The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (69 page)

“Lara can take care of that. Ready?”

“Try not to drop it on my foot.”

“No promises.”

They clutched their respective ends of the crate and lifted with a loud grunt. Blaine’s face almost instantly turned pale and sweat popped all along his forehead. Josh thought the big man was going to faint, but somehow he didn’t.

“Lead the way, Josh,” Will said, his voice straining a bit.

Josh nodded and hurried across the garage again, this time with the box of canned fruits in his arms. He skated around the big, dilapidated boat and was almost at the side door when he heard shuffling noises outside.

Josh froze, and so did Will and Blaine behind him.

Footsteps moved outside the front doors. He looked down, where the doors met the ground, and saw a pair of shadows moving on the other side. The voices of two men drifted through the small opening, and Josh knew instantly it was the same two he had spotted at the house, walking toward the road.

“What did you see?” a man asked.

“Something,” a second man said.

“You brought me here because you saw ‘something’?” The first man laughed. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

“I saw something,” the second man insisted.

“Birds. Geeses. Whatever those things are that’s flying around the lake.”

“Pelicans. And the plural for goose is geese. Not geeses, idiot.”

“Whatever,” the first man said dismissively. “Let’s go back. It’s too fucking hot out here to be going for a walk.”

“I told you, I saw something.”

Josh watched the shadows moving up the length of the garage doors, toward…

The side door.

Josh looked back and was surprised to see Will and Blaine had already put the crate down. Blaine drew his sidearm while Will put a finger to his lips, signaling for Josh to be silent, and moved forward, passing Josh, until he was almost pressed up against the wall next to the side door. He beckoned, and Josh, realizing he was just standing in the middle of the garage like an idiot, hurried over to stand next to him. Josh forgot he still had the box of canned fruits in his arms until Will gave him an amused look.

Josh returned a nervous smile and watched Will reach down and soundlessly slip a knife out of a sheath fastened to his left hip. Josh had seen that knife before, but he had never seen Will use it. The handle of the knife looked more like a cross that had been sanded down, like something a holy person would fashion, which surprised him because Will wasn’t even remotely religious.

Blaine moved toward the back of the garage, slipping behind an old metal shelf filled with plastic oil cartons and rusted metal tools. The crate sat in the middle of the garage.

Shouldn’t we move that?

Josh listened to the footsteps looping around the garage, shuffling lazily from the front to the side. The men were still talking, oblivious to how much noise they were making.

“There’s nothing here,” the second man was saying.

“I told you, I saw something,” the first man insisted.

“From the house?”

“Yeah.”

“You have bionic eyes or something? I can barely make out this building from over there.”

“You should get your eyes checked.”

“You know any good optometrists?”

The first man chuckled, and the second man joined in.

They sounded like good friends. Or at least, that’s what he envisioned buddies sounding like. He and Matt were kind of like that once they got to know each other.

Josh jumped slightly when he heard Will whisper, “Yes,” next to him.

Josh glanced over, expecting Will to be looking at him, but Will’s eyes were fixed on the door two feet to his left, and he was talking to himself. No, not to himself. He remembered the earbud dangling from Will’s right ear and the plastic mic wrapped around his throat.

“Hi, I can’t take your call right now, I’m in the middle of a life-and-death situation.”

Josh sucked in his breath when he heard the doorknob on the side door move as someone touched it on the other side. He didn’t have to look around Will’s body to see the doorknob moving because the big, metallic motor hanging from the back of the boat in front of him was reflecting the side door like a mirror. Sunlight splashed across the image, giving Josh an even better view of what was happening next to him.

Josh might have stopped breathing entirely when the door opened and one of the men stepped cautiously inside. Josh heard the crunch of a boot on the soft ground and saw the man’s reflection as he looked down, and Josh knew he had seen the tracks they had left behind when they first entered the garage.

The man might have opened his mouth to say something, but then Will was suddenly moving and Josh saw Will’s form spinning away from the wall and something sharp flickering, and he heard what might have been a gurgling noise, like someone spitting water.

