Looking into his eyes, I believed him.
"I want to go home," Becca said.
"We're going home, honey," Edward said.
Edward led the way around the corner still carrying Becca. Peter went next, and I brought up the rear. I didn't burst anyone's bubble, but I knew we were a long way from safe. We had Simon and the rest of his men to get through, not to mention Harold and Newt and the local guys. Where were Russell and Amanda? I was really hoping to see them before we left. I'd promised Peter that she would never hurt him again. I always keep my promises.
60
THE HALLWAY SPILLED OUT into a large open space. Edward stopped, and Peter and I did, too. Becca was still being carried, so she didn't have much choice. I kept an eye on our back trail and waited for Edward to decide what to do. I couldn't see how big the open space was, so I figured it was big enough for Edward to worry about us being out in that much open. He finally moved slowly forward, hugging the left-hand wall. When I could see the room clearly, I realized why he'd hesitated. It wasn't just this huge open space. There were three tunnels leading off to the right, dark mouths where anything might lurk, like Simon and the rest of his men. But there was a fourth opening with stairs leading up. Up was what we needed.
I walked with my back to the solid wall behind me, trying to keep an eye on the hall we'd come out of and the three tunnels to the right. I left the stairs to Edward.
The stairway was narrow, barely broad enough for two slender people to walk abreast. It wound upward and had a sharp angle at the top, a blind corner. I kept watching behind us, because I knew that if shooters came up behind us, and in front of us at the same time, we were dead. It was a perfect place for an ambush.
Peter seemed to feel the tension because he moved closer to Edward, almost touching him as they moved up the stairs. We were about three fourths of the way up to that first blind corner, when Edward hesitated, staring down at the steps. Peter took one extra step. Edward hit him with his shoulder, knocking him back. He dropped Becca to the steps, still holding her good arm, trying to save her from the full fall. I think if he'd just dropped Becca, he might have gotten them all out of harm's way, but that last effort cost him the second he needed.
I saw a blur of movement, and there was a wooden stake sticking out of Edward's back. I started to go to him, but he said, "Up the stairs, now. Shoot them."
I didn't ask questions. I went up the last few steps as fast as I could go and threw myself around the corner on my side, and was shooting down the hallway before I saw what I was shooting at.
Harold, Russell, Newt, and Amanda were running down another level of stairs. I fired up into them, fighting the angle to make the spray pattern hit them. The three men went down, but Amanda turned and darted back around the corner they'd come from. I made sure the men weren't getting up, firing into their down bodies, then I got to my feet and ran up the stairs after her. I crouched at the corner, but the stairs were empty. Fuck. I didn't dare pursue her and leave the kids and Edward alone.
I went back down the steps and slipped on blood so that I ended up sitting down hard on the steps, my elbow hit Harold's body, and the body grunted.
I put the barrel of the gun against his chest as his eyes fluttered open. "Didn't make the ambush site in time. Simon's going to be pissed," he said, and the tone of his voice said he was hurting.
"I don't think you have to worry about Simon anymore, Harold. You're not going to be around to answer to him."
"Never approved of hurting kids," he said.
"But you didn't stop it," I said.
He took a breath and that seemed to hurt, too. "Simon called someone on the radio. Said he'd failed. Said they needed to clean up the mess. I think they're coming to kill us all."
"Who's coming?"
He opened his mouth, and I think he'd have told me, but his breath ran out in a long sigh. I felt for the pulse in his neck, but it wasn't there. I'd known he was dead, but still you check. I checked Russell and Newt just to be sure, but they were dead. I actually left everyone's guns because I just couldn't carry anymore.
I heard voices as I neared the bend that would take me back to Edward. Fuck. Then I recognized one of the voices. It was Olaf.
I came around the corner and found Olaf and Bernardo kneeling by Edward. Peter was sitting on the steps holding Becca. She was crying. He wasn't. He was staring at Edward, face white with shock.
Bernardo spotted me first. "Are they dead?"
I nodded. "Russell, Newt, and Harold. Amanda got away."
