Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (53 page)

Most of the remaining masked guards dropped and swiveled, returning fire and escalating
the battle.  A couple of them near the front remained focused on Tommy, raising their
guns at him.

“Do your worst,” Tommy challenged.  He exhaled a last thick mist of red, and then
the bullets tore through his arms, stomach, chest, throat, and face, cutting him apart. 
They kept firing even as the fear-giver rose and looked down on his bullet-riddled
body, just a useless slab of meat now.

His life as Thomas White was ended, and he felt satisfied that he’d done his best
to pay his debt to the dead-speaker, atoning for his failure to protect her in their
last life.  He struggled to remain focused on the dimming world of the living, determined
to see her get out alive, though he now watched from beyond the grave, unable to give
her any more help.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Alise demanded, slamming open the door.  Niklaus sat on
his bed, drinking cheap Polish vodka and smoking cigarettes.  Though the alarm had
been clanging for a few minutes now, he remained where he was, in his undershirt and
black uniform trousers, boots propped up on the bed’s flimsy footboard. “Are you deaf?”

“No,” he replied.  He swigged vodka and smiled, offering no other explanation for
his inaction.

“The supernormals are escaping!” Alise shouted. “We’re finding guards dead of Juliana’s
plague.  I checked Mia’s room, and it looks like she went with them.  They cannot
be allowed to escape, Niklaus!”

“Maybe someone will stop them.” He shrugged.

“We need your help!  Get up!” She smacked his leg.

“I’m going, I’m going...” Niklaus reluctantly stood and took his time pulling on his
belt, his jacket, checking that his pistol was fully loaded.  He smirked at himself
in the mirror as he put on his cap.  It struck him as absurd, the black uniform, the
silver skulls and lightning bolts, the twisted red cross on his arm. He thumped the
swastika. “What is this thing, anyway?  Does anyone know?  Besides a big target that
says, ‘Shoot me in the arm, snipers!’”

“We don’t have time for your drunken babbling.” Alise took his arm and steered him
out into the hallway. “Take care of this, and I’ll give you a nice reward.  Don’t
you miss me in your bed?”

Niklaus pulled his arm free of her grasp. “We should hurry.”

“You’re right.” Alise began to run, and Niklaus watched her from behind, long golden
hair sweeping her slender back in her black S.S. jacket.  He thought of how callously
she’d killed Evelina, and he forced himself to do the thing he’d been wanting to do
for weeks.

Niklaus drew the Luger and aimed it at her back.  If she looked him in the eyes, he
knew he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.  It had to be from behind.

He fired a shot into the center of her spine, and she fell and screamed, her legs
twisting limply beneath her.  He trudged toward her, in no hurry at all.  Everyone
else would be distracted by the alarms and the escaped prisoners.  There was nobody
else here on their dormitory level.

She turned her head to look up at him, and her gray eyes, the ones that matched his,
were full of pain. 

“Why?” she whispered.  She lay on her stomach on the floor, paralyzed from the waist
down, a pool of blood growing around her.

“You killed her.” Niklaus sat on the floor beside Alise and leaned against the wall. 
He kept the pistol pointed at his cousin.

“Who?  Who did you love more than me?”

“I loved Evelina.”

“A Slav?  You shot me over a...” She coughed, drooling foamy pink saliva. “...over
a dirty goddamned Bosniak?”

“I told you I didn’t want to shoot her.”

“You could have...” Alise coughed up thicker blood. “You could have told me.  I would
have let you keep her.  Because I love you, Niklaus.  Remember I loved you, and you
killed me.  Remember it...my only love...” She coughed again, and her cheek rested
flat on the floor, her eyes staring into nothingness.

Niklaus stared at her body.  Maybe he’d been wrong to do it.  With her dying words,
she had given him only love, despite his betrayal.  He wished she’d been hateful and
angry, as he would have expected.  He wished he felt triumphant, at least, for finally
working up the courage to avenge Evelina.  Instead, Alise’s death now struck him like
a knife to the heart.  Her final outpouring of affection was the worst thing she could
have done to him.  He knew it would stay with him for the rest of his life.

