Damn Him to Hell (14 page)

Steel doors. Andre had prepared for an invasion. How did he know these things? Or was he really that paranoid?

“Tim, you with us?” I cried as we ran the gurney down the tunnel to join the others.

No reply. Terrified for the little brother I’d never had, I prayed he had the sense to find a good hiding place. I tried to reassure myself that Tim could stay invisible for a really long time—but Acme would love to get their hands on him if they discovered what he was.

I heard the troopers beating at the steel door—followed by a muted explosion and automatic rifle fire as they tried to blow it open.

A
ndre’s arsenal! While Julius rushed ahead to the bomb shelter and his wife, I stumbled down the tunnel looking for the door I’d seen Andre use.

I wasn’t a trained soldier. But I’d die protecting Andre’s mother and a woman who could damn all of Baltimore to perdition. The med student, a few zombies, and I were the only obstacles left between the concealed bomb shelter and armed thugs.

That justice gene is a real pain. I found the weapons closet.

The steel door at the top of the stairs buckled but didn’t crash in.

I really wanted one of those old rifles from the westerns. I’d watched enough that I was familiar with their
use. I didn’t even know how to turn on an AK-47. Or if they had switches to turn them on. Color me clueless.

I flashed my light inside the closet, and my eyes bulged at the extent of Andre’s secret cache. Andre was simply not right in the head.

He had
grenades
. Even I knew how grenades worked. I did not know how much they’d blow up, however. I could bring the whole tunnel down.

Milo fought his way out of my bag while I stared in dismay at the array of assorted death beams. He knocked over a few rifles and a shelf of handguns, then dashed after Julius. The med student continued to shove his patients out of the line of fire.

“Go get ’em, tiger,” I called softly after my cat, praying he was fetching Andre as he had in the past.

Then I grabbed a rifle and checked for bullets—it was loaded, thank goodness, since I had no idea what kind of ammunition it took. I had time to hunt for a safety lock, line up more rifles on the wall beside me, and tuck a handgun into my waistband. I would probably shoot myself before I shot anyone else, but with all those innocent people behind me, I knew I would go down fighting.

I had too much adrenaline flooding my brain to think straight. I debated visualizing a lion on the flatbed, but hungry lions might find me a better snack than troopers in bulletproof vests. Besides, I didn’t want a beast shot in my defense. Damn, this was difficult.
Focus, Clancy
.

It was liking trying to take a law test with a blood alcohol content of .25.

Wondering if self-defense counted as justice, I frantically pictured a stone wall between me and the soldiers. Before I was ready, the steel door burst open and a volley of automatic rifle fire shot puffs of dirt and old concrete at my feet.

They were shooting at comatose patients! Not to mention me. Red rage colored my vision.

Pieces of concrete bit into my bare legs. Their bullets were real. Panicked and furious, I started firing. For all I knew, bullets bounced off the advancing troops. They kept on coming. “
Damn you to
—”

I hadn’t finished my curse before I was shoved aside. I landed in a heap on my butt while Andre grabbed one of the hulking big automatics from the closet.

Automatic fire in a tunnel isn’t fun. I wanted to send them all to hell, but now that I’d been abruptly interrupted mid-curse, I realized the penalty for using it might be worse than dying. I didn’t know that those guys were evil, or even guilty enough to justify a death penalty. Damn. For all I knew, they thought
we
were the criminals. Making these kinds of life-or-death decisions calcified my brain.

Hunkering down on the cold floor of the closet, nursing my bleeding wounds while a shirtsleeved Andre battled half a dozen soldiers, I got focused. I closed my eyes and pictured a rain of bullets and rocks and dead rats falling on the bastards. Better to scare them into heart attacks than to give the devil his due. Or end up in a wheelchair. Or hell.

A low rumble forced my eyes open again, and I gaped at the sight at the end of the tunnel.