Peter's eyes flicked to me, and they were huge and dark in his pale, pale face. The bruised mouth stood out against his skin like it was makeup, too bright to be real.
Edward made a small sound, and Peter turned back to him. "I'm sorry, Ted," he said. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right, Pete. Just next time follow my lead better." His voice was strained, but Peter seemed to take heart from talk of a next time. I wasn't so sure.
Olaf and Bernardo had turned him so that you could see the sharpened end of the stake that had pierced his chest. It was upper chest, close to the left shoulder. It had missed the heart or he'd be dead, but it could have pierced the sack around the heart, and blood could be spilling into that sack as we watched. Or it could have missed it entirely. It was high enough up that it had probably missed the lungs. Probably.
"How'd you know that they were coming?" I asked.
"Heard them," and his voice reminded me of Harold's, pain stressed.
I was suddenly cold, and it wasn't the temperature. I started to kneel by them all, but Edward said, "Watch our backs."
So I stood up, put my back to the wall, and let my peripheral vision try to keep track of both up and down the stairs. But my eyes kept going back to him. Was he dying? Please, God, not like this. It wasn't just Edward. It was the look on Peter's face. If Edward died, Peter would blame himself. The boy was having a bad enough night. That kind of guilt he did not need.
"Give me your T-shirt," Olaf said.
I looked at him.
"We need to pack the wound and keep the stake from moving around. We can't remove it here. It's too close to his heart. He will need a hospital."
I agreed with that. "Someone else watch for bad guys while I undress."
Bernardo stood up and took my place at the wall. I noticed there was a blade sticking out of his cast like a spearhead. The blade was stained black with blood.
I pulled off my T-shirt and handed it to Olaf. He'd already stripped down to his black Kevlar vest, shoving his own shirt around the wound.
"Do you need mine?" Peter asked.
"Yes," Olaf said.
Peter moved Becca forward on his lap and took off his shirt. His upper body was thin and pale. He was tall, but the rest of him hadn't caught up. Olaf used pieces of Bernardo's shirt to hold the makeshift bandage in place. The wound looked terrible, but it wasn't bleeding much. I didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one.
"We caught the other half of your ambush on its way to the stairs," Bernardo said.
"I wondered why there weren't more," I said. I remembered what Harold had said. "Before Harold died, he said that Simon called someone. Told them he'd failed and they needed to clean up the mess. Does that mean what I think it means?"
Edward looked up at me, as Olaf used more shirt strips to bind his left arm tight, so he wouldn't move it and risk jarring the stake into something vital. "They'll kill everything they find." His voice was almost normal, only slightly breathy, a touch tight. "They'll burn the place to ash. Maybe they even salt the earth." I think that last was the wound talking, but you never know with Edward.
Olaf lifted Edward to his feet, but the height difference was too much. Edward couldn't keep his arm over the big man's shoulders. "Bernardo will have to help you."
"No, Anita can do it."
Olaf opened his mouth to argue, I think, but Edward said, "Bernardo only has one good arm. He needs that to shoot."
Olaf closed hi
s mouth into a tight line, but he handed Edward over to me. Edward's arm went around my shoulders. I put my left arm around his waist. We tried a couple of steps, and it worked okay.
Olaf led the way. I came next with Edward, then Peter, carrying Becca wrapped around his body like a sad little monkey. Bernardo brought up the rear. Olaf looked at the bodies of the dead men as he passed. He spoke without looking back at me. "You did this?"
"Yeah." I'd have usually come up with something sarcastic like, "you see anyone else?" but I was too worried about Edward to waste the effort. Sweat had popped out on his face, as if it was taking a lot to keep going. Trouble was, a fireman's carry would disturb the stake, and if any of us could carry him just in his arms, it was Olaf, but it would mean not being able to shoot. We needed the gun.
"You okay, Edward?" I asked.
He swallowed before he said, "Fine."
I didn't believe him, but I didn't ask again. This was probably as good as it was going to get for awhile.
