He glanced toward the street and saw that Whit had presciently dragged himself around the corner of the retaining wall, where he was hidden from the motel. The wisdom of Nam: Help your buddies as much as possible, then cover your own ass as soon as you can. Initiates of that war never forgot the lessons it taught them. As long as Leben believed that Ben and Rachael were on the motel property, he was not likely to go out toward Tropicana and accidentally find the helpless man hiding against the wall. For a few more minutes, anyway, Whit was fairly safe where he was.
Casting aside the useless revolver, Ben grabbed Rachael's hand and said, “Come on!”
They ran around the side of the office toward the garage at the back of the motel, where the gusting wind was repeatedly banging the open door against the wall.
36
THE MANY FORMS OF FIRE
Slumped against the retaining wall, facing out toward Tropicana, Whitney Gavis felt that the rain was washing him away. He was a man made of mud, and the rain was dissolving him. Moment by moment, he grew weaker, too weak to raise a hand to check the bleeding from his cheek and temple, too weak to shout at the dishearteningly few cars that whisked by on the wide boulevard. He was lying in a shadowed area, thirty feet back from the roadway, where their headlights did not sweep across him, and he supposed none of the drivers noticed him.
He had watched Ben empty the Combat Magnum into Leben's mutated hulk, and he had seen the mutant rise up again. As there was nothing he could do to help, he had concentrated upon pulling himself around the corner of the four-foot-high wall of the flower bed, intending to make himself more visible to those passing on the boulevard, hoping someone would spot him and stop. He even dared to hope for a passing patrol car and a couple of well-armed cops, but merely hoping for help was not going to be good enough.
Behind him, he had heard Ben fire two more shots, heard him and Rachael talking frantically, then running footsteps. He knew that Ben would never bug out on him, so he figured they'd thought of something else that might stop Leben. The problem was that, weak as he felt, he did not know if he was going to last long enough to find out what new strategy they had devised.
He saw another car coming west on Tropicana. He tried to call out but failed; he tried to raise one arm from his lap so he could wave to attract attention, but the arm seemed nailed to his thigh.
Then he noticed this car was moving far slower than previous traffic, and it was approaching half in its lane and half on the shoulder of the road. The closer it got, the slower it moved.
Medevac, he thought, and that thought spooked him a little because this wasn't Nam, for God's sake, this was Vegas, and they didn't have Medevac units in Vegas. Besides, this was a car, not a helicopter.
He shook his head to clear it, and when he looked again the car was closer.
They're going to pull right into the motel, Whit thought, and he would have been excited except he suddenly didn't have sufficient energy for excitement. And the already deep black night seemed to be getting blacker.
* * *
As soon as Ben and Rachael had entered the garage, they'd closed and locked the outer door. She did not have the keys with her, and there was no thumb latch on this side of the kitchen door, so they had to leave that one standing open and just hope that Leben came at them from the other direction.
“No door will keep it out, anyway,” Rachael said. “It'll get in if it knows we're here.”
Ben had recalled garden hoses among the heaps of junk that the former owners had left behind: “Existing supplies, tools, materials, and sundry useful items,” they had called the trash when trying to boost the sales price of the place. He found a pair of rusted hedge clippers, intending to use them to chop a length of hose that might work as a siphon, but then he saw a coil of narrow, flexible rubber tubing hanging from a hook on the wall, which was even more suitable.
He snatched the tubing off the hook and hastily stuffed one end into the Mercedes's fuel tank. He sucked on the other end and barely avoided getting a mouthful of gasoline.
Rachael had been busy searching through the junk for a container without a hole in the bottom. She slipped a galvanized bucket under the siphon only seconds before the gasoline began to flow.
“I never knew gas fumes could smell so sweet,” he said as he watched the golden fluid streaming into the bucket.
“Even this might not stop it,” she said worriedly.
“If we saturate it, the damage from fire will be much more extensive than—”
“You have matches?” Rachael interrupted.
