Cursed Earth (Kat Drummond Book 12)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  I had three angels sitting back in my office, and I was trudging through a parking lot surrounded by angry hunters and cops, after all. And, while I wanted to sort out this Seraphim business, my priorities were going to be the necromancer threatening my city. The necromancer who killed my friend!

  Ariel and the damn hosts of Michael himself could wait.

  I spotted Karen Gonheim, the policeman who had helped me go through the archives earlier this year. I smiled and made my way towards her. She pointedly averted her eyes. I stopped, frowning.

  I realised that many of the police were staring at me. When they realised that I had noticed them, they averted their gaze too.

  I resisted biting my lips in frustration.

  “A colder welcome than you are now used to, Kat?” a voice like petulant hot air assaulted my ears. Of course, it was Agent Phillip Brown.

  I gave out the obligatory frustrated sigh.

  “Aren’t there small nations to overthrow and impi generals to irritate into submission, Phillip?” I replied. “And can you point me to the commanding officer?”

  “Oh, Charles Montague should be cremated about now. I suspect that his fianceé spread his ashes over the sea. Atlantic, probably. He loved the sea. Used to go boating. Well, until his boating partner and brother died…”

  “I am not above hitting you again,” I hissed. My voice sounded strong. I hoped my glare pierced his flesh. But his words stung. Every single one of them.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Kat. Your goodwill with the force is on a knife’s edge. There were survivors who witnessed you choosing your man over their captain.”

  “I did what I had to do…” I hissed, taking a step forward.

  Treth manifested by my side.

  “Don’t give him the excuse he needs. He wants leverage against you. Don’t give it.”

  Of course, my ghost was right. I took a step back. Closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. I didn’t care if Phillip noticed. I needed to calm myself.

  I opened my eyes. No more glare. And my anger was kept under a cold lid of ice.

  “I need to speak to the commanding officer,” I said, calmly. “The living one.”

  Phillip’s white grin reflected the electric lighting of the parking lot.

  “You’re speaking to him.”

  “Oh, Athena…no…”

  “Athena, yes. I got that promotion! Or is it a demotion? Anyway, I have been put in charge of this wonderful band of misfits. The Chairman thinks a touch of the Foreign Affairs panache may nip this entire necromancy thing in the bud.”

  “We’ve been facing down necromancers since the Titan awoke and was put back to sleep.” I glared again. “It’s far too late to nip it in the bud.”

  “Oh, but we ever do try. Well, you do. I’m more concerned with matters more extravagant. But, as you told the Chairman, this Cursed Earth is another country. That makes it my jurisdiction. And I hate landlocked countries. Might as well re-annex it!”

  “Careful, agent. We fuck up again, and the Necro Lord may get a nice beachfront property. And there won’t be any Crusaders, police or Puretide to evict him.”

  “Fuck up again? Whatever does that mean?” Phillip sounded sincere. “You lost one man. A few dozen additional casualties by HCPD were to be expected. But we wiped out an entire horde. And, we gauged the extent of this Necro Lord’s power. And realised his goals.”

  “And those are?” I asked, dubiously.

  “Were you not paying attention? He wants to build an empire! Unfortunately for him, Hope City is very good at quashing empires.”

  Phillip winked, as if he had made a stellar point. Just as the white-haired, imposing wall of flesh known as Edward Taragon entered.

  He stepped up right towards me, staring down into my eyes and not flinching.

  “You shouldn’t have gone into Athlone, Drummond,” he spat. “It was an obvious trap. And you walked right into it.”

  I returned his stare with my death glare, even if part of me knew that he was right.

  “Would you have let your men die? Let them be tortured by a madman?”

  “I wouldn’t have let them get captured in the first place,” he hissed, unblinking.

  A man wearing Crusader black and grey shoved himself between us, pointedly shoving Edward back. Phillip watched, barely hiding an interested smirk.

  “Kat is a hero!” Hammond announced, pointing his remaining finger at his old boss. “She may be impulsive, but she’s loyal. She wouldn’t leave a man behind. And she won’t run away from danger like you did. We hold the line, whatever it takes!”

