(The Push Chronicles (Book 2): Indefatigable (6 page)

It was the more recent decorations that brought the atmosphere down.  Cheap electronic gambling machines lined one wall where a second bar had once been, blocking the window to the street.  Blue aluminum box fans had been jammed into what few free windows remained instead of a renovated air conditioning system.  I won't even get started on the more discreet but still patently obvious neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan logos, photos, and memorabilia.  The South will rise again?  Seriously?

"I was not," Rachel replied in my earbud.  "Duane astutely noted that his appearance will cause the most stir, so I will be entering next in about five minutes."

"I'll be in about thirty after that," Brooks added.  "That should give you guys time to scope things out before the rednecks start to throw bottles at the black man."  Extinguisher added a grunt of sympathy to Brooks' statement.

"Understood."  I flashed a smile at the bartender.  From the description, that certainly wasn't Paul.  "Can I get a beer please?"

"Anything for a pretty lady like yew," he smiled toothily.  As he slid down the bar to pour, there was a twist in my gut.  It hadn't been there a moment ago, but now the churning ripple of Push energy had come to life and it was growing rapidly.

The bartender set the glass of beer in front of me with a loud clank, sending froth splattering on the bar.  There was a faint reddish tint in the amber liquid.

"Hey," I said, pointing at the glass, "I think there's something in the beer."  The barkeep, who hadn't moved, kept the same smile plastered on his face.

"It's a house specialty," he noted.  "Drink up, it's good fer yew."  I glanced sidelong at what little window wasn't covered in poster or blocked by furniture.  What little creeping sunlight remained was gone.

"You know, on second thought," I smiled disarmingly, "I forgot I was supposed to meet a friend uptown so let me just -"

Big And Ugly moved to grab me by both wrists before I could stand.  I think he was about to bring out the old hackneyed 'You're not going anywhere' line when I slipped into focus.  Instead of lunging at my arms, the bartender was lazily reaching at them.  I could even pick out the swirl of red in the beer, refusing to mix no matter how it tried.  I slapped both of the brute's hands away and grabbed him by the lapel, dragging him easily over the bar top.  By the time the few other patrons could protest, I already had him slammed against the opposite wall.

I wanted to question him, ask him to confirm what I thought was in the beer, but there was no time.  The door that led downstairs into the cellar exploded off of it's hinges.  Through the cloud of splinters and dust, malignant shapes moved in the darkness.

Chapter 7 Blood

"Yew shoulda drank the beer, missy," the barkeep cackled.  As much as I would have loved to beat him down then and there, I had more important problems as the shapes blurred out of the cloud of dust.  They were vampires, alright, and more than just two or three.  There were enough that I didn't even bother to make a rough count and neither did anyone else.  My earbud came to life from eight sides as I turned towards the swarm bearing down on me.

"There be yon -"

"Who's got eyes on -"

"I'm burning tread -"

"Remember to ussse the wood -"

"I sense six human minds -"

"I'm goin' in -"

"We're calling in PART -"

All that meant nothing, unfortunately, as the first one was on me in a split second.  Even in that moment, as time lazily crept into my perception, I could see notable differences between these creatures and the one Archer and I had already laid to rest.  The corpse itself was somewhat better preserved, though if that was intentional or a matter of life outside of the sewer, I couldn't say.  There was still the red haze to the eyes, but there was still something akin to human in the gaze and the movement of the head.  These ones could think, a fact that spelled nothing but trouble for us and the city.

Case in point: instead of trying to immediately grapple and drain my blood, this vampire, dressed in military gear, led off with a quick double shot from the pistol that had been at his side.  Push powers I could handle fine; bullets were always potentially lethal, even with the improved armor of the new uniforms.  Only amplified reflexes let me dodge the shots, which gouged into the wood behind me.  Barkeep McCreepy cried out as splinters scratched his flesh.

The monster ditched the sidearm as he closed, giving me a brief opening to snatch the chair from a nearby table.  I was thankful for the pub's rich history and original wooden decor as I brought the chair around in a baseball swing, blasting it to pieces along the vampire's left side.  Though it didn't seem as effective as impaling it with wood, the undead thing howled in pain and was driven into the wall.   The chair, sadly, was no more, save for the two jagged table legs in my hand.  A moment later, there was only one left in my hand; the other sheathed in the corpse's heart.

As I turned to face the onrush of undead, there was something else that was at the tip of my mind but it would have to wait.  There was no time for thought as the vampires streamed out into the bar and into the Atlanta night, even as Hexagon made a brand new plus-size entrance in the side of the bar facing the street.  What pleased me even more than the sight of my favorite six-armed mangling machine was that there was a dome of frosty stone making a solid barrier outside the hole Hex had just made.  Ever since Washington, that team combo had become a favorite of Ex and Meds and it always served us well.

"Containment is our top priority, team," Ex reminded over the coms.  "We're sealed in until we have a pile of staked bodies."

