Abomination (The Pathfinders Book 1)

by Jane Dougherty

Joe raised his hand, and Flo cringed but did not take her eyes off Ace’s face.

  Ace lashed out with his whip and caught Joe on the cheek. “That’s enough!”

  A stunned silence fell as Joe pressed a hand to his face, an expression of disbelief in his eyes. Ace was chewing his lower lip and his eyes still flashed, but Flo could see the haunted look that had crept into them, beginning to show the terror she knew he hid from his men.

  He pointed the swagger stick at her. “You, get out now. The rest of you too. I need to think.”

  The men bustled to the door, pushing Flo out of the way. She turned in the doorway. Ace glared at her, his fists clenched in anger, but his features were rigid and taut. Behind the anger in his eyes, Flo could see the cracks appearing. It was time to start thinking for herself.

  Flo had seen it in Ace’s eyes, that he was torn between his hatred of Tully and his fear of following her advice. He, who had always ruled by fear, was its first victim. She clenched her fists. If only she had been born a man. Suddenly she made a decision. Years of following orders—first from her soldier father, then her soldier husband, most recently from this self-styled tribal leader who had let his place be usurped by some Johnny-come-lately with the blarney—had taught Flo something. They had taught her how to give orders, and how to be obeyed. She smiled to herself, a smile without mirth, without warmth. She was going to take command.

  Chapter Thirty

  The women arrived in the entrance hall at an eager trot, not needing any encouragement from Matt. Most of them, especially the younger ones who had been stroppy teenagers when the Abomination had dumped Ace on them, began to feel excited for the first time since the Burnt Man had left. Kat had also noticed the silent anger that had replaced the self-satisfied smirk as Flo’s favorite facial expression. She was plotting something, and Kat thought she could guess what. She was turning to make her way to her post, when a hand clutched at her arm.

  “Kat, tell Tully—General Thor, I mean—to be careful.” Dee’s expression was difficult to read in the darkness, but the tone was anxious. “Flo hates him. She’ll kill him if she can and his friends. You will tell him, won’t you? I don’t want anything to happen to him or…Matt.”

  Kat squeezed the girl’s hand. “Don’t worry, Dee. I think he knows already. But if you want to help him, keep an eye on Flo. If you suspect she’s up to something, send him word. Tell Jeff or Jim. You know you can trust them.”

  * * * *

  The girls queued up respectfully for their bows and the homemade quiver of assorted arrows as if they were receiving Holy Communion. The arrows were a mixture of plastic toy things, semi-professional archery arrows and short lengths of bamboo salvaged from the garden center. Most had a thin piece of string or a scrap of rag with a tribal emblem scrawled on it tied to one end and dipped in paraffin.

  Their oversized coats worn over layers of jumpers and jackets were loosely belted to make them billow, turning even the slightest girls into heavyweights. Each wore a balaclava, giving them the sinister appearance of terrorists. All in all they looked pretty ridiculous, but the point was that they all looked pretty ridiculous, the boys as well as the girls, and hopefully the enemy wouldn’t get close enough to inspect them too closely. Within minutes of the alarm, the entire Flay tribe had passed through the smashed up entrance hall on the way to their positions.

  The mall bellied out in a broad curve, with the east side and the main entrance in the west forming the points of the crescent. At the top of the curve was a service bay, its forecourt littered with the wreckage of lorries and delivery vans. One of the lorries, skewed on its side, had been kitted out as a rudimentary sentry post, a vantage point that dominated both entrances, with their backs sheltered by the lorry’s bulk, facing the mall, The archers posted at this point would play a crucial role in Tully’s plan, causing bedlam among the enemy tribes, and setting one tribe against another.

  The front of the mall, the part that had looked out on the sprawling suburbs of south west Paris, now faced only sprawling ruins and was in not much better shape itself. In its curved arms it held a heap of concrete, steel girders and mangled vehicles. Much of the tacky sheet metal construction had collapsed into the big store entrances that dotted the mall’s facade. The rest had been blown to pieces by rocket fire.

