Bad II the Bone (33 page)

The decision was made in those desperate moments.

Suzy jumped up, a half baked plan forming in her mind as she ran for the closest torch on the wall expecting bullets to her back but the suddenness of her dash had caught her assailants unawares. When they realised what was happening Suzy was air-bound, leaping up to the torch and snatching it out of its holder and throwing it to the floor, dousing the flames in the dirt.

Her plan, if it worked was supposed to produce a wide enough line of darkness between herself and the gun men. A moat pop
ulated with the flesh eating demons which would keep her corralled from the gunmen.

OK, the pl
an wasn’t perfect but it had to do for now.

Suzy was on the move again, deftly springing to the cave wall, using it as purchase to launch herself higher and yanking another torch from its holder, dousing it again and falling to the ground in a crouch. She took in four deep breaths, sprang to her feet again, readying herself to explode from where she stood but she faltered and that’s when time slowed. Suddenly, another f
orce had been introduced into the equation of motion, totally disrupting what her mind told her she should be doing now. In an agonizingly long second she was flung to the floor in a dirty, uncoordinated pirouette as the world around watched her fall with ponderous disinterest.

A pain that was distant at first became more personal and like a bubble of time dilation bursting the full symphony of agony hit her in discordant waves followed by the Doppler effect of the guns discharge.

Suzy cried out in pain and went down.

“Noooooo!”

Y’s scream came from across the cavern was like the crack of a whip. Her anguished face twisted in shock as she saw the shot fling Suzy to the ground. Without thought Y was sprinting towards where Suzy fell.

All around them was pandemonium. The sky above continued to rain these creatures. The twirling winds persisted with their mischief, obliterating the circle of protection and steadily extinguishing the torches and slowly spreading the domain of shadow if not for the luminescent veins of rock.

Y moved so quickly out of the circle that Deacon re-acted a s
econd or so too late, the Browning bucked twice in the gangster’s hand, his slugs connected with rock instead of flesh. Whipping his weapon back to where his intended targets had been a moment ago, he was welcomed by an empty space.

Patra had rugby tackled Spokes to the ground out of the circle and shielded him momentarily from the threat of bullets. Deacon barked an order and stormed after Patra, leaving the security of the light to step across the band of shadows, but he didn’t get far. A tar like mound of reconstituted creatures flowed in front of him like the surf from a massive oil slick, blocking his path and defying gravity
as it reeled up. He could literally feel its heat and the stench was almost unbearable. The air was ripe with rot and decay, an almost solid thing that rammed into his nose like a fighters left hooks. Deacon stepped back repulsed then horrified as it began to morph into the form of a man. A patch work man, who was an irreverent construct of these creatures, stuck together in haste and with a lack of respect for the aesthetic of the human form, in a kind of fuck you to nature.

Deacon started firing into it, the report of his weapon deafe
ning, the smell of cordite permeating the air. He tried to move back, flee into the light but the man thing generated tendrils with gruesome popping sounds, shooting tentacles around his ankles, his waist and arms. He screamed pathetically, his voice cracking, a memory of which he would not be proud if he ever had a chance to recall it. He squirmed and thrashed the touch of the creature reminiscent of millions of maggots foraging through decayed flesh. Deacon stumbled, fell on his ass, swearing as he kicked and clawed, but could not break free. He was being dragged on his back, his fingers grasping for purchase, his gaze fell desperately on the upside down visage of Remy who was just picking himself up from the floor behind him

“Hey pussy,” he screamed. Yuh tink mi pay yuh feh yuh good looks, amigo? Yuh need to deal with this.”

Remy looked at him with bleary eyes, gaining some degree of focus with the confusion around him. His horror was unshielded and it had the power to prop him up somehow. He looked around like a frantic man planning to flee but was not sure if he could. Beginning to chant, he walked over to him with stumbling steps, simultaneously thrusting his hand into his pouch. Remy slung a cloud of dust over Deacon and the man-thing as if he was sowing seeds in a field. Every individual grain burst into incandescence, like a multitude of fire flies, lighting up what once was darkness, sending the thing shrieking for the cover of the element that had birthed it.

The crime boss scurried in Remy’s direction on all fours, all pretences of invulnerability lost. The witchdoctor couldn’t help thinking how weak and pathetic he looked when he came up against the real supernatural forces of the world.

Already the power of his spells had dissipated and the darkness was creeping back into dominance. Remy admitted to himself there and then that he had been outclassed, outdone had humiliated. A fact that became clear to him at the most inopportune of times.

Y made no effort to conceal her approach and with so much happening at the same time, the element of surprise was easy.

Reaching Suzy was an entirely different proposition.

Y had to be walking through portions of shadow and light with every band of darkness teeming with the unspeakable things, tearing at her from all sides. The katana was a blur, the metal humming sweetly and an iridescence emanating from the blade’s surface. She hacked and sliced her way through the hell spawn, dark blood, or what these things classed as such, splattered her from top to toe. And Y’s blood mingled with theirs, as the chitin daggers of their claws and teeth, slashed her flesh, through leather, slowing her down but not stopping her. She was deftly skipping from one band of light to the next, screaming from the pain but pushing forward all the time. The things were scurrying underfoot and she pounded some of them with her boots but they simply shook themselves off and continued to patrol the domain of darkness. The men who were with Deacon began to understand how important it was to stay in the light and they were winding their way to Suzy with that important fact in mind, firing as they went, focused but unaware of  Y’s approach. One of the men was changing clips frantically, his nervousness unusual for a man who had dealt with human threat innumerable times before but now was faced with the very bedrock of his beliefs disappearing before his eyes down the rabbit hole.