"Land's sake, there's a ton of 'em!"  Hex's exclamation was right by me as I heard him stereo over the coms.  Three had bee-lined for him as he burst in, more swarmed past.  A few that had initially made for the door rerouted towards the depths of the bar with its few scattered patrons.  Even if I didn't have an innate sense of the value of human life, I really didn't want to have these things multiply more.

"Hex's busy, people, and we have normals in danger," I called as I moved, ignoring the barkeep for the moment.   Another point not in Creepy's favor was that the vampires ignored him, bleeding scrapes and all.  I hopped over a bar table to try to intercept one of the corpses.  Though the vampires were infinitely faster moving than I was, in the cramped quarters of the bar, that was only a minimal advantage.  This particular one had already snatched a middle-aged woman out of her chair and pinned her to the wall.  Like his brother, this creature moved with swift deliberation instead of feral anger and wore well-maintained military gear.  I was ready to stake him from behind during his momentary distraction when I caught another bar patron about to be snack food out of the corner of my eye.

Without hesitation, I twisted and hurled the jagged chair leg like a javelin.  There was no way I could manage a heart shot at this range and from his partial side profile, but the leg did drive solidly into its arm, bringing a loud, inhuman screech.  It would be enough of a distraction for now.

It had certainly distracted my initial target from his meal.  I barely managed to duck its initial backhand.  If I hadn't been expecting a reprisal and already been moving, I wouldn't have been so lucky.  I swung a hard right hand into the creature's ribs as I dug in my coat for one of the wooden stakes we had lathed at the Foundation; though these corpses were in better shape, they were still corpses.  My hand messily crushed into rotting flesh, sending the vampire staggering back a step in surprise, or was it recognition?  A part of my accelerated mind thought about that as I pulled out my stake.  The vampire trumped my stake with a machine pistol.  The thought that I was going to die by a vampire terrorist shooting me in a White Power bar was so absurd I almost laughed as he pulled the trigger.

The reality of physics is that, barring an outrageous circumstance, no human can dodge a bullet, not even me.  If I had space, I could have watched his aim and accounted for that or seen his trigger finger twitch and dove.  We were literally fist to fist, eye to eye when the gun went off with a staccato burst.  I was most certainly, despite the tough leather and padding of my suit, going to be blown through with holes.   It was quite the surprise when I did not.  It hurt with a pain I can't put into words as the rubber bullets smashed into my chest and abdomen, even through the wall of willpower that normally shunted pain away.  The sheer impact knocked me off of my feet and into one of the cheap tables, collapsing it under the impact.

I was wheezing for breath, flat on my back and struggling to regain my focus, when another hole exploded in the front of the building.  The Human Tank roared through the hole with Medusa riding on his back.  Being the only person on the team with any kind of extra-normal reflexes, I could forgive their slow entrance.  Medusa pounced off of Tank onto one of the monsters that had already bitten into a teenaged kid who picked the wrong bar to flash his fake ID at.  Her halo of snakes hissed evilly as she drove the vampire to the ground.  Tank, for his part, saw me.   I couldn't blame him for the obvious conclusion that must have run through his head.  I couldn't even gasp out a correction.

The poor guy didn't even say anything coherent; he just yelled, a yell fueled by the raging cauldron of emotion called puberty and the anger at seeing his friend 'dead', and tore a direct path to my shooter.  Flooring, furniture, everything smashed in Tank's path, debris flying everywhere.  I somehow mustered the strength to roll off the smashed table, providing me with a little cover from the impending impact.  The vampire spun and fired a quick burst of rubber bullets which had about zero effect on the rampaging cyborg teen.  A split-second later, Tank impacted dead-on with the corpse.

Messy doesn't begin to describe the after-effects of the impact.  An arm went one way, a foot and part of the shin that way, most of the rest flew straight back from the hit.  Every piece sent a spray of blood and rotting tissue in it's wake.  I considered and denied the request to roll over and vomit continuously.  Instead I managed one complete gasping breath and sat up.

Tank hadn't noticed my miraculous recovery as he ground his treads back and forth over the vampire's body.  It was still trying to regenerate from the horrific injuries, a disgusting display that caused my stomach to flip once again.  Medusa seemed to have better, if more painful, luck as she goaded the vampire into a bite which she blocked with her arm.  The fangs dug through her tough scales, but it put those undead eyes right up the the snake-woman's own supernatural gaze with bizarre results.  I could only watch for a moment as I tried to pick myself back up, but it was a dance of unreal forces: Medusa's gaze turning tissue to stone while the vampire's nature tried to return it to undead flesh.  It didn't matter that neither seemed to win; the constant state of flux seemed to effectively incapacitate the monster.

"Alive," was all I could croak into the swirling mass of com chatter.  I was hurting too bad to parse the rest, though my focus was returning as I stood up.  Tank's roaring rampage of revenge stopped and he spun to look at me, eyes watering with tears.

