and fired, and Carlos saw a burst of light and motion coming at him, felt the heat of the high-explosive anti-tank missile radiating against his skin…… and somehow, he wasn't dead, but something not far behind him blew up. The force of the blast lifted and threw him roughly against the side of the fountain; the pain was spectacular but he raggedly held on to consciousness, determined to buy Jill a few more sec-onds. Half laying across the lip of the fountain, Carlos started firing again, shooting for its face, rounds going everywhere as he struggled to control the weapon. Die, just die already… But it wasn't dying, it wasn't even flinching, and Carlos knew he only had a half second left before he was blown into a greasy stain on the lawn. The rocket launcher was pointed directly at Carlos's face when it happened, a one in a million shot -
Carajo!
– as one of the metallic pings turned into an explo-sion, a sudden white-hot light show. The monster pitched backwards as its weapon disintegrated, drop-ping out of sight. Carlos's rifle went dry. He reached for a new maga- zine, and there was new pain. He lost track of the light, darkness pulling him down. Jill saw Carlos collapse and made herself stay where she was, standing between the trolley and a hedge row. She'd seen the Nemesis go down, thrown into the burn-ing rubble by the misfire that had obliterated its bazooka, but its confirmed ability to avoid death kept her from going to Carlos. If it was still coming, she wanted to keep it focused on her alone. The grenade launcher felt light in her hands, high adrenaline giving her a second wind with a ven-geance and when the Nemesis rose up, one shoulder burning, blistering black and red flesh visible beneath its ruined clothing, Jill fired. The buckshot-loaded 'grenade,' like a super shotgun shell, sent a concentrated blast of thousands of pellets across the yard, but she missed the howling Nemesis entirely, the shot tearing new holes in what was left of the tower's front wall. The Nemesis stopped screaming even though its chest was still burning, the skin crackling and black now. It squared its body toward Jill as she broke open the grenade launcher and snatched another load out of her bag, praying that it was more seriously injured by Carlos's lucky shot than it appeared. It lowered its head and ran at her, its gigantic stride carrying it toward her incredibly quickly. In a second it was across the yard, its snaking appendages spread out as if to grab her up. Jill leaped to her left and took off at a dead run, still holding the grenade, in between the row of hedges and the undamaged west wall of the tower. She could hear it enter the row behind her as she reached the end; it still almost had her, its speed extraordinary, putting it an arm's length away as she rounded the end of the row…… and something struck her right shoulder as she tore around the hedge, something solid and slick, bur-rowing into her flesh like a giant, boneless finger. It stung, a thousand hornets at once flooding her system with poison, and she understood that one of the search-ing tentacles had pierced her. Oshitoshitoshit, she couldn't think about it, there wasn't time, but the Nemesis stopped suddenly, threw its head back and bellowed its victory to the cold stars above, and Jill stumbled to a halt, shoved the load into the gun and snapped the breech closed…… and fired as it lunged toward her again. The shot clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin and muscle flying out behind it…… and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous and silent and suddenly still. In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away from her. Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over its new wound.
Leaving, it's leaving…
Her thoughts were slow and heavy. It took her a mo-ment to understand that its departure wasn't good news. She couldn't let it get away, let it repair itself and come back – she had to try and kill it while it was weak. Jill drew the Python and tried to take aim, but her vi-sion doubled suddenly and she couldn't focus on the receding figure as it dragged itself through the fiery wreckage. She felt light-headed and flushed and thought it very likely that she'd been infected by the T-virus. She didn't have to see the shoulder wound to know it was bad, she could feel hot blood coursing down her side, soaking into the waistband of her skirt. She wished she could believe that the virus was being washed out of her system, but she couldn't kid herself, even so direly injured. For a few seconds she considered the loaded.357 she still held – and then thought of Carlos and knew she had to wait. She had to help him if she could, she owed him that much. Summoning the last of her rapidly draining strength, Jill started toward Carlos. He lay by the fountain, groaning and half conscious, hurt, but at least she couldn't see any blood, maybe he's okay… It was her last thought before she felt her body be-tray her by giving up, dropping her to the ground and putting her into a very deep sleep.
