I drove on, half dead behind the wheel myself, and for a while I had the motorway all to myself.
And then, from up ahead, came the Flying Saucerers. And I was so hurt and tired and generally pissed off that I didn’t even slow down. Let them come. Let them all come, every damned thing from above and below and in between. I was on a roll and mad enough to take on the whole bloody world. The Flying Saucerers are high-level magic users who swan around in flying saucer–shaped artefacts made up of ionised plasma energies, for reasons best known to themselves. Personally, I think they just like to show off. They’re the vultures of the paranormal world, darting down to pick up the spoils of other people’s battles and carry off whatever isn’t actually nailed down. Which is actually pretty pathetic behaviour, if you ask me, for a group who claim they’re out to rule the world.
I peered wearily through my cracked windscreen and scowled at the saucers shooting through the sky towards me. There had to be a whole fleet of the bloody things. Twenty, maybe thirty, their wide saucer shapes as insubstantial as soap bubbles, condensing into weird rainbow colours around the pilots sitting cross-legged in the centre of the craft. A whole fleet slamming towards me in broad daylight. Made bold at the prospect of a prize like the Soul of Albion. And knowing them, they’d waited for everyone else to take a crack at me, and weaken me, before they tried for the Soul themselves. I could feel my smile widening into a death’s-head grin under my golden mask. I might be down, but I wasn’t out. And I had weapons and tactics and dirty tricks I hadn’t even tried yet.
The Flying Saucerers are dangerous because, like the family, they take science and magic equally seriously. They embrace both schools of knowledge, two very different doctrines, and combine them in unnatural and unexpected ways to produce a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts. Like the plasma saucers: science devised, magic driven. They came howling in, one after the other, targeting computers zeroing in on my car. Energy bolts cracked and exploded in the road ahead of me, and I threw the Hirondel this way and that, ducking and dodging as best I could. Fierce energies crackled all around me, chewing up the road in long ragged runs. One whole grass verge was on fire, and I had to jump the Hirondel over a wide crevice that opened up in front of me.
Anywhen else, I would probably have been scared shitless in the face of so much superior firepower, but after everything I’d already been through, the saucers were more annoying than anything.
The road blew up, right in front of me. I punched the Hirondel through the smoke and flames, but the left front wheel dipped into a crack and snatched the steering wheel out of my hands. The car spun around and around, spiralling down the motorway at sickening speed, before finally skidding to a halt. I sat limply in my seat while my spinning head settled, feeling really grateful I’d had seat belts installed, even though it was a classic car. My armour had protected me from the sudden deceleration and probably a really nasty case of whiplash, but I was still pretty dazed. And my wounded arm felt worse than ever. God alone knew what damage the faerie arrow was doing to my system.
I checked the car over. Smoke was rising from under the bonnet, which is never a good sign, but everything seemed still to be working. I considered using the EMP generator, but I was pretty sure the Flying Saucerers would have shielded their craft against that. I would have. Which just left…taking out the trash the old-fashioned way.
I undid my seat belt, forced open the door, and half crawled, half fell out of the car. I levered myself upright by leaning most of my weight on the car door, and the heavy metal crumpled under the strain of my golden fingers. I winced. That was going to be hell to beat out later. I stood up, straight and tall, using all the armour’s support, and strode off down the motorway towards the approaching saucers. The first dropped towards me and opened up a strafing run with its energy weapons. And I drew my Colt Repeater and shot the Flying Saucerer in the head. He’d protected his craft against EMPs, energy weapons, and magic attacks, but he’d never expected to face a simple cold lead bullet. Guided by the gun’s unnatural nature, the bullet punched through all the pilot’s shields and blew his head apart before he even knew what was happening. The saucer dropped like a stone, skidded across the motorway, leaving deep scars in the road behind it, and finally exploded in a rainbow of dissipating energies. I turned slowly, and then shot every other Flying Saucerer out of the sky, one at a time. Even the ones that turned and ran.
I aimed my last bullet very carefully, and the Colt shot the pilot in the gut. His saucer came down in swoops and rolls and finally crashed just a few yards away from me. The saucer shape flickered on and off, colours whorling around and around its surface like an oily film, and then the shape collapsed, no longer held together by the pilot’s will. And all that was left was a surprisingly ordinary-looking man lying crumpled on the verge, soaked in blood and curled around his wound.
I walked over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and slammed him over onto his back. He cried out miserably at the pain, and then cried out again in shock and horror as he saw the golden armoured form standing over him. I’d overridden the stealth function. I wanted him to see me. The whole of the front of his tunic was soaked in his blood. I placed one armoured foot on his stomach, just lightly. Not pressing, not yet. He lay very still, looking up at me with wide, frightened eyes. Like a deer brought down at the end of the chase.
"Talk," I said. "And I’ll let you call for help."
"I can’t…"
"Talk. You don’t have to die here. You don’t have to die slowly and horribly…"
"What do you want to know?"
I’m pretty sure I was bluffing. Pretty sure. But the Drood reputation goes a long way. I pressed my foot down a little, and he yelled, blood spurting from his mouth.
"What the hell do you think I want to know?" I said.
"All right, all right! Jesus, take it easy, man. Fight’s over, okay? Look; we just wanted the Soul of Albion, you know? We got directions, all the details, everything we needed on where to find you, and a guarantee that no one would come to help you. The information came from…inside the Drood family. Don’t hurt me! I’m telling the truth, I swear I am! We got the word from someone high up in the family. I don’t know why, exactly; I’m not high enough in the organisation to be trusted with information like that. I’m just a pilot!"
I considered this, while the pilot lay very still under my armoured foot. He was breathing heavily, sweat soaking his colourless face. Too terrified to lie. Someone in my family wanted me dead, wanted it badly enough to sacrifice the Soul of Albion itself…Why? I’m not that important. I looked down at the pilot, ready to question him some more, but he was dead. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it. He would have seen me dead without a second thought.
I went back to the Hirondel. It was scorched and blackened from fire and smoke, riddled with bullet holes, and most of the paint was gone from the bonnet…but she still seemed basically intact. Much like me, really. I leaned in through the open door and retrieved the Soul’s lead-lined container. So much death and destruction over such a small thing. I opened the box to check it was okay, and the Soul wasn’t there. Lying in the red plush velvet was a simple homing device broadcasting my location to one and all. I took it out and crushed it in my golden fist.