Chapter 80: Red Line

“Bless Green,” James said as he eased the Wing around. The blessings boosted his stats even as he scanned the intersection. The triangular median. The subway station building.

The crowd shifted, uneasy, like deer that have caught the scent of wolf.

A Nem3 appeared inside a sandwich shop. Its hulking thirteen-foot-tall frame was hunched, the glass distorting its bulk.

The first screams sounded. The crowd surged away from the sandwich shop. People tripped and were stepped on.

“Hello,” said Serenity, brought her Ma Deuce down and around and opened fire.

DONDONDONDONDONDON.

The sandwich shop’s window exploded as the 50 Cals made of pure Smite punched through even as the Nem3 leaped forth. Momentum carried it outside even as fist-sized holes cavitated through its body.

The crowd screamed. It lost cohesion, broke apart, and people began streaming in every direction away from the collapsing Nem3.

Jason leaned over the side of his Wing, M4 raised, butt against his shoulder, and opened fire.

A second Nem3 had appeared behind the subway station’s building. It was crouched low, blank, bulging bone visage raised to their squad. The muscled hump rippled and its harpoon exploded forth.

“Shields!” shouted Denzel, manifesting his own at 45-degree angle. The harpoon hit the shimmering wall of force and bounced away.

Becca and Joanna joined Jason in shooting the second Nem3, their Deadeye Benediction allowing them to place their shots in its head, neck, and shoulders.

The Nem3 roared, mouth opening horrifically wide, and leaped behind the subway entrance.

“Motherfucker,” cursed Jason, and his Wing eased out wide, Becca and Joanna following after.

James, there’s a third demon atop the building behind that roof entrance.

James scanned the shops that lined 4th Ave. The buildings were joined together, their rooftops forming a continuous plane that jerked up and down depending on how many stories each unit boasted.

There.

“Serenity, Nem3, there.” He pointed, turned the Wing, and she brought her Ma Deuce around.

DONDONDONDONDON.

The Nem3 burst into a run as soon as it realized it had been spotted. Its legs were gangly but long. It crossed the rooftop with stunning speed. Serenity’s shot tracked it neatly, blowing chunks out of its torso and thighs, but it reached the edge of the roof and leaped at them.

There was no way it could reach. A futile gesture. But James approved when a Shield manifested before it, stopping it cold, causing the huge brute to bounce off and crash to the street three stories below.

Serenity rose slightly on her seat, aimed the Ma Deuce almost straight down.

DON.

A single bullet of burning gray fire punched through the Nem3’s brow. It jerked and lay still.

Jason and the others were firing on the remaining Nem3. It was in bad shape. M4’s didn’t pack a tenth of the punch of a Ma Deuce, but the combined firepower and Smite tore the demon apart as it sought to flee.

James thumbed on his radio. “Command, this Kelly. Our intersection’s been cleared.”

“Roger, Kelly.” Duffy on the line. “Hang tight.”

A helicopter flew overhead, its nose tipped down, rotors blurring. Not a Black Hawk. Tan and segmented, huge guns, narrow windows. An Apache. It scudded overhead and banked to the right, following the trail of intersections down Lafayette Ave.

Gunfire was echoing across the city.

Screams.

The crowd below had dispersed.

A single man was picking himself up from the pavement. Old, white-haired, his jacket tan and muddied by slushy footprints.

“Boss, should I heal him?” asked Denzel.

“No,” said James.

The old guy rose to his feet, swayed, got his bearings, limped away.

All kinds of gunfire was breaking out. James urged his Wing to rise. Cleared the rooftops, got a view of the skies.

Helicopters were following the route, occasionally diving down out of view to strafe the streets. And there.

A Warthog.

It was coming their way, silver and low, looking almost like something from another era. No sleek weeks, no fancy jetfighter.

It gleamed sullenly in the overcast light. Then it angled down and a distant, almost electronic sound reached them:

BRRRRRRRR

Smoke engulfed the nose of the plane for a moment, and then it was past.

“Hot damn,” breathed Jason, rejoining their group. “Fucking uranium depleted rounds. Some Nem3 just got ashed.”

The Warthog flew overhead, banking to follow Lafayette.

