Time Was (40 page)

“Oh,” he said.

Radiant tugged his arm. “Tell me. Tell me now.”

“He's handicapped.”

“How?”

“He's got a . . . he's a hunchback and uses arm-crutches.”

Radiant nodded her head. “That must be it.”

“That must be what?”

“The contradictory wave of tainted energy. I caught an echo of it before I pulled back. It's at odds with his strength and his love of children and his deep romantic affection for Killaine.” She stopped, took a breath, and steadied herself.

“Are you all right?” asked Zac.

“Whew! Huh? Oh, I'm fine. It's just that I got another blast of his feelings for Killaine—he must be looking for her or thinking about her—and . . .
wow!
This is one intensely passionate man.” She looked at Zac. “I'm reducing the field to five feet. I'm starting to feel a little voyeuristic.”

Zac nodded his agreement, then looked over at Morgan and grinned. “Well, good for Killaine!”

“I'm even more jealous than I was when she talked about him last night.”

Zac patted her arm. “Cheer up. You can still break a thousand hearts just by walking down the street.”

Radiant leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You are the sweetest man in the world.”

“If you say so.”

They were at the booth now. Zac commented on the news crew who were covering a pie-eating contest just a few yards past the midway. “Those pies sure look good.”

“Like you need any more cholesterol in your diet,” replied Radiant, playfully poking his belly.

“Who's the party pooper now?”

So they watched as the little boy took aim with his water-filled plastic rifle and landed a stream in the mouth of a clown face at the back of the booth. . . .

Rudy kept four yards back from DocScrap and his Piece while they stopped at one of the booths.

Doc threw some darts and won a stupid stuffed elephant.

Come on, already!
he thought.

He almost did them right there, but there were too many people around that booth—more than a dozen—and Rudy wanted to catch them at one of the less crowded games.

So he bided his time, patient.

A good Stomper had to be able to sense when the Strike Moment was at hand, and this wasn't it.

Then the Doc and his Piece were on the move again, and Rudy kept pace.

Finally, they started slowing down.

Rudy looked ahead of them.

This section of the midway was nearing its end.

They'd better stop soon.

Damn, can you walk any slower, Doc?

But they were moving forward, toward the last booth where there was only a little brat and his fat mom.

Go there
, he wished.
Nice, uncrowded booth, right at the end of the line. Give me plenty of room to do my business on you and run into the crowds over by the rides.

Now they were walking
real
slow.

Toward the kid and his mom and—

—Rudy smiled.

Well, whatta you know! Twisty-Crip's booth!

If they stopped there,
that
would be the Strike Moment.

They stopped.

Rudy took one last, quick look around, then unzipped his jacket, crossed his arms across his chest, and grabbed his guns.

The Piece was standing on the left.

Doc was on the right.

Like ducks in a shooting gallery
, mused Rudy, unholstering his weapons and walking faster. . . .

Radiant sensed it then, the dark, deadly, intensely focused energy that was approaching them from behind. It had just entered her five-foot field. She knew that if she turned around that would tip them off, whoever in the hell
they
were, and that was the last thing you did in a battle situation—and this was most definitely a battle situation now—because if you tipped your hand too soon that might spook them and they'd do something reckless, and whoever it was approaching them from behind was carrying serious firepower, she could feel the cold, reptilian energy emanating from the guns, and if she spooked them, they might just start firing at random, and there were innocent people here. . . .

Zac felt Radiant's body go rigid, as if she'd just been hit by a ten-thousand-volt shot of electricity, and he knew right away that something was wrong, that she was concentrating on homing in on the source of the danger, and his next thought was not for her safety, nor was it for his own—it was for the child's and the child's mother, so he began scanning the immediate area for someplace he could get them out of the line of fire. . . .

