Lycan Fallout 5 Page 24

  “He believes that,” Linnick replied.

  “For all that’s worth. I believed I was going to be in the criminal justice field one day; got it half right,” I said.

  “Kill him?” Kalandar asked.

  We didn’t do a poll, but had one been done, the results would most likely have been damn near like an election in old North Korea, meaning, a hundred percent would have been in agreement, and I’ll tell you what, a populace not coerced in any manner coming to a unanimous decision is an extreme rarity. Not sure which of us would have done the deed, though, because we were all primed. Something not scripted would have happened and soon, if not for the arrival of them. Six golden lights streaked through the sky, heralding in the dawning of another damned day.

  “Party’s about to start! If they catch me out here, I’m gonna tell them I was assaulting your position; I’ll be doing that Indian food thing.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You know, what’s that fucking smelly-ass spice the dot-wearers used put on everything? Makes me want to sneeze.”

  “Curry?” Azile answered.

  “Yeah, that shit.”

  “I could go for some Indian food,” I said aloud.

  “Really, Mike?” Azile asked. “Six archangels just made themselves known and you’re talking about hitting a buffet?”

  “Have you never had chicken tikka masala with naan, covered in goat cheese? It’s fucking delicious. Everything we eat now tastes like boiled beets. I mean, except when you make dinner!” I added when she looked at me with that “you are as dumb as floating rocks” look. Now, if you think about that, that’s pretty funny–a rock too stupid to even know how to sink.

  There was an alarm bell from the far side. “Something’s happening!” a guard shouted.

  “This isn’t enough?” I pleaded, but inside was secretly happy for the diversion, at least, for a moment.

  “This isn’t over,” Azile said. “Boiled beets? I’ll boil your beets.”

  I swallowed hard and was about to turn and see what could possibly be happening on the other side.

  “Michael, what should I do concerning…”

  “Don’t even end that with ‘your friend,’” I told Lana. “I think we’re going to need all the help we can get, but keep five men on him at all times.”

  I saw Lana’s head nod down to the guard manning the gate. He looked like he wished he’d called in sick today. Maybe gone and done a spot of fishing, or sat around and watched the Price is Right; pretty sure that was still on the air somewhere. I came down the parapet just as Tim was walking through the gate. I should have expected it, no doubt about it, and I blame myself for this one. I caught the tail end of the flight of his fist in my peripheral vision. Hit me flush in the jaw; felt my whole damn head and neck go out of alignment. I staggered four or five steps before I got my rudder back. Kalandar and Mathieu were on him before I could shake my head. Both looked as if they would pull him apart, like some shellfish from Red Lobster.

  “You deserved that!” he shouted. “Who hides someone’s eyes from them? That’s just sick and mean!”

  “You can let him go.” I brought a hand up to my jaw, happy to note it wasn’t broken.

  “We should just kill him,” Kalandar said.

  “I would expect a demon to say something like that.” Tim pulled free.

  “It’s fine. In some weird way, he might be right–maybe I was owed one. That’s the last freebie, Tim. Next time, we go rounds,” I told him.

  “I look forward to it, fuckface.”

  Not sure what was going through my head; this was like walking around with a grenade in your front-facing fanny pack and the pin was loose. Sooner or later while you were doing your Jazzercise class, there was going to be a massive explosion in your pants, and not of the Taco Bell variety. Come on, we all knew nothing cleaned out the colon faster than a double espresso and an item off the dollar value menu. With that thought, I climbed up to the other guard station.

  I could hardly even comprehend what I was witnessing when I got there. Ruptures were forming in the earth, looked like mini volcanoes, or maybe the land was suffering from a severe case of acne. The ground was upheaving twenty to fifty feet in height, in over a dozen spots. Trees toppled over, disturbed boulders rolled down the slopes. At first, the tops blew off, sending vegetation, dirt and debris high into the air. In one case, an extremely unlucky moose went for its first, and last, sky-diving lesson. Once the dust had settled, I noticed a thick, yellowish fluid had filled in each of the newly formed calderas. They were bubbling, but it appeared to be from air trapped underneath, rather than that it was boiling, as there was no steam to speak off.

