Lear

by Jasinda Wilder

  I saw a shadow, hulking and huge even from a distance. Standing on the roof, silhouetted. Wielding the unmistakable outline of a shoulder-launched rocket—the AT4.

  Aimed this way.

  My eyes widened, and then I heard the crack-thump—a beat of silence, a split second of nothing—

  BOOOOOM!

  I turned away, shielding my face just in time…cobblestones exploded as the HEAT—High-Explosive Anti-Tank—round detonated. Bodies flew, smeared into red mist and pieces, and then all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Warzone

  Helplessness sucks.

  Dani saw Thresh right as the big glorious bastard launched the HEAT round right into the center of the clustered soldiers—they’d been arranged in a loose group centered around our vehicle, and that rocket exploded dead in the middle of them. Bodies flew—and flew into pieces. The moment that fucker exploded, the tiny square around the cathedral became a warzone.

  At the instant of the explosion, Dani rolled one way, and I caught the back of Cain’s head as he threw himself another direction. I couldn’t follow his flight, because I couldn’t even sit up. I’d done it once to get Dani’s attention, and that pathetic movement had drained me totally.

  Maybe I’m not as tough as I’d thought, or maybe Thresh and Duke and Puck are just superhumanly tough, because I’d seen all three of them shake off being shot and keep going. Of course, I don’t think any of the wounds I’ve seen them take were ever gut shots. Not that being shot in the arm, shoulder, chest, or other extremity is something you can really “shake off,” mind you—all that nonsense in shoot-em-up movies is just that, errant nonsense. You get shot, it fucking stops you. You don’t take a round to the bicep and shrug it off, keep fighting as if nothing had happened, like you see in things like Die Hard or whatever. A gunshot wound even to the muscle like an arm or thigh requires surgery and therapy to heal from.

  What I’ve got? Even with the round out and the hole stitched up, it’s not all better. I’ve got an infection, I’m weak, and it hurts like all fucking hell. And that’s just the side wound. I’m still not sure if the round pierced anything vital, but I’m guessing from how faint, weak, and feverish I’m feeling, it did. Which means I’ve only got a limited amount of time to get to a medic.

  I could only watch the horror show unfold.

  Alexei shoved open his door and sank to the ground, bringing an AK-47 he must’ve had on the seat bench up to his shoulder, firing through the open window. Sasha, bleeding from the face, rolled out the other side and I lost sight of him, but I heard his AK barking in staccato bursts. Automatic weapons fire lit up the square.

  From all sides.

  I heard a SAW chattering, a chainsaw ripping rattle—from a rooftop; I twisted, groaning in pain as I strained to see if the SAW was us or them. I heard a devilish cackle, a familiar sound: Puck, lost in the glee of destruction. The SAW was us, then.

  There were screams, shouts, and orders in various languages as Cain’s men tried to rally.

  I kept waiting for the boom of Anselm’s Barrett, but it never came.

  I heard M4s, AK-47s, HKs of various kinds—I can tell most automatics by their voices. The AK-47s were fewer by second.

  Where was Dani? I strained again, felt the stitches pull, but ignored it. Dani—where the fuck was Dani?

  I heard Harris’s voice in the distance, and then Thresh’s bellowed answer: “—Suppressing fire, motherfucker, I’m going in—”

  I had only the narrowest glimpse of the world through the open car door—I could see some of the cathedral, and the ranks of Cain’s men, now fewer and fewer of them upright. They’d sensibly mostly scattered to the edges of the square rather than stay in the middle and get slaughtered, but Harris had anticipated this and, judging by the direction of the firing I was hearing, had arranged for a murderous crossfire from several rooftops.

  I lifted up again, using both hands on the back of the front bench seat of the old Mercedes to haul myself up so I could see out the windshield. Cain’s men were holed up in the cathedral, and using the heavy old wooden doors for effective cover. The history nerd in me hated to see the destruction of such beautiful history, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t even help my friends.

  I saw Dani, then—tucked into the arch of a doorway, kneeling with a sniper rifle braced in her hands, elbow on her knee to steady it, peering through the eyepiece of the scope.

