“I came here. From the police station. Some assholes shot up the place. There was a cop with me.”
“Great. Get him—”
“Her.” Danny raised an eyebrow at him, but he pretended not to see it. “Carlisle. I’m pretty sure she’s one of the good guys.”
“Like I said, great.” John found some pants, wincing as he pulled them on. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Get her, and let’s get out of here.”
Something very loud exploded from the direction of the waiting room. The could hear the sounds of falling masonry in the brief lull. Then they heard a roar.
“What the fuck was that?” Danny's eyes were wide.
“I … look, I don’t know.” Val risked sticking his head around the corner of the ward door. “It’s clear. We’ve got to get out of here.” He reached a hand towards Danny. She took it.
“Sure, help the girlfriend. Nothing for your old buddy John.” John had managed to get his pants on now, hastily buttoning up his fly.
Val glanced at Danny—
Pack mate.
—then at John—
Pack.
“This is going to sound crazy, but you probably both should stay behind me.”
“You Rambo now?” John was looking at the drip going into his arm. “Aw, hell. How do I get this off?”
Danny let go of Val’s hand, and moved up to him. “John’s right. We need a doctor to get this out.”
John started to say something, and Danny grabbed the needles and yanked them out. “Fuck! Christ!” He looked at her. “What did you do that for?”
“Don’t be a baby. You’re not going to be able to run dragging an IV drip stand behind you.”
“Guys.” Val looked at them both.
Pack is all.
They both paused, looking up at him. His throat felt tight. “Guys, I’m going … I think something really bad is happening here. We need to get Carlisle.”
“She’s a cop.” John tugged on his shirt, a small yelp escaping him as he flexed his ribs. “She can look after herself.”
“Last time I saw her, she was in surgery.”
John looked at him. “Fair call. So we get the cop.”
“No.” Val looked at him. “I’ll get Carlisle. After I get the two of you out of here. To the car park, at least.”
“You can’t go this alone.” Danny looked up at him, coming closer. “We’re in this together.”
Val took a deep breath, then sighed. “Okay. I’m pretty new at this, but — whatever. At least Carlisle should be able to sort out any parking tickets we have after this.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mavis watched as men entered the emergency room reception. She’d been behind this desk so long it seemed a vocation rather than a job. In this waiting room, she’d seen relief and despair. Anger had sat in those chairs alongside hope. And — like that nice young man, Mr. Everard — she’d seen love. Never before had she seen a group of men walk in with guns.
Oh, of course she’d seen guns before. Police carried guns, a part of their equipment alongside their black shoes and badges. Police held guns with caution, the way her husband — God rest his soul — handled the rat he’d found in a trap years ago. Guns, like rats, could be dangerous. These men entering now carried their guns with a practiced ease, as if they were harmless — like they were carrying a stack of towels.
Only one of them didn’t carry a rifle of some kind. He seemed a little smaller, but she expected that was just because he wasn’t wearing one of those ridiculous jackets. A pistol sat on his hip. She looked over the frames of her glasses at him as he came to the front of the desk. He moved stiffly; she’d seen enough injured people come and go from here to know that he was carrying some pain in through that door with him. Her intuition said he wasn’t here to check in, though. He was here to check on something. It was the way he looked around, the tilt of his head as he took in the people seated in the waiting room. His glance never sat on any one thing for longer than a moment.
His men stood around him, but facing away, their backs to him — and to her. They stared at the people in the room, their guns held across their chests. Mavis felt a little shiver of — heavens — real fear. She’d felt something like that when the police had arrived at her door years ago to tell her about her husband. Still, her husband hadn’t chosen a woman to be coddled, and she’d wrapped courage around her like the shawl she’d worn back then. Met the police with their bad news, her head held upright.
She gathered that courage around her again. It’d have made it easier if she’d had a shawl with her now, but some things couldn’t be helped. Mavis looked over the rim of her glasses at the man and held up a board with a form attached to the front. She tried to clip a smile to her face at the same time. Mavis leaned forward to offer it to him, covering her press of the silent alarm button. It was always best to get security on to these matters as quickly as possible — nip any unpleasantness in the bud. “Hello. You’ll need to fill out a form, and then take a seat. We don’t allow guns in here.”
“Ma’am.” The man didn’t look at her, and ignored the board. “We’re looking for a man.”
“Oh, there are rules. We can’t divulge personal information—”
“Ma’am. It’s my brother.” He looked down at her. “A family matter. You know how it is.”
The smile slipped from Mavis’ face. She put down the board. “Of course, you must be terribly worried. Your brother’s name is..?”
“Everard, ma’am.” He pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “I’ve got a recent photo of him.”
Everard. Why, that nice young man had just left this very room. She didn’t take the photo. “I’m sure we haven’t admitted anyone by that name. Do you have some ID, Mr. Everard?”
“He’s my brother by marriage. You know how it is.” A half smile tugged at the edge of the man’s mouth. The smile didn’t reach his eyes; those eyes were flat and lifeless. The last time Mavis had seen eyes like that she’d been in the reptile house at the zoo.
Mavis looked up at him. “Honey, why don’t you and your … friends take a seat. I’ll see if I can find any information on your brother.”
