There was a long moment of silence, which imperceptibly morphed into the quiet and insistent sniggering of the Zombie. The Baron cast him a fierce glare, but that only made the Zombie snort once, loudly, a laugh suppressed. He looked again at the gangster. Barilla was embarrassed by the Baron’s reaction, but like all leading mafioso, he turned shame into aggression. He looked about as angry as he must be worried.
“How old is he?” the Baron asked.
“Seventeen.”
It was clear Barilla hadn’t asked Phyllis anything. She wouldn’t have let him put the Cat o’ Nine Lives in anyone so young. “A child,” the Baron said aloud, forcing a calm voice and failing. “You fed an unknown occult object to a child. Why’d you think that was a good idea?”
Barilla was fierce, ready to snap at criticism. “He’s seventeen, he’s a man—”
The Baron raised his voice to match. “Did he decide to swallow it? Did you make him?”
“I asked him!” Barilla shouted. “He chose—”
“Are you blaming your son?”
“Fuck you!”
“Was he informed? Is he a cultist?”
“I told him everything I knew.”
“You don’t know anything!”
“I don’t have to, prick! I knew enough!”
“Tell me what the Cat does!”
“It makes you tougher. Makes you stronger.”
“Fuck!” The Baron waved his arm in one swift arc, dismissing the entire thing. “We have to go now. If we don’t cut the Cat out of your son, he’ll be the primary target.”
“Target?” Barilla was exasperated. “You want to cut him open?”
“People are looking for you—for the Cat. Once they figure out that you don’t have it, they’ll be all over your home, your businesses, your family. They’ll tear everything apart.”
“You can’t cut my son open!”
The Baron was thinking quickly. He had to get Barilla on his side long enough to reach the kid and cut out the Cat—where? They’d need a doctor. “We can heal him with prestige, we just need enough. Our client—the original owner of the Cat—he’ll have enough.”
“You can heal people? Like layin’ on hands?”
“Something like that.”
There was a loud pop outside the building, like someone setting off a firecracker in the street. A common twitch, shoulders tensing and heads lowered—except for the Zombie, who grinned broadly. That was the sound of modern violence, defined and redefined by television and movies. It was a manifest threat, and a sign that the Baron and the Zombie were too late to easily extract Barilla. Gunfire signaled that enemy mercenaries were already here.
“Who’s shooting?” Barilla shouted at Martin, as if his guard would know.
“It’s Schuler,” the Baron suggested, “the priest you saw outside.” The Diviner had talked about keeping people safe; if someone waved a gun at him, he’d fight on principle.
The Zombie was irrepressibly happy. “Or that’s someone Schuler just hurt. Either way, we’ve got the Diviner on our side.”
“For now,” the Baron said sharply. “We can’t trust him.”
Tires screeched on the pavement. The noise was followed by a fusillade of firepower, fired not at the building but away from it.
Phyllis threw open the door to the hall. “Barilla!” she roared at her boss. “Make calls! Get someone on the line. Get men! Get armed men!”
“Phyllis?” he asked, dazed by the sudden shift.
“Get on the phone!” she demanded.
Barilla ran for the door, everyone else trailing behind. Just inside the door, Barilla’s street gang could be seen lying flat on the carpet, minimizing the chance of intercepting a stray shot. Phyllis put a hand out to stop the Baron and pushed him back out into the hall. She stopped in front of the Zombie but deliberately avoided touching him. “A word.”
“Yes?” the Baron asked.
“I heard your shouting. What do you need?”
The Baron didn’t have time to consider or reconsider who could be trusted and who’d make a good ally. They were probably seconds away from being sieged. He went with the bare minimum. “Barilla’s son. We’ll need him next.”
“Why?” she asked.
“We’ll talk if we survive.”
She squeezed her lips tight, making her subtle wrinkles stand out around the edges of her mouth. She exuded authority, but the Baron and Zombie weren’t followers. She’d have to forgo control of the situation or be left out. “I’ll survive,” she said. “I’ll hold you to your word.”
