The Omicron Legion (37 page)

“Well, let’s give it to them.” They started walking.

“How far before they start firing, Johnny?”

“Seventy-five yards.”

“We’ll walk fifty—then call for Obie Seven. He takes out four or five more of them, we clean up the rest.” Wareagle said nothing.

“Steady,” ordered Abraham, just loud enough for the three disciples flanking him on either side to hear. “No one fires until I say so.”

Several of the others shifted uneasily, and he sensed their impatience.

“We’ve got what we want,” he offered as explanation. “But we’ve got to be sure this time.”

James spoke with his eye glued to the long-range sight on his rifle. “I can hit them from here. Head shots. Neat and clean.”

“Wait,” Abraham said suddenly. “They wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t want us to respond precisely as we are. We’ve…missed something.”

“We couldn’t have. There’s nothing,” another voice shot back.

“We should open fire now!” a third insisted.

“Not until we’re sure. Not until we’ve all got shots.”

“You know what they’re doing, don’t you?” Patty Hunsecker said accusingly to Sal Belamo as he struggled for a view of what was transpiring on Duke of Gloucester Street.

“Lady, I don’t know—”

“You do! I know you do! They’re sacrificing themselves, using themselves as bait. To draw those…things out, so Ainsley’s monstrosity can finish them off.”

Belamo tilted his head toward the area beyond. “The real monstrosities are those Frankensteins out there. And MacBalls knows the key is makin’ sure they don’t get outta here.”

“He didn’t take you with him,” Patty said abruptly.

“Huh?”

“If he really thought he had a chance, he’d have taken you.”

There was a brief crackle of static before the soft echo of McCracken’s voice rose from Sal’s walkie-talkie.

“It’s show time, boys,” Blaine called. “Send the big fella in.”

“With pleasure,” Ainsley said.

The professor’s attempted activation of Obie Seven, though, brought the most feared phrase possible flashing across his monitor:
NOT PROCESSING.

“Yo, Professor,” Sal Belamo yelled to him, “he’s not going anywhere.”

“No,” Ainsley said, mostly to himself, as he worked the keyboard desperately, “he isn’t.”

“MacBalls!” Blaine heard Sal Belamo yell into his ear. “You guys got to pull out. The big guy ain’t ready for his walk.”

“What the fuck’s going on?”

“I can’t get him on line!” Ainsley screeched. “His programming won’t accept the sequence!”

“Get outta there, boss.”

The flurry of fire from the disciples began just as Blaine and Johnny dived toward opposite sides of Duke of Gloucester Street.

“After them!” Abraham screamed above the booming reports from their weapons.

The disciples took off in seven separate directions, certain to catch their quarries in the spread. They could smell victory now, the taste of it as welcome as blood.

They liked the taste.

McCracken and Wareagle’s only chance for survival was to separate, splinter the opposing forces, and buy themselves the time it took for Ainsley to get Obie Seven working.

Fucking thing must have blown a fuse!
McCracken thought to himself, going for a little humor.

But the humor swiftly vanished as something else occurred to him. This unexpected breakdown not only forced Johnny and him into flight, it also left Patty, Sal, and Ainsley exposed back at the Capitol. If the disciples chose to concentrate their efforts toward that end, three corpses would greet Blaine…if he managed to stay alive and get back there. No, he told himself, the disciples would only be thinking in terms of Wareagle and himself for the moment. Their vision was sharp but narrow. With Blaine and Johnny in their sights now, they would sweep the rest of Williamsburg only after their two primary targets had been dispatched.

All the more reason to stay alive.

Blaine headed south briefly, hit Francis Street and swung west, keeping to the cover of buildings as best he could.

“You read me, Sal?”

“Still fucked at this end, boss.”

“Don’t break radio silence, no matter what. Let me have the first word. Talk to you soon.”

“Roger.”

Blaine kept moving. He knew the disciples would be circling in an attempt to enclose him. His two major priorities were to draw them away from the Capitol on Williamsburg’s eastern perimeter and find safe haven for himself until Ainsley got Obie Seven back on line. He moved quickly, using the buildings for cover and darting between them only after being certain none of the disciples were about. He heard their footsteps on several occasions, but was fortunate enough to be near heavy concentrations of bushes or a hefty porch that provided concealment each time.

