Demon Driven (26 page)

“Almond and Rice, this is Barbarian, are we
clear? Over,”

Chet had nick names for all three of us.
Takata was an ‘almond-eyed bastard’, Sommers was ‘whiter than rice’
and I was an ‘ignorant barbarian from the north’. Chet had assigned
our call signs, and they were ones unlikely for outsiders to
recognize.

“Barbarian, this is Almond, we’re clear and
expecting your company. Over.” Takata’s voice was tinny over the
radio.

I waited for a few moments, gauging the
activity below, and especially keeping an eye on the police
helicopters that were circling the area. Those were keeping a
pretty good distance, probably a combination of terrorist demand
for back off, and keeping the airspace clear of the media choppers
that were patrolling an invisible line about a block back in every
direction. When everything seemed clear, I
moved
, jumping to
Sommers’s and Takata’s building. This one had a raised brick edge
all around its roof , with a water tank, heating equipment and
elevator motor housing on top. The highest point was the water
tank, and as I saw a black-clad arm waving at me from on top of it,
I couldn’t help remembering Chet’s enthusiastic description of
neutrino detectors made from water tanks. This time I climbed the
ladder set against the back of the tank like a normal human would
and found my two squad mates hunkered in a makeshift sniper
blind.

Takata was spotting for Sommers, who was flat
on his stomach with his McMillian stocked, Remington 700 ,heavy
barreled, .308 caliber sniper rifle. A 7 to 20 power Schmidt and
Bender scope that seemed half the length of the rifle, provided him
with an intimate view of the school, its roofline, as well as the
side and rear of the building.

Sommers stayed on scope, consummate
professional that he is, and threw in side comments while Takata
gave me the run down.

“Okay, here’s what we’ve come up with. That
shiny aluminum heating and cooling pod on the roof over there is
directly over the gym. If you can cut your way in, after defusing
the explosives that are attached to the gym ceiling, you’ll have a
straight drop into the hostage holding area,” Takata lectured,
raising his eyebrows in question at my ability and, more
importantly, confidence.

I was slightly nervous, although I hadn’t had
enough time yet for the whole thing to really hit me. But the dark
destroyer under my skin was completely confident and eager to be
set free. Oddly, that part of me was perhaps the most incensed at
the idea of kids being held by explosive wielding terrorists.

“Here is some gear,” Takata said, handing me
a gear bag. Peering inside I found rope, an NYPD raid jacket,
battery powered saw, and some first aid stuff.

“You need a weapon?” Takata asked, after
looking me over. I hadn’t actually thought about that. But the
answer popped into my brain instantly. The fighter side of me had
already figured it out.

“No, I don’t want any bullets flying and I
won’t need a gun for these guys,” I answered.

He raised his eyebrows in question, but when
I didn’t answer he just nodded and looked at Steve.

“Okay, it sounds like a fed negotiator type
is arriving on scene,” Sommers said, pointing at his earpiece.
“That’s gonna provide some distraction. Get ready, I’ll count you
down!”

I jumped lightly down the eight-foot drop to
the roof, then moved into position for a running start. Ignoring
everything else, I concentrated on two things; where I was going to
land on the school, and building up the pool of aura in the center
of my body. I would need every bit of my power to defuse the
massive amount of explosives that were thought to be inside.

“On my count! Three, two, one..go!”

I pushed off my left foot, automatically
Clinging with each step to keep traction on the dirty surface of
the roof. Six
fast
steps brought me to the edge, where I
sprang out of my sprint.

“
Holy shit, look at that!”
Takata
exclaimed.

Time slowed to a crawl. Glancing down I could
see an ant hill of activity on the street level; flashing squad
cars, black SUVs, Special Ops vans, raid jackets, blue uniforms,
balaclava clad SWAT.

