The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse (26 page)

Martin came over to the table, looking from Joyce to Kayla and back. “I don’t think it’s an accident that she answered as the Angry Captain. I’ve suspected this for months, and when she took command in the college, I was ready to insist on the determination, but everything else changed before we could meet.” He put the empty bottle down and met Joyce’s blue eyes with his brown ones. “Joyce,” he said gently. “You’re arguing with yourself.”

“I’m not arguing with myself.” But Joyce sat and stared across the table as Kayla did the same.

Martin sat heavily in the third chair. “She takes command just like you did after the riots at my restaurant. Nobody voted for you and nobody opposed you because it worked. You saved hundreds of lives because you just knew what to do.” Martin nodded in Kayla’s direction. “She saved dozens of lives last night with her plan. Bert would’ve just headed straight at the front door, bravely leading the way in a stupid charge. Sounds like this Tevy kid would’ve done the same. You heard what he did at the crash site, charging the rippers when help had arrived and it wasn’t necessary. He just couldn’t help himself. He had to go get them.”

Jeff reclaimed his seat on the couch. “I want to meet Elliot. I don’t really remember me as a teenager, but I think I was a constant party.”

Kayla couldn’t help a smile. “He’s reckless and fun, but when you need him he’s like a rock.”

Jeff raised his beer in a toast. “Dependable Rogue, that’s me.” He reclined back on the couch, raising a puff of dust that tickled Kayla’s nostrils.

Joyce studied her map for a moment. “I bet Bert’s in the bunker.” She looked up to Martin. “I should tell him about this. He could keep maybe find Radu one night, make sure he doesn’t turn.”

“Allan’s here?” Kayla asked.

Joyce looked up with a frown. “None of your business.”

Jeff shook his head. “How’s he going to do that Joyce? He’s probably the most famous man in America. His YouTube broadcasts had millions of hits. You think the rippers wouldn’t recognize him and decapitate him ASAP?”

“He’s changed.”

Suddenly Kayla understood some of Joyce’s anger. Her lover wasn’t dead and he wasn’t alive. She couldn’t be free of him and move on with her life, and she had to watch him become less human with each passing year. What if that happened to Tevy? Kayla tried to think of something to say, something comforting, but all she could think of was the hope that Bertrand Allan would die soon, and that was unlikely to lift Joyce’s spirits.

Pounding feet on the stairs warned them that someone was coming in a hurry, and Kayla reflexively snatched her Uzi off the table and pointed it at the door. Basil burst through, and the normally implacable man looked more excited than Kayla had ever known him.

“Ripper tanks are moving up the Loop with their traitor troops following. We barely got here on time, I guess. It’s tonight. They’re coming for St. Mike’s tonight.”

Joyce hurried to grab her Uzi from the gun rack above Jeff, and they all pounded down the stairs, following Joyce’s lead, even though Kayla didn’t know where they were going. Apparently she wasn’t the only one.

“Where the hell are we going?” asked Jeff as they sprinted across the square to the church.

“To see Bobs. We need to coordinate this carefully.” Joyce didn’t excited or alarmed, and Kayla was impressed.

Joyce led them through the church and into a side door to the rectory, taking them deep into the building until they found a crowd in the hall outside the bishop’s conference room. Bishop Alvarez pushed out of the room, dressed in a simple black cassock, and even though Kayla didn’t know him, she guessed he was angry by the thundercloud expression. But he saw Joyce and broke into a smile.

“My Joyce. I’m so glad you have come to our rescue.” He hurried to make the Sign of the Cross and started to make the Sign of the Mountain but stopped halfway through the motion, perhaps catching the glare. She had been a leader at the Battle of the Mountain.

“Father, it’s so good to see you.”

“I wish we had time for a proper visit, but you are needed immediately.” He waved her into the busy conference room.

General Roberts, Bobs, stood at the head of a long oak table, maps and little flags and even toy tanks and trucks marking positions. The room stank of too many bodies in an era of no deodorant. It took Kayla a moment the recall that Bobs was only a year older, and yet there were already worry lines around her eyes. Her blonde hair was cropped very short, as if to warn men to stay away. She looked up when they entered.

