Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles (40 page)

He hadn’t won after all. It had been a tie.

Lance went to his knees. His right arm had been removed just above the elbow. Blood was pumping out. He’d better do something about that. There were still Imperium in need of killing.

With unnerving calm, he pulled off Chen’s belt, looped it around the stump, and pulled it tight. Lance screamed. Now
that
hurt. He bit down on the leather with his teeth to keep tension on it until he could get his pocket knife out to poke a new belt hole.

It was a strange feeling, pulling his own severed hand off of the shotgun, but he did it anyway. There was movement in the smoke as a ninja ducked across the hall. He fired the last round of buckshot through the wall but couldn’t tell if he’d gotten anything.

There was shooting ahead. The surviving Grimnoir had engaged the Imperium. He grabbed the nearest available weapon—the short sword that had cut his arm off—and used it like a crutch to get to his feet. Lance staggered toward the sound of gunfire, the tip of the sword dragging along the dirty ground behind him. Lance knew he was a goner, no denying that, but he was going to take as many Imperium assholes with him as possible.

The next room was a red haze. He hacked a Shadow Guard in the back, cutting him clear to the spine, and then he shouted for more. The other bastards saw him coming and ran. Lance went after them.

And then he got shot. He knew that feeling well.

Lance lost the little sword. He hadn’t even seen that sneaky Shadow Guard who had appeared behind him and shot him in the back. Lance turned around and started limping toward the ninja, who then shot Lance again. It was a funny-looking little pistol with a big sound muffler on the end. Lance barely even heard that one, but he sure felt the impact. The ninja got him with one more round before Lance got ahold of his wrist and pushed the gun aside. Lance tugged him in and headbutted the ninja in the face. It took them both down.
That’s what they get for using those pussy little 8mm rounds instead of a real gun.
Lance wrestled the weird little Nambu up, stuck it under the ninja’s chin, forced his finger into the trigger guard, and put a bullet hole through the assassin’s brain.

He got back up and fired the pistol at the fleeing Shadow Guard. “I’m Lance Talon, you sons a bitches!” He wasn’t nearly as good a shot with his left hand, but he still hit at least one of them. “You’d better run!”

And then he was down.

His ears were ringing. He couldn’t hardly see. The bastards had shot him in the back again. He started getting up, but they shot him again, and again. He slowly sank to the ground. Lance grimaced and tried to force himself back up, but his legs wouldn’t respond. He tried to lift the gun, but a split-toe shoe appeared in his vision and kicked the Nambu away.

Had he bought the others some time? Had they got away? If so, then it was all worth it.

The remaining Shadow Guard gathered around him in a circle, seemingly in awe at the berserker fury of the American. They were warriors. They could appreciate a good death.

He was nearly dead, but Lance wasn’t done yet.

There were always stories about Beasties so incredibly powerful that they weren’t limited to just controlling animals, ones who could actually take over humans. As far as he knew, those were just stories, but he did think it was possible, just that it required more magic than he’d ever been able to use at once without fear of killing himself in the process. Lance had never been able to pull it off, and even poking around with it had told him that for him to draw that much Power at once would mean certain death.

He reached for his Power. There was absolutely nothing left to lose.

His vision faded. The world was a flat, grey, quickly shrinking circle. The Imperium ninjas were half-a-dozen glowing blobs of life, with minds far greater than any animal. He picked one in particular. The son of a bitch who had finally brought him down was carrying a big Type 70 light machine gun, so at least Lance had been killed by a real gun.

The Imperium men drew closer. A ninja lifted his sword to take Lance’s head.

He gathered up
all
his Power,
all
his life, and then reached for more. He concentrated on the man with machine gun and treated him just like he’d treat a rat or a dog or horse. This mind was complicated in comparison, but it didn’t matter, Lance just forced his way in and slammed that spirit right out of the way.

Now he was seeing through different eyes. Human eyes. There was his executioner, and there was his body. Lance was wearing socks. He’d died with his boots off, and that struck him as so damn funny he started laughing.

The Shadow Guard with the sword paused, confused, and looked to his laughing compatriot.

