Shadow Unit 15 (15 page)

So Hafs could be moved, of course.

They had to take her out. With the traps, no one could come in.

"Hey, Wabbit," Chaz said. "We're gonna get you out of here."

"No. Go get him," Hafs said.

"She's right," said Falkner, in a voice with dark water under rotten ice flowing through it. "We'll never catch up with him again."

"Lau," said Chaz, with someone else's tongue. His words sounded thick and far away. "Nikki. Get her out of here? For me? I need to know—"

"If you'd rather do—"

"No." Chaz didn't close his eyes, because he was scanning the darkness ahead. Reaching out with the mirror. Waiting for the ripple of reflection that would reveal Beale's presence. "I have to stay here."

He couldn't look at Nikki, either. But he trusted that she understood, that he had to stay and so he was trusting her with the thing he loved best. Because he did trust her.

He heard her clear her throat, start to speak. Stop herself. She started again. "Go get 'em, tiger."

But with the mirror stretched out with such tender sensitivity, he heard what she had swallowed, anyway. "
You're
the thing that eats T. rexes." is what she would have said.

"I'll go," Brady said. Trusting them to take care of themselves.

"No. I'll take her," Lau said.

Brady shook his head. "Me. You can't carry—"

"Please," Lau said. "What is she, a buck twelve? I'll be fine."

Chaz knew, of course. He always knew how heavy things were. It was part of being a monster. "One twenty-three with gear. Sorry."

He didn't see, but he knew from her voice that Lau rolled her eyes. "I deadlift two ten."

"Fine," Falkner said, ending the argument. "Just do it. Remember that the traps are still armed. And if either of you drops your vest to lighten the load, I'll skin you both before breakfast tomorrow."

"You hear that, Hafs?" Todd said. "We'll come see you tomorrow. You better be there."

"Nng... Make it worth my while?"

A forced smile in Duke's voice. Now Chaz's eyes ached, too. Duke said, "I'll tell you the Argentine racehorse story. For reals."

"Nah." There was a rustle: she must be squeezing Todd's hand. "Tell me about the fingers."

Todd huffed. "But you already know that, don't you?"

"What makes you think I'd look?" Her voice was stronger. Chaz's heart kicked him in the ribs. She was a gamma, after all. Todd and Brady were getting Hafidha to her feet, Lau moving into position to support her.

"I know you."

Hafidha said, "Evidence is not the same as a confession."

"Eyewitness testimony isn't worth a damned thing."

She coughed, pushed Brady back, and Chaz had to steal a glance as she leaned hard on Nikki and Nikki held her up, no problem. "Right. Go shoot someone for me."

She looked at Chaz. Chaz looked at her. Either one of them could have said something.

Neither one needed to.

And then Hafidha and Nikki were turning away, staggering, back the way they'd come.

*

Me and my big mouth,
Lau thought—through the long black corridors, through the empty nightmare halls.
Me and my big mouth.
And,
I don't quit when I'm tired. I quit when I'm done.

She should have had other mantras too, but she frankly couldn't remember them.

Hafidha stayed conscious, which made it possible. Oh, Lau would have gotten her out anyway—but she would have hurt her worse doing it, whether she had to resort to the fireman's carry or the less-widely-known but equally valid fireman's drag. And she probably would have dragged her right into a trip wire or an electric eye or something, and that would have been that:
So sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lau.

Hafidha—staggering, stumbling, dripping blood through the pressure bandage—remembered where the traps were. And between the two of them, like a pair of mismatched Persephones, they came out of Rupert Beale's own underworld into the blue-and-white-and-red-lit night blinking, dragging their feet, so covered in blood that the paramedics who met them at the door at first didn't know which of them to put on the stretcher.

They shouldn't have let Lau ride in the back. That they did proved to Lau, as much as anything, how bad it was. But she sat there, crammed into a forward corner, and held Hafidha's hand. It was cold, so cold, even for a jammer. Lau didn't want to know how much of her blood was spread over the floor of the farmhouse outside Chicago.

