They had fled in panic. There were no fire escapes on the casino. No ladders leaning against the building for an emergency way out. They were running to their rooms to wait for someone to save them. Cowards going to hide while their servants and soldiers cleaned up the mess. Except the servants had fled, the few still alive. The religion that demanded obedience, even with the daily doses of devil’s breath, wasn’t as strong as their fear and desire to live. The soldiers were dead or dying, felled by bullets or steel or ripped open by rampaging undead.
Someone was running up the stairs above him, he heard the boots slapping and knew it was a soldier. One who had escaped the carnage below. He should try to hurry but didn’t have the strength. They’d be there when he got there. Below him the stairwell was glowing orange as the fire spread and licked at the drapes and banners decorating it. He heard a door burst open above him. The man on the run had made it to the top floor as Jessie plodded onward and upward. Scarlets last words kept spinning through his head. Bring me back. She’d said. The time machine.
Even if it was real, not some weird experiment the kids were totally wrong about, it didn’t work. Everything that went through it, whatever it was, came back dead or misshapen or just a little different looking. Like they got beamed up and reassembled wrong. It was a last grasp of a dying girl, he told himself. She wanted him to survive, not die with her. She’d tossed the crazy idea out to give him a reason to live. To give him hope but he knew it was false hope. Just a dream. A fantasy. This was the real world and a piece of him had already died when he felt the cold blood oozing out of her body. A piece of his soul left with her and he’d catch up to it as soon as he finished what they came here to do. Just a few more minutes, he told himself. Told her. I’ll be there soon. Just a few more minutes.
Jessie rested on the landing of the top floor. He had no ammo, he hurt all over from the impact of the bullets and his heart ached with each thud in his chest. Maybe he’d walk through the door and catch a round in the face. That wouldn’t be so bad. The building was burning, the entire bottom floor was engulfed and no one was going to escape. He would try to finish what they started, though. He’d made a promise and he’d keep it if he could. He’d bury his blade in the cult leader, rip him wide open. He closed his eyes, gathered his strength and lunged. He slammed the door open, caught movement and a flash of light at the same time he felt the air displaced from the bullet streaking past his head. He didn’t slow down, didn’t even try to dodge when he saw the guard firing in panic, sending more rounds his way. They went wild, hitting the walls, the ceiling or the door behind him as Jessie lowered his head and pumped his arms. The lights in the hallway were pulsing, growing dim then bright then back to dim. The generator was cycling up and down, maybe shorting out and resetting or maybe starving for fuel. Rickets turned and ran, tried to get through his door, tried to get to his arsenal before Jessie caught up but barely turned the handle when he was hit from the side.
Jessie didn’t slow. He slammed him like a linebacker, wrapped his arms around his waist, lifted him off his feet then tried to run him all the way to the end of the hall and out of the heavily curtained window. Rickets finger tightened on the trigger, fired once more sending a bullet grazing down Jessies back and the slide locked to the rear. He slammed the .45 into the side of his attacker’s head and kicked out with his heavy boots. Blood spurted from Jessies scalp, his feet tangled with the guards and they both went down hard with Jessie on top. Rickets used his gun as a club, smashed his head again, lightning fast and viciously hard. Jessie rocked with the blow, bounced off the wall and slashed at Ricketts face, a trench knife curled in his fist. Ricketts reacted, flinched faster than the eye could see and clubbed out with the pistol again. Jessie blocked, the armor on his leather taking the blow then countered with an uppercut into the meaty part of the guard’s arm, bouncing the blade off bone, punching out the other side. Ricketts pushed and rolled away, sprang to his feet and ignored the spurting wound. He dropped the empty magazine, wrapped his fist around it and gripped the gun around the slide, ignoring the heat. He shoved a finger through the trigger guard and smiled. He had steel in both hands now. Bludgeoning, cutting steel and he would pound this pup down. He’d bash his brains out himself. He’d end this little problem once and for all.
Jessie was on his feet as fast as Ricketts, blades in each hand, staring at the black clad man with ribbons adorning his chest. His vision cleared and he wiped at the gash on his head, smearing the blood away from his eye.
“You.” the man said, getting a good look at Jessie for the first time in the pulsing light.
“She was supposed to kill you.” he growled. “Never should have sent a girl to do a man’s job.”
Jessie snarled and sprang at him, sharpened steel plunging for his neck, he was going to sink them both all the way to the hilt. Steel met steel
