Somewhere down the corridor, Goodman returned fire. He hadn’t responded to any of Bravo team’s frantic yells that he was firing on friendlies: it was like he couldn’t hear them at all.
Bullets peppered the low wall. None penetrated. Goodman would know that they couldn’t, yet still he fired. Wildly; almost gleefully, like a kid with an oversized water pistol.
“What the hell happened to him, Sarge? We only lost him for a minute.”
Less than that, Jerome thought, but he said, “No clue. Same thing that’s happened to everyone else in this fucked-up town. Something made him lose his damn mind.”
But what?
If Goodman had been affected by some airborne chemical or virus, the rest of the team should have been affected, too. It was more like something had got into his head during those seconds when he had been missing.
Not missing, Jerome thought. Jacob Goodman hadn’t just wandered off.
Taken?
Had Goodman been taken by something? There was nothing on the floors above. Bravo Team had fucking cleared them.
Jerome shot a glance around the remaining members of the team. Baker, Baldwin, Watts. All three were fine soldiers. So was Jacob Goodman, right up until he started executing his own.
His gaze flicked to Allison Pierce’s corpse. The medic had taken a couple in the neck, almost severing her head from her body. At least, he thought, she had died instantaneously.
Pierce and Goodman had what Baker had lasciviously labelled a good thing goin’ on. Maybe the speed of her demise had spared her the heartache of thinking about the fact that the guy she sorta-loved-but-definitely-humped had ended her. Maybe.
Gunfire pattered on the other side of the wall again, bullets biting into the brickwork and showering the carpet with dust.
Can’t stay here, Jerome thought. It was surely only a matter of moments before the sound of battle drew unwanted attention from the floors below and caught them in a demented crossfire. Bravo’s crazy Comms Sergeant on one side; more shrieking civilians with knives on the other. More babies.
He shuddered.
One way or another, he had to end it. Had to get down to Figueroa and the rest of Alpha Team and regroup, or at least get out of the damn corridor. They were sitting ducks out here.
He drew up a mental picture of the hallway. Goodman was around thirty yards away, tucked into an alcove that offered him more than decent cover. The solution was as obvious as it was galling.
“Grenade,” Jerome breathed, and the rest of the team nodded, crouching down and putting their fingers in their ears. He waited for the inevitable pause when Goodman ran out of bullets, and then in one smooth motion, uncoiled like a snake, standing upright for the briefest of moments, and tossed the grenade low, rolling it along the plush carpet.
Perfect shot.
The explosion scattered wet, unrecognisable parts of Goodman across the hallway, staining the beige walls a deep shade of red.
Sorry, buddy, Jerome thought numbly.
He focused his gaze on the three remaining members of Bravo Team. They looked badly shaken; flat-out scared in a way they probably hadn’t been since their very first firefight.
“We need to get a grip on this situation.”
No one responded.
Jerome jerked a thumb at the door to the hotel room closest to him.
“In there,” he said. “Secure the door. We regroup, and then proceed.”
Baker, Baldwin and Watts moved immediately, taking up positions to breach the door. Jerome went in first, weapon raised and ready, squinting at the sudden change in light. Inside the hotel room, the window overlooking the burning Strip far below lit the space brightly, in stark contrast to the gloom of the mostly windowless hallway.
Jerome froze.
The room was empty, but he could have sworn, just for a second, that he had caught a glimpse of movement at the window.
Outside.
Like something had been clinging to the exterior wall of the Bellagio, scampering up it like fucking Spider-Man.
He blinked.
Focused on the window as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change in the light. There was nothing there.
He moved forward, gesturing at the team behind him to fan out through the suite and secure the bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen area, and moved to the window.
Outside, the sun was starting to set, painting the skies above Vegas in rich ochre tones.
Below, the city was coloured to match: fires blazed everywhere that Jerome looked. The Strip looked as bad as anything he’d ever seen in Afghanistan or Syria. Worse.
His gaze was immediately drawn to the scaled-down replica of the Eiffel Tower, directly opposite the Bellagio, across the fountain and gardens.
He squinted.
Just for a second there, he’d had the impression of a large, dark figure clinging to the top of the tower like King Kong, surveying the carnage below, much as he himself was. When he focused on it, the figure was gone.
Great. Now I’m seeing things.
His eyes fell to the ground, where dozens of people were running in all directions. He watched, unable to tear his gaze away, as a tiny stick-figure running in a ball of flames charged several yards out into the street and then collapsed, unmoving.
Moments later, a speeding Hummer crunched the burning figure under its wheels, and careered through the front window of a restaurant, spitting yet another explosion out behind it.
The distant patter of gunfire reached his ears. It seemed to be coming from every direction.
Jerome shuddered.
Despite the nightmare on the street, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the real danger was clinging to the wall outside the window, just inches away, out of his view.
Losing my fucking mind, here.
Just like everybody else in this shithole, his subconscious whispered back.
“Clear,” Baker said behind him, the word echoed immediately by Baldwin and Watts. The suite was secure, the door shut. Jerome’s next order would be to barricade the entry with furniture. He needed time to think.
He drew the thick curtains, cutting out almost all of the light, and blocking out the view of the ongoing destruction of Las Vegas.