  “Any ideas, Kalandar?” I asked. It struck me this might be something he had maybe heard of.

  “I do now,” he said as we watched things begin to rise from the soupy goop. Kalandar was an enormous being, compared to a human. What was coming out of those holes dwarfed him.

  “Misshapen creatures from the depths of hell.” Mathieu was right next to me and neatly summed up the grotesqueries. There were beasts with far too many legs, one with too many heads, one without. Some were coal black, others violent blues, still others mottled in a combination of the two.

  “Archfiends,” Kalandar replied. “I wonder if now would be a good time to change my allegiance.”

  “Red Sasquatch has the right idea.” I was startled when I realized Tim was right next to me. I did a quick mental take on the status of my body; I was shocked to not have registered any sort of blade insertion.

  The weird thing is, I don’t think either of them was kidding, not all that much, anyway.

  “If I knew who was going to win, there’s a good chance I’d pick their side. It is going to be pretty ugly for the losers. Sucks when death is the least of your concerns; you know what I’m talking about?” Tim flashed me a toothy smile as he clapped me on my back. “I could go for a good tit squeeze right about now.” I noticed he now had his hand on my shoulder. I moved away quickly. “No, man, I don’t want my tit squeezed! I want to grab hold of some sagging flesh bags and twist the fuckers around like a padlock dial. Know what I mean? Chicks love when you use those things like punching bags.”

  I backed away slowly. Tim was still ranting about pulling nipples inches away from the body then watching them snap back like over-stretched rubber bands. He was lost in his own little S&M world.

  “How does this work? How do we know who to fight?” I asked no one in particular.

  “You strike out at the one trying to kill you, Tallboat,” Linnick said.

  “What the fuck is in your pocket? I was going to ask if you were happy to see me, but I’m a little concerned right now.” Tim was entirely too close. His hot, fetid breath cascaded down over the top of my head and washed across my face. I could nearly feel the platoon of germs he was leaving behind.

  “You’re concerned? Then I’ll make sure to keep her close.”

  “Can you believe right now I’m the voice of reason?” Tim asked, shock registering on his face as he said this. “Greenie here,” he pointed to his head, “wants to do you in so bad, and I am actively talking him out of it. Fucking weird.”

  “You’re the voice of reason?” I asked. “Well, that makes me the AA spokesperson for sobriety.”

  Tim looked puzzled, then a huge grin spread across his face. I flinched as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “I almost like you, you little fucker. I still want to do horrible things to you before I kill you, but I promise I won’t huck a thick loogie into anything you drink in the meantime.”

  “Are you saying there’s room for a thin loogie?”

  “See, that’s the shit I’m talking about! That’s funny!”

  I was standing next to my nightmare who contained my wife’s nemesis. The Lycan were here, the polions were here, Eliza was around somewhere, and to round it out, we had archangels and archfiends. Much like myself, I wasn’t sure that all of the combata
nts knew precisely who they were fighting and who they were making camp with. The field of battle had been set, just didn’t know where to sit yet. Every combatant in this war was uniquely deadly in their own way, and some surely had ways of killing that I wasn’t even aware of yet, though I was sure I would find out soon enough. As is always the case in war, numerous things began to happen at once. A group of fifteen Lycan charged straight for the walls. I did not think they were planning on making an assault, but tell that to the men and women on the wall. They were justifiably scared; the real reason for them coming toward us was to lead the stampede of polions into the fray. So, in effect, they were attacking, and therefore deserved everything they got coming their way.

