Hunting The Broken: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 3)

by Daniel Willcocks

  Belle turned to him and placed both hands on his shoulders. She stared intently into his eyes. “Okay, let me rephrase that. I’m going to name him because you have the creativity of a paralytic woodlouse.” She turned and stroked her chin. A second later, she raised a finger to the air and her eyes lit up. “Yes! That’s it.”

  “What is?” Vex suddenly found himself jogging after Belle as she took off after the cub. The wolf leaped into the air, then darted ahead into the forest.

  “That’s it, lead the way, Scout. Show Mama where to go.”

  Mama? Vex thought as they disappeared into the trees. Since when does naming a wild animal suddenly make you its mama?

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Izzy led Caitlin and the others through the labyrinth that was The Broken City. The name seemed apt. This place really was a shit-hole.

  “I don’t get it,” Caitlin said as they rounded a corner to meet yet another road littered with debris from the old world. Rusted cars, fallen posts, and shattered glass created an eerie abandoned landscape around them. “You’ve got a fence around the entire perimeter of the city, and yet you keep yourselves shut inside an old library. Couldn’t you clean up the city and reclaim it as your own?”

  Izzy sighed, but it was Oscar who answered. “It’s not quite that simple, Kitty-Cat.”

  Caitlin cringed at the use of her nickname by these strangers.

  “For years, our community lived in the library, slowly expanding to take residence in the other buildings. We had plans. Dreams.”

  “Well…Alicia did,” Howard mumbled at the floor.

  “Alicia?” Tom asked.

  “Alicia’s the head honcho. Our leader,” Izzy said. “It was Alicia who first began to build the community before any of us came along. It’s because of her that we even exist at all and haven’t been eaten alive by wandering Mad.”

  Every town needs a leader. Caitlin sighed, staring up at a building taller than any she had ever seen. She could only imagine how tall it would have been before its collapse. Forty, maybe even fifty stories tall, she decided.

  “The township grew. Life began to blossom,” Izzy continued. “We built the fence to keep the Mad out and held regular watch around the perimeter. Weeks and months passed in peace as Mad found themselves used as nothing more than target practice by those who stood guard on the fences. Crew members were assigned to dispose of the bodies and keep the place clean. It was a time of hope and prosperity—as much as that can be said in this world.”

  “So what happened?” Laurie asked as she stepped carefully over a loose pile of rubble. “By all accounts, you should be thriving. This city should be yours. It should be called the—”

  “Fixed city?” Joe suggested, firing a grin at Laurie.

  “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

  They reached the place where the buildings ended and the grasses began. Ahead of them, the earth sloped upwards towards the large hill they had descended in their original approach. Jaxon sprinted forward and began to bark, waiting a few feet back from the fence where four Mad stood clawing and reaching through the chain links.

  The chain links bowed inwards as their eyes lit up at the sight of the humans, but there was no threat that it would break. Izzy pulled out her rifle and aimed it at them.

  Laurie placed a hand on the barrel and lowered it. “Save your ammo. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  She pulled her bow from her back, nocked an arrow, and with a speed that impressed them, shot all four. Three Mad went down. Only one remained standing, caught in the fence where the arrow which had pierced its eye was stuck between the chain links.

  She strode forward, reached through the fence, and took her arrows back from the Mad’s flesh.

  “You were saying?” She turned back to Izzy, who seemed mildly impressed.

  Isabella joined them at the fence and looked out beyond it. “Yes. We were safe…for a time. But somehow, they still got in.”

  “Who?” Tom asked. “The Weres?”

  Dwight spat on the floor. “Hideous, scavenging vermin.”

  Izzy nodded. “They came as a pack, friendly at first. We let them integrate with our community, share our food, offered them shelter. But that didn’t last too long before their leader got greedy. Wanted power. He gave the ultimatum that, unless Alicia surrendered power to him, they would pick us off one-by-one.”

