[Demonworld #4] Shepherd of Wolves Read online

  “When they came, our soldiers fought them with damned near everything they had. But it was no use, they just kept coming and coming. Endless waves of monsters. I joined in the fighting, too, sniping alongside my father. We made a stand on top of our castle. Looking down at the streets... it was all smoke, fire, people screaming. The demons clogged up every available space. Eventually we didn’t even have to aim to hit anything.”

  “Were there dragons?” said Wodan.

  Zach shook his head.

  “The demons attacked my homeland, too,” said Wodan, “but mostly they used the Ugly to do their dirty work.”

  “I think they’ve been gathering for a while,” said Zach. “It makes sense, all those stories about there being less and less demons out in the wild. It wasn’t because they were waning, though. Not at all.”

  “Coagulating,” said Wodan. “Into one solid mass.”

  “Or more than one,” said Zach. “Who can say? The only thing we know for sure is that humans have been advancing, little by little, despite the demon’s influence. But now, they mean to end us. One city at a time. And then, civilization as a whole.”

  “You think they’ll come here?” Wodan’s heart began racing.

  “Not... exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Virgil brought coffee to them and Zach continued his story. “After it was obvious that we were going to be overrun, that no hope of defense was possible, we ran to the zeppelins.” Wodan glanced at his friend inquisitively, and Zach said, “The man who invented the zeppelin, Edwar Bruner - after his designs were stolen by the Smiths and he escaped from Pontius, he came to Hargis and we accepted him with open arms. He became a rich man under our care. We were going to change the wasteland, Wodan. We had plans to connect every worthwhile city via aerial trade routes. Well, things didn’t work out for us like that, but the zeppelins were still our salvation. That is, for some of us.” Zach darkened, then said, “My father, my family, all of them were killed in the attack. All of them. I’m the last of the line of Hargis. I took to the air with others, mostly soldiers, and Bruner as well. We floated away from the destruction and stayed airborne for several days. We wandered, and watched the smoke rising from the destruction, and then watched the devils march into the east. They’ll most likely hit Greeley next. We floated around aimless for a while, then returned to our land to see what we could rebuild. That was when we met the other army.”

  “Another demon army?”

  “No. Humans and dogmen. We thought at first that they were refugees and we were going to join up with them, but they shot at us. We raced to the capital and found more of them, finishing the looting. But the looting, Wodan... it was all organized, in its own sort of way. We saw them gathering supplies in trucks and leaving the city, over and over, like ants. They shot at us too, so we fled north. And we saw... Wodan, we saw a great army of humans and dogmen, armed for war, and they were marching north.”

  “To Pontius?”

  Zach nodded. “Pontius doesn’t have to worry about the flesh demons. Instead, Pontius will have to face the aftereffects of the demons’ rampage.”

  Wodan looked to Virgil, who nodded and stuffed his mouth with the last of his breakfast. “If you ever wanted to feel sorry for yourself, son,” said Virgil, “now would be that time.”

  Wodan’s heart continued racing. I knew this would happen someday, he thought. I always knew we couldn’t survive by hiding and waiting. If only I’d had more time to… to make Pontius stronger!

  “What’s being done?” said Wodan.

  “Some people are already running like hell,” said Virgil. “We couldn’t keep the story pinned-down. That was impossible, and maybe not even a good idea. Pontius has to prepare. We do have one crazy idea…”

  Virgil glanced at Zach, who said, “The Pontius city officials have agreed to take the Hargis refugees under their wing. In return, I’m going to fly out with some others and try to gather reinforcements.”

  “Reinforcements?” said Wodan, brightening. “To fight the oncoming army?”

  Zach nodded. “And I’d like you to come with me.”

  Instead of agreeing to come along, Wodan said, “I’ll work with some of your navigators and try to show them how to find Haven. If anyone has the firepower and the know-how to fight off an invading force, it would be them.”

  “Haven?” said Virgil.

