Fire City Read online

  ‘I trust myself and my weapons,’ he said without emotion.

  His reply made me feel a little uneasy, so I turned my back to him and checked Luca over, making sure he hadn’t been injured. I wondered if the stranger was watching me – sort of hoped that he was.

  ‘He’s fine,’ the stranger told me. ‘Apart from the urine.’

  I looked down and saw that Luca was standing in a puddle.

  ‘Told you!’ he wailed, stamping his feet.

  ‘Hurry!’ the stranger snapped. ‘People are dying down there!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘’Cos that I don’t know. Welcome to Fire City.’

  2

  ARON DUCKED, USING a pile of rubble as cover. Several body parts lay scattered around him. With time he might have reflected on the passing of fellow humans. But time was something he didn’t have. In the middle of the Hunt, life and death were separated by a few seconds.

  It was hard enough if you were prey. When you were hunting the hunters, it was twice as dangerous. The prey was simply trying to get away – and most failed. Aron and his gang were chasing the predators, and the demons didn’t like being chased. He looked back down the street, bordered on each side by abandoned apartment blocks. Some lay silent whilst others burned. The screams of the Hunted and their tormentors filled the night.

  He tried to catch his breath, looking around for the others. Martha had disappeared into one of the blocks twenty minutes earlier. Oscar and Tyrell were up ahead, if they were still breathing, and Samuel – well, he was dead. Aron felt something tearing at his insides – the guilt and shame that he didn’t have time for. That he couldn’t make time for. Samuel – torn to shreds because Aron had attacked a demon patrol without thinking, without heeding Samuel’s pleas for caution. Aron tried to push his feelings away, hiding from them like he hid from most things.

  He peered round the rubble, realizing how difficult his position had become. He was trapped, with demons front and rear as well as those patrolling the skies. An army of cannibals three or four hundred strong was stomping through the streets. At least thirty of them blocked the path between him and his destination – a narrow alleyway from which he could access a pre-secured basement and safety. Only now he didn’t have Samuel to watch his back, because Samuel was dead – and he was the reason why . . .

  Sensing an approaching demon, he rolled his short stocky frame to the left, into overgrown weeds tall enough to have hidden him if he’d been standing. He slid forward on his belly, praying that the demon wouldn’t catch his scent. He’d rubbed himself in the oil that Martha’s aunt, May, had prepared – jasmine, patchouli and nettle. Enough, May had said, to deceive a demon’s sense of smell.

  It worked. The hunter, half dog, half something else that Aron had never identified, stalked past, stopping only to sniff at the air for a few seconds. It walked on its its hind legs, but stooped forward so that its powerful arms hung like giant, hair-covered battering rams, only just above the ground. A thick, muscular jaw jutted from its face, the forehead and eyes deep-set. It was a patroller, one of many that Valefor used as foot soldiers, and Aron was used to seeing them. He had killed more than his fair share too. Patrollers were the easiest demons to slay – they carried no weapons and relied on brute force to take down their opponents. Being the easiest to kill didn’t make killing them easy, however. Aron carried the scars to prove it. Samuel’s death proved it . . .

  The patroller moved on, no doubt intent on rejoining its unit. For the Hunt, they worked in threes, with thirty units in each platoon and ten platoons for each legion. Nine thousand demons to contend with after you’d dispatched their cannibal slaves. Talk about great odds.

  Once the demon had gone, Aron raised himself into a crouch and peered through the tall weeds. The nearest cannibals seemed preoccupied, surrounding a doorway, snarling. The entrance had been barricaded recently with some kind of appliance – an old fridge. Aron had never seen a working fridge – only heard about them from elders like May. The cannibals pushed at the barrier, snarling and growing frustrated but leaving the way clear for Aron to sneak past them to the alleyway. Only he knew that it wouldn’t happen that way. People were trapped behind the barricade and he wasn’t about to leave them. Not when he’d—

  He took his crossbow and primed a bolt. Aiming for the nearest cannibal, he concentrated on his breathing, feeling the world slow down all around him. He heard his heart thumping in his chest, the steady rhythmic flow of blood being pumped round his body. He had to get it right. Ammunition was limited and he couldn’t afford to miss . . .

