Chapter 55: That's All You Got?

Too much was happening all at once. James’s system was still hopped up on adrenaline and exhilaration, leaving him jump and looking for more Nem2’s to come plummeting out of the sky at them. People were forming a circle around him, speaking all at once.

Beyond them, the army folks were evaluating their situation, treating casualties, radioing in to command, and getting their shit together.

“James? James!” Bjørn was getting in his face. “We need to take control of this situation, now. What are we doing about Yadriel?”

“You all right?” Serenity had set the Ma Deuce down to step up and place an arm on his shoulder.

“Fine.” He rubbed at his features. How the fuck had he come to be the one calling the shots? “We’re not going after Yadriel. He could be anywhere. He’ll have to come back to us, or not. Denzel, Serenity, we’re going to do a loop of the block, check in with the other teams. You know how to ride motorbikes?”

“Uh, yeah, sorta,” said Denzel.

Serenity hesitated. “Been awhile. Nothing my new Agility can’t handle.”

“Bjørn, stay here and hold the fort. There could be some late coming Nem2’s. Becca, stay in position. We’ll radio in as we go.”

Bjørn frowned then nodded. “Fine. Good luck.”

Where had he put his fire-axe? He’d been throwing Sacred Strikes without it back there, not even thinking about it. Did he even need the axe? Instinct told him yes. But he couldn’t waste time looking for it now.

He strode over to the Ranger captain, told him he was going for a loop on the Zero’s, and the man, a square shouldered, balding guy in his early thirties, looked James up and down. “That was really you that dropped that lightning bolt?”

“Yeah,” said James wearily, not quite believing it himself. “I think so.”

“Well god damn. Glad you’re on our side.”

They grabbed the bikes.

“You two doing all right?” asked James, looking over at them, though really he was asking Denzel.

“Yeah, just…” Denzel shook his head. “Things got really hairy there for awhile. I felt so… useless. My shield wasn’t doing shit, and there wasn’t going to be anybody for me to heal until it was too late.”

“You level?” asked Serenity, trying to find a way to balance the Ma Deuce over one shoulder. Only her crazy stats even allowed her to even try.

“Yeah.” Denzel’s smile was almost shy. “Just like everyone else, I guess. Got a couple of options. Mass Solace, Martyr’s Cry, and Indomitable Resilience. They all sound kinda good.”

“Huh.” James considered the young man. “Any of them call out to you?”

“Yeah, I mean, Martyr’s Cry sounds… I don’t know.” Denzel looked embarrassed. “But Bjørn was pretty smart, saying he wanted to wait and find out what they all were, so I thought…”

“Fuck Bjørn,” said Serenity. “The guy’s a cold fish. When my options came up I knew exactly what to pick. If you’re feeling Martyr’s Cry, you should take it.”

Denzel looked to James. “You think?”

“Yeah,” said James softly. “That’s how I operate, at any rate.”

Denzel frowned, considered, then gave a decisive nod. “Fine. I’ll do it. There.”

“And?” prompted Serenity immediately.

“Give the man a moment,” said James.

“Oh shit, that’s… rough?” Denzel grimaced. “But… awesome? I don’t know, it lets me take a killing blow in the place of another, you know, like the kind that we don’t have time to heal with Aeviternum? But I get hit with half the strength.”

“You’re my new best friend,” said Serenity. “I ever tell you how much I love those blue eyes of yours? So striking.”

“Yeah, heh.” Denzel chuckled nervously. “I’ve heard that before.”

“That’s rough,” said James. “You’re going to get fucked up.”

“Sure looks like it. I’d better start stocking up on Aeviternum.”

James up nodded at him. “How many you got?”

“Three. I started buying when I find out they got more expensive.”

“Smart.” James thought of Luca lying at Esme’s feet. “And real useful. You just saved lives, Denzel. Thank you.”

“Bah, it ain’t nothing. Just… I want to help more, you know?”

“I know,” said James soberly, looking down the avenue at where thousands of chitinous bodies lay wrecked in great drifts. “Trust me, I know.”

“Well, that was great,” said Serenity. “Let’s get moving.”

They turned on the silent bikes, then cruised over to Ebon Hydra, where Lou was smoking a cigarette and glaring down 33rd, her face dirty with demon ash. “You’re still alive,” she rasped at James as he pulled up. “Halle-fucking-luja.”

James looked around her team. Demon bodies lay strewn around their position, with mounds of 50 Cal casings gleaming in the weak afternoon sunlight. One of her team lay still, his hands folded over his broad chest, his fierce face finally at ease, his bristling mustache encrusted with the blood he’d coughed up as he died.

“Hernando didn’t make it,” Lou said with brutal simplicity. “He took out a bunch of the bastards before he went down, though.”

The rest of Ebon Hydra looked shell shocked; the Smiters were still in place at the Ma Deuce’s, while the others stood about in dismay.

“Well, I don’t have anything cheerful to say,” said James at last. The Ebon Hydra team looked back at him. “Other than the fact that we won. We held off the Fourth Wave and killed some sixty or who knows how many thousands of the fuckers here today. Good work.”

They nodded mutely, and a few stood a little straighter.

“You got this, Lou?”

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Lou sighed, studied her cigarette, then flicked it away. “Yeah, this ain’t my first rodeo. I got this.”

“Good.”

James turned his bike back on, and headed up 5th Ave. The next fortified intersection was only a stone’s throw away, and they’d had as tough a time of it as the Broadway and 33rd crew. Their position had been overrun, but along with what turned out to be Delta special ops guys and heavy support from the Killer Eggs they’d driven back the Nem2’s. Ivory Griffin had suffered heavy losses in particular, with four of their members being torn apart before they could burn Aeviternum, and James glanced at Denzel, realizing he was probably thinking the same thing: what if several people were mortally wounded at once?

