by R. L. King
“No, I—wait. Yes I can.” The mage fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small crystal wrapped in metal wire. He passed his hand over it, muttered something, and handed it to the Forgotten man. “Hold on to this, and stay together,” he said so the others couldn’t hear. “It will help conceal you, but it’s not foolproof, nor is it invisibility. Just hide in the shadows and stay quiet. We’ll be back for you when we can.”
“You’re a—” said the Forgotten man, taking the crystal.
Stone nodded. “Now go.”
“Al, they’re getting closer.” Jason was still nervous, though less so than before now that he had the gun out.
The Forgotten man nodded and quickly took charge of the group, urging them under the stage. After a few seconds they faded into the shadows.
“Don’t you need that crystal?” Verity asked Stone. “Isn’t it one of your power thingies?”
“I have a few more,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Can you conceal us again?” Jason asked.
“I can try, but it won’t work very well if they’re looking for us. Come on. We need to find this office. I don’t know if Lucas is here now, but if he is, we have to find him.”
The door at the end of the hallway to the right of the torture chamber burst open, and three DMW gangers poured through. “There they are!” one of them yelled, pointing. “Come on!”
Jason grabbed Verity’s arm and pulled her up the stairs to the backstage area. Stone remained for a moment, crouching and launching a spell at the three. One of them grabbed his head and dropped to the ground. The other two staggered, but kept coming.
“Come on, Al!” Jason yelled. Stone backed his way up the stairs, and Jason grabbed him and pulled him the rest of the way.
“I wonder how many of them there are in here,” Jason said, ducking back to the side. “I don’t want to shoot anybody unless I have to, but—”
The remaining two gangers, apparently realizing that plunging madly up into the midst of a group containing at least one mage wasn’t the wisest course of action, had slowed down now. Jason and the others could hear them working their way up the stairs. “We have to find the office,” Stone said. “Before Lucas gets wind that something’s up and scarpers.”
“Come on.” Jason pointed behind them, toward where the actual stage was. The curtain had long since rotted away; it hung in musty, shredded ribbons high above them. “I’m guessing it’s up front.”
One of the gangers chose that moment to poke his head around the corner. Stone, who’d been waiting for just that, plugged him with a spell. They were rewarded with a grunt of pain and the sound of the other ganger retreating back down the stairs. “Come on!” Jason whispered again.
They hurried across to the front of the stage, staying in the shadows off to the left backstage area and taking as much care as they could manage not to trip over the debris strewn on the wooden floor. The floor creaked ominously under their feet and sent up puffs of dust with every step; Jason hoped it hadn’t rotted to the point where they risked falling through if they hit a bad spot.
Stone was scanning the auditorium. There wasn’t much light, so only vague shapes were visible. “Most of the seats are gone, it looks like,” he muttered. “Probably stolen over the years. We need to stay to the sides—if anyone’s watching, they’ll pick us off with ease in the middle.”
“That’s a long drop down,” Jason said, pointing at the front part of the stage.
“We can do it,” Verity said. “Come on, let’s do it before that other guy gets brave again.”
They moved forward cautiously, continuing to stay to the left. Soon, they reached the point where they’d have to break cover if they wanted to get down off the stage. “All together, then,” Stone said. “I’ll try to conceal us, but don’t count on it. Get to cover fast.”
“One—two—three,” Jason whispered, and they jumped.
They hit the ground and moved off to the left, and not a moment too soon. Gunfire erupted from somewhere ahead of them, and muzzle flashes appeared at the back part of the theater, high above the auditorium.
“They’re in the control booth!” Stone yelled. “Move! We have to get to the back!”
They moved, crouched low and running as fast as they could go in the darkness, while bullets pinged off the wall behind them. They didn’t stop until they’d reached the back wall.
“We’re under them,” Stone said, puffing a little. “They won’t stay up there long. Be ready.”
“Where’s the stairs up?” Jason demanded, looking around.
