The Age of Scorpio

27

Now





Beth spent the night on the streets just outside Waterloo Station. She woke up the following morning feeling fine, no aches, no pains and aware of her surrounding to a surprising degree. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she felt different. She was worried that the insane old woman in the interrogation room had infected her with something. Or maybe du Bois had, and the bag lady spitting blood was a hallucination. Whatever it was made her feel stronger, faster, much more aware and very, very hungry. Of the money that du Bois had given her, she’d spent a surprising amount on food.

On the train from London to Portsmouth, Beth was impatient. She wanted to deal with McGurk. If he knew anything about her sister he was going to tell her this time. After all, how many monsters could he have?

She walked quickly from Portsmouth Central across the common to the garish plastic and concrete of the amusements. Without all the light and the noise there was something distinctly depressing about them, even on a fresh and sunny day like today. She waited. It was still early. It would be a while before anyone turned up. She watched a ferry make its way through the Solent’s mild chop, the wind blowing her hair. The Isle of Wight looked far away today.

The main thing on Ted’s mind as he cursed the old key refusing to turn in an old lock was having a nice sweet cup of tea. He didn’t feel like he could face the day, and he certainly couldn’t cope with punters, until he’d had his second cup of tea.

‘Ted?’

The voice made him jump, and he didn’t like the way his heart felt in his chest at the fright. He’d been on edge since McGurk had come to visit. McGurk had been right: it was a long time since Ted had been someone in this city. He turned to look at her.

‘Thought we’d seen the last of you.’

‘I need to know something,’ Beth said.

‘Be a love and pick that up, will you?’ He nodded to where he’d spat his cigarette. Beth bent down and gave it to him. He took another drag. ‘Well, you’d better come in and have a cup of tea.’

They sat up in the concrete saucer above the arcades. The cafe might have been nice in the 60s. Still, it looked out over the Solent towards the Isle of Wight. She watched as the hovercraft left its nearby terminal and headed out over the water.

Ted shuffled over to the table and gave her a cup of tea with far too much sugar in it and a chocolate bar that she devoured almost immediately.

‘Hungry?’ She just nodded. ‘So? You looking for your old job back? Because I know I don’t pay much, but I need reliable people.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said through a mouthful of chocolate.

‘You had trouble?’ She nodded. ‘McGurk?’ She nodded again. He sighed. ‘Maybe this ain’t a good city to live in?’ Beth finished her chocolate and took a sip of the tea. It was so sweet she was mildly worried about getting diabetes if she drank it all.

‘I need to know where I can find him.’

Ted gave a short bark of laughter devoid of humour. ‘You fancy yourself as someone who can look after themselves, don’t you? For a bird, I mean.’

Beth could see where this was going. He was going to try and impart some chivalrous for-her-own-good, street knowledge to her.

‘Look, I know how it looks, but I know what I’m do—’

‘No! You really f*cking don’t. Beth, he runs the drugs and prostitution in this town. He’s supposed to have his grubby little fingers in human trafficking, dog fighting, bare-knuckle boxing. He rapes anyone who comes to work for him so they know the score.’

‘He thinks I’m too ugly to rape.’

‘Then he’ll carve you up, and if he doesn’t he’s got boys with fists, big boots, clubs, knives and even shooters. Stay the f*ck away from him.’

‘He’s got my sister,’ Beth said quietly.

Ted stared at her. ‘Shit,’ he finally said and looked down. Suddenly he wished he was thirty years younger or even had just looked after himself properly. You messed people up, you had to if you wanted to carve a piece for you and yours, but McGurk didn’t know when to stop – no decency, too greedy. The hard girl in the leather looking at him from across the table, eyes full of emotion, made him feel guilty. ‘He got her hooking?’

‘I don’t know.’

Ted leaned in close, not quite willing to believe what he was about to say, pleased that nobody else was there. ‘Look, you ever say that I told you this then I’ll deny it, but go to the plod.’

‘They get close to him, he’ll cut his losses, deny it. They can’t do the things that I’ll do to him to find out where she is. Besides, I think there’s someone else after her, someone bad, f*cked-in-the-head bad.’

‘Beth, before you even get close to him he’ll have one of his lads shoot you. And they’ll do it and go inside for him without even mentioning his name. I’m sorry for your sister. I can make enquiries – see if she’s on the streets – but I’m not having your death on my conscience.’

She sat back in her chair. He could see how desperate she was.

‘Ted, pick three of the hardest guys here and I’ll fight them . . .’ He jumped when she slammed an antique bayonet down on the table.

‘He’s f*cking tried carving me up before. It got him nothing. They’ve got shooters, they best use them quick, and frankly I don’t give a f*ck if they do. I went inside for beating some cunt to death for what he did to my sister. I nearly did it again to . . . some monster he chose to do for me. I f*cking promise you, Ted, it’s him who’s got to be scared now.’