“Kelly, this is command. Head to intersection 71 where Lafayette meets Bedford. The intersection’s overrun. Air support can’t get clean shots.”

“Roger.” He looked to the others. “Let’s move.”

The Wing slid forward with ever increasing speed, the acceleration silky, slicing east over Lafayette. Ahead he watched the Warthog bank north, passing over the intersection without going brr.

Overrun.

James looked at the map taped between the Wing’s handlebars. Intersection 71 punched the deepest into Brooklyn, a right angle that made it the closest point for most of the borough to reach.

If folks hadn’t followed their instructions, if they’d just traveled to the closest spot, that’s where they’d go.

Shit.

The Wings just kept on accelerating, speeding over other intersections. Some were nearly empty, while others were choked with folks and Blue Light operators battling handfuls of Nem3’s.

Looked like almost nobody had followed the instructions at all.

Seven huge brick high rises rose on the left side of Lafayette. Housing projects, maybe. Each arrayed askew, close to each other over two blocks, trees thick around their bases. Just a couple of narrow blocks before intersection 71.

James saw what had happened. That whole group of Second Wavers had just descended to the street and marched to the same spot.

The intersection in question up ahead was strangely empty. Of course. People had fled. He saw them sprinting away, hundreds if not thousands of people racing back down Lafayette, pouring around parked cars, charging north up the first side street, getting away.

Ebon Griffin had been given this intersection. Shoulda been a Crimson team. James had seconds to assess as they dove down.

Big intersection. Two main avenues. Each corner was a three- or four-story building, turning the ground into an arena. A dozen Nem3’s at a glance. Ebon Griffin was retreating north up Bedford. Corpses lay strewn everywhere, torn in half, gutted, tossed aside.

The urge to just drop a Heavenly Assault was strong. Just clear the intersection in one fell swoop.

But not today.

The Wings were utterly silent, which is why they got the drop on most the Nems. A couple saw them coming, or sensed, or however the fuck they perceived the word.

Croaked out warnings.

“Hold on,” said James. He did the equivalent of yanking up the parking brake so that the Wing swung around as it slid to a stop. Serenity let out a little whoop of surprise, then found herself facing the entire intersection from five stories up.

The others stopped on either side and as one they raised their guns.

If James released the handlebars the Wing would start to drift down. Hey, Anima, can you keep the Wing in place?

Affirmative, James.

Sweet.

James grabbed his M4, turned around, rose to his knees, and picked his target.

Everybody unleashed Smite-enhanced hell.

The Nem3’s reacted with obscene speed. Even as bullets started hitting their flanks and broad backs, they wheeled, dropped into crouches, and loosed their harpoons.

A dozen of the bone spears flew toward them.

“Shields!” cried Olaf. Deadeye ceased to bless the guns, and instead everyone manifested a Shields.

But too many harpoons were coming at them from almost 180 degrees. There was no coordinating where the Shields manifested. Several appeared dead center before them, a few off to the sides. James realized too late how haphazard their defense was and placed his shield in the center of the biggest gap.

It wasn’t good enough.

Most of the bone spears slammed off the rippling walls of force. Serenity shot one out of the sky.

But four got through. They hit Olaf’s Circle of Protection. The sphere flared white all around them.

“Get those shields in place!” shouted Denzel. “Cover the gaps!”

Huge cracks like lightning bolts had appeared over the sphere’s surface before it had faded from view.

The ten remaining Nem3’s already had new bone harpoons punching their way out of their humps.

“Drop a Heavenly Assault!” shouted Bjørn.

Yadriel extended his hand and black smoke began to rise from the demons below toward his palm.

Serenity trained her Ma Deuce on a Nem3 and tore it apart.

Becca had her Bushmaster up and was drilling a second one.

But everyone else was stuck on shield duty. The eight Nem3’s hunched and loosed a second salvo.

Without a means to coordinate, the Shields swung back and forth almost at random.

Five harpoons were blocked. Another three got through and hit the protective sphere. It shattered, a wash of released power flooding over them.

Olaf shouted out in pain.

New bone harpoons were already emerging from the hollow humps, their tips glistening and sharp.

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“Time to drop and engage,” James called. “Down!”

