Havoc

42 Death of a Cannibal

There was no time to waste. A few hours ago, they had gotten word of Katur’s death, but nobody could spare a moment for a service right now. Too many attackers, not enough defenders, and still more coming in. Dred had put Jael in charge of some Queenslanders, kissed him hard, and gone to fight on the other side of the territory.

Dred could look after herself; she’d managed fine before his arrival. It was hubris to imagine she needed him to protect her. Especially now. She’s as tough as you are.

That thought filled him with both reassurance and unease. What need would she have for him once the fighting stopped? Like a magician with one poor trick, now that he’d taught it to someone else, the demand for his services was sure to drop. Deeper in the station, he heard sirens blaring. Things had gotten so chaotic that he was no longer sure where the main battle was. The fire-extinguishing system engaged, spraying the corridor with water, though this wasn’t where the fires were burning. Men lay lifeless at his feet, but this was a momentary respite. The ones Dred had assigned to him were all dead.

Someone stepped out of the smoke, and he brought up his blades. He dropped them when he recognized Keelah. The female had been grim and uncommunicative since her mate’s death. Blood matted her fur, but he didn’t think much of it belonged to her. The water dripped through her pelt and came out tinged pink, running off down the faintly sloped metal floor.

“You all right?” he asked.

He told himself Dred was fine. Don’t worry about her.

She ignored the pleasantries. “Just mopping up. But there’s a group ahead that’s too big for me to handle on my own.”

“Is it what’s left of Mungo’s mongrels?”

Keelah nodded. “They’re quite mad. Even more than they were if you can fathom.”

“Pretty hard to believe. I’m with you. How many?”

“About twenty, I think.”

“You think the two of us can take them?”

“I’ve seen you fight. As long as they don’t have rifles, we should be fine.”

“Now there’s a terrifying thought.”

“You’re not afraid,” Keelah said. “For that, you’d have to fear death.”

He stared at her, astounded by her perspicacity. “You’re wrong, I do fear death.”

Her liquid eyes held a weight of unwelcome knowledge. “Just not your own. It’s worse when you lose someone you love.”

I don’t love her. But the words stuck in his throat, and there, they fluttered like the wings of panicked birds. Surely there was another name for the prickly barbs that twined him ever closer to Dred. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to speak the repudiation aloud. Keelah turned away, apparently losing interest in the conversation.

“We should go mop up,” he finally said.

The mongrels were looting. They had found one of the stashes that had belonged to the Warren and were rooting through the crates like animals. Jael found them disquieting because they had devolved to the point that they mostly communicated in gestures and grunts. He’d heard a few of them form actual words, but most didn’t bother. Their time in Perdition had turned them into lower primates.

Jael brought his rifle up and dropped two of them as quick as breathing. That alerted the others, and they spun as a mob, charging with primitive snarls. He shot another one as Keelah readied her weapons. His rifle beeped, indicating an imminent venting of heat, so he hurled it at the charging cannibal. The others bared their yellowed teeth in aggression and surrounded Keelah and him in a slavering pack. This group had sharp, untended nails with blood and filth caked beneath them, so long that they’d started to curve. A glimpse he soon regretted at their bare feet revealed toenails in the same state. And the smell alone was nearly enough to kill him. The plus side of these beasts was that they didn’t waste time with threats.

One snapped at him with fetid teeth, while two more lunged. He’d seen how they operated before. Two held the prey while another tore out its throat. But that wasn’t happening here today. He avoided the two grabs, then slammed the mongrels together. As one stumbled, Keelah’s small blade lashed out and sliced from throat to thigh. Blood gushed from the wound, and the man fell. His comrades kicked his corpse out of the way.

They’d eat you later, mate. But that’s not happening, either.

Jael had been afraid Keelah would get in his way, but she proved an able partner, finishing up when he disabled one. Her blade flashed again and again in swift, accurate kills.

Jael lashed out with a kick and followed with a wheeling blow that ended with a broken neck. Another enemy hit the ground. Though his reflexes weren’t what they had been, it was child’s play to anticipate their strikes. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, and Jael was everywhere. His hands and feet blurred into endless death, and when he finally stopped moving, there was a pile of bodies at his feet.

