Crane, R [ Southern Watch 03] Corrupted (39 page)

Something landed on his back with a lot of weight, and Arch felt that panic rise again from what he suspected was coming.

The dust was everywhere, the dirt filling his nose and the back of his mouth, prompting a cough, a tickle and a liquid gush from his nose where he’d hit. It was hot blood, pain in his lip and face and shoulder, and even as he fought back against the imperious weight on his back, he knew that this was a lousy position from which to begin a fight. Not a bad one for losing a fight, though.

Arch thrust blindly with the one thing he’d managed to keep a hold on. The blade of the knife found something above him, striking a skipping blow against something that was perched on his back, applying weight and pressure to grind him into the earth.

The weight vanished with a hiss and the sound of crackling flames, and Arch had almost a half second to breathe before something else landed on him, just as hard, driving the air out of him once more and filling his ears with the sound of something—something very not human—snarling hot, foul breath past the side of his head.

Hendricks didn’t find much strength in his arms for swinging his sword, but he got it around anyway. He caught the first flame dog on the point of it, watched the orange fire turn dark and suck inward like some sci-fi movie version of a black hole. It provided him with just the briefest sense of satisfaction before the next one came, and he stumbled back in response to the speed of the damned thing.

He paid little attention to the crack of gunshots from his right. He could see out of the corner of his eye the effect Alison was having on the fiery dogs—not much, unfortunately. They were staggered a little here and there, and that was about it. He could use the hesitation, though, because they truly did move like dogs. Low the ground, running in a loping motion that carried them across the cracked and broken road that divided the square from the mouth of the alley where they stood. If Hobbs Green was a place the world had forgotten, Hendricks figured that these things were a very definitely good reason for that amnesia, and he found himself wishing he’d never even heard of this damned place. Very literally damned place.

The bonfire roared and rose higher, belching more of the flaming beasts out of its depths. They swept past Mandy, who had her arms raised like she was directing an orchestra or some such shit. “Shoot her!” Hendricks called out, hoping Alison would take the hint.

Shots rang out from his right, and he saw Mandy stagger, her bald head lowered from the impact. Her scalp was wrinkled, too, and had the scuff of black singeing all about it. Hendricks spared a thought to wonder how someone once presumably normal had gotten so fucked up, then he remembered the fucking fiery dog sucking her teat and figured shooting one of those out of your joyhole might just start the party on being fucking nuts. He brought his sword down across the neck of another dog, but it was utterly pointless; he’d killed two, and in the time it’d taken him to do so, a dozen more had emerged from the fire, charging in a flat run at them, a pack of burning wolves hungry for blood.

“Dear God, I hope that fucking kills her,” he had time to whisper before another dog came at him. The worst of them were still coming, still charging. Right now they were held at bay by Alison’s shooting, judicious pistol shots that made ’em squeal and bark, smoke and little gouts of flame coming out of their snouts as they flinched away for a second, more resentful of the pain than actually injured. Hendricks could sense the feral calculation behind those burning eyes, watched them hold off for reinforcements. He had a bad feeling about those growing numbers, watched a few start to peel off from the bonfire and snake sideways, and he knew for a fact that he’d have a hellfire hound nipping at his ass in just a few shakes.

Mandy’s head came back up, and the dark eyes were replaced by flames of their own. Not content to be the bitch who bred flaming hell dogs, something had twisted her shit up and there was a literal fire oozing out of her eyes like her brain had fried off in a grease fire. She didn’t look lost or dreamy anymore; she looked pissed and nuts, the black ash leotard scraped clean in all the wrong places, giving Hendricks a view of aging anatomy that seemed to fit just perfectly with his own personal vision of hell. Hell was a town like this, swarming with devil dogs and administered by some old naked lady. “If I ever get old and go evil, I hope I have the fucking sense not to let my dick and balls hang down to my knees while I’m being a fucked-up crazy person,” Hendricks said.