It took Ted a while to realise that the prickling sensation he was feeling in his spine was fear. He put off saying anything by lighting another cigarette. She shook her head when he offered her one.

‘What about me? He’s a tasty geezer. Beth, I like you but I don’t know you. We’re not close and I don’t owe you anything.’ Beth stared at him. He saw her knuckles whiten around the hilt of her bayonet as disgust crept across her face. He sagged in his seat and told her what she wanted to know. Beth turned and looked out the window. It wasn’t even far away.

Du Bois hated eating in the car. It wasn’t just the crumbs; it made the car smell as well. He was parked on Broad Street in Old Portsmouth looking at the old defensive wall on the waterfront. It amused du Bois that this area, now so desirable, had once been known as Spice Island and been a hotbed of vice. Some things just didn’t change that much, he decided, bearing in mind what he was here to do.

There was still a huge police and military presence in the city, though the latter had been played down. The roadblocks and some of the other more draconian precautions that had been taken had been relaxed. It seemed that the authorities knew they were little more than window-dressing.

He was still injured, slow and weak. There was new-growth skin where the bag lady had partially flayed him, hence the eating. He did not feel anything like at his peak.

He had reviewed McGurk’s file. He seemed to be a particularly nasty version of your standard provincial UK gangster: small-minded, short-sighted and vicious. So where had he got the servitor from?

His ability to think was being severely hampered by loud bass-heavy music. On the other side of the road a little further up, a van was parked, its side door open, a large sound system pointing out of it. There were four men in hoodies and clown masks putting on what du Bois could only speculate was some kind of dance exhibition. Though what the gyrations, gymnastics and spinning on their backs had to do with dancing was beyond him. He’d only worked out it was supposed to be dancing by the music. A surprisingly large group of tourists had gathered around the dancers – so large they were starting to block the road to the most westerly point of Old Portsmouth. Du Bois felt like calling the police but decided that he was being petty.

Elizabeth Luckwicke passed along the walkway on the top of the wall. Du Bois was not pleased to see her and had hoped that she would stay in Bradford. What really surprised him was that she appeared to have a blood-screen, and a powerful one. He could make out the representation of augmentation in his vision. He could see fire burning through her veins.

He dropped the baguette he was eating and climbed out of the Range Rover. He didn’t like where she was heading, either. He thought about calling out to her but decided against it. She was an unknown factor now. He wondered how much she’d pulled the wool over his eyes. Instead he headed after her.

Beth hurried along the wall ignoring the pounding beat of the breakdancing crew entertaining the tourists. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the clown-masked dancers, standing on top of the van, throw a handful of glitter into the air. They were dancing to a hip-hop tune that sampled the old ‘Mr Sandman’ song.

Looking along Broad Street, she could make out the pubs ahead, the water and then Gosport. To her left the white sail-like Spinnaker Tower rose above Gunwharf. Beth came to a squat square tower attached to the defensive wall. She took the narrow steps down to street level.

It was called the Lighthouse and it was on the waterfront on Tower Street, which ran parallel with Broad Street. Du Bois stood on the Round Tower, which overlooked the Lighthouse. It was a large, four-storey, pseudo-art-deco luxury home with a small observation tower. A spiral staircase with large windows stuck out of the side of the house. He watched Beth hammer on the door at the bottom of the staircase. He watched a thug come out of the door to the third floor and head down the stairs.

The heavy opened the door an inch. Beth kicked it completely open with surprising strength, knocking him back, and then preceded to beat him with what looked like a pickaxe handle with a bike chain wrapped around it until he stopped moving.

Above Beth, du Bois watched another two of McGurk’s thugs appear on the staircase, one from the second floor, another from the third carrying a snooker cue. Both were wearing suits. Du Bois had to admit that for a shell-suit-wearing toerag, McGurk seemed to expect surprisingly high levels of sartorial elegance from his lackeys.

Beth could already hear the feet on the stairs thundering towards her. She was pretty sure that the guy who had answered the door was still alive as she stepped over him. She sprinted up the stairs, meeting the first guy immediately. He kicked out at her head. She ducked and swung the pickaxe handle at his supporting leg. She had hoped to hurt him enough to knock him off balance. Instead she heard the crack as bones fractured under the surprising force of her blow. He cried out as his leg collapsed. Beth grabbed his hair, dragged him out of the way and then continued up the stairs.

She ducked as someone swung a snooker cue at her so hard it broke when it hit the wall. Moving quickly up the stairs, she punched with her left. She was surprised when he doubled over. Even though she was wearing her brass knuckles, her left hand had always been the weaker one. She dragged him forward so he fell face first on the stairs. There was shouting above her. The heavy was still moving. She turned around, grabbed the railings for support and put the boot in until he lost interest in fighting.

