by Kenny Soward
“Thanks,” Jedi mumbled.
Anderson flashed Bess a smile. Gave the scissors a snip before setting them back down. “Too bad. We could have been great together, Bess.” He nudged Jedi with his knee. “Now, I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Nothing like watching a bitch bleed out with Folgers in my cup. Keep an eye on her, huh?”
Jedi nodded as he lined up Bess’s guns in an orderly fashion next to her backpack. “I’m not staying long. I need to take her laptop over to Angie.”
“Fine. Miss all the fun.” Anderson left Bess and Jedi alone in the room.
Chapter 5
When Bess heard Anderson’s footsteps descending the stairs, she focused on her feet. Her leg and the knife stuck there, a half inch of the blade exposed. If she could just cross her feet and touch the blade to the leather strap holding her left foot, she might nick the bonds.
“Hey.” Bess tried to keep her voice low, which wasn’t a problem given her dry throat. “Hey,” she repeated, giving a little hiss she normally used to get her cats off the counter. “Help me.” It was a long shot but worth a try. Jedi was human and likely suckered into serving the whorchal. Maybe he wasn’t one-hundred percent loyal to them.
Jedi, still rummaging through her backpack, hesitated for a moment before resuming his work.
“Hey, man. You can help me. I know you think Jesus Christ is bullshit. But he’s not.” Bess tried to bring her feet together, tried to get her legs crossed to use the blade. “He’s alive and in our hearts. Even yours. There’s hope yet. There's a place for you if you let me go. Keep running with these assholes and you’re your soul will rot. Death isn’t the end.” It wasn't an act to trick him. Bess believed what she was saying. The power of the Lord, His word coming out of her unworthy mouth, was real.
Jedi got to his feet. Came to her side. Shook his head. “Look, lady, You're already dead. I wish I could help you but I can’t. Ain’t no way. If it's any consolation, this should be over quick.”
“Not if you put a gun in my hand.” Bess nodded to the floor at her backpack and the weapons next to it.
“Sorry.” The look in Jedi’s eyes confirmed his words. They held the anxious hesitancy of someone trying to stay alive.
“Please.”
Jedi shook his head. “Sorry.” He turned to go, took two steps, and stopped by her feet. He saw what she was doing. Both her legs were covered in blood from trying to cross them, her wound leaking everywhere. Cutting one strap would give her other limbs more freedom. Might enable her to flip the table and get to her guns.
She needed three more inches.
Three.
Jedi could help her, or just as easily shout a warning, too.
Instead, he gave a quick glance into the other room. Turned. Loosened the strap on her left leg. Surprised, but not complaining, Bess waited until the buckle was free, and jerked. Jedi was small, but he snatched the leather tight, only letting it play out five holes before pushing the prong back.
“Dumb asshole didn’t tighten these very well. Left a knife in your leg.” He shrugged and walked out.
“God bless you,” Bess whispered after him, feeling the Lord's blessing on her once more. She’d been getting cocky, headstrong, and filled with pride. The Lord was teaching her a lesson, and she needed to learn from it.
Bess gave an experimental tug and was able to cross her feet enough to press the edge of the blade against the edge of the leather strap cuffing her left ankle.
She slowly sawed until the leather grew a nick. Then harder, putting leverage into it. The part of the knife lodged between her fibula and tibia danced. It hurt like a bitch, but Bess kept going. Tears and sweat mixed to stream down her face. It took a moment to realize the sound of her own exasperated breathing had taken her attention off the warning sounds of Anderson’s return. Her heart leapt. She stopped her sawing, glanced up, saw and heard nothing, so she continued to go at it. Each movement sent laser fire pain up her leg, but freedom was within her grasp. Pain be damned!
A half inch of leather to go.
A quarter inch.
She had to be careful she didn’t nick her femoral artery doing what she was doing, so she slowed and took a deep breath before resuming her patient sawing. When only a sliver of leather remained, she pulled her feet apart hard and was rewarded with a soft snap.
