Out of the Black - Lee Doty [154]
Long line of hardheads... Ping's dad had been so happy when Ping finally "woke up and joined the force". When he started with family counseling, dad had been so "secretly" disappointed that his little Tian Fu had "squandered his gift" and moved into a profession so "obviously full of crap". Dad was subtle in disappointment.
Ping was smiling as he came off the floor; dizzy, but determined. The guns in his hands were so warped that they looked like cartoon caricatures of pistols. The hole in the barrel of one was deformed into an oval and bent about ten degrees off center. Alex had saved his bacon again. He'd known the demons had the drop on him as soon as he saw them... they were too ready, too fast.
As he rose to his feet, he saw Alex sprawled out about a meter below another body-sized imprint in the wall. Ouch. He wondered fleetingly if this was their lot in life- Ping taking the head trauma, Alex trying to make it through wall after wall. He hoped not, though that was a significantly brighter future than the most likely one right now. Right now any future where he didn't end up with an apple in his mouth on the demon smorgasbord seemed rosy.
On his feet, though not entirely stable, he turned to the elevator. The demons were struggling to their feet, some of their clothes seemed to be smoldering. There was a step down of perhaps five centimeters where the elevator had fallen down slightly before wedging into place. Cracks covered walls of the hallway at regular intervals where the metallic supports behind the sheetrock had deformed.
Anne was already up. She spared him a quick glance then bolted toward the warped elevator doors. Two demons had made it into the hallway, but now they were dealing with the phlebotomist... true to form, she'd already drawn blood. One of them was already on the floor and looking even more dead than it did when it stepped off the elevator. She was really pouring on the destruction, moving faster at times than he could follow. Wow.
His smile broadened. His blade came out.
***
"Freeze!" Miranda yelled as they burst into the hallway.
Though she was pretty sure they'd done it correctly, nobody listened. They'd displayed their weapons prominently and aggressively. She'd used an authoritative voice and the 'on the edge of shooting' face. She willed them to comply... but the fight raged on.
To call it a pitched battle would convey intensity, but not form. It was complete chaos. Maybe ten of the things that killed Derry were brawling with a uniformed cop using a fletcher like a club, some guy with a sword who looked and acted not unlike Jet Li, and a large red-skinned alien from fast-forward planet.
They glanced at each other. Elena shrugged.
As they stood there indecisively, the guy with the sword bisected one of the demons from shoulder to opposite hip. Elena winced.
The big red alien took a very painful looking blow from one of the demons- pistol to the back of the head. Perhaps its alien physiology had a different home for the brain because the blow didn't slow it down much.
The alien whirled around, looking somewhat miffed. With two or possibly three blurring-fast moves,t trapped the arm that held the pistol. The arm broke at the elbow and the gun flew from the demon's hand. The alien drove its elbow into the demon's head with a sound that was more shattering than breaking. The demon's pistol ricocheted off the ceiling and landed about two