The Halls of Hades

The Blackhawk thundered low under the looming clouds; vibrating and buffeting in the strong winds as we raced downriver towards the G-cans.

“Everyone hear me okay?” Kenta said in English, his voice filtering through the earpiece he’d lent me.

“Well it’s no Peltor but it’ll do,” I replied. He looked around, our small team, Mizuki included, giving thumbs-up. “Okay, everyone. This is Peter and Dan from NAIC, our sister agency in America. Gentlemen, this here is Haruto, formerly of SFGp, and this is Aoi, formerly of the Minamoto mage clan. You all know Takamodo Mizuki and myself already.” We nodded.

“We’re scrambling, the Americans are scrambling, nobody’s gonna get there before we do–” he looked out the door’s window as we passed by an ancient castle, the chopper banking to follow the right branch of the river. “–and we’re almost there ourselves, so…” he sucked a deep lungful of air and released it again. “Haruto and Aoi, you’re together, Peter, you’re with me, Dan, with Takamodo. Sound good?” We nodded. “Peter and I on point.”

“Wait,” Takamodo said, lifting her gaze from the floor, eyes narrowing on Dan. “With the old guy?”

“No wonder you and Peter get along so well,” Dan grumbled.

“You’re leaving me behind!”

“… Takamodo, you’re a bit shaky,” Kenta said. “I boosted you as much as I could and you’re still running on empty.”

“This is my fight, dammit!” she said, eyes blazing as she slammed her fist into her knee. Of the composed, haughty beauty I’d known this morning there was no sign; the soaking wet wildcat had claimed all. “I’m coming and that’s final!”

“And so are we,” the pilot’s voice came over our earpieces. I wasn’t surprised to hear him on our net; NAIC did it too given our insert birds often doubled as our air support. The unit was tiny because tiny was discreet and discretion was the better part of popping monsters and renegade mages; there were contingencies in case we stumbled into a Big Problem, but Big problems were supposed to take time to develop… and things here were happening very fast.

As if on cue the Blackhawk’s engine pitch changed; tail dipping as the pilot flared for landing. The machine settled and we threw the doors wide, pouring out each side and keeping our heads low to stay clear of the blades. We’d barely cleared the disc when the pilot laid on power and the Blackhawk thundered forward; skids sliding over wet grass as he performed a running take-off to get airborne quicker; thundering away south towards Tokyo – to pick up reinforcements, I hoped.

We’d landed in large open sports field of some sort. Kenta led us towards a nondescript little building with a sloping roof towards one end – the door smashed open by some terrible force, torn off its hinges and lying a few meters away. Within stairs spiraled down a small shaft into the darkness – and from below, distorted and twisted together by countless rebounds on their way up, came the roars. Heedless of them we rushed headlong into the dark.

* * *

The “storage tank” was a cavern; unbelievably vast – and with most of the lights destroyed, its unlit recesses seemed even vaster.

Daylight filtered down a titanic silo behind us, rising high up to the surface and plunging deep past the cavern’s floor. The stairs fed out onto a catwalk that Kenta and I trod on gently but swiftly – not that it mattered, given the deafening roaring that bound and rebound away between the giant oblong pillars until they dissipated past us up the shaft. We took the stairs down to the cavern’s floor; a few inches of water shimmering in what weak fluorescent light and sunlight filtering down the shaft remained; our shadows cutting across dark ripples till they merged with the void beyond.

The roaring waned; tapering off to a murmur.

I heard the gentle swish of shoes in water cease behind me. Kenta shared a glance with me and we split apart, each taking a knee behind one of the oblong pillars. I drew my short launcher, removed the HEDP shell and swapped it for one of the few flare rounds I had. Wincing at the click of the hammer cocking as I closed the lever-action, I guesstimated where the ceiling was – some twenty-five meters up and, if the sports field above was built over it, at least hundred meters distant – and fired.

Toomp! It whistled downrange; lower-pitched than normal; the short little barrel didn’t impart much velocity.

Fwhssssshhh as deep in the “temple” the red flare blazed alight under its parachute. Rubescent luminescence spread through the shallow water and unbidden I remembered the shapeshifter’s blood as it seeped from his body and polluted the temple’s holy spring – and as if answering me I saw the Gator God, almost dead-center beneath the flare; the real foe that’d hidden in the shifter’s body; the source of all evil.

I lifted my rifle; red dot’s reticule merging with the flare’s shifting ruddy light as I planted the lower dot on target, then added a little more for the range, and took up the trigger slack… and that’s about when the darkness exploded with muzzle flashes.

I shrunk behind the concrete as bullets whizzed and skipped all around; water thrashing behind us as the others dove for similar cover. In the weak light I could just make out Kenta’s face well enough to read his thoughts like a book – range was long, we were outgunned, and there was fuck all for cover.