Y sprinted
towards him, maybe sensing his indecision, the katana gripped with both hands holding it away from her body while she moved like a classical samurai from the flicks, teeth gritted and a cry rising from her diaphragm and spitting out of her mouth.

When his highly tuned sense of danger alerted him and he spun with the magazine firmly in the butt of his semi, Y was on him, samurai sword flashing and a bullet exchanging, blood splatter and the dull thud of metal hitting the cave floor. The man sta
ggered back gripping the wrist of his gun hand, crimson spurts erupting from the stubs of his fore and ring finger. The blade had sliced through the gun metal, severing the Browning in two and the tips of his fingers with it. Anger, surprise or both made him charge her with a wail like a wounded elk. Y was quick on her feet and took flight, twisting away from him but able to use the hilt of her sword to strike him to the back of the head. His own momentum threw him further into the shadows.

“Oh, shit!” He said.

Y landed hard on her feet the pain pierced her like jagged spikes of electricity from her toes to the crown of her head. She didn’t look back there was no need to.

Dark pickney swarmed him like a wave of black piranhas his body erupting into a cloud of red mist and what was left of his corpse shuddered with the ferocity of it being torn apart. Chan
ging direction slightly, Y headed for the other guy, dashing through the shadows at speed, enduring the vicious snapping of the creatures at her heels. Going with the flow but ending up where she wanted to be. Y estimated being five strides away from where Suzy had fallen and where the second gun-man had taken aim.

I’m coming baby.

Y mounted a stone hewn plinth at full tilt and hurled herself from it.

A gun went off, then another.

Too late?

Gravity held her descent or so it felt and when it resumed its effect she smashed into the back of the gunman, only a split s
econd choice saving him from a severed head. He stumbled forward trying to keep himself upright but failing. Y skidded to a stop, steeling herself for what she would discover.

Suzy was not there.

What remained was a blood trail that meandered to another area of light which was obstructed with another rock.

A wave of relief washed over her.

Y turned away from the blood trail just in time to see the gun man regaining his footing, standing just on the edge of shadow and light. His relief was palpable. Even if he had lost his weapon in the shadows he knew he could take this bitch.

Y watched him keenly.

He revolved his neck like a bare knuckle fighter and bunched up his shoulders. He started bouncing on the spot, using the fingers of his right hand to call her into conflict.

“Lose the sword, bitch. Let’s party.”

Okay, Y thought. let’s, play.

Y sheathed the katana and drew a stance, checking the d
emarcation of the light and the shadow around her floor area. This was to be her arena and she was bound to its dimensions. The goon grinned and began to weave his way towards her like the bell had rung and he was leaving his corner.

Deacon and Remy stood back to back in an oasis of light that they both knew would not last forever. Boss man Deacon looked forlornly at what could have been. The altar was hewn from a boulder and covered with boxes, crates, old scrolls, trinkets, oddities and bejeweled treasures, not to mention many bundles and stacks of fifty pound notes unable to fit into the cases already bursting at the seams with money. It might as well be a million miles away. Everywhere that shunned the light was filled with the tiny burning red eyes of the creatures that unnaturally blended with the darkness that bore them.

On the side where the treasure lay were Spokes and Patra in what seemed like a similar predicament. Sardonic laughter ec
hoed in their minds like a psychic call waiting you had no choice but to accept and that left you feeling unclean and soiled afterwards.

The voice’s amusement continued for a while longer and slo
wly a modicum of recognition slivered out of the hatched eggs of confusion like lizard spawn.

“Who feh kill first, eh?” it said, words dripping with menace.

“Eeny, meeny, miney, moh, catch a begga by deh toe, if him bawl, den yuh know, eeny meeny, miney, MOH!”

The final word boomed in the heads of everyone present, making the receivers grit their teeth, hold their heads or
massaging their temples from the effect of the force.

A wave of darkness erupted from the scattered pockets of shadows like a tsunami. Dark matter coalesced into a force that was much more than the sum of its parts. The anguished screech it made was ear splitting, like a painful birth that was forced upon it by its new master. Everyone shrank back from its suddenness. The wave of hell stuff rolled over itself, ignoring the searing lances of light, its bulk compensating for the damage as it flowed like a wall of oil, excrement and debris all rolled into one. It reared up as soon as Deacon and Remy were in its sight, a roaring mew from something that should not have lungs but the horrific insanity did. It had many gaping mouths too, many staring red eyes that bore into you, all burning slits, dripping saliva and chomping teeth like guillotines.

Remy’s eyes bugged but he was in survival mode, his mouth working away in concentration like he was chewing his cud. He let the spell fly, like a baseball pitcher, the incantation made physical as a fire ball streaked towards the creatures. But impact was as anticlimactic as a cigarette being doused in a mud bath. His hex of fire lacked purity, fuelling the hell spawn instead. Remy flinched as the darkness morphed into something resembling a giant cloven hoof and slammed down onto him with a sickening crunch. His screams made Deacon try to back up but his left leg was pinned under Remy’s broken body. The gangster tried to keep panic at bay but his wild struggling to free himself spoke volumes of his fear. Remy tried to lift himself up on his hands and knees, bones broken, muscles crushed, tendrils of congealed blood hanging from his lips.

“Yuh bring a
ratchet to a gunfight, bwoy?” Darkman cackled in everyone’s head just as the creature slammed down on the Haitian again, transforming into something else the human mind could not completely comprehend and devouring the body in a frenzy of teeth and claw.

A squeak of despondency escaped from Deacon’s chapped lips. He was
paralyzed with terror, his mind grinding to a stop as he helplessly watched the writhing flesh devour his last best hope.

Darkman seemed to consider the pathetic figure of Deacon stripped and powerless.