“I wouldn’t worry about either of those happening right now,” Alison said, in the middle of a reload. “If you make it out of here to get old, it probably won’t be with your balls intact to get saggy.” She dropped the mag out of the bottom of the Glock and didn’t even bother to fetch it, slamming the new one home without racking the slide. Slick move, Hendricks thought, and her weapon belched a shot. He spared a glance to the magazine and saw it was completely dry; she’d had the presence of mind to count her shots. On a fifteen-round magazine. He would have squeezed out a low whistle of admiration if he hadn’t been stabbing some asshole demon pup in the face.

“Less talk, more fight,” Duncan said, whipping a fire-red dog so hard it flew through the air as its flames guttered to black and disappeared before it hit the ground. “Maybe spare your balls to sag another day.”

“You really think we’re gonna walk out of this alive?” Hendricks asked, whipping his blade around. “They’re gonna be on our asses from the flank in less than a minute, I figure.”

He felt Alison brush his side, felt his gun slide out of his holster and watched her hoist it up, drawing it as she forced her back to his like something out of a fucking John Woo movie; she had one eye on the side of him and one on the alley behind them. “Oh ye of little faith,” she said.

“No faith, actually,” Hendricks said, with a gallows grin.

Arch felt the hit, felt the heat from the thing that was on him. That skitter of pure, blind terror that snaked its way over his skin, that settled around his belly. He tried to arch his back, tried to throw it off, but it was so heavy. He bent his arm and thrust the blade at it, missing clean. He wondered where it was, figured it had to be close and down on his back. Felt it writhe on him like a snake, the sound of something like elastic straining—bicycle pants, he figured a little belatedly—and then caught a flare of hard pain right in the kidney.

He took a full lungful of dirt, coughing and sputtering, ready to cough up everything he’d ever breathed. The dry dust was like he’d inhaled a sandbox, grainy and wet from his saliva, hints of blood coloring the taste. He spat as he coughed, felt a glob fall between his lips and hang there, suspended just off the ground, last stringer dangling from his lip as the pain shot through his whole back again.

It felt like someone had taken a crowbar to him, like he’d been tackled without pads around the midsection. From behind. By a tiger. If an ache was a rumble of the body’s discontent, but this was a full-throated scream from the lower back on up, the cry of a body and a mind in panic and terror about what was fixing to happen to it. Arch thrust himself hard against the ground and tried to roll to the side. It worked, and he found himself on top of the small-framed demon riding his back.

Arch threw an elbow back and felt it land on smooth fabric. He heard it make that noise, that rubbery squeak as his foe struggled back, still pressing into his back. Arch threw his head back and slammed it into something hard, driving the apex of his skull into something a little softer. He felt warm fluid splatter in his short hair and wondered if it was demon blood or snot, then drove his head back again, uncaring.

His elbow found its own purchase, and the creature behind him went slack. Arch scrambled and drove the knife blindly backwards into its side. There was a brief moment of fear as his senses caught up to his rational thought: what if this wasn’t a demon at all?

Then the black fire burned hot in the darkness—just a flash of something darker than the cave in front of his eyes—and his world was righted again.

He was on his knees, the gravel biting into his skin under the leg of his pants, doing that slow chew into the kneecaps as he dove for the flashlight that was just out of reach. He wanted to see, needed to see, needed to spin it in a circle and vanquish the shadows around him, to have it confirm for him that all the things trying to get him in the dark were gone—

His fingertips just barely touched the black checkered grip when he got hit in the back again, and the beam that promised to be the light that would drive the darkness out of his world spun out of his grasp yet again as Arch tumbled back to the floor of the mine.

Hendricks was off by a few seconds, not that he was keeping count. The bonfire was belching those flame dogs still, the smell of sulfur from their fires clouding his senses and hanging thick in the air like low-hanging smog he couldn’t even see. Alison’s right-hand gun was firing him behind him now, the one she’d kept pointed down the alley. He had his doubts about how effective she’d be with it—it was his 1911, after all, that big-framed automatic—but he watched her catch two of the flaming dogs right in the middle of their big, Rottweiler-sized bodies and thought if he was gonna put his faith in an Almighty, he might direct it toward the Southern belle at his back who was pegging demons one-handed like they were a ten ring on a target at the range, not big fucking flaming demon dogs running at her with intent.

