The second dark ages box.., p.60
The Second Dark Ages Boxed Set, page 60
part #1 of The Second Dark Ages Series
Michael looked up at a window and nodded before returning his attention to his surroundings.
“You don’t have to go with us.” Michael looked at Sabine, who was busy ignoring him for the fifteenth time since they left Germany. Finally, she turned, Michael thought her eyes would have been fire-red if she were a vampire.
“If you tell me one more time you don’t want me to go with you, Bethany Anne is going to be waiting awhile for you to heal from me sticking the Jean Dukes special up your ass and pulling the trigger!”
Michael’s eyebrows raised as he turned to Akio. “What’d I say?”
Akio kept his face passive, but he was laughing on the inside. “I believe your effort to keep her safe is being taken as you telling her you don’t believe she can do the job.”
Michael turned back to Sabine, his mouth open. She was pointing to him. “Just one more Gott Verdammt word, Mr. ArchAngel.” She pointed toward the black building. “You can use my skills right now, and if I die in there, then I’ll fucking die taking down yet another level of dickheads that need taking out. You need to realize that you can’t do everything. You need a team.” She moved her hand to her pistol. “Even if any of your team die, we’re fucking doing it because we wouldn’t be any-fucking-where else than right by your side.”
Michael reached up and pulled the brim of his cowboy hat down just a bit. “Sabine, I’m proud to have you fight with me.” He turned and started walking down the street. Akio to his left, Sabine on his right.
“Damn right you’re proud,” she told him.
Then she added a moment later, “Now let’s work on not dying, ok?”
The first shot was fired from inside the building. Well, at least that is what is universally assumed. The sheer amount of firepower unleashed by the three people on the street immediately after one or more shots came from the building, so overwhelmed those inside that no one could determine anything after that first shot.
“Wait until you see the red in their eyes,” Harry directed the men and women peeking through the shutters over the windows. “I’ll give the signal.”
“How the hell are we going to see any red in their eyes?” George asked. “It’s fucking noon outside, full sun, and these guys and girl are vampires. We sure about them being vamps?”
“Hey, didn’t you see what’s-his-face with the hat just appear?” someone called from the hallway near the south wall.
“Could be dust in my eye,” came a reply.
“We’ve got forty guns, they have three.”
“Six,” George corrected.
“Whatever,” Harry told him. “Just wait until I say ‘go.’”
“Go?” someone asked.
Harry jerked around. “No!”
Too late; the man had fired a shot down the street. SHIT! Harry turned back, but it was in motion already. The wall erupted in explosions as if those people were using machine guns that were chambered with .50-caliber rounds.
Mercs hit the floor, and no less than three bodies exploded near Harry in a torrent of blood and guts as rounds found them.
It was all anyone could do to roll backward away from the windows and walls and make their way toward the stairs to go down into the center of the building where the weapons wouldn’t be able to penetrate.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Terry yelled, an arm over her head as she raced down the stairs after Harry.
“Goddamned better guns than we got!” he fumed.
Leo was watching between the blinds in his little apartment. He had seen people leaving the street and not coming back for the last hour. At first, he thought it was his group that had caused the concern.
However, news came down that a lot of mercenaries were moving into the blood-baggers’ building, and they had closed their protective window covers. They were getting ready for a fight; everyone could sense it.
“Hooooly shit,” he muttered when the spacecraft came floating down into the middle of the street right in front of him. “Oscar!” In a few seconds his partner hurried into the room, tucking his shirt in.
“What?” he asked, coming up to the window and looking down through the slats. “Who the hell?”
“I think we know just who killed Thomas and Noah.”
“Fuuuuuuck meee,” Oscar whispered when a third person, a man in a long coat and a hat, just…appeared next to the other two. “You ever hear of someone who can be invisible?”
Leo was shaking his head, but his mouth said, “Yes…”
Oscar looked at him. “Who?”
“Oh my God,” Leo whispered. The man seemed to look right at him and tip his hat. “Tell everyone to stay the hell away from those three.”
“Why?” Oscar asked, and Leo looked at him. “Hey, I’m not saying I won’t, but a guy’s got to learn sometime, right?”
“Because,” Leo pointed down to the three on the street as the vehicle lifted off again, “if I’m right, that is the baddest motherfucker on our planet.” Leo looked back outside just as they stopped talking and started down the street. “All we need to do is cleanup and stay out of their way.” He added a moment later, “Not necessarily in that order.”
“He got a name?”
Leo’s head nodded. “Dark Messiah. Before that, ArchAngel. Before that, the Patriarch. But his first one was Michael.”
Oscar watched them walk down the street. “That’s a lot of names.”
Chapter Nineteen
Under Kurobe Dam
Once they had made it into the second chamber, their journey became much faster, unimpeded by water now.
Ichika looked around with the curiosity and wonder of a child who had never experienced such a world. “Looks like Eve’s calculations were correct,” she remarked as the group traipsed through the deserted corridors.
