6. The Cursing of the Bikes
It was a long-winded, hand-crafted sign, and preferring not to use my cyborg vision augmentation, I parked along Highway 301 to read all of it:
“The 66th annual Blessing of the Bikes will be held in the St. John’s Church-Yard in Hardrishell, on 10 AM Saturday April 13. Craft Show/Sales, Bake Sale, and Bike Raffle will be held immediately afterwards. Non-Bikers as well as Bikers welcome. Proceeds benefit the St. John’s Biker Hospice.”
Though I didn’t own or ride a motorcycle, as a Demon Hunter I was interested in social gatherings and in all manner of arcane religious rites. On the spur of the moment I decided to take this one in. Anything going back 66 years predated the Dissolution of Wards (DW), and was hence arcane, so this gig qualified as part of my official duties. Bikers being bikers, I might even turn up a Skud or two. More important, I was very interested in bake sales, and particularly in berry pies.
When I got there it was nearly 9:30 AM and several hundred folks had already arrived. A matronly looking woman directed my Jeep to a field near the Churchyard were maybe a hundred quad-wheels had already parked. Most were ordinary SUVs and pickups, probably driven by biker groupies and miscellaneous gawkers. Civilians. There were quite a few custom jobs though, such that my outsized custom eight-wheeled Jeep Thunder-Cat received little attention from folks making their way towards the gathered bikers. Even when I pulled my unique outsized self out of Cat, nobody paid much attention.
It was the fancy bikes of the bikers that drew the crowd attention. So far there were only a couple of dozen motorcycles parked at the place of honor in front of the crude wooden podium, but all of them were outrageously shiny, ornate, and monstrous, sporting plenty of color, chrome, and raw power. It didn’t seem possible that a thousand horsepower, half ton bike could be controlled by a human being; until one noted that each biker was similarly monstrous. The bikers that milled around talking with each other and to a few hot looking groupies were mostly unusually big men decorated in traditional beards, leather, tattoos, and shiny metal bracelets, helmets, leg protectors, plus numerous do-dads of a purely decorative nature. The biker culture had survived through all the post-DW upheavals and become ever more valued and popular.
Looking closer, I noted that one bike and biker were rather plain and puny compared to those that surrounded it. The rider was an ordinary looking man that eyed his fellow bikers with suspicion. A cop implant, I figured, the poor sap. The real bikers paid him little heed, other than an occasional sneer. The man looked my way and our eyes met, and at that point I recognized him from a previous gig. He must have recognized me too, because he left his pitiful bike unguarded to make his way through the crowd towards me.
“Good to see you here, Hunter,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how you got wind of this, but drugs and worse are rumored. I’m sure we can count on your help if needed.”
“You’ve got that wrong,” I told him. “If there ain’t Demon or Skud related bounty involved, it ain’t my business. I’m here just for some pie.” I glanced towards a collection of tables off to the side, where baked goods were being assembled, including many pies.
“There might be Demons.”
“There always might be Demons, but so far I just see shit-head-bikers and an out of place cop. You know I’m only empowered to bring Demons and Skuds to justice.” Not entirely true. If a human got in the way, that was their tough luck, including cops.
“Of course, but as a citizen you have certain obligations…” he started yapping.
“Bull shit,” I cut him off. I remembered more about him now, his name was Jeffers and he was a state cop, a lieutenant no less, which meant there were probably a bunch more state cops here someplace. Jeffers was OK, as state cops go, though a little naïve. “Hey, some of the bikers seem to really like your wheels,” I noted cheerfully.
He rushed back to his bike, where a couple bikers had indeed been eying it and moving closer. He got them to back off, barely. If there was real trouble, the cops would be close to useless, as usual, but I wasn’t expecting trouble, I was expecting pie.