  “That’s where I’m from,” said Wodan. “They’re a technologically advanced people. Total isolationists. I lived there my first twenty years, before they exiled me.”

  “Always causing trouble,” said Virgil, laughing darkly. “Good thing you found a home in bloody Pontius.”

  “Pontius never gave me a warm welcome, but I’ll do what I can to protect it. What else is being done?”

  “We’re going to get everyone organized,” said Virgil. “All the Lawmen, the Smiths, the smaller gangs, the civilians, the outlying farmers, everyone, and set up some kind of defense. We’ve already got our walls, of course. But against dogmen... I just don’t know. If the accounts are true, then it seems there are a lot of them, and they’re well-equipped. We’ll do what we can, but we’ll definitely need reinforcements if we want to put up a fight.”

  “Scouts,” said Wodan. “We’ll need scouts.”

  “Oh!” said Virgil, laughing. “We’re already on that, and I’ll do you one better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After it was obvious that the whole city already knew about the invasion before the last of the refugees had even landed, we put out some advertisements. Seems the Businessmen are willing to pay a ridiculous sum of money to anyone who has the balls to ride out into the wasteland and try to slow down the invaders. Or even stop them, if that’s possible.”

  “Is that so?” said Wodan. “Has anyone bitten the line?”

  “Not really,” said Virgil. “Everyone knows it’s suicide, of course. What can you do to stop an army like that, out there in the middle of nowhere? But... we have gotten a few takers. Just a handful, nothing much really. Crazy kids with nothing to live for except big dreams.”

  “Is that so...” said Wodan, sitting back.

  “They’ll just be a distraction,” Zach said dismissively. “The important thing is to gather those reinforcements.”

  Wodan nodded, but seemed distracted.

  Virgil clapped his hands on his knees, then said, “Speaking of which, I’ve got to go. I’m going to be briefing those stupid kids on their suicide mission. And Miss Oliver, the de facto head of the Businessmen, is going to be answering all their questions concerning theoretical pay.”

  “Can I go with you?” said Wodan.

  “What for?” said Virgil. “Want to see what a dead man looks like while he’s still up and walking around?”

  “No. I want to join them.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Detective Virgil and Miss Oliver entered the briefing room of Precinct Zero. Virgil looked at the seven kids sitting in the schoolroom-style desks and could not shake the impression that he was a teacher about to give a final lesson to a gang of life’s flunkies. He cleared his throat loudly and all eyes turned to him.

  “Alright, you boys are here because you are willing to undertake an operation that, if successful, will slow down or at least track the progress of the army marching against us. Any degree of success that you manage to achieve will result in various degrees of payment.” That is, if there’s any Pontius left to pay you, Virgil thought. “Don’t forget that you can turn back at any time, even after you’ve started the operation. There will be no leader among you. You’re all here because you want to be. Even if you get halfway there and turn back, you’ll still be considered heroes for taking this first step. But before I go into the details of the operation, I’d like to go around the room and introduce you all to one another.”

  Virgil picked up a pile of papers, squinted at one, then said, “Chris Kenny...”

  “Yes, sir,” said the oldest-loo
king young man, a tall figure with short blond hair and shifting eyes.

  “Chris, it says here that you’re twenty-six, by far the oldest of the bunch. You’re studying to be a mortician. Before that, you were a medic.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll be providing you with medical supplies, of course. You can be the team medic, then.”

  “Right, sir,” said Chris. “But I can shoot, too.”

  “Good, good,” said Virgil, already reading from the next paper. “Cedrik?”

  “Yeah,” said another, a muscular looking black-skinned youth with close-cut hair.

  “Any last name, Cedrik?”

  “Naw.”

  “None?”

  “Well, for a while, yeah. But now, no.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It was a real mouthful,” said the youth, leaning back. “And I never learned how to spell it, so I was like, fuck it, then.”

  Several of the boys laughed quietly, and Virgil said, “Alright, then. Says here you can track. You’re from the farms?”

