Weston Ochse - Reign of Evil

Walker groaned. Not those.

Trev’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?

“Motherfucking homunculi,” Walker said. “Little fucking Freddy Krueger–Stretch Armstrong serial-killing fucking mini-golems. Okay, here’s the deal. They swarm. As long as we pair up and keep moving, they can’t hurt us, but I saw them chew through the neck of an FBI agent who insisted on doing things solo. They die like anything else. Put enough bullets into them and then put some more.”

Ian looked to Walker. “How much does this change things?”

Walker shrugged. “It changes a lot, but we can do this if we have fire and position discipline. But it’s going to be easy for this warlock to cast a spell or escape while we’re trying to survive his minions.”

“That’s where I come in.” Sassy gave a quick, mean smile. “I’m a far better witch than he is a warlock; I just couldn’t handle his creations.” She pointed at him. “That’s where you come in.”

Walker hated the feeling of being used. But if it got him one step closer to the killers of Jen, he’d let it happen. “What do you think, boys?”

Ian gave Trev and Jerry looks and in turn they nodded.

Ian turned to the witch. “Okay, mission is still on, but if you do this to us one more time we’re going to have a serious conversation.”

To give the witch credit, she looked appropriately scolded, but Walker could still detect a smile wrinkling a corner of her lipstick-painted lips. Then she looked at him and he saw the sparkle in her eyes. She’d known exactly what she was doing and how her ploy would turn out. Walker had no doubt that she’d be up to this again and probably soon, regardless of her promise to Ian.

They synced watches and left the van. It was almost midday and there was plenty of traffic on the street, so the chances of them being seen were pretty good. But Ian had coordinated the operation with the Home Office and local police were supposed to ignore any calls about four armed men assaulting an old bowling alley. Plus, unlike America, where any given city could face four men in assault gear ready to attack a bank, the illegality of weapons in Britain made this much less likely. So when people did see heavily armed men dressed uniformly, they tended to assume it was just the government about to do something they didn’t want to know about. Or at least so said Jerry.

Ian and Walker stacked toward the front doors, close enough that they were touching. Ian was first and Walker could tell the man knew his business. They covered the distance to the door in a matter of seconds, then flattened themselves on either side. Old fliers were taped to the doors advertising family bowling nights and a missing kitten. Brown paper had been taped to the windows behind the old fliers to keep anyone from seeing into the interior. The double doors were boarded from the inside. Also on the outside of the doors was an official-looking memo purportedly from the health department stating that this edifice has been condemned until appropriate biological defense measures can be employed. It was ambiguous enough to make anyone pause.

Since the doors had been boarded shut, their plan was to go through one of the wide side panel windows to the left or right. They chose the right-hand panel, and when the time came Ian used the butt of his rifle to shatter it.

When the glass was down, they surged into the entry only to find themselves in a vestibule standing before another set of glass doors, these completely covered in plywood.

Ian and Walker looked at each other. If they had some Semtex they could have blown their way in. As it stood, they didn’t even have grenades. They both came to the same conclusion and, with a running start, slammed their shoulders into the doors. They gave an inch or two as the glass cracked and the plywood buckled. The men backed up and tried again; this time the glass shattered and the wood cracked. Three more times and they were able to break through. But now any chance of surprise had been destroyed. Plus, the pain in Walker’s right shoulder was quickly spinning from an ache to something worse.

The interior of the bowling alley was lit with seven glass chandeliers, which by their placement had to have been installed when the warlock took residence. They cast electric light and hung lower than head height in line across the twenty lanes of the bowling alley. Directly in front of them was the reception desk, complete with bowling shoes still resting in wooden slots. The area to the left had been an arcade, but it had been cleared and was now a sitting area. The area to the right had been a concession but was now a library, books and manuscripts on bookshelves placed where the stoves and fryers had probably once been.

What they didn’t see was the warlock or any homunculi. Nothing stirred.

Walker kept his feet moving and his weapon at low ready as he scanned the immense space. “Ian?”

“Yeah, Walker?”

“Where are the bad guys?”

“Not sure.”

Suddenly Jerry and Trev burst into the room from the staff access door on the far left. They had their weapons at low ready as well and mimicked Walker’s perplexed response. Where the hell was everyone?

Then Walker felt it. It was subtle, but it was there, a minute buzzing just below the surface of his skin.

“Careful,” he said. “Something’s going on.”

“Do you feel something?” Ian asked. “What is it?”

Walker shook his head. “I don’t know.” He moved left, then right, then forward to the reception desk. The feeling didn’t increase or decrease. The magic seemed to be everywhere. Then he had an idea. He raised his weapon to ready carry and aimed at a point below one of the chandeliers. He moved his finger over the fire selector lever and switched from single to automatic. He fired three controlled bursts, raking his weapon from left to right.

“What the hell?” Ian moved next to him. “Did you see something?”

Walker stared at the area he’d fired in. It was as if he could almost see shapes, but it could just as easily have been a trick of the mind.

Sassy Moore swept in behind them. “You had the right idea, Walker, but it’ll take more than that to dispel the illusion.” She waved her hand and spoke something in harsh, guttural German and the chandeliers sang as they jingled, one reality snapping into place over the fake reality. Where there had been nothing, there was now everything: homunculi lying dead below the spots where Walker had fired, others standing and glaring, others hanging from the chandeliers, others holding bowling balls as if they were giant hand grenades, and of course the warlock, standing about forty-five degrees off to Walker’s right in the middle of lane five, a look of pure rage reshaping the doughy features of his middle-aged face into those of a wild animal.

It was like a switch snapped on and everything came to life. Walker opened fire even as the homunculi surged toward him, some swinging from the chandeliers, others running like Chucky Doll–sized linebackers. They were like the ones he’d met before in San Diego, San Fran, and Mexico. Just shy of three feet tall, they had arms long enough that they almost dragged on the ground. Bulging with muscles, their skin was a jolting orange as if their makers were trying to create monstrous versions of Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas. But what got Walker every time was their sublime expressions that telegraphed such disinterest, it was as if they knew more than him, that they knew when they were eventually going to kill him and that it was already a fait accompli…. But even that sublime look disappeared once they opened their piranha-fanged mouths.

Walker took down some of them but missed as many as he hit. He’d forgotten his selector was on automatic and switched it to single shot for more control. Then he leaped on top of the counter in front of him to put some vertical distance between him and the ground.