Barilla was shouting into the handset. “Send everyone! Tommies, dynamite, rifles—whatever you’ve got. I don’t know… no, I don’t fucking know. Just hurry!” He slammed the phone on the receiver. “Jesus, like twenty questions… of all the goddamn times.”
Phyllis entered the room. “Make another call.”
“Who? I don’t know that many numbers.”
She paused. The Baron thought that the right answer would’ve been Tammany Hall, but Phyllis couldn’t risk bringing New York into this situation. They’d persecute her as an Artemisian. “The police,” she said lamely, realizing there were no other good options.
Barilla furrowed his brow. “I just called in the boys. I ain’t calling the heat on ‘em.”
The Baron and the Zombie were still standing at the door. “Is there a back entrance?” the Baron asked.
“What? Why?” Barilla asked.
“Listen!” the Zombie commanded.
Everyone paused, listening.
The Zombie pointed down the hall, towards the front of the building and the rising sounds of gunfire. Schuler wasn’t in a fight with only a few weapons; multiple automatic firearms clattered and banged like typewriters, straining to write the final bloody sentences of Schuler’s story. A moment later, a sextet of bullets struck the outer brick wall with low cracks, like someone breaking thick curls of dried mud under heavy boots.
“Point taken,” Barilla muttered, wiping his mouth with a sweaty hand. “There’re six entrances. Only the front door is open.”
“Padlocked the rest?” the Baron asked.
“Yeah, with chains.”
“They’ll have enough prestige to unlock them. There’s multiple men fighting Schuler—”
“A small platoon,” the Zombie judged.
“—so I’d say they’ll have most of the doors covered.”
“What the hell do we do then?” Barilla asked.
The Baron took a deep breath. There were two options. Stay, defend this office, and hope that the enemy wasn’t willing to bring down the structure with ordinance or prestige. The other was to find a weak point in the enemy perimeter, probably on the opposite side from Schuler’s pitched battle. He preferred that one, but it only worked if they moved fast. “We’re surrounded,” he announced, “but we still have the element of surprise.”
“They know you’re here. If your bodyguard drives you, they know he’s here, but they don’t know if we’re here yet, and they definitely don’t know about Phyllis or your street gang.” The Baron looked over the crowd. “This building is too easy to search. It’s line rooms and tables, nowhere to hide the kids. We need to pick a way out and move, now.”
“Nobody goes towards the front entrance,” the Zombie said. “Nobody but me.”
The Baron continued issuing orders: “Just stick close. The enemy will spread out, try to enter the building. Let’s head for one of the doors on the far side. Make a break for it.”
Phyllis squared her shoulders. “Baron, with all respect, that won’t work. If they want to surround us, they can just park at the corners and sit with rifles. We’ll have to wait for the Anastasia boys. They can break us out.”
The Baron grimaced. Of course, the other natural leader in the room had adopted the alternative strategy without hesitation, and they didn’t have time for an extended argument. “How about a compromise? Once we reach a door, we scout the situation. The Zombie clears the space ahead of us, and we go where he goes. Even through a wall.”
“As long as we’re careful, I’d consider it,” Phyllis said.
“Sounds stupid,” whispered the young man with the missing fingers.
Barilla scowled. “Yeah, you want us running across open rooms.”
The Baron cast his hands outwards at the office around them, a flimsy, wooden structure. “I don’t like the alternative. These men have prestige, a great deal of it. They could bring these walls down on our heads, start fires, disorient and disarm.”
Phyllis’s brows raised about as high as they could go. “That much?”
“They silenced two gunfights this morning alone,” the Zombie said.
Phyllis’s eyes went wide. “Who are we facing?”
“I don’t know,” the Baron said, a half-truth. He knew the enemy cult and their motivations, but not the specific source of the men or their weapons. The Soviets couldn’t just summon an army from thin air. Was this a true mercenary force, or some kind of genuine fifth column that’d been hiding inside New York territory? Either way, it was a frightening amount of power to wield on American soil. Wars had been started over less.