He looked at her dead body and wept.  Her death had not brought Evelina back, nor
did it bring him any peace.  His cousin had been his guide through life, his trusted
friend, his lover.  He was alone now, forever. 

Niklaus put the pistol into his own mouth.  He couldn’t face his family again, after
having a sinful relationship with his cousin and then murdering her.  He wished with
all of his being that he could bring her back to life and be with her again.  Life
without her would only be agony and guilt.

He pulled the trigger.

Little Miriam lay in her incubator in the last room on the hall, just as the nurse
had told Jenny.  Jenny was the first into the room, but she held herself back, forcing
herself to wrap her arms tight around herself and make herself small, as she’d done
when she was a younger girl whose main concern in life was staying invisible at school. 
Those teenage days already seemed ancient to her, after all the strange turns of her
life since then.

Outside the clinic, screaming and scattered gunfire sounded all over the base.  It
sounded like Tommy’s final attack had been successful, driving a number of people
crazy with fear.  Unfortunately, those people carried automatic rifles.  The baby
squirmed and cried in her incubator, and Jenny resisted every instinct that told her
to pick up the tiny girl and comfort her.

“You’re okay,” Jenny whispered. “You’re safe now.  Your parents are here.”

“There she is.” Seth spoke quietly as he entered the room.  He didn’t hesitate as
he went to pick her up and hold her close.  Bathed in his soothing, healing touch,
the baby stopped crying, and even closed her eyes and rested her head against him.

“You’re going to be a good father,” Jenny said, her voice almost breaking.  She knew
that she would always have to be a distant mother, avoiding any contact with her own
daughter.

As if feeling her distress, Mariella carefully wrapped her arms around Jenny and hugged
her close, risking infection and death to comfort her.  Jenny leaned her head on Mariella’s
shoulder, keeping away from the bare flesh of her neck, and she cried.

“You’ll need some of these.” Esmeralda had opened cabinets in the room and found one
stocked with standard baby supplies.  She grabbed bottles of premixed formula and
a stack of diapers, and she handed Seth a cloth sling, still sealed in the original
plastic. “Be sure to support her head.”

“I can’t believe it,” Seth said as Esmeralda helped strap the baby sling around him
and secure the baby inside it.  The baby snuggled against his chest again, eyes closed.
“She’s actually asleep.  It’s all gunfire and horror-house out there, and she’s just
taking a nap.”

“You’re good for her,” Jenny said. “Your touch.”

“How do we get out of here?” Esmeralda asked.

“They’ll have all four exits covered.” Jenny pulled away from Mariella and wiped her
eyes. “Maybe we should find the vent shaft for this section.  The vent got you both
out of here last time, didn’t it?”

“It got us up there,” Seth agreed.  He was still staring at his little daughter, brushing
her soft cheek with his fingertip. “I just hope this guy’s access card opens the maintenance
doors.”

“Just remember to come with us this time, Jenny,” Mariella said. “Do you promise?”

“Of course.” Jenny managed a small smile, looking at the sleeping baby through her
tears. “I’ll never leave her.”

Mia climbed the slippery metal rungs inside the vertical tunnel, struggling upward
against the air blasting down from the huge intake fan above.  The wind was so loud
that she and Sebastian couldn’t possibly hear each other unless they shouted, which
could draw the guards.  Mia didn’t feel like talking, anyway.  They’d heard the gunfire
echoing from below, and she had felt Juliana’s death like a ripping sensation deep
in her heart.

Juliana’s last wish was that Mia and her baby escape the base alive.  Her friend had
died to protect her, despite her betrayal with Sebastian, for the sake of the little
baby.  If Mia survived, she and her baby would owe their lives to Juliana.

