"Let us be frank, at least. I do not condone the criminal elements of this city, but Victorian's Enforcement arm is not a protective service. It is an occupation force. It is a military division intent only on eradicating resistance to the regime, not protecting Imperial citizens." – Lord Damian Devalere, Political Moderate
Jack almost felt relief when they came. If nothing else, the tense anxiety of the wait was over. The feeling didn't last long. In the space of a moment it had been replaced by sickening, oily fear.
"They're coming!" Gurney exclaimed as he burst through the door into the dormitory. His voice was a warbling, high-pitched yelp, barely audible as a result of the terror constricting his throat. "It's a raid! They're coming!"
Stunned silence followed for a brief second. The living quarters exploded into a panicked flurry of activity. Jack swung his legs off his bunk and grabbed the loaded coach resting next to his bed. He grimaced slightly as his booted feet connected with the floor and sent a sharp sensation of pain up to his still tender thigh. "Raid!" Jack bellowed at the top of his voice as he strode out of the door and down the bunker hallways, dragging his uncooperative leg. He had no time for injuries. "Up and about, lads!"
Fist burst out of his quarters with a shotgun in hand and his suspenders hanging half off. The boss marched purposefully up the hall toward the stairs to the common room, taking up the cry. "Raid! Stir about, you lazy sons of whores! There are coppers outside who aim to rape your corpses! Raid, damn you all!"
Jack hobbled up the stairs as quickly as his leg would allow, and helped Black Jim flip over one of the heavy wooden tables as a barricade. Fist and the others followed suit, positioning themselves to fire towards the door. More gang members poured into the common room, squeezing in behind the toppled tables. Those who arrived last moved reluctantly forward to the cover closest to the door, and the space behind the bar was quickly filled. Jim's eyes were wide and frantic to Jack's left, but the big man held steady. Jack could hear Gurney whispering fervently to his right, clutching at a small, rusty totem of a seven-pointed star that hung around his neck.
It's too late for that, Jack thought sourly. Promises to deaf gods won't save us from our sins now.
"Jack!" Morgan slid in beside him. His face was earnest but slick with panicky sweat. A shaky hand held out Jack's specialty ammunition pouch.
Celestial Steel bullets, we might need those. Jack scooped the pouch up hurriedly but glared at Morgan. No, not Morgan, he shook his head. Dasher.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "Get to the back exit and slip out with the rest of the pickers!"
"The back exit is covered," Dasher panted. His voice was just shy of hysteria. "There are coppers swarming the back alley!"
"Then hide in the smuggling rooms," Jack commanded desperately. "Maybe they won't find..."
"Jack, they brought Primal enforcers too!" Dasher squealed, interrupting him. "There's one in the alley! I saw him!"
Black Jim turned wide terrified eyes on them. "Oh, sh–"
The common room door exploded into a flurry of wooden slivers.
A Primal leapt through the hole, carried on wings of hellish flame. His right hand was curled into a massive fist of glowing, red stone that faded into an armored hand. A wicked, spiked mace materialized in its grip. The Primal was like something from a nightmare. Flaring yellow eyes blazed out a of twisted devil's face, and great, sharp horns rose from either side of the evil head.
The common room erupted in gunfire, but bullets deflected harmlessly off of the black and red Celestial Steel plate armor covering the demon from neck to toe. Those few projectiles that connected with the face did little more but enrage the Primal. He swung his mace into the nearest barricade. It smashed into flying chunks, and the men behind it screamed and died.
True pandemonium ensued.
Jack, Fist, Black Jim, and a few others remained behind cover. The rest leapt from their barricades in a mass. All discipline was forgotten in the urgent need to escape the common room and the maniacal god of death.
The enforcers stormed through the breach from behind their living battering ram.
Gang members scrambling for the exit screamed and died as the coppers peppered the room with small arms fire. Jack lifted above cover long enough to unload both barrels of buckshot. Between his own fire and that of Fist and Jim, they managed to stop up the gap momentarily as the enforcers' momentum slowed on the dead and wounded filling up the entrance. The coppers forced through after an inconclusive moment, however, and they rushed through the room, answering the gang's fire with salvos of shotgun slugs and revolver rounds.
Jack huddled behind the thick table to reload his shotgun, wincing when several bullets smacked into the planks near his head. He broke over the coach breech and slipped in two thick, silvery slugs. Beside him, Black Jim peeked above cover and fired off three rounds from his revolver before jerking back, holding his throat and choking. He stumbled to a knee before another bullet took him in the eye.
Gurney suddenly screamed in terror, and Jack looked up to see the demon Primal bearing down on them. Jack's overstressed mind noted that the Primal wasn't running, but floating forward, propelled by the massive wings of fire. Jack dived on top of Dasher.
The Primal smashed into the table, tossing it across the room as if it were no more than a brittle twig. Jack scrambled up, grabbed Dasher and forced him toward the back stairs. Behind him, Gurney's scream cut off abruptly when the red god's mace descended on his head.
