Really? That seemed anticlimactic. “Does it work?”
Everything went... strange. The colors seemed to drain from the area and melt together, and the lines of what was left started to blur like a view through a windshield during heavy rain. I looked around, observing the wavy lines of the truck— or was that one of the trees? The angle was wrong; it had to be the truck. I took a step forward, two, and almost tripped over a rock that was ten feet away from where it should have been.
My head throbbed and pounded, and I massaged it with hands that were like wispy mittens of flesh-colored substance. “Okay, you can stop now.”
“Please,” Dottie added. “Rather like to keep lunch down if I could.”
Reality snapped back into focus. “Not what she was expecting, but useful.” I nodded. “If he went for a vision and got a face full of that, then hopefully he’s nursing a four-alarm headache by now.”
“I’m trained in fighting blind and he can’t be killed.” Bryson jerked his thumb toward Unstoppable. “Henri, are you affected by the field?”
“Non.”
“Good. The three of us together then. We’ll take the truck, Henri drives it, and when trouble starts he’ll fire up that power. Doctor, is there room in your new toy for yourself and Dorothy?”
“Yes, but it’ll be a tight fit.”
“Good. You go ahead of us, scout as you can. We’ll drive after. There’s a village two miles from the border, down the main road. We’ll aim to refuel there, if the ambush hasn’t come by then.”
The ambush didn’t come. I took the opportunity to put the MAUSER through its paces. The engine literally purred behind us as we went, and though the stink of diesel was close in the cramped confines of the cockpit, the clever arrangement of viewing slits and vents was enough to keep the air moving.
The speed of our journey aided the circulation. Kitty could move. And thanks to extra-strong shock absorbers and a clever arrangement of motivator springs, we barely felt the journey.
But our joy was muted by the knowledge that trouble was on its way, even if we couldn’t see it. I focused on piloting while Dottie acted as my spotter, but the woods to either side of us loomed quiet and empty. And then once we'd crept out of the trees, the fields to either side of us sat empty, both of game and of people.
Once through the fields, the village outskirts around us seemed empty, without a single soul in sight. Doors and windows groaned open, creaking eerily in the wind. I slowed, brought us to an idling stop.
“This bodes,” I muttered. Somewhere in the silence a door creaked open, slammed. Creaked open again, slammed again as the wind picked up. Around the hilltop village, the trees rustled in the late-summer breeze.
“What?” Dottie called from behind me, her voice barely audible. We were crammed in next to each other, lying down, her left side on my right. She’d adjusted so that she could look out of the rear viewing ports, keep an eye behind us as we went.
“Nothing important!” I hoped.
I couldn’t see anything besides an apparently-abandoned town. I checked the nearby viewing ports to make sure, as I peered around the town square. Church, meeting hall, a few little shops, an honest-to-god blacksmith’s forge— fire still lit, there. Makes sense, a place like this would still use horses. Harder to get gas out in the boonies, with the roads as bad as they were.
So with that in mind, there ought to be a corral or a stable around here somewhere. The edge of town made the most sense, you wouldn’t want them crapping in the streets where people walked all the time. If there were still horses there, then it would confirm calamity. If they were gone, it would mean that the people had evacuated.
“Going to circle out, look for a stable!” I yelled back.
She took my hand, gave it a pat. Simpler than trying to yell ‘okay’, I supposed.
After a minute’s patrol west we found the stables.
And what was left of the horses. After the hellish fight last night, the smell of blood was as familiar to me as the smell of my own sweat, and the stables absolutely reeked. Peering into the darkened interior of the old barn as the twilight’s last rays seeped through it, I could make out collapsed forms on the floor. Puddles of blood, slick and crimson, spooled out through the doors, and flies buzzed and feasted on every bit of gore they could reach.
I squinted, scooted myself forward until my eyes were up against the lower-front viewing slit. Bloody tracks on the ground, leading away. I had little experience as a tracker, but they didn’t look right. Too long to be human.
