Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘That supposed to impress us?’ McGurk demanded.

‘Apologies if you feel I’m name-dropping.’

‘What do you want?’ McGurk demanded.

‘Natalie Luckwicke.’

‘Don’t give her to him!’ Beth shouted. McGurk and du Bois were equally surprised by her outburst.

‘Shut up,’ McGurk told her. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Now can you think of any terribly compelling reason why I shouldn’t beat you both to death with my cane?’

‘Is that a bull’s cock cane?’ du Bois enquired.

‘Why, yes it is,’ McGurk said sarcastically.

‘You’re going to beat us to death with your cock substitute? Given your propensity for sodomising your employees –’ du Bois looked around at the five men with McGurk, none of whom would meet his eyes ‘– has it occurred to you that you’re a repressed homosexual and that you’ll be much happier if you admit it and just leave all this misguided rage behind?’

Beth was trying hard not to laugh.

‘Fuck you!’ There was more drool. ‘I’ve fucked every whore in this city, especially this cunt’s dead sister!’ Beth bristled, but one of the guns turned back towards her. She controlled herself with difficulty. The rage wasn’t red in colour any more; it was blue, cold, and seethed under her skin.

‘How admirable,’ du Bois said.

‘Do you think I won’t off plod?’ McGurk demanded. His men were looking a little nervous. After all, it would be one of them who pulled the trigger, and this was a large room with lots of glass in it. Another ferry was going past the window.

‘I don’t think he’s a repressed homosexual. I think he’s just a frightened little man,’ Beth said.

‘Fuck you, bitch!’

‘Where’d you get the servitor from?’ du Bois asked.

‘What? That fucked-up mutant thing?’

Du Bois sighed theatrically. ‘It’s as if Oscar Wilde never died for our sins.’

‘“With slouch and swing around the ring/ We trod the Fools’ Parade!/ We did not care: we knew we were/ The Devils’ Own Brigade:/ And shaven head and feet of lead/ Make a merry masquerade.” And fuck you, you patronising public-schoolboy wanker,’ McGurk said.

‘Good choice. Where’d you hear it?’ There was not trace of humour in du Bois’s voice.

‘Who the fuck d’you think you’re—’

The two shrouded, snub-nosed, suppressed .38 revolvers slid quickly out of the sleeves of du Bois’s finely tailored leather coat on forearm hoppers. Du Bois lowered his arm. The shots were barely louder than coughs. Neat red holes appeared in the centre of the foreheads of the three men holding guns. All of them stood there for a moment and then toppled to the ground. Nobody moved. Beth looked appalled at the people she had just seen die in front of her. She looked down at Markus, feeling faintly nauseous that she actually knew the guy’s name. It wasn’t like when she’d killed Davey; there was only cold calculation from du Bois. He shifted his position to cover McGurk with one revolver. The other vaguely covering his two remaining men.

‘Beth, would you mind getting my pistol and my knife?’ du Bois asked. Beth glanced at him and then bent down and picked up the .45 from the floor near where Markus had dropped it. She did not give it back to du Bois.

‘You know how to use that?’ he asked. Beth ignored him and put the gun in the pocket of her battered leather.

‘What do you guys want?’ McGurk asked cautiously.

‘The same thing we wanted before I shot your friends. Obviously,’ du Bois said.

‘As far as I know, the girl’s dead. She died when her house blew up. You must have seen it on the telly. The mutant thing, a friend of mine found it in a basement.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, down near the front in Southsea.’

‘Now where’s the girl?’

‘I told you: she’s fucking dead and causing me no end of grief while she’s at it.’

‘I have considerably less compunction in shooting low-rate rapist plastic gangsters than you do police officers. It would behove you to answer my question or I’ll start with your kneecaps.’

‘You can’t get all of us—’

Beth walked forward, grabbed the cane out of McGurk’s hand and laid into him with a ferocity that made du Bois take a step back.

‘WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?! WHERE’S MY SISTER?!’

McGurk was battered, bleeding, sobbing in pain and fear and had wet himself a long time before Beth realised that he now really wanted to tell her where Talia was. She stopped beating him. She was still shaking with rage. Curled up in a foetal position, he told her. One of the muscle gave them directions.

‘Remember everything he’s ever done to you,’ Beth told the two thugs. ‘Who wants the stick?’ Then she threw the bloodstained bull penis on the floor, turned and walked out.

With a thought the two .38s slid back up du Bois’s sleeves on their hoppers. He picked up his tanto, sheathed it and followed Beth.

She was waiting for him around the corner just past the second floor, pointing his own .45 at him. Du Bois was moving to the side as soon as he saw the gun. As he was higher than her he risked a kick, sending the .45 spinning from her fingers. Beth didn’t hesitate either. She was as surprised as du Bois was at how fast she ripped her great-grandfather’s bayonet from her inside pocket and stabbed it up through du Bois’s arm as he reached for her.

Du Bois screamed as the force of her blow pushed the tip of the bayonet through his nano-fabric-armoured leather coat and then through his hardening skin. He kicked out forward, hard. His foot caught Beth centre mass in the chest, lifted her up off her feet and sent her flying the rest of the way down the stairs and into the wall at the bottom. She slumped to the floor but started moving again almost immediately. Du Bois was appalled at how highly augmented she was. He did not understand how he could have missed this. He leaped down the stairs, his foot smashing her in the head so hard it cracked the plaster behind it. She was still moving towards him despite the blood oozing from her head. In desperation he triggered the hopper on his left arm, pointing the .38 that slid out at her.

‘Girl, I have been killing for centuries!’ Either this or the gun made Beth stop. That made no sense either. If he shot her the bullets would hurt, they might even incapacitate her, but unless they were coated with nanites or carried a nanite payload that counteracted how quickly her own obviously high-level nanite augmentation could heal her, then she would be fine. It was as if she didn’t know this. ‘Why attack me? Broadly speaking, I’m on your side.’ He wondered if she knew that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed her father. Yesterday he would have said no, but then yesterday he had been sure that Beth was a normal girl – for a violent ex-con from Bradford.

Beth glared at him. Du Bois tried to ignore the sound of bad things happening to McGurk above. She wondered if anyone had called the police yet.

‘Seriously, talk to me. I don’t want to hurt you or your sister, quite the opposite really.’ Then it hit him. ‘Are you from the Brass City?’ He didn’t think her look of confusion was faked. She had no idea what he was talking about. ‘The Eggshell?’ More confusion.

‘My father told me what you are,’ she told him.

He didn’t happen to mention what you are , du Bois thought. ‘And what’s that?’

‘You’re in some kind of cult. You bred her for sacrifice.’

Du Bois stared at her. Then he started laughing. Then he sat down on the stairs but kept the gun on her.

‘And you believed that?’ he asked, still laughing.

‘Everything’s a bit fucking weird!’ Beth snapped at him, less than happy that he was laughing at her, and her head hurt, quite a lot, she could feel it moving of its own accord, mending itself, though she was starting to feel really hungry again.