Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm

by G T Almasi

  He turns around and faces me. I give him an open look, like, “‘Yes, can I help you?” He brushes his scruffy facial hair with his fingertips and smiles.

  I spread my hands and snap at him, “What?”

  Finally, he says, “How fast can you swim?”

  “Really fucking fast. Why—oh! Wait, you’re not thinking to—”

  “Swim out there, yes.” Grey finishes my sentence for me. “You and me. We each attack one boat and eliminate Kruppe and the rest of his men before they can react.”

  Captain Demet, his crew, a contingent of former slaves, Raj, Brando, and Falcon—all of them—watch Grey and me. I never say no to a chance to fuck people up, but this is crazy even for us.

  “Grey, our pistols will be so waterlogged, they won’t—”

  He holds up one hand and cuts me off again. “No guns.” A nasty smile slithers across his face while his eyes narrow down to slits. “Knives.”

  My heart thuds like a mallet. He’s daring me to chicken out, but Alixandra Janina Nico never turns down a dare. I lean toward Grey. “All right, tough guy. We’ll do them with knives.”

  The two of us walk out to the side of the vessel facing away from Kruppe’s boats. Everybody follows. I hand Li’l Bertha to Brando, who carefully accepts her with a solemn nod. Grey gives his small arsenal to Raj.

  Grey and I both kick off our boots and socks. I unbuckle my belt and slide my pants down to my ankles. Brando’s eyes pop out a little, and he says, “Alix, it’s March. Don’t you want to keep your clothes on for this?”

  “No way.” I unzip my coat and take that off too. “These are the only pants I’ve got left. If they get soaked in seawater, they’ll never dry out. I’m not doing a weeklong boat trip in wet clothes.”

  The crewmen avidly watch my striptease. They hoot and holler as I undress, their worries of imminent death washed away by the sight of female flesh.

  I pull off my shirt and throw it on my little pile of clothes on the deck. Whoo! Chilly! I consider for a moment. Oh, hell. My underwear won’t keep me warm, anyway. Off come my bra and panties. Naturally, my nipples get as hard as pebbles in the winter air. I use my belt to buckle my knife holster around my upper thigh.

  I turn to the overstimulated crew and flip them my middle finger. I shout in French, “Sorry, maternal parent fornicators. No American tail for your soft-as-cheese dicks!” Or something like that.

  Grey has also shucked down to his birthday suit. He’s pale, fit, and hairier than I would have thought. After he straps his knife around his waist, he turns to me, bares his teeth like a pirate, and sneers, “Eyyyy!”

  I grit my teeth back at him. “Arrrr!”

  We each take a huge breath and dive into the harbor. The water is actually warmer than the air. Not that this is saying much. It’s still freezing. I dose a bunch of Madrenaline and shoot away from the Longstreet like a torpedo. I add a drizzle of Overkaine to my chemical cocktail to numb the pain from the cold.

  “I’ll go for the boat on the left?” I comm to Grey.

  He comms back, “Yeah, I’ll get the one on the right.”

  The Development Cycle for Infiltrators emphasizes speed over durability, unlike the Dev Cycle for Interceptors. My implanted skeletal armor adds weight, plus it takes up room that could otherwise be used for additional speed Mods. This is why Grey is so much faster than me … on land. We’re evenly matched as swimmers since here we fight liquid resistance instead of gravity. Our arms and legs churn the water and propel us toward the fishing boats like a pair of biorobotic sharks.

  With fifty yards to go, Grey comms, “Try to swim underwater the rest of the way to max the surprise.” I switch to a backstroke and hyperventilate for a few seconds. Then I turn over and dive a few feet under the surface. I raise my arms past my head so I’m shaped like a missile and furiously kick my legs until I pass under the enemy vessel.

  I comm, “In position.”

  “Me too,” Grey replies. “Give ’em hell, Scarlet.”

  I surface at the boat’s stern. My last stroke launches me like a flying fish. My left hand grabs the hilt of my fighting knife before my feet hit the deck.

  Two brown-shirted men lounge on a pair of small plastic chairs. One is a big guy who holds a rocket launcher across his lap. The other guard is shorter and is armed with an assault rifle. They’re immobilized by the sight of a furious naked girl erupting from the briny deep like a merpsycho.