“Other side—has to be,” Verity said. “I don’t see ’em here.”
“Might be inaccessible from here,” Stone said, trying to look everywhere at once. “I don’t see the offices, either. Must be upstairs as well.”
“If there’s only one exit from up there we might have ’em cornered,” Jason said, already moving.
“Don’t count on it,” Stone said.
“Got ’em!” yelled a voice—from behind them. All three spun to see a group of three DMW gangers rounding the corner—just as they heard more footsteps from the direction in which they’d been heading.
“Fuck, we’re surrounded!” Jason yelled, bringing the gun around to aim at the group in front of them.
Stone looked grim. “Deal with the group in front,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of the ones behind.” And before either of the other two could protest he was off, back the way they’d come.
Jason didn’t like this at all, but he didn’t have time to say anything about it. The front group of gangers was now rounding their own corner—there were four this time, and one of them had a gun. “Down, V!” he yelled, reaching around to shove her toward the floor. Dropping into a crouch, he aimed his gun, allowing well-honed instincts and muscle memory from his time in the Academy to take over. Focusing on the ganger with the gun, he squeezed off a round.
There was a deafening bang! and the ganger spun, dropping his gun and screaming in agony. Verity watched from the floor wide-eyed, her hands clamped over her ears, then leaped back up again.
The other three gangers hadn’t stopped, though. They surged forward, yelling obscenities and pulling knives from their jackets. Verity was able to evict one of them before he reached them, and he too dropped as the Evil left his body. The other two launched themselves at Jason, who pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Wildly, he glared down at the gun. He’d checked it! It had a full magazine! But his quick glance told him what he needed to know—the thing was in terrible repair and probably hadn’t been cleaned or maintained in ages, if ever. He didn’t have time to worry about it now, though—one of the gangers had his hands around his neck, and the other one was going for Verity.
Enraged at the thought of these lowlife scum touching his sister, he lashed out with his fist and caught the ganger in the stomach, then brought both hands together and forced them up between the ganger’s arms. The punk’s hold broke, giving Jason an opportunity to aim a heavy-booted kick right at his gut. The ganger staggered back, stunned, and Jason spun to face the other one.
Verity was in trouble. She was obviously trying to do her mind push to cast out the Evil, but the ganger in her face was playing hell with her concentration. She was backstepping, but the ganger was almost on top of her when suddenly he pitched forward and hit the ground with a crash at her feet, revealing Jason standing behind him, puffing, holding his gun by the barrel. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded quickly. “Yeah. I—couldn’t—”
“It’s okay. You’re new at this. Come on. Let’s find where Al got to.”
But he’d forgotten about the stunned ganger. “Jason, look out!” Verity yelled, but too late. The ganger plowed into Jason from behind, taking both of them down.
Jason hit the ground hard, but again his instincts took over and he rolled forward, pitching the ganger over his head and leaping back to his feet. “I hear more of them!�
� Verity called.
“Fuck!” Jason spun sideways to keep both directions in sight at once. The formerly stunned ganger was getting up, and three others were coming around the same corner. “Do you see any guns?”
Verity didn’t answer. She was concentrating again, and this time it worked. One of the three stopped, screamed, and fell to the floor. The other two looked panicked, and then both of them went for Verity. “Get the bitch!” one yelled.
Jason lunged forward and planted a fist right in the middle of the ganger’s face. His nose exploded in a spray of blood, but he tried to keep coming. All of them were like madmen now. “No!” Verity yelled, and focused on the uninjured one. Like his friend, he clutched his head and fell down to his knees, not quite unconscious, but looking bewildered.
“Come on!” Jason yelled, grabbing Verity’s arm. He’d spotted a stairway up just around the corner—it must be the one that led up to the tech booth and offices above them.
“Wait! What about Dr. Stone?” Verity protested.
