Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (54 page)

Sebastian crouched low and shoved open the warehouse door, ducking aside as bullets
rang out at him.  He fired back as he crawled inside.

Mia shivered as she listened to shouting and gunshots inside the warehouse, unable
to see anything within.  She did see a number of guards on foot, running toward the
warehouse with guns drawn.  Sebastian was trapped, and she didn’t know what she could
do about it.

Then Sebastian raced out of the warehouse door, blood-spattered and cackling like
he’d lost his mind, leaking from a bullet wound in his side and another that had torn
a chunk from his leg.  He held a machine gun now, and he blasted a spray at the guards
converging on the warehouse, momentarily scattering them.

He didn’t come back for her, but ran hard toward the front gate, as if trying to attract
everyone’s attention.  The spotlights followed, and he turned and opened fire at them. 
He hit one, and it flashed and burst into flame.

The scattered S.S. men regrouped and chased after him, while more armed guards ran
at him from the gate.  They shot him up and down from two sides, the bullets chewing
him up, and he shot back until he toppled over.  The guards surrounded him and kept
shooting.

Mia shuddered.  She knew Sebastian could heal fast, but no one could survive what
the guards were doing to him, blasting his head and torso with dozens of bullets at
close range.  He was gone, just like Juliana.  Mia was alone, except for the small
baby still growing inside her.

She only saw one option—go to the warehouse and see if she could make it all the way
outside.  If he’d cleared the way for her, leaving no guards behind, she might have
a chance while all the Nazi guards were still distracted, laughing as they kicked
his mutilated corpse.

Mia ran as fast as she could, her footsteps as loud as thunder in her ears.  She expected
bullets to cut her down at any moment, but she managed to make it inside the dim warehouse.

She caught her breath as she explored it, stepping over the gunshot bodies of dead
guards.  She found the enormous, armored steel cargo door, and she trembled as she
found the button that activated its system of chains and pulleys.  It began to rise,
loud and clanking.  She didn’t hesitate.  The moment she saw a slice of the night
outside, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the rising door, her
stomach dragging the concrete floor.

Outside, she found herself on a loading dock.  She stood up, ran to the edge, and
jumped to the pavement below.

Mia ran into the woods, out of range of the spotlights.  She kept running for a long
time.

* * *

The loud, clanking ventilation machinery looked like it hadn’t been upgraded in the
intervening decades, though it now sat inside a narrow concrete room instead of raw
cave rock.  Mariella opened the access panel and found rows of electrical heating
coils had replaced the old coal-burning furnace, warming the air before the array
of fans pumped it through ducts to the underground rooms.

Mariella looked up the wide vertical shaft from which fresh, cool air pounded down
from the giant fan above.  The big vertical duct was now thick with water stains and
mildew.  No Nazi janitor had been ruthlessly scrubbing it with cleaning chemicals
this time around.  Unfortunately, this meant the rungs built inside were also slimy,
and looked even more slippery than last time.

“I’ll go first,” Mariella said, leaning her head out to speak to Seth, Jenny, and
Esmeralda. She’d gotten them this far safely, using Seth or Esmeralda to help her
watch the future. “You’re the one carrying a baby this time, Seth.”

“I wish they had one of these back in the day,” Seth said, opening a small tool cabinet
against one wall.  From the array of hand tools suspended by magnetic strips, he picked
the two largest screwdrivers and a pair of wire cutters and handed them to Mariella.
“Good luck.  Watch out for sparks.”

“I could have used that warning
last
time, thanks,” Mariella told him.

They climbed the slippery rungs as fast as they dared, Mariella first, then Seth with
the baby in her sling and her head resting against his chest, then Jenny and Esmeralda.

Equipped with the right tools, Mariella opened the top of the vent much faster than
Seth had done in their past life.  There were spotlights again, so she waited until
one had passed before looking out.