Phyllis faced her boss with a grim glare. “Sir, we should go.”
As Phyllis spoke, the dreadful shadow of belief eclipsed Barrila’s face. A lowered brow darkened his small eyes. “Fine, fuck me for staying in cover.”
“They really can collapse the ceiling,” Phyllis added.
Barilla raised a hand in frustrated surrender. “I know, I know. Jesus, fuck.” His eyes darted around, meeting the looks of his miserable crew—practically a band of child soldiers. “Listen to the man, boys. We’re going.” A deep breath. “Shit.”
“All right!” The Baron clapped his hands together once, calling the room to attention. Boys were already rising at the conversation, but they jumped to their feet like they’d heard a drill instructor. “Here’s the brief. Behind the offices is the waterfront. Nowhere to run, open terrain. On the other side, in front of the building, it’s a war zone. We’ll take a side exit.”
Even now, there were sounds of gunfire coming from out front, though at a much lower frequency. People had metaphorically dug into positions, taking cover. Schuler was still clearly alive, likely holding a gun himself, given the back and forth barks of smokeless powder. The Baron didn’t know how long that stability would last. Once Schuler found an opportunity—or once the enemy decided to press Schuler’s position—their fighting would reach a crescendo, and given what he’d seen of Diviner combat over the centuries, this would almost certainly entail a tremendous amount of property destruction.
In truth, this escape would only be possible because Schuler was drawing a great deal of enemy attention towards himself. The Baron made a mental note to thank him later, assuming they made it out of here alive and without capture.
“I know the way,” Barilla said, gesturing towards the wall with the door in it. “Fully across the building, near the back corner. We used to take shipments there.”
The Baron nodded. “Any cover along that side? Dumpsters, barricades?”
“There’s a Dempster,” Barilla said.
The Baron recognized the brandname—a small truck-loaded dumpster. “Good. There’s a fair chance they’ll have some forces on all sides, so we’re going to cross the factory along the waterfront side, close to the outer wall itself. That gives them the worst firing angles through any windows. Any complaints?”
Phyllis sighed. “No complaints, but there’s not much complexity here, Baron. It’s four workfloors in a square grid. If anyone gets inside, it’s a shooting gallery, and we only have one revolver and some zip-guns.”
The Baron understood. “We’ll have the Zombie scout the area first. Barilla, what’s the door like at the exit?”
“It’s a fold-up garage door. We used it to move machines before the war.”
The Baron feared it’d be something like that. “It’s the kind of thing the enemy might open before we even get there. Zombie, move quickly, draw attention. Fake an injury if you get shot, and make them question your identity. You can clear the path once we know where we’re going.”
The Zombie laughed under his breath, grinning. “This will be fun.”
The Baron quickly pointed to each of the kids in turn. “Once we’re moving, you’ll fall in behind Phyllis and in front of Barilla. Martin and I will follow the Zombie directly.”
“What’s happening?” asked the youngest member of the street gang, a boy who’d only begun to grow a dirt lip mustache.
“Bunch of goons are trying to swipe the boss,” said the boy missing fingers.
“We going to rumble?”
“No man, we’re cutting it. We tussle? That’s the end.”
The Baron clapped again. “We’re out of time. Zombie, make it fast.”
The Zombie gave the Baron a smart salute, opened the door to the office, and looked in both directions along the little hall. Then he slipped out, vanishing for a couple minutes.
About a minute into the wait, Barilla said, “Where is he?”
The Baron scowled. “He’s scouting. He’ll be back.”
Another thirty seconds passed. Barilla started speaking: “How long—”
“Boss,” Phyllis interrupted.
“What?”
“He’s invincible, and he always comes for the Baron. Just wait.”
Barilla turned away, frustrated.
Thank you, the Baron mouthed to Phyllis. She cast him a discreet thumbs up.
