Judgement (The Twelve) (44 page)

Anvils people kept away from both floors as much as possible. Jennings men may partially believe what they’d been told but to actually see leather clad immortals was another thing all together. The only three that
really
got on with The Twelve
was Jennings
,
Pat
Mackinnon
and
Mike
Edwards.

Anvil looked at the gathered men
and women
now minus there expensive suits and dressed in casual
combat
clothing. This was a first for Anvil and his discomfort showed. Absently he gently slapped his double headed hammer into the palm of his left hand.

One of the men near the front, a
French man
by the name of
A
lphonse
raised a hand and asked a question before permission was granted, “I can see why you need us, if all you’ve got are toys like that thing.”

Jennings started to reprimand the man
. A
fter all he was in the employment of Anvil, or Mister Smith as he was known up until a few months ago.
Anvil placed his hand on
Jennings
arm to silence him.

“This toy is a very special weapon the like of which you’ve never seen my young friend. Here let me show you something.”

He placed the weapon on the floor, “’Boom care to try and lift it?”

Mackinnon
grinned from ear to ear, stepping
up
he gripped the shaft with one huge hand and lifted. Well he tried to lift, but
was
jerked to a halt. The weapon was still firmly on the floor. Letting go he spat on the palms of both hands, grasping the shaft he jerked upwards with all his might. The hammer never budged.

Stepping back he gave the weapon a puzzled but respectful look.
A buzz of interest went around the group.
Anvil casually lifted up the hammer, which caused a
nother buzz of amazement this time
. Next he
pointed to one of the concrete coated steel support pillars
that the French man was standing next to
at least sixty feet away.

“Best move away from it my French friend.”

Anvil swung the hammer around his head and let fly. It flew through the air with a whistling roar as it parted the air before it. Crash! A big chunk of concrete exploded in all directions, some of Jennings men dived for cover. The French mans head snapped round to see it had even taken out a six inch chunk of steel girder! But that wasn’t all, the hammer carried on, before amazingly turning a half circle to speed back to Anvils outstretched hand.

Anvil pointed the hammer towards
the man, “This weapon was forged thousands of years ago by a method long forgotten. The steel in it was made from Iron ore taken from a meteorite. I can split open a mountain with this if I so choose. You will find that some of my people carry ‘toys’ like this. Don’t underestimate them
. T
hey are far more deadly than anything you’ve seen.
”

Mackinnon raised his hand but this time waited respectfully to be heard, “I use C4 explosives Sir. Surely you can’t say that isn’t the equal of anything you’ve got?”

Anvil thought about it for a second, “Go get some will you.”

‘Boom Boom’ smiled and produced a small
King Edward
c
i
gar packet
from his jacket pocket
, “I never leave home without some.”

Anvil went to the lift shaft and shouted up
stairs
, asking Priest to come down. The men
and women
mu
rmured
at the sight of the hugely overweight Priest.

“Priest this man says his C4
’s
not to be toyed with. You agree?”

Priest looked at ‘
Boom Boom’
, “
Care to carry out an experiment
?”

He asked
everyone to step back and ‘
Boom Boom’
to arm the explosive. Mackinnon looked to Jennings for consent. Getting a nod of conformation, he ordered all to move back a good thirty yards
, b
efore arming
the
pen
,
“
ten second t
ime
. You ready
?”

Priest rubbed his hands together, “
O
n my count. Three, two, one
go
.”

Mackinnon
cracked the packet, dropped it and ran back a good
thirty
feet
,
ordering everyone to lay flat,
“It’s only a small amount, enough to say blow off a safe door. You’d better move away.”

Instead
Priest was counting down.
And he was WALKING
TOWARDS the bomb. Four, he stood over it. Three he
picked it up!
Two Mackinnon shouted , “NO!” at the top of his lungs. One and Priest smiled
as he clutched it to his chest with both meaty hands.
There was a
quiet muffled
blast. Priest
staggered back a step before regaining his balance. A puff of
black smoke
escaped from between his fingers. He threw down the remains of the explosive device, wiping bits away from his hands and chest then gave an enormous belch,
“Pardon me.”

‘
Boom Boom’
and the others
stared at
Priest in awe. Anvil thanked Priest who walked back to the lift.
Anvil placed the head of his hammer on the ground and crossed his massively muscled arms across his broad chest,
“
We
could go on like this all day but we’re not freaks in a
side show.
I repeat what you’ve
been told. I represent a group of
t
welve
very special people. We’re charged with
t
he Protectorate of the Human Race. For several thousand years we have been locked in battle with
hundreds of Devil sent creations, including The Dark and the creatures they control.
”

Anvil saw the disbelieving looks, he could understand that, “
Okay l
et
me put it in a way you can understand. F
or many years we’ve been locked in battle with
a secret terrorist organisation called
The Dark.
All of this has been going on in
secret
.
I won’t go into detail, suffice to say it exists.
Until now the human ra
c
e ha
ve
been kept in the dark and protected as best as possible.  But all of that has now changed. War has been declared and
the Dark are recruiting others
of there kind
.
if
we are
destroyed, every single
…civilian
on this planet will be at the whim of The Dark.
Y
our loved ones
will be in deadly danger, a danger the like of which you c
an
never begin to comprehend
or understand
.”

“Now e
very last one of you may answer to Mister Jennings but you work for me. In the coming weeks I will be giving orders that you may not understand. You will see things that you’ve never seen before, things that no human has ever seen before.
Some of you have already had a taste of this and I’m sure you will have told the others.
You must obey without question or you will die.
So I give you this one opportunity to leave. Oh and I forget,
those that stay
get triple pay. Now anyone who wants t
o leave, please pack up and go. You won
’
t be sacked you have my word on that.”

No one moved. Anvil nodded and walked with Jennings to the lift gate.
“Well trained.
Come up later, we will talk further and I’ll try and answer any questions you’ve got.”

“Oh I’ve got a few, that’s for sure.”

Once Anvil
had
left, Jennings gave orders that his men
were to
clean and prepare
all military grade
weapons for a field check in three o minutes. Calling Mackinnon and Edwards over he asked them to divide the
Agents
up into squads of ten man teams. “
Put
men
or women
who have seen action at the firing range in charge of each group.
They’ll explain to each team what they saw was real.
Keep twelve
spare to fill in for the wounded or killed.”

Jennings still couldn’t believe what he’d let himself in for. Even he’d seen it twice now with his own eyes. Yet he still didn’t believe it.

MacKinnon asked, “What the hell have we got ourselves involved in boss
?”

Jennings stood up straight, “S
omething that’s a first even for us. I’ve never fought alongside an immortal before.”

“But they can die?”

“
Everything dies Mike. So let’s
try and keep them alive
a little bit longer
.”

“What about us boss?”

“What a way to go my friend, saving the world
. Beats the hell out of old age and a nursing home
”

Chapter Nineteen

P
riest woke in the early hours; he never used a clock or watch but knew that it was four am. Rolling out of bed, he stumbled around until he found his food stained bathrobe and well worn leather slippers. Shuffling along the clean concrete floor, he made his way to the one light that was always left on and that was the one over the fridge.