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I turned Edward back around, and we started up the stairs again. Olaf was almost at the next bend in the stairs, when he stopped. He was looking down at the steps. I froze and said, “No one move.”

“Is it a trap?” Edward asked.

“No,” Olaf said.

I saw it then, thin rivulets of blood sliding down the steps towards us. It snaked around Olaf’s feet and dripped its way toward Edward and me.

Peter wasn’t that far behind us. He asked, “What is that?”

“Blood,” Olaf said.

“Please tell me that this is your handiwork, Olaf,” I said.

“No,” he said.

I watched the blood flow around my Nikes and knew that our problems had just gotten worse.

61

I LEANED EDWARD up against the wall. He wanted me free to shoot if Olaf told me to. Olaf got to scout ahead and see what the problem was. He vanished around that corner, and I pressed myself to the wall and gave the briefest of looks ahead. The stairs ended just up ahead. The electric lights showed a cave, I think. The lights glistened on blood and bodies.

Olaf backed up, and came down to us again. “I can see the exit.”

“What are the bodies?”

“Riker’s men.”

“What killed them?”

“I think it is our murderous beast. But there is no other way out. The other entrance has been blocked by an explosion. We must go out this way.”

I figured if the murderous beast was up there waiting for us, Olaf would have been more excited. So I went back to Edward. His skin was the color of bad paste. His eyes were closed. They opened when I touched him, but they were brighter than they should have been. “We’re almost out,” I said.

He didn’t say anything, just let me settle his arm over my shoulder. He was still holding onto me, but every step we took, my arm around his waist was taking more and more of his weight. “Hold on, Edward, just a little farther.”

His head jerked as if he’d just heard me, but his feet kept moving with me. We were going to make it, all of us. The blood got thicker the farther up we walked. Edward slipped in it, and I had to catch him and barely managed to keep us both standing. But it was a sudden movement, and he let out a small sound of pain. Shit.

“Watch your step, Peter,” I said. “It’s slippery.”

Olaf was waiting for us at the bodies. There were only three of them. One was a man I didn’t recognize, but I recognized the gun near his body. He was one of Simon’s men. Simon was lying in a pool of blood and darker fluids. The entire lower chest, stomach, abdomen were open. His intestines trailed out onto the cave floor, but his eyes were still blinking upward, still alive.

The third body was Amanda, and she was still moving, too. But Olaf had her covered, so I kept my attention on Simon. He smiled up at us. “At least I killed the Undertaker.”

“He’s not nearly as dead as you are,” I said.

“You’re all dead, bitch.”

“We know you invited company,” I said.

His eyes looked uncertain. “Fuck you.” His hand inched towards his gun that was still lying beside him. Gutted, dying, in more pain than I could imagine, and he tried to go for his gun. I stepped on his hand, pinning it to the earth. Harder to do than normal with Edward hanging on me, but I managed. “Peter, you and Becca go up with Bernardo to the front of the cave.”

Peter didn’t argue. He just carried Becca past us, Bernardo trailing behind.

I pointed the gun barrel at Simon’s head. I couldn’t leave him behind because I didn’t trust him at my back. Even this wounded, I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

“I hope the monster guts you, bitch.”

“That’s Ms. Bitch to you,” I said and pulled the trigger. A short burst, but more shots echoed mine. I whirled, gun up, and found Peter standing over Amanda’s body. He emptied the Firestar into her body while I watched. Olaf was just watching him do it. I looked for Bernardo and found him holding Becca near the cave mouth.

Edward started to slide to his knees. I knelt with him, trying to keep him upright. He whispered, “The kids, out, get them . . . out,” and he fainted.