  “And then came the battle,” Oscar said. “Humans versus Weres. They attacked at night, but we fought back. The city was slick with rain and blood, but we fought boldly. Bravely. We had the one thing that Weres feared more than anything in these days. The only thing that could really help us match the strength of the UnknownWorld.”

  Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

  To her surprise, it was Joe who answered. “Guns! Yessir, without guns, those varmints would win in an instants, yes?”

  Izzy grinned. “Your little man is right.”

  Joe’s face fell at her words. He folded his arms and huffed.

  “We managed to force them back. United, we stood, and we thought we had driven them back into the hills, away from our home. But then, as the years passed, strange things began to happen. Disappearances. Deaths. Whispers of their return.”

  “How?” Caitlin said. “If the fences were manned and your guards were on alert, how did they get back in?”

  Izzy looked at the floor and kicked a bunch of dirt away to reveal a manhole cover.

  Caitlin gasped. “They’re below the city?”

  Izzy nodded. “Hiding, like rats.”

  “Then the solution is easy,” Tom said. “Flush them out. Fill it with fire. Do something drastic to kill them off. You’ve got them cornered, guys. Trapped. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  Caitlin slapped his arm. “Great idea! You realize Kain could be down there with them, right?”

  A look passed between Izzy and her men.

  “It’s not that simple.” Oscar nodded to the manhole cover.

  Tom understand. He knelt down, gripped the edges, and tugged. When it didn’t budge, he screwed his face into a determined expression and heaved with all his strength. Veins poked from his muscular arms as he gave it everything he had to pull the lid off the city’s jam jar. After a minute or two, he gave up, sat down, and huffed. “Damn.”

  “They’ve sealed themselves in. There’s an escape hole somewhere, we’re sure of it. We just don’t know where.”

  “If they’re trapped, how do you know that they can escape?” Caitlin asked.

  Izzy looked down at the hole, a sadness washing over her face. “Because, one-by-one, our children keep going missing.”

  Laurie clapped a hand to her mouth. “That’s awful.”

  “What’s Alicia doing about it?” Caitlin asked.

  Izzy shuffled on her feet. “Well, that’s part of the problem. Alicia’s down there with them. They took her some nights ago.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Sewers, The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Kain couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  They’d converted the hell out of the sewers. Not all the rooms were dingy and wet and disgusting, they were now in a converted space that might even be called comfortable.

  A large room with a domed ceiling and torches illuminating every corner hosted what Kain could only describe as some kind of creche. There were at least a dozen kids of all ages running backward and forward, chasing each other around and playing tag with a Were whom Kain recognized as Cynthia—a woman who had been one of his only true friends and confidants beneath the city.

  Not to mention the sex… Yow!

  Cynthia ran now, chasing a young boy with dark skin and a mop of afro hair on his head. Her long gray hair bobbed in a ponytail against her back, and her face was careworn and lined with wrinkles. Yet that didn’t mask a gentile kindness which radiated from the woman no matter which angle you watched her from.

  As she followed the boy on a trajectory past Kain
and Geralt, she stopped, noticing Kain for the first time.

  “It can’t be…” She drew a startled breath, her eyes wide. “No…you’re back?”

  “Couldn’t stay away, Cynth.” Kain grinned, his arms closing around her as they embraced like old lovers meeting in a field of daisies.

  Kain felt a hard arm pull him back as Geralt broke the pair apart. “Enough of that. You two lovebirds can fuck later, but keep it off my time.”

  Kain cocked his head, wondering for a moment if Geralt knew about their past.

  “Cynthia. Show Mr. Sudeikis the project,” Geralt growled.

  Cynthia paused a moment, a wave of shame falling across her face.

  “Now, woman,” Geralt instructed. He spoke no direct threat but with a tone that suggested any other choice but obedience would be a bad one.

  Cynthia nodded, turned, and walked through the throng of children. Along the way, most of them recoiled and stepped away from Geralt as he passed, though a few of the younger ones tugged at Cynthia’s shirt and begged her to play. She declined these kindly with a smile and promised them twice the games later.