  I draw my knife from its holster and charge them. My arm sweeps the blade across both men’s faces. They each raise their hands in defense. I spear my knife into the bigger man’s heart. Quick as lightning, I rip my knife out of him and thrust a killing blow into the smaller man’s chest.

  Their shouts of surprise turn to high-pitched shrieks and then low wet rattles. They lean backward out of their chairs and thunk onto the deck. My right hand picks up the smaller of the two men by his hair. I drape his warm, limp body against my icy, hard skin and shuffle him forward. My bare feet leave red prints on the deck, and my frozen teeth chatter like maracas.

  A thin wail shimmers across the water, followed by a heavy sploosh. Grey is on his game. The idiots on my boat are so distracted by watching his murderous rampage that I get all the way into the wheelhouse before anyone sees me coming.

  The thug nearest the door dies with my knife in his back. The remaining four bruisers spin around. One of them is Johannes Kruppe. My sudden proximity and shocking appearance render them all speechless, but Johannes recovers quickly. The tall white-haired rat-fuck swings himself through a small doorway and disappears below.

  Two of the brutes draw Luger pistols, which upgrades them to Express Checkout. I hide behind my human shield and rush the nearest gun-toting militiaman. He fires his weapon, but his shot hits his dead colleague and leaves me at liberty to jab my knife into his crotch.

  And so it is revealed, that for generating pure and unadulterated perturbation, pyrotechnics are nothing compared to shanking a man in the balls. The pinhead screams and drops his Luger so he can have an extra hand free to protect what’s left of his genitals. He bends down to see what’s happened to him, and it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to stab him right in his fucking eye and obliterate his central nervous system.

  I bang too much gusto into the thrust, though, and my blade sticks in the dimbulb’s eye socket. I hurl my human shield at the final three palookas, nab the Luger off the floor, and unload an entire clip into their screaming faces. The insides of their heads wind up all over the walls, windows, ceiling, chairs, and control panel. It’s like the Grim Reaper’s raft to hell.

  “Grey, my top deck is clear, but I’ve got one more down below.”

  “Roger, Scarlet. Be careful. I found a few militia still in their bunks over here.”

  There’s a small hatchway between the main wheel and the navigator’s station. Through it, a ladder leads below the deck. My infrared vision shows a warm, square shape toward the boat’s stern. That’ll be the engine. Up front are two smaller blobs. Those would be my targets.

  To retrieve my knife from Dead Crotch’s face I stand on his head and heave the blade out of his skull, like King Arthur freeing his magic sword from the stone. At that moment, my F-S fighting knife earns the name Deathcalibur.

  I pitch myself down through the doorway. My feet thump onto the lower deck in the main cabin and galley. I clutch Deathcalibur in my left hand and the Luger in my right. I move forward and push a thin door open. It’s pitch black, but my vision Mods allow me to see two red-glowing figures cowering on a V-shaped bunk under the bow. It’s a boy and a girl, eight or nine years old, like the kid back at the dockyard who … Jesus, if they try the same suicide-grenadier move down here, we’re all dead.

  The girl’s eyes flick to something moving—

  —behind me!

  I sling myself to one side. A man lunges into the space I’ve left behind and grunts. I spin around and jack my pistol into the face of—

  “Johannes Kruppe,�
�� I sneer through my chattering teeth. He grimaces back at me as I fire at his head. He dodges the shot and slaps the Luger out of my hand. I slash at him with Deathcalibur, which he also evades.

  Damn, that’s right. He’s enhanced!

  “Grey, I’ve got Kruppe cornered, but—” The rest of my report is interrupted as Kruppe grabs me and we violently wrestle all over the cabin.

  “Hang on, Scarlet,” Grey comms back. “I’m on my way.”

  We rumble through the kitchenette and I throw everything that isn’t nailed down at him: chairs, tables, food, coffee pots, the works. Very little of it hits him, and his hands keep grabbing more of me each time I get backed into a corner. I jump over one of his lunges, but when I come down, shards of broken glass stab into both of my bare feet.

  “AHHGH!” My legs drop out from under me and I collapse to the deck. My neuroinjector hits me with Overkaine as Kruppe reaches down and hoists me up like a sack of potatoes.

