by Adam Smith
Behind Max, Kate popped up and opened fire with her pistol. More soldiers screamed and died, but their companions pressed forward to flank Kate and Max.
Soldiers hustled past Max on their way to Kate. He took shots at them but only killed one. More soldiers on his opposite side focused on Max. He dropped to the floor and sheltered behind a pile of dead soldiers as bullets ripped into the corpses and splashed blood across his face.
Kate fired at the approaching soldiers until her gun clicked empty and the slide locked back. She didn’t have time to reload, so she dropped the pistol and rushed forward. As she ran, Kate reached out to either side and snatched up a cast iron skillet in each hand.
Kate swept through the crowd of soldiers with skillets swinging. The narrow iron edges slammed into men’s heads and faces.
One soldier flopped to the ground with a jaw full of shattered his teeth. He clutched his mouth, and a gurgling scream poured from behind his bloody hands.
Max’s dual pistols thundered as he tore through the enemies clustered around the sides of the prep tables. They died in piles. When his ammo ran out, he grabbed two more pistols from a pair of dead soldiers, stuffed them in his waistband, and picked up a fallen rifle.
The spray of bullets from Max’s rifle ripped through the rushing soldiers like they were paper dolls. The men fell in a bloody heap and formed a blanket of corpses.
With most of the room secured, Max spun around. Kate was still swiping at her enemies with her skillets. She was entangled in a close melee with several enemies, and the remaining soldiers in the room couldn’t shoot without killing their allies. Max plugged them with burst fire from his rifle and covered Kate long enough for her to drop the last man she was fighting.
When the room fell silent, Kate’s arms flopped to her sides, and she stood heaving ragged breaths. Long blonde hair, damp with sweat, was plastered to her face, and blood was sprayed across her damp white blouse. She and Max locked eyes, and the savage energy in her piercing blue gaze caused his heart to skip a beat. To Max, she looked like a warrior goddess who’d stepped from a painted canvas into a ruined kitchen to execute her foes.
At last, Max found his voice. “We’d better head out. Grab what you can. Let’s head through there.” With a bloody finger, he pointed across the room to a large metal door. “That’s the direction of the original stairwell, so I think we’ll be able to get out.
Kate nodded. She dropped the skillets and scooped up a new pistol plus a new rifle. Rearmed, she followed Max through the piles of corpses.
As they neared the door, the ceiling above them crunched open, and the one of the train cars fell through. Metal screamed as the kitchen twisted apart.
The car impacted just inches away on their left and shattered the floor. As the car plummeted through, the floor tilted and spilled Max and Kate into the gap. They both screamed and tried to grab hold of the floor as they fell, but the polished tiles broke off in their hands and left them plunging after the train car.
The train smashed through several floors, crunching through with booming impacts, until it finally slammed through to the ground floor. With a splash, the train landed halfway submerged in an indoor pool. Rubble from three floors rained down, splashing into the pool and clanging off the side of the train. Sparks flew, and the pool crackled with electricity as exposed wires dropped into the water.
Max and Kate bounced off falling debris and impacted against slanted floors, only to roll back out into the open and continue to fall. After several crunching impacts, both landed on the side of the train car. Kate was knocked unconscious and nearly rolled over the side into the electrified water, but Max grabbed her arm and pulled her back to safety. Her shopping bag lay crumpled nearby on the train car.
Flickering light from broken florescent fixtures bounced off walls and floors covered in blue patterned tilework surrounding the Olympic-sized pool. The train had landed in the shallow end but stretched toward the deep end, disappearing beneath the water. Dead soldiers lay crushed under the train and fallen rubble, but more soldiers stood around looking surprised. They looked even more shocked when they saw Max and Kate still alive atop the train.
Max yanked his guns from his belt, rolled over onto his belly, and opened up with both pistols. Several soldiers absorbed his shots and dropped dead to the tiles. A few corpses dropped into the pool where they began to smoke and twitch as electricity poured through them.
