by Roy Bright
The atmosphere between them has grown dark. What was a peaceful meeting now feels like a standoff and Gary can see people’s hands twitching, readying themselves to aim their weapons at the first sign of trouble.
Lewis finds the silence more than unnerving and he moves back two steps, his movement sudden.
Conrad, Marvin, and Barnes respond by raising their rifles, swift and with purpose.
Gary holds up a hand, “Whoa, okay everyone just relax, let’s just relax here.”
“Control yourselves men,” the Colonel barks, “I expect better from you.”
Private Barnes moves to the side of Marvin. “This is bullshit sir. These fuckers are up to no good. I say we waste ’em.”
Colonel Taylor snaps his attention to the young soldier, fury etched into his face. “Then it is a good job you are not in charge, Private Barnes. Now lower your weapon.” He looks around. “All of you lower your goddamn weapons.”
Conrad and Marvin’s compliance with the order is instant, but Private Barnes keeps his rifle trained on Gary.
The Colonel’s eyes bore into the young man, his teeth gritted, he speaks slowly but with an anger that is resolute, “Lower. Your. Fucking. Weapon. Private – now!”
Barnes is drenched with sweat. He breathes out and brings his weapon down slowly.
Colonel Taylor continues to stare at the private while addressing Gary. “You see what we are dealing with here, Gary. This situation needs bringing to a head. I need answers.” He looks at him.
Gary reads his expression as a sign that negotiations are over. He is out of options; he must give this man something. He closes his eyes.
The Colonel has run out of patience. “Sergeant Bzovsky—”
“We are protecting something,” Gary shouts, interrupting him before he can issue his order. “We are protecting something of the highest value and of the greatest importance.”
“What are you protecting, Detective?” the Colonel replies. “What is so important in this vault that you’re willing to die for it?”
Gary stares at him, his eyes pleading with the man to let the scant explanation he has offered be enough, begging with him to take it no further, to ask no more questions.
Colonel Taylor is fast; so fast that he has his sidearm drawn, cocked, and pointed at Gary’s head before he has time to react.
“I will not repeat myself, Detective.” He shakes his head. “I won’t.”
Conrad, Marvin, and Private Barnes snap their weapons back up to their eyelines and point them at the two men causing Lewis to do the same, the barrel of his rifle shaking as fear transfers from his hands into it.
“The Light!” Gary shouts, the word seeming to echo around them. “We are protecting The Light. Charlotte Hope is in there.”
Colonel Taylor lowers his weapon a little, a look of shock on his face. In that moment, he wishes he hadn’t pushed for the answer, that his men hadn’t found this place, or the men in front of him. His experience of fighting in the Apocalypse had gained him enough knowledge to realize what was about to happen.
Gary brings him out of his trance with a shout. “Colonel, Colonel Taylor – your man!” He points toward Barnes as the private’s body begins to vibrate, fast and violent.
Transforming from Private Barnes and into a Taken, the creature’s next move is so fast it is as though the world has gone into slow motion. He lunges at Marvin and sinks his teeth into his neck, causing the Corporal to scream in pain and squeeze the trigger on his rifle.
Gary flinches as Marvin’s weapon explodes into life, the noise deafening in the narrow corridor. Such is the shock of the moment it is as though he can see every bullet leave the muzzle, he can see the bolt carrier cycle back and forth, fast and methodical.
Lewis doesn’t stand a chance as Marvin’s bullets rip through his face. Blood, bone, and brain erupt from the back of his head, the force slamming him into the wall behind him.
Above, Gary hears the skylights shatter as men drop through them on fast-ropes and crunch down to the floor, then look up at him, their eyes black and lifeless. The black abyss of the Taken. He jolts into action and raises his rifle, opening fire.
Colonel Taylor and Conrad react.
Conrad slings his weapon to his side, grabs hold of Barnes and with enormous strength, whips him around and slams him into the wall.
Barnes slumps to the floor. His head then snaps back up. Snarling at Conrad, he retreats, scurrying away like an injured animal.
