Chapter Ten
We rolled into Circle Q around ten. We’d decided to stop at a pizza joint and get dinner. Julie had gotten here hours ahead of us, opting for dinner with Mary and Edith. They’d all been in bed for an hour at least, and the house was quiet. Katie declared that Jai Li could take a bath in the morning, which thrilled her. I, on the other hand, had to take a shower if I thought I was sleeping in the same bed as her. Working the forge was sweat-inducing.
When I walked into the bedroom after my shower, I discovered that Katie had let Jai Li move her pallet to the foot of our bed, so I had to make sure not to step on her as I came through. In the time I’d taken to bathe, they’d both fallen sound asleep. Sleep was healing, I reminded myself. I knew this from experience.
Katie snuggled up to me when I slid in beside her. I loved it when she put her hand on my hip—made me feel safe. She had to be gaining ground. I needed her to be gaining ground.
The last clear moments of conscious thought were filled with worry about the dreams I would have. This was not uncommon these days. I’d spent so much time in the Sideways, Skella worried I may have somehow connected my psyche to that place. If I didn’t get the dreams under control soon, I was seriously considering seeing a shrink. Last resort. Instead of seeking professional assistance like a rational grown-up, I’d been practicing willful dreaming, making myself wake up when things got too strange. That usually worked.
As sleep overtook me, I immediately slipped into a vivid dream. Tonight I wandered the dead places again. In the distance the sounds of battle set my teeth on edge. The monster men were closing in on us again. Even though I knew I was in bed, safe with Katie and Jai Li, secure in Circle Q, terror ran through me as I was torn between finding a good place to hide and trying to wake myself up.
Luckily, Julie shouting my name brought me to full wakefulness. Edith yelled something in Russian—some warning I couldn’t understand, but the tone was accurate. Then the house went black.
I rolled to my feet, grabbed Gram’s case from under the bed and slammed it onto the bed, popping the latches as I called out.
“Katie, wake up, hon,” I growled, jostling the mattress for all I was worth. I pulled Gram from the case, and the world shifted a little, all the ambient light blossoming into something just short of dusk. I could see well enough.
Katie was struggling awake, but Jai Li was sitting up, her eyes wide.
“Get Katie under the bed,” I said as shots slammed into the front of the house. Someone screamed, I think it was Mary, and two shotgun blasts answered.
Jai Li crawled over the bed and grabbed Katie’s hand, pulling her toward the floor. Katie rolled as if by instinct and pulled the blankets off the bed with them. I stood, pushed the mattress over them and knelt by the foot of the bed.
“Stay down,” I said. “Let’s see what’s going on before you come out.”
Neither of them answered, but Jai Li nodded from beneath the blankets.
I ran at a squat, pulled the bedroom door open, and thought about all the glass in the house. I took the time to stomp my feet into my Docs, shoving the laces inside instead of tying them. Luckily, I had on sweats and a T-shirt. If Jai Li hadn’t been here, I’d have been naked.
Another shotgun shot blasted from the front of the house, and automatic weapon fire stitched across the side of the house, blasting through the kitchen windows and smashing a cabinet full of dishes.
“Where?” I called, seeing Julie in the living room, crouched to the side of the picture window. Or where it used to be.
“Barn,” Julie said, reloading the shotgun. “Mary’s in the kitchen with her aught-six. We’re pinned down.”
Damn. What to do? I could find them, if I could get out of the house.
I grabbed my amulet that connected me to my favorite kobold and concentrated as hard as I could. Bub, I need you.
I concentrated on that for a good thirty seconds when I felt a tug. It was down in my belly, but I knew he heard me. I frog-walked to the kitchen, trying to avoid as much glass as possible. Mary had the kitchen table up against the window and was hunkered down, watching out toward the barn.
“They can’t shoot for shit,” she said, “but they have a lot more firepower than we do.”
“On it,” I said. “Need some food first.”
“What …?” she asked as a loud pop echoed in the room and Bub appeared in the hallway. He swooned, catching himself on the doorway to the kitchen.
“Sarah?” he asked, his voice thready.
“Here,” I called, sliding a box of frozen waffles across the floor.
He grabbed them and ate the whole box, cardboard and all. Next, I slid across two boxes of cereal and a five-pound bag of sugar—basically anything I could reach from where I crouched. He ate all of it as fast as I could get it to him. Twice more someone fired into the house, but they hadn’t made a physical assault yet.
I turned at the sound of a small hunting rifle from the back of the house, followed by another string of swear words in Russian. It was Edith Sorenson. I didn’t speak Russian, but I know she wasn’t inquiring about their health.
