Ascendance (29 page)

Dave dropped the book to the ground as he landed in the middle of the Hunn laying siege to the police station. Lucille positively trilled with anticipation. They were surrounded by nineteen dominants wielding cleavers, clubs, mauls and blades, all of them matted with blood and gore. They wore full armour, too, no longer fighting in the old style, junk flapping around in the breeze. The windows of the Public Safety Building flared with muzzle flashes, and he had to take care to avoid the lines of tracer, which even now zipped toward him with the speed of an Aroldis Chapman fastball. The Hunn had used the cover of crashed and burning vehicles as protection from the gunfire, but not as much as any human with half a brain would. Five dead monsters, all of them riddled with bullets, one missing half its head, already lay on the ground. He got to work, cracking skulls, bloodying up his enchanted lady friend. Lucille seemed to shriek with pleasure every time her blunt steel head smashed open another monster melon. Hot brains splashed his face and daemon ichor exploded from the shattered skulls.

The background rumble he’d grown used to in the warp bubble seemed louder, then he realised it was more than that.

A large vehicle skidded out onto Washington Street, the whine of a diesel motor winding up to full throttle, stopping him in his tracks.

‘Get out of the road, you dumb
zhopa
!’

He leaped again, with less control and grace than before, diving this time to preserve his skin as a yellow school bus roared toward him. He had time enough to recognise Varatchevsky behind the wheel of the GMC Short Bus. She leaned out of the window, firing into the pack of dominants frozen out the front of the police station. Armour-piercing and tracer rounds, unaffected by the warp, probably hyper-accelerated by it, punched through steel plate and chain mail with murderous effect. As Dave rolled on the asphalt, she ploughed the short bus into the remaining Hunn like a bulldozer. Bodies burst apart, still locked in warp, the orcs unaware they were dying.

Speed and mass, thought Dave. Speed and motherfucking mass.

Squealing brakes locked the tyres, mashing daemon body parts into the road surface.

The bright yellow bus, extravagantly painted in offal and blood, finally lurched to a stop. Karen opened the side door and stepped out, katana in hand.

‘Okay,’ she said, stabbing three-quarters of the blade’s length through a Hunn’s skull. ‘
U tebya s zhopu techka
,’ she sneered at the dominant before turning back to Hooper. ‘I don’t know what the hell you just did, Hooper. But could you at least help me finish these last few off?
Then
we go back and get the others. And
then
we go get your boys. All right?’

‘Okay,’ Dave said, still a little stunned by the mess she’d made of the cohort.

28

H
e collapsed the imperceptibly thin membrane separating them from the world in which bullets and men, monsters and books, and buses and thought itself all moved in real time. Gunfire tore through the air around Dave’s head, hammering at the flanks of the bright yellow, blood-spattered school bus. Windows shattered and men cried out somewhere nearby in shock and confusion.

He heard someone order a ceasefire, and somebody else ignore the order and unleash half a clip of automatic rifle fire into the street.

‘
I said stop shooting, damn it!
’

Dave crouched, keeping himself out of the line of fire, or hoping to at least. Karen was already moving, a shadow flitting around the bus with feral speed. Her gun fired once, twice, sending short bursts back up the gentle slope of the hill into the remains of the small Hunn war band outside the bookstore. So intent had Dave been on blowing through the greater number of Hunn outside the Public Safety Building, he hadn’t heard or noticed she’d cut down the smaller breakaway group. He felt guilty heat flush his cheeks. He didn’t bother with the war band because they weren’t relevant. They were nowhere near his boys, and they weren’t in the way.

They were someone else’s problem.

A few more rounds of gunfire, a single booming blast of a shotgun and the same voice he had heard before yelled again.

‘I said ceasefire, goddamn it. We don’t have enough ammo.’

The timbre or the tone of the voices changed as the man turned from whoever he had been yelling at to yell into the street instead.

‘Who the hell is out there? What just happened?’

