Into the Fire (34 page)

For a moment we both just stood there facing each other, each desperately trying to get air back into our lungs, locked eye to eye, then suddenly she sprang into life again, trying another kick, only this time, I guess 'cuz she was tiring, when she landed, she slipped and almost went over. I didn't waste any energy retaliating, just concentrated on avoiding what else she was throwing, and she got this triumphant look about her, like she thought it was all over. However, she was a bit premature.

I played along with it—the notion that I was utterly spent—puffing and panting, doubling over, and sure enough, she moved in for the kill. She leapt at me again, her foot slicing through the air like a blade, this time managing to catch me on the chest, but again when she hit the floor, she looked a little unsteady. I stumbled back toward the wall with her eagerly chasing after me. I'd noticed this high-pressure hose behind me, presumably another instrument of torture, and as she leapt into the air again, expecting to strike the final blow, I moved faster than I could've imagined myself capable of: grabbing the hose and turning it on, training it on her, and just as I hoped, she lost all balance and sprawled out on the wet floor. Before she could recover, I leaped on her and got the hose around her neck, pulling as tightly as I could, watching the fury in those wasteland eyes glazing over as she fought for breath.

I guess those Specials were under orders that as a last resort they were allowed to intervene, 'cuz two of them ran over and tried to wrestle me off her, and when they couldn't, a third hit me over the
head with something really heavy. I fell forward but still somehow managed to scramble over toward the laser lodged in the bottom of the air-conditioning unit; no one had retrieved it. I'd just about got my hand around it when I felt this real hard kick, like my nerve system had been punctured, and I knew someone had stunned me.

I was just lying there convulsing when suddenly I felt this wild force lift me up and throw me across the room. Jeez, I tell ya, I'm not exactly a lightweight, but I flew over there like a tin roof in a hurricane: twisting and turning until I thudded up against the wall. I tried to scramble up, but not only were my nerve ends arcing, the pain of the impact was somehow tangling with them and I slumped back to the floor, helplessly listening to the approach of those slurping footsteps.

Icy-blue eyes stared down at me, inspecting me for damage, and plainly she wasn't satisfied yet 'cuz she kicked me so hard my body skipped across the floor like a pebble over a pond. Again I slammed up against the wall, my shoulder feeling like it might've been dislocated. Jesus, she was going to reduce me to nothing but red slush and sinewy slime.

Lena started screaming out in protest again, struggling, a couple of Specials doing their best to hold her, everyone else was just dodging out of the way whenever I was thrown or kicked in their direction. Gigi and Dr. Simon were in the corner; he was kinda cowering, turning his face away as if refusing to watch, while her eyes were darting around the room, I guessed looking for a way to escape.

Those terrifying arms kept reaching for me over and over, and everywhere she threw me my blood appeared to be already there, and each time the light inside me dimmed a little more. She grabbed me again, with a power, a finality, that made me think she'd had enough, that she felt the time had come to bring this fucking performance to an end. Lifting me right over her head, she gave out with this cry of victory, ready to toss me across the room, to smash me up against the wall one last time, and I knew that would be it: that my body couldn't take any more.

I was aware of being pulled back as if I was about to be catapulted through the air, then there was a sudden gasp, a groan, like
some great tree being felled, and Nora Jagger's body tumbled to the floor with mine on top of it.

I stirred, tried to get up, but heard the hum of a power-pack and realized there was a fire-fight going on. The two Specials who'd been holding Lena were lying on the ground not far from me, apparently shot, while she'd somehow managed to slide away behind a bench. It didn't leave me with a great deal of choice; I just stayed where I was, taking cover behind Nora Jagger's body, those limbs that had battered me moments ago now offering me a measure of protection. But I just didn't get. What the hell was going on? Who was firing? And most of all,
who'd killed Nora Jagger?

There was more shooting, another Special went down and the remaining one decided to make a run for it.

I stayed where I was for a few moments, ensuring it was safe, then slowly peered out from behind the body of Nora Jagger.