He ended up amid a thick nest of buildings between Colonial and Botetourt streets. Plenty of places to find cover that would make the disciples spend extra time trying to locate him. He would hold off using his pistols for as long as he could, since using them would alert them to his location, and Blaine was not in the self-sacrificing mood.

McCracken stayed to the rear of the James Anderson House, moving among the seven reconstructed forges that dominated the Blacksmith Shop. His hand strayed to one of the brick forges and came away singed. The damn coals were still hot; a quick gaze inside showed Blaine hot pokers of steel, their edges glowing reddish-orange.

He was thinking about how the occupants of Williamsburg must have truly dropped everything and run, thanks to Sal Belamo, when a flash of gun metal appeared just ahead of the figure; one of the disciples about to round the corner.

Johnny Wareagle stuck to the area of Nicholson Street, heading northwest. He could feel the eyes of three of the
Wakinyan
searching for him and sensed none of them belonged to Abraham. This comforted him, for, above all, he knew that it was his
Hanbelachia
to face the most fearsome of these monsters. He had known this since they had seen each other briefly in Philadelphia. The confrontation might come here in Williamsburg, or it might come later, but it would come.

Johnny’s communicator had stayed silent since his split from McCracken back on Duke of Gloucester Street. He knew the call would come when Ainsley got his final and most impressive droid on line. He only needed to keep himself hidden from the
Wakinyan
until then.

Johnny passed near North England Street, hugging the rear white-frame expanse of the Peyton-Randolph House. Fields and brush lay before him in this more rustic section of Williamsburg. Set in a clearing, detached and by itself, lay a fenced-in windmill. The sailcloth wheel spun quickly in the stiff breeze. Johnny remembered how it had helped grind the corn when he was young and still living on the reservation. It looked and smelled of home, and he took this as a sign from the spirits.

Crouching low, he made a quick dash for the steep steps leading into the building the wheel was attached to. The structure supporting the windmill was propped up on a base of logs, the reconstruction perfect in all respects. Wareagle thought he might find refuge inside.

He felt the presence just as he passed through the entrance, felt it in time to dive for the floor just as the muzzle flashes erupted and bullets split the air above him.

The disciple’s angle of approach had prevented him from firing when McCracken lunged. He managed to squeeze the trigger, but Blaine had already locked a hand on the stock and shoved the M16 away. Equal to the task, the disciple had responded by shoving Blaine in the direction his momentum had already taken him, launching out with a kick. McCracken took the impact in his bent knee and felt it buckle. The leg went numb and rubbery, but he kept himself from falling. He’d learned his lesson from facing another disciple down in Rio. He could not let things be drawn out, especially not with reinforcements as close as a scream away.

Still holding tight to the rifle, McCracken faked falling. The disciple released his right hand from the grip and formed it into a fist; he would try for a killing strike to Blaine’s throat or face. McCracken was ready. He avoided the blow with a deft twist and lowering of his head. In the same motion he tore the rifle from the disciple’s remaining hand and heard it smack into the brick forge behind him. Blaine whipped one of the pistols from his belt, only to have the disciple kick it into the air, where it landed in a nest of hot coals.

The disciple reached into one of the forges for a red-hot poker, which was glowing at the tip. McCracken probed desperately behind him and found its twin, burning his hand in the process.

The disciple came in first with an overhead blow. Blaine deflected it and tried to use his poker with a backlash motion. The disciple simply ducked and brought his weapon hard into Blaine’s ribs in roundhouse fashion. McCracken lost his breath in a throaty gasp. The blow had stunned him, but he recovered his senses in time to see the disciple lunging at him, aiming the poker’s glowing tip straight for him. McCracken turned at the last instant, knocking the blow aside and ramming his own poker into the side of the disciple’s face.

Now it was his opponent who gasped. A hiss sounded as flesh burned and blackened and a bulging welt swelled across the disciple’s right cheek and jaw. But the disciple came back at him as if he hadn’t felt anything. A damaging blow was headed for Blaine’s collarbone, but he deflected it enough to turn the impact into a mere graze. He tried to retaliate, but the disciple had launched a furious flurry of blows with both the poker and his free hand. McCracken barely managed to ward him off as he was forced backward against a forge that was still burning with a white-hot coal fire. The poker slid from his hand, his injured leg giving way as he stooped to retrieve it.