  Nobody would attack through that death trap of lethally twisted metal, and spokes of the steel reinforcing bars left protruding like tortured fingers when the concrete around them was pounded to rubble. That left only the east side and the main entrances to defend.

  When the women arrived at the east side, Tully was already there, deploying his warriors along the rear of the mall, back down to the main entrance. All of them wore the same gear, heavy belted coat and black balaclava. In the dark it was almost impossible to tell the men from the women. Tully pointed out where he wanted each group of women.

  Before joining Carla and the other three girls of their group, Kat dashed over to Tully and grabbed his arm. “You just remember what I told you about Jeff, General,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I don’t want him anywhere near the fighting. You forget, and I’ll have your fucking pips!”

  With a last glare at the startled Tully, Kat slipped back to join her group and take up position outside the service bay, beneath the massive wheels of the wrecked truck that lay on its side, equidistant between the two entrances. Its windows were caved in and it was partly carbonized, but it would give them a bit of cover when the action started.

  “Great!” said Carla without much conviction, staring first down the buckled and broken car park to the main entrance, then past the uprooted petrol pumps of the wrecked gas station up to the east side. “At least we get a grandstand view. We should be selling tickets.”

  Kat smiled vaguely, but her attention switched from one entrance to the other, back and forth, watching for the slight movement that could mean the start of the main attack. Carla jumped each time a drac snarled, until Kat reassured her that they were unlikely to attack with so many people about. They would wait until the fighting was over, then start their own battle with the crows and the rats for the leavings. Nonetheless, the persistent snarling and growling from among the rubbish heaps behind made her uneasy.

  “I’d rather be where I can keep an eye on them,” she said, “like when there’s a hornet around, or a big, fat spider.”

  Easing her way around the lorry, Carla crawled through the empty windscreen and into the relative shelter of the upturned cab. She peered out into the darkness. For a few moments all she saw were the dim shapes of more wrecked trucks and piles of debris. Then there was movement, whitish blurs that leaped out of the darkness. The shapes snarled and shook as if wrestling with some recalcitrant burden. The snarling increased, accompanied by the sickening, wet, sucking sound of something giving, tearing and coming away. There was a sharp yelp and one of the pale blurs leaped closer and became a huge drac with something limp dangling from its jaws.

  Carla felt sick and looked away. Shivering slightly, she backed her way out of the cab and crawled around to Kat and the other three.

  “I changed my mind. Looks like battle has already been joined. Round one to the drax,” she said in a pale voice, pointing to the growling mass in front of the car.

  Kat peered out and winced. “The sentries at this entrance hit some of the invaders. One of them must have got left where he fell.”

  Carla wished, not for the first or the last time, that she was anywhere but in this particular shopping mall at the end of the world. She shivered again, this time with cold. The wind had dropped and something like ice cubes was falling.

  “Where did they go? The invaders, I mean.”

  Kat peered into the gloom. “They’ll be out there somewhere, waiting to see how many of us there are, probably. They’ll want to draw all the warriors outside to fight. Not even Big Bob would want to risk getting ambushed inside.”

  “Do we know who they are?”

  Kat gave her a resigned
look. “Probably all of them. They’re all half-starved, just like us.”

  “Sshh!” One of the other girls, a tiny blonde who only looked to be about fifteen, tugged at Kat’s sleeve. “They’re getting ready. Watch out for the signal.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Tully was sweating, despite the biting cold, and cursing the icefall. Usually ice only fell for a few minutes, but if it continued, or worse, if it turned to rain, his plan could backfire. He was standing in the wreckage of the east side entrance, Jeff at his side. His walkie-talkie beeped. It was Jah. He’d just finished hanging up his voodoo doll spirit traps for the benefit of the Matonge.

  “Jah, who have we got? Can you see?”

  “Man, it’s like the fuckin’ United Nations out there! There’s nobody we ain’t got!”

  Tully’s heart began to pound. If his plan didn’t work, they were going to be annihilated. He cast a quick glance over to where Ace and his group were waiting, Ace making a mess of a pile of plastic containers with his spear and laughing, imagining himself spitting wild boar probably. Tully had taken the precaution of assuring him it was Stranglers or Kusha hanging around the east side. The truth would soon wipe the stupid grin off his face.

