Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [78]
One shot, and it could’ve been a nine-millimeter or a cannon in that dark, narrow storage room. But I was well out of its range, up there with the pipes clasped to my chest and my ankles interlocking to hold my full weight up above the floor.
Sister Rose barked, “Raylene!” but I couldn’t answer without revealing myself, so I didn’t. And when one of the feds began a grim charge down the narrow thoroughfare, I swooped down and picked him up Batman-style: one hand over his mouth, one arm around his neck. I held him up off the ground and let him struggle while the third fed came scooting onto the scene. But hey, since I was holding this big heavy lug of a bastard (and if I were to be honest, gradually losing my feet’s grip on the pipe), I swung him around like a pendulum—breaking his neck with an almost-accidental snap—and I clocked the incoming suit with his buddy’s corpse.
Then I dropped down; I had to, my ankles were giving way and my shoes were on the verge of slipping off. I clattered down to the narrow walkway, landing heavily on the freshest fed. He squirmed and shoved me away, drawing up his gun and getting ready to fire it in my general direction, or maybe Rose’s.
I didn’t let him. I wrenched it out of his hand before he could squeeze the trigger and I used it to bludgeon him into stillness. Something broke and his skin began to leak, but the tang of blood was only a faint distraction. I willed myself to ignore it, because I couldn’t be hungry and be aware of my other pursuer at the same time. This last guy was smarter than the first wave; he was hanging back and patrolling the perimeter as best he could—lurking out by the lights in the hall, where the doorway was open, letting the glare of the cheap bulbs cut sharp shafts of light against the darkness.
I could hear him whispering back and forth into the tiny microphones that were tucked into his shirt collar, and I could even pick out most of the words. He was calling for backup and debating the best approach, which was good. It meant that whoever was after us didn’t know where I was, or what I was.
I hoped they didn’t know what I was.
Behind me, I heard Rose’s shoulder slam against the back door and then there was a pop as the thing flapped open, sucking a little of the dark out of the storage room. “Raylene!” she cried out, and I still didn’t answer but I was beside her in a flash, behind her and urging her outside, into the alleyway.
“Son of a bitch, you’re fast,” she observed. “I thought maybe they’d hit you.”
“Me? Hell no,” I assured her. “But they’ll be on us in a minute, so come on.”
“Where?”
Around us the alley was dark and nasty, cluttered with decomposing trash and pocked with puddles that were filled with something that was more eau de bum piss than rainwater. Overhead, the moon was rolling slowly across the night sky, ducking behind a few thin clouds and peeping back out the other side. “This way,” I said.
She asked, “Why?” but she followed regardless, which I appreciated.
“My car.”
“You found a parking place out here?”
I would’ve responded but the back door smacked behind us and the last fed had found a friend, and they were on our trail. I ushered her forward and jammed her around the nearest corner, praying we hadn’t been spotted.
If it’d just been me, it wouldn’t have bothered. I’d have taken to the rooftops and been a mile away before their eyes adjusted to this new level of light. But Adrian deJesus was only human, and we had too many common interests and enemies to part company now.
She was barefoot and I was wearing high heels, which was a strike against the pair of us, but she moved easily and, just like she’d climbed the rail indoors, she grabbed a rain gutter and hoisted herself up. The metal tube creaked and groaned but held, and she swung her body over onto the Poppycock Review’s angled roof.
“Come on!” she breathed, reaching down a hand.
I took the hand because I didn’t want to push our luck by relying on the gutter,