Soldiers from the floors above began firing down through the jagged holes, but the floors kept collapsing under them and they plummeted through to land in the electric pool.
One enemy soldier fell from the floor above and landed directly next to Max. The soldier was older, with blond hair fading to white and wrinkles crinkling a square, tanned face. His age proved no detriment as he recovered from the fall quickly and rolled to keep Max in sight. On the front of the mature soldier’s black fatigues was a patch with the name Tex sewn in gold thread.
Both combatants leaped to their feet and grappled one another, trying to throw each other into the water.
Tex hammered at Max with one haymaker after another.
Max ducked and wove as he deflected the attacks, growling in fury.
Tex snarled in the ex-cop’s face as he swung at Max. “You’re a fool to defy Papa Sal, boy. No one goes against him and lives!” His fist caught Max in the shoulder, and the force behind the blow caused the younger man to stagger.
Max nearly fell into the electrified pool but ducked beneath another haymaker and circled behind Tex. With a cry of rage, he lashed out at the older soldier and smashed him in the unprotected back. Max’s fingers sang out in a chorus of agony as Tex’s muscular frame not only absorbed the blow, but inflicted pain on his attacker.
Wind shrieked as Tex’s meaty fist sailed in for a knockout punch, but Max stepped aside. From the corner of his eye, the ex-cop spotted an opportunity. A nasty grin lit up his blood-drenched face.
The cocky expression on the young man’s face seemed to piss off Tex, because the hoary old fighter launched into a frenzy of jabs and hooks. Max expected the older man to tire, but the attacks just kept coming.
Max bared his teeth at Tex as he deflected another blow. “You dirtbags don’t get it.” He stepped inside the veteran soldier’s guard to drive his fist up into Tex’s stomach. The older man staggered and wheezed but, more importantly, he stepped backward.
Directly onto the paper bag containing Oscar and the blue dress.
The bag crumpled, and Tex’s booted foot slid out from under him. The old soldier caught himself, but the break in attacks gave Max just the edge he needed to take control of the fight.
The ex-cop wasted no time in rushing forward and hammering Tex with both aching fists.
“I’m the guardian of this city,” Max shouted as he punched Tex in the face. When the older man tried to counter, Max stepped inside his guard and headbutted his enemy in the temple.
The wizened warrior staggered backward, looking dazed. His fists weaved back and forth in a feeble defense.
Max clenched both fists at his sides and roared, “This is San Pajita, and this is my turf!” He lifted his right leg and drove his boot into the old soldier’s chest.
The blow hurled Tex backward off the train. The veteran warrior splashed into the water and spasmed as electricity gushed through his body, killing him instantly.
Wheezing from the exertion of the fight, Max hunched over with his hands on his knees and struggled to catch his breath. “Now that’s some old-fashioned Texan barbecue.”
Kate moaned, and Max hurried over to kneel beside her. She rubbed her forehead with one hand as Max pulled her other arm over his shoulder and lifted her to her feet.
“What happened?” Kate mumbled in a bleary voice.
“I found us a shortcut,” Max said. “Really great one, too. Waterfront and everything.”
“Sounds nice,” Kate murmured. “Thanks.” Even in her dazed state, she remembered to scoop up her shopping bag. Kate’s blue eyes cleared as she and Max walked up the length of the train and stepped off onto the blue ceramic tiles.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Max asked, waving his hand in front of her face.
“Four. Are you checking for a concussion, or are you asking because you can’t count that high?”
Max grinned. “Let me see if I can count how many times I’ve saved your life today.” He let her arm down and she settled back onto her own two feet before glancing around.
“Some shortcut, Max. Must be the ground floor if there’s a pool.”
“Let’s hope. We should be almost free. If you’re feeling good enough to run, we need to go.”