Jacqueline grunted in acknowledgment, distracted.
“What is it?” Mark asked her, noticing her quietness.
Jacqueline glanced through the open doors at the deserted labs and offices. “Don’t you think it’s strange that we haven’t seen any dead bodies in here?” she wondered out loud.
Mark slowed his pace suddenly, and Riku slammed into the back of him, jolting him forward. “Ugh,” Mark grunted involuntarily as the wind was knocked from his lungs.
“My apologies.” Riku bowed, blushing at his lack of situational awareness.
Akari swatted him on the arm. “Some silent warrior you are,” she chuffed, rolling her eyes dramatically.
Jacqueline and Ichika sniggered quietly to themselves.
Mark was distracted, though. “You have a point, Jacqueline. Perhaps we should let Yuko know while we’re searching this place? It does seem a bit odd.”
Jacqueline nodded. “Ok, I’ll do that,” she agreed, pulling the strange communication device she had been given out of her pocket as they continued walking.
Just then something caught her eye up ahead. “Hey,” she said, getting Mark’s attention again. “This looks promising,” she said, nodding toward a set of double doors.
Ichika frowned. “How can you tell?” she asked, curious as to what other strange superpowers these people really had.
Jacqueline smiled. “I spent a long time scavenging for technology back in my country. One develops a sixth sense for these things.”
Ichika raised her eyebrows. “Oh,” she said quietly, noticing that Akari was watching her strangely. “What’s up with you?” she asked as they followed Jacqueline and Mark into the server room.
Akari shook her head. “Nothing,” she said simply, following Ichika into the computer room and pretending to be immersed in the new environment of computer stacks.
Mark was already walking around the array, searching for the most strategic place to plug in.
Jacqueline looked around, a little out of her depth. “Honey?” she called. “I think I’m going to take a walk. See if there are any other clues about what really happened down here.”
“Uh huh,” Mark grunted, already on his hands and knees in front of a particular stack. He clipped something into place and a fan powered up. “Ok. Be careful. Take someone with you,” he added. “And let Yuko know what’s going on, would you?”
Jacqueline was already through the door before the two girls realized what was going on and decided to follow her.
Halfway down the corridor, they had just come from, they managed catch up to her. Ichika looked at Jacqueline as they strode. “Mark is your husband?” she asked naively.
Jacqueline shook her head. “Boyfriend,” she corrected, before suddenly becoming suspicious. “Why?”
Ichika shook her head. “Making polite conversation,” she protested, suddenly remembering that Eve had warned her about Jacqueline’s jealous streak.
Jacqueline relaxed a little, but remained on edge, as she fiddled with the communicator. “Right,” she mumbled, trying to get it to connect.
Akari was silent as she followed them.
Jacqueline finally connected with Eve. “Eve, hi. We’re in.”
Peckham, England
The first shot whiffed right by Michael’s ear, his head jerking to the left while his right hand grasped the pistol butt and yanked. He had already sent four antigrav pulse-generated slivers of hot metal streaming back toward the building he believed the shot came from.
His eyes could see the implosion of the wall as his, Akio’s, and then Sabine’s shots destroyed that location.
Six guns, all turned up to the highest level each person could handle, started streaming shots down the street. They walked the shots to the left and right, each person taking an area based on their own location. Akio to the left, Michael in the middle, and Sabine on the right.
They walked down the street, continuing to fire.
The big building’s brick facing was crashing to the street in front. Large gaps were being torn in bricks that had been there for hundreds of years by the fusillade of firepower destroying the outside. Anything inside was being pulverized as rounds ripped through walls to destroy what they could.
“Out,” Akio commented. He calmly pulled out new magazines and put them in his pistols while Michael used his left gun to pummel the building in Akio’s area. A second later Akio was back online and Michael took a moment to replace his own magazines. When he was done, Sabine took a turn and reloaded.
“These fucking hurt,” Michael bitched as they reached the front of the building. He slid his right pistol into its holster and flung his hand back and forth. “Hellacious kick.”
“Pussies.” Sabine laughed.
“Try turning yours up to eleven,” Michael told her. She looked at him, then looked at the setting on her pistol.
Six.
Eleven? “Oh, hell no! I take that back.”
“Thought so,” Michael told her. “You can stop. Everyone is farther inside the building now.
Sabine shot twice more and ceased fire, then watched as a chunk of the wall three stories up slowly slid off and dropped to the ground, crashing into the other chunks of brick. “Wow, now I know why guys like destruction so much.”
“It is addictive,” Michael agreed.
You going to watch out for her? He sent to Akio.
Hai.
Good, I don’t need another verbal attack for caring.
Akio chuckled. You need to stop saving people who then become willing to die with you.
I don’t think I’m responsible for this one. You are the one who taught her how to shoot.
Hai.
That’s it?
What else would you have me say? You are right, I taught her how to shoot.
Just…just watch her, Michael finished, then stepped into the building.