“Burn in hell, you Imperium fucks,” Lance said in English, with his own voice, through the mouth of the mind-controlled ninja, which surely came as a surprise, and then he opened fire. He worked the machinegun back and forth across the five of them, shredding the ninjas with heavy bullets. He massacred them all.

The real ninja was fighting, struggling, panicking, futilely trying to reclaim his body.

“You want it back?” Lance asked as he dropped the empty, smoking machine gun to the floor. He then forced the ninja to reach down and draw his sword. How was it the Imperium did it with their fancy ritual suicides? Right across the stomach to spill the guts?
Bet that hurt.
The sword arm trembled as the ninja struggled for control, but Lance wasn’t done yet. The sword pierced the ninja’s belly and Lance forced the ninja to push hard. It was so sharp there was hardly any resistance at all. Lance felt it. Felt it just like it had been his own body, and he relished in the fact that it hurt worse than he’d even imagined. The blade popped out the other side, and the ninja’s entrails tumbled out.

“It’s all yours.”

The Shadow Guard collapsed in a heap.

Lance let go of the hijacked mind and let his consciousness snap back.

His own body felt cold and empty in comparison. His magic was gone. Burned out forever in one final push.

Deep in the burning building, surrounded by a pile of dead Shadow Guard, Lance Talon closed his eyes and drifted off, dreaming about his family that he hadn’t seen in a very long time.

The sleek Imperium patrol boat roared toward the small Chinese craft. A teenage boy stood at the rear of the boat, his hands raised in a position of surrender. Surely blinded by the brilliant spotlights, he knew better than to try anything. The first boat had already pulled alongside. The men were preparing to board and search it.

Major Matsuoka spoke into the bullhorn. “You are under arrest. Do not resist or you will be shot.” The boy kept his head down, afraid. Matsuoka could not confirm this boat had come from beneath the target building, but it was possible. The boy would be taken in for torture and questioning. Just because he was young did not mean he was not a member of the terrorist resistance, and if he was merely an innocent bystander, then it didn’t really matter anyway, because he was only Chinese, and none of those could ever truly be innocent.

His pilot moved them alongside. The Chinese boat was trapped between the two much larger patrol boats. There was a third boat on over watch. There were several bolt-action rifles, submachine guns, and even a mounted machine gun on each patrol boat, all pointed down at the target. Resistance would be stupid, but experience told Matsuoka that just because something was stupid did not mean criminals would not try it anyway, especially the desperate ones. Matsuoka drew his pistol. “Be careful,” he ordered the men who were preparing to climb down.

Water droplets began to rise from the river. It was like rain . . . In reverse . . .

Suddenly, everything was
wrong
.

It happened too quickly to react. It was so confusing, so unnatural, that it took the major a few seconds to realize just what it was which had changed.
Gravity
. It was as if up and down had somehow changed direction. And in those seconds, he discovered that he was flying through the air.

The men who kept their wits opened fire, but gravity’s sudden change had caused the ships to lurch so violently that aiming was impossible. Someone below . . . above . . . snarled a curse as they were struck by a stray bullet.

And then it all came crashing back down.

Matsuoka hit the steel railing hard enough to break a rib. The whole patrol boat shuddered as it landed with a
whump,
displacing water in every direction. Many of the men went splashing into the water, and a few unlucky ones hit the metal boats. His Nambu went sliding over the side. The spotlights careened wildly in differing directions.

There was a scream. He looked over to see that one of his men had burst into flames. He was thrashing around, batting at his clothing, but that only seemed to make it worse, and then the man dove overboard. The major turned the other way to shout an order at the radio operator, but he had turned white,
no, blue
, and seemed to be trying to
peel
his hands off of his frosted metal equipment.

The tarp on the tiny boat was ripped aside and a young Caucasian man lifted a machine pistol and ripped off an entire magazine in one burst. The men twitched and jerked as they were struck. Then that entire patrol boat was engulfed in flames.

