Black Box Inc. Read online

  We were almost on the marauders, and I gripped the seat, my fingers digging into the thick leather upholstery. I was gonna leave some marks. Teresa may not be billing us for her screwup with Aspen’s Do No Harm contract, but I knew her. She’d bill us for marks on the leather.

  I felt the limo lurch, then lower as Lassa pushed the accelerator to the floor. My body was pressed back into the seat, and my eyes widened as we came at the waiting marauders at a speed that didn’t seem possible for the size of the limo.

  Harper opened fire with the belt guns at the very instant that the front of the limo collided with the marauders. I winced at how loud the guns were. I wished I still had the law firm’s earplugs in. Those had dissolved as soon as we’d left the premises. No need for them with only Teresa around. She knew how to keep her voice down.

  There was blood everywhere. The windshield was coated, and Lassa turned on the wipers, smearing lines of gore across the magically reinforced glass until hexes finally kicked in and the gore dissolved away. On either side of the limo, the marauders that had stayed crouching were ripped apart by heavy-caliber bullets. Harper nailed each and every one of those suckers. They popped like balloons. Nasty, blood-and-guts-filled balloons.

  Then the mayhem was over. Harper stopped shooting. There was so much gore that Lassa ran the windshield wipers, squirting the glass with a bubbly green liquid, again and again until the only evidence of the violence we’d gone through were the parts the wipers couldn’t reach. And if you turned your head just right, the gore looked more like mud and dirt than blood with fleshy and bony bits.

  And hair. There was some hair in there too.

  Then the hexes caught up, and the hair flashed away.

  “That’s not all this hell road is gonna throw at us, right?” I asked.

  “No,” everyone said at once.

  “Didn’t think so,” I responded. “I’ll keep my seat belt on.”

  “Excellent plan,” Teresa said. She turned to look out her window. “Nine o’clock. Riders. Eight of them.”

  I tried to lean forward so I could get a better look, but the seat belt held me in place no matter how much I struggled to take in the slack, then pull in that universal dance we all do with seat belt straps when they get too tight. No dice. I was secured where I was.

  “Riders?” Lassa asked. “What kind of riders?”

  “Plains wraiths,” Aspen said in the same tone as if he were saying, “Prairie dogs. Cute, little prairie dogs.”

  “Plains wraith doesn’t sound good,” Lassa said. “None of the wraith family sounds good, but plains wraiths sound really not good. Are they like in Lord of the Rings?”

  “Eventually the comparison always circles back to Tolkien,” Aspen said.

  “Nazgûl,” I said. “He’s talking about the Nazgûl.”

  “I know what he’s talking about,” Aspen snapped. “No one cares what they are called because all Tolkien did was write about things he saw when he stuck his head in a hole in the ground during WWI, a hole that was a chaos portal. He caught glimpses of a bunch of different races during the extradimensional Mardi Gras parade, then wrote it all down.”

  “So they do look like the things in Lord of the Rings?” Lassa asked. “I can’t look, I’m driving.”

  “Yes,” Aspen sighed. “That’s what they look like.”

  “Do they have really long scary-looking swords?” Lassa asked.

  “Yes, they have swords,” Aspen said. “Because, like I said, Tolkien isn’t the brilliant fantasist you think he was.”

  “I like Tolkien,” Teresa said. “He captured the spirit of so many marginalized races. I believe he could have done with some banshee representation in his works, but he came close with a couple of characters.”

  “Like banshees needed more exposure,” Aspen said. “You lot basically rule the spooky lexicon of the UK.”

  “As if faeries do not?” Teresa replied. “I believe the saying is the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “If you two will shut up, you can watch me make everything black,” Harper said. “Fire in the hole!”

  There was a loud roaring sound followed by several whooshes from the rear of the limo. Even though I couldn’t really see well, I did catch glimpses of streaks of fire racing away from our vehicle and out into the plains. I might have seen the riders, but I couldn’t be sure. The RPGs that Harper had launched were putting off a lot of flame and smoke.

  I did, however, see the resulting explosions as the rockets hit their targets.

  As the limo kept racing along the road, there was the sound of heavy impacts hitting the top of the limo. Then the windshield. The sky was raining body parts, humanoid and horse-like, while burning black rags floated lazily to the scorched earth.

  The hexes took care of the gunk and gore, but a crispy taloned hand became lodged in one of the windshield wipers no matter how many times Lassa ran them to shake it off.

  “Dammit, that’s gonna bug me,” Lassa said.

  “We need to pull over soon so I can reload the weapons anyway,” Harper said.

  “Do what now?” I exclaimed. “Pull over? Here?”

  “Like a pit stop in a NASCAR race,” Lassa said.

  “But with less guns than at a NASCAR race,” Harper said.

  Lassa started to laugh, then checked himself and growled instead.