"Indy Indy Indy!"  The big kid would have grabbed me in a bear hug if there hadn't been there hadn't been the tell-tale clack-clack of an assault rifle's charging handle.  Instincts kicked into overdrive and I dove for the only hard cover around: Tank.  In addition to being, well, a super-cyborg, his chassis produced some kind of protective energy shield.  While it didn't exist for me, it was quite effective against all sorts of other hazards.

Mr. Skewered-With-A-Table-Leg unleashed a full clip of ammunition in our direction.  Thank God that Tank's field had been large enough to protect the innocent drunk we had just saved from the first vamp.  The air was filled with the sparks of bullets impacting air and deflecting aside, then a brief silence.

I took a glance over Tank's chassis just as the vampire threw his gun down.  I could read his body language.  He was about to take a hostage.  There was no way I was going to let that happen, at least that's what I told myself.  The truth is that what I tried to do was nigh-impossible, but damn if I didn't go for it.

For the brief moment the vampire was still facing forward, as his rifle hit the ground, I hopped up on Tank's back and hurled the stake I still had in hand.  Yes, I knew exactly where the heart was and no, it was highly unlikely, even with my unleashed potential, that I could hit that mark.  However, maybe to make up for all the bad luck in my life lately, this one time Lady Luck cut me a break.

The stake hit dead on, slipping through that one gap in the ribs and sternum where it could hit the heart without obstruction.  The creature clawed at it and, with a final look of disbelief, fell backwards, the Push shell fading away, returning it to it's natural corpse state.  The older gentleman that had been about to be eaten by Mr. Stake fainted dead away.  That was probably the safest thing he could do.

"I'm so happy to see -" Tank tried to start again, but interrupted himself with a "holy crab cakes!"  Suddenly, his entire front end pitched up and back.  I fell off first, barely rolling clear as Tank himself toppled awkwardly back, hitting his head on a table first, then crashing sideways.  The vampire he had smashed apart and ground under his treads had managed to reassemble itself in just those few moments, standing in tattered clothes with a triumphant snarl.

Tank furiously tried to right himself with faint luck.  The beast pounced at me, either to bite or just snap me like a twig.  I vetoed both of those proposals, kicking up with both feet and launching the corpse against the rafters, making a nice crater in the plaster.  Clambering sideways to avoid gravity's inevitable pull, I rummaged for my second stake.  As the vampire crashed back to the floor with barely any obvious damage, my hand came back with a snapped and mangled stake.  It had (back to my usual bad luck) been in the path of at least two of those rubber bullets and was now a mostly unusable mess.  I spun the remains of the sharp end and held it in between my knuckles, hoping that Tank would get up, even if I knew that was probably not going to happen.

"Boss wants you, but I'm too hungry, sorry," the thing hissed as it blurred towards me.  I could barely understand it, with how fast it spoke.  As I twisted away from it's initial grab, delivering a sharp scratch with my wooden poker in return, I had a realization.  They had been talking, coordinating this entire time.  The speech had just been so fast, so high-frequency, human ears couldn't hear it.  Hopefully I would live long enough to use that fact.  Fortunately, even with my stakes broken, I had an ace in the hole as I reached for my neck.

Or I was supposed to have.  In my fevered state earlier, I had forgotten the crucifix from Underground.  I cursed my human weakness as a vampire's hand grasped my throat.  I instantly responded by driving the sharp nub of wood deep into it's forearm, but the creature didn't relent, despite the pain.  Just like a human could try to ignore his instincts to pain, these rational vampires could do the same.

"Milady is NOT on the menu, you scallywag!"  There was the distinct twang of the Argent Archer's mechanized crossbow and the vampire grew a wooden arrow through the chest.  The choking grasp around my neck abated as the corpse fell to the floor.  Archer was standing in the hole Tank made, having fired a bolt with pinpoint accuracy through the finale of the melee between Medusa and the other vampire, the now debris-laden bar, and with just enough force to punch through the beast but not impale me in the process.  It wasn't a bad shot, not at all.

Unlike most Push Heroes, I didn't make time for chatter, so I simply nodded to Archer and, with a grunt of exertion, helped Tank get himself upright again.  Medusa drove a bar stool leg first into her half-stone-half-flesh opponent, which caused the creature to turn entirely into very bizarre lawn sculpture.

"Party is hot outside, if you lovely people could come help?" Ex queried in his harried, 'the-plan-is-falling-apart' voice.  Yes, we had been in enough bad situations that I could pick that voice out.  I hopped on Tank's back and clapped his shoulder.

"They coordinate.  High-frequency speech," I got out over the mic.  My voice sounded like hell and I still felt very wheezy from the rubber bullets earlier.  I had a feeling something might be cracked or bruised worse than I wanted.  "We're coming."