Hero's Curse (11 page)

“Aidan, what happened to the sonic boom?”

He beamed like a doting parent showing off a newborn. He was proud of what he had accomplished. “The speed of sound at sea level is three hundred forty meters per second. I found stock factory shotgun rounds with a muzzle velocity of three hundred thirty. There is not enough sonic energy in a shotgun blast to melt lead. The heat generated was only enough to make the lead warm to the touch. There is an upside because this allows us to use copper jacketed lead slugs with retractable stabilizing fins. With these finned, saboted slugs, your shotgun has one minute of angle accuracy at one hundred yards; that is, it will shoot one inch groups at that distance. Tim and I had to custom fabricate these slugs for you. We were able to make seventy-five rounds. Most Redcaps don’t wear armor, but if you meet one with a breastplate, a copper jacked slug should go through it. Military Police Systems makes a frangible, fin stabilized, armor piercing round that explodes with a nine foot blast radius.” He stopped and gave a sigh of regret. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to make high explosive rounds.

“Here now, why don’t you test fire a few slugs? Behind the rear ghost ring, there is a flip up adjustable peep sight you can use when targeting anything from fifty to three hundred yards. Since the target is only forty feet away, you are probably better off using the ghost ring.”

I changed to a box magazine. From forty feet away, I put three rounds into the same hole. Was it wrong to be in love with God’s will? While shooting, I felt an intense urge to go to Pioneer Park. I’d never been there before, my urge made no sense. I decided to ignore it. I practiced quickly switching out magazines. My need to leave got stronger. I remembered Pioneer Park was where the Redcaps were. ‘Shit!’ I wasn’t going to have much time preparing.

“Aidan, I’ve got to go.”

Aidan’s expression became all business. “Tim and I need you to say we have permission to touch your gear. Give us all your magazines and we’ll reload them for you. I don’t know if you have noticed but you have a Camelbak-style backpack. You have got four liters of Gatorade inside. We have added a couple extra cups of sugar to the Gatorade. You are going to find your calorie needs are four to five times higher than they were before.”

I walked over to Tim to hand him the shotgun. He jerked away like it was on fire. “Oh yeah, it’s okay for Tim and Aidan to touch my stuff.”

As I handed Tim my gun, he began giggling, “Mr. Paladin, you gave me permission to touch your stuff”.

I looked at him with every ounce of irritation I was feeling. He kept giggling.

Aidan cleared his throat. When I looked over, he looked almost as pained as me. “Your visor is mirrored; you can see out, no one else can see in. There is a spell on the visor to make it work like night vision and thermal imaging goggles, and another spell to keep it from getting dirty or fogged up. It is strong enough to resist small caliber bullets.”

Tim got the hint and shut up. He turned to a table up against the wall and started reloading my magazines. The urge to get to Pioneer Park was almost overwhelming. I knew I couldn’t leave until I had all my reloads.

Aidan interrupted my chain of thought. “Victor. Say, ‘Gecko’ and your boots will stick to whatever surface they are on. Say, ‘Gecko’ again and they will stop sticking.”

“Gecko.” I tried to move my feet. I was able to rip one foot off the ground but I had to use all my strength.

“You need to peel your foot off starting from the heel and going to the toe like you have sticky tape on the bottom of your feet. Make sure you keep your weight forward to make the motion smooth, not jerky.” I followed his advice; there still was some resistance but not nearly as much as before. When I got to the wall, I tried to curl my toes up and keep my body parallel to the wall. It didn’t work. I didn’t have enough flex in my boots and the balance point was all wrong.

I tried keeping my feet flat to the wall, letting my body go horizontal to the ground. I was glad I had super strength. I could feel the strain on muscles on the front of my leg, thigh, and torso, but it was doable. I got to the ceiling and hung upside down. I said, ‘Gecko.” As I dropped, I twisted in the air and landed on my feet. Immediately, I sprang seven feet through the air to the closest wall shouting, “Gecko!” I landed and stuck. I yelled gecko twice, first to release from the wall and then again in the air to stick to the ceiling. I mouthed ‘Gecko’ without making an audible sound; I dropped to the ground.

