by Lesley Davis
Phoenix grabbed for her waist and managed to push her away slightly. Pagan recovered her ground quickly and got close enough to elbow him in the face. He roared with pain as blood poured from his broken nose.
Pagan looked over to where the Sentinels were now getting to their feet groggily. She saw Earl rallying them together as the rooftop doors flung open and the rest of Phoenix’s men ran in and began wielding their weapons. She left them to their fight. She had her own war to win.
*
Escaping from the shadows, Rogue and Erith slipped into the Bank’s main foyer, just managing to hide before another group of men entered and started for the stairs. Rogue gestured silently for them to go below and Erith followed after her. They had gone only a few steps when a harsh voice called out in their direction.
“Hey! What are you doing down there, boy?”
Erith spun around at the voice and stood still, her face hidden by a bandana that Rogue had appropriated from a man outside. Her hair was tucked beneath a cap pulled low over her brow.
Rogue quickly moved from her side and worked her way behind the gang member, thankful he’d only seen the one of them.
“We’re all supposed to be going to the roof, where are you heading off to?”
The resounding thud that suddenly echoed through the foyer made Erith visibly jump. The man stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed like a felled tree at Erith’s feet. Rogue put down the heavy bust she had used to knock the man out and grinned at her.
“You disappeared into thin air,” Erith marveled.
Rogue placed the bust back in its appropriate place and dragged the fallen man from view. “Come on, let’s get out of sight before anyone else sees us.”
The door to the basement was locked, but Erith made swift work of it with her lock-picking device. Rogue chuckled at just how skillful Erith was.
“You’ve certainly got your own way of getting things done,” Rogue said as she heard the satisfying click as the last lock turned and the door swung open. “Now let’s find the vault.”
“Shit!” Melina’s panicked voice sounded over the comlink. “Rogue, can you still hear me?”
“Of course.”
“Looks like Phoenix has just managed to disable all the Sentinels we have on the roof. Coms are down and so are all our people.” There was a pause. “Except for Pagan.”
“What’s he doing?” Rogue asked, hurrying Erith through the corridors urgently, aware that time was of the essence.
“Thank God the cameras are still working. Sentinels are down, but Pagan is facing off with him. She’s taking him on alone.”
“Courage, Sentinel,” Rogue whispered and led the way down another corridor and then farther still down some steps. She finally found the door to the vault and began to check out the keypad that was flashing on its panel.
“First things first. I think this is where I come in.” Melina spoke confidently in their ears. “This is where being a Sighted should make all institutions fear us. Rogue, get a little closer to the keypad for me.” There was the distant clatter of keyboard keys echoing through Rogue’s ear. “Okay, Rogue, attach the seeker.”
Rogue placed a small, square object on top of the pad and they watched as it began to blink. A series of numbers flashed by on the pad. One by one, numbers appeared on its viewscreen, giving the combination to the keypad in the vault. Once the last digit fell, Rogue punched in the numbers manually. The vault door clunked loudly and then hissed open. Erith pulled the huge door back, then reached for the safe-cracking device.
“Do you know how much fun I could have had with one of these before I knew you guys?” she mused.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re on our side now, isn’t it?” Rogue removed the device from Erith’s hand and shook her finger at her. She checked the area before them and gave Erith a thumbs-up before allowing her to enter. The inside of the vault was dimly lit and Rogue switched on her flashlights to light the gloom. She pushed forward and saw what lay waiting in the room. The walls were lined with safe deposit boxes.
Rogue took a deep breath when she realized that she and Erith weren’t the only occupants in the vault. Jackson Menard was bound with ropes to an ornately carved chair, his mouth gagged by a silk scarf. A copious amount of blood covered his face. His eyes flicked open, and Erith let out a terrified scream.
“He’s still alive!” she gasped as he began to struggle. She held up her hands to stop him. “No! You don’t want to move. You have a huge bomb in your lap. You keep twitching and we’re all going to go up.”
Rogue watched Erith trying to calm Menard down as she removed the gag. “You need to just let me think now, okay? I’m going to try to get you out of this, but you have to help me by not moving.”