Dark, elsewhere ringing and escape, fire and darkand bullets, can't hear, Jill running from the fire andthe thing firing, high-explosive missile aimed… aimed at my… face.
Carlos came to in a rush, confused and hurting and looking for the fight, for the Nemesis and Jill. She was in trouble if that thing got hold of her… It was a quiet, still night, and low fires burned all around, providing a dancing orange light and enough heat to make him sweat. Carlos forced himself to move, crawling to his feet and holding his ribs tightly, jaw clenched from the pain. Fractured or broken, maybe two of them, but he had to think about Jill now, had to shake off the effects of the multiple blasts and… 'Oh, no,' he said, forgetting about his aching ex-haustion as he hurried toward her. Jill was lying on a patch of burnt grass, perfectly still except for the steady ooze of blood from her right shoulder. Still alive, but maybe not for much longer. Carlos swallowed his pain and picked her up, the dead weight of her body making him want to scream in anger, at the insanity that had unfolded and grown in Raccoon, that had imposed its merciless grasp on Jill and on himself. Umbrella, monsters, spies, even Trent – all of it was crazy, it was a nightmare fairy tale… but the blood was real enough. He held her close, turning, searching. He had to get her inside, safe, somewhere he could dress her wounds, where they could both rest for a little while. There was the chapel in the mostly undamaged west wing; there were no windows and good locks on the door. 'Don't die, Jill,' he said, and hoped she was listen-ing as he carried her across the burning yard.
TWENTY
TIME PASSING. DARK AND DARK, AND FRAG-ments of a thousand dreams, spinning into focus for a brief glimpse before spinning away. She was a child at the beach with her father, the taste of salt on the wind. She was a gawky teenager, in love for the first time; a thief, stealing from wealthy strangers as her father had taught her to do; a student, training for the S.T.A.R.S., learning to apply her skills to help people. Darker. The day her father went to prison for grand larceny. Lovers she had betrayed, or who had betrayed her. Feelings of loneliness. And her life in Raccoon City, the very death of light. Becky and Priscilla McGee, ages seven and nine, the first victims. Eviscerated, parts of them eaten. Finding the crashed Bravo team helicopter outside of the man-sion; the smell inside, of dust and rot. Learning about Umbrella's conspiracy and the corruption and collabo-ration of at least a few S.T.A.R.S. members. The death of the traitorous team leader, Albert Wesker, and the Nemesis's final attack. Several times, half awake, she swallowed cool water and then slept again, more recent memories taking over. The lost survivors, the people she'd tried to save, the faces of the children, mostly. All of them, gone. Brad Vickers's brutal death. Carlos. Nicholai's flat, emotionless gaze, and Mikhail's sacrifice. And reigning over it all like the demonic epitome of evil, the beyond Tyrant monster, the Nemesis, its terrible voice calling for her, its terrible eyes seeking her wherever she went, whatever she did. The most troubling thing, though, was that there was something happening to her – a distant feeling, because it was happening to her body and she was very much asleep, but no less unpleasant for that. It felt like her veins were heating up and expanding. Like her every cell was becoming thick and heavy with strange spices, sticking to the cells around it, all of them boiling gently. Like her whole body was a vessel filled with moving wet heat. Finally, the gentle sound of falling rain lapped at the edges of her awareness and she yearned to see it, feel its coolness on her skin, but it was a long, tiring strug-gle to leave the dark behind. Her body didn't want to, protesting louder the closer she got to the surface of gray, the twilight between the dreams and the rain, but determined, she won out. After deciding that she was alive, Jill opened her eyes.
TWENTY-ONE
CARLOS WAS SITTING WITH HIS BACK TO THE door eating fruit cocktail out of a can when he heard Jill stir, the regular, consistent sound of her deep breathing becoming lighter. She turned her head from side to side, still asleep, but the movement was the most deliberate action he'd seen in forty-eight hours. He stood as quickly as he could, forced to be careful by the pinch of his tightly taped ribs, and hurried to the raised altar where she lay. He picked up the bottle of water at the base of the dais, and when he stood up again, she opened her eyes.
'Jill? I'm going to give you some water now. Try and help me out, okay?'
She nodded, and Carlos felt sappy with relief, hold-ing her head up while she drank a few swallows from the
