Simon Spurrier - The Culled

Third guy behind me.

Two for the diversion, one for the strike.

Clever.

I sidestepped a fraction early. I figured the attack was imminent, but I left the fucker with too much time to angle his swing. Still, if it's a choice between denting my skull with a heavy tyre-iron or missing by inches and instead swiping the fabric along the top of my pack – tipping me over like a sleeping cow – I'll take the latter every time. I slash-stabbed blindly with the shiv as I stumbled, snarling from somewhere deep inside me that wasn't entirely rational; feeling a tug and a tear and a spatter of warmth, rewarded with a scream. The breath exploded out of me as I thumped to the tarmac on my back, crushing the kid with the pierced face for a second time and sending something sharp punching through the top of my pack; digging me in the nape of my neck.

This Johnny -come -lately sneak -up -behind -a -guy arsehole – an enormous man with a braided beard and a pair of lensless glasses – staggered and moaned, squirting blood from an arterial gash on his thigh. He'd dropped the tyre iron at some stage, but as the purple-haired youth closed in on me with the knife the giant swatted him on the shoulder, held out a bony paw for the blade, and dropped down to finish me himself.

Something small and red appeared between his eyes.

The back of his head came off, and for a second or two he looked startled; as if his brain was still feeding him waves of shock and uncertainty, despite being scattered in a semicircle across the mud. A gunshot echoed across the crowd – like a guest arriving late for a party – and everyone jumped.

"Fffff…" he managed.

The kid with the purple-hair took off.

Without being entirely conscious of it, sitting upright in one long fluid movement, I felt my arm extend, left eye closed, fingers releasing. The shiv – a curled tooth of flat steel, easily palmed beneath gloved fingers – spun off into space; a shuriken that caught the weak light as it whispered.

It hit the punk at the base of his skull, just beside his left ear. It looked like it went deep, and when he sagged to the floor – arms quivering, legs bending back on themselves – he wasn't in any rush to get back up.

There's a lot of blood in a scalp. It clashed with his hair.

It dawned on me slowly that a lot of people were staring. Several of them were wearing black clothes and red bandanas, and were going to great lengths to elbow their way through the crowd in my direction.

A shadow fell across me.

"Stay the fuck there," it said, poking the two dead punks near me with a smoking rifle.

My guardian angel, I guessed. The one who blew off the giant's head.

From below, it looked a lot like a tattered, hunchbacked ogre.

Its voice was actually kind of sexy.

Her name was Malice. I figure she was probably 'Alice' – maybe 'Melissa' – at one time, but the whole gung-ho nickname thing worked pretty well for the mercenaries the Wheels-Mart paid to keep the peace, and they were never happier than when striding about, calling out each other's ridiculous handles across the braying crowds.

Spuggsy.

Moto.

Tora.

Nike.

And so on. I pretended to be impressed as they introduced themselves. Pumped up and black-clad in every case, moving with that familiar 'I'm-a-hard-bastard' confidence you see in mercenaries the world over.

They'd propped me up in a canvas shelter off to one side of the auction (still noisily ongoing through the tent's doorway) and now Malice was staring at me, more-or-less-alone, with her arms folded. Nate stood behind me, dabbing at the cut on my neck. I think he was enjoying being part of the attention. Light through the tattered canvas ceiling dappled the interior of the room, making it seem busy and claustrophobic, and it was almost an effort – in amongst the extremes of brightness and shadow – to focus on Malice's eyes.

She was the blackest person I'd ever seen in my life, and she was so beautiful it hurt.

"So," she said, voice guarded. "Guess we owe you one."

"Why's that?"

"Took out the three Goddamn amigos back there. They been causing trouble few weeks now. Coming in off the water, we figured."

"Happy to oblige."

She smirked unconvincingly.

Malice wore the same black threads as all the other guards (though it would be unfair not to mention how the baggier parts of the ensemble crinkled as she moved, hinting at what was going on underneath) and the same red bandana – in her case folded into a bright sweat-band around her crown. Her hair was shaven away to that not-quite-stubble length – like the velvety patch on the tip of a horse's nose – which so few women can pull off, but makes the ones who can look so ball-rupturingly sensational.

Malice looked like she had a hunch on her back. A big one.

Once in a while the hunch – hidden away beneath black veils – gurgled to itself.

The kid, she told me, was a fraction over a year old. Malice never mentioned the father, so I figured he was long gone or dead. It (I never found out a name, or a gender) stayed quieter than any baby I've ever known, and seemed perfectly untroubled by its mother lugging about a high-powered air-rifle and a sweet assortment of other popguns. Once in a while Malice jiggled in a strange sort of way, rocking the wicker harness the baby was huddled inside, as if she knew when the sleepy sprog was on the verge of waking up without even having to look.

Every time she jiggled like that it looked like she was giving me the come-on.

"Who are you?" She blurted, just as the silence was getting uncomfortable.

I shrugged. "Just a customer. Just passing through."

She shook her head. "Uh-uh. I saw the way you took out them rats. You're ex-mil, pal. Showed in every move. Special forces, maybe. SEALs. Whatever it is you Brits got…"

Not even close, honey.

"Does it matter if I am?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yeah, it fuckin' matters. Some psycho stalking 'bout in my Mart."

"I didn't start th…"

"And the only ex-mils round these parts're with the Choirboys."

Aha…

I frowned. "Clergy, right?"

She spat on the floor, as if disgusted by the very name. I started to like her even more, and wondered just how highly the universally loved Neo-Clergy were actually regarded…

I held my palms out – like showing her I had nothing to hide – and pointed to the distinct lack of scarlet tattoos on my eye.

"I'm not with the Clergy."

Her eyes darted to Nate. In the cover of the tent he'd flipped-up the pirate eye patch like a pedal-bin lid, making him look like a astonished panda. "But your pet here?"

Nate 'tsk'd through his teeth and waggled a finger. "Ex." He said. "Ex, sugar."

She just glared.

"He's officially retired," I said, flipping Nate's eye patch back down with a quiet slap.

Malice spat again. "No such thing."

The silence stretched out. Malice started pacing a little, left then right, keeping her eyes fixed on us all the time.

I drummed my fingers on the arms of the chair, creating every impression of disdainful boredom, and whistled quietly. My neck felt tight, like Nate had stuck a monstrous plaster across it, and I hadn't had a chance to find out what had caused the wound yet. I was sort of glad I couldn't see.

Outside, the fast-talking MB sold a battered BMW to a man with three piglets of his very own, who'd outbid a guy with a portable power drill and a book of jokes.

Mostly the vehicles were cheap, in 'who-gives-a-shit' money terms, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. When 93% of the world shuffles off the mortal slinky there are a lot of jalopies left rusting in empty driveways. The way they saw it, the black-clad personnel of the Wheels-Mart were just agents. Middlemen to cut out the tedious business of finding, breaking into, hot-wiring and maintaining vehicles. The klans sent their scavs along to buy the best of the pick, and as long as everyone kept themselves polite, self-serving, and oh-so-very-neutral, the whole system worked.