Jack Yeovil - Demon Download

She ducked under the swing of his left arm, and threw herself against him, hoping to open a crack with her shoulder.

She felt as if she had tried to tackle Notre Dame. The cathedral, not the college football team.

She rolled away from the cyborg: The beam was getting too close.

A huge figure loomed up behind Behr, and a claw locked around his throat. Shell had stepped in. Sweat ran from his ebony-muscled arm and blocky face as he exerted pressure.

"Hold on there, sonny boy," Behr spluttered.

Shell had his real hand pressed against the back of Behr's head, to keep the cyborg's burner pointed away from him. Behr's head was still turning, inexorably. Chantal heard the old man's vertebrae straining inside his exoskeleton.

"This freakin' hurts, ya know," Behr shouted.

Shell was grunting now, losing his fight against Behr's neck. There was a sudden crack as Behr's spine snapped.

The Gaschugger relaxed, but Behr's head kept turning, until it was seeing backwards, his dead face against Shell's living one.

The optic burned, and Shell fell away from the cyborg, a ragged, smoking hole where his eyes and nose had been. Chantal glimpsed daylight through the headwound as the 'chugger fell. In the church, someone—Miss Unleaded?— howled with unfeigned grief.

What was left of Behr was unsteady on its feet. Chantal stood up, and waited for it to bring its face to bear again. Behr's tongue lolled from his mouth and his real eye was fogged. The optic was burned out, its solid cell used up on Shell. Inside all the bio-mechanics, he was dead, but the robot half of him was still going to kill her.

It raised its hand to its face, and pushed its tongue into its mouth. Then, using three fingers, it propped its jaw open. Behr had had a partially synthetic voice-box.

"Helllloooo, bayby-beach!" it said.

"The Big Bopper," she snapped. 'IP. Richardson, 'Chantilly Lace,' 1958."

"Highest chart position. Number Twelve." The mechanical voice grated. "Trust the Sister from Switzerland to have a photographic memory."

The dead man lurched forwards, arm out like Lon Chaney Jr as the Mummy. She realized the thing was blind, but guessed it would have some kind of sonar or heat pattern sensor inside it.

"Who are you?" she asked, stepping backwards a pace.

"My name is Legion…" it said.

"…for you are Many. That's an old joke."

"The oldies are the goodies, don't you think, mon petit choux."

It was using her father's voice.

"That's an old trick, too. It didn't work in California, and it's not going to work here."

It took a step, and changed voices. "Chantal, come back," it said in Italian, in Marcello's whine, "don't you like me any more?"

She kicked it in the throat. It was less steady now.

“I'm still dead, daughter," said her father. “I'm busy ducking rocks in Hell. And what have you done about it?"

Her foot hurt. That last kick had been rash.

"Ahh, the Sin of Pride," said Father O'Shaugnessy, "that was always your failing, Sister Chantal, always overreaching, always overconfident."

Someone rushed at the thing, screaming like a banshee, and was bent into broken halves in an instant. It hadn't been anyone Chantal had noticed before.

"Call me Georgi," said the Pope, "and come to bed."

She landed the heel of her hand on the glassex chest. It cracked.

The thing coughed mechanically, and she could see the wheels going round. She punched the crack, and it widened. Something was broken inside.

The people were creeping out of the church now. It must be obvious that the fight was between Chantal and the thing in Tiger Behr's body. The Behr creature wouldn't mimic life long after it had killed the nun. Stack was down and out of it, fallen in a swoon by the grave.

Chantal sucker-punched the thing, without any notable effect. Her hard knuckles were bleeding.

She pulled her bowie knife, and embedded its point in the crack in the demon thing's chest, working it back and forth. It laughed, and took her neck from the back, hugging her to him. The knife wedged into the chest cavity.

"Come to Papa, " it cooed obscenely. She felt nails dig into her.

Then they were both falling into the grave, another active body pressed down on top of them, shrieking.

It was Miss Unleaded, a ladies' revolver in her little fist. Chantal pushed herself away from the Behr creature, and found herself bunched against Father O'Pray.

Miss Unleaded was pushing the cyborg's face into the grave earth. A band of peeling skin showed between the helmetlike exoskull and the slatted plates across Behr's clavicles. The Gaschugger shoved her gun against the gap and emptied it. Some of the bullets must have torn through to the mechanisms, because the creature jolted and jerked, sparks spitting from its wounds. Miss Unleaded cried out and stood up, electrical arcs sparking between the creature and her revolver, her earrings, her overall buckles, her dental fillings. She broke the connection and collapsed, her exposed skin blackened.

The creature stood up, smoke and flame belching from its ruptured torso. Chantal tried to get upright, but the gravewall behind her gave way as she tried to put her back against it.

"Come to Papa," its hand extended, fingerends turned to bloody spearpoints.

It took a step. Chantal could smell the melting plastic and putrefying flesh inside it.

Its fingers lightly brushed her throat. Site chopped at its wrist, but its claw kept coming for her.

"Come to Pa…"

There was an explosion, deafeningly loud in the confines of the grave, and the cyborg's helmetlike head burst like a dropped watermelon. The creature stood for a moment, then collapsed at Chantal's feet.

She looked up, and saw Trooper Nathan Stack, a newly-discharged shotgun smoking in his hands.

"The US Cav to the rescue," he said, priming his pumpgun again.

"Help me with the girl," Chantal said.

Miss Unleaded was whimpering. Chantal hugged her, and passed her up to Stack, who laid her out beside the grave.

Chantal pulled herself up. The headless cyborg kicked, a last mechanical reflex, and burned steadily.

She knelt by Miss Unleaded, feeling her pulses and her heartbeat.

"Well?" asked Stack.

Chantal snapped her fingers in the air. He was good. He knew what she wanted, and put it in her hand.

Miss Unleaded was gasping, trying to talk, but nothing was coming from her throat.

Chantal stuck the morph-plus hypo into the 'chugger's neck, and squeezed. The girl's eyelids fluttered.

"Water," Chantal said, "from the church."

"I don't think she'll be able to swallow. Look at those convulsions."

"Water," she said. "Not to drink."

"Oh," Stack said, running off.

Chantal held the writhing girl down, and tried to smooth her hair out of her eyes. Her heartbeat was irregular now. The discharges must have shocked her to the bone.

Stack came back with a leaky hatful of water. He put it down beside her. She dipped her fingers, and began the ritual—the familiar ritual—dabbing the girl.

Chantal gave Miss Unleaded the last rites.

The Gaschugger persisted in trying to talk.

Finally, when Chantal was finished, the girl got her last word out.

"Ma… maaaaa…"

Chantal crossed herself and stood up, beating the dust from her domes.

"Armindariz," she said, "dig some more graves."

Quite apart from everything else, there was something badly twisted deep inside the system. Finney ran her checks again. Everything was responding perfectly. All the connections were solid. There were no apparent glitches. But there was still something wrong. It was working properly, but there was still something wrong.

The responses to her interrogation were a beat slower than they should have been. And too many files were refusing to open for her. The whole system was clamming up, keeping itself to itself. That was bad. She felt as if she were questioning a well-behaved child she knew was responsible for a series of atrocities. It was coming up with well-reasoned, plausible, rational excuses while sharpening a carving knife behind its back.