Morningside Fall (31 page)

“I know, baby.”

Surely it was pure coincidence. But moments later, the Weir below erupted in a truly appalling clamor, an evil cacophony of short barking bursts. Wren instantly clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Yet again, it was like no sound Cass had ever heard them make before. Even as she winced against the noise, her brain processed it all with the knowledge that Asher was behind it. And just as their strange call had become intelligible to her, this too she understood. It was the sound of a horrible mechanical laughter.

And she knew that Asher was mocking them. Taunting them. Toying with them, as was his way. Cass understood now. He wouldn’t breach the building. Not while the sun was up. He was content to keep them contained until dusk, when the full force of the Weir would be available.

Rage kindled in her heart. Not an explosive, violent anger, but a cold, hardened wrath. And as she cradled Wren’s head to her chest, she found herself no longer dreading the impending battle – but instead inviting it.

Sky was a patient man, but knowing his wife was downstairs with nothing but a couple of doors between her and all that trouble made every minute into a test of his will and focus. Everybody had their jobs to do. His was to watch all those Weir in the street below. It was
not
his job to worry. But, well, he
was
worried. He just had to trust his teammates to do their jobs the way they trusted him to do his.

When Gamble and the others finally returned to the roof, everyone huddled up near the middle, where Wick was. As he joined them, Sky hoped his relief at seeing his wife again wasn’t too obvious. The team always gave him grief over it, but never as much as Gamble did herself.

“Gettin’ close to go time,” Swoop said.

“Yep,” Finn answered.

It’d been about two and a half hours since Lil had sent her first message. They’d already gone over the plan multiple times, with multiple contingencies, but they talked it through again anyway. It all came down to basically the same thing. Swoop had rigged the fused front doors with a heavy charge, laid out to disintegrate a good portion of the entrance and turn it into a massive shotgun blast. After it detonated, Gamble, Swoop, Able, Finn, and Sky would kill as many Weir as they could, while Cass and Mouse carried Wick out, and Wren and Painter made a run for Lil and her people. After that, it was pretty much react and hope for the best.

Not much of a plan, really. But then Wick always said a plan was just a list of stuff that never happened anyway.

At that point, they’d all done everything they could to prepare. Now it was just sit and wait.

“I’m going back to my spot,” Sky said.

“Don’t get too comfy,” Gamble answered, and then winked at him. He gave her a little squeeze and returned to his position at the edge of the roof, smiling to himself. The wink had given her away. He hadn’t been the only one worried.

When Cass received Lil’s pim a few minutes later, a swirl of emotion came with it; relief that help was near tempered by the thought of what it would take to reach it. Cass steadied herself with a deep breath, and then signaled to Gamble and passed the message along.

“They’re about twenty minutes out.”

The team all started moving at once.

“Finn,” Gamble said. “They close enough to hook in to the secure channel?”

“Yeah, probably, I’d guess.”

“Patch Lil in so we can talk to her.”

“Check.”

“And go ahead and loop our principals in while you’re at it,” Gamble said, glancing over at Cass. “This would be a bad time for communication to break down.”

A few moments later Cass responded to a connection request and found herself tied in to the team’s secure comms channel. Finn quickly talked her through it; it wasn’t much different than pimming, though the voices were tinny and had a little static to them. Much lower resolution than normal, and significant compression. Standing next to someone, she could hear a tiny delay between their real voice and the one through the channel. Cass guessed it all helped reduce their signature in the open, and maybe had additional layers of encryption.

“Alright, let’s get Wick loaded up,” Gamble said. “We’ll move into position in five.”

Mouse had already assembled his emergency litter, and he worked with Finn to get Wick transferred and strapped into it. Wick didn’t make any jokes about it, and didn’t put up any fuss, which worried Cass a great deal. While everyone else was making ready, she pulled Gamble aside.

“Let me go out first,” Cass said.

“Out of the question,” Gamble replied immediately.

“Gamble–”

“Cass, it’s not up for discussion. We’ve got a plan, we’re sticking to it.” Gamble turned to walk away, but Cass reached out and caught her arm. She gripped tighter than was strictly necessary.

Gamble looked down at Cass’s hand and then back up into her eyes. “I thought we covered this, Cass. Out here, I call the shots.”

