Simon Spurrier - The Culled

And I smiled despite the weakness. Despite the nausea. Despite the rushing in my ears.

"It won't be as perfect," he said to himself, eyes closed, rapturous, "as a child. A child is perfection. The communion is… perfection. Yes. Mm."

His eyes opened.

He looked right at me.

"But you'll do. For today. It's only fitting. After all the trouble you've caused, mister. It's only fitting that you make a donation."

I smiled and I dropped the handcuffs to the floor by my feet, and the sliver of metal that was buried in my arse tinkled from the lock – the lock it had helped me pick – to the floor.

And John-Paul Rohare Baptise was opening his mouth to protest, to shout for help, to cry-out in baby like shock, but it wouldn't do the old fucker any good, because my fist was already in his face and his teeth were already shattered, and I was already moving onwards and head butting the aide and cracking his nose, and he went down quick and quiet, and I was turning back to the groping old bastard with my knuckles bare and bloody, and this time I didn't stop until he was silent on the floor, and lying in his own juice.

Scratch that:

My juice.

And then I pulled out the tubes from my arm, and threw up like a trooper.

When Cy came blundering in fifteen minutes later, things were a little different.

I wasn't naked any more for a start.

"You wanted me, your holin-?" He started.

And stopped.

I tried to imagine how he must have seen things, in that cold moment when we all froze and stared at each other. But I didn't know him, and could only guess what his brain did in moments like this.

Would he have fixated on the blood? There was certainly enough of it about: great thick pools, already congealing, from where Nate's shaking hands had tried to puncture the comatose aide's artery with the crude transfusion tube. Third time lucky, in the end.

Or maybe Cy's eyes, hidden away behind those stupid shades, went straight to his Lord and Master? The great Abbot John-Paul, slumped on the floor with his teeth smashed out, whimpering as consciousness came slinking back.

After I'd cut Nate free, as the old junkie staggered and whinged and gagged, he told me I needed more blood – quickly. I'd wanted it from the Abbot – take back what he'd stolen. It seemed only fair.

But no, no, no. Nate had shook his head, eyes unfocused, shivering in need of a fix, telling me no. The old man had a different blood type.

"'Member… 'member the TeeVee show?" He grumbled. "'Member the clumpin' cells? Clots inside. Wrong type. One way only."

So he'd swapped the tubes and let me leech off the spindly little aide instead. I would've felt bad, if I had the energy. If I gave a flying fuck.

So John-Paul was still lying where I'd left him, moving slowly, scrabbling in the blood. Was that what Cy saw first, when he stepped in?

Or was it me? Maybe that was it. Instant fascination. The English bastard who'd blown-up his airport, who'd wiped-out his unit of grunts, who'd run rings round him in New York, who'd almost executed him following the Tag, who'd led the army that ejected his gang from their base, who'd held his attention as an honest-to-god Red Injun snuck up and stabbed him through the skull, and who'd beaten-up the withered old man he worshipped.

I guess you couldn't blame him for being a tad grumpy.

Was that what he focused on, as he came marching in? Me standing there, looking and feeling like I'd died, wanting nothing more than to curl up and sleep for a year, letting my body adjust.

No.

Fair enough, the freaky shithead pulled a gun on me the second he appeared – quicker than I could see – but his heart wasn't in it. He wasn't going to shoot.

No. What Cy looked at as he stepped inside was this:

Nate's bag.

"Ah," he said. "Hm."

"K-kill… kill them…" The Abbot groaned from the floor, bent double. "Look what… they did…"

"Yes, holiness." Cy said, voice flat, not even looking down. "Get out now, sir. I'll deal with it."

And so the Abbot John-Paul Rohare Baptiste, spiritual head of the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn, turned his back on the arch-Satan and wobbled away on his hands and knees, trailing blood. The door swung closed behind him.

And then it was just me, and Nate, and Cy. And a gun.

And Bella saying:

Not your problem.

"Well, now," said the Cardinal.

Nate was a wreck. Sweat poured off him. The effort of dangling there off the cell bars, then thinking straight long enough to hook me up to the whitewashed aide, must have finished him. He could barely stand, snot and tears and vomit decorating his face. I wondered how long it had been since his last fix. Certainly since before the battle by the bridge. I wondered what sort of weird-arsed home-made shit he'd been chasing anyway.

"Nigger looks like death," said Cy, grinning.

Nate swayed where he stood. "J's… Jus' need my… my…" He blinked, trying to focus. "Medicine."

A lot happened at once.

Nate lurched towards the red pack with his arms outstretched, gurgling from his guts upwards. Cy moved even faster, gun shifting to freeze the man on his spot. He had the sense to stay.

And I took my chance.

Pounced.

Fists raised. No way he could turn back to cover me in t – fuck, he's fast The pistol muzzle sat on my forehead. Cy smiled.

"Now." He said. "Just you back up. Back up there."

I didn't move.

"Limey. Limey, you hear?"

I worked my jaw. "I hear you."

"You back up. Or the nigger gets shot."

"Not me?"

"Hah. Not you. No guns for you. Not 'less you make me."

I didn't move. Didn't care.

Let him go for Nate.

(But-)

No buts.

(But he saved my l-)

No excuses. You know the rules.

Don't you let yourself owe anyone anything.

Don't you fucking give up, soldier!

(Sir, no sir, etc etc.)

Let him do it.

Let him try.

The second the gun moves, he's mine.

Cy said: "Don't say. Didn't warn you."

And then Nate was on the floor, and a gunshot hung in the air, and the stink of guns and the shock of movement, and the pistol was back against my forehead – hot, singeing my skin – before I'd even tilted forwards.

Too fast to see.

He, I decided, isn't natural.

Nate screamed. His foot was a wreck. Bones poked at fractured angles from a fragmented red sneaker, fountaining blood and singed fabric.

"Back up." Cy said again, and still the grin. "Back up. Or next. His face."

I backed up. Nate's screams turned to moans, then whimpered away. Cy kept the gun aimed squarely at me, sidestepping around the growing slick on the floor, squatting to his haunches beside the heavy case. The muzzle never wavered. The dagger-pommel poked from his head like a rubber cock, and I bit-down on the cheap joke in my mouth.

"Didn't have time," he said, smiling like a Cheshire cat, "to grab my own. Back at the Secretariat. Shit, Limey… You shoulda seen the stashes. Junk coming in from all over. Collectors collecting. Scavs bartering. Even had us a team of geeks. Geeks making it. New kinds. Mixing it like fuckin' artists."

"Drugs?" I said. The word sounded… naive.

"Best currency." He licked his lips and rummaged in the bag, not even looking. "'Cept for God. Heh. 'Cept for kids."

He withdrew a sealed hypoderm. Bit the rubber flange off the needle and spat it away.

The gun didn't waver.

"Put it to good use. Trickled it out. Some to Klans, some overseas. Let them know who's boss. See? Rewards for good boys. Sweeties for ignorant masses. Heh. Manna from heaven. Always kept the best shit for ourselves."

His stupid syntax was pissing me off. "Until the ignorant masses rose up and kicked your arse, you mean?"