Fireside (21 page)

Instead, he slowly lowered his boot to the ground. Starr was the only woman that he’d allowed to see his true self and he cared for her. If it had been anyone else under his boot, he would have killed them without any warning. He actually cared for her.

“Stand up,” Kendrick ordered.

She stood shakily and wouldn’t meet his gaze. The salty lines that ran in multiple directions across her face made a slight lump form in his throat. He swallowed it and said, “You will never speak to me like that again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord,” she muttered.

“What was that?”

She looked up at him and replied, “I will never talk to you like that again, my lord. You are the master of the Vultures. You are invincible.”

“Good. Quellan, leave us and fire the flares. If that idiot Huerta is waiting for a signal, let’s give him one.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain replied and left the tent. Kendrick heard him tell the men outside the tent flap that he was not to be disturbed.

“You must realize, Starr, that I could never let you show insubordination towards me—especially in front of a subordinate like Quellan. That kind of atmosphere becomes ripe for a coup and I like being in charge.”

“Yes, my lord. I understand.” A strange smile played across her face and she clapped her hands. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll find a way to help you defeat their giant. I promise it!”

He sighed, “I don’t need any help. I’ll just shoot him.”

His words didn’t seem to have any impact on her. Instead, she began pacing, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. She muttered something about blood and souls being the key to victory. Her mind seemed to be slipping further towards the brink; maybe he should have crushed her skull when he had the opportunity to do so. He could have blamed it on his rage and he would have forgiven himself.

Starr stopped and turned her backside towards him, “Do you want me?”

Kendrick unbuckled his pistol belt and tossed it on a desk. Her strange behavior could be analyzed later. He picked up a knife and handed it hilt-first to her. “You know what I like.”

She took the weapon enthusiastically and unsnapped his pants. Yes, she knew exactly what he liked.

*****

Red explosives burst in the air, signaling the traitor that it was time. Edward Huerta looked around the assembled group of boys. The Vulture army had sat outside the gate for almost a week now. He’d taken it upon himself to reunite the two gangs that Kendrick had started all those years ago.

Huerta, a legend among the youth of the Barrio as a symbol of resistance against the collective groupthink of the city leaders, had brought the gangs together by killing Bull and Fish in front of them. Now both gangs had adopted the green square on their chest—Kendrick’s symbol—to help identify them as Vultures to the invading army and protect them during the upcoming bloodbath. He’d effectively sealed off the Barrio to keep away intruders and instructed the boys of their mission to bring down the walls. All they needed was the signal.

He took the flares to be that bastard Kendrick’s go-ahead signal. It had taken him long enough to decide to attack, maybe there were preparations that had to be made that he knew nothing about. Whatever the reason, they were finally ready.

“Right,
men
,” he began, choosing to call them men instead of boys to strengthen their courage. “We have a mission. For more than twenty-five years I’ve worked in those stinking sewers. I refused to let that self-righteous fuck, Traxx, or his lackeys make me part of their system. Then, Kendrick Rustwood—the man in charge of that giant army outside the city walls—came to me. I worked closely with him to devise the plan to bring down these walls.”

He took a breath and jabbed a finger towards the city’s perimeter. “Those walls have cut across our city, causing your families to be homeless and they forced us into filthy places like the Barrio. Before men like Traxx and Delgado, the old mayor, our families owned homes, had a steady supply of food and weren’t looked down upon by the other residents of San Angelo. After those walls were built, they became a symbol of power for those in charge, those who’ve made us their slaves. This morning, we’re going to bring them down!”

Huerta paused as the assembled gang members cheered him on. They were eating it up. The stupid fucks didn’t realize that he’d turn on them the moment he had the chance. Kendrick had promised
him
a position in the Vulture’s hierarchy; he hadn’t said anything about the Barrio trash that helped him destabilize the city. Bull’s gang had been releasing demonbrocs for weeks, causing widespread panic and even a few deaths while Fish’s gang had been stealing and stockpiling supplies, causing neighbors to turn on one another in accusations of theft. Now, they’d destroy the walls and the frightened, untrusting defenders wouldn’t be able to put together a coordinated response. The Vultures would walk in, virtually unscathed.