A sudden knock at the door. Everyone twitched, and then the Zombie’s voice came through, soft and low, “I’m back.”
“Come in,” the Baron said.
The Zombie slipped inside. “That far garage door? It’s open.”
“Shit,” Barilla whispered.
“Did someone come inside?” the Baron asked.
“Yeah, I’m guessing they’re in the back room on the other side of the building. For now, they’re still grouping up. Nobody has breached any of the other rooms.”
“You checked?”
“Yeah. I scouted the other quarters. The front of the building is clear, though Martin left the front propped open, so I shut it quietly.”
“You locked it?” Martin asked.
The Zombie nodded curtly. “Chain and padlock. Baron, we can circle around the middle, then cross over to the far corner. There’s another shutter door there, facing the same alley. I think we can sneak out without a gunfight. We just have to crawl under the front windows.”
Passing by windows was a frightening notion. “Nobody shot at you?” the Baron asked.
“Nothing. No motion, but I know why you’re worried. Do you want to risk it?”
“We have to,” the Baron said. “We can’t stay here. Lead the way.”
“Can do.”
The Zombie waved them out into the hallway, heading towards the exit at the back of the hall, closest to the waterfront. Martin came up behind him, close and low, treating the Zombie like a shield. The Baron followed, and Phyllis squeezed into the space next to him. Behind them stalked the kids—the young man with the missing fingers first in line—and Barilla was standing at the back with a small revolver, watching the front end of the hall.
“Where we going?” whispered a kid. Someone put a hand on his mouth, and Phyllis gave him a look as fierce as a slap. He shut his trap too tight to apologize.
The Baron breathed out, squeezing his diaphragm to squelch frustration. Children. They’d reviewed the plan only minutes ago, but this one clearly hadn’t listened. He admired school teachers for handling impulsive and inattentive children across an entire career.
The Zombie paused at the swinging doors at the end of the hall, kneeled quietly, and looked underneath. Then he rose and pushed through, peeking out as if his body were at risk. When nothing happened, he stalked forward into the empty factory floor, glancing around furtively.
The windows here were nailed over with pressed boards, ill-fitting. Sunlight leaked in around the edges, casting everything in a sad gloom. There was no other sign of ventilation, and no suggestion that the windows could be opened. It must’ve been miserably hot when the room was full of sewing machines and underpaid workers. Even now it stank a little like sweat and tanned leather.
The Zombie stopped in the middle of the space, visibly relaxing. It must be clear, with all doors accounted for and closed. He waved the group forward.
Martin caught up with the Zombie first; the Baron and the rest followed in his steps. Barilla slowed the hall door while it swung shut, keeping the hinges from squeaking. They stalked through the dim factory floor, listening to both primary sounds and their soft echoes bouncing off broad walls. It was a crowd of shuffling footsteps; a mob of heavy breathing; a funeral parade, complete with distant twenty-one gun salutes. Schuler was still fighting. The percussion of racing hearts overlaid everything.
The invincible man walked along the inner brick wall, listening carefully until he reached the inside corner of the factory floor. He stopped in front of a pair of swinging doors close to the inside of the building—the kind that a materials cart could push aside—and he peered through the central gap with an eye. A thumbs up, all clear.
The Baron silently signalled for him to proceed.
The Zombie pushed the doors open as if he were afraid of making a sound, squinting towards distant, clear windows. The Baron could see sunlight, reflecting in a long streak across the coated concrete, interrupted by some strips of black anti-slip tape. There was a flicker of motion somewhere outside; a figure in black was running away from the building, ducking out of view behind a distant, parked vehicle. A moment later, there was a clear pop of rifle fire out there. Schuler was still drawing attention away from the front.
The Zombie hesitated, moving his head from side to side to check the firing angles that faced into the factory’s windows. Then he turned and waved everyone to follow.
The Baron and Phyllis entered the empty room first, hugging close to the right wall; the kids came after. Martin rushed in next, and finally Barilla, shuddering as if every step was already pushing his limits. He was openly afraid, and that wasn’t helping his street gang. When they looked at their boss, wide eyes sought hope or strength and found little of either.
