Out of the Black (18 page)

There was a low, wrenching moan and a rumble through the floor as the building settled around it's newly warped infrastructure. "Geez Alex!" Rae whispered.

"Uh-huh." Ping said from inside his personal haze. "Let's go..."

He grabbed Rae under her shoulders and helped her to her feet. She staggered and put a hand on the shelves for support.

"It passes quickly." Ping lied. "Come on."

***

"We should've brought more Grunts." Neiland said through clenched teeth.

"That would have helped." Garvey said as he tried to staunch the blood flowing from Neiland's destroyed shoulder. "Of course,
you
still would've managed to get shot. What's this, the fourth time you've been shot since we met?"

"Third. I believe that's a hole in your leg, too."

"Bullet hog. Mine's just a scratch. Keep pressure here." Garvey pressed Neiland's left hand on his wounded shoulder. "I don't have time to try to heal this... gotta deal with Lutine's lackey before he does any more damage.

"Hurry back, you know I can't work a healing yet... That Jamming was sure a surprise." Neiland said, smiling through the field anesthetic his medkit had administered before the Jamming turned it into a paperweight. "Not bad for a newbie."

Garvey drew his pistol and nodded as he examined the warped metal. "Never seen a Jam that left metal warped." He shrugged, "We've still got a few surprises left too. Be right back."

He stood shakily, favoring his wounded left leg, and shouted. "Check your weapons! We're going medieval! Cover the door!"

He closed his eyes and accessed the Loom. From the templates available, he chose the weave of Grappling- it wasn't the most effective weapon, but it would likely be the most satisfying.

***

Ping and Rae stumbled back into the greater darkness of the utility room. "Alex! Alex baby?" Rae hissed into the deep silence, but there was no reply. They both fumbled toward where Alex had been sitting. Ping heard Rae stumble and go down hard in the dark. "Found him." She said from below. "Help me get him up."

They managed to get Alex's slack form up between them and together they dragged him out the door. They turned left and moved as quickly as possible down the aisle of shelving, across the side passage, and into the aisle of shelves where Rae and Ping had spent the final seconds of the gunfight. When they hit the wall at the edge of the room, they turned right, toward the exits. As they moved, Alex began to stir. First mumbling, then he began to take a few weak steps as they dragged him between them. "Shhh, honey, it's gonna be okay, but you've gotta keep it quiet." Rae whispered in his ear.

Three rows of shelves were stacked up against the wall with the exits. They approached the last open aisle between the shelves and Rae darted her head around the corner to survey the scene by the exi. She shook her head and they took a few steps back. "Six by the door... all with what look like hunting knives now." she whispered.

"Hooboy." Ping said dryly. "How are you with knives?"

"Two words: 'sicked out', I could never use one in anger." She shuddered. "But that's okay, I don't have one... you think I could bluff them with the pistol?"

Ping shook his head. "You can tell by the knives that they know what's up... I don't think you're gonna fool them."

"Maybe I could shame them into letting us by?"

"I've still got Roy's sword..."

She looked horrified. "You could really...?"

"I know what you mean." He gave her a tight grin. The idea of using an edged weapon was pretty grim, and anyone who thought differently hadn't given the matter much thought. Getting stuck with one was even more unappealing. "We do need to move though. Feds or no, I have a feeling their reinforcements are coming before ours."

"We've got reinforcements?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Er... no. Not unless you and Alex mobilized your local wizard's club."

"Yeah, we called them all." She shook her head. "But we're already both here... and I'm only an honorary member."

"Stay with Alex. There's a small chance I'll be back." Ping reached into his jacket pocket and put a hand on the collapsed sword.

"Stranger things have happened." She said as they sat Alex on the floor and leaned him against the wall.

"No kidding." Ping stood and turned toward his grim work.

"So, who here needs the orthopedic enema?" Ping shouted as he stepped from between the shelves. He channeled his fear into an art he liked to call "game face maintenance". Sometimes to look good is to feel good.

The five men and one woman spread out around the doorway to the stairs, raising their blades. Most were wearing that evil gonna-get-to-cut-someone grin considered socially acceptable in pre-murder situations. Ping had always been bad at bravado. But then he was pretty good at what would come next.