Jason looked around wildly, but didn’t see the mage. He could hear the sounds of combat, though, back the way they’d come. He was about to turn around and sprint back in that direction when two more gangers came up the hall. He snatched the ganger’s dropped gun, hoping it worked better than the one he’d been using, and dragged Verity up the stairs.
“We should be able to see better from up there!” he told her as she tried to protest again. “The booth is open to the seats!” He had to hope that, with all the magical focus objects and doodads Stone had been making the past few days, he had enough punch to deal with the gangers, at least for a little while.
The stairs this time were a proper stairway, not the metal skeleton version backstage. Jason took them two at a time, still gripping Verity’s hand. At the top he glanced around the corner to make sure no one was lying in wait for them, then shoved Verity behind him. One of the gangers—the one with the exploded nose—was still coming, flying up the stairs half-blinded from the blood. Jason kicked him in the chin and sent him rolling head over heels back down, where he landed against his bewildered de-Eviled friend and didn’t move.
“What the fuck is going on?” the bewildered ganger yelled to nobody in particular. “I just want to get the hell away from these fuckin’ loonies!”
“You know another way out?” Jason yelled, pointing the gun at him. “Tell us, and I won’t shoot you!”
“Uh—” The ganger’s mouth hung open, his breath coming so hard his whole body was bucking. “Uh—just the club. The rest of it’s sealed tight. They’re fuckin’ crazy!” Without waiting to see if his answer was sufficient to keep Jason from shooting him, he ducked back around the stairs and took off.
Jason didn’t follow. Instead, he turned and hurried down the narrow space that was the tech booth. It was nearly empty now—the boards were still there, but they’d been long ago gutted of any electronics or anything else of value. The only other feature was a closed door halfway down the back wall—probably where the offices were located.
Verity crouched in a threadbare folding chair, peering over the top of the half-height wall separating the booth from the auditorium. “See anything?” he asked. He took in the scene quickly: narrow catwalks extended out from the booth on either side, crisscrossing high above the auditorium. The remnants of broken light fixtures still hung from them, but it was hard to tell if they were safe enough to trust. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.
“They’re underneath us, I think,” she said, pointing. “I can hear them, but—”
Jason was about to reconsider his reluctance to try out the catwalks in hopes of getting out where he could see better when suddenly a figure flew through the air down below and crashed in a heap in a pile of debris. The figure scrabbled to its feet, revealing itself to be a stunned ganger, and ran off into the darkness.
“What the—?” Jason began.
Another dark figure vaulted over a small pile of broken wooden bits and faced back toward the area under the tech booth. It raised its hands and what looked like blue lightning crackled around them, arcing back and forth between them. Jason and Verity, watching from above, saw by the lightning’s flickering illumination that it was Stone. His face looked positively manic, his hair disheveled, his eyes burning with intensity. He roared something they couldn’t understand and lashed out—the lighting flew from his hands and slammed into whatever was out of sight. There were two screams, and then silence.
“Holy shit,” Jason breathed. “Remind me not to get on his bad side.”
“Come on,” Verity urged, pulling on his arm. “Let’s get back down there and help him. And we still gotta find Lucas.”
Jason paused long enough to check that there wasn’t another stairway on the other side—as far as he knew, the only way out of the upper floors was down the one they’d just come up—and then hurried to follow his sister.
He overtook her halfway down the stairs. “Let me go first,” he told her. “In case anybody’s—” As he reached the bottom, he sensed something in his peripheral vision, off to his left.
“Down!” he yelled, flinging himself sideways.
His quick response most likely saved his life. He felt white-hot pain erupt across the upper part of his arm and spun around just in time to hear Verity scream “No!” and see a ganger holding a knife drop, clutching his head. A quick glance at his arm told him the knife had found a target; blood was already running down his sleeve. He couldn’t worry about that now, though. A second ganger lunged toward him, trying to pin him to the wall. Jason lashed out with a kick, sending the kid careening back into the opposite wall with a grunt, but he quickly recovered and plowed back into Jason.
