Hammer of Angels Read online

  One of those ships has been besieged by a large company of proslavery militiamen in Cherbourg, where we’re going anyway. Our updated orders instructed us to assist the captain and crew and to protect the Jewish passengers.

  I asked Brando why the German authorities didn’t fight the militia themselves.

  “Us,” he answered. “We’ve given the Fritzes more than they can cope with. It’s the Wild West out here.”

  Now we’re a few minutes away from Cherbourg. The sky is brightening, so I switch off my night vision. Out of curiosity, I turn on my infrared and—hey—whaddaya know?

  “Smoke! Over there.” I indicate a column of heat rising from the far side of town. “Is that where the docks are?”

  Grey leans forward. “Yeah, that’s them, all right.” He watches for a moment. “Wow, they’re really going at it.”

  I shift my head so I can see Falcon in the rearview. His eyes are closed. “Should we roust F-Bird?”

  “It’s okay, I’m awake,” Falcon says. “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost,” Brando says. He points out the windshield. “What’s that?”

  Directly ahead is a large heap of hay bales and old furniture. Militiamen stand behind and around the heap. It’s a roadblock made out of whatever odds and ends these putzes could lay their hands on. I press the gas pedal to the floor and put my seat belt on. My companions follow suit, then Grey and Falcon draw their pistols. I open the windows so we won’t be shredded if they break.

  The buttheads on the roadblock don’t realize how fast we’re moving until it’s too late. The Caddy’s four thousand pounds of Detroit thunder bashes through their pathetic pile of bedknobs and broomsticks like an all-state quarterback gliding through a sorority. My luckless victims all wear brown shirts, black armbands, and expressions of anguish and terror as I crush them under my pounding radials. The Barge accepts this abusive driving so gracefully that I wonder if the engineers at Cadillac actually had the foresight to consider how their vehicles would perform while ramming a mountain of junk.

  We blast into the city, trailing anarchy in our wake. Several cars packed with gun-toting scumbags chase after us. Falcon and Grey take off their seat belts, turn around, and begin to exchange small-arms fire with our brown-shirted pursuers. Meanwhile, Brando guides me through town to the docks.

  “Left forty,” he comms to me. “It’s a one-way street.”

  I power slide the Barge into the first left and nearly smash head-on into a truck. I swerve to the sidewalk and miraculously avoid the truck, a telephone pole, a baby carriage, the baby’s mother, and two nuns. I have to slow down to do this, and now the pursuit cars are right on our ass.

  “Why’s that truck goin’ the wrong fuckin’ way?”

  “He’s not,” Brando comms. “We are. I told you it was a one-way street.”

  “Darwin!” My feet fly across the pedals, and my hands swirl the steering wheel left and right. “I thought you meant one-way our way!”

  My partner skips this argument. “Right fifty. It’s a two-way street.”

  I slalom the Barge off the sidewalk and onto the road in time to gun a tire-smoking turn to our right. I lean on the horn and do my best New York City cabbie impression: “Move it, fuckos! C’mon, shit-for-brains, outta the way!”

  Falcon and Grey hang on tight in the backseat as we induce maximum traffic turbulence. I pass on the right, I pass on the left, I roar into the oncoming lane, I swerve onto the sidewalk again. Mailboxes, park benches, and small trees all meet their doom on the hungry grille of my deathmobile. So much garbage jams itself into our Caddy’s air intake that its monster V-8 begins to overheat.

  “Darwin, the Barge can’t take much more of this. How far?”

  “Right seventy, just before that scrap yard. Then it’s a straight shot into the port area.”

  “Hang on, boys!” I keep the accelerator on the floor and stomp the parking brake long enough to slap the rear wheels into a skidtacular smoke show. Grey is shoved across the rear seat and squishes Falcon against his door. Brando holds on to the dash with both hands while the Barge’s hypertaxed suspension gives me this one last, sweet turn before finally crapping out. My Jackie Stewart maneuver completely bungholes the fuckfaces following us, and they all crash into the scrap yard’s front office.

  We power through the port’s main gate at a hundred miles per hour. The rattle and hum of a good-sized firefight jaggers through the car’s windows. The action is centered around a very large cargo ship with Longstreet painted on its stern. Men on the ship exchange fire with brown-shirted jackanapes on the ground.

