Dead Streets (34 page)

  "It won't be easy," I said, thinking aloud. "The Foundry's as well protected as a military base – and I very much doubt we'll be able to get there on foot. Hell, I'm not sure we could get there by car, given how bad it is out there." I thought about Lazlo, but I doubted his cab had been repaired yet, and there was no way it could get us through a city of rioting monsters in the condition we'd last seen it in.

  "We don't need to drive all the way to the Foundry," Devona said. "We could take the–" She winced, her face scrunching up as if she was experiencing a sudden, intense pain.

  I understood. Devona had been about to say
Under
walk
, but the tongue worm the Dominari had given her had jolted her with a burst of pain to warn her not to speak the word.

  "Take what?" Overkill asked, but we ignored her.

  "Yes!" I said, but my enthusiasm for the idea quickly waned. "But we still need to get there." The only entrance we knew about lay in a warehouse on the other side of the Sprawl – and there were a lot of Baron's psychotic creations between us and there, every one of them eager to tear us into teeny-tiny pieces.

  "I don't know what you two are talking about," Overkill said, "but if you need to get across the Sprawl, I can help you out." She grinned. "I've got a ride."

 

"You know, if someone had told me two days ago that I'd be riding shotgun inside Carnage with Overkill at the wheel, I'd have told them they were crazy."

  "Funny how life works out sometimes," Overkill said.

  From the back seat, Devona muttered, "Hilarious."

  My love was obviously not thrilled to be stuck in back, especially since that left me sharing the front seat with Overkill, but we'd decided that each of us needed to be next to a window so we could fight if necessary, and there were only two windows on each side of the car. Still, given the scowl that had etched itself onto Devona's face since we'd climbed into the car, maybe I should've volunteered to sit in the back.

  Only a few minutes earlier Overkill had led Devona and me from the alley between Nosferatomes and Matango to a spot a block away where Carnage was parked. We encountered more than a little resistance from Baron's mad monsters as we went, but between the three of us, we managed to discourage them from rending us limb from limb, and we made it to Carnage. The car's black paint was bleached white in places, evidence of his time bonded with the Conglomeration, but otherwise he looked little the worse for wear. We all hopped in, and the possessed car roared away from the curb like a Caddy out of Hell.

  The streets of the Sprawl were clogged with wrecked and abandoned vehicles, not to mention pedestrians running for their lives from pursuing monsters. Carnage wove through the chaos with consummate skill and we made our way toward the Dominari-owned warehouse. As we traveled, Overkill explained how she'd come to team up with Carnage.

  "I was already out looking for you, like every other hunter in the city, when one of my sources told me you'd been spotted tangling with Carnage on Sybarite Street. I hurried there and found Carnage stuck in the Conglomeration – nice move, by the way. By that point he'd almost extricated himself, and it didn't take much help from me to get him the rest of the way free. I intended to pump him for information about his encounter with you, maybe get a lead on where you were headed, when Orlock called. Once I knew he had you and Devona on ice, I wanted to get there as soon as possible, so I proposed that Carnage give me a ride and we'd split the bounty."

  "More like Carnage overheard the call and threatened to kill you if you didn't cut him in," I said.

  "That's one interpretation," Overkill allowed. "By the way, he still expects to be paid, and considering how you tricked him when you last met, he expects to be well paid."

  "I suppose I should be grateful he's more mercenary than vindictive," I said. I had no idea where I was going to get my hands on the amount of darkgems Carnage would want, but I decided to worry about that later.

  I'd never been close enough to Carnage to look inside it… him… whatever. The dashboard display was lit with the same crimson glow as his headlights and the interior was done entirely in black. The seats were leather and Devona later told me they felt slightly oily, as if they were living skin. She also said a faint odor of brimstone issued from the car's vents.

  "Wait a minute," Devona said to Overkill. "You can talk to Carnage?"

  "Sure," Overkill said. "There isn't a language in Nekropolis I can't speak, at least well enough to get by. Though I admit I'm not as fluent in possessed automobile as I'd like to be."

