Stained Glass

Chapter 38

We tore up the nearly-empty highway from Brooklyn to Ossining, chewing up forty miles in under an hour. We quickly passed the city, leaving Manhattan far behind as we entered the wealthy forest suburbs north of Yonkers. The cabin of the car was tense and mostly silent, everyone preparing in their own way for what we might find at John Spotted Elk’s country home. Angkor was meditating over his rifle-and-ax combination in the front passenger seat; Zane was intent on the road, mouth grim whenever he looked into the rearview mirror and I glanced his face. Talya chewed her nails, popping the already short ends of them under her teeth.

I studied the map for half that time. The aging Tappan-Zee Bridge was the starting point for one of the major trucking routes from New York to Illinois. The house was at the end of a private lane off a narrow, winding forest road. We got onto the Taconic State Parkway, the road I normally took to get to Bozya Akra, and gunned north along the abandoned highway at twenty miles over the limit until we merged onto Saw Mill River Road.

“It’s the next left, Zane.” Talya’s voice was high and nervous. She had the radio, thumbing the trigger nervously. “Then take the second right, then follow the road to Marian Place. The house is the one right at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

“Roger that,” Zane replied, barely slowing as he took the hard corner and rumbled over the uneven asphalt. “Everyone ready to go?”

“As ready as I can be.” Angkor unwrapped his rifle and loaded a round, then wound his window down. We all did the same thing. Behind us, the motorcycle escort slowed at the entry to Inningwood Road, one of the two ‘mouths’ that opened up onto the highway. Looking back, I saw Jenner give us the thumbs-up.

From my position behind Zane, I could get the best view of the road outside. As we took the road deeper into the woods, flying at sixty in a thirty zone, I leaned out to get a look at what was coming up around the curve.

Three cars roared out of Marian Place just was we were coming up on it. They screeched as they swung around on the turn and rushed us headlong in both lanes.

Zane wrenched the handbrake and threw the wheel to drift us as the first car clipped our bumper and flew by, followed by the zip-zip of the other two as they passed at high speed. I was flung back into my seat by centrifuge as the Lincoln about-faced, coming to a smoking standstill as a semi-trailer clawed up the shallow hill like a dinosaur and thundered off down the road. There was a shipping container on the back of the truck.

“Bravo! Echo!” Talya shouted into the radio.

“Damn this fucking- HOLD ON!” Zane slammed the accelerator, starting off in a cloud of burned rubber and swinging us in right behind the truck.

Angkor chambered a round into his rifle. “Get in closer! I can shoot out the tires.”

“You get in closer, asshole!” Zane snapped back.

We gained on the semi when it had to turn. I leaned out again, further this time, and aimed the Glock at the rear wheels of the truck just ahead of us. I exhaled, focused, and then nearly flew out of the car and onto the road as an unseen vehicle slammed into us from behind.

Zane held on as the car wobbled and threatened to twist and spin, but the suspension and his strength kept us moving forward. The car that had rammed us pulled up alongside, a black Jeep with Duke at the wheel. His formerly handsome face was barely recognizable as human: his cheekbones had been shattered, his face slashed from side to side. His skull was deformed, dented and shot through with razor shards of glass from every wound. He had a pistol leveled at Talya’s head.

“Down!” I was already headed for the floor.

Talya dropped, arms over her head, as one bullet zinged overhead and the second hit with an explosion that took a huge chunk out of the edge of the doorframe. I smelled phosphorus. Incendiary rounds.

Zane steered us away as the side of the car took several more bullets, and then ran our low-slung car into the taller Jeep broadside, trying to destabilize it and knock it off the road. Angkor braced against the passenger-side door and set the rifle against his shoulder, holding steady through the shoving match.

“Cover your ears!” He called out, and fired.

His first bullet took the driver’s side door, denting the Jeep and forcing it away; the second shot took out Duke’s front tire. His car lurched towards us as he fought for control, and he slammed into the Lincoln broadside, his front window level with Talya’s. He snarled, his face a bestial mask, his teeth stained black, and lunged through the pair of open windows.