He blinked. “No.”
“Me neither.”
“Damn.”
Looking around the cluttered garage, she said, “Would there be any here?”
Before he could answer, the knob on the side door of the garage rattled violently. Evidently the Leben-thing had seen them go around the motel or had followed their trail by scent — only God knew what its capabilities were, and in this case maybe even God was in the dark — and already it had arrived.
“The kitchen,” Ben said urgently. “They didn't bother taking anything or cleaning out the drawers. Maybe you'll find some matches there.”
Rachael ran to the end of the garage and disappeared into the apartment.
The beast threw itself against the outside door, which was not a hollow-core model like the one it had easily smashed through in the bedroom. This more solid barrier would not immediately collapse, but it shuddered and clattered in its loosely fitted jamb. The mutant hit it again, and the door gave out a dry-wood splintering sound but still held, and then it was hit a third time.
Half a minute, Ben thought, glancing back and forth from the door to the gasoline collecting in the bucket. Please, God, let it hold just half a minute more.
The beast hit the door again.
* * *
Whit Gavis didn't know who the two men were. They had stopped their car along the boulevard and had run to him. The big man was taking his pulse, and the smaller guy — he looked Mexican — was using one of those detachable glove-compartment flashlights to examine the lacerations in Whitney's face and temple. Their dark suits had quickly gotten darker as the rain soaked them.
They might have been some of the federal agents who were after Ben and Rachael, but at this point Whitney didn't care if they were lieutenants in the devil's own army, because surely no one could pose a greater danger than the deadly creature that was stalking the motel grounds. Against that enemy, all men ought to be united in a common cause. Even federal agents, even DSA men, would be welcome allies in this battle. They would have to give up the idea of keeping the Wildcard Project a secret; they would see that there was no way this particular line of life-extension research could be safely carried on; and they would stop trying to silence Ben and Rachael, would help stop the thing that Leben had become, yes, that was certainly what they would do, so Whitney told them what was happening, urged them to help Ben and Rachael, alerted them to the nature of the danger that they faced…
“What's he saying?” the big one asked.
“I can't make it out exactly,” the small, well-dressed, Mexican-looking man said. He had stopped examining the cuts and had fished Whitney's wallet out of his trousers.
The big man carefully felt Whitney's left leg. “This isn't a recent injury. He lost the leg a long time ago. The same time he lost the arm, I guess.”
Whitney realized that his voice was no louder than a whisper and that it was mostly drowned out by the patter, splash, and gurgle of the rain. He tried again.
“I think he's delirious,” the big man said.
I'm not delirious, damn it, just weak, Whitney tried to say. But no words came from him at all this time, which scared him.
“It's Gavis,” the smaller man said, studying the driver's license in Whitney's wallet. “Shadway's friend. The man Teddy Bertlesman told us about.”
“He's in a bad way, Julio.”
“You've got to take him in the car and get him
to a hospital.”
“Me?” the bigger man said. “What about you?”
“I'll be all right here.”
“You can't go in alone,” the big man said, his face carved by lines of worry and bejeweled with rain.
“Reese, there's not going to be trouble here,” the smaller man said. “It's only Shadway and Mrs. Leben. They're no danger to me.”
“Bullshit,” the bigger man said. “Julio, there's someone else. Neither Shadway nor Mrs. Leben did this to Gavis.”
“Leben!” Whitney managed to expel the name loud enough for it to carry above the sound of the rain.
The two men looked at him, puzzled.
“Leben,” he managed again.
“Eric Leben?” Julio asked.
“Yes,” Whitney breathed. “Genetic… chaos… chaos, mutation… guns… guns…”
“What about guns?” the bigger man — Reese — asked.
“… won't… stop… him,” Whitney finished, exhausted.
“Get him into the car, Reese,” Julio said. “If he isn't in a hospital in ten or fifteen minutes, he's not going to make it.”
“What's he mean that guns won't stop Leben?” Reese asked.
“He's delirious,” Julio said. “Now move!”
