by J M Hemmings
These beings, these beastwalkers, these demigods of a long-forgotten time, had been reduced to this. They had been reduced to having to make use of the oldest and crudest tool with which all sentient beings capable of locomotion are both cursed and blessed: violence.
And violence they doled out, this gorilla-being and this puma-being, sisters and brothers in wisdom and sorrow and hope and unnaturally long life, and all the tragedy and possibility that that had brought them. Together they unleashed hell; with their trigger fingers they opened the door to Hell itself, and they let the caged demons fly from their grave-rot prison.
Njinga found herself squeezing the trigger again and again, but something was wrong: the booming had stopped. The shotgun’s furious kicking in her arms, formerly like a whipped mule possessed of a sudden and righteous wrath, had gone limp. Now the hot firearm, that purveyor of searing-lead death, was as still as a dead thing. Zakaria’s M-60 had also fallen silent, as had the chattering and bullet-spitting hammering of the Huntsmen’s guns.
All that remained was hanging smoke, thousands of spent cartridge shells, an almost tangible presence of impossibly bright, eye-searing light – and the warm frozenness of death, coloured so harshly with slick crimson, sprayed with ferocious abandon across every surface.
‘Light cannon off,’ Zakaria growled in the ancient language that only he could speak.
He abandoned the now-useless M-60 and unholstered both of his Uzis, gripping one in each hand.
‘Come, Njinga,’ he urged. ‘Time for phase two. You and I broke through, even without the girl. She is lost, she must be, but we cannot mourn her now; too much rests on the next few moments. We will do what we can to find her after the mission is over.’
Njinga did not respond; she was standing in shock, still robotically squeezing the trigger of her empty shotgun. Zakaria gently pried the weapon out of her hands and dropped it onto the floor.
‘You did well, sister. We beat them. We beat them. Come on though, this mission isn’t over yet, not by a long shot. The Huntsmen and the Alliance will fall! Hurry Njinga, follow me!’
Zakaria, caught now in the familiar grip of battle-fury, raced forward, springing over the bodies of the fallen Huntsmen troops, which were strewn across the blood-sticky floor of the corridor.
‘Follow me!’ he shouted as he reached the two enormous doors, which were peppered with deep dents from the M-60’s barrage and Njinga’s shotgun slugs.
Njinga snapped herself out of the surreal post-combat trance and forced herself to push forward, even though it felt as if her arms and legs were those of a detached, artificial body she was somehow inhabiting, like a Virtual Reality gamer moving through an entirely digital world. Meanwhile, in front of the doors, Zakaria checked his wristwatch.
‘If Ranomi succeeded in getting in, and her helper on the inside let her in, she should be arriving at this door in precisely twenty-three seconds.’
‘Wait,’ Njinga murmured, staring with a look of consternation on her face at one of the corpses on the ground.
The man’s helmet had been blown off, along with a large chunk of his face, but on his neck was a peculiar tattoo.
‘What’s wrong?’ Zakaria asked.
‘These aren’t Huntsmen troops,’ Njinga answered, squatting down next to the body and studying the tattoo.
‘Of course they are! Look at the uniforms, the weapons! Come now, we do not have time to waste.’
‘The tattoo on his neck, it’s a RENAMO symbol. This guy is Mozambican.’
‘So? The Huntsmen recruit their killers from all over the world.’
Njinga shook her head and pulled off the helmet of another dead soldier. He too was black, and he also had a RENAMO tattoo on his neck.
‘I’m willing to bet every single one a’ these assholes is Mozambican,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘I don’t like this, Zakaria, I don’t like it. These aren’t real Huntsmen troops. Something is wrong here … something is very wrong here.’
‘We don’t have time to worry about this now,’ Zakaria grunted gruffly.
He turned and bashed on the door with his steel-clad fist in the rhythmic pattern that was their passcode. To his immediate relief, a muffled thumping came through the door, also in a coded rhythm. However, just to be sure, he bashed out another pattern, this one asking Ranomi whether she was safe, or whether had a gun to her head.