  The big fucker has the advantages of size and reach, so he tries to crush me in a bear hug. I club my forehead into his nose. This draws blood, but he doesn’t release his viselike grip. Kruppe squeezes me so hard I feel something snap inside my body. I fight for air and kick at his knees, but my bloody bare feet don’t have any effect. Fortunately, my right hand is still clutching Deathcalibur. I switch my grip on the weapon’s handle and scrape the point of my knife along Kruppe’s thigh until I can jab it into his gut.

  He shouts and lets go of me. One of his hands covers the wound in his stomach. I roll away and kick at him as he tries to grab me with his free hand. Kruppe backs me up against a bulkhead, which I use to prop myself upright. I grab a metal folding chair and swing it at him. He ducks his upper body away, but the chair clocks him on one of his kneecaps. He yelps sharply.

  Ooh, that’s gotta hurt, Bob.

  Kruppe reaches behind a counter and—fuck me!—hauls out a monumental handgun. He doesn’t even aim the beast. He just blasts in my general direction. I jump across the cabin into a small table covered with maps and papers. The table legs tangle up my legs and I stumble against the wall. I spin around and get ready to throw my knife into Kruppe’s neck.

  Then something brushes my ankle. I raise my hand and brandish Deathcalibur for a savage slash at this unwelcome surprise.

  The little girl stands at the door to the front cabin and cries out, “Ach nein! Nicht mein kleines Pfefferchen!” No! Not my little Pepper!

  I freeze my swing. My knife avoids stabbing the kids’ black dog by less than an inch. The goddamn mutt scurries up the ladder to the top deck. By the time I turn back to Kruppe, he already has his nasty-looking pistol aimed at my chest. His face is streaked with blood running out of his nose, and more blood pours across the fingers of his hand over his knife wound.

  “Scarlet!” Grey comms. “Do you still need help?”

  “Yes! Ohmigod, Grey. As soon as fucking possible!”

  Kruppe draws in breath to speak, and then the world slams upside down.

  I land on my elbows and knees. Shit flies everywhere. Nothing is where it was a second ago. It isn’t until I feel water gushing into the boat that I realize what happened.

  If we were following proper ExOps comm protocol, I’d transmit something with the words “situation report” and “competitor status.” Instead I comm, “Grey, you crazy fuck!”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yeah, it worked.”

  What worked is that my maniacal teammate commandeered the other boat and rammed it into this one. My cracked-up boat lies on its side and sucks in water like a sponge. I’ve got less than thirty seconds before this tub sinks into Cherbourg harbor.

  I quickly scout around until I see Kruppe’s lifeless body facedown in a flowing pool of flickering red water.

  Cause of death: killed by unhinged boat pilot.

  I’m halfway out the door when I hear the two kids screaming from the front. I put Deathcalibur back in its holster and lurch to the bow. When I burst into their room, the kids scream even louder.

  I’m quite an eyeful. Wet, naked, covered in blood, and flush with killing rage, I must be an ice-white portrait of frozen ferocity. There’s no way I can calm these kids down right now, but I’ve got no time to dick around.

  I reach out with both hands and glom one head of blond hair in each fist. The kids shout and try to pull my hands off them as I drag them by their hair across the flooding room and into the main cabin. I push them out onto what remains of the deck outside. Then I follow.

  Grey has guided his scratched and dented boat beside my sinking mess. I hand the kids up to him. Then I throw him the damned dog, which somehow survived the aquatic T-boning from my fellow Level. Grey reaches down for me. I take his hand, and he helps me aboard as Kruppe’s shattered vessel gurgles into the sea. Brando will be delighted when he finds out we’ve re-created his favorite line from The Godfather by sending Kruppe to “sleep with the fishes.”

  Speak of the devil, Brando comms in, “Grey, Scarlet, can you confirm it’s safe to move the Longstreet?”

  “Affirmative,” Grey comms. “Come on out and pick us up.” Then he leans down to the frightened children and whispers something to them. They both vanish below deck. Momentarily, one of their little hands holds a bundle up through the hatchway. Grey takes the bundle. It’s a pair of blankets. Grey drapes one around himself and hands one to me.

  I wrap the blanket around my trembling body. “That was a mighty radical move for an Infiltrator.”