First floor, open-plan kitchen, empty. Second floor, lounge area, nice view of a passing ferry, empty. Third floor, games room, snooker table, bar, another big window and McGurk with two of his boys on either side of him pointing guns at her. There were three more muscle in there: one had a snooker cue, one was using his thumb to open a folding knife, the third was unarmed. The black holes of the gun barrels brought her up short.

‘My f*cking house! You come into my f*cking home!’ The only emotion Beth could muster was disgust. McGurk was screaming so loudly he was drooling.

‘You came into mine,’ Beth told him, angry he was hiding behind guns.

‘I’m allowed to. I can do what I want in Pompey! You are f*cking nothing!’

It seemed to Beth that people had been saying something similar to her all her life. She was starting to think it had more to do with them than her.

‘Where’s my sister?’ she said, quietly but unable to mask her distaste.

‘Do you know what I’m going to do?!’ he screamed.

‘Make an outlandish threat that you’ll never live up to?’ du Bois asked as he stepped into the room.

‘Shit!’ Beth said quietly and then moved to the side. The guns were suddenly pointed at du Bois, who raised his arms.

‘I’m just here to talk.’

McGurk looked du Bois up and down, taking in the raw patches of skin.

‘What happened to you? Disagreement with a strimmer?’ The laughter from McGurk’s cronies was forced. They knew their cues well. Du Bois looked a little apologetic. ‘You’re the plod that talked to Arbogast?’ McGurk said suspiciously. Du Bois nodded. ‘You armed?’ Du Bois nodded. ‘We’ll be having that, then. Markus.’ The unarmed guy that Beth recognised from her kidnapping, the one she’d stabbed in the leg, went over to search du Bois, who held his arms up higher to make it easier for the bodyguard to search him. Markus took the .45 and the tanto off him.

‘Careful with that,’ du Bois said, nodding at the .45. ‘Gift from a very grateful lieutenant in Delta Force.’

‘That supposed to impress us?’ McGurk demanded.

‘Apologies if you feel I’m name-dropping.’

‘What do you want?’ McGurk demanded.

‘Natalie Luckwicke.’

‘Don’t give her to him!’ Beth shouted. McGurk and du Bois were equally surprised by her outburst.

‘Shut up,’ McGurk told her. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Now can you think of any terribly compelling reason why I shouldn’t beat you both to death with my cane?’

‘Is that a bull’s cock cane?’ du Bois enquired.

‘Why, yes it is,’ McGurk said sarcastically.

‘You’re going to beat us to death with your cock substitute? Given your propensity for sodomising your employees –’ du Bois looked around at the five men with McGurk, none of whom would meet his eyes ‘– has it occurred to you that you’re a repressed homosexual and that you’ll be much happier if you admit it and just leave all this misguided rage behind?’

Beth was trying hard not to laugh.

‘F*ck you!’ There was more drool. ‘I’ve f*cked every whore in this city, especially this cunt’s dead sister!’ Beth bristled, but one of the guns turned back towards her. She controlled herself with difficulty. The rage wasn’t red in colour any more; it was blue, cold, and seethed under her skin.

‘How admirable,’ du Bois said.

‘Do you think I won’t off plod?’ McGurk demanded. His men were looking a little nervous. After all, it would be one of them who pulled the trigger, and this was a large room with lots of glass in it. Another ferry was going past the window.

‘I don’t think he’s a repressed homosexual. I think he’s just a frightened little man,’ Beth said.

‘F*ck you, bitch!’

‘Where’d you get the servitor from?’ du Bois asked.

‘What? That f*cked-up mutant thing?’

Du Bois sighed theatrically. ‘It’s as if Oscar Wilde never died for our sins.’

‘“With slouch and swing around the ring/ We trod the Fools’ Parade!/ We did not care: we knew we were/ The Devils’ Own Brigade:/ And shaven head and feet of lead/ Make a merry masquerade.” And f*ck you, you patronising public-schoolboy wanker,’ McGurk said.

‘Good choice. Where’d you hear it?’ There was not trace of humour in du Bois’s voice.

‘Who the f*ck d’you think you’re—’

The two shrouded, snub-nosed, suppressed .38 revolvers slid quickly out of the sleeves of du Bois’s finely tailored leather coat on forearm hoppers. Du Bois lowered his arm. The shots were barely louder than coughs. Neat red holes appeared in the centre of the foreheads of the three men holding guns. All of them stood there for a moment and then toppled to the ground. Nobody moved. Beth looked appalled at the people she had just seen die in front of her. She looked down at Markus, feeling faintly nauseous that she actually knew the guy’s name. It wasn’t like when she’d killed Davey; there was only cold calculation from du Bois. He shifted his position to cover McGurk with one revolver. The other vaguely covering his two remaining men.

