Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) (27 page)

"Just give me the keys and take Dannie."

He only considered being horrified to take her dead body for a split second before he reached into his pocket and found the keys. I cradled her in front of me, leaned down and kissed her cold cheek, and passed her over.

"Get somewhere safe. I'll be back in five minutes."

"Yeah right. In case you hadn't noticed Einstein, there is nowhere safe."

I turned towards the front door. There were a pair of guards standing outside, facing the other way and keeping the crowds back. They hadn't heard any commotion from inside, and none of the assholes in here had time to call for help.
 

"There has to be an emergency exit."

"They'll have guards there, too," Jin said.

"I know, but not as many onlookers." I turned around, finding the glowing exit sign near the back corner. "Amos, you have a knife?"

He shifted Danelle on his shoulder and leaned down, pulling a four inch shiv from his boot. He handed it to me.

"Five minutes. If they notice the guards are down, hide behind the desk and keep them pinned."
 

I took off towards the door at a full run.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Three little pigs.

I wouldn't have been able to tickle an orc in a straight-out fight. Slipping through a door without being noticed? That I could do.
 

I jumped on the leather's back and jabbed the shiv into his neck, riding him to the ground and doing my best to keep his fall quiet. Fortunately, he was the only guard out in the alley, positioned to keep people out, not to keep us in.

I needed to get over a couple of blocks and up another without being completely obvious. The hardest part was going to be getting out of the alley unnoticed. Looking towards the mouth, I could see some of the onlookers that were bleeding over from the front of the Machinery, waiting to see when they would be allowed back in.
 

I had given myself five minutes to get the van and get back. That wasn't much time, and I was starting to feel the drain of the power I'd used on Tony. There was no choice but to make a run for it. I exchanged the knife for my gun, keeping my arm under the trench, and walked towards the crowd.

There was a dumpster near the end of the alley, and I ducked behind it for a few seconds, surveying the scene. There were a couple hundred assorted people standing behind the line the guards had made. Some were just standing there waiting, while others had found ways to entertain themselves: messing with their phones, messing with each other, or whatever.
 

Nobody was looking at the alley, and I slipped out along the wall off the adjacent building, walked a couple dozen feet, and then started to run.

The machinists were interested in the Machinery. There were plenty of other residents and visitors to the Greens that didn't give a shit about that kind of thing, and were still crowding the streets and going about their business as if nothing was wrong. I would have loved to blend in and take my time navigating through them to the hotel, but Amos and Jin were counting on me. I kept running, knowing it made me suspicious as hell, and winding up not very surprised when I blew past a guard leaning against the dark, inner side of a building, and drawing his unwelcome attention.

"Hey buddy," he shouted.

I didn't slow, but I did change direction, moving into the crowd. I twisted and shoved my way through, ignoring the curses behind me.
 

"Fucking stop, asshole."
 

He was chasing me. I cut diagonally across the street, and then up the block to the Amore. I was halfway across when another guard popped out in front of me, his assault rifle raised, the scope against his eye.

"Stop!"

I fell to my knees and let my hand come out from under the trench. My shots were wild, but they served to force him to lower his own weapon and take evasive action. I hopped back up, my knees skinned and bleeding, and kept running towards him. By the time he recovered I was in his face, and I smashed him in the jaw with the butt of my gun. He spun to the ground with a grunt.

A shot echoed in the night, and chips of cement broke free of the building next to me, leaving me wishing I could run just a little bit faster. I reached the corner and saw the sign for the hotel, all done in pink script with the 'a' in 'More-a' shaped either like a heart, or a vagina. The ramp into the parking garage was on the far right side of the building, open and inviting.

I turned back and took a couple of potshots at the guard following me. He didn't flinch at the bullets, sending his own volley back at me, the spray whizzing past and tearing up the ground on my left. I zigged that way, trying to catch him in between adjustments of aim, and was rewarded with a shot that grazed my calf and almost knocked me down.
 