  I plow the Barge into the proslavery militia. Their brown uniforms and black armbands are instantly slathered with the liquefied remains of their occupants. My car’s tires are so coated with blood and guts that I lose control of the vehicle. The Caddy’s irresistible form finally meets the immovable function of a gigantic dock crane. The engine compartment crumples up like a thousand-pound accordion, and the entire rear end comes off the ground. Brando is momentarily suspended in midair by his seat belt, I brace my arms against the steering wheel, and both guys in the rear are scrunched against our seat backs. We land with a shuddering whonk.

  Saint Peter’s Heavenly Barge is dead. The gunfire has stopped. Only the seagulls’ shrill cries cut the stillness. Then time whooshes forward, and a curtain of bullets clatters against the twisted trunk of our demolished Cadillac. We all crawl forward through the missing windshield and take cover in front of the mangled chrome grille.

  Our training allows us to maintain some composure. Grey comms, “Checkdown, youngest to oldest.”

  Falcon gasps, “My leg is a mess. I need help moving.”

  I say, “I’m good,” and lean out from cover to see who’s coming. What a shock! Baddies.

  Brando comms, “I’m no worse than before,” as he moves to examine Falcon’s leg.

  Grey also leans out from cover for a moment, then continues, “Darwin, how’s F-Bird’s leg?”

  “It’s pretty bad, sir,” Brando answers.

  “Falcon, how’s your Overkaine supply?”

  “It’ll take care of the pain, sir, but I can’t walk.”

  Grey peeks over the wrecked Caddy again. “Darwin, see if you can help Falcon onto that ship. Scarlet and I will cover you.” He looks at me. “Ready?”

  I nod at Grey and brandish Li’l Bertha.

  Grey and I leap from behind the car and lay down a storm of suppression fire. The approaching brownshirts dive for cover. Grey reloads and keeps firing. I reload and dump a couple of Explosives into the pavement near the shitheads’ hiding place. We scurry away from our ruined vehicle and get ready to rush onto the Longstreet.

  A breathtaking explosion rips into the schmucks in front of us. A second blast, then a third slashes into the proslavery slobs. The surviving thugs flee in panic. Up on the ship, a hulking apparition rains destruction on the brownshirts. The air around him ripples every time his gun goes off.

  “Hey, Shortcake,” Raj comms. “What’s with the luxmobile? I took you for more of a sports car girl.”

  47

  SAME MORNING, 6:28 A.M. CET

  CHERBOURG, PROVINCE OF FRANCE, GG

  The Longstreet’s crewmen extend the gangway. Raj meets us halfway and takes Falcon from the limping Brando. Grey and I go up last to cover the group. We spatter a few rounds into likely hiding places around the docks and surrounding warehouses. When we’re safely aboard, the crew retracts the gangway. Raj helps Falcon lie down on a stack of rough shipping blankets. Grey rushes to the bridge to check in with the ship’s captain.

  “Raj!” I call out. “Weren’t you recalled with the rest?”

  He says, “I’ve been ordered to escort you people out of Europe before you reduce the entire continent to rubble.” He leans down closer to me. “Hey, I heard about your dad. Nice job, Scarlet.”

  “Thanks, Rah-Rah.”

  Brando’s hastily commed after-action report for that mission consisted of
the single phrase “Subject retrieved from Carbon facility.” Raj and I both know how seemingly dry phrases like that can bury a lot of people. They can also break roofs, beds, and legs.

  “So,” Raj says to Falcon, “you’re the flying sniper.”

  F-Bird nods and winces as Brando adjusts his broken leg. Raj watches my partner work and says to himself, “Sounds like Fredericks named you well.”

  The deck is littered with expended bullet casings and chips of painted metal from the shiny pockmarks in the bulkheads. Two long bloodstains show where wounded men were dragged inside. Several crew members armed with shotguns or pistols crouch along the rail. They’re tough-looking marineros, but these sailors are prepared for isolated raids by pirates, not a large assault by a paramilitary group. They watch us intently.

  Grey returns from the bridge. “All right, I’ve met with Captain Demet, and here’s the situation.

