DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (11 page)

“Hey,” said Roy. I stopped.

“Yes?”

“You're maybe mixed up with this, too. Maybe. Stick around, huh?”

I nodded, and returned to the group, looking at the last chair. I looked to Minna, who shook her head and crossed her arms. Taking that to mean she didn't want it, I sunk into it with a sigh of relief. Pushing Sparky had been work, and I massaged my calves as I considered the others. Martin filled Joan and Minna in on what had happened. Joan's face fell more and more before they were done. Finally she shook her head. “I won't mince words. This is bad. We're down to two days of food. The potable water situation isn't an issue now, we've refilled the jugs from the showers, but we're gonna need food. I guess we can start rationing more, make sure the kids get priority, that sorta thing.”

Where Joan got sad, Sparky got pissed. He was practically shaking in his chair, as his fingers clutched and clawed at the armrests. “I was ten years younger I'd go and sort their asses out myself. Hell, I think I got that in me now—”

Roy shook his head. “No. No, that's a bad idea. You leave this beach, they'll be on everyone else like stink on shit. Only reason they let us be so far is because you're here.”

“And you,” Martin pointed out. “How many you shoot those years ago?”

Roy shook his head, his face going grim. “Don't remind me. We lost some good friends then.” Joan bowed her head, and closed her eyes.

“We could talk with them,” I mused.

Martin snorted. “Good fuckin' luck. Told you last night, they don't play.”

“Perhaps so, but we have a service we can offer them, in exchange for goods.” I pointed at Sparky. “Wouldn't take much to extend his broadcast range. Some more parts, some work. Or even if that doesn't appeal, Dire's reasonably certain she could whip up some generators for them.”

“Right, except fer the fact that you and me faced down Caso and Bleeder in front of their buddies a couple nights back,” Roy interrupted.

I shrugged. “No mask. They don't know it's her.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Martin said. “They got more eyes around than people think. You don't know them like I do.”

I tilted my head, but Joan beat me to the question, furrowing her brows at the younger man. “So what do you know about them, Martin? How do you know them so well?”

“I ain't going into the how if it's all the same. But I can answer the what. They're evil motherfuckers. Ain't got the most guns, like the Kriegers do. Ain't got the most product, like the SCK do—”

“You mean drugs, right?” Joan asked.

“Yeah, drugs. They ain't got the best intel, like the MM do. What they do got is the most crazy. They only take in the violent motherfuckers. Their initiation is always blood. Theirs or others, so only the toughest or the most kill-crazy survive and join. The only product they move is the hard shit, shit that'll kill you if you do too much. Betameth, Krokodil, XLR8. But the heaviest shit? They keep for themselves. They know they're going into a serious fight, they dope on shit called the Black Rage. Once they do that, they don't go down until either the stuff wears off or they die. I seen a Blood on Black Rage rip off a car door, beat two assholes to death with it, take six gunshots, and keep on going until he'd bled out.”

I blinked. “Why the devil would anyone want to join these people?”

“Same reasons you always get from gangers,” Roy wheezed. “Stupid, violent thugs lookin' for a way to hurt people. Too cowardly to be villains, too weak to do it alone.”

Martin looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and frowned. “Some people don't get a choice in it, old man. You the right age and strong enough, the Bloods will come looking for you. Or if you get in debt to them, or if they hook you on heavy shit. Or if they think it'd be funny. And where you gonna go for help? They live here man, cops don't. Heroes don't. Besides, ain't no way to take down a guy on Black Rage without killing him, and heroes don't kill.”

“Bah,” Sparky grumbled.  “They twitch an' dance like anyone else, you give'em enough current.”

Roy shook his head. “They didn't use the shit last time they attacked us, Sparky. If it's as all-fired nasty as Martin says, I don't want to see it in action. You know anything else about these guys?” He looked back to Martin, who shrugged.

“Just rumors and shit. Rumor is they never leave their dead behind, and drag back bodies of those they kill. They sure do like disappearing people, so I can't say one way or the other. Oh, and one more thing...” He leaned back, squinted into the distance, nodded. “They don't like doing shit during the day. Won't unless they absolutely gotta. Don't know if it's tradition or what.”

We chewed on the information for a while, discussed various options. There weren't very many. We needed that food, and they had it. Finally, Roy put forward a plan.

“All right. So let's go with Dire's idea, and try to trade power for food. Her and me should go... Sparky, you better stay here, guard the camp. Joan too. Martin, it's up to you where you wanna be.”

Martin shrugged. “Odds are better we can talk it out if I'm there. I'll go.”

