Book 2 - Daemons Are Forever (23 page)

No one was obviously in charge, no orders were given, but they all seemed to know exactly what to do. When I zoomed in on any particular individual worker, the strangeness of them hit me hard. They didn’t move like humans move, and their faces were blank. Sometimes they would all move at once, in perfect precision, like flocking birds. There was nothing human left in them but their shapes; everything else had been driven out by the Loathly Ones.

This was all new to Mr. Stab, and he insisted on having it all explained to him. So I did my best to give him the short version.

The Loathly Ones come from somewhere else, Outside of space and time as we understand them. They have no physical presence in our world, so to survive here they have to invade a body, mentally as well as physically. Preferably human, but not always. When a Loathly One invades, or infects, a human body it eats or corrupts or drives out the soul, opinions differ, and inhabits the remaining husk. Which soon burns out from the unbearable stresses and strains the new owner puts on it. But even after the body dies, and slowly decays, it still goes on, driven by the unearthly energies of the Loathly One. Until the body finally falls apart, and then the Loathly One goes looking for a new host. We call the infected humans drones. Basically, they’re zombies driven by an alien will, for alien purposes.

They destroy lives, and eat souls. And the family brought them here, for its own purposes. We should have known they’d get out of control.

“Sometimes they take over whole towns,” said Harry unexpectedly. “They start with one family, and then take over the entire community, house by house. When they’ve taken control of everyone, they force the town out of our reality and into some kind of pocket dimension, hidden from human detection. Then they use this hidden base to launch attacks on adjoining towns. Luckily they always give themselves away by being too greedy. The family wipes these towns out as fast as we find them.

“I was involved in one such cleansing, a few years back. It was in France, down in the Bordeaux region. They call such towns ghoulvilles. The local authorities sent out a call for help after they stumbled across one during a routine missing persons investigation. I was the nearest field agent, so I took the call. Joined up with a French demon specialist; Mallorie, her name was. A bit bookish, but she knew her business. The Armourer whipped up a dimensional key and shipped it out to us by the usual unnatural express route. And Mallorie and I led a French special forces unit into the ghoulville.”

He stopped for a moment, remembering. His face was calm, reflective, but his eyes were haunted.

“Terrible place. Every nightmare you’ve ever had. The light was fierce, almost too bright for human eyes to bear. The gravity fluctuated, and directions seemed to switch back and forth when you weren’t looking. The air was barely breathable, and it stank of blood and offal and rot. We’d come in hoping to find someone to rescue, but it soon became clear we were too late. There were men and women and even children all over the ghoulville, but all of them were infected. The Loathly Ones had eaten their souls. The children were the worst. They tried to hide what they were, to trick us into getting too close, but they had no idea how to act like children.

“They attacked us. Not even trying to act like humans anymore. They came running from every direction, flailing their arms like retarded children. Came at us with all kinds of weapons, with bare hands, and even bared teeth. We killed them all. Shot them down, cut them down, stamped their lying faces into the bloody ground. Something about them, human but not human, something that used to be human but was now hopelessly corrupted, drove us all crazy. We killed and killed, up one street and down the next, kicking corpses out of the way, till the gutters ran thick with blood. Some tried to surrender, but it was just a trick, to let them get close to us.

“When we were finished, we burned the town down. Left nothing standing. It took us hours, to be sure we’d got all of them. We searched all the houses, sometimes dragging them out of hiding places under stairs, or in the backs of wardrobes. By the end, as we tramped back out of the burning ghoulville, and back to our own world, even hardened French ex-paratroopers were weeping openly. Sometimes … I dream I’m still back there, and always will be.”

He looked around. We were all listening intently. He’d dropped his armour so we could all see his face while he talked, but now he armoured up again, becoming a faceless silver statue. As though he could keep out the memories that still haunted him.

“So when we get down there,” he said, “remember; they may look like people, but they’re not. They’re demons. Kill them for what they’ve done. And for what they make us do, to put things right again.”