Frowning, Reese scooped Whitney up as easily as a father might lift a small child.
The one named Julio hurried ahead, splashing through puddles of dirty water, and opened the back door of their car.
Reese maneuvered Whitney gently onto the seat, then turned to Julio. “I don't like this.”
“Just go,” Julio said.
“I swore I'd never cut and run on you, that I'd always be there when you needed me, any way you needed me, no matter what.”
“Right now,” Julio said sharply, “I need you to take this man to a hospital.” He slammed the rear door.
A moment later, Reese opened the front door and got in behind the wheel. To Julio, he said, “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
Lying on the rear seat, Whitney said, “Chaos… chaos… chaos… chaos.” He was trying to say a lot of other things, convey a more specific warning, but only that one word would come out.
Then the car began to move.
* * *
Peake had pulled to the side of Tropicana Boulevard and had switched off the headlights when Hagerstrom and Verdad had coasted to a stop along the shoulder about a quarter of a mile ahead.
Leaning forward, squinting through the smeary windshield past the monotonously thumping wipers, Sharp twice rubbed a stubborn patch of condensation from the glass and at last said, “Looks like… they've found someone lying in front of that place. What is that place?”
“Seems like it's out of business, a deserted motel,” Peake said. “Can't quite read that old sign from here. Golden… something.”
“What're they doing here?” Sharp wondered.
What am I doing here? Peake wondered silently.
“Could this be where Shadway and the Leben bitch are hiding out?” Sharp wondered.
Dear God, I hope not, Peake thought. I hope we never find them. I hope they're on a beach in Tahiti.
“Whoever those bastards have found,” Sharp said, “they're putting him in their car.”
Peake had given up all hope of becoming a legend. He had also given up all hope of becoming one of Anson Sharp's favorite agents. All he wanted was to get through this night alive, to prevent whatever killing he could, and to avoid humiliating himself.
* * *
At the side of the garage, the battered door cracked again, from top to bottom this time, and the jamb splintered, too, and one hinge tore loose, and the lock finally exploded, and everything crashed inward, and there was Leben, the beast, coming through like something that had broken out of a bad dream into the real world.
Ben grabbed the bucket — which was more than half full — and headed toward the kitchen door, trying to move fast without spilling any of the precious gasoline.
The creature saw him and let loose a shriek of such intense hatred and rage that the sound seemed to penetrate deep into Ben's bones and vibrate there. It kicked aside an outdoor vacuum cleaner and clambered over the piles of trash — including a fallen set of metal shelves — with arachnoid grace, as if it were an immense spider.
Entering the kitchen, Ben heard the thing close behind him. He dared not look back.
Half the cupboard doors and drawers were open, and just as Ben entered, Rachael pulled out another drawer. She cried—"There!" — and snatched up a box of matches.
“Run!” Ben said. “Outside!”
They absolutely had to put more distance between themselves and the beast, gain time and room to pull the trick they had in mind.
He followed her out of the kitchen into the living room, and some of the gasoline slopped over the edge of the pail, spattering the carpet and his shoes.
Behind them, the mutant crashed through the kitchen, slamming shut cupboard doors, heaving aside the small kitchen table and chairs even though that furniture wasn't in its way, snarling and shrieking, apparently in the grip of a destructive frenzy.
Ben felt as if he were moving in slow motion, fighting his way through air as thick as syrup. The living room seemed as long as a football field. Then, finally nearing the end of the room, he was suddenly afraid that the door to the motel office was going to be locked, that they were going to be halted here, with no time or room to set fire to the beast, at least not without serious risk of immolating themselves in the process. Then Rachael threw open the door, and Ben almost shouted with relief. They rushed into the motel office, through the swinging gate in one end of the check-in counter, across the small public area, through the outer glass door, into the night beneath the breezeway — and nearly collided with Detective Verdad, whom they had last seen on Monday evening, at the morgue in Santa Ana.