  Edward sneered, and surveyed the crowd that had gathered around us. Crusaders outnumbered Puretide troops now. And they looked angry. Heat radiated from Hammond.

  His look of derision wilted. He turned to me.

  “I’ve been fighting the darkness since before you were born, child. Don’t let your hatred for it blind you.”

  Edward turned around and rejoined his men. A few patted him on the back. Some glared back at me.

  “I wouldn’t have let them get captured in the first place,” he had said.

  Puretide had incredibly low casualty rates. Because they never took risks. They did things by the book. I had hated that. Because their caution had given the Mentor precious minutes to slaughter my parents.

  But, I had not been in his shoes before. I had not led men. Until now. And, for the pain and guilt I felt whenever we lost someone…I could no longer blame him.

  Phillip stepped forward and whistled, calling us to attention.

  “Now, let’s all play nice. We have bigger, more rotten, fish to fry. I see both leaders are present. So, we begin.”

  Without any sort of props, meeting rooms, or even a PowerPoint presentation, Phillip began.

  “Our target is a flesh factory located deep inside Khayelitsha…”

  Some people muttered. They knew what that meant. Khayelitsha was a sea of shanties. A maze of corrupt weylines and gang warfare. The zombie outbreaks were so common there that even we had given up trying to contain them.

  “The factory has been identified as the largest source of infections in the area. So far, we believe it to be the largest of the Necro Lord’s operations.”

  “What’s the point?” Edward piped up. “There are more. We’re trying to put out a bush fire with a bucket of water.”

  He had a point. But still, what else were we supposed to do?

  Phillip smiled at the challenge. That infuriating smile.

  “Every puzzle has multiple pieces, Eddie. You have to place them one at a time before you can finish.”

  “This puzzle costs lives.”

  “All wars do.”

  Edward valued life to the point that he didn’t want to risk it at all. Phillip was flippant about it. He seemed to see all of us as merely pieces on a chess board. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice us if he saw the trade as worth it.

  Where did I stand? I didn’t want people to die. But I knew they had to…

  I felt sick.

  Phillip continued. “We have identified a human gang guarding and operating the facility. Of course, a large contingent of undead will be present. Police will focus on exchanging fire with the human gangsters. Monster hunters, you should have your hands full against the undead…”

  “We may be ill-equipped to tackle the drake,” I interjected.

  Phillip looked at me, and I saw a hint of annoyance. Just for a moment, before his façade of casual cheerfulness returned.

  “The CAF is on standby. If that nasty little drake is too much for you to handle, some fighter jets will blow it out of the sky.”

  “In a civilian area?” Edward asked, disbelieving.

  “You choose…” Phillip shrugged. “The lives of your men, or civilians. If they want to tackle the drake without air support, I’m sure the CAF would be ecstatic to save their fuel. It’s a little late to contact Drakenbane, though. And they don’t seem interested in waiting around
in case the drake appears. So, you’d have to fight it yourselves.”

  He paused and stared at Edward, sternly. His voice became darker, with a palpable sense of finality.

  “Make your choice.”

  Edward glared, but then his expression wilted. Defeated, he replied.

  “CAF support would be welcome.”

  Phillip nodded and continued explaining logistical arrangements. We were to travel in unmarked vehicles, mustering around the flesh factory and then converging on all sides. We were to use blast charges to enter from every angle and eliminate all within the building. Not just undead. Humans. Fortunately, that would be the police’s job. If they survived the first wave. I really hoped that my men wouldn’t have to kill living humans. It wasn’t something I wanted resting on their consciences, even if they were yelling loudly about personally disembowelling the Necro Lord.

  Phillip concluded his speech and then it was action time. The group began to disperse, jogging towards their assigned vehicles.

  I stopped Hammond as he was about to leave.

  “Hammond…um…thanks for…”

  He looked confused, then smiled, faintly.

  “Don’t be…Commander. It was nothing but the truth.”