Both feet touched down and I Clung, arresting
my forward motion, then dropped to my knee and sent a focused arc
of aura into the roof of the school. Setting down the backpack of
mostly unneeded gear, I approached the big silver shape of the air
conditioner unit. It sat off- center on the roof, a blocky square
of aluminum, covered with arcane grills and ducts. The side that
interested me was all of three and a half feet tall, and Takata had
shown me a computer generated blueprint of the thing, so I knew if
I cut my way in it would lead me into a short run before taking a
ninety-degree turn straight down. The unit pulled hot air from the
ceiling of the gym and that intake was right below the
ninety-degree downturn.

I pulled on my balaclava, yellow tinted
goggles and gloves, then closed my eyes and focused inward. Pooling
my aura, I pushed it into the roof below me, feeling for the unique
flavor of Composition 4 or more commonly C-4. The lump I could
feel
attached to the grill below me had changed with my
first aural burst, becoming just different enough to be harmless.
But I could sense more explosives further away. I pushed another
band of aura, then a third. Satisfied that I had done what I could
for now, I formed a mono edge on my right hand and tentatively
sliced the metal box open. I say tentatively because while my
ability to render C-4 harmless was pretty well established under
lab conditions, doing it here, for real, with over 800 children’s
lives hanging in the balance was different.

I gently peeled down the rectangular piece of
duct work and peered inside the AC unit. A thick coating of dust
greeted my hands and the air was hard to breath, but it had a
quieting effect on my movements, as I dealt with the choking clouds
of particles. I tried to Lighten myself to prevent the aluminum
under my hands and knees from popping as I shuffled forward to the
downturn in the duct.

Three feet below me a mesh grate pulled warm
stale air, soured with the scent of fear, from the gymnasium. I
could feel hundreds of people, scores of young strong heartbeats
pounding in terror. Most of the school’s eight hundred plus
children were assembled in clusters and groups, sitting on the
polished wood floors. Their teachers were spread among them, each
wrestling with their own fear, while attempting to reassure their
charges. Two heartbeats were slower than the rest, two forms moving
slowly down the open lane between the kids. It only took two
terrorists to control the hundreds of children and adults whose
spirits had been swiftly and expertly broken by terror.

My reaction surprised me. I had expected to
feel anger, well
more
anger, but not quite like this. It was
the demon blood-tainted fighter in me that I had worried about.
Maybe it would find the children’s fear attractive. But it didn’t.
It was angry, an arctic anger so cold it burned.

The fighter-berserker part of me brought up
the mental image I had begun to think of as my sonar heads-up
display, a three-D image of the building and inhabitants below. The
cold ball of rage seared my chest, the fighter part moved into
control and I began to move.

Chapter 26

“
No explanation will matter
after we begin. Unlock the dark destroyer that’s buried within. My
true vocation and now my unfortunate friend, you will discover a
war you’re unable to win.” – Disturbed.

I stepped forward and dropped down the three
feet to the grate below, my feet smashing through and my body
Pulling directly toward the two terrorist below. It wasn’t a
straight drop as they were not cooperating, instead standing
fifteen feet away from the spot directly below the ventilator. The
grate was twenty-eight point four feet above the floor of the gym.
Pythagoras said that they were therefore thirty-three and a third
feet from me on the hypotenuse of the triangle. Good old public
school education.

I covered that distance in less than the
blink of an eye, moving much, much faster than gravity could
account for. The Dark Energy of the V-squared was moving me faster
than I had ever gone before, yet I seemed to perceive myself as
moving normally. Everything else was glacially slow, but I was
normal. Kids and teachers were crowded on the gym floor, some
sobbing, some glaring, all terrified, and none yet noticing my
presence.

My booted feet met the left-hand terrorist,
his soft body providing little help in cushioning my impact. In
fact, he crunched and squished rather nicely, while I flexed my
legs to absorb the landing. His partner hadn’t really begun to
register my arrival when my backhand caught
him
on the right
side of his face. Part of me noted that his head exploded from his
body, exactly like a fifty caliber sniper rifle round would do. But
the rest of me was already in motion,
sprinting
to the
doorway, each foot automatically Clinging and releasing to provide
the traction necessary to move that fast. As I breezed through the
doorway, two things happened simultaneously. The first was that a
third killer was just approaching the entry, as I came through it,
the heel of my palm impacting his chest, collapsing his ribs and
sternum against and
through
his backbone, crushing his heart
and lungs into paste. Second, as his body launched backward,
smashing into a row of lockers, I heard the metal grate from the
ventilator clatter to the floor of the gym behind me.