She thought Hafidha had relaxed into sleep, or unconsciousness, as the paramedics worked over her. But those elegant narrow fingers squeezed Lau's shorter ones, and Hafidha turned her head as if seeking. "Hey."

"Shhh," Lau said. "Lie still. Easy. Just...stay with us."

The noise Hafidha made wasn't a laugh, but it wasn't anything else either. It bubbled, and Lau had a sudden horrible memory of Melinda Grossman fighting to breathe while her chest filled up with blood, with air. Hafidha spoke in strained tones. "You remember the thing in the hotel? Sorry about that."

"You weren't yourself."

Hafidha's fingers fluttered weakly in Lau's palm. "Oh, honey. Yes I was."

Tan got confirmation that Gates and Lau were in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital, and he checked the time. Thirty minutes since the shooting. "They're en route," he said to the idea of the team, the voices that, somewhere to the west of him, were the people he'd seen only hours ago.

He sat in Hafidha's chair, in her half-darkened room, in their empty section of the building, knowing he wasn't alone. Padma and the kids were at home. Someone was probably at work Down the Hall. The voices on the radio were living people.

But he felt as if he were lost on the surface of the moon.

"That's it for the first floor," he heard Todd say, and even through the static his voice was hard and flat.

"Tan, we're about to go up the back stairs," Falkner said.

"Copy that." Could his voice make it all the way to them? He planted both feet square on the floor and straightened in the chair. Fear wouldn't help them, not from this distance.

"Stop," said Todd. "Fourth tread, under the right-hand end."

"Got it," Brady said.

Wait,
Tan thought,
Check the next—

"And the fifth," Todd added. "Hope nobody's stiff in the hips today."

Arthur Tan came up through the bomb squad. He wanted to fucking
teleport
into that stairwell. But Solomon Todd was probably better at the job, anyway.

Still, he ought to be there.

*

"There's a classic," Todd said, savage and cheerful at once. Esther Falkner thought she knew, now, what he must have sounded like during the time before he took up journalism. "One wire at ankle height. You straighten up to step over it..." He shone his flashlight beam upward and around the corner of the hall. It caught the shadow of a second wire at shoulder height.

"Let's not do that, then."

Behind her, Brady said, "Villette. Keep an eye on our back trail. We cleared the first floor, but if he gets to the front stairs..."

"I know," Chaz replied. Once the acknowledgement would have come with an irritable edge. Not this time.

We're running out of house,
Falkner thought.
Unless he wants us to climb the attic stairs... No. Stay focused on now.

Something in her peripheral vision moved.

*

"There he is!" someone—Brady?—shouted. The white-noise burst of a shot. Tan clutched the edge of the desk, waiting.

"That room has a connecting door to the next one." That was Chaz, and not something he'd say if one of his teammates had caught a bullet.

"On three," Falkner whispered.

Gunfire, breaking glass.

"Hold your fire.
Hold your fire.
" Todd.

Tan had enough time to lean toward the mike before the three shots came.

He felt his blood pressure spike, and somehow he was standing up, a sound he couldn't identify, didn't want to identify, loud and horrible and a scream and someone yelling and he couldn't tell who, none of it making sense going on and on
you motherfucking sons of bitches what is happening there
and another shot by itself, then someone calling out "Todd" but who was it? check the recording check the gear what is happening I can't tell what is happening hit the speak button "Tan here, what is the situation?"

How was his voice so even, so calm?

Once more, "This is Tan. I need a sit report."

No one answered him.

At first he thought there was no sound, but then he heard moaning, and all he wanted out of life was to know who was making it.

Tan never consciously reconstructed the events, but somehow knew what had happened—Todd had gotten them past all the traps, one after another, until Beale finally let them get close and detonated a charge himself.

From what distance? Had he taken himself out, too? Who was alive? Who was hurt? Goddammit goddammit goddammit.

"Tan here, what is the situation?"

No answer. Just harsh, dragging breaths. And, worst of all, not enough of them.

*

Danny Brady knows he needs to open his eyes.