  I watched her aim, fire, adjust aim, fire—again and again, unhurried, each shot taking down someone in the doorway of the cathedral. She went through an entire magazine in that position, shouldered the rifle and brought up the same HK she’d been using since the start, and darted into the open, sprinting hard for a new position.

  I saw it happen—saw someone in the cathedral entrance spot her, yank his rifle up to his shoulder, track, and fire. Saw Cuddy twist, heard her scream of pain.

  Saw her topple to the cobblestones, writhing in pain, pawing at her knee.

  Alexei was pinned down, rounds plinking into the steel body and door around him, and I assumed Sasha was too, judging by the way the front end was being riddled.

  I had to do something.

  Had to.

  They’d pick her off.

  I wriggled toward the open door, shimmying and pulling, growling through gritted teeth—each movement brought a fresh wave of intense, burning agony, centered on the hole in my side and the fresh stitches. I didn’t take my eyes off Cuddy—she was prone, on her back, HK held over her torso aiming down her body, firing and firing as she scrambled backward, heels scrabbling at the cobblestones and the rubble and the corpses and bits of body.

  Go, motherfucker! I screamed this at myself internally, and then it became a chant out loud as I forced my body into protesting movement. “Go, motherfucker—go, motherfucker…”

  I chanted it through gritted, clenched teeth, until I made it to the edge of the car, and my feet slid out and I felt ground under me. I’d been so grievously wounded and insensible that they hadn’t even bothered to strip me of my sidearm, so I drew it as I reached a sitting position with my feet on the ground. Focused on Dani—she wavered, blurred, rotated in doubles and triples, my vision swimming from pain and fever dizziness and exhaustion.

  I screamed through my clamped molars as I drew myself to my feet. Swayed, eyes still locked on Dani.

  Get to her. Get to her.

  Get her to safety.

  Go.

  Fucking GO.

  I toppled forward, stumbling into a wobbly, unsteady run. Pistol dangling loosely from one fist, the other pressed to my side, as if to hold the stitches in place. I ran, unsteady on my feet, pain washing through me in wave after wave after wave, each one so fierce it took my breath away. I was gasping, groaning through my teeth nonstop with each step, forcing myself forward.

  An eternity passed, and I reached Dani. She was feral, still scrabbling backward toward the doorway, firing in long bursts, still choosing her targets and making each round count. I reached her as she emptied her magazine, fitted a new one in and tapped it home.

  I didn’t dare lose my footing, so I widened my stance and braced, assumed a firing position and picked a target. Snapped off a shot. A second, a third. I was dizzy, but braced upright like this, it wasn’t as bad.

  “Lear?” Dani’s voice, taut, tense, pissed, confused. “The hell?”

  I pivoted, feet still braced wide, extended my right arm to fire one-handed, reached down for her. “Come on,” I snarled, fighting agony. “Up.”

  She didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask any more questions, just grabbed my hand and pulled—I was already using every ounce of grit and raw determination I possessed, and then some, but this forced me to dig even deeper. I hauled her up to her feet, and I felt my stitches rip, felt something else inside me tweak, twinge, and tear. I was firing, picking targets and sending a round out, pick another, fire—missing probably but suppressing fire nonetheless.

  Cain’s men were few
, and Cain was nowhere to be seen.

  They were fighting to the last man, though. The church doors were chewed up, the square in front of it was a wreck of rubble and blood and bodies, and the last dozen or two of Cain’s men were barricaded behind a pile of rubble and the ruin of one of the doors, hunkered down and taking potshots.

  One of them saw us, Dani and me—I saw his muzzle burst, felt the wasp-buzz of rounds going past, then the snap of others, and the sting of one slicing through the shirt and a layer of skin over my bicep. I fired at him, saw my bullets spray concrete. He ducked, and it brought us a precious few seconds.

  Dani was upright now, her arm around my shoulders, HK clamped one-handed at her hip, clattering off rounds.

  There was a helicopter whumping overhead—ours, Cain’s, or law enforcement? I didn’t spare a second to look. All was in slow motion, sounds muffled.

