DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (26 page)

“All right, Khalid. Start talking.”

He nodded. “You have earned that much. I will keep it short. To put it succinctly, I am a hunter of things that should not be. I have been at it a very long time, using alchemy to prolong my lifespan and survival. It gives me an edge.”

“How long?” Roy asked.

“Let me put it this way. I remember when my home city was called Constantinople.”

I shrugged. No memory, no clue of history. It meant nothing to me. “You say you're a hunter. What are you hunting?”

“Things such as those that the Black Bloods unleashed tonight. You thought their rage and abilities due to drugs, yes?”

“Well, yeah,” said Martin. “Freaky ass mutation drugs, but still drugs.”

“You're half-right. Do you know what vampires are?”

A beat. Then Roy laughed. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“I wish I was. Well, the things you fought out there weren't vampires. They were draugr, the result of what happens when vampire blood is given to a corpse.”

Ah. That explained the dead woman, back at Stigmata's ambush. Animated through some sort of biological agent...

“Vampires. Aw fuck me. It HAD to be supernatural bullshit.” Martin punched the wall, set the sheet metal ringing. “That is the worst kind of fucking bullshit.”

“Supernatural?” I asked.

“I saw it back in the War,” Sparky said. “The Nazis went looking for an edge back in the '40s. They found some pretty weird stuff. There was this one time we got ordered to set up a perimeter around this castle, just this empty castle out in the middle of nowhere. We were to take flamethrowers to anything that tried to come out. The OSS sent out a bunch of guys who went in with crystals and old books and shit. You remember that one, Roy?”

Roy grunted. “I try not to.”

“Yeah. It was good until night fell. The stuff that came out...” he shuddered.

Khalid nodded. “The Thule Society woke up many things that should have stayed sleeping. Worse, they dragged the supernatural into the light so far that it could hide no longer. Up until then, the community on the whole had been doing a good job of staying hidden.” He frowned. “Easier to operate that way. Eh, we wouldn't have been able to hide for long. Powers were a wildcard. Tesla opened Pandora's box, for better or for ill.”

I blinked. Much of this conversation made no sense to me. “That's all well and good,” I started, and my words were slow and certain. “But we're getting away from the immediate topic. Vampires?”

“Yes,” Khalid said, checking his pockets and pulling out a small jar. “Here, I am going to rub this on your burns. It will heal you quickly.”

I nodded. “Can you spare some of the green paste for Roy? His ribs are probably still trashed.”

Khalid rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, give me a minute. I'll have to mix up more. At any rate, I think we are only dealing with perhaps one vampire.”

I frowned. “One of the living Black Bloods drank something, turned into a draugr.”

“Yes, when improperly administered, the blood kills most living humans and makes of them draugr. To a favored strong-willed few it gives them strength, speed, and toughness beyond mortal men. At a price of sanity and soul.”

I recalled Scrapper. Was that what had happened to him? It seemed possible.

I continued. “And when properly administered?”

“You get another vampire. As powerful to the draugr as the draugr are to the living. And much, much smarter.”

“They're not alive?” I mused, then hissed as he started to spread cream on my arms.

“No. That is why they are called the undead... think of it like a specialized virus. It alters the biology and keeps them in a mockery of life, even past the point they should stop moving. It heals up injuries that aren't inflicted by specialized means or in specific ways.”

“Fire.” I said, recalling the tracers, the road flare, and that goop Khalid had thrown.

“Beheading as well. Exposure to sunlight if you can manage to keep them in it long enough. Impalement through the heart or brain if they're weak enough. Or certain sacred weapons.”

“Well fuck, guess we'll just run over to church and oh wait we can't they defiled it and shit,” Martin said. “This keeps getting better and better.”

Khalid shook his head. “No real relics there anyway. You're better off with fire.”

“Noted.” Once I was out of here, I had some modifications to make.

“So you think we only got one vampire?” Roy said.

Khalid nodded. “Yes. If I am correct, he is the ancient called the Locust. I've been hunting him the last half-a-century or so, between other projects. But I do not think he is fully awake yet.”

“Why's that?” Sparky asked.

“Because this city is still here.”

We paused and took that in for a moment.