I made my way back to the baked goods tables. In the middle of the first table was a huge raspberry pie that oozed red juices through holes lovingly crafted in hand-formed crust. There were others, but this pie was obviously the pick of the litter. The smell was amazing; I had picked out the smell of this particular pie the moment I exited Cat, despite the stinking bikers and hundreds of other distractions. Enhanced senses was one of the advantages of being what I was.
I drew a twenty credit note out of a side pocket and waved it at the elderly Sister that was filling the table with more goods. “That one,” I said, pointing to The Pie.
“Sorry, big fella,” she responded, eyeing my oversized self. “Sales start after the service.” She probably didn’t know what to make of my getup; most civilians had never seen a Demon Hunter. True, a loose-fitting black jacket and trousers covered my armored and augmented body, but the bulky augmented Suit plus clothing, all over top of more than three hundred pounds of muscled body, make me look outlandishly huge, even compared to bikers.
“OK, but I’d like to reserve that particular pie, if you don’t mind.” I tried unsuccessfully to hand her the twenty.
“Sorry, young man,” she said cheerfully, “but it’s going to be first come, first serve.”
“I understand, Sister,” I said, smiling, “but it’s all for charity, right?” I pulled out another twenty and handed both to her. Money isn’t a problem for me, I can get all I need, which isn’t all that much. I had Suit, my weapons, Cat, and almost anything else I needed, all Government furnished. “Besides, it looks to me like I’m here first.” She was a tough old broad, but I figured she had a weakness I could exploit. That was pretty much my job description, exploiting weaknesses, though usually I was dealing with Demons and Skuds instead of Holy Sisters.
When she raised her graying old eyebrows a bit I knew I was in. “Alright,” she said, taking the bills in her bony little hand, “if you get here soon after the service. Like you say, it’s all for charity.”
“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the priest who had been working his way through the crowd towards me. “I’m Father Giles.”
“Call me Rud,” I responded, as I shook his hand. Gently, so as not to crush it.
He was a big man himself, well over six feet and two-hundred fifty pounds, and though pushing sixty, he clearly still had a lot of strength and vigor. His eyes went wide when my name registered. I don’t like publicity but I wrack havoc a lot, so it’s hard to avoid headlines once in a while. “Are you here because of the rumors then, Hunter? I had hoped that’s all they were.”
“What rumors?”
“About rogue Skud bikers, Demon led.”
“I hadn’t heard. I’m here for fruit pie, Father.”
“I recommend the raspberry then. In any case, I can’t say I’m not glad to see you here, Mr. Rud.”
With that, he worked away from me, greeting and shaking hands with everyone he met.
I followed him towards the bikes, where I studied several of them more closely. All that chrome and power was very appealing, though they were still mere toys compared to my Cat. Even Suit had far more power than a civilian bike.
“Hey, you’re a damn Hunter!” exclaimed a biker, and several of them approached me for a closer look.
“Nice bikes,” I remarked, as I shook their hands. Delicately, so as to not crush bones, but hard enough to let them know I was for real.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” said one, looking at me with awe. “A real son-of-a-bitch Hunter! Damn!”
The apparent hero worship was cut short by the thunderous sound of approaching bikes, lots of them. I sensed fifty seven; carrying a total of at least seventy beings. They roared their way into the area in front of the podium, forcing all to scatter out of their path. Many of the riders carried amulets of evil that obscured my senses. Illegal of course, but as they could only be sensed by Hunters
and there were only a handful of Hunters in existence, there wasn’t much chance of arrest, especially when the amulet was carried under a shirt or in a pocket. Some of these bikers, or maybe all of them, were very likely to be Demon-induced Skuds; I couldn’t sense for sure, due to the amulets. For now I could only monitor what transpired, until I for sure confirmed that they were actually Skuds, and not merely shit-head bikers.
“Shit,” said one of the original bikers near me. “It’s Skuds.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” said another one.
“No, stay,” said Father Giles, who worked his way past us towards the new arrivals. “All are welcome here, and all are safe here in God’s church.”
Right.