Edward tried to turn and say something to the kids, but it hurt, and I had to turn for him, moving us both to face backwards. "Cover Becca's eyes, Peter."
Peter had Becca bury her face against his shoulder and kept his hand pressed to the back of her head. He didn't have the Firestar in his hands. I wondered where it was but not enough to ask.
I turned Edward back around, and we started up the stairs again. Olaf was almost at the next bend in the stairs, when he stopped. He was looking down at the steps. I froze and said, "No one move."
"Is it a trap?" Edward asked.
"No," Olaf said.
I saw it then, thin rivulets of blood sliding down the steps towards us. It snaked around Olaf's feet and dripped its way toward Edward and me.
Peter wasn't that far behind us. He asked, "What is that?"
"Blood," Olaf said.
"Please tell me that this is your handiwork, Olaf," I said.
"No," he said.
I watched the blood flow around my Nikes and knew that our problems had just gotten worse.
61
I LEANED EDWARD up against the wall. He wanted me free to shoot if Olaf told me to. Olaf got to scout ahead and see what the problem was. He vanished around that corner, and I pressed myself to the wall and gave the briefest of looks ahead. The stairs ended just up ahead. The electric lights showed a cave, I think. The lights glistened on blood and bodies.
Olaf backed up, and came down to us again. "I can see the exit."
"What are the bodies?"
"Riker's men."
"What killed them?"
"I think it is our murderous beast. But there is no other way out. The other entrance has been blocked by an explosion. We must go out this way."
I figured if the murderous beast was up there waiting for us, Olaf would have been more excited. So I went back to Edward. His skin was the color of bad paste. His eyes were closed. They opened when I touched him, but they were brighter than they should have been. "We're almost out," I said.
He didn't say anything, just let me settle his arm over my shoulder. He was still holding on to me, but every step we took, my arm around his waist was taking more and more of his weight. "Hold on, Edward, just a little further."
His head jerked as if he'd just heard me, but his feet kept moving with me. We were going to make it, all of us. The blood got thicker the farther up we walked. Edward slipped in it, and I had to catch him and barely managed to keep us both standing. But it was a sudden movement, and he let out a small sound of pain. Shit.
"Watch your step, Peter," I said. "It's slippery."
Olaf was waiting for us at the bodies. There were only three of them. One was a man I didn't recognize, but I recognized the gun near his body. He was one of Simon's men. Simon was lying in a pool of blood and darker fluids. The entire lower chest, stomach, abdomen were open. His intestines trailed out onto the cave floor, but his eyes were still blinking upward, still alive.
The third body was Amanda, and she was still moving, too. But Olaf had her covered, so I kept my attention on Simon. He smiled up at us. "At least I killed the Undertaker."
"He's not nearly as dead as you are," I said.
"You're all dead, bitch."
"We know you invited company," I said.
His eyes looked uncertain. "Fuck you." His hand inched towards his gun that was still lying beside him. Gutted, dying, in more pain than I could imagine, and he tried to go for his gun. I stepped on his hand, pinning it to the earth. Harder to do than normal with Edward hanging on me, but I managed. "Peter, you and Becca go up with Bernardo to the front of the cave."
Peter didn't argue. He just carried Becca past us, Bernardo trailing behind.
I pointed the gun barrel at Simon's head. I couldn't leave him behind because I didn't trust him at my back. Even this wounded, I wasn't willing to take the chance.
"I hope the monster guts you, Bitch."
"That's Ms. Bitch to you," I said and pulled the trigger. A short burst, but more shots echoed mine. I whirled, gun up, and found Peter standing over Amanda's body. He emptied the Firestar into her body while I watched. Olaf was just watching him do it. I looked for Bernardo and found him holding Becca near the cave mouth.
Edward started to slide to his knees. I knelt with him, trying to keep him upright. He whispered, "The kids, out, get them ... out," and he fainted.
Olaf was there without me asking. He lifted Edward in his arms like a child. If the monster came now, we all had our hands full. Shit.
Peter had run out of bullets, but he was still squeezing the trigger, over and over and over. I went to him. "Peter, Peter, she's dead. You killed her. Ease down."