In the bank’s main lobby, a blood-red portal rips open within the ground and demons stream out of it, the dimensional rift swirling and crackling with terrifying electricity as the horrifying creatures vacate. The first to enter the bank are six feet in height and of muscular build with horns atop their heads. They scream at the men as they enter the room, a terrifying roar of domination as their inferno-like red body’s blaze with energy. Their mouths open to display row upon row of razor-sharp teeth, and they attack the soldiers with swift and brutal violence, offering no mercy, tearing them to pieces with rapier-like claws. Chunks of flesh slap onto the floor, blood pours out of deep wounds, and limbs and viscera tumble to the ground. The bank is a slaughterhouse in a matter of seconds.
Back in the corridor, Conrad lifts up his rifle and opens fire at the creature that was once Private Barnes. The Taken launches itself into the air and clings to the ceiling cornicing. It then scrambles toward him, claws clicking as it races across the ceiling. The sound of Colonel Taylor’s sidearm joins Conrad’s burst fire as both men attempt to bring the creature down, but it is too fast for them and it scurries above their heads.
The Colonel turns his attention to Gary upon hearing the man struggling on the floor with one of the creatures as it snarls and slavers over him, trying to bury its teeth into his face. Striding over, he kicks the demon in the head causing it to sprawl. It raises its head and screams at them, then collapses and withers to dust as a single shot from the Colonel’s Glock rips through its forehead. As he looks down the corridor, his heart races and he swallows hard. Colonel Taylor is a man who, under normal combat situations, would control his fear but the scene unfolding pushes him to the very limit of terror as a horde of demonic creature’s flood into the corridor, racing over one another, scrambling along the walls like lizards. In the 18 months that he has been fighting these creatures, this is the most terrifying thing he has ever seen.
Behind them, as Gary and Conrad busy themselves reloading their weapons with full magazines, a Taken lands on the floor and hisses at them, a wicked smile across its face.
Gary had seen people turn before, had seen it many times, but the speed and ferocity in which these people turned has stunned him. He looks back over his shoulder toward the Colonel. “It shouldn’t happen this fast.”
“What?” the Colonel replies, looking over his own shoulder. The demons have adjusted their assault, moving toward them at a slower pace as though calculating the threat to them.
“The turning, I have never seen it happen so fast. They know – they know that she is here. This is endgame stuff, we are fucked!”
The Colonel turns his full attention toward the demons, finding it hard to disagree with Gary’s appraisal of their situation.
The creatures in the corridor begin to laugh. Mad, demonic laughter.
Gary looks upward, his face pleading. He whispers, “Judas, please!”
Behind them, a warning buzzer blares out from the vault door, startling them and causing the demons to pause. Its repetitive sound accompanied by a flashing red warning light forms an eerie disco within the corridor. None of the men are able to tear their attention from the vault door as the buzzer continues to sound. The lone Taken stood in front of the door turns toward it, slow and suspicious as the sound of it opening grips its attention. All within the corridor stare as the door slowly swings open, its movement tedious, forcing the tension to rise.
Gary wets his mouth and licks his lips, not knowing what to expect, not knowing what will appear
once the door has fully opened. He is praying that it is Judas who will step out of the vault with Charlotte hunkered down behind him. That the angel warrior will then tear into the demons and destroy every last one of them. He has to stop himself from rubbing his eyes in disbelief as the door comes to a stop and stood before them is a slender young woman, her hair tied back in a ponytail, dressed all in black with calf-length boots and a sword in each hand. “Charlotte?” he says in surprise, frowning.
She smiles and raises a blade to the demons. “Come on you fuckers. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Fourteen
She tears through the bank, a violent force of nature acting as a devastating hammer of God, delivering decisive and brutal retribution upon the agents of darkness that stand in her way.
