SOLUTIO
JELENA
The iron-lord was still grasping around the building, but Jelena didn't understand why. It didn't make any sense. It should have abandoned them for easier prey within minutes. Instead, it had stuck around for over an hour.
She kept hearing explosions outside, which just made it even stranger. If people were attacking the thing, it would return the favor. Unless everyone was focusing their fire on the blind-rammer, which was possible, but unlikely.
She needed to get out there. She had to figure out what was going on, and sitting here wouldn't help. She pulled off her daygoggles and started inching forward across the suddenly bright room.
“Jelena!” Pam hissed from behind her. “What are you doing?”
“I'm gonna see if I can help,” she called back. “Stay here with the others.”
“But you can't! You're—” She suddenly stopped talking. Jelena glanced back, confused.
Pam looked like she had tasted something horrible in her mouth—so about her default expression, only more so. She had been about to say something. Something important.
Well, if she thought it could wait, Jelena guessed she agreed. She turned back to the task at hand, absently scratching at her neck.
Her entire spine had been itching ever since the fey released her. Glasya had looked her over personally, and had assured her that nothing was wrong, so she supposed she got off light. A little bit of phantom pain was nothing compared to what Fevered Day could have done to her.
It was slow going, getting past the gargant, since she had to stop every few feet to wait for its thrashing hand to sweep past. Her hands and knees were bleeding by the time she reached the entrance, the shattered glass from the doors having cut deeply into her flesh. She glanced at the wounds briefly, then resolved to ignore them. They were clotted with concrete dust and the glass fragments were still embedded in some places, but she had enough buffs so that the pain was minimal and she didn't have to worry too much about bleeding out.
The iron-lord's hand lunged towards her, and she dove out of the way again, out the shattered front doors. She landed on more glass, scraping up her side and tearing her clothes.
Bloody night... she thought. She wasn't built for this. She was a secretary with a sharp ear, that was all. The closest thing to combat she had seen was that time her orphanage managed to score tickets to laser tag. She had been on the losing team.
But she had to do something. No one else was. Especially not the whore, Yolanda. Last Jelena had seen her, she had been huddled in Simon's embrace, trembling like a leaf. Maybe her queen would save her.
Jelena heard voices nearby. Not from inside the store, where the gargant was still rooting around, but from somewhere down the street. One of them, soft as down feathers, drifted through the clamor of injured and dying civilians.
“I told you we should have stayed on the roof.”
“No, Seena, it would have just climbed up and killed us, and we wouldn't have had anywhere to run.”
Adam and the others. They had found something, then. Some sort of weapon.
“Aim for the knees,” another, somewhat familiar voice suggested. It was... Steve? Simon's roommate? What was he doing here? “That'll do the trick.”
“I know killing,” Adam grunted. “I know what to do.”
“Frost and—God dammit, just hurry up. The blind-rammer looks like it's coming this way.”
The fourth voice sounded familiar as well, but Jelena couldn't place it. Male, definitely, but other than that she couldn't tell. “Frost and fire” was a Jotuun curse, so he was probably one of the Nifs.
The Nifs weren't supposed to be in the area, but it wasn't all that surprising. The cultures spied on each other as much as possible, both for defensive and offensive reasons. She was more interested in what Joel and Nathan, the local feuding warlords, would do when they found out. Would they leave them alone, or retaliate? Both canes had a reputation for being warmongers, but they had to know better than to piss off Niflheim.
That wasn't important now. Seena's group was talking again, though Jelena couldn't make out what they were saying. She crept towards the voices, trying to get a better look, maybe let them know she was there, but she winced at her wounds. Buffs or no, having little pebbles of glass embedded in your flesh, slicing through skin and muscle, etching bone was distracting.
Stop it, she told herself. That kind of thinking was hardly productive. Pushing the pain to the back of her mind, she turned the corner and found...
Steve and Kevin, Simon's roommates. And Seena, Veda, and Adam, of course. The green-haired baseline was nowhere to be found.
Jelena glanced around as she scrambled to her feet. “Where's the Nif?”
Adam turned to her, frowning. “You are...”
“Jelena, my roommate,” Veda said. “She was trapped with the others.” A look of apprehension crossed her face, and she cursed. “Fur and fang—it didn't destroy the building, did it?”
“No, it was still just trying to grab people last time I checked.” Jelena shifted on her feet and winced as her wounds were pulled.