The parking garage was looming. I turned and emptied my clip, two of the shots smashing into his body armor, the armor piercing rounds digging far enough through that he cried out and toppled to the ground. I half-ran, half-limped down the steps. Where the hell was the van?

The garage had three levels, but Amos was Amos, and he had parked in a handicapped spot near the elevator. I fumbled with the keys for a second, my entire body shaking from the shock and adrenaline, before getting the rear door open and climbing inside. I threw open Evan's cooler and reached down.

"Come on, Evan. I need you." I sent the power into him, and then drew back my hand to cough.
 

"Damn. What now, asshole?" His head was at a bit of an odd angle, but he didn't seem to notice. "You look like shit."

"Get up and get armed. Don't give me any shit, I'm not in the mood. Dannie is dead."

For once, he didn't offer any lip. He got up out of the cooler and went over to the trunk and flung it open.

"Where the fuck are the guns?"

I looked over. They had understated how much they had needed to sell. The sawed-off was in there, along with a couple of .38s. Not the kind of firepower he was used to.

"Make do." I punched the top of the van. "On the roof."

I got behind the wheel and started it up, backing out of the spot at the same time Evan grabbed the shotgun and one of the pistols.
 

"You have got to be kidding me."

The noise of the gunfire in the garage made my ears hurt. Bullets pinged into the side of the van, puncturing the metal and thumping into Evan.
 

I skidded to a stop. "You want better guns? Go take those fuckers out!"

"Fine. Give me a ride." He jumped out of the van and moved to the front, hopping onto the snub nose. I peeled out, turning the wheel and heading straight for our attackers, a new pair of guards.

The din continued. Bullets peppered Evan and the windshield, breaking it to pieces. I ducked behind the wheel, keeping it straight.

"Brakes," Evan said.

I slammed on them. He threw himself forward, letting his body roll with the momentum and coming up right in front of the leathers. He shoved the shotgun right into one's chest and fired, blowing through the armor. The other shot him point-blank, but he couldn't feel a thing. He brought the .38 up under the guard's chin and blew his brain into his helmet.
 

I drove up slowly. He grabbed the two assault rifles and the extra clips they were carrying, and climbed into the van through the blasted windshield. He had bullets planted in his skull, and his clothes were shredded to almost nothing.

"It's about time I got some action." He lifted a finger to one of the slugs in his head. "Better than a fucking tattoo."

I floored it, ripping out of the garage and blasting the horn, scattering the onlookers. "More action incoming. We're going in the front door."

"Hell yeah."

I went up another block and over, drawing fire from a pair of guards on the way by, the van gaining a few more holes. Then I skidded around a turn and got us pointed directly at the Machinery. The bystanders had scattered, and the guards were facing the other way. I could see their muzzle flashes, and hear the return fire from Amos and Jin inside.

I hit the accelerator, racing down the street, my hand glued to the horn to try to get the innocents out of the damn way. Evan leaned forward, resting one of the rifles on the dash and putting his dead eye against the scope. He hit the trigger once, and one of the guards dropped.

I swung the wheel as we approached the Rube Goldberg that rested in front of the building, jumping onto the grass next to it and staying as tight to the entrance as I could. Evan squeezed off another round, and a second guard lost his feet.

I nailed the breaks and spun the wheel, sending the van skidding to the left with a squeal of tires. Evan planted his hand in the dash and held on while I brought us back around towards the lobby at an angle. The glass wall loomed in front of us, and then I collided with it, ducking down and feeling the glass rain in. I spun the wheel wildly again, forcing the van to spin on the smooth floor of the Machinery, and come to a heavy rest with the ass facing the front desk.

There were four guards spread out behind cover inside, and they opened up on the van again. I ducked down and held my head while Evan opened the passenger door and jumped out, returning fire. A few seconds later it was quiet.

"Hey sexy, your ride is here," Evan said.
 

The back doors opened, and Amos climbed up, Danelle still in his arms. "And I thought this thing was a piece of shit before."