I was having so much fun I could almost ignore my compulsion to get to the Redcaps. “Aidan, these boots have to take a lot of energy. How long can they stick before they give out?”

“Believe it or not Victor, they don’t use extra energy. The boots use the same forces geckos use to stick to walls. Plastic wrap works on the same principle—van der Waals, or electrostatic interaction. Your boots and a gecko’s foot have microscopic hairs called setae which are tipped with even smaller hairs called spatulae. There are so many of these hairs causing so much surface to surface interactions, a two ounce gecko can theoretically stick to a wall with over ninety pounds of force. The setae are even self-cleaning. Each of your boots stick to the wall with five hundred pounds of force. The only thing you cannot stick to is Teflon. Water significantly decreases the effect—from five hundred pounds of force to about three hundred.

“I have to warn you; you weigh a lot more than you think. To be sure, paladin bones and muscles are much denser than a normal man’s. You weigh at least fifty pounds more than you did before you turned. There is quite a bit of Mithril plate in your leathers. With all your gear, you’re probably close to three hundred pounds. Be careful on wet surfaces.”

Tim exclaimed, “I’m done!”

Aidan started speaking faster. “Let’s get all of your magazines including the ones that usually hang on your belt into your backpack. It wouldn’t do for a police officer to stop you on the way to the park. Your shotgun has a name, Sanguinis. Call her, and she will come. Say her name while holding her and Sanguinis will return to the safe in my office. We’ll watch for it. If you run out of ammo, send it here and we will switch out your magazine. Try to give us at least thirty seconds. Leave her here until you get to the sewers. There are three extra twenty round drums in your backpack besides the two from your utility belt and the four box magazines. ”

Aidan helped Tim stuff all the magazines into my backpack while it was still on my back.

“While researching assault weapons, I came across the concept of a tactical light. All paladin gifts can glow. I cannot believe I never thought of using light as a weapon.” Aidan actually started chortling with delight. I was struck again by his uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. “The inside of Sanguinis’ barrel, firing pin, and bolt have a mirror finish and God’s will never gets tarnished. Say, ‘Lumen’ and the barrel will work like a flashlight. ‘Lux’ will cause blast of light as bright as anything put out by a military style tactical light.”

Aidan picked up my shotgun. “See this button here by the trigger?” When I nodded he continued. “It takes thirty pounds of pressure to release it, so it is it’s hard to set off by accident.” He pushed it and an eight-inch bayonet shot out of the rectangular sheath below the barrel. “The blade pops out with four hundred pounds of pressure.” He gave an embarrassed shrug. “You’ll have to retract it. I don’t have the strength to pull against a four hundred pound spring with one hand. You brace the buttstock on your hip like this, keep the release button pushed in with one hand, and then use the other to pull back the bayonet.” He showed me how to brace the buttstock against my hip to get the leverage.

“Anything in your pockets will transfer when you switch from regular clothing to your armor and back. This includes your cell phone. If you need help, call us. While you were asleep, I worked on your phone. You’ll have a signal even deep underground. I put my number on speed dial; it’s #9. Tim is #8.”

Aidan gestured toward the way out. I began to run until I realized that he couldn’t keep up. He made it up the stairs, huffing and puffing, as quickly as he could. When we reached the ground floor he gasped, “Whistle, or call out ‘Harley’ and your mount will be waiting for you. Your compulsion to do Jehovah’s will is not all bad. It will lead you to where you need to go. You can depend on it to find the Redcaps.”

Chapter 8: Redcaps

I whistled for Harley as soon as I got to street level. Aidan and Tim stayed in the lobby as I ran outside. I guess with a paladin in town, their compulsion to fight monsters was gone. I was good with that. I didn’t trust Tim to have my back and I wanted Aidan here to get me reloads if I needed them.

Outside, I heard the distinctive sound of a Harley-Davidson idling. I followed the sound to the alleyway behind the store. My mount was a pristine black and chrome Competition Hot 1969 Sportster. I was starting to like my leprechaun armorer. I took off due west in the direction Joey wanted me to go. The top speed of this bike was supposed to be 112 mph. I had a feeling my mount could go faster. I made sure to ride only a couple miles above the speed limit. I didn’t need to be pulled over by a cop.

