Dredd VS Death (6 page)

Possibly more enraged by the destruction of their food supply than any damage caused to them by the bullets, the vampires charged out wildly to face their attackers. Lawgivers at the ready, Dredd and Giant were more than prepared for them.

Dredd shot the first one with an Incendiary shell. Howling in agony as its body exploded into flame, the creature threw itself back into the freezer room, rolling and splashing about on the blood-covered floor in a vain attempt to put out the volatile and hungry phosphor fire which ate relentlessly into its undead flesh.

Taking a cue from Dredd, Giant picked off the next one with a Hi-Ex shot, splattering its shredded remains against the nearest wall. This was going to be a messy one for the clean-up crews, Giant guessed, and he hoped the Tek-Judge forensics squad that was soon going to be crawling all over this place were packing spatulas and scraping tools with their tech-kit, to gather up all the evidence now sliding down the walls.

Dredd coolly took care of the third creep as it leapt at him with apparent lightning speed, claws and fangs ready to tear him open. It was fast, but not fast enough. For a moment, it seemed to almost defy the laws of physics, hanging suspended in mid-air as Dredd's rapid-fire spray of bullets struck against it. Then it was moving again, hurled backwards by the relentless force of the shells still being fired into it. A final burst decapitated it as it struck the far wall. Head and body fell to the ground several metres apart.

Yes sir, a very messy one for the poor slobs in the clean-up crews, thought Giant.

Dredd took in the aftermath of the brief but spectacularly gruesome fight, casually prodding the remains of the nearest vamp with the toe of his Judge boot.

"Creeps don't seem in too much of a hurry to turn into dust when they're dead either, or whatever it is they're supposed to do in the horror stories."

Giant bent down to study the scraps of the one he had tagged with the Hi-Ex shot. It had been wearing what looked like ordinary citizens' clothes. No fancy evening suits. No red synthi-satin lined opera cloaks. "You think we're looking at something normal here, not necessarily supernatural?"

"Bloodsucking freaks that shrug off standard Execution rounds aren't exactly what you'd call normal, even for this city, but I'd rather look for some rational answers before we call in the Psi-Div spook chasers," Dredd said.

He shifted impatiently, re-holstering his Lawgiver. Giant sighed inwardly. He knew what was coming next.

"Meat wagons and clean-up units are on their way," said Dredd, already moving to leave. "Stay here and supervise, Giant. I want full forensics back-up on this one. Let me know what they find. Anyone wants me, I'll be finishing the rest of my patrol shift."

Giant watched him go. No, Old Stony Face never changed. Vamps, freaks, muties and weirdoes Dredd took in his stride, but every chance he got, he always pulled rank and left someone else to deal with the paperwork.

THREE

It was the paperwork Hershey hated the most.

Well, she also hated the meetings, the drafting of minutes, "resolutions" and "mission statements", the inane photo-op PR events, the occasional obligatory chat show appearance to show the citizens the allegedly friendly face of the Justice Department, the mind-numbing meet-and-greets with foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, the endless briefings from her policy advisors on a thousand different and tediously uninteresting but vitally important subjects.

But, most of all, she decided, she hated the paperwork. It was only now, two years after being elected Chief Judge of the most powerful city in the world, that she fully appreciated why Joe Dredd had turned down the post on several occasions in the past, when it would otherwise easily have been his for the asking.

"My place is on the streets," Dredd had always said.

"Yes, Joe," those within the Justice Department who, like Hershey, knew him best, could always have silently added, "because that's where you're the furthest away from the drokking paperwork."

Not that she blamed him, really. Sitting here in the Council of Five chamber within the Grand Hall of Justice, listening to Judge Cranston of Accounts Division making his quarterly budgetary report to the Council, she wished with all her heart she was out there with him, putting down a block war or two, or even re-fighting the Apocalypse War all over again.

Grud, even the time she had been kidnapped, completely paralysed and almost tortured to death by Fink Angel had almost been preferable to this.

