Battles all over the fragging place. I don’t like it.
“Stands to reason. And I’d bet money that it was Vost.”
Jael sniffed. He smelled a number of things, including Mungo’s mongrels, along with burning wires, hot metal, carbon and cordite, sweaty prisoners, and melting durasteel. The air was a melting pot of interesting stink, most of which meant they had a long fight on their hands. It wouldn’t be an easy run to save Queensland, but he hadn’t expected it to be, either.
“Huh.” Dred vaulted over a pile of junk. Head down, she went in a graceful run and slid under a slash of laser fire.
Dammit. He hated when she did that; only skin and bone stood between her and a splatter fest. But she was fearless. If they needed to push, she ran for it, and it was up to him to keep up. Jael sprang after her and pressed on.
“They got past us,” he heard a merc say. “Orders, boss?”
Vost answered, “Let them go. We’ll get to a safe distance and watch the festivities.”
“Asshole,” he and Dred said at the same time.
Despite himself, Jael grinned. “I could get used to sharing certain things with you.”
“Just some, not all?”
He didn’t answer; it wasn’t the time. But on the whole, as long as she let him watch her six, he had no complaints. They fought through a host of cannibals before coming up on Cook decimating the enemy. He didn’t turn when they reached the battle. He just kept fighting, his chopping knife a blinding silver arc. By the look of him, he had hard-core battle experience, though he seldom showed it. None of his assistants seemed to have made it; Cook alone was holding this part of the zone.
“You all right?” Dred asked him.
The chef nodded. “It’s worse farther in.”
Taking that as an indication of numbers, Jael glanced at her. She beckoned with a jerk of her chin, and he readied his weapons. Past the tumbled barricades, the common room was a wreck of a place, with broken chairs and tables, and it was full of crazy, man-eating loons.
Whatever Mungo was trying to accomplish, he couldn’t be permitted to succeed. Jael didn’t think the nutter had a master plan, actually. He operated on the kill, kill, kill managerial style, just as Silence brainwashed her people and cut out their tongues.
No wonder Dred didn’t try to talk me into joining up.
“Mother Mary,” Dred breathed.
“Where are the others?”
“No fragging clue.”
Jael hoped they were holed up somewhere, waiting for the right time to strike. The cannibals didn’t give him a chance to say as much, however. They rushed in a mob, no finesse or battle tactics whatsoever. There had to be twenty of them in here, and they all looked hungry. A few gnashed their red teeth as if at the promise of the grisly feast to come.
“I don’t think so,” Dred said.
She slammed her chain away from her body, nailing the closest monster in the face. The blow broke his nose and knocked out some teeth. Since he needed those for chewing human flesh, the enemy let out a scream of pained rage. Around him, the others responded, pressing closer until Jael had them all snapping and grabbing at him. It was hard to fight in close quarters, so he opened things up by wrenching free and flipping backward. Dred covered his movement with another lash of her chains, and two of the prisoners went down. She stomped on their faces even as another one sank its teeth into her arm.
Funny, “it,” not him or her. They don’t even look human anymore.
Some of them had film across their eyes, open sores oozing pus, and others were losing their hair, like their grotesque habits had imprinted on their flesh. He shuddered and rushed back into the fight, before they surrounded Dred. Their grasping nails dug into her arms, gouges that healed before his eyes.
She’s stronger, I think. Good. She needs to be.
Jael dropped another one as Tam and Martine burst into the room. Calypso was close behind, along with some of Katur’s aliens. Relief surged through him; he was happier than he expected to see the others. What the hell’s wrong with you? Do you like these misfits? But the cannibals didn’t turn. Like animals, once they focused on their prey, they didn’t think about the odds of winning. These things were wholly driven by hunger and impulse.
“How does it look elsewhere?”
“There’s fighting everywhere,” Tam answered.
“Help us with these, and we’ll get to work clearing the place.” Dred sounded confident, exactly what her people needed to hear.
“My pleasure,” Calypso said.
The mistress of the circle was a dervish of death, bare-handed, and she snapped two necks by the time Jael took down his next one. It’s because of the poison, he told himself. In truth, it was a pleasure to watch the woman fight. He doubted there was anyone who could counter her rapid-fire strikes and sweeps. For her height, she was incredibly agile, one moment before, the next behind, and she ended her next brief fight by strangling one of the brutes with her bare hands.
Strong, too. Good to know.
Martine and Tam fought as a unit. Since they were both small, they assisted each other and took out targets with brutal efficiency. Reassured, Jael went back to killing, and soon Mungo’s mongrels lay dead on the floor, along with the rest of the rubbish. Dred held out her hand briefly; nobody else would’ve noticed that it was shaking. To cover, she curled her fingers into a fist and propped it on her hip.
“We saw Mungo’s men coming in. Is Silence here, too?”
Martine nodded. “They’re ambushing us left and right. Strangled two men right in front of Tam and me and took off.”
Dred muttered a curse. “You won’t get them to face you straight up, so make sure you have someone to watch your back. They’ll probably strike in dark hallways while we’re fighting Mungo’s people.” She sighed. “It’ll be tough as hell to clear them all out.”
If it’s possible at all. Everyone wore an expression that suggested they shared his skepticism regarding the impossibility of this task.
But nobody spoke his or her doubts aloud. Like Jael, they’d follow Dred until the end.
39
Honor Among Thieves
Dred split off with Tam and Katur. Jael didn’t like it, but he seemed to understand her reasoning. They needed to spread their strength around and clear as much ground as fast as possible. Otherwise, Queensland might never recover. The fighting went fairly well for a while. Despite her weariness, it was no trouble to kill cannibals or Silence’s killers when they stumbled on them. The room they stepped into next, however, held three mercs, all fully armored, geared up with heavy weapons.
She froze.
The distance between her and the merc group was such that she could get away, but she was less sure about her companions. Tam and Katur stood at her back and neither of them wore armor. If the mercs opened fire, she’d survive, most likely. The other two would not. Slowly, she lowered her weapon.
“Why don’t we settle our grievance, Perdition-style?”
“What did you have in mind?” Vost asked, flipping up his visor so she could see his face . . . and he could read hers, human instincts replacing technical assessments. She’d heard Vost’s voice crackling through the old emergency announcement system now and then, but in all of their encounters, she’d never seen his face. He was older than she’d expected, square iron jaw and lines about his eyes, black-and-silver hair shorn down close to his skull. Old bruises dotted his face in various hues from blue to green; cuts had scabbed over on his left cheekbone. He had hazel eyes with crow’s-feet radiating outward; they spoke of long turns squinting into the sun, not smiles or laughter.