by Justin Sloan
Turning, Garcia stumbled in surprise at the sight of a Pod approaching from the left of the blimp. A Pod just like the ones they had in New York.
“Reinforcements,” he said, smiling. He had a good idea of who would be on that Pod, and looked forward to seeing her again. “Come on, let’s take out as many of them as we can before she arrives.”
He charged, moving toward the opening in the hill nearby.
“She?” Fred asked as he joined the charge.
“You’ll see, buddy.” Garcia laughed. “You’ll see.”
***
It should have come as no surprise to Valerie that she was once again flying straight into a fight. She had hoped to have some time with Cammie, to ask what had happened in Norway and make sure they were all doing fine, but that would have to wait. Sandra had mostly filled her in anyway, and it sounded like everything had gone smoothly for them.
The dead Weres in Valerie’s wake showed it hadn’t gone quite so well for everyone back there. Not the evil dickheads, anyway.
Now it was time to do some more good for the world.
“Ready, buddy?” she asked as they touched down and she threw open the dented door.
“Always,” Diego replied, ducking out and transforming as he moved.
Valerie darted forward to scan the situation. There were the men in leather Diego had told her about, and they were on her side. Someone was screaming near a hole in the mountain, so that must be where Cammie had run off to—and Royland, most likely. He probably would have gotten out of the sun as fast as possible, enjoying the opportunity to not worry about death by sunlight.
If that was where her friends were, she might as well join them.
Guns were going off here and there, but mostly there were only the sounds of bodies being slammed into the ground or men screaming as knives did their damage. Valerie tore through two fighters trying to take on a large man, slamming them together so that their heads caved in. Then she was at the cave entrance, turning at the last moment to send a bullet into another attacker’s forehead—the idiot had thought he could sneak up on her. A thought hit her that she might want to push fear and put a stop to this, but she knew it would have an effect on her friends and allies too, and didn’t want to put them through the equivalent of a mental barrage of arrows.
Ducking into the tunnels in this mountain, she had to wonder if it had been dug out since the great collapse or had been around before. She turned one corner to find a tunnel with old lights and walls paneled with sheets of the scrap metal from outside. Still, it had a fairly militaristic look about it.
Everything down here smelled of blood and piss.
A woman in a leather jacket was crawling toward her, the jacket now hanging in shreds and blood pouring out of her. There was no way she would make it without help, so Valerie paused. She hated this. It had been a while since she’d had to offer someone her blood to heal. With Sandra, back in the day, it had been as much about loyalty and devotion as healing and staying young, and even then she tried not to do it too often. The last thing she wanted was for her only friend to become addicted to the stuff. But if she were going to make allies here, a bit of pain to save a life would be a good way to start.
So it was with only a slight hesitation that Valerie knelt, bit into her wrist, and let the woman drink from her. The skin healed quickly and then Valerie was up, a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“You should survive this, and you owe me a beer,” she said as she moved down the tunnel.
There was no room for proper swordplay down here so she kept it sheathed, instead pulling the pistol she had strapped to her thigh as she used to. Holding it with both hands, she turned the next corner already prepared, thanks to her keen sense of smell.
BAM! BAM!
Two shots and the enemy fell, but the next corner brought her a view of another taking on three of the El Diablo fighters. Damn, this guy was good. Too bad for him he couldn’t compete with a vampire.
“Stand back,” Valerie demanded, voice firm and not allowing for argument. Her eyes glowed red as she darted forward, picking up the man by the neck and swatting his knives aside with her free hand.
She decided this would be a great time to replenish the blood she had given up, even though she wasn’t sure she needed to with Michael’s blood flowing through her. On top of that was the idea that the El Diablo fighters might be inspired by knowing they had an all-powerful vampire on their side. The show must go on, after all, she thought as she sank her fangs into the screaming man’s throat.
Blood gushed, tasting like rusted metal and a hint of burnt sausage. When she was done she flung him to the ground, still alive, and said, “He’s yours.”
The others moved in to finish him off while she continued down the tunnel.
A roar sounded and she paused. Sure enough, there was the scent of a Were, one she recognized. Picking up the pace, she worked through a maze of tunnels, some so low that she had to duck, and came out in a space that had clearly been used as an armory and had three doors leading off it.
Cammie was in the middle in human form, taking on three of fighters. Valerie was about to move in and help, but the Were was handling herself quite nicely. She was quick, her reflexes almost as fast as a vampire’s, and while she took a couple of cuts across the torso and arms, she would heal. The pain just seemed to push her to go faster and harder, and she soon sent two to their deaths. Only when she turned and saw Valerie did she pause, giving the opponent the upper hand.
His strike was moving right for her throat, but Valerie couldn’t allow that. She took three quick steps and grabbed the attacking arm, twisting so that the blade fell as the shoulder joint dislocated. Next she stepped behind the man, put her claws to his throat, and tore it open.
He collapsed in a gurgling shriek of pain and was gone.
“Oh my God,” Cammie declared, stepping back, hand to her chest.
