“You claimed innocence before.” Edger’s voice slithered, snaking into my ear. “But you had the boy back at the Scheutz ranch, didn’t you?”
There was no way was I going to answer that.
The knife moved closer again. The scratches on the blade came into crystal-clear focus. Grit on the metal. Flecks of blood, maybe Rachel’s own. The tip hovered over my eyeball. I could almost feel the blade in the squish of my pupil.
Wren laughed, a jagged, raggedy sound. Neither the Vixx, nor Edger paid her any attention. Normal folks might’ve wondered at her laughter, but not them.
My sister laughing filled me with rage. “Goddammit, Wren!”
“Peter?” Wren asked. “Your name is Peter Pilgram?”
“Jesus,” Pilate muttered, “not now.”
Wren didn’t stop. “Sorry they kicked you out of the church, Peter, but really, you can’t be too surprised. You do like the ladies.”
Rachel Vixx still wasn’t distracted. She moved the knife forward, to blind me. But I jerked aside, and she jabbed the knife into my eyebrow. The blade bit bone.
“Hold her steady,” Rachel said to Edger; didn’t yell it, didn’t even seem all that frustrated. She knew that once she blinded me, Wren would take her and the whole situation far more seriously. “Irene Weller, your emotions are erratic, but that is the nature of emotions. They are a liability. I will use them to my advantage.”
Blood trickled down into my eye. I couldn’t open it, but Rachel didn’t need me to. If she wanted, she could stick the knife through my eyelid.
Edger got a fresh grip on me.
Wren laughed sharply. “Peter Pilgram? Like Harry Houdini? Your parents didn’t do you no favors, did they? Why, when I was in the circus, folks would name themselves like that. Two names startin’ with the same letter.”
Circus. Harry Houdini. The words spun through my head. Wren wasn’t just messing with Pilate; no, she was trying to tell us something.
Then I knew.
I went slack in Edger’s arms. She wasn’t expecting it and nearly dropped me.
Not a heartbeat later, a pistol shot exploded in the tight, packed room. The deafening noise rang my bell like nothing else. Felt like a hammer to my head.
It also brought a smile to my face.
(ii)
Gore splattered me. One of the soldier girls clutching me collapsed. I tore free from Edger but tripped and landed on my hurt shoulder. Pain clipped my breath short. I couldn’t see through the mask of blood. But I didn’t need to see to know who was shooting—Wren, circus-trained, had shucked off her handcuffs and stolen a pistol. Her talk of Harry Houdini had been code, and I’d given her the distraction she needed.
Machine gun fire pounded my ears. Bullets ricocheted in long whines—we were inside of a concrete box and every bullet that didn’t find flesh bounced around the room like the rubber balls I’d played with as a kid.
Regios tumbled to the floor next to me, maybe killed by Wren, more likely killed by the ricocheting rounds. But could Wren get to Rachel? Could she put the cloned soldier down with a headshot? Only severe brain trauma or a spinal cord injury could stop a Vixx.
I blinked blood from my eyes and sucked in a nose full of gunpowder stink. A bullet sparked the concrete centimeters away from my head.
Still handcuffed, Pilate head-bashed a soldier girl aside.
Wren and Rachel squared off.
The door buzzed. The locks clicked open. More troops poured in. Wren couldn’t shoot them all, and Pilate, coughing and pale, seemed about to drop.
Edger fell to the floor next to me, her throat blown out, revealing the cartilaginous rings of her trachea. Her eyes blinked open. No one human could’ve survived, but she wasn’t human anymore, not after being dosed by the Gulo Delta. Like Wren.
Edger shoved a semi-automatic pistol into the stitches on my forehead. The hurt stunned me.
Before she could pull the trigger, the back wall exploded.
A boiling cloud of concrete dust rolled through the room, followed by the familiar sound of the Moby Dick’s big .50 caliber machine guns. Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz had swooped in and saved the day. Now that the Moby was out of the Juniper, they could use the Eterna battery, and no other airship could catch them.
I punched Edger in the face and started for the hole in the back of the cell, but another sound rose to match the machine gun fire.
The thunder of cattle hooves.