“Duke, come on! Look what they’ve done to you!” Talya slashed at him with the machete as he groped and clawed for her. She hit his face with her machete, lashing the back of the driver’s seat with dark blood. Duke howled, the sound choking off as the cut sealed over with Yen and his eyeballs burst. Needles of glass forced themselves out of his sockets, crowding them.

Talya screamed and dropped the knife. I pushed her back against the seat and shot him twice in the neck and chest, point-blank. I’d hoped the force of it would knock him back, but the impacts didn’t even slow him. Zane hauled the wheel to pull us away, Duke lunged through the window, clawing at Talya with hands that were already half leopard.

“Miss me, babe?” He snarled, voice too deep and thick to be human, and then ruptured into animal form.

I shouted, Angkor shouted. Talya was shrieking high, panicked screams as Duke wrapped her in his forelegs and pulled her through the broken window, kicking and cursing and crying. The Jeep was out of control, and veered to the side away from us. Duke was scrabbling to remain in the cabin; Talya slammed into the outside of the door, Duke’s fangs buried in her throat, his paw wrapped around her chest.

The girl gnashed her teeth and shouted with rage and pain as she tore herself away from him, ripping open her own neck in the process. Talya tumbled messily to the ground and out of sight on the dark road behind us.

“Talya!” Zane cried out.

Angkor and I both opened on Duke. He took the bullets, roaring, and then tore the door off the Jeep and leapt out onto the road at breakneck speed as the car swayed to the side, flipped the barrier at the edge of the road, and careened into the trees.

“God fucking dammit!” Zane snarled, steering us in towards the truck. “Is she going to get that glass disease from this, or what?”

“Weeders can’t transmit Yen to other Weeders through bites. Sex, StainedGlass weapons or the insertion of an infectious payload… that’s it,” Angkor said, reloading his rifle. “Proper StainedGlass is the only reliable vector. Besides that, Talya’s the Weeder equivalent of The Hulk.”

Even Talya’s slight weight had slowed the Lincoln, and we gained on the truck as the entire caravan rounded the sharp corner onto Inningwood. Jenner was waiting for us on the highway. We just had to keep on them until they reached the straight and we could open up.

“We need to drop the back tires!” Angkor threw his rifle into the back of the car, rolled over the seat, and took the other rear position. “If the truck rolls, the kids are going to be mashed inside that thing.”

“Someone has to get in the cab,” Zane said.

Angkor turned to me, eyes flashing in the orange gloom. “I can’t drive, and I’m too weak to hold on up there at high speed. Can you do it?”

“I’ve taken twelve hits in as many hours,” I replied, loading a new magazine into the Glock and holstering it. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise I’m any stronger than you right now.”

“I’ve got enough in me to help you overclock.” Angkor reached out and clapped my face between his hands before I could protest. I jumped, startled, and then relaxed as his eyes bore into mine. They were normally a dark, iron gray, but in the darkness of the cabin, I saw them shine with a subtle, luminous green. Deep inside them was a glimpse of his Neshamah, an elusive ghostly thing as visceral and unnerving as he was. For a shocked moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.

My body flushed with a wave of sudden energy. I felt my muscles swell and warm. My heartrate picked up, and my senses sharpened to a finely honed edge. Colors were brighter. I began to sweat in the cold wind.

“Go!” He said, pushing me. “You’ve got five to ten minutes before you wind down!”

“Five or ten?” I holstered my pistols, checked the knife, and knelt up ready. There was now so much tensile strength in my legs that I nearly hit my head on the ceiling.

“Expect five. Hope for ten.”

“Okay! Get ready!” Zane swung in to close the gap between us and the truck. We were almost at the final curve of the road, a thousand feet from the highway. He pulled up even with the rear of the cab. I flung the door open, easily able to hold my weight against the onrushing wind, and kicked off into a rushing void of empty space.

