The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2)

by Sam Sisavath

  “Our what?” Gaby said through the radio.

  “Behind us,” Will said.

  “Oh. I’m doing it now.”

  “Nice call, Lara,” Will said. She could hear the pride in his voice, and she found herself strangely exhilarated by the compliment, mostly because he gave them out so rarely.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Get a fucking room,” Danny said.

  “After this,” Will said.

  Lara smiled, then hurried over to the other windows and peered out. The solar-powered lampposts only reached so far, and there were whole sections of the western part of the island that were pitch-black. Lara found it difficult to separate the water from the island. She wondered if Gaby was having better luck.

  “Anything?” Will asked through the radio.

  “Nothing so far,” Gaby said.

  “Keep looking. If they’re going to try to sneak onto the island, it’ll be either from the north or the west.”

  “Will do,” Gaby said.

  “Can they climb up the other sides of the island?” Lara asked into the radio.

  “It’s difficult,” Will said, “but it’s doable.”

  After a while, Lara went back to the south window. The girls watched her with curious eyes, following her movements without a word. Jenny was already half asleep, but Vera and Elise looked awake, even alert.

  “Anything?” Sarah called from the door.

  “Nothing yet,” Lara said back.

  Lara picked up the four boats coming toward the beach again. It didn’t look like they were trying anything fancy—four boats flying across the lake’s surface, side by side, bright spotlights shining ahead of them.

  She couldn’t tell how many men were in each boat. There had already been at least eight of them at the house before reinforcements had come. If there were even just two to a truck among the newcomers—they had counted six trucks in all earlier today—then that was already twenty people. Lara thought there had to be more. She remembered the ghoul collaborators in Dansby, Texas. There were ten of them just there alone. If Will was right, and Kate was calling in people from around the area, then there would be more than ten.

  Probably more than twenty…

  Lara lowered the binoculars for a minute and glanced down at the Benelli leaning against the wall next to the window to remind herself it was still there. Behind her was a second shotgun, and two pouches of shotgun shells loaded with silver buckshot sat next to each weapon. It had been Lara’s idea to go with the shotguns. She was going to be in the Tower for most of the night, and if she had to shoot, it would mean there were ghouls or human attackers very near the Tower. In that kind of close-range situation, the shotguns were most effective.

  The sight of the weapons reassured her, and she thought, amused, Mother would never approve.

  The loud crack of a gunshot from above startled her. She glanced up briefly and saw the barrel of Danny’s M4A1 poking out of the Tower window just as he fired two more times.

  Lara peered through her binoculars and saw that one of the boats was now moving in darkness, its lights shot out.

  Danny fired again, and Lara thought she saw a man topple from one of the boats.

  Then a long string of unrelenting gunfire exploded, shattering the calm night with such massive velocity and force that she almost jumped.

  My God, is this what being at war sounds like?

  There was a jagged line of fire stabbing toward the beach from the water. The men on the boats were shooting as they neared the island. For a moment, Lara expected to see tracer bullets like in the movies—brightly lit “laser” lines following the path of gunfire—but there was none of that.

  The boats were clearly starting to slow down as they neared the beach. Lara wasn’t even sure if Will, Blaine, and Maddie, waiting on the beach, were firing back yet, or if they were biding their time, waiting for the attackers to get closer.

  Above her, Danny was firing nonstop now. Single shots. Calmly, with precision. She knew the M4A1s had only two fire settings—semi-automatic and full-auto. Danny was squeezing off one shot after another.

  One of the boats burst out of the water and slid up the beach. Men scrambled to climb over the boat’s railing even before it had stopped moving, but it was hard to make out how many of them there were exactly. Then one of the men stumbled and fell face-down on the beach and didn’t move again.

  The gunfire didn’t stop. If anything, it got louder and faster and more intense.