I don't know who I expected to see—Jimmy or Gordie maybe? Even Hanna? But the only person in sight was Gigi, hesitantly emerging from behind the air-conditioning unit, my laser in her hand.

“What the hell?” I uttered, trying to struggle up, my pain causing me to helplessly lock halfway.

Gigi gave me a hand, straightened me up, made sure I could stand. “Never trust a double agent,” she told me, slipping the laser into my pocket, like she wanted to confirm she was on my side.

I still didn't understand, but it obviously wasn't the time for explanations.

“Clancy!” Lena called, emerging from hiding. “Are you okay?”

Actually, I wasn't: I had a mass of cuts and bruises, I could barely move my arm, and my kneecaps felt like they'd been granulated. Nevertheless, I still nodded. “You?”

“I'm fine,” she replied, ignoring the fact that she'd just collided heavily with the wall.

“What about the baby?”

She couldn't help herself; even amongst everything that was going on she briefly laughed at my conventionality. “Let's go,” she
said, like we had other, far more immediate, things to worry about. “Can you walk?”

I had to lean on her a bit, leaving the odd smear of blood on her clothing, but we managed. Gigi retrieved the lasers of the dead Specials, beckoning Dr. Simon out from his hiding place under a bed. He emerged looking pale and shaken, staring at the mayhem around him, yet still insisting on tucking in his shirt and straightening his tie.

We didn't have to say anything to him; he knew he was coming with us whether he wanted to or not. As we left the room I took a quick glance back at the body of Nora Jagger still lying on the floor, surrounded by all her instruments of torture, slain in her palace of pain. It was so hard to believe that someone like her, so formidable, so full of evil energy, should die in such simple fashion. And yet, maybe there was a kind of justice in it: shot in the back by a kid she thought she had in her pocket.

I took a few uncomfortable steps along the corridor and then stopped.

“What's the matter?” Lena asked. “Clancy!” she protested, when I hobbled back to the ward.

“Just a second,” I told her.

I don't know why I did it—something must've provoked me, but I just wanted to take another look, to be absolutely sure that monster was dead. But d'you know something? While I was standing there, staring at that prone body, one of her damn legs started twitching . . .
Jesus!
It frightened the hell out of me! And just to prove I hadn't imagined it, it did it again! However those limbs worked, they apparently hadn't entirely shut down. It gave me the creeps, like they had a life of their own, and I took out my laser and zapped her body a couple more times.

“Clancy!” Lena called impatiently, obviously wondering what the hell I was doing, and I turned and shuffled after her, having to steady myself for a moment on the doorframe, a sharp pain shooting down my leg.

Dr. Simon led us to an elevator that took us down to the basement and what turned out to be the executive transport area.

There were a couple of Specials there, but Gigi took them by surprise before they could even draw their weapons. Just in that moment it went through my head how easy it all was again: shooting people—taking lives—and that I still regarded it as wrong.

“There's a side door,” the doc told us, pointing to the far corner.

“Really?” I said, my attention distracted by his limo parked nearby.

“No—
no!
” he started, already guessing what I was thinking. “Not my car!”

“Sorry, Doc, I can't walk that far,” I told him, directing him toward the limo with my laser, guessing it would need his voice activation to unlock.

No matter how battered my body felt, how painful some of its moves, I had no choice but to drive. The only other driver was the doc and we weren't likely to trust him. Lena sat next to me, ready to help if needed, while Gigi sat in the back, obviously taking a certain amount of pleasure in keeping her laser trained on Doc Simon in case he had another rush of blood and tried to stop us.

What the hell had happened back there? I just didn't know. Had Gigi been working for Nora Jagger all along, setting us up with those messages she left? It even went through my head that it was her to blame for Infinity rolling over the church, and that maybe she'd been responsible for what happened with Ray. Then again, she did try to warn us—and for sure, she couldn't have been any more discouraging about our attempts at getting into Infinity. Maybe her loyalties had been split, and seeing Nora Jagger hit Lena, then on the point of killing me, had finally decided her? Or perhaps it'd always been about assassinating that woman and this was just the culmination of her plan? She did say she was a “double agent.”

