“THE COPS WORK FOR THE BLACK BLOODS AROUND HERE.”
“What? Bullshit. Look, I can—”
I reached down, scooped the hammer off the cot. Before Ballista could react I took a step forward and brought it down on Tugs' skull with every bit of strength left in my clumsy arms. My weakened muscles were augmented by the hydraulics of the armor, and the outcome was never in doubt.
Tugs fell dead to the floor, and I regarded the bloody gray chunks sprayed around the room without any particular emotion.
“What did you do?” Ballista whispered behind me. I dropped the hammer, used my hands to tilt Joan's head towards me. It lolled lifelessly, and I knew she was gone.
“HE MUST HAVE THOUGHT THE BLOODS WOULD WIN, SO HE TRIED TO ROB US AND FLEE. HE WAS WARNED AND HE DID IT ANYWAY.”
“That's not— That's not justice.”
“JUSTICE?” I pushed past him, and opened the curtain of the tent. I gestured to the mob of people walking among the dead and wounded, trying to save who they could. They were calling out the names of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, everyone they loved was all right. “OUT HERE THERE'S JUST US. NO JUSTICE BUT WHAT WE MAKE.” I turned to face him full on, and saw his olive-skinned face gone pale as milk. He really was young, now that I had the opportunity to study him.
He shook his head. “I was going to help you, you crazy... you... I can't, now. Heroes don't kill. Heroes don't let villains kill people.”
“MM.” I looked at the burning pyre where the berserkers were turning to ash, then turned to study the lightning-fried gangers strewn across the dunes. “YOU MIGHT WANT TO TELL THEM THAT. DIRE IS SURE THEY'LL APOLOGIZE, AND GO HOME. BUT UNTIL THAT HAPPY DAY, THIS IS WAR. AND THEY SHALL PAY A THOUSAND TIMES OVER FOR JOAN AND EVERY OTHER INNOCENT THAT DIED TONIGHT.”
“I can't help you.” With a last, horrified look at me, he twisted and threw himself into the air. He accelerated as he went, turning what initially seemed like a small jump into an unending arc that soon moved out of my sight.
I looked back down as Khalid and Roy came limping up, supporting each other.
“What happened?” Khalid wheezed.
“TUGS. HE—” I took a breath, composed myself. “HE TRIED TO ROB THE PLACE WHILE EVERYONE WAS OUT. TOOK A HAMMER TO JOAN. SHE'S DEAD. DIRE KILLED HIM FOR... FOR...” My shoulders shook, as my composure broke. I turned off the mask's voicebox, slumped down against the wall of the shack, and sobbed freely. Khalid considered me for a moment, his face bleak. Finally he moved through the curtain into the sickbay.
Roy sat down next to me, back to the wall as well. After a while, he fished in his pockets and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?”
“No.” I whispered, before remembering that my voice was off. I got the last few choking sobs out of my system, blew snot out of my nose, and ignored the gross splotch it made against my mask's screen. I flicked the menu up, and reconnected my voicebox. “NO, THANK YOU.”
He took one, lit up reflectively as he watched people move among the dead. It had been a victory, but a costly one. I sat still as a few survivors were dragged, groaning and shrieking, past me and into the sickbay.
I looked at Roy, found his face crinkled with a sneer.
“WHAT ARE YOU GRINNING AT?”
“Ah.” He folded his lips back down. “Just a bad joke I heard once. Sorry, the painkillers are makin' me loopy.” He pulled a bottle of pills out of his coat, shook it. The side of it was plastered with warning labels.
“SHOULD YOU BE TAKING THOSE?”
“Probably not,” he said, popping open the lid and throwing a handful into his mouth before chewing with a thoughtful expression. “Want some?” He said through the mouthful.
“PASS, THANKS.” My pains had faded to a dull ache. I was tired, more than anything. Tired and sick. I'd been too late to save Joan, too late to save the other bodies that were being dragged down the beach. Too late to save the wounded people being helped into the sick bay, too late for the line of people stacking up outside, the walking wounded making do with bandages and tourniquets. They'd gone through minutes of gunfire, after all. The Black Bloods insistence on cover had meant that the camp was a good ways away from their vantage points, but that had been a lot of lead going into the air. The distance hadn't saved my people from harm. Perhaps thirty wounded, I estimated. Perhaps eight dead.