Jason kept waiting for this one to slump down too, but he didn’t. Maybe Verity’s power had to have a brief time to recharge. In any case, he couldn’t worry about that right now. The ganger had both of his arms pinned to the wall now—he was skinny and unhealthy looking, but he had the strength of a madman. Jason’s injured arm was alight with pain. He had to do something fast or—
The ganger lurched sideways, roaring and spinning to face Verity, who’d just hit him over the head with a piece of broken wood. It wasn’t enough to take him out, but it was enough to get his attention. Yelling obscenities, he raised his hands and moved toward her, Jason momentarily forgotten.
“Bad decision, asshole!” Jason yelled, clocking the enraged ganger with the butt end of his gun.
The ganger staggered toward Verity who, finally getting it together, grabbed both sides of his head and yelled “Out!” The shimmering Evil flew free and exploded, leaving the ganger in a heap.
For a moment both of them stood there panting. Verity looked back and forth, then moved toward Jason. “He got you,” she said. “Let me have a look at that.”
Jason, pale and still puffing, shook his head. “We—gotta find Al,” he got out. “Can’t—stop.”
“Screw that,” she said. “He was doing fine, and you’re not gonna be any good to him or anybody if you bleed to death. We have a minute. Now off with that sleeve.” She steered him over to a shadowy alcove.
He sighed, reluctantly allowing himself to be steered, already shrugging out of his bloody jacket sleeve. His arm was on fire, streaked with blood running toward his hand.
Verity quickly examined the wound. “It doesn’t look too bad,” she said. “I wish we had some antiseptic or something, but we don’t, so we’ll just have to make do. Tear off part of your T-shirt.”
He did as he was told, ripping several inches off the lower part of his black shirt and handing it over. She took it and wrapped it around the wound, tying off a crude but reasonably effective bandage. “That won’t hold long,” she said, “but hopefully it won’t have to. Come on.”
They could still hear sounds of combat as they hurried around the hallway under the tech booth. They burst through the crazily-hanging double doors leading to the auditorium, both looking wildly around trying to spot gangers,
Stone, or anybody else.
It didn’t take long to find Stone: he was off on the far right side of the auditorium, crouched behind another pile of debris. While Jason and Verity watched, he flung another bolt of energy at something unseen and was rewarded by a grunt of pain and a yelled obscenity. The two of them were poised to run out and join him when suddenly a bright something flew down from above and hit the mage square in the chest. Jason and Verity could see a look of utter astonishment cross his face—right before he slumped to the floor.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Take him to the office!” yelled a voice from the same direction where the bolt had originated. “I want him alive!”
“That guy’s in the tech booth!” Jason whispered, pointing up. “There must be access to the office from up there behind that door. Come on!” He hurried along the wall over to the right side, trying to get to Stone before the gangers did. But as soon as he stepped out from cover, shots rang out. One tore into the wall not a foot away from him. “Shit!” he called to Verity. “Stay down! They’re on the stage!”
Sure enough, he could see at least three gangers leaning out from cover in the backstage wings. Another muzzle flash bloomed and another bullet hit the wall near him. He ducked and skittered back along the back wall to join Verity on the other side of the door. “We have to get to Al,” he said.
“They’ll have to go up the stairs,” she said. “Unless they have a back way in.”
Jason nodded. “Come on. And be careful. Look sharp.”
They pushed back through the double doors into the hallway and started off to the right toward the stairs when two more gangers rounded the corner behind them. Verity’s head whipped back and forth. “Run for it or fight?”
Jason swore. How many gangers did they have? It seemed like they had an unlimited supply—or more likely, the word was getting out, and more were coming in through the club entrance. They needed to deal with this fast.
He spun and fired an erratic shot toward the two gangers, who ducked back around the corner. There was no way he and Verity could make it to the other corner before the gangers could get a shot at them if they had guns. And already the gangers who had Stone had had enough time to hustle him upstairs. “Go!” he told Verity. “Just to the corner. I’ll cover you. Go now!”