Dredd VS Death Read online

  They'd looked up at him in fury at having their meal interrupted as he aimed his Lawgiver at them and called out a warning. They'd hissed at him in raw anger, baring their teeth and showing him their fangs - and then reached for their own weapons.

  He'd shot both of them, quickly and expertly, putting them down with a piece of clinical precision marksmanship worthy even of Dredd himself. Then they had got back up, ran into the cover of the main storage area and started firing back at him.

  Giant took stock of the situation, trying to evaluate what he'd seen with what he still thought was impossible. A glance down at the dead security guard - throat savagely laid open, eyes wide in disbelief at the circumstances of his death, killed by vampires right here in the biggest city of the twenty-second century - told him that the impossible was what he was dealing with right now.

  Well, if it looks like a vampire, acts like a vampire and tries to rip your throat out just like you'd expect a vampire to, then... thought Giant, deciding it was time he took the fight back to these things.

  He darted out from the corner where he had been sheltering, heading for deeper cover inside the storage room. The move instantly provoked a hail of bullets from the two perps, but luckily any kind of marksmanship ability with automatic weapons didn't seem to be such a high agenda item with the undead.

  The warehouse space was divided into a maze of wide aisles separated by pallets of med-stuff, and row upon row of storage shelving which stretched all the way up to the building's high ceiling. Giant ducked into the first aisle he came to, which seemed to be solely devoted to the storage of artificial cybernetic limbs. There were thousands of the things there, bionic arms and legs stacked floor to ceiling, everything from the cheap and basic models that any cit could get on the City Mega-Care program to the high-performance, top-of-the-range bionic-enhancement deluxe jobs favoured by the top professional athletes and sports celebs. Giant wondered for a second if someone knew something he didn't, and was stocking up in advance of some forthcoming rerun of the Apocalypse War, before returning his attention to the problem at hand.

  He heard fast, eager footsteps behind him, and turned to see one of the perps following him in, charging down the aisle towards him. No sign of a weapon, but from the way it bared its fangs at him and flexed its talon-fingers in keen anticipation, he figured it had other ideas about how it was going to kill him. He fired instinctively, pumping three Lawgiver rounds into its chest. Three heart shots, each one a perfect ten score. The vampire staggered a little, and the change in pitch of its snarling seemed to suggest that this had hurt it some, but it was still on its feet and coming at him.

  Department regs didn't allow Judges to carry religious ornamentation, so the idea of waving a crucifix at it was a complete non-starter, and only Psi-Division had access to the exotic stuff like silver-bladed boot knives and holy bullet Lawgiver rounds - so just how the hell was he supposed to kill the drokking thing?

  Giant remembered Judgement Day, and Dredd's sanguine advice when they had been the first to encounter the zombie menace while on a Hotdog Run out in the Cursed Earth: "Pick your targets and shoot for their heads."

  It had worked for zombies - and so had Hi-Ex and Incendiary too, though the latter only worked if you had the luxury of enough time to wait for the things to burn to death - so just how much difference was there between vampires and zombies?

  Giant got his answer soon enough, firing off another burst of shots as the thing leapt at him. Its head exploded in a bloody pulp, and he hurriedly stepped aside to avoid its flailing corpse as it flew past him to land on the floor behind him, where it continued to twitch spasmodically.

  Giant was just beginning to congratulate himself on his new-achieved status of vampire-slayer, when the next one stepped out at the opposite end of the aisle from the other one. And this sucker was a lot closer and a lot angrier-looking.

  "Hold it right there, freak! You're under arrest!" Giant barked, aiming his Lawgiver right at it, wondering as he did so if the undead were entitled to the same Justice Department regulation warning as living perps.

  It leapt at him, faster and more agile than the first creature. Giant, following years of drilled-in Academy of Law training, put three textbook shots into its chest before amending his aim in light of what he'd just learned, and snapped off another three at its head.

  It twisted out of the way, tucking its head down protectively, although one of the shots drilled through its cheek and blew away its lower jaw. This only seemed to make it even madder, Giant noticed.