  He left and joined his fianceé. I watched the both of them share a moment. Hammond was shorter than Heather but, as they stared into each other’s eyes, their height didn’t matter.

  They were my men. My family. And I was sending them into bloody chaos.

  Treth’s awareness drew my attention to Edward. From across the lot, he was watching me. Even at this distance, I saw something in his cold, blue eyes. And he saw something in mine. I nodded, and he nodded back.

  I turned and saw Brett waving over to me, standing next to Cindy and Guy. I jogged towards them.

  “You ready?” Brett asked.

  I nodded. Ready as I’d ever be.

  “And how about your ghost?”

  “I literally sleep in my armour,” he replied.

  Cindy chuckled, just a bit, but didn’t share the joke.

  Brett shared a look with Guy and gripped his shoulder.

  “We’re gonna get him. For Booz.”

  Guy gripped Brett’s shoulder back.

  “For Booz.”

  Cindy and I shared a long, hard look too as our significant others made their way into the black van assigned to us.

  Like Edward, I saw concern in Cindy’s eyes. She didn’t like what we’d have to face after all this was done. Edward and I were more alike than any of us would like to admit. We both didn’t want to lose a single man. But sometimes, you had to make sacrifices.

  The question was: how many would die before we saw the sun rise again?

  Chapter 20.

  Flesh Factory

  Charges set. From a bird’s eye view, tiny specks of plastic explosives were placed along the sides of this mammoth concrete structure formed from the amalgamation of shanties and abandoned tenements. Once, it would have been a community. Multiple. Villages of tin-shanties and gargantuan tenements meant to ease the overpopulation of Hope City. Now, it was a single structure, sewn together like Frankenstein’s monster. A veritable abomination of disparate structures. It was only right that it hid a factory dedicated to harvesting organs and creating vile creatures.

  And, we were breaching it. An army of Puretide in white, Crusaders in dark grey, and the police wearing enough Kevlar that they might as well be serving at the Three Point Line.

  The cop with the bomb set the charge and gave a thumbs up to his companion. She radioed it in. All synced. I held my breath, Ithalen ready. It’d been less than a minute since we’d screeched to a halt by the sides of the flesh factory. Bystanders had already fled. But, no response from inside. That meant they weren’t ready for us. Or…it was a trap.

  The ground shook, as the charges detonated inwards across the structure, sending up dust and ash into the putrid air.

  Gunfire rang out. Shouts. Screams.

  The fight had begun.

  “Go, go, go!” the HCPD officer yelled, sending his men into action. We couldn’t see past the fog-like ash. But, as the cops poured in, I could see the flashes of gunfire from inside.

  “Crusaders!” I announced. “Let’s hunt!”

  Their collective response was muffled as we poured into the breach. I led the way, bearing the Aegis. I heard ringing and felt a vibration rock my shield and reverberate up my arm. Bullets. Being fired at me. Not my first time.

  “Shields!” I shouted. Crusaders cleared the ash clouds and locked their shields by mine. I heard a muffled hiss of pain as a bullet chipped one of their less mythological shields and skinned their arm. Just a scratch, fortunately.

  Treth manifested just ahead, examining our shield wall. He nodded his approval, turned, and charged.

  “Advance!” I shouted. As a unit, the shield wall pushed against the gunfire from within, stepping over policemen and gangster corpses. I saw flares of golden light from behind us, as purifiers healed those hit by stray bullets. A shield-man fell. A Gibson twin, in half-wolf form, dragged the man away, another replacing him.

  “Push! And clear this fucking fog!” Brett yelled, followed by the boom-boom of his auto-shotgun.

  I felt the buzz of spark as Kyong leapt clean over the shield wall. Bullets stopped dead, centimetres from his flesh. He landed with practiced grace just ahead of us, and then…spun like a vortex. With every spin, the ash and dust of the explosion was absorbed into the whirlwind he created. He stopped, his hands holding a ball of dirt. And, behind him, eyes wide, were a dozen, stunned gangsters clothed in black.