"Furthermore, looking at our overseas balance of trade figures for this current fiscal quarter, and taking into account our projections for the next fiscal quarter, as well as the standing moratorium on non-essential trade with the former Sov Blok cities and the ongoing renegotiation with Sino-City as regards their Most Favoured Nation trade tariff status, we can predict with some modest confidence that, as far as the budget deficit for both this quarter and the next two is concerned-"

"Thank you, Judge Cranston," Hershey interrupted with what she hoped was the correct amount of tact. "Unfortunately, I have several other pressing appointments following this meeting, so thank you, but we'll read and review your budgetary report and recommendations later, and let you know our decision before the end of the week."

She kept on going before the flustered-looking elderly Accounts Division Senior Judge could protest. "Moving on to the next item on the agenda: the rise in incidents involving members of the so-called 'Church of Death'. Hollister?"

Judge Hollister, the Council's only member who wasn't already a Justice Department Divisional head, had been assigned to brief the rest of the Council members on the problem. Hershey was amused to see that, for once, Hollister had actually turned up for a Council meeting in proper Judge uniform. As a senior member of the Wally Squad, she had occasionally attended meetings in various kinds of civilian attire, some of them downright scandalous. Hershey wondered what Silver, one of her predecessors as Chief Judge and a notoriously prudish stickler for the rules, would have had to say if one of his most senior Judges had turned up for a Council of Five meeting wearing the fishnet tights and low-cut halter top outfit of a common slabwalker, as Hollister had once so memorably done.

"Most Sector Chiefs are reporting a rise in crimes associated with the cult. Up until now, it's been relatively small-time stuff; pro-Death scrawl-graffiti, juve gangs swapping their gang tags for cult symbols, the occasional case of pet animal sacrifice."

"And now?" said Hershey.

"Now we're seeing a sudden spike in these crimes, not just in number, but also in terms of their seriousness," replied Hollister. "Juve gangs claiming an association with the cult are banding together to start violent rumbles with the other gangs. Street preachers claiming to be pronouncing the 'Gospel of Death' have started appearing - we're picking them up as soon as they appear, of course - and some of them have even taken to the airwaves on illegal pirate radio stations to spread the word even further.

"My anti-pirate monitoring units have already tracked down a number of these illegal broadcast stations, and identified and arrested those responsible," interjected Tek Chief McTighe testily, keen to counter any suggestion that his Tek-Judges weren't already on top of the situation."

"Granted," agreed Hollister, "but what we're dealing here is something more than a few pirate broadcasters. We're looking at Death cult-related crimes all across the board. More worryingly, we're seeing a noticeable rise in missing persons cases. We believe the cult may be tied into a lot of these."

"You think they've maybe graduated from pet sacrifice to something more serious?" asked Judge Niles, head of the Public Surveillance Unit and, in Hershey's opinion, probably the most astute mind in the room.

"Human sacrifice? The cult grabbing victims off the streets?" answered Hollister. "It's possible, but we think it's more likely that a lot of these are simple runaways. Juves or dropouts running off to join the cult."

"So they're actively recruiting now?" noted Buell, the gruff and no-nonsense head of the Special Judicial Squad, the division of the Justice Department charged with rooting out corruption within the force itself. "If they're recruiting, they must be organised. Do we have any idea of the kind of numbers they might have, or how they're organising or funding themselves?"

Hershey nodded in silent agreement. Typical Arthur Buell, his question cutting right to the heart of the issue.

"Nothing so far," admitted Hollister. "Grud knows we've rounded up enough of these loons, but the ones we're seeing so far are strictly small fry, lone kooks picking up on the Death cult vibes on the streets at the moment, or loosely associated local groups like street gangs or the odd kook collective. If there's a central leadership or organisation to the thing, we've yet to see any real hard evidence of it."