  She saw bodies falling on the beach as another boat came in, but it was moving too fast and didn’t stop in time. Or maybe that was the point. The boat slashed across the sand, traveling up even farther than the first boat. The men inside were shooting as they scrambled out, raking fire in every direction. She didn’t know if they saw what they were shooting at or if it was just desperation. Hoping to hit something while praying they didn’t get hit.

  She knew Will was somewhere in the center of the beach, hidden in the trees, with Blaine to his left and Maddie to his right at opposite ends of the long stretch of sand. They would be firing into the center of the beach, into what Will called a “kill zone.”

  And above her, Danny was still firing. Calmly, one shot at a time. Over and over again. She didn’t remember if he had even reloaded yet.

  Lara continued looking through the binoculars, swinging left and right and center, watching men stumbling away from boats beached haphazardly on the sand, only to fall. She could already see bodies in the sand. Maybe a dozen. Maybe more. It seemed unreal, and it wasn’t even much of a fight. They were dying. Just dying. What did they think they were doing? Whose plan was this, to send men to die? Did they really think they were going to take the island just by boating up to it?

  This is a suicide mission.

  She lowered her binoculars. She didn’t want to see any more. There wasn’t really a fight on the beach. Will had set it up perfectly, and with Danny firing from a high position, there was no way they were going to lose the beach. No way—

  One of the lampposts in the yard between the Tower and the hotel glinted off something metallic below her. Lara saw it out of the corner of her eye and looked down. The first thought that raced through her head was, Oh God, just before she pulled her head back—a half-second before the man standing below her window fired and a big chunk of concrete above the window frame exploded and showered her as she fell to the floor.

  Lara scrambled away from the window as fast as she could, ignoring the sudden stabbing sensations from her tailbone, where she had slammed into the hardwood floor after falling. She backpedaled with her feet like a turtle on its back, sucking in air.

  She frantically reached down and snatched the radio off her hip and screamed into it: “They’re here! They’re at the Tower!”

  “Where?” someone asked through the radio. It might have been Will, or Danny, but she couldn’t be sure.

  A second later she heard an ear-splitting explosion directly above her. The floor that separated the second and third floors shook so violently that dust and splinters came loose and fell down on top of her and the girls and Carly. She thought she saw brick and mortar falling down across the window in front of her, like sheets of rain.

  Jenny began to cry and Vera grabbed the girl and held her, while Elise pressed her hands against her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Brave girls, stay brave.

  “What was that?” someone shouted through the radio. Male. It might have been Will. “What the hell was that?”

  No. Not Will. The voice was too panicked, too loud, and too out of control.

  She heard gunfire outside the Tower, and it was very close.

  They’re outside! How did they get on the island?

  Will had to be coming. Will or Blaine or Maddie. There were collaborators on the island.

  They’re on the island!

  But she could still hear gunfire from the beach. How many were left? Hadn’t Will and the others already killed eve
ryone trying to land?

  And the third floor was silent. That was the most disturbing part. Danny wasn’t shooting anymore. He had stopped shooting as soon as she had heard the explosion above her.

  Oh, God, Danny…Gaby…

  Lara scrambled to the other side of the floor. She grabbed the Benelli, which was still leaning against the wall, and struggled to her feet. She leaned out the west window and looked down and saw two figures racing by below her, appearing in the large pool of floodlights. One of the men stopped and looked up. She saw some kind of green-and-black camouflage paint over his face, but his eyes were wide and blue, and they zeroed in on her just before he lifted his rifle and fired.

  Lara flinched as the bullet buzzed past her right ear. It wasn’t courage that kept her standing at the window—she had simply frozen and didn’t pull her head back as she should have. But the man fired too quickly, shocked by her appearance, and missed.

  Lara shoved the Benelli outside the window and pointed it down and squeezed the trigger without aiming. The man’s legs buckled under him; then he seemed to vanish into a thick shrubbery.