I pulled back, checked around. Still nothing. No one visible in the field outside, no one in the houses along this path leading up to the stables, no one visible on the road as it curved down the hill, the grade steep enough that I knew the truck would have to take it slowly or risk tipping. .
The truck!
I’d momentarily forgotten that the whole purpose of this was scouting so that the truck had some forewarning when we hit trouble. They weren’t that far back. And the blood was still fairly fresh, so whatever had done this was likely still in the area.
“Brace yourself!” I called back to Dottie. “Going to head back, fast!”
Another pat on the hand, and then she was hanging on for dear life as I shifted the MAUSER’s gears, and threw open the throttle.
I had restrained myself on the trip up, but now speed mattered. We loped down the road, took the corner at a high speed, gyros correcting the legs automatically, gears forged of Solingen steel clicking and whirring into place, grinding as we drifted across the graveled dirt. Dottie squeaked behind me as we missed a tree by a few feet, and I chuckled as I put the pedal to the metal. This was fun!
Then we were at the town wall, and rather than take the time to go around to the gate, I decided ‘screw it’ and pulled the lever marked SPRINGEN.
Barely slowing, the body angled up, the back legs curled mid-stride, and with a pregnant pause pistons fired as the MAUSER leaped into the air! Dottie’s shriek had me giggling as we soared up in one long bound, clearing the wall by eight feet, and—
—heading straight for a large tree.
Whoops!
If I’d been less of a pilot, we would have crashed, fallen to the ground with a damaged machine and possibly a damaged us. But I am Dire, and there is nothing wrong with my reactions. With cool ease I recognized the problem with half-a-second to spare, recalled the configuration of controls that I’d need to utilize, and sent my limbs into a flurry of motion. Mid-leap the MAUSER twisted, the claws came out, and instead of ramming the tree head on and falling into a twisted metallic mess, I caught the main trunk. Three of the paws, claws sunk in, and I guided the MAUSER into a twisting leap to the ground, bark tearing as it went and splinters flying everywhere.
Somewhere in the middle of that I noticed that Dottie was screaming, but I was laughing so hard I could barely hear it.
Just for shits and giggles, once we were on the ground I posed the Mauser with one paw up, seeming to ‘lick’ it with its front assembly in the standard feline ‘I meant to do that’ pose.
“Are you trying to kill us?” Dottie screamed.
I opened my mouth to answer her—
A chorus of howls rose from the south. Loud howls, hellish noises like the offspring of wolves and demons fighting.
Shoot, with magic in the picture, they could be just that sort of thing.
“Brace yourself! We’re going to go fast!”
“Go fast? Go fast! What the hell were we doing befoooooooOOORRRRRE—”
It wasn’t so much the fact that I hadn’t been letting her loose last time, but the fact that we had more of a straightaway here. I didn’t have to take as much time turning and dodging obstructions as I had in town. Up the dirt road we galloped, engine roaring fit to beat a tiger, fumes trailing behind us as diesel burned. I checked the broken-glass gauge, found the needle holding steady at two-thirds. Couldn’t do this forever, but we didn’t need to.
The MAUSER charged around the
last curve of the road, and in the hollow between the trees about a hundred feet ahead, the world was a blurry mass of brown, gray, and red. Brown blobs flowed like oil on water and howling and growling and barking filled the air.
Something was attacking my allies, and Henri had used his power. Had the monsters had gone in anyway? How were they able to function in that mess?
A sharp crack, a pained “yipe!” and a human-sized brown mass of fur came sailing out of the distortion field, bounced down the road, and lay there whimpering to our side. It went by so fast that I didn’t get a good view of it, not with the limitations of the vision slits, but Dottie did.
“Werewolves!” she yelled, as the last rays of daylight disappeared, and the first sliver of the moon showed on the eastern horizon.
CHAPTER 9: DIRE – THE HOUR OF MITTERNACHT
“On the plus side, it made my business quite profitable. I know just enough to help set up wards, sell ritual supplies that actually do things in the hands of skilled practicitioners, and perform minor exorcisms. Magic's a specialized career, but it's a legit one, and we've the Nazis to thank for that. Weird, but there you go. The supernatural's real, and dangerous, but consulting for people who run across it and get in over their heads is really profitable.”