None of the original bikers left, which was probably due more to them being blocked in by the new arrivals than to the Father’s reassurances. The civilians, a couple thousand of them by now, were too dumb to leave. Several of them ignorantly made their way closer to the newly arrived bikes.
The Father quickly made his way to the throng of new arrivals, who were shutting down their bikes, climbing off of them, and boisterously cursing and shouting to one another. It was a dumb move by the Father. In a moment he was lost to view among them.
The newcomers were outwardly merely more extreme examples of bikers that had already arrived, but I noticed that they wore armor designed more for protection in fights than for protection against biking injuries. Illegal body augmentation was also a possibility, though with probably nothing close to the capability of my own Suit. They openly carried big knives and clubs. I suspected that most carried concealed handguns also, even though guns had also been completely outlawed since DW.
Despite the amulets and other distractions, I detected a faint odor of Demon. One, maybe more; I couldn’t tell. With Demon evidence in addition to amulets, there was more than enough cause for me to get to work. I moved to follow the priest but a dozen big bikers moved to block me.
“Where you think you’re going?” the biggest of them said, drawing a huge hunting knife. He moved to stand only a foot in front of me. He stunk of beer and evil, and I had to fight the impulse to break him in half right-off.
“Through you, if I need to,” I replied calmly.
“Hey, he’s a Hunter!” another one said, with a snicker. He stepped towards me menacingly.
“Let the ceremony begin,” said Father Giles through a speaker system, before things escalated. Everyone turned towards the podium, atop which the Father stood smiling with arms raised high. He began to chant rapidly than, with a voice strangely powerful, in a language unknown to me, though I depicted a word of Latin here and there. I hadn’t been in a church for a while, but this didn’t seem right.
I looked around to gage the reaction of others. The Skud goons that had confronted me were staring at the Father wide-eyed and grinning. The Sister watching the pies was wide-eyed and slack jawed. But most civilians remained clueless and unconcerned, as usual. The non-Skud bikers grabbed their own heads and started moaning in pain, and some of them dropped to the ground and began thrashing around convulsively … a sure sign of strong Demon activity.
“Curse alert, curse alert!” Suit’s warning system screamed the obvious into my ears, as off-duty segments of Suit automatically slipped up from my back to cover my head, and down my arms to cover my hands. Suit’s small combination laser pistil and dagger slipped down my left shirt sleeve and locked into place along the top of my hand, and could feel Suit’s power generators slip into overdrive. “On full alert,” added Cat, from the parking lot.
The Father’s eyes blazed evil red, as did an amulet that until now had been hidden under his shirt. He hadn’t worn it earlier, so the Skuds must have installed it as he walked through them. The good father was obviously Demon-possessed, and to possess a strong man so quickly required a Demon of immense power.
“OMNIDEMONOS,” screamed what had once been Father Giles. It was the last word of the curse. In seconds, only the maniacally grinning Demon Father, the Skuds, and I remained standing as waves of curse swept over me harmlessly. Everyone else collapsed to the ground, dazed, convulsing, terror filled, and ready to be Demon-reaped.
There was a moment when I could have laser blasted the Father into oblivion, but I hesitated. There hadn’t been enough time for a full transformation so he obviously was only possessed, I reasoned. If I could destroy the amulet he was wearing, the Demon possession would be reversed and the Father might still survive.
A moment later he leapt from the podium and was lost among the panicking crowd, which had now recovered mobility and was at last sensibly fleeing the scene, while a half-dozen Skud bikers drew knives and guns and attacked me ferociously. The Demon surely knew of my presence, it must have been counting on sheer numbers of Skud recruits to overcome me. I knocked them unconscious in seconds, but they had succeeded in delaying me. Some of them shot me with handguns, but Suit easily protected me. It was actually a good thing for the fleeing civilians that I was drawing most of the gunfire.
