First Team

by Robbie MacNiven

  He tried to get a view of the back of the church without exposing himself, managing to get an angle on the entrance to the stairwell leading up to the bell tower. That was where Lobe was headed. As the transept crossing had descended into chaos he’d retreated, beginning to climb the stone steps up, either to the belfry or the second-tier cloisters. The change in position had removed him from the center of the action, but it had left no more Purifiers between him and Vic.

  Charged with the need for vengeance, Vic rose and followed.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Purifier’s mask crumpled beneath Cipher’s fist, the silver turning red around the leering mouth and hooked nose. The cultist went down.

  She threw herself left, phasing hard through another pair of Xodus’s minions. Both cried out as they were riven with bioelectric shock, and one fired his energy rifle wildly, sending a trio of bolts lashing into the upper section of the apse. Ci lashed back with both elbows, solidifying her form and catching one on the back of the neck and one in the head, sending them sprawling in their black robes.

  The crossing between the transepts was a scene of carnage. There were Purifiers scattering left and right, thrown into confusion by Cipher’s unseen assault. She’d been forced to adjust her plan in order to take out the torch-bearing cultists before they’d been able to light the pyres, but knew she was running out of time. In their frantic state, it was only a matter of time before a Purifier landed a lucky blow or shot on her. She needed backup.

  She willed herself up, leaving the flagstones behind. Dan and Santo were both still bound to their stakes, the former struggling against his bonds as the battle unfolded around him. The latter, though, hadn’t moved since Ci had set eyes on him. At some point Rockslide had lost his left arm, a sight that sent rage coursing through her. What had they done to him? What were they still doing to him? It was obvious that the metal pole holding him upright amidst the great pile of kindling was more than a simple restraint. Wires in protective flexi-tubing extended from an armored box near the top of the pole, their ends thrust into the craggy splits in Santo’s joints. Ci assumed some sort of electrical charge or neural-inhibiting gel was keeping him in a docile state, unable to activate his powers. And that was going to make the difference between winning and losing this fight.

  Precautions had clearly been taken to protect the inhibitor from tampering, but those wouldn’t stop Cipher. She phased through the box at the top of the stake and starting tearing leads off from the inside. A clear, viscous liquid began to spray free, stinging her hands and forcing her to twist so that it didn’t hit her wounded arm too. She phased out as the severed leads went slack, still dangling and gushing liquid from Rockslide’s knees, waist, shoulders and elbow.

  “Come on, Santo,” Cipher pleaded, moving round to the front of the hulking figure, laying an invisible hand on his broad chest. “Wake up.”

  Santo’s eyes, half-lidded, flickered, and more clear liquid oozed from his slack jaw. He didn’t move.

  The nearest Purifiers had been focused on pinning Vic, but some realized that an invisible presence was doing damage to the stake and its couplings. One shouted, gesticulating up at the pyre and squeezing off a semi-automatic burst that by happenstance just missed Cipher. Several more cultists started to try to clamber up the bundles kindling, while another opened fire alongside the first with an energy rifle. The first bolt was so close to Cipher it sent a jarring pulse through her body, but the second struck Santo in the chest. Power lashed and sparked across him. His eyes snapped open.

  With a roar, Santo Vaccarro returned to consciousness. He tore his right arm free of the bolts securing him to the stake, then ripped several of the leads still attached to his body away, spraying more clear liquid.

  The Purifiers directly below froze. Ci was forced to fully phase as Santo lunged right through her at the nearest one, perched on the edge of the pyre stack. The sound of rock meeting meat clapped back from the shattered dome overhead. The cultist was sent flying like a broken rag doll, sailing right over the heads of the ones underneath.

  Santo wasn’t done. He turned and tore the metal stake from its fixings, securing it beneath the elbow and shoulder of his one arm like a lance, then swung it at the remaining Purifiers who had been clambering up the pyre, swatting them off like flies. He turned the same swing into a throw, flattening another trio beneath the now-bent pole.