Rudy had the guns out now, hanging by his sides, close by his sides so no one would notice, and suddenly he felt more powerful than he'd ever felt in his entire, miserable, stinking life, because for once he had the upper hand, he had the power, he was in control, and damn if that wasn't the best feeling in the world because there was no way DocScrap and his little robo-slut where going to deny him his moment of glory again, so as he came up within a yard of their backs he began lifting the guns, aiming right at the base of their necks. . . .

Killaine felt as if she were moving in slow motion as she jumped away from the Six Cat booth and started running toward Zac and Radiant, knowing full well there was no way she was going to get to them in time, she'd have to aim for the Shooter and that could be dangerous because there were other people at the booth, not mention her sweet, loving Morgan inside, so whatever she did would have to be swift and decisive and it would have to work the first time out because there wouldn't be a second chance here, but she wasn't going to do a damn bit of good if she didn't start
moving faster. . . .

Radiant waited until she could feel the heat from the attacker's body enter her own body space, and she read his heat and knew three things right away: 1) It was a he, and a young he, at that, maybe fifteen, sixteen at the most; 2) One of his weapons was an electron gun that was pointed at the base of her neck, which meant he knew she was robotic; and 3) It was the same kid who'd broken into the warehouse the other night and tried to bite a chunk out of Zac's hand. With maybe five seconds left—she felt the energy of his flesh merging with that of the guns, which meant his fingers were on the triggers—she leaned a little toward Zac and whispered, “The Biter's right behind us,” then straightened herself, readying to make her move. . . .

“The Biter's right behind us,” whispered Radiant to Zac, and he felt himself grow cold all over, because whoever that kid was, he was stone crazy, even if he didn't know it, and someone who was stone crazy wouldn't care
who
he hurt or killed, just so long as he accomplished what he set out to do, which was, of course, to kill Zac, but there wasn't time to think about that because Zac felt Radiant's arm slip away from him and he knew there were maybe a couple of seconds left before all hell broke loose, so Zac did the only thing he could do, the only thing that mattered to him, he moved forward to block the kid with his own body. . . .

Rudy was less than a foot away when he saw the Piece lean over and whisper something in the Doc's ear, and Rudy knew, with all the primitive survival tendencies that are part and parcel for one who lives on the streets, that the Piece had somehow spotted him, but all the while a small voice in his head was screaming,
That can't be, they've been looking at that little brat all this time, no way they saw me!
, then another part of his mind kicked in, reminding Rudy that the Piece was, probably, likely,
had to be
another robot, right, and maybe this one had some kind radar built into her so she could tell when someone was sneaking up on her, but by the time this registered Rudy no longer cared, he was remembering the taste of DocScrap's blood on his tongue, so he pushed his arms out like a couple of ramrods and surged forward, and son-of-bitch if that's not when the Piece took her arm away from the Doc and the dude made a dive for the kid. . . .

Killaine was running as fast as she dared with this many people surrounding her, people she could hurt if she rammed into them, but no matter how fast she was going she feared it wasn't going to be fast enough, and all she could think was,
Do something, Radiant! Do it now, you have to know he's behind you
, but then she had to veer to the side in order to avoid colliding with a woman pushing a set of newborn twins in an oversized stroller, and in veering out of the way she nearly slammed into a vendor pushing his mobile hot dog cart up the midway, so she had to hit the brakes and back up, move to the side, squeeze past a large group of teenagers, and by the time she was back on track it was too late, because she heard the gunshots and the sound of splintering wood and someone yelling and, worst of all, the high-pitched sound of someone screaming in pain. . . .