  He nods at me. “I’ve spent too much time hanging around with you outrageous Interceptors.”

  Across the water, the Longstreet eases away from the dockyard. I sit in the navigator’s seat and clutch my blanket around me. Blood drips from my feet, and my ribs scorch like cattle brands every time I breathe. I notice Pepper the dog has already tracked bloody paw prints all over the boat.

  After a few minutes, I discover a cooler full of beer next to my seat. I give one to Grey, then crack one open for myself. I chug it down, open a second brewski, chug that one too, and let out a long, loud, rib-searing belch during which I rumble, “Ü-u-u-ber Alles!”

  CORE MIS-ANGEL-6133

  Heavily encrypted intercept, source unknown:

  START TRANSMISSION : ACTIVATE TERMINATION SEQUENCE : TRANSMISSION END

  50

  Next morning, Friday, March 13, 1981, 5:52 A.M. CVT

  Longstreet, Atlantic Ocean

  Dear God, please make this horrible feeling go away and I’ll never chuzzle eleven beers after prolonged immersion in winter-degree water again.

  Hypothermia sucks ass! My bunk is drenched with sweat, the covers have gotten tangled around my legs again, and I have to pee like crazy. Plus, it’s dark and the room smells like cheese. If it weren’t for my night vision, I’d never be able to see where I am: in the officers’ quarters on the cargo ship Longstreet, bound for America.

  I’m bunked up with the rest of my team: Raj, Patrick, Grey, and Falcon. Three of us—Falcon, Grey, and me—have been confined to our beds while we recover from the injuries we’ve sustained over the last two days of our ROAR Tour.

  F-Bird’s leg has finally been set in a proper cast, but that isn’t the only broken bone our team has suffered. That big bear hug I got from Kruppe broke one of my ribs, so my torso is wrapped up like a mummy to keep everything in place. I’ve also got big puffy bandages on both my feet.

  Grey and I are being treated for severe loss of body heat while we slaughtered the brownshirts on their fishing boats. I got the worst of the hypothermia, supposedly because I got so much drunker than everyone else did.

  I gingerly extract myself from my blanket knot and hobble to the bathroom. On my way back I check on F-Bird. He’s asleep, and his eyes move around under his eyelids as he dreams. His breathing is shallow, and his legs twitch. Looks like a bad one. I should know.

  I climb into my bunk, expecting to lie awake obsessing about my father and which circle of hell I go to for killing that boy. So naturally
I fall asleep right away.

  It’s light out. I walk up to the deck of a ship. It’s covered in grass and trees, like a small park floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A group of children play on a little merry-go-round, laughing and calling to each other. I walk over to them.

  The kids all stop and stare at me. The smiles drop from their faces like butterflies falling off a bug zapper. They stand still, staring at the ground. A few of them begin to cry. One boy, the tallest, frowns at me.

  Wait. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking past me.

  I turn around and nearly burst out of my skin. A desolate, brooding figure looms behind me, reeking of despair and ringing of pain. It holds a huge scythe and wears a black hooded robe.

  I back away from the deathly apparition. I had the impression the Grim Reaper was tall, but this spirit is the same height as me. I trip over something and land on the grass near the frightened children. The nightmarish figure strides forward and throws off its hood.

  Huh, I always thought death was a guy.

  Wait a minute. Her face seems familiar.

  A thick black snake slides out of her mouth and speaks in Trick’s voice.

  “Scarlet!” the snake shouts. “Wake up!”

  “Whuh!” I sit bolt upright in my bunk. My forehead is slick with sweat, but my swaddled feet are like size-seven ice cubes. I push the covers off me and hold my side while I lie panting in the dark for a minute. Gradually I become aware I’m not the only person in the room who’s awake. I switch on my night vision again.

  Falcon stands ten feet from my bunk. He shakes and twitches even worse than when he was asleep. Wait, is he sleepwalking? What’s he’s holding? Out of habit, my hand slides under my pillow to get Li’l Bertha.

  She’s not there.

  She is always there.

  “F-Bird? Can you hear me?”

  The poor kid jolts in his skin like he’s about to come apart from the inside out. “S-Scarlet? I don’t want to.” He presses something against his stomach.