I watched three men struggle with a large body, noted the old, grungy cloth tied around its jaw, and the shaved head. Rick was dead as well, then. Though I hadn't known him as well as Joan, I felt the loss with an odd indignation. I had to break his jaw, after all, just a few days back. But since then he'd been doing good around the camp. It wasn't fair that he should die now, like this.
After perhaps a few minutes, perhaps half an hour, Sparky rolled up to us. “Ha! We made it. Holy shit! We showed them!” And to my utter surprise, the wounded in line cheered. The people around laughed. The solemn spell was broken, as a happy babble started up.
What the hell was this?
I shook with indignation, started to clamber to my feet... and stopped, as Roy grabbed my shoulder, and rose with me. “Let them have this,” he advised in a quiet voice. “They'd be dead without you all. You're a real hero, yeah?”
“SHE'S NO HERO,” I muttered, remembering the feel of the hammer as it struck Tugs in the forehead. I felt no guilt for that; it had been a long time coming. Just regret that I hadn't done it sooner.
“Well, right now y'are,” he advised. “How you holdin' up, anyway? Hard to tell with that armor on ya.”
“One minute.” I popped the armor open, started to clamber out, and almost screamed. My arms... oh sweet heavens, my arms...
I clenched my teeth. “Roy?” I whispered, ignoring the ripping pains all up and down my arms. “Can you get her into sickbay? Without pulling on her arms too much?”
“Ah... shit. Shit, sure.” He wrinkled his nose at the smell of roasted me, and managed to help wrestle me out of the armor. He helped me up the steps, and the people waiting parted for me. There were murmurs of dismay as we got into the light, and I looked down to see that my arms from the elbows down were bright lobster red, split and weeping blood and watery fluid. My stomach throbbed with every stumbling step, and Khalid simply took one look, and pointed to a partitioned-off cot in the back.
“There!” he commanded, before turning his bloody, rubber-gloved hands back to the screaming woman on the central cot. “Forceps,” He commanded, and Abernathy handed over the tool. She stood ready for the next request, twisting her hands nervously as she stared at me. I stared back, as Roy helped me cross the room and lie down. As I did my stomach clenched in a sudden cramp, and I curled up in pain.
I lay there, trying not to shift my arms, and eventually the pain eased up enough that I could stretch out a bit. My eyes shut, I simply rested and tried to go inactive to regenerate the energy that I could. Dear lord, tonight had been a workout.
After perhaps an hour the curtains rustled, and Khalid entered, to look me over. “Dear God, woman. What did you go up against? Those are at least second-degree burns. The rest of you looks lightly toasted as well.”
“A faulty thermal buildup from a forcefield that really wasn't made to handle so many impacts in so short a time,” I summed up. “Also got hit in the gut when a berserker broke part of her armor plating.”
He sighed, started rolling up my shirt, and winced. Looking over, he put a hand on my forehead and checked my eyes. “No concussion. These are signs of dehydration. Abernathy, some water?”
“While you're here,” I muttered, “perhaps we can discuss a few things. Like, oh, that sword, the bullet through your liver that you pretty much walked off, and the green smoke?”
Khalid smiled, and there was a faint hint of sadness to it. “I was hoping not to have to show you those things.”
“Well, Dire was hoping to avoid getting roasted tonight. Guess we'll both have to learn to cope with disappointment.”
“Who's still here?” I asked.
“Roy. Sparky. Martin and Minna are waiting outside.”
“Then no. Call them in. We all talk. All lives are at stake here, so all get to hear your explanation.”
He tightened his lips, squinted at me for a minute... then chuckled. “I had my doubts about you at first. But no, despite the villainous trappings, you are a worthy leader.”
“Not going to cut and run like Ballista did? Not going to judge her for killing Tugs?”