“This. This bullshit is why I fucking hate the supernatural shit. Some random old-ass monster wakes up or some dudes in bedsheets decide that the world needs an enema, and whoops, there go a few million people,” Martin snapped. “Or some old douche-ass god wakes up and has a tantrum, and hey, more people die. Fuck supernatural bullshit.”

Khalid shrugged. “It is here whether you like it or not. You may as well rail at the sun for shining, or the ocean for having tides. That said, there are aspects of it I agree with you upon. Which is why I am here. I had suspicions about the Black Bloods, and I wished to get a look at them up close and personal, as it were.”

“So you came here,” I nodded. “Clever.”

He shrugged. “If there had been nothing but another gang skirmish, another push for power by warlords, then I would have saved what lives I could and returned to the hunt. But this? This changes things now.” He finished rubbing my arms, and I unclenched my teeth. As painful as the application had been, my arms felt better almost immediately. They still hurt, but it was muted compared to what it had been. My stomach still felt like it had been pulped, though.

“Mm. What will you do now?” I asked.

Khalid smiled. “Frankly... I'll ask for your help. You and the others.” He gestured around the room. Martin laughed, Roy and Sparky looked at each other, and Minna just considered him with empty eyes.

“And how can we help?” I asked. “Besides opposing them in the conflict, which we'd be doing anyway.”

“I need to know more about them, for one thing,” Khalid said, leaning against the wall. He was looking tired. It had been a long night for him, as well. “I know how the Locust operates, which is why I think he is still mostly asleep. But I know little of these Black Bloods. They're not the usual band of mortal servants you find when an ancient is involved. I'd expected them to use the blackout to start killing people left and right, harvesting the blood to waken their master.”

“Harvesting blood,” I mused. “That's what it takes?”

“Yes. A lot of it.”

“Does it have to be blood from the living?” I asked.

He considered. “Well, no. That would be more potent, but I suppose you could use the blood of the dead, as long as it wasn't too old.”

“Awwwwww shit.” Martin groaned. He saw where this was going, too. “Khalid, or whoever the fuck you are, the Bloods are famous for grabbing corpses. People they kill, their own, doesn't matter. They haul them off. People don't see them again.”

“Ah. That would be slower, but safer. No wonder I didn't catch this before. If that's the case, it extends the margin of time I have to act before—”

“Khalid, man.” Martin looked sick. “They been doing that ever since they shown up. Four years ago.”

Khalid fell silent. His face flashed to pure horror, and he sagged against the wall like his strings had been cut. “Oh dear God.”

“Not Allah?” Roy asked.

Khalid snorted. “I'm Turkish, yes, but I'm Christian. Have been my entire life. Not every brown-skinned person from the Middle East is a Muslim, you know.”

Sparky narrowed his eyes, stared at him for a minute. “Yer the Last Janissary, aintcha?”

“You've heard of me? Surprising. I've only come into contact with heroes when the supernatural necessitates it. Easier on everyone, really, the things I do aren't exactly heroic or legal.”

“Yeah, we kind of heard of you,” Sparky said. “One of the OSS guys who survived Castle Nachtjäger got drunk on the way back to base. Told us how they had agents in Istanbul stoppin' Hitler's boys from getting' their hands on the Holy Grail. Said you were an ally.”

“He probably broke a lot of regulations to tell you that,” said Khalid. “Yes, I was an ally back then. Not that the Grail would have done the Thule society much good on its own, but they could have bartered it to gain assistance from a darker quarter.”

“While this is all very fascinating,” I spoke, “we have more pressing concerns. What aid can you offer us, and how can we help you end this thing?”

“Uh, you're missing the part where we ask if we want to be involved in the first case,” said Martin. “Because this just changed from a gang war to a horror movie. And speaking as one of the black guys here, I know how horror movies go, and I really don't wanna die first.”

“Pfft, man up, son,” Sparky said. “We're fightin' them anyways. This just makes it trickier.”

I sighed. I was starting to fade. “Can Dire get some water?” Minna provided a bottle, and I gulped it down in thirty seconds. “She's with Sparky. They were jackasses before we knew this, they're jackasses now. Doesn't really change anything.”

“Shit, let's call in the MRB,” said Martin. “Let their government asses handle it, our tax dollars at work and stuff.”