‘Beth, would you mind getting my pistol and my knife?’ du Bois asked. Beth glanced at him and then bent down and picked up the .45 from the floor near where Markus had dropped it. She did not give it back to du Bois.

‘You know how to use that?’ he asked. Beth ignored him and put the gun in the pocket of her battered leather.

‘What do you guys want?’ McGurk asked cautiously.

‘The same thing we wanted before I shot your friends. Obviously,’ du Bois said.

‘As far as I know, the girl’s dead. She died when her house blew up. You must have seen it on the telly. The mutant thing, a friend of mine found it in a basement.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, down near the front in Southsea.’

‘Now where’s the girl?’

‘I told you: she’s f*cking dead and causing me no end of grief while she’s at it.’

‘I have considerably less compunction in shooting low-rate rapist plastic gangsters than you do police officers. It would behove you to answer my question or I’ll start with your kneecaps.’

‘You can’t get all of us—’

Beth walked forward, grabbed the cane out of McGurk’s hand and laid into him with a ferocity that made du Bois take a step back.

‘WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?!’

McGurk was battered, bleeding, sobbing in pain and fear and had wet himself a long time before Beth realised that he now really wanted to tell her where Talia was. She stopped beating him. She was still shaking with rage. Curled up in a foetal position, he told her. One of the muscle gave them directions.

‘Remember everything he’s ever done to you,’ Beth told the two thugs. ‘Who wants the stick?’ Then she threw the bloodstained bull penis on the floor, turned and walked out.

With a thought the two .38s slid back up du Bois’s sleeves on their hoppers. He picked up his tanto, sheathed it and followed Beth.

She was waiting for him around the corner just past the second floor, pointing his own .45 at him. Du Bois was moving to the side as soon as he saw the gun. As he was higher than her he risked a kick, sending the .45 spinning from her fingers. Beth didn’t hesitate either. She was as surprised as du Bois was at how fast she ripped her great-grandfather’s bayonet from her inside pocket and stabbed it up through du Bois’s arm as he reached for her.

Du Bois screamed as the force of her blow pushed the tip of the bayonet through his nano-fabric-armoured leather coat and then through his hardening skin. He kicked out forward, hard. His foot caught Beth centre mass in the chest, lifted her up off her feet and sent her flying the rest of the way down the stairs and into the wall at the bottom. She slumped to the floor but started moving again almost immediately. Du Bois was appalled at how highly augmented she was. He did not understand how he could have missed this. He leaped down the stairs, his foot smashing her in the head so hard it cracked the plaster behind it. She was still moving towards him despite the blood oozing from her head. In desperation he triggered the hopper on his left arm, pointing the .38 that slid out at her.

‘Girl, I have been killing for centuries!’ Either this or the gun made Beth stop. That made no sense either. If he shot her the bullets would hurt, they might even incapacitate her, but unless they were coated with nanites or carried a nanite payload that counteracted how quickly her own obviously high-level nanite augmentation could heal her, then she would be fine. It was as if she didn’t know this. ‘Why attack me? Broadly speaking, I’m on your side.’ He wondered if she knew that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed her father. Yesterday he would have said no, but then yesterday he had been sure that Beth was a normal girl – for a violent ex-con from Bradford.

Beth glared at him. Du Bois tried to ignore the sound of bad things happening to McGurk above. She wondered if anyone had called the police yet.

‘Seriously, talk to me. I don’t want to hurt you or your sister, quite the opposite really.’ Then it hit him. ‘Are you from the Brass City?’ He didn’t think her look of confusion was faked. She had no idea what he was talking about. ‘The Eggshell?’ More confusion.

‘My father told me what you are,’ she told him.

He didn’t happen to mention what you are, du Bois thought. ‘And what’s that?’

‘You’re in some kind of cult. You bred her for sacrifice.’

Du Bois stared at her. Then he started laughing. Then he sat down on the stairs but kept the gun on her.

‘And you believed that?’ he asked, still laughing.

‘Everything’s a bit f*cking weird!’ Beth snapped at him, less than happy that he was laughing at her, and her head hurt, quite a lot, she could feel it moving of its own accord, mending itself, though she was starting to feel really hungry again.

Du Bois thought about it. The truth was arguably odder.

‘Do you know, I almost see where he got that from,’ du Bois admitted.

‘Well, what do you want her for?’

‘It’s true she was part of a selective breeding and genetic manipulation programme. She and many other children were born to have their genetic material harvested, but we weren’t going to kill them, just take samples while they lived privileged lives.’

‘And where are these children now?’ Beth asked. Du Bois thought about lying. Instead he lit a cigarette and tried to ignore the horrific noises from upstairs.

‘They’re all dead.’ Beth started to say something. ‘No, we didn’t do it. To all intents and purposes they were wiped out in a terrorist attack. That’s why we need your sister.’