He raised his arms to quiet the boys down. Better to not bring attention to themselves just yet. “Alright, men. Settle down. As some of you know, instead of disposing of the shit like I’ve told the City Council I was doing, I’ve stockpiled it. Yes, I’ve been saving the feces of every man, woman and child in this city for years. Do you know why?”

“For fertilizer?” one of the boys in the back asked.

“That would be a good reason, but no,” Huerta acknowledged. “Shit, especially dried shit, burns very hot for a long time. I’ve lined the sewer system that runs underneath the city with that dried shit. Once we light it, the fire will rage uncontrolled beneath their feet. The heat will set off the explosives in the walls and the city will fall to the Vultures.”

Once again the cheering reminded him of why he’d spent most of his adult life in those sewers, toiling away in the stink and the filth. Traxx would pay for creating the Barrio. The conditions inside the slum had allowed diseases to spread, killing thousands of people, including Huerta’s family. He allowed his mind to manipulate the timeline since he knew that his wife and child had died of some type of flu years before the walls had been relocated for the third time, when the Barrio was created. Whether it was the creation of the walls or the lack of proper sanitation without the appropriate nutrition and medication, it didn’t matter to him anymore. He’d allowed his hatred to fester under the gently massaged timelines.

It was the only thing that had kept him sane down in those tunnels for so long.

FIFTEEN

Aeric glanced sidelong at his friend. Tyler had miraculously appeared at the city hall this morning proclaiming that he wasn’t about to die at home alone of some bullshit disease while everyone he knew got to fight one more final, epic battle. Clearly he remembered video games and movies far too well.

“Are you sure that you’re ready to go out on the wall, buddy? I mean, a few weeks ago, you were coughing up blood and couldn’t stand.”

Tyler stopped him with a massive hand across his chest. Even though the cancer had eaten away at him, Tyler was still an intimidating subject. “What’s your hang-up, Aeric? I’ve fought and bled for this city—for you. If I was one to point fingers, then I’d come back at you with something about you needing CPR just a couple of days ago.” He shrugged and gently took his hand off of Aeric’s chest, “It’s a good thing for you that I
don’t
go around pointing fingers.”

“You’re right, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, you did,” he replied through a grin. “I can take it, though. So, now that we’ve got that settled, what’s the plan?”

“We don’t know what they’re waiting for. That old man in the prison had said that the Vultures had a nasty surprise for us. He refused to elaborate, though. He was insane, so there’s no telling if they actually have something planned or if his demented mind created it.”

Tyler glanced down at Aiden, who’d become Aeric’s shadow over the past week, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. “It’s okay,” Aeric confirmed. “I’ve told him everything about the Vultures and their wicked ways. Sure, he’s young, but this world has a way of eating up the innocence of youth.”

The big man nodded his head, his shaggy blond hair becoming more disheveled as he did so. “We should attack them,” he stated simply.

That was the last thing Aeric thought he’d hear from the mouth of his lifelong friend. “What do you mean? San Angelo’s strength is in our walls. We’ve trained to defend from above, not to conduct offensive, open warfare in front of the gates.”

“Exactly. It’s the last thing Kendrick would expect. He trained with us and knows our tactics. He helped to build those walls, so he knows how formidable they are. There’s nothing that—”

Aeric held up his hand and then slid his open palm down across his face. “How could I have been so stupid? Kendrick helped to
build
the walls. He knows their weaknesses; that’s what he’s counting on.”

“You think those flares this morning were some sort of signal?” Tyler asked.

“You can count on it…” He trailed off as one of the hoodrats from the Barrio walked across his line of sight. He recognized him as one of the boys who’d been outside the grocery store where Maria lived before she moved into the Traxx house. He wore raggedy clothing like most of the other residents of the Barrio, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there were rips in the fabric. He was also covered in mud and what looked like smears of black ash from a fire.

Tyler followed his gaze toward the gang member. “What is it?”

The boy was one of hundreds that Aeric saw on a daily basis; what stood out and caused him to stop was the green square of fabric above his left breast. “We’ve been infiltrated!” he shouted. “The Vultures are inside the walls.”

The gang member in question took off at a dead sprint towards the Barrio. “Prepare for an attack!” Aeric yelled towards the defenders above them on the wall.

