Stormwind (The Storm Chronicles Book 3) (13 page)

Raven and Levac watched the heavy-set man walk away with his entourage of technicians. As they disappeared around the corner Raven pulled out her phone and called the District. Within a few minutes she had an address for Diarmait, but Judge Hastey didn’t think they had enough evidence for a warrant.

“What do we do now?” Levac asked.

Raven shrugged and turned toward the doors. “We don’t have a warrant. I’m therefore going to go visit the guy anyway.”

Levac made a face. “Ray…”

Raven held open the door. “I promise not to shoot anyone unless I have to. Are you coming or what?”

“Since you ask so nicely,” Levac said, ducking under Raven’s arm.

Raven laughed and joined Levac on the sidewalk. It had gotten warmer as the pink-tinted sun had risen higher in the sky, but the west wind was still blowing, keeping the heat at a comfortable level. She slipped on her sunglasses and glared at the sun. The color still unnerved her. What made it more annoying was that she didn’t know why it gave her the creeps. It was just an atmospheric phenomenon; she had learned about it in school. There was no reason for it to bother her, yet it did.

She shook her head and followed Levac down the sidewalk to where they’d parked the Shelby. She had just turned the ignition key when the radio squawked. Levac picked up the mic and adjusted the radio for better reception.

“Was that a call for officer assistance?” Raven asked, backing the Shelby into the street.

“Yeah, not too far from here,” Levac replied.

He then spoke into the microphone. “X-ray forty-two responding 10-1.”

“Roger, X-ray. You and Raven be careful, it sounds bad,” the dispatcher responded. “One officer is down, several more are trying to get to him.”

Raven pressed the gas causing the Shelby to fishtail and leave burnt rubber on the pavement. Next to her, Levac switched on the police lights and siren before buckling on his seatbelt.

The black muscle car growled through back alleys and side streets; Raven had decided to take the back way rather than fight her way through traffic. Within minutes the car was entering an area now known as the Scorched Earth. It was one of the parts of the city that had been burned by Xavier’s dark magik. Most everyone living in the buildings had been killed to fuel Strohm’s resurrection and the city hadn’t been able to afford to rebuild the old tenement buildings. Since then, squatters, drug dealers, and worse had moved into the charred buildings turning it into one of the most dangerous parts of the city, rivaling The Dark as a place no one wanted to go.

Raven pulled the Shelby to a stop behind a group of squad cars blocking an intersection that was already partially choked by debris from a crumbling apartment building. Raven looked at the charred and melted area and felt a twinge of guilt for what her brother had done. It had been his fault, to be sure, but she often went to bed wondering if she could have done more to stop him.

The two detectives got out of the car and Levac went to the rear of the vehicle and popped the trunk to don his bullet-proof vest. Raven drew her Automag and joined the officers taking cover behind their squad cars.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

One of the older officers glanced at Raven. “Who are you?”

“Detective Storm. Homicide,” she replied. “Now give me a sit rep.”

The officer frowned, but jerked his head at a partially burned structure down the street. “There are at least ten gunmen in that building. They’re hiding out up there with assault weapons, grenades and God knows what else. Vinnie was responding to a call when they shot the hell out of his patrol car. So far we haven’t been able to get to him.”

Raven leaned sideways and glanced around the side of the patrol car. A bleeding patrolman was hiding behind a chunk of building that had fallen into the street. Bullets from the building across the street periodically ricocheted off the cement, making it smaller and smaller.

“We have to get him out of there,” Levac said behind her.

Raven’s eyes never left the injured officer. “Rupe, get the smoke and the Mp5 from the Shelby.”

“What are you going to do?” the patrolman asked.

“Save that kid before he gets shot to death,” Raven replied.

“That’s suicide!” the patrolman said.

Levac hurried off and Raven turned her green-eyed glare on the patrolman. “Shut up. Until someone else shows up, you take your orders from me. And I say I’m saving that kid. All you have to do is say ‘yes ma’am’ and cover me. Got it?”