The watching Droods nodded, and murmured quietly to each other, hefting their weapons. Mr. Stab was still looking down at the plain, apparently unmoved by what he’d heard. But I liked Harry rather better, for hearing what he’d been through. And I even liked Roger Morningstar a little more, when he put an arm around Harry’s silver shoulders, to comfort him.

“So,” said Mr. Stab, still not looking around. “The infected humans are drones. And that thing down there is …?”

“A nest,” I said. “And we’re the exterminators.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Stab. “When do we start?”

Janissary Jane split us up into the arranged squads, with designated team leaders. Every group had some torced Droods, to lead the charge and, hopefully, soak up some of the initial punishment. She gave us a brief refresher talk on tactics, which basically boiled down to
Don’t bunch up. Don’t get separated. Kill everything down there that isn’t us
and
Destroy that thing they’re building before they can get it working
. There were no last-minute questions, no discussions or dropouts. We were all ready for action. Molly called up the spell she’d been working on since we got there, and a great wind arose, picked us all up surprisingly gently, and carried us down the side of the cliff to deposit us safely on the Nazca Plain.

We all started running the moment we hit the ground, heading straight for the towering structure before us. The drones saw us coming and dropped everything to run straight at us, blocking the way with their bodies. Noises came from their distorted mouths, but there was nothing human in the sound. Some had improvised weapons, most just had bare hands, with fingers curled like claws. There was no emotion in their faces, or no emotion we could read, and they bared their teeth like animals. They weren’t even trying to pretend at being human anymore. They saw the armoured forms leading the charge and knew we were Droods.

More of them came running, from every direction. Men, women, children, even some animals. The Loathly Ones aren’t fussy about what they possess. It’s all flesh to them. But even as our first squads slammed into the first wave of drones, even more came swarming out of the single opening at the base of the towering structure. More and more and more of them, far more than the structure should have been able to contain. Instead of the hundreds of drones we’d been expecting, suddenly there were thousands of them. Maybe hundreds of thousands…and still more and more came running and howling out onto the plain from the single opening.

The fighting had barely begun, and already we were hopelessly outnumbered. But I couldn’t call for a retreat. I’d committed us to this assault. We had to go on, and we had to win, before the Loathly Ones could open their gateway. Our two forces tore into each other, silver fists beating down inhuman faces, but already a terrible sense of hopelessness was seeping through me.

There were just so many of them…

The drones hit us hard, all of them supernaturally strong from the alien energies burning within their stolen, dead, or dying bodies. They threw themselves upon the first torced Droods, trying to bowl them over through sheer force of numbers. When that didn’t work, they clung on to silver arms, clasped silver legs, trying to force them off balance and drag them down. The armoured Droods stood firm, striking about them with their silver fists. Human skulls smashed and splintered under the terrible force of these blows, necks snapped, and heads were torn right off bodies. The armoured Droods broke backs and arms and legs, smashed in chests, and stamped on heads. Blood and guts flew on the air, and ran in streams down gleaming silver armour. Dozens of drones died in the first few moments of the battle, but the sheer mass of numbers soaked up the momentum of our charge, and all too soon we were stopped dead in our tracks. Killing and killing, but making no progress.

The Droods without armour opened up with the weapons the Armourer had provided. Heavy-duty hand cannon, grenade launchers, and even pointing bones and curse throwers. The drones fell in ranks as the guns raked back and forth, mowing them down, but there were always more drones, pressing forward, forcing their way past the beleaguered armoured Droods. We hit the drones with everything we had, and it wasn’t enough. They didn’t care about the damage they took. They felt no pain or fear or horror. A hundred could die, if it meant one would get through to kill.

All our plans and tactics disappeared, replaced by a brute struggle to survive. The squads were overrun or forced apart, and it was everyone for themselves. Most of the unarmoured Droods were dragged down and slaughtered in the first few minutes, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, by drones who ran uncaring into the face of their weapons. Droods died screaming under flailing fists, hands like claws, and stabbing, clubbing weapons. I could hear them all around me, their human screams mixed in with the inhuman howling of the drones.

