Juniper Wiles, page 20
I close my eyes. Breathe, I remind myself, hearing the voice of every trainer I’ve ever worked with in my head.
“One last thing,” Joe says, drawing our attention back to him. “The natural inclination in a confrontation of any kind is to try to use reason before action. Where we’re going, that’s only going to get you dead. The creatures Charlie Midnight’s made aren’t going to give you any quarter. They’re going to strike harder and faster than you’re expecting.
“If they were ever people, they’re not people now. They’ve been changed into monsters and that change is final. It’s like dealing with a Windigo or a…zombie. You can’t fix them. You can only take them down.”
He looks from me to Gabi to see that we understand.
“Nice pep talk,” Gabi says.
Bo laughs. I feel a delirious sense of giddiness rising, but Joe shoots us a frown and the moment passes. We’re back to deadly serious as Joe begins to speak again.
“Jack, Bo and I will come at them from the front of the building. You two take the rear. When you hear that we’ve engaged with them, your job is to go in and find Nora and anybody else we need to get out. Bo, you take the sniper rifle. When you find some high ground with good sightlines, let us know. Jack, you’re with me going in through the front.”
Bo straps on a weapons belt and grabs the rifle. Joe and Jack arm up as well.
I glance over at Jilly. There’s panic in her eyes so I go and give her another hug.
“Come back in one piece,” she says.
“We will.”
I join the others. Joe takes my hand, Bo takes Gabi’s.
“Dive right in,” Gabi says as they step us away into the Crescent Bay world.
Gabi and I don’t talk as we make our way to the rear of the library. It’s early morning here, but still eerie to see the campus so deserted. There’s no one around at all. It’s so quiet we can hear the waves wash in to the shore, blocks away from where we’ve just hunkered down behind some shrubbery. The rear door is in clear sight from our position.
I resist the urge to touch the comm link in my ear. Joe warned us to keep exchanges to a minimum because we don’t know who might be on the same channel. He wasn’t even sure it would work in this world. But when we tested it on our arrival, I could hear everybody’s voice in my ear. Since then we’ve all been silent.
It’s making me antsy. I know what Joe said, but I can’t help myself. It’s talk or let my nerves take over.
“There was no basement on the show,” I murmur to Gabi.
She looks worried. “I’ve never noticed one when I’ve been inside,” she whispers.
“So I guess we’re going up.”
I take as deep a breath as I can with all this stuff on, scrunching up my shoulders and letting them fall, then regret it as my gear makes a metallic sound falling back into place.
We both go dead silent, listening for any sign that we’ve been heard. As the minutes crawl by, my jitters start back up.
I decide to distract myself by describing what I recall about the show. I keep my voice low. “I remember the library being three floors of open space with bookshelves and carousels, desks and sofas. The offices were in the middle on the second and third floors, kind of built into the staircases and around the elevator shaft. And there was the small amphitheater on the ground floor. Is that about right?”
Gabi nods in agreement. I’m wondering if she feels as awkward as I do in this body armour, the big helmet on my head, trying to figure out how to hold both the shield and the machine gun. I start to mention it to her when she suddenly lifts her head. Behind the Plexiglas of her visor I see her eyes go wide with shock.
“Holy crap,” she says almost at normal volume.
I turn around, looking for what’s startled her.
“What’s going on?” Joe’s voice asks in my earpiece.
“Hang on,” I reply. “There’s something happening to Gabi.” I touch her sleeve. “What is it?” I ask her.
When I look back, her wide eyes meet my gaze, but I don’t think she’s seeing anything.
“What?” I repeat.
“It—it’s like a switch just turned on. All I have to do is think of something and I can find it. Holy double crap. This is amazing.”
I risk a peek over the bushes and I’m relieved to see it’s still empty and quiet out there.
“Gabi,” I murmur. “You’re not making any sense and we need to be on top of our game here.”
“Right, right. Hang on. I’m accessing blueprints for the library. Wait. They must have security cameras in there. Let me see if I can access them.”
And then I get it. Whatever weird relationship Saskia has with the internet has just kicked in for Gabi.
“Oh man, I am so badass,” she says. “I’ve got eyes on everything inside except for the offices. Makes sense that they wouldn’t have cameras in there.”
“Are you hearing this?” I ask for Joe’s benefit. “Gabi’s gone all Saskia on us.”
“Should we pull back?” he says.
Gabi replies before I can say yes.
