Tube Riders, The (34 page)

As the last of the platform edge disappeared to be replaced by forest on either side, Carl let himself breathe, let himself close his eyes.

And there, for a few minutes at least, he let his face crumble up, let tears flow, and allowed himself to mourn.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Battlefield

Clayton watched with unease as the Huntsmen were unloaded inside Bristol Temple Meads train station, deserted now on his orders. The handlers urged the leashed beasts forward, occasionally dishing out a sharp stun which resulted in growls of pain that echoed across the cavernous space above them.

Clayton wondered what a casual bystander might think of all this. Behind him, his men were unloading what looked like a train straight out of a nightmare. The Huntsmen moved slowly across the platform, hooded faces lowered, their rough breathing and the occasional growl the only sounds.

The handler, Jakob, waved to him. ‘What?’ Clayton asked.

‘We’ve got a scent,’ the man told him. We’re a few hours behind but if we set the dogs off now we can run them down. These Tube Riders have to sleep at some point.’

Clayton nodded. ‘Get the Huntsmen over there. Make sure the new ones are familiar with the scent.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Jakob replied.

Clayton grimaced. The last thing he wanted was for the malfunctioning monsters to dash off after the wrong people. He’d seen a lot of bloodshed in the last twenty-four hours and was growing weary of it.

I want this finished
, he thought.
I want this over with
.

He knew, though, that the only way to end it was to see those kids dead, and a part of him suffered at the thought of it. He’d done many bad things in his life, and he was about to do another. He knew, as no doubt the Governor did, that the Tube Riders had done nothing wrong. They were just another group of misfits trying to make something out of the mess Mega Britain had become. If there was anyone who ought to die…

Clayton squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep out the thought. Treason was a strong word even in peace times, and to utter those thoughts out loud could see him dead. But there was something not right about everything, and part of Clayton wished he’d been born in a different time and place.

Instead he let himself think of Dreggo, the girl under his control whom the DCA were forcing to lead the Huntsmen. The bulge of the remote in his pocket pressed against his side, and he felt a sudden flush of regret for what he’d done to her. She’d attacked him, but his words had provoked her. What had he been thinking?

There are lower standards there
, he had told her. But those were the Governor’s words, not his. Clayton rubbed his eyes. Were the Governor’s threats turning him into a similar monster? Dreggo was no different to the Tube Riders. The wrong place at the wrong time. Yet something about her just made him hate her. Maybe it was that without the remote in his pocket, she would kill him in an instant, perhaps as he deserved.

‘Got to give them credit,’ someone said beside him, and Clayton jerked back to the present to see Vincent standing there, looking in the direction of the damaged train that had derailed just beyond the platform edge, having collided with a stationary train. The debris was yet to be cleared.

‘What?’ Clayton said.

‘They’re putting up a hell of a fight over this.’

Clayton smiled. ‘They’ve got spirit,’ he said.

‘Kind of a shame we’ve got to see it ripped out of them,’ Vincent said. ‘But I guess that’s just how it goes.’

Clayton looked at Vincent. The agent’s face was a mess of bruises but that same cold stare was there. Clayton could read the younger man well. There was no conflict behind those eyes, simply a desire to see the job done as efficiently as possible, ideally in a way that would allow personal gain. Vincent had allowed the Tube Riders to escape once, and suffered for it. He wasn’t about to do it again.

‘Sir!’

Clayton turned, noticing how Vincent turned also; that same desire for command still there, despite everything.

A DCA agent stood behind them. ‘They went down the stairs,’ the man said. ‘Into the parking garage. The trail’s clean down there because the area is disused. Want us to roll them out?’

Clayton considered. The chances were high indeed that they were still in the city, hiding out somewhere. Maybe they thought their trail would go cold, the scent would fade.

‘Okay, let’s do this,’ he told the agent, looking back over his shoulder towards the train. He frowned. ‘What’s going on with those?’