Michael could feel the pain, the emotions of those beneath him in rooms under the ground. He read the thoughts, the agonies, the desires to die as machines sucked their blood out.
Some of whom he felt deserved it, many of whom did not.
His eyes flared red and he turned back around. “Akio!”
“Hai!” Akio turned from speaking with Sabine, his eyebrows raised in question.
Michael reached down and unbuckled his holsters’ belt. “Take these. I’m not going to need them.”
Akio noticed the granite in Michael’s eyes and nodded. “We will be outside.”
“What?” Sabine hissed, but stopped when Akio’s hand sliced in front of her. Michael had turned around and was walking into the building.
Akio looked at her. “You have met a man who has been softened.”
Sabine snorted. “Softened?”
“Somewhat,” Akio clarified. “The Patriarch is here, so we need to step back.”
Sabine looked around. “Like, literally?”
An explosion shook the inside of the building, and a portion of the roof seemed to crumble, pieces raining down across the street and bouncing off walls.
“Never mind,” Sabine answered her own question, and the two took off running across the street, aiming for an alley.
Down the street, Leo and Oscar whistled as they watched the roof explode. “That man is pissed.”
Leo had a smile on his lips, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I think he just found out about the captives underground.”
“Why?” Oscar asked. “He doesn’t like other vampires hurt?”
“Boy,” Leo shook his head, “that guy is honor personified. He would do that if you were strapped there.”
First, there were explosions…
Then there was FEAR. The feeling that hit those who had made it down from the third floor had to work hard to stop their minds from gibbering.
The fear caused Harry and everyone around him to struggle to get up and move as parts of the roof collapsed.
Harry made an effort to get on his feet and moved from desk to table to chair to the wall and the switch. It was one of those old-time switches; it looked like a handle with two braces coming down. He grabbed the top and smiled, holding the handle as he turned to the video feed and saw a human in a black coat and hat walk through the hallway into the large outer room which was just on the other side of the wall from where he and his people were making their last stand.
When the dark man walked into the middle of the room, Harry grinned.
“Welcome to my lair, motherfucker!” he said as he yanked down on the switch, sending millions of volts of electricity arcing around the room on the other side of the wall. “Survive that, you sonofabitch!”
The fear stopped and palpable relief washed through the teams.
That’s when the laughing started. All eyes turned toward the door.
Michael felt the ionization in the air before the electricity started arcing throughout the room.
He reached out, dropping his fear as he focused everything he had on trying to pull the electricity through his hands. “Don’t you dare mess up my coat, and leave my damned hat alone!” he said menacingly to the power surging through him, “or I’ll figure out how to ground you in another dimension!”
The power he was shunting wasn’t nearly as strong as the many lightning bolts Michael had handled on the ship in the storm. However, it was still enough that he moved some of it to the Etheric before he aimed his left hand at the door to the room and released half the power he was channeling.
He never noticed he was laughing.
The door exploded inward, bouncing over a desk and landing ten feet to Harry’s right. His eyes went from the remains of the door to the doorway, and the bright white person who was walking in.
That was when electricity started arcing around the room.
Harry pushed up on the switch. Even he could see that giving more ammunition to this monster was a bad idea.
He reached for his pistol.
Michael read the minds of those around him, flitting from head to head and striking those first who had their wits about them.
He casually threw out his left hand, frying the leader in the back of the room who had disconnected the power in an attempt to rob Michael of any more ammunition.
“Fool,” Michael said as he ransacked the man’s mind for any news of the Duke. “Dammit!”
He was done here. Flinging out his arms, he sent tendrils of electricity through everyone in the room. Twice guns fired, once because one of the mercenary’s fingers convulsed and pulled the trigger. “That’s bad gun safety,” Michael told no one in particular.
The second exploded; due to the electricity, Michael presumed.
In ten more seconds he sent his last bit of electricity out, and silence reigned. He listened for any minds near him and found none that weren’t in extreme pain. Over to his left, a light fixture broke off from the ceiling and crashed to the floor.
Michael touched all the minds and walked around the room, nudging a couple to make sure they were dead. Even his mind was a little messed up for the moment.
He reached up and took his hat off. He looked it over and smiled. The few marks that had appeared just gave it more character, he thought. There had been something silver on the side.
It was melted now.
He wiped his skull and slid the hat back on. He wanted to help those below before… He turned, listening to a comment from Akio.
Walking back toward the front, he sought the minds Akio had found and then nodded.
Come, he sent to the people who were ready to rush the building to honor those who had fallen and those they sought to help.
The police who had been at the end of the road were making their way here.
They never saw the man leave, but they found the results of his fury. In the lower levels, some bodies were so emaciated it made hardened men and women cry.
Why hadn’t they done something sooner?
It is enough, a voice told them as they sought to help those they could, that you are here now.
Over in the corner, Leo turned from his partner and reached up, drying the tears that had overcome his ability to keep them from falling.
