Chapter 48 – No Warning

  The sidearm bucked in his hands, held at such an odd angle and completely unsupported. But the soft innards of the demon served to muffle the report of the gun. Mostly. Vak hissed and screeched, which was even louder, and his long, segmented body tightened as his many, many fingers twisted and curled in agony. The nine-millimeter round must have been ricocheting through its body under the hood, slicing as it went. That was his hypothesis, anyway. But his chemistry teacher told him the foundation of science was repetition. So Cole fired six times before the screeches choked off. If the fortress hadn’t heard the gunshots, they’d definitely heard the demonic death rattle.

  He struggled against the corpse of the creature wrapping him, but either it was naturally weak to the petrification debuff of the fungal ogre spear or rigor mortis had already set in. The body was starting to ablate, but slow as sin. Unfortunately, it was still tightly wound around Cole, and still pinning his arm to his side. He pushed with his other hand and then struck the hard carapace with the butt of his sidearm—more out of frustration than any hope of it helping. But the thing wasn’t budging.

  Whatever poison coursed through his legs felt like he had a whole nest of fire-ants crawling under his skin. Strength and Resilience were among his lowest enhancement metrics, so getting caught in a tight grapple while poisoned was about the worst start to a fight that he could get. At least, aside from being sniped in the head from a few hundred yards away. But it wouldn’t matter that he’d somehow still managed to come out on top if he died from some stupid otherworld venom. The cold flash of a level-up gave him a moment’s reprieve from the burning sensation.

  A silhouette crested the ridge of the crater. Cole raised his sidearm but recognized the face behind the gas mask. He groaned and dropped his muzzle as Nona slid down into the crater. Beside him. Further out, he could hear shouts from the fort. Someone had heard the dying demon after all. Nona must have heard it too, because she peeked over the lip of the crater at the garrison and then dropped back down.

  “You’ve got a knack for missing the fighting,” said Cole as she slid back down next to him.

  “My classes aren’t combat oriented,” she said. “Two teams are coming with lanterns. We have a few minutes.”

  “Might not be enough time,” wheezed Cole. “This thing is on me tighter than a tick and seems none too eager to get gone.”

  Nona put her hands against the slowly dissolving flesh and Cole felt the subtle push of a charge being burned. Vak’s body wavered, twisted, and warped like it was being sucked into a black hole. Then, it vanished, and Cole fell the eight inches or so that he’d been held off the ground with a wet smack.

  Nona slumped over, breathing hard. Cole pushed himself up to a seated position.

  “Thanks. Was that one of your abilities?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d you do to it?”

  “Sent it back beyond the Scar.”

  Cole grunted and tried to bend his leg. But the pain was too great. He grit his teeth and exhaled.

  “Is it broken?” asked Nona, moving to his side.

  “The fucker bit me,” said Cole. “Poison.” He tried to reach around to his AIFAK, but his movements were getting sluggish. Nona pushed his hands away and pulled the aid kit off, opening it up and pulling out one of the general anti-venoms that Cole was getting way too much use out of. She stuck it in his leg and pressed the activator, and an instant wave of relief flowed into his leg.

  He gasped. “Oh thank fuck. How much time we got?”

  Nona peeked over the edge of the crater. “Maybe a couple minutes. Can you move?”

  Cole tested the leg again. It was stiff, but he could at least flex the muscles. The anti-venom had done nothing for the puncture wounds of the mandibles themselves, and they sent shocking waves of pain up his leg as he put weight on it. But he could move. He leaned forward, sweeping his hands through the puddle until he brushed something metal, and pulled an otherworld sidearm out of the muck. Wouldn’t do for the search party to find a new gun with no owner at the bottom of this crater.

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  “C’mon,” he said. He and Nona rolled over the southern edge of the crater and low-crawled back toward the trench, away from the lanterns bobbing in the mire outside the fort. Once they hit the trenches, they were able to move a little faster with Cole hobbling on a noticeable limp, making no noise except the sound of their heavy gas-mask breathing.

  “That ability that let you send away the body. How’s it work?” asked Cole, finally breaking the silence.

  Cole wasn’t sure the woman would answer with how long it took her to respond. “It’s called Banish,” she finally said. “Sends uninvited things back to their own world. Like the demons. Or Kickers.”