  The monstrosity crashed into him, slashing at him with its claw-like nails, tearing rents in the bullet-resistant material of his uniform. Giant fell, taking the vampire with him. He dropped his gun, unable to bring it to bear on the squirming thing clinging tightly to him, and used both hands to try and tear the thing off him.

  Its strength was incredible, even more so when Giant realised that his attacker was a young girl, probably no more than about twenty years old. Her shrieks of rage were shrill and hellish and she seemed possessed by a frenzied, almost superhuman strength and tenacity. Her head darted down towards his exposed throat, elongated fangs eager to bury themselves in the soft flesh there. Giant desperately blocked the attack with his arm, and she sank her teeth into the tough material of his Kevlar-lined Judge gauntlets, chewing into it to get at the meat beneath. If she could bite through the stuff his gloves were made of, Giant didn't even want to think of what kind of quick work she would make of his jugular vein, and his efforts to get away from the thing became all the more frantic.

  His heart sank as he heard more footsteps running along the corridor behind him. If it was another one of these things, he knew he was doomed.

  "Out of the way, Giant. Give me a clear shot."

  The voice, authoritative and unmistakable. Suddenly, Giant was pretty sure he wasn't going to die anymore.

  "Dredd!" he called out. "I know it sounds crazy, but they're vampires. You need to..."

  There was a sound of a Lawgiver shot, and the thing on top of him was snatched away, the top of its head blown clean off.

  "Shoot them in the head," finished Dredd with typical steely calmness as he stood over Giant, offering a hand to help him to his feet. "Figured that was the best way to go, soon as I saw it."

  Dredd looked down at Giant, at his torn uniform, unsure whether the copious amounts of blood splattered across it belonged to Giant or to his attacker. "You injured?"

  Giant climbed to his feet and recovered his Lawgiver, for the first time getting a good look at the thing which had almost just killed him. Scratch twenty. That thing had been no more than seventeen, tops.

  "Only if you count my pride, I guess."

  "How many more of the creeps are in here?"

  It had been Dredd who had rescued Giant as a juve, keeping him on the straight and narrow and enrolling him in the Academy of Law, making sure that his life would have some real purpose. Dredd had been a permanent fixture in Giant's life for almost as long as the younger Judge could remember, and was the nearest thing to a father he would ever have, even if neither him or Old Stony Face would ever admit it.

  Still, no matter how long he had known Dredd, Giant would never fail to be impressed by the way Dredd dealt in the same stoic and matter-of-fact way with absolutely every freaky and weird thing the city had to throw at him. Whether it was vampires, zombie armies, extra-dimensional superfiends or apparently indestructible Cursed Earth headbutting cyborg maniacs, it was all just another day on the streets for Joe Dredd.

  "Security cams picked up six of them when they broke in, so I figure that means four of them left. Watch your back - some of them are armed with more than fangs and bad breath."

  "So am I," said Dredd, bringing his Lawgiver up to bear. "Let's go find them."

  It wasn't too hard. The creatures had left a trail of destruction through the interior of the warehouse, randomly smashing everything and anything along the way as their frustrated search continued for whate
ver it was they had come here to get. That search had apparently ended at one of the refrigerated storage rooms off the main warehouse space. The thick metal door had been ripped off its hinges. Hungry snarls and chill, refrigerated air drifted out of the room beyond. Dredd silently motioned with the barrel of his Lawgiver towards the sign beside the entrance to the room: Synthi-Plasma Storage.

  "Figures, when you think about it," said Giant. "What else would a bunch of vampire perps pull a heist job for?"

  Both Judges tensed, automatically bringing their Lawgivers round to bear as another one of the vampire creatures shambled out of the freezer room, its face dripping with bright-red synthi-plasma, its arms laden down with packet after packet of the stuff. Gorged on the blood substitute, almost drunk on the taste of it, it stared in stupefied surprise at the two Judges. Finally, something within its brain clicked, and it made to unsling the stump gun it wore over one shoulder.