“Praise God.” The words came out in a rush even as she lifted her arms off the table a foot each, then straightened her left arm by lowering her right.
A gasp from the doorway.
Bess looked up. Anderson stood there, a cup of coffee in hand, eyes wide with surprise.
Several things happened at once.
Anderson tossed his cup and its steaming contents at her. Bess ignored the scalding liquid and leaned left, the slack released from her free leg giving her the ability to lean most of her body off the edge. The entire table tipped and fell with her still attached, landing hard and clattery.
Her backpack was a mere three or four feet away, and she stretched her left arm to get it, pinning her right arm and leg to the table. Unable to reach it, she heaved, using her elbow and hip to scoot the entire table half the distance. Anderson fell to his knees next to the pack and scrambled to get one of her guns.
Knowing he wasn’t the most competent with firearms, and also that she a single chance at this, Bess heaved another foot closer, balanced on her hip, and kicked the gun out of his hand just as he turned to shoot her. Before he could find the other gun, she reached forward and got her fingers beneath his belt. Grasped with every ounce of strength she had.
Anderson pulled backward, dragging Bess even closer to the pile of stuff. She lifted her free leg, wedged her knee between them, and pinned him back with a powerful flex.
With the squirmy Anderson under her, Bess shimmied towards her remaining pistol. No way to get it unless she released his belt. Bess let go. Reached for the gun. Her fingers grazed the grip once, twice. Anderson squirmed away, then turned and leapt on her. She ignored him at first, still reaching, until his fists began pummeling her head and face.
Enraged, Bess quit trying for her weapon and twisted beneath Anderson. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him close, both of them growling and grunting.
With a scream, she smashed her forehead into his nose. Again and again, skull versus cartilage, until something crunched and flattened and showered her with blood. A high, weak whine escaped Anderson, and he fell limp atop her.
Bess pushed him off, head spinning, blood in her eyes and mouth. She reached into her backpack and fished around, unable to find her knife.
“Oh no,” she slurred. Glancing down, she saw the weapon had come free during the fight and lay on the floor near her pack. Bess shimmied closer and and snatched it up. Turned the carbon blade and cut her bonds, freeing her hands first, and then her remaining leg, eyes flitting to the doorway every other second.
She had very little time.
Once free, Bess got to one knee, stuffed her knife and a silvershard grenade into her belt, and lifted her pistol. Anderson had fled the scene, so she pointed the barrel at the doorway.
A huge body charged through, shoulders and a head barreling toward her.
Krag!
Bess squeezed the trigger three times, feeling the power of the Glock as it bucked in her hands. The ultraviolet rounds staggered the charging whorchal, knocking him backwards two steps.
He remained standing though, face a mask of rage, eyes gone a pale shade of red. He bared a mouth of pointed teeth above his square jaw.
He roared, lowered his head, and charged again, and this time Bess kept on firing. All nine rounds, each one slamming into the whorchal’s chest like a fist. Krag leaned into each punch, gaining ground step by step.
He dropped to a knee in front of her, swiping her aside with black claws. Bess careened into the wall, twisted, and crashed in a heap. She got her hands beneath her. Struggled to her knees. Stood.
Krag remained kneeling, ichor oozing from a doze
n bullet wounds, face pained as the poisons coursing through his body took hold.
Bess got into the best defensive stance she could muster, knife raised in her left hand and pointed at the whorchal.
Krag bent and vomited a gout of blood onto the floor. “What did you do to me?” His voice was a horrific croak, a mix of human and animal wail.
“Ready to give up?”
“Fuck you, `Venger.”
Bess dug the silvershard grenade from her belt and held it up. She grinned. “Do you have a minute to talk with me about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?”
Krag spun and launched himself through the open doorway. Bess flipped the tab on the fist-sized projectile and hurled it after him. There was an explosion. A flash of violet light.
Silence.
Bess limped forward and found the gun she’d kicked out of Anderson’s hand. Her right calf was stiffening. The top of her jeans were soaked with blood from the clawing she’d taken.