  “Santo!” Cipher shouted from behind Rockslide. She phased through him, hoping the brief shock would cut through his frenzy. She risked materializing in front of him. She saw his eyes focus on her; his raging motions momentarily stilled.

  “Vic and Gray are here,” she said. “We’ve got to get Vic’s dad to safety.”

  She directed Santo’s attention towards the neighboring pyre. Dan Borkowski was still bound there, gagged and struggling against the cords pinning him to the stake. In the carnage it looked as though he’d been totally forgotten, but Cipher doubted that would last for long.

  Santo took in the sight, then looked at Cipher and said one thing.

  “Get back.”

  Cipher phased and withdrew as Santo raised his one great fist and, with a bellow, brought it crashing down into the timber and kindling around him. The pilings went flying, a shockwave of splinters and split wood exploding from what had once been the pyre stack. It collapsed, taking Rockslide down with it.

  In the midst of the debris, he kept punching. Bundles of sticks were shattered and mulched. The flagstones beneath soon followed, tremors running through the church as Santo plunged his hand into the very foundations of the old structure.

  The rock answered him. Sediment burst up, splitting the flagstones apart. The mass of stone struck Santo’s left shoulder, fusing and melding with it, grinding and grating as it reformed his missing arm. He raised the new appendage, flexed freshly formed fingers of rock, then slammed both hands down together.

  This time the church really did shake. Dust and small particles of masonry fell from the barrel vault. The gap in the broken dome above widened, larger chunks of stone cascading down upon the crossing.

  Tremors preceded a titanic upsurge of rock. Santo’s grating shout became a drawn-out roar of effort as a dozen spikes of stone and soil ploughed up through the church’s undercroft and foundations, sundering the flagstones around the pyre holding Dan Borkowski. The nearest Purifiers were flung away or pulverized, no match for the tectonic surge Santo had unleashed. When his shout finally echoed away into nothing, a parapet of jagged stone shards over a dozen feet high had been erected around much of the pyre, shielding it from the apse, Xodus, and most of the cultists.

  Santo stood slowly, drawing his fists from the rubble beneath him. His panting breaths clattered like a stone bouncing down a mountainside. He looked up at his approximation of where Cipher had phased to.

  “Untie Victor’s father,” he said. “I will keep the rest at bay.”

  Chapter Forty

  More shots scorched past the pillar Graymalkin was crouched behind. It wasn’t just energy weapons either, but hard rounds now too. Bullets cracked and chipped off the stonework around him. The battering reports of gunfire echoed back like a crazed, booming drumbeat off the church’s interior, filling his senses with the fury of combat.

  He was not afraid, he realized. Only purposeful. They had reached the conclusion of their quest. The next few minutes would be decisive.

  A terrible series of great tremors had shaken the whole church moments earlier, and he had recognized a familiar bellowing from somewhere close to the apse. That meant Alisa had succeeded in freeing Santo. The plan was working, despite Vic going early. The only problem, right now, was that he was pinned, and it wasn’t necessarily because of the projectiles whipping past.

  The long space between the support pillars and the external walls of the church was shrouded in shadows, but the nave wasn’t as dark. The crossing before the apse a
nd altar was still drenched in light coming through the broken dome overhead. It was too bright, too powerful. As long as he stayed in the shadows of the pillars, Graymalkin’s abilities were potent, but if he went beyond them he’d be bereft. He hadn’t yet been able to marshal enough of the darkness within himself to fully access his powers.

  That was deeply frustrating. He’d seen Vic make a break towards the east transept and reach the stairway to the cloisters and the bell tower. He’d considered following – the route was open between his position and the transept – but he knew he was needed down here. Even with Santo now at her side, it was likely the Purifiers would overwhelm Alisa. As long as he had a breath left in his body, Graymalkin wouldn’t let that happen, but providing assistance right now in the fight before the apse was impossible.