  Cedrik nodded. “And I can fight, too.” He flexed his biceps and Wodan recoiled, for they were massive. Despite his tough appearance, the young man sounded very tranquil and easygoing.

  “That’s good,” said Virgil. “We’ll need trackers out there in the wasteland. In fact, without some idea of navigation, you could all get lost out there. Cedrik, when you’re out there, I’m going to need you to teach some of the others how to navigate. Alright?”

  “Yeah, of course,” said Cedrik, nodding slowly.

  Virgil flipped to the next paper and said, “Justinas... uh... Joo-stee-nas...”

  “Pronounced Yoo-stee-NAS,” said a skinny light-haired boy. He turned around to the others and, smiling goofily, he announced, “Hallo!” His accent was incredibly thick.

  “Right, then. Says you come from Greeley, and you’re a Smith.”

  “Sir, yes!” said Justinas, nodding quickly and still smiling. “Want to kill dogmen! And cannot wait, sir.”

  “Okay... so you can fix the truck and bikes we’ll supply for you? And the guns?”

  “O-o-oh goodness, sir, can fix most anything, when made of good metal. And can’t wait to kill dogmen!”

  Wodan laughed loudly and Virgil glared at him for a moment. Virgil flipped to the next contract. “Jonathan Best.”

  A short, hard-faced youth with handsome features nodded, then said, “Jon.”

  “You left nearly every question blank, Jon, except under skills you wrote GUNS in big bold letters.”

  “S’right,” he said. His features grew even more stern than before.

  “Now, son, we said earlier that if you can’t read or write then we would have a secretary assist you in filling out your contract.”

  “I filled it out,” said Jon.

  “Well... I mean, you could have told us if you have trouble with your letters...”

  “I can read,” said Jon, eyes hard. “Can you?”

  Virgil glared back at Jon, and Wodan could tell that Virgil disliked the boy already - most likely because he was seeing a younger version of himself. Hard, combative, and ready to take on the world one person at a time.

  “Fine,” said Virgil. “If any of you have any questions about your GUNS, just ask Jon over here.” Jon snorted and shook his head, and Virgil moved on to the next contract. “Sylas Resnick.”

  “That’s me,” said a pudgy youth with a fine face and unreadable expression.

  “Now, your contract... says you’ve had a lot of jobs... kind of hard to make any sort of pattern out of it... uh, what are your skills, exactly?”

  “Oh!” said Sylas, brightening slightly. “Well, I didn’t know we had to have any skills for this expedition!” He looked about in mock confusion and Wodan laughed again. Wodan could see that there was something untouchable about Sylas, a quiet observer always distant from events.

  “Says here you trained to be a priest for a while... then you wanted to be an artist but it didn’t work out...”

  “Well, the way I see it, sir, is that some people have skills easily documented and categorized, and some others, not so much. But we all get through it pretty much the same way, right?”

  “Get through it how?” said Virgil, visibly perplexed.

  “If I could answer that, sir, then I’d have a skill easily documented and categorized.”

  “Reckon so,” said Virgil, quickly flipping to the next contract. “Jake Herndon.”

  A downy-headed youth raised his head sadly. He was slumped in his chair and slowly concealed a grainy picture of a girl in his hands.

  “You Jake Herndon?”

  The youth nodded slowly, then said, “Yeah...” in a high, soft voice.

  “Now under your job experiences you wrote Being a loser, and under skills you wrote Good at being a big fucking loser.” Virgil glared at Jake, said, “This isn’t a joke, son.”

  Jake glared back at him.

  “If you go out there with that kind of attitude, it’s going to get you killed.”

  Jake sighed and looked away. Wodan felt a little sorry for him. He knew that he would have no trouble coming up with a nickname for poor Jake, but he wasn’t sure if that would be enough to help wake him up inside.

  Virgil flipped to the next contract, shaking his head, then brightened a little. “And finally, we have Wodan. You...” he studied the contract for a while, then said, “Wodan, your penmanship. It’s remarkable.”