  To Tully’s right, as far as the main entrance, were strung out the groups of women with their bows and arrows, interspersed with bands of warriors armed with knives, the few rifles that still actually functioned and bristling with homemade spears and javelins. The wind caught at the skirts of coats, as the warriors tested their weapons for balance. The slight movements were repeated all along the back of the mall. Any observer peering through the ice and sleet would have seen an impressive defensive force, armed and ready. Tully gritted his teeth. He hoped whoever was out there observing could count.

  The icefall stopped as abruptly as it had started and even the wind was still. Tully gave the signal, and the women in two of the groups each selected an arrow, lit the paraffin soaked rag and fired it at the pool of fuel along the fifteen yard boundary line. The fiery darts fell, the pool exploded in flame and cries of fear and pain went up from the attackers. A drac, its coat ablaze, galloped in terror in the direction of a second fuel dump that also ignited, sowing panic farther along the line.

  Five seconds later the first bands of enemy warriors charged, leaping through the narrow gaps between the pools of burning fuel. Tully gave the signal and the six scouts hidden in foxholes activated the anti-drac barrier, hoisting two warriors into the air, caught on the razor wire. Their struggles only transfixed them even deeper and their screams of pain were pitiful to hear.

  Without waiting for the order, Ace led his group, yelling and whooping, to finish off the survivors of the trap. Tully fought back a rising desire to be sick and gave the next order on the walkie-talkie to Carla’s group waiting, arrows nocked to bowstrings, in the service bay half-way around to the main entrance.

  Carla saw the crouching shapes silhouetted against the fires and took aim. At either side of her, she saw the other girls do the same.

  “Fire!” Kat shrieked, a fierce glitter in her eyes. “Come on. Again!”

  They each nocked a second arrow and let fly. Carla had no idea where they ended up. In fact, she found she wasn’t really aiming at all, but the other girls were, and she could tell from their triumphant yells that some of the arrows had found their mark.

  Five scouts crawled back to the safety of the east side where Tully was waiting.

  “Only five?” He tried to remember who was missing. Before the others realized what was happening, a body flew, a limp, disarticulated doll, over the drac barrier. Nobody moved until Ace motioned to Joe to go see.

  Joe kicked the corpse over with his foot and gave a low whistle. “Mac,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “He was a good mate.” Joe dragged back to the east side before he spoke again. “Got no eyes left. It’s Gouge out there.”

  Ace turned on Tully in a fury. “You said it was Stranglers or Kusha! Just a bunch of yellow wankers!”

  Tully’s face was hard. “Security.”

  Ace snorted, but his face was white as a sheet and he was obviously making a superhuman effort to keep from hightailing it back into his ramshackle fortress. Knowing that he was up against the Gouge had rather dampened his enthusiasm for heroics. Tully tried to keep focused, determined not to lose the thread of the plan.

  He cast about for someone he could trust. Ace’s patrol had all dove off after a group of Kusha who were trying to creep under the drac barrier—all except Joe and the ferret twins. He looked into their belligerent eyes and saw only dislike, stupidity and insubordination. Tully bit his lip and made his decision.

  “Jeff, get into the foxhole in front of the taxi. Take a walkie-talkie and tell me what the Gouges are doing.”

  Jeff slipped away, his slight form weaving about like a running hare. Half a minute later Tully’s walkie-talkie crackled into life.

  “It’s working. I can see Big Bob—I’d recognize that great gut anywhere. He’s splitting his warriors. About ten of them are running off toward the main entrance, to get even with whoever he thinks is stabbing him in the back, I suppose. There’s one of them down. I can see him writhing about. Bob’s kicking him to get up—the bastard! That’s all he’s good for, the fat git—”

  “Okay, Jeff, message received. Now get yourself back here,” Tully shouted. He could see the other group of Gouge now, forming up just beyond the flames that were dying down, their use as an obstacle finished.

  “No, hold on! I can see—” The line cut.