She knelt next to her backpack. Took off her shirt. Tied it around the wound in her calf, cinching it tight. She inspected her side. The skin along her ribs was flayed. Not terribly so, but two claws had bitten deep, gouging skin and muscle both.
Bess pulled her sports bra over the wound, stretching the bottom to tie it even tighter. She rummaged through what remained of her stuff, which was everything since Jedi hadn’t found her laptop. She sheathed and pocketed her blade. Exchanged magazines in her empty MP5 and set it next to her. Reloaded the Glocks, too, and placed them in the backpack. Grabbed her jacket off the back of a wooden chair, put it on, and then shrugged the backpack on.
Holding her MP5 and last holy grenade, Bess crept toward the open doorway.
She extended her godsight, asking the Lord to show her any dangers that might be lurking. Sobbed with relief to find the Lord still with her, inside her, moving through her soul.
No, don’t you cry yet, Bess Winters.
A moan came from behind her.
Damn. How could she have forgotten?
She hobbled over to the guy pinned against the wall. Tubes and wires stuck out everywhere. Couldn't unhook him without killing him.
She searched for her phone but it wasn’t in any of her pockets. She didn't trust her lines of communication anyway, especially with the ECC’s codes compromised. She had to make it out alive to warn the ECC. This could be something big, putting the entire order in danger.
Bess caught the first whiff of smoke. Not like a stove fire or food burning on a grill, but that stinging scent of drywall and curtains and carpet going up in flames. She remembered a past training exercise when she and a line of cadets had to pass through a smoking structure without gas masks. Bess had made it, just barely, foaming at the mouth, eyes streaming with tears. Three of her Academy mates had collapsed and needed trainers to rescue them.
Bess knew it wouldn’t take long for the smoke to kill her.
She shut her eyes and crossed herself. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, may your spirit be guided home to His house and His love so you can rest in peace. Amen.”
Backpack hitched up on her shoulders, Bess made her way into the next room where the smoke was thicker. Light flickered on the stairs and she descended to the second floor, hobbling. Every step was a new stab to her stiffening calf.
The door at the bottom was open, and she found herself in the hallway where she’d fired her MP5 earlier. She could tell the fire was raging through the walls. It was twenty degrees hotter, and she had to duck to get even the faintest hint of good air. Smoke was billowing up the stairwell to the first floor. The heat was tremendous.
Bess retreated. Found a small square window behind the coat rack on the landing. She picked up the rack, held it like a spear, and smashed the glass with it, working the old wood around the frame to clear out any shards. She poked her head out and saw it was a twenty-five foot drop to the ground, the deck too far to the right to hit.
She tossed the backpack out and then her rifle. Gripped the bottom of the frame and pulled herself up. Cracked her head on the top portion, but got her wounded right leg over to straddle the window.
Half-dizzy and equal parts weak, Bess situated herself on the ledge, then swung out to hang by her hands.
Her calf ached already. What would it feel like when she hit the ground? This was going to hurt. Hurt bad. Still better than dying of smoke inhalation.
Bess let go of the sill and dropped.
Chapter 6
“I see a city in chains. A great boiling lake. Sand.” Lonnie hobbled along, delirious, head dizzy with the pain in his chest, each footstep causing the ache to shoot twin cramps down his sides. Selix beneath his arm, laboring as she guided them up the quiet sidewalk. They’d made their way toward the center of Cincinnati, away from the sirens and the burnt husk of Rose Park.
“The City in Chains. That’s Xester. Your home.”
“Yes.” Lonnie saw Xester clearly in his mind. The massive fortress city, its base constructed of a magnetic stone that propelled it upward against the sky. Seven monstrous chains made of impregnable steelcore kept it from toppling. During times of war, the chains loosened, the entire fortress rising a thousand feet above the ground to rain hell on its attackers.
“And who is Makare? Who…?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but she’s your sister.”
