Hellifax (44 page)

Gods
didn’t die. Reality would wink out the very instant he did.

But he grudgingly admitted they sometimes got seriously fucked up.

Using the wall as support, he climbed the stairway to a landing and an open portal that led to a bridge. Not a bridge, he realized, but a pedway, and with enough bars on it to make him think of cages in a zoo. Fresh air slapped his face and cleared his mind a little. He wiped at his eye and forehead, astonished by the amount of blood. Cringing at every painful breath, he crossed to the midway point of the pedway and gazed down.

Rats.

Tenner chuckled darkly and allowed a few plops of blood to fall from his face to the foragers on the street. Their reaction was quite interesting. The closest rats homed in on the blood the very second it blotted the snow. When the world had still functioned and he’d been forced to hide his true self, people had kept rats as pets. He thought that was a wonderful idea. When he was feeling better, he’d capture some of the furry little undead fucks for pets, maybe use a small aquarium as a holding pen. He might even use them on future victims.

This on his mind, he reached the far door and opened it—another stairwell and another open door leading to a series of rooms. Another dormitory. One of the rooms would have a bed, and a bed sounded just fine to Tenner. With that firmly in mind, he closed the door behind him.

Then, through the square window, he saw Amy and the mystery man emerging from the building on the far side of the pedway.

Tenner blinked and made an agonized sound. The pair dawdled, being cautious, but then the man who knew him straightened up, shotgun ready, and walked toward him, oblivious that Tenner hid behind the door and watched from the darkness.

His left hand gripped his Glock and lifted it from its holster. Tenner placed it just behind the glass, keeping it in the shadows, and aimed. One burst would finish him. Mortals hunting gods,
wounding
gods, wasn’t something to be taken lightly. He’d have to explain it to these lesser beings.

The mystery man got closer to the door, hand reaching for the handle.

And Tenner, despite the pain in his pain, smiled once more.

“Scott, wait,” Amy called, and he did.

“What?” His hand was on the door handle.

“Don’t get too far ahead of me.”

Good point
. Scott waited, trying to look beyond the window’s safety glass. Another void, but there was faint light from a hallway to the left.

“All right,” Amy said, just behind him.

“You ready?”

“All set.”

Scott opened the door. He stepped across the threshold and a gun snaked out from the dark and pressed against his helmet. Amy froze.

“Don’t move,” Tenner warned. “One move, Amy, and I ventilate him.”

Scott felt the click against his helmet, and his heart and stomach plummeted.

“Hello, Amy,” Tenner said. Then to Scott he said, “Shithead.”

Scott lowered his shotgun to his pelvis and Tenner leaned forward. “You lift that thing and I’ll shoot your knees off. Might do it anyway.”

The rats rippled beneath the pedway, sensing the living, but unable to locate them.

“Careful now. Drop the shotgun,” Tenner instructed.

Scott set his jaw and did as he was told.

“Back up, Amy, and toss the sticks over the ledge.”

She hesitated, just a moment, but complied.

“A little more, a little more. All right. Stop there. Excellent. Now, then.” Tenner smiled, half-squinting in the pedway’s shade. “There’s been something puzzling the hell out of me for the past few hours, and I get to find out what it is, right now.”

He paused and squinted in discomfort.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Tenner asked Scott.

“Huh?”

“Who are you?”

“You don’t know?”

Tenner shook his head and grimaced. “Nope. Time to ’fess up.”

Scott wavered. “A few months ago. You were down in Annapolis. You killed two friends of mine. Shot me in the back. Left me for dead.”

Tenner’s lips pursed in thought. “Woman and a guy? In the basement?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember you. I shot you dead,” Tenner hissed.

“You should’ve checked more carefully.”

“Why? Would’ve found out you were still breathing. I’d have put a bullet into you for certain if I’d known. Or worse. Probably worse. Holy shit,” he seethed with evil mirth. “That
was
you. Man, you owe me a thank you for not checking closer. You wouldn’t be here today.”

Scott held back a reply.

“So you healed up,” Tenner continued. “Got all better. Locked, loaded, and looking for revenge. Hm? Looking to even things up. Get some cutting time in. Took you a while. I’ve been here for a month or so.”

