'There's another one around here,' I warned.
'Bia,' Franks said, indicating that he knew a lot more about these things than he had ever let on. Son of a bitch. 'We'll take the big one first.'
The red form stirred, the metal of the pickup truck grinding beneath it. The agents began to shout and they hit it with the metal spear. Electricity crackled and the oni jerked and twitched, thrashing violently, smoke rising from the impact with a smell like burning rubber. 'Bag him!' one of the men shouted and they started locking the giant manacles around Cratos' thick wrists and ankles. Every time it began to move, the agents on the cables would step back, and they would hit him with the spear again. I had to admit, the MCB was effective. MHI would just have chainsawed the beast as soon as he was down.
Franks got on his radio. 'This is Delta. We're taking Force into custody. Violence unaccounted for.'
'Excellent. Research was positive that oni were vulnerable to electricity.' I could hear Myers reply. 'Is Pitt still alive?'
Franks scowled. 'Yeah…'
'So, you got your monster to interrogate. I'm guessing we're square?' I asked hopefully.
'I've got three injured men because of you,' the big man replied. 'We're not done yet…'
'Movement. Shock him!' One of the agents shouted from Cratos' side. The men on the manacles stepped back and the spear was driven in, but nothing happened this time, no arc, no sparks, nothing. 'Malfunction! Hit him again.' The spear was jabbed again but with no effect. The agents cried for help with terror in their voices.
Franks stepped forward, trying to discern the problem. The red hulk started to rise. The men on the manacles retreated, yelling for assistance. I glanced to the side. The electrical cable leading from the portable generator to the spear had been severed. 'Bia!' I shouted, as the purple figure threw off its cloak behind the men providing covering fire. Cackling, she slashed into the agents, ripping through their armor, blood spraying. They died quickly, having never even seen her coming.
'Aim for her eyes!' Franks shouted, but she was already gone, moving behind some parked trucks.
My attention snapped back to the big red one. An agent was shouting, 'Sir, Force is-' but he never got to finish the sentence. The massive oni rose, bellowing, cables twisting and snapping, and one huge fist clocked the man, launching him across the garage in a cloud of bodily fluids. The other men started shooting, but they were too close to the beast now. With a roar, Force laid into them, living up to his title. With each movement, another agent went down, and in a matter of seconds, the survivors were retreating in disarray.
'All teams converge on the garage now!' Franks ordered into his radio. He put his rifle to his shoulder and aimed carefully at the twisting and jerking monster, searching for the eye. I put Abomination to my shoulder and centered the sight on the moving target. It was an exceedingly difficult shot. Franks fired and missed. The oni whipped one strand of cable wildly, cracking the air like a bullwhip, and a nearby agent went down. The man screamed incoherently, both of his legs severed at the knees. I tuned that out and exhaled. The eyes were moving. Focus on the holographic dot. The trigger pull was smooth and straight back to the rear.
My slug struck Cratos in one diminutive black eye. The giant paused stupidly, as if thinking about something exceedingly complicated. He stumbled and went to one knee. Something that looked like thick steam came pouring from the now-open socket. He put one meaty palm on the floor to steady himself and shook his head. When he looked back up through the rotating cloud, the eye had returned. His red lips pulled away from his tusks, and he snarled at me as the smoke dissipated. 'Filthy souled Hunter!' He came off the floor and charged like an enraged bull.
Franks shoved me aside at the last second. Cratos flew past and collided with the pillar, blasting a giant chunk from it. Franks spun one way, I sprawled the other, frantically dragging myself on my butt through the debris. The giant came out of the dust, shaking himself violently. One piece of rebar, unnoticed, was impaled through his chest. 'Lose some souls because of you. Replace it with yours!' he growled, bearing down on me. I kept scuttling away, but he was right there, and I could taste his horrible sulfuric breath pouring down.
His tiny eyes bore into me and the blackness behind those lenses seemed to stretch on forever, inky pools from a horrible place, utterly devoid of light. He extended one giant red hand toward me, palm as big as my chest. I felt myself growing weaker, like all of the warmth was being sucked out through my ribs, leaving my limbs numb and cold. I couldn't breathe.
The life was being pulled out of me…
Suddenly, it was as if I could see through his skin. The oni's body was just a shell, a constructed mass of false tissues, and underneath was the real creature, a swirling demonic bag of stolen souls.
The oni licked his lips hungrily.
Then he was gone. The rear end of a bus smashed into Cratos, driving him back into the pillar with a brutal crunch. I shook my head as air filled my lungs and blood flowed back into my extremities. It hurt. I stumbled to my feet. The door of the Cabbage Point Killing Machine luxury tour bus slid open with an automated hiss. Mosh sat behind the wheel. 'Get in!'
One giant red arm was already flailing about, pinned between the pillar and the bus. The rear tires began to slide forward against his pressure. That's one tough monster. I ran and jumped into the vehicle. The three orcs were clustered behind Mosh. Edward had gotten cut on the arm at some point and Gretchen was ministering to him. Somebody pushed in behind me. Franks.
'Get on the freeway,' he ordered. There was a huge gash across his chest, and his white shirt was hanging open and soaked with blood. I didn't know if it was his or somebody else's. Franks didn't indicate that he was in pain, but then again, I didn't know if he could feel pain. 'They'll follow Pitt.'
'Me?' Mosh asked in confusion.
'No, him.' Franks jerked his thumb at me. 'Drive.'
I ran down the aisle of the tour bus as Mosh ground the gears. The bus was so opulent that if it hadn't been such dire circumstances, I probably would have stopped to gawk. It was like a death-metal version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. 'You've got a Jacuzzi in this thing?' I shouted.
'Hell, yeah,' Mosh said. 'Hold on. I've only driven this once before.'
The bus lurched forward, stopped, lurched again, and then was building up steam, heading for the garage exit and the open night. The rear end was crushed and a giant red visage was glaring at me through the broken back window. Cratos' tusked face curled into a snarl as we pulled away, freeing him. I raised Abomination, aimed carefully, and put my finger on my gun's second trigger. These things absorbed people's souls, and somehow that's how they had lived for thousands of years. I'd seen the pressurized bag inside them. Apparently the gateway to that was in their heads. If he lost some energy from a. 68 caliber slug through the eye, let's see how he did with a 40mm grenade up the snoot.
'HUNTER!' Cratos roared.
I shot him in the mouth as we drove away.
The explosion blasted his head wide open, unhinging his jaw. There was a billowing cloud of that same white smoke as the giant toppled over and thudded to the earth.
That had to have finished him. The oni shook on the ground, facedown, head deflated like collapsed dough as the false body seemed to shrink. 'No backstage pass for you, jerk-off.' I laughed.
But then the head puffed back up. The skull was briefly soft as it bulged and throbbed but then it seemed to instantly harden. Re-formed, he looked up and focused right in on me, black eyes filled with simple hatred. Cratos lurched from his knees and started running after us, each step like thunder.
'Step on it, Mosh!'
Chapter 7
We tore out of the Buzzard Island Amphitheater parking lot and up onto the freeway heading south. There were a ton of flashing lights, ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars arrayed around the hall now. Thousands of people were wandering around, aware that something weird was going on, but not knowing what exactly. And it was about to get a whole lot weirder for them when that unkillable red bastard came running out after us.
'Head for the Air Force base,' Franks directed Mosh.
'Listen, big scary dude, I don't know where the air base is,' Mosh said. 'Owen, who is this asshole?'
