After the Pandemic: The Enemy of My Enemy (part 18): Jokers Wild (914 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 2 on 28 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by The Caes (View user info) at 2005-07-13 06:57:05 EDT
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61238 -- Introduction -- Jack McCallum
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61350 -- Variant C -- Jack McCallum
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61505 -- Part 1: Brianna
http://www.ubersite.com/m/61614 -- Part 2: Khalid
http://www.ubersite.com/m/63145 -- Part 3: The Meeting
http://www.ubersite.com/m/63504 -- Part 4: The Conversation
http://www.ubersite.com/m/63663 -- Part 5: The Story of Manhattan
http://www.ubersite.com/m/64024 -- Part 6: On the Streets of Jersey
http://www.ubersite.com/m/64325 -- Part 7: Tome
http://www.ubersite.com/m/64611 -- Part 8: Faing
http://www.ubersite.com/m/65301 -- Part 9: The Gathering
http://www.ubersite.com/m/65871 -- Part 10: Men Amongst Giants
http://www.ubersite.com/m/66684 -- Part 11: The Temptress and The Aristocrat
http://www.ubersite.com/m/66752 -- Part 12: Trial by Blood
http://www.ubersite.com/m/67296 -- Part 13: Words and Swords
http://www.ubersite.com/m/67769 -- Part 14: Details and Divinity
http://www.ubersite.com/m/68760 -- Part 15: Into the Breach
http://www.ubersite.com/m/69588 -- Part 16: The Ambassador of New York
http://www.ubersite.com/m/69741 -- Part 17: The Devil in the Details
Ferdinand Kelley paced spasmodically in the tunnel mouth beneath the antechamber. He walked in random patterns, hands plucking at his pantlegs. His habitually crooked smile had degenerated into a quivering frown. Every three to four minutes he would jog up the stairs and ask Gus,
"Anything?"
"Nope," Gus would reply gruffly, so accustomed to the routine that he was starting to answer the question before Ferdy asked it.
Ferdy would spit out some random curses and jog back down the stairs. It was just like he predicted to the Chief; he was going cracked sitting here. His body wasn't built for waiting. It needed to be moving, always moving, or his neck would begin to twitch and his palms would sweat.
Aside from the regular check-ins with the Jersey team, the radio hadn't so much as crackled since the Chief had reported they were entering the ESB and ordered radio silence. That was over an hour ago. The weight of the unknown was beginning to grow uncomfortable for everyone, and it grew heavier at Ferdy's every impatient outburst.
His head bobbed up from the trapdoor. He opened his mouth -
"No!" Gus didn't give him the chance this time.
Ferdy blurted a tourette's-quality string of expletives and retreated.
Gus looked over at Heather. She was the only other person in the antechamber. The other half-dozen Lukers were posted as lookouts in the church. "Next time he comes up here, I'm gonna kill him," he grumbled. "We can say it's self defense."
Heather rolled her eyes.
"What?" Gus exclaimed. "He's a crazy fucker. Nobody would even question it."
Heather loosed a conceding sigh and shook her hand through her shoulder-length blonde curls. "I'll go talk to him. Call out if there's word."
Gus grumbled something that had a mildly appreciative tone to it.
Heather came down the stairs. Ferdy froze in mid-step. "Have they - "
"NO," she said crossly. "Stop asking, you're driving us nuts."
"Let me go out there. I'll find 'em, I'll find out what's goin' on."
"Forget it, man." She laughed. "The Chief says we stay here, so we stay here."
"But - "
"NO." She pointed a stern finger at him. He opened his mouth again, but she cut him off. "No! Chrissakes, I don't know why the Chief stuck you with us. You're like a crazy kid on a Ritalin binge."
"Heather, I need ta DO something!" He stamped his foot in the dirt. "How kin I just sit on my ass in some skanky ol' church when there's action goin' on?"
"Okay, okay, relax. How about I stay down here with you for a while? Would that help? We can talk. How would that be?"
He sighed as if she didn't get it at all. "Yeah, fine. That'd help." He was silent for a moment.
"Do ya think they called in yet?"
Heather began massaging her temples.
*************
Gus sat next to the radio arms crossed. Truth be told, he was getting nervous too. But after seeing what an ass Ferdy looked like, he'd be damned if he was going to start showing it. The only indulgence he allowed was to re-check the radio wires and connections, just to be sure.
Six times.
Gus was bravely resisting the urge to check a seventh (it's a lucky number, after all) when he heard a noise coming from the chapel. He wiggled his thick finger into his rifle's trigger guard and sat quiet to listen.
Nothing.
Nothing. No, wait - there. It was like...something tumbling to the ground. Gus slowly got to his feet and crept as quietly as he could to the door, rifle raised. There was no sound except for the chugging of his breath.
He was close to the door now. Slowly, he reached his callused fingers out for the doorknob. He jumped back before he touched it. Smoke was pouring in under the door like water. Impossibly, the smoke gathered in front of him and stretched upwards to form a pillar. Gus tentatively aimed his rifle at it. The column of smoke undulated in front of him for a moment, then collapsed upon itself, and in a matter of moments took the shape of a man.