“Still found you,” Scott said through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, you did. Tough shit, ain’t it? I almost feel bad here.”

He smiled again, pale and sinister, and Scott knew he only had another second to live. He turned just a little toward his captor.

Right then, sounds drifted up from the stairwell. Tenner’s head flicked just enough to dislodge a large bead of blood welling up on his busted forehead and it slipped down into his eye, causing him to squint.

Scott ducked.

Tenner fired, the bullet grazing the top of Scott’s helmet with a frightening
pop
and whizzing off into the dark.

Scott tackled the man and drove him into the wall just to the right of the open doorway. Cackling, Tenner drove a knee into his gut and spiked an elbow to the back of his neck. Even with his Nomex gear and hockey vest, the blows made Scott gasp. Tenner pushed him back and snapped out a front kick that pistoned Scott backward. He hit the wall off-balanced and put his foot down, except there was nothing underneath him.

With the sharp sensation of tipping, Scott fell into the darkness of the stairwell.

Tenner came forward, paused in the doorway, and turned just as Amy gripped his vest and rolled backward, flipping him over her and landing him flat on his back. The impact stunned him and he lost his Glock, but his indignity at being manhandled in such a way galvanized him to roll over and get to his knees. He grabbed for his remaining gun. Awkwardly, his left hand pulled the weapon from his right hip. Amy walked toward him as he fumbled with the gun, correcting his grip.

Tenner almost got it a second before Amy spun and kicked it from his hand, sending the weapon spinning off into the sea of vermin.

“Ohh you––”

Bitch
, Tenner wanted to say, but Amy front-kicked him, sending him flying backward before scuttling to a stop on his ass. Once again he got to his knees, then his feet. His left hand found the hilt of his knife, and he jerked it free.

Amy came forward, her face dark and drawn, her hands in a fighter’s guard.

Tenner giggled. He was going to
so
enjoy impregnating her.

He lunged.

The knife never reached her. She caught the blow with both arms and twisted his wrist in a direction it was never meant to go, eliciting a half-scream, half-grunt from Tenner. He dropped the knife and she spun into him, whipping the point of her elbow across his jaw with wrecking-ball force. Tenner barely felt the thunderous barrage of fists from the woman after that, which backed him along the pedway. He thrust out his wrecked right arm, almost
shooing
her away, but she swatted it to one side before stepping into his guard and lacing her fingers behind his head.

“For Tickle,” he heard her say, before his head was pulled down to her upcoming knee, mashing them together like an egg hitting the floor. The impact unhinged his jaw and crumbled whatever facial bones were intact from his previous fight. She kneed him three more times––fast, punishing blows in devastating Muai Thai style—before finally releasing him.

Tenner collapsed in a heap, gasping, hurting, almost drunkenly bewildered.

Amy wasn’t finished.

Not by a long shot.

“For Sammy and Schaffer.” She stomped on the killer’s midsection, buckling him like a broken plank, before unloading a hammer of a fist straight to his jaw. Tenner’s eyes unfocused with the connection, and he trembled on the tiles. She soccer-kicked his ribs, and he didn’t react. On a whim, she took interest in his right ankle and crushed it under a boot heel. That caused him to shiver and whimper.

“That one’s for Vick,” she panted, looking around for a gun. She could’ve choked him to death, but she didn’t want to touch the killer anymore. Amy backed away from the human wreck on the pedway, with the intent of finding Scott’s shotgun and blowing Tenner’s head off.

“Amy,” Scott said, standing in the doorway with his shotgun and still wearing his ruined helmet. “The hell you doing?”

She stopped. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

“Just that,” she shrugged, “he murdered three people I knew. That other poor person we found in the street there. And maybe even Vick. I know you wanted to finish him off, but… I guess I wanted him more.”

Scott didn’t reply right away. “I guess you did. Don’t worry. I’m not upset.”

“Then give me that.”

“This?” He held up the weapon. “Why?”

“You know why.”