“Hell no,” she says with a grin. “I’m on top of this.”
“Copy that,” Joe says.
I’m not so sure I buy it. It’s so weird having her look at me and not really see me. She’s seeing—I’m not sure what. A computer screen inside her head? All of the internet in some bewildering cyberspace chaos? Whatever it is, she sounds so matter-of-fact.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask.
“Never better.”
“You’re not…overloading or anything?”
“Seriously, I’m good. Saskia told me about this. She said when I did manage to connect, to treat my mind as a browser. I just shut everything out and focus on what I want to.”
The far-off gaze behind her visor is starting to creep me out.
“So I guess the bloods are in the offices,” she says. “I wish I could see inside them. What I need is a drone.”
“What you need is to come back from wherever you are,” I tell her. “This can’t be good.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Whenever I’m not online I feel a little disconnected, but now for the first time I’m complete. This is every hacker’s dream. Wetware that’s an interface.”
I don’t like the sound of any of this.
“Can’t you, I don’t know, put it on hold for a minute?” I think about what I’m saying, then add, “Maybe reduce your connection so that it’s just in a corner of your vision?”
“Good idea. I don’t know if I can—wait. I’ve got it.”
Her eyes snap into focus and for the first time in a few minutes, I feel like she can really see me again. She grins, ear to ear.
“Okay,” she says. “This is very cool.” She looks in the direction of the library. “I’m seeing the outside and the inside at the same time.”
“It isn’t dangerous, is it?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Pretty sure I don’t care. Dive right in, Nora. All the way to the core.”
I don’t bother to correct the slip of the name, but it adds to my worry.
Joe’s voice comes over the comm link. “Our senses tell us there are bodies in there. Bo’s still getting into position.”
“Okay,” I reply. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”
Except there’s an exit door to our left, and Gabi gets up and trots toward it. I give the building a quick scan before I scramble to my feet and follow her. By the time I join her, she’s trying the door.
“Locked,” she says. Her eyes lose focus again. “Let’s see. Okay it’s got an electronic lock. I just need to find the program that controls it.”
The fingers of the hand not holding her riot shield are moving at her side as though she’s working a keyboard. I hear the lock disengage.
“And voila,” she says. “Front and back doors are open.”
When she reaches for the door’s handle again I grab her arm to stop her. “Let’s stick to the plan,” I say. “Joe and his crew distract the bloods. We wait until they’re drawn out before we go in.”
She nods. I know she’s only partially paying attention to me. Part of her is no doubt focused on the feeds from the security cameras inside.
Waiting brings my anxiety levels back up and I wonder again just what I’m doing out here in SWAT riot gear. This isn’t a movie and I’m not a hero. I used to be an actor. Now all I want to be is an artist and a good mom to Sonora.
“Bo’s in position,” Joe’s voice says in my ear, pulling me out of my own head. “We’re good to go.”
That’s immediately followed by gunshots from the other side of the building.
“Heads up,” Gabi says. “I’ve got movement. They’re at the door in three…two…one…now.”
“We see them,” Joe says. “There’s seven—no eight of them.”
My knuckles are white on the strap of the riot shield. The machine gun weighs heavy from its strap on my shoulder. I put my fingers inside the trigger guard.
There’s more gunfire from the front.
“You’re up,” Joe says.
“Okay,” Gabi tells him. As she pushes down on the door handle she looks back at me and says, “We need to stay in serious stealth mode. Joe’s crew has drawn them out, but there could be other bloods in there that aren’t in range of the cameras.”
I nod. She puts her shoulder to the library door and eases it open, quickly slipping in. I’m right behind her.
There are no lights on inside, but there are so many windows that it’s easy to see. We duck behind the nearest bookcase while Gabi continues to monitor the camera feeds. Outside, the gunfire is sporadic.
Gabi looks at me. “Try the amphitheater first?”
She doesn’t wait for my response. I catch up to her and we cross the main floor of the library, aiming for the double doors of the amphitheater. When we reach them, we hug the wall on either side of the doors.
“Everything’s still clear,” Gabi says.
We each grab a door handle and pull them open.
“Oh, shit,” she says as a couple of dozen grotesque creatures turn their heads in our direction.
My first thought is body modification because I can’t quite process that I’m seeing monsters. Live in L.A. for as long as I did and you end up seeing everything. People with implanted horns like those that protrude from the shaved heads of these creatures. Augmented noses, mouths and ears. Split tongues. Implanted fangs. Brow implants. Tattooed eyes, for God’s sake.