  “On the landward side, we’re dealing with a full company of Purity League militiamen. Out at the port’s entrance are two sport fishing boats full of men, watching this ship. A few of those men are armed with rocket launchers. One good shot from them and the Longstreet is done for.”

  Brando asks, “Can we just take out the rocket launchers?”

  Grey shakes his head. “Not good enough. This vessel isn’t armored, so the passengers are in danger from the small arms, too.”

  Brando asks, “Has Captain Demet received any demands?”

  “Yes,” Grey answers. “They want the Jewish passengers.”

  “What’d the captain say?”

  “Well, he’s part Jewish, which he’s successfully hidden. But an entire branch of his family was abducted into the slavery system.” Grey pauses. “So he told the militia’s commander to shove it.”

  I keep an eye on the docks. “Who’s the militia’s commander?”

  Grey shifts his weight from one knee to the other. “His name is Kruppe.”

  Brando and I lower our heads. “Figures,” we sigh.

  Raj asks, “You’ve met him?”

  “Yeah. A couple times.”

  Captain Demet’s blunt reply led to the standoff we crashed into. If it weren’t for Raj and his 50-mm grenade-spewing Bitchgun, the brownshirts could overwhelm the badly outnumbered crew. But the Purity Leaguers aren’t professional soldiers. They’re ass-faced weekend warriors who are used to beating on unarmed civilians, not riding the Afterlife Express from fighting a fully enhanced Vindicator like Raj.

  Kruppe doesn’t want to sink the Longstreet unless he really has to. For one thing, the ship is smack dab in the middle of the region’s biggest commercial port. It won’t go over well with the locals—anti-Semitic or not—if Cherbourg harbor gets fouled up with a shipful of diesel fuel and dead bodies. Plus, Kruppe still thinks of Jewish people as private property. To him it’d be like destroying livestock.

  Once the Jewish emigration got under way, the battles between abolitionist and proslavery forces moved from the capitals to the ports. The contested points of departure include Amsterdam, Portsmouth, Antwerp, Le Havre, and here, Cherbourg.

  The Purity League didn’t have the clout for an action like this until Berlin lost control of the country. Then Kruppe and his loudmouths spurred the area’s conservative factions into a self-righteous furor with a carefully selected crossbreed of recent events and ancient hatreds. Next ol’ Kruppy positioned himself as Germany’s last hope, concentrated his Purity League here, and used it to take over the city.

  Eventually, Berlin will recover enough control to bounce these buffoons back under their rocks. But Captain Demet and the Longstreet can’t wait. If Kruppe loses his grip on the city, he’ll sink this ship, local opinion be damned.

  Grey asks Raj, “How much ammo do you have for that cannon of yours?”

  “I only have nine more rounds.” One corner of his mouth turns up. “But…I’d say this qualifies as the special occasion I’ve been saving them for.”

  A bullet twangs off the ship’s bulkhead a few feet from us. We all flinch. The brownshirts have recovered from Raj’s explosive smack-down.

  Grey selects a crewman and asks for the gangway to be extended again. “We need to eliminate the offensive capability of these militiamen.” He draws his pistol with one hand and his knife with the other. “As senior Level, I authorize discretionary lethal force—” He sees the light that prances into my eyes and directs the rest of his sentence at me. “—as long as it helps get this ship safely out of the harbor.” I stifle my beaming expression and join Raj, Brando, and Falcon in a chorus of “Yes, sirs.”

  “We’ll take care of Kruppe and his boats last.” Grey assigns himself, me, and Raj each a sector of buildings to clear out. He says to F-Bird, “Falcon, can you lay down some cover fire?”

  The kid nods. “As long as someone props me on the railing, sir.”

  “Good lad.” Grey’s eyes go out of focus for a moment. The hair in his eyebrows fluffs out a little. Weird! I didn’t know other Levels had that happen when they dosed Madrenaline. His voice becomes faster, thinner, and a little higher-pitched. “Okay, kids. Let’s show ’em what happens when you fuck with ExOps.” All of Grey’s muscles twitch, and he leaves a hole in the air.

  Raj’s voice sounds funny, too. “Man, that trick of his is pretty cool.” His skin is covered in goose bumps, and the hair on his arms is rippling. He slings his Bitchgun over his shoulders, grabs an MP-50 in each hand, and lumbers down the gangway.