One of them began ringing a bell loudly in warning. Men and women streamed out of houses near the walls where they’d been resting and went up the ladders to the top of the wall. The defenders crouched down behind the ramparts, staring out into the wastes for the pending attack. They were ready to repel the Vultures, as they’d done time and again against raiders and bands of scavengers.

Aeric clutched Aiden to his side and spun in circles in the open assembly area behind the walls. He knew what he saw. The Vultures in Austin wore the green square to indicate that they were part of the gang and one of the gangs in the Barrio had worn the same symbol. The fuckers had been here all along.

The surprise attack was revealed across the northern end of the city as thick black smoke began pouring into the sky, followed by more in the west. They’d started fires inside the city. They planned to burn it and force the residents out in the open to be slaughtered. Aeric would never allow that to happen on his watch.

Then the explosives hidden in the walls detonated and the world descended into chaos.

Defenders that didn’t die instantly in the explosion were thrown thirty feet into the air, only to fall back to the earth, twisted and broken. Scores died from secondary effects of the blast. Some who’d been standing near the explosion had their insides liquefied from the overpressure. Others suffocated on their own blood as their lungs were punctured in a hundred places by shattered bone fragments. Still more of them had limbs which bent at grotesque angles. Even if they survived, they’d never walk again. The force defending the walls of San Angelo was decimated and a large, gaping hole more than forty feet across stood open to the attackers.

Even though Aeric’s body had shielded Aiden from the worst of the damage, the boy bled from multiple cuts and stood looking at the mayhem in a daze. “Go, Aiden! Run to your grandmother. Tell her the city has fallen and to evacuate the family through the Northern Gate!” Aeric ordered with a hard shove from behind, sending the boy off towards the old campus where the secondary line of defense had been established.

“We’ll meet you in Tennyson,” he called after the retreating boy, telling him to move the family to the ruins of a small town about fifteen miles beyond the gate. Tennyson had been set up as a known evacuation point for the city’s residents if the walls were ever breached. As a former resident, Kendrick would know about the escape route to the north. So far, there hadn’t been any reports of Vulture activity on that side of the perimeter and Aeric wondered if Rustwood had forgotten about the rally point.

“We need to prepare to fight,” Tyler bellowed. “Here they come!”

Aeric turned from his grandchild’s fleeing form towards the smoldering hole in the wall. Dimly, as if from a distance, through the ringing in his ears, he heard hundreds of small pops as the remaining defenders near the Eastern Gate began firing at the advancing Vulture army.

A quick glance through the walls told him that they were still out of range. “Save your ammo!” he yelled hoarsely. His throat felt like it was on fire, probably from the dust and choking black smoke in the air. The fires from the north and western side of the city had spread at an alarming rate, covering everything. Not far from where he stood, bright orange and green flames poured from an open manhole cover, sending the greasy blackness skyward to once again blot out the sun. Fires burned unchecked across the city as homes and supply depots burned.

The fires had their intended effect on the defenders as residents raced away from their positions along the remaining portion of the wall back towards their homes where family members had been left. While not everyone fled to save their families, the damage had already been done.

Aeric stared in shock at the large empty spaces along the parapets. Less than a third of the force that he’d seen at their positions before the blast remained. “The city is lost,” he muttered.

Two large hands gripped his shoulders on either side and shook him violently enough to make him think there’d been another explosion. When the shaking stopped, Tyler stared hard at him. “You’re this city’s leader, now act like a leader and organize this defense,” he ordered.

Tyler’s words shook him from the dark place that he’d entered. His friend was right; they could fight and delay the attackers long enough for people to come from the other sectors to defend the city. He picked up the old cheerleader’s megaphone and yelled instructions through it. “Even out those gaps! We still have a chance to stop them. They’ve used up their surprise, now it’s time to show them that we won’t just roll over! Use aimed shots to take out anybody who’s in the open. Don’t waste your time shooting at the armored vehicles; we have specially trained soldiers for that.”

The last part was at least partially true. Lorelei had taken forty of her Shooters off to begin developing weapons capable of stopping the hodge-podge collection of armored cars, and the two old world tanks that the Vultures brought with them. She was a realist and knew that they had little chance of killing the vehicle itself. However, if they could knock the tracks off of the tanks and blow out the tires on the armored trucks, they wouldn’t be able to move. Then the defenders had a chance to wipe out the crew in more traditional ways.

