means one bullet at a time.? The truth is, I know sod all about weapons, despite having once lived for a year with a sweet girl who subscribed to
Fortunately, these guys weren?t all singing from the same hymn book. The other three men, wielding various makeshift clubs and cudgels, chose that moment to charge us, helpfully blindsiding their friend. Juliet accelerated so that they?d reach her first, taking out two of them with strikes that I?d be happy to call surgical because most surgery leaves you unable to walk for a while and maybe a body part or so short.
The third man I managed to drop with a flying tackle, which was probably the best result he could hope for under the circumstances. We went down together, but with me on top, and though he swiped at me with the jagged metal shard he was using as a knife, my elbow in his face threw off his aim and slammed his head hard against the floor. He was still moving, though, and a lucky slash with that thing would leave me bleeding out on the floor, so I brought my knee up between his legs, introducing him to the concept of planned parenthood with immediate and devastating effect. Leaving him curled around his pain, I scrambled to my feet just as the rifle went off.
It wasn?t aimed at me, of course. These guys might be crazy, but it would be a special kind of crazy who pointed the gun somewhere else when Juliet was bearing down on him with her killing face on. The back of her jacket opened up at chest height as the bullet tore through, and a fine red spray showered my face and upper body.
The rifle was semiauto: it had to be, because the man got a second shot off even as Juliet kicked him backward through the window. He fell with a scream that sounded more enraged than afraid, and that was all he got in the way of famous last words. I heard the dull
?Juliet!? I shouted. ?For fuck?s sake, they?re possessed. There?s something riding them!?
She didn?t seem to hear me. She turned, a little bent over, her movements too slow, just as the two guys who?d been guarding the hostages charged her from the side.
One of them had a knife, and he slashed at her stomach. The other swung his baseball bat and hit her full in the face. She reeled with the blow, then stabbed out with her left hand, putting her thumb and middle finger through the second man?s eyes.
That left the knife man, and as he brought his hand back for a second thrust I finally, belatedly, forced myself to move. I went directly for his knife hand, grabbing hold of it in both of mine and twisting it up behind his back with brutal, desperate force. He dropped the knife, and Juliet, glancing over her shoulder and seeming to notice him for the first time, swept her fist up in an uppercut that almost took his head off his shoulders. He slithered to the ground between us, already unconscious.
?Are you all right?? I asked her, my chest heaving both with the effort to catch a breath and with the nausea that was beginning to hit as the adrenaline turned sour in my stomach.
?I?m fine,? she muttered, but there was a breathy gurgle behind the words that scared the shit out of me. Her shoulders were bowed: she was inspecting the bloody mess in the center of her shirt front, and her feet shifted a little as if she was having a hard time keeping her balance.
I jumped to a conclusion. A whole generation of entrepreneurs were making their first fortunes by trading on the fears that the living felt for the living dead: silver-coated ammunition was just one of the fads that had come in as a result. ?Juliet, was the bullet???
I could only just hear her answer. ?Silvered. Yes. But it only went through my lung. I think I can . . . deal . . . with the . . .?
Her voice trailed off, but she didn?t fall. All her attention was turned inward, and wherever she was right then I knew she wasn?t going to be aware of her surroundings for a while. From the street outside came shouted orders and the wail of a single siren. The police weren?t going to wait much longer before storming the place: not with bodies flying out of the windows.
I turned to look over at the hostages. Susan Book was already heading toward me, but the others were all still in a huddle against the base of the wall, some of the kids sobbing and keening, nobody daring to move. I opened my mouth to say something?probably something along the lines of ?you?re safe now.? Susan?s hand lashed out, and as I reflexively parried, something red shot from her fingers to bounce off my chest and hit the floor at my feet. I didn?t even see her other hand come up: her nails raked my cheek, savagely deep, and I staggered back in numb surprise. She followed up, punching and clawing at me as she screamed obscenities into my face. The same obscenities I?d heard from the almost-hanged man outside, mostly, focusing on my sexual relationship with my parents and the cocks I?d suck in hell. It was like some kind of virus.
I fended Susan off, using my height and reach to block her wild, uncoordinated attack. I didn?t want to hurt her, though, so I was backing away across the floor, calling out her name as I gave ground in an effort to wake her out of whatever trance she was in. Then a shelf unit bumped against my back and I had to stop, which meant that she was finally able to close with me: out of options, I knocked aside her clutching hands and punched her hard on the point of the jaw. She went over backward, and there was an alarming crack as the back of her head hit the tiles.
It was followed a moment later by the crump of a detonation, and another window blew out as something hard and metallic shot through it to arc end over end through the air, trailing a plume of feathery smoke. As it landed and bounced, another and then another window burst, and the screams of the hostages drowned out all other sounds?even the hiss of the tear gas grenades releasing their indiscriminate loads.
I staggered back to where Juliet had been standing, almost slipping as my foot came down on something smooth and hard. I glanced down: it was a Victorinox Swiss army penknife, multifunctional blades extended at both ends. Susan?s weapon: I?d been within an inch of being corkscrewed to death.
Juliet was kneeling over the body of one of the fallen rioters, her hand on his chest. I thought she was checking him for a pulse, but then I realized that she was searching his pockets. I grabbed hold of her arm and her head snapped up: her dark eyes locked on mine. My eyes were starting to water as filaments of CS gas drifted across the store.
?We?ve got to get out of here,? I shouted over the shrill screams. ?This is to soften up the opposition. Any moment now they?re gonna storm the place.?
Juliet stood, with some difficulty. ?I?ll have to lean on you,? she rasped, and she almost fell into my arms as I led her back the way we?d come. The hostages would be okay, I told myself. They?d suffer from the effects of the gas, but the cops would be all over the place within the next couple of minutes so the riot was over. There was nothing we could do for them now that the paramedics couldn?t do a whole lot better.
All the same, I felt more hollow than heroic as I staggered back down the stalled escalators, Juliet leaning heavily against my chest, the harsh gurgle of her breath in my ears. She?d been right: something
Skirting the debris in the ground-floor arcade was a lot harder now that I was steering for two. As we headed for the corridor where the toilets were, I heard the loud slam of the main doors off to our left and the crunch of running, booted feet on the shattered glass. I went a little faster, risking a misstep that would send us both sprawling on our faces. We got into the corridor and the echoing steps ran straight on past. I was expecting a voice from behind us to shout, ?Stop where you are. Put down the succubus?slowly!? But it didn?t happen.
The loading bay was still empty. I got Juliet to the edge of the platform, set her down, then jumped to the ground myself and hauled her after me. Amazingly, exasperatingly, in spite of everything that had just happened and the sick horror that was throbbing inside my head, I was still responding physically to her closeness?still breathing hard and heavy, and feeling my prick stir inside my pants, as I inhaled her primal perfume.
She couldn?t climb the wall: she could barely walk. But there was a gate at the far end of the yard, and it was only bolted rather than locked. I slid the bolts and we limped through, both of us torn and exhausted and blood-boltered, like the last contestants in a dance marathon in hell.
I had to slow down once we got out onto the street. It was dark, so if we stayed away from the streetlights nobody would be likely to see our various wounds and blemishes, but the way we were staggering would draw attention anywhere. I pulled Juliet close to me and tried to pretend that we were lovers drunk on our own hormones?and, yeah, before you ask, that was an easy part to play. Every inch where our bodies touched was an inch I was painfully, achingly aware of.
The road we were in led back around to the street where I?d parked, bringing us out again behind the rubbernecking crowd. There was a whole lot more going on now, and nobody had time to notice us. Police were pushing the