I have a flash of panic. How certain are we that these are actually monsters? That they’re not just people with a different preference of body aesthetics?
Registering our intrusion, they roar all at the same time, like some kind of hive mind is controlling them, and Gabi slams her door.
“Up!” she yells.
I slam my door and bolt up the stairs right behind her.
“We’ve got a problem, Joe,” I say, hoping he can hear me above the gunfire. “We just stirred up a nest of bloods in the amphitheater.”
“How many?” he replies.
“At least twenty,” Gabi puts in.
We reach the second floor, but she takes us right up the next staircase.
“We’re heading for the top floor,” she adds for Joe’s benefit. “We’ll make them come at us just a couple at a time.”
“Hang tight. We’ll be inside as soon as we can.”
My calves are aching and I’m panting for breath by the time we get to the third floor. I lean against the wall while Gabi peers back down the stairs, gun ready.
We both jump when a door opens down the hall. The blood that appears takes one look at us and charges in our direction. I drop my riot shield and bring up my machine gun, but suddenly I just freeze. I can’t believe how fast he’s moving. He’s almost on me when Gabi lets loose a short burst of rounds. The thunder of the shots deafens me. His head explodes as the bullets hit, spraying blood and brain matter on the wall behind him. The body continues its forward motion, pushed by the momentum of its charge, and I shrink back against the wall. It goes by me and hits the railing where Gabi gives it an extra shove, sending it over the rail and down to the ground floor.
I drop to my knees, clawing my helmet off, and puke on the carpet.
“Don’t bail on me!” Gabi yells.
The taste in my mouth makes me want to hurl again.
“I can’t do this alone, Nora.”
“I’m not fucking Nora!”
“You don’t get your ass in gear, all we’ll be is dead.”
She turns away from me and fires a quick burst down the stairwell.
“Remember playing paintball?” she says. “Just think of it as that.”
I don’t know if she’s referencing her memory or something from the show. But I’ve played paintball. I’ve also trained with this exact same gun I’ve got in my hands. I’ve just never fired it at another living being.
But Gabi’s right. It’s do or die. If I can’t be confident, I can at least be competent.
I struggle to my feet and stand by the rail where I can see both the stairs and the hall. The blood Gabi shot is sprawled on the stairs. Two more scrabble over him, moving fast. Gabi and I both fire. At this range it’s hard to miss, but half my shots go wild because I didn’t compensate for the kickback on the gun.
The voice of my weapons trainer fills my head.
Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.
Brace yourself for the kickback—use both hands.
Point the muzzle like you would a finger.
The next blood that comes over the growing stack of their dead gets two shots in the head when I fire. I shut away the panic. I taste bile and spit. Two more bloods come charging over the dead bodies that fill the stairs. Gabi and I stand shoulder to shoulder and we each take one, then I drop a third that’s right behind them.
My ears are ringing with all this gunfire in the close confines of the stairwell.
“We could really use some help here, Joe,” I say.
“We’re on our way.”
More bloods are climbing over their dead, but I hear something from behind me. The same door that spewed out the one monster at the start of this attack spits out two more. I get the first with a head shot, but miss the second. Before I can adjust to fire again he rams into me.
My body armour takes the brunt of the force but it still knocks the air out of me. He opens a mouth that’s way too wide and filled with sharp teeth and bites at my unprotected head. Gabi slams the butt of her gun into his temple, but then she has to shoot down the stairs again and leave me to finish. Her help’s enough of a break for me to jam the muzzle of my gun into the bottom of his jaw and blow away his head.
“Fuck,” Gabi mutters.
I glance over to see that her magazine’s empty. I rise up to take her place, giving her a chance to swap it out for a fresh one. Then I hear the ping of an elevator. Perfect. We’re about to be attacked from both sides. I fire down the stairs and my gun runs out of ammunition.
Crap.
Gabi’s still fumbling with her gun.
I swap in a fresh magazine, then shove my gun at Gabi and grab hers.
“Deal with the stairs,” I tell her.
All those hours of taking weapons apart and putting them back together again serves me well. My trainer would be proud of how fast I get the job done. By the time the elevator doors open I’m standing in the hall, ready for whatever comes next.
Gabi fires behind me and we finally hear the welcome sound of more gunfire coming from below. The cavalry’s here.