The man didn’t move. He looked down at her name badge. “Mavis, is it? Mavis, can I tell you what I think?”
Mavis nodded. “Of course, dear.”
“Mavis, I think you’re hoping that your hospital security will get here. I really hope — for their sake, of course — that you haven’t called them. My … friends here are very efficient at what they do. Their job is to help me track down my wayward brother-in-law. That’s all we want. If we can find Mr. Everard, we can go on our way. There’s no need for any fuss.” He smiled that dead smile at her again. “We’re good at getting what we want.”
She felt something cold lick at the bottom of her stomach, her heart beating hard. “I … see. Mr…?”
“You can call me Spencer.”
“Very well, Mr. Spencer. I’d love to help, but really. No one’s come in here by that name.”
Spencer placed the photo down on the counter, sliding it towards her nice and slow. His voice grew quiet, and he leaned in closer. “My brother in law is a resourceful man. This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to find him. He often uses a different name. Please.” He tapped the photo with his index finger, almost gently. “Take a look. A close look. A lot depends on this.”
Her eyes left his face, and she adjusted her glasses — Mavis only needed them for close work — as she looked at the photo. It did look like that nice young man who’d been in here earlier. She didn’t know what men like these would want with Mr. Everard, but it couldn’t be anything good. She’d known their type ever since her first encounter with a schoolyard tyrant.
She took her glasses off and let them hang by their chain on her neck. “I’m sorry honey. He doesn’t look familiar.”
Spencer seemed about to speak before two men from hospital security walked through the adminis
trative door behind her. “Sergeant!” One of the — Mavis could only call them soldiers — soldiers spun around, his rifle dropping to level at the men from hospital security. They froze, hands somewhere close to their walkie talkies.
Spencer cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. I know those walkie talkies have a panic assist on them. I’d recommend — for the sake of your friends — that you do not send any signal you might regret.”
One of the security staff — Mavis remembered him as a man grown especially quiet since the death of his son; she’d taken some baking around when she’d heard — spoke up. “For the sake of our friends?”
Spencer nodded. “My men here and I are here to find a … my brother-in-law. Once we find him, we’ll be gone from here and you’ll never see us again. You have my word on that. Sergeant,” he said, his attention shifting to the soldier whose rifle was pointed at the guards, “Please arrange for—”
The crash from the emergency room made Mavis jump. She wasn’t the only one; a sharp hammering of gunfire blasted past her into the hospital security staff. She screamed, and dropped to the floor, covering her ears. The blast had been so loud! From the ground she could see that one of the security team — well, he’d gone to join his son. It was a relief, of sorts. She could see the other security man fumbling for his walkie talkie; his hands jerked as a round of bullets hit him, spinning him backwards. Splashes of red had appeared against the white paint of the the wall behind him, as quick as you like. She rocked herself on the ground as she watched him fall. She realized she hadn’t heard the second blast of gunfire, but she’d felt it. That’s how someone dies, she thought. Mavis realized she was sobbing, but she couldn’t hear herself. Had her eardrums burst from being so close to the gun when it went off?
She hadn’t even cried when the police told her about her husband.
The administrative door opened again, then shut again as it splintered. The wood rained down around her as she crawled under the desk. Her hands fumbled through splinters on the ground, old age making her slow, her knees scraping on the fragments as she moved across the tiled floor. She was making her way towards the emergency ward. There was an exit at the end of that, if she could get to there and to a phone—
The emergency ward door slammed open. Her head swung up, took in a set of dusty coveralls — that’s not Jimmy! — as a man ran into the room. She watched from the edge of the desk as he slammed into one of the soldiers, grabbing his rifle as the man fell backwards into his colleagues. The other soldiers were spinning to cover him, but— My God — he was so fast. He was already in the middle of them, using the stolen rifle as some kind of club. He flailed around him with mighty swings, knocking a soldier flat to the floor with a blow to the head. Another soldier was tossed backward into the panicking crowd in the waiting room. Spencer had cleared his pistol from his holster, the bright flashes silent as he fired again and again into the man.
Who wasn’t there anymore. Spencer’s fire was wild, shots hitting the walls, My God, he’s shot people in the crowd, but not a single bullet hit on the man in Jimmy’s overalls.
People in the waiting room surged for the exit to the street outside. They were met by more soldiers who were coming in, their rifles pointed into the crowd. Please, thought Mavis, Please don’t.
One of the crowd tried to duck past the soldiers. That’s all it took, the match flare moment where something that was merely tragic became unspeakable. Mavis covered her head with her hands as plaster cracked and crumbled from the walls around her, the gunfire leveling the room.
All those people, she thought. The tears were streaming down her face. Who are these soldiers? They’re not men, they’re animals.
A pair of boots halted her crawl across the ground. She looked up into the flat eyes of Spencer. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up in front of him, the arm around her neck holding her firm against him. She could see his other arm holding the gun out in front of them both. How curious, she thought. There’s something red in the bottom of that gun. They always look all-black in the movies.
