Nothing moved but me.
Then bullets ripped through the smoke, and I was close enough to see the flash of the gun through the smoke. I was almost on top of him, and he was firing chest high into the smoke. I was about ankle high and looking up at him. I could actually see him like a shadowy figure above me when I pressed the trigger and watched that shadow jerk. I rolled onto my side to sweep my fire line up his body, still afraid to stand or even kneel until I knew he wasn’t firing back.
He collapsed to his knees, face suddenly looming out of the smoke. I fired nearly point blank into his chest, and he fell backwards half vanishing in the fading smoke, like he’d fallen into clouds. I stayed low and realized I could see his feet. The smoke was almost gone at floor level, which was one of many reasons that Edward had had us crawl.
“It’s me,” Edward said, before he crawled out of the smoke. He was wise to have warned me. My finger was still on the trigger, and I was beginning to appreciate how you could accidentally shoot your friends in a combat situation, unless you were very careful.
He moved a little way, and the smoke was thinning enough that I could see him check the man’s pulse. “Stay here,” and he was gone into the dying smoke.
It pissed me off, but I stayed on the floor by the man I’d killed and waited. I might have been pissed off, but we were in a kind of fighting that I knew almost nothing about. I’d somehow fallen into Edward’s other life, and he was better at surviving here than I was. I was going to do what I was told. It was pretty much my only hope for getting out alive.
Edward came back, walking instead of crawling. Probably a good sign. “The area’s clear, but it won’t be for long.” He held the keys we’d taken from Riker. “Let’s do it.”
He unlocked the cell that was supposed to be Peter’s and went across the hall to Becca’s before he did more than push the door open. I guess I was getting Peter. I dropped to one knee and pushed the door open until it was flat against the wall. See, no one hiding behind it. If there had been someone in the room, they’d have probably shot over my head. Kneeling, I was a lot shorter than most people. But a glance showed the room was empty except for the narrow bed with Peter on it.
I stood, debated for a second whether to shut the door and risk someone locking it behind me, or leave it open and risk someone coming up behind me with a gun. I left it open, not because it was the best option, but because I just didn’t want the door shut on me in the cell. Part claustrophobia, part just having been locked in too many places waiting for things to eat me. Sometimes I think that last part contributes to the claustrophobia.
It had been bad on the black and white monitor, but it was worse in person. Peter was curled into the tightest ball he could manage. His hands tied behind his back, tied ankles tucked up tight to his bare butt. His clothes were still bunched around his knees, and the expanse of pale flesh looked incredibly vulnerable. She’d meant to humiliate him, leaving him like this. The blindfold was still in place, cutting a bright patch of color across his dark hair. His mouth was stained with drying blood, his lower lip already swollen, bruises beginning to spread across his face like ugly lipstick from an overzealous kiss.
I didn’t try to be quiet. I tried to hurry. He heard me coming because he started talking through the gag. I could understand him.
“Please don’t, please don’t.” He kept saying it over and over in a progressively more frantic voice until his voice broke, not from adolescence, but from fear.
“It’s me, Peter,” I said.
He didn’t seem to hear me, just kept begging over and over.
I touched his shoulder, and he screamed. “Peter, it’s Anita.”
I think he stopped breathing for a heartbeat, then he said, “Anita?”
“Yeah, I’m here to get you out.”
He started to cry, thin shoulders shaking. I drew one of Blade’s blades and fitted it carefully between his wrists, jerking upward. The cord sliced clean under the sharp, sharp blade. I tried to lift the blindfold off of him, but it was too tight.
“I’m going to have to cut the blindfold off, Peter. Don’t move.”
His breathing slowed, and he held still while I slid the blade between the cloth and the side of his head. It was harder to cut than the rope because it was tighter to his skin and just a bad angle. But the blade finally sliced through it, and the cloth fell away. I had an impression of red marks in his skin where the blindfold had marked him. Then he flung himself on me, hugging me.