Other bikers leapt to their motorcycles and started them up, which drowned out most sounds of screaming. The curse had evidently successfully recruited all the non-Skud bikers, and they joined their brethren in running down helpless civilians by the dozens. I picked off several bikes with my laser, cutting off wheels and frying engines. A few bike gas tanks exploded with mixed results, blasting innocent civilians as well as Skuds.
More than a hundred Skuds were in full rampage mode; I had no chance of stopping all the mayhem by taking them out individually. In addition, though I was actually duty bound to fry them all, they could be released from their curse if I could destroy its source. I leapt through the chaotic crowd, and soon regained sight of the Holy Father. He was standing over the decapitated body of a child of about ten, holding a bloody short-sword in his hand … evidently the weapon used to kill the child.
His face was awash with changing, conflicting emotions; hate, despair, terror, rage, shock, everything imaginable, as his id struggled to maintain and regain a last thread of control and sanity. Amazingly, he made progress. He was abruptly no longer a Demon, I sensed, but was fighting merely the lingering influences of one. He grasped the hilt of the short sword with both hands and sought to drive it into his own heart.
I snatched the sword away from him. It actually came in handy; I tossed it through the heart of a Skud that had spotted my approach and was in the process of pointing a shotgun my way. Next I reached through the Father’s shirt to grab the amulet, and crush it in my hand. It exploded of course, but my suited hand contained most of the explosion.
“It’s not your fault, Father,” I shouted at him. “You were possessed.” In truth, he had performed a truly Herculean feat; he had evidently excursed the Demon using his own will power. I had never believed in goodness as a palpable essence like evil, but maybe I’d been wrong about that. He dropped to his knees, out of commission but at least he seemed fully in control of himself and no longer suicidal.
The same couldn’t be said of the bikers, who were still happily slashing, shooting, and driving their bikes over helpless fleeing civilians. I caught sight of Lieutenant Jeffers. Not only was he still alive, he was giving a good account of himself with his revolver; several Skud bodies surrounded him.
But where was the Demon? I had Cat move herself forward and increase surveillance, and with both Cat and Suit scanning I finally located it, despite all the interference from amulets. It was in a biker body that was leading a group of bikers through the scattering civilians, cutting them down with knives and clubs.
I aimed my wrist-gun at him but the laser spotter beam must have alerted him, because he turned his Demon-red eyes towards me just as I fired. The results were satisfyingly spectacular. The laser-burst-struck amulet exploded, though unfortunately that also ripped the biker into flaming, charred, body parts.
A moment later I was taking in-coming from several directions, obviously still under direction of
the Demon, who must have fled to yet another amulet and host before my shot. How many damned transference amulets were there? Worst case, maybe each original Skud had one. The bullets bounced off Suit harmlessly, but the gang, including its newly indoctrinated members, made for their bikes en mass, grabbing table legs and other objects that could be used as clubs or spears. Several carried swords. They obviously meant to attack me or flee or both.
The first several bikes roared towards me. There was a chance I would be overwhelmed by them, unless I simply fried them all, which I was somewhat reluctant to do unless I had to. Some individuals could probably still be reclaimed. I could also have Cat run them down or fry them, but that would be messy too. Where was the damn Demon? I could have fried all the attacking Skuds, but I held back. I wanted more; I wanted to save them. The Demon had figured that out, and instead of fleeing the scene was intent on exploiting my weakness and destroying me.
I scanned the area. The civilians, those that were able, were fleeing while most bikers were now focused on me. Bullets and make-shift spears bounced off Suit as they all attacked me. Soon though they would coordinate their attacks and would stand a chance of overwhelming Suit.
They were all attacking me except for one. A particularly obnoxious looking biker was poking around what remained of the bakery tables. By some miracle, the table with my pie on it was still intact. The slimy bastard picked up MY pie in his grubby hands and took a huge bite out of it.
Demon or not, in an instant I was frying him with my wrist laser as Cat at my command dropped a mortar shell on him laced with garlic juice and silver shrapnel.