"Vilhelm?" Gus lowered his weapon.
The vampyre looked at Gus with an expression of contemplation. "Gus, is it?"
"What happened?" Gus asked, his breath quickening. "Where's the Chief?"
Vilhelm smiled generously. "You'll see."
Suddenly stars exploded across Gus' eyes. His knees lost their strength and dropped him to the dusty floor. Gus hadn't even seen him move. He tried to cry out a warning, but a finely polished boot struck him in the skull and everything went black.
***************
"Did you hear that?" Ferdy said sharply, cutting Heather off.
"What is it?"
"I thought I just heard Gus talkin' to someone." Ferdy's eyes lit up and danced madly. "The radio!" He giggled and dashed up the stairs like a kid on the first day of Christmas.
"Jesus," Heather muttered.
She heard Ferdy yell out, but not with excitement. His voice was cut short by a grunt, and suddenly he came rolling down the stairs, landing in a sprawling heap.
"Ferdy!" She pulled her Browning out of its holster as he groggily made it to his knees. She cursed herself for leaving her shotgun upstairs.
A pair of elegant boots led finely woven pantlegs down the creaking stairs. She saw a white shirt with ruffled cuffs. Heather didn't need to see the sweeping cloak or the peroxide-whitened hair to know who it was.
"Vilhelm, what are you doing?" She demanded, aiming her pistol at his heart. Ferdy was fumbling around his belt for something.
The vampyre held his hands up in surrender. "Calm, calm," he soothed. He was smiling at her like she was a teething puppy. "I am but a messenger. Don't shoot me." He chuckled at his joke.
"I'll fucking shoot you in three seconds if you don't give me a damn good reason." Heather's words carried the weight of a promise.
"Very well," Vilhelm agreed. "I'll give you an abundance of reasons."
In the antechamber above came the sounds of pummeling footsteps. Within seconds a dozen creatures stormed down the stairs behind Vilhelm. They were dressed in brown pants and vests and carried a variety of weapons, most of them of medieval origin. Only a couple had guns. Their skin was cracked and scabbing and they smelled like spoiled meat.
"You bitch," she gasped as realization dawned on her. "You sold us out."
"Don't feel badly," he consoled. "You never had a chance. You were doomed when that false prince failed to show me the proper respect. Now be sensible and put down your weapon. This little invasion is over."
"What have you done with them?" Heather asked, not relinquishing her aim.
"The ones with good sense and proper manners are safe. You'll see them soon. The others, well..." he sighed regretfully. "You might see them soon too, if you don't put that silly toy down."
The variants behind Vilhelm chuckled knowingly.
"You fuckin' COCK!" Ferdy had made it to his feet and held a .50 caliber Desert Eagle in his left hand. "You cum-soaked cocksmokin' asslickin' fuckwad! You're dead - "
Before he had a chance to finish, Vilhelm had covered the distance between them and swatted the gun out of his hand, breaking two of Ferdy's fingers in the process. His grip clamped around Ferdy's throat like a vise and lifted him a foot off the ground.
"Drop it or your odd little friend dies," Vilhelm said. Heather dropped her gun. A small dust cloud puffed up where it hit the ground. The vampyre looked Ferdy in the eyes. "I never liked you." He mused. "I usually don't notice things about peasant dishes, but something about you always irritated me. I should snap your neck right now." The human tried to say something, but it came out as choking gurgles.
One of the variants spoke up. "The Overlord said take them alive."
Vilhelm rolled his eyes and dropped Ferdy. "Yes, yes, soldiers for the New World Order. Very well. Come along then," he said to Heather and Ferdy. "Don't be fools."
From the dirt floor came a twitter of Ferdy's high-pitched laughter.
"What is so amusing?" The aristocrat asked. Heather was wondering the same thing. "Your resistance is ruined, you've failed miserably. Your plan has collapsed like a house of cards. What do you have to be happy about?" Ferdy kept laughing. "Answer me."
"Well, it's like this," he said, wiping a tear from the corner of a madly dancing eye. "Every deck of cards comes with a joker."
Heather saw something in Ferdy's right hand. Something the size of a lighter.
Oh shit.
She knew what that was. How the hell did he get it??
"I'm the joker, asswipe," Ferdy grinned. "This whole place is set to blow and I'm the fuckin' wildcard with my finger on the button." He looked over to Heather, his eyes lit up like twitching neon signs. "You better get goin', blondie."
Heather was frozen in place for a second. Jesus Christ, he had the detonator. The tunnel exit and most of the church was rigged to light up like the 4th of July and the Chief gave that crazy kid the detonator.
"Get outta here, ya dim bitch!" He squeaked excitedly.
Heather slowly took a step back, and then took off down the tunnel. The variants stepped forward, but Vilhelm motioned for them to stop.
"She won't get far. There's nowhere to go in that tunnel."