  DUUFFFF!

  The patroller knocked him sideways with a single lunge, winding him. Aron gasped for air as his weapon shot from his hands, falling three metres from where he lay on his back, unable to move. The force of the impact made his teeth grind. A familiar growling sent electric tingles through his body.

  ‘Kill us, would you?’ the patroller barked, pinning him down with its limbs.

  Aron balked at its fetid breath and the globules of rancid saliva that hung from its jaws. His ribcage felt as if it had been shattered, each breath searing like a hot knife through his lungs. Still he found words.

  ‘Someone has to!’ he spat out.

  ‘Mistake!’ growled the demon.

  Aron strained against the powerful limbs, but to no avail. Patrollers were immensely strong and once they had you pinned . . .

  ‘I’m going to cut out your eyes, you unnatural—’ he began.

  The demon lowered its face to within millimetres of Aron’s, stopping his words dead. A stream of thick saliva dripped onto Aron’s left cheek, sliding towards his mouth. He clamped it shut quickly, feeling nauseous.

  ‘No, human, today you die!’ the patroller almost whispered to him.

  ‘Blow me . . .’ Aron managed to mumble through gritted teeth. The demon reared back and howled a death cry. Its eyelids closed, massive jaws parted and ready to tear Aron’s head from his torso.

  WHUMPP!

  The patroller collapsed on top of Aron, stone-dead. A single shot had entered through its forehead, taking out the back of its skull, blowing its brain to mush. Aron blinked uncontrollably for a few moments, trying to get his head around the situation. What had just . . .?

  ‘You gonna lie there all night?’ he heard Martha say. ‘Only we’ve got people to save . . .’

  ‘Where the hell did you come from?’ he gasped as he tried to extricate himself, his face slick with dead demon. ‘This butt-faced thing weighs a ton – help me.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he heard a man say.

  Two black-clad arms took hold of the patroller, lifting and casting it aside as if it weighed nothing.

  ‘Man – what the—?’ began Aron.

  ‘We have work to do,’ he heard the voice say. Someone he’d never heard before – a stranger.

  ‘But he might be hurt,’ replied Martha, the concern in her voice warming Aron’s soul. His actions in recent weeks had forced a wedge between them, mostly because Martha didn’t understand his need to protect her. Strong words had been spoken; words that he now regretted. He longed to return to the way things had been, to the shared childhood that bound them together.

  ‘Then you look to him,’ replied the stranger. ‘Or let him die . . .’

  Aron, suddenly angered, ignored the pain and sat up. ‘Listen you twisted little turd,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t need your help, OK?’

  The stranger turned his back as Martha checked Aron over. Despite himself, Aron let rage colour his reaction.

  ‘Gerroff!’ he shouted at Martha.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ shouted Luca from behind the girl.

  ‘Sorry,’ Aron replied sheepishly, the fire in his heart quickly doused, replaced by yet more shame.

  ‘Come on,’ replied Martha, seeming to ignore his latest outburst. ‘We need to get you and Luca to the hideout. Now . . .!’

  Despite his anger at the stranger, Aron knew that Martha was right. The rest of the patrolle
rs would have sensed the killing. They were coming, and fast.

  ‘Can you walk?’ Martha yelled at him.

  ‘Think so . . .’ he replied, struggling to his feet and smiling at Luca, who was standing behind Martha, trying to hide. He looked across the street and watched the newcomer engage the cannibal horde. The stranger, no more a man than he was, he realized, moved impossibly quickly, his blade flashing through the air. The cannibals fell without resistance.

  ‘Who is that?’ Aron asked Martha.

  Martha shrugged. ‘He was in the block. I got into trouble and he helped me – saved my life,’ she explained. ‘We fought through two patroller units to get to you. He killed them all.’

  ‘Is he one of us?’

  Martha raised an eyebrow. ‘What does it look like, Aron?’ she said, seeming annoyed. ‘He just saved your life too. Or did you have that situation under control?’