The Zombie checked the closest swinging doors along the right wall, aiming to minimize the time they spent passing through this room. Schuler’s fighting was beginning to lull. People were dying, or they were backing off. He waved to the Baron, whispering. “See the windows?”
The Baron stepped into place beside the door, peering through the gap and trying to scout the angles. There were two windows facing the front street, both on a strip of wall near the front door. One of them had a panel knocked out; glittering shards traced an impact angle across the concrete. The other half of the factory quadrant laid in a deeper gloom. Unless you were up against a window, you couldn’t see into the corner.
Another fold-up garage door was on the outside wall there, facing the same alley. Still closed. “You’re right.” He stepped back. “You first. I’ll move everyone afterwards.”
The Zombie nodded, pushed the doors open very slowly, and slid through sideways, dropping low along the inside wall of the floor. The Baron leaned into the door to keep it from swinging shut, and watched the Zombie’s progress with a single eye.
The Zombie crawled forward, peering constantly into the sunlight streaming from the windows. He paused at one point, held up two fingers back to the Baron, then subtly mimed a steering wheel. After that, he kept moving until he was in position. The pops of bullets were getting distant now.
The Baron turned back towards Phyllis, who was just behind him. “At least two cars,” he whispered to her.
“Eight people?”
“Minimum. Gunfire suggests more.”
The Zombie stopped against the front wall, effectively in cover. From there, he could crawl under the windows as necessary. He waved, signalling the Baron to follow.
The Baron pulled the swinging door fully open, using himself as a stop. “On the count of three,” he whispered to the crowd behind him, “everyone crosses the room along the left wall, heading for the front. Quiet and quick. Barilla and I will bring up the rear.”
The Zombie was standing in the middle of the shadowed region, keeping watch over all the other doors to the room. Another thumbs-up. This was the time.
The Baron counted with his fingers. “Three. Two. One. Go.”
Martin ran out, half-crouched, and went fast along the left wall. Phyllis went second, wearing work boots and wool pants, not women’s shoes and a dress. She might’ve been a factory worker before she took over Barilla’s occult enterprise. She was in shape regardless, and simply ran, catching up to Martin. The street gang came out behind her in a rough band, huddled down and moving but not as quickly as they could. There was a bit of hesitation, as if they were afraid of stepping on each other’s heels. For a long moment, no reactions from outside, or from any other doors. Barilla paused beside the Baron.
“Do you think—”
Then crack of a rifle, thunderously loud, instantly followed by the glassy crinkling of a window panel, already shattered, now spilling out onto the floor. The Baron flinched, but his immediate reaction was regret. It was an ambush after all. The kids were half-crouched, pausing, unsure if they should hit the ground, looking to see if anyone was hurt.
“Run!” the Baron roared. Barilla was still beside him. He grabbed the old gangster by the lapel of his expensive suit, yanked hard enough to rip a button off the jacket and threw him forward, then charged after him right into the mass of kids. The shout seemed to set them moving; the next two shots taken made them sprint. Someone was already screaming. The Baron nearly tripped over the gangster with missing fingers. He was grabbing his side below the ribs. The stubs of his knuckles were drenched in pulsing gushes of dark blood.
There was no time to stop. If anyone fell, the Zombie could retrieve them.
Barilla practically rammed into the younger kids as they stumbled into the safety of the brick wall, rushing for an angle that got them away from the windows. Two of them tripped up and fell, hitting the concrete floor with heavy thuds. The Baron himself had too much momentum to stop; he leaped over a fallen street gangster before Martin arrested his motion, already coming back to help the fallen. Barilla and him grabbed one of the two stumbling boys, maybe fifteen, and together, they yanked him by the arms into safety. The other one kicked forward until he was up and running again, joining the rest along the wall just behind the locked front door.
“Stubs!” one of the boys cried out.