The officer frowned in annoyance, but he turned back toward the gunmen, his revolver ready.

Levac returned in short order with a pair of smoke grenades and a SWAT-issue Mp5 loaded with total metal jacket ammunition. He handed one of the grenades to Raven and together they tossed them into the street near the downed patrolman. Levac then took up position at the back of the car as bullets ricocheted off the pavement and punched nickel-sized holes in the vehicle.

Raven watched from behind cover. Seconds ticked by as the street filled with smoke, offering a sort of cover.

“Alright, gentlemen, keep those guys busy while I get the kid.”

She was moving even before they started firing. She slid over the hood of the car, rolled and ran. Behind her, the patrolmen and Levac began firing, making the gunmen keep their heads down. Raven heard a grunt behind her and knew someone had been hit, but Levac’s Mp5 continued to chatter; whoever had been hit wasn’t him. She didn’t have time to care about anyone else.

She dropped to her knees next to the wounded officer, who looked at her with drooping eyes.

“Who are you?” he mumbled, one hand holding the gaping wound in his thigh.

“Why does everyone keep asking that? I’m the one who’s going to get you out of here,” Raven said. “Can you walk?”

“I don’t think so, ma’am,” the patrolman replied. “I can hardly see.”

“I thought not. Hold on.”

Raven holstered her Automag and lifted the wounded patrolman onto her shoulder. He groaned in pain and she felt him go slack, but his heart still beat; she could hear the steady thrum through his side.

She drew her Automag again and switched it to her left hand. She then stood, steadying the wounded man with her right arm and firing at the gunmen with her left. She backed as quickly as she could toward the patrol cars, but the smoke was dissipating faster than she could move. Soon she was in the open street and bullets began to ricochet around her. She felt one pass through her left pants leg, but she blocked out the pain and kept moving. She dropped the wounded officer onto the trunk of the nearest patrol car where the other officers grabbed him and pulled him to safety. She then rolled over it herself, dropping to the ground next to Levac.

“How did… I’ve never seen…” the older patrolman started.

“I work out a lot,” Raven replied, checking the wound in her thigh.

The bullet had torn her pants and grazed her skin, but the wound was minor. It hurt more than it should, like a paper cut.

Levac was examining the wounded patrolman. When he raised his head Raven could see the question in his eyes. She bit her lip but nodded; like a shot he ran back to the Shelby again, this time returning with a bag of plasma and an IV. With practiced ease he hooked it to the young officer’s arm and handed the bag to another patrolman.

“Hold this,” he said. “It’s all that’s going to keep this boy alive.”

Levac then bandaged the officer’s wound with a field dressing from one of his many pockets. Raven watched him with a mix of pride and love. Bullets were whizzing past his head and all he cared about was saving someone else’s life.

“You always carry blood and an IV with you?” the older officer asked.

“We’re like the boy scouts, always prepared,” Raven replied. “What do you care? We’re saving an officer’s life, something you couldn’t do. Why don’t you make yourself useful and shoot some of these assholes so we can all go home?”

The officer glared at Raven. “With pistols? We can’t hit them from here! We’re just wasting ammunition until someone tells us to pull back.”

Raven glared at the officer. “Can’t hit them with pistols? Really?”

She popped up from behind the patrol car and fired a single shot from her Automag. A heartbeat later there was a pause in the gunfire and a body fell from the sixth floor of the building, hitting the pavement with a sickening wet thump. Raven knelt back behind the patrol car and met the older officer’s eyes.

“Maybe you should get a weapon and learn to hit what you aim at if you plan to keep wearing that uniform,” she said. “I don’t remember the words ‘I can’t’ in the policeman’s oath.”

She turned away before the officer could reply and joined Levac with the wounded patrolman. “How is he?”

“If we can get him out of here he’ll be okay. I’ve got no way to get the bullet out, so he’s going to be in pain and continue to bleed. The best I can do is try and keep him from bleeding to death which isn’t going to be easy. I think the slug nicked the artery,” Levac replied.