A narrow door on one side of the pool led to the locker rooms. The two hurried through the rows of metal lockers until, suddenly, bullets pinged all around them and they were forced to duck behind cover. Max returned fire with one of his pistols and killed the two soldiers barring their path, then the two hurried on again to the end of the locker room. Kate scooped up the men’s weapons as they ran, and Max saw her sling both rifle straps over one shoulder. One more door led outside to the lobby.
The lobby was a work of art. Black marble slabs formed a floor polished enough to create a reflective mirror. Plush sofas, green ferns, and ornate oak tables with matching chairs filled the cavernous lobby. Massive granite pillars held layers of walkways up above in an open chute straight through to the sixth floor, where skylights let in a flood of sunlight. Balconies and landings along all four sides of the wide-open space gleamed with glass railings in brass fittings.
An enormous reception desk was flanked by two sweeping staircases leading upward to all the floors of the hotel, and one wall held rows of elevators. The front wall was made almost entirely of glass windows rising two stories into the air and giving a view of the narrow street outside covered with a long overhang from sidewalk to sidewalk to protect people from rain as they waited for valet parking.
Soldiers rushed around the lobby, stomped up and down the stairs, and peeked down from the landings up above. The moment Max and Kate appeared, all guns trained on them and poured forth blistering suppressive fire. The two sheltered behind a raised black marble planter full of lush, flowering plants. The hail of bullets tore the foliage to shreds and gouged chips out of the marble all around Max’s head.
Outside in the street sat a shiny blue sportscar with white pinstripes. Max figured the valets had fled after hearing all the gunfire, leaving the car parked at the curb and awaiting a driver. A green sign hanging just above the car said Deacon Street.
“We need to get to the front doors,” Max shouted.
Kate nodded and made a sweeping gesture toward the front doors as if to say, after you.
Two soldiers stormed around the side of the planter. Kate shot them both dead with her pistol. Max watched as she stripped their rifles and slung them by the straps over her shoulder in addition to the two she already had.
He was about to ask her what she was doing when more gunfire forced him to duck his head. Soldiers up above had flanked their position and were firing down into their cover.
Max and Kate dove behind a large sofa which was quickly chewed apart under the withering gunfire. He heard Kate returning fire with her pistol.
Okay, thought Max, it’s fifty feet to the front door.
The glass windows shattered as stray bullets ricocheted off the marble floor and tore up the front of the building.
Or thirty feet to a broken window.
Max popped up from behind his sofa and fired at several more soldiers who were storming his position. The gangsters crashed down at his feet, so he scooped up a rifle in each of his hands and opened fire on the rest of the lobby in a frenzy of automatic fire. Every soldier was forced to duck down behind cover. Gangsters caught in the open were torn apart by Max’s sweeping line of destruction.
Kate took the opportunity to scoop up a few more rifles from dead soldiers she’d killed. As Max fired, she ran toward the broken window.
When his guns clicked empty, Max dropped both rifles and bolted toward the shattered front of the hotel. He passed Kate and rushed into the street, slid across the hood of the blue sportscar, and yanked open the door. The engine was still rumbling as he jumped into the driver’s seat.
Kate ran up and threw open the rear passenger door. She dumped eight automatic rifles into the car before diving in herself and lying sprawled across the rear seat. Already, gunfire from the soldiers inside the hotel was spattering off the sidewalk and asphalt of the street.
Max threw the car into drive and stomped on the gas. The sportscar leaped ahead like an eager stallion and raced away from the swarms of soldiers spilling out onto street.
As Max sped down Deacon Street he passed a beautiful 1969 blue convertible heading toward the hotel. The hulking man in the white suit driving the car looked over at him and made eye contact. When his blue eyes locked with the piercing gray gaze of Johnny Legion, Max’s stomach clenched.
He watched in his rearview mirror as the blue convertible spun around into a U-turn and picked up speed in hot pursuit.
“Hold on,” Max called over his shoulder to Kate, who was still sprawled across the back seat. His voice was terse. “Things are about to get much worse.”