Open his eyes, raise the hand he can feel still curled limp and sticky around the grip of his weapon. Open his eyes.

The screaming has stopped. Whatever that last sound was—footsteps. The gamma, closing on them. Coming to make sure. Brady can hear his own breathing, the bubble of blood on his lips. There should be pain, so much pain.

But he's in shock. He can tell because his hands are cold, he can't feel his legs. All he can hear is the footsteps. And something else. A taken and held breath. Beside him.

Somebody else on the team is aware.

Chaz.

That's where Chaz was standing.

Gamma tough, and behind the soft cover of the rest of the team's bodies. Chaz is conscious. Chaz is thinking. Maybe bleeding, maybe injured. Maybe dying. But holding his breath.

Waiting.

*

Head fuzzy, left hand numb, and he can't stand up.
That which doesn't kill us
.

He can't hear anything beyond the ringing in his ears, and he can't see much beyond the stupid flashlight beams, now all pointing at different and random sections of the floor. And in their narrow glare are revealed slices of those he loves, twisted, broken, not bleeding. He doesn't have to think to know what it means that they aren't bleeding. The fractured mirror flashes out, confirms what he already knows. Still and red.

But
he
is bleeding. Good.
That which doesn't kill us.

Movement? Yes, Brady. Brady is still alive.
Good, then
, says something that isn't real.
Saving Brady will justify doing what I'm bloody well going to do anyway
. But no. No. That isn't—

Villette, you idiot! Not now, not now. Think later
.

*

Brady needs to open his eyes. He needs to raise his gun.

His eyelashes are stuck, blood or something. But he blinks, blinks hard, sees blurry light and shadows. Sees a shape bending over him, a pale face that isn't Chaz's, the glint of a shining, shining wire between two fists.

*

Chaz's left leg is under him, twisted up. Broken? Sprained? Fine? One way to find out. He puts pressure on it, and the pain travels all the way up, getting as far as his mouth before he clamps it shut. He thinks it will hold him. Good.
That which doesn't kill us
.

Do something. Do anything.
He thinks of Todd saying,
It is better to be remorseful than to be room temperature.
He thinks,
But I am not going to regret this at all.

Someone is moving toward Danny. Something shines in the figure's hands.

Someone is yelling in Chaz's ear. Arthur. Shouting for a sitrep. Chaz holds his breath again. He can't answer.

Not yet.

*

Brady convulses, brings his hand up hard from the shoulder, all his gifted and hard-won strength focused in one blow. He'll never get a shot off. The gun is a club.

He connects. Hard. He loses the gun. He hears it thump and scrape across the floor, somewhere all the way over there.
Shit
.

Beale spins back, falls on his ass and hands. Behind Brady, from where he lay half-protected by the doorframe, Chaz comes up off the floor with a roar like an enraged alligator, pistol locked in both hands, long legs swinging as he steps over Brady, kicks out, knocks Beale sprawling.

*

Chaz is on his feet, and the pain is beside the point. .40 Sig in one hand, and, miraculously, flashlight still in the other. A trial step, pain, but yes. It works. For an instant he catches Brady's eye.

Another step.

That which doesn't kill us provides us the opportunity to return fire
, he thinks, and lets mirrored wings flare wide, luff and fill around him, catching crimson off of everything and shattering his image around the room as he picks up one heavy foot and the step becomes a lunge, the whimper behind his teeth becomes a howl.

*

A shot slams Brady's ears as the gamma rolls away, scrabbling, another scream—not a voice Brady knows this time. The noise Chaz is making isn't even human, and now the noise the gamma is making isn't either.

Another shot.

Brady pushes, hard. Sit up. Situpsitupsitup—

Another shot. And the room, the blood, the stink of voided bowels—it all spins away, like the time-travel animation from one of those sixties TV shows.

"Arthur," Brady whispers. "Arthur. We're fucked."

The next thing he sees is Chaz's face, close enough to kiss. Dripping blood from a broken nose, the left side of his face scoured and scraped, already swelling. "Brady. Can you hear me? Stay with me. The ambulance is coming.
Stay with me.
"