A stampede.
Outside, on the streets of Wendover, casinos sparkled under a blazing desert sun. In front of them rushed our headcount in an unbroken cascade of cattle. But not just our headcount; no, every single animal from the Wendover stockyards, running, snorting, and trampling anything and everything in their path like a river of angry horns, hooves, and hide. The stench of the rampaging animals and the oily odor of the hot asphalt struck us in the jail cell.
Edger hooked her fingers into my hair to yank me back. Pilate dashed over. He grabbed Edger by her belt and shirt and hurled her through the hole in the wall—into the very heart of the stampede. Took a handful of my hair with her but it was worth it to see that woman swept away.
Wren followed Pilate’s lead. Before Rachel Vixx could stop her, my sister hauled the clone to the hole in the wall.
“Edger might get lonely out there!” Wren shrieked with laughter as she shoved the Vixx under the hooves of thousands upon thousands of scared, angry cattle. The mass of moving beef swallowed up both women in seconds.
“Heal that, ya dirty skanks,” Wren spit into the stampede.
I staggered to the door and slammed it shut. It would only stop the ARK reinforcements for a second, until they could buzz the door open again.
My sister threw on her vest and poncho, then stepped over corpses to get to Pilate. She’d been hit in the leg, and her blood soaked her jeans black. She’d found handcuff keys and used them to unlock Pilate.
“Well,” Pilate said loudly, “we can’t go out through the escape hatch Sketch gave us unless we want to try swimming through an angry beef stew.” Coughing cut off his words.
He’d also been hit, at least once. Blood covered his neck. As far as I knew, I was the only one not shot.
I nodded. “I bet it was bad timing. They prolly wanted to blow a hole in the wall before the cattle stampeded, but it all didn’t work like they wanted.”
Pilate, still hacking, scooped up an AZ3, while Wren, breathing hard, undid my handcuffs. She grimaced against her pain, then crouched and vomited blood onto the concrete floor. Even with the Gulo Delta in her veins, she was far from healed. Her internal injuries must’ve burst open again.
She threw me a ghastly grin. Red smeared the few teeth left in her mouth. “Gonna have to shoot your way out the front door, Princess. I’m nearly finished, and Pilate ain’t right. It’s all up to you ...” She slumped into me and went unconscious.
“Don’t call me ‘Princess,’” I whispered, not quite believing I was our best hope of getting out of there. I laid her gently on the floor.
Pilate’s lungs rattled, and he coughed until drool hung from his lips. Cattle continued to stream past the hole in a brownish blur. Not sure which bothered me more, their frightened screams or the dank stink of their sweat and fear.
I picked up an AZ3 and checked the clip: half empty. I dropped it and grabbed a full one. I collected a few more, then shuffled to the door, shaking, nauseous, horrified, but forcing myself to move. Just like Pilate forced his lungs to cooperate.
He dragged Wren to the wall just right of the door. “You ready?” he asked.
Not me. I wasn’t a gunslinger. I was just a young girl; smart, good with electronics, but far from a killer. I hadn’t been able to shoot anyone, not even to save my sister’s life. Who was I kidding? I was centimeters away from tears or puking or both.
The door buzzed again, but no one rushed in. Sure, they’d let us leave the room to ambush us in the hallway.
“Open the door, then step to the side,” P
ilate said. “Don’t run out there. Okay?”
I nodded. I pushed open the steel door, then stepped to the left side. Pilate stood on the right, and we waited.
Nothing. No one seemed to be in the hallway. Could we be alone, or was this a trick?
Only one way to know for sure.
(iii)
Fluorescent bulbs flickered in the ceiling, flashing darkness and light off the green linoleum floor and cinderblock walls. A cool, air-conditioned breeze pushed a wet smell through the odor of blood and gunfire.
Pilate dug into Wren’s shirt pocket and tossed me her Hello Kitty compact mirror, which she used for both make-up and battle.
I held the mirror out past the corner and checked the hallway in both directions. Empty.
Outside, I didn’t hear the Moby’s guns anymore, but the thunder of the stampede continued, jangling my already damaged nerves.
