Agent of Equilibrium Read online

  “Drive, Sascha! Get us out of here!” cried Baccharus, unable to take his eyes off the hideous apparition behind them. “There’s something moving in the back seat!” he warned as Sascha engaged first gear and pulled away into the night with spinning wheels – quite an achievement in a bulky old vehicle like the motorhome.

  Hanging on tight to the vehicle’s fixtures, Johnny ventured over to the rear to find out what his familiar, who was still looking through the hole there, had seen. He reached Baccharus just in time for both of them to catch a fleeting glimpse of a snarling canine face with fierce yellow eyes, drooling and gurgling on the back seat behind the driver. Johnny couldn’t accept that what he saw was real; a look from Baccharus confirmed the monstrosity was definitely there. They both decided to keep the knowledge of the shocking vision to themselves for fear of panicking Sascha.

  Johnny returned to his seat. The lights had changed in their favour, and Sascha weaved deftly through the few cars that were ahead of them before swerving sharply off the roundabout with tyres squealing.

  “We’re not safe yet!” shouted Baccharus as he stared out from the rear of the motorhome. “I’m pretty sure their engine is still working.” He hovered over to join his friends at the front of the vehicle.

  Outrunning the powerful black car in the motorhome would be near impossible, thought Johnny as their engine roared and Sascha engaged a higher gear.

  “Johnny, that blast of energy was amazing! Why don’t you fire another like it at them? Blow them away to kingdom come once and for all. Man! That driver was too ugly to be allowed to live,” Baccharus said.

  “I would love to, Bach,” replied Johnny, “at this moment in time I’m not sure exactly how I did it.”

  “Baccharus is right, Johnny; that was incredible!” Sascha exclaimed without taking his eyes off the road. “We will have to sit down and analyse what happened; we’ll look at the graphs from my meters, assess how you were feeling at that precise point in time, break it all down … just like in the old days. We’ll see if we can harness that psychic energy again.”

  “Sounds like a great idea, Sascha, if we survive that long,” was all Johnny could offer in response.

  Sascha overtook another car, and there was an audible cry of relief from his two passengers when he narrowly avoided colliding with oncoming traffic in the process. They were on a long, isolated country lane now. Once again, Johnny started sensing the presence of Disorder and suggested Baccharus hover to the rear of the motorhome to have a look through the hole there. In the distance, the familiar could see a pair of headlights belonging to a black car with a damaged roof, the enemy was mobile again, just as Johnny had suspected.

  Sascha was driving well beyond the speed limit; the pursuing vehicle was still gaining on them. The friends sat there in silence. A worried looking Baccharus, still acting as lookout, had a question. “So who’s following us, Johnny?” he asked hesitantly, the horrifying visage of their pursuer burned into his mind.

  Johnny attempted an answer. “A kind of alien. Some Disciples of Disorder are human, many are not. Exactly where the hell he came from – I couldn’t tell you. Let’s figure that one out when we’re safe.” They drove on.

  Sascha braked hard as they approached a T-junction. “Where are we going?” he asked as he looked left and right uncertainly.

  “Take any turn, just don’t stop. Put as much distance as you can between us and them,” Johnny said. Sascha took a left and drove hard through quiet, winding lanes for a few minutes. It wasn’t until the road eventually straightened out that Baccharus caught sight of their pursuers again.

  “Oh no!” he said.

  “What’s up?” asked Sascha anxiously.

  “They’re closing in fast, that’s what!” Baccharus shouted back, panic in his voice. Johnny looked into the wing mirror, and there it was, the roofless black saloon, far too close for comfort; he could just about make out the grey of the driver’s face. Sascha stomped hard on the accelerator; the motorhome had nothing more to give.

  The old motorhome strained and groaned on every manoeuvre, and all the time the faster, nimbler car was closing the gap. The roads were quieter now, and it wasn’t long before the Disciples were directly behind them once again; close enough for Johnny to clearly sense their auras.

  “Brace yourself, they’re going to r—” was all Baccharus, who continued to keep a vigil in the back, managed to say before the black car rammed the rear of the motorhome. Johnny and Sascha’s heads whipped backwards suddenly following the impact. The Disciples were trying to force them off the road again.