There was a moment of disorientation as he flipped through the air like a rag doll heaved into the air. He colliding with the... uh... ceiling. Yep... below him was the floor... that hard thing against his back was the ceiling. A cloud of dust from the destroyed acoustic tiles surrounded him. He'd slammed through the suspended ceiling and was now pinned against one of the building's ventilation ducts. Dazed, he looked around... none of the knife-wielders had been affected by the sudden reversal of gravity.

"Whoa... guess I get the enema." He mumbled, shaking his head.

"Detective Bannon!" Good Cop said, limping out of the now immobile shelving on the other side of the central aisle, "I must say I'm a little surprised to see you're playing such a
key
role in our investigation."

Ping groaned at the pun and the unseen force that was now using him to crumple the ventilation shaft above him.

"You'll never get away with this, Garvey!" Ping wheezed with his most melodramatic voice, expending all his energy to shake a fist weakly before him for emphasis.

They both had a good laugh, though Ping's terminated in a series of coughs.

"You never cease to amuse Detective. I think I'll kill you in a minute. But till then..." Good Cop wiggled his finger theatrically.

Ping fell the nearly four meters to the floor, landing with all the grace of a dead fish dropped at the market.

"Nice landing!" Garvey laughed, clearly enjoying his work.

Eyes closed against the starbursts that filled his vision, Ping wondered what the connection was between evil and laughter. If he had to do it over, this would have been the subject of his dissertation. "I thought... you were supposed to be... the good cop." Ping choked out, spitting blood from lips twisted between a smile and a wince.

"Oh I believe you'll find that I'm rather bad." Garvey said, grinning and nodding with the admission, "Especially with someone who was so rude to my suit." He gestured to the bullet hole in his leg.

Ping wheezed and ached. His right knee was broken from the fall. After a few seconds he could breathe; after a few more he got his aching arms beneath him and pushed up enough to see Good Cop. "And I... suppose... this means you've got a wee pot o' magic gold somewhere too." He gasped.

"Shhhhh!" Garvey hissed, raising his finger to his lips.

The floor, ceiling, floor, blurred before Ping's eyes, followed by a painful impact with a fresh piece of the ceiling. His breath went out in a groan. "Ow."

"Indeed!" Garvey was so pleased with himself Ping thought he was going to give himself a little medal. His laughter seemed only a little forced.

"So..." Ping choked out "This is when you... lay out your entire nefarious plot, right?"

More laughing. "No, detective! This is when I squash you like the bug you are, then I think I'll pull the woman's arms off... then maybe I'll lay out my 'nefarious plot' for Mr. Ahmed... probably during the torture, I think. I don't think he'll be capable of really appreciating it afterward."

Ping was almost sure he heard Rae say "Ahhh... crap." from back in the shelves, but he might have imagined it. Either way, it made him smile.

The pressure on his chest and legs intensified. The ceiling wasn't giving. Breathing became impossible, but he wasn't going to asphyxiate. Nope, this was to be a bug-squashing. Garvey's face was a mask of sadistic triumph. He was taking it slow, relishing.

Now this was exactly like family counseling, Ping thought- helplessly watching as the wrong thing happened- a conductor on life's train wreck. Ping preferred the more satisfying job of the policeman: wading through misery that you knew wasn't your fault, looking for justice.

He felt a rib crack, then snap. Purple starbursts filled his vision and an electric static filled his ears. Before his mind's eye, he saw the familiar face of a young girl, innocence amplifying the accusation in her eyes. Fury burned hot around the pain, but it was an embracing fury, welcoming the pain.

The exploding glass caught everyonff guard. The thick
tempered glass of the library archive door had kept the minimal sounds of quick, brutal death outside, so the grunts had no warning when the corpse parted the door's unbreakable glass like a curtain of plastic beads. Deep in the folds of the Loom, Garvey arguably should have seen it coming, but like so many times before, he'd become immersed in the thrill of the moment. He'd been looking forward to killing the little Asian detective since he'd seen him this morning.