The answer came back at once: safe. Zakaria thumped back one final code: ‘we are safe and ready, so open up.’
The sound of heavy bolts being moved inside the doors signalled to the pair of them to step back to allow the huge pieces of solid steel to swing outward. When Ranomi saw that there were only two of them standing there, and that Chloe was missing, a brief look of alarm flickered across her countenance. She regained her composure rapidly, though.
‘Zakaria, Njinga, are you ready? Let’s get phase two moving.’
Zakaria, however, simply stood in silence, shocked to the point of catatonia, it seemed. He had flipped up the visor of his helmet and was staring at the girl next to Ranomi with a strange mix of wonder, fear and disbelief on his face, as if she were a ghost.
‘By the Great Mother,’ he muttered softly. ‘It cannot be … it cannot be!’
He pointed at Adriana, who was staring with fear-wide eyes at these two terrifying figures – the futuristic sci-fi warrior and the fifteenth-century knight, both of whom were armed with multiple guns.
‘William’s Aurora!’ Zakaria gasped in a tone of sheer disbelief. ‘Aurora?! How can this be?!’
52
WILLIAM
William jogged up the steps, focusing on regulating his breathing and steadying his movements; he could not afford to become short of breath, or get shaky in this situation. Slung over each shoulder was an AK-47, and each rifle was equipped with a wickedly sharp ten-inch bayonet, while around his waist was a belt packed with ammo clips for the twin assault rifles. He also wore a backpack full of essential items, and in each hand he carried a crossbow, for if he came across any Huntsmen troops he would need to take them down quickly and quietly, and a gun, even with heavy suppression, would immediately raise the alarm in this confined space.
Inside his mind a tempest of whirling emotions churned; familiar battle-madness began to ripple its hypercharged tingle through his limbs, along with the sawing blades of fear and anxiety that accompanied the onset of deadly combat. In addition, slicing through both of these was the katana of controlled collectedness, a razor-edged state of focus in which had trained his mind and consciousness over many decades.
There was also something else, though.
Emotion, raging and churning like a chemical reaction gone awry; acids boiling and frothing and building up to the point of violent explosion, for here he was in the heart of his mortal enemy’s lair. He had been lusting after this encounter for well over a century, and had replayed the scenario over and over in his mind so many times it had become more of a prophesy than a mere fantasy; a foregone conclusion, he hoped and prayed … and believed.
There were also other things he had gone over in his head, again and again and again; memories that tore at his core, at the very deepest centre of his being, like vultures stripping flesh from a carcass, devouring everything until only bare bone remained.
Regret, for all the things he could have changed – and could not have changed – had eaten away at him with the persistence of creeping acid, nibbling its caustic bites at metal, metal that had once been polished and gleaming but now, after the action of that ceaseless decay, had become a chewed up, pockmarked shell of what it had once been.
Guilt, for all of his past sins, for betraying those he had claimed to love, for plumbing the depths of darkness and stuffing his being full of lie after lie, like a garbage bag crammed too full of refuse, bursting at the seams.
Self-loathing, for falling so easily into vice, for so frequently choosing to numb the pain that dogged him, for choosing so often to run from his demons instead
of confronting them, for stubbornly muting the memories that spun like mechanical blades within him, cutting him to pieces from the inside out, and for silencing all of this by retreating into the temporary havens of drug-fuelled highs or excesses of sex and debauchery.
He paused as a torrent of memories surged through his mind with the momentum of a tsunami, tearing trees from the ground and wrenching houses from their foundations.
Could I have saved her? Could things have been different? Could I have prevented the deaths of my friends? Could I have saved all of them? It’s my fault, isn’t it? Everything tragic that has come to pass is my fault. I could have stopped it, I could have prevented it, if only, if only, if only … And now all that remains is violence, bloodshed and a bitter, desperate last stand from the few stragglers who escaped the holocaust perpetrated against our kind, and the rest of the natural world.
But there is something else.
