I also used my knife to cut the extra fabric into long strips, threading a couple of them through the straps on my heels and tying them to the left side of the utility belt. I couldn’t risk wearing the shoes, but I didn’t want to wander around barefoot all night either. I stuffed the rest of the fabric strips into a pouch on the belt.
As a final measure, I checked the giant’s gun, making sure the safety was off and that there was a round in the chamber. I also practiced drawing it out of the holster a few times until I could do it quickly and smoothly. I didn’t much care for guns, but I’d use them if the situation called for it—and it certainly did tonight.
When I was ready, I leaned over and grabbed the key card from where it had landed next to the giant’s body, using the edge of my shortened skirt to wipe the blood off the plastic. Then I turned toward the door and drew in a breath.
I wasn’t sure what I would find behind the metal, but I was as ready as I could be to face it—and to kill whatever danger might be coming my way.
11
I slid the card through the reader. A light on the top flashed a bright green, and the door
I rushed through the opening, my knife up and ready to slice into whoever was standing inside. But instead of cutting down another giant or two, I found myself in an empty hallway.
Actually, it was more like an antechamber, a wide stub of a room. A wooden coat rack stood in the corner, its empty arms making it look like a scalped tree. A series of metal lockers lined the left wall, fronted by a long metal bench.
My gaze snapped to the second, interior door ahead of me, and I waited, just waited, for someone to open it.
But no one did.
No one came to investigate. No one poked a head out of the interior room to ask a question of a fellow robber. No one ambled over to the snack machine that hummed against the right wall, its fluorescent bulbs flickering like a bug zapper.
Well, if they weren’t going to come out to me, I had no problems going in to them.
Still moving as quietly as possible, I pulled the exterior door shut behind me and headed for the one at the far end of the chamber. This door was made of wood instead of metal, and I could hear music playing, some twangy country song about a woman getting revenge on a man who done her wrong. Even worse, whoever was on the other side was singing along in a very loud, very screechy, very off-key voice. I winced. Somebody needed some singing lessons. A chorus of dogs howling and cats hissing would have sounded better. But the caterwauling told me that there was only one person inside. No one else would have put up with the country-western karaoke act.
I shut the awful screeching out of my mind, reached forward, and tried the knob. It turned easily, and I opened the door just a crack. The actual security center wasn’t much bigger than the antechamber, and a series of monitors took up the back wall, along with several keyboards, joysticks, and a control panel, all arranged on a long table. Another table stood at a right angle to the first one. It too was covered with monitors, although all of those screens were fuzzy with snow.
No wonder, since they were peppered with bullet holes. I eyed the monitors and the blue and white sparks flickering inside them. Judging from the blood spatters on the broken glass, someone had been shot in front of the monitors. Maybe even more than one person, given the amount of blood.
A couple of chairs squatted in front of the screens that were still working, but only one was occupied. The offending singer was another giant, one who was tossing her long black hair from side to side as she rocked back and forth in her chair to the music like she was some kind of country diva. An iPod blared on the table. I eyed the device. That was going to be the second thing in here that I killed.
I held my position, waiting to see if the giant would sense me watching her, but she was too engrossed in her song, so my gaze moved past her to the bank of monitors. A few of the screens were dark, but almost all of the cameras that were on were focused on the rotunda, showing the hostages from several different angles. One screen on the top row of monitors was fuzzy, as though there was a thick film covering the lens. That must be the camera in the hallway that I’d Iced over. I also spotted Clementine and Owen on one of the monitors in the far bottom left corner, although I couldn’t tell what they were doing from this distance.
The song on the iPod finally came to an end, and, mercifully, so did the giant’s singing. She leaned forward and grabbed the device, as though she was going to cue up another song. While she was distracted, I tucked my knife back into its slot and grabbed the gun out of the holster on my belt. I used the nozzle of the gun to push the door open slowly the rest of the way.
The door creaked.
The giant’s eyes immediately flicked to one of the blank monitors, and I knew she could see my reflection there. I raised the gun, but it was already too late.
More quickly than I would have imagined, she whirled around and chucked her iPod at me. I ducked the sailing bit of plastic, stepped forward, and raised the gun again, but the giant kicked out with her foot, causing me to jump to the side. My hip slammed into the corner of the second table off to the right, causing a hiss of pain to escape my lips. The table rocked back and forth, causing more sparks to shoot out from the broken monitors.
Before I could raise the gun a third time, the giant barreled out of her chair and chopped her hand down, smacking the weapon out of my fingers. She charged at me again, spreading her arms out wide and trying to catch me in a bear hug and squeeze the life out of me. She probably expected me to retreat, but instead I stepped forward and leaped up, head-butting her in the chin. She growled and staggered back, but she didn’t quit. Once more, she surged at me.
This time, I let her come.
Just before the giant put her hands on me, I sidestepped her and hooked my right foot around hers, making her stumble. Grabbing her utility belt, I played off of her own momentum and shoved her into the still-sparking monitors. Her head slammed through one of the glass screens, and a shower of white and blue sparks erupted. Hisses, cracks, and pops sounded, and the giant screamed as her body started convulsing. I took a few steps back, making sure that I was clear of the electricity surge. She screamed a second time, the sound as high, sharp, and whiny as a power saw. I winced again, as if that would somehow protect my eardrums. At this point, I’d kill her just to get her to stop making that awful noise.
But I didn’t have to. After a few moments, the giant quit screaming, her body quit convulsing, and she slumped down onto the table, her head still stuck inside the monitor. The sizzle and stench of charred flesh told me that she was dead.
“Hurrah for the sound of silence,” I murmured.
With the giant dead, I grabbed the gun from where it had fallen on the floor and slid it back into its holster on my belt. I also took a moment to pull out one of my knives and set it down on the table within easy reach, just in case one of her pals came into the security center before I was ready to leave.
Careful to keep away from the giant, I turned my attention to the bank of monitors on the back wall, the ones that hadn’t been shot up and were still working. I did a quick scan of the cameras showing the scene in the rotunda, but things were the same as before. Hostages sitting on the floor, giants surrounding them, Opal transferring the jewelry from the garbage bags to two more silverstone briefcases.
Once again, I wondered what Clementine thought was so important about the jewelry when she had so much art to loot, but I didn’t have time to puzzle it out.
I scanned the monitors until I found an angle that showed my friends. Eva, Finn, and Roslyn were still clustered around Phillip. His eyes were open, and he was gazing up at Eva. He didn’t look to be any worse, but I couldn’t really tell without seeing him in person. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to get any better just lying there.
That mental clock in my head started ticking a little louder and a whole lot faster. Because every minute,