Beth wanted to believe him. Her instincts were to trust him, but she didn’t feel she could risk it, not when she was so close.

‘I’m taking my sister and we’re going,’ she told him.

‘Something’s coming. Talia is very important, and you’d both be better off coming with me.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I don’t have to have this discussion, Beth. I can take her any time

I want. You don’t even know how to kill me. Trust me.’

‘Would sawing your head off with a World War One bayonet do it?’ she asked.

It might, du Bois thought. ‘I don’t think you’ve got that in you.’

‘You get between me and Talia, we’ll find out,’ she told him evenly.

Du Bois looked at her through the pall of his cigarette smoke. He took another drag. He made his decision. Beth just would not stop going after her sister. She had more will and courage than the entire ruling council of the Circle put together.

‘Fine, but they’ll send others like me after you,’ he told her. To hell with the Circle. ‘And I’m taking some samples from her before we go our separate ways.’ Beth opened her mouth to object. ‘I’m probably going to get killed for this, so no more arguments.’ He stood up and downloaded the route to where McGurk had said Talia was directly into his mind. It was very close. Du Bois supposed McGurk had wanted to keep her nearby. ‘And give me my gun back. It really was a present.’

‘No.’

Du Bois was not sure why he was surprised it was a lock-up. His ability to quote Wilde notwithstanding, McGurk had been a small-minded man. Du Bois let Beth handle the man guarding her sister. He heard bones crack under her fist. He was a little worried that she’d hit him so hard she’d killed him.

Talia was lying on a hospital trolley being fed with a drip and apparently giving blood. She was no longer a pale waif-like beauty; she looked gaunt and near-dead.

Beth rushed to the side of the trolley.

‘Talia!’ Her sister was unconscious.

Du Bois immediately began checking her vitals. She was okay but suffering from constant sedation and enforced bed rest. Her breathing was a little shallow and she was probably malnourished, but her pulse was fine.

‘What are they doing to her?’ Beth demanded, more distraught than he’d heard her so far.

‘At a guess, they’re using her blood as some kind of hallucinogenic narcotic.’ Beth looked at him like he was mad. He left out that he thought her blood coming into contact with some kind of sensitive mind was probably the reason Talia’s house had been destroyed and all those people had died in the nightclub.

He produced a leather case from his jacket and removed a number of vials from it. He placed a few against her skin and two in her mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ Beth demanded, reaching for the gun as the vials grew needles and started drawing blood. The ones in her mouth took scrapings. Talia was starting to stir. ‘Don’t you think she’s lost enough blood?’

‘This is our agreement,’ du Bois said in a tone that did not invite argument. ‘I’ll be out of your life soon.’

Beth looked like she was going to object again as he rolled Talia onto her side. She moaned and then cried out in pain as du Bois pressed one of the vials into the base of her spine.

‘She’s going to need medical help,’ du Bois told her. Which is probably where the next person the Circle send will find you, he left unsaid. ‘I can drop you where you choose. Then you’ll never see me again.’ Because I’ll be dead, he thought as he took the final vial away and let Talia drop down onto her back.

‘Beth?’ Talia said woozily. Beth looked at her, tears springing into her eyes. Du Bois wished that they had more of a future, but he wasn’t sure that any of them did. ‘I’ve been having really bad dreams, Beth.’

Beth looked at du Bois, who moved to pick Talia up. Beth grabbed him by the arm to stop him. She wrapped the sheets around Talia and then lifted her light form off the trolley herself. Du Bois unhooked her from the drip.

Beth carried Talia, who was fading in and out of consciousness, as du Bois led the way across Broad Street past the break-dancing crew. As they passed the dancers, the music changed to that of some pop song that du Bois vaguely remembered from the 80s. As it did, he heard the sound of many people stamping their feet on the ground in unison. It was a sound that wouldn’t have been out of place on a parade ground. Du Bois and Beth both glanced behind them. They were surprised to see all the tourists standing to attention in neat rows and staring at them. Then, in time with the music, old and young alike started dancing towards them, clicking their fingers. The break-dancers in the clown masks were nowhere to be seen.

‘Run!’ du Bois shouted. Both .38s slid out of his sleeves, though he knew they would not be sufficient.

‘What? They’re just dancing,’ Beth said, more bemused than anything, and was then appalled when du Bois started firing both pistols as he backed off.

‘They’ve been slaved!’ du Bois shouted. Beth looked confused. Du Bois struggled to find something to say that would make her understand. ‘They’re zombies!’ he shouted as the crowd broke into a run at them. Beth finally seemed to get it and ran for the Range Rover.