In the short moments since Charlotte burst out of the vault, severing the head of the first Taken before it could even move, she has propelled herself forward, past Gary and the soldiers, and forced the demonic horde that had been approaching along the corridor back into the main lobby. She is relentless. Carving through them with flashing blades, dispatching them with ease despite their enormous, brutish size. She halts in the middle of a group of them and catches her breath, smiling all the while. She twirls both swords in her hands from back to front, the blood of demons turning to dust and falling to the marble floor. She grins as she turns in a slow, clockwise circle. “Big bad demons think you’re so scary and tough,” she says, smirking. “Well, you don’t look so tough to me anymore.”
One of them steps forward, “Is that right, you cocky Jewish cunt! Maybe we’ll bring some more friends to the party.”
In the blink of an eye, Charlotte motion-blurs forward and stabs the demon straight through the center of its forehead, right between its two massive horns, driving the Destiny Sword deep into the beast. “No-one calls me that. No-one,” she says with a snarl, then twists the sword so that the blade is uppermost and drives it upward, slitting the demons head in two. The beast explodes into dust and falls to the floor in a drift.
The rest attack, charging at her all at once. She moves like the wind through them, slicing arms, heads, and legs. She is faster, more skilled, and much deadlier than they and her swords move with fluid purpose, as though they were fixed extensions of her arms.
Demons mob her, trying to claw their way through, desperate to be the one to tell Lucifer, I did that, I killed the bitch! They scramble over counters, desks, and chairs, areas that would once house the wealthy as they sat and smugly inspected their bank balance, or the poor as they listened blankly to the nuances of their home repossession.
Gary, the Colonel, and Conrad run into the main lobby and stand in awe at the beautiful woman destroying the demonic horrors with ease and grace.
If Gary hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have believed that this was Charlotte, the child that he had been helping to take care of for the last 18 months. He wouldn’t have believed that this weapon of holy might, scything through creatures of Hell, was the scared little girl that he had put into the vault only three days prior. Transfixed by her elegance, poise, ferocity, and her devastation, he manages to grunt his way out of the trance that has him gripped and raises his gun, firing at one of the creatures.
The bullet hits it on the shoulder and the sound causes Charlotte to whip around to her left, bringing her sword with her, decapitating the creature. She scowls at Gary, her expression enough to say, Don’t meddle old man, I got this.
He holds up a hand and purses his lips while raising his eyebrows.
Colonel Taylor grabs his left arm, “Help me with my men detective, I need to see if any are still alive. I have a feeling we need not worry about this young lady.”
Gary nods and follows him.
Charlotte is now back in the fight in full effect. She roundhouse kicks a demon out through the entrance doors and into the street.
The beast struggles to bring itself back to its feet, such is the force of her attack. It sprawls on the floor, looking dazed.
Through the open doorway, Charlotte spies a huge portal tear open in the middle of the cross-section of Griswold Street and West Congress Street and out of it charges an immense Warrior-Knight demon. She grimaces as it stomps into view; its whole body covered in an armor-plated carapace, its face encased in a bone helmet that fits snuggly to its slender structure and its shoulders covered in sharp spikes. It looks a formidable foe, and one that moves like a freight train, concrete cracking and crunching under each footfall as it thunders toward her. Behind it, she sees two more burst out of the portal and she turns back to Gary and the others who had started to make their way further into the bank. “RUN! TAKE COVER!”
The stampeding Warrior-Knight powers through the door and into the bank, bearing down on her and swinging a massive clawed hand.
From nowhere, and out of pure and automatic instinct, her Divinity reflexes kick in, enveloping her whole body in a protective bubble of holy light. Just in time, as the blow would have crushed her; it connects with such vicious force that it smashes her into the wall to her left, causing a crumbling indent in the shape of the sphere that protects her.
She looks down at the protective barrier, “Whoa!” The bubble disappears and she drops to the floor, landing cat-like on her feet.
The Warrior-Knight demon stares at her, slow and deliberate. At the same time, it reaches over its shoulder, grabbing the hilt of a large and powerful sword strapped to its back, and draws it upward, the distinctive sound of it unsheathing filling the air.
The other two Knights join their companion, and they too draw their weapons.