Dasher's churning legs faltered, and he shouted in agony, grasping at his back. Jack kept his grip on the lad's arm, ignoring the bullets whizzing by him, and thrust the boy down the stairs. The staircase was a mass of men scrambling to escape the certain death that had overtaken the common room. He hurried with the rest of them, keeping a tight hold on Dasher.
"Jack!" Fist was beside him, holding a hand to his side. Blood seeped through his thick fingers. "Over here!" The boss steered him and a few others into his private quarters.
They burst into the small room, and Jack helped Dasher lie down while Fist, Switch, and Duncan overturned tables, beds, and dressers for cover. The boy's face was ashen. Jack noted the bullet hole in his back and the exit wound in his stomach.
"Jack?" Dasher's voice was pained and weak. "I'm cold, Jack. Did we get away?" He shivered visibly. "Did we get away from that monster? He was so dark, Jack. Dark and red and cold. Even with the fire all about him."
"Hush, now," Jack said, laying a trembling hand on the lad's brow. A dim street flashed through his mind, a crumpled form lying beneath the cold light of star-islands. This can't be happening. Not again. "We're going to get out of here."
"Jack!" Fist grabbed his shoulder. His right hand held out a few silvery shotgun slugs. "I've got a small stockpile of Celestial Steel in here. It's not much, but it might be enough to stop one of those Primal bastards."
Jack waved him away. "Give it to Switch and Duncan. I made some of my own." He indicated his shotgun lying next to him.
"Come on then," Fist urged. "We've got the lad covered as best we can. All that can be done for him now is to hold this room."
Jack nodded reluctantly. He scooped up his shotgun and settled behind a dresser with Fist. Duncan and Switch crouched behind the overturned table. Jack pulled out his Bull Dog, opened the receiver, and let the cartridges fall to the floor. He methodically selected the Celestial Steel .44 rimfire cartridges from his pouch and inserted those instead.
Something thumped hard into the door outside, but it held. Several more blows followed, shivering the thick wood until the bar over the entry splintered and cracked.
The door crashed open.
Jack fired his Bull Dog simultaneously with his three companions, and the first enforcer to leap through the doorway collapsed in a heap, riddled with bullets and buckshot. The second fared no better.
Return shots answered, ripping through the breech and smacking into the walls, floor, and dresser. Fist grunted, blood oozing from two fresh punctures in his left shoulder. Jack's revolver was empty, and he grabbed up his shotgun, blasting another copper in the chest as the man tried to shoulder past the bodies of his comrades. A bullet winged Jack's arm as he ducked back down; he gritted his teeth at the sting.
Fist fired both barrels of his coach as the coppers attempted another entry, killing the leading man, but a round whizzed through the door and slammed into the boss's chest. He sagged back, bleeding profusely from four wounds. Duncan took a bullet in the temple, and he slumped over the table. Jack and Switch fired in a frenzy, forcing the coppers back again.
"Switch, cover me!" Jack shouted. "I'm reloading!" The pinch-faced man nodded and dropped his empty shotgun, pulling out a revolver.
Jack broke open his coach and Bull Dog desperately, inserting the casings as quickly as his fumbling fingers would allow. He glanced at Dasher and Fist. The boy's head was lolling to the side. Jack thought he might have passed out. Fist was barely conscious, struggling to breathe. Amazingly, he still groped at his shotgun, trying to reload.
"Jack?" The boss's voice was barely audible over the incessant discharge of firearms, but the big man leaned forward and grasped his arm. "You were right, Jack. All my fault. All of it...my fault." His eyes searched upward, but Jack was unsure if Fist could see him anymore. "I – just so tired, Jack. So tired of grubbing in the filth and the shit in the alleys of this damned city. I wanted something...Morgan killed by that steamblown Primal...wanted it to be worth something. Anything." The big man's words were fading; his eyes stopped flitting about. "Don't let them get you, Jack." A small smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Invincible...don't let...them–"
Fist's eyes stared ahead, and the empty shotgun dropped from his limp grip.
"Booker!" Switch's shout was hysterical. "They've stopped trying to force a way in, and they're barely firing anymore. Something is coming..."
Jack knew what was coming.
He spun back toward the door, centering his shotgun muzzle over the entry. It was barely visible behind the thick smoke.
The Primal burst through the gap.
Jack let loose with both barrels.
The devil roared with rage, but was stopped cold by the twin Celestial Steel slugs, which punctured his armor and spun him about. The demon's fiery wings flickered for the briefest of moments.
The Primal turned a baleful eye on him.
Jack swallowed. He might have wounded the god slightly, but it was more enraged than hurt. He could see his death in that yellow eye.
Another Primal slid through the door before the demon could pounce. In the brief moment it took for the newcomer to cross the room, Jack saw a black mask painted across a red breastplate.
An armored fist crashed down.