  So Gray stayed, crouched on his haunches, and tried to gauge the movements of the nearest Purifiers based on the direction of the projectiles that passed him by, rather than those that struck the pillar at his back. He was sure they were attempting a crude, untrained form of fire-and-maneuver, splitting off into separate groups and attempting to work their way to his left and right so they could find an angle past the pillar. Given he had no ranged weaponry to oppose them, that in itself should have been easy enough. There was just one problem, as far as they were concerned.

  Flanking the pillar would bring them into the shadows.

  The first one had placed a single foot in the darkness creeping along the church’s east wall when Graymalkin struck. He was a blur, a livid burst of force that dragged the darkness after him. There was a crack, a crunch, a scream. The scream ended. The Purifiers who had been about to follow the rush of their first comrade thought better about advancing any further. They tried to hit Graymalkin as he darted back between the pillars, but their shots struck only sandstone.

  He returned to his crouch, forcing himself to be patient. Little by little, the sun was lowering as the evening approached, and as it did so the circle of light bathing the heart of the church became an ever more slender, tenuous crescent. Soon, inevitably, it would be gone entirely.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Prophet Xodus’s blood sang with the joy of purification. At long last, the time of reckoning had come. The hour was at hand, the promised moment of confrontation between the wicked and the divine, the righteous and the corrupt, the pristine human and the devolved mutant. He almost shook in ecstasy as the Church of the Seven Virtues resounded with screams and gunfire and the deep grating of rock and broken flagstones.

  He knew he had to stay in control, just for a little longer. One last directive and he could lose himself to the fire, could draw his blessed sword and wade into the midst of the struggle. It had tasted mutant blood when it had cleaved the lizard thing’s arm off on Brooklyn Bridge. Now it wanted more, and so did Xodus.

  The rock beast had broken free, wrecking his pyre and half of the church in the process, but that did not concern him. If anything, he rejoiced even more. Now he could slay it in the midst of glorious battle. The divine would not allow him to be defeated, not this day. The salvation he craved could be earned not just in fire, but in blood as well. Lobe was no longer his concern either – he had gone from the nave, and the lizard had followed. Neither of them could halt the great purification, not now that it had begun in earnest.

  Just one more order, and he could join the fray. It was time. He motioned to the white-robed Choristers standing on either side of him, one clutching a detonator, the other a power node with a series of switches.

  “In the name of all that is holy,” he snarled. “Do it.”

  The final part of the plan was activated. At the flick of the node’s dials, a series of heavy industrial lamps rigged up around the dome of the apse thudded on, spearing a dozen beams of brilliant light across the nave and transepts, bathing the interior of the church in stark illumination. In the same instant, the detonator triggered the pile of burlap sacking that had been heaped before Xodus, set almost between the two pyres. The explosion was not large, but it had the desired effect. The sacking, stuffed full of powdered sandstone, burst upwards. A huge cloud of dust blossomed from the center of the crossing, instantly shrouding it, the brilliance of the spotlights making the space look like an old television screen marred by swirling, eddying grains of static.

  “There,” Xodus barked after peering into the cloud for a few moments, thankful for his mask’s filtrations. “There it is, my good children!”

  He pointed into the air above the second pyre, the one that had recently been surrounded by the stones summoned by the rock monster’s sorcery. The dust there didn’t churn as it did everywhere else. Rather, it seemed to have taken on the suggestion of a human form, caught in the spotlights as it surged down to help the pathetic heretic struggling against the stake.

  Xodus smiled and drew his sword. The demonic night mutant and the invisible phantom mutant – neither of their powers would be much use to them now.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Vic bounded up the stone stairs to the cloisters, his every thought bent towards catching Lobe. He’d find out why Lobe was tormenting him, and he’d make the man answer for the pain he had caused. That was all that mattered – so much so that Vic didn’t even pause to consider the fact that the fleeing CEO appeared to have discarded his suit and shoes on the landing leading out onto the cloisters.