I hugged him back, knife in one hand.
He whispered, “She said she was going to cut it off when she came back.” He didn’t start crying again. He just held on. I rubbed his back with my free hand. I wanted to give him comfort, but we had to get out of here.
“She won’t hurt you anymore, Peter. I promise that, but we’ve got to get out of here.” I pulled back from his desperate arms until I could see his face and he could see mine. I held his face in my hands, the knife carefully pointed up. I looked into his eyes. They were wide and shocky, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now.
“Peter, we have to go. Ted’s getting Becca, and we’re leaving.”
Maybe it was his sister’s name, but he blinked and gave a small nod. “I’m okay,” he said, which was the best lie I’d heard all night.
But I accepted it and said, “Good.” I had to stand to reach the ropes at his ankles. He was just that tall or I was that short. The hug had put him facing forward, and he seemed suddenly aware that he was exposed. He started grabbing at his underwear and pants while I tried to cut his ankles free.
I had to pull the knife back. “If you don’t hold still, you’re going to end up cut.”
“I want my clothes on,” he said.
I stood at the foot of the bed, and said, “Get dressed.”
“Don’t look,” he said.
“I’m not looking.”
“But you’re looking at me,” he said.
“But I’m not looking at you.” But I couldn’t explain it to him, so I turned and looked at the door while he struggled into his pants.
“You can look now.”
He had everything zipped and buttoned, and just that had taken some of the raw terror out of his eyes. I cut his ankles free, sheathed the knife, and helped him to his feet. He jerked away from me, then almost fell because the ankles had been tied too tight for too long, and he didn’t have all the feeling back. Only my hand on his arm kept him upright.
“You need to walk a little with help before you can run,” I said.
He let me help him to the door, but he wouldn’t look at me. His first reaction had been that of a child, grateful to be saved, wanting to hold on to someone, but his second reaction was older. He was embarrassed now. Embarrassed at what had happened, and probably at me seeing him nearly naked. He was fourteen, a trembling age between child and adult. Somehow, I think he’d been younger when he went into the cell than when he came out.
Edward met us in the hallway with Becca held in his arms. She looked pale and sick. Bruises had already started blooming on her face. But it was her hand that made me want to cry. That tiny hand that I’d held only days ago, while Edward and I swung her in the air. Three of the fingers looked crippled, at unnatural angles. They were swelling, the skin discolored. It was early for that, which meant they were bad breaks and wouldn’t heal easily.
She said, “Anita, you came to save me, too.” Her voice was high and thin. It made my throat tight.
“Yeah, sweetie, I came to save you, too.”
Peter and Edward stood staring at each other. It was Edward that reached out first, just his hand, because the arm was underneath Becca’s legs. Peter took that hand and hugged them both. His fingers hovered over Becca’s hand, and fresh tears fell down his face, but there was no sobbing now, just tears so quiet you wouldn’t have known he was crying if you hadn’t seen them.
“She’ll be all right,” Edward said.
Peter looked up at him, as if he wasn’t sur
e he believed, but he wanted to. But he stepped away from them, rubbed the tears from his face with his hands. “Can I have a gun?”
I opened my mouth to say, no, but Edward spoke first. “Give him your Firestar, Anita.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I’ve seen him shoot. He can handle it.”
I’d been following Edward’s orders for a while. He was usually right but . . .
“If we go down, I want him armed.” Edward looked at me, and the weight in his eyes was enough. He didn’t want Peter and Becca taken again. If he put a gun in Peter’s hand, they’d kill him not torture him. If the worst happened, Edward had decided how the boy would go out. And, God help me, I agreed.
I pulled the gun out of the band of my jeans. “Why the Firestar?”
“Smallest grip.”
I handed it to Peter, feeling vaguely like a child molester myself, or maybe a corrupter. “It holds nine if you carry one in the chamber. It’s only holding eight. Safety’s here.”