‘Welcome to the douchepocalypse, motherf*ckers!’ one of the clowns shouted from behind the van, and started firing. The sound of the automatic weapon was monstrously loud in the street, echoing back from the walls and across the water. Du Bois had a moment to wonder at someone using such a big-bore round in an automatic weapon when a shot caught him in the shoulder. His armoured coat hardened, his skin hardened, but the force of the .50 Beowulf bullet spun him round and he hit the ground, his shoulder almost certainly broken. The closest of the slaved tourists was reaching for him. Du Bois put the final two rounds from the right hand .38 into the slave’s legs. The man went sprawling across the ground.

Beth reached the Range Rover. Its lights were blinking to suggest that the doors had been unlocked. It took her a moment to connect the sparks flying off the vehicle’s armoured body with the thunderous roar of gunfire. With that came the realisation that she was being shot at. Even then it seemed unreal, something so far removed from her experience as not to be taken seriously. Beyond the four-by-four she saw passers-by scattering, running towards the closest cover or even freezing.

Hindered by Talia, Beth nevertheless managed to yank open one of the back doors. A burst of fire caught the door, which slammed shut. She felt something hot fly past her ear and instinctively she cowered away, but then she grabbed the door, pulling it open again.

From his position on the ground, du Bois found himself surrounded. Slaved tourists reached down for him. He kicked out and scrabbled backwards as his shoulder healed painfully.

‘Cover! Cover! Beth, shoot them!’ They were snagging his clothes now, clawing at his exposed skin. It wouldn’t be difficult for them, en masse, to hold him down, augmented or not.

Beth heard du Bois as she threw Talia onto the Range Rover’s back seat. More firing. The car was haloed by sparks, some of its bullet-resistant glass starting to crack under multiple impacts from heavy-calibre fire.

She looked back to see him surrounded by ‘zombies’. Beth grabbed du Bois’s .45 from her jacket pocket, leaned across the bonnet of the Range Rover like she’d seen in films and tried to pull the trigger. Nothing happened.

Lots more gunfire now, more than one shooter, perhaps as many as three or four. The slaved tourists were dying silently and uncomplaining, hydrostatic shock from heavy weapons blowing limbs off. They were shooting at him through the slaves.

He kicked out at the knee of one of the tourists, grabbed his tanto and hamstrung another before managing to get to his feet and break free of them.

As he sprinted for the Range Rover he saw Beth struggling with the .45.

‘The safety! The bloody safety!’ he all but screamed. Then he tried something. He sent her the knowledge of firearms imprinted on his neural nanonics. He had no idea if it would work.

Beth had no idea what was happening. There was a strange feeling in her head like creeping warmth – it lasted a moment – then a shooting pain so intense that she collapsed to the ground behind the Range Rover. She could feel blood trickling from her eyes, nose and ears, but suddenly she knew how to use the cold piece of metal in her hand.

From the ground she saw one of the clown-masked gunmen sprint from behind the van, heading for cover behind a car on the same side of the street as the Range Rover. Beth took aim.

It’s f*cking amazing, King Jeremy thought. The problem with shooting people for real was that it was never as spectacular as it was in the movies or games: there was never as much blood. So the four of them had overlaid VR graphics filters on their real vision. Everything happening in the real world they could see, but the filters added much more splatter and made it look as if they were living out their favourite first-person shooter. Him and Baron Albedo unloading at that guy the zombies were trying to bring down had looked awesome. The zombies had all but exploded in front of their eyes. You could even change the environment. He knew that Dracimus had placed himself in some environment where he was a supervillain mowing down superheroes, and he was pretty sure that Inflictor had simulated some sort of hell environment.

Albedo’s dancing-zombies idea had been inspired as well. He would, however, have to talk to Dracimus about shouting ‘Welcome to the douchepocalypse’. Major uncoolness.

King Jeremy aimed the AR-15 – converted to fire the massive .50 Beowulf rounds on full automatic – at the blond guy sprinting for the Range Rover. As he did so, Inflictor made a run for the opposite side of the street.

Du Bois threw himself across the front of the Range Rover as Beth fired the .45 repeatedly from her position on the ground. The running gunman dived behind the car he was making for, though she was sure she had hit him.

Du Bois rolled into a crouch, ignoring the painful jarring in his still-healing shoulder. He snatched the pouch clipped to his belt which contained four magazines for the .45 and slid it along the ground to Beth. He didn’t give her the nanite-tipped bullets.

He spun, keeping low as the Range Rover rocked from hit after hit. He saw some of the slaved tourists running towards the back of the car. The .38 on his right arm slid out on its hopper at a thought. He flipped the cylinder open and emptied the spent cartridges, then, grabbing a speed loader from his pocket, slid the new rounds home and flipped the cylinder shut.

On the opposite side of the road he saw one of the masked gunmen running towards cover behind a car. Du Bois made for the rear of the Range Rover. As he did, a fat tourist in a loud shirt came around the back of the vehicle. Du Bois shot him three times in the face at near point-blank range. Each round was a glaser, a hollow-point bullet filled with number-12 shotgun pellets. The pellets spread out inside the victim after impact. Du Bois strode around the back of the Range Rover, where another one of the slaved tourists charged him. He fired the suppressed revolver another three times and then with a thought the hopper slid the still-hot .38 back up into his sleeve.