Wincing at the horrible pain in his side, Matsuoka got up. Since they’d all been lifted and splashed back down a bit off to the side, the patrol boat that was supposed to be covering them did not have a shot at the smaller boat. He waved his hands over head, trying desperately to get their attention. That little boat needed to be strafed
now.

There was a thud next to him. Matsuoka looked over, and up and
up
, at the very large man who had just landed next to him. A stubby British revolver was stuck under Matsuoka’s nose, and a giant hand grabbed him by the uniform coat and lifted him off his feet.

“You speak English?”

Matsuoka didn’t answer. The covering boat gunned its engine. It was coming over to get a better view of what was happening.

“Hang on,” said the giant, and then he smashed Matsuoka in the face with the revolver.

He hit the deck, head swimming. The giant went over to the prow, took hold of the mounted machine gun’s spade grips and swiveled it in the direction of the approaching patrol boat. The machine gun roared. A line of orange tracers was worked back and forth across the approaching craft. They tried to return fire, but the giant was methodical, quickly walking his bullets directly into the muzzle flashes until they were out, and then back. He continued. On and on. Ripping the other boat apart, making sure that it was no longer a threat. He finally stopped when the other patrol boat’s fuel tank ignited and it coasted to a stop.

Matsuoka shook his aching head, spotted a discarded Arisaka rifle, and crawled toward it, but the giant came over and stepped on his hand. “Not so fast.” He lifted the revolver and fired a single round. The pilot, who appeared to be frozen to the deck, flopped over with a hole in his head. The giant reached down, picked up one end of a rope and tossed it to the smaller boat. “Barns, grab this. We’re taking this boat.”

“You will never get away with this,” Matsuoka spat.

“Oh, I am.” The giant casually pointed the revolver at Matsuoka. “And you do speak English, then. So first you’re gonna tell me what’s going down.”

They did not look like brothers. That was to be expected, since the Chairman had known the affections of so many different concubines over his many decades. Rumor had it that some of the thousand brothers were not even from Japanese mothers, but Toru had never actually met one. Hayate was as small and thin as Toru was tall and broad. He was also twenty years Toru’s senior, and had spent every single day of that training, teaching, fighting, or otherwise serving the Imperium. He was First Shadow Guard, singled out as the pinnacle of his secretive order.

It was a great honor to face such an opponent . . .

Yet, his father’s mission had to come first. That was all that mattered.

“Hear my words, Hayate. The man you serve is not really our father. He is an imposter. Master Dosan Saito has usurped his place. He is in league with the Enemy.”

Hayate smiled. “They had said that all of the bloodshed during the occupation had driven you insane . . . I can see now that they were correct. Spare me, Toru. I am familiar with your delusions. The report you gave to the newsman was sent to military intelligence for analysis. I read it and I was filled with an incredible sadness. To see one with so much potential fall so very far . . . You are quite mad.”

“It is the truth! Master Saito has corrupted the dreams of Dark Ocean.”

The First Shadow Guard looked over the blood dripping from the tetsubo. “You are like a mad dog. You are rabid, Toru. And you know what must be done to rabid dogs.”

“Do not do this, Hayate.”

“They must be put down . . .I volunteered for this duty, though I must admit I was not expecting you to be so well armed. I had been hoping to look in your eyes when I took your life with my sword, face to face, man to man, brother to brother . . . warrior to warrior.”

His body was squeezed between steel plates, and bending at the waist was extremely difficult, but Toru managed to will the Nishimura armor to give a respectful bow.

“I doubt that I would be successful in talking you into taking off that armor.”

“You would be correct.”

“Luckily, I am a firm believer in being prepared for the unexpected.” Hayate clapped his hands. A masked Shadow Guard with a huge tube resting over one shoulder stepped around the far corner. A blue glow radiated from the end of the tube. Toru did not recognize the weapon, but it seemed similar to one of the magical anti-tank weapons he’d seen Unit 731 experimenting with. That one had been powered by magic ripped from the flesh of Boomer subjects . . . Using such a device inside this enclosed space would be suicidal.

But they were Imperium. Suicide was all in a day’s work.

“Farewell, Toru.” Hayate Traveled away as the remaining Shadow Guard fired the device.