He didn't seem to hear me. I touched his hands, tried to lift the gun from him. He jerked away, violently, eyes wild. He kept dry firing into the woman's body. I shoved him back against the rock wall, hard, one arm across his throat, the other pinning his hands still wrapped around the Firestar. His eyes were wide and frightened, but he looked at me. "Peter, she's dead. You can't kill her any more dead than she already is."
His voice shook when he said, "I wanted her to hurt."
"She did hurt. Being torn apart is a bad way to die."
He shook his head. "It's not enough."
"No," I said, "it isn't enough, but you killed her, Peter. That's as good as revenge gets. Once you kill them, there isn't any more."
I took the Firestar out of his hands, and he let me. I tried to hug him, but he pushed me away, then walked away. The time for that kind of comfort was past, but there were other kinds of comfort. Some of them came from the barrel of a gun. There is some comfort in killing that which has hurt you, but it is cold comfort. It'll destroy things inside of you that the original pain wouldn't have harmed. Sometimes it's not a question of whether a piece of your soul is going to go missing, only which piece it's going to be.
Peter carried Becca. Olaf carried Edward. Bernardo and I took the lead. We searched the spring darkness with our guns, back and forth, back and forth. Nothing moved. There was just the sound of wind in the tall line of sage bushes that bordered the back of the cave. The air felt so good against my face, and I realized that I'd not really expected to get out, not alive. Pessimism, it wasn't like me.
Bernardo led the way back to circle the house. We'd try for Edward's car, but we wanted to make sure no one or no thing was waiting to eat us when we went for the car. Olaf went second, carrying a very still Edward. I was praying hard that he'd be okay, though strangely it felt odd to pray to God for Edward, as if I were praying in the wrong direction. Peter and Becca were just ahead of me. He stumbled as we headed into the thicker brush. He had to be tired, but I couldn't afford to carry Becca. I needed to have my hands free to fight.
I felt the prickling brush of magic. I called, "Guys, something's out here."
Everyone stopped and started searching the darkness. "What did you see?" Olaf asked.
"Nothing, but something out here is doing magic."
Olaf made a no
ise in his throat like he didn't believe me. Then the first wave of fear washed over us. So much fear that it closed the throat, sent the heart thundering, made the palms of your hand sweat. Becca started struggling violently in Peter's arms.
I took two steps to help Peter control her, but she struggled free, fell to the ground, and ran like a rabbit into the brush. Peter yelled, "Becca!" and went after her.
"Peter, Becca! Oh, shit!" I ran into the brush after them. What else could I do? I heard them just up ahead, crashing through the brush, Peter calling Becca's name. I had a sense of movement to my right, and I saw something. It was bigger than a man and even by moonlight you could see it was different colors. I fired into it as it opened a huge razored mouth, but the claw kept coming towards me, as if the bullets were nothing. The closed claw slammed into my head. It knocked me off my feet, and I hit the ground hard. Darkness swirled across my vision, and when I could see again, the thing was right above me. I kept my finger on the trigger, until it clicked empty. The monster never hesitated. It filled my vision with a face that was almost birdlike, and I had a moment to think it was pretty before it hit me again, and there was nothing but darkness.
62
I WOKE INSTANTLY, my skin jumping with a rush of magic that left me gasping. My body strained, writhing as the power rode over and through my body in a burning surge that just kept growing. My hands and legs strained against the chains that held me down. Chains? I turned and stared at my wrists, head still thrashing, my body jerking as the power roared through me. My arms and legs jerked, not because I was struggling against the chains but as a reaction to the power.
The magic began to fade, leaving my breath coming in pants. One thing I knew. If didn't get my breathing under control, I was going to hyperventilate. Passing out again would be bad. Heaven knew what I'd wake up to a second time. I concentrated on my breathing, forcing myself to be calm, and take deep, even, normal breaths. It's hard to be totally panic-stricken when you're doing breathing exercises. It poured a false calm over my body, and my mind. But it let me think, which was good.
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