  Dani firing, my pistol bucking in my hand. Rounds walking up the cobblestones toward us.

  The end was imminent.

  We were straining in unison, moving in hobbling awkward hops for cover, but it was like a dream, the ones where you’re running from something but it’s like you can’t move, like you’re stuck in Jell-O—we couldn’t move fast enough. I felt something tug at my hair, at the fabric of my BDU pants. I felt the tip of a finger turn to fire, saw blood spraying.

  And then—

  A massive hulking body, huge enough to block out light if he stood in front of you. Thresh. He had a ballistic shield, looked like NIJ IIIB, huge, heavy, dense, and capable of stopping a shotgun blast at point-blank range. He held it one-armed, and was firing a tactical shotgun with the other—classic Thresh, doing the impossible and making it look like a walk in the park.

  He didn’t spare us a glance or a word. Just rifled off one deafening, concussive blast after another, following us in a backward shuffle, rounds plinking off the shield, cratering the front of it.

  I felt a downdraft from the helo, spared an upward glance—it was a Chinook, double rotors, wide doors open on both sides, two lines dangling from each doorway—figures fast-roped down, one after the other with a speed that defied belief; unless you’ve tried fast-roping, you won’t get how impressive it is. They use it in Hollywood a lot, but to see it anywhere outside highly trained government black ops units is rare to the point of absurdity.

  These weren’t government.

  This was RMI.

  And they were gunning for blood.

  Four mercs hit the ground at once, sprinted forward into the teeth of Cain’s men, spreading out into a wide arc and firing tactical shotguns in a sound like rolling thunder. Four more were right behind them, fanning out to fill the spaces left by the previous wave, and these were spraying automatic fire in long bursts. Behind them, four more. These four filled the last spaces, picking targets.

  Fucking impressive.

  One last figure rappelled down, hit the ground and strolled toward us as if walking through Central Park. Tall—as in easily six-seven, but thin and wiry. He lifted a handgun and popped off a shot—I followed it, saw a body fall—another shot, another kill. He was doing it idly, almost casually, walking toward us while firing off shots in another direction, barely even bothering to aim, yet each shot was a kill.

  “Johnny Raze,” I breathed.

  Dani just laughed. “Fucker is showing off.”

  “Well it’s working,” I said, “because I’m impressed as hell.”

  Thresh was directly in front of us now, holding his fire. “No shit. Those your boys?” He addressed this to Dani.

  “Yep, those are my boys.”

  “Fuckin’ slick as hell,” Thresh rumbled.

  She held on to me tight, and I think we were holding each other up. “Thanks. I trained most ’em myself.”

  Things were quiet now—RMI showing up had ended things in a hurry.

  Dani buried her face in my neck. “The hell were you thinking?”

  “Wasn’t,” I answered, gritting past the pain that was my entire universe, now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “You were down.”

  She tightened her grip on me. “Your side is bleeding again.”

  “I know. Stitches opened.”

  She gazed at me. “Fucking dumbass. Should’ve left me.”

  I shook my head and gritted my teeth to keep from literally crying like a little boy from the raw agony. “I love you. I’d have died first.”

  “You still may, you idiot,” she whispered this through tears.

  I huffed. “Aware of that.” I kissed her forehead. “Worth it.”

  Johnny Raze was approaching. Almost as tall as Thresh but about half the muscle, he was lean and hard and rangy and corded and razor-sharp. White blond hair in a dramatic side-swept pompadour, every strand perfect. Clean-shaven, ice-blue eyes. Long, long arms, even longer legs, huge hands—he could’ve been a pro basketball player, and he moved like an athlete, like a predator. His eyes were wolf eyes, feral and wild and without any spark of humanity—until he locked eyes with Dani.

  “Little Trouble.” The voice came from a ravine, deep and dark and raspy, a voice that could narrate horror books and give you nightmares. “You’ve got a boo-boo.”

  She grinned, that baring of teeth that was more animal than human. “You should see the other guys.”

  He craned his neck to look over his shoulder at the square in front of the cathedral, and laughed. “I see them, and I think you’ve officially graduated to Big Trouble.”

