Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

I kept grabbing individual attackers when I could, and throwing them out the window, but they were arriving faster than I could get rid of them. I hauled a table out of its setting and forced it into place across the aisle before me, then followed it with several more. Trying to set up a barricade. The blood-red men set their hands on the tables and tore the heavy wood apart like it was paper. They threw the pieces aside and came after me again. And I was getting tired. The armour makes me strong and fast, but it still relies on me to operate it. I grabbed hold of the nearest blood-red man and tried to tear his scarlet mask away, so I could see the face beneath. But there was no gap between mask and skin, as though they were sealed or fused together.

“Rip the mask off!” Molly yelled behind me.

“I don’t think it is a mask,” I said. “I think . . . it’s his face.”

“Rip it off anyway!”

And then we were interrupted by the sound of approaching feet behind us. I threw the blood-red man away and glanced quickly back over my shoulder, just in time to see a dozen or so train security guards come running in through the rear door. They wore the same black uniforms, but this time they were armed with all kinds of heavy-duty weaponry. Molly and I jumped back out of the way, to opposite sides of the aisle, and the security men opened up with everything they had, shooting at everyone in front of them.

They advanced steadily, blasting away at the blood-red men . . . who just stood their ground, soaking up the bullets as though they were nothing. They didn’t flinch and they didn’t blink, and they didn’t fall back one single step. The noise of so many guns firing at once was deafening in the enclosed space. An occasional stray bullet hit my armour, which obligingly swallowed it up. I glanced across at Molly, but she was already hiding under a table. The security guards kept on firing, yelling half-incoherent obscenities at each other in military Russian, their eyes wide and shocked at what they were seeing.

Chests and heads exploded under the impact of heavy ammunition, only to repair themselves in moments, like film running backwards. And step by step, the blood-red men forced themselves forward, into the heat of the attack, against the terrible pressure of massed gunfire, until they were close enough to lay hands on the security guards. They tore the men apart, limb from limb, ripping off heads with horrid ease and throwing them away. The guards died quickly, smoking guns falling uselessly from their dead hands. The blood-red men didn’t even bother to pick them up. Blood sprayed up to stain the carriage ceiling, then fell back in heavy crimson drops. More blood splashed across the fixtures and fittings, and ran in thick rivulets along the polished wooden floor. Until nothing was left of the security guards but a bloody mess in the aisle that the blood-red men kicked their way through as they came on.

Molly and I had taken the opportunity to fall back to the rear door. I looked down the length of the carriage, at the army of blood-red men striding through the debris of dead guards, with flames and smoke at their backs as fire consumed the whole back half of the restaurant car. They were still coming for me, relentless and implacable, like demons out of Hell.

“Well,” said Molly, just a bit breathlessly, “I think we know now just who it was killed all those people at the Department of Uncanny. Men who can’t be stopped, with inhuman brute strength, who don’t use weapons . . . Fits the bill, don’t you think?”

“Undoubtedly,” I said. “They killed all those people, looking for the Lazarus Stone. And they killed my grandfather. No mercy for these bastards, Molly.”

“I have no problem with the sentiment,” said Molly, “But I have to say . . . I really don’t see how we can stop people who won’t stay dead when you kill them!”

“The ones I threw out the window didn’t come back,” I said. “So let’s concentrate on the one tactic we know works. I mean, they’ve got to run out of numbers eventually. Haven’t they?”

“Do you want the truth, or a comforting lie?” said Molly.

“Convince me,” I said.

“This is a great idea!” said Molly. “I love it!”

We strode forward, laid hands on the first blood-red men we came to, and went to work. They had strength, but we had the element of surprise. I had my armour, and Molly had her magical protections. We picked the blood-red men up and tossed them out the carriage windows, one after the other. Half a dozen of them went flailing through the air, and out into the Siberian winter, before they even knew what was happening. But after that the blood-red men stuck close together, making it harder for us. And even as we thinned out the ranks, more and more of them came charging through that open doorway, appearing out of the smoke and flames as fresh reinforcements.

There had to be a dimensional Door back there somewhere. It was the only answer that made sense.

It was getting harder to see what I was doing. Half the carriage was on fire, with flames sweeping forward in sudden rushes, while thick black smoke hung heavily on the air. Molly’s face was flushed, and wet with sweat, I hoped just from the growing heat. The blood-red men kept throwing themselves forward, clinging stubbornly to my arms and shoulders, trying to drag me down by sheer force. I straightened my legs and stiffened my back, and would not fall. Molly was forced back behind me again, using me as a shield. I crushed skulls with my golden fists, and threw men away, but they just swarmed all over me with nightmare tenacity. More of them had caught on fire from the surroundings, but it didn’t slow them down.

We had to retreat; we had no choice. There were just too many of them, filling their end of the carriage, and forcing their way forward as more appeared. I backed away, step by step, with Molly behind me, until we slammed up against the rear door. I yelled for her to open the door, and then we both backed quickly through it. I slammed the door in the face of the blood-red men, and crushed the lock with my golden hand. Molly worked a quick spell to fuse the wood of the door with its surrounding frame. And then we both backed away some more. The door bucked and shuddered, and then tore apart as the blood-red men smashed right through it.

The other passengers, who’d thought they were safe from the madness, were shouting and screaming, running down the aisle to the far door and the next carriage on. Others retreated into the separate compartments, pulled the shades down, and locked the doors. Like that would help. One man stood his ground in the aisle, defiantly pointing a gun at the blood-red men coming through the broken door. His hand was shaking as he opened fire, and he barely missed Molly and me as we squeezed quickly past him. He soon ran out of bullets, but instead of doing the sensible thing and running with the rest, he just stood there and fumbled in his pockets for more ammunition. I grabbed at his arm to haul him along with me, but he just jerked his arm free and went back to his reloading. Molly was some way down the aisle, yelling to me, so I left him to it.

I caught up with Molly at the far end of the carriage. I hauled the door open and Molly darted through. I looked back just in time to see the blood-red men fall on the man who wouldn’t run. They surged forward, into the face of his bullets, uncaring and unaffected, even as he fired into them at point-blank range. They pulled him down and trampled him underfoot, and moved on. He didn’t scream for long. The blood-red men smashed in all the doors of the compartments they passed, and killed everyone they found. Again, the screams didn’t last long.

I retreated through the door, and locked it. There was nothing else I could do. I hurried down the new aisle with Molly at my side, and we soon caught up with the retreating passengers, packed so tight now that they filled the aisle and blocked the way to the next door. They shoved and fought each other blindly, in their need to get away. The blood-red men burst in the door and fell into the new carriage, bringing with them the last dying screams of slaughtered men and women, and the thick coppery smell of freshly spilled blood.