Chapter 21
Pursued by All the Legions of Hell
Thumping impacts rang out and the blue sportscar vibrated around Max and Kate as bullets pounded into the sides and trunk.
Kate propped her rifle on the back seat and squeezed off a few more bursts through the shattered rear window. As her shots killed one driver and caused a flutter of dodging from the swarm of drivers chasing them, Max yanked the steering wheel back and forth to weave through traffic.
“I’m trying to aim, here,” Kate scolded him.
“Could’ve fooled me,” said Max. Bullets from their pursuers pinged off the interior of the car and tore apart the air conditioning controls. The shots narrowly avoided Max’s hand thanks to a timely swerve.
Johnny Legion’s blue convertible led the pack. Kate sent a barrage of lead his way, but the human devil seemed to have a sixth sense that warned him to swerve or duck every time she stroked the trigger. She burned through an entire rifle’s worth of ammo before giving up and focusing on the enemy vehicles around him.
Up ahead along Deacon Street, Max spotted four black sedans closing in on his position at top speed. With no choice, he jerked the steering wheel to the right and entered the freeway via the exit ramp.
Oncoming cars honked and swerved to avoid him as Max rushed up the ramp and onto the freeway. Oncoming traffic bore down on him at eighty miles per hour. Max narrowed his focus down solely to avoiding head-on collisions. The thunder of Kate’s rifle crashed through the sportscar again and again as their horde of pursuers swarmed after them onto the freeway.
Max dodged a red minivan, then a black pickup truck. A huge SUV barreled right toward them but swerved at the last second. The balding driver flipped Max a middle finger as they slid past each other.
A huge green semi blared its horn as it rushed toward Max with no room to maneuver. But years of training and police action had sharpened Max’s driving skills to a razor’s edge. He spun the wheel at the same time as the truck driver tried to stop. The green semi jackknifed and flipped, tumbling across the freeway as civilian cars streamed past on both sides to avoid the rolling wall of death.
Max slammed the blue sportscar up against the concrete guard on one side of the freeway. The rolling semi hit the top of the barrier and rolled overhead, near enough that the trailer scraped the roof of the car with a sharp screech. The semi rolled past and landed in the road, creating a barrier with narrow choke points on each side.
With their pursuers delayed for a few precious secon
ds, Max spun the wheel and slammed the brakes, then stomped on the gas. The maneuver yanked their car into a 180 degree turn and left them facing back the way they’d come. Max took the nearby exit ramp and headed back into the city, now driving with the correct flow of traffic.
In his rearview mirror, Max spotted Johnny’s blue convertible streaking down the exit ramp after him. The hired killer had pulled the same maneuver and was hot on their tail. Max peered closer and saw the hulking brute raise a gold-plated pistol.
“Kate, get down!”
The windshield erupted in a spiderweb of cracks as multiple bullets pounded through it. Kate yelped and dropped flat in the back seat while Max hunkered down and jittered the car back and forth to throw off Johnny Legion’s aim. A side street called Jed Crowder Memorial Road came up and Max threw the car hard into the turn at full speed.
Thumping helicopter blades warned Max moments before the street in front of him erupted in showers of chewed asphalt. On each side of them, choppers were closing in and firing down into the street.
Kate switched from firing out the back window to focusing her shots on the helicopter to their right. She hit the gunner. His aim twisted and looped around the street, tearing huge bullet holes in advertisement screens and parked cars as the helicopter pulled away.
Kate rolled over onto her back and poured fire into the other helicopter. Her bullets spattered across the pilot’s canopy and cracked the glass. The second chopper retreated.
The wounded gunner was still firing at long range from the first helicopter. His shots were all missing, but the sheer volume of projectiles forced Max to dodge around the shots. One particularly nasty hail of bullets made Max swerve out of the street and up onto the sidewalk. The blue sportscar mowed down a sign which read “Jed Crowder Memorial Road, Courtesy of the Brown Family”.