  The more time I spent around Overkill, the more impressed I was by her. My feelings must've showed on my face, for Devona leaned forward and punched me none-too-gently on the shoulder.

  "Keep you mind on the job," she said, her fangs fully extended.

  Overkill glanced at Devona in the rearview mirror and just smiled.

  Because Carnage was alive (in a sense) and intelligent, Overkill didn't actually have to drive. She rode behind the wheel, holding on to her P-90, which she'd reloaded as soon as we'd gotten into Carnage, gaze sweeping the street ahead for signs of trouble as we drove. She'd loaned Devona her 9mm, and I had my .45 and both of us had some magical items left over from what Shrike had brought us. We weren't exactly loaded for bear, but we weren't unarmed, either.

  The scenes we saw as we made our way through the Sprawl were nightmarish even by Nekropolis's standards. Victor Baron built his creations to be tough and virtually unstoppable, and so far they'd lived up to their reputation. Buildings had their doors torn from their hinges, their windows shattered, and skeletal streetlights had been snapped in half. Cars – some that had been run off the road by Baron's vehicles, others that had been picked up by his monsters and hurled – were torn and twisted, lying wherever they'd come to rest. And there were bodies of course, more often than not ripped asunder, limbs and organs strewn about the streets like some sort of hellish decorations.

  People were fighting back – this was Nekropolis, after all. Sentinels were out in force, the golems battling fiercely to quell the rioting, but while they were just as powerful as any of Baron's creations, they were seriously outnumbered, and we saw more than one Sentinel fall beneath a pile of savage monsters, never to rise again. I recognized some of the combatants that we passed. Outside Sinsation I saw the club's bouncer trying to get his hands on Eeriegami, but the latter kept folding and unfolding his body into different shapes, slipping out of the monster's grasp every time. In the street near Westerna's, I saw the Bloodborn waitress I thought of as Countess Dolly standing toe to toe with the Frankenstein monster decked out like John Wayne. Dolly clawed deep furrows into the monster's chest, but it didn't stop him from tearing off her head and throwing it as far as he could. Dolly's head flew right past my window and I saw the expression of fury on her face, and though I couldn't read her rapidly moving lips, I doubted she was singing her attacker's praises. As a recently decapitated head myself, I sympathized.

  We even saw Shrike outside the Broken Cross, where he'd teamed up with a midget vampire called Anklebiter. The latter would run up to one of Baron's monsters and sink his teeth into the flesh of its leg. When the creature opened its mouth to howl in pain, Shrike transformed into smoke, flowed into the creature's mouth and down into its lungs, where he partially solidified, causing some serious damage. The monster would cough up copious amounts of blood and then fall to the ground, out of action. Shrike would then emerge and resolidify and he and Anklebiter would start looking around for another monster to tackle.

  I had a lot of friends and acquaintances throughout the city, and I hoped that they'd have the good fortune – and good sense – to reach a hiding place where they'd be safe from the rampaging monsters, though I knew that most of them, like Shrike, were probably out in the thick of the chaos, fighting to protect their home. I found myself thinking of Tavi, Scorch and yes, even Bogdan, and wondering how they were faring right then. I'm sure they were on Devona's mind as well, but as neither of us had voxes at the moment, we couldn't call and check on them. As it was, all we could do was try our best to get to the Foundry, stop Victor Baron, and put an end to the violence ravaging the city as swiftly as possible.

  Before long we drew close to the intersection where the Dominari warehouse was located, and it looked like we were going to reach it without further incident.

  I should've known better.

  As we rounded the corner, Carnage hit his brakes and came to a screeching stop. The street before us was filled with Baron's creatures – male and female, some battle damaged but still functional, all of them huge, grotesque and completely insane, thanks to the power of Osseal's song.

  "We should've expected this," I said. "It looks like Baron has ordered his creations to join ranks and began an organized assault on the city."

  "Maybe we can go around them," Devona said.

  "Let's go through," Overkill said. She pushed a button on Carnage's dash and I expected to hear the ratcheting noise of his hood mounted machine gun activating. But instead a humming sound came from the rear of the vehicle, and I turned around to see a new weapon rising from the trunk. It had a long barrel like a gun, and a thick rubber hose extended from the back, connecting it to something in the trunk I couldn't see.