Josh stumbled away from the wall, barely holding on to the box of canned fruits. He looked back toward the door and saw a man with long, dirty blond hair and a beard falling through the door, into the garage, his hands grabbing frantically at his neck, where blood was spurting out in thick, shiny streams. There was so much blood. Josh didn’t know how one man could bleed so much, so fast.

The man stumbled to his knees a few feet inside the warehouse, but Will was already moving past him, slipping outside.

Josh heard a voice say loudly, “What—” But the man never got the chance to finish. Instead, there was the sound of a body falling to the ground.

And then silence.

A second later, Will reappeared in the open doorway with the cross-knife, its double-edged blade slicked with blood. He looked calm, like he had just been out for a Sunday stroll and had somehow ended up with a bloody knife in his possession.

“Everything’s fine,” Will said, not to Josh or Blaine, but into the throat mic.

Who is he talking to?

Will walked inside, crouched, and wiped the knife clean on the jeans of the man with long blond hair. “We’re about to head back now,” he said into the mic. Will picked the man up by the legs and dragged him over to a corner, where he deposited the body in the darkness. “Will do.”

Will walked back to the crate and nodded at Blaine. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Blaine said, grimacing a bit. He didn’t really look “good” at all, and if anything had gotten paler. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

They picked up the crate and started toward the door again.

Josh hurried out after them, almost tripping over the second man, who was lying on his back outside the door, his hands positioned out at his sides like he was enjoying the sun splashed across his face. He had short black hair and there was a big, old scar along his left cheek that was mostly hidden by a full beard. There was a big, red bloody circle over his chest, where his heart was. The man’s face looked almost pleasant, like dying hadn’t hurt at all.

“Josh,” a voice called patiently.

Josh looked up at Will and Blaine, waiting for him about ten feet away.

“Come on,” Will said. “We’re burning daylight. Let’s get those canned fruits to Gaby.”

Gaby!

Her name snapped him back to the present, and Josh nodded and walked around the dead man. There was no blood on the ground, so at least he didn’t get any on his shoes.

They moved steadily across the tall grass, back toward the ridgeline and the boat waiting on the beach. Josh caught sight of Maddie and Bobby, crouching across the field, waiting for them with weapons in their hands.

Josh glanced up briefly at the sun. Still high. Still plenty of time.

There was no one else around them, and they moved at an almost leisurely pace. They were halfway to Maddie and Bobby when Will and Blaine suddenly stopped and looked back at him. No, not at him, but
past
him. Josh turned around and looked back at the marina and saw the sunlight glinting off the hood of a huge, bright red truck barreling into the parking lot. There was a man standing in the back of the truck and there were two more inside, one driving, the other leaning forward, hands on the dashboard, like he was afraid he might go flying through the windshield.

The man in the back of the truck was peering through binoculars, holding them with one hand while clutching the side of the truck with the other to keep from falling off. The man must have spotted them because he lowered his binoculars and began banging on the roof of the truck and pointing right at them.

Oh, shit.

“Josh, go,” Will said behind him.

Josh turned and began running. He passed Will and Blaine, who were unslinging their rifles and moving into a crouching position. Josh kept going even as he heard the first sounds of gunfire from the marina and the ground exploded around him, chunks of dirt kicking into the air and what sounded like bees screaming past his head.

Don’t look back! Whatever you do, don’t look back!

Then he heard more gunfire, this time closer. Will and Blaine, returning fire. He didn’t know for sure. That would mean looking back as he ran. That would slow him down, and he didn’t want to be slowed down at the moment.

So he ran, clutching the box of canned fruit in his arms. It had really gotten much, much heavier since he had taken it from Will. The equally heavy Remington shotgun thumped freely against his back as he ran, and it hurt. He thought about swiveling the shotgun around, but that was impossible with the box in his arms.

Can’t drop the canned fruit. Gaby will love it. She loves this stuff.