“You have the battle madness,” she said.

“I have all the madness. Shall we see if we can find the others?” He considered for a moment, wondering about something belatedly. “Why were you on your own?”

“I thought it would be better to die in battle,” she said quietly. “I miss Katur.”

“I don’t think he’d be very pleased if you just gave up.”

Her muzzle pulled away from her teeth. “What do you know? Our faith teaches that lovers are reunited in death. He would be happy to see me.”

That seemed backward, but Jael had been courting death for a long time, enough to understand where she was coming from. It had taken being sent to a place like Perdition for him to learn how to live. Now he was fighting, not just to find a way out of here, but to do something other than kill people who deserved to be put down. That was a tempting idea, actually, but playing judge, jury, and executioner had gotten Dred sent here in the first place.

To Keelah, he finally said, “Then I hope you find a worthy death if that’s what you’re seeking. Do you know where the others are?”

She shook her head. “Dred was fighting on her own when I saw her last.”

Dammit. Despite himself, he remembered what had happened to Einar. The Dread Queen might have half of his healing ability now, but neither one of them was invincible, and Vost had given them a hard fight; Mungo and Silence hadn’t made it any easier. She had to be exhausted since she still possessed a full human’s need for sleep.

“Hurry.” He tried to pretend he wasn’t worried, but from the sharp look the female sent him, she wasn’t fooled.

“I hear something . . .” The alien cocked her head.

Jael listened, but he detected nothing besides common station noises. It was unusual to find someone with sharper senses than his own. “What?”

“Combat. It seems there are a few stragglers who don’t mean to surrender.”

“They’re animals,” Jael muttered.

“I’ve heard your people say that about mine, more than once.”

“My people?” He smiled slightly. “You’re mistaken. I have none.”

“You’re human, aren’t you?” She stepped closer, as if he’d piqued her curiosity, and she circled him, whiskers prickling as she investigated by scent.

“Not exactly.”

“Interesting. There’s another layer.”

Do I smell different? Cleaner than Mungo or Silence’s lunatics, definitely. In any case, it wasn’t the time for explanations. “We should move.”

Keelah led the way since he couldn’t hear the battle. They ran two hundred meters, then the sounds reached him. Jael closed his eyes, listening for Dred’s voice, but he heard nothing that made him think she was nearby. Then a muttered curse rang out. That’s Tam.

“It’s Mungo, with the last of his holdouts,” Keelah said, as they closed the distance.

“You know what Mungo smells like?”

She shivered. “I could never forget. His people hunted us for food. With Grigor, it was hate . . . and sport.”

Before he could reply, the hallway opened up. This was abandoned territory, claimed by no one, and Mungo’s crew had already soiled it. Scraps of flesh, bits of skin, and gnawed bones littered the floor. I’ll be so glad when this asshole dies. At the moment, however, Mungo had a hand around Tam’s throat and was squeezing the life out of him. Four of his men looked on with slavering anticipation. They were so focused on the kill that they didn’t spot Jael or Keelah.

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Jael whispered.

He dropped to one knee, got out his rifle, and shot Mungo in the face. His hands went slack as Tam dove away. The rest charged as Jael fired two more bursts. One cannibal down. Keelah killed one with a vicious swipe of her knife, and Tam jabbed his blade into another’s back. The last one left alive tried to run, and Tam tackled him. The spymaster wasn’t usually much for hand-to-hand combat, but from the bruises and bite marks on him, he wanted the pleasure of this death, so Jael stood back while he worked.

“That was a timely arrival,” the smaller man said a few minutes later, wiping his blade. “Thank you.”

“Thank Keelah. She heard the fight.”

A few seconds later, Dred ran into the room, covered in blood, but from what Jael could tell, she was in one piece. She seemed almost disappointed by the fact that Mungo was already on the ground. “I guess you don’t need me after all.”

Jael crossed to her and leaned his forehead against hers. “That’s a filthy lie, and you know it. Back to Queensland, love?”