ripped through his abdomen, causing him to double over. He leaned against a wall and retched several times. He felt like he wanted to throw up, but he didn’t think there was anything in his stomach. The pain was so bad he leaned his back against the wall, and although he was desperately trying to stay on his feet, after a moment he had to just let himself slide to the floor.
Something was wrong. Inside him. Something was seriously, seriously wrong, he knew it. And it was starting to scare him.
He raised his head and saw an older woman staring at him with a concerned look on her face. That’s how the suicide bombers got you. He knew that. They pretended to be a friend and then they took you to hell. He had lost three friends that way, blown to bits in the middle of a crowded street as his unit went door-to-door, trying to flush out insurgents. A woman had offered to show his sergeant a house in which some of them were hiding. He’d stayed behind to cover the street, and seconds later, there were pieces of his buddies scattered across the road.
He wasn’t going to let them get him that way.
He steeled his eyes and looked at the woman and went for his gun, but his hand froze as he stared at her face and saw it start to bend and change, her gentle gray eyes turning black and threatening, her nose morphing into the sharp beak of a bird. He tried to move, but the pain in his gut was too severe. The woman’s arms were now covered in black feathers, and her hands had been replaced by razor-sharp talons. And she was edging slowly toward him, her claws outstretched.
With a huge effort he pulled the SIG out from under his jacket and waved it at the harpy-like beast.
“Get back! Get away from me!”
The beast didn’t need telling twice. It turned and skittered away.
Torres couldn’t understand what was happening. He stuck the gun back under his belt, hauled himself to his feet, and slipped around the corner toward the entrance of the CVS. It was only a couple of hundred yards away and he was sure he could make it as long as he didn’t stop again.
He was halfway there when he heard a voice behind him.
“Sir? Sir? Are you all right? Do you need any help?”
Torres ignored the voice and kept going. It was a trick. A trick to keep him from getting the help he needed.
“Sir?” The voice turned into a rasp. “I’m going to need you to stop so I can talk to you.”
Torres spun around—much faster than he meant to, considering the agonizing pain in his abdomen—and found himself looking at another goddamn insurgent. The man had his hand resting on a sidearm that was hanging from his belt. Torres couldn’t exactly make out what uniform the towelhead bastard was wearing, but whatever it was, he’d probably taken it from the body of a dead American soldier.
It
They were going to take him hostage, torture him, and cut off his head. That’s what these sickos did. Torres’s eyes darted around. Thirty yards away—too great a distance for him to do anything other than shoot him —a younger man was holding a cell phone that was pointed straight at him. They were already filming their hostage video. He wanted to shoot the bastard, but his captain had told him not to use his weapon unless his life was in immediate danger. Or was it someone else who had said that? He couldn’t remember. But he knew he should obey his orders if he could.
He felt another presence and turned around. Another man—this one disguised in jeans, tennis shoes, and a polo shirt—was walking toward him. Jesus. They had sent a whole team for him.
He had to do something or he was screwed.
He put out one hand, palm upward, in a gesture of surrender, but at the same time took two steps to the left. Then, as the man in the polo shirt drew level, he grabbed him by the neck, pulled out his gun and pressed it against the insurgent’s head.
“Stay away,” he yelled. “Everyone stay the fuck away from me.”
The insurgent in the fake uniform had already pulled his sidearm and was pointing it at him, but Torres had the upper hand now. He backed away, toward the CVS, dragging his hostage with him, moving faster with every yard despite the pounding pain in his head and the burn in his gut. As he shot another look toward the insurgent— who was staying put for now—he saw the bastard’s eyes turn yellow and horns sprout from his head. He blinked and shook his head, but when he opened his eyes, the horns were still there, gleaming like black obsidian, sharp and menacing. Sweat was now streaming down his own face and he screamed, “No,” before shoving his hostage away. The man scurried off, but not before giving Torres a sideways glance—he too had yellow eyes and horns, only his mouth widened to reveal a horrific set of fangs and an angry, forked tongue.
Torres felt a surge of terror as he realized something was allowing him to see the motherfuckers for what they really were. Demons, agents of Satan, soldiers of the antichrist. He’d always known they were evil; he’d just never seen them show their true forms before. He needed to survive, to tell everyone about this. People needed to know. But first he had to deal with the agony ripping through his stomach.
He reached the CVS’s entrance, where another insurgent came out of the store and tried to grab him. Torres swung his elbow into the guy’s face, then kicked a boot right through his shin bone. The demon collapsed to the ground. He crouched down beside his groaning victim and grabbed his gun, then he spun around with a weapon in each hand, one pointed at the insurgent on the ground, the other one at the guy in the fake uniform, who was now standing twenty yards from the store entrance. He saw that more of them had appeared, a horde of snarling, clawing beasts closing in on him.
He felt light-headed, and his vision was swaying in and out of focus as he yelled to the fighter he’d just overpowered.
“Shut the doors. Now!”
At least if he were locked inside, they couldn’t get him. And maybe he could get the painkillers he was now really desperate for.
The store’s security guard got up, scurried over to the main doors—two big glass panels with chrome handles—and proceeded to close and lock them.
“Where’s the pharmacy?” Torres shouted.
The guy gestured into the back of the store.
“Give me the keys.”
The guard handed them over.
“And your radio.”
He complied.
Torres stuffed the keys into his pocket, then dropped the radio to the ground and smashed it under his boot. He looked around him. Several customers—or were they two-faced enemy combatants?—were backing away from him with their hands up, some of them crying and whimpering. For a moment he wondered what the hell he was doing. Wasn’t he supposed to be getting out of town? Away from the cops? How had he got himself locked into a mall? It didn’t matter right now. At least he was still alive. Yes, the fuckers hadn’t managed to get him. Not like the rest of his unit, who’d been blown to smithereens by that towelhead bitch. It was just him now. And he wasn’t going to let them fuck with him.
He needed a plan.
Step one: Deal with the pain.
Step two: Talk to the ranking officer and make a deal.
He knew something they needed to hear about. Maybe he was the
Covering the store with both guns, he crept slowly toward the pharmacy.
52
I was already halfway out of the SUV before Villaverde had thrown it into park. There were at least ten black-and-whites scattered across the main lot, plus a SWAT truck and two incident response vehicles parked off to one side. A couple of uniforms had already thrown up a tape barrier about fifty yards from the