  Harper grinned, but quickly turned her head to look out her window. I knew Harper well enough to know what that grin meant. She was laughing at his slip of congeniality. I got it. I knew where Lassa was coming from. It was hard to stay pissed off at Harper when we were in the fight. Too much like normal times.

  Lassa tried one more time with the windshield wipers, but the hand wasn’t going anywhere. Teresa needed her people to be more specific with the hexes and include solid body parts, not only gunk, gore, and hair.

  16

  “PULL OVER THERE,” Harper said, pointing at a gas station up ahead.

  There was a gas station on the side of the road. We’d already shot a bunch of marauders to shit and blown up eight plains riders that looked like Nazgûl while driving through a scorched wasteland. But, yeah, of course, there was a gas station. Why wouldn’t there be?

  When Lassa slowed the vehicle, Harper fiddled with something on the weapons system. “You gas up while I reload.”

  “I’m staying in the car,” Lassa said. “Keeping the engine running. In case.”

  “I know,” Harper said. “I was talking to Chase. You always stay in the car. I know how we play things, asshole.”

  I could see Lassa was going to lose it, and I leaned forward. “We sort shit out when we’re done with the job.”

  The two of them glanced back at me, both ready to argue, but they kept their mouths shut and nodded. Despite my reluctance, being de facto leader had some advantages. Like keeping them from bickering themselves into a homicidal rage.

  “Good,” I said, and the unease gripping me chilled out some. My guts were still roiling, but at least it looked like my team was going to stay a team until we got the job done.

  Lassa pulled over into the gas station, and there was the distinct sound of a bell ringing somewhere far off. Harper was out of her door and moving to the trunk before I’d even found the handle to my door.

  I stepped out and one nasty-looking creature came rolling out of an open garage door. I instantly started to form Dim rods.

  “He’s not a threat,” Harper said from the trunk. She peeked around. “Put those away and save your energy.”

  I banished the Dim rods as the whatever came toward me. The being had more arms than anything I had ever seen, and half of those arms held some tool or other. I nodded a quick greeting and moved to grab the gas nozzle.

  “Oi!” the being yelled. “No pumping your own gas! Can’t you
bloody read?”

  I looked at the pump and saw a handwritten sign in a language I couldn’t comprehend, let alone read. The letters, if they could be called letters, were all squiggles and swirling dots. The handwriting constantly moved this way and that.

  “I can read, but not that, pal,” I said, nodding at the sign. “You might want to add a few other languages.”

  “It’s written in all the languages, you pompous ass,” the being said, rolling closer. It stopped a yard from me and squinted its seventeen eyes. “Oh, right, you’re one of those humans. No wonder you can’t read what every other race, species, and being in all the dimensions can. You lot are a bunch of closed-minded wankers, is what you are.”

  A three-headed something snickered from a seat by the gas station’s front door. A bottle of soda was clutched in the creature’s clawed hand as it rested its huge butt across two old, rusty folding chairs. The three-headed creature looked like that bulldog from the Tom & Jerry cartoons: all shoulders and barrel chest with small, but muscular, legs. Not that the heads were doglike in any way. They had a goblin meets a troll meets a whole helluva lot of ugly look going on.

  “You tell ’em, Stan!” Left Head said.

  “Stupid hoooomans!” Right Head said.

  Middle Head only glared at me as it picked its nose with the tip of a tail that came out from under the chair and between its legs before taking a swig of its soda.

  I goddamn hoped that was a tail.

  “You gonna be able to pay for that?” the multilimbed gas station attendant asked. “You better have cash on ya, because we don’t take credit here.”

  “We’ll be able to pay, Stan,” Aspen said as he peeked out from the back of the limo. He glanced over at the three-headed thing and waved. “Kek’cha. How’s it hanging?”

  “Low and heavy,” Kek’cha’s Right Head replied.

  “Good to hear, my man,” Aspen said, then focused back on Stan, who was looking a little grim. “Are we good, Stan?”

  “Mr. Littlestick, sir, of course, sir,” Stan said. “On the house. No need to pay today.”

  “Nah, I couldn’t take advantage of you like that,” Aspen said. “Put the charge on Daphne’s tab, will ya?”

  “Not a problem, Mr. Littlestick,” Stan said. Then all of his eyes glanced up, and that grimness turned to pure fear.

  During their conversation, I’d been struggling to get off the armor that covered the gas cap. I was about to ask Stan for some assistance, when I noticed his sudden change in mood.

  “What?” I asked. “He’s simply a faerie like any other faerie. Forget about the Fae thing. No need to fear his scrawny ass.”

  “Uh, Chase, I don’t think he’s worried about Aspen,” Harper said as she finished reloading the belt guns and stepped back from the limo. Her face was turned up to the sky, and while she wasn’t exactly scared, she sure as shit didn’t look too happy about what she saw.