  I breathe in the brisk sea air, close my eyes, and tell my neuroinjector to Madrenalize me. I mix in some Kalmers to keep my teeth from chattering and a touch of Overkaine to numb the pain in my foot. Then I’m off.

  “Go get ’em, Scarlet!” Brando comms as I fly down the ramp. I take a hard left toward my sector of the dockyard and switch on infrared.

  A pair of warm blobs lurk behind a flatbed truck directly in front of me. I somersault over the truck’s cab. My legs point skyward as I sail above the two militiamen. One of them sees my shadow and looks up. His stunned expression tracks me all the way through my midair flip. My feet thump to the ground directly behind him and his partner. My right fist uppercuts the first bubblehead in the jaw, blowing him off his feet, then I spin and roundhouse kick his buddy so hard that his forehead slams into the flatbed truck before his legs go out from under him. I quickly gather their weapons and fling them into the harbor.

  Turning back to my objective, my infrared detects a man-shaped hot spot on top of a three-story office building that’s set next to the water. The enemy takes a shot at me, which I dodge easily. Before my pistol can return fire, the gunman’s head kicks back and his body falls away from the roof’s edge.

  “Nice shot, Falcon,” Brando comms.

  There’s still someone hiding up there. I comm, “Darwin, I’ll get the spotter.”

  “Roger that, Scarlet.”

  I enter the building and run upstairs to the roof’s access door. It’s open. I poke Li’l Bertha through the doorway and use her onboard optics to peek outside.

  The dead shooter sprawls in a pool of blood. There’s someone else here, sitting on the roof, but it’s not who I expect. He’s a fair-haired child, crying, maybe eight years old.

  I walk into the open. “Darwin, there’s a juvenile up here. I think we greased his father.”

  The boy stares at me with eyes like burning ebony.

  Brando responds, “Do not terminate him, Scarlet.”

  “C’mon, Darwin, I know that. What should I do with him?”

  “Take him downstairs and restrain him. That way—”

  While Brando comms instructions, the boy wipes his tear-streaked face, gets up, and runs to the dead militiaman. The child reaches into one of the man’s bulging coat pockets and takes out a potato masher grenade.

  No, this can’t be real.

  He twists the fuse—

  I must be imagining this.

  —and charges straight at me.

  I grab him by his coat and throw him off the roof.
His little hand is still clutching the grenade when it explodes as he splashes into the harbor.

  Oh, my God—

  The detonation ricochets around the port. I know this nightmare is real when Brando comms, “Scarlet, what was that?”

  —oh, my GOD!

  “Hey, Scarlet! You all right?”

  “Y-yeah…I’m…I’m f-fine.” My lips quiver against my fingers. I’m light-headed, and my brain is trying to cast itself adrift. I slump to the roof and hide my face in my hands.

  “Was that the juvenile?”

  “Patrick, he…he had a grenade.”

  My partner pauses. Everything pauses. Then he comms, “Jesus.”

  “I’m sorry, Darwin. I…he…”

  Grey breaks in, “Scarlet, stop it! It’s not your fault he was brought into this.”

  “But—”

  “He was so young,” Grey interrupts me. “I know, but he was old enough to kill you. Stay focused on the job, Scarlet. We don’t have much time.”

  “Yes, sir.” I struggle to my feet and wobble downstairs—slowly, in case I need time to cry. But my eyes aren’t wet. I see spots again, though. They dance around when I blink.

  Trick appears next to me.

  Alix, why didn’t you take the grenade away from him and throw that instead?

  I don’t know, Trick. I…

  Trick’s brows extrude a pair of bug-eyed lenses. The shiny surfaces reflect a tortured field of fire and ash.

  Trick, I don’t want to see that.

  He morphs into a girl about my height, dressed in black. Her lenses retract. Where her eyes should be is a blank expanse of skin. As she walks beside me, she softly sings, I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire. I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher. Then she claps her hands and disappears. My body shudders all over as I rush downstairs and outside.

  Next to the small office building is a blocklong warehouse. That’s my next objective. Once I sterilize it, my sector will be clear.

  Later.

  I dose chemicals until the spots stop swirling in front of me.

  Think about it later, Alix.

  48