  “They’re crazy!” shouted Baccharus.

  Two further collisions followed, and Sascha only just managed to keep the bulky vehicle on the road. If they didn’t do something soon, thought Johnny, then the motorhome was likely to end up in one of the ditches that ran alongside the twisting country lanes they were racing down. Without warning, the temperature in the motorhome dropped again and it started to vibrate; pieces of fibreglass fell off the damaged rear wing followed by the bumper.

  “Here we go again,” said Johnny, recognising an imminent psychic assault.

  “No way! Not this time!” shouted Baccharus.

  Johnny spun around in his seat at this and saw a glowing streak of energised Presarium materialise in the little cherub’s right hand. Baccharus hurled it at the enemy like a javelin, he did this twice. The psychic bolts fizzled out before they reached the pursuing car.

  “They must be using a psychic shield themselves!” warned Johnny. The Disciples were evidently doing their utmost not to be caught out again.

  “I’ll have to try something else!” shouted Baccharus. In a change of strategy, the familiar frantically rifled through cupboards and shelves in the kitchen of the motorhome, retrieving tins, bottles and drink cans before returning to the hole in the rear. Using a flying ‘run up’, he hurled each of the makeshift projectiles at the hideous occupants of the roofless black car. The grey-faced demon driver ducked and weaved to avoid each item, as did the snarling beast in the back seat. Without the roof or windscreen, there was no protection for them, and they had not readied any psychic defence against so primitive an attack. Baccharus made sure that he also hurled some colourful abuse along with each missile. The familiar’s efforts weren’t in vain, almost immediately the temperature in the motorhome returned to normal and it stopped vibrating as the concentration of the demonic entities in the car was interrupted. A couple of the tins even made contact, first with the dog-like beast which howled and gnashed its teeth in frustration and then with its keeper, stunning him, not causing any serious injury. Baccharus aimed some of the tins at the car itself, successfully knocking off the radiator grille and causing huge dents at various points of impact; this caused some consternation amongst the Disciples, who knew that if their car was damaged any further then the pursuit would be over. His quick thinking forced their pursuers to retreat to a comfortable distance. It did not take long for Baccharus to run out of ammunition.

  Sascha turned onto a rutted lane that led to an unrecognisable building in the distance. He and Johnny had concluded that to continue on the main road, outmanoeuvred as they were, was suicidal. They would have to make their stand soon and the building ahead was as good a place as any to do it. The motorhome bounced and rattled along the uneven lane, enduring its continuing punishment admirably. Johnny looked into the mirrors and saw empty road. It wasn’t particularly reassuring; he knew it would not be long before the Disciples closed in on them again. On nearing the building it became apparent that it was an old aircraft hangar and visible beyond it was the crumbling runway of a disused airfield. After two hundred metres, the jarring lane they were on joined a stretch of tarmac leading to the hangar. Sascha slammed on the brakes and the motorhome skidded to a halt opposite a set of large double doors. He released the seat belt and was about to exit the vehicle when Johnny gripped his arm tightly and stopped him.

  “We need to get inside,” Johnny said
firmly. The distant sound of a revving engine cut through the night; the demon driver was also approaching the hangar. There was a concerned look on Sascha’s face. “Drive through the doors,” ordered Johnny.

  “Sorry?”

  “Drive through the doors,” repeated Johnny; there was no time for discussion.

  “Go for it, Sascha!” urged Baccharus.

  Sascha shrugged, strapped himself back into the driver’s seat and accelerated towards the corrugated metal doors, all passengers braced for impact. With a crash, the motorhome forced its way into the hangar, painfully jolting its occupants. The gamble of driving into the heavy doors had paid off. The front half of the camping vehicle sat relatively undamaged inside the hangar, its headlights illuminating the interior. The building was evidently being used as a workshop and storage area for a farm; inside it lay tonnes of hardware and heavy machinery in various states of repair: skeletons of old tractors, stripped Land Rovers, steel pipes and electrical generators were scattered about the interior. Caught in the motorhome’s headlights, all this paraphernalia cast bizarre shadows on the corrugated metal walls.

  From his lookout post at the rear of the motorhome, Baccharus could see the car racing towards them along the access lane they had just negotiated. It fishtailed along, throwing up clods of mud from its wheels. He let the others know that the Disciples would soon be upon them.