The Baron looked back. Stubs wasn’t standing, but he was still on his knees in a long, yellow band of sunlight, clasping his belly with two hands and gasping, failing to breathe. More heavy pulses of blood over his hands. The shot had knocked the air out of him.
Before anyone could bark another order, the Zombie vaulted a production line and openly sprinted across the factory floor towards Stubs. A fourth round came through the windows, catching the invincible man in the flank with a burst of wool, fluttering his open jacket. The Zombie barely noticed. In one fluid motion, he grabbed Stubs under the legs and back, swept him up, and hauled him bodily to safety across open ground, shielding the kid with his own back turned to the windows.
A fifth and final shot shattered across the Zombie’s spine; the Baron could see fragments of a smashed bullet flying up like the contents of a party popper, surreally metallic in the last slice of sunlight before the Zombie ran their casualty to the destination.
Phyllis grabbed the Baron’s sleeve. “Sniper?” she hissed.
“Hunting rifle,” the Baron guessed.
“Crawl!” the Zombie rasped, a half-whisper and a half-yell, a single strained cry. He knelt to gently set Stubs down against the outer wall. The young man gasped in his first full breath, squeaking with growing agony.
Phyllis followed instructions, quickly ducking beneath the front windows while carefully avoiding any of the patches of shattered glass. The rest of the street gang followed her lead, and Martin and Barilla trailed right after them, passing in cover. The Baron brought up the rear, grimacing at the rising sounds of human suffering.
Once they were clear of the windows, Martin and Barilla both ran over to Stubs in the corner, reaching tentatively towards him with their hands. What could they even do?
The Zombie came back to meet the Baron, pulling off his cheap bowler and handing it over. The Baron took it without question, nodding. The Zombie was about to smash something or scream, probably both.
The invincible man stopped in front of the damaged window, staring through the remaining panes in the direction of the sniper that’d shot Stubs.
Shouts filtered in from somewhere outside: “It’s Zed! Zed! Hold your fire!”
The Zombie took a deep breath, and he hollered at a volume that would’ve harmed a man, unleashing a feral bellow that could only erupt from invincible lungs and an unbreakable larynx. Still screaming, he threw his head forward into the multi-pane window, headbutting the crossbar, shattering another two panes and knocking out the bottom half of the window in a crash of shards and metal. Glass scattered off his head and clothes like water, and he leaned out the collapsing window as his roar became words, “Fuck off or die motherfuckers!” While he yelled, he pounded on the sides of the windowsill with his fists, knocking off chunks of metal with loud pangs, an inhuman display of violent intent.
Then he fell silent, waiting for an answer. He didn’t even take a followup breath. He froze and waited, half-leaning out the window with a furious stare. No response came. Wind blew, traffic rumbled, and Stubs whimpered.
Everyone inside the factory had flinched except for the Baron himself. He knew that fury well. Someone had shot at them and hit an adolescent, and the Zombie couldn’t leave the room to retaliate. For the next few minutes, until things inevitably changed, they were effectively trapped, and the Zombie’s presence was the only clear shield against a full assault. He might be the only reason they weren’t already dead on the cold factory floor.
The silence around them was itself a terrible new truth. If Schuler was still fighting out there, there was no further sign of it. The Diviner had disappeared, or at least gone to ground for a moment, leaving them all alone in the false peace of hesitation. The Baron didn’t trust that it would last. Someone had already taken a shot at them. They’d try again soon.
It was a gut feeling. After the fighting at the Belmont-Sutter Homes, the Baron knew there was something strange about these mercs, likely hired and armed by Bolshevik factionalists. In the moment that one killer shot another, horror had seeded itself in the Baron’s heart, only now bearing its bitter fruit. In spite of the Pact, these men fought like they wanted to die, and what threat could the Zombie muster against a principled murder-suicide?
Absolutely none. Any zealot was a critical threat.
Author’s Note:
Lives are on the line. Youth is cut short.
As always, thank you to the beta readers for helping with this chapter!
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