“I remember.” Lonnie pictured himself sitting in a small room nested in a multi-level spire atop the uppermost reaches of Xester. It was reddish-black stone, burnt brick, the sky through an arched window a shade of deep rose streaked with ashen clouds. Carpets dyed the color of charcoal or pitch kept the floor soft beneath their knees as he and his sister played. She, a waif of a girl, with pale pink eyes and skin so blanched it glowed. Hair colored white corn. She was a short, frail thing. Had always been the smallest of her study mates. But it was her eyes that held depths. Layers beyond layers. “My sister, Makare. Devious.”
“Yeah, that’s her. Good, Lonnie. Very good. Your memories are returning in waves now.”
Lonnie nodded. “But what did she do?”
“Kid, she did terrible shit. She…do you really want to know this right now?”
A heaviness fell over his heart. He wanted the answer, but why complicate things? Why reveal the shocking truth? The knowledge would come in its own sweet, painful time. “No," he said.
A coughing fit shook him. His lungs ached, wheezing with every step as they climbed the “Hill.” He hadn’t coughed up blood in a few minutes, but something was changing in his chest, each breath shorter than the last by a hair.
Yeah, being trapped beneath the car had fucked him up good.
“Shit,” he said. “I think I’m going to die.”
“You’re not going to die.” Selix nuzzled his cheek. “I won’t let you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
“Do you want to stop and rest a minute?”
It was near 2AM. Most people were inside except for the occasional group of teenagers gathered on the corners; these they avoided. They didn’t have the strength to fight, keeping to the shadows as best they could. They had a rhythm. A lurching gait as they leaned against one another like drunken sailors. Yeah, if one sailor had been harpooned in the side.
“No. Let’s keep going.”
Wolfish howls pursued them. Yips and barks. A distant grumbling of some animal pack. There was a pattern to their calls, a language of beasts and things that reached in the darkness with claws and teeth that could break skin as easily as a needle through rice paper.
“Ghoulkine.” Selix shivered, urging Lonnie to move faster, her fear intensifying Lonnie’s own.
The word flitted on the edge of his memories. He just needed Selix to draw out the specifics and he was sure to get a picture. “What are ghoulkine?”
“Well, you’ve heard of ghouls, right? Basic Earthen mythology.”
“Yeah, flesh eaters.”
“Right. Those are real. A godamn epidemic i
n the Midwest. There’s a lot of debate on the topic, but it’s generally agreed upon that ghouls originated from a virus passed from our world that infected Earth’s population. Ghouls have been around since early man.”
“No cure?”
“It’s not a physical virus. It’s a virus of the soul and mind. Makes people do terrible shit. Turns them into monsters.”
“And ghoulkine?”
“Yeah, ghoulkine. Those are the worst kinds of ghouls. Big, fast bastards that hunt in packs. The real muscle of any ghoul nest. They look like a zombie and a lycan got drunk and fucked out a half dead—”
“I get the picture,” Lonnie rasped, shivering as the howls kicked up again. He remembered ghoulkine now. And despite the pain in his side, Lonnie tried to hurry. Between gasping breaths, he managed a question. “Why this way?”
“We need to get to the Roebling Bridge.”
“There are other bridges.”
“We can cross safe there and only there. Trust me.”
Lonnie started to argue, but he hacked instead, blood spotting his lips and dripping from his chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it off.
They limped past several stores with metal doors shut and locked. Lonnie barely glanced inside the glass storefronts. Didn’t care. There was too much ache. “But why the long way?”
“We have to give them a chance to work.”
She meant Crash, Elsa, and Ingrid. Those three had gone a different direction to draw off the pursuit. To their credit, the ghoulkine sounds were fading.
They moved deeper into the back alleys, avoiding street lamps and direct swaths of moonlight, becoming friends with the shadows. In one alley, Selix stopped and leaned Lonnie against a wall. Turned back the way they'd come. Drew a line across the concrete with her foot, then spat on it. She got under Lonnie’s arm again.
“What was that all about?”
“Blocking our scent with magic. They’ll have to pick us up somewhere else.”
“Oh,” Lonnie said, faintly recalling the rules of hex work and rune raising from his other life.