The dust was settling. She could feel Spencer’s breathing, his chest heaving as he turned her this way and that as he looked around. In the middle of the room, amids the plaster dust and broken furniture, something moved. The man with Jimmy’s overalls pushed a body off him, getting unsteadily to his feet. He’d been shot a couple of times, the blood leaking down the front of his overalls. He looked around him, taking in the bodies, and the remaining soldiers around him.
He tipped back his head and laughed, a deep belly laugh. Mavis heard — my hearing’s coming back! — the happiness in it. How could he be happy in the middle of this?
Spencer spoke behind her. “Get the fuck on your knees, Volk. This one’s got silver in it.”
The man in Jimmy’s overalls — Volk — turned to face them. He looked at Mavis, then at Spencer. “Tak. You hide behind old women?” He chuckled, his accent thick. “I am not surprised. Serebrom? It will not save you. Your fate is certain.”
The soldiers were fanning out around Volk. One of them — well, Mavis thought he looked a little younger. Wet behind the ears, her husband would have said. He was holding something that looked like a tube with a drum attached to it with shaking hands. Volk walked slowly towards the soldier.
“Volk!” Spencer’s gun tracked Volk. “Get down! I won’t tell you again.”
Volk looked at him over his shoulder. “I told you. Your fate is certain.” With that, he spun and lunged at the younger soldier. The world exploded into light and flames as the soldier’s hand spasmed on the trigger of the grenade launcher. The bullet went wide, the ceiling spitting cement and steel through the room. Chunks of shrapnel tore through the soldiers, a piece of the ceiling landing right on top of Volk.
There was silence for a moment. Spencer was lying under her. He pushed her aside, getting to his feet. “Squad! Report!”
The soldiers were getting to their feet around him. There were so few of them left. Spencer reached for the radio at his belt. “Get in here. It’s not contained yet.”
The growl was deep and low, like a tiger she’d heard at the zoo that time. But it sounded like it was far away, heard from a distance. It was so hard to see what was going on. Why was the room getting dark? Mavis looked down at her hands. They’d come away from her chest sticky and wet, the blood bright and such a clean red. The last thing that passed through her mind was, That’s odd. He said, ‘Boo,’ to that young man.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Val pushed open the door to the emergency waiting room a sliver. He did it slowly; he remembered the police station and what could wait behind closed doors. Through the crack he could see a room completely different to the one he’d left. The room was covered in dust, plaster, and concrete. It looked like the ceiling had fallen in. A hole had been punched through to the level above them. It was charred black.
He also saw — my God — that the room was full of people. No — not people. Bodies.
They run in the sky now.
Val pushed the door open slowly, giving it a nudge when it jammed against the cracked and broken floor. He gestured behind to Danny and John, mouthing, “Wait here.” He walked into the room, stepping through the ruins. He placed his feet carefully in amongst the rubble and — he swallowed — bodies.
A fragment of color caught his eye. He edged towards it, fishing out a piece of cloth from the concrete and steel. It looked like a piece of heavy cotton, torn. He turned it this way and that, until he could make it out. That was a sleeve, the front zipper here, and there the name tag. Embroidered and clear, it said Jimmy.
There wasn’t a body. Just a torn and empty set of overalls.
He tossed them aside, looking further amongst the remains. Black flak jackets, rifles, bodies. He found an ammunition belt, a set of magazines in it. The buckle was twisted and broken; it must have come away from someone. There were six magazines, three of them black and three of them red. He pulled one of each out, holding the black ma
gazine up to the light from the windows. He wasn’t an expert but it they looked like ordinary bullets. He tossed it aside, and held the red magazine up. These were bullets as well, but the heads of them were a different color metal to the other bullets. Val turned the magazine left and right, fiddling with it until a bullet popped free into his hand.
He yelped in surprise, dropping it to the ground. It burned, the heat like a cigarette against his skin. He shook his hand, blowing on it, then held the red magazine up again.
“What you got there, buddy?” John walked in through the door ahead of Danny. He looked around. “Fuck me.”
Danny stepped through the rubble, taking it in. “So many of them.” She coughed in the dust.
Val hefted the red magazine, then tossed it through the air to John. “They’ve got some magazines with weird bullets. Careful. They’re hot.”
John worked the spring on the magazine, flicking a shell onto his hand. “Hot? Bullshit.” He held out the magazine to Danny.
She took it, turning it over in her hands. “I’ll be damned. These guys are well funded.”
Val looked at her sideways. “What do you mean?”
“Well, that or they’re just showing off. You know what these bullets are made from?”
John shook his head.
Val pulled out another red magazine then let the belt drop to the floor. He held the magazine up to his nose, but the acrid stink caused him to jerk the magazine back from his face. “God! They reek!”
John held a magazine up to his nose. “Smells like metal to me.”
“Here. Try this one.” Val tossed his magazine over to John.
John held it up to his nose. “Nope. Smells like metal.”
“Asshole.”
“No, really.”
Danny spoke up. “You haven’t guessed?”
Val reached down to pick up the bullet from the ground. His fingers brushed the tip, and he swore. “It’s still burning hot.”
Danny walked over to stand beside him. He could smell her hair and feel her closeness. She bent over, to pick up the shell—
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