Flanking move.
“Bub,” I said as he let out a huge belch and turned to look at me.
“Yes, ma’am?” he asked, his voice stronger than when he first arrived.
“I need you to port me out behind the barn. Can you do that?”
He looked at me and nodded. “You and the sword. Can’t promise the clothes will follow.”
Great. Naked fighting. “Okay, good enough. Julie,” I said, leaning into the living room. “Can you give me some cover fire as soon as we disappear?”
“Sure,” she said, jacking in a new shell. “Stab the fuckers for me.”
I saluted her, grabbed Bub’s hand, and nodded. He smiled at me and the world went black.
It was like getting punched in the diaphragm. For a second, I couldn’t breathe, then the cool of the evening greeted me in all my nakedness.
Bub looked around, pointing to my left and holding up three claws. I nodded to the right, and he held up one hand, crept forward, and looked around the edge of the barn. Four more.
I pointed at him, then to the left toward the three bad guys. He shook his head and ran right.
Jerk.
I followed suit as soon as the shotgun erupted from the front of the house. Automatic weapon fire followed as I dashed around the barn. One shooter was squatted down at the edge of the barn, firing into the house, while the other two stood behind him, laughing and pointing.
“House full of women,” one was shouting to the other when I swung Gram two-handed into the shooter’s neck. His head bounced to the feet of the other guys as blood sprayed across them. They were so cocky, they hadn’t even brought their guns up to fire. I swung around, hearing a scream erupt from the other side of the barn.
I swept the legs out from under the next guy, slamming my elbow down on his throat just as I stabbed Gram forward, catching the third guy in the knee. He went down screaming and the guy underneath me didn’t move. By the time I could stand up, I’d brought Gram across the third guy’s throat and my group was down.
The look on his face was priceless. No one ever expected the naked Amazon with a sword.
I crept through the barn, finding two bodies, and heard fighting outside. There were two gunshots which slammed into the wall to my left and another voice screamed its last.
Bub came around the barn door, one arm cradled against his abdomen and his head bowed. A guy decked out like Seal Team Six, with a fully automatic rifle and night-vision goggles, stepped into the barn, grinning.
“You’re dead,” he said, raising his gun.
Before he could fire, bright yellow flames erupted all over Bub’s body, showing the world just how much he liked getting shot. The mercenary stumbled back, yanked off his goggles, and fired wildly.
I took his arm off at the elbow, sending the rifle spinning at his side, the shoulder strap keeping it from hitting the ground. He screamed, waving his stump around as Bub clawed his way through the guy’s Kevlar to get to the soft chewy parts underneath.
Suddenly there was no noise beyond a raspy gurgling sound from the dying merc. Bub didn’t even try to eat the guy. Instead he dropped the flames and stumbled over to sit at my feet.
“You okay?” I asked him, dropping my hand to the top of his head.
He leaned his head against my calves. “Bullets hurt,” he mewled. “You failed to mention that.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
I knelt to the last guy, pulled the night-vision goggles off his head, and put them on. The world settled into a nice monochromatic green. Twice I saw flashes from the back of the house, reflections of shots.
“Stay here,” I said. “I’ll get that last one.”
Whoever was around the house was there to keep us pinned down, not let us escape. They didn’t expect we had a way of flanking them.
I crept around the house, praying that Mary or Julie didn’t shoot me.
Just as I rounded the north side of the house three shots struck the siding, driving me to my belly. I cocked my head to the side, trying to get a bead on whomever was shooting at the house, while trying to keep as low a profile as I could. It was right then I decided I needed to talk to a guy I knew on the con circuit, Clay. He taught writers how to work against an ambush or how to clear a building. I didn’t have much experience going up against people armed with guns.
A bright light flashed from the house. I squeezed my eyes shut as the echoes of that light pulsed in my brain. You’d think I’d have learned from the guy who wore these just minutes ago. Luckily, if the remaining shooter had been looking directly at the house, they were probably dazed as well. Or, so I hoped.
When I opened my eyes again, I could make out the large objects, like buildings, so I shuffled forward in the direction of one of the sheds, expecting to feel bullets smash into me, but they never came. The shooter, a woman, had pulled back, bracing her back against the shed, fumbling with her goggles and holding a pistol in her hands.
“Boo,” I said, stepping up to her, but before I could do anything else, she put the pistol in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
What the hell was it with people killing themselves? Sure, I was probably gonna stab her, but great googly-moogly.