He took the gun and popped the clip out to check it, then looked vaguely embarrassed. “Ted says to always check if something’s loaded.” He popped the clip back in, put a round in the chamber so it was ready to fire.
“Try not to shoot any of us,” I said.
He clicked the safety on. “I won’t.”
Looking into his eyes, I believed him.
“I want to go home,” Becca said.
“We’re going home, honey,” Edward said.
Edward led the way around the corner still carrying Becca. Peter went next, and I brought up the rear. I didn’t burst anyone’s bubble, but I knew we were a long way from safe. We had Simon and the rest of his men to get through, not to mention Harold and Newt and the local guys. Where were Russell and Amanda? I was really hoping to see them before we left. I’d promised Peter that she would never hurt him again. I always keep my promises.
60
THE HALLWAY SPILLED OUT into a large open space. Edward stopped, and Peter and I did, too. Becca was still being carried, so she didn’t have much choice. I kept an eye on our back trail and waited for Edward to decide what to do. I couldn’t see how big the open space was, so I figured it was big enough for Edward to worry about us being out in that much open. He finally moved slowly forward, hugging the left-hand wall. When I could see the room clearly, I realized why he’d hesitated. It wasn’t just this huge open space. There were three tunnels leading off to the right, dark mouths where anything might lurk, like Simon and the rest of his men. But there was a fourth opening with stairs leading up. Up was what we needed.
I walked with my back to the solid wall behind me, trying to keep an eye on the hall we’d come out of and the three tunnels to the right. I left the stairs to Edward.
The stairway was narrow, barely broad enough for two slender people to walk abreast. It wound upward and had a sharp angle at the top, a blind corner. I kept watching behind us, because I knew that if shooters came up behind us, and in front of us at the same time, we were dead. It was a perfect place for an ambush.
Peter seemed to feel the tension because he moved closer to Edward, almost touching him as they moved up the stairs. We were about three fourths of the way up to that first blind corner, when Edward hesitated, staring down at the steps. Peter took one extra step. Edward hit him with his shoulder, knocking him back. He dropped Becca to the steps, still holding her good arm, trying to save her from the full fall. I think if he’d just dropped Becca, he might have gotten them all out of harm’s way, but that last effort cost him the second he needed.
I saw a blur of movement, and there was a wooden stake sticking out of Edward’s back. I started to go to him, but he said, “Up the stairs, now. Shoot them.”
I didn’t ask questions. I went up the last few steps as fast as I could go and threw myself around the corner on my side, and was shooting down the hallway before I saw what I was shooting at.
Harold, Russell, Newt, and Amanda were running down another level of stairs. I fired up into them, fighting the angle to make the spray pattern hit them. The three men went down, but Amanda turned and darted back around the corner they’d come from. I made sure the men weren’t getting up, firing into their down bodies, then I got to my feet and ran up the stairs after her. I crouched at the corner, but the stairs were empty. Fuck. I didn’t dare pursue her and leave the kids and Edward alone.
I went back down the steps and slipped on blood so that I ended up sitting down hard on the steps; my elbow hit Harold’s body, and the body grunted.
I put the barrel of the gun against his chest as his eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t make the ambush site in time. Simon’s going to be pissed,” he said, and the tone of his voice said he was hurting.
“I don’t think you have to worry about Simon anymore, Harold. You’re not going to be around to answer to him.”
“Never approved of hurting kids,” he said.
“But you didn’t stop it,” I said.
He took a breath and that seemed to hurt, too. “Simon called someone on the radio. Said he’d failed. Said they needed to clean up the mess. I think they’re coming to kill us all.”
“Who’s coming?”
He opened his mouth, and I think he’d have told me, but his breath ran out in a long sigh. I felt for the pulse in his neck, but it wasn’t there. I’d known he was dead, but still you check. I checked Russell and Newt just to be sure, but they were dead. I actually left everyone’s guns because I just couldn’t carry any more.