“Joyce, perfect. You and your raiders can take and hold the Wells Street Bridge. I’ll send several detachments of St. Mike’s regulars to support you.”

Kayla suddenly saw an opportunity. She leaned close to Joyce and whispered, “Demand the Ericsians. Say you want to keep an eye on them.”

“What was that?” Bobs hadn’t missed that exchange and her attention fell on Kayla.

Joyce looked over with her own frown, studying Kayla, who nodded emphatically. “The Ericsians,” said Joyce to Bobs. “Kayla just reminded me that they’ve already followed her into a fight, and she’s one of my trusted captains. Send the Ericsians with us so that I can put them under her command.”

“Her command?”

“She can keep an eye on them for us. They trust her.”

Bishop Alvarez shook his head in frustration. “I don’t like allying ourselves with these unbelievers. They could end up spreading their false God among our good people.”

Kayla spoke up. “All the more reason to put them with us, then. They won’t be with your flock and at least some of the St. John’s people will be going home after this.”

But Alvarez wasn’t placated. “I don’t want them infecting St. John’s either. This cult is like a disease. It’s catching.”

Bobs shook her head. “There are at least five hundred of them right here in Chicago right now and lots more out west. I need them until Webb gets those Bradleys and Strikers here.” She turned her attention on Kayla. “Okay, you command the Ericsians. If they fuck up it’s on your head.”

Tevy and his friends pushed into the room, and Kayla had to hide a thrill at seeing him, had to push down the desire to touch. Luckily, Tevy took up a position across the table from her before he even noticed that she was there. But before he could speak or be spoken to, a stir outside announced the arrival of Mabruke and a half-dozen captains of the Ericsians. People had to push back into the corners to make room for all the new arrivals.

Mabruke was dressed so like Erics in a tight-fitting pin-striped suit that it might have been a statement to Bobs.
I am like Erics
.

Bishop Alvarez left with a swish of his cassock, pushing past Mabruke without a glance.

“Mabruke,” said Bobs. “Good of you to come.”

Mabruke stopped at the opposite end of the table, flanked by his captains, and clasped his hands. “The trinity has come together. It is clearly the time of great and terrible events.”

Bobs eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What trinity?”

“Why the Dormant Hero, the Angry Captain, and the Dependable Rogue, of course.”

“I thought Bert was the Dormant Hero. How the fuck could he be here?”

Kayla experienced a moment of panic. What if Tevy told her about Bertrand Allan? Even if he didn’t mean harm, even if he just thought he was clearing things up this would be a disaster. She caught his eye across the width of the table and tried to beg his silence without words or expression. Tevy met her eye and gave her a subtle nod.

“He means me,” he said to Bobs. “I had to take their determination. They wouldn’t trust me otherwise. I guess I answered the same way Bertrand Allan answered, so I’m supposed to be a portion of the same soul.”

“And I’m the Dependable Rogue.” Elliot slurred his words, and Jeff had to restrain a laugh.

“You?” Bobs’ outrage was focused on Tevy, but before she could say more, Mabruke interrupted.

“We have anti-tank weapons and a howitzer,” he said. “We only have illumination rounds for that, but perhaps Webb can find explosive rounds for us now that we’re allies.”

“A howitzer?” Bobs’ anger was diffused by the opportunity. “What, like a 777?”

“An older M198 but still quite functional, I can assure you.”

“Where the hell did you get that, and why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

“The Trinity has come together for the first time since the Battle of the Mountain. It is a time of great consequence, and we will put all of our efforts and weapons at their disposal. The Angry Captain has already used the LAWs to great effect.” He waved at Kayla with an open palm face up.

Kayla now found herself under Bobs’ withering attention, but she stood firm.

“So that’s why the Ericsians follow you.” Bobs looked down at her map. “Fine. I can make this work. You guys will cover the Franklin and Wells. Take these two with you,” she nodded in the direction of Tevy and Elliot. “Gonsalves and Chen will cover everything east of Clark.”

“What about La Salle?” asked Joyce.

“Right, you haven’t been here. The rippers pulled that bridge up one night about five years ago, just before dawn. We fought our way in there and jammed all the gears and stuff with bags of cement. It’s not ever coming down. Okay, we gotta move people. The Brat Pack will be my runners. Tevy and Elliot know them all.”