Khalid shook his head. “Sadly, that would be a bad idea. The Bureau has rules for this sort of situation. The collateral damage it would cause would cost the lives of thousands. I cannot condone that.”

“Then let's leave,” said Martin. “Got nothing tying us here. Just go.”

“No.” Minna spoke for the first time she'd entered the room, and we looked to her in surprise. She hitched Anya up higher on her shoulder, as the child slept. “Nowhere to go. Can't move fast. They would hound us and kill us as we went.”

I propped my head up, stared at Martin. “They killed Joan. So they die.”

“God... fine. Fucking fine.” Martin jammed his hands in his pockets again. “Fine, fuck it let's go be fucking Van Helsing up in this shit.”

I smiled, and let my head drop to the cot's pillow. Things were getting hazy. “We'll help you, Khalid, and you'll help us.”

“Agreed,” he said. “Right now you need rest, though. Are we done for now?”

I started to answer, but I'm pretty sure that midway through the sentence I fell asleep.

CHAPTER 15: Mourn for the Fallen, Brood on the Past

“I wish I could tell you this was the easy path, but it's not. You'll make new friends as you go, and you'll lose them. And it'll hurt like nothing else. I know you. You're me, and the memory edit won't change that. And in its way, the pain is good. It will remind you that you're human. You'll need that, as time goes on. It's a good thing.”

--Excerpt #14 from the Dire Monologues

In the morning, we laid Joan to rest. The other bodies would be buried. For Joan, we felt she deserved something special. Before any of us, she'd been the heart of the camp. She'd been the caregiver, the sensible one, the one who was always looking ahead and trying to make sure we had enough to eat. The one who ensured we were warm and healthy.

“We came here homeless and with nothing,” I spoke, as I stood in front of the boat. My armor was off, it seemed more respectful that way. “We were nothing but a gathering of vagrants, criminals, and the down and out. But she saw more than that. She saw in us a family. And she stepped up to be the mother without a word of complaint, or an unkind word for anyone.”

I looked at her for a long moment, then shook my head. “Dire knew you for only a short time, but it felt like all of her life. You were kind to her, Joan. Dire shall never forget you.”

I stepped back then. Sparky took my place, rolling up, solemn and sad.  He looked down into the little rowboat, and stared at Joan's body for a long moment. Finally, just as I thought he'd lost his train of thought, he spoke. “Weren't but five of us to start, way back when. Me, Lily, Rob, Gladys, and Joan. Roy showed up a little while in, but for the longest time it was the five of us.”

He sighed, deflating. For the first time I'd seen him, the weird vitality that surrounded him seemed to fade, leaving him looking old and worn. “Bloods took Lily and Rob first. But we fought them off, and we thought we was done. I guess—” He coughed, spat on the sand. His voice was hoarse as he continued. “Guess that wasn't so.” He patted the side of the boat. “We'll finish the job this time, Joanie-girl.” He glanced up. “Roy? Got anything to say?”

Roy just shook his head, and Sparky rolled back. He was the last, the others had had their say already, adding personal memories. Minna's had been short and pushed the limits of her English. Martin had been overcome by tears, and couldn't finish. A few more of the camp had added in their stories, people I'd seen but not talked much with. No one had an unkind account. But thinking about it, saying such here would be the height of foolishness. Looking around at the crowd I saw the bonding in the shared grief, even for those who had only arrived last night. They had their own dead to mourn, some of them, and in this shared experience we were reminded that we were all human.

For all that it was good, it was somewhat painful. I had the grim certainty that this wouldn't be the last funeral I attended. Depending on how things went, the next one could come very soon if we weren't careful and skilled.

It was time. Tooms and Martin took the boat, and pushed it down the beach, back into the water it had been painstakingly pulled from yesterday. They pushed it out as far as they could get it, and then Khalid wound up, and pitched a bottle into the oil-soaked rags we'd lined the boat with. This bottle, unlike the last I'd seen him hurl, didn't explode into greasy red flame. The fire was smaller, simply orange and smoky, but it did the job it needed to do as it flickered in the cold wind.

I went back to my armor. After the beating it had taken last night, it needed repairs. Fortunately, I still had materials left over from the SUV. Although I'd used up most of the critical electronic components from it already, I had enough left over to do basic repairs. And Abernathy was a quick student and a serious help, even if she had to work to keep up with me.