  When she reached a door at the far side of the room, she dug into her pockets and withdrew a large bunch of keys. Fumbling a little, she selected the one she needed, turned it in the keyhole to the satisfying sound a lock clicking, and creaked the door open.

  They followed her into a small tunnel in which Geralt and Kain were forced to stoop to pass. At the end was another door. Cynthia used the keys again and opened it.

  At this one, she stood back and let Geralt and Kain move in front of her. Howie and Madeline waited in the tunnels behind, a torch in one hand and weapons in the other.

  “After you,” Geralt said, waving Kain inside.

  He walked forward slowly, listening to the sound of scuffling. Something hard and small tapped against the bricks and echoed around the chamber. When he stepped inside, he almost screamed as several shapes came sprinting at him from the shadows. Five silhouettes of creatures bounded towards him.

  Kain was knocked to the floor as the animals attacked his face with licks and whines. He counted them in the torchlight. Five cubs—three wolves, one bear, and a puma.

  They were the cutest things Kain had ever seen, all fluff and paws. He rolled around on the floor for a moment, stroking their backs and picking them up one by one, ignoring the small scratches on his arms from the cubs’ ever-growing claws. When he picked up one of the wolf cubs, he noticed that the patterns on the fur were similar to his own when he transformed. A kind of mottled grey. He looked into the creature’s eyes and saw the amber ring around the eyes.

  Amber? Ah, shit.

  Kain lowered the pup to the ground and stood back up. He felt Geralt’s eyes burning into him. The brute stood with arms folded as the realization dawned on Kain.

  “These are...” Kain began, but somehow, he couldn’t seem to actually voice the truth.

  “Yep,” Geralt said proudly. “Five conversions from human to Were. Five fluffy little proofs that our methods can still work. That we still have the means to continue our legacy.”

  “And can they…”

  “Transform?” Geralt’s pride faded somewhat. “No. Not anymore. To begin with, they could. We converted this batch little more than a week ago, waited as the process took hold, then watched as the little fuckers discovered their powers and transformed between their forms.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Geralt looked at the cubs with a mixture of hate and annoyance on his face. “Cynthia. Care to explain?”

  She shuffled forward. “They were excited by their powers and turned it into a competition of who could transform the most times in a short amount of time. I tried to stop them, but without being able to transform myself these days, I had no power. No strength. And, besides, how can you stop kids from transforming? By the time Geralt arrived…”

  Kain bent over again, processing it all as he stroked the excited creatures.

  “We can make them change. I was right,” Geralt said, more to Kain than anyone else in the room. There was a gleam of obsession in his eyes which scared Kain. That same obsession had forced him to leave.

  “That makes a change,” he replied.

  “Snark all you want, but we’ve made progress. We’ve continued to push the boundaries, and we’re finding the ways to make it happen. With any luck, our next round of experimentation will secure the Were legacy. Will re-buff our numbers. And before long, we’ll be able to take the city from back those surface shits who keep us trapped down in these tunnels.”

  “What does the next round involve? More children? Babies, perhaps?” Kain asked coldly.

  Geralt looked at his own forearm and clenched his fist until a large vein surfaced. “The next round will include my blood. Clean, untouched, flawless blood.”

  Silver Creek, Silver Creek Forest, Old Ontario

  The sight of the front gates was enough to bring a familiar feeling of warmth to Dylan’s stomach.

  They had traveled through the forest without rest, pausing only to slay any Mad they happened to stumble across as they went. Larry—now dressed in garb donated by Dylan which drowned his skinny frame—turned out to be less of an asset than he’d hoped, having spent the majority of his time in digging pits or setting traps. It turned out that his skills with a weapon were actually surprisingly limited.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Huckle had said after pinning a Mad to a tree with a blade through its chest. The zombie wriggled and reached helplessly for him as he spoke. “We’ll train you up, kid. Silver Creek has its own training reserve. We’ll show you some moves. Get you up to speed.”