He glanced back. “You heard the lady. Please call Martin and Minna in, then shut the curtain.” When he looked back at me, his eyes were miles away, and his face was hard and stern. “I have seen worse than your actions done for less reason, and deemed it right. The times have changed, perhaps, but these are not usual times. It is done.”
“What did you do with Joan's body?” I asked.
“In another niche, covered over. Mr. Sparky insisted on it.”
I nodded, and my neck gave a twinge of pain. “Tonight for explanations. Tomorrow we mourn.”
After a minute, Martin and Minna filed in. Anya was asleep in Minna's arms, and the woman's hair was bloodied. She was silent and seemed distracted, almost lost. Martin looked angry, hands jammed into his pockets, glaring at the floor. Sparky rolled into my view from the left. Roy followed with him, a hand on his shoulder. Sparky had been crying, judging by the dirty trails on his face. He'd left his mantle outside, thankfully. Roy alone seemed unruffled, probably still flying on whatever was in those painkillers. I didn't envy him his crash when he came down.
The shack wasn't big, and we filled it. That helped a bit, gave it warmth against the chill of the night. The space heaters in here did what they could, but it was still winter next to the sea.
“All right, Khalid. Start talking.”
He nodded. “You have earned that much. I will keep it short. To put it succinctly, I am a hunter of things that should not be. I have been at it a very long time, using alchemy to prolong my lifespan and survival. It gives me an edge.”
“How long?” Roy asked.
“Let me put it this way. I remember when my home city was called Constantinople.”
I shrugged. No memory, no clue of history. It meant nothing to me. “You say you're a hunter. What are you hunting?”
“Things such as those that the Black Bloods unleashed tonight. You thought their rage and abilities due to drugs, yes?”
“Well, yeah,” said Martin. “Freaky ass mutation drugs, but still drugs.”
“You're half-right. Do you know what vampires are?”
A beat. Then Roy laughed. “You gotta be shitting me.”
“I wish I was. Well, the things you fought out there weren't vampires. They were draugr, the result of what happens when vampire blood is given to a corpse.”
Ah. That explained the dead woman, back at Stigmata's ambush. Animated through some sort of biological agent...
“Vampires. Aw fuck me. It HAD to be supernatural bullshit.” Martin punched the wall, set the sheet metal ringing. “That is the worst kind of fucking bullshit.”
“Supernatural?” I asked.
“I saw it back in the War,” Sparky said. “The Nazis went looking for an edge back in the '40s. They found some pretty weird stuff. There was this one time we got ordered to set up a perimeter around this castle, just this empty castle out in the middle of nowhere. We were to take flamethrowers to anything that tried to come out. The OSS sent out a bunch of guys who went in with crystals and old books and shit. You remember that one, Roy?”
Roy grunted. “I try not to.”
“Yeah. It was good until night fell. The stuff that came out...” he shuddered.
Khalid nodded. “The Thule Society woke up many things that should have stayed sleeping. Worse, they dragged the supernatural into the light so far that it could hide no longer. Up until then, the community on the whole had been doing a good job of staying hidden.” He frowned. “Easier to operate that way. Eh, we wouldn't have been able to hide for long. Powers were a wildcard. Tesla opened Pandora's box, for better or for ill.”
I blinked. Much of this conversation made no sense to me. “That's all well and good,” I started, and my words were slow and certain. “But we're getting away from the immediate topic. Vampires?”
“Yes,” Khalid said, checking his pockets and pulling out a small jar. “Here, I am going to rub this on your burns. It will heal you quickly.”
I nodded. “Can you spare some of the green paste for Roy? His ribs are probably still trashed.”
Khalid rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, give me a minute. I'll have to mix up more. At any rate, I think we are only dealing with perhaps one vampire.”
I frowned. “One of the living Black Bloods drank something, turned into a draugr.”
“Yes, when improperly administered, the blood kills most living humans and makes of them draugr. To a favored strong-willed few it gives them strength, speed, and toughness beyond mortal men. At a price of sanity and soul.”
I recalled Scrapper. Was that what had happened to him? It seemed possible.
I frowned and continued. “And when properly administered?”
“You get another vampire. As powerful to the draugr as the draugr are to the living. And much, much smarter.”