Pilate nodded. I knew what he wanted me to do.
My knees shook. I couldn’t breathe. But I was being childish. Wren had fought when she was nearly dying, and now it was my turn.
I darted into the hallway. No one fired on me. The hall led to another steel security door, which stood open. Office chairs and cubicle walls filled the room. The door should’ve been closed. It had to be a trap.
Then I saw Sharlotte, in her gray New Morality dress, spotted with blood. She clutched Tina Machinegun, our Mama’s ancient M16 with a grenade launcher under the barrel.
Sharlotte, pale and dark-eyed, waved us in. “Come on. Cows are only gonna stampede for so long, and no one can get to us. Sketchy’s flown off to draw fire, but we all know the Moby Dick is nearly done for.”
I gasped, relieved. We were going to make it out, thank God. I helped Pilate with Wren, and we stumbled forward. My ankle made me limp, and Pilate’s cough slowed us down further. Those dang cigars he’d smoked for years surely didn’t help.
We lurched into an office that had become a battleground. Bullet holes marked desks and cubical walls, laptops and slates spewed their guts across the floor. Regio bodies lay scattered around. FBI wanted posters on a big bulletin board caught my eye.
I looked closer. And shivered.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had our names listed as their most wanted criminals. At the very top were high-resolution pictures of me and Pilate, taken with a slate at some point. Someone had done sketches of Wren and Sharlotte, pretty much capturing every aspect of their faces.
We were wanted, not just by the ARK, but by every law enforcement agency across the U.S. How could we ever get away?
Pilate held Wren while I ripped the posters off the wall and stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans. I’d look later to see what our supposed crimes were.
Then I saw Crete on the floor, dead. Crete. Lucretia Macaby, a girl my age, blonde and partial to silliness and giggles. She’d laugh no more.
I’d never liked her, not even a little, but looking into her dead, staring eyes felt like looking in a mirror. We’d gone to elementary school together. Now, she wouldn’t graduate high school. And she’d died trying to rescue me.
I felt selfish and petty. I couldn’t thank her nor could I take back my mean thoughts.
Sharlotte squinted against her sorrow but kept her voice even. “They got Crete. I didn’t think we’d have to shoot our way in. I thought she’d be safer with me. And she wanted to come to save you. We were both fools.”
“We can’t leave her here,” I said, trying to swallow down my shock. “We have to bury her.”
“Can’t,” Sharlotte whispered. “But we’ll pray for her. Pray hard. For her. For me. For what I did.”
No time to ask what she meant.
The front doors of the police station lay wide open, and outside, a wasp-yellow Ford Pegasus convertible idled next to the steps. Frictionless, it floated a half-meter off the ground. A blond boy sat behind the wheel. Micaiah. Seeing him filled me with hope and shakti.
Sharlotte ushered us away from Crete and toward the door.
Suddenly, a Regio filled the doorway. Not sure where she’d come from, but she had short, dark hair, blood on her face, and an assault rifle aimed at us.
She opened fire and hit Sharlotte, who was thrown back.
I raised my rifle and pulled the trigger; it was set to fire three rounds at a time. Bullets hit the Regio in the shoulder and sparked off the AZ3, blowing it out of her fingers. Her right hand went for her holstered pistol.
Pilate collapsed into coughing. He dropped Wren. He was trying to get his gun up but couldn’t. And my oldest sister, my Sharlotte, lay on the ground.
I was going to have to finish off the Regio. I centered the laser grid on her forehead and pressed the sensor pad on the trigger to initiate the auto-correct targeting.
The soldier girl went to her knees and finally managed to draw her pistol. My rifle followed, moving easily in my hands to keep her head in focus.
Then time broke completely. It must’ve. Three things that should’ve flowed like a line of events got clumped together, like dirt clustered around the roots of a pulled dandelion.
The Regio let go of her pistol, and it clattered to the floor. She looked into my eyes and whispered, “Please, don’t kill me.”
I squeezed the trigger. Three bullets, one after another, pounded through her head.
Couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t. I killed her while she begged for mercy. And, I knew, a part of me died right there with her.