Du Bois yanked the rear door of the Range Rover open, catching another one of the slaved tourists under the chin. Yet another appeared. Du Bois pulled the tanto and cut him across the throat, bringing up his leg to front-kick him for good measure. It gave him a moment. He hit the quick release on the storage compartment in the floor of the Range Rover. The top slid back and he had time to grab the SA58 FAL carbine before four hands grabbed him from behind and wrenched him out of the car. He kicked back, sending all three of them to the ground. Over the road he saw the clown rise from behind the car and bring the massive barrel of the modified AR-15 to bear.

Beth scuttled back, keeping low as round after round sparked off the armoured Range Rover. The gunman she was sure she had hit appeared over the roof of the car he’d dived behind and fired. Beth opened the front passenger door of the Range Rover and took cover behind it. More rounds sparked off it, battering the door into her. She fired three quick shots through the gap between the open door and the body of the vehicle. Instinctively she seemed to know just where to place the shots. She expected the guy to take cover. Instead she saw bits fly off his hood as he staggered back, and rather than falling over he just took aim again and fired.

‘Beth!’ du Bois shouted from the back of the Range Rover.

With his left he battered at the slaved tourists clawing at him, with his right he loosed a long burst from the FAL carbine at the clown on the opposite side of the road. He walked the rounds down the body of the car, the armour-piercing tips punching through the vehicle’s body. There was a spray of blood, and the gunman jumped back from the car. He then disappeared behind it.

Du Bois cried out as teeth bit into his ear. His skin hardened and the teeth broke, but not before drawing blood. Beth appeared over him, pointing his own .45 at him. She fired once, shifted the pistol and fired again, executing the two zombies attacking du Bois.

‘Get the shotgun,’ du Bois told her as he rolled to his feet. Using the back of the Range Rover as cover, he fired short bursts at the van, trying to suppress the clowns still using the van as cover. He was disappointed to see that the van seemed to be armoured as well. He was more pleased when a stray round killed the sound system.

Shoving the .45 in her waistband, Beth grabbed the shotgun. Somehow she knew it was a Benelli M4 semi-automatic. She grabbed a bandolier of cartridges and slung them over her shoulder. Behind her, du Bois had retreated behind the Range Rover’s rear door as he changed magazines. Another slaved tourist rushed in. Beth fired under the door, taking the zombie’s legs out from under her. The zombie’s head bounced off the door before she hit the ground.

Beth moved back around to the side of the Range Rover closest to the wall. There were zombies charging in from that direction as well.

The slaved tourist whose legs Beth had blown off was grabbing at du Bois’s legs. It was annoying, and as he stamped down, breaking fingers, he knew he’d feel teeth biting into him soon.

They needed some respite. He turned back to the rear of the Range Rover and grabbed the M320 grenade launcher. He opened it, removed the grenade inside and replaced it with another type. He stamped down again as he felt teeth bite into his leg.

He moved around and fired the grenade at the remaining slaved tourists charging towards his side of the Range Rover. Flechettes filled the air briefly and turned the slaved tourists into so much meat. He would do penance for murdering the innocent later. It would not be the first time.

‘Awesome,’ King Jeremy whispered as, in his augmented vision, the blond guy’s grenade turned the zombies into a blood storm. Remembering himself, he pushed another magazine home. He was aiming, he told himself, but really he just liked firing the gun.

The first zombie slammed the passenger door shut as they charged in. The shotgun blast took him in the stomach. He was still running, dead, when the one behind shoved him out of the way. Beth shot him. The third hurdled the bodies of the others and Beth shot him at point-blank range, taking most of his face off.

The clown on their side of the road, behind the car, was firing with a clear line. Big-bore rounds tore through the other zombies charging Beth. She let the Benelli drop on its sling, grabbed the .45 from her waistband and walked forward, firing one-handed at charging zombies and then the gunman. She grabbed the front passenger door just as the .45’s magazine ran dry, and yanked it open to crouch behind it to reload as the clown behind the car fired on her again.

Du Bois appeared next to her. At first she thought that he was holding some kind of huge pistol, but her new-found knowledge corrected her as he fired the grenade launcher.

King Jeremy actually had the foresight and was quick enough to slow everything down. He watched the 40-millimetre high-explosive grenade fly from the launcher, hit the car that Inflictor was hiding behind and explode. The car was lifted into the air. Inflictor was flung back hard enough to dent the car he hit. He slumped to the ground.

‘Cool,’ King Jeremy said. He had to give the blond guy credit. He had skills.