But Joyce wasn’t satisfied. “What about all the westbound bridges.”

Bobs shook her head. “Too many of them and too far away. Let them cross those if they want. They’ll have to come north and back across the river close to us, and there are a lot fewer bridges up here and those bridges are a lot closer to Old Town. Be ready to swing around to defend Kinzie and Grand, but that’s later. Right now you just don’t let them across Wells and Franklin. Those are your babies. Don’t blow them up unless you absolutely have to. We’re gonna need them when we go on the offensive.”

Kayla hurried out with the general flood of people, rushing out to the courtyard in front of St. Mike’s where Joyce pulled them all to a stop near the statue of St. Michael. Mabruke and his Ericsian captains had come with them, and everyone formed a circle around Joyce. The sun indicated about four o’clock. Jeff didn’t stop with them, heading for the blockhouse across the square, presumably to get the St. John’s people armed and moving.

Joyce addressed Mabruke. “Do you have transport?”

“I have several trucks fueled and ready to go just outside of the cantonment.”

“Okay, then get your people down to the river, as close as you can get. Kayla, you go with them and take the rest of your...trinity...and hold the Wells Street bridge. Do you know where that is?”

Kayla made an effort not to look too relieved to be given some responsibility. “I don’t, but he does.” She pointed to Tevy.

“The Merchandise Mart’s a problem,” he said. “The rippers have fortified the bottom two floors.”

Joyce gave him an irritated shake of her head. “Then unfortify it. I don’t care how, you just hold that bridge.” She may have been answering Tevy, but the order was to Kayla. But Joyce wasn’t finished. She took Kayla by the arm and led her away from the circle so that she could speak to her alone.

“If Tevy really does host a portion of the same soul as Bert, then think of him as a bullet: you point him in the right direction at the right time and you pull the trigger. Keep the Dependable Rogue, what was his name?”

“Elliot.”

“Keep Elliot close to Tevy. He’ll have a balancing influence that’ll keep him from doing anything crazy. Bert only got into trouble when he was left alone in a battle. Now go and go quickly.”

Kayla led them toward the Eugenie street gate, Tevy on one side and Elliot on the other, the Ericsians close behind. She was glad that she had no warning of this battle, no sleepless day worrying about tonight. She was well-rested and she had been trusted with a command that had a clear objective.

She was terrified only of failure.

Kayla hardly had time to think or plan, because once they reached the trucks of the Ericsians, it was only a ten minute drive down to where Tevy convinced her to stop. Many of the trucks were pickups with machine guns mounted in the backs, others were five-tons, the rear doors open in the heat to show troops sitting on benches.

For the last mile they traveled on Wells, they passed mostly older buildings, three- and four-story affairs of red or light-brown brick. Those didn’t worry her, because they couldn’t provide much cover for rippers, especially since a few of the structures were little more than burned-out husks, but ahead the rusting steel of the ‘L’ train curved in from the west and ran overtop of the street, blocking out the afternoon light. At night it would be a very dark tunnel. Tevy identified the hulking building on the right as her target, the Merchandise Mart, and it wasn’t hard to see why the rippers chose it. The building rose around twenty stories as far as she could tell. The lower floors were faced with permanent-looking gray stone, the rest of it was strong concrete. The large windows on the lowest two floors were completely sealed with concrete block, something done after the apocalypse. Like the windows at Atherley College, the bricklayers were amateurs, and for centuries the mortar that dripped down the sides of these newer walls would testify to the haste and incompetence of the workers. A domed turret on the corner gave it the appearance of a giant medieval castle.

“What about those?” she asked Tevy, pointing across the street at a high glass condo, only a few of the windows smashed. Behind it, rising far higher, towered a glass-and-steel office building. The upper ten floors looked to have burned out of control at some point, as evidenced by the exploded windows and smears of black covering the structure. The lower floors, however, looked untouched by the conflagration.

“Not held by the rippers as far as I know. There’s a smaller building fronting the street in front of the tall one back there.” Tevy pointed to the rusting overpass. “That’s the Merchandise Mart ‘L’ station. Up there we can shoot at the traitors in the Mart, but they can shoot us, too. Hey, do you think Radu made it down here last night?”