Minna stood. “They sell Krokodil?”

Martin nodded, looked up at her. “Yeah.”

“I will go.” She opened her jacket, showed us the largest knife I'd ever seen. Damn thing was practically a sword.

Roy grinned. “So that's where yer keepin' yer bowie. Just remember we're gonna try and talk.” She nodded, zipped her coat up again. I couldn't help but notice Martin was sneaking a sidelong look at her chest, before it disappeared from view again.

The blonde woman continued. “Joan. Someone must watch Anya.”

Joan shuddered, put her hands behind her back. “Oh. Right. I... I'll find someone.”

“You can watch her.”

“No. No, I mean, it'll be taken care of. Don't worry about it. Just... come back safe, okay?”

“I got her,” Sparky smiled.

Minna frowned. “You are old in the mind,” she told him, bluntly.

Sparky let  his grin grow. “Thanks to my new necktie, I've got it together for the first time in a long while.” Waving a hand, he cut her off before she could speak again. “She'll be fine with me. No one'll bother her.”

Minna nudged Anya toward him, and the little girl immediately climbed into his lap, and looked up at him expectantly. He rolled his eyes and started moving the chair, and she giggled as they rode around. Joan breathed a sigh of relief, and I nodded to the remaining camp leaders. “So. When do we leave?”

Roy shrugged. “Well, they like doing things at night? We'll leave as soon as it gets dark. See if we can find someone to take us to Sangre.”

Martin whistled. “Sangre, huh? Yeah, he'd be the right guy to talk to. Guess we got the day to prepare.”

He walked off with Roy, probably talking about tactics, and bargaining methods. For my part, I sat with Minna and Joan and watched Anya play wheelchair races up and down the beach.

CHAPTER 6: Deals with Devils

“Everyone knew the Bloods were crazy. 'Specially the other gangs. Couldn't say which way they'd jump, couldn't say what they'd do. Only thing for certain was that you pissed them off, they'd get back at you. And they'd get mean. But shit, ain't no one knew how bad it was. How twisted they really were, all along...”

--Excerpt from a statement of record by NAME REMOVED BY COURT ORDER, provided as part of a plea bargain to the district attorney of Icon City, March 2000.

We had resolved to try negotiation with the Black Bloods. After a time, the growing concern about the upcoming attempt overrode the joy I got from watching Anya play, and I rose to make my way back to my “room”. Nothing I'd seen or experienced with the Black Blood gang indicated that our approach would be easy, or without danger. I had a forcefield, and that was a start, but it would only work against fast-moving attacks like bullets. Armor? I thought about it, ruled it out. The materials I had right now were crude, anything I whipped up would either be too obvious, or too weak to do anything but slow down a punch.

So... what did that leave? Defense is out, so perhaps a thought to offense? I had the gun, but that was an escalation. I could build an energy weapon of some sort, but I wasn't really sure they had anything that warranted building a laser or a particle beam, or anything of that sort. Worries about berserker drugs aside, if I wanted them dead then things like hand-held lasers were actually worse than bullets. The damaged area would be smaller, nothing compared to the trauma a leaden slug could inflict. Perhaps something else would be good. An alternative vector rather than a lethal, single-target weapon?

I gnawed my lip as I piled my tools beside me. I set my pile of remaining electronic scrap next to the tools, and shook my head.  Not much left, after I'd made Sparky's collar. What else did I have that I could spare?

I ran a quick mental inventory, and it occurred to me that I hadn't gotten good use out of my burner phone since I'd escaped my initial lair. That was a good chunk of circuitry, and with the city's power down I doubted I'd be receiving any calls any time soon.

Just in case I checked the contacts list, and scribbled the numbers down on a small notebook I'd found tucked in the toolbox. If the phones ever came back up I could call them. That done, I cracked the case and went to work.

Once done, I had trouble snapping the case back on. It barely covered the reworked wires and extra components I'd added, even after I'd gutted the thing of all the bits relating to its original function. Now it was a nasty little short-range taser that looked like a scuffed and damaged phone. I didn't know how much tougher the berserker drug made a man, but I was pretty sure that whatever it did to them, they still needed nerves to move their muscles. The only downside to my little surprise was that it was good for three shots, maybe four if I dialed the strength down. Or one, if I didn't mind reducing the target to a corpse. And if the worst happened, I could set it to discharge all energy at once, turn it into a tiny bomb. Ineffective at any but the closest range, though.

As the sun sank behind the city, we gathered together again. There was a quiet, solemn pall around the camp, and I caught people watching us.  They looked worried as I walked out with Roy, Martin, and Minna. Martin glared back, rubbing his scraggly mustache. “Some fucker talked.”