Three bloods step out into the hallway from the elevator. The front one is bigger than the others with far more ornate body modifications. Two rows of implanted horns run the length of his shaved head, with implanted metal spikes in between rising up like some bizarre Mohawk. Metal studs form a pattern on his face, surrounding his eyes and spiraling on his cheeks before running down in a zigzag across his bare chest. Spikes protrude from his shoulders, while more implants form ridges down both his arms.
He seems surprised to see me. His gaze darts to the room that the other bloods came out of and then back to me. He has no whites in his eyes. They’re just a pair of bottomless pools, black as midnight. His gaze seems to lock on mine and I feel a sudden pressure in between my temples.
I want to lift my gun. My finger’s in the trigger guard. But I can’t seem to move any part of my body. I’m frozen again, except this time it’s not from fear. It’s something he’s doing to me. Those midnight black eyes…
The realization hits hard.
It’s Charlie freaking Midnight.
I didn’t twig to it right away because all I’ve ever seen of him before was a vague Nosferatu shape in the shadows of a dream.
I can still hear the firefight down the stairs. It sounds like it’s closer—maybe on the second floor. But that’s not going to make any difference with me being paralyzed and Charlie Midnight walking towards me.
“I don’t know how you got out of your cage,” he says, “where you got that armour and gun, or who the rest of these assholes are, but you know what? I don’t care. Nothing you do is ever going to make a lick of difference. So back in your cage you go because I own you, Nora Constantine, body and soul. Always have, always will.”
He shouldn’t have called me that.
Whatever hold he’s got on me dissolves under a sudden flash of anger.
“I’m not Nora Constantine,” I tell him as I raise the machine gun.
His black eyes go wide, then explode as I empty half a clip into his head. The two bloods behind him have the time to look stunned before I take them out as well. I hear something behind me and I turn, gun leveled, trigger finger ready to squeeze, but it’s Gabi. I freeze.
She’s holding her machine gun by her leg, muzzle pointed at the floor. The palm of her other hand comes up.
“Whoa,” she says. “It’s just me.”
I lower the gun and look past her.
“You got the rest of them?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, the boys did. They’ve fanned out, looking for stragglers. The stairwell’s jammed, but we can take the elevator.” She looks at the bodies in the hall. There’s pretty much nothing left of their leader’s head, but his body size and modifications are still evident.
“One last thing,” Joe says, drawing our attention back to him. “The natural inclination in a confrontation of any kind is to try to use reason before action. Where we’re going, that’s only going to get you dead. The creatures Charlie Midnight’s made aren’t going to give you any quarter. They’re going to strike harder and faster than you’re expecting.
“If they were ever people, they’re not people now. They’ve been changed into monsters and that change is final. It’s like dealing with a Windigo or a…zombie. You can’t fix them. You can only take them down.”
He looks from me to Gabi to see that we understand.
“Nice pep talk,” Gabi says.
Bo laughs. I feel a delirious sense of giddiness rising, but Joe shoots us a frown and the moment passes. We’re back to deadly serious as Joe begins to speak again.
“Jack, Bo and I will come at them from the front of the building. You two take the rear. When you hear that we’ve engaged with them, your job is to go in and find Nora and anybody else we need to get out. Bo, you take the sniper rifle. When you find some high ground with good sightlines, let us know. Jack, you’re with me going in through the front.”
Bo straps on a weapons belt and grabs the rifle. Joe and Jack arm up as well.
I glance over at Jilly. There’s panic in her eyes so I go and give her another hug.
“Come back in one piece,” she says.
“We will.”
I join the others. Joe takes my hand, Bo takes Gabi’s.
“Dive right in,” Gabi says as they step us away into the Crescent Bay world.
Gabi and I don’t talk as we make our way to the rear of the library. It’s early morning here, but still eerie to see the campus so deserted. There’s no one around at all. It’s so quiet we can hear the waves wash in to the shore, blocks away from where we’ve just hunkered down behind some shrubbery. The rear door is in clear sight from our position.
I resist the urge to touch the comm link in my ear. Joe warned us to keep exchanges to a minimum because we don’t know who might be on the same channel. He wasn’t even sure it would work in this world. But when we tested it on our arrival, I could hear everybody’s voice in my ear. Since then we’ve all been silent.
It’s making me antsy. I know what Joe said, but I can’t help myself. It’s talk or let my nerves take over.
“There was no basement on the show,” I murmur to Gabi.