“No, just me.” Valerie glanced around, checking to see that they were clear.
“How the hell’d you find us?” Cammie asked. “Of course, I’m glad you did, I just… Wow.”
“There were others at El Diablo who saw you leave, then we spotted the airship, and, yeah—not too difficult from there. I see you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of a mess.”
“Think so?” Cammie glanced at the three dead warriors in the room with them. “Made a mess, yes.”
Valerie froze at the scent of a vampire, but then recognized it. “Don’t attack, Royland. It’s me—Val.”
Royland came around the corner, hesitant at first, and then smiled widely.
“Where the hell did you go off to?” he asked, then paused, and with a glance over his shoulder sprinted off and killed a man. When he came back he said, “I mean, shit, Val! You could’ve left us a message. At least Garcia had the good thought of leaving the bodies in an arrow so we’d know where he went. You didn’t even bother to do that.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Hey, I went looking for you all too. At least you could’ve stayed in town for a bit before taking off.”
“Wait, you went back there after we left?” Cammie asked. “And now look at us. All back together again for one last glorious battle.”
“I doubt it will be the last,” Valerie replied. “Maybe the last here.”
“For us it will,” Cammie said, nodding to Royland. “After this is over, we mean to settle down for as long as the world allows.”
“You won’t go into space?”
Cammie cringed. “God, no. What the hell makes you think I’d want to do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the idea that you could learn what’s out there, fight for the survival of the human race... The list goes on.”
“Good luck convincing her,” Royland interjected. “She wants a dog.”
“A dog?” Valerie stared at her friend. This was not the Cammie she had met when she first arrived in New York.
Cammie shrugged.
“And you, Royland?” V
alerie asked. “I suppose I already know the answer.”
“You do.”
“She’s got you whipped, huh?”
He just laughed at that. “Hell yes, she does.”
Valerie assessed the three doors, but Cammie smiled and shook her head.
“Already got ‘em.” Cammie motioned to the three bodies on the floor. “Far as I can tell these were the last three, unless any escaped out a back way.”
“Come on, then.” Valerie started leading the way out. “We’d better check on our friends out there and see how they’re holding up.”
The trio made their way to the entrance, Royland grumbling about moving around in sunlight and wanting sleep as he put on his mask.
Walking back into daylight after being in those tunnels would’ve likely made others cringe, but Valerie’s eyes adjusted immediately. She looked around and was glad to find the El Diablo people there waiting, Diego in their midst.
“Took you long enough,” the werecat said with a smirk. “We did all the dirty work while you were playing hide and seek.”
“Am I going crazy, or did Sandra actually let you come out here?” Royland asked when he saw him.
“Hey, she doesn’t control me,” Diego replied, shaking hands with the vampire.
“Right—don’t think of it as control. That helps you stay saner, I bet. Too bad I lost my marbles years ago, or that’d be something I’d have to worry about to.”
“Enough, you two,” Cammie interjected, then quickly introduced Valerie to the big man named Micky and his buddy Arturo before saying, “How about we focus on the mission at hand?”
“These bastards took out Pops,” Micky stated. “Now they’ve paid for it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Lady Woo was behind it and has to pay too.”
“Right, and there’s the whole ‘war against her’ thing,” Cammie replied. She turned to Valerie and explained that Diego and Garcia had gone up against Lady Woo not long ago, and she was the one leading the war against New York.
“So the plan,” Royland interjected, “was to go after her. Bite off the snake’s head, if you will.”
“Only problem with that plan,” a man said, coming up to them with Garcia and a boy, “is that Lady Woo’s going to be holed up real good. You get to her, you might as well kill off the rest of them too, just end the war.”
“And you would be?” Valerie asked.
“This is Fred,” Garcia answered for him, then gave her a handshake. “Thought I’d catch you when I first got to New York. You’re as elusive as a jackrabbit.”
“I had business to attend to up north,” she replied, glad to see him. “It couldn’t wait.”
He nodded, then added, “Fred here was a messenger from Lady Woo to this lovely group of corpses.”
“On your side now, though,” Fred replied, holding up his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. “Garcia here’s been talking you all up, and I gotta say, might be more than just me and my son would switch sides if you spread the message right.”
“And how would we do that?” Valerie asked.
“Keep with the plan to move in stealthy, but set me and some others loose to persuade some of ‘em we know we can trust. We see who’s with us, you wait to kill anyone en masse, and we go from there.”
Valerie pursed her lips, considering this. “You think there are enough of them who would turn on her?”
“I think there are a lot of people who are scared, who don’t know what they’re getting into. I think these same people would be willing to at least listen.”
“I could go with him,” Garcia offered. “If anyone tries something, we fight our way back to you all, then raise hell.”
“Meanwhile we see about assassinating Lady Woo and her top people,” Valerie added, liking the plan already. “It won’t stop people from fighting, but it will cause confusion, which, combined with you convincing at least some of them to switch sides, will throw them for a loop.”
“Exactly,” Fred replied.