  Hurt by Martha’s sarcasm, Aron continued watching the stranger. He stood at the entrance, talking through the barricade to whoever was hiding behind it.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ replied Aron. ‘There’s something strange about him – inhuman almost. No one can kill so many demons. Don’t you think?’

  Martha sighed. ‘Just get Luca to the shelter,’ she told him, her annoyance evident.

  ‘Man, who died and put you in charge?’ Aron spat without thinking. Samuel’s face sprang instantly into his mind and he felt a searing, surging dagger of shame pierce through his heart.

  ‘There’s no time for this, Aron!’ she snapped. ‘Just do it.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’ he asked, the plea in his question completely apparent.

  Martha shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied, looking at the newcomer with what seemed like admiration. Aron felt his face burning with emotion. ‘I’m going with him to get the others . . .’

  Aron nodded slowly and his stomach sank a little. A torn and broken body flashed into his mind. He had to tell her.

  ‘Samuel . . .’ he said.

  Martha didn’t need to hear any more. The look on Aron’s face seemed to tell her everything. She shed a single tear; one that Aron felt the urge to kiss away.

  ‘No time for that now,’ she said, wiping her left cheek. ‘Come on – let’s move . . .’

  3

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, as dawn broke weakly over the city, I helped lead the small band of survivors back into the darkness. The few that we had managed to rescue . . .

  The Haven had been a theatre once, many years before the demons came. My mother, her eyes sparkling at the memories, had told me stories about the shows she’d seen there. That was before my birth, the War and the coming of the demons. The theatre’s grand dome had since fallen in, the upper floors becoming death traps for humans and habitation for wild and savage animals. Most importantly, it was completely unknown to Valefor, the demon lord who ruled over Fire City, or to the Mayor, his human puppet.

  It sat on the edge of the city, just beyond the artificial boundary created by the demons, a symbol of everything that we humans had lost. What remained of the theatre was under the rubble, an underground sanctuary accessed by two secret tunnels. Everyone we saved from the Hunt was taken there until they could be secreted away from Fire City. Away from the madness into whatever lay in the wastelands. It wasn’t ideal, but there was no other choice. If they stayed in the city they’d only end up back in the Hunt anyway. A chance at life was better than no chance at all.

  The Haven was laid out in rectangles, a smaller one inside another, with an outer corridor round each side. Small rooms lay off each passage and then, on the south side, a single entrance brought you to the inner area, with another perimeter of corridors. In the centre lay the hub of the sanctuary. It was a maze, a thousand square metres that had once housed dressing rooms, stage prop stores and a generator room.

  After the War had been lost, one of the survivors, an actress, remembered the basement. The Hunt hadn’t been established yet, so one night she dug through the rubble, hoping to find a stairwell leading down there. She didn’t. Each night over the next week she tried again, braving the demon and army patrols, and broke through on the eighth night, dropping into the darkness and sending rats scattering.

  Within weeks she had organized a small army of helpers – people who were prepared to risk everything to help the Resistance – people like my mother. They made the forgotten basement habitable – creating simple sanitary facilities, organizing dormitories and a canteen area. A second tunnel was dug; a back door to be used in times of trouble, and I’d heard rumours that there was another too – an exit known only to the elders and for emergency use.

  The Haven became the focal point for our fight back – vital and secure, sheltering hundreds from the demons. The woman had been called Gemma Martin, and two years after founding the Haven, Valefor’s lieutenants took her. My mother had always spoken highly of Gemma, calling her a true heroine: a woman prepared to give her life to fight the spawn of Hell.

  ‘The perfect role model,’ I said absently, the fatigue set tight in my muscles.

  ‘What was that?’ Aron asked from behind me.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied.

  A simple wooden hatch sat at the end of the tunnel. I knocked a secret code, waited and then repeated my actions. The hatch opened and a shaft of light lit up the tunnel. A giant elder with spiked blond hair and pale skin peered into the gloom – Mace, an elder whom I loved like a father.

