7
Boucher’s chest blossomed with blood, and chunks of bloody flesh, mingled with scraps of material blew out his back. He didn’t make a sound, just looked surprised before his body tumbled to the floor to lie in an ever widening pool of blood.
People were screaming, and Jondin wasn’t holding back. She raked the gun back and forth across the set while holding down the trigger, the buck and kick of the Uzi sending the barrel climbing toward the ceiling. Bullets skipped and whined off cameras, lights, and microphones. A lighting guy fell screaming from a catwalk high above. His body hit the floor with a meaty thud.
She got control of the gun, and brought it back down only to start shooting again. Bullets ripped through sets and knocked wood chips out of the walls. My body responded faster than my brain, sending me in a dive toward a stack of film boxes. I heard bullets singing and ricocheting as they hit the metal boxes. I wasn’t sure where Jeff had gone. He had been right beside me. He must have gone a different direction to find cover. Or maybe he was dead. I bit my lip and whimpered.
A lot of lead found human targets. Shrieks of pain joined cries of terror as metal slugs tore through flesh and shattered bone. The sound of bullets erupting from the barrel of the machine gun was like a giant’s teeth chattering. A cameraman went down, clutching at his gut. Blood welled around his fingers. The two stunt doubles were down—hurt, maybe dead.
Silence. Which made me all the more aware that my ears were ringing from the percussive force of the shooting. I heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of a clip being dropped and another one being rammed into place.
Between the cracks between the boxes I saw pointy-toed, high-heeled lavender boots approaching my hiding place. Inside I was whimpering.
Another part of me, less limp and terrified, was shouting
A quavering voice shouted out, “Drop the gun!”
I peeked over the back of the sofa to see a security guard confronting Jondin. Both hands gripped his pistol, and he had it thrust out at her. Unfortunately the barrel was shaking like a branch in a strong wind. I wanted to shriek at him,
Not an action hero. Just an actor. A terrified human, just like me. The room reeked of cordite and blood, and tendrils of smoke from the Uzi drifted like witch’s hair.
In the center of the set various crew members and Michael Tennant were down on the floor bleeding. Consuela, clutching her first-aid kit, came scrabbling out from behind the set to reach them. Even though her back was to her, somehow Jondin was aware of the EMT. Her head swung around and she studied the woman. From my hiding place I could see her face framed by the long white, green, and gold hair and utterly devoid of expression. A few wisps of hair were caught in her lips. She casually brushed them away.
Connie struggled to open the first-aid kit, but her hands were shaking so badly that it took her three tries before she succeeded. She slapped a pressure bandage over the wound in Tennant’s chest. I couldn’t believe she had done this incredibly brave thing.
Jondin dropped the Uzi so it hung on its neck strap, reached into the waistband of her trousers, and pulled out a pistol. She began walking toward the EMT with slow, deliberate steps. It looked like the actress intended to shoot the girl from point-blank range. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t just stand by and let this girl be killed.
I looked around for any kind of weapon, but there was nothing. All I had was me. And she had a gun. Actually more than one.
A flash of memory etched itself against my mind. Mr. Bainbridge, my vampire foster liege, taking me out and teaching me how to shoot when I was twelve years old. His usually genially smiling round face was unaccustomedly serious.
“You’re almost a young woman, Linnet, and your greatest predator will be men. They’re stronger than you, and more violent, so I’m going to teach you how to even the odds.” He had then smiled and added, “In the words of the old adage, ‘God didn’t make men and women equal. Colonel Colt did.’”
Then he taught me how to shoot. How to break down a gun. How to clean it. How not to treat it as a toy. He had taught me one other thing. That most people missed, even at close range. If I could distract Jondin, maybe the little EMT would run, and maybe we would both survive.
I jumped up and ran around the sofa, cutting across the set on an angle designed to take me between Jondin and Connie. The actress watched me, eyes following, and I felt like one of the little rabbit figures in the shooting gallery of a midway carnival. Soon Jondin would knock me down and win a stuffed toy. The image of the Alfar woman standing over my bleeding body while holding a giant panda bear made me giggle. A hysterical reaction if ever there was one.
The barrel of Jondin’s gun swiveled away from Connie and sighted on me. Every muscle in my body tensed as I prepared for the coming bullet. Instead there was the sound of tortured metal from overhead. I looked up just as a giant light hurtled down, clipping Jondin’s wrist and hand as it passed. The pistol fell from her hand. Whimpering, she gripped her clearly broken wrist. The light hit the ground with a horrendous crash, and the lens exploded, sending glass in all directions. One chip gouged my shoulder, but the bulk of the shards hit Jondin in the face. She transferred her hands to her face and the whimpers became screams.
The pistol lay on the floor just in front of her. I wondered if I could reach it before her. I decided to try. I changed course and ran straight at her. Behind the set a huge electrical panel spat sparks like a roman candle. As I passed Consuela I screamed out, “Run!”
She did and then I stumbled on the metal track that was laid across the floor. Arms windmilling I tried to keep on my feet, but gravity won. I went down. The edges of the track dug painfully into my neck and back. I faintly heard the whining of a motor. Jondin strode over and only stopped once she stood directly over me. Blood pumped from the myriad cuts on her face and stained the front of her shirt. She was standing between the rails of the track.
She raised the Uzi on its strap. The barrel lifted, sighted down at me. Because of her broken wrist she had the gun balanced on her forearm. It would affect her aim, but not enough: the Uzi fired a lot of rounds—there was no way they were all going to miss. I considered just closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see death coming, but I couldn’t. I struggled to regain my feet. A shadow loomed against the wall of the set. I looked past Jondin: the remote camera was running down the track at an alarming clip.
Jondin’s finger tightened on the trigger just as the protruding lens on the camera slammed into the back of her head. The shots went wide. Then the body of the camera hit her heels and back and knocked her flat. The camera tried to roll over her body, but lost balance and crashed onto its side.
Jeff came running past me, yanked the Uzi out of Jondin’s hands, and flung it aside. He then landed hard on her back, and searched her for more guns. He found two—both pistols, one a tiny lady’s-handbag derringer. Then Connie rushed back out and began treating people. Outside sirens were wailing, drawing ever closer. The electrical panel gave one final massive spark and every light on the soundstage went out.
People screamed again. Then the stage door slammed open allowing in the sunlight, and I saw the silhouette of a fireman. Within moments the stage was filled with EMTs, firefighters, and security guards. Eventually the real police arrived. That’s when I allowed myself to start crying.