  Vic stepped over them and through the narrow, arched opening, slipping into the pillared corridor that ran along the east wall of the church. He felt a savage thrill of triumph. He had Lobe cornered.

  As he entered the cloisters a great tremor ran through the stone around him, shaking off dust and rattling loose masonry around his feet. At first, he’d thought the raised walkway was in the process of collapsing, but as he stepped out onto it, he got a view from its open right-hand side of the main section of the church beneath. He almost punched the air with delight at what he saw. Ci had gotten Rocky free, and the big guy was tearing it up, hammering pillars of stone up into scattering Purifiers and creating a defensive ring around the pyre where his dad was still being held. He fought the urge to watch over his father from above or, worse, double back down to the ground level to help free him. He trusted Cipher and Rocky completely. He had to stick to the plan.

  He refocused on the cloisters, beginning to advance along them. Light from the broken dome streamed past to illuminate the ground floor, but it didn’t reach the pillared corridor. Here was just darkness and old stonework, and the unblinking, graven eyes of status set into alcoves on the left-hand side, every ten or so paces.

  Vic continued carefully, aware of the debris that littered the floor. His heart was beating a furious tattoo and his senses seemed to have gone into overdrive. He tasted the air with a flick of his tongue, catching the acrid tang of dust and weapons discharges, but not a whole lot else. What had happened to Lobe? Didn’t that big, bulging head contain a big, bulging brain? The cloisters were a dead end, so why would he enter them in the first place?

  “You seem to be growing more hesitant, Victor,” said the sickening voice. It echoed from up ahead – presumably Lobe was in one of the statue alcoves. But which one?

  “I’m surprised you followed me, instead of running to help your father,” the voice went on. “It showed some mettle. Perhaps I underestimated you.”

  “You’ve underestimated us all,” Vic snapped, in no mood for verbal sparring but knowing that if he kept Lobe talking it would be easier to find him. “You’re going to pay for that. I’m going to put a stop to whatever you’re planning.”

  “Oh, poor, foolish Anole,” sang out Lobe’s rich, ugly voice from just up ahead. “All this effort and you don’t even know what you’re fighting for.”

  “I’m fighting for my family,” Vic declared, eyeing each statue he passed. They were as broken down and faded as the rest of the church, a parade of forgotten saints and divine beings whose luster had long
been lost. There didn’t look to be much room to hide behind any of them though.

  “How short-sighted,” taunted the voice. “I’m fighting for the betterment of all humanity. I wonder whose cause is more worthy?”

  “Why do you want me?” Vic demanded, giving in to the question that had been plaguing him for so long. “Why are you doing all this? The Purifiers, the attacks on mutants, kidnapping my family? What sort of business do you think you’re running?”

  There was no immediate reply. Vic had almost reached the end of the cloisters. Just two more alcoves to go. He was tense, his skin shifted, expecting the trapped businessman to make a break at any moment.

  “I’m running the best sort of business. One that expects massive profits. If you’d stop trying to evade me, Victor, I could look forward to a very healthy balance sheet indeed.”

  “I’m not evading you,” Vic said, his skin crawling. “I’m right here.”

  “So am I.”

  The voice had come from just behind him. He spun wildly. Lobe stood before him, close enough to touch, with a smug look on his face. He’d completely shed his business attire, his lean frame now clad in a form-fitting black and red flexi-garment that looked like a dark parody of Vic’s own yellow and black X-suit. The veins in the man’s distended head appeared to be pulsing.

  “Surprised to see me?” he asked. “Oh, don’t worry. I can change that.”

  With a ripple, Lobe’s form shifted, and he disappeared. Vic was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when the first fist struck him square on the side of the jaw.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Cipher made it to Dan’s pyre just before she was hit. The worst of the energy blast dissipated across her X-suit, but it still lashed at her hard enough to make her cry out and drop back off the side of the timber stacks. She halted her fall in midair, energy fizzing across her torso.