Roy shrugged. “Impossible to keep a secret around here anyways. Works to our advantage today anyway. If'n they know we're just out to talk we'll find'em faster.”

Martin looked doubtful about that. Minna's face didn't change one way or another, just kept glaring toward the city as we walked up the stairs, and across the empty street. Save for the odd car or motorcycle, the traffic along here had been fairly dead the last few days. Glancing southwest, however, I could see a few small airships moving through the skyscrapers downtown.

“Does Icon City have an airport?” I asked.

“Miles to the west, way the hell out of town,” said Roy. “Ain't much traffic comes across the ocean direct, so we don't see much of it.”

I nodded to the sky. “Where are those coming from, then?”

“Probably taxis, private ships, that kind of thing. Maybe a few police cruisers from stations that actually have funding or cops that give a shit,” said Martin. “Figure the companies down there like Morgenstern or Arkayde got generators an' shit to recharge'em.”

“Are generators really so rare?” I asked. “Seems like a handy thing to have around in the case of... well, this.”

Roy shrugged. “Weren't no need for'em until now. Things worked fine up until Y2K hit.”

That didn't seem like much of an excuse to me, but I let it lie. I rather doubted he'd influenced the city's infrastructure, or had much say in how it had been made in the first place.

The Brownstones cast long shadows on the street as we moved through them. I shivered and pulled my hoodie closer around myself. Though the pain from my gashed wrist had subsided to a dull throb, the real tragedy was the ripped sleeve. I jammed my hand into the central pocket, trying to keep it warm.

“Snow on the air t'night,” Roy muttered. He coughed a few times, something loose rattling in his lungs, and spat into the gutter. I caught the darkness of blood, and studied him as we went. Old and frail, stooped and worn. What kept him moving, besides sheer stubbornness? What drove him to follow his old friend onto the beach, keeping watch for assassins that could come from anywhere?

Maybe he had nothing else left.

He caught me looking at him, and squinted. I shook my head. Nothing to be said on the matter, nothing his pride would let him answer, anyway. Instead I shifted my gaze to Martin. Martin was watching the sides of the street, barely paying attention to the rest of us. His eyes tracked every noise, every movement. And we were being watched... I felt eyes on us from every window nearby. Without television, without radio, without anything to do but hide in the dark and hope that this too would pass, we were now promoted to the status of prime entertainment.

When the Black Bloods found us, it was almost a relief.

“You're far from the beach, old man,” said the pale youth in the lead. There were six of them all told, five males of varying ages and one female teen. They had a mix of pistols and shotguns out, and didn't seem particularly concerned about us. The girl grinned and hopped up on a nearby car, taking the safety off her revolver as she went.

Roy raised his hand. “Hey there. Ivan, yeah?”

“Yeah. You got a reason for being on our street right now, geezer?”

“We came to talk to Sangre.”

A dark-skinned, older man with a potbelly shouldered his shotgun, and stared at Roy. “He's doing god's work right now. Don't think he's got time for your kind of scum. Though he might make an exception for some of y'all...” He looked Minna up and down, taking no particular care to hide his gaze. The group of gangers laughed. Minna's face showed no emotion, stiff and still as the ice in the shallows.

“We can give him power,” Martin spoke up. “Electricity. All he wants.”

That shut them up for a second. The pale guy looked over to the potbellied man, and after a second they both nodded. “No skin off our asses,” Potbelly said. “But if you piss him off it's gonna go bad for you.”

“Yeah, we got that,” said Roy. “Where can we find him?”

“St. Augustine's.” Pale youth grinned at Roy's face, as the words sunk in. “Like Sonder told you, he's doing god's work right now.”

They laughed as they left us, but I noticed that the girl and the next youngest one there never turned their backs on us completely. They knew Roy.

“Well,” Roy said, as he turned back to us. “I guess that St. Augustine's won't be sending any donations any time soon.”

“Problematic?” I asked.

“Wasn't expecting none with the troubles going on now. C'mon, let's get there 'fore the night's done.”

The sun was well and truly gone by the time we got there. St. Augustine's turned out to be the church I'd seen a little ways off of Jefferson street. I remembered the shadows I'd seen moving in the windows yesterday morning, and wondered when Sangre and his bunch had moved in. Wondered if there had been anyone there who objected to it. Given the amount of firepower the Bloods on the street had been packing, I rather doubted that anyone had objected for long one way or the other.