Cameron Athame, self-styled sorcerer and occult researcher
I didn’t know a damned thing about werewolves. But as the one to the MAUSER’s side rose up, bones rippling under its flesh like a slow-motion version of Unstoppable’s regeneration, I had a feeling I was going to learn a hell of a lot about killing them.
The thing shook its head, glared solid red eyes at me, and growled a challenge. I brought the MAUSER around with a quick shuffle, and batted the creature into a tree. Bones cracked, blood spewed from its maw... and it straightened up, growled again, and charged us.
“Dottie?” I yelled, as I sidestepped, and the thing kept on going off the road and into the bushes. As I yelled, more of them stepped out of the field, furry ears twitching on top of their misshapen heads, faces some scrunched version of a human’s, horribly twisted to account for a muzzle in the middle that distorted everything around it.
“Silver!” she shrieked. “We need silver to kill these things! They’ll heal anything else!”
Well, shit.
The MAUSER was about a ton of steel, with nary a single part of it silver. Not that I’d found, anyway.
Gunshots from within the field, and some of the ones at the edge of the distortion dropped, with blood spraying where the lead had found them. But they writhed, whined, and got back to their feet as the wounds closed. Some of them were wearing torn clothing... a peasant’s trousers here, a hunter’s coat there, a fancy dress on one off to the side.
A horrible conviction filled me. “Dottie?”
“What?”
“We’ve found the villagers.”
“What?”
“No time to explain, we—”
WHUMP!
The Mauser rocked on its springs as the one who’d charged into the bushes leaped out of them, landed on our back. Claws scraped and scrabbled against steel, and I shot a glance at the hatch. Barred from the inside due to the way it closed, thankfully. Did the thing have enough of a human brain left to figure out the handles? No point in finding that answer out. I took hold of the leg controls, then bucked and heaved until it was tossed away.
But as I did so, the others found their courage and came for us. In seconds we were surrounded by half-a-dozen of the furry bastards, growling and snapping and lashing out at the MAUSER. I circled, unsheathed the claws, and ripped at them whenever they got too close. We had weight, and we had armor they couldn’t seem to get through, but I knew it wouldn’t work if I just let them go. It was like fighting a bunch of mini-Unstoppables, they’d never get exhausted, and sooner or later they’d hit one of the hydraulic lines, or damage a joint, or nail something important.
Standing still invited death. Moving was the only option.
A quick bound out of the center, bowling two of them snouts over tails, and we were at the edge of the distortion field. “Bryson!” I yelled. “We need a defensible point! Follow her into the village!”
The truck’s horn sounded. I took it as acknowledgment, and powered down the road at a lope, stopping every fifty or hundred feet to let the werewolves catch up. My goal was to pull them away from the truck, keep them from the vulnerable people inside. Besides, regeneration took them valuable time, so the more I hurt them, the longer it’d take the wounded to catch up to us.
Howls from behind the truck as it started moving, the distortion field blurring in a huge bubble in the shadowy half-light. With the truck moving I could see more forms moving beyond. There were at least twenty of the things, and one charged me from the right. One quick disemboweling swipe to put the guy down, two more shrieking forms trampled as I surged forward... it was like hitting a punching bag. Sure, you could make it swing back for a bit, but sooner or later it’d be coming for your chin again.
We made it to the town gate and I bulled through it. We needed a place to hole up that was both big enough for the MAUSER and had limited entry points. Fortunately, eidetic memory did its thing, and our destination was obvious.
“The church! Will it help against these things?”
“I don’t know, maybe!” Dottie yelled back.
The other option was the town hall, but wooden walls were going to be little help here. On the other hand, the church's stone and brick seemed more likely.
I burst through the double doors, sending them flying open, and fumbled the monocle into place as I activated the night-sight. Empty, pews pushed to the side, a corpse draped across the altar. Okay. Compared to outside, one hundred percent better.