The vampyre looked over to what the human had in his hand. "You won't do it. You'll cause your own death and the death of all your friends." His lips settled into an oily smile. "You don't have the spine to kill your own. Think of your comrades, murdered at your hands, and for what? Just to shut a tunnel? You can't do such a thing." The aristocrat's tone was soft and reassuring. "Put it down, and we can negotiate for your well being."
Ferdy looked back at Vilhelm with a crooked smile and jittering eyes. "You gotta be kiddin' me, shitface. You think I won't do it? This is the whole reason I'm here."
He giggled and clicked the button.
Vilhelm had just enough time to shift into his vaporous form before the tunnel entrance blew apart in a shower of dirt and debris. His mist-body was tossed back and forth like a scarf in a windstorm. He felt he was being torn apart. The explosion blasted through St. Mark's, kicking the supporting walls and pillars apart in an instant. The church collapsed and caved in on itself, crushing everything within.
Plumes of smoke coughed themselves into the night sky as the rubble settled. Small wisps from various parts of the wreckage drifted in strange directions, heedless of gravity or wind. The wisps congregated at the center, circling and twining with each other, becoming dense and opaque.
Finally, Vilhelm Draconis materialized on his hands and knees. His head felt like it had been used as an anvil. He sat on the remains of St. Mark's in the Bowery, barely able to see or hear. It took every shred of will he had to knit his body together. He had never been blown up before. He decided he didn't care for the experience.
Everything had been crushed and buried. He cursed. It would take weeks to dig through the ruins and find the tunnel mouth again, if it even still existed. And he not only lost the humans they were going to turn into C variants, but he lost all the variants he came here with. The Butcher would not be pleased. But this wasn't his fault, Vilhelm reasoned. He didn't know they had planted explosions in the tunnel after he departed and placed a clearly disturbed human in control of the trigger. For a human, Turner was much craftier than expected.
After a few minutes, he straightened his collar and began walking back to the Empire State Building, the only creature in the vicinity still able to do so.
User Reviews
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-04-06 11:06:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-08-29 04:22:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Mmmmmmaybe...
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-08-28 13:01:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
vilhelm is never going to die, is he?
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-07-27 23:34:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-07-26 16:50:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-07-22 16:45:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Plus Fucking 2
Submitted by Bickerstaff (user info) at 2005-07-20 13:46:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by bob (user info) at 2005-07-16 23:05:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i love you...
in the most manly way possible.
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2005-07-16 21:50:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're absolutly amazing.
Submitted by notyou (user info) at 2005-07-15 12:46:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I finally caught up.. Now I have to wait :(
Awesome as usual. But slightly shorter.
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2005-07-15 02:35:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice work, I don't see any problems with it, in fact I liked the little twist
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2005-07-14 16:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hooray for ATP
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-07-13 23:41:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Probably not for another week or so, Viper. I usually manage an average of one a week...ish. Depends how much I have going on at any given time.
Submitted by Viper_04 (user info) at 2005-07-13 23:24:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This seemed like a teaser compared to 'The Devil in the Details', still totally awesome though, it seemed to be a bit quick. I think that the suspense/drama could have been held between Vilhelm and Ferdy for a bit longer, maybe have Vilhelm try to stop him from doing it or something like that
When do you think you will have the next one ready by, you're making me check this series like every hour!
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-07-13 19:33:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Spam -- 6 figures? How fast do you read??
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-07-13 18:49:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-07-13 16:34:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by strwbryfanatic (user info) at 2005-07-13 11:56:02 (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for writing a book by this point.
-2 because you "don't have time" to compete in UMIII. Pssh. I see how it is.
******************************
If I did UMIII I wouldn't get one of these posts out for a long long time. And I really want to finish this.
Kre8rix -- I wasn't horribly keen on the last couple paragraphs either, and like you I couldn't put my finger on why, either. I just couldn't get what I wanted across. I didn't have much direction.
Submitted by hcp28 (user info) at 2005-07-13 15:43:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No don't kill the hot ones!!!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-07-13 14:54:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love it when Ferdy wigs out.
Submitted by Kre8rix (user info) at 2005-07-13 12:10:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice work as usual.
Though the last few paragraphs seemed...overloaded? There's something there that didn't sit right for some reason, and when I figure out what it is, I'll let you know.
Still Fuckin' brilliant though.
Submitted by strwbryfanatic (user info) at 2005-07-13 11:56:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for writing a book by this point.
-2 because you "don't have time" to compete in UMIII. Pssh. I see how it is.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-07-13 10:59:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm just amazed that this story is still going.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-07-13 10:45:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
by sizeable I mean 6 figures - nice going cannuck, you're singlehandedly destroying the Brittish economy.
bastard.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2005-07-13 10:31:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was supposed to work today, but I read this instead.
shocking to think really that some tin-pot brittish companies have lost a sizable chunk of money because I was too busy reading this to fix thier telephone systems.
C'est la vie.
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-07-13 09:47:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Vunderful.
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2005-07-13 09:15:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
did you...
DID YOU BLOW UP HEATHER?!?!?!
I CAN'T LOOK!!
<hides eyes>
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-07-13 08:59:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cock gobbling thundercunt!
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2005-07-13 07:19:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome as ever.