  She was in the middle of pulling the weapon back when the second man suddenly reappeared and began firing a shotgun up at her window. His first shot scattered buckshot along the window frame, and Lara screamed as some caught her left arm and she lost her grip on the Benelli. The shotgun fell through the window and the man, thinking it was some kind of attack, scrambled out of the way.

  Lara stumbled away from the window. Her right arm was bleeding, but she knew it wasn’t serious. Shotguns didn’t kill unless you got most of the fire into center mass, and the man had gotten her with stray buckshot. It still hurt, and she was trickling blood on the floor as she moved.

  Somehow, Lara managed to block out the pain. She ran across the floor and grabbed the other shotgun from under the south window. It had fallen down, and she thought she must have tripped or kicked it when she was scrambling away from the window during the initial attack.

  She grabbed the shotgun and ran to the closest window; that was when she saw it. It looked like a bullet, but it was much bigger than a bullet—at least ten times bigger, and the bulbous tip looked golden. It slammed into the top of the window frame above her head and chipped concrete with the impact. Lara threw herself to the floor, looking back just in time to see the bullet-like object ricocheting out of view.

  What the hell was that?

  She heard a male voice say, “Oh, fuck,” just before a loud explosion erupted below her, outside the building. The explosion was so close that the entire length of the Tower trembled like it had been wracked by an earthquake.

  Lara stood up and slipped alongside the window and looked down and saw what used to be a man lying at the base of the Tower. Parts of him were scattered among a crater of blackened and charred grass, as if he had taken a direct hit from a meteorite. She couldn’t begin to fathom what had happened, or what the huge bullet object she had seen earlier was. Was that what had caused the explosion below her and killed the man? Was it a grenade? It didn’t look like a grenade, but it wasn’t like she had seen every grenade ever invented by man.

  Lara looked above her and gasped in horror at the sight of the third floor. Or what was left of it. The entire top of the building looked like it had been sheared off, exposed to the night sky. The windows were somehow still intact, along with the floodlights underneath them, but the roof and parts of the unfinished beacon housing were gone.

  Oh, Danny…

  She heard screaming from her floor and turned, saw Elise looking at her, large eyes focused on Lara’s right arm. The girl had a horrified look on her face, and it was all Lara could do to smile at her and fumble her way over to the eight-year-old, kneel in front of her, and take her head in her hands. Elise’s eyes darted to the blood trickling to the floor from Lara’s arm.

  “I’m all right,” Lara said, as gently and forcefully as she could manage. “I’m all right. It’s just a scratch. See? I’m fine, sweetheart.”

  Her head snapped up when she heard gunfire outside, very close to the Tower. Almost right next to the Tower. She knew immediately someone was shooting at the door on the first floor.

  Will. Where the hell are you?

  “Sarah!” Lara screamed.

  Lara waited for an answer from Sarah, but didn’t get one.

  She looked back at Elise one last time, smiled, kissed the girl on the forehead, then hurried over to the open door. She looked down and saw Sarah standing in front of the thick double door, the Remington shotgun in her hands.

  “Sarah,” Lara called down.

  Sarah glanced up, wide-eyed. “Is everyone okay up there? Jenny…?”

  “Everyone’s fine, Jenny’s fine.”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “It’s just a flesh wound.” I hope.

  They had stopped shooting at the door, probably after realizing it wasn’t going to buckle. She heard gunfire from farther away instead. Not as far as the beach, but maybe between the beach and the Tower.

  Will. Please let it be Will.

  Lara unclipped the radio and pressed the transmit lever: “Will. Anyone. Are you out there? They’re attacking the Tower. Will?”

  She didn’t get a response. Lara pressed the transmit lever again and was about to repeat herself when she realized it hadn’t made any sounds. Usually there was a squawk, a signal for her to start talking. Lara turned the radio over in her hand and saw two big holes in the back. Buckshot. It had cracked the radio’s shell and damaged whatever was inside.

  “Lara,” Sarah said from below the door.