There was a group of four teens in black jackets smoking outside the door, sitting on and around dark wooden pews that had been dragged outside. One of the teens stuck a knife into the old wood, scratched the side of it, carving crude letters in one by one. The sight of it filled me with... not anger, but more of an annoyance. Someone had put work into it, that wood was clearly handcrafted and old. Now it was being casually mutilated, with no thought to its history, or the cost of replacing it.

As we got closer the biggest teen flicked his cigarette off to the side, held out a hand toward us. “Beat it, you fuckin' hobos.”

“Here to see Sangre,” Roy grunted.

“He call for you? I don't fuckin' think so.”

Martin moved up, got in his face, ignored the other three scrambling up from their seats. “Sangre gonna want to hear what we got to offer him,” Martin said, staring him down, unblinking. “Go in and tell him we come to bargain.”

The teen spat in Martin's face, and Martin picked him up the second he did, both hands lashing out and catching him under the arms and lifting. Frozen in shock, the kid offered little resistance as Martin slammed him against the wall, paused, did it again, then twisted and threw him down at the feet of the two teens running toward him. They skidded to a stop, trying not to fall over their buddy's groaning form.

Hm. Martin was stronger than he looked. I'd keep that in mind.

“You don't speak for Sangre!” Roy shouted, as the last one struggled to his feet, pulling the knife out of the wood of the pew. “You fuckin' don't speak for him. You think different? That why you're on guard duty, pendejos?”

“Fuck you, old man!” The teen on the ground struggled to his feet, started to draw a gun, and Roy's pistol was in his hand and aimed between his eyes in the time it took to blink. The Blood froze.

For a second we all looked at each other. The one with the knife started to draw it back, maybe to try a throw, and I slipped my gun from its waistband and undid the safety. He jumped at the soft “click,” and looked from me to Roy.

“Heh, heh, heh.” A soft chuckle from above, and I risked a look up. A window on the second floor of the church was open, and a bare-chested, slim man with long hair was leaning out from it. His features were fine, and his grin showed white teeth. “Hey there, Roy.”

“Sangre,” Roy said, without looking up. “How long were you watchin' this?”

“Since you started talking. It got pretty funny pretty quick.”

The gangers by the door shifted from foot to foot, looking guilty. The teen with the gun glanced at it, tucked it away. I followed suit. Roy risked a glance up.

“You decent?”

“Fuck no.”

“I mean... you okay with visitors?”

“Sure. Just starting the night's business anyway. Ah... leave the guns out here for now. Jamie, Big Dog, search them all.”

They patted us down. I handed over the gun, but as the nearest one stretched a hand out for the backpack, I pulled it away. “No weapons in here,” I told him.

He shook his head. “You heard him.”

Hell. I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this... I unzipped the backpack, showed the contents to the teen. Immediately, he reached in, pulled out the mask. “Hey boss!” He shoved it upwards, and Sangre laughed that quiet little chuckle. “So you're the one. Makes sense. Where'd you find your new girlfriend, Roy?”

“Your boys started shit. Weren't no harm done in the end though,” Roy protested.

“I dunno Roy, she smells a little like vigilante from where I'm standing. Already got one of those fuckers to domesticate. Don't need another.”

Another? What was he talking about?

“Listen, we got services to trade.”

“That why you brought two women along? I'm not so hard up that I'll go for homeless pussy, Roy.”

“I'm talking power. Electricity. We got it, and so can you.”

“Huh. Okay, you managed to say something interesting. Jamie, bring them up.”

I reached out for my mask again, and the teen pulled it back, sneering.

Sangre frowned. “Big Dog. I didn't say to keep that.”

His words were quiet, his tone conversational, but the look of raw fear that flashed across the teen's face was almost painful to see. He pressed the mask back into my hand, muttered an apology as I slipped it into the backpack again. With our guns and Minna's knife left piled on the pew outside, Jamie threw open the weathered doors to the church. He beckoned us into the dim, flickering space beyond.

The interior of the church didn't quite match the exterior. The walls were paint-covered cinderblocks, with a mud-tracked carpet lining the floor. It was dark in here, with dancing candlelight providing the only visibility. Someone had set candles against the walls, votives by the look of them. There were a few bigger ones of assorted styles mixed in here and there. Wooden doors stood open in the entry hall, and I saw dim shapes moving in a room off to the side. There were glittering eyes watching us, as the smell of some sort of burning plant wafted through that entryway. On the wall in front of us a pair of doors stood shut, with a bulletin board off to the side of them. The papers had been ripped down and strewn over the floor, and a spray-painted skull decorated it now.