Several of the handlers had shackled a group of Huntsmen together using a chain with individual manacles.

‘They’re the reserve, I think,’ Vincent said.

‘The what?’

‘They’re using the first group to track. These others are the heavy artillery, so to speak.’

‘Jesus Christ. This whole operation is just waiting to fuck up.’

Already Clayton was regretting letting Dreggo go after the other Tube Riders. She had called him just once in the hour and a half since she left them, with nothing to report. He was fuming. What was she doing, having a goddamn picnic?

‘At least they’ve cleared out the station,’ Vincent said with a smirk. ‘If there were people around it would be like letting a group of rabid foxes loose in a chicken coop.’

Clayton rolled his eyes. ‘Just keep an eye on the ones to the left.’

One of the handlers called to him. ‘All four went into the parking garage together. I’d guess they were running by that point.’

‘Well, in after them we go, then,’ Clayton muttered, following the man down the steps. Behind them, three handlers were directing the chained Huntsmen down.

‘We should have stuck with five,’ Vincent said. ‘This is turning into one ugly fucking dog show.’

Clayton said nothing.

The door to the parking garage was ajar. Inside, the darkness was almost impenetrable, except for a small glow on the far side, several hundred feet distant.

‘Let’s get on it,’ Clayton said and stepped inside, his gun drawn as a precaution. He moved wide around the side wall as the handlers pushed the Huntsmen down the centre.

‘Looks like they just bolted straight across, sir –’

An explosion rocked the entrance just behind him, sending Clayton sprawling to the ground amid a shower of sparks and debris as the back of the parking garage roof collapsed.

‘Find cover!’ he screamed, just as huge spotlights came on at the far end of the parking garage, blinding him.

The air filled with gunfire, bullets pinging off the concrete around him. Clayton glanced back at the door and saw a couple of his men half buried under the rubble. A couple of Huntsmen lay still beside them, but there was no way to know how many were dead.

The gunfire came again, automatic weapons, and he rolled behind a chunk of fallen masonry that moments before had just missed landing on his head. To his right he heard a growl and then a scream as a Huntsman took a bullet, a thud as it slumped to the ground.

‘Return fire!’ he shouted.

‘What about the Huntsmen?’ Jakob shouted from nearby. ‘Chained up they’re just waiting to die! Release them and we’ll win this fight!’

Clayton frowned. Even now, ambushed, bullets flying around his head, he didn’t want to. But the way in was blocked, and their attackers, whoever they were, were heavily armed and covering the only way out. One or two more explosive devices and the battle would be lost.

‘Do it!’ he shouted. ‘Set them loose! And God help us if they don’t know who they’re fighting against.’

He heard a click, the wrist locks binding the monsters opening by automatic control. Even as heavier gunfire cracked against the concrete around him, he heard a roar go up in union from the Huntsmen. Risking a glance up out of his hiding place, he saw them running into battle.

Like the devil’s own cavalry, the Huntsmen raced across the parking garage towards the attackers hiding behind their blinding spotlights. As gunfire turned on them, several Huntsmen dived forward and rolled across the floor like whirling, spinning ninjas, while others leapt up and clambered across the beams and lintels of the parking garage roof. Others dropped to their knees, crossbows and other weapons in their hands, loosing their arsenal at the enemy, covering those who moved in towards close combat.

There were only perhaps ten or twelve involved in the charge, but the enemy’s organised position fell into sudden disarray, guns firing wildly, bullets spraying in desperation as the Huntsmen advanced. He watched as one Huntsman was shot and felled, only to leap to its feet again, claws stretching to tear and maim.

One of the spotlights took a bullet, sparked and went out, quickly followed by the others. Men began to scream.

Clayton didn’t want to think about how he would round up the Huntsmen once the carnage was over. With the spotlights no longer trained on him, he waved his remaining DCA agents forward. ‘After them!’ he shouted. ‘We need prisoners. We need to know who the hell these people are!’