Miraculously—or maybe not quite miraculously, given the echoing rounds of gunfire—the tunnel ceiling was cracking, shedding clouds of dust and rumbling like thunder. The troops stopped firing and threw nervous glances over their heads. Before they could retreat, the roof caved in, and a cloud of dust and rock filled the far end of the passage.

I stared, wondering if I was seeing a burial ground. Had
I
caused that?

Looking blurred around the edges and sleep-deprived, Andre froze in place, watching to see if anyone crawled out of the rubble. I’d never been so glad to see someone in my life—my soldier warrior. And I had to send him away.

“Tim and Paddy and more patients still in the warehouse!” I shouted over the screams and sounds of falling rock. I didn’t think a rat could squeeze through that avalanche of debris. “I’ll keep watch here.”

Andre nodded, threw a second weapon over his shoulder, and raced back the way he’d come.

To my surprise, when I glanced back, Schwartz had joined him. I doubted if Studly Do-Right approved of illegal weapon caches, but he took the gun Andre shoved at him and followed him back into the well-lit bomb shelter.

I leaned against the wall, watching the dust settle. I held a rifle and pretended I was Wyatt Earp and knew how to use the damned thing.

The screams had stopped. I had no idea if I’d actually hit anyone with bullets or rocks or dead rats. Notice I didn’t conjure live ones. When I focus, I really focus.

I conjured an avalanche
. I was a menace to society and to myself. I shivered, watching the dust settle and wondering if we’d find dead bodies under there.

Maybe all those years of watching westerns had rotted my brains. Maybe I really thought I could produce justice just by wishing. Or by shooting someone, which is what they mostly did in westerns.

I didn’t want to shoot people or end up in a wheelchair. I’d hated being lame. With my arms crossed over my bent knees, I buried my face and tried to control my breathing. I wanted to be a lawyer, maybe a judge. Vigilante justice would not accomplish that. It was far more likely to land me in jail.

I might have shot a man today. I’d certainly intended to. Of course, I’d almost sent them all to perdition. They could have families. I had no way of knowing if they were really bad guys. As in any war, the enemy was just faceless strangers in funny suits. They’d probably been told national security was at stake. So they were stupider than me. Didn’t matter. They shouldn’t have to die for someone else’s war.

It was just too easy to react, much harder to think and do what was right.
Why me, Saturn?
I mentally screamed.
I want rulebooks or I’m not doing this anymore!

No one burst out of the rock heap in an attempt to reach us. The red-haired med student eventually poked his head out from wherever he’d been hiding. Once he’d ascertained he wouldn’t be shot, he kneeled down to check my bloody legs.

“Need to clean these out, but I don’t think you’ve been shot,” was his assessment.

I didn’t know if I should risk sending him with the patients to Andre’s now less-than-secret bomb shelter. We’d left all the IVs in the warehouse, so he couldn’t do much. I counted six gurneys down here. We’d left four behind, including Officer Leibowitz’s. Tim’s doing, I was sure. He had managed to rescue Nancy Rose, but he despised Leibowitz.

I handed the student my rifle. “If you’ve been in Afghanistan, you know how to use this better than I do. Shoot any rats coming over that wall.”

He checked the closet and found an automatic more to his liking. I left him to it.

There was no point in asking his name, much as I appreciated his aid. He was normal. I wasn’t. He’d go on to lead a wealthy suburban life. I was tied to the Zone in ways even I couldn’t understand. I needed familiar boundaries and people who accepted my weirdnesses.

In the bomb shelter, Julius was with Sarah and Katerina. He had turned almost as gray as Andre. He was a genial, gentle man. He shouldn’t be exposed to this shit. I hugged him briefly, just because, and he hugged me back before shoving me away.

“Keep an eye on Andre,” he said urgently. “He’s reached his limit.”

Okay, that was the second time today I’d been warned to look after the King of Cool. Except he wasn’t so cool lately. I didn’t really want to know what Andre’s limit was. I nodded and trotted off, not
certain what to do next. Visualizing a helicopter to Hades probably wasn’t justified, but I thought I heard it still hovering. Andre and Leo were out there somewhere, waiting to take it down.