It only took a few minutes to get to Pioneer Park. Most of the people in the Park looked like they were homeless. They were clustered in groups and looked scared. I parked next to a manhole cover. If my mount hadn’t been God’s will made manifest, I probably would have worried about leaving it parked on the street.

Some of the homeless watched me go into the sewers. I didn’t care. They weren’t the kind who would report me to the authorities. I made sure to pull the cover back into place before I dropped down. Thankfully, it smelled like I had dropped into a storm drain rather than an actual working sewer. It made sense. Redcaps wouldn’t want to live in shit anymore than I would. It was in the middle of summer, the drain was completely dry.

Aidan hadn’t been kidding when he said my visor would work like enhanced night vision goggles. Sunlight glimmered through the small openings of the manhole cover above me. I could make out details for about twenty feet in varying shades of green and black. In the distance, further out in the darkness, a couple of small red glowing lights moved over the floor and walls. They had to be rats. The drain was made out of brick that had been hand-mortared into place. This drain had probably been built in the late 1800’s. At one point, it had been a perfect circle ten feet in diameter. Over the years, dirt, leaves, and everything else that washes into storm drains had built up at the bottom of the drain leaving a flat area about four feet wide.

“Sanguinis.” In an instant, my shotgun was in my hands. I could hear the rumblings of traffic on the street above me, and noise from the rodents that made the tunnel their home. I walked into the darkness. After thirty feet, the only light was from the body heat of the rats. Luckily there were enough of them; I could usually see where I was going. I was in their territory and they weren’t frightened. Most didn’t move away until I was just a few feet away from them. One particularly brave rat attacked me; after I stomped down, the hot blood that splashed from its body brightened the tunnel for a few seconds. Its death squeak brought other rats. By the time I was ten feet away, a seething ball of small red lights was fighting over its remains.

I wasn’t putting out any of my own light. Despite the summer heat, I was perfectly comfortable in my leathers. My armor was climate controlled and opaque to infrared. I made a note to myself to ask Aidan how it was powered. Was there a magical battery? Was it powered by kinetic motion? Was there some sort of inter-dimensional heat sink?

When I came up to the first intersection, I pulled out my phone. It was so dark the light from my screen seemed like a beacon. Magic was useful; my cell signal was great. I turned on my GPS app and set it to track my movements. Getting lost down here would suck. I quickly put my phone back in my pocket so the screen wouldn’t make me a target.

There was no sign of Redcaps until I approached the fourth intersection; then I heard voices coming from my right. I didn’t recognize the language. I mouthed ‘Gecko’ and quietly walked up the wall to my right. I was about eight feet off the ground when I squatted into a crouch. I was so still a rat crawled over my back. This was a good thing; it meant I looked like an inanimate object.

I was on the wall for three minutes. I wondered if I had made a mistake. My muscles were getting fatigued and on the verge of cramping when two figures walked into view. They were short, at most five foot three. Their body temperature was higher than a normal human’s. They were like light bulbs. My infrared vision made their wool caps look black. My compulsion told me to kill them. I fired twice at the back of their heads and since I was at most ten feet away from them, I didn’t miss. They dropped instantly. “Gecko.” I jumped to their bodies and released my bayonet. I stabbed both bodies through the heart. After dealing with the troll that wouldn’t die, I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. Neither body reacted. They were both dead.

Both Redcaps were laying face forward on the ground. The double-ought buckshot had turned the backs of their heads into mush. I turned them over. They looked like Popeye’s cousins; the same short stature with oversized forearms, beady eyes, potato like nose, and jutting jaw. Their stench was horrible, which made sense. Their wool caps were always soaked with blood and had never been washed.

One was armed with a six foot long spear made out of a single billet of iron. The other had a quiver of six iron javelins and an iron club that looked like it could be used as a spear thrower. With my new found super strength, it was hard for me to judge how much things weighed. I guessed with all that metal, the spear had to weigh at least forty pounds, and a javelin fifteen. The Redcaps had to be as strong as me, if not stronger. Even with armor, getting hit by either spear or javelin would suck.