Seattle's streets, laid out in a motley confusion of grids blanketing countless hills, glowed pink-neon beneath sodium lights. The day's earlier misting of rain and wisps of fog drifting in from the Sound, gave the Sprawl a sweaty, steamy feel. The tall, dark buildings closed in tighter than the redwoods of the Tir and I felt much the alien in this stone landscape.
As we headed down a hill, I saw the whole leather and steel line of Ancients writhing through the streets like a snake. Pedestrians froze like frightened deer in the glare of our headlights, or scrambled off into the haven offered by dark alleys. Normal citizens looked out from upper-story windows, exposing only their eyes and the tops of their heads. They believed themselves safe this time, but I could taste the fear on the wind.
In Seattle, the Ancients are regarded not so much as a biker gang, but a force of nature.
Wasp swung us east to pick up the Eastsiders, then headed us off west down Republican. The addition of the Eastsiders increased our forces by roughly half. From the hardware bristling on the Ancients' bikes and bodies, I judged we were as well-equipped as most private armies, yet I doubted we had the discipline and tactical training to be quite as effective.
Yet, depending on Wasp's performance as a battle-leader, I might revise my assessment of the Ancients. Many a leader is not fully adept at politics but is more than capable in a firefight. Though Sting had raised objections to past plans and assaults, the very fact of Wasp's continued leadership of the group suggested abilities I had yet to see.
As we reached the northern perimeter of the area we were to conquer, Wasp issued orders in a commanding voice. He had half his people dismount to act as shock troops, while the rest split into two groups. One group shot over to Aurora, and the other set off down Dexter. The mobile pincers would isolate the first block, from Republican to Harrison, while the others would clean it out.
That may have been the plan, but the Meat Junkies quickly raised objections. Pouring into the disputed area on Thomas Street, they formed up on Dexter on the other side of the monorail line. Their foot soldiers were arrayed behind two heavily armored trucks and a phalanx of riders. From what I could see, they outnumbered us, but their weaponry could not match ours. This mixed group of Humans and Grunges was, nevertheless, not about to give up their turf without a nasty battle.
A loudspeaker mounted on one of the trucks spewed a guttural curse that could only have come from the throat of an Ork. 'Dandelion wine gonna run in the streets if you Ancients ain't cleared out in a minute.'
In response, we remounted our bikes. Wasp turned to shake his head at Sting. 'No, you and your team stand down. It was your wish. You stay on your feet and watch our asses.'
'But!'
'No buts, Sting. It was your call. Now live with it.' Wasp dropped onto his Harley's seat and raised his right hand. He let it fall, and like an electrical switch, it jolted power through the Ancients. Motorcycles screaming like captive beasts, the Ancients surged into battle.
The Meat Junkies likewise charged forward. As the two lines closed, one Ancient sighted a LAAW rocket in on the lead truck. It burned a fiery course through the night, but missed its target.
The missile struck a bike and scattered it into flaming debris, but did nothing to slow the onrushing war wagon. Sparks glanced from the truck's armored front as Ancients sought to stop it with small arms fire. The truck merely shrugged off their bullets as if they were raindrops spattering off the back of a rhino.
The first truck blasted into and through the Ancient line, plastering one bike and rider like a bug on its front grill. Another bike exploded as a wheel rolled over its teardrop gas tank, and that set the truck's tires blazing. Ancients scattered from in front of the truck, then turned their weapons against it, stitching holes across the vehicle's poorly armored aft section.
The truck's mate never even made it to the Ancients' line.
Wasp slung his bike around and laid it down as gently as he could. His hands upraised, golden energy surrounded them with a magical nimbus. A sorcerous bolt of energy shot from his hands to skewer the armor plate on the driver's side of the cab. A second later, as the truck began to drift, a LAAW rocket struck it in the off- side wheel-well, blowing flaming rubber chunks all over Dexter. The truck's fender dug into the street, then the whole war-wagon pitched up in a somersault with a half twist. It came down hard, flattening its back before the gas tank exploded and sent up a column of flame taller than the surrounding buildings.