A current of blackness, deep and sparkling, whorled Tenner’s senses about like a rag doll held up to the sky. Voices came from beyond, the sounds elongated and without meaning. The sky, black and empty, reminded him that he was a god, a fucking
god
, and with that thought, summoned whatever power he had remaining in lifting his left hand to his chest. Tenner rolled onto his side and fumbled at his vest. He was a monstrous deity, death on two legs, and so much more than the physical pain laying fiery siege to his mind. He was… a
sun
god… and his power and death for the world lay clenched in his fist.

With a feeble breath, Tenner cocked back his good arm, not bothering to take aim at the mortal shit standing at the end of the pedway.

Willpower
alone
would direct his wrath.

Finding the strength to smile, Tenner rolled the grenade toward Amy and Scott.

In the pause of Amy’s last words, understanding what she wanted to do, Scott heard the wobbling rattle and saw the black thing rolling toward them, guided by the sloped edge of the pedway. Amy turned as Scott bolted by her. He didn’t know what it was, only that it came from Tenner’s spectral shape in the middle of the pedway.

And he kicked it back.

Too hard. The bauble flew across the gap between the two buildings and, for a split second, Scott lost sight of the thing. He heard it rattle off something solid, then glimpsed it drop to the floor in front of the open doorway on the opposite end of the pedway.

Before it exploded like a black sun.

Steel and concrete gave way like wet paper, and the pedway fell away from its moorings with a resounding shriek of metal and dust, before it slammed into the ground four levels below. The ceiling collapsed, pinching the ends of the structure into a V. The impact made the three figures still on the walkway tremble, fall, and finally slide down the sharply angled ramp.

Straight toward the rats.

Scott felt the ground go out from under him and he turned and flailed, letting go of the shotgun. He latched onto Amy’s leg and held her as they both slid toward the bottom. He screamed. Amy screamed and grabbed at a bent metal bar. Her outspread fingers slapped off the first one.

She hooked a second, before Scott’s weight pulled her down.

She missed the third entirely.

And snagged the fourth with both hands, halting their slide. Scott’s weight dragged on her for a few seconds before he grabbed at another bar and released her legs. He gazed up, meeting her wide eyes, and clung to the bar as if it were life itself.

Then they both looked down.

They’d stopped perhaps ten feet from the bottom.

Far enough away to watch.

Tenner’s side slammed into the base of the opposite building, where the roof and the floor squished together. Unfortunately it was his left side, and his own body weight pinned his arm beneath him. Dust coated his body and made him cough, and an awful ringing filled his ears. Disoriented, he twisted left then right, before realizing his arm was underneath him, feeling his fingers wriggle just past his ass. He lifted his chest off the shattered slab of concrete and looked up.

The first rat chomped into his nose with such ferocity that Tenner screamed as if his heart had been gouged from his chest. Two fastened onto his cheeks while another got a chunk of his ear. He twisted away with his free right arm, and the pain from ramming his useless hand into the ground turned it to fire. Rats swarmed up and over the rubble and foamed about his limbs. He pushed himself backward in an attempt to free his pinned left arm, just as a rush of rats dug into his destroyed ankle.
That
lit up his senses like a row of wailing klaxons. Flailing his pained white arm, he knocked the rats away from his face. Still in a deadly awkward position, he attempted to roll over and only partially succeeded. Rats piled on his body, enveloping him, biting
everywhere
, bypassing his body armor, and burrowing through to his flesh.
Seconds!
Tenner’s mind shrieked the word.

“Help me!” he screeched, as a rat’s jaws snapped onto his lower lip. More went for his throat. He swiped them away with his right hand and scooted his butt into the air, driving his shoulder into the furry wave overpowering him.

Teeth were gnashing down on his flesh all over.

“Help…” he managed to get out, the cry dying in his throat.

Then he remembered the grenades.

His death vest, and the one-yank pull system that would set them all off.

Rats bit at his ears, cheeks, and neck—he swiped those away quickly—and pushed himself back. He fumbled at his vest and looked down.

Tenner’s jaw dropped.

His left hand had almost been stripped to the bone. Even as he watched, rats clung and chewed on the tatters of remaining meat.