Even as the resulting spatter of singed blood, guts, and pie settled to the ground the attack on me ceased. Bikers dropped their weapons to the ground and looked around in total shock and puzzlement. No longer Demon controlled Skuds, soon they were administering first aid to themselves and to fallen civilians, as though they were a troop of Eagle scouts with first-aid badges.
I gathered the now inactive evil amulets from them; there were twenty nine in all. After they were destroyed and no longer obscuring sensor readings, Suit and Cat surveyed the scene in detail. Twenty three people had died and eighty nine were injured. Not too bad, all considered, though the press would probably make a big deal of the carnage. Let them bitch, I figured; I would still get a hundred thousand credit bounty for the Demon and a thousand credits for each destroyed amulet. Too bad about the pie though.
State police came out of the woodwork to gather up the ex-Skud bikes for psych evaluation and treatment. I’d get a hundred credits for each confirmed Skud possession that was reversed, and a hundred for each confirmed Skud kill. In other words, the Government powers that be didn’t care if Skuds were saved or dead; they just wanted them gone.
As I was leaving, Father Giles, Lieutenant Jeffers, and the old Sister that sold pies approached me.
“Good job, Hunter,” said Jeffers. “If it wasn’t for you, hundreds more would have died here, and the Demon would have gone on doing the same thing in other places.”
“My pleasure,” I replied. “Just be sure to validate my claims.”
“Of course.”
“This is for you, young man,” said the old Sister. I smelled what it was before she handed me the box and I opened it in amazement. In it was a huge raspberry pie, undamaged.
“How?” I asked.
“I had more pies in the back. Take it for what you did for the Father, you deserve it.”
The news dudes would credit me as the hero but it was pie that saved the day. If not for the promise of berry pie I wouldn’t have come to the festival. If the Demon hadn’t gone after my pie, I might not have found him. It was pie-power. Sometimes its little things like that that can make a big difference. I clutched my pie box securely, determined that this one would not be Demon possessed.
The cop and the Sister returned to patching up the survivors, but the Father walked with me to Cat.
“You should have shot me,” he said.
“What?”
“That first chance you had, when you realized I was Demon possessed. You had a shot, but didn’t take it.”
“If I took it you’d be dead.”
“And dozens of others might have been saved. The Sister is grateful for you helping me later on, and Jeffers is also pleased, but you and I both know that you made a serious mistake.”
“Maybe,” I acknowledged with a shrug. Giles had figured out my weakness. I sometimes tried to save people instead of simply frying them when they were possessed, as I was empowered and required to do. I had squeaked through today, but someday my weakness would probably cost me my life.
Actually, unless I had incinerated the amulet perfectly with my first shot, the Demon would have merely moved to another host. The mortar shot from Cat had probably done the trick when the Demon was finally destroyed. “But I have a pie and my bounty money, so I’m satisfied.”
“I fought him off after that,” he said. “But it was too late for that little girl and the others. If only I had been stronger, or if I had canceled this whole thing after Jeffers warned me that there might be trouble!”
“Who knows? We did our best, and that’s all anyone can ever do. We ain’t perfect, none of us, Father. But I’ll sleep a little better knowing there are people like you that can defy a Demon, even without benefit of a couple hundred pounds of nuclear powered weaponry.” I tapped Suit, resulting in a reassuringly solid metallic clanking sound.
“I had God to help me,” claimed the Father.
I had Suit, Cat, and my trusty cyborg implants. I was more confident of my way. I climbed up into Cat with my precious pie but didn’t shut the door, as I could sense there was something else the Father wanted to say.
“Can you promise me that next time you’ll take the shot, Rud?”
I nodded my head in agreement as I shrugged. “No problem.”
“Thanks,” Giles said, with a warm smile, as he shook my hand firmly. “I’ll sleep better knowing that.”
People are way-stranger than Demons, I always say.
****
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