When he turned away, facing into the room, he could have sworn he heard something rapping on the window behind him softly, almost playfully. The sound barely heard; teasing somehow. Daring him to look out once more.
Click, click...
19
At first glance, the bunker appeared small: just a narrow corridor leading into the mountain; a single tunnel down which dozens of people were moving beneath sterile white lighting that cast sharp shadows on the bare rock walls.
Conny paused just inside the entrance, where a handful of clerics were gathered, along with Andrew Lloyd, waiting for the last of the ranch’s refugees to climb the rocks and make their way inside.
Shahana was the last of them all to enter. She stared hesitantly at the Grand Cleric, and hatefully at Conny, and gasped for air, recovering from the short, strenuous climb.
Once Shahana was safely inside, Andrew pushed hard on the door, swinging its massive bulk slowly. The door looked like steel, at least three inches thick, with a narrow viewing panel made of either glass or acrylic set at head-height, which could also be sealed behind a small metal hatch. It shut with a heavy clang.
Andrew punched a four-digit code into a panel on the wall alongside it, and a lock engaged with a reassuringly solid thud.
Conny had watched carefully as his fingers danced across the control panel.
4853.
She repeated the numbers in her mind several times, committing them to memory. She was willing to accept that there was at least some possibility that she wouldn’t be able to leave the bunker for a while: maybe weeks, maybe months, depending on radiation levels outside, but she would be damned if she would allow herself to be locked in without knowing how to get back out.
Somewhere behind her, Remy cocked a l
eg against the wall. Making himself right at home.
Conny’s eyes briefly fell on Shahana. Without a word, the girl turned and marched away, heading down a tunnel that seemed to lead to a sort of hub, from which Conny could see much larger tunnels leading away in five directions. This first part of the bunker was narrow and claustrophobic, but each of those five tunnels would surely open out into much larger areas.
She watched as Shahana disappeared down a tunnel to the left with her head bowed, and felt a surge of remorse and pity for the girl. She looked a year or two younger than Logan. Presumably, she and her sister had been without a home, and had found their way to the ranch in the same way most vulnerable kids found their way into the clutches of cults. Now, thanks to Conny, she had nobody.
But she’s alive.
There was nothing else Conny could do for Shahana, or for anyone else, other than to keep Andrew Lloyd on track. It was he that the kids looked to. Even now, the handful of older clerics who orbited the robed Grand Cleric looked to him for guidance.
Andrew, for his part, looked to Conny with a pleading sort of desperation in his eyes.
She thought about Mancini’s first description of the man. He had been dominated by Jennifer Craven, unable to think for himself or to make his own decisions. A mouthpiece, a figurehead. A coward. At first, Conny had assumed that was just typical Mancini bluster—after all, the gruff ex-soldier probably thought everybody he met was a pussy—but the more time she spent with Andrew, the more she realised that the picture Mancini had painted contained more than a hint of truth.
She set her jaw. Andrew was going to have to relocate his balls pretty damn soon. There were hundreds of people relying on his leadership now.
She held his gaze, and nodded at the door.
“Will it protect us?”
Andrew’s brow furrowed. “Against radiation? Yes, we’re shielded here, and the air is filtered. Nobody will get sick as long as we keep the place sealed up. As for anything else…” his voice trailed off.
“Vampires, Andrew,” Conny said. “They’re vampires. Exactly as Jennifer Craven told you. Don’t worry; they can’t punch through solid steel. And if this place really is carved right into the rock, they won’t be able to burrow in.”
Andrew nodded.
“Rock and steel,” he said. “It took Jennifer’s father decades to build this place.”
“I want to see it,” Conny said.
“All of it?”
“Every last corner. If there’s a way in, they’ll find it.”
Andrew’s eyes widened. He pointed at the door.
“That’s the only entrance.”
“They have a way of making their own entrances.” Conny grimaced. “They move like insects. Walls; ceilings. If this place has a weakness, they’ll find it.”
Andrew looked dubious.
“The complex is large. It will take a while to check it all.”
Conny shrugged. “Then we’d better get started. Trust me, a few hours spent ensuring that we really are safe will be worth it. You do not want one of those things getting in here.”
Andrew swallowed audibly, and started to walk down the passage toward the central hub. Conny followed, with Remy at her side and Logan immediately behind her.
“I saw what happened to your country,” Andrew said over his shoulder. “I didn’t really believe, even then. Jennifer had her...views about history, and she spun a believable tale, but...I don’t know. It all seemed so far off. So distant. According to her records, nothing had happened in America for centuries. Not since before the time of Columbus. She believed a rising in America was due, but she didn’t think it would happen for years yet. As a matter of fact, she believed humans would discover the vampires before they showed themselves again. Said humans were spread over every corner of the world, and that no matter where the next rising happened, it would be impossible to keep it a secret. It would be all over the news in minutes, she said. I guess she was right.”
Conny snorted.
“Not exactly. From what I heard, keeping the British rising a secret wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Dan killed some of them, and they didn’t take it well.”
“The Hermetic,” Andrew said with a nod. “For a long time, they were supposed to be a myth.”
