Free The Cold Light of Day by Michael Carroll Page A

law,” Rico had said.
    Joe’s response to the same question had been briefer, and very different: “Justice.”
    “Meaning?” Morphy had asked.
    “Sometimes the law will be wrong,” Joe had replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “In those cases, we change the law so that it serves justice. That’s what’s important. That’s why we do this.”
    Even now, many years later, Dredd had not changed his opinion. The law was the law, but wasn’t eternal. It wasn’t immutable. Like Judges, it existed to serve the people, not censure them.
    The situation with Chalk only strengthened his resolve. Dredd knew that what had happened five years earlier in Eminence could have been played differently, but he still believed that he had made the correct decision then—despite the outcome—and he had no regrets.

 
     
    The Cursed Earth
    2075 AD

 
     
    Eleven
     
     
    T HE WEAK LIGHT from the grimy windows faded further still as Joe followed Cadet Gibson through the labyrinthine racks toward a door set into the back wall of the store.
    Under his breath, Gibson muttered, “What do you think? Ambush?”
    “Could be,” Joe said. “Could be nothing, though. Stay alert.”
    “Good idea. Never would have thought of that.”
    Joe took another glance back, and spotted his brother entering the store, followed by the innkeeper. “Rico’s in.”
    Gibson reached out to grab the door handle with his right hand, allowing his left to casually drop closer to the gun on his hip. “I’ll take point—hang back a second or two, Joe.”
    Joe nodded. A couple of seconds could make all the difference if someone was waiting for them on the other side of the door. With Rico taking up the rear, they stood a good chance of at least one of them making it out alive.
    Gibson pushed open the door and strode through into the large warehouse.
    There was no immediate sign of danger, so Joe followed him. The warehouse was dark and damp, and this side of it was almost empty. Heavy wooden beams—some way down the road to rot—supported a patchwork roof of rusting corrugated iron strips, peeling plywood sheets, and the hoods of old pre-war cars, bolted together. The floor was nothing but packed dirt, stained with oil and engine grease.
    “Over here, boys!” Mayor Faulder’s voice called from the far side of the warehouse, where a flickering electric light in one corner showed tall stacks of wooden and plastic crates.
    “Damn,” Gibson muttered. “This does not look good.”
    A voice off to the left said, “Drop your weapons, baby Judges!”
    Joe threw himself forward, spinning to land on his right side, Lawgiver already drawn, aimed and fired while he was in the air. His shot streaked past the back of Gibson’s head—the cadet was crouching, in the process of drawing his own weapon—and buried itself in the shoulder of a shotgun-wielding man.
    Joe rolled to his feet—a thud from the doorway behind him told him that Rico was already dealing with Hieronymus Planter—and spun as a mutant dropped from the rafters. The mutant was tall and lithe, naked except for a loin-cloth, thick boots and gloves, and swinging a heavy circular saw blade fixed to the end of a chain.
    As Joe was taking aim at him, another mutant, almost identical but considerably shorter, rushed at him from the shadows to his right, spinning twin swords so fast that Joe could barely see them in the weak light.
    The taller mutant’s blade-on-a-chain was also a blur: it whipped out at Gibson’s left arm, knocking the Lawgiver from his grip.
    Joe fired a shot at the sword-swinging mutant—the bullet struck home, right in the centre of the mutant’s bare chest, but barely slowed him.
    The mutant grinned. “Me an’ me brother got bullet-proof skin , Judgey! What do you say to that , eh? You—”
    Joe shot him in the mouth. The bullet transported a good chunk of the back of the mutant’s head into the shadows.
    From the far side of the warehouse, behind the wooden and plastic