“You game?” I asked.

He grinned. “If you push first!”

“Sure thing, pussy.” We leaned out together and started sending rounds downrange. I counted my shots carefully; pinning muzzle flashes under the second dot and lofting them downrange, eight, nine, ten – the dreadful shudder of the recoil spring as the bolt locked back and stayed there. “MOVING!” I shouted and bolted forward, low and fast as rounds and ricochets hissed and whined around me. I skidded through water behind the next pillar and reloaded. “COVERING!” The sharp cracks of Kenta’s MP-7 ceased as he charged, 600 grain rounds whooming downrange like flying beer cans as I suppressed, the ten-round magazine going far too fast. From behind came the pop-pop-pop of pistols, the SPRD’s nine millimeters and the distinctive sharp echoing CRACK! of Dan’s 10mm. Awful long shot even in full daylight but bullets are addressed “to whom it may concern” and with so much concrete to ricochet off of they were at least adding some ambiance to our assailant’s experience. Kenta’s gun buzzed again and I bounded.

Second verse, same as the first, a whole lot louder and a whole lot worse.

Light and shadow shifted as the flare floated down on its ‘chute; and now we were evenly matched; us backlit by the vertical shaft behind; they looming silhouettes against the ruddy light. I flipped the magnifier out of my way, no longer useful as we approached fifty meters difference. Slamming a fresh mag home I shouted “COVERING” off one side of the pillar before sliding up the length of it to the far corner and shooting around that as bullets chewed at where I’d been; the angles widening as we closed. Kenta moved like a memory; an afterimage of shadow – and then he was skidding through water, throwing up a bow wave as he went down hard short of the next pillar.

I stepped out from cover, rifle thumping my shoulder as I hurled 600 grains at one silhouette, then snapped to another, then another, fast-walking as lead mundane and magical split the air all ‘round me, drawing fire off him long as I dared. The bolt locked empty and I released it, Colt clearing leather before the rifle bounced off my plates, flat solid bark of .45 Awful Capacity Pistol matching the firm push of recoil. Hunching over, gun-hand out afore and off-hand back behind for balance like a fencer, I reached Kenta–

–something lanced through my thigh on the outside and I went down, falling almost on top of Kenta. I pushed myself over him as the spent mag splashed below and the fresh locked home; slide dropping with a satisfying clack I felt much as heard, and then I pushed, trying to slide us to cover but my boots simply slid on wet concrete as geysers of water marched towards us, someone with discipline firing rapid semi-auto. The flare was settling into the water now; drowning radiance at floor level with me, lingering in every droplet of water as they flew upwards; blood spraying through the dark. Something small and solid thumped against my knee hard enough to bruise as I pinned the shooter under the tiny GI-profile sights; front blade appearing from the void as a muzzle flash backlit it.

He vanished beneath the .45’s bright blast and a fist smashed into my chest, pitching me back. The cacophony of echoing muzzle reports and singing lead hazed, shock spreading through me like ice, but in the enclosed cavern the thunderous report of Mizuki’s lighting was unmistakable. I felt the blast of air as something hurtled past; seeming to ride the blastwave of sound itself, and then I was breaking a bow wave as someone hauled on my carrier’s grab-handle.

“Where are you hit? Where!?” Kenta was shouting at me, ignoring the chaos of confused replies babbling into our earpieces. I tapped my leg and he dove into my IFAK, getting the CAT-T over my boot and around my upper thigh in a jiff. I winced as he wound the windlass tight, dropping the 1911’s slide on a fresh mag. “Dan I hope you and that hand cannon are covering right…”

Silence had fallen on the cavern.

“They’re ducking, got no targets,” Dan said.

“GENTLEMEN!” a strong voice echoed from the far end of the cavern. “Why don’t we call this off before it gets unpleasant?”

“That you, Reji?”

“So polite of you to stick to English, Kenta!” the strong baritone boomed back, seeming to fill the vast cavern as it echoed away towards the silo. “Wouldn’t want your new friends to miss all the drama, right?”

“You can surrender now and maybe skate out of this with your ass intact, you can die trying to push through us, or you can manage to get through just in time to meet a lot of very aggressive young men with Howa 89s and permission to shoot any fat fucks named Reji Kurogane that stick their head into the sunshine where they don’t belong,” Kenta bellowed. “Choose wisely.”

His voice echoed into the dark, and then – silence.

I reloaded my rifle and dropped the slide. “You hit?” I asked Kenta.

“Vest caught it.”

“Must be nice.”

“Here’s my idea,” Kurogane’s voice came back – measured, assured. “You walk away, and I won’t kill the girl.”