Turning to the left, I saw two more
terrorists coming through the archway that separated this hall from
another. They were just beginning to perceive a problem, gun arms
moving ever so slowly. I
ran
down the hall, extending both
arms out to my sides in classic clothesline position. Passing
between them, I heard their spines snap as my outstretched arms
slammed into them, lifting them from their feet and carrying them
with me. I raced through the archway, but Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum stayed behind, each smashing into the concrete block wall on
either side of the arch with satisfying crunches. My dark side was
enjoying this and a chuckle broke my lips.

Two more hallways brought me to the front of
the school, and I continued to send pulses of aura out around me,
each tailored to render C-4 inert.

The map in my head showed the front entrance
just around the next right hand turn, the school’s administrative
offices guarding the entryway. My heads-up display filtered the
sounds from ahead. Three more terrorists and several adults,
possibly one child. Not slowing at all, I spun around the corner
and slammed the first rifle toting asshole into the solid wall
behind him. My visual perceptions caught up with my audio ones as I
palmed his face and shoved hard enough to embed him in the
wall.

The obvious leader was standing in front of
another terrorist, this one holding a palm corder, which was hooked
to a laptop. The leader was clutching a device of some type firmly
in his right hand, while his left waved a pistol around, which I
idly noted was a Beretta 92, probably nine millimeter. Off to his
left side stood three figures, one large and sturdy with a beard,
one female and slightly overweight and one child-sized but actually
an adult female of middle years.

The big bearded guy was familiar to me: Roy
Velasquez, one of two assistant principals for IS 341. The younger
woman would probably be the other A.P., because I knew the tiny
woman was Principal Schmidt. Roy had mentioned her several times,
always with a great deal of respect. About the same size as many of
the sixth-graders she oversaw, Dr. Jeane Schmidt was a thirty-year
veteran of the City’s public school system. She was highly
intelligent
]
, fierce and much beloved by pupils, teachers
and parents. It was easy to see why, as she was faced-off from the
black-eyed leader, her body rigid with anger. That’s all I had time
to perceive as I continued to sweep into the entry foyer where this
drama had been unfolding. I jabbed a left fist into the ribcage of
the camera holder, sending him flying to the sound of ribs
snapping. My fight brain declared him down for the count, and I
concentrated on the last standing terrorist, the leader. By now, I
had decided that the object in his hand was either a dead-man
switch or a remote detonator or both. Grabbing his hand to keep
tension on the device, I yanked, intending to strip it from his
grip. Instead, his right arm ripped free from the socket. Oh well,
I wasn’t overly concerned about his personal well being. I was
concerned when his remaining hand convulsed and his pistol went
off. Something swatted my right thigh, but I concentrated on
crushing his gun and throwing him backward through the big window
that separated the office from the school’s foyer.

Turning to the doorway, which was loaded with
explosives, I sent another big aura burst in its direction.

Only then did I glance down at my leg, which
had a small hole in the front and a larger hole ninety degrees on
the side. Blood was seeping out, but I could already feel the wound
clotting and closing.

The bullet must have entered straight in and
bounced off my very dense thigh bone, exiting to my right. I
glanced up to follow the bullets path to find Dr. Schmidt slumped
in Roy’s arms, a wet glistening spot of red widening across her
stomach.

Chapter 27

Motion around me resumed normal speed, Roy
and his counterpart both jumping slightly at my rather sudden
appearance. I was still holding the leader’s remote device,
complete with attached hand and arm. I wasn’t at all certain that I
had disarmed all of the explosives in the building, so I needed to
handle the bomb remote first. I stripped it out of the hand, being
careful to keep a steady pressure on it, but then noticed it only
had an arming switch (which was on) and a red button. I presumed
bad things would happen if the button got pressed, so I turned to
the female AP. Dark brown hair, almost black eyes and East Indian
features.