  She gestured at Thresh, and the rooftops where the figures of Duke, Harris, and Puck could be seen, watching. “I had help.”

  He nodded. His eyes went to me, and I shivered; his gaze went beyond piercing, into the territory of downright flaying. “You had my girl’s back. I won’t forget it.”

  I met his gaze steadily, despite the inhuman coldness in them. “I did it because I love her.”

  I felt Dani’s arm tighten around me as those words left my mouth, and I felt her face bury once more in my neck, a shy gesture boldly made. It made my heart blossom, open, brought the once-shattered fragments together and began the process of healing.

  Raze stared at me. Nodded. “Still. She’s the single human on this planet I give even the remotest of fucks about, so you have my gratitude.”

  I shrugged. “Sure.” I gestured at his men. “Thanks for that.”

  Another of those nods.

  A beat of silence.

  Dani touched her lips to my ears, whispered in a voice so low only I heard it: “Love you too.”

  Nothing else mattered, not even the pain of my wounds. Not with those words ringing in my soul.

  “Cain got away.” Johnny Raze did not look happy to deliver this news. “Saw him run into a building—a city like this, old and full of secrets? He’s gone.”

  “Motherfucker,” I heard a voice say from my left: Harris, seething. “Are you fucking serious?”

  Raze nodded, extended a hand to Harris. “Jonathan Arazel.” A grin, quick and startlingly friendly. “Also known as Johnny Raze.”

  Harris shook the proffered hand. “Nicholas Harris. Pleased to meet you…officially.”

  Raze snorted. “Officially, yes. We’ve crossed paths, but never actually met.” A beat. “You’ve not always been my favorite person, Mr. Harris, but I respect the hell out of you.”

  Harris just laughed. “Understood, but it’s just business…you know how it is.” He glanced over his shoulder as Puck and Duke approached, and gestured to each man in turn. “Thresh is the monster with the shield, this is Duke, and this is Puck. Lear you’ve met.”

  Duke shook Raze’s hand, but his attention was all on Harris. “Boss. The girls swept through the airfield. Bad news.”

  There was silence, then. It was early morning, and there would normally be little to no traffic or pedestrians out yet as it was, but at the first hint of gunfire, I assumed most of the local citizenry had hunkered down in their homes. I heard sirens, those distinctive European two-tone howls approaching.

/>   Harris pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you dare say it.”

  Duke was highly unhappy. “They found Anselm’s Barrett, abandoned, and a pile of magazines, some empty, some full. His whole nest was abandoned, including his ruck.” He paused, anger and worry in the lines of his model-perfect features. “There was a lot of blood, and a dead body. They followed the trail as far it went, but it vanished in the woods.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Harris spun in a circle, hands raking his ball cap off and sweeping through his hair. “Cain got away, and Anselm’s on the run and hurt.”

  Raze spoke up. “The other bad news is that my intel says Cain has been busy the last couple years—when I got the word from you, I sent my intel team into high gear. He’s been stockpiling weapons and setting up cells all over Europe. Spending money like water, selling off assets, hiring serious muscle. That airfield and here…is just a fraction. He’s got a legit fucking army.”

  “And now Anselm is out there, alone. Cain’s pissed and gone to ground yet again.” Harris kicked a chunk of rubble. “Fuck.”

  Raze remained unperturbed. “Good news is, you’ve got us, now. Between my teams and yours, we’ll end this.” He eyed Dani. “The fucker went after my family. That was his death warrant.”

  Harris laughed, an unpleasant sound. “Yeah, well…I’ve said this once already today, but the line to kill Cain is long as hell, and whenever you think you’ve got him locked down, he slips away, and strikes from the shadows. So, yes, I’m glad to team up with you—there’s no other private security team on the planet I’d trust except you. But excuse me if I’m not exactly confident.”

  Puck had a cigar in his teeth. “Yeah, but Harris, you’re forgetting one little factor.”

  Harris turned to Puck, regarded the short, barrel-chested, long-bearded warrior. “What would that be, Puck?”

  “It’s Anselm that’s out there.” Puck’s grin was wicked. “Would you want to be Cain right now?”