As I knelt down and picked up the wrench from the tarp full of tools, a shadow fell across me. Roy.

I looked up, nodded to him. He smiled. “Glad to see ya up and about, Ell-Dee.”

“Ell Dee?”  I asked.

“Lady Dire. It's a pun, we used to call our lieutenant Ell-Tee back in the war.”

“Dire's not in command here,” I said. “No rank. If anything, it's you and Sparky in charge.”

He shook his head. “Nope. We were enlisted the full trip through. Not leader types. I only done what I did here cause no one else wanted it. But you? You got a way about you. Besides, it ain't necessarily a good thing,” he said. “With the rank comes the responsibility.”

“She'd have that anyway,” I frowned. “Can't leave things the way they are. Would be sloppy. Too much collateral.”

He grinned. “And that's why yer Ell-Dee ta me, now. But hell, don't take my word on it. Go talk ta Martin, go talk ta Minna. Guarantee you that right now they're lookin' for a shoulder to lean on. Listen to'em, hear 'em out. It's what a good see-oh does.”

I didn't know what a see-oh was. Assumed he was using military jargon. “You think it'd help?” I asked.

“I know it would. Go get'em boss!”

I decided to let it slide, and nodded. “All right. After she finishes some adjustments to the armor, she'll go talk to people. You keep an eye on Sparky. Keep him safe.”

“Always do,” He grinned, showing yellow teeth. We stood, and walked back to the camp.

I sat down at my armor again, picked up the wrench, and got to work. I'd warped the coilgun barrel slightly when I'd used it to pound the draugr's head in, last night. Some gentle pressure and heat from my welder allowed me to straighten it again... not perfectly, but this wasn't a precision weapon to begin with. For the enemies I was up against, I didn't really need precision weapons. Not when fire was available. For that, I had commandeered the homemade still of one of the camp residents. I'd paid him three times what it was worth for the pipes, hoses, and tubing. A small tank that had once held propane was turned into a backpack, and the nozzle of a firehose became the nozzle of a perfectly-functional flamethrower. I'd asked Khalid to start whipping up an incendiary fluid or gas that wouldn't kill me if I used it, and he'd promised to look into it while he was off retrieving more supplies.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of our new friend. But at this point, I couldn't be choosy about allies. I strapped the flamethrower nozzle to my left gauntlet, entered the armor, and flexed my arm a few times. Dry firing had the expected results. The igniter clicked on when I tried it, and the tubes were secured well-enough that I could move without fear of rupturing them.

I'd also borrowed a stun gun from one of the new arrivals, and rigged it to my right gauntlet. I hadn't been impressed by the relatively low voltage of it, so I'd patched it into the armor's core, and taken time to integrate it into the mask's command functionality. Now I could adjust the strength of it with a few whispered commands. That said, I'd have to be careful. Set it too high, and one shot would fry the stun gun's circuitry. But it was good to have a nonlethal option besides beanbag rounds or my bare hands, and it had been a simple thing to add. Besides, if I could get my hands on some higher capacity circuits, I could upgrade it without much trouble.

Midway through the morning, I took a break for an early lunch and Abernathy found me. “Heya. Got any orders for me?”

“Maybe.” I'd been giving some thought to the defense of the camp. “Think you can get up on that overpass?” I pointed at the elevated highway that rose above the western edge of the beach.

“Don't see why not. Take some hiking, but that's fine. Oooh, wait, I could borrow Tim's bicycle. Yeah, that'd work. What do you need, boss?”

“Check out the vehicles up there. They've been gridlocked for days, they look empty. Some of the people who were watching them said a lot of people left them behind after the first few hours of the traffic jam. See if there's any high-grade electric cars among them.”

I'd learned that electric cars made up about 50% of inner-city traffic. They could draw upon the city's broadcast power for energy, which made them economical and fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things. The rest of them would be a mix... mostly hydrogen-fueled cars, with a few old-school diesel trucks among them for the heavy and long-range transports. Unfortunately, the widespread use of electric cars had resulted in a huge jam. Though most were equipped with batteries for emergency purposes, a lot were cheaply made, or had owners who didn't bother to keep them charged. Throw in the complete collapse of the traffic signal system, add in a little human stupidity, and shake well. No one had ever anticipated an outage on this scale, or one that continued for so long.

