Obie moved up beside me and peered out, a huge tusk dipping over my shoulder as he tried to make himself smaller. It's funny when I thought about it, but this is the same Stormer that tried to hide in a closet once to surprise me. I'll leave it at saying that, even though he's at least two feet wider in every dimension, it didn't discourage him from trying.
"Pull that body back in, " I whispered and he casually grasped the corpse's thigh, pulling it in behind us like a kid fetching a doll. The air left the folded body in a choked rattle as it came to rest behind me.
"K'rth," I said over my mike. "We've got hostiles."
I pulled the hammer back on my Blitzer again and waited with Obie watching one way and me the other. A moment later, K'rth was there also and took over the Chagrin's angle since the big guy doesn't carry firearms. In front of me, the shadows of the corridor looked like they were melting, ebbing back and forth just like an invisible child was making shadow puppets in a distant light. Realizing my imagination was building up the momentum to run away with me again, I shook it off. What I was seeing was a lamp source in the fog playing on the walls. Yeah, that had to be it.
A sound like the rasp of wet feet on rice paper echoed around the corner but soon grew into the distinct click of plastic and metal. Thankful that things were swerving back away from the surreal, I sank into a crouch and braced my arm against the seared lip of the portal. There was no way in hell I could miss and I counted seconds as controlled my breathing. Five seconds went by without anything coming into sight and I wasn't going to blow it by becoming impatient.
Ten seconds went by. More rasping and the faint whisper of voices that was too indistinct to understand. I had never seen lamps that flickered colors like falling glitter and I kicked my imagination back into its cage again before it got started. I was nervous enough without its input.
Twenty seconds. Brighter light and muddled sounds, but no sign of their owners yet. I asked myself how far away could they be and then promptly slapped myself for getting too anxious. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my imagination was gnawing at the lock on its cage.
Twenty-four. That was when the small ball of light washed across the opposite wall and a figure appeared from the shadows. My instincts told me to hold fire and I obeyed, thankful when I saw there were several humans coming our way us instead of some thing out of a horror film. That silenced the nerves and I steadied my aim. From the way they were moving, they wouldn 't be expecting us anymore than the last group and I smiled. God, how I love being on the giving side of a good ambush.
I counted four figures, three men in front and a woman trailing behind. The first three were wearing blocker or some Dark Night equivalent and packing submachine guns, but it was the woman that caught my attention. She was talking into an earpiece and watching an oyster held out in front of her, looking like the human equivalent of Theopolus. I blinked twice and laughed to myself.
"Holy shit," I whispered, trying to keep my voice low. "I KNOW one of them!"
K'rth shifted in behind me, taking the high position and leaning over to take aim as he tapped me with his tail. That was his way of silently asking for an explanation and I just shrugged. This damn thing had more layers than a damn onion.
The woman had short light brown hair and the looks of a model, or more precisely, a 3rd Eye reporter. She was the same one that I had run into at that bar after the Cloak interrogation and I tried to dredge up her name. It occurred to me that I had forgotten to call her and I smirked. It's a damn shame when spurned women turn to DN to get revenge on jerks like me.
"Lisa Price. Her name is Lisa Price," I said softly as I remembered her name. "She's got 3rd Eye credentials and I met her in a bar right after this thing started. Had no idea she was DN. Could explain some of the access they 've gotten so far."
K'rth nodded without speaking and went back to aiming, but Obie leaned down and cocked his head.
"You know her?" he asked, still trying to add things up for himself.
"No, I MET her once," I answered, making sure to be precise in what I said. When I pulled on his tusk he leaned down further and I kept my voice low. "The three in front are dog meat, but I want to take her alive, okay?"
"Onit," he rumbled as he leaned back to squat on his haunches.
Seeing Price here proved that Bayer had known about me and been prepared even before Cloak called me in. The woman must have started trailing me after I left, probably right from the Cloak lobby and I had been too distracted to see it. I wondered if she had been trying to recruit me or just set me up but there was only one way to find out. I nodded to K'rth, content in knowing that they would never see it coming.
K'rth fired, taking the one on the left in the center of the chest and he slumped, dead before he hit the floor. Even though I was sure I couldn't miss at this range, my shot went wide and clipped the one on the side in the arm. He dropped his weapon and started to duck, but my second round caught him under the chin and he hit the floor like a bag of garbage. I cursed because apparently I can only hit targets that are trying to evade and it cost me two expensive rounds to remind myself why I'm not Death Squad.
The third man got off lucky because neither of us fired (he was in front of the woman) and he stumbled backwards the moment the shooting started. Giving Price a shove, the two of them turned and ran back the way they came. Obie let out a happy snarl as he flew down the corridor after them like a gauss train and like a lot of predators, all it takes to get him cranked is the smell of fear. Maybe the third man wouldn't get off so easy after all.
"So much for surprise," Nix said from behind us, her voice sounding like she was still happy from her kill. The wraith had stayed back in the Nexus behind cover and had a good defensive position chosen. "Everyone knows we're here now."
"They would have found out sooner or later," I answered as I stood up and quickly replaced the spent rounds in my pistol.
"Would have preferred later," she commented and I nodded. I would have liked that too, but we hadn't managed to drop all of them as cleanly as we should have. Maybe if the best shot in the damn squad hadn't been hiding, we could have done it.
"Wait here and protect the Ebon," I said without looking back and heard her make a snide comment about not telling her how to do her job and this being my last warning. Leave it to the wraith to cop an attitude.
K'rth and I ran after the Stormer and I was amazed at the amount of collateral damage he had done as he gave chase. Just like an unstable 313 I used to know, Obie can get a little overly enthusiastic when he's about to exercise his right to tear people limb from limb. The walls were scoured with deep claw marks that ensured he wouldn't have a credit balance anymore and that meant the squad would have to support him again. That was bound to make everyone happy, especially considering that this job was pro bono. At least the Chagrin-style path of breadcrumbs was easy to follow, but K'rth must have seen the same downside. He hissed something unpleasant, but I didn 't quite catch it.
Noise and light bounced back to us from ahead but were so distorted that I still couldn't gauge distance, just like in a bad dream. There were the sounds of combat -screams, gunfire, and roars but something was wrong and my blood turned cold when I realized what it was.
The rage in Obie's voice was gone and he wasn't roaring anymore -he was screaming in agony.
Without thinking, I broke away from K'rth in a dead run, watching the alien walls and the low mist blur past. Terror and anger welled up, pushing me harder, and I ignored K'rth yelling after me as he followed. All that mattered was that Obie was alone and in trouble and I wasn't going to let him die. Not here, not now, and not on my watch.
Suddenly the floor was gone from beneath me and I was falling into blackness. Everything was frozen into a snapshot and I think my heart stopped.
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