  “Fire!” rang out upon the walls. Rifle cracks signified the beginning of open war. The Lycan were hit multiple times; chests and heads bloomed with blood as they were halted before they could get much closer, but the damage had been done. Nothing was going to stop the polions now that they’d smelled the blood and heard the defense. The air felt and sounded like it was being torn open; safe to say one of the supernatural beings was launching a salvo. When I was in the Marines, one of my duty stations was on an airbase, and we had Harrier Jets there–planes that had the ability to land and take off vertically–pretty cool to watch. What was not so cool was the racket they made. It was so incredibly loud, I think they should have come up with a new name for it. It honestly sounded like the sky was ripped apart. That’s what was happening here; the noise rolled along like thunder. Fire erupted roughly where the fiends were. This was followed by the forming of a mushroom cloud.

  “Down, down!” I shouted to everyone, having a good idea of what was coming. I want to say my words were heeded by all, but that would have meant that I’d been heard, which was unlikely. Kalandar was snatching people off the parapet. Azile was making a shield. It wasn’t enough. When that shock wave hit us, it sent people sprawling and cartwheeling off the wall and slamming into the ground where momentum kept them going. Some got off with a warning, others were out of commission for the upcoming fight with broken arms, legs, collarbones, ribs; still others paid the ultimate price. I had to think that in my time, unfortunately, most would have known to duck and cover, but who in this age had ever really seen an explosion of any magnitude?

  “Do you think it would reflect badly on me if I ate one of those dead ones?” Tim asked, although I think this was meant as internal dialog. We were in the process of getting pelted by rocks and dirt as he inched closer to one of the bodies. He wrapped a hand around an ankle and started pulling the man toward him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He turned quickly; there was a sneer, like he was angry he’d been caught or interrupted, take your pick. Then he seemed to catch himself. “Just seeing if he was all right.” He patted the man’s leg softly. “Pretty sure he’s dead, though.”

  “Come on,” I told him. “The wall suffered some damage. We need to fix it before the polions get here.”

  “I should make sure he’s dead.”

  “He’s gone, Tim. The whole left side of his face caught a fifty-pound boulder. Gonna go out on a limb and say he’s not going to recover from that.”

  “I’ll be back,” he whispered to the dead soldier, just loud enough that I heard it.

  Tim was about as trustworthy as a chronic masturbator at a Victoria’s Secret modeling event, but he was as strong as an ox and seemed to understand that our survival depended on that wall being able to handle some abuse without giving way altogether. I have no idea how that analogy worked, other than I had no desire to see the crazed clown crank one out or eat a Denarthian. Soldiers were getting back into position and were raining lead down upon the polions. I don’t know what was going through the beasts’ rudimentary minds; maybe they thought the bullets were quills from other polions and that the alliance had broken down, but as soon as one of the animals was shot, it would release a circle of its quills up into the air and around it as an offensive and a defensive gesture. It was like watching the wave at a sporting event. As each animal fired and subsequently hit another, the process was repeated.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Lana was calling out, she’d seen what I had. I wasn’t under the impression that the quills were lethal, but the tentacles that reached out, seeking to hurt whatever had hurt them? Oh yeah, those were lethal. I’m not going to use the word giddy; seems a little too cavalier, considering what was going on and that we’d already suffered casualties, but I was happier than a chronic masturbator at a Victoria’s Secret modeling event. (I realize it’s been used, but when you strike gold, don’t you want to go back for more?) They were beating the shit out of each other. Looked like the stands for the World Cup: Al-Masry Vs. Ferencvaros. Something was happening over in the angels area–it was difficult to say from this distance, but it looked like the Lycan were involved.

  “What in the fuck is going on?” I asked. There was howling, roaring, and plenty of yipping. I don’t know if the Lycan had a shot in hell against the angels, but they were certainly giving it their all.

  “No,” Azile said. “You don’t even have to say anything. You’re half-leaning over the wall. It’s like you can hardly stand to not be in a fight.”

  She was right, I kept my mouth shut.

  “You go in there, no telling who would attack you,” Kalandar said.

  “Plus, remember–I am in your pocket and I vote no,” Linnick said. The fiends, seeing an opportunity, struck out. The sky turned an angry red with purple streaking through it and toward the angels. The Lycan were getting caught in the cross-fire, and we here, we were observers. Everything around us was fighting to the death and we might as well have been birds, high up in the sky, blissfully ignorant of all terrestrial endeavors. Not going to lie, felt a little like we were citizens of Chad in Mid-Africa while the US and USSR duked it out around us.