  ‘Welcome back!’ he bellowed, his smile – which was almost as broad as his shoulders – filling me with warmth as it always did. He wore his usual grey cargo pants, stretched to bursting across his tree-trunk-sized thighs, a grey sweatshirt and an unzipped, black hooded top. His trusty machetes hung at each hip, the blades honed to the extreme. The same weapons I’d seen him use to deadly effect against our enemies. Mace was my father, my teacher and one of my heroes. One of the few adults left from my childhood.

  ‘Did Tyrell cover our tracks?’ I asked Aron as I crawled out into a grey-walled corridor. As I stood up, I realized that I’d have to speak to Mace about Samuel. I had wanted more time to compose myself, to tell him . . .

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Aron, getting a little too close for comfort.

  I felt his body rub against my back and moved away. I was too tired to put up with his silly games and too worried about what I had to tell Mace. The giant clapped a meaty hand against Aron’s back, oblivious to my furrowed brow.

  ‘How many have we got today?’ he asked.

  My face fell as I thought about Samuel. I hadn’t seen him die, but I had witnessed enough death to know that it would have been cruel and painful. The only mercy was that he hadn’t ended up like the cannibals – a soulless husk thirsty for blood. For a moment I thought that I would burst into tears but I managed to hold my nerve.

  ‘Mace . . .’ I began as he took me into his massive arms.

  ‘What is it, child?’ he asked, his voice now barely a whisper.

  ‘Samuel,’ I managed to say. ‘We . . . we lost him.’

  Mace let me go and stood for a moment, his eyes growing dark. Then he sank slowly to his knees, his face contorted in pain. I saw the rage building slowly in his broad chest and I thought that my heart would burst.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him gently. ‘Aron, tell him what happened.’

  Aron looked surprised and uncomfortable at my words. He lowered his head, and when he eventually explained he seemed strangely defensive.

  ‘We got split up,’ he said. ‘That’s all. Me and Samuel went into one of the blocks. We got ambushed by patrollers, and Samuel took them on but there were too many. I tried to stop him, honest I did . . .’

  I could feel Mace’s anger rising, and knew that he wouldn’t want to show his emotions – that his pride would stop him. Mace was the leader of our little group and a father-figure to all of us, not just to me. He clenched his jaw – ground his teeth together. The sound of it made me wince.

  ‘I tried to save him
, but—’ Aron added, but the words stuck in his throat and he began to well up.

  Mace looked up at me instead, his expression calmer but still piercing enough to make my heart thump.

  ‘Where?’ he demanded.

  I shook my head, knowing what he was thinking. Knowing that he would risk his life to retrieve his son’s remains.

  ‘There’s no point,’ I told him. ‘There’d be nothing left, Mace. Nothing of Samuel.’

  Mace considered my reply before weeping silently, knowing that I was right. Out of respect, I turned away and watched Aron help the survivors into the corridor. There were ten of them – six women, three youngsters, including Luca, and an old man: ten out of the hundred who’d been sent to the Hunt, selected as prey because they served no useful function in the eyes of our rulers. Oscar and Tyrell, two more of our band, followed them; both of them were bloody from the battle and covered in dirt.

  The last to enter was the stranger. He stood tall and stretched out his arms, blinking in the harsh light. Mace spotted him immediately and jumped up.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded, showing little further sign of anguish. I guessed that he’d already buried it somewhere inside, somewhere deep. Death was common in Fire City – no one remained untouched by its grisly claws. To dwell on it was to make yourself a bigger target, to soften the hard edges, to blunt the required alertness of mind and body. A little like removing your armour in the midst of battle.

  People died in Fire City.

  It was one of many harsh realities in the reign of the demons.

  I explained that the stranger had saved Luca and me, before rescuing Aron too. I said that he’d joined us in our battle, and taken down many enemies. Mace seemed satisfied by what I told him. He eyed the young man up and down, taking an interest in the stranger’s clothing and weapons. I found myself studying him too, but for different reasons. Reasons that made me feel embarrassed.

  ‘You carry a rifle,’ Mace pointed out. ‘I haven’t seen one of those since just after the War . . .’