I didn't know, and right at that moment, I didn't care. The main thing was she came good in the end. I'd ask her sometime, when the time was right—that was, if we ever got out of Infinity.

I didn't know what I expected to see when the garage doors slid open, but as we paused at the top of the ramp what we got was mayhem and madness. Jimmy must've really messed with the growlers' programming 'cuz those things were
everywhere
, attacking anyone they saw, running in packs from one place to another the moment they registered any kinda movement.

From where we were it looked like most of the Specials had taken refuge in the main building—waiting for someone to rectify the malfunction, I guessed. But over by the main gate there were people trapped in the office and a real battle was going on. I could see Specials firing out the windows, trying to destroy the growlers, but though they were getting hit over and over, not many were being put out of action. Damaged growlers had started sharing their parts with each other, rebuilding, and even as we watched, three-legged ones were getting going again, picking themselves up and resuming their siege of the office.

I looked up to the roof, expecting to see the Dragonflies, figuring they were the only thing that might contain growlers, but it looked like there'd been some kind of accident—one was actually hanging precariously over the edge, and it was stopping all the others taking off.

Specials on the ground floor of the main building were leaning out of windows, firing at growlers, then dodging back inside when they got too near. In a way it was the defining moment of the whole conflict: all those growlers massing outside, making a hell of a noise, snarling and snapping, unable to get in, while those in the building were unable to neutralize them.

It was a stalemate—or it sure looked like it—but one of the growlers had other ideas. It was almost like he'd reasoned it out: suddenly he ran full-pelt at a window, smashing his way through and bounding in amongst the people inside, creating chaos, dragging screaming Infinity staff to the floor. And the moment that growler succeeded, others did the same. I guess there was some kind of organic programming going on, where they learned from each other, 'cuz within seconds growler after growler was running at the windows and smashing their way in.

“Oh my God!” Lena moaned, her voice jarring me into action. I turned in the direction of the gates, steering mainly with one hand, moving as silently and sedately as I could, hoping the growlers wouldn't notice us, but we hadn't gone more than twenty or thirty yards before there was a thud at the back and I knew we were under attack.

I pulled up the exterior cameras to see a pack of half a dozen or more growlers around us. Several of them were repeatedly running headlong at the vehicle, head-butting it, trying to smash their way in, while others were sinking their jaws into whatever they could, chomping down with those razor-sharp rows of teeth, trying to rip bits off. I thanked God that limo was reinforced, bullet- and laser-proofed, but the truth was, in places it was already starting to look like they were getting the better of it. One of them got a hold of the fender, crunched it in its huge jaws and ripped off a whole section of bodywork.

“
My limo!
” Dr. Simon wailed.

“You gotta damn sight more to worry about than that,” I told him as I swerved around a growler, the pain in my shoulder causing me to cry out.

“Clancy?” Lena started.

“It's okay,” I told her, though the truth was, I was feeling just that bit faint.

There was this awful scratching, scraping noise and I looked out to see several of the growlers had got their jaws firmly into the bodywork, their legs locked, and with sparks flying from their metallic feet, were doing their best to drag us to a halt. I had to jam my foot down just to maintain our speed, the pain in my leg lancing down to my toes, seemingly impaling me to the floor.

I glanced across at Lena, checking she was holding up okay, her face like day-old ashes, and in that precise moment there was an explosion in my ear, and a growler came through my side window.

I hit the brakes, screeching to a halt with the damn thing actually wriggling away in my lap, its eyes flashing, those huge jaws snapping at everything—
Jesus, I thought that glass was supposed to be
unbreakable!
Somehow I managed to reach through the pain barrier to grab its head with my damaged arm and, hugging it to my laser, shot it at point-blank range—it was taking a risk in such a confined space, but I had no other choice.