  “Think it’s too much to ask that they’ll forget about us?”

  “Mathieu. Good to see you,” I said.

  “Been caring for the wounded,” he replied.

  “And ‘no’ to your original question.”

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Two, to be exact.”

  “Which are?”

  “Oh. Were you referring to what’s going on out there? Then none whatsoever.”

  “Yo, Talbot-Fuck. Incoming.” Tim was pointing.

  I followed his finger, was looking directly into the sun when I caught the golden streak.

  “I think it’s Pretty Boy.” Tim was shielding his eyes.

  It was indeed Gabriel. He was some hundred feet in the air, looking down at us. I will swear it until the end of my days; I could feel the contempt he had for us radiating off of him.

  “Which one of you killed my brother!?” his voice boomed.

  “Wasn’t me!” Tim shouted up, maybe figuring this absolved him from whatever was coming next.

  “It was me.” I stepped out into the open.

  “Talbot-Fuck? Hardcore, man, hard fucking core. Bravo.” Tim clapped his hands together a few times, I suppose to show his admiration. “Which one was it?”

  “Selaphiel,” Kalandar answered him.

  “Thursday? Damn, but, you know, as far as archangels go, he was one of the weaker.”

  “Thanks for the clarification,” I told him, never taking my eyes off the angel.

  Gabriel came closer. His great wings beat dust all around us like a Black Hawk helicopter would. “I see you, Michael Talbot, favored son of the Maker.”

  “Talbot-Fuck is a favored son? You have got to be shitting me. I’ve seen it all now, and I’ve been in hell for two hundred years, so that says a fucking lot.” Tim was shaking his head and walking around, muttering to himself like he was watching the news and couldn’t believe what was being broadcast. “Not that Thursday wasn’t impressive, but if you take out Tuesday, I’d say we have a chance.”

  At some point I might ask him why he was calling the angels by days of the week; right
now, I didn’t give a shit if he started giving them Hello Kitty names. A yellow-golden aura illuminated Gabriel, giving him a halo effect. He was going to strike; the question that remained was what was I going to do about it?

  “Do something!” Azile shouted.

  “Yeah, that’s no pressure.” I raised my right hand. I was thinking this would be something Superman might do, even though he was far from my favorite superhero. No beams shot out, but my fingertips were glowing a soft blue. Fantastic if I’d been trying to create a mood for a romantic candle-lit dinner. I didn’t know it at the time, but Azile and Kalandar had added to my less than stellar performance, so that when Gabriel’s golden beam rained down upon my head, I was not only able to deflect it away, but also propel a portion back to its sender. The updraft was enough to send him backward a dozen feet or so. Nothing to do any real harm, but it angered him to no end that his onslaught had not just melted me into a steaming pool of human-muck.

  He was gearing up for round two, but the archfiends had other plans. Three of them were headed this way. He looked over at them, then down on me.

  “You have been marked, Michael Talbot. I will collect.”

  I gave him the finger. I think he got the meaning of the gesture as he flew away.

  “You flipped off an archangel? Where have you been my whole life? We should have been best buds!” Tim shook my shoulders and was smiling in my face.

  Great. I was winning the adoration of a psychotic murderer; not one of my greatest achievements. We all braced for the fiends but they veered off, much more interested in the angel separated from his pack. Sometime during all the commotion, the polions had quit their infighting and were once again heading toward us. Not sure how they had passed the message, but now wherever our bullets could, and did, inflict damage, they no longer mistook their neighbor for an offender. They’d figured out where the actual harm was coming from and were moving quickly to rectify the situation.

  Mathieu was assembling all the archers in the open area by the west wall. “Ready!” he shouted from atop the parapet. The archers below nocked their arrows and raised their bows up. “Forty-five degrees!” There was some adjustment. “Fire!”