Clayton let his agents get a decent start and then he followed after them. Leading his troops from the front was hardly the plan; that’s why the Huntsmen were here.

#

In fact, Clayton was last bar one. As Clayton jogged after his men, Adam Vincent got up from his own hiding place, behind a support pillar left at an angle after the explosion, and moved after Clayton. His gun was in his hand, and he was wondering when would be the best time to put a bullet in Clayton’s back.

#

From behind the row of abandoned cars his men were using for cover, Ishael had detected the Department of Civil Affairs agents coming through the door from the station on an old, hand-held heat detecting radar scanner. He knew immediately how important the Tube Riders were by the sheer number of agents – at least thirty, maybe more. He could see their steady blips on the radar, but worse were the pulsing blips that appeared to be Huntsmen, the body heat they gave off far higher but unstable, as though they were flushing hot and cold at two-second intervals. He felt his own blood chill at the thought of them, especially when he realised how many the Department of Civil Affairs had brought. He knew instantly that his own group, twenty-four armed and capable men, wasn’t nearly enough.

With the DCA agents and the Huntsmen crowding through the doorway, Ishael’s men had detonated the bomb. Looking at the scanner, he’d seen five or six DCA agents killed or hurt by the rubble, but not nearly as many as he’d hoped. One or two Huntsmen were down, their blips flickering wildly, but it was difficult to tell if they were dead or even disabled. He prayed at least a few were. Most of the survivors had ducked down for cover, and he had felt confident his men could pick them off or at least keep them down using the scanner and the spotlights they had brought.

Only when he saw a group detach from the main contingent, all of their blips pulsing like little heartbeats, had he realised just how hopeless their situation was.

Now, looking up, as the Huntsmen raced across the open space of the parking garage, heedless of the bullets flying around them, he felt he was looking into the face of Death himself.

A man standing beside him grunted and slumped back, a crossbow bolt in his neck. As his blood pumped out on to the oily concrete, Ishael barely had time to reflect on how many good, loyal men he was about to lose.

‘Back!’ he screamed, waving towards the parking garage exit. ‘Out on to the street!’

He turned, just as a snarling Huntsman launched itself across the top of the car towards him.

Ishael gasped like a frightened child as the snarling jaws broke from beneath the dark hood and darted for his neck. He pulled his rifle up at the last second, knocking the monster off course, the jaws missing him but one clawed hand raking his arm, pulling him around. As the Huntsman skidded and rolled past him, he clutched at his side, feeling blood flow from a deep gash. Someone shouted his name, but he didn’t have time to move as the Huntsman wheeled and launched itself again. Ishael dodged sideways and the Huntsman struck the car, but it was already turning, its reactions far faster than his. He grabbed the car’s loose rear door and slammed it into the Huntsman, but instead of being knocked back the creature gripped the door and tore it off its hinges, tossing it aside.

This is it,
Ishael thought.
This is where it ends.

‘
Die
…’

But Ishael wasn’t ready to die, not yet. For a second the image of Marta – the beautiful and brave Tube Rider – entered his mind, and he felt a surge of adrenaline. He scrambled backwards, dropped to the ground and rolled sideways, slipping underneath the adjacent car. As the smell of old oil and petrol filled his lungs, he saw the Huntsman’s feet move as it came after him, and then it too dropped to the ground and tried to follow, its claws reaching under the car to rake at his legs.

Trying to make space, Ishael kicked at it, striking it once in the face. As he felt a jarring pain race up his leg, the lack of give and the strength of the beast’s neck terrified him. It had felt like kicking concrete.

It caught hold of his leg and began to pull him out. He kicked again, aiming for its hood, where he hoped the eyes would be. He cried out as it shifted to the side, and then powerful jaws clamped down on his calf muscle, biting through the combat trousers he wore. Hot blood washed over his skin, and wondered if the creature would bite right through his leg.