“They're not alive?” I mused, then hissed as he started to spread cream on my arms.
“No. That is why they are called the undead... think of it like a specialized virus. It alters the biology and keeps them in a mockery of life, even past the point they should stop moving. It heals up injuries that aren't inflicted by specialized means or in specific ways.”
“Fire.” I said, recalling the tracers, the road flare, and that goop Khalid had thrown.
“Beheading as well. Exposure to sunlight if you can manage to keep them in it long enough. Impalement through the heart or brain if they're weak enough. Or certain sacred weapons.”
“Well fuck, guess we'll just run over to church and oh wait we can't they defiled it and shit,” Martin said. “This keeps getting better and better.”
Khalid shook his head. “No real relics there anyway. You're better off with fire.”
“Noted.” Once I was out of here, I had some modifications to make.
“So you think we only got one vampire?” Roy said.
Khalid nodded. “Yes. If I am correct, he is the ancient called the Locust. I've been hunting him the last half-a-century or so, between other projects. But I do not think he is fully awake yet.”
“Why's that?” Sparky asked.
“Because this city is still here.”
We paused and took that in for a moment.
“This. This bullshit is why I fucking hate the supernatural shit. Some random old-ass monster wakes up or some dudes in bedsheets decide that the world needs an enema, and whoops, there go a few million people,” Martin snapped. “Or some old douche-ass god wakes up and has a tantrum, and hey, more people die. Fuck supernatural bullshit.”
Khalid shrugged. “It is here whether you like it or not. You may as well rail at the sun for shining, or the ocean for having tides. That said, there are aspects of it I agree with you upon. Which is why I am here. I had suspicions about the Black Bloods, and I wished to get a look at them up close and personal, as it were.”
“So you came here,” I nodded. “Clever.”
He shrugged. “If there had been nothing but another gang skirmish, another push for power by warlords, then I would have saved what lives I could and returned to the hunt. But this? This changes things now.” He finished rubbing my arms, and I unclenched my teeth. As painful as the application had been, my arms felt better almost immediately. They still hurt, but it was muted compared to what it had been. My stomach still felt like it had been pulped, though.
“Mm. What will you do now?” I asked.
Khalid smiled. “Frankly... I'll ask for your help. You an
d the others.” He gestured around the room. Martin laughed, Roy and Sparky looked at each other, and Minna just considered him with empty eyes.
“And how can we help?” I asked. “Besides opposing them in the conflict, which we'd be doing anyway.”
“I need to know more about them, for one thing,” Khalid said, leaning against the wall. He was looking tired. It had been a long night for him, as well. “I know how the Locust operates, which is why I think he is still mostly asleep. But I know little of these Black Bloods. They're not the usual band of mortal servants you find when an ancient is involved. I'd expected them to use the blackout to start killing people left and right, harvesting the blood to waken their master.”
“Harvesting blood,” I mused. “That's what it takes?”
“Yes. A lot of it.”
“Does it have to be blood from the living?” I asked.
He considered. “Well, no. That would be more potent, but I suppose you could use the blood of the dead, as long as it wasn't too old.”
“Awwwwww shit.” Martin groaned. He saw where this was going, too. “Khalid, or whoever the fuck you are, the Bloods are famous for grabbing corpses. People they kill, their own, doesn't matter. They haul them off. People don't see them again.”
“Ah. That would be slower, but safer. No wonder I didn't catch this before. If that's the case, it extends the margin of time I have to act before—”
“Khalid, man.” Martin looked sick. “They been doing that ever since they shown up. Four years ago.”
Khalid fell silent. His face flashed to pure horror, and he sagged against the wall like his strings had been cut. “Oh dear God.”
“Not Allah?” Roy asked.
Khalid snorted. “I'm Turkish, yes, but I'm Christian. Have been my entire life. Not every brown-skinned person from the Middle East is a Muslim, you know.”
Sparky narrowed his eyes, stared at him for a minute. “Yer the Last Janissary, aintcha?”
“You've heard of me? Surprising. I've only come into contact with heroes when the supernatural necessitates it. Easier on everyone, really, the things I do aren't exactly heroic or legal.”
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