Seena stepped forward and looked at her side. “You look like you ran through all nine hells. What happened?”
She started to shrug, but immediately stopped from the pain. “Had some trouble.”
Seena glanced back at the others. “You need to take down that gargant right away,” she said firmly. “It's not going to be distracted forever.”
“There's still the blind-rammer,” Kevin said. Jelena blinked when he spoke—she recognized his voice as the one she hadn't been able to identify from before. Why was he using Jotuun curses? He wasn't a giant.
It was probably just some stupid thing. Simon and Seena used demon curses because their orphan patron had been one, so maybe it was something like that. It really wasn't important right now, anyway.
“The rammer is secondary, right?” Jelena asked a little hesitantly. Everyone else just kind of looked at each other, which didn't help her anxiety.
“I've never seen one of those things,” Adam said. He hefted what looked like a missile launcher covered in tubes over his shoulder. “Monsters aren't quite my area of expertise...”
“I... think it's relatively safe,” Veda said haltingly. “I mean, it doesn't seem to be doing anything all that dangerous. It doesn't even have eyes.” She glanced at Steve.
He raised his hands in front of himself. “Hey, don't look at me, I'm a bike messenger. I don't know the first thing about monsters.”
“I think...” a voice like warm honey said from behind Jelena. “I think it might be looking for someone.”
Surprised, they turned to see Elizabeth Greene, of all people, leaning against the building dejectedly. She was wearing a long, flowing dark blue skirt and a short-sleeved white shift with a black corset over the top. The corset turned her already somewhat impressive bust into something truly marvelous. She also had a fake flower in her golden hair, behind her ear. It was the same deep, royal blue of Akane Akiyama's hair ribbon.
But while her outfit was still perfect, her entire stance and bearing spoke of someone who had taken on the world and lost. Her face lacked her usual smile, and her glittering golden eyes seemed on the verge of tears.
“Miss Greene,” Steve said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled, just the tiniest bit, but at least it meant she wasn't completely defeated. “Mister Gillespie... I need you to deliver another message for me, I think.”
Steve nodded, as Kevin and Jelena moved forward to catch the girl before she fell. “Of course, of course. Whatever you need.”
But Kevin frowned. “Wait, she said the blind-rammer was looking for someone. What—”
Seena punched him in the arm. “Let her talk. She'll get to it.”
Lizzy smiled again in his direction. “It's fine, I understand...” She shook her head. “I need to sit down. It's... been a long day.”
They guided her carefully to the ground, trying to ignore the sounds of gunfire nearby, and the still-roaring iron-lord. They didn't have much time, but they still had to be careful with her.
The girl took a deep breath, and when she spoke there was some strength in her voice. “Gillespie, I need you to find Nabassu. He should be at his apartments. Tell him what's going on here, leave nothing out. He'll be able to organize everything.”
“At once,” Steve said, and immediately ran off at top speed around the corner. Jelena turned to watch him go, surprised that such a big guy could run so fast.
“About the one over there...” Lizzy said weakly, and Jelena was forced to turn her attention back to her. “The big metal thing is just a distraction. I don't think the fey want to cause too much damage, they just want it to look like they do.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Jelena's spine was itching like crazy, and she reached back to scratch it.
But Adam was the one who spoke. “So... ignore the iron-lord for now? After all the trouble we went to to get a weapon?”
Lizzy nodded. “It's the other one... the blind one—”
“Blind-rammer,” Seena said.
“Right, that one. Nabassu told me the fey use them to track people sometimes. Like, when they just need to find them, and don't have to worry about subtlety.”
Adam nodded. “I think I heard Simon or Yolanda mention that. Something about them having extra nostrils?”
Lizzy shrugged. “I don't know. I just know that the fey want something here.”
Jelena shook her head. “But this isn't their style. Why send something like this when a couple dogs would work just as well?”
“I don't know,” Adam muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Laura might be able to figure it out, but I just... this isn't anything any of us are good at.” He shook his head suddenly. “It doesn't matter. Once it finds its target, bad things will happen. So we need to kill it first.”
Jelena pointed at the weapon in his arms. “You were going to use that on the iron-lord, right? How many shots do you have?”
“Not many,” Veda said. “I didn't have a lot to work with. I can't be sure, but no more than five. Absolute max.”