  “Thanks,” said Wodan, smiling.

  “Now, under skills, you wrote Destroyer of gangs, then you crossed that out and put Diplomat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, you do know that you’re going out there to kill, and not to talk, right?”

  “I was thinking,” said Wodan, shifting in his seat as he thought to form the words, “that it might end up being a combination of the two. It’s been my experience that that’s how it works out, a lot of the time. Plus, keep in mind that I can be a diplomat within our own group, too.”

  “Very well, then,” said Virgil. He felt a sinking feeling. He chalked it up to the fact that his little get-to-know-you session had been, overall, pretty pathetic. He knew that the only way these seven boys would get to know one another would be through time and shared hardship out in the wasteland. He laid the contracts aside and prepared to talk about the operation - then stopped when he looked at the kids sitting around him. It was difficult to continue on with the technical details of the extended operation because he could not shake the thought, My gods, what a bunch of fuck-ups, and wondered if he shouldn’t scrap the whole operation right then and there and simply force Wodan to fly out with Zach to gather reinforcements.

  “Sir, yes!” shouted Justinas the foreigner, smiling stupidly. “May we now hear about money, now, please? I should like to know how lots of it there will be.”

  Chapter Three

  Fragments vs. Union

  Wodan pushed his cart into the square near the southern gate, which was packed with Lawmen and Smiths and a few well-wishers who weren’t quite clear on what was happening. Wodan saw a large diesel truck humming; Justinas kicked its tires while a Smith Zealot pointed out various features, and Justinas smiled and nodded and flashed a thumbs-up over and over. The other boys were gathered around their motorcycles, all dressed in dark desert-brown denims and jackets, outfits rigged from gear used by Hargis soldier-scouts. A terrible grinding shook the square, then a blast of smoke and the stench of burnt rubber, and Wodan saw his teammate Jon Best revving his motorcycle, and with his front tire stationary he grinded the rear tire in a slow circle such that a black mark was left in a circle around him. A Smith ran up to him screaming incoherently, and Jon leaned back against the bike’s seat and ignored him dramatically.

  Wodan dropped his cart near the back of the truck and Sylas approached, nodded, and the two piled the boxes inside. They sloshed heavily. A Smith jogged up to them and said, “Truck’s loaded down, you can’t put that stuff in there.�
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  “Don’t worry,” said Wodan. “This stuff won’t last long anyway.” He slammed a heavy case full of liquid goods down and pushed it toward the front.

  “What’s in there?” said the Smith, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Something to help out with team solidarity. As the official diplomat of this expedition, consider it part of my necessary gear.” Wodan winked to Sylas, who smiled in return.

  While the Smith stalked off to file an official complaint, Wodan surveyed the rest of the gear in the truck. There were crates full of guns, ammunition, food, water, tobacco, tents, tires, extra parts for the truck and bikes, a great amount of diesel fuel sitting right next to an amazing assortment of dynamite, land mines, and various triggers and wires. Wodan sat down on the edge of the truck and smoked a cigarette with Sylas and they both flicked hot embers all around, more curious than afraid of the truck’s incendiary potential.

  * * *

  “We’ll be supplying desert-rigged jackets and boots for you all,” said Zach, as the two sat on the roof of Virgil’s house and watched the stars the night before Wodan planned to head out. “The material is made from animals genetically streamlined for living in the desert. Keeps the dust and grit out of their organs, so it’ll probably do the same for you guys, too.”

  “Thanks,” said Wodan. “What’s happening on your end of things?”

  “Me, Virgil, Miss Oliver, Edwar, and Judge Rosebudd are going to leave the same time as you guys. In zeppelins, with some Hargis soldiers. We’ll try Sunport and Haven and see if we can get some support from them. If not, we’ll go to Greeley. Even if they can’t supply reinforcements, the least we can do is warn them about the devils at their back door. If none of that works out, we might even try San Ktari, in the far east.”