“What in the name of God?” Verdad said as the beast shrieked in the motel office behind them.
Ben saw that the rain-soaked policeman had a revolver in his hand. He said, “Back off and shoot it when it comes through the door. You can't kill it, but maybe you can slow it down.”
* * *
It wanted the female prey, it wanted blood, it was full of a cold rage, it was burning with hot desire, and it would not be stopped, not by guns or doors, not by anything, not until it had taken the female, buried its aching member inside her, not until it had killed both of them and fed upon them, it wanted to chew out their soft sweet eyes, bury its muzzle in their torn and spurting throats, it wanted to feed on the bloody pulsing muscle of their hearts, wanted to burrow through their eviscerated corpses in search of their rich livers and kidneys, it felt that overwhelming hunger beginning to grow within it again, the changefire within it needed more fuel, a mild hunger now but soon to get worse, like before, an all-consuming hunger that could not be denied, it needed meat, and it pushed through the glass door, out into the night wind and blowing rain, and there was another male, a smaller one, and fire flashed from something in the smaller male's hand, and a brief sharp pain stung its chest, and fire flashed again, and another pain, so it roared a furious challenge at its pathetic assailant—
* * *
Just this morning, when he had been at the library doing research related to the unofficial investigation he intended to conduct with Reese, Julio had read several magazine and journal articles Eric Leben had written about genetic engineering and about the prospects for the success of life extension by means of genetic manipulation. Later, he had spoken with Dr. Easton Solberg at UCI, had done a lot of thinking since then, and had just heard Whitney Gavis's disjointed ramblings about genetic chaos and mutation. He was not a stupid man, so when he saw the nightmare creature that followed Shadway and Mrs. Leben out of the motel office, he quickly determined that something had gone terribly wrong with Eric Leben's experiment and that this monstrosity was, in fact, the scientist himself.
As Julio unhesitatingly opened fire on the creature, Mrs. Leben and Shadwa
y — who, judging from the smell of it, was carrying a bucket full of gasoline — hurried from beneath the cover of the breezeway into the rainy courtyard. The first two rounds did not faze the mutant, though it stopped for a moment as if baffled by Julio's sudden and unexpected appearance. To his astonishment, he saw that he might not be able to bring it down with the revolver.
It lurched forward, hissing, and swung one multiple-jointed arm at him as if to knock his head off his shoulders.
Julio barely ducked under the blow, felt the arm brush through his hair, and fired up into the beast's chest, which bristled with spines and strangely shaped lumps of tissue. If it embraced him, he would be impaled upon those breast spikes, and that realization brought his finger to bear upon the trigger again and again.
Those three shots finally drove the thing backward until it collided with the wall by the office door, where it stood for a moment, clawing at the air.
Julio fired the sixth and final round in the revolver, hitting his target again, but still it remained standing — hurt and maybe even dazed, but standing. He always carried a few extra cartridges in his jacket pocket, even though he had never before needed spare rounds in all his years of police work, and now he fumbled for them.
The creature shoved away from the motel wall, apparently having already recuperated from the six rounds it had just taken. It cut loose a cry so savage and furious that Julio turned away from it at once and ran into the courtyard, where Shadway and Mrs. Leben were standing at the far end of the swimming pool.
* * *
Peake had hoped that Sharp would send him off after Hagerstrom and the unknown man that the cop had loaded into the back seat of the rental car. Then, if shooting took place at the abandoned motel, it would be entirely Sharp's responsibility.
But Sharp said, “Let Hagerstrom go. Looks to me like he's taking that guy to a doctor. Anyway, Verdad is the real brains of the team. If Verdad's staying here, then this is where the action is; this is where we'll find Shadway and the woman.”
When Lieutenant Verdad headed back along the motel driveway toward the lighted office, Sharp told Peake to pull down there and park in front of the place. By the time they stopped again on the shoulder of the boulevard in front of the dilapidated sign — golden sand inn — they heard the first gunshots.
Shadowfires Page 48