“I like you, Fred.” Valerie turned to the others. “If anyone wants to seek safety, we can get the airship back to New York with you on it, but we need to know now. No tucking tail and running in the middle of a fight.”
“My son,” Fred offered. “If anything happened to Eddie Jr. I’d never forgive myself.”
“What?” Eddie Jr. protested. “No, you can’t be serious. I can fight, Dad!”
“You can, but you won’t.”
A couple of the former inhabitants of El Diablo stepped forward, asking to go too.
“Right.” Valerie counted seven, including the boy. “Here’s what we do: we escort them back, some of us in the Pod, the rest in the airship. Get them to New York, then put our plan into play.”
The rest agreed and they set off for the airship and Pod, prepared to make their move.
CHAPTER SEVEN
New York
Sandra was still pissed at Diego for leaving her. While she understood it, understanding something was a long way from liking it.
And she wasn’t the only one not happy.
The citizens of New York were growing restless, that much was clear. Sandra hopped to the wall in a Pod, watching the demonstration. The protesters had all lined up near the walls, demanding to know what was happening. If it got much worse violence would break out in the city, which was the main thing they were trying to avoid.
They found one of the extended areas of the wall made for landing the Pod and touched down. The soldier accompanying her asked her to hold for a moment while he made sure they were safe.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied, but when he glanced back at her, eyes drifting to her belly, she sighed and added, “but if you must.”
She often forgot that it wasn’t just her to think about anymore. Even if she wanted to be cavalier, another life was depending on her. It annoyed her no end that this was all she seemed to think about nowadays, but when you had someone living and growing inside you it was hard to let your mind wander too far away.
A knock on the Pod signaled it was clear, so she emerged and nodded to the soldier. He stood with the butt-end of his rifle in his shoulder, muzzle down but ready in case there should be trouble. Whether that trouble would be from outside or within, she didn’t want to ask.
With everything that had gone on in New York, she wanted to believe the people were moving on from days of violence. That they had changed. No, she insisted on believing it.
A glance at the demonstrators gave her a moment’s doubt, but then she turned to the ruins and desolate land beyond New York and sighed. No matter what happened here they were better off than being out there; that was certain.
Despite the dreariness of it all, the descending sun cast long shadows across the ruins of what had once been surrounding cities and rippled gold across the water. It was, in its own disturbing way, quite beautiful.
Movement caught her attention in the ruins to the southwest. Her heart thumped extra hard as she considered that this could be them—the enemy. The war could start right now.
But as she watched, it became clear this was just one individual—someone who had lost their mind long ago, most likely. How many of them wandered around out there—lost, barely surviving—she had no idea, but wished there was something to be done about them.
Not wanting to go down that whirlpool of depressing thought, she glanced at the man she was waiting to see. Jackson.
“They’ve heard, you know,” Jackson said as he approached, stopping at a point where they had secured large guns to the walls. He held the handle of one of them, sighting down the barrel as if about to take on the enemy, and then turned back to her with a serious expression. “The people of New York, they know there’s danger ahead.”
“I think that’s kinda obvious, and why we’re here,” she replied, irritation dripping from her voice. She wasn’t a child who needed her hand held during this process. “We need to get them away from the walls and back inside where it’s safe.”
&
nbsp; “Will it be?” he asked. “Safe, I mean?”
At that she shrugged. “Maybe nowhere’s safe, but I have to believe we’ve trained the soldiers well enough. We have Weres, we have vampires. We have the city walls. There’s no reason to think we can’t hold our own in this war.”
“And we have Valerie,” he added, turning back to look at the horizon. “Or at least, she’s out there somewhere.”
“Maybe putting a stop to all this before we have to do anything.”
“Yes, that’s a possibility. Or maybe running off, abandoning us.”
Sandra frowned. “I thought you were moving on.”
“This isn’t about me. You can’t deny that she tends to pursue one problem after another. How do you know she hasn’t seen something else out there, some other great evil, and decided to take care of it, leaving us behind?”
“You know what?” Sandra shook her head, making a tsk sound with her tongue. “It’s sad you don’t have more faith in us. In her.”
“You’re saying I’m wrong?”
“No, I’m saying that if she found another problem out there I’d trust her judgment. I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that she would be making the right choice for the safety of humanity. Plus, like I said, we can fend for ourselves.”
He scrunched his nose, eyebrows furrowed, then looked away.
“You know I’m right,” Sandra insisted. “Personal matters shouldn’t cloud your opinion of her.”
“What do you want from me?”
“The people listen to you. Respect you.” Sandra turned to look at the protesters. “We need to find out who among them can fight, and get the rest underground. Maybe to the old hideouts, the underground ones.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Outside New York
New York rose up before Valerie in her Pod. Micky was sitting beside her, with Diego, Cammie, and Royland in the back. The blimp carrying Micky’s buddies plus Garcia, Fred, and Eddie Jr. floated behind them.
Valerie had the comm device next to her as she flew, and had just buzzed Sandra.