The shakes took me, my knees threatened to buckle, and I wanted to collapse into sobs. But I didn’t. I went to Sharlotte. Her eyes were open, she mouthed words, but she couldn’t get enough air to speak. Blood covered the left side of her body, shot to crapperjack. It took every bit of strength I had to lift her, even with her helping.
Pilate with Wren, me with Sharlotte, we teetered through the doors. Cows packed the street, killing each other, hooves pounding the pavement, sending up a horrendous, thundering noise. The whole town stank of cattle—scared, bleeding cattle.
An overturned truck to the east offered us some protection, but how was Micaiah going to drive through the stampede?
First things first. Pilate and I pulled our wounded across the pavement to the Pegasus. He made it and laid Wren into the back seat of the car. Sharlotte and I weren’t so lucky.
Cows flooded around the truck—all that meat rushing toward us. A bull struck me and Sharlotte.
She went down, trampled.
I was thrown back for a second, against the blistering heat of the car.
I flicked my rifle to full auto and opened fire. One, two, three cows toppled onto their sides, bellowing, until more running beef pounded over them in a wave of violence. The cattle changed course to avoid the pile and slammed into the concrete of the police station. Their white eyes rolled in their sockets even as their black, murky nostrils flared. Their piping screams and howls rose like a hellish chorus of the damned. And I continued to gun them down until I cleared a space.
I grabbed Sharlotte, but she was dead weight, completely gone from the world. I wept, my heart on fire and drowning me in the smoke. My sister, shot, then trampled. It wasn’t fair.
And me, killing a woman as she begged for her life.
Pilate rushed to help me, and we heaved Sharlotte’s broken body into the back of the Pegasus. Pilate crawled in and pulled Wren onto him. I dove into the front seat, holding Tina Machinegun—I didn’t remember picking it up.
“Above!” Pilate shouted.
Two Johnny Boy zeppelins chugged through the sky toward us. Blackened, ragged Kevlar flapped like dead skin from their previous battles with the Moby Dick. The two Johnnies were the last of the ARK blimps that had been sent to find us, full of troops, machine guns, and rocket launchers.
A cow bashed into our car, jarring us and making the metal scream. Micaiah slammed the Pegasus in gear and stomped on the accelerator. The jolt pressed me back into the seat. He wrenched the wheel to the left and then to the right, avoiding cattle. The ze
ppelins were flying in from the north, so we needed to head south, but the stampede blocked our way.
Micaiah slammed down the gear shift, going faster, faster, but why? His face glowed pale, gaunt, eyes hidden in bruises of exhaustion. What was he planning?
Then I saw a big rig’s flatbed trailer to the west. Its loading ramp was down.
“Do it!” I yelled.
He nodded and gunned the engine. We bounced off a few more cows as he careened the frictionless car up against the side of a strip mall’s glass storefront. Our thrusters shattered the window into a rain of fragments.
Then we were speeding toward the ramp. He was going to hit it at an angle, but I prayed it would be enough to send us soaring.
We whooshed up the ramp and into the air. But we weren’t going to make it over the stampede. A shriek froze in my mouth.
The Pegasus landed in the middle of the stampede about halfway across the main street. I winced, expecting us to sink under the raging cattle and be ripped apart by the stampede, except main street was so solidly jammed with beefsteaks that we careened over their backs instead. Horns screeched off the bottom of the car, and heads ducked before we took them off. The Pegasus bucked and jostled and surfed across the cows until we bounced over the last one and dropped to glide easily across cement.
We zoomed down an alley between casinos, onto a baseball field, and crashed through a chain-link fence. And then ...
Open desert.
The two zeppelins didn’t follow. One stayed above the police station, while the other chased the Moby Dick to the west. Once more, Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz had saved us. Well, Sketchy insisted she was family, and family take care of each other. Thank you, Sketch.
We’d made our escape, but what horrible price had we paid for our freedom?
Where could we go? Not only were the ARK soldiers looking for us, but now the police were as well. I shuddered to think of how many people had seen the FBI posters.
Worse yet, my sisters, both of them, lay bleeding in the back of the Pegasus, riding the razor’s edge between life and death.
Inferno Girls Page 2