No Place Like Hell (41 page)

"Get your minds on the mission, or you'll both be on report," the sergeant ordered. "Can you see the talent? Is it male or female?"

"Can't tell," she said. "Seems to be buried in the trash."

Sammie stood in the dim pool of illumination from Soo Ling's light and swept her left arm in front of her. Dark hair pulled back into a short ponytail accentuated her oval face. Thin brows angled down in concentration over exotic Asian eyes, a cute button nose, and a narrow, pouty mouth. All she lacked were pointy ears to make her an elfin princess.

The clicking came from a black lump on her wrist. Her arm pointed my direction, and the clicking grew louder and faster. The young cop moved to back her up.

"Come on out," she soothed. "I won't hurt you." She took a step forward.

A deafening boom ripped from the east end of the alley, blasting her sideways against the metal container with a sickening thud. She slumped on the bags in front of me.

Three cloaked men looking like Harry Potter wannabes strode out of the darkness down by the sparkly wall. I could see only half their faces under their hoods. Banana-shaped…
somethings
in their hands pointed at the cops.
There must be a Halloween party in the neighborhood
, I thought.
Or maybe it's a full moon and all the crazies are out
.

One of them extended his banana gun, and a second boom followed the first. The young male cop flew backward and slammed down on the pavement. My blood turned to ice. Voices shouted, and streaks of electricity arced from the third cop's wand toward the new arrivals. The new guys continued their forward march unfazed, long black robes swaying with their steps.

"Retreat!" ordered a parrot voice, complete with clicks and whistles. It came from the cruiser at the end of the alley.

Feet ran toward the patrol car, followed by another ear-splitting boom. Blinding light flashed, and the black robes stopped. One of them chuckled.

"Enough," said another, walking toward the cop who now lay deathly still in the middle of the alley. "Take the DC's tracker and find the talent. He's still here, or the collection team would have been gone already."

The chuckler waded into the garbage. When he reached Sammie, he knelt beside her and unstrapped the black lump from her wrist. It was too big for a watch—more the size of a cell phone. He extended it in my direction, and the clicking became a blur of static, like a Geiger counter.

"Found him," he called to his compatriot. "This DC's still alive."

"Finish her and get the talent back to the fracture," the first black robe replied.

Finish? As in
kill?
Where the hell was her sergeant? What about the officer with the dog at the patrol car? Why weren't they helping their fallen comrade? Fear squeezed my chest. I couldn't let this happen and live with myself, but I was unarmed and useless in a fight. She seemed so nice, so caring. He pointed his sonic banana gun at her. As I tensed to spring, the third black robe screamed.

The demon towered behind the third black robe, his nostrils billowing smoke and his talons planted deep in the man's head. He extracted his claws and licked globs of shiny white goo from them while the man stood paralyzed. My stomach flip-flopped, and I shrank lower.

The demon bent close and whispered in his victim's ear. His victim fired his weapon, and the chuckler's head ripped through the back of his hood, splattering blood, brains, and scraps of fabric on the wall above me. The edge of the shock wave blew my garbage bag hat off, and my ears ached from the sound.

The first black robe fired at the demon and his prey, and the poor guy burst like an overripe watermelon dropped from a great height. The demon roared, uninjured, his heavy bull nose wrinkling to bare pointy un-cow-like teeth.

This couldn't be real. I might see gargoyles, but I knew they didn't exist. Neither did eight-foot demons or banana guns that shot killer sonic waves. The demon took a step toward me, his eyes intent on the female officer.

The back door of the Chinese restaurant opened, and a wizened old Asian man shuffled through, garbage in hand. He saw the chuckler's body and stopped. Then he looked at the remaining black robe and dropped his bag, oblivious to the demon clopping toward us. So Black Robe at least was real. I'd sort out the demon later.

I rose from the garbage, scooped the cop onto my shoulder, and pushed through the open door. Thank goodness she was small, probably not more than ninety-five pounds soaking wet, which she was. The old man grabbed my arm and tried to toss me out, but I shrugged him off.

"Muggers!" I screamed. "Gang fight! Lock the friggin' door!"

As I charged through the kitchen, I heard the door slam behind me. I plunged into the main seating area, thinly sprinkled with staring, open-mouthed customers. Downtown Centralia—if that's where I was—didn't have a lot of nightlife. They'd probably get charged extra for my entertainment value. A boom echoed from the kitchen as I reached the front entrance, followed by the crash of the back door hitting something. I hoped the old guy had gotten clear.