Ramos, the head of Street Division, shifted impatiently in his seat. "We've seen this kind of crap before, surely?" he said, with typical Street Judge bluntness. "Last month it was half the juves in the city painting red stars on their foreheads, calling themselves stuff like the 'Sons of Orlok', pledging their undying allegiance to East Meg One and swearing to avenge its destruction. This month it's worshipping the Dark Judges, and next month it'll be something else. Sick as it is, it's probably just another fad. Maintain control of it, round up a few of its most visible proponents and make examples of them, and it'll soon blow over, just like that whole 'Kool Kommunista' thing did."

Several heads round the table nodded in quiet agreement. Hershey looked towards the man sitting on the far side of the room, seated beside Cranston and amongst the other non-Council member divisional heads. Even though the accountant and these others had no right to a vote when it came to making Council of Five decisions, Hershey still welcomed the opinions of her divisional chiefs, especially when it came to matters relating specifically to their own division's field of expertise.

Like now, for example. When it came to anything to do with the Dark Judges, Hershey didn't believe in leaving any possibility unconsidered.

"Psi-Chief Shenker, Death and the rest of his super-creep buddies are supposed to be your bailiwick. What does Psi-Division have to add to everything we've heard so far?"

"Nothing much, Chief Judge," came the Psi-Chief's answer. "Whatever this supposed cult's activities involve, it doesn't seem to have generated any significant psi-presence to be picked up over the psychic white noise thrown out by a city of over four hundred million human minds."

"Nothing at all, then?" asked Hershey, aware of the thinly veiled sharpness in her voice. Psi-Division's success in predicting city-threatening disasters had been less than stellar, most notably in the case of the so-called "Doomsday Scenario" event of the previous year, when organised crime group the Frendz almost seized control of the entire city. Like many others within the Justice Department, Hershey's faith in Psi-Division's effectiveness had been severely tested by such events, which went a long way to explaining why Shenker had swiftly lost Psi-Division's long-held seat on the Council after Hershey's election to the position of Chief Judge.

The Psi-Chief, a quiet, slightly fussy man, paused, looking vaguely uncomfortable, before venturing an answer. "We have had one unsubstantiated pre-cog warning in the last few days, relating to a possible supernatural threat against the city, Chief Judge, although as far as we can tell, there's nothing in it yet to suggest any connection to the Dark Judges or this Death cult phenomenon."

"Just one?" queried Hershey, puzzled and slightly irritated. Whenever possible, Psi-Division policy was to cross-check possible pre-cog warnings from any of its operatives with any secondary visions picked up from other Psi-Judges, especially those amongst the Division's supposed powerful and specially trained pre-cogs. Usually, it took verification from several other Psi-Judges before the alarm bells would start ringing loud enough to be heard here within the Grand Hall of Justice.

"Who did the pre-cog warning come from?" asked Hershey, suspecting she already knew the answer.

"Well... Anderson," said Shenker reluctantly.

There was a series of muted sighs from several Judges in the room. Although no one questioned Anderson's psi-abilities - she was without doubt Psi-Division's top operative - her reputation could only be described as... troublesome, at best. She could be irreverent, highly strung, insubordinate, even downright mutinous at times, and was becoming increasingly questioning of Justice Department methods and policy. That was Anderson all over, and Hershey knew that she wouldn't be the first Chief Judge to have problems with Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson.

Nevertheless...

It had been Anderson who had dealt with Judge Death the first time he had ever appeared in Mega-City One, trapping his spirit within her own mind at a cost to herself which few here within the Council of Five chamber could ever possibly imagine.

When the other three Dark Judges had struck, freeing Death and slaughtering the inhabitants of an entire city block, it had also been Anderson who, along with Dredd, had stopped them. The pair had followed them back to the ghastly netherworld where the fiends had originally come from, and apparently destroyed them for good.

They had returned again once more, though, tricking Anderson into unwittingly bringing them back to life, but she had redeemed herself for that terrible mistake, devising a way of trapping them forever in extra-dimensional limbo. Or so it had seemed at the time.