He had to get back on the boat. He had to go back to the island. Back to Gaby. That was the most important thing.

Maddie and Bobby were in front of him, frantically waving him over, their faces twisted into that odd expression people have when they’re trying to hurry other people along. He wondered what they thought he was doing.

Gee, thanks for the advice, guys. I couldn’t have done it without you.

He almost cracked a smile until he felt a sudden stinging sensation in his left leg. He stopped running before he even knew what was happening, and the box of canned fruit went flying out of his hands and he was tumbling forward like an acrobat. He saw the ground coming up and quickly tucked in his shoulders, the way he remembered seeing action heroes do in movies.

The Remington smashed into his back as he landed on the ground and rolled over, tall grass slapping at his face and arms. He thought his spine might have snapped on impact, paralyzing him. But no, he was still in one piece. Mostly, anyway. He found that he could still roll over and sit up in the grass, even as dirt splashed into the air and he heard the sound of more screaming bees trying to sting him.

Get away, bees!

Someone screamed his name. “Josh!”

He wasn’t sure if it was Will or someone else. It sounded like it was coming from in front of him, and when Josh looked up he saw Maddie running back toward him, Bobby moving alongside her and firing into the distance with his rifle.

Maddie grabbed him and pulled him up with one jerk of her hands. She was deceptively strong for such a little thing. He looked down and saw that he was bleeding and there was a neat hole in the front leg of his cargo pants.

Oh, shit, I’ve been shot.

He was surprised it didn’t really hurt all that much. But maybe that was the adrenaline pumping through him. Maybe it would hurt later. Probably.

“Hold on to me!” Maddie shouted at him.

She didn’t have to shout. He was right next to her. Maybe she felt like she needed to shout because of all the gunfire around them. There was a lot of it, especially with Bobby standing right next to them firing one shot at a time. Josh wondered why he wasn’t firing the whole magazine. Wasn’t that what people did in action movies? Unleash the whole magazine on the enemy?

He heard another voice behind him. “How is he?”

“He’s shot in his left leg,” Maddie said.

“Go go go,” the voice said.

Josh felt another pair of hands grab him around the waist, and he was suddenly lifted up like he didn’t weigh anything and dragged forward. Bobby, moving on his right, holding him around the waist. They were running. Or a combination of walking and running, with Bobby holding him on one side and Maddie on the other. They were making pretty good time, the ridgeline coming up fast.

Finally, his curiosity got the better of him, and Josh risked a glance backward.

Will and Blaine were jogging casually after them, the big, heavy crate swinging dangerously back and forth between them. Well, Will looked casual. Blaine’s face was locked in a tight, pained grimace. Josh wondered if Blaine had gotten shot, too.

Back at the marina behind them, the red truck had driven into the grass until it couldn’t go any farther. The man in the back of the truck was firing at them with a rifle. A second truck had shown up and three men were climbing out of it. They were armed and were running, joining others already rushing through the tall grassy field.

Bullets zipped through the air and burrowed into the ground to their left and right, but Josh guessed they had a good 100 yards on their pursuers, and it was hard to hit a moving target from that distance. Or at least, that’s what he had heard.

Will and Blaine suddenly stopped and turned, then began firing back. One of the men chasing them stumbled on something and pitched forward into the grass and didn’t get back up.

The others kept coming.

I guess 100 yards isn’t that great of a distance to shoot someone after all.

Will and Blaine snatched up the crate once again and started running after them. Josh was certain the heavy crate was going to spill its contents all over the grass at any moment. Then what would they do? Pick them back up, probably.

Amazingly, it never happened, but Josh couldn’t help but hold his breath anyway every time the crate swung forward, then swung back, then forward again….

Then Will and Blaine were suddenly running next to them, and Josh didn’t know how they had caught up with Bobby and Maddie so effortlessly.

“Look on the bright side,” Will shouted at him, “now there’ll be a reason for Gaby to spend all that time in your room!”