  “What?” I asked. I turned around and glanced up at the sky. “Goddammit.”

  “Lassa,” Harper said. “Gonna need you.”

  “Listen, you slimy traitor, you can load the rockets yourself,” Lassa said as he leaned across the passenger’s seat and glared out of the open car door at Harper. “You’re strong enough. I’m the driver on this trip.”

  “Lassa,” Harper said, her voice tight and urgent. “We have incoming. I count over a dozen.”

  “And that’s my problem why?”

  “Lassa!” I snapped. “Pull your angry head out of your hairy ass and look!”

  Lassa rolled his eyes at me and pushed back across to his door, then got out of the limo. He saw which way we were staring and turned.

  “Goddammit,” he snarled.

  “That’s what I said.” I held out my hand to Harper. “Give me a gun.”

  “No can do, buckaroo,” Aspen said, still inside the limo. “Daphne’s orders. No weapons for the help.”

  “Then Dim rods it is.”

  “Nope,” Harper said.

  “I made some like a second ago. You said for me to save my energy. I think now is a good time to expend some fucking energy.”

  “I lied. I was avoiding an argument. Daphne says no weapons for the defiler of dimensions.”

  “Oi! This guy is the defiler of dimensions. Didn’t know that. Might have had to rethink letting you lot refuel here,” Stan said.

  “Fuck off, Stan,” I snarled.

  “What is all this complaining about?” Teresa asked. She sort of floated out of the limo, looked at me, looked at Harper, then turned and looked at the sky. “This could put a wrinkle in our time line.”

  Aspen sighed and joined us.

  “Huh,” he said and began to search his pockets. “Unfortunate.”

  “I’m gonna echo Chase on this and ask for a gun as well,” Lassa said. “A big gun. Maybe one of those shotguns.”

  “No guns for the help,” Aspen said, still searching his pockets. “Now, where did I put my . . . ?”

  Teresa ducked back into the limo, then came out with a small wood case. She popped open the lid and extended the case to me. Earplugs.

  “I advise you put these in,” she said. “I plan to get loud.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Stan said as he watched us prep for what was coming. “Not sticking around for a banshee at full volume. No, sir.”

  He rolled his many-armed self back into the garage and shut the door.

  “Now, what you got there is a harpy problem,” Kek’cha’s Left Head said.

  “Dammit! Give me a fucking gun!” I shouted.

  “Do not do that, Harper,” Aspen said.

  “Wasn’t going to.”

  “Ah, here we go.” Aspen whipped out some sort of thin chain of gold from his pants pocket. The gold turned crimson and glowed bright for a half second, then returned to its original color. “No offense, Chase. Daphne’s orders. No guns for idiots. Wouldn’t want an accident to happen.”

  “Golly gee, asshole, why would I be offended?” I snapped.

  “You know what? I don’t need a gun,” Lassa said as he punched his right fist into the open palm of his left hand. He shot a look over his shoulder at Harper. “I feel like punching shit. Screw you and your weapons.”

  “Oh, you hurt me there,” Harper said and walked casually back to the trunk.

  She kicked the lid open, grabbed out one of the duffel bags, closed the lid, and set the duffel up on the trunk. Her eyes never left the sky as she unzipped the duffel and began to pull out various weapons, placing each on the limo in a nice, orderly line.

  Three rifles, four pump-action shotguns, a crossbow, and two very long, nasty-looking blades that were about the size of machetes, except the blades were curved. Kinda like mini scimitars. I’m sure they had a name. I’m also sure Harper knew not only the name of the blades, but who crafted them and where the materials were procured from.

  Then she pulled out her baby. The goblin sickle. Curved. Sharp. Terrifying. I almost expected her to pet the blade.

  Teresa tossed the earplug case to Lassa, and he casually put a hexed pair in his ears before absentmindedly tossing the case to Harper. They were on autopilot again, training kicking in and bad blood forgotten for the moment, as they kept their gaze on the incoming harpies.

  Harpies. Goddamn harpies.

  Disgusting creatures, and that’s saying a lot considering the freaky things I’ve seen.

  The body of a huge vulture with the head and face of a woman, they were more than off-putting. Ugly as sin, their faces were twisted by permanent sneers and their bodies were covered in pustules and crawling with blood-sucking mites. Most of their feathers were gone or in the process of falling off, leaving only enough so they could fly. Right at us.

  A dozen of the things were about a quarte
r mile off and coming in fast.

  They were a transdimensional species. They had no fixed home. From what I understood, they followed doomed beings around, taunting them, getting into their heads, until the beings committed suicide so the harpies could then feast on their corrupted corpses like the nasty, warped vultures that they were.

  Or, if they couldn’t get the beings to off themselves, they’d swoop in and take whatever food they had, over and over and over, until the poor, unfortunate beings starved to death.