  Their surprise lasted for half a second before they renewed their fire with pistols and Ak-47s. Crusaders fired back, with cops entering in after us and firing over the cover we were forming.

  Without the cover of the ash, the gangsters were ripped to shreds, spraying red onto the unpainted, concrete walls.

  Room clear. I waited a few more seconds, then stood.

  “Clear,” I announced.

  More Crusaders, without shields, entered the room. Police fanned out, investigating the gangsters and the room.

  The breaching charge had been powerful. A gangster lay by Kyong’s feet. A brick had pelted him in the head. Dead, instantly. There were broken mugs and glass bottles scattered around the room. The gangsters had been hiding behind a couch. It hadn’t helped them much.

  The sound of battle echoed through the halls. Machine gun fire was met by more machine gun fire. No groans or roars of beasts yet. Just human combatants. I stepped forward, my boot splashing into a puddle of blood. I winced.

  That could have been my friends. My companions. I steeled myself. It wasn’t. And I had to remind myself who these men had aligned themselves with. A monster. That made them monsters too.

  Gunmen reloaded and took their positions by the doorway. A policewoman monitoring comms on a digital tablet and with their own backpack antennae sidled up to me.

  “Heavy resistance on the north-side, Last Light.”

  I heard the muffled sounds of hasty orders and communications through her headset.

  “Proceed!” I commanded the group. “Watch your flanks and keep an eye out for undead. Shields first!”

  Kyong took the lead. He was basically a walking shield anyway, followed by a bunch of shield-bearers. A cop opened the door and let Kyong pass. He walked confidently into the next hallway, turned to us and nodded. We filtered through, single file.

  We were in a wide hall. The ground was asphalt. An old road. That meant that the room we were just in must have been a single house at one point. I heard shouts and gunfire in the distance. Coming from the north. We’d need to cut a line towards them, eliminating resistance. This surrounding strategy was good for surprising the enemy, but we needed a concentration of force. Especially when we faced the hordes…

  As if right on cue, the guttural, spine-tingling furor of a hundred undead screeches filled the hall. From the right. No. The left. Both�
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  “Shields! Both sides. Gunmen behind!” I commanded. Brett repeated the command, his booming voice pushing the hunters, who were not used to acting in such a large group, to take their spaces to cover both our sides. Just then, the lights went out. There were no windows. Just the faint light through the breach.

  My coat sparked, creating a faint orange glow. I saw fear in the eyes of the men around me. Good. Fear would keep them alive.

  “Hold the line, Crusaders. None of us dies today.”

  Police fidgeted, shaking as they held their submachine guns and rifles towards the blackness.

  “I said none of us,” I repeated, sternly, staring their officer in the eyes.

  He considered my words and nodded.

  The undead cries came closer. Closer. The gunfire from the south-side ceased. That left north and our group on the west. I hoped east was faring well. It was under Guy’s command, and had Hammond pulling heavy-duty spellcasting. Crusaders were hitting the flesh factory from east and west. North was Puretide. South was purely police. They were not suited to fighting undead.

  But, they were now under my care. And even if they didn’t wear the Crusader badge, they were now my men.

  I joined a slot in the shield wall, facing south where it sounded like the bulk of the enemy force was coming from. In the distance, I saw firelight reflect off beady, white eyes. Coming closer. Closer. Their gurgles were filled with malice. Metal scraped against flesh. Abhorrent.

  “Fire!” I yelled, and the gunmen let loose, illuminating the halls as every shot revealed a pale, emaciated figure, covered in cast-iron and steel plating, bearing sharp and heavy implements for limbs. Sparks leapt up as bullets hit metal, and black blood sprayed into the darkness as rounds found flesh.

  The firing didn’t abate. Brett fired from above my shoulder. Treth manifested just before us, his shield ready to stop the tide.

  “Steady!” I commanded, shouting over the commotion. The undead roared in response. More fell to the hail of lead. But not enough.

  “Shields, step forward!” I commanded, and all but a few hesitated to step up, giving the gunmen room to manoeuvre. “Weapons ready!”