know where she was now, but it seemed like they were all here
anyway.
The Dread posed on the bar staggered and fell to the ground with a crunch, two of his companions dropping with him. The remaining two kept their feet, but their horrified, unfocused eyes no longer saw her, only scenes of their own past depravities illuminated in the holy light.
It wouldn’t last long. She jumped the bar and grabbed the thick chain with her good hand, preparing to sprint for the front door.
The little bell jingled as the door violently opened again.
“Is that you coming in, Goldbow?”
“I’m two miles away, Cassandra! I told you they ordered us back!”
Her heart sank. She crouched motionless. He had left, just up and left her, to deal with a veritable army of Dreads. Left her to die.
A horrible emptiness filled her, and the Mash faded around her just as completely as it had under the torching blast of the Dread. Hadn’t she and Goldbow walked hand in hand yesterday like two giddy school kids and talked of long-term plans and love and happiness? And now Operations had told him to bail out and leave her, and he had just gone? Sadness prevailed at first, a sadness as thick and sticky as road tar. But a fiery indignation and fury burned away the paralyzing emotion. She was done. With men. With the Ash Angel Organization. With everything.
She rose as two more gun-toting Dreads rounded the corner. Turning away, she bolted for the door leading to the back as bullets whizzed by and into her, sinking into the flesh of her back and rattling round inside her. One bullet punched through the front of her dress, throwing off her gait for a moment. The door had no knob. Gritting her teeth, she plowed through it and bowled into a group of three Dreads drawn to the gunfire. They had momentum, but she had more.
The first went down hard under her weight, the other two springing back against the wall to avoid the tumble. The chain flew out of her hand and jangled along the floor. Tucking her shoulder and rolling, she sprang back to her feet with trained agility and sprinted through the kitchen, weaving through metal tables and stoves stacked with burnished steel pots while gunfire split the air, bullets banging off the cookware. Goldbow kept demanding status updates in her earpiece, every entreaty infuriating her. If he wanted to know how she was, he could grab a weapon and come find out.