I heard voices as I neared the bend that would take me back to Edward. Fuck. Then I recognized one of the voices. It was Olaf.
I came around the corner and found Olaf and Bernardo kneeling by Edward. Peter was sitting on the steps holding Becca. She was crying. He wasn’t. He was staring at Edward, face white with shock.
Bernardo spotted me first. “Are they dead?”
I nodded. “Russell, Newt, and Harold. Amanda got away.”
Peter’s eyes flicked to me, and they were huge and dark in his pale, pale face. The bruised mouth stood out against his skin like it was makeup, too bright to be real.
Edward made a small sound, and Peter turned back to him. “I’m sorry, Ted,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Pete. Just next time follow my lead better.” His voice was strained, but Peter seemed to take heart from talk of a next time. I wasn’t so sure.
Olaf and Bernardo had turned him so that you could see the sharpened end of the stake that had pierced his chest. It was upper chest, close to the left shoulder. It had missed the heart or he’d be dead, but it could have pierced the sack around the heart, and blood could be spilling into that sack as we watched. Or it could have missed it entirely. It was high enough up that it had probably missed the lungs. Probably.
“How’d you know that they were coming?” I asked.
“Heard them,” and his voice reminded me of Harold’s, pain stressed.
I was suddenly cold, and it wasn’t the temperature. I started to kneel by them all, but Edward said, “Watch our backs.”
So I stood up, put my back to the wall, and let my peripheral vision try to keep track of both up and down the stairs. But my eyes kept going back to him. Was he dying? Please, God, not like this. It wasn’t just Edward. It was the look on Peter’s face. If Edward died, Peter would blame himself. The boy was having a bad enough night. That kind of guilt he did not need.
“Give me your T-shirt,” Olaf said.
I looked at him.
“We need to pack the wound and keep the stake from moving around. We can’t remove it here. It’s too close to his heart. He will need a hospital.”
I agreed with that. “Someone else watch for bad guys while I undress.”
Bernardo stood up and took my place at the wall. I noticed there was a blade sticking out of his cast like a spearhead. The blade was stained black with blood.
I pulled off my T-shirt and handed it to Olaf. He’d already stripped down to his b
lack Kevlar vest, shoving his own shirt around the wound.
“Do you need mine?” Peter asked.
“Yes,” Olaf said.
Peter moved Becca forward on his lap and took off his shirt. His upper body was thin and pale. He was tall, but the rest of him hadn’t caught up. Olaf used pieces of Bernardo’s shirt to hold the makeshift bandage in place. The wound looked terrible, but it wasn’t bleeding much. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one.
“We caught the other half of your ambush on its way to the stairs,” Bernardo said.
“I wondered why there weren’t more,” I said. I remembered what Harold had said. “Before Harold died, he said that Simon called someone. Told them he’d failed and they needed to clean up the mess. Does that mean what I think it means?”
Edward looked up at me, as Olaf used more shirt strips to bind his left arm tight, so he wouldn’t move it and risk jarring the stake into something vital. “They’ll kill everything they find.” His voice was almost normal, only slightly breathy, a touch tight. “They’ll burn the place to ash. Maybe they even salt the earth.” I think that last was the wound talking, but you never know with Edward.
Olaf lifted Edward to his feet, but the height difference was too much. Edward couldn’t keep his arm over the big man’s shoulders. “Bernardo will have to help you.”
“No, Anita can do it.”
Olaf opened his mouth to argue, I think, but Edward said, “Bernardo only has one good arm. He needs that to shoot.”
Olaf closed his mouth into a tight line, but he handed Edward over to me. Edward’s arm went around my shoulders. I put my left arm around his waist. We tried a couple of steps, and it worked okay.
Olaf led the way. I came next with Edward, then Peter, carrying Becca wrapped around his body like a sad little monkey. Bernardo brought up the rear. Olaf looked at the bodies of the dead men as he passed. He spoke without looking back at me. “You did this?”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 188