Abernathy headed out, and I finished my lunch. Hot dogs, today. Someone had brought out a grill, and people were celebrating our victory with a cookout. I wasn't about to argue with them, even if the victory had come at a great cost. There was more trouble in the future, so I'd let people celebrate while they could.

While I ate, I glanced toward the shoreline, and saw Minna sitting by herself. Odd. I looked around, located Anya playing with a group of other children. Some game that involved a lot of running and shoving and laughing. A little bit more searching found the young woman that Minna had rescued from the church watching over them. Ah, that explained it.

I started heading toward Minna, with Roy's advice in mind. She looked up as I approached, and nodded as I sat down next to her. She'd chosen a spot on the pier near the spillpipe, where the snow hadn't stuck to the wood quite as much. It was cold but not too wet, in the grand scheme of things.

Minna looked back out at the ocean, and I followed her gaze to the smear of ashes and charred wood slowly heading out into the bay.

“You miss her,” I finally spoke.

“Yes.”

Another couple of minutes crawled by, and she looked to me again. “Who were you before this, Dire?”

I shrugged.

“She doesn't know. Doesn't remember.” I hiked my hair up, and showed her the sutures. They were starting to come out now, bit by bit. “Someone she used to be did this, and she doesn't know why.”

Minna's eyes were wide, when I looked back at her.

I offered a smile. “Who were you before this, Minna?”

“A whore. Men came to my town, promised me a job. Not the one they gave me.” She looked over my shoulder, her eyes far away. “Sold me to rich men, who passed me around. And then I got pregnant.”

“With Anya,” I said.

“Yes. My... owner? Pimp? I heard him say they would sell her. I killed him and left.”

“How?”

Her hand rose up, traced her scars. She smiled, and it was nothing but teeth. “Was not easy. After that I was stuck here. Not good English. No money. No friends. Hitchhiked, ran. Gave birth in an alley in New York. Was there some time. Had to kill another man. Came here. Eventually.”

My own eyes were wide with horror at this point. “Could the authorities not help you? Get you back home?”

She laughed, harsh and quick. It was the first time I'd ever heard her laugh, and it was an ugly thing without humor. “I was a slave whore for rich men. Rich men here control the authorities. What do you think would happen?”

I frowned. “It should not be so.”

She shrugged. “The men who traded me first run things back in my old town, too. I go back, I die. Or they take Anya. You know Vory v Zakone?”

I shook my head no.

She nodded. “You do not want to.”

I was impressed that she hadn't died along the way already. That she'd stuck around here so long. Hell, maybe the only reason she hadn't moved on already was because she'd found a friend in Joan. She'd been inseparable from the older woman. Her respect and love for Joan was obvious to anyone with eyes. But now Joan was gone. I looked out to the ashen patch on the water.

She followed my gaze, and shifted a bit. “She told me her sin, once.”

“Her sin?” My voice sounded distant to my own ears.

“Yes. We were drunk. Found some cans with beer left in them, it was a good night. But after the third beer, she started watching Anya and crying.”

I opened my mouth, shut it again. “She did always seem nervous around Anya.”

“All children, really.” Minna confirmed. “It is because she killed her own.”

“What?” I snapped my head around to stare at her. “Ludicrous.”

Minna spread her hands, staring out to sea. “She was young, stupid, she said. Had the thing, the thing where you feel so bad you cannot do anything. Where you think you are worthless.”

“Depression?” I guessed.

“Yes. That thing. One night the baby wouldn't stop crying. And she lose her temper. And she shake the baby.”

I inhaled, sharply. The way she said it... “That's bad?”

Minna looked at me, picked up a broken, rotted slat from the pier, and shook it until it snapped. I winced.

“She go to prison. Get out after a few years. Can't face her family. Just walks out door one day. Ends up here.”

“I would never have guessed,” I said.

“She was the best woman I know,” Minna said. “Wanted to help everyone. Just didn't trust to be around children. She didn't trust her, yes?”

“Didn't trust herself, you mean.”

“Yes.” She threw the ends of the slats out into the water.

We were silent for a while. After a bit, I got the sense that she was done talking. I nodded, got up, and left.