Judgement (The Twelve) (54 page)

Too late, the doors of each bus burst open and dozens of Shades and ghouls charged out. 
In the gap between the buses
, the earth erupted upwards as
hundreds more Shades charged up from a massive concealed pit. From the mound that Huntress was climbing, a
giant armoured Shade
lumbered into view, a massive rusty double bladed war axe held high about his
helmeted head. Another armoured Shade appeared around the corner directly in Heartlesses path.
A
tail gate dropped
down on a nearby council wagon
, slightly behind and to there left.
More Shades joined the ambush.  Jennings men
fanned out opening fire on the giant Shades.
Bulls Eye
drew both guns and started to blast those coming fro the buses.
Huntress
ran forward dived underneath the downward swing of the giants axe, somersaulted through its legs brought up her bow and fired two quick arrows up into its exposed groin.
Slash and Patch
moved out on either side of Anvil and Chris
.
Jennings people plastered the cumbersome
giant Shade as it tried to turn round towards Huntress. Some of the special bullets were getting through as smoke was started to pour from a dozen wounds including the two Huntress had caused.
Anvil
ignored the advancing horde and threw his hammer. It sailed through the air like a lightning bolt, striking the giant full in the head, ripping it clear. The head exploding seconds before the body, starting to topple also turned to fiery red hot ash that sizzled in the downpour. The hammer sped back to Anvils hand.

Heartless was engaged with the giant Shade on the right, his curved blade slicing huge chunks of flesh and armour from its body. Jennings held his Glock in a two handed grip and fired four times into the narrow gap were its eyes showed. Blinded with smoke pouring from its face, the giant lost its footing and slowly toppled towards Heartless, who only just managed to dive out of the way in time as it hit the earth, spraying everyone with mud. Speed suddenly appeared on its back, his hands blurred into action slashing at its exposed neck, “For Hot Cross you bastard!” He screamed.

Smoke was rising from the creatures neck as steam rose from Speeds super fast body. Bang the Shade exploded, throwing Speed clear who slid down the muddy slope to land with a splash in one rain filled ditch.

Priest charged
forward meeting the onslaught,
crush
ing
one
normal sized Shade
against the side of a
wheel less
truck, buckling the metal as
the Shade
exploded.
Patch danced her dance of death
, five Shades exploded in a line like fire crackers on the forth of July. Slash threw blades in w
hirling spinning arcs of shiny steel that ended up buried deep within a Shade or Ghouls chest. Heartless was brutal in his fighting
. Three Ghouls charged down the hillock towards him. A punch from his steel fist
decapitat
ed
the first
Ghoul. H
is
bladed hand sliced
the second in two. The third he skewered and laughed in its face before ripping the blade up and free.

Patch was pure poetry in motion, dancing beautifully between the outstretched hands of dozens of Shades, her blade making precision cuts that exploded Shades before they even knew they’d been wounded.

Anvil picked out the giant Shades and threw his mighty weapon
time after time, destroying them as they advanced. Rage was in amongst them,
screaming incoherently he
smash
ed
them down with pure brute force. Nothing that came within reach of his arms lived.

Jennings and his men took care of any that tried to flank them, firearms filling the air with smoke and cordite.

Priest was
now
standing back with Chris waiting fro The Dark to show them selves.

Huntress shot several
more
Shades before shouting, “How did they know we where coming?”

Chris
was deep in thought
, even though this was an ambush, it was just too easy. Within
ten
short
minutes all the Shades were destroyed and the blooded bodies of the ghouls lay everywhere. Jennings and his men were congratulating each other, whilst the Twelve regrouped. They too felt something was wrong.

Heartless flexed his steel claw, “Something’s not fu…”

A blood covered head
sailed down through the air
to land with a thud nearby. It rolled towards Anvil and stopped. It was just recognisable as Hot Cross.

The voice of Edge echoed from the sky, “Challenge, one on one!”

Anvil roared back, “Accepted!”