Dave shouted back, from behind the shelter of the bus. He could hear sirens now, and the crackle of runaway fires. But no more gunshots.

‘It’s Hooper. Dave Hooper. Annie O’Halloran’s husband. Or, you know, ex-husband,’ he added, feeling foolish. ‘The Hunn are all dead out here. I’m coming out. Don’t shoot, okay?’

He held his hands up, gripping Lucille in one fist. She had gone quiet again. Not silent, but compared to the killing joy which had suffused her only a moment ago, she seemed almost tranquil. Like she’d just enjoyed multiple murdergasms. He heard Karen swapping out a magazine on her weapon.

She didn’t put her hands up, but she wisely didn’t point the gun anywhere near the cops either. They picked their way through the remains of the cohort. The impact of the bus travelling at God-only-knew what relative speed had caused most of the creatures it struck to explode into large chunks of hairy meat. One of the Hunn dominants had only taken a glancing blow, however, and Dave put a kick into the side of its head as it tried to crawl away, its progress slowed by a shattered hip and severed arm.

His heavy boot smashed into its dented helmet with a tinny crunch.

The helmet collapsed and yellow-green monster brains burst out in a wet spray.

A door cracked open in the front of the PSB, spilling a shaft of electric light out into the fire-lit night. A gun barrel poked through, then a black helmet.

‘Hooper? The Dave Hooper?’

‘The Dave, that’s right,’ he answered, causing Karen to roll her eyes. ‘You can come on out. It’s clear. That right, Karen?’ he said, quickly checking with her. ‘Your radar’s all clear?’

‘Yeah. Sort of,’ she said, not exactly sniffing the air, but obviously testing the airwaves for something. ‘I’m not getting anything nearby, and my range is pretty good. I think we got them all.’

‘Like we got that extra Thresher back in New York?’

‘Picky, picky. I got nothing on the radar, Hooper. What about Lucy the magical hammer? She singing any murder songs for you?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘You can hear that?’

‘No. But you can, and that’s how I know.’

He was almost relieved to hear that, but there was no time to ponder it as more men and a couple of women appeared from within the sturdy brick building where they’d made their stand. Some were cops, obviously, even though they were dressed in military camouflage and body armour. Others might have been civilians who simply took shelter in the bunker-like public safety offices. They were dressed in an assortment of odds and ends. Some of them in hunting gear. One man, toting a ridiculously long, double-barrelled shotgun, wore pyjamas.

Nobody was pointing any weapons at Dave or Karen, but nor were they rolling out with smiles, baked goods and blowjobs to say howdy. Most seemed to be staring at the bus, which was only to be expected. The engine block was crumpled in as though from a serious collision with another large vehicle, or a number of them, and the bright yellow panels along the side were painted with grotesque smears and splashes of gore. Dave realised that to them the bus must have simply appeared to materialise in the midst of the cohort, sending the monsters flying apart, quite literally.

A tall ginger-bearded man in blue jeans, a checked shirt and tactical vest flicked the safety on his assault rifle – Dave assumed it was the safety – and nodded to the two surprise arrivals.

‘Well, we much appreciate your intervention, Mr Hooper and . . .’

‘Karen.’

Her smile was hugely inappropriate, given the circumstances, but well-practised and utterly disarming.

‘Dan Bourke,’ the man in charge said, uncertainly. ‘Pleased . . . I’m sure . . . Karen.’

‘You the sheriff?’ Dave asked.

Bourke winced.

‘Head of IT. Sheriff’s dead. Deputy Paulson is missing.’

‘So, how come you’re running this?’ Karen asked, looking at the uniformed cops picking through the detritus of battle.

Bourke shrugged.

‘Ex-Ranger. I was in signals, but I was a captain.’

Bourke’s posse, such as they were, fanned out among the bodies and body parts, covering them with their weapons. The streetlights had failed, probably when that little Nissan had taken out the power pole, but there was more than enough light from burning cars and buildings.

