A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [74]
Vicki frowned, decided not to bother translating the teenspeak, and shrugged. “Traditional enough, I guess. Why?”
“If there’s like even a sun here, what happens to you when it rises?”
“All right, I’ve got the mouse.” It was in a little green plastic carrying cage and Mike felt like shit every time he looked in at it. He’d had to drive out to the Super Wal-Mart at Eglinton and Warden to get it and that went on the growing list of experiences he never wanted to repeat.
“What color is it?”
“What fucking difference does the color make?”
“It’s probably safest if we keep as close to the original ritual as possible.”
Setting the cage on the crypt, Mike took a deep breath and reminded himself that he—and more importantly, Vicki—needed Tony. “Probably?”
“Well, magic is mostly a matter of will so you should be able to bull through any minor variations but . . .”
There was a whole wealth of things Tony clearly didn’t want to say in that but. And that was fine because Mike didn’t want to hear them. He shone his flashlight down into the bowl and scowled. “I can’t tell what color it was—too burned. She must have used an accelerant.”
“That was the spell working. Is there dirt in the bowl? Toss it out and get fresh,” Tony instructed when Mike grunted an affirmative. “I’ve sent you the symbol you have to draw in the middle of the circles.”
“That’s not what was there before.” Mike squinted down at his screen. “It’s, I don’t know, backward.”
“It’s supposed to be. This thing’s a cut-rate gate; one way only. This is the inbound symbol.”
He found a broken piece of sidewalk chalk, no doubt tossed aside by the idiot teenager who’d gotten them all into this mess. “I’ll call you back when I’m finished.”
“Don’t take too long, remember . . .”
“You don’t have to fucking remind me about the time,” Mike snapped and hung up. Sunrise hadn’t been his friend for some years now.
Returning from disposing of another rat thing’s body, Vicki glanced up at the sky where the stars were definitely a little dimmer. Clearly it had been too much to hope that this shithole would be a shithole without a dawn. Sitting down next to Ren, she sighed. “Okay, I didn’t want to do this, but can you shoot?”
“A gun? Eww, no. Guns are stupid.”
“Guns are dangerous. People are stupid. And we don’t have time for that lecture right now.” Vicki pulled out Mike’s weapon and held it resting across her palms. “If I shut off at dawn, you’re going to have to keep us all alive until sunset.”
Ren shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Kid, you opened a portal between worlds. In my book, that says there’s not a lot you can’t do if it comes down to it. Hopefully, it won’t come down to it, but if it does . . .”
“I don’t even like first-person shooter games!”
Vicki ignored the protest and held up the Glock. “How much can you see?”
“What?”
“I can see in the dark. How much can you see?”
Frowning, Ren leaned away from the gun. “It’s not as dark as it was.”
Not an answer but it would have to do. “Okay, these are the sights—ramped front sight and a notched rear sight with white contrast. You aim with them but I’ll use some wreckage to build a shelter with a limited access so all you’ll have to do is point and shoot. Now the Glock has a triple safety system to prevent accidental discharge, but once you’ve released the external safety, here, the two internal safeties automatically disengage when the trigger is pulled.”
“Forget it!” Ren shoved at Vicki’s arm. “I’m not going to shoot anything!”
“Would you rather be eaten by a giant rat?”
“No, but . . .”
“Then pay attention.”
“It’s arunda-ay!”
“It’s nonsense!” Mike protested. “It doesn’t mean shit!”
On the other end of the phone, Tony sighed. “It means we get Vicki back,” he said quietly. “Try it again from the top.”
One hand gripping the edge of the crypt, Mike glanced over at the square of sky he could see through the grill, took a deep breath, and started again.
And