Chris was searching frantically for the source of Edges voice. Huntress was just staring down at Hot Cross
in shock, her guard was down and
a steel ball
flew towards her body. Patch flashed through the air, turning a half somersault over Huntress’s left shoulder and in doing so flicked out a Hira Shuriken, trying to deflect the steel ball. But it
happened so fast
that she
slightly
misjudged
.
Huntress clamped a hand to her
temple
, w
ith a cry
of pain she spun to the ground apparently unconscious
.

The door of an
abandoned
lorry
over to there right
burst open
.
Screech
was
sitting in the cab. “Surprise!” she
screamed so violently, a solid wa
ve
of compressed air
blasted Heartless from his feet. He flew back a good twenty feet or so, striking the ground hard.

Anvil roared, “Show yourself Edge
, the
challenge has been accepted.”

A
sudden dust storm
sprang up directly In front of Chris who
pulled down the brim of his hat to protect his face and when it suddenly stopped, he looked up to see Coffee standing
there directly in front of him, together with Retch and Claws.

“Hello Chris.”

Chris didn’t reply, his eyes caught a glimpse of something
moving
on the
raised cab of a rusting cherry picker
.

“Two O’clock eighty feet away
on the cherry picker
, Sling!”

Huntress
had only been
feigning
unconsciousness; she snatched up
her
bow and in one fluid movement, launched an arrow that sailed in a perfect arc to impact Sling. With a faint yell of pain he fell back
,
toppling off the picker
platform
.
Patch leaped feet first towards Coffee
who
waved
her
hand as if swo
t
ting a fly
.
Patch flew violently back to land hard on the dusty ground.
Two of Jennings men raised weapons against Coffee and before Chris could say no. Each burst into flames and fell to the ground screaming in agony. Jennings ran up to them but was beaten back by the intense fire, so he made a split second decision and shot both men in the head.

Coffee laughed, “Best tell your little friends to keep out of this. I don’t mind them playing with my
Shades
but I take offence when they dare attack The Dark.”

Chris ordered an enraged Jennings to take his men and retire as far back as possible. He started to refuse, but one look from Anvil and he decided against it.

Anvil searched the area, “Where’s Edge?”

Coffee ignored him, addressing Chris, “I’ve already won here don’t you see? I could
have
de
s
troy
ed
   Heartless were
he l
ies
, but I show mercy and do you want to know why?”

A rusted double corrugated sheet that was half embedded in a ton of rubbish was suddenly flung sideways. The deformed Ridgeback stood there no more than ten feet from Heartlesses body.

From out of a rain filled ditch sprang the dwarf Pigswell. He belched fire and stood facing Bulls Eye.

Walking sensually along the path from the left was Willow. She stopped near to Priest who’d turned to face her. Willows sting arced up over her head.

Anvil shouted a command for all to hold there ground, a challenge had been given and accepted. Edge must meet him in combat. He watched as Huntress carefully, gently, retrieved Hot Crosses head
and kidding his brow, cradled it in her arms.

Coffee smiled as she stood there watching Huntress, “A touching scene but dead is dead. Best bury that soon, it
’
s starting to rot.”

Screech started to laugh and her laughter could shatter glass.
Priest
took his eyes from Hot Cross and started to
walk
the vehicle that
Screech
was still sitting in. His feet slapping down hard in the water logged mud
. S
he saw
Priest
and directed a scream at him. He just lent forward
,
digging his feet i
n and
kept on walking. His
leather
jacket was
slowly being
torn to shreds. Reaching the cab, he reached down, gripped the foot step and heaved. The entire cab rose up, followed by the flat bed that contained a coil of
rusting
wire
cable
. Pr
iest heaved again and the lorry
fell
over
on its side. Screech stopped screaming
and gave a tiny yelp
as she fell with a thud back inside the cab.

“Can’t stand that woman!”
P
riest gasped as he drew breath
, h
is jacket already starting to mend itself.