Oh, that was right, she was a mechanic or an engineer or whatever. Jelena had completely forgotten. She guessed she had made the weapon? How the hell did she cobble together a missile launcher out of spare parts?
Adam saw where Jelena was going. “It should work just as well on the rammer, if not better. And we should just need one or two for the iron-lord.”
Kevin raised an eyebrow. “So, what, just shoot it in the face and hope it works?”
Adam shrugged. “I guess so.”
“The belly,” Jelena said suddenly. “Aim for the belly. That's the weak spot.”
Everyone stared at her.
“What?” Seena asked weakly.
Where had that come from? But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “The belly drags on the ground—it can't be armored as much.”
“That makes sense...” Adam said slowly. “But I'm not gonna just dive under it.”
“Explosions will scare it and make it rear up. But it has to be a big one.”
“A grenade wouldn't be enough?”
“Not nearly. Maybe a...” An image flashed into her mind, a dull metal barrel with a white label. “An oil drum would work. There should be one in this building here.”
Seena looked disturbed and was avoiding Jelena's eyes, but she couldn't understand why. She spent a lot of time paying attention to important people. She had probably just heard about this at some meeting or whatever and forgotten until now.
Kevin broke down the door—the security gate wasn't even up—and in a few moments he and Adam were wrestling an oil drum, exactly like the image Jelena had in her head, out onto the sidewalk.
Lizzy wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, oil. I hate that stuff.”
“Well, don't go in there, then. The place is full of it.” Adam frowned. “Why the hell is there so much, anyway?”
“There are three offshore oil platforms owned by the city,” Jelena found herself saying, as she suddenly remembered. “Two are owned by Yamamoto Silver Rush, while the third is the property of Fillian Andrews Enterprises, which is a front for—”
“I think he meant why is it here,” Kevin said hastily. “The outer city would be more logical.”
Again, she knew the answer. “Money laundering.”
It was odd. Usually she kept an ear out for all the dirty rumors, of course, but this was more than that. She knew the barrels would be there, she knew where they had come from. But she didn't remember hearing anything about it before right this moment.
Ugh, there she went, getting distracted again. Delphie and the others inside were counting on them, and she was letting her mind wander. “Roll it over at the gargant,” she said. “The smell should make it curious. Anyone have incendiary rounds?”
The boys had the barrel on its side, but hadn't started rolling it yet. Adam put his foot on it to keep it from moving, and fished a shotgun shell out of one of his ammo pouches. “I have a few, but I'm not sure they can penetrate the drum.”
“My Raaze is incendiary,” Kevin said, pulling out his strange pistol. It was a revolver, except it didn't revolve, and fired all the chambers at once. “It should work.”
Adam shrugged. “Sounds good to me.” He picked up the missile launcher again from where he had placed it on the ground. “You ready?”
Kevin checked his gun and nodded. “Ready.” Together, they kicked the barrel forward, where it slowly rolled towards the blind-rammer.
The gargant was facing the other way, but its strong sense of smell caused it to notice the oil quickly, just as Jelena had anticipated. It turned as the barrel rolled down the street, sniffing the air and edging towards it.
“Now,” she hissed.
Kevin's aim was dead on, which was good since he only had the one shot. There was a slight ding as the rounds hit the metal barrel, then the dull whumph of the explosion. She dived out of the way. While they were far enough so that they didn't even feel the heat, she had completely forgotten about the explosion. Shrapnel flew by, and a piece even clipped her shoulder.
Luckily, the others were fine, though there was one large piece of red-hot metal embedded in the wall directly behind Lizzy. It was probably a miracle she was still alive.
While Jelena was looking around, making sure everyone was okay, Adam was all business. Her prediction had proven correct. The blind-rammer was rearing up on its hind legs, its instinctive response to a loud noise exposing its unprotected underbelly. Adam didn't waste any time. He went down on one knee, aimed, and fired.
The missile sped off with a small boom, leaving a cloud of foul-smelling exhaust behind Adam. He didn't lower the launcher, but watched as the projectile crawled a path through the air towards the beast.
And, just as the gargant began to bring itself down from its precarious position, the missile hit.
The explosion was very strange, but Jelena should have expected that. She didn't know what Veda did to it, but instead of exploding in fire, it burst into a cloud of a dark blue gas that seemed to freeze the gargant's scales where it touched. Not that it mattered. The force of the missile itself had torn open a huge hole in the beast's flesh, and now blood and guts were beginning to spill.