Aeric’s words of encouragement heartened the defenders. They spread out like he’d ordered and the amount of outgoing fire lessoned dramatically as men and women took their time to aim at individual targets, instead of spraying bullets in the general direction of the enemy, hoping that one would find its way into the flesh of something.

He rushed behind the rusting hulk of an old pickup truck and unslung the 30.06 rifle from his back. It was the same weapon that he’d used as a paddle to escape across the lake. His body protested as he knelt, but he willed his mind to be quiet, to accept the pain since there was nothing that he could do about it. He pulled the bolt back and chambered a round, then settled the butt against his shoulder while he rested his cheek on the stock.

Aeric began the methodical work of shooting unsuspecting men and women as they charged towards the city across the killing field. The armored vehicles hung back and he wondered what the hell was going on. “Why aren’t they shooting back or attacking with the trucks? They know we don’t have anything capable of penetrating their armor.”

Tyler held out his hand and said, “Wait a minute. Give me your binoculars.”

Aeric lifted them off of his neck and passed them to his friend. After a few moments of adjusting the focus and then sweeping back and forth, he muttered, “They’re decoys; unarmed men and women, probably prisoners. They’re making us use up our ammo.”

“And to demoralize us,” Aeric said before calling for a cease fire through the megaphone.

Within minutes, the ragged cries and pleas for mercy drifted towards the defenders and a handful of the original prisoners who’d charged across the open came stumbling through the hole in the wall. They all wore long-sleeved shirts, with their arms pulled out of the sleeves and tied behind their backs. Black wooden sticks had been tied at the ends of their shirtsleeves to give them the appearance of soldiers charging with weapons as they ran.

Aeric pulled one of them behind the truck and forced him to his knees. “Who are you?”

“Javier, my lord. Please, don’t kill us. We were just tending our crops with our families. None of us want any part of this.”

“You’re from Austin?”

Javier smiled, “That’s what it used to be called, yes. Now they just call it The Nest. The Vulture Nest.”

Chills ran down his spine as Aeric recalled the conversation that he had with Veronica regarding Maria’s latest vision. She’d said that once the birds left the nest, nothing could stop them. Bullshit. His survival after being hunted all the way to the lake and then his escape had proven that her visions were just one possibility in an ever-changing future. He’d make sure that this one about the nest didn’t come true either. He
would
stop them.

Shouts along the wall warned defenders to look out. The Vulture army was moving forward slowly. Once again, Kendrick’s tactics proved to be effective as they gained well over three hundred yards before anyone began to fire at the real enemy. The defenders didn’t want to risk shooting any more innocents and had allowed valuable stand-off range to be lost.

“Shoot!” Tyler yelled and then grabbed the megaphone from Aeric. “Shoot! This is the real attack!”

His words seemed to galvanize the defenders as first a few fired down at the advancing army, then several more joined in until finally the entire line was firing at the exposed enemy. That’s when Kendrick ordered the two tanks to open fire.

They didn’t target the individual soldiers on the line; they fired through the hole in the wall deeper into the city. Behind him, thousands of feet away, the shells exploded against buildings, killing and maiming people by the dozens. Then, the tanks stopped firing their high-explosive rounds through the holes and crewmen popped out of the hatches to fire the mounted machine guns. They raked the parapet. The smaller caliber 7.62 millimeter bullets of the loader and the coaxial gun sent shards of white-hot metal in every direction as they disintegrated against the brick defenses, while the larger .50 caliber that the tank commander fired punched holes through the masonry. It was a bloodbath.

Aeric took the opportunity to snipe one of the commanders. The bullet threw his head backwards and then he fell forward causing the barrel of the fifty-cal to aim skyward. The gun continued to fire as the weight of his body pressed against his hands, pouring rounds from the end of the barrel until the tube became so hot that it warped and rounds began to bounce from side to side down the tube. The end of the barrel exploded as one of the outgoing rounds impacted against another round that hadn’t exited the tube yet.

The second tank commander noticed that his partner was dead and dropped inside the tank, immediately ceasing his own gunfire while the tank continued onward. Aeric smiled and called for a general withdrawal into the city. “Fall back! Fall back and fight them for every block. This is our home! We know where we can hide and shoot these bastards. We know where to go where they can’t reach us. Your family’s lives depend on the next couple of hours. Go, and make history!”