“Someone kidnapped me and left me down here,” Menard whispered, his eyes never leaving the elaborate contraption on his thighs.
“Zachary Phoenix, son of Xander, back for some major payback,” Rogue said bluntly while looking over the bomb herself. “That’s a nasty-looking contraption.”
“And I need you to hush too.” Erith looked at the device from all angles and then let out a small grunt of annoyance. “Bless him for making my job just that little bit more difficult.” She sighed. “Oh yes, that’s Joe’s handiwork all right.” She gave Rogue a wry look. “Now I know what he meant when we first moved here and he said that he was going to be part of something big in the city.”
Erith removed a small packet of cutters and pliers from her back pocket and concentrated on the wires. “Sneaky. He’s added some extra wiring to confuse the coding, but I know how his mind works.” She looked up to find Rogue right by her side, almost crowding over her shoulder.
“You can leave me now. Your friends upstairs could probably use your help.”
Rogue shook her head, folded her arms, and planted her feet firmly to make it very clear she wasn’t leaving. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Erith looked back down at the bomb. “If this goes wrong, you need to be far away from here, so please leave.”
“No, so just do your thing and then we’ll go.” She smiled at her then signed slowly for Erith to read. I’d never leave Pagan’s girl on her own.
Erith snorted. “Damned Sentinel pride. It’s going to get you all killed one day.” She made a shooing motion. “Then step back at least and give me space to breathe.”
Rogue did so and then watched as Erith concentrated on the wiring before her, laid out in a mass of colors all tangled through each other. Obviously making a decision, Erith spared Rogue one last look. Rogue heard her utter under her breath “I love you, Pagan,” and then she snipped four wires, naming off the colors—“Red, blue, green, black”—in singsong fashion. She pulled out the two real detonators amid four fakes with a swiftness that made Rogue blink and nearly miss it all. The lights on the bomb blinked out, and Erith finally took a breath.
“The bomb is defused, Sighted. Your Sentinels have nothing to fear from down here.”
Rogue stood back and saw Jackson Menard’s relieved but embarrassed face. She looked down at the puddle forming on the ground. “It’s okay. I nearly had an accident too.”
Rogue gathered Erith up in her arms and gave her a hug. “You were brilliant.” She felt Erith shake as the realization of what she had just done obviously sank in. Erith clung just a little longer and then patted Rogue on the back.
“How about we find a way to release Mr. Menard and get the hell out of here while you go take out Phoenix?”
Rogue cut away Menard’s bindings, then helped the shattered man stagger from the vault.
“We saved one, Sighted,” Rogue said.
“That we did. Erith, you are a hero tonight,” Melina said.
Erith stood a little taller under the praise. Together they got Menard out of the bank and into the waiting arms of the police.
Rogue rushed back toward the building. “I’d better get back up there now that one threat has be
en removed.”
Erith gripped Rogue’s arm and squeezed it. “Be safe, Sentinel, and keep that charge of yours out of harm’s way.”
“I’ll do my best.” Rogue prepared her wire gun and then leaned forward to press a kiss to Erith’s cheek. “Now, for once in your life, do as you’re told and stay out of trouble.”
The wire attached high up the tower and Rogue felt the pull lift her from the ground. She saw Erith step back behind the police cordon.
“How’s our girl doing, Sighted?” Rogue asked as she traveled upward.
“Pagan’s still taking on this Phoenix alone while the Sentinels hold off his men. You couldn’t be returning at a more fortuitous time.”
Rogue lifted her head so she could see the edge of the roof. “And so it begins again.”
*
Pagan knew she couldn’t keep fighting Phoenix until he tired. He seemed blessed with too much stamina. She had landed several blows and he was spitting blood, but whatever injury he suffered, it hadn’t put a dent in his determination. She was all too aware that the rest of the Sentinels were otherwise occupied. She could feel the fighting going on around her. She wished she could hear Melina in her ear, telling her what she needed to do.
For the first time in her life, Pagan was a Sentinel alone in a fight to the death. Phoenix lunged for her again and Pagan leapt back, never once losing her footing on the ledge. She balanced like a gymnast on a beam. He sneered at her, wiping the blood from his mouth, then spat it in her direction. Pagan could tell he was talking to her, but she was unable to make out the words.