And he twisted, fell back in the saddle, and carved down through the air, a nearly vertical drop, down to the asphalt. “Serenity, stay on turret!”

Anima, hold the Wing right here!

He didn’t hear the response, but reached down, grabbed his fire-axe, and leaped the remaining ten feet to the street.

“Drop a Heavenly Assault!” roared Bjørn in fury.

James felt his body go stiff as the command suffused him.

He landed awkwardly despite his boosted stats. He crashed to one knee, resisting the command, fighting off the wild urge.

A bone harpoon flew at him. He heard Serenity scream, managed to get up his arm, and then the harpoon hit him square in the face.

For a moment everything went dark, quiet, and then a rushing filled his ears and the world came roaring back.

James was lying down, a bloody harpoon by his side. He touched his face. Completely unhurt. He glanced up: Denzel lay slumped over his handlebars, blood pouring from the corner of his mouth even as white light enveloped him.

No time. No time to even glare at Bjørn. James hopped to his feet, completely healed and refreshed, and snatched up his axe.

The Nem3’s oriented on him. Serenity was raining hellfire down upon them, so they broke apart, darting to one side and the other, but closing.

A towering figure of burning flame dropped beside him, face wreathed in night, talons a foot long. Becca in Black Apotheosis.

Another monster dropped to this left. This one was even bigger than Becca. Easily twice James’s height, it was corded in muscle, deep chested, each blade arms as massive and wicked as the Reaper’s own scythe. But its face wasn’t mere bulbous bone, but rather a grinning death skull, maw huge like Venom’s, its eyes sunken deep in ridged-lined cracks.

Yadriel in Demonic Form.

James raised his fire-axe, willed Smite to enshroud its length, and ran forward.

The next few moments were overwhelming in their chaos. It was the closest to a medieval battle James had ever come. It took place on multiple planes. Throughout Serenity was dropping huge bullets in a never-ending stream, and when she realized she could fire straight through her allies without harming them she went wild.

Nem3’s leaped so as to fall upon them. Jason flew in low, leaning out to one side with a ten-foot blade of Aura extended in both directions so that he threshed their ranks. Denzel, Joanna, Bjørn, and Olaf remained with Serenity so that they could all benefit from Deadeye.

But the real fight happened at ground-level.

Yadriel let out a roar that was part euphoric scream and hurled himself straight up to crash into a descending Nem3 even as Becca bounded forward, fleet and fast, to entangle herself with a second demon, flickering around it, slashing it apart, lithe and ripple-quick.

A bone harpoon nearly took James in the face, but his heightened Agility allowed him to sway aside at the last second. He staggered, stutter-stepped, then hurled his fire-axe with both arms from behind his back, overhead, and straight at the Nem3.

The axe blurred in a circle and sank deep into the demon’s chest. James was there a second later. Speed 18 made him faster than Usain Bolt, and Power 22 allowed him to leap explosively. He crashed into the demon feet first, seized the axe by the haft, then pulsed his Iron Aura like Mack Truck.

The demon was blasted away, the axe tearing free. Where before James would have crashed to the ground he now contorted, landed neatly on the balls of his feet, then ducked under a claw swipe and slammed the axe clear through the Nem3’s knee.

He sheared the leg right off. The Nem3 roared, collapsed, reared up, and then its head shattered as Serenity poured living Smite into its skull.

Jason swooped by again, his Aura passing through Becca harmlessly but dissecting her foe.

James glanced around, saw Ebon Griffin just standing at the northern part of the intersection, just gaping.

Emotion arose within James’s chest, but there wasn’t time to celebrate. Yadriel let loose a second roar, seized the Nem3 he was grappling and his whole form suddenly flared with bright power.

Aeviternum.

Yadriel sank both claws deep into the demon’s shoulders and wrenched it around, hurled it with Hulk-like strength.

The demon became airborne. It flew through across the intersection, clawing at the air, and hit a cement ledge between the second and third stories of a building.

Hit hard enough to crater the wall, bounce off and hit the ground with a crunch.

Serenity finished it off.

A final Nem3 charged out of a side street. It tried to get the drop on Jason, but he twisted about, extended a hand, and a log of Aura six feet thick pulsed into the Nem’s head, ashing the bone and decapitating it.