Milo met me in Andre’s kitchen. I picked him up and hugged him and let the sadness roll over me.

Maybe I should have kept the rifle. But visions of me shooting everyone who crossed my path while shouting
Damn you!
kind of put me off on gun toting. The tunnel collapse had been horrifying. I wanted to shut out the memory. I still didn’t know if I’d killed anyone.

I’d probably stand a better chance of not joining Satan if I stuck to commandments like “Thou shalt not kill.” My mother hadn’t brought me up in church, but I liked to read, and the Bible had acquired the status of an important, forbidden book in my rebellious youth.

Once I was upstairs, I heard the helicopter clearly. I’d lived in a lot of places but none of them had ever been a war zone, so I couldn’t distinguish between hovering and taking off.

Cautiously, hanging on to Milo, I watched out the front window. The big porch prevented me from seeing the sky. Andre and Schwartz could be anywhere, but the warehouse would be their goal. I studied the seemingly vacant block of buildings across the street. Not a sign of life inside.

I’d been drugged and kidnapped a few months ago. I had no burning desire to put myself in the unpleasant path of danger again by going outside to see more.
On the theory that this house had an attic like Pearl’s, I jogged up the stairs, past Tim and Julius’s apartments, to an open door. I stepped into an infirmary more modern than the one in the tunnel—Sleeping Beauty’s abode, I assumed.

I set Milo down to explore. Not wanting to leave a trail of blood across the pristine floor, I took advantage of the hospital-like facilities. I hastily washed my legs, wincing as I applied alcohol on my way to the balcony.

Unlike Paddy’s hideaway, this attic was completely finished, with skylights and murals on the walls. Sun flooded in through French doors adorned with lacy curtains. They’d certainly provided Katerina with a happier abode than the usual nursing home.

With my legs pocked like the victims of a bad razor, I stepped onto the balcony and scrutinized the scene below. Two unmarked white vans rolled down the narrow alley behind the warehouses—did they carry the patients we couldn’t rescue? Milo wrapped himself around my ankles and kept silent watch with me.

I clenched the rail in alarm at the sight of two figures covertly working their way along the flat roof of an empty store on the far side of the warehouse. I glanced up, but the helicopter was well away.

If that was Andre and Schwartz, they were prepared to tackle any army left behind.

I wanted to believe the troops had departed with the helicopter and vans, but I wasn’t willing to wager my life—or Andre’s or Schwartz’s life. If there were
soldiers left in the warehouse, I didn’t know them, couldn’t see them, and couldn’t visualize them into another dimension. But I really disliked the idea of Andre being involved in another shoot-out.

And Paddy and Julius were telling me to keep him from killing anyone. I didn’t know what was with that, but I was on board.
No killing
. I needed to clear the warehouse of enemy soldiers before anyone got hurt.

Just as my brain started to create an olfactory bomb of every nasty smell I could recollect, the plate-glass windows and front door of the warehouse burst into the street from the force of camouflaged troops crashing through them. A second later, the building went boom.

Oh, hell. Oh, shit
. Frantically, I switched gears to protective mode. How could I save anyone from a bomb?

Remembering the pink iceberg I’d created to protect Ernesto, I pictured a safety shield between Schwartz and Andre and the exploding warehouse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do two things at once. While I tried to protect Andre and Schwartz from erupting bricks and boards, the troops rushed straight across the street—to the house where I was standing.

I had no idea if the shield trick had worked. All I knew was that Andre and Schwartz had disappeared, and the menacing troops aroused a rage so red that it might explode my skull.

They’d blown up my friends!

No more doubt about guilt or innocence. I wanted
to crush soldiers. I considered opening up the street to bury the enemy, only the med student and patients were in the tunnel under their feet. I tried imagining a wall dropping down around the house but nothing happened.