Pagan vaulted over Phoenix’s head to land behind him on the ledge. As he spun around to make a grab for her, she lashed out with a booted foot and again kicked him in his knees. He yelled out in pain. He gathered himself up, then scrambled toward a Sentinel lying prone on the roof, one of the few fallen, hurt in the battle. He moved to pick him up and held the limp Sentinel’s body high above his head.
“No!” Pagan yelled, realizing what he was going to do.
Phoenix walked toward the edge of the roof with the body in his grasp. “One by one I’m going to throw the Sentinels off the roof and see if they bounce!” He switched his hold on the man to balance him better. “You’re a mighty Sentinel. Do you think you can catch all the ones I throw away? I’ll make the game easy for you and let you see which side of the building I’m going to do it from. Makes it more exciting, don’t you think? Think you can scramble round the building like a spider catching flies?” He shifted the man again and slowly headed toward the ledge, walking backward, keeping Pagan in his view.
Pagan made her decision quickly. Holstering her escrima sticks, she ran for Phoenix as he turned to hoist the Sentinel above his head to throw him over the ledge. Instead, at the last second, he twisted and threw the unconscious Sentinel straight at Pagan. Pagan stumbled back under the force of him hitting her chest, and they both fell to the ground with a solid thump. Pagan scrambled out from under the downed Sentinel only to catch sight of Phoenix charging her way. Before she could regain her feet, he was on her and lifted her above his head. He carried her to the edge of the roof.
Pagan felt no fear. She was a Sentinel; she leapt from roofs every night. She struggled in Phoenix’s arms as he tried to angle her over the edge. Phoenix leaned over the ledge to throw her and slipped on the shards of brick that lay jagged and broken on the roof, pitching them both over the ledge.
Pagan instinctively reached for any piece of wall to halt her flight as she flipped over Phoenix’s shoulders. Her fingers just managed to slip around a piece of ornate carving on the building. Phoenix’s body was stretched too far for him to get back onto the roof. He dangled over the edge, grabbing for Pagan’s shoulders. She looked up at him as he stared down at her, stretched out from the building, only Pagan somehow keeping him balanced.
“You pulled me over the edge!” he yelled.
“Shall we see if you can bounce?” Pagan threw his taunting words back in his face.
His eyes widened as he slipped from the ledge, his own weight dragging him over. He gripped hard at Pagan’s arms. “If I go, you go!”
Pagan smiled at him. “You forget I swing around the city. You, however, are more suited to setting fires and killing the people who had your father killed.” She tried to move out from under his crushing weight. “You need to try to inch back through the hole. I can’t hold you up for much longer.”
“Are you trying to save me, Sentinel?” He laughed down at her.
“It’s my job, whether I like it or not. I’m not a murderer. That’s in your family job description, not mine.” She tried to inch her way back up the wall, but the added pressure from the man above her wouldn’t let her move without him falling. “If you didn’t have your men occupying the Sentinels back there, they would be able to grab you and get you back on the roof safely. But you’re too far gone to tell your men to stop now, aren’t you?” Pagan tightened her grip on the wall. “I think you’re going to have to come down off the roof and hold on to me and I’ll try to get us to the ground. You’re too heavy for me to push back up.”
“Yeah, right. And you’ll just let me fall once I start moving.”
“I could just shift to my right…” Pagan made as if to move, and Phoenix clenched at her shoulders as the movement made him slip farther off the wall. “If I wanted you to fall, I could have done so by now.” She blinked as something hit her face. “You might want to hurry. I think it’s starting to rain.”
As the words left her lips, the heavens opened and rain poured from the skies. Pagan put her face to the wall to shield her eyes from the stinging water. She tightened her grip on the wall as she felt Phoenix try to move.
“I’ll knock you off the wall,” he said.
“If you do, we’ll fly,” Pagan said simply. She braced herself as he shifted his death grip and moved to slide down Pagan’s side. He dangled from her, his arm crushing her throat.
“You might want to let up on the choke hold,” Pagan said.
