Simon Spurrier - The Culled

His eyes went narrow. Chin jutting. "S-so?"

"So that's the only time you could've found that shit." I pointed at the pack next to his knees, unsurprised to see his fingers coiled securely through its handle. "Stole it from the Choirboys, didn't you?"

He almost exploded, hugging the bag to himself as he stood and shrieked, irrational and embarrassing. "The fuck's wrong with that?" He snarled. "The fuck's wrong with thaaaat? You saying, you saying I shouldn't steal from them assholes?"

"Course not. I'm saying don't steal shit that'll turn you into a prick. Sit down."

"Fuck y…"

"Or, don't steal shit that'll bring an army of motherfuckers chasing after you. Sit down, Nate."

"That's not why they're comi…"

"Or even better, don't steal shit when you're an ex-junkie."

Quiet.

He sat.

"Tell you what I think," I said, feeling sharp things moving in my words but not caring. Bella's face was swimming behind my eyelids, and for some reason it made me angry. "I think you never quit."

"What?"

"Back in London. You used to live there, you said. You said you quit, remember?"

He didn't say a word.

"I think maybe you were telling half a truth there, mate. I think what actually happened is, the supply ran out. Tough call, getting smack right after The Cull." His white eyes dipped, firelight reflecting. "But then along comes the Clergy and tells you they can fix you up, sort you out. All you got to do is clear off stateside and look after some kiddies on the way through…"

"That's… wasn't like that…"

"And for a couple of years it's all gravy. Probably wasn't even smack they gave you, right? Some weird new military shit. Am I right? Even better. Double the high.

"Then some dumb English fuck arrives and screws the whole gig, and before you know it you're out on your ear. Right? Am I right?"

He was just staring at the fire, face closed-down. Nothing to say. Nothing to deny.

I noticed a stain on his trousers and wondered if he'd even noticed he'd pissed himself.

He swallowed and looked up at me. "I… I just…"

"Why should you stay with me? Oh, fuck, there was all that shit about me protecting your life, blah blah. Didn't buy it for a second, mate. But then we get to the Secretariat and bang, you've got right what you wanted. That big case right there. And I'm thinking… That's a big place. How did he find it? Unless maybe he knew where to look…"

"J-Jesus…"

"And that makes me wonder how you knew we'd be going to the Secretariat at all."

His eyes gave it away. In the end.

Flicked away from my face. A split second, no more, to the green sack hanging on my shoulder.

The penny dropped.

"The map…" I said, kicking myself. "Fuck. Of course. Of course."

I always knew he looked through my bag, back at the start, as I lay dying on the tarmac. I assumed he'd lusted after the booze, the Bliss…

But no. He went straight to the map. The New York City map, marked with a bloody-red ring around the UN Headquarters.

"So you saw where I was heading… Right? And you thought… Well now… Maybe I'll just… tag along?"

I glanced up.

He stared.

"You didn't even have the guts to tell me the truth, Nate."

I wouldn't have cared, if he'd been honest.

I don't care, even now. Don't give a shit what he does to himself.

I just don't like being wrong.

He opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

"Parasite," I said.

I stood up and walked away.

I went for a walk.

Took a look around. Found Malice and sat down to talk and draw maps in the sand. Scheming. If she was pissed about the Inferno and the others, she didn't show it.

Around midnight I went and fetched Robert Slowbear, and he took me to the Tadodaho. I politely declined anything to eat or drink.

Around four o'clock the camp moved, all at once, across the great concrete bridge spanning the sinuous lake, and by six I was up to my armpits in cold water.

By seven we were ready.

They didn't keep us waiting.

The Meander Reservoir was a twisting strip of spilled water, dividing Youngstown from the green ocean of fields surrounding it. On the Tadodaho's map – an ancient and laminated thing, long-faded and well-worn – the lake was an obvious part of a chain, connected by creeks and ditches, that ran south all the way from Lake Eerie. It wasn't a huge watercourse, I suppose. Maybe five or six miles, tip-to-tip. It wouldn't have taken too long to go around either, if someone'd had to, but what was perfect about it was this:

The I-80, straight from New York, spanned the lake dead across its centre on a single, exposed, vulnerable and oh-so-deliciously-narrow bridge.

If ever there was a better place for an ambush, I would've liked to have seen it.

For the record, somewhere – deep down at the rotten core of my mind – I shouted and cussed at myself, waggling a subconscious finger at this daft display of time wasting.

Not my problem, it kept shouting. Focus on the mission!

And my response, my considered reply to this seemingly watertight argument, went something like this:

Fuck off.

The Clergymen came out of the QuickSmog on the horizon at dawn, and the sound of engines reached us long before we saw them. The air went electric.

There were three other bridges too – two smaller roads, a mile on either side, that forded the water at its narrowest points, and a larger bridge far to the south where the Ohio turnpike turned northwards, with no easy access or turn-ons. We could ignore that, at least.

At about the same time we heard the engines, the Haudenosaunee vanished. All of them, dipping out of sight without so much as a word. It was incredible to watch.

Vehicles bundled off rapidly to the west, to be parked behind knots of trees and dips in the road. Bikes were laid-down on their sides and covered with grass and leaves. Men and women lugging improbably huge weapons squatted on the banks to either side of the central bridge, and simply – disappeared.

One moment there was an army, hundreds strong, arranged silently along the banks of the lake, staring off into the fog. The next: nothing.

Well.

Almost nothing.

The Inferno had been dragged to the centre of the road on our side of the bridge. It was a sad sight, mangled and unsteady, lolling to one side with its cockpit torn open and its sides dented to hell. But the guns still worked, oh yes, and wedged-up on either side of it there stood a pair of Iroquois caravans, untidily blocking the road, holding it upright.

It looked like the world's crappiest blockade.

Rick – Hiawatha, whoever he was – had volunteered to man the Inferno. He'd done so with the chin-jutting defiance of someone too young to know better, trying to prove something; to himself, I guess. If it'd been down to me I would have told him to stop being a macho prick and leave it to someone more capable.

"Good." The Tadodaho had said. "Good."

The youngster opened-fire right on time.

Down in the shade cast by the bridge, covered in a loose mesh of twigs and brambles, I had a perfect view. Malice grinned openly to my left, and even Nike – sprawled in a mess of splints and crutches behind, with Moto mothering him wordlessly – chuckled to himself. Could've just been the painkillers, I suppose.

The bikes came first.

And went down like dominoes.

Outriders; scouting ahead of a far larger convoy that could barely be seen amidst the far fringes of the QuickSmog; Clergy corsairs with white helmets and dark robes, some on military bikes with sidecars containing Uzi-waving idiots, others sprinting ahead on powerbikes re-sprayed grey and white.

Rick exploded them one by one.

The shape of the road funnelled them naturally, drawing them together, bunching them like skittles. As they ripped onto the far span it was to be greeted by a wave – a wall – of lead and fire and shrapnel. They should have been more cautious. They should have looked ahead at the obstruction and taken their time, but no. Straight in. Still accelerating when the ordnance closed on them and the world shook.