  In desperate moments such as this, the friends naturally turned to Johnny for leadership. Occasionally, he managed to rise to the occasion.

  “You gonna tell us what to do, Johnny?” asked Baccharus.

  “We hide in the hangar!” he replied, and they all stumbled out through the front doors of the motorhome. “Sascha, find anything we can use as a weapon! The more lethal the better,” Johnny instructed. With an earnest nod, Sascha jogged over to a workbench full of hand tools he had spotted in a corner and frantically started to rifle through them. “Baccharus, use whatever power you have to project another psychic shield. Do it from a safe place, away from the door we just busted through.”

  “Right away, Johnny!” said the cherub as he fluttered into the cabin of an old tractor with no wheels, ready to project a shield around himself and his friends. Sascha dashed over with some interesting items.

  “What have you got?” asked Johnny. Sascha presented a large chainsaw, Johnny nodded and even managed to grin when Sascha tugged at its starter cord and the petrol engine spluttered into life before he hastily switched it off again. The next makeshift weapon he held aloft was a rather vicious-looking fire axe.

  “So which do you fancy?” asked Johnny.

  Without hesitation, Sascha lifted the chainsaw. “This,” he said with a psychopathic look in his eyes, the influence of watching too many low-budget horror movies.

  “Okay, here’s what we do,” explained Johnny. “We hide amongst the tractors and machinery, and once those bastards come in we keep a close eye on them. I’ll use my mind to hide our auras from psychic detection as best as I can while Baccharus resists any psychic attacks. We wait until prune face and his dog come near either of us and then – bang! We let them have it! Ambush!”

  It was the best Johnny could come up with given the circumstances. His friends hesitated, expecting further instruction; when none came they accepted Johnny’s proposition with as much enthusiasm as they could muster.

  “Simplicity! I like it!” Sascha eventually exclaimed.

  Outside, the car skidded to a halt and the friends scattered to opposite sides of the hangar to find suitable hiding places. Sascha climbed into the raised shovel of an old JCB digger and lay flat on his back inside it. Johnny ducked behind a massive steel trailer of the type that would have been pulled by a tractor. They heard car doors slamming shut followed by the metallic scraping sound of their demonic pursuers squeezing past the motorhome and through the damaged hangar doors. Once they were inside, Johnny could sense their chaotic energy field again, stinking of corruption; he focused on hiding the aura projected by himself and his friends so they would be concealed effectively. He cast a fleeting look at Baccharus to make sure he was ready; the familiar’s infant eyes were closed, and there was a look of serenity on his face as he concentrated on projecting a psychic shield from the tractor cabin. The three friends waited, hardly daring to breathe as slow, heavy footsteps echoed around the hangar. Johnny stretched his neck around the side of the trailer to try to catch sight of their source. His heart skipped a beat when he heard four padded feet in a very different rhythm to the original footsteps, a heavy panting accompanied them and a deep growl caused blood to flow like ice through his veins.

  Having only caught fleeting looks at the enemy, Johnny was intent on seeing exactly who, or what, they were up against. He ducked low under the trailer and, from a distance, saw a pair of black boots and narrow trouser legs moving with a long, slow stride. Following behind were four thick and muscular animal limbs that might have belonged to a large dog except that the paws were broad and had retractile claws, making them more akin to those of a big cat; a trail of drooling saliva preceded these animal feet. All of a sudden, a huge black snout dropped to the ground and started to sniff; an alarmed Johnny realised that nothing had been done to hide their scent … they might have lost their initiative here.