“You don’t know what you’re up against, Gamble,” Cass said. “And you don’t know me. Not really.” Cass released Gamble’s arm, but she didn’t back down. “Asher will come for me, no matter what. If I go to him, it’ll give you time to gain some distance. You transfer Wick to Lil’s people, and then you’re back up to almost full strength. I can fall back to you then, and you can pick off the pursuit.”

“They’ll tear you to pieces, Cass. I can’t allow that.”

“I’m not going to let anyone else die for me,” Cass answered. “Not anymore.”

Gamble continued to stare her down, but Cass could see the wheels spinning.

“I’m not going to convince you otherwise, am I?” Gamble said.

“No.”

“And you’re not going to recognize my authority on this, are you?”

“No.”

“Should I even bother to offer you the jitter?”

“And the knife,” Cass said.

Gamble handed her the jittergun and slid the knife out of its sheath. It had a thick, heavy blade, nearly a foot long, and curving slightly forward. There were symbols etched along it, though Cass didn’t recognize them. Gamble flipped the knife in her hand and held the hilt out towards Cass. “This has been in my family a long time,” Gamble said. “I want it back.”

“I’ll deliver it myself,” Cass said. “Though I might need to clean it first.”

“See that you do.”

“Change of plans, boys,” Gamble called. She gave a curt nod, and then went to explain the new plan to the others.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cass saw Wren was standing off to the side, looking at her. She went to him, crouched down to his height.

“I thought you were going to carry Wick,” he said.

“I’m going to help a different way now,” she answered.

“I don’t like it when you fight, Mama.”

“I know.”

“It won’t be like usual.”

“I know.”

Wren looked at her with his fathomless eyes, weary and sad. But Cass saw no fear there. “I’ll help you if I can,” he said.

“You just run to Lil, baby. I’ll come to you when I can.”

He nodded, and then approached and wrapped his arms tightly around her neck. She hugged him back with everything she had. And hoped it wasn’t goodbye.

Afterwards, they all gathered their things. Swoop had stripped out some of the weight from their packs. It seemed a shame to leave perfectly good supplies behind, on the roof, outside a Weir-infested enclave, where no one would ever find them. But it seemed far more foolish to risk someone’s life over a couple of extra batteries.

They moved down to just inside the hall on the second floor. Gamble and the others had taken the time to check the rooms on that floor on their last trip down. Even that was closer to the blast than Swoop was comfortable with, but it was safe enough, and Gamble didn’t want to risk giving the Weir too much time to recover after the initial explosion. If they got stalled trying to get out of the door, that would be bad news.

Painter had taken over Cass’s spot carrying Wick, and Mouse had put him in the front, near Wick’s feet. Whether that was because it was the light end or because it would be less risky if Painter dropped him, Cass didn’t know. Able had taken charge of Wren, and would ensure that he made it safely to Lil.

Swoop and Gamble stood just behind Cass.

Lil called in and let them know they were a couple of minutes out. They were going to stay out of sight until the initial blast. No one was sure how the Weir were going to react once they showed up, and Cass wanted to make sure that the bulk of the fighting didn’t fall on them. As far as she was concerned, they were here to get Wren out, and as much of the team as they could. If they all made it, she’d consider that a bonus.

“Ready?” Swoop asked.

Cass gripped the knife in her right hand and the jittergun in her left. She drew a deep breath. Focused her mind. Asher was out there. Waiting. However many of them there were, they were all Asher to her.

“Do it,” Cass said.

“Fire in the hole, fire in the hole,” Swoop said calmly, just loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear. He squeezed a device in his hand three times, and then hell itself seemed to shake the building.

Dust leapt from every surface, and bits of concrete crumbled down the stairwell. Even two floors up, the blast vibrated Cass’s teeth and made her ears hurt. But there was no time to think. Swoop banged her on the shoulder with the palm of his hand, signaling for her to go, and Cass took off.

All anxiety melted away as she felt the surge of focus. She was on the ground floor without having registered taking the stairs.

Down the hall ahead of her was an opaque white and grey smoke, swirling where she knew a door once stood. Cass plunged through, heard the crunch of debris beneath her feet and knew she was through the front room and then out into the open. The smoke was dissipating in the steady wind, just enough for her to start making out the charred, twisted, and broken forms of the Weir who’d been caught in the blast.