The yard was in chaos.  It looked as though everyone in the base was flooding out
through all four exits, probably thanks to the terrified medical staff running and
screaming about bombs.  Guards were everywhere, too, but they didn’t look very organized. 
Some of them ran around howling and firing their guns at random, shooting real bullets
at whatever nightmarish illusions filled their minds.  Some of the other guards fired
back.  Everyone else was in a panic, trying to get from the low pillbox buildings
to the front or side gate without getting shot.  Tommy had done his job well.

Mariella waited for another spotlight to pass, then helped Seth climb out.  The baby
stirred at the sound of gunfire and screaming, but Seth touched her face and soothed
her.

Jenny and Esmeralda were the first to jump to the ground.  Seth went next, his arms
around the baby, landing in a squatting position with a painful wince on his face. 
Jenny and Esmeralda grabbed him from both sides, keeping him steady so he didn’t topple
over.  Mariella joined them on the ground.

“I’m not going with you,” Mariella whispered. “I’m going back inside.”

“You can’t do that!” Jenny told her. “Why would you?”

“They have so much information on us,” she said. “We have to destroy Ward’s records,
or it will be too easy for someone else to pick up the pieces and track us down. 
He’s a control freak.  I wouldn’t be surprised if all the data is right here on site,
in the file server room.  I don’t think even his superiors know what he’s really doing
here.”

“Ward will still be looking for us,” Seth said.

“Maybe.  You’re going to encounter him again tonight,” Mariella said. “The future’s
too uncertain, I can’t see how it will turn out.  But maybe you’ll defeat him.  Maybe
he won’t live.”

“You definitely won’t live if you go back now,” Seth said.

“I might,” she said. “You go on without me.  I’ll catch up if I can.”

“This is crazy,” Jenny said. “You know you have to come with us.”

“No,” Mariella said. “Jenny, you won’t remember, but I survived last time.  I eventually
got home to Sicily.  The Nazis never came for me again, even though my family took
their money—I guess they got busy with other things.  I spent years waiting, but nothing
happened.  I had my baby, Jenny.  I got to raise her and watch her grow up, and she
gave me six grandchildren.  I watched them grow up, too.  I lived to be more than
seventy years old.” She smiled. “I named her after you, you know.  Juliana.”

“You survived?” Jenny whispered. “I assumed we all died that night.”

“I made it out, with my little girl, and I had a long life,” Mariella said. “You died
to give me that, and I’m going to do my best to give you the same.  I owe you.”

“Please don’t,” Jenny said, clearly fighting back her feelings. “I don’t have many
friends.”

Mariella hugged Jenny tight, then kissed her on the cheek, though it covered her own
face with painful sores.

“I love you,” Mariella whispered, and Jenny let out a sob, then bit her lips to keep
the rest inside.

Mariella said good-bye to Seth, and to the drowsy baby Miriam, and to Esmeralda, and
told them to run.  After the spotlight passed again, the three of them ran past the
crowd that was gathering outside the warehouse, where the base’s employees were demanding
to be let out the gate.  Jenny and the others continued toward the motor pool area,
where they planned to steal a truck.

Mariella ran the opposite way, toward the helicopter pad.  One of the privileges of
cooperating with Ward was that she’d been allowed to spend time outdoors each night,
though no one was permitted out during the day for security reasons.  She’d noticed
the helicopter pad and the shed beside it.  She hoped the shed held what she needed.

She ran across the concrete pad, keeping her head low to avoid stray bullets from
the crazed guards running around the yard.  She reached the shed, but the door was
padlocked.  She kicked the door, frustrated.

“Identify yourself!” a voice shouted.  A guard in the standard black, insignia-free
uniform stood only yards away, leveling an automatic rifle at her. “What are you?”
he screamed, dancing around but keeping the gun aimed right at her.

From his demeanor, Mariella guessed that he was under the spell of Tommy’s fear. 
She remembered hearing Tommy shout orders to the guards he’d frightened.  With their
minds clouded by fear, they’d eagerly done what they’d been told.