Despite knowing their own capabilities, even King Jeremy was surprised when Inflictor got to his feet. He watched his co-member of the DAYP throw away the AR-15 – the explosion had buckled the rifle – and draw his massive .50 Desert Eagle pistol.

‘Yes! You f*cking mad man!’ Then he had to duck behind the van as bullets sparked off the armour all around him. At the other end of the van, Baron Albedo was firing at the Range Rover, laughing like a lunatic. What a f*cking high, King Jeremy thought.

Du Bois had returned to the rear corner of the Range Rover and was exchanging fire with the two clowns in cover at either end of the armoured van.

Beth was mostly keeping her head down as neither the pistol nor the shotgun were ideal weapons for engaging the clowns at that range. She was using the time to reload the Benelli.

He emerged out of the smoke and flame, running over the top of the car that du Bois had blown up, heading towards the Range Rover. Most of the clown mask was gone; underneath was some monstrous face out of a TV show but somehow rendered horribly real. He was coming straight at Beth. She levelled the .45 through the gap between the door and the car, the door battering into her legs with each impact from the running monster’s massive handgun. Beth fired the .45 rapidly, emptying the pistol into him. He staggered with every shot but kept coming.

King Jeremy hunkered down behind the van as the blond guy fired at him. From his position he could see Dracimus cowering behind a car further along the road.

‘Get up and shoot!’ King Jeremy shouted over their internal link.

‘I’m shot!’ Dracimus answered.

‘Don’t be such a f*cking p-ssy; it can’t kill you.’

‘You haven’t been shot. It really hurts!’

King Jeremy turned to point the modified AR-15 at Dracimus.

‘Stand up and f*cking shoot!’

Inflictor barrelled into the door of the Range Rover, slamming it so hard into Beth that it knocked her insensible for a moment. He opened the door and grabbed her, turning as he threw her through the air. Beth hit the ground some eight feet away. Dazed for a moment, she was quickly scrabbling for the shotgun still on its sling.

Du Bois turned to see the clown lift the massive Desert Eagle and point it at Beth.

He moved wide to get a shot, bringing the FAL carbine to his shoulder. Behind him the gun clown who’d taken cover, the one du Bois was sure he’d shot, rose from behind the car. Too late du Bois realised his mistake and turned back to face him.

Dracimus fired. His first shots were a long undisciplined burst, but then the skills they’d hard-wired into themselves kicked in. He brought the gun under control and fired a short burst and then another. He grinned as he made the blond guy – who in his augmented view of things was his most hated goody-two-shoes superhero – dance in the middle of huge explosions of blood.

As the monstrous clown brought the Desert Eagle up, Beth knew that she’d never bring the shotgun to bear in time. The flame from the pistol’s muzzle looked enormous, and she actually saw its slide shoot back and the ejected cartridge fly out the side. Then again, but the slide stayed back this time. Good. He couldn’t shoot her any more.

She was dead before her head hit the ground.

King Jeremy and Baron Albedo moved across the street in a low crouch, weapons at the ready like they’d seen in films. King Jeremy went around the front of the Range Rover, Baron Albedo the back.

King Jeremy found Inflictor standing over the woman’s body. There were two massive entry wounds in her chest.

‘That was f*cking insane, man!’ King Jeremy said, checking she was dead and clapping his friend on the back. Inflictor turned to look at him. He’s probably seeing a fellow demon, King Jeremy thought.

‘Let’s hurt it,’ he said, meaning the dead woman.

‘Er . . . she’s dead, dude.’ King Jeremy could hear sirens now.

‘Did you see that?! Did you see me f*cking kill him?!’ Dracimus said as he ran across the road. He stopped to stand over the blond guy’s body. ‘Oh yeah! He’s all kinds of f*cked up!’

King Jeremy resisted the urge to shoot Dracimus. He was pissed off that Dracimus, who’d been a p-ssy throughout the gunfight, had got the kill shot on the guy.

‘Check them for tech!’ King Jeremy barked.

‘Why, man?’ Dracimus said. Baron Albedo was already searching the blond guy.

‘Because I f*cking said so. Inflictor? Inflictor!’

The demon-faced boy turned to look at King Jeremy.

‘Get the girl out of the back of the car and put her in the van.’

Inflictor nodded and went to do as he was bid.

‘King J?’ Baron Albedo said. He was holding up a small leather case. King Jeremy went over to look at it. Albedo had unzipped it by the time he got there. Inside were some vials, blood, a white fluid and some other bits and pieces that Jeremy didn’t immediately recognise. He shrugged but took the case.

‘Anything else?’

‘Not without looking harder.’

‘The sirens were getting louder. Across the road, Inflictor was tossing the heavy speakers of the sound system out of the van one-handed.

‘No time.’

King Jeremy, Dracimus and Baron Albedo ran across the street back to the van.