People were heartened by the sight of him, but not by much; most of them were just regular folks with an edge who’d managed to seize the moment and rise in ranks while everyone else dithered. Few of them were ready for something like this, and it showed in their shocked expressions, shaking hands, and glassy stares.

That’s where the Rangers and Delta boys really came through. They moved amongst the Blue Lighters, offering cigarettes, cracking jokes, and helping them process the atrocity they’d just been through.

The Delta guys especially seemed at ease. None of them looked army; they had regular haircuts, some had beards, and many of them wore customized gear. All exuded the same sense of calm, determined ease, however. As if they’d been tempered in far worse fires than this and couldn’t be shocked any more by what the world - or hell had to throw at them.

James recalled running out before the Rangers and taking a bullet to the arm. Just watching the Delta guys made him feel like more of an imposter, an amateur. But he swallowed those feelings down and put on a grim smile, moved amongst the different teams, then led the other guys to the final intersection, 34th and Sixth Ave.

This corner had done pretty well; they’d had two Abrams tanks, six Ma Deuce’s, and used lots of mines so that the three Blue Light teams had been well supported. Sixth Ave north of their position looked post-apocalyptic; the lanes were cratered, the walls pounded to rubble, cars knocked onto their sides, and everything was buried in demon corpses.

If anything, the three crews there were euphoric; Carvajal, the leader of Crimson Dragon, was standing atop one of the Abrams giving an improvised speech which, as James pulled up on his silent bike, seemed to revolve around find the Nem2’s home plane and dropping nuclear bombs all over it.

“… because we are not the little pussies, we are not going to run home scared to our mammas, we are the defenders of New York City, we are the defenders of the whole fucking world, man! They want to come here and fuck us up, we’re going to show these gilipollas that if they come to our city, nos cagaremos en la puta leche de sus madres!”

Roars of approval met this last, and Carvajal thrust one of his ichor-stained machetes into the air.

“Even the Rangers are cheering,” said Serenity dryly. “I think this corner is doing OK.”

Carvajal saw James and pointed his machete at him, raising both eyebrows as if saying, you, I see you.

James gave him a thumb’s up, turned the bike and headed down Sixth Ave to Crimson Griffin before he could get pulled in and expected to give a speech.

They drove slowly, the wide empty lanes eerie, and looking around James saw people watching them from loft windows, leaning out of the high rises, from rooftops. The millions who still called Manhattan home, even as their sidewalks overflowed with trash, as demons stalked the avenues, and the city turned into a warzone.

“What’s up?” called Serenity, riding up next to him. Their bikes were so quiet they could talk easily.

James wanted to tell her, but now wasn’t the time. “Later.”

Colton was sitting on some sandbags, his arm hastily bound and still bleeding, several of the other Crimson Griffin crew similarly wounded. Denzel immediately hopped off his Zero and hurried over. “Can I heal that?”

“Sure,” said Colton, extending his arm. “Scars are sexy but only like five years after the fact.”

“You guys doing all right?” asked James, remaining atop his bike.

“Yeah, thanks to you.” Colton studied him. “How the hell you doing this, man? You some kinda saint? We’re all trying to keep up, but you keep hitting new powers and staying out front. Hella impressive.”

“I don’t know,” said James, wishing everybody wouldn’t stare so. “Just… lucky, I guess.”

“Just lucky.” Colton snorted, then sighed as Denzel’s healing washed over his arm. “Ah, that’s better. Thanks, bro.” He flexed his fingers, then patted his huge curly fro into place. “What a mess. But we did it, yeah? That was the Fourth Wave?”

“That was the Fourth Wave,” agreed James. “I’m going to go check in on Ivory Hydra. Excuse me.”

Denzel and Serenity stayed behind, the rest of Crimson Griffin coming up to ask about the Ma Deuce she had over one shoulder, and he heard Serenity explain how she’d just dumped all her points into Strength so that she could carry it around from now on.

Still, it was crazy impressive. The Ma Deuce was eighty pounds even without the tripod. Serenity was getting strong.

He tooled over to the far side of the intersection and found Ivory Hydra gathered around their two fallen members.

One was Luca, the other Esme.

The sight of her body hit him like a fist to the heart. A Nem2 had torn her throat right out, leaving her neck a lacerated mass of gleaming white and crimson. But her face was untouched, her expression startled, pale, with strands of her thick hair before her features.

“There were too many,” said a lean young man, his voice raw. “Her circle broke and they went for her. Like the knew she was the best of us.”

James eased the kickstand down and walked unsteadily over to the bodies. “I was just here,” he said, the protest in his voice faint. “I was just talking to her.”

Nobody said anything.

James felt his gut curdle. Esme had been just a kid. Why had he let her lead this team? Because she was the most powerful ranker? Was that justification? They weren’t none of them soldiers. None of them except for Becca had been through anything like boot camp or trained how to fight in a war. He looked around the faces, and saw shock, fear, and grief on all of them.

They were waiting for him to say something.

To make this right.

James looked back down at Esme and tried to swallow. His throat was too dry, the knot in it too thick.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, to Esme, to everyone that had fallen. “You deserved better.”

He stood and walked back to his bike.

“That’s it?” demanded the lean young man, his eyes flashing with anger. “That’s all you got?”

James swung a leg over the bike and then just sat there, studying his hands. They were dark with blood. He couldn’t remember where it had come from. Wasn’t his.

“Yeah,” he said at last, looking up and meeting the man’s glare. “That’s all I got. Sorry.”

And he turned the Zero and drove away.

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