  “Jeff!” Tully leaped in the direction of the foxhole. Almost simultaneously a band of a dozen men in combat gear, their faces blackened, brandishing a variety of weapons, charged across the dying flame barrier. Mostly they carried spears and knives, but several of them had rifles.

  Tully whistled. Ace and his acolytes were nowhere to be seen. He roared and a group of girls charged over. Bets gave Tully a broad grin and in silence, lit one of her arrows and sent it, fire-tipped, into one of the mounds aligned with the fire barrier. A volley followed from the other girls. Each bullseye ignited the fuel-soaked rags. Flame fountained yards high into the air, followed by a violent explosion and plumes of colored sparks and smoke as the heat reached the buried fireworks. Small missiles tore screaming from the bonfires, panicking the bewildered Gouge.

  Drawn to the action, Ace’s scattered boys reappeared, and with a yell, Tully led them out, waving knives and javelins. The Gouge laid about them, even shot off a couple of rounds, but they all had half an eye on their line of retreat, half an eye on Bob their chief, whose encouraging war cries were growing worryingly more distant.

  A Gouge warrior stopped in his tracks in front of Tully, breathing heavily. He was some kind of chief, a big man, his hands bloodied, blood smears overlying the camouflage of his face. His knuckles whitened as he gripped the handle of his knife, hesitating between lunging and backing off. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. He was alone. With a grimace of frustration, he kicked savagely at the nearest bonfire, sending burning rubbish into the eyes of Tully’s warriors, and melted away into the darkness.

  Without waiting to see if the coast was quite clear, Tully raced out to the foxhole where Jeff had taken cover. He stopped at the lip and caught his breath. Jeff lay on his back with flakes of sooty ash falling onto the billows of his overcoat. His face, unnaturally white, was turned away, but his right temple was a mess of blood. Tully gently took his hand. It was quite cold.

  Kat nudged Carla and pointed silently to the running line of fire that filled the pools of fuel along the boundary line. “I think we’re winning.” Her voice was firm and calm. Her eyes shone, visibly sparkling even in the dim dawn light that would never break into broad daylight. Her fingers closed more firmly around the shaft of her makeshift spear, but not in fear. Kat was itching to stick it into somebody.

  Carla wished she shared Kat’s battle lust, and marveled for the umpteenth time since the alarm had gone off, at the change that
had worked in all the women. They stood straight and held their heads high for the first time in years. They spoke confidently, in proper sentences rather than flaccid monosyllables. Carla understood why, and it made her blood run cold. The women were as keen as the men to fight, but for different reasons. They were going to get a bit of their own back for the years of servitude. They were going to stick several inches of steel into living flesh with a smile on their faces and a yell of triumph in their throats.

  “Let’s give them a bit of stick up there.” Kat nodded in the direction of the main entrance where a particularly spectacular fire lit up the scurrying warrior-shapes of tribesmen.

  “They’re bloody rotten shots, but there’s so much petrol chucked about here, it doesn’t matter.” Jim grinned at Matt as yet another flaming arrow dropped into a heap of petrol-soaked rags. “Come on. Dee and the girls will keep an eye on Flo. Let’s give ‘em what for!”

  Matt leaped toward the bonfires, shaking his spear. “Yaaaahhh! Getoutathatyeblackbastards!”

  Jim and the rest of the group followed, scattering Matonge tribesmen before them. Behind them, where the wire trolley park had been in front of the main entrance, they could see the women in their out-sized coats preparing another volley.

  But no arrows were loosed. Instead there was a sudden change in the rhythm of their movements. The coats billowed and swirled, the girls lowered their bows and looked about in bewilderment as Flo, coat flapping, gesticulating broadly with the balaclava in her hand, lumbered out onto the forecourt.

  “What the fuck’s she up to?” Jim swore.

  “Tully told her it was Gouge out this side. Looks like she’s going to try switching sides.”

  “The bitch!”

  “Tully knew she would. That’s why he told her.”

  “What’s going on up there?” Kat strained to see who was running out from the cover of the main entrance.