Conny blinked at the unfamiliar word.
“They?”
Andrew paused, turning back to face her. He looked confused at the question.
“Dan thinks he is...special because of a brain injury he received a couple of years back,” Conny said. “Somehow that injury...tuned him in to the vampires’ frequency. Made some sort of connection with them. Are you saying there are other people like Dan?”
“Are?” Andrew said. “Well, I don’t know about that. But Jennifer believed there were, once. At least I think that’s what she believed. I wasn’t the one she talked to about such things, not really.”
Conny looked at him sharply.
“Who was?”
“A scientist. A historian who worked on the information she uncovered.”
“And where is this scientist now?”
Andrew looked surprised.
“Here, of course. In the archives, no doubt. That’s where he lives, I believe. Where Jennifer...kept him.”
Conny burned her gaze into Andrew’s eyes.
“I need to speak with him.”
20
Nobody was responding, on any channel. That was bad news for Jerome and Bravo Team but even worse news, he guessed, for Figueroa.
The Captain wasn’t the kind of leader who generally felt the need to micromanage every situation, and Jerome was well-used to the idea that Figueroa wouldn’t be checking in on his every move, but Cap always responded.
Given the dire situation on the top few floors of the Bellagio—and the almost certainly even graver situation down on the ground—Jerome had to consider the possibility that Baker, Watts, Baldwin and himself were the only members of the 190th still breathing.
But perhaps worst of all, even HQ back in Draper hadn’t answered him. It wasn’t an equipment malfunction, not unless it had affected all four members of Bravo at the same time. Something was wrong back in Utah.
Jerome hadn’t told the others that part yet. It was his job to communicate with HQ, not theirs. If they thought they were alone out here, without backup, what little morale they had left was likely to dry up sharply.
They had to get out.
Jerome’s mind raced through fevered scenarios, trying to engineer an exit strategy for them. The roof was easiest, of course: it just meant retracing their steps up four floors. Yet Jerome didn’t trust those floors to be as clear as he thought they were.
Frequently, he shot nervous glances at the window, uncertain whether the feeling that there had been something on the other side had just been a product of his paranoia.
Naw, face it, Jerome, it’s a little more than paranoia. It’s ball-shrivelling fright.
Even if they did make it to the roof, without comms they wouldn’t able to call for extraction. They’d have to send up a flare and just hope somebody came to rescue them. But nobody would see a flare, not when half of the sky itself was made of fire.
He doubted there was air support over the city anyway: too dangerous to fly out there, now, after what had happened above the Monte Carlo.
Too dangerous to just sit in here, too.
He glanced around the rest of Bravo. They had shoved a heavy sofa up against the suite’s front door, and were now huddled together, perched on a coffee table in the centre of the lounge. Each of them faced roughly a different direction, all weapons facing outward, despite the fact that the suite had been cleared and re-cleared. Everybody was expecting to open fire at any moment; nobody knew which direction the next attack might come from.
Like we’re all afraid of ghosts, Jerome thought. Coming out of the damn walls to get us. He wiped sweat from his brow.
Tried the comms again.
Just static.
Sitting in here, waiting to die. The next jet might be pointed straight at that window, coming right at us—
“We need to bug out, Sarge,” Baker said, in a voice that rattled like an old radiator.
Jerome shook his head.
“Sarge,” Baker repeated forcefully.
Jerome met Baker’s eyes. They were wild with concern. Weapons Sergeant Eddie Baker was a deer in fast-moving headlights now, not an experienced combat veteran. He was ready to put his head down, stick his fingers in his ears and run.
Jerome drew in a deep breath.
It’s my job to keep these guys steady. Keep ‘em alive.
He stood, and made his way into the suite’s small kitchen area. At any other time, he might have taken a moment to marvel at the suite itself: all open-plan, dripping with opulence. The enormous window that he had blocked with velvet curtains offered spectacular views for anyone sitting at the fancy dining table located in front of it. Gold trim and sparkling crystal decorated virtually every inch of the furniture. The fridge looked almost big enough for Jerome to park his freaking car inside.
He pulled open the door, peered inside. The fridge was dark, the power long gone, but it was still cold. He spotted prime cuts of meat, an enormous lobster, something dark in a bowl that he guessed was caviar. An entire shelf dedicated to what looked like seriously expensive chocolate, and…
A-ha.
He pulled out a couple of large bottles of Bollinger, and slammed the fridge door shut with his hip. He hated champagne; the fizzy piss nearly always gave him fierce indigestion, and he tried to avoid it unless a glass was pressed into his hand at a wedding or some other formal function. But Bravo needed to calm the hell down. They needed to take a breath.
If Figueroa walked in the door and found them drinking, he’d have them all hauled over the coals until their nuts were overcooked, but Jerome knew deep in his gut that Figueroa wouldn’t be walking anywhere anytime soon.
“Drink,” he said, passing the bottles to Baker and Watts. “Take a fucking minute. That’s an order.”
He waited while Baker and Watts opened the bottles and took long swallows, passing them on to Baldwin and himself. Jerome chugged back a drink that he figured cost north of a grand a bottle, and grimaced.
The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River Page 72