Seeing the opening, the disciple reared back and launched a savage overhead strike with the poker. At the last moment, McCracken threw up both hands in an X-block that caught his opponent’s wrist between his forearms. The poker flirted with the top of his skull and, as the disciple drew it overhead once more, Blaine rammed a foot up into his groin.

The disciple’s eyes bulged. As he doubled over, Blaine grabbed him by the bulk of his Kevlar vest and brought him forward, facefirst, toward the white-hot flames. Blaine felt his own hands paying part of the price as he jammed the disciple’s face and chest against the sizzling coals. McCracken heard the
ssssssssssss
and was assaulted by the sickening aroma of frying flesh and hair. He waited until it had all but subsided before releasing the pressure on the twitching frame. He regained his feet and dashed away, the scent still fresh in his nostrils.

Wareagle kicked out at blinding speed toward the source of the muzzle flashes. It was like a cartwheel—with his hands down, his legs spun around like a propeller. His feet struck the rifle square in the stock and separated it from the
Wakinyan’s
hands. The
Wakinyan
whipped out a pistol, but as Johnny lunged back to his feet he locked his hand on the wrist holding the gun before it could fire. The disciple was at least eight inches shorter than Johnny, but he looked up into the Indian’s eyes and smiled at him. The test of strength was going his way. The gun was coming back up almost in line with Johnny’s face, the disciple’s finger still on the trigger. Their free arms had locked, and they were grappling with each other like wrestlers.

The
Wakinyan
smiled again. He was winning.

Because Johnny wanted him to.

The wind-driven grinding stones on the
Wakinyan’s
right side squeezed against each other like a huge mouthful of chomping teeth. The process was continuous: lower, grind, separate, rise…lower, grind, separate, rise…

Johnny knew the disciple would wait until his shot was sure, wait until Johnny had a long moment to contemplate his own death. Wareagle let that moment start with his eyes staring down the pistol’s bore for a microsecond. Then he jerked the disciple’s gun hand across his body, back and to the side. He timed the move for the exact moment the stones were separated enough to allow for the hand and arm to pass between them, in the instant before they began to lower again. Flesh tore, and Wareagle’s ears were burned by the sound of bones being ground to pulp. The
Wakinyan’s
eyes bulged in agony. Wareagle’s free hand clamped down over his mouth to muffle his screams, then drew the head toward him before jamming it backward against the grinding mechanism.

The skull shattered with a
pop!
Blood and brains splattered the walls. The
Wakinyan’s
eyes locked unseeingly with Johnny’s. Blood streamed from his nostrils. Wareagle left him there and headed back for the door.

“What the fuck, Professor?” Sal Belamo shouted back into the truck from his post near Obie Seven.

“I’m trying! I’m trying!”

“Ain’t good enough, chief.”

Patty Hunsecker emerged from the truck with machine gun in hand. “We’ve got to go out there, Sal. We’ve got to help them.”

“What you gotta do is stay here. Like you were told.”

“Screw what I was told!”

She made a motion to leave on her own, and Belamo restrained her. “MacBalls wants you safe, and that’s the way you’re gonna stay,” he said quite calmly.

“You read me, Sal?” jabbered Belamo’s communicator almost on cue.

“Got ya, boss.”

“Any luck?”

“Professor says he’s almost got it licked.”

“Almost ain’t good enough. Case you didn’t notice, we got a situation here.”

“Just stay out of sight a little longer, boss.”

“No can do, Sal. No can do at all.”

McCracken ended up back in the center of Duke of Gloucester Street, pursuit having forced him that way. He whipped his remaining pistol out just as Johnny Wareagle emerged between a pair of buildings directly in front of him, crossbow in hand. They had barely met each other’s gaze when the remaining disciples appeared, three from the west end of the street led by Abraham and two others from the east end, effectively enclosing them. “No more running, Indian.”

“Indeed, Blainey.”

A hundred and fifty yards separated them from the disciples at either end of the street. The Splats in Blaine’s pistol were effective from only fifty yards and less, giving the disciples even more of an advantage.