Game Of Cages (2010) (37 page)

Damn. Annalise couldn't help. The pets were nearly at the bottom of the hill.

The back door to the church was only a few yards away. I ran for it, cradling Annalise in my arms. "Wakey, boss." I lifted her onto my shoulder. "Now would be a good time to wake up."

The fastest of the pets had reached the bottom of the hill. I had the ghost knife in hand, ready to cut through the lock, but the door swung inward when I turned the knob. Thank God for country churches.

I rushed into the food bank and set Annalise on the floor, then I slammed the door and flipped the dead bolt lever to lock it.

The room was dark. I switched on the light. Hands jiggled the knob and fists pounded at the main door behind us. I put my shoulder against one of the metal shelves and tipped it against the door, pinning it shut.

I ran back across the room into the church. There was a dead bolt on the main door and I threw it closed, but the bright, beautiful stained-glass windows in here weren't going to keep anyone out.

I rushed back into the food bank and locked the door. After I wedged a high-backed wooden chair under the doorknob, I knelt by Annalise.

A gunshot blasted through the back door. I tipped over another shelf and wedged it against the upper part of the doorway.

Bullets pinged around me. The tilted shelf had spilled seven or eight fifty-pound bags of flour onto the floor, and I sprawled behind them. I kicked the pastor's desk against the wall to make room. Bags of dirt would have protected me better, but this was the best I could do.

I grabbed Annalise and dragged her across the floor toward my meager shelter. I had missed my chance to kill the sapphire dog, but I wasn't ready to give up. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get at the predator until I'd gotten through its pets first. The two guns jabbing into my hip bones might have helped me with that, but I didn't want to start gunning down innocent people who couldn't control themselves because I couldn't do my fucking job. I didn't care what the sapphire dog had done to them, I didn't want to fight them.

What I wanted was the white ribbon Annalise had used to make that man outside the Sunset fall unconscious.

I searched through her jacket, remembering Penny and Little Mark lying dead on the floor of a tiny jail cell, and Pippa falling onto her back. Maybe if I killed the sapphire dog, the pets really could go back to being themselves again. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't fall over dead. But I had to be quick, because I didn't know how much time the pets had left, and bullets were still coming through the door.

Annalise looked uninjured, but she was completely still. I couldn't even tell if she was breathing or not. It was as if Zahn had switched her off.

The white ribbon wasn't there. I searched again. She only had two ribbons left. Both were green. I knew what they could do, and it was most definitely lethal.

I spit out a string of curses. The sounds of breaking glass came from the church, then a series of gunshots blew through the door. I knew they would be in the room in a minute or two, and I knew what that would mean.

I stuffed the green ribbons into my pocket. I wouldn't use them--I knew I wouldn't--but I wanted to have them just in case.

The gunshots stopped and the kicking began. The mob was trying to bash their way in--even the dead-bolted door that led into the church rattled under the assault. They were coming from all sides. I scrambled to my feet and shoved over the last of the shelves, tipping it against the interior church door just as it began to swing open. I ducked back under cover.

I took the guns out of the back of my pants, then laid Annalise on top of the bags of flour. Her tattoos made her bulletproof; the same spells that had protected her from Merpati's gunmen would protect her from the pets' guns--and they'd protect me, too, if I stayed low enough. That was as much barricade as I was likely to get.

I aimed the old revolver at the door. Damn. Was I really going to do this?

Do what you have to do, Catherine had said. Whatever it takes. I remembered little Shannon Conner looking up at me, pleading with me to kill the sapphire dog and give her grandmother back to her.

When was I going to stop holding back?

I squeezed off four shots. A return volley immediately blasted through the door and wall. The bullets poured through like hail, a terrifying mix of rifle and handgun and shotgun blasts.

My skin prickled as I lay flat. I'd never heard such a deafening wall of gunfire, and I thought the incredible, oppressive sound of it alone might kill me.

The volley ended quickly. My ears were ringing, but I could still hear the clicking of empty weapons.

Morning sunlight shone through the holes in the walls like a rack of spears, illuminating the floating plaster dust. I lifted both guns and squeezed the triggers until they were empty.

A second volley came through, but the gunfire was thinner and more scattered. A ricochet tugged at the heel of my shoe, but it didn't touch me. Finally, the shots petered out and all I could hear was the clicking of empty guns.