There was a moment where I was sure that momentum was just going to pull me back, that I was going to miss a handhold, slip, and tumble away like Talya had. I caught the corner of the shipping crate, slid down, and hung on the bottom of the cargo tray. My legs were swinging close to the churning tires below. I got a heel onto the tray and then half-pulled, half-pushed myself up, plastering myself against the side of the shipping container like a bat.

The Lincoln surged forward – I was second-heaviest after Zane – just as the truck swerved to the left and rammed into the side of the car, bouncing me off my feet. I clutched the bolt rail of the container through the piercing metallic screech; Zane managed the fishtail, but the car fell back.

The truck swung around the right turn hard enough that the shipping container jounced and leaned, pitching my back to the road for a breathless moment before it thumped back into place. Faint screams echoed from inside of it. The kids.

I inched around the edge of it, putting myself between the container and the back of the cab as Angkor’s rifle barked. The truck wheeled and screeched as he dropped one tire, and then braked, hard. Zane shot past us onto the parkway, and then the truck floored it, charging him down as he was forced to wheel and catch the turn. The Lincoln was already just up off the ground when the truck took it in the side like a charging rhino. The car went flying and bounced, barrel-rolling to a smoking stop on the other side of the parkway. I couldn’t see the men inside.

“Fucking… blyat, suka!” I lunged forward and grabbed the ladder leading to the top of the cab. I pulled myself up, hand over hand. At the top of the semi, I saw the three-car escort ahead of us. They were headed straight for an armada of motorcycles.

Harleys roared up and out from their ambush positions on the side of the road, flinging mud and gravel as they charged. The first line of them held steady, firing on the escort cars. Shotguns went off like cannons; the truck braked again, squealing to a halt. It knocked my feet out from under me. I hit the top of the cab with my chin, biting my tongue, and fumbled to find a grip on the edge of the windshield.

Normally, I would have slid and then been thrown. Fueled on magic, I clawed my way to the front of the cab, swung down, and emptied half the clip into the driver’s side window. Blood exploded against the inside of the windshield, and the truck veered to the side, but it didn’t stop. I scrambled back up as someone returned fire from inside, and held on as they took the wheel, slammed the accelerator, and threw the cab to the side to shake me off.

The cars ahead tried to ram into the oncoming motorcycles, but they were too fast: they split around the vehicles trying to hit them, firing into the windows and at tires. The occupants had the same H&Ks they’d used at Strange Kitty, and even as I watched, one rider and gunner pair went down, jerking spasmodically and tumbling off the out of control bike. The Harley fell and skidded to the edge of the road in a tangle of flesh and metal.

The nearest car erupted with a forest of insectoid legs, and a peal of screams that quickly cut. Spiders the size of dogs crawled out, followed by three small shapes that ran up onto the trunk and onto the semi’s hood, just as it rammed up into the back of the vehicle ahead with a metallic crunch.

Panting, I let go and slid back to the edge of the roof until I caught the ladder. I held on until I had a steady moment, then leaped for the top of the shipping container. The metabolic boost made me stronger, but no more graceful. I hit the edge of it as the semi wobbled from side to side, winding myself, and had to scramble inelegantly to the top with the Glock in hand. We’d slowed down – sixty miles per hour instead of eighty – but we were all still running a fighting battle down the road. I had to take out the tires.

Weaving, stumbling, I tried to walk and ended up crawling along the roof of the container. If I could get to the bottom edge of the cargo tray, then I could take out the other back tire and force it to drag its ass along the road. My heart was pumping hard enough that light flashed in my mouth with every heartbeat. I staggered up during a steady moment and ran for the end.

Something hit me just below the shoulder and began to thrash back and forth, levering a thin blade between my ribs. With a roar of pain, I groped back for it, pulled it out, and crushed it in my hand. It was a shrike, a bird, its skull stripped down to bone and shards of crystal. Its beak had become a razor glass weapon. I wrung its neck and threw it off the truck, coughing, and staggered to one knee as something else hit me low and then swarmed up my body like a tree. A squirrel the size of a terrier screeched and lunged for my throat, Yen spines bristling like porcupine quills. The missing Pathfinders.

