Damn Him to Hell

“He’s operating on a murder charge!” I shouted in frustration. “Why don’t I just tie him up and toss him to the alligators? It would be just about as easy.”

I didn’t linger to argue. I dashed back down to the bomb shelter, grabbed the end of a stretcher from a med student so he could prepare another patient, and helped carry another zombie upstairs.

I was operating on pure adrenaline. I really didn’t have the strength to carry two-hundred-pound bums. I was useless here. I needed to be at the plant, hunting villains.

Someone must have turned off the gas line. The pillar of fire had vanished. I was terrified it would sprout anywhere I walked.

Leo had apparently called ambulances. Official medical vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the town houses. I gave up trying to help patients. Medics rushed past me, probably thinking they were dealing with earthquake victims. I hoped Acme wouldn’t realize the casualties being hauled off now were their zombies from earlier.

With Gloria gone, I no longer knew the enemy. Ferguson, the pervert? Bergdorff, the guy Paddy called a mad scientist? MacNeill, the greedy shyster? I couldn’t damn an entire building to hell in hopes of catching a villain.

I didn’t see Andre or Cora anywhere. That was probably for the best. They’d only disagree with me anyway. Since I had no clear idea of what I was about to do, I wasn’t in a position to argue. That’s a tough spot to be in for a lawyer.

I jogged back to my Harley while studying the situation down by the waterfront.

Now that they realized the town wasn’t being bombed, people were wandering back to the club or climbing into their cars and leaving. I saw nothing immediately hazardous, like green clouds or black floods of pitch. No more fires. The jagged cracks forming down the middle of the street didn’t pour brimstone, but I still saw bats.

I could have sworn I saw Sarah in chimp form gazing into one of the cracks, swiping at bats. Maybe she’d crush any demons who tried to escape. If hell wasn’t scorching her, it must only be me Gloria was after.

Given my experiences lately, I was imagining Gloria and Dane setting off fireworks in hell, but without Max as my mirror to the underworld, I couldn’t verify fantasies.

Still, the flickering lights at the chemical plant were suspicious. Technically, Acme didn’t have a night shift. Employees streamed out of the plant daily at five o’clock on the dot. There were guards and maybe some management or researchers who might have reason to work overtime. But it was almost midnight. This wasn’t overtime.

Bill and the other patients were still inside the plant, being subjected to whatever atrocities Acme had planned for them. My DNA for justice burned through my veins like a shot of heroin, turning my normal caution to ashes.

I dug my jacket out of my saddlebag and dragged it on. The night air was cooling rapidly, and my silk shirt didn’t lend itself to warmth. Besides, the leathers were from Max and made me feel safe. Stupid, I realized. But I was warm as I rode my bike down garbage-strewn alleys, avoiding anyone who might guess my direction. I zipped past the cordoned-off dead zone and up the north side to Acme. The earlier swaying had diminished to an occasional burping rumble, and the bike handled just fine.

Even a Harley can’t handle a chain-link gate rolled across a drive, though. Given the bike’s roar, I wasn’t exactly hiding my presence, but no one appeared at the guardhouse. I wheeled into the shadows of a transformer station, took off my helmet, shook out my hair, and studied the situation.

I saw no evidence that the chain link was electrified, but I ambled around the side until I found a long weed. My rural education had its uses. I held the grass against the fence, and it didn’t jump. Just to be safe, I tested the links with the back of my hand in case it pulsed slowly. I didn’t want my fingers to instinctively wrap around the wire.

No juice. I could go home and mind my own business, or climb the damned fence and snoop.

Lawyers didn’t break and enter. Apparently daughters of Saturn did. I really needed to work on that superhero costume, though. My gloves held up but I ripped a hole in my leather jeans going over the barbed wire on top.

Given what I knew already, I didn’t need too much more evidence to convict Acme of jeopardizing lives and possibly manslaughter if any of our patients died. But for real justice, I needed the human culprit behind the gas attack and earthquakes. Gloria Vanderventer had already gone to her just reward.

I assumed the villain I needed was the one who’d sent the gray suits in the white sedans to evacuate us this morning. Was he busily covering up his dirty deeds tonight, and that’s what the rumbling was about?

As I worked my way around the perimeter of the sprawling plant, searching for an opening, I reminded myself that I couldn’t get mad and close the plant, legally or otherwise. Presumably, Acme made perfectly legitimate products while employing hundreds of hardworking people. I didn’t know what the experimental element they were working on was—except dangerous—but for all I knew, it could be a cure for cancer.

So blowing up the plant wasn’t an option, even if I knew how. Nice that I was finally learning to plan ahead. Sort of. Maybe I should do that more often—anticipate what could go wrong and plan for emergencies. I’d try that just as soon as life quit knocking me down.

One thing I could anticipate was that Andre would be aiming this way as well, but I hoped he’d have Paddy with him. Andre was sneaky and devious but he liked to appear legal—when he wasn’t flying off the handle. Julius meant well, but I really didn’t think Andre needed a babysitter. He was probably far better off without a loose cannon like me around, truth be told. I didn’t want anyone else involved if I decided to take someone out.

Had it only been a few months ago that I’d been horrified at killing a rapist? And now my adrenaline was pumping in expectation of executing someone. At this rate, I’d be a merciless killer. I would become Sarah. That possibility gnawed one giant hole in my gut, but it didn’t slow me down. Someone at Acme had crossed a line when they’d endangered the helpless—and continued to do so.

Vigilante justice rides again. Not liking it. Happening anyway. Maybe I should have brought Sarah and used her as my weapon—a different moral quagmire.

The plant had been renovated and added on to since Acme acquired it ten years ago. No coal cellars with handy chutes to slide down in this place. But I figured underground labs required air vents.

I hunted until I located the electrical control building. The door was locked, but I pried the aluminum siding open easily. As I’ve said, I’ve lived in some pretty crappy dives. Aluminum is bad for security.

I had no way of knowing if the control room actually contained ducts into the main plant, but I hadn’t seen a more likely entrance.

I still had a flashlight in my bag. Given my propensity for exploring hellish places, I’d have to transfer it to my pretty briefcase should I survive the night.

Luckily, the flashlight beam revealed that this was more shed than bona fide building. No insulation or drywall hampered my access. I ripped the aluminum back to a point where I could see the machinery and wiggled through the studs and inside.

The grate for the air vent was on the wall facing the plant where it should be. I pried it off with a screwdriver I’d filched from a toolbox that really shouldn’t have been stored there. I’d have a word with Paddy about security later, should I survive this.

Being small had some advantages. I tucked my jacket into my bag and crawled down the duct without a bit of problem. I was probably picking up pink particles and breathing green gas, but I was feeling pretty confident that I was closing in on the bad guys and had Saturn on my side. Right now, I was thinking anyone causing bat- spewing earthquakes qualified as bad, if not outright evil. I could make a case for attempted murder and self- defense.

Pondering the differences between bad and evil and deciding there might be an element of redeemability in the former, I levered open another grate and dropped to the floor in the secret underground dungeon. Bingo.

I heard voices in the lab where I’d seen them keeping Bill and the others. So, were these syringe-wielding scientists bad or evil? Evil was so much easier. I could just damn them and watch them find their own way to hell. And maybe Satan or Saturn would grant my wish that my friends would regain consciousness. That notion had temptation written all over it.

Bad meant . . . they were merely guilty of a crime, right? If there had been a