The detective's limp body fell from the ceiling as Garvey's focus shifted to the shattered door. "It's Bower!" one of the Grunts shouted, looking at the corpse that had come to a rest perhaps three meters inside the doorway. They'd left Bower guarding the door into the archive, but he'd obviously blown it. The Grunts took up defensive positions around the jagged opening, bracing themselves for an assault.

Beneath the small, inward-facing floods of the emergency lights around the exit sign, the dark breach framed with the remains of the shattered door took on some of the essence of a dragon's cave; it's consuming darkness seeming to shroud only deeper and more terrifying black. There was a slight stir in the shadows, then an unimposing man with short bristly hair stepped through the destroyed door and paused beneath the exit sign. His attitude was casual, his stride easy. "Hi!" He said into the stunned silence. The voice was friendly, amused.

He gave a quick nod of acknowledgement to the assembled killers. "Anyone know where the cooking section is? I'm halfway through a cake when I realize I can't remember if I need to whip or stir the batter. I tell ya, spoon or mixer... it's these details that make all the difference."

With a shout, one of the Grunts charged, twin knives flashing. The newcomer didn't flinch, didn't move at all until the tip of the first knife was half a centimeter from his throat. Then there was a blur of motion; sharp sounds that came too quick to count, and the Grunt's body hit the floor so hard that the impact could be felt through the shoes of the remaining killers.

The newcomer stood casually, seemingly in the same position as before the attack, the lines of his face softening from terrible rage back into a mask of reason and curiosity. He held up a hand, palm out.

"Look, by now you folks realize you're in deep trouble, so it's time to decide. We can do this the easy way or the hard way." He said reasonably, "This is actually my third killing spree today, and I'm way over my homicide limit for the week, so I'm going to give you folks a gracious deal: you put down your wee little knives- you walk away peaceably right now, and I'll kill you." His smile broadened, mirth and menace mingling like fuel and air awaiting the smallest spark.

"
And
you'll kill us?" one of the Grunts said.

"Hmm," the newcomer said with a smirk, "apparently you've seen through my little ruse." He sighed with mild disappointment, "Abandon all hope."

Beautiful weapon, Ping thought through the sparkle-haze of the blood slowly returning to his brain. Sprawled on the ground, neck craned to stare at the newcomer; he was reminded of an exhibit at an air-show he'd attended when he was thirteen. He had been impressed with the terrible beauty of a gun node on the nose of a short-attack craft. Its every line was symmetry and efficiency. Its many rotating barrels and the surrounding fairing had the sleek fearsome look of a shark's mouth, but the overall impression was of beauty strengthened by purpose. This guy radiated the same aesthetic- terrible, irresistible beauty. For some reason,heneemed less impressive in Ahmed's lobby this morning.

An ephemeral flicker disturbed the floating dust between Good Cop and the bristly-haired killing machine, but then things happened faster than anyone else could see.

Dek had almost missed the action again. A sharp pang of regret crystallized in the firestorm of his rage. For the second time today, he'd been there to face Alex's hunters, but when it had really counted, he'd been too late.

In a time continuum where hummingbirds would float motionless on cushions of thick, downy air, his sword came out. It's ringing was a low resonant hum of shifting harmonics in the heavy air. Dek's clothes stretched and tugged backward with the first eddies of force from the blonde Savant's Grappling. His torso began to rock with the slow dissonant violence of the kinetic Cast. But his legs were already compensating, holding him upright, allowing the force to drive him back. His feet slid across the floor, glass crunched, and the blade hummed through a short, direct arc. The blade was fully extended when it tore through the Cast around him. The blade lit with the tracings of the Loom as its Forged steel sheared through the blonde guy's weave and the Loom's raw power burst from the destroyed Cast like oil from a severed wellhead.

At his speed, the explosion sounded like a wave slowly crashing on a rocky shore. Dek struck again, cleaving downward as he leapt forward. The results were less spectacular- a final spurt of emptying power, but he liked to be thorough.

Though he probably wasn't yet aware of it, the amateur Savant was already swimming in a backlash of power that blew back from his shattered Cast. He'd left the ground and entered a contorted backstroke. Dek left him for the moment and turned his attention to the Savant's henchmen.