‘They’re all dead,’ Dave said.

‘Best to be sure,’ Bourke replied, still looking as though he wasn’t quite sure everything had turned out for the best.

‘Fair enough, but we gotta be going if you don’t mind.’

‘Whoa. Not so fast there, Mr Hooper. You seem to know who’s who in the goddamned zoo and I wouldn’t mind a little filling in.’

Dave felt his impatience building up another head of steam. He’d done his bit, or, to be honest, Karen had when she ran the bus over the Hunn. The town was safe, and now he had to be getting on to his family. Karen’s hand closed around his elbow, and her mind seemed to flow around his frustration, restraining him physically and emotionally.

‘Dan,’ she said, digging her fingers into Dave’s arm like clamps. ‘Are these the only creatures you know about within the town? Because if there’s more we do need to put them down as quickly as possible. And we’re the best suited to that job. No offence.’

‘None taken,’ Bourke said in a tone that gave them to understand she’d been as insulting as possible. ‘We weren’t having much luck with them,’ he conceded then. ‘It was a good thing they showed up so late. Most of the town was already home and abed.’

‘Bourke,’ said Dave. ‘Do you know of any more Hunn or any other kind of monster in town? Anybody called anything in? Especially from out Shermans Point way. That’s where I’m headed.’

Bourke and Dave both started at the sound of a gun blast. Karen did not.

‘Had a live one, boss,’ somebody called out from up the street a ways. ‘Just put him down.’

‘Well be careful,’ Bourke shouted back. ‘All of you. No sense anyone getting killed now.’
He returned his attention to Dave, who was nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet with the need to be gone. Only Karen was stopping him from warping right out of there.

‘Sorry,’ said Bourke. ‘It’s been Hell.’ He sighed, and it sounded as though he was letting go of a stale breath he’d been holding for hours. ‘There’s no more that I know of. But the phone lines are patchy, and not everyone has cell coverage.’

‘That’s okay,’ Dave said. He knew there was a cell tower out on the point where Karen’s old man lived. He was starting to calm down a little, but not so much that he wanted to delay any further. ‘You want to wait here?’ he asked Karen. ‘Help these guys out?’

‘No,’ she answered quickly, taking both of the men a little by surprise. ‘Sorry, Dan. But Hooper and I will need to scout the town and you’ll be wanting to deal with your casualties.’

‘Ayuh,’ the IT guy conceded. ‘Got plenty of them, I’m afraid. Including my chief.’

He shook his head and his lips began to tremble. Dave thought Bourke might even cry, but he got it under control as another vehicle came flying around the intersection of Mechanic and Washington. It was Igor and Zach in the Growler. Bourke shook his head at the sight of them, a series of short, rapid side-to-side jerks, as though he might shake some meaning into the sight. Perhaps he expected a whole convoy to roll in behind the jeep, which bristled with mounted machine guns, but there were only the two SEALs.

As Zach stomped on the brakes, the wheels sliding a few feet over the gore-slickened tarmac, Igor leaped from the passenger seat.

‘Nasty,’ he said, taking in the ambience of slaughterhouse floor.

‘Igor, Zach, this is Dan Bourke,’ said Dave, as the SEALs stomped through the gore. ‘He looks after computers and he kills monsters.’

‘Is the military here, now?’ Bourke asked. ‘Are you the relief?’

He looked hopefully up the road, but the only sounds were the flames of burning cars and buildings, and the voices of the other townspeople as they inspected the bodies of the Hunn. The flames and horror cast a dark Lovecraftian pall over the normally picturesque downtown area of Camden. It seemed to Dave as if he’d stepped sideways into an older, bloodier New England, perhaps from the era of witch burnings.

‘I’m afraid we’re not really the cavalry, sir,’ Zach said.

‘No, we’re with these assholes,’ Igor added helpfully. ‘I’d say we’re their cab drivers, but even that’d be pushing it.’