“Orders from General Kilpatrick!” Mariella shouted, as Tommy had done. “We have to
destroy the base before it falls into enemy hands!”

The guard gaped at her, then nodded, as if this somehow made sense to him amid the
confusion and gunfire.

“Open this door!” she shouted at him.  The guard raised his machine gun, and she winced
as he blasted at the door and padlock.  There might have been helicopter fuel inside
the shed, which made shooting it up a fairly unwise decision.  It worked, though,
and Mariella kicked in the door.

She ran inside, looking past the small selection of tools for light helicopter repair. 
She was disappointed in what she found.  She’d reasoned that, since the base was remote,
there might be spare fuel on hand for the helicopters that came and went.  She’d hoped
for some kind of portable tank in which she could carry a few gallons, but there was
nothing like that.  There was only a single enormous tank, mostly embedded in the
ground, with a giant hose on a spool, all of it much too large-scale for her purposes. 
She looked around desperately for any kind of container, but there was only a bucket
with no lid.

She shook her head and glanced outside the shed to see whether it was safe to leave. 
She saw her crazed guard standing at attention, protecting her, heedless of the stray
bullets that hurtled back and forth across the yard.  It gave her an idea.

Mariella took the end of the hose and walked to the door with it, and the huge spool
creaked forward behind her.  She told the guard to come inside.

“I’m taking this,” she said, nodding at the heavy nozzle and hose in her hands. “You
stay here.  When I yell, I want you to turn on the pump.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said.

“But not until then.  I’ll yell ‘Now!’  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” The guard saluted her.  He must have been an actual soldier at some point
before joining the mercenary outfit that provided the base’s guards.  Hale Security,
Mariella had heard someone call it.

Mariella took the hose and ran across the yard, crouched as low as she could.  A spotlight
crossed her, but at this point she was just one more patch of crazy in the middle
of a riot.

She reached the vent intake from which they’d all emerged, which was almost as tall
as she was.  She jammed the nozzle of the fuel hose into her belt, then took a running
start and jumped, grabbing onto the lip of it, then scrambling her feet up the side,
praying the guy didn’t throw the switch too soon, or that he didn’t get distracted
or shot before she called to him.

She lay next to the large fan that she’d disabled, took the nozzle from under her
belt, and dropped it into the vertical duct.  She kept feeding the hose in as fast
as she could, but it was heavy, and so was the spool turning at the far end.  When
she had a several meters of hose dangling inside the duct, she screamed “Now!  Now,
now now!”

The hose instantly fattened as it filled with helicopter fuel.  Mariella climbed her
way down between the fan blades, then wrapped her arms and legs around the thick hose
and slid down it like a fireman’s pole, traveling down several stories in less than
a minute, friction burning her hands and peeling away the skin.  She grimaced through
the pain, hoping that her weight was helping to unwind the hose from the spool.

She landed hard on her ass inside the metal cavity from which the array of fans sucked
fresh air away into different rooms inside the base.  She climbed out of the access
panel, which they’d left open, pulling the heavy, full hose with her.  She peeked
out the maintenance door, then dragged the hose into the hall with her, sweating and
straining with the effort.

She walked along the hallway in the direction of the northeast quadrant, where the
administrative offices and private apartments were.  When the hose would go no further,
she opened the nozzle all the way.

It jumped out of her hands like an enormous live snake, snapping back and forth among
the walls and ceiling as it gushed out fuel, filling the hallway with an acrid petroleum
odor.  The fuel flooded the narrow back corridor, rising high enough to glug away
through low vents near the floor, spreading through the ducts of the facility’s air
system.

Mariella, dripping with fuel, cautiously made her way out to the front of the clinic
and looked over the bleeding bodies left from the firefight Tommy had set off among
the guards.  She took a heavy automatic rifle from one of the bodies, thinking she
might need it.