I jammed the gun between it and me and emptied the clip into its chest and head. The bullets did nothing except drive it back. It rolled to its feet, tail flicking as more spines ejected from the new holes, and charged at me with mouth agape. I threw the empty gun and pulled the knife, slashing as it jumped. The former Pathfinder was more agile than physics should have allowed for: it twisted in midair and landed on my chest, claws ripping at my shirt. I stabbed it through the back multiple times before it began to weaken, and tore it free by the neck. I was still stabbing it when a second squirrel bit a large chunk out of my calf and collapsed me to the ground.

“Fucking squirrels!” The one on the knife was gasping in its death throes, black blood frothing from its mouth. I used it to backhand the other one still worrying my leg like a dog. I stabbed it two more times and flung it away, reaching down to grab the other one by the tail and haul it away from my leg.

And then, the spell cut. The small animal was suddenly a lot stronger, a lot faster, and it was on me in an instant. This one was missing its eyes and most of its fur, an animal made of broken crystal, huge teeth, and bubbling, tortured flesh. I rolled onto it, pinning it with my forearm and frantically stabbing it as it continued to kick, bite and claw.

The truck swayed and then spun to a stop, nearly tipping the container full of children off the tray and onto the road. The squirrel and I were flung off the side. I had two seconds of dizzy inertia before the crunch.

Years of combat training saved my life, but not my shoulder. I hit the ground rolling and tumbled ass over head before halting, the squirrel still impaled on my knife. I slammed its head on the ground until it stopped moving and picked myself up, trying to orientate on what was happening. There was a blockade of black cars ahead of us down the road, but no flashing lights or sirens. Confused, ears ringing, I staggered to my feet and found I couldn’t put any weight on one of them.

I saw a motorcycle pull up along the door: Jenner and Ron. She was perched on the back of the Harley like an acrobat, a bottle of something in her hand. I thought it was a Molotov until she threw it, unlit. A thin arc of liquid flew out behind it before it splashed. There was a roar of agony from the cab of the truck, and then the driver’s side door blew open. Mason leaped to the ground, a wave of warped muscle and dirty white fur, and bellowed to the night sky before fixing on me, now trying to limp away as fast as my one good foot could take me.

The escort cars were stopped, and one of them was on fire. All but two of the motorcycles were headed towards the roadblock, and I smelled a trap on instinct alone as I backed up from Mason, who was stalking me, eyeless sockets fixed on my position. I’d barely taken five steps before the front line of riders collapsed in a straight horizontal line. The lead riders were decapitated at the neck. The ones behind them either crashed into the one in front, or swerved into a skid to avoid the wire strung between trees on either side of the parkway.

Big Ron and Jenner pulled around up ahead and charged back from behind Mason. As they shot past us Mason reared up to slap as Jenner leapt off the back with a wordless cry, shifting in midair. She landed on Mason with her forearms spread, claws out, a wrap-around bear hug that began their bloody close quarters fight. The orange tiger slammed Mason into the truck and threw him to the ground, where they tangled into a snarling, spitting, slashing heap.

Men had unloaded from the black cars ahead of us, guns in their hands. With no regard for the few oncoming civilian cars trying to weave through the mess, they opened up on the remaining Twin Tigers like a firing squad.

We were dead. The cops were guaranteed to show up now, but they wouldn’t be here in time and they wouldn’t have enough initial firepower. I staggered behind the truck tire, crouching and shielding as stray rounds flew by and struck the truck, the shipping container, and the two tigers trying to rip each other to pieces. Ron had kept on going, turning the street corner up ahead and roaring off the way we’d came. He was going to look for Talya.

Two figures were running down the road towards us from that direction: Angkor and Zane. They were shouting, waving their arms. Hope flared back to life, and I got to my feet, drawing the Wardbreaker and a deep breath against the pain. I rounded the corner to rejoin the fray and got knocked upside the jaw with something hard and heavy that pitched me to the ground. The Wardbreaker skittered away from my hand.

A weird chemical taste filled my mouth. I rolled over, groaning, and squinted up at the calm face of John Spotted Elk.