She looks worried. “I’ve never noticed one when I’ve been inside,” she whispers.
“So I guess we’re going up.”
I take as deep a breath as I can with all this stuff on, scrunching up my shoulders and letting them fall, then regret it as my gear makes a metallic sound falling back into place.
We both go dead silent, listening for any sign that we’ve been heard. As the minutes crawl by, my jitters start back up.
I decide to distract myself by describing what I recall about the show. I keep my voice low. “I remember the library being three floors of open space with bookshelves and carousels, desks and sofas. The offices were in the middle on the second and third floors, kind of built into the staircases and around the elevator shaft. And there was the small amphitheater on the ground floor. Is that about right?”
Gabi nods in agreement. I’m wondering if she feels as awkward as I do in this body armour, the big helmet on my head, trying to figure out how to hold both the shield and the machine gun. I start to mention it to her when she suddenly lifts her head. Behind the Plexiglas of her visor I see her eyes go wide with shock.
“Holy crap,” she says almost at normal volume.
I turn around, looking for what’s startled her.
“What’s going on?” Joe’s voice asks in my earpiece.
“Hang on,” I reply. “There’s something happening to Gabi.” I touch her sleeve. “What is it?” I ask her.
When I look back, her wide eyes meet my gaze, but I don’t think she’s seeing anything.
“What?” I repeat.
“It—it’s like a switch just turned on. All I have to do is think of something and I can find it. Holy double crap. This is amazing.”
I risk a peek over the bushes and I’m relieved to see it’s still empty and quiet out there.
“Gabi,” I murmur. “You’re not making any sense and we need to be on top of our game here.”
“Right, right. Hang on. I’m accessing blueprints for the library. Wait. They must have security cameras in there. Let me see if I can access them.”
And then I get it. Whatever weird relationship Saskia has with the internet has just kicked in for Gabi.
“Oh man, I am so badass,” she says. “I’ve got eyes on everything inside except for the offices. Makes sense that they wouldn’t have cameras in there.”
“Are you hearing this?” I ask for Joe’s benefit. “Gabi’s gone all Saskia on us.”
“Should we pull back?” he says.
Gabi replies before I can say yes.
“Hell no,” she says with a grin. “I’m on top of this.”
“Copy that,” Joe says.
I’m not so sure I buy it. It’s so weird having her look at me and not really see me. She’s seeing—I’m not sure what. A computer screen inside her head? All of the internet in some bewildering cyberspace chaos? Whatever it is, she sounds so matter-of-fact.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask.
“Never better.”
“You’re not…overloading or anything?”
“Seriously, I’m good. Saskia told me about this. She said when I did manage to connect, to treat my mind as a browser. I just shut everything out and focus on what I want to.”
The far-off gaze behind her visor is starting to creep me out.
“So I guess the bloods are in the offices,” she says. “I wish I could see inside them. What I need is a drone.”
“What you need is to come back from wherever you are,” I tell her. “This can’t be good.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Whenever I’m not online I feel a little disconnected, but now for the first time I’m complete. This is every hacker’s dream. Wetware that’s an interface.”
I don’t like the sound of any of this.
“Can’t you, I don’t know, put it on hold for a minute?” I think about what I’m saying, then add, “Maybe reduce your connection so that it’s just in a corner of your vision?”
“Good idea. I don’t know if I can—wait. I’ve got it.”
Her eyes snap into focus and for the first time in a few minutes, I feel like she can really see me again. She grins, ear to ear.
“Okay,” she says. “This is very cool.” She looks in the direction of the library. “I’m seeing the outside and the inside at the same time.”
“It isn’t dangerous, is it?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Pretty sure I don’t care. Dive right in, Nora. All the way to the core.”
I don’t bother to correct the slip of the name, but it adds to my worry.
Joe’s voice comes over the comm link. “Our senses tell us there are bodies in there. Bo’s still getting into position.”
“Okay,” I reply. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”
Except there’s an exit door to our left, and Gabi gets up and trots toward it. I give the building a quick scan before I scramble to my feet and follow her. By the time I join her, she’s trying the door.
“Locked,” she says. Her eyes lose focus again. “Let’s see. Okay it’s got an electronic lock. I just need to find the program that controls it.”
The fingers of the hand not holding her riot shield are moving at her side as though she’s working a keyboard. I hear the lock disengage.
“And voila,” she says. “Front and back doors are open.”
When she reaches for the door’s handle again I grab her arm to stop her. “Let’s stick to the plan,” I say. “Joe and his crew distract the bloods. We wait until they’re drawn out before we go in.”
She nods. I know she’s only partially paying attention to me. Part of her is no doubt focused on the feeds from the security cameras inside.
Waiting brings my anxiety levels back up and I wonder again just what I’m doing out here in SWAT riot gear. This isn’t a movie and I’m not a hero. I used to be an actor. Now all I want to be is an artist and a good mom to Sonora.
“Bo’s in position,” Joe’s voice says in my ear, pulling me out of my own head. “We’re good to go.”
That’s immediately followed by gunshots from the other side of the building.
“Heads up,” Gabi says. “I’ve got movement. They’re at the door in three…two…one…now.”
“We see them,” Joe says. “There’s seven—no eight of them.”
My knuckles are white on the strap of the riot shield. The machine gun weighs heavy from its strap on my shoulder. I put my fingers inside the trigger guard.
There’s more gunfire from the front.
“You’re up,” Joe says.
“Okay,” Gabi tells him. As she pushes down on the door handle she looks back at me and says, “We need to stay in serious stealth mode. Joe’s crew has drawn them out, but there could be other bloods in there that aren’t in range of the cameras.”
I nod. She puts her shoulder to the library door and eases it open, quickly slipping in. I’m right behind her.
There are no lights on inside, but there are so many windows that it’s easy to see. We duck behind the nearest bookcase while Gabi continues to monitor the camera feeds. Outside, the gunfire is sporadic.
Gabi looks at me. “Try the amphitheater first?”
She doesn’t wait for my response. I catch up to her and we cross the main floor of the library, aiming for the double doors of the amphitheater. When we reach them, we hug the wall on either side of the doors.
“Everything’s still clear,” Gabi says.
We each grab a door handle and pull them open.
“Oh, shit,” she says as a couple of dozen grotesque creatures turn their heads in our direction.
My first thought is body modification because I can’t quite process that I’m seeing monsters. Live in L.A. for as long as I did and you end up seeing everything. People with implanted horns like those that protrude from the shaved heads of these creatures. Augmented noses, mouths and ears. Split tongues. Implanted fangs. Brow implants. Tattooed eyes, for God’s sake.
I have a flash of panic. How certain are we that these are actually monsters? That they’re not just people with a different preference of body aesthetics?
Registering our intrusion, they roar all at the same time, like some kind of hive mind is controlling them, and Gabi slams her door.
“Up!” she yells.
I slam my door and bolt up the stairs right behind her.
“We’ve got a problem, Joe,” I say, hoping he can hear me above the gunfire. “We just stirred up a nest of bloods in the amphitheater.”
“How many?” he replies.
“At least twenty,” Gabi puts in.
We reach the second floor, but she takes us right up the next staircase.
“We’re heading for the top floor,” she adds for Joe’s benefit. “We’ll make them come at us just a couple at a time.”
“Hang tight. We’ll be inside as soon as we can.”
My calves are aching and I’m panting for breath by the time we get to the third floor. I lean against the wall while Gabi peers back down the stairs, gun ready.
We both jump when a door opens down the hall. The blood that appears takes one look at us and charges in our direction. I drop my riot shield and bring up my machine gun, but suddenly I just freeze. I can’t believe how fast he’s moving. He’s almost on me when Gabi lets loose a short burst of rounds. The thunder of the shots deafens me. His head explodes as the bullets hit, spraying blood and brain matter on the wall behind him. The body continues its forward motion, pushed by the momentum of its charge, and I shrink back against the wall. It goes by me and hits the railing where Gabi gives it an extra shove, sending it over the rail and down to the ground floor.
I drop to my knees, clawing my helmet off, and puke on the carpet.
“Don’t bail on me!” Gabi yells.
The taste in my mouth makes me want to hurl again.
“I can’t do this alone, Nora.”
“I’m not fucking Nora!”
“You don’t get your ass in gear, all we’ll be is dead.”
She turns away from me and fires a quick burst down the stairwell.
“Remember playing paintball?” she says. “Just think of it as that.”
I don’t know if she’s referencing her memory or something from the show. But I’ve played paintball. I’ve also trained with this exact same gun I’ve got in my hands. I’ve just never fired it at another living being.
But Gabi’s right. It’s do or die. If I can’t be confident, I can at least be competent.
I struggle to my feet and stand by the rail where I can see both the stairs and the hall. The blood Gabi shot is sprawled on the stairs. Two more scrabble over him, moving fast. Gabi and I both fire. At this range it’s hard to miss, but half my shots go wild because I didn’t compensate for the kickback on the gun.
The voice of my weapons trainer fills my head.
Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.
Brace yourself for the kickback—use both hands.
Point the muzzle like you would a finger.
The next blood that comes over the growing stack of their dead gets two shots in the head when I fire. I shut away the panic. I taste bile and spit. Two more bloods come charging over the dead bodies that fill the stairs. Gabi and I stand shoulder to shoulder and we each take one, then I drop a third that’s right behind them.
My ears are ringing with all this gunfire in the close confines of the stairwell.
“We could really use some help here, Joe,” I say.
“We’re on our way.”
More bloods are climbing over their dead, but I hear something from behind me. The same door that spewed out the one monster at the start of this attack spits out two more. I get the first with a head shot, but miss the second. Before I can adjust to fire again he rams into me.
My body armour takes the brunt of the force but it still knocks the air out of me. He opens a mouth that’s way too wide and filled with sharp teeth and bites at my unprotected head. Gabi slams the butt of her gun into his temple, but then she has to shoot down the stairs again and leave me to finish. Her help’s enough of a break for me to jam the muzzle of my gun into the bottom of his jaw and blow away his head.
“Fuck,” Gabi mutters.
I glance over to see that her magazine’s empty. I rise up to take her place, giving her a chance to swap it out for a fresh one. Then I hear the ping of an elevator. Perfect. We’re about to be attacked from both sides. I fire down the stairs and my gun runs out of ammunition.
Crap.
Gabi’s still fumbling with her gun.
I swap in a fresh magazine, then shove my gun at Gabi and grab hers.
“Deal with the stairs,” I tell her.
All those hours of taking weapons apart and putting them back together again serves me well. My trainer would be proud of how fast I get the job done. By the time the elevator doors open I’m standing in the hall, ready for whatever comes next.
Gabi fires behind me and we finally hear the welcome sound of more gunfire coming from below. The cavalry’s here.
Three bloods step out into the hallway from the elevator. The front one is bigger than the others with far more ornate body modifications. Two rows of implanted horns run the length of his shaved head, with implanted metal spikes in between rising up like some bizarre Mohawk. Metal studs form a pattern on his face, surrounding his eyes and spiraling on his cheeks before running down in a zigzag across his bare chest. Spikes protrude from his shoulders, while more implants form ridges down both his arms.
He seems surprised to see me. His gaze darts to the room that the other bloods came out of and then back to me. He has no whites in his eyes. They’re just a pair of bottomless pools, black as midnight. His gaze seems to lock on mine and I feel a sudden pressure in between my temples.
I want to lift my gun. My finger’s in the trigger guard. But I can’t seem to move any part of my body. I’m frozen again, except this time it’s not from fear. It’s something he’s doing to me. Those midnight black eyes…
The realization hits hard.
It’s Charlie freaking Midnight.
I didn’t twig to it right away because all I’ve ever seen of him before was a vague Nosferatu shape in the shadows of a dream.
I can still hear the firefight down the stairs. It sounds like it’s closer—maybe on the second floor. But that’s not going to make any difference with me being paralyzed and Charlie Midnight walking towards me.
“I don’t know how you got out of your cage,” he says, “where you got that armour and gun, or who the rest of these assholes are, but you know what? I don’t care. Nothing you do is ever going to make a lick of difference. So back in your cage you go because I own you, Nora Constantine, body and soul. Always have, always will.”
He shouldn’t have called me that.
Whatever hold he’s got on me dissolves under a sudden flash of anger.
“I’m not Nora Constantine,” I tell him as I raise the machine gun.
His black eyes go wide, then explode as I empty half a clip into his head. The two bloods behind him have the time to look stunned before I take them out as well. I hear something behind me and I turn, gun leveled, trigger finger ready to squeeze, but it’s Gabi. I freeze.
She’s holding her machine gun by her leg, muzzle pointed at the floor. The palm of her other hand comes up.
“Whoa,” she says. “It’s just me.”
I lower the gun and look past her.
“You got the rest of them?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, the boys did. They’ve fanned out, looking for stragglers. The stairwell’s jammed, but we can take the elevator.” She looks at the bodies in the hall. There’s pretty much nothing left of their leader’s head, but his body size and modifications are still evident.