Sting turned her attention to the first truck as the Meat Junkies in it boiled out, guns spitting bullets as fast as the shooters could feed them magazines. Many of the Junkies hit the ground and didn't get up, but enough had Kevlar-lined clothes to keep them in the fray beyond the first couple of exchanges.
Sting's HK227 submachine gun steadily lipped flame. Instead of burning bullets with careless abandon, Sting picked her shots with deadly accuracy. When the passenger door opened on the cab, an Ork started to swing down, but jerked to a stop as three red holes opened in his chest. He slumped to the ground.
Midway down Dexter, the Ancients scythed through the Meat Junkie line. Bikes tangled as the two forces met head-on. Men and metal careened madly through the air as more than one Meat Junkie slid his bike into the Ancients. Like Cossacks driving their warhorses through peasant hordes, Ancients vaulted their bikes up over their foes, crushing Meat Junkies beneath them. Some Ancients did not survive the Kamikaze tactics, but the gaps opened in the Meat Junkie lines grinned back at us like a jack-o' lantern's smile.
Wasp pumped magical assault after magical assault into the Meat Junkie forces. The fireballs lit grunges into votive candles, while more magic darts savaged junkie bikers. Two other magickers joined Wasp in using magic to augment our physical weapons, but his tactical and strategic strikes were the most telling. He alone kept the small groups of Meat Junkies scattered and unable to mount a counteroffensive.
A heavy hand at my back pushed me forward, stumbling. I ducked and rolled, coming up with my Ingram ready to shoot whoever had touched me, but I kept my finger off the trigger. Tiny reeled back, twin holes ripped through his right shoulder, then tipped back over his own bike.
Concrete chips and lead splatter stung my face and hands as I leaped back behind my own bike. The shots had come from an upstairs window in the building across the way, and looking up, I caught a glimpse of a leather-faced grunge ducking back from the window. 'Sting, up there! Ork sniper.'
She gave me a wild smile.
'Waiting for a hunting license? Go get him.'
I kicked Pearl. 'Come with me.'
'Me?' Pearl snorted. 'In your dreams, Greenie.'
Sting turned on him. 'Go with him, Pearl. We'll cover you.'
I snagged my pack from my bike and looped one strap over my left shoulder. 'On three?'
Sting nodded. 'One, two, three, go!'
I sprinted forward, then cut left as the sniper reappeared in the window. A fusillade chewed up the window casing and the bricks around it, forcing him back quickly. Though the sniper could not have gotten more than a brief look at the scene below, I had no doubt he knew we were coming after him. Pearl matched my speed as we hit the sidewalk, but I stopped and let him vault up the brownstone's stairs all by his lonesome. When no gunfire materialized to cut him down, I ran up and entered the foyer two steps behind him.
What might once have been a fine, single-family dwelling was now divided and subdivided into so many living units that it was more like a kennel than an apartment house. It reeked of urine, gunpowder, and decay; faded paint flaked off the walls like dead flesh. A fresh stream of blood running from the doorway to a body at the base of the stairs pointed out the final resting place of one of the Meat Junkies in the truck.
I ran to crouch by his body, then scanned up the stairs to the first landing. I gave Pearl an 'all-clear' nod that sent him sprinting up to where the second flight began. He signaled me to come up, but I hesitated a second to be sure the grunge at my feet was truly dead. Pulling off his mask of rat-skin and chicken-flesh, I felt for a carotid pulse and found none.
Reaching Pearl's side, I motioned for him to head up to the next landing. He balked and insisted I go. I slipped my right arm through the pack's strap, firmly anchoring it to my back. Peering into the Ingram's open bolt, I saw bullets ready to be fired and cautiously mounted the stairs.
Sweat started at my temples and rolled relentlessly down my cheeks as, step by step, I headed up. Unlike the first flight, these stairs opened onto a corridor that led back the length of the building. Any of the ramshackle doors could pop open, disgorging a whole gang of Meat Junkies. Making it worse was the fact that I had to divide my concentration between what might lurk above and wondering whether Pearl was about to shoot me in the back. It did nothing to bolster my confidence.
