“I’ve had enough of this,” I said. “No more innocents dying, not on my watch. Car, do you have any built-in weapons systems?”
“Of course!” said the car. “Your uncle Jack gave me a good going over on his last visit. Lovely man. Lovely hands . . .”
“Hold everything,” said Molly. “What was the Drood Armourer doing, installing Drood weapons in a Department of the Uncanny car?”
“Can we please concentrate on the matter at hand?” I said. “Car, can you fire back at these Nazi bitches?”
“I have front-mounted cannon,” said the car. “But they’re all aimed at ground level. Everything else has to be controlled by the passengers. Rules.”
“Fine by me!” said Molly. “Show me something!”
“Love to,” said the car.
The dashboard suddenly rolled over, to be replaced by a complete computerised weapons system. Controls for automatic weaponry, car-to-air missiles, front – and rear-mounted flamethrowers. Molly and I both reached for the missile control systems, but she got there first. She activated the tracking systems, grabbed the joy-stick provided, and locked on to the nearest rider in the sky. Molly fired the missile, and it blasted off from the rear of the car to blow both the Pteranodon and its Nazi gun girl out of the sky in one great explosion. Blood and flesh fell through the air like hellish confetti. Molly kept working the controls, targeting one Pan’s Panzerperson after another, but she could take out only one at a time, and I just knew there weren’t going to be enough missiles in the car’s armoury to take out all the targets.
“Missiles won’t do it,” I said to the car. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know,” said the car. “What can you bring to the party?”
“I have a Colt Repeater!”
“That’ll do nicely,” said the car.
A sliding panel opened in the roof above me, while the front seat sank down into the floor. I stood up, and the upper half of my body passed easily through the space provided. I drew my Colt Repeater from its shoulder holster, called for standard steel ammo, and let the gun do the rest.
I braced myself as the car plunged back and forth, and screwed up my eyes at the wind that battered my face. I felt cold and alone and very vulnerable. No torc, no armour, no protection. If a bullet hit me, I would die. Simple as that. I wanted to sit down again. Let Molly and the car do all the hard work. But I couldn’t just sit there in safety while innocent people were being killed. Because of me. So I turned the Colt Repeater on the nearest flying reptile, and opened fire.
The first bullet hit the rider of the Pteranodon coming straight at me. Slammed right through her left eye. Her head snapped back and blood and brains spilled out through the exit wound, flying off into the slipstream. The pink and grey streamers seemed to just fly away forever. Until the dead warrior woman fell off the Pteranodon, and tumbled bonelessly through the air. The Pteranodon screamed angrily, and just kept coming; so I shot that through the left eye too. The skull was probably bony enough to deflect a bullet. (I did the general aiming; the gun took care of the rest.) The Pteranodon plunged from the sky like a dead plane, and smashed through the roof of a boulangerie.
Sometimes the bullets hit hard enough to punch a Pan’s Panzerperson backwards out of her saddle. Sometimes I couldn’t get a clear shot at a Pteranodon’s eye, and then I’d blow holes in their leathery wings until they couldn’t stay aloft, and they fell scrabbling from the sky to slam into the ground, and spread their guts across the road. Sometimes, if I killed the rider the Pteranodon would just flap away, and I’d let them go. It wasn’t their idea to be here.
The cold rushing air beat me in the face, as I steadied my right wrist with my left hand. The Colt’s aiming system could do only so much. I kept firing, and women and reptiles kept dying. Molly was still working the missile controls, so that the sky above was full of flames and dark clouds, and bloody bits and pieces falling through the air. Bullets still came pounding in from every direction, ricocheting from the sides of the car and sparking from the roof, some increasingly close to me.
I’d never felt so scared. There had been times before when I’d been separated from my torc for a time, but I’d never had to go into battle without my armour’s protection. I flinched every time a bullet flew away from the roof. Sometimes I cried out, involuntarily. My stomach ached from where the muscles had been clenched for so long. It was hard to get my breath. I could have sat down. Said I’d done enough. But I couldn’t, as long as there were still Nazi killers in the air and people dying in the streets. And because if I did sit down, I knew I’d never get my nerve back.
I needed to prove to myself that torc or no torc, armour or no armour, I was still me. With a Drood’s training and a Drood’s duty. I may not always have believed in my family, but I have always believed in what they were supposed to stand for.
That’s usually been the trouble between us.
I switched from steel ammo to incendiaries, summoning them into the Colt from wherever the hell it stores the damn stuff, and the gun made sure I never missed. I killed the Nazi killers, one by one, and dead Pteranodons fell as blazing carcasses from an increasingly empty sky. Falling bodies slammed into burning roofs, and smashed through storefronts, while others hit the ground hard and did not move again. Until finally there was only one Pan’s Panzerperson left, standing up in her silver stirrups as she raked the Scarlet Lady with machine gun fire, screaming obscenities that were mostly lost in the rushing air.
She sent her Pteranodon circling round the car in a tight curve, so that I had to keep turning in my enclosed space to track her. And then she brought the flying reptile all the way round, and urged it hurtling down. The Pteranodon flew straight at the car, just a few yards above the ground. Collision course.
“I’ve run out of rockets!” Molly shrieked at me. “There’s nothing more I can do!”
“And the reptile’s still too far off the ground for my front-mounted cannon to do any good!” said the car.
“Hold yourself steady,” I said.
I leaned forward, across the car roof. The Pan’s Panzerperson was speeding towards me, hunched over her Pteranodon. She saw me aim my gun at her and laughed raucously. She and her mount flew right at me, as she fired her machine gun in short steady bursts. Bullets sprayed all around me, ricocheting harmlessly from the car’s roof. Reptile and rider drew closer and closer, while I waited for a clear shot, and then I aimed the Colt Repeater as carefully as I could, and shot the Nazi warrior woman right between the eyes. Her head snapped back, her hands flying away from the mounted machine gun. She fell sideways, out of her silver saddle, but one foot remained caught in the silver stirrup. The Pteranodon flew on, its dead rider dangling beneath it. I couldn’t get a clear shot at either of the Pteranodon’s eyes as it headed straight for us, screaming with rage.
“Nothing more I can do,” I said. “Coming back in, car.”
The front seat reappeared below me. I sank back into it, and the roof panel closed over my head as I sat down. I slipped the Colt Repeater back into its shoulder holster. I was shaking, shuddering, from reaction. Looking through the windscreen, I could see the Pteranodon flying straight at us, growing bigger and bigger. Its great wings flapped viciously as it built up more and more speed. I fastened my seat belt again, and put my hands on the steering wheel.
“Give me control, Scarlet Lady,” I said.
“Are you sure about this?” said the car. “If you’re thinking of dodging that thing, my reflexes are a lot better than yours.”