I snatched a trench coat from the rack by the door, exited, and made a right, half jogging, half staggering past the restaurant windows with Sammie on my shoulder. Amazing how a good jolt of adrenaline could increase strength. Another boom and the window glass exploded, spraying me. My bare feet slid on the sleet-coated sidewalk. My legs burned, and my back bowed lower with every step. I gulped air and stumbled faster toward the end of the block, but I knew it wouldn't be fast enough, not carrying the cop. I couldn't leave her. Black Robe wanted her dead.

Storefronts dropped away, replaced by a corner parking lot with an attendant kiosk standing by the far exit. I race-walked across the lot to the kiosk. To my relief, the little building was unlocked. I plunked her on the floor as gently as I could, dragged on the too-big trench coat, and stepped out, closing the door. A city bus rolled past on the cross street and pulled over at the corner to pick up a passenger. I ran like hell for the bus stop.

Black Robe arrived at the parking lot in time to see me leap onto the bus. His banana gun fired, the side of the bus near the front dented in, and half the windows burst. The driver stared, first at the windows, and then at me.

"Mugger!" I shouted. "Drive!"

The bus lurched forward, dumping me on the floor. I looked up into the face of a thirty-something businessman sitting behind the driver, and fear looked back. His bloodless face matched the white dress shirt under his business suit. He clutched a fat blue gym bag to his stomach and glanced over his shoulder where wind whistled in the broken windows.

Someone huddled on the floor between the seats about halfway down, and a striking blonde woman hunkered in a seat near the back. She wore a waitress uniform, and despite the glass speckling her clothes and hair, peered down the aisle at me with such confidence and intensity that it scared me.
Lunatic
, I thought.
Thrill seeker
. She probably gawked at road wrecks.

"Stay down!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet to look out the back. Black Robe pounded past the kiosk without glancing at it. I squatted beside the driver, thrilled with my brilliant planning. Crazy didn't mean stupid.

The engine roared for a block, and then the driver backed off as he approached a red light.

"Keep going!" I shouted. "Go, go!"

Another boom took out the back window and the bus driver's head. Gore splattered the windshield. The driver's headless body slumped onto the steering wheel. The bus wobbled along the street. I swore. What a fool I'd been to gloat over my cleverness.

I hauled the dead driver's torso back with one hand and spun the steering wheel with the other, my knuckles white on the wheel. I kicked his foot from the accelerator and pressed down with my own. We flew around a corner too fast, clipped a parked car with a screech of metal, and zig-zagged on down the street. As we crossed our second intersection, a car t-boned us. The bus spun like a ballerina on the icy street until it crashed into the front window of a carpet shop.

My shoulder smashed against the windshield. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. The businessman had thumped his forehead against the driver's seat and appeared dazed. He'd dropped the gym bag beside his shiny dress shoes. A gym bag meant workout clothes, and no one wore dress shoes in a gym, did they? We'd only gained a block or two on Black Robe. If I was going to lead him away from the cop lady, I needed shoes. My feet ached from the cold.

I slammed the door control open and snatched the gym bag. The damn thing was heavier than I expected. I didn't have time to worry about it. Sirens wailed in the distance, and running down the center of the street barely a block and a half behind came Black Robe. No time to dig out shoes.

I vaulted from the bus and sprinted along the sidewalk, trying to keep parked cars between Black Robe and me until I could get around a corner. Black Robe's gun thundered once, rocking me with a near miss and setting off a cacophony of car alarms. I hurtled south at the next cross street, my shoulder blades crawling in expectation of another shot.

I headed though a business district toward a seedy residential neighborhood where I could give my pursuer the slip once I'd led him far, far from the police woman. She'd be safe. I'd be a hero. I smiled, regaining my confidence. Then I remembered the dead bus driver. My fault. My hands clenched on the handle of my stolen bag, and I ran faster.

Turning another corner, I pulled up under a street lamp and peeked back. Black Robe labored on at a dog trot, tiring badly. My feet were killing me. I needed shoes, and now I had time to put them on. I dropped the gym bag on the sidewalk and unzipped it.

No shoes.

Just stacks and stacks of money.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

No Place Like Hell

Copyright © 2014 by K S Ferguson

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Contact the publisher: http://www.ksferguson.net

ISBN: 1-938179-12-9

ISBN-13: 978-1938179-12-9