He stood on the back of his mount. "Wait!"
"Delivering me with half my head missing might piss off the Dread Overlord, don't you think?" I stuck my finger on the trigger. I wasn't bluffing. "Call off your army and I'll go with you. Otherwise I blow my brains out and you've got to break the news to your super oyster."
"Hold on," Franks whispered from the ground. He'd woken, and had reached into his suit, pulled out a flask, and was unscrewing the lid. Hell of a time for a drink…
Hood's voice was soothing. "You don't want to kill yourself. Suicides go to hell, you know."
"Oh, like you believe in hell," I muttered.
"Got me there, but we can still work this out. Alive is preferable, just for the amount of suffering that he can inflict on you, but dead? I could probably clean you up right well, if you leave me no other choice." He seemed to grow angrier the more he thought about it. "You think you can threaten me with your death? I'm a king of death! Look around you! Death is my servant! Death is my art!"
Franks put the flask to his lips and poured the contents down his throat. He grimaced in pain as if the liquid really burned going down. Some of it spilled out and dripped down his face. It glowed blue in the dark.
That got Hood's attention. "Well, well, well…Special Agent Franks, I'd almost forgotten about you. I see that you've some of the Elixir of Life. I always wondered how something like you managed to stick around for so very long. Personally, I'd thought that Herr Dippel had taken the formula to his grave. You really must give me that recipe." Franks dropped the flask and began to convulse in the dirt. Hood shook his head sadly. "Painful, and wasteful. You can't expect a dosage of the Elixir to save you now."
Franks was shaking badly as he struggled to his feet, using my belt for help. I kept the AK pointed at my brain. I could hear his body reacting to the potion. Franks' bones were popping. The veins in his face were pulsating. The shadow man was obviously surprised by this development. Franks smiled, teeth white in the dark. "One dose? Try five, asshole."
Hood paused. "Impossible…No flesh could withstand that level of purification."
"You've got to work up to it." My protector shrugged out of his coat and yanked off his clip-on tie, Glocks dangling on both sides from a double-shoulder holster. His shirt hung in a blood-soaked ruin. The firelight flickered across his body. The muscles in his neck throbbed and pulsed. He pulled off his strangler gloves and tossed them to the side, the bones in his hands cracking as he rolled them into fists.
His left hand had HATE tattooed across his knuckles…
The dead trucker in Montgomery had that same tattoo.
No. That was the dead trucker's tattoo…That was the dead trucker's arm.
My mouth fell open and I almost dropped the AK. Franks spoke quietly, "Primary mission. Protect Pitt from the Condition." He glanced over at me, one blue eye reflecting the firelight and nodded through gritted teeth. "I've never failed a mission."
Franks was built out of spare parts…
The shadow man, suddenly afraid, gestured at his undead. "Take them!"
The monsters surged forward. I jerked the AK down and opened fire. Franks crossed his arms, then whipped them outward, a Glock appearing in each hand, firing with terrifying accuracy right through the joints in the zombies' helmets. The elephant bellowed, stampeding forward, coaxed on by its master. Hood shouted a maniacal cry as the elephant bore down on us.
There was a blur of motion as something leapt through the air onto the elephant's back. Earl Harbinger landed directly behind Hood, dumping an entire magazine of.45 from his Tommy gun into his enemy's back. Hood's body rippled like water. The gun emptied in seconds, Earl Harbinger grabbed the shadow man by the robes and flung him from his perch. Hood fell hard in the dirt. Earl jumped after him, landing in a crouch. The elephant was heading right at me, and I dove aside, tree-trunk legs crashing past like thunder.
"You!" Hood spat from flat on the ground. The robes shifted as his flesh turned to molten shadows. They swirled and re-formed. Now he was standing. He calmly brushed the Alabama red clay from his fancy outfit. "So my assassin failed."
Harbinger stood. "Shot the hell out of me with silver bullets." He raised his arms, displaying his battered leather bomber jacket. "You should have told her to shoot me in the head. I don't just wear this coat 'cause it looks cool. This is one-hundred-percent-genuine minotaur hide." He thumped it for emphasis. "Bulletproof." Earl smiled his predatory grin. His eyes were glowing gold. "You're looking good, Marty, for a dead man."
Undead were swirling all around. The humanoids were wearing helmets of hardened steel, only their lower jaws open and chomping. I shoved my muzzle into an onrushing zombie's mouth. The jaws clamped down automatically and I fired, the bullet ricocheting around inside the bucket, pulping the skull to bits. A zombie bear intercepted Franks, knocking him to the ground, slicing him about between the razor sharp legs. The Fed, unperturbed, jammed his guns into the intersection of the bear's protected head and body and severed the neck with a slew of 10mm rounds. The bear collapsed, crushing him beneath.
Hood and Harbinger were circling each other. The Condition's high priest was speaking. "A dead man, Earl? On the contrary, I've never been more alive." He waved one hand, and it warped into a foot-long shadow blade. His other hand twisted into a three-fingered claw, wide as a shovel head.
"I'll have to remedy that," my boss replied. "I'll get it right this time."
"You destroyed my old body. Rather admirably at that, but the spirit that was residing there came from this vessel. Think of it as trading up for a new model car." Hood swung the shadow blade and Harbinger ducked under it.
I kicked the legs out from under another zombie, slammed the AK under its chin, and blasted it. I moved to help free Franks, but with a bellow, he pushed the giant bear off him and heaved it aside. He sprang to his feet and slammed his fist through an approaching zombie's helmet. HATE came out clutching a handful of brain and the zombie dropped like a sack of potatoes. A goat-dog thing charged Franks, snapping at his legs, but he punted it across the clearing and into the burning trees.
"I'm invulnerable in the dark, and this little fire isn't nearly enough," Hood stated proudly as he swung his blade hand. Harbinger bounded over it, flying through the air at his foe, his own hand opened into a claw, swinging with a roar through the ornate robes. Earl rolled through the robes, crashing into the ground as all resistance gave way. He was up, bewildered at the empty fabric in his hands. A twelve-foot solid shadow rose behind him, and he screamed as a black spike was driven into his back.
"Earl!" I shouted.
"Stay back!" he ordered, bloody spittle flying from his mouth. Harbinger spun, tearing through the shape to no effect. One whipping tendril struck him across the abdomen, launching him back into the darkness. He hit the ground closer to the fire.
The shadow surged under the robes, the fabric rising into a man shape, and then settling into the form of Hood as he strode toward Harbinger. "You have no idea how much I've looked forward to this." I shot Hood square in the back of the head. The bullet zipped out his forehead. He paused, looking back at me slyly. "Patience. I'll be back for you."
Earl rose. He was shaking badly. There was a hole in his chest, and it gradually closed, pinching off a trail of blood. There was a loud series of booms from the main building, like the sound of launching fireworks. "This whole owning-the-night thing ain't fair," Earl said as he pointed at the sky. "And if you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck."