Fade to Midnight

by Shannon McKenna

  His twisted hand was useless, trembling, but he jabbed up with the other, trying for a stab to the pancreas. The bastard twisted like an eel, took it on the ribs, but Kev managed to snag his hand. He grabbed the back of the guy's jacket, and heaved him over the railing--

  The man's face came into focus, in an endless, eternally dilated instant, turning, somersaulting, staring straight into Kev's eyes.

  Sean.

  His brother. His twin. Their fingers tightened around each others' hands, an iron death grip. He broke Sean's fall. The weight of his brother's dangling body almost wrenched Kev's arm out of its socket.

  Kev hung over the railing, coughing and choking on the smoke. Sean dangled from his hand, like fruit from a branch.

  His reflection, staring up at him. Blood streamed from Sean's nose, his cut lip. He swung there, backlit against billows of dust, eyes bright and sharp. Kev tightened his muscles against the dead weight dragging at his muscles and tendons.

  "Sean?" His lips formed the word, but no sound come out.

  "So you know me," Sean said. "You know my name." Each word was bitten off, cold and hard and separate.

  Kev's mouth worked, uselessly. That voice. Yes. His brother. He'd heard that voice in his dreams, every damn night. The dream memories tumbled down on him, like rolling logs. Crushing him with their weight.

  "You lying snake son of a bitch," Sean said. "Let go of me, and get your sorry ass down here, so I can kick the shit out of it."

  Bam. Bam. Muzzle flashes flickered in the murk behind them. So there were more coming in the door. A woman's voice, shrill. A hand, tugging at his arm. Her words sank in. "...pull him up, you stupid asshole!" she shrieked. "You two can have this fight later!"

  Fight? What fight? More muzzle flashes. Bullets whizzed and whined. He was disoriented, confused. He hauled on Sean's arm--

  Fire flicked across his forearm, and the bullet drove into the door behind him. Wood shards splintered, flew, and his hand gave way--

  Sean fell. A bellow of denial built in Kev's lungs, cutting off when his brother landed like a cat, and flung himself behind a couch for cover. Someone was pulling, dragging him down--Liv! Jesus, that was Liv Endicott! Recognition lit up his brain like a blinking Christmas tree. So sweet, to recognize her, even if she was scowling, yelling.

  Bullets whined and zinged over their heads. He jerked back into focus, yanked out the H&K and squeezed off shots while he barked out directions. "Right side of the bedroom closet. Safe in the wall. Combo is 'thy fearful symmetry,' with a star, an asterisk, and a pound sign after each word. Three pistols, six clips. Get them all!"

  She wiggled through the door on her hands and knees. He squeezed off shot after shot, peering into the murk. A shriek of pain from the direction of the front door rewarded him. Liv was back with an armful of hardware, clips sliding from her arms. That was when he saw that she was pregnant. Holy shit. He gestured shyly with the gun at her belly. "Is that...uh...did Sean--"

  "He did," she said crisply. "This is Sean's son. Your nephew. Eamon. Do you suppose we could catch up on our lives another time?"

  He pointed to the guns. "Can you handle one of these?"

  "Hell, yes." She grabbed a big PX4 Storm subcompact, and positioned herself while he changed clips. Sean was looking up, gesturing frantically. Kev let drop a Para-Ordnance P-14-45. Sean plucked it out of midair and dropped back again as bullets punched into the gray plush couch. Stuffing flew. Fuck. Kev hoped the wooden structure inside the thing would provide enough cover for him.

  "Hold your fire!" someone bawled, from the direction of the front door. The voice was familiar. "You assholes! We need them alive!"

  Furious protests and obscenities from the direction of the kitchen. Kev aimed a shot toward the voice. Bam. A hoarse shout of rage.

  Nephew? Son of a bitch. She had his nephew floating in there, and his name would be Eamon? He'd gone from zero to a hundred, in seconds. It made him giddy, to have his family back in his head.

  A bullet whiffled through his hair, snapping him back into focus. He wouldn't have anything if they all ended up dead.

  "Goddamnit, hold your fire!" the rasping voice bellowed again.

  "Get back up here!" he yelled down to Sean. "I'll cover you!"

  He blasted away while Sean made a dive for the spiral staircase, but the attackers weren't returning fire. They had yielded to the authority of whoever had been bawling those orders.

  Sean jerked. Stopped halfway up, and stood still, as if he'd forgotten what he was doing. His head dropped back, eyes locked on Liv's, his eyes pleading as he reached up, clawing at his chest.

  A tiny dart protruded from it.

  Sean fell, tumbling head over ass. He ended up sideways, head down, arms dangling from the railings.

  "Sean!" Liv pumped bullets furiously into the featureless cloud of dust and hurled herself down the stairs.

  A man stepped out of the smoke, grinning, and Kev suddenly remembered where he'd heard that rasping voice. That big, awkward body, the strange frequency of the man's fucked-up brainwaves.

  This was the guy who had held a knife to Edie's throat. The one who'd left bruises on her breast.

  Click. Click. Kev's clip was empty. He groped for a fresh cartridge, but the guy was walking in slow motion through the apocalyptic, dusty murk toward Liv and Sean, laughing like some goblin from hell.

  The dart would fly before his gun could be loaded and fired. The guy took aim. Kev crouched on the railing like a panther. He screamed as he leaped. Pink-rimmed eyes flicked up, the dart gun swung up--

  Gravity smashed them together. They rolled, sprawled, through shards of brick and glass, flailing and wrestling. The guy was horribly strong and agile. His eyes glinted with wild empty light that made Kev think of Ava. Dead, but run by something else, something alien and evil.

  The guy's extra fifty pounds of bulk almost pinned him, and he took a nasty punch to the ear. He saw stars, but wrenched an arm free to block just as the man's hand slashed down clutching a sharp shard of glass. He jerked it back into the fat guy's face, and the flinch gave him the opening he needed to flip the man off his body. He slammed a brick toward the side of the guy's head, but he blocked it with a shout and stumbled back, rolling up onto his feet, panting heavily.

  Kev followed the flit of the man's eyes, and dove for the dart gun at the same moment that the other man did. A kick spun it out of Fat Guy's reach, and it skittered closer to the spiral staircase--

  Bam. Bam. Liv was trying to shoot at the goblin now that they were no longer grappling, her face tense with concentration. Fat Guy's hand swung up to let a dagger fly, but Kev turned, letting it whoosh by and bounce harmlessly off the bricks.

  The guy leaped, hit the ground to seize the dart gun, and aimed from the ground up at Liv. Kev leaped between them with a shout.

  The gun spat. He felt the blow like a fist to his stomach, stumbled back against Liv, knocking her heavily onto Sean's limp form.

  He stared at the dart sticking out of the black hoodie, a few fingers above the level of his navel, while Liv was shoving him aside, struggling to bring the gun up, screaming.

  The thing was sticking out of the fucking money belt.

  Bam. Bam. No time to appreciate the joke. He struggled to heave Sean over his shoulder. His brother was as heavy as fucking concrete.

  Up the stairs, legs shaking, Liv backing up behind him. Fat Guy came after them. She finally trimmed the bastard, and he jerked back with a shout of anger, grabbing his shoulder. Lucky shot, because her clip emptied as they reached the top of the stairs.

  They ran for the bedroom. He laid Sean down on the floor, ran back to lock the door and wedge the dresser in front of it. Then Kev lifted the blinds of the window--

  Zing, a bullet clipped the window frame. Splinters and paint flew.

  Fuck. They were trapped from below, too.

  Davy tried to call Sean to update him as they followed Tony, but got no answer. They pulled up abreast of Tony's pickup in an i
ndustrial district. Bruno rolled down his window and gestured up ahead. "Second building on the next block. The one with all those SUVs parked right in front of it." He frowned at it. "Weird. Nobody lives in the building except for Kev. There's usually nobody who--"

  Boom. Windows blasted out of the top floor. The power of the explosion vibrated through their bodies.

  Car alarms started to squeal. There was agitated activity around the SUVs parked in front of the building. Shouts, yells.

  "Holy fuck." Miles's voice was shaking.

  Ping. Davy's phone signalled an incoming text message. He stared at it. "Sean was in there," he said, his voice dead flat. "Liv, too."

  There was about four seconds of blank horror, and Miles felt the atmosphere shift. The McCloud dudes were ice cold, all business. A trick he had not learned yet. He shook where he sat, thinking of Sean...no. Not Sean. Not Liv. And the baby, too. Not thinkable. He shoved it away. Twisted his hands, clenched his teeth. Hung on to his shit.

  Davy jerked a compartment up from the floor of the SUV, and pulled out a gun case. "I have my Glock, and a Colt Cobra. What have you guys got?"

  Miles shook his head. He'd never gotten a license to carry concealed. Who was he trying to kid? Davy grunted his disgust, and tossed him the Glock, and three clips. "Take this."

  "I got my Beretta, and the pendant and earring set that Tam wanted delivered to her client," Con said. "A hundred and fifty K worth of custom designed platinum, diamonds, Composition B, and frag."

  "Oh, man," Miles said. "Tam'll kill you if you cost her that much money." Tam still scared the living bejesus out of him.

  Con wrenched open his shoulder bag and pulled out a crimson tooled leather jewelry case. He flipped it open and pulled out the shimmering handful of loot inside. "Jesus, that woman is crazy."

  "Her psychosis is useful in a pinch," Davy slid a clip into the gun.

  "I'd prefer regular old grenades, thanks. I don't need the bling."

  Davy pulled a pair of binoculars out of the center console. "Three guys going in, at least one is armed--no, all of them armed, with Uzi's, it looks like. What did Kev get mixed up in, fucking World War III?"

  Bruno leaned out of the window. "I'll circle around," he said, in a tight voice. "We'll park behind the building next door."

  They made a loop around the big warehouses, and heard the gunshots begin. "That's good," Davy said.

  "Good?" Miles's voice broke. "How can that possibly be good?"

  Davy and Con exchanged thin smiles. "Somebody's still alive to shoot back," Con said.

  Tony got out, with his shotgun and a Beretta Cougar. Bruno leaped out of the pickup, brandishing a Taurus Millennium. He was spitting angry words at his aunt, pushing down on her bouffant hairdo. Trying to make her get her head down. The pouffy jet-black curls sprang right up like a jack-in-the-box, plump hands waving. Bruno flung his hand up in eloquent disgust, and loped along the side of the building.

  They hastened to follow. Miles's heart was lodged in the place where his Adam's apple ought to be, thudding in its tiny prison. He clutched the gun in a sweaty hand, hung on to his guts. To think he could be leading the life of a tech nerd. Cowering under a rock like a pallid, lovelorn grub in his parents' basement. No life, no sex, no Cindy. No mortal danger, either. Suffocatingly safe as a bug in a rug.

  But no, here he was. Gunshots were building into a storm of apocalyptic intensity, and he was running toward it. Not away.

  Bam, bam. Miles jumped, squeaked. That was closer. Outside the building, not inside. Bruno peered around the edge of the building, jerked back, gestured them closer. "Two cars, six guys," he whispered. "Kev's trying to get out the back window. They've boxed him in."

  Davy's grin was feral. "So let's distract the bastards."

  Con stared at the fleet of black SUVs pulled up in the alley beyond the Dumpster, his eyes slitted. "If I take the car and loop around, I'll get behind them to toss the diamond doodads."

  "Be careful," Davy said, as Con pelted away so fast he forgot to limp. They crouched amid piles of garbage behind the Dumpster.

  "Cover me," Bruno whispered. "I'm going into the building next door. Going to get up to that window. To help them out."

  "I'm with you," Davy said. He slapped Miles on the shoulder. "Keep those guys busy."

  Davy and Bruno ran for it, and all hell broke loose.

  Miles's head rang with gunfire. He squeezed off shots, biting his lip til it bled. Keep those guys busy? Leave that life or death job to the shit-scared, worked-over tech nerd with the borrowed gun? Great.

  Tony seemed to read his thoughts, and slapped him on the shoulder. "Concentrate on the two guys in back," he yelled into Mile's ear. "Keep those fuckers down. I'll take the guys in the front."

  Direction helped. He did has he was told, but the noise made his head ring, and everything felt grotesquely bright and surreal. But he kept on until the clip was empty, and reloaded with shaking hands.

  Keeping those fuckers down.

  CHAPTER 32

  Kev's muscles quivered with strain as he laid Sean down gently, letting him slump against the wall. Kev sank down beside him, panting.

  He was all out of ideas. The walls were closing in. The front windows were a sheer four-story drop with a gauntlet of bullets in between; whoever was still pissed and shooting inside, plus whoever was pissed and coming up the stairs, and who the fuck knew who waited outside. The stairwell was the only way on to the roof, another dead end. And even if he did pry Sean out this bedroom window alive, he had no idea if he could clamber across that gap one-handed, with his twin brother draped over his shoulder like a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound scarf. To say nothing of the idea of Liv stepping over it, too. She might as well have a bullseye painted all over her pregnant belly. Jesus. The very thought made his joints loosen with horror.

  Liv gathered Sean's limp body up, supporting him with one arm. Kev gestured toward her bulge. "Are you, ah...is it OK?"

  She gave him a look that made him wish he hadn't asked. There was no need to even say it, their imminent doom was so obvious.

  "I'm glad he got to see you. At least once," she said. "Even if it was through a hail of bullets. Before...whatever happens now happens."

  "Yeah." He reached out to touch Sean's carotid artery. His brother's heart pumped away, strong and steady. "I'm glad, too."

  "Glad he got to bitch you out, too," she said, with more heat. "Not as much as you deserve, though. You bastard, Kev. How could you?"

  She clearly expected him to say something. To defend himself. But nothing came out. There was too much to say. It was bottlenecked.

  "Why the hell did you stay away all this time?" The words exploded out of her, voice shaking. "All that time wasted! And it hurt him, you know that? It hurt them all, but it hurt him the most!"

  It hurt me, too. He cast around for a starting place, but the story was too huge, too long, too crazy, and he was so rattled, he wouldn't make any sense. "It's not my fault," he said helplessly.

  Her lips tightened. Not good enough. Try again, asshole.

  But he was speechless, clueless. All tapped out. "I'm sorry."

  And oh, God, he was. He should have broken down those inner walls before today. Years ago. Guilt ached and twisted. He had no fucking clue how he could have done it, but he should have, somehow.

  Gunblasts started up again, but they weren't landing up here on the window frame. He ventured a peek, ducked down as he saw glass shatter in the windows of one of the SUVs. Shouts.

  Excitement surged inside him. He tamped it down. It was nice, and heartwarming, that somebody was on their side, but it changed nothing. They were still fucked. He took another peek--

  Crash. Glass shattered inward, all over them. He reeled back. Liv shrieked, cowering, holding her arms over hers and Sean's faces. More bullets tore through the slats of the window shades. They dangled, twisted and broken in the silence that followed, swinging in the cold wind that swept in.

  "Kev? Yo! You in there?"<
br />
  Holy shit, that was Bruno! Kev leaped up to see, staying well back and out of range. His little brother was framed by the scaffolding in the building across from him. Grinning madly, eyes alight.

  "Bruno?" His voice came out in a hoarse, croaking whisper. "How the fuck did you know--where's Edie?"

  Bruno flung up his hands, a gesture he got from Zia Rosa. "Later for that." He heaved a big plank through the air. It landed heavily on the fire escape, jittering the shards of glass that covered it. "Come on!"

  "Liv, first," he said.

  Bruno looked blank. "Who's Liv?"

  "Liv's OK?" Another guy appeared behind him.

  Their eyes met. Kev's knees almost gave. That face, so hard and craggy. So much like Dad, it hit him like a club. "Davy?" he whispered. All that was missing was the long hair, the bushy beard, the wild, staring look in his eyes. Davy was the living image of their father.

  "Hello? For fuck's sake?" Bruno brayed through cupped hands. "Stop before I puke, OK? Can we save the violins for later? Please?"

  Shots whined off the scaffolding, ricocheting off the building outside, as if to illustrate his point. Bruno leaped back, cursing.

  Kev hauled Liv to her feet. "You, first," he said.

  "No!" she yelled. "Sean is injured, and--

  "And you're pregnant. I have to cover you from this side while you go. I'll carry Sean over after, but I won't go until you're across."

  She made a grumbling sound deep in her throat. "Typical."

  "When I start shooting, go fast," he ordered. He wrenched the blinds away from the adjacent window and rammed it up and open.

  Bang. Crunch. Someone was kicking in the door, jarring the furniture he'd blocked it with. Bam, a gunshot smashed the lock. Wood splintered. Bang. It was the fat guy, beating his way through the door.

  The dresser shifted. One of the fat guy's mad, glittering eyes shone through the crack. Kev took a shot. Bam. The eye vanished.

  Crunch, another powerful kick. The door opened a little wider.

  "Hurry!" he howled at Liv. He leaned, hanging out the window and shooting down at those bastards with a long, blood-curdling yell.