  “Well thanks for using it to help me. You were right, by the way. I just ID’d Leon. So all we gotta do is sneak you into the fort and get you to touch that kid and we can send him home?”

  She shook her hand. “It doesn’t work that way. He was summoned here. The Vaelian gods consented to having him in their demesne. Us? The Scarred? We’re invaders. Besides, it’s got a three-day cooldown.”

  “Holy shit. And I thought my three hours was long.”

  They stopped for a small breather. Cole leaned against the trench wall and hiked up his pant leg. The punctures were red and swollen, but weren’t bleeding and the worst of the pain had dulled.

  Nona crossed her arms. “I couldn’t get close to him anyway. That woman he’s with could spot me. I still can’t tell you what my other ability is. I shouldn’t have even told you about Banish. And I’m no good in a gun fight. My hands shake just from holding a gun.”

  “How’d you level up, then?” asked Cole.

  “Doing anything challenging or dangerous in a Lewis Field will push your enhancement level. Killing powerful things is just the most obvious way. But I dropped into Curahee with no gun, Cole. And survived for three days. It was plenty dangerous. Look, I know you don’t trust me. But I hope you can at least—”

  “Stop,” said Cole. “You may be a sneaky shady bitch, but you just saved my life and now we stand a chance at salvaging this shit-show of an op. That earns you a little credit. A little."

  Nona’s posture softened just a bit. “Thanks… I think.”

  “But,” said Cole, holding up a finger. “This lone wolf disappearing bullshit stops now. No matter how useful you are, no team is ever going to trust you if you put them at risk by vanishing to do whatever you want. Even if you’re right. Even if one mission might fail otherwise. You might get lucky once or twice. But in the long run, ignoring your chain of command will get Kickers killed. You’re glued to my hip until we’re back on Earth, unless I say otherwise. Either say yes and mean it or disappear again right now and don’t show your face again.”

  Nona glared daggers at him. A range of emotions played across her face.

  “Well?”

  “I’m staying,” she muttered.

  Cole pushed off the wall. “That was weak. You tell Moriarty about Leon?”

  “I tried to tell him he wasn’t with the convoy. He wouldn’t listen. Said his intel was good.”

  “Think vanishing without orders five seconds after parking the vics might have damaged your credibility?”

  Nona broke eye contact. But the answer on her face was clear as day.

  “Your skills and abilities are useful, Nona. That much is obvious. I can think of a dozen uses for someone who can slip into positions unnoticed. But a leader—even one like Moriarty—needs to be able to apply those skills in a way that supports the rest of the team.”

  Nona glanced back toward the fort. “Why’d he try to kill you, anyway?”

  Huffing a laugh, Cole looked over at Nona. “That overgrown brine star didn’t send Vak out to spy on Leon. The plan was to assassinate him. The Scarred want the hero out of the picture. If we try to extract him, it’s a risk. We could get caught, we could fail, and then Leon is recaptured and untouchable. But if a six-foot demonic centipede demon sinks its mandibles into a level zero kid? Well, that suits their goal just fine, doesn’t it?”

  “Almost like working with demons is a bad idea,” said Nona.

  “Yeah.” Cole looked out east, where somewhere thirty some-odd kilometers away, Moriarty’s side of the op was probably just as fubar in a few minutes. “Moriarty is clever. But the problem with clever people is they think they’re too clever to get tricked themselves.” Cole keyed his radio. “Don’t react,” he said. “Vak just tried to kill me. The demons are planning to kill Leon, not assist the extract. And we’re in their way.”

  “Holy shit,” said Roxy. Then, “Don’t worry, I look like I’m talking to Howie right now.”

  “What’s the play?” asked Besson. “We’re still outnumbered here. And we don’t know exactly how strong these guys are, but I feel like they wouldn’t have sent weaklings on this op.”

  Cole took a deep breath. “Here’s the FRAGO. We’re neutralizing partner force. Need to get you guys out into the trench where their numbers won’t matter. I’m open to ideas on how to do that. Then we’re extracting Leon Jacobs ourselves.”

  “I’ve got one idea,” said Howie. “You know those things in the tunnels we’re not supposed to think about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, what if we thought really, really hard about them?”

  Cole felt an evil smile start to form. “I think our friends would really, really not like that.”