“There’s no way we can get all of these people out of here with those nuts up there,” Raven said. “Give me a piece of bandage.”

“What are you going to do?” Levac asked, handing over a length of gauze from his pocket.

Raven wrapped the bandage around the wound in her thigh, wincing when she pulled it tight. “I’m going to go arrest those bastards.”

“Ray…”

“Rupe, this is the only way. Call SWAT and keep these guys alive while I move in. There’s more plasma in the glove compartment if the rookie needs it.”

Levac looked unhappily at Raven, but nodded and picked up his Mp5. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“You better be.”

Raven, crouching low, ran along the back of the police cars to the cover of the crumbling apartment building. She glanced back at Levac and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He smiled back and fired a burst at the gunmen.

Next to him Raven heard one of the other officers ask, “Who is she?”

Between bursts Levac replied, “My partner and your only hope.”

Raven smiled again then turned her attention to the building in front of her. She kicked aside a twisted security door and slipped into the building. The inside was a mess; charred furniture had been pushed against the wall by fire crews and most of the walls had burned and fallen to the floor in heaps of ash and gypsum. Raven stepped over the debris and hurried toward a set of stairs that were still serviceable. She took the steps two at a time and came up on the second floor. This floor was also badly burned and pieces of the wooden floor had fallen through to the first. Boards had been placed across the worst gaps and Raven ran across them, leaping and flipping like a gold medal gymnast as she hurried. Something told her the men below didn’t have much time.

She ran up the third flight of stairs and almost straight into a pair of thugs on their way down. They were dressed in black leathers with a variety of patches on the chest. A selection of pistols and knives were stuck in their belts and they cradled AK-47’s in their arms. The closest one hit Raven in the face with the butt of his rifle, bloodying her lip. The man behind him stepped back and raised his rifle to his shoulder, ready to unleash a stream of 7.62 millimeter bullets.

Raven grabbed the first man’s rifle and held it away from her while her free hand pulled the knife from his belt and sliced through his belly, opening it like a ripe melon. He fell to the ground screaming and trying to hold himself together. Raven didn’t give him another look; she threw the knife at the next man where it sank deep into his left eye socket and dropped him like a puppet with its strings cut. She then picked up her pistol and shot both men in the head.

The third floor was more intact than the ones below and someone, probably the gang or the squatters they ousted had spent a lot of time shoring it up and making it livable. Windows had been covered with boards, holes in walls had been repaired and rooms had been furnished with all manner of discarded furniture. If it hadn’t reeked of urine and cigarette smoke it might have been livable.

Ahead Raven could see shadows moving down the stairwell; people coming to investigate the screaming. She ducked into one of the rooms and waited, her heartbeat echoing in her ears. She let the first leather clad man walk past and stepped out behind him. She kicked the second man in the face and shot him in the thigh, knocking him to the floor. It happened so fast the man behind her had barely begun to turn before the heel of her boot caught him in the forehead and slammed him through one of the makeshift walls to collapse on an old sofa. Raven quickly zip tied the two men to the nearest solid objects and tossed their weapons away before moving cautiously up the stairs.

She stopped part way to the top and listened. She could hear perhaps four maybe five people breathing combined with the odd jingle of weapons being gripped. They were waiting for her. She closed her eyes and unleashed her monster. When she opened them again the world had gone blue. She could see red boot-prints on the floor from the men she’d just killed and hear five heartbeats just above her.

With a snarl she ran up the stairs and leapt into the air. Five men crouched behind various objects including the fire door that had once blocked off the stairs. Raven shot two of the men before any of them could react, two shots to the chest and one to the head. She hit the ground, rolled and charged the survivors. Bullets rang out, punching holes in the floor around her and dogging her feet as she ran. Still running she kicked the fire door with all her strength, nearly decapitating the two men using it as cover then spun and shot the last man through the forehead. All five gang members hit the ground in less than five seconds.