The Nem hit the ground. Momentum caused it to slide right under Jason’s Wing, which he raised a couple of feet so as to remain clear.

The guns fell silent.

Everyone looked around, evaluating, scanning rooftops.

Silence but for the rattle and brr off distant guns.

“Holy shit,” said one of the Ebon Griffins.

A strange fascination. Why such reverence?

James released his Smite and dropped the axe down upon his shoulder. Becca turned about, claws flexing, seeking new prey, and then released her shadow form, sinking down to her normal figure.

Yadriel took five long steps and hammered his fist into the roof of a Hyundai. The cab collapsed, and then Yadriel kicked in the door, tore it free with a great squealing of tortured metal, and hurled it like a discus clear over the far building.

“Fuck yeah!” he shouted as he shrank back to his human form. He looked miniscule in comparison.

“Dude,” said Jason. “That door coulda hit somebody.”

Yadriel scowled. “If it did, I’ll write an apology.”

Only then did James turn to glare up at where Bjørn sat astride his Wing.

Bjørn met his gaze with burning defiance.

“Kelly, this is Command.” Duffy.

“Command, this is Kelly, one moment.”

“You fucking asshole!” screamed Serenity, rounding on Bjørn. “You nearly got him killed.”

“He nearly got us all killed.” Bjørn raised his chin. “One Heaven’s Assault and this would have been over in an instant. Instead we were all forced to risk our lives.”

“Everybody in close,” said James, and the tone of his voice ended the argument.

Bjørn hesitated. James could almost read his mind. Now was his chance to take off, if he were going to. But if he did, James would surely follow, James had more Aeviternum, could go faster on the Wing -

Bjørn lowered down and parked beside everyone else.

They gathered in a hesitant knot. Yadriel’s grin had disappeared. Becca was frowning, clearly worried.

“Denzel?” asked James, not taking his gaze off Bjørn. “You OK?”

“Yeah man.” Denzel rubbed blood off his chin. “Hurt like a fucker for a second, but then Healing Grace took care of it.”

“You could have ended this immediately.” Bjørn’s voice was cold. “This was all unnecessary theater.”

“I said we needed to conserve resources.” James moved to stand beside Serenity.

“We also need to get through the damn day.”

“Fuck, what happened?” asked Jason.

“Dickhead here used Inspire to try and force James to use Heavenly Assault,” said Serenity. “Made James take a harpoon to the face which transferred to Denzel.”

“Oh shit,” said Jason softly.

Bjørn lifted his chin.

James studied the man. Looked deep into his eyes. He saw pride there, endless depths of pride, along with outrage. Resentment. Fury. A hint of uncertainty in how he glanced flickerflash at the others to gauge their expressions.

“I told you to never use your power on one of us.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d done this right.”

“You’re not the leader.”

“Maybe I should be.”

“Hell naw,” said Yadriel.

“Over my dead body,” said Serenity.

“James is our leader,” agreed Olaf.

Jason, Joanna, and Denzel all nodded.

Bjørn licked his lower lip, calculating. “Then we must agree to disagree.”

For a long, aching moment nobody spoke.

With Bless Green, James’s Agility was 18.

In one smooth movement he drew Serenity's Sig from its holster, thumbed the safety off, and shot Bjørn between the eyes.

The crack echoed in the silent intersection. Becca screamed. Bjørn’s head snapped back and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

James thumbed the safety back and slid the Sig back into Serenity’s holster.

Not feeling anything, James turned on his radio. “Kelly here. Intersection 71 is cleared.”

“Fuck yeah,” he heard Star Boy yell in the background.

“Kelly, we need you back at Intersection 51. 4th Ave and Prospect Highway in South Slope. Ivory Medusa isn’t reporting back.”

“Roger, Command. Heading over there now. Out.”

A Killer Egg buzzed overhead, spec ops guys watching from behind their aviators.

Becca had fallen down beside Bjørn’s body, her eyes wide, mouth working silently.

Everybody else was staring at him.

“Mount up, folks.” James strode over to where his Anima was lowering the Wing. “Day’s just getting started.”

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