* * *
Warfare was the worst part of the job. Truman liked order, everything in its neat place. War was, at best, chaotic. He liked clear lines of command and communication, and time. Right now he doubted he had any of those things. What he did have were a pack of gung-ho wolves, a demon who might accidentally fulfil a prophecy (but which one?), and his own loyal troops.
Truman lay prone on the roof, many feet from McGregor, who was taking a break from translating to provide cover fire. They needed every gun they had. Skylar and Mitchell were below them, in the apartment. Hopefully having shots coming from two different heights would make it harder for the Andrastes to hit them. Gods knew they needed all the help they could get: the vampires were incredibly fast.
It sure would have been good to have one on their side, but whatever Clarkson was doing he was doing it with his radio switched off.
Paddington set the PE4 on the gate, blew it, and the wolves made their run. Truman put the L115A3 Long-Range Rifle’s night-vision scope to his eye and examined the castle. There were too many possible attack points to cover them all – the keep, the bailey, the church, even atop the curtain wall itself – so the Team was trying a watch-and-hope method. Mainly, watch as many windows as they could and hope the Andrastes weren’t perched in others.
McGregor took the first shot. Truman didn’t try to find where the bullet hit; either it found its mark or didn’t, no time to stop and look. The second shot came from below him, either Skylar or Mitchell. The third shot was Truman’s: Melanthios had appeared at one of the windows, a heavy assault rifle in his boyish hands. Not that terms like “boy” meant anything. Even Melanthios, who only looked fifteen, was probably over one-hundred and thirty years old. Before he could aim it at the wolves rushing across the bridge, Truman let off a shot. It missed, turning a portion of the window’s stone frame into dust, but Melanthios ducked back inside without killing any of the wolves.
After that came chaos. It was like the old arcade games with cowboys or aliens or paper targets and a big, brightly-coloured plastic pistol. There were always more targets than Truman could hit and as the levels progressed they popped up and disappeared more rapidly.
The paper targets hadn’t fired back, though. The Team didn’t give the Andrastes time to properly aim, but even some of their quick shots came within feet of the wolves.
And of him. More than once Truman saw himself aiming at a vampire who was aiming at, or near, him. Years of training paid off, though: he was always the quicker draw.
Then it was over. Truman’s ears rang from the boom of his gun and the more frequent firings of McGregor’s. “Good job, doctor,” he said. “Now go join Missus Paddington and Beck.” They were establishing yet another safehouse; the non-combatants couldn’t stay in the nest now that the Andrastes knew about it.
McGregor nodded, put down the gun, and ran off. The others would be waiting for him in one of the jeeps with the Book of Enanti, a thing Truman wanted translated more than he cared to admit.
Truman gave the castle one last sweep, but the Andrastes were away from the windows now that the wolves were inside the gate. He left his long-range rifle on the rooftop, picked up his L85A2 rifle, and ran to the stairs. At the bottom, McGregor was smiling awkward goodbyes at Skylar and Mitchell was checking the weapons secreted around his person.
“Status?” Truman said.
“No confirmed kills. I think I winged one of them, though.”
Damn. Oh well, they’d have to rely on an up-close battle, then.
“The wolves can’t occupy them for long,” Truman said. “Let’s hustle!” To the jostle and clank of fully-armed soldiers, they ran for the castle.
They didn’t even make it as far as the bridge. They’d made it most of the way across the street, not even to the portcullis, when Mitchell spun around. “You hear that?”
When their boots stopped slapping on the still-wet bitumen, Truman heard approaching voices. Shouts. Unruly noise and lots of it. He jogged east and looked down the street there. A group – aw hell, might as well be honest and call it a mob – of about fifty approaching. Most of them looked cold because they had come from the clubs and hadn’t collected their jackets at the door. If they had jackets. They were in their Friday-night party best: small strips of leather designed to show off and contrast with the wearer’s pale skinny flesh.
Civilians. They’d heard the explosion or the gunshots.
They were blown. The entire battle had just changed.
“Mitchell, Skylar: you’re with me holding back the crowd. Paddington: sorry, you’re on your own. We’ll try to keep the mob from reaching the castle, but the vampires are all yours.”
Skylar watched the approaching mob. By the angry shouts, someone had already deemed the Team to be the bad guys and others had readily agreed. “How exactly are we stoping them?” she asked.
“Any way we can,” Truman said. “Without killing them.”
“It’d send a damn clear message, sir,” Mitchell said. “Put one or two down, the rest will scatter. Probably cause less death than if they tear apart us, the wolves, and themselves.”
“These people have been manipulated. We’re not killing them.” Mitchell had ordered them to kill zombies, but at least that had almost been justifiable. They couldn’t be saved. Not that that meant Truman didn’t wake up sweating and screaming at least once a week with the face of a young girl or an old man seared into his consciousness.
“You’re the boss,” Mitchell said.
Truman walked toward the crowd, hands up in what he hoped was a calming pose. Hopefully they’d concentrate on that, not the rifle hanging from his shoulder by a strap.
“Turn back!” he shouted.
“What are you doing?” Mitchell asked.
“I’m giving them a chance to go.”
“They’re not going to go!”
“Listen to me!” Truman shouted to the crowd. A piece of broken pavement flew toward him but Truman side-stepped it easily. “You don’t want to do this! I’m Captain Truman, here on official business! Return to your homes.”
The crowd did not, on the whole, return to its homes.
“Who are you, yank?”
“Yeah, what are you doing here?”
“What were those noises?”
“Was that gunfire?”
“We’ve come here to help you!” Truman said. “To save you from the vampires who have been attacking you!”
The crowd was quite close now; maybe twenty feet. “No one’s been attacked against their will.”
“Save us how?” someone shouted.
It was then that Truman realised what Mitchell had already known: arguing was useless. They were vampire-worshippers. The most devout of Estika. Those willing to die for their count.
And they were on their phones. Messaging friends. Calling in reinforcements. This small mob would become a large mob very soon.
“What’ve you done to the castle?” someone demanded.
“Is that smoke?”
There was sweat pouring down Truman’s back. There were no answers to these questions that wouldn’t get him torn apart.
Time to fall back.
“Cover!” Truman called.
As he spun back to the Team, about to run, a grenade from Mitchell’s L85 flew past him. It fell short of the mob – which presumably was the intention – but the explosion blew up dirt and bitumen into the crowd. As they stood – no longer advancing, just coughing and asking each other if they were all right – Mitchell followed his grenade with a burst of rifle-fire over their heads. Half of the mob ran back the way they came, some clutching bleeding body parts that had been hit, but no one was seriously injured.
Truman reached the others and said, too quietly for the crowd in front of him to hear, “Mitchell, inner portcullis. No one gets past; do whatever you have to do.” He pulled a smoke grenade from his flak jacket. “Skylar, we’re the diversion.”