  "Picnic's over, freak. Hi-Ex!" barked Dredd, giving the command to his Lawgiver's voice-activated shell selector, aiming his gun at the target's central body mass.

  Both Judges ducked as the area in front of the entrance to the freezer room was suddenly painted bright crimson as the vampire and the twenty-eight one-litre plasti-packs of concentrated synthi-plasma blood it was carrying exploded under the impact of the Hi-Ex bullet.

  Giant recoiled back, splattered with the stuff. Some of it had got into his mouth, and he spat it out in disgust, revolted by its taste. If he ever turned vamp, he figured he'd probably end up starving to death, if that was the only kind of chow he was expected to go for. His vision was a red smear, and he was still wiping clear his helmet's face visor when he heard Dredd's Lawgiver firing again.

  The remaining three vamps were holed up in the freezer room, probably armed and ready to blow away anyone who tried to storm in there after them. Which Dredd wasn't about to do - not when his Lawgiver had everything he needed to encourage them to come out to where he was instead.

  "Ricochet," he ordered, firing off a brace of shots through the freezer doorway. He hadn't bothered taking aim, and couldn't even see the targets he was firing at. With Ricochet rounds, though, he didn't need to.

  The rubber-tipped titanium bullets weaved a deadly pattern in the close confines of the freezer room as they bounced off metal walls, bursting the racked packets of synthi-blood by the dozen and biting into vampire flesh. In seconds, the floor of the room was centimetres deep in blood spilling out from the bullet-exploded storage packs.

  Possibly more enraged by the destruction of their food supply than any damage caused to them by the bullets, the vampires charged out wildly to face their attackers. Lawgivers at the ready, Dredd and Giant were more than prepared for them.

  Dredd shot the first one with an Incendiary shell. Howling in agony as its body exploded into flame, the creature threw itself back into the freezer room, rolling and splashing about on the blood-covered floor in a vain attempt to put out the volatile and hungry phosphor fire which ate relentlessly into its undead flesh.

  Taking a cue from Dredd, Giant picked off the next one with a Hi-Ex shot, splattering its shredded remains against the nearest wall. This was going to be a messy one for the clean-up crews, Giant guessed, and he hoped the Tek-Judge forensics squad that was soon going to be crawling all over this place were packing spatulas and scraping tools with their tech-kit, to gather up all the evidence now sliding down the walls.

  Dredd coolly took care of the third creep as it leapt at him with apparent lightning speed, claws and fangs ready to tear him open. It was fast, but not fast enough. For a moment, it seemed to almost defy the laws of physics, hanging suspended in mid-air as Dredd's rapid-fire spray of bullets struck against it. Then it was moving again, hurled backwards by the relentless force of the shells still being fired into it. A final burst decapitated it as it struck the far wall. Head and body fell to the ground several metres apart.

  Yes sir, a very messy one for the poor slobs in the clean-up crews, thought Giant.

  Dredd took in the aftermath of the brief but spectacularly gruesome fight, casually prodding the remains of the nearest vamp with the toe of his Judge boot.

  "Creeps don't seem in too much of a hurry to turn into dust when they're dead either, or whatever it is they're supposed to do in the horror stories."

  Giant bent down to study the scraps of the one he had tagged with the Hi-Ex shot. It had been wearing what looked like ordinary citizens' clothes. No fancy evening suits. No red synthi-satin lined opera cloaks. "You think we're looking at something normal here, not necessarily supernatural?"

  "Bloodsucking freaks that shrug off standard Execution rounds aren't exactly what you'd call normal, even for this city, but I'd rather look for some rational answers before we call in the Psi-Div spook chasers," Dredd said.

  He shifted impatiently, re-holstering his Lawgiver. Giant sighed inwardly. He knew what was coming next.

  "Meat wagons and clean-up units are on their way," said Dredd, already moving to leave. "Stay here and supervise, Giant. I want full forensics back-up on this one. Let me know what they find. Anyone wants me, I'll be finishing the rest of my patrol shift."

  Giant watched him go. No, Old Stony Face never changed. Vamps, freaks, muties and weirdoes Dredd took in his stride, but every chance he got, he always pulled rank and left someone else to deal with the paperwork.