She can feel blood running down the back of her head. Having never created a Divinity Shield before, she had hit her head against the back of the sphere, unprepared for it. It wouldn’t happen again. Without taking her eyes off the Knights, she wipes the blood off, then smiles and laughs a little.
Calling a temporary halt to their business of searching for fallen soldiers, the three men move to her side, their guns drawn.
She looks at them as they approach. “It’s okay, Gary. I got this.”
“Yeah, well,” he replies, “if it’s all the same to you, I want in. You’re still my charge until Judas gets back.”
The Colonel looks at Gary for a second, but decides against asking about the man he has just mentioned. Just about everyone he knows has heard the tales of Judas Iscariot and The Light and he has been very much wanting to meet them both for a long time, but that fascination will have to be shelved for now. It is what stands before them that must be dealt with. He nods toward her, “You might be The Light, young lady, but no one can do everything on their own. We all need a little help from time to time.”
She smirks. “Fair enough, old soldier man, but do try to keep up,” she says as she sets off toward the demons.
Conrad grunts. “She’s a feisty one. Good for breeding I would think.”
Gary looks at him, turning his head slowly, his eyes wide. “Don’t even fucking think about it, Lurch.”
Conrad shrugs, not understanding how inappropriate his comment had been.
Charlotte glances back at Gary, her mouth forming the faintest of smiles, then covers the 60 foot distance between herself and the demons in a flash. So quick in fact that she disappeared from their sight until reappearing in front of the closest demon. Planting a foot square into its chest, and spinning herself backward, she kicks it under the chin, then lands on her feet, legs apart, left hand and sword on the floor steadying her, the right stretched out to her side, sword and arm in perfect alignment.
The attack rocks the demon, forcing it backward but it does not go down. Instead, it shakes its head and charges at her.
Charlotte leaps into the air over it, slamming the hilt of one of her swords down onto the top of its helmet.
The blow staggers the demon forward to the three men and they open fire, but the Knight’s armor is much too thick and the bullets ricochet off, impacting around them and causing them to
flinch.
Colonel Taylor screams, “Stop! Cease fire! We will kill ourselves, back off, back off!”
They move back as the huge demon crashes to its knees, its enormous hands slamming into the marble causing it to split open.
As the other two Warrior-Knights charge at Charlotte, she turns and runs toward the fallen one as it attempts to get back to its feet. She leaps into the air, her swords raised, and then drives them both down hard into the nape of the creature’s neck as she lands on its back.
The holy weapons cut through the demon’s bone armor as if they were hot knives slicing through butter and it screams in agony. She throws more force behind them, pushing down hard then twists her hands so that her palms and the blades are facing outward. She drives the swords down and around in a scissor action that slices the Warrior Knight’s head clean off.
Unlike the other demons she has encountered, this one’s demise generates a much greater and violent reaction – rather than just withering to dust, the demon explodes sending her rocketing backward.
The demon’s dust spreads throughout the bank like a deadly pollen, attempting to infect anything that it comes into contact with.
Gary closes his eyes and puts his hand over his mouth and nose as the foul dust billows over him, but covering up does no good as it penetrates into his nostrils and coats his throat. He has felt the pain of crowd-control gas from his training days on the force, but this feels ten times worse and he drops to his knees coughing and retching. He looks to his right through stinging eyes to see both the Colonel and Conrad incapacitated by the noxious cloud.
Charlotte’s exposure to the dust is short lived as huge hands grab her, lift her into the air, and throw her backward through the bank’s main doors, and she is grateful for her natural defense mechanism once more as Divinity encases her, just before she smashes into the asphalt – only this time there is no bubble. Her entire body shimmers with a white-blue light that forms an artificial armor, and as she skips over the ground she cannot help but think about how bad she would have been hurt if it hadn’t manifested. She comes to a tumbling halt at the edge of the intersection under a set of traffic lights and steadies herself, grabbing her swords, then stands, checking herself for injuries. She breathes out hard as she casts her eyes over the silent street, littered with demons and small pockets of Taken all poised ready for battle. Gritting her teeth, she rolls her head around her neck, then walks back into the center of the street.