Black Sun Rising (Order Of The Black Sun Book 3)

by P. W. Child

  But she had underestimated Purdue. He retyped the code as quickly and accurately as if he had been typing it every day for years, and then waited with bated breath for a response from the servers.

  "It's done!" he cried, and began to raise his arms in a gesture of victory before the pain reminded him that he could not. He caught his breath as the pang of agony hit, but it did not take the smile off his face. "It's done, Nina," he planted a sudden, celebratory kiss on her lips. "The servers are cleared. Now all we have to do is—"

  Overhead, there came an ear-splitting crash. Purdue paused in mid-sentence. He and Nina turned their gaze upward, toward the source of the sound, to watch what was happening to Sam.

  The barrel of the gun drew level with Sam's eye. There was to be no mistake, no room for error. This would be execution style at point-blank range, hopefully painless and mercifully quick. Sam refused to close his eyes.

  He was not even aware of the impulse to move his foot. The acolyte had doubled up in pain before Sam even realized that he had kicked him. Instinctively he ducked, hearing the bullet whistle past his head. It struck the doors and ricocheted, hitting the corner of one of the glass panels. Fractures streaked across the exterior surface of the lift.

  Seeing the gun on the floor, Sam shoved it away and sent it spinning into the corner, as far as it could go from the acolyte. Despite their adventures with the drones, he was not convinced that he could shoot a man so close using a pistol. He'd be on me in the time it took for me to aim, he thought.

  The bell sounded and the doors opened to reveal the thirty-seventh floor. I was hoping that by the time we got here I'd be in a position to kick him out and go straight back down, Sam cursed his luck. But I'm between him and the door, and I don't want to risk letting him get near the gun again. Maybe I can negotiate with him. Perhaps if I can buy us some time . . . He hit the panel again, sending the elevator gliding down toward the ground, but this time his clumsy hands caught the neighboring panel too. A section of white plastic fell away, displaying a bright red fire extinguisher underneath. Perfect! Sam thought. A blunt instrument. That'll do me a lot more good than the gun!

  By now the acolyte had recovered enough to stand up—or at least to reach a painful approximation to standing. He took a swing at Sam, who dodged and started babbling, trying to persuade the acolyte that there must be a way that they could reason things out.

  The acolyte's fist pulled back, ready to land a blow on Sam that would break his jaw. Trapped in a corner, too tightly hemmed in to duck, Sam hoisted the fire extinguisher in front of him for some protection. The ring that sealed the extinguisher dangled before his face. He grabbed hold of it and pulled hard.

  The extinguisher nearly leaped out of Sam's hands, but he got it under control and turned the fierce spray on the acolyte. It hit the young man square in the face, hurling him backward. He slammed into the damaged glass with the full weight of his body.

  In sickeningly slow motion Sam saw the fractures grow in the glass. One broken section parted company with another, sending shards of glass tumbling down to the street below like partly thawed icicles. He saw the acolyte's face become a mask of horror as he realized that the material that had been supporting him was gone. Gravity pulled him gently out of the damaged elevator. He flailed, his hands seeking anything on which they could gain purchase, but they found only broken glass. His arms described one final, despairing circle as he fell, spattering Sam with a thin mist of blood from his lacerated fingers. Sam did not hear the acolyte hitting the ground, but the reaction from the hotel guests assembled outside made it clear that he had—and that his end had been messy.

  Curled in the corner of the destroyed elevator, Sam waited to reach the ground. The seconds felt like hours.

  "Right there!" Nina yelled. "Stop right there, we need to get that man into the cab."

  "You sure are lucky they ain't closed this street yet, lady," the cab driver remained surly, even despite the promise of a large payout. He did, however, comply with Nina's request and pull up right outside the doors to the Verbena, where Sam was staggering out.

  One of the receptionists had run up to him and was attempting to steer him toward the ambulances that had arrived, but when Sam saw Nina open the door to the cab and beckon him inside, he pushed the receptionist away and dived in. He collapsed into the back seat next to Purdue.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "North Vegas airstrip," Purdue replied, his voice little more than a croak. He pointed to the tablet. "I will have someone waiting. We can get somewhere safe."

  "We're not going home?"

  "We can't, Sam," said Nina, "not yet, at any rate. These people are dangerous, we've seen that. If Dave's got somewhere safe where we can hole up for a while, at least until our wounds have healed, we have to go there. We can figure out whether there's any lasting danger and plan our next move."

  It was the right decision, Sam knew—the practical decision, the safe decision. But suddenly his heart ached for home and he wanted nothing more than to be back in his flat in Edinburgh, complaining about the heat and being woken in the night by Bruichladdich.

  He turned to Julia Rose. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should never have let you come along. Look where it's got you."

  "You couldn't have stopped me," she said. "Besides, I'm not going with you. Mr. Purdue just used that thing of his to wire me some cash, just like he's doing for the cab driver, so I've got enough to get home. He said it's enough to cover replacing my car, too—well, I don't think I'm gonna get it back now, do you? I'm going to hide out back in Minneapolis for a while. Pretend all this never happened."

  She fell silent and turned her face away, signaling the end of the conversation. The dark glass reflected her face just enough for Sam to be sure that she looked considerably more frightened than she sounded. There's no point in arguing with her, he thought. If she doesn't want to go into hiding, we can't make her. She'll probably be safest far away from us anyway.

  Sam's head was still buzzing with questions and adrenaline by the time they arrived at the airport. Purdue greeted his personal pilot, Gary, and silenced his concerns about the suddenness and irregularity of their trip with promises of obscene amounts of money. Gary took one look at Sam and Nina, looking as torn as his employer and shook his head. With a weak wave of acknowledgment they greeted him. Gary was thankful he was not involved in this pursuit of Purdue's, as he was last time when he almost did not get away alive.

  While Gary introduced them to the only medic he had been able to acquire at such short notice, Sam said goodbye to Julia Rose. He waved until the cab was out of sight, bound for McCarran International in Las Vegas, and then followed Nina and Purdue up the steps into the charter jet.

  Purdue was already stretched out in a reclining chair with the EMT tending to his wound, while Nina had collapsed into the nearest seat and was staring catatonically at the back of the seat in front.

  Without a word, Sam dropped into the seat beside her. The engines roared to life. Automatically, he held out his hand for her to grasp during takeoff. She took it.

  "This is going to take a hell of a lot of sorting out," he sighed.

  The plane thundered along the runway, then soared upward, carrying Sam, Nina, and Purdue away from the horrors of the desert, into an uncertain future.

  THE END