Something I dare not speak of, for it is the dark force that has kept me alive, that has kept this weak flame in me burning through times of the most intense darkness, bleakness and despair.
But how can I still, in all honesty, continue to deny its influence, its power, the force with which it steers this near-empty vessel that I have become? I say that I have gone on, that I have endured against all odds, because of the bright flames of justice and of goodness that burn in my soul.
That much is true, yes … but it is not the whole truth.
There is another flame – a black flame that combusts with the antithesis of light. A flame that burns with the force of the most terrible darkness. A desire that has pulled me through the loss of all hope, of all will to hold on to this fragile strand of life upon which I dangle above the yawning maw of death.
Revenge.
Hatred.
Burning on, ever on inside me, with the ravenous vehemence of lit gasoline.
I will cut your still-beating heart from your chest, Sigurd Haraldsson. I will gouge it from your chest, tear it out and crush it in my fist while you watch. That will be the last thing your eyes ever see. And maybe, just maybe, if I can slaughter you I can somehow vanquish the guilt, the regret, the self-loathing that are, perhaps, far more frightful monsters than you ever could be.
William shook his head vigorously, as if trying to exorcise the negative surge of emotions from his mind. He had to have a clear head for what he was about to do, and thoughts like these were not helping.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he gave the corridor a quick visual sweep. He noted that it was clear, and then glanced at his wristwatch; everything had run according to schedule thus far. Now he just needed to let Sharaf in. He hurried over to the third window from the end of the corridor, and then conducted one final visual check. With both excitement and fear buzzing upon his every nerve ending he put down the crossbows and one AK-47, for he needed two hands for the next task. Ever vigilant, he kept one of the AK-47s slung over his shoulder and hanging at his hip, ready to be fired in an instant in case of an emergency. He then took his backpack off and retrieved an insulated canister of liquid nitrogen. Attached to it was a small spray nozzle with a battery-powered pump.
With a swift, sharp tug he ripped the curtains off the window, leaving the frame and burglar bars exposed. He paused just for a second to glance out at the galaxy of lights splayed out to the very edge of the horizon; Bangkok, in all of its sinful glory. Up here from the tenth floor, the view was not completely expansive, but, unobscured by any other tall buildings in the immediate vicinity, it was spectacular enough.
However, this was no time for sightseeing or distraction; everything had to be done with extreme precision, and not a single second could be wasted. With this sense of urgency spurring him on, William switched on the pump and began spraying the burglar bars with the liquid nitrogen. The liquid steamed and hissed as it hit the steel, cooling it with an almost supernatural rapidity. William kept an eye on the volume of liquid remaining in the canister; he would still need half of it in case the first attempt failed. He sprayed it up and down, only using the precious substance on small areas. After a minute, he had applied enough liquid nitrogen for the steel to shatter. He shut off the pump, stashed the canister back into his backpack, and then took out a heavy rubber-coated hammer. With a few sharp blows he was able to break the bars, after which he opened the window and peered outside.
There he was, leaping from pipes and ledges and scrambling up sheer walls using the most precarious of handholds: Sharaf, dressed rather appropriately in his bulletproof Batsuit. A parkour and free climbing expert, he had come up to this floor via a different route, after having completed his task of speed-welding a few outside doors shut to prevent both the board members’ escape, and entry of Huntsmen reinforcement troops.
In a moment he was at the window, and William leaned out to offer him a hand to get in.
‘I’ve just scaled ten floors with almost no handholds,’ Sharaf said with a smug grin, gripping the windowsill. ‘I’m pretty sure I can get in here without your help.’
William stepped back, checking the ends of the corridor again, and allowed Sharaf to climb in. As soon as Sharaf was safely inside William handed an AK and four ammo clips to him. The moment he gripped the assault rifle in his hands a mischievous grin beamed out from his stubble-dark jaw, the incongruence of the smile stark against the unchanging glower of the Batmask.