Outside, the truck’s engine roared as it approached. I bounded out, saw the first few werewolves loping to meet it, dropped down to all fours for speed. I met them in a fury of metal and claws and and thrumming pistons as I scattered them. I felt sweat roll down my face as the air grew thick. The MAUSER wasn’t made for sustained heavy use, if I didn’t cool it soon we’d blow a cylinder.
The distortion bubble rolled toward us, and in the twilight the effect was even worse... but just before it hit us, it disappeared. The truck screeched to a halt fifty feet from the church, and Henri jumped out, a German submachine gun blazing at the pack following behind. Bullets wouldn’t stop them, true, but it’d knock them down and keep them healing for a precious half-minute or so. Bryson staggered out the other side, then helped Unstoppable down. He gave Unstoppable his shoulder, and half-carried him to the church.
Had they found a way to stop Unstoppable?
No time to consider it. The bulk of the pack hit then, and Henri retreated after Bryson. I concentrated on mauling the ones who got close, and backing up to the church doors. Finally I had the rear end of the MAUSER inside the church, the front end blocking the entry, and a fifteen-foot clear arc around me covered with blood and entrails. Beyond that arc the beasts lurked, rumbling rising from their throats as they glared at me with their red eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. By now the moon was providing the only illumination, and I was thankful for my nightvision.
“We’re in!” Bryson shouted, and I backed up further. The werewolves didn’t follow, and I managed to retreat back beyond the wide arcs of the ten-foot-tall church doors, and get paws around them, to push them shut. A few nudges and they closed, though I saw the ruins of an inner bar hanging from them. Looked like my hasty entry had done some damage. They wouldn’t hold by themselves, so I parked the MAUSER in place with its paws directly behind them, a solid ton of doorstopper. I gave it a minute, then two, then I sighed and twisted the key, turning the engine off.
Another minute crawled by, with only Unstoppable’s gasping breaths breaking the silence inside the church. The mob outside was quiet, and I didn’t know why.
“Alright. We’re probably good.” I popped the hatch, gasped as I emerged out into the cool air. I scrambled out as
fast as I could, hissed as my bare legs touched the overheated rear portion of the MAUSER, and dropped to the ground, massaging my singed calf. Stupid skirt. I needed pants, dammit. Behind me, Dottie scrambled out with perhaps a bit less grace, grunting as she hit the floor.
I looked around the church. Brick, mostly, with stone columns holding up the walls. A door behind the altar that looked to go back into living quarters. The two stained glass windows stretched high and narrow... I didn’t see werewolves getting through those easily. A ladder on one side looked to lead up to a trapdoor, probably to the short steeple I’d seen from outside. Another entry point, but easy enough to defend. I didn’t know how good the creatures would do on climbing. Still, better cautious than not. I headed up the ladder, hauled out my nailgun, and stapled the trapdoor shut. Wouldn’t hold up to a serious battering, but it’d give us enough warning if they tried to get in this way.
I climbed down, as Unstoppable choked back a pained gasp. Bryson had him on a pew, tending to him. Dottie studied the corpse on the altar, flipping through a small notebook and muttering to herself. Henri met my eyes as I hit the ground.
“Come with me?” he asked, nodding towards the door by the altar.
“Sure.”
I pulled my gun, covered him as he pushed it open, moved into a back room. Dark in there, and as he squinted, I pushed him aside. “She can see, you can’t. Let her find the lights.”
As it turned out, the lights were an oil lamp. By the time I got it lit, there were twisted lupine faces peering in through the narrow rear windows, and claws scrabbling at the back door. No exit that way, not any that ended well, at least.
They weren’t scrabbling against the front door. Why? Did they fear the MAUSER that much?
We pushed a heavy armoire in front of the back door, and arranged the bed to wedge it in place, staying well back from the windows. The werewolves couldn’t fit, but I didn’t want to tempt one of them into taking a free swipe at me through the glass.
DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3) Page 16