They stopped climbing when Sebastian, above her, reached the top of the vent.  She
held on tight,  trying not to think about the long, hard drop below if she slipped
from the small rungs. 

She watched him inspect the giant fan that was in his way, underneath a mesh screen
that kept out falling debris.  They needed to stop the fan and move the screen aside
before they could leave.  High-speed wind pounded her face, and she had to scrunch
her eyes to watch him inspect the machinery.

Sebastian found the bundle of wires feeding electricity into the fan, grabbed it,
closed it eyes, and pulled as hard as he could.  An explosion of sparks hit him, scorching
his face and hands.  The hair at the back of his head caught on fire, and he smothered
it with his bare hand.

Mia tried not to cry out in pain as stray sparks landing on her, burning her arm in
three places.

“Sorry,” Sebastian whispered, and she could hear him because the fan was quietly slowing
to a halt. 

The screen beyond it was secured in place by a ring of large screws, and they had
no screwdriver.  Seth tried the keys on the ring taken from the prison guard until
he found a key tooth he could wedge inside the heads of the screws.  Turning the screws
this way was slow and difficult, and sliced up his fingers until the key was dripping
blood, but he managed to gradually remove each one.  Mia winced each time he cut himself.

A light flashed over the top of the vent, fully illuminating it in the night.  With
the alarms ringing, the guards in the watchtowers were swooping the spotlights looking
for trouble.

Sebastian climbed up the narrow gap between two fan blades, and one of them scraped
open a wide swatch of flesh along his hip.

“Careful,” he whispered down to Mia, his teeth clenched tight with the pain. “The
blades are sharp.”

She climbed a little higher, waiting while he heaved the metal mesh to one side like
a manhole cover and poked his head into the open air above.  Mia smiled.  She hadn’t
seen the stars in months.

He pulled the screen back into place and ducked as another spotlight hit the vent
shaft. 

“Now!” Sebastian whispered when it was gone.  He pushed the mesh aside and climbed
out.  Mia threaded her way between the blades, imagining them springing back to life,
cutting her in half.  She was five months pregnant, and her enlarged stomach took
a horrible scraping from one of the blades as she squeezed past it.  Sebastian took
her hand and helped her out onto the narrow circular ledge surrounding the intake
fan.  He touched her bleeding stomach to heal her, and she couldn’t help smiling at
the soothing warmth.

“No rungs out here,” he whispered. “About a five-foot drop.  I’ll catch you.  The
spotlight’s coming back already.” Sebastian dropped to the ground below.

When he was ready, Mia pushed herself off the edge, landing in his arms.  She looked
up at him, feeling for a moment the deep affection that had existed between them under
Alise’s spell.  She was having his child.

Whatever she felt in that moment, she felt it alone.  He stood her on her feet, already
looking for their next move.

“The warehouse,” he said, pointing to the long brick building against the western
wall of the base.  A pair of S.S. guards flanked the door.  “There’s a road that forks
off toward it.  I think there must be a side gate there.  Probably safer than trying
to go out the front.”

“If there’s a gate, there will be more guards,” Mia whispered.

“You stay here,” Sebastian said.  A slanted corrugated tin panel stood over the intake
vent, blocking rain and snow from above, but also creating a pocket of shadow, further
darkened by the coal smoke from the ventilation system’s furnace exhaust.  She thought
might be able to hide from the spotlights if she kept herself small enough. “I’ll
deal with the guards first and signal you when it’s safe,” Seth told her.

“Are you sure?” she whispered, but he was already running, avoiding the spotlights. 
She heard a distant clink of metal against concrete, and both guards at the warehouse
turned their heads towards it, away from Sebastian’s approach in the shadows.  She
heard it again, and a third time, and the guards raised their pistols in that direction.

Mia realized what was happening—Sebastian had pocketed the screws he’d taken from
the vent screen, and now he was flinging them, one at a time, to create a distraction
for the guards as he approached them in the darkness.