The blind-rammer began to wobble, clearly in pain but unable to scream in torment. It smashed sideways into the nearest building, causing the 'scraper to groan, then smashed into the opposite side of the street, leaving massive puddles of gore underneath it. It tried to smash the other side again, perhaps in an attempt to shake off whatever it thought was damaging it, but at this point it had lost too much blood.
The gargant fell to the ground, shaking the entire street so much that Jelena almost lost her footing. It shuddered once, and died with a wet gurgle.
Just as she thought everything was going to work out, there was a great roar from behind her. She turned to see that the iron-lord had finally given up on their friends in the clothing shop. It seemed like it had decided that they were the more important targets. Was this the fey's doing? She had no idea how much control they had over their beasts.
Adam cursed and dodged behind the building where Lizzy was cowering, dropping the launcher in the process. But the gargant just smashed a fist into the building, raining down some glass and plaster but otherwise leaving them unharmed.
Everyone was scattered, in no position to fight back. But Jelena... she hadn't moved. She had stayed rooted to the spot for reasons she couldn't comprehend. Despite her terror, she was only a few feet away from the bulky missile launcher.
She couldn't possibly... could she?
She found herself running towards the weapon, as if something else was controlling her limbs. Then it was in her hands.
She didn't know how to use a missile launcher. She had never used anything more complicated than a revolver. But her hands flew across the metal tube as if possessed, flipping switches, reconnecting wires, and checking valves. The gargant was still roaring, and the falling glass was slicing into her skin, but she didn't rush. She could do this. She knew she could do this.
In just a few moments, she was done. The weapon began to hum as whatever power source Veda had added began to work again. Something had been knocked loose when Adam dropped it, but Jelena had fixed it. How, though? She didn't know anything about fixing anything, much less a jury-rigged missile launcher built out of what looked like an old air conditioner.
But while her mind was still asking questions, her body was moving like a well-oiled machine. She went down on one knee, just like Adam had earlier, ignoring the glass pebbles getting embedded in her leg. She raised the weapon, sighted through the large, bulky scope, and...
Waited. The gargant was at a bad angle. She couldn't hit its legs from this position. She didn't have enough shots—she needed to get the knees. She briefly considered repositioning herself, but then the iron-lord took a few steps forward, exposing its weak points perfectly.
She fired.
Even as the missile flew through the air, she was already aiming at the second knee, checking that the launcher was still working through nothing but touch. Without removing it from her shoulder, she was able to confirm that everything was still in place.
The missile hit, exploding once again into a cloud of blue gas. The iron-lord bellowed in pain as it tried to move and its knee shattered, bringing it thudding to the street in a lopsided position. It struggled to grab hold of the nearby buildings and prop itself up, but it ended up just clawing off more glass and plaster. Jelena didn't give it a chance to find a better hold.
She fired again. The second shot was also dead-on, and the beast fell flat on its face without any leg to stand on.
But it wasn't dead, not yet. The “blood” used by the creature was more like oil than anything else, and it would take too long to let it bleed out. It was moaning now, a deep and dejected song that made her teeth shiver. It was like it was begging for death.
She checked the launcher one last time, this time taking it off her shoulder and inspecting it visually. Despite her unfamiliarity with weapons, she knew to be very careful. Jury-rigged weapons had a tendency to explode if something came loose at the wrong moment, so she didn't rush.
Finally, she was as certain as she could be that it wouldn't kill her on the next shot. She raised the launcher to her shoulder again, took aim, and waited. Slowly, the gargant raised its head and looked at her, as if intentionally giving her exactly the opportunity she had been waiting for.
She didn't hesitate. She fired, the targeting circle centered on the monster's face.
Right before the missile hit, the iron-lord gargant gave one last pitiful moan.
Then the projectile exploded with a dull whumph, and the head was suddenly covered in frost.
The beast wobbled for a moment, some last signal from its frozen brain telling its arms to keep it upright, until its elbows went limp and let its face smash into the concrete. Frozen metal and shattered asphalt flew everywhere.
Jelena put the missile launcher down slowly and settled down on her rear, suddenly very, very tired. Wherever those reserves of strength had come from, they were gone now. Was this what they called an adrenaline crash?
She turned to the others, smiling a bit weakly, hoping they would be willing to help her limp back to her room and take a very long shower.
But all she saw was Seena, staring at her in horror.