  I turned to Overkill. "What's that?"

  "Flamethrower," she said, grinning.

  The weapon continued rising until it extended above Carnage's roof. The mass of monsters had continued to advance while Carnage had been deploying the flamethrower and now they were almost upon us. We didn't wait for Carnage to attack. The three of us leaned out and started firing our weapons. Overkill let loose with her P-90 and I fired my .45. Instead of using her borrowed 9mm, though, Devona selected one of the items Shrike had brought us – an explosive hawthorn ball. She hurled the device into the crowd of monsters and it burst apart in a shower of deadly sharp thorns. Devona immediately followed up by employing the 9mm.

  None of our efforts produced any casualties, but the weapons fire gave the monsters pause, allowing Carnage to finish getting his flamethrower into position and activate it. A stream of flame shot into the creatures' ranks, and they bellowed in pain and anger as their clothes caught fire and their flesh blackened and burned. According to Devona, the stench was horrific. Carnage continued spraying fire at the monsters, swiveling the flamethrower back and forth to get as many as possible. Roaring, Baron's army backed up to get away from the deadly flames.

  No one especially likes being hosed by fire – with the possible exception of Scorch – but Frankenstein monsters are especially susceptible to it (as am I, dry-fleshed thing that I am). In their case, there's something about the chemicals Baron uses as part of the reanimation process that react violently to fire, and as we watched, those monsters who were burning most furiously swelled up like balloons and exploded in showers of crispy black skin and steaming gore. Those explosions alarmed the surviving monsters even more, and they quickly moved out of our path.

  Carnage started forward again, rolling slowly and spraying fire back and forth as we went, while Devona, Overkill and I continued to fire our weapons at any creature who took it into his or her head to risk the fire and come toward us. It was slow going, but we made it to the end of the block. Unfortunately Carnage's flamethrower was running out of fuel and the length and strength of the flame stream was severely diminished. The surviving monsters didn't fail to take note of this and they were beginning to mass together and approach again, making sure to stay just out of the flamethrower's newly limited range.

  "That's the building we want!" I pointed to the warehouse, and Carnage zoomed over the curb and parked.

  "This is our stop," I said to Overkill as I reached for my door handle. "Thanks for the help."

  She grabbed hold of my arm to stop me. "I'm going with you. There's no way I'm going to miss out on the main event!"

  "You don't understand. You
can't
come with us." I wanted to explain to her that Devona and I were both under a spell that wouldn't allow us to reveal the truth about where we were going and that our heads would explode if we ever tried. But of course, the tongue worm prevented me from doing even that much, and I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my mouth which, considering that I had no functioning nerves there, came as a shock to me.

  Devona glanced out the car window.

  "We don't have time for this," she said. "The monsters are coming." She leaned forward, grabbed Overkill by the shoulders, and turned the woman halfway around to face her. Devona's eyes flared red and she hissed a single word. "
Sleep!"

  Overkill tried to resist, but the psychic powers of a half-vampire are formidable, and Devona's had only gotten stronger since I'd met her. Overkill's eyes rolled up in her head, and she slumped over onto me, snoring softly. I gently pushed her off me and scooted over so she could lie flat on the seat.

  "Carnage," Devona said, "as soon as we get out, take her away from here as fast as you can."

  Carnage didn't respond at first, and Devona sighed. "Don't worry. If we make it through this, we'll see to it you get paid one way or another. You have our word on it."

  Carnage might not be able to speak English, but the Caddy understood it well enough. He tooted his horn once, Devona and I climbed out, and he lost no time in peeling out of there, knocking aside several of Baron's creatures in the process. He didn't bother using his flamethrower, and I knew that the weapon was out of fuel. I hoped Carnage and Overkill would make it to safety. They might have been mercenaries, but we'd never have made it to the warehouse without their help. Of course, getting here was no guarantee that we'd survive to get inside. Without the threat of Carnage's flamethrower to keep them at bay, Baron's monsters were closing in on us fast.