  THREE

  It was the paperwork Hershey hated the most.

  Well, she also hated the meetings, the drafting of minutes, "resolutions" and "mission statements", the inane photo-op PR events, the occasional obligatory chat show appearance to show the citizens the allegedly friendly face of the Justice Department, the mind-numbing meet-and-greets with foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, the endless briefings from her policy advisors on a thousand different and tediously uninteresting but vitally important subjects.

  But, most of all, she decided, she hated the paperwork. It was only now, two years after being elected Chief Judge of the most powerful city in the world, that she fully appreciated why Joe Dredd had turned down the post on several occasions in the past, when it would otherwise easily have been his for the asking.

  "My place is on the streets," Dredd had always said.

  "Yes, Joe," those within the Justice Department who, like Hershey, knew him best, could always have silently added, "because that's where you're the furthest away from the drokking paperwork."

  Not that she blamed him, really. Sitting here in the Council of Five chamber within the Grand Hall of Justice, listening to Judge Cranston of Accounts Division making his quarterly budgetary report to the Council, she wished with all her heart she was out there with him, putting down a block war or two, or even re-fighting the Apocalypse War all over again.

  Grud, even the time she had been kidnapped, completely paralysed and almost tortured to death by Fink Angel had almost been preferable to this.

  "Furthermore, looking at our overseas balance of trade figures for this current fiscal quarter, and taking into account our projections for the next fiscal quarter, as well as the standing moratorium on non-essential trade with the former Sov Blok cities and the ongoing renegotiation with Sino-City as regards their Most Favoured Nation trade tariff status, we can predict with some modest confidence that, as far as the budget deficit for both this quarter and the next two is concerned-"

  "Thank you, Judge Cranston," Hershey interrupted with what she hoped was the correct amount of tact. "Unfortunately, I have several other pressing appointments following this meeting, so thank you, but we'll read and review your budgetary report and recommendations later, and let you know our decision before the end of the week."

  She kept on going before the flustered-looking elderly Accounts Division Senior Judge could protest. "Moving on to the next item on the agenda: the rise in incidents involving members of the so-called 'Church of Death'. Hollister?"

  Judge Hollister, the Council's only member who wasn't already a Justice Department Divisional head,
had been assigned to brief the rest of the Council members on the problem. Hershey was amused to see that, for once, Hollister had actually turned up for a Council meeting in proper Judge uniform. As a senior member of the Wally Squad, she had occasionally attended meetings in various kinds of civilian attire, some of them downright scandalous. Hershey wondered what Silver, one of her predecessors as Chief Judge and a notoriously prudish stickler for the rules, would have had to say if one of his most senior Judges had turned up for a Council of Five meeting wearing the fishnet tights and low-cut halter top outfit of a common slabwalker, as Hollister had once so memorably done.

  "Most Sector Chiefs are reporting a rise in crimes associated with the cult. Up until now, it's been relatively small-time stuff; pro-Death scrawl-graffiti, juve gangs swapping their gang tags for cult symbols, the occasional case of pet animal sacrifice."

  "And now?" said Hershey.

  "Now we're seeing a sudden spike in these crimes, not just in number, but also in terms of their seriousness," replied Hollister. "Juve gangs claiming an association with the cult are banding together to start violent rumbles with the other gangs. Street preachers claiming to be pronouncing the 'Gospel of Death' have started appearing - we're picking them up as soon as they appear, of course - and some of them have even taken to the airwaves on illegal pirate radio stations to spread the word even further.

  "My anti-pirate monitoring units have already tracked down a number of these illegal broadcast stations, and identified and arrested those responsible," interjected Tek Chief McTighe testily, keen to counter any suggestion that his Tek-Judges weren't already on top of the situation."

  "Granted," agreed Hollister, "but what we're dealing here is something more than a few pirate broadcasters. We're looking at Death cult-related crimes all across the board. More worryingly, we're seeing a noticeable rise in missing persons cases. We believe the cult may be tied into a lot of these."