For a brief moment, she wondered if – by some miracle – the explosion had killed them all. The hope was quickly dispelled by an electric scream from somewhere in the smoke ahead of her. They were coming.

The first Weir leapt from out of the smoke in front of her, just to her right, and Cass spun to avoid it and fired a burst from the jittergun into its back as it landed. A second lunged from her left, and she met it with a cleaving stroke from the knife, dropping it at her feet.

She could see them now, lurching through the cloud towards her, two here, three there, and a fury overtook her. She fired one burst, then another, and then leapt forward and drove her knee into the chest of an approaching Weir, before severing its head from its body. The knife flashed almost of its own accord, perfectly balanced, deadly with every stroke.

Weir closed in from the sides, and she met them head on, smashing her fist into one’s face and then whirling to shoot another. To her surprise, they seemed to be moving at almost half-speed, and Cass found herself anticipating their movements. One crouched back as if to pounce, and Cass stomped forward, crushing her heel into its face before it even started forward.

A quick spin and she took a leg just below the knee, and then came up and caught another Weir in the throat with the muzzle of the jitter. She squeezed the trigger as it stumbled back and didn’t even bother to watch it fall.

The smoke continued to clear as Cass pressed forward, cutting her way through the throng. Her thoughts flashed back, back to the night, long ago, in the Strand when she’d fought among them, with a different result. Now, her full fury and vengeance coursed through her and into the Weir who could not stand before her.

But still they came, and where one fell, two soon took its place. As the air cleared around Cass, she saw that the blast had killed many and left others stunned. But she had little time to count casualties. The Weir were gathering their strength, and unity of purpose.

Cass felt the sting of claws sinking into her left shoulder, followed by a heavy impact from behind that sent her stumbling forward. She allowed the momentum to carry her, rolled, came up in a crouch and drove her blade into a Weir. Fired a long burst into the mass that rushed towards her now. And when she released the trigger, still they fell.

She leapt to her feet and spun to take the arm from the Weir who had been behind her, and then on the backswing, crushed its skull with the pommel of her blade. Cass continued her spin and brought the jittergun up, knowing the other Weir would be nearly upon her.

She fired off a burst, and then another, and found herself with more breathing room than she’d expected. Then she understood. Gamble and her team were out now, assisting.

Cass plunged forward, throwing herself into the nearest pack of Weir, trusting in the team that supported her. But as she fought on, she found the Weir rapidly changing tactics. They began to coalesce around her, feinting and falling back from one side, and instantly surging forward from another. Before Cass could react, she found herself being swallowed up and driven further away from her companions.

The Weir began landing more strikes, her cheek, her back, her thigh bled freely. Even as Cass adjusted, they now seemed to anticipate and counter her every move. Their shrieks threatened to disorient her. As they pressed in around her, she knew her only chance was to focus all her wrath on a single point, to drive through the crush.

Cass, fired her jittergun, slashing with her knife, forcing her way back towards the building, back to where Gamble and the team were. But in the churn, she’d lost her bearings, and the writhing horde blocked her view. She took a heavy blow to the left side of her head, and the world tilted, and Cass felt herself sliding, crashing through glass and barbed wire. She was on the ground. On her back. And for the second time in her life, she
knew
she would die.

With a roar, Cass squeezed the trigger and held it so hard she thought her knuckle might break as the jittergun spewed a stream of death into the tide of Weir that surged towards her. And then – above the demonic cries of the Weir and the buzzsaw scream of her weapon – Cass heard the strangest sound.

A single clear note, high and piercing, like the wind in a winter storm. A human voice. Singing.

And at its sound, the Weir checked their advance. Cass continued to fire into the Weir until she realized that the jittergun had ceased to buzz, and now made only a rapid clicking sound as it tried to feed from an empty magazine.

Strong hands seized her from behind as three forms swept past her and into the Weir. A swirling, almost blinding blue-white light emanated from the three as they moved among the Weir and cut them down with swords that seemed made of fire.

Cass felt herself slipping away, and everything grew smaller, and darker. And the last thing that Cass beheld was a terrifying vision. One of the three forms turned her direction, and its face was of lightning – with blazing coals for eyes, an avenging angel among ravaging demons. And Cass knew no more.