Dead Waters - Anton Strout [42]
“Well,” I said. “That could have gone worse.”
Jane looked up at me. “Oh, really?” she said, her voice weak. “How exactly?”
“You’re still breathing, aren’t you? Consider yourself luckier than Mason Redfield when she tried to drown him.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at me like she was going to say something snippy, but the look vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. “True.”
“I know Wesker probably sets a different bar for success than the Inspectre does for Other Division, but we consider ‘Still Breathing’ a good benchmark.”
Jane looked back up the now-deserted alley, her eyes barely open against the downpour of rain. “You want to go after her?”
I shook my head as I reached down and picked up my bat. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. She’s long gone by now.”
Jane looked sad, like she might even be crying, but with all the rain it was hard to tell. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“What do you have to be sorry about? That a psychotic water woman chose to give you a bath in the middle of a rainstorm?”
Jane gave me a sad smile.
“You should be happy,” I continued, squeezing her in my arms. “After an attack like that, we have pretty solid confirmation now of who drowned Professor Redfield from the inside out. Now what we need to do is figure out who she is, why she would want the good professor dead, and how we can stop her from drowning anyone else alive.”
Jane nodded, but still looked quite shaken.
“Cheer up,” I said, hugging her.
She squeezed me tight, her head buried in my neck. “Why?” she asked with weak hope in her voice.
I pushed her back from me, looked her in the eye, and nodded. “You seemed to actually hurt her,” I said. “That’s promising. All I managed to do was menace her with a bat, and not very effectively. Back at the van, you scorched her pretty good.”
Jane looked uncertain. “Blowing up a van. I’m going to catch holy hell for that, aren’t I?”
“We can check it with Ghoulateral Damage Division, if there’s anyone left there these days.”
I spun Jane around and headed her back down the alley. I traded my bat for my umbrella and slid the bat into its holster. I opened the umbrella and the two of us huddled under it despite the fact that we were both already soaked through. There was a comfort in it nonetheless. Now if I could only fine some answers about the crazy woman in green that comforted me . . .
11
Jane looked over at me across the wrought-iron elevator cage we rode up to my apartment. She gave me a weak smile, which warmed my heart even though she looked as much like a drowned rat as I did. The old-world elevator rose up through my building, clattering its way up past floor after floor, the low hum of its motor a soothing sound after a night of chaos.
Jane moaned, followed by a piteous trail of laughter. “You know you’re in trouble when just riding in an elevator hurts,” she said.
I would have nodded in agreement, but I couldn’t lift my head forward from where it rested against the side of the elevator. Tonight’s pursuit had been a brutal one, but only when it was over did our bodies truly start to feel the toll of our exertion. The only good thing to happen since hobbling our way out of the alley near the professor’s high-rise was that the rain and broken hydrants had taken care of dousing the flames of the van Jane had exploded with her technomancy. Other than that, our bodies had slowly given in to the aches and pains that followed our fruitless chase.
When the elevator hit my floor, I rolled back the black iron accordion gate and the two of us hobbled our way to my apartment door at the end of the hall. I fished out my keys and managed to get my door open despite my feeble state. I didn’t even bother to flick on the lights and instead took in the welcoming silence of my home. The quiet majesty of my living room was dark, but the wall of windows along the left side of it let in enough light to show