  The pair disappeared from his line of sight; he had seen enough to tell him that they were heading to the other side of the hangar – to where Sascha was hidden. He stealthily followed the stalkers, ready to intervene on behalf of his friend should it become necessary; he wasn’t going to leave Sascha to tackle two demons alone. The Disciples of Disorder were only a few feet away from the raised shovel of the JCB now; Johnny wondered how long it would be before they guessed Sascha’s hiding place. He just hoped his friend had the chainsaw ready. The beast was thrusting its snout from side to side as it followed the scent trail. Tightly gripping the fire axe, Johnny edged as quietly and as carefully as he could closer to the Disciples, stalking the stalkers. He moved from behind the trailer to a tractor and then ducked behind an off-roader, edging forwards until he eventually had a clear view of the figure in black and the creature. This was the closest he had been to either of them, and they looked more terrible than ever. He could clearly see the back of the tall bipedal Disciple with his long black coat and wide-brimmed hat sitting atop a bald, grey-skinned head that was deeply rutted like an oversized walnut; he also noted a strange jerky quality in his movements. His eyes then shifted to the vile, sniffing animal; Johnny stared, horrified at the drooling creature. It was at least the size of a Great Dane, and its stocky build was more like that of a Rottweiler’s. The beast’s muscular, bulging body was covered in glossy black fur and sharp, elongated canines protruded from an almost feline jaw. Maybe it was because of the distracting appearance of the beast, or maybe his luck had just plain run out, but as Johnny advanced, he kicked an old spanner that had been lying unnoticed on the floor, sending it spinning a few feet ahead of him, clattering away as it did so. In the tense silence of the hangar it was like a siren going off, and the trigger for all hell to break loose.

  The tall, black figure spun around sharply towards the noise and faced Johnny; eyes met eye sockets. Johnny gazed in horror at the demon-man’s face; deep skin ruts, heavy brow and sunken, black eye pits were emphasised by the motorhome’s headlights. The lipless mouth opened and a sharp hissing sound came from it, sending a cold shiver through all that heard it. The four-legged beast at the demon’s side bolted towards Johnny, producing a deep, bellowing roar that he could feel resonating through his chest. It was too late to run; he held his fire axe high, ready to bring it down hard as soon as the beast was in range, knowing he would only get one swing. At the sound of the commotion, Sascha broke cover to stand in the digger’s raised shovel. He started the chainsaw with a yank of its cord; the tall demon was only a few feet from him. The noise of the buzzing power tool drowned out all other sounds in the hangar and added to the confusion. He leapt from his hiding place with his improvised wea
pon arcing in a downwards swing aimed at the tall figure in black. It looked like Sascha had the element of surprise on his side and that he would split the Disciple straight down his middle. The timing and range of the attack had been judged as if the target were human, and this turned out to be a mistake. The demon sidestepped, lightning-fast, quicker than any man could possibly have done, and the screaming chainsaw sliced only through air. Not meeting the expected resistance, Sascha toppled forwards, hit his head on the side of a nearby workbench, and crumpled to the floor, unconscious. He narrowly avoided disembowelling himself on the chainsaw, which fell before him.

  The beast leapt at Johnny, who had managed to hold his nerve in anticipation of this very moment. Johnny swung the raised axe; it met the creature in mid-air and became embedded in its side. The black furry body, already full of momentum, continued its flight, knocked Johnny over and landed on top of him, drooling foul saliva. It howled as it lay there, Johnny guessed in pain. Teeth gnashed inches from Johnny’s face and claws tore at his clothes and torso. The axe remained in the beast’s side, and a phosphorescent fluid leaked from the wound. The dog-thing was very much alive despite its injury. With a supreme effort, Johnny managed to scramble free from beneath his attacker only to see the beast twist its thick neck to one side, grab the handle of the protruding fire axe between dagger-sharp teeth and, with alarmingly little effort, pull it out from its body. It bit down hard and snapped the axe handle in a shower of splintered wood; it hardly mattered to Johnny because it wasn’t this hideous animal that was his main concern any more – its demon keeper had drawn a pistol from his coat and was aiming it at him. Johnny had taken every precaution to protect himself and his friends against a psychic attack; now, it seemed a weapon of the material world would be responsible for ending his life. Cornered by the advancing beast, he could only watch when a screaming, fluttering Baccharus broke from cover in a blur of speed and was all over the gun-toting demon-man. The familiar flapped wildly about his head, using little fingers to tear at the black eye sockets and his wings to slap the face. The demonic figure’s arms flailed around as he tried to bat away the frenzied cherub, and with a lucky strike he managed to flick Baccharus to one side. Undeterred, the faithful familiar flew in for another attack; with inhumanly fast reflexes, the demon swung its pistol around in time to fire, and Baccharus tumbled to the ground.