Radiant pulled her arm away from Zac and saw Zac move toward the child, then she felt the kid with the guns pull in a breath and knew this was the crucial moment, so she brought her right hand up to her face as she snap-kicked backward at the Biter's knee to disable him but she must have been more rattled than she thought, because she didn't pulp his kneecap as the snap-kick was intended, she connected instead with his shin and felt the bone crack but not break, but that was all right, it would have to do, so she spun around, bringing her right arm down at an arc, then ripping it upward and to the side, slamming her elbow against the Biter's left arm—at least, that was the idea—but her thoughts were still with Zac and the mother and her child, so all she managed to do was connect with the electron gun, which went up, up, and away, spinning in the air, landing somewhere far behind him, and she relished the look of shock on his clown-painted face, but only for a millisecond because he still had the other gun, and he did something she didn't expect, he fell down onto the ground, and as she worried that maybe she'd done more damage to him than she'd thought, he went down and squeezed the trigger of the Magnum that gave out with the brightest, ugliest muzzle flash Radiant would ever see. . . .

When Zac broke away from Radiant he went into a stoop-run, shoving his arms in front of him to get hold of the child, the child, the child, nothing mattered at the moment but getting the child out of the line of fire, and as he threw himself toward the kid he heard the child's mother shriek and he heard the unmistakable sound of a bone cracking behind him and he heard the Biter scream in agony and then Zac smiled because he had his hands on the child's waist and was pulling him away from the counter and down toward the ground, and half a second later it dawned on Zac that he shouldn't have let his guard down long enough to feel safe, because that's when he felt something along the lines of a rabid grizzly bear's claws rip through his shoulder, and now the kid was staring at him, white-faced with fear as some of Zac's blood spattered against his cheek, and then the grizzly bear swiped its claws again and as they hit the ground Zac closed his eyes and readied himself for the pain, the fire, the agony, but it didn't come, and he wondered if he'd started going into shock already, then he pulled up just a little so the child wouldn't be crushed by his weight and got a good look at the child, and then Zac Robillard did something that he hadn't done since the night Jean died in his arms, he threw back his head and released a howl of anguish and grief. . . .

Rudy realized that the Piece had gotten him with a backward kick, and he didn't have time to wait for the pain to register, he'd deal with that later, so he pushed the electron gun forward and that's when the Piece whirled around and brought her arm up and Taichopped at his arm, connecting only with the electron gun and sending it into the air, and Rudy allowed himself a half-second to think,
Score one for the robo-slut
, then he went down, went down hard, doing a quick tuck-and-roll and grabbing the Auto-Mag from its hiding place, and the Piece had made the mistake of turning her attention toward the woman and the kid and hadn't noticed that Rudy was now down on the same level with the Doc, so Rudy opened fire with the Auto-Mag and saw the first bullet rip through the meaty part of DocScrap's shoulder, blowing tissue and blood every which way, and the second bullet blew a section of the booth's wooden counter all to shit, so Rudy did a fast roll to the side and plowed off another shot at the Doc, but this one seemed to go wild because the Doc didn't seem hit, but then came a glorious sound and sight, DocScrap throwing his head back and howling like a wounded animal, and that sound was enough to shift all of Rudy's reptilian impulses into high gear, and he pulled himself up onto his feet and staggered the hell out of there while the confusion was on his side. . . .

Killaine saw the Shooter limp off but she didn't care about that at the moment, all she could see was the shuddering form of Zac on the ground, the back of his shirt soaked in blood, a good piece of meat ripped from his shoulder, but then there was another crowd in her road because people were stopping, freezing in their tracks, realizing that Something Terrible had just happened, but Killaine was going too fast to stop and if she collided with anyone right now she'd probably break all the bones in their body, so she did the only thing she could, she executed a move Itazura had taught her once, she threw herself forward and down, arms and hands extended, catching her own weight and pushing her upside-down body into the air, soaring over the heads of the gawking crowd, somersaulting over them, landing on her feet on the other side and rocketing forward, thinking only of her dear Zachary, her dear Radiant, and her dear Morgan, and she was almost on them when she saw Zac roll to the side and then Killaine stumbled because there was the kid, the poor, innocent child, being swallowed by the merciless teeth of
chronos
, blood pumping from the upper portion of his right arm where the third bullet had gotten him, and that's when Killaine did something she'd never done before, she let her warrior's instincts go to hell in a handbasket and just surrendered to the blood-craziness. . . .