‘Chill out,’ Zach said, his voice growing mellow, the drawl becoming less Midwest and more Californian surf bum. ‘Mr Bourke, can you give us a quick and dirty sit-rep. What you got here? Is this it?’


Bourke appeared to really take in the scene for the first time. Like everyone else in the country he’d undoubtedly seen the news reports out of New Orleans, cheered on the army in the Battle of Omaha, and watched with creeping horror as everything fell apart after victory had been declared. The downtown area of Camden Harbor, such as it was, had been trashed. Shops burned and bodies, both human and otherwise, lay everywhere. To Dave, after New Orleans, it didn’t seem all that bad. But he wasn’t a local, even though he was a sometime visitor. The horror in Bourke’s expression was less about the amount of damage than it was about the sense of violation and loss of confidence. The Hunn hadn’t come in large numbers. Just a cohort. But they had come and they could return at any time. Like a biker gang from the lower levels of Hell.

Good reason for Dave to be on his way again, but he probably needed to hear this. And while Karen couldn’t be certain of her radar, not after that Thresher in New York had punk’d her so badly, he took solace from Lucille, who’d gone back to sleep. She, at least, didn’t seem to feel like there were any more daemons to kill.

‘First reports came in just before midnight,’ Bourke said. He sounded as though he was talking to himself, rather than Zach. ‘Lucky thing that. Couple of hours earlier, it would have been a bloodbath. I was in the office. We’ve had server problems and because of, you know, the troubles, the chief wanted all of our communications links working. He was at home but he . . . he came in. Or tried to.’

Bourke eyes flitted up the street Zach had just driven down.

‘He’s up there. In that wreck outside the bookshop.’

‘Do you know where they first appeared?’ Dave asked. He wanted to hear they were nowhere near Annie’s old man’s place.

‘Maybe up by the creek runs near the school,’ Bourke said. ‘That’s where the first reports came in.’

Dave relaxed a little. That was in exactly the opposite direction to Shermans Point and Pat O’Halloran’s place. He tried not to let his relief show, and nobody seemed to notice it. Up and down the street, townsfolk were emerging from their shuttered homes, many of them carrying firearms.

‘The Bigfoots came in from that direction,’ Bourke said.

‘Bigfoots?’ Zach said.

Bourke seemed to come to himself again.

‘Yeah, that’s what the
Pilot
called them at first, after the Longreach attack. I guess it stuck.’

‘Local paper, not an actual pilot,’ Dave explained, at Karen’s inquiring look.

‘So the Bigfoots just marched in, tearing stuff up and burning shit down?’ Igor asked.

‘Pretty much,’ Bourke said. ‘By the time they got here,’ he indicated the Public Safety Building, ‘I had enough guns to hold them off. Not that they seemed intent on pressing the case. I suppose they’re learning to be wary of guns and such like.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ Karen said, not sounding at all like she did.

‘Mr Bourke, we have personnel we need to secure out on Shermans Point Road,’ Zach said. ‘It seems to me like you have everything in hand here, and you’ll want to be tending to your casualties.’

‘Yes, sir, I will,’ Bourke agreed. ‘Will you be coming back here? Will the army be coming in?’

‘We’re Navy,’ Igor told him. ‘SEALs.’

Bourke seemed to consider that, rubbing at his orange beard.

‘Really? Well that’s good, I guess. This being a maritime town. So the navy’s coming?’

‘Don’t count on it,’ Karen told him, deflating his sudden optimism. ‘If I were you, Dan, I’d keep a good watch out, and half your guns standing to in your headquarters there.’ She pointed her gun at the PSB.

‘You think there’ll be more? That they’ll come back?’ he asked. The prospect did not sit well with him.

‘Just be ready,’ Karen said. ‘You only have to make it to dawn and that’s not far off now.’

Dave realised with a start that she was right.

‘I gotta get going,’ he said.

Igor’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm, exactly where Karen had been holding it earlier.