  Lara looked back down at her. “What?”

  “Listen.”

  “Listen to what?”

  “That.”

  Lara stopped moving and listened.

  Silence.

  She didn’t hear another gunshot. Or voices. Or any sounds at all. It was perfectly quiet inside and outside the Tower.

  It was suddenly silent all across the island.

  “I think it’s over,” Sarah said.

  God, please let it be over.

  Lara looked up at the wooden floor above her. She thought she could almost smell the smoke and destruction drifting down from the top floor.

  Danny…Gaby…

  She rushed up the stairs, doing the best she could to pretend she wasn’t dripping blood with every step. She told herself they were minor cuts, remembering how badly Carly had been bleeding earlier today. Compared to that, this was a flesh wound.

  She grabbed the door and pushed it open. Or tried to. It budged, but it didn’t fling open the way it was supposed to. She knew the door was unlocked, because it opened an inch for her, but that was it.

  Lara braced herself against the metal step below, then put her entire body into the door. It finally moved, though grudgingly, and with a great effort she was able to throw the door open.

  Her senses were immediately overwhelmed by thick, acrid smoke that stung her eyes and made her nostrils flare. She squeezed her mouth shut so she wouldn’t suck in the smoke and powdered concrete floating everywhere on the third floor.

  The open night sky above her instantly came into view.

  She had thought it looked bad from the second-floor window, but that hadn’t revealed the whole truth. She could see that a great big chunk of the ceiling was missing, along with most of the north side, where the explosion had originated. The floor was covered in debris, big stacks of concrete blocks and brick. The computer setup was buried, and tiny blocks with letters from the keyboard were scattered everywhere.

  Gaby sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked dazed but alive, blood flowing down the side of her face from a big gash on her left temple. Her right cheek was pockmarked with superficial cuts, and Lara noticed, oddly, that the teenager wasn’t wearing her shirt, just her bra.

  She looked down at Gaby’s lap, which was cradling Danny’s head. One entire side of Danny’s face was covered in blood, and his righ
t arm was wrapped in some kind of sling made from a shirt. Gaby’s shirt.

  Gaby somehow managed to smile across the smoke at Lara. “I don’t hear any more shooting. Does that mean we won?”

  “I think so,” Lara said.

  She climbed all the way up and stumbled over the pile in the middle of the room. She crouched next to Gaby and Danny.

  “Your arm’s bleeding,” Gaby said, almost casually.

  “I know. It’s just a scratch.”

  “Lots of scratches.”

  “Where else are you hurt?”

  “What you see is what you get, doc.”

  “Third-year medical student,” she smiled.

  “Good enough for me. Check if Danny’s still alive. I can’t tell.”

  Lara felt his pulse. It was weak, but it was still there. “He’s alive.”

  “Good. He promised to teach me how to shoot, and I’m not letting him off this easy.”

  Lara wiped as much of the blood from Danny’s face as she could before finding the source of his bleeding—a couple of gashes along his temple. Not life-threatening, though the amount of blood made it look much worse. He would scar, as they all would, but he wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

  “You did this?” Lara asked, looking at the sling.

  “Sucks, huh?”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “I dunno, let me think about it for a moment.”

  Gaby chuckled, prompting Lara to smile.

  She pulled aside Gaby’s shirt and peered at the wound underneath. There was a big piece of shrapnel buried near Danny’s shoulder blade. She would have to remove that as soon as she could, or Danny might lose the use of his arm completely by morning.

  “What happened?” Lara asked. “I heard an explosion.”

  “Some kind of grenade launcher,” Gaby said. “Blew up the ceiling. Well, blew up everything else, too, I guess. Danny must have seen the guy. He grabbed me and pushed me down to the floor and covered me with his body. Saved my life. It’s almost enough to make me forgive him for all the crappy jokes I’ve had to listen to for the last two days.”

  “Sounds like Danny,” a voice said behind them.