guns were slag, and all of their heads were missing.
I ran toward the rubble of the pastor’s collapsed house. I remembered the way parts of the building seemed to vanish and hoped Annalise hadn’t vanished with it.
There. Annalise lay motionless beneath a pile of scorched wood. I stuffed both guns into the back of my waistband and hauled her out by the wrist. She was even smaller than Zahn, but the wood was heavy and the nails snagged on her clothes. It took three tries to heave her into my arms. She wasn’t missing any limbs and I couldn’t see any blood, but she looked like just another corpse.
Damn. Annalise couldn’t help. The pets were nearly at the bottom of the hill.
The back door to the church was only a few yards away. I ran for it, cradling Annalise in my arms. “Wakey, boss.” I lifted her onto my shoulder. “Now would be a good time to wake up.”
The fastest of the pets had reached the bottom of the hill. I had the ghost knife in hand, ready to cut through the lock, but the door swung inward when I turned the knob. Thank God for country churches.
I rushed into the food bank and set Annalise on the floor, then I slammed the door and flipped the dead bolt lever to lock it.
The room was dark. I switched on the light. Hands jiggled the knob and fists pounded at the main door behind us. I put my shoulder against one of the metal shelves and tipped it against the door, pinning it shut.
I ran back across the room into the church. There was a dead bolt on the main door and I threw it closed, but the bright, beautiful stained-glass windows in here weren’t going to keep anyone out.
I rushed back into the food bank and locked the door. After I wedged a high-backed wooden chair under the doorknob, I knelt by Annalise.
A gunshot blasted through the back door. I tipped over another shelf and wedged it against the upper part of the doorway.
Bullets pinged around me. The tilted shelf had spilled seven or eight fifty-pound bags of flour onto the floor, and I sprawled behind them. I kicked the pastor’s desk against the wall to make room. Bags of dirt would have protected me better, but this was the best I could do.
I grabbed Annalise and dragged her across the floor toward my meager shelter. I had missed my chance to kill the sapphire dog, but I wasn’t ready to give up. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get at the predator until I’d gotten through its pets first. The two guns jabbing into my hip bones might have helped me with that, but I didn’t want to start gunning down innocent people who couldn’t control themselves because I couldn’t do my fucking job. I didn’t care what the sapphire dog had done to them, I didn’t want to fight
What I wanted was the white ribbon Annalise had used to make that man outside the Sunset fall unconscious.
I searched through her jacket, remembering Penny and Little Mark lying dead on the floor of a tiny jail cell, and Pippa falling onto her back. Maybe if I killed the sapphire dog, the pets really could go back to being themselves again. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t fall over dead. But I had to be quick, because I didn’t know how much time the pets had left, and bullets were still coming through the door.
Annalise looked uninjured, but she was completely still. I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing or not. It was as if Zahn had switched her off.
The white ribbon wasn’t there. I searched again. She only had two ribbons left. Both were green. I knew what they could do, and it was most definitely lethal.
I spit out a string of curses. The sounds of breaking glass came from the church, then a series of gunshots blew through the door. I knew they would be in the room in a minute or two, and I knew what that would mean.
I stuffed the green ribbons into my pocket. I wouldn’t use them—I knew I wouldn’t—but I wanted to have them just in case.
The gunshots stopped and the kicking began. The mob was trying to bash their way in—even the dead-bolted door that led into the church rattled under the assault. They were coming from all sides. I scrambled to my feet and shoved over the last of the shelves, tipping it against the interior church door just as it began to swing open. I ducked back under cover.
I took the guns out of the back of my pants, then laid Annalise on top of the bags of flour. Her tattoos made her bulletproof; the same spells that had protected her from Merpati’s gunmen would protect her from the pets’ guns —and they’d protect me, too, if I stayed low enough. That was as much barricade as I was likely to get.
I aimed the old revolver at the door. Damn. Was I really going to do this?
When was I going to stop holding back?
I squeezed off four shots. A return volley immediately blasted through the door and wall. The bullets poured through like hail, a terrifying mix of rifle and handgun and shotgun blasts.
My skin prickled as I lay flat. I’d never heard such a deafening wall of gunfire, and I thought the incredible, oppressive sound of it alone might kill me.
The volley ended quickly. My ears were ringing, but I could still hear the clicking of empty weapons.
Morning sunlight shone through the holes in the walls like a rack of spears, illuminating the floating plaster dust. I lifted both guns and squeezed the triggers until they were empty.
A second volley came through, but the gunfire was thinner and more scattered. A ricochet tugged at the heel of my shoe, but it didn’t touch me. Finally, the shots petered out and all I could hear was the clicking of empty guns.
The pets began to smash through the walls with rifle butts, expanding the openings. I lifted Annalise onto the desk, taking care not to kick the cord of the portable stereo. The ceiling was unfinished, and I could see water pipes and BX cable running between the rafters. I jumped onto the desk and stood over her. With my ghost knife, I cut a two-and-a-half-foot length out of the water pipe. Water gushed freely onto the tile floor as I hefted it. It was heavy,