“Actually, I like the grip. I figure if I am going to die, I take you with me.” He tightened his hold, and Pagan began to see stars as her oxygen was slowly cut off.
“I’m trying to save you.” She gasped for air.
“Maybe I’m beyond saving,” Phoenix growled. He fumbled at her waist and roughly ripped her wire gun from her belt. He held it up triumphantly in her face. “Now who can’t fly away?” He tossed the device over his shoulder and Pagan felt her heart pound as she watched her only hope for escape disappear down the endless side of the tall building.
Phoenix fumbled in his pocket for something else. He drew out a small box with a bright red button on it. He placed it in the hand that was wrapped about her neck so she couldn’t miss its importance.
Pagan could feel her grip slipping and cursed the rain for making the brickwork slick. All she could see was the trigger for the bomb before her eyes, and she couldn’t do anything about it.
*
Rogue could hear Melina screaming in her ear, mixed with the screams from the others as they all saw the two bodies disappear over the side of the wall.
“They’re holding on to the ledge!” Melina yelled. “Rogue, go get her away from him! I’ve lost too many to his evil, I won’t lose her.”
Rogue pushed away the man she was fighting and forced her way through the crowd to try to see what was happening through the broken shell of the wall. She could see Pagan just below, clinging for dear life to a piece of shattered wall with Zachary Phoenix hanging off her side like a huge limpet. She could see the strain in Pagan’s face as she tried to keep them both steady. She roared as she watched him pull Pagan’s wire gun from her belt and throw it away.
“You stupid bastard!” Rogue screamed. She was suddenly pulled back by one of Phoenix’s men.
“Can we save him?” he asked.
Rogue stared at him incredulously. “I think he’s beyond saving now.” She elbowed him firmly in the mouth and felt his
teeth shatter beneath her blow.
“I need Sentinels, now!” she ordered at the top of her voice. She could barely hear herself over the pouring rain and Melina’s sobbing in her ear.
*
Pagan looked up at the sky, the rain washing over her face in torrents. “By the way, Alexis and Camillin Osborne send their regards,” she said, desperately trying to breathe. She blinked against the water that ran into her eyes and watched Phoenix’s lips as he shifted to laugh in her face.
“Who? Oh, the ones my father killed and got caught for? I knew I should have kept my eye a little closer on the Sentinels seeking payback.” Phoenix tightened his hold as best he could, but Pagan was slipping slightly every second he cut off her air supply.
“It seems we weren’t the only ones who wanted to make your father pay. Guess that’s why you’ve been killing his old gang members, getting rid of the ones who had him killed for his murderous ways.”
“I was left with nothing. Nothing! My father was murdered, and I had to grow up without him. They deserved everything they got, the whole stinking lot of them. My father was more villain than they could ever dream of being, and look at them! They all became model citizens instead! Chastilian was theirs for the taking and they gave it all away.” Phoenix shifted a little in his hold. “I killed them all, and if you damned Sentinels got taken out at the same time, then good! All I have of my father is a memory. He deserved revenge.”
Pagan read every venomous word from his lips. “That’s strange, because your father left me with so much more than he did you. Guess he didn’t think you’d amount to much, so he left me his lucky coin instead.” Pagan fumbled inside one of her pockets. She flicked the coin skyward and Phoenix greedily caught at it. The coin reflected the light from the moon above and shone brightly in his eyes.
“Here’s his tip; I hope it brings you better luck than it did my father and mother.” Pagan loosened her grip from the wall as she began to lose her hold on consciousness. She whispered Erith’s name, her red-haired love the last thing she saw in her mind’s eye. Phoenix, too engrossed in the coin in his hand, lost his death grip around Pagan’s neck and slipped on the slickness of her jacket. He tried to grab at her, but Pagan was already falling from the brickwork, giddy and almost blind from having her throat crushed. As his grip loosened, Pagan managed to take in a lungful of much-needed air. She instinctively reached for the wall again, but instead was caught by a hand that held her firmly in its solid grasp. She registered the tight grip the fingers had on her, recognizing their familiarity. Pagan squeezed her eyes tight to dispel the rain that nearly blinded her, but grinned as she finally looked up into Rogue’s relieved face.