‘It’s time to add some heavy metal bling to the bodies of these Huntsmen Board pricks, and their scumbag mutts, Sigurd and his chumps!’ Sharaf exclaimed, brash and buoyantly confident. ‘Locked and loaded, Tiger, locked and loaded! I’m gonna spray these bastards with enough hot lead to send them to hell and back three times over!’
William nodded grimly, gripping his own AK with both hands. Now that Sharaf was inside, there would be no need for the crossbows, so he abandoned them, along with the other extraneous equipment.
‘Aye old friend, it’s time,’ he muttered.
Sharaf’s eyes probed William’s from within the dark shrouds of his mask.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said with a subdued but undeniable authority. ‘You want Sigurd for yourself. But you know that that’s not the plan, and I don’t think I need to remind you that you agreed to keep your emotions out of this. You know that going off on a renegade mission right now would jeopardise everything we’ve worked for up to this point. So I’m gonna tell you this now, William: don’t do it. Don’t you dare do it. You’ll put everything at risk of catastrophic failure if you do. We all know your history with Sigurd, and that’s exactly why you’re staying at the back – to ambush and take out the Huntsmen Board Members who are gonna come running your way when the guns start blazing. Zakaria and myself will handle Sigurd, and only us two. I guarantee you this, though: if you can’t control your emotions, and you break ranks to pursue your personal vendetta, you’re going to kill all of us in the process. In the event that that happens, if I don’t die, I swear on everything holy that I’ll come for you myself and cut you down. You understand?’
William’s eyes were cold and his face was tight with bristling defiance, but he nodded in capitulation. He had, after all, agreed to this – they all had.
‘I’ll do my job, and you do yours,’ he muttered. ‘Emotions won’t come into play, I swear it, brother.’
‘They’d better not, for our sake and yours. Now come on, let’s move. These assholes aren’t going to slaughter themselves.’
***
‘I’m not Aurora, whoever that is,’ Adriana stammered, staring wide-eyed at the imposing figure of Zakaria, clad in his intimidating gothic plate armour. ‘My name is Adriana, and I don’t know anybody named William.’
Zakaria shook his head, continuing to stare with unnerving intensity at Adriana.
‘Something is not right here. There is some trickery going on, some devilry at work! Ranomi, handcuff her. We’ll detain her until we figure out who she’s working for and what her true purpose is.’
Rano
mi looked both astonished and infuriated at this order.
‘She’s with us! This is the woman who took the grille off to let me in! Without her this whole plan would have fallen to pieces! There’s no way in hell I’m handcuffing her.’
Zakaria’s expression crystallised into a mask that was hard and unsympathetic, and his seeing eye glowed with a cold frost.
‘Fine,’ he growled, ‘I’ll do it myself.’
As he stepped forward, Adriana whipped the revolver from behind her back and pointed it at him. Her hands were trembling, but her eyes, although red with tears, were ablaze with determined purpose.
‘Don’t come one step closer!’ she shrieked. ‘Nobody is going to make a slave of me ever again! Ever! I don’t care who you are, but I’ll die and take you with me before I go back to being a slave, an object for filthy perverts to use and abuse! Never again, never!’
‘For God’s sake Zakaria!’ Ranomi shouted. ‘She’s not a spy! She’s not one of them!’
Zakaria kept his eye locked in Adriana’s eyes, and his entire being radiated a powerful, driving menace. He raised his Uzi and aimed it at Adriana’s forehead.
‘Ranomi, I told you to put the cuffs on her, and for the sake of all of us and this mission, you had best do that,’ he growled, speaking in a severe tone to Ranomi, but keeping his eye locked on Adriana. ‘We can’t prove right now that she is a spy, you’re right, but neither can we prove that she isn’t one. Are you ready to put this entire mission and all our lives at risk on the basis of this woman’s claims? This woman who you’ve known for all of five minutes? And how the hell do you explain the fact that she looks like a carbon copy of the ghost who has driven William to depression, ruin and the gates of Hell itself?! That cannot be a mere coincidence, especially when a snake like Sigurd is involved.’