  Larry nodded solemnly. “Thanks. And then when I’m up to speed, I’ll gut your throat for calling me a kid.”

  Dylan waved instinctively at the gate guards as they approached, momentarily forgetting about Caitlin’s new open-gate policy. It seemed strange to simply walk straight into the town with no restriction, no waiting, and no justifying who you were or what your business was.

  It felt…liberating.

  Dylan left the group to wait below and climbed up to the top of the gate to check in on the guards.

  “Dylan!” Mattis, a gate guard who had recently adopted a thick beard, proclaimed as Dylan climbed the stairs. “Welcome home, sir.”

  “Enough of that ‘sir’ business, Mattis. It’s Dylan to my old friends.”

  “Hey, Dylan,” Clint, one of the longest-serving gate guards said, coming over to join them.

  “It’s ‘sir’ to you, Clint.” Dylan winked, eliciting a burst of laughter from Mattis. “Now, tell me. What news of the world beyond the open gate?”

  From their vantage point, they could see the gap between the trees where the new road had been built. Already, people were using it as a trade route between Silver Creek and Ashdale Pond. Dylan could spot a couple of carts along its length, flanked by several silhouettes with swords at their sides.

  It never hurt to have extra protection on the road.

  “Life is quiet beyond the walls. We’ve only had one incident at the gates in which a group of Mad ran for us and one managed to get through before we’d had a chance to shut them out. The rest of them were destroyed with ease, thanks to these puppies.” Mattis held up his longbow with pride.

  “And what of the Mad which made it through?”

  “I took care of that one,” a deep voice said from behind. “Sir.”

  Dylan turned and beamed as he saw Sully’s huge form approach. “Of course you did, you big lummox.”

  “Practically played golf with his head. Took one swing with a hunk of wood which must have fallen from a merchant’s cart earlier that day and sent the fucker’s noggin flying over the wall.”

  “Hole in one?” Dylan asked.

  “Eagle,” Sully replied.

  “Nice.”

  “No,” Mattis interjected. “A literal eagle. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. The head soared through the air, and an
eagle darted for it. The bird picked the face clean in minutes.”

  “Even the animals come to my aid in times of need.” Sully grinned.

  “Your head has grown somewhat since I left you in charge.” Dylan smirked. “If you’re not careful, you won’t be able to fit through the gates to get out anymore.”

  “Fine by me,” Sully said. “I love this place. Caitlin has done something truly special here. Now, where are the others?”

  Dylan led him back down to greet the rest of the group, stopping to introduce Larry who reached forward cautiously and shook Sully’s hand. Against the guard’s massive size, the former-tribesman looked like nothing more than a child. He did a good job hiding his intimidation, though.

  Sully led them through the winding streets of Silver Creek, nodding and waving at folks as he passed by. Dylan looked up at him, impressed. Although it had only been a short time since he had left to explore the forest, Sully had grown in confidence and seemed to be thriving as the stand-in leader of Silver Creek.

  “So everything seems to be smooth sailing,” Dylan remarked as they walked together. “With nothing more than one Mad attack in the last few days, I’d say that’s a job well done.”

  “Thanks. The town makes it easy. I don’t know what the governor’s problem was, but leading is a piece of cake. Just keep people happy and make sure everyone is where they need to be.”

  “If it were that easy, every town in the world wouldn’t be shutting themselves in and fighting with each other,” Larry commented. “My old town was very much the same. A leader with great promises of a better future, and instead, he created his very own apocalypse within a cage.” He shuddered, tugging at the sleeves and waistband of his clothing.

  “You okay?” Ash asked.

  “No,” Larry replied. “I can’t get used to these damn clothes.”

  “Well, you’d better,” Alice replied. “I know the savagery of your tribe means you can roam around with your dick flopping in the wind, but we’re decent people here, Lal. If I see even an inch of that dick, I’ll hack it off.”

  Dylan, Ash, Huckle, Ben, and Sully all stopped and grabbed their crotches. “Ooh, no,” they chorused.