“You’ve only got eight shots,” Hendricks cautioned her, though it was probably unnecessary. He brought the point of his sword forward and poked another hellhound. The only thing saving him at this point was the complete lack of pressure needed to deflate a demon. Fortunately, they kept running at him, and no matter how fast they came, he managed to give ’em the poke at some point in their attack. From there it was just a second ’til they evaporated, leaving a more sulfurous stink hanging around them.

“We’ll be dead long before she runs out,” Duncan said from Hendricks’s left. Their little triangle had gotten a fucklot smaller, with the OOC at his side. The dogs were still approaching slowly, though their numbers were growing sickeningly larger all the time.

“They don’t seem to be running short of help,” Hendricks observed. “Anyone think we have half a chance if we break and run?”

“Nope,” Alison said. Dead certain.

“They’ll run us down and tear us to shreds like Korean barbecue,” Duncan said. “Minus the sauce.” He paused for a second. “Well, I suppose in your case, the blood is like a sauce, maybe—”

“Listen to the demon gourmand,” Hendricks muttered. “We’re not cooked just yet.”

“Your indomitable spirit is endearing,” Duncan said. “But this fight is pretty damned near over.”

“No,” Alison said, “it’s not. We just need to hold out.”

Hendricks’s ears perked up at that. “Why? Is the cavalry coming to save us?”

She did not answer, the sound of her guns firing in tandem covering any reply, the smell of the discharged bullets mingling with the sulfur of the hellhounds.

“At least it’s not as hot anymore,” Hendricks said as he raised the sword again. There was a demon dog coming right at him, flames trailing from its body—

A rifle shot cracked through the air around them and knocked the dog back, rolling it across the road with a yelp. Everything froze as it echoed through the town square, and Hendricks stared at the beast, which had come to rest at Mandy’s blackened feet, fire-covered ears turned down in discouragement.

“What … the hell was that?” Hendricks asked, turning his head just far enough around to see the smile perched on Alison’s wearied lips.

“‘Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go,’” she said, drumming the words out with a steady rhythm.

“That’s not an answer,” Hendricks said, rolling his eyes, “and I kind of doubt your mythical savior is waiting on a hilltop nearby with a sniper rifle waiting to save us all from the fires of hell.”

“No,” Alison said, and he could hear the smile without looking at her, “but my other father is.” He could feel her straighten with her back against his, her voice gain confidence and wash with relief as she spoke. “And while he might not have unerring and holy accuracy on his side, he does have the advantage of being a pretty damned good shot.”

Arch could feel the end at hand, his struggles all down to naught. Much as he writhed, much as he jabbed that knife back looking for the substance of a demon body to pierce, he had no luck in the matter. These things were contortionists, in control of their bodies in a way that kept him from laying a stabbing on them. His elbow was locked, a demon hand blocking it. The whole fight, from the moment he’d been suckered from behind, had been an exercise in fighting in the dark against stronger things. Nastier things. Meaner things.

Arch’s brain defaulted to scripture in moments such as these, the quotes sustaining him. The one that popped to mind now was from the book of Jeremiah, but the idea of hope and a future and prospering seemed like folly. After all, when a man was on his deathbed, his earthly travails were at end. Hope and a future and prosperity were out of the question, at least on the mortal coil. As Arch felt the thing—this last in a succession of ‘things’—on his back, making itself ready to do him in, he was utterly certain that his time was spent. It produced just the faintest hint of trepidation; the doubts came and with all the requisite humility.

Did I do enough? Did I fight my hardest? Was it foolish to come here?

While he was sure the answer to that last was a resounding YES, in that split second before the final blow landed, he didn’t get to the conclusion of his thought. He felt the force reverberate through his body, but it was lighter than the deathblow he’d expected. It was a shock, a stunning move, a body hammering against his in a haphazard, disorganized sort of way. Chest against his back, weight on his frame, a thump that tingled him from toes to fingers. It came again, then again, and Arch held himself still, considering it. It didn’t hurt, not really.