Simon Green - From Hell with love

Molly darted back and forth around me, trying for a clear shot, and yelling what she thought was helpful advice. I concentrated on forcing the killer robot dog away from me, until finally it hung helplessly in my grasp, the lower legs still scrabbling for something to attack. And then I tore the dog apart, first limb from limb, and then piece by piece, until there wasn't enough left of it to function. It lay scattered across the snow, just so many intricate steel parts and glimmering tech, still moving and twitching as the last of its energy ran out. The red glowing eyes took a long time to fade away. I knelt down and studied the mess thoughtfully, while Molly floated at my side.

"This wasn't just some stupid robot," I said finally. "There was definitely intelligence at work. Primitive AI. I should have tried to communicate with it."

"Like what?" said Molly. "Down boy? Stop trying to kill me? Good dog?"

"How long was it lying here, under the snow?" I said. "Waiting patiently in the dark, for months or maybe even years… For something, anything, to come along? And when someone does turn up, all its programming will allow it to do, is attack. Was it lonely, do you think? Poor thing. Poor doggie."

"Poor doggie?" said Molly. "It would have quite happily ripped us apart, and probably pissed machine oil on our bits and pieces afterwards. Honestly, Eddie, you can get sentimental about the strangest things."

I stood up. "I'm surprised there aren't more of the things. Who bets all their money on a single guard dog?"

Molly shrugged. "Too expensive, probably. Did you see that tech? Alien derived. I'm betting they found the original and then reverse engineered it into a guard dog."

"Poor doggie," I said. "When this is all over, I think I'll come back and collect up the pieces. The Armourer will have a great time putting it back together again. He's always wanted a pet that didn't die easily."

Molly rolled her eyes at the heavens. "Look-all of this is just slowing us down. We have to move faster than this!"

"All right," I said patiently. "What have you got in mind?"

"Oh right, put the pressure on me! Leave it to me to come up with something to save the day!" She scowled heavily. "There's any number of magics I could use here, or at least tap into, but I can't help feeling I'm going to need every nasty spell I've got, once we're inside Area 52. That business at Castle Frankenstein took a lot out of me, and I'm nowhere near back to full strength."

"What about what happened at the Hall?" I said carefully. "Are you fully recovered from that?"

"It's sweet that you worry about me, Eddie, but stop it or I will slap you. I'm fine. Really. In fact, I can't wait to get this all over and done with, so I can get you back to our bedroom and show you just how fine I am."

I grinned. "You do know how to motivate a man." And then I broke off and looked sharply around. "Hold everything; I think it's time for round two."

A mist formed around us, grey tendrils coalescing out of the cold air, thickening into a grey sea of churning, roiling mists, that cut us off completely from the rest of the world. Sounds became increasingly distant and diffuse, as though we were underwater. Or as though the world was drifting farther and farther away. Molly and I moved instinctively to stand back to back, searching about us for some sign of an enemy. The thick grey fog had an unnatural chill to it, that made me shudder even inside my armour.

"Unnatural," I said, just to show I was keeping up.

"Very," said Molly. "Look! You see that?"

I did. Dark shapes were moving in the fog, circling slowly, keep ing their distance for the moment. Their movements were awkward, strange, not human, for all their basically human shape. I tried counting them, but the number always came out different, as though they were fading in and out. Over a dozen, certainly, maybe twenty. There was something horribly abstract about them; their details kept changing, like the menacing shapes we see in dreams, or just briefly out of the corner of an eye. My skin crawled under my armour, and sweat ran down my face. I could hear Molly breathing heavily behind me, feel her back shaking where it pressed against mine. The shapes circled faster and faster, closing in on us from every direction at once.

I struck out at the first dark shape to come within reach, but my spiked golden fist shot right through without touching anything. I stumbled forward, caught off balance. And the shape grabbed me by the shoulders with two dark hands, lifted me up and threw me a good thirty feet. I shot through the air, tumbling ungracefully, and then hit the packed snow hard, half burying myself. I lay still for a moment, getting my breath back. I hadn't expected that. I wasn't used to being physically dismissed that easily. I shook my head hard, rolled over onto my side, and forced myself up onto my feet again. My armour had protected me, but I was still shaken. But then I saw Molly, blazing brightly in the fog, surrounded by fast-moving dark shapes, and that was all I needed to get moving again. I charged forward, ploughing through the snow at speed, sending it flying left and right in sudden flurries.

Molly threw spitting fiery magics at the dark shapes, attacks so powerful they crackled and roiled on the freezing air, but none of it did any good. Magics powerful enough to crack open mountains passed through the shapes without affecting them in the least, as though they weren't really present in our world. Except when they chose to be. Molly's magics were keeping the things at bay, for the moment, but they were pressing in closer all the time. Snow exploded several feet beyond the shapes as the magics passed harmlessly through, blasting out deep craters and leaving them full of steaming water.

The dark shapes swarmed around Molly, reaching out with dark hands to drag her down, but they couldn't touch her either. Her protective shields flared up viciously whenever dark hands came near her, and the shapes fell back, thwarted. But Molly's shields were only powerful enough when she gave them her full concentration, when she was facing the shapes attacking her. Which meant she had to keep turning, circling, twisting sharply this way and that, frustrating one attack after another, never able to relax her concentration for a moment. The dark shapes were packed around her now, crowding in, reaching out with dark eager hands.

I slammed into them at full speed, sending some of them flying. I lashed about me with my golden fists, but they were quickly gone again, as insubstantial as the fog that thickened around us. I flailed about me, desperate to drive them back from Molly, and then one of the shapes grabbed me from behind, lifted me up and threw me thirty feet in the other direction. I turned over and over in midair, trying desperately to get my feet under me, and then I hit the packed snow hard, much harder than before.

I had to dig my way out, throwing great handfuls of snow in all directions, and then went charging back again. I wasn't hurt; hell, after that fall into the Amazon rain forest, I didn't think any fall would ever worry me again. But I was angry, and worried, because every time I was thrown away it left Molly to fight on her own.

I couldn't let her be hurt again. I'd die before I let her be hurt again.

This time I thought it through. I slowed to a fast walk as I approached the crowd of jostling shapes, and when one turned to face me I thrust out one arm, tantalisingly, and when the shape grabbed it I grinned inside my mask. Because that meant the shape had made itself solid. I punched it hard in the face with my other hand, and my golden fist sank deep into its head. I pulled my hand out, and it was like pulling back toffee, with streamers of dark stuff following my hand. The shape fell apart, slumping into a dark sticky mess at my feet.