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She aimed a pistol at Benny and raised a lapel phone
to her mouth.
“Captain Hall, speaking. Code Grey. Advanced and
netted. Connect me with the JP, Washington Bureau –”
The floor collapsed, sending them crashing into a
basement. The woman screamed, and the men thrashed to free themselves. Benny was
snagged by one of the men and dragged close. A tangle of metal and trash loomed
over them. The woman looked up, shrieked, and tried to throw herself away from
it, but her legs were trapped.
Benny rolled away along the wall. Blood squirted over
him, then the faint groan of pain.
After a few moments it died away. Silence drifted
along the crumbling bricks of the walls. Then came the sound of rats.
Snatching at the lapel phone, Mike opened his mouth to
curse the caller.
Cindy’s shapely image appeared, and his jaws snapped
shut hard enough to chip a tooth.
Manners beaten into him by a mother who was a
schoolteacher answered Cindy’s call rather than the ones adopted in a long
service in the military and under Cindy.
“Ma’am?”
Her eyes widened. “Miky, lover. Why so cool towards
Mama Cindy?” She chuckled and Mike forced a grin.
Any warmth and pleasure he felt died when she said,
“We caught the little monster. Captain Hall is holding him.” She glanced at
something outside of the hologram’s range. “A store. Kestler’s Grocery?
It’s less than two blocks from you, south.”
Mike managed a nod. His throat was swelling shut, and
while he smiled for Cindy, he was cursing Benny. Cindy faded away, her laughter
tinkling against his ears like so much broken glass.
Terry Jo and the baby. Terry Jo would never forgive
him, but at least she would be free of the cathouse. And, finally, the curse of
being Benny’s lover.
He spun the wheel and jammed on the brakes. Wide-eyed
and jaws sagging, Creel was laying on the hood. For a moment, Mike was tempted
to haul him back that way, but the dignity of the agency made him blow the horn,
instead.
Creel leaped off the hood and jumped in the car.
He was eating, Mike saw, a sandwich known as a hoagie.
Scowling, Mike stomped on the accelerator, and they roared back down into the
Dead Zone.
Benny’s eyes widened. It was too dark to see, but
they were there, hundreds of rats, hungry and eager to get to the sweet, hot
blood before something bigger came along. He crawled along the wall to a pile of
trash. A draft blew across him, and he followed it. The hole in the ceiling was
too high to make that breeze and now behind him.
In the darkness, his hands found a set of steps. He
climbed them on his hands, dragging the aching legs to the door, then was
stopped. No amount of pushing would loosen them. He was trapped. A rat came up,
and he could feel it sitting on his leg. Watching him. Sniffing at the blood
that seeped from scrapes and cuts, licking thin lips at the scent of pain.
Two Swords snarled, and the rat hissed but didn’t
touch Benny. The big Guardian spirit held a-Heart-o’-fire in a loose,
two-fisted grip, and the rat remained very polite and, as directed, did his best
to force Benny to a little harder effort.
Sue watched and waited till the traffic thickened. She
stood, ready to leave, when the door she sat on moved. Jerking out the knife,
she jumped away. A weak voice came softly to her.
“Hey, is somebody up there?”
The speaker was in pain, maybe dying. Still, Sue
hesitated. She turned away. This wasn’t her ‘hood. Even Lord Penn’s boys
didn’t come so far into the Dead Zone. This was the turf for the raider clans
and a sort of buffer zone between Safe Side and the more civilized ‘hoods of
the working poor. A smart person wouldn’t stay. Suicides, though, were a
little different.
A pair of men stepped into the alley. Both were armed
and in black armor.
“Hey, look at the chickie-babe.”
“Cool it. I ain’t no Pollyanna, no dove for the
taking.”
The other man nodded. Grinning, he asked, “What’s
the cost, lady?”
“Get bent.” Sue gave them both a cold look. They
laughed.
“What? Nothing for a man in uniform?”
“If you were men . . . and out fighting to help us,
maybe. For a couple of shits one step above Harvester?” She laughed, and they
closed in.
Benny heard voices. The woman sounded familiar, and
then his ears caught the word ‘uniform.’ He scowled at the rat. Rats. A
dozen or more of them.
“Yo, still safer with you guys than up there.” He
grinned. “Better company, too, if you don’t mind me.”
The woman shouted. Benny found himself bursting
through the doors and into the damp night air with eyes that were red from hate
and the training at the Manse. Men, two of them and armed to the teeth. Maybe
this wasn’t such a good idea.
One man held her down, and the other was undoing the
crotch fastenings of his armor.
One man reached for a sidearm and said, “Hey,
fresh meat.” His eyes widened. “Gawdammit, it’s Grey.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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