Jin hopped in behind him. "Baron, are you okay?"

"They only shot me once. Evan, in the van."

My corpse soldier grabbed another rifle and tossed it in, then slid into the passenger seat again. I started us moving, driving over the decimated glass and hoping the tires would stay intact. They were reinforced, and they got us over and out.

I was going to go back the way we'd come, but as I maneuvered to go around the installation I saw a another car incoming, a black Hummer with tinted windows. I hit the brakes and started backing up so I could go around to the right. The Hummer stopped and the doors opened, three men stepping out.

I didn't recognize any of them. They were well-built, tall, angular, and unarmed, dressed in grey suits with white ties. What were they doing? I stopped the van and started turning the wheel, putting my foot down on the gas and cornering as best I could.

One second, the three men were walking towards us. The next, they were gone. Not visibly gone, but replaced with the biggest, meanest looking weres I'd ever seen. They ran towards us on all fours, approaching ridiculously fast.
 

What the fuck? Werewolves didn't shift. They got the virus, they got primitive and hairy, and that was it. At least, that was what they taught us, and that was all I had ever seen before.
 

I put my foot all the way to floor, and we started moving down the street, away from the incoming monsters.
 

Everything shook when the first one slammed into the side of the van, putting a solid dent in the side and sending it rocking and rolling, threatening to tip. The second bounced up onto the hood, and I got a great look at the inside of its massive jaws right before Evan put a bullet in its head. It fell away without a sound, rolling to a stop next to us. I saw it shake. A point-blank shot, and it was still alive.

Where was the third? I looked out the window, and checked the mirror for it, but I didn't see it. The van was struggling to accelerate now, the damage complete enough that I was amazed we were still moving. These things were fast, there was no way it hadn't caught up.
 

A claw tore into the roof near the back, and then another. Massive muscles started peeling the top of the van away, at the same time Evan and Amos both opened fire into it. I heard the wet slaps of the bullets finding flesh, but the were didn't seem impressed. It jumped down through the opening it had made, the motion itself threatening to throw the car off its track. It elbowed Amos, knocking him aside, and reached out for Jin.

"Eat lead, asshole," Evan said, sticking his rifle in its face.
 

Its head snapped around, grabbing the end of the gun in its teeth and pulling it from his grip. Then it lashed out with its other hand, raking claws though Evan's left arm. It dropped to the ground.

"Damn. I liked that arm." He took three steps forward and threw his weight into the creature, magic-powered muscles pushing against inhumanly strong ones. He got the thing off-balance, and they crashed into the back doors together, their combined force and weight too much for the locking mechanism. The doors swung open, and they both fell out, tumbling to the ground still entwined.

I kept my foot to the floor, and the van picked up speed. The good thing about the Greens is that it was small, and the leathers inside had no jurisdiction to do jack shit outside of the borders. I powered through the checkpoint, blasting the barrier arm to splinters, and drove out into greater Brooklyn.
 

I could feel my link to Evan fading as I moved away. He'd always been an asshole, but in the end he'd come through.

I was going to miss him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Referee.

The van made it about ten miles before the damage became too much, and I pulled it into a dark alley and let it rattle to a stop. It breathed a heavy sigh of relief, the engine shutting down for the last time.
 

The familiar whine of the secondary motor that kept the coolers chilled was the only sound remaining.

"Conor?" Jin said. We'd driven the distance in tense quiet, hunkered down, guns ready, expecting the creatures that attacked us to catch up at any moment. Now she broke the not-quite-silence.

I looked over at the empty passenger seat.
 

"Are either of you hurt?"

"I took an elbow to the cheek that's going to leave a nice beauty mark, and my ego's been in better shape. What the fuck was that?"

I shifted in the seat so I could look back at Jin. "Dannie died for you, Miss Red. I'd be a lot more comfortable with our agreement if you would at least give me a quarter of a clue why. And don't give me the line about the Houses again. Now that I've seen it, I know it's more personal than that."