And then, impossibly, even the armoured Droods began to fall, as the drones brought strange and unnatural weapons out of the towering structure. Some armoured Droods just disappeared, teleported God knew where whenever one drone pointed a shimmering piece of tech at them. Some Droods fell victim to howling energy blades that ghosted right through the silver armour to cut up the flesh inside. And one corpse with radiation burns and glowing eyes stamped through the chaos, somehow unsaying the Words that activated the armour, so that it just disappeared back into the collar, leaving the owner dazed and helpless and vulnerable.

Mr. Stab appeared out of nowhere and cut that drone’s throat with a long shining scalpel.

I ended up fighting side by side, and then back to back, with Molly Metcalf. Drones came at us from every direction, sometimes with weapons and sometimes without. I fired my Colt Repeater again and again, picking off drone after drone with my gun that never missed and never ran out of bullets, but soon they were too close, vaulting over the bodies of the fallen to get at me. I put the gun away, grew silver spikes on my gleaming fists, and waded into them with all the terrible strength and speed my armour gave me. I struck them down, and they fell broken and bloody before me. I ripped the faces from their heads, smashed their skulls, broke their bones, and stamped them underfoot when they fell. I picked them up and used them as living flails with which to beat the enemy. Blood and gore streamed down my gleaming armour, unable to find a hold. I stamped and spun, striking out with impossible speed. I formed my silver hands into cutting blades and thrust and hacked, butchering everything that came within reach. And still there seemed no end to them.

They beat at me with their hands, and their weapons, and none of them could touch me. But the drones with the terrible weapons were drawing slowly, inexorably, closer.

Molly was hitting them with every offensive magic she knew, chanting and cursing at the top of her voice. Drones were transformed into helpless things, and trampled underfoot. Sometimes their shapes just collapsed, and then ran away like muddy water. She called down lightning bolts from the sky, called up fire from sudden cracks in the hard ground, called storm winds to blow them away. Strange forces crackled on the air before her, incinerating anything that came too close. But her voice was cracking from the strain, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. Magic takes its toll, and even her hoarded energies wouldn’t last long at this rate.

I looked around during a brief lull in the fighting. I could hear Molly coughing and hacking painfully behind me. All my unarmored Droods were down, dead. Slaughtered, for all their fine training. About a dozen armoured Droods were still fighting, striding slowly through the chaos, striking down their enemies. Islands in a sea of death. Janissary Jane had been right all along. I didn’t need warriors. I needed an army.

Mr. Stab strode elegantly through the madness, no blood staining his fine clothes. He cut and slashed with almost inhuman grace and precision, killing everything that came within reach, and none of the drones could touch him. He was protected by forces far worse than theirs. He stalked the battlefield like a harsh Victorian god of war, smiling a terrible, happy smile, completely at home in Hell.

Roger Morningstar fought side by side with an armoured form I could only assume was Harry. Fierce flames burned all around them, consuming every drone they touched. Roger was smiling too. Harry fought well, with short, controlled, brutal movements, striking down the drones with almost clinical precision. Like it was just a job he happened to be extremely good at.

And Janissary Jane cut a bloody path through the roiling crowds with her infamous old sword, unstoppable in her cold and terrible fury. The greatest demon killer who ever lived.

She fought her way over to join Molly and me. I was wringing with sweat inside my armour, exhausted and running on fumes. My arms ached from so much effort, and my back was killing me. The armour can perform wonders, but I have to work it. And yet still I fought on, determined not to fall for as long as Molly needed me. Reduced to that, and no more. Janissary Jane yelled into my silver mask.

“It’s the tower!” she shouted over the roar of battle. “Something’s happening! I can feel it! I think the gateway’s opening!”

I clubbed down the nearest drones and turned to look. She was right. I could feel it too. A great light was shining out of the single opening, and more sprang from a hundred openings in the jagged sides of the huge structure. The air distorted and rippled all around it, and it was nothing to do with heat haze. I could sense if not see the gateway opening behind the tower, a great and growing circle, like a black sun…and on the other side of that opening…Something unbearably huge and awful and terribly aware. Pressing inexorably against the weakening barrier that was the only thing keeping it out of our small and terribly vulnerable world. Something so big I couldn’t even grasp the shape or nature of it. Like God walking angry in the world…