The pets began to smash through the walls with rifle butts, expanding the openings. I lifted Annalise onto the desk, taking care not to kick the cord of the portable stereo. The ceiling was unfinished, and I could see water pipes and BX cable running between the rafters. I jumped onto the desk and stood over her. With my ghost knife, I cut a two-and-a-half-foot length out of the water pipe. Water gushed freely onto the tile floor as I hefted it. It was heavy, but it would have to do.

More arms and legs were pushing through the growing gaps in the wall. The pets who had been smashing against the interior church door had quit, probably to come around the building. They kicked and bashed at the wall and door, then started trying to squirm through. All I could do was wait.

I reached down and pressed Play on Dolan's portable stereo. It was the old-fashioned kind that played CDs. After a couple of seconds, a Spanish guitar version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" began to play. Holiday music? It was one more reason to hate the world. I watched the pets breaking in.

The waiting was miserable, and my helplessness and fear made me want to scream. I didn't. I stayed silent and still, and I funneled everything I had into a furious red rage.

If only I had Zahn in front of me, or Stroud, the man who gave the predator to Regina so many years ago. Whether I was a match for them or not, they were the ones I wanted to face. Because of them, the sapphire dog was here and alive, and maybe it would get free again and do this over and over all around the world. All this death and misery was the reason the society fought and killed. Because of this. This.

But I couldn't vent my rage at Zahn or Stroud because I didn't have them here; I only had the crazed, ruined people of Washaway. I knew the pets weren't in control of themselves. I knew the sapphire dog was really to blame for the death of Little Mark and so many others. But my anger wasn't logical, and it was so terribly, terribly strong.

Someone wrenched the bullet-ridden door open, shattering the hinges and opening a space big enough for a person to enter. It was Bushy Bill Stookie, and I was almost grateful to him that the fight would finally start.

He laid his meaty hands on the metal shelving and pushed at it, scraping it across the wet tile floor. Others pushed at him to get by, and by then one of the holes in the wall was large enough for more people to squeeze through.

They were all men in this first wave--all strong and heavy, with baseball bats and rifle butts and iron mallets. They sloshed through the water, climbing over the toppled metal shelves toward me. Someone outside let out a trilling, alien war cry, and everyone took it up. They howled as they came at me.

I kicked the portable stereo off the desk. It landed in the water still pouring out of the overhead pipe and splashed onto the tile floor.

Nine men froze in place, muscles twitching. I made sure to count them carefully, so I wouldn't forget. A big, brawny woman pushed through the crowd and stepped into the water. She grimaced and jolted up straight. Ten.

Then the room went dark and silent. Everyone collapsed over the metal shelves, and the woman fell backward through the doorway, bowling through the crowd behind her. So much for saving them from the sapphire dog.

The only light I had left was the daylight shining through the door and the damaged walls. The people pushing their way into the room now were little more than backlit silhouettes. At least I wouldn't have to see their faces.

They were coming with knives, woodworking tools, axe handles, and empty guns. I lifted the iron pipe high and held my left arm low. I didn't have a shield; the tattoos on my forearm would have to do. I put the ghost knife between my teeth. They let out another war scream--a piercing animalistic keening--and I felt like screaming right back at them, but I kept it inside instead, channeling that raw energy to my arms and eyes.

The first guy to get close tripped over Big Bill and fell to his knee in front of me, so I smashed the pipe against his shoulder, knocking him against the one behind him, then I hit the next one hard on the edge of the wrist, sending his hammer bounding off the wall just as two more came close, keeping their balance better this time, and I smashed elbow and shoulder as fast and as hard as I could, blocking a sharpened hoe with my protected arm, but now the pets were crowding in, stumbling sometimes but not enough for me to keep ahead of every swing, of every hand reaching for me, of every sound they made, because I wasn't even looking at their faces anymore, I didn't have time to guess the attack they'd make based on their eyes or body position, they were just a mass of bodies rushing at me, and I laid out with my pipe, swinging everywhere with all my strength against people I'd told Catherine I didn't want to hurt but here I was, breaking arms and collarbones, and the first time a bat struck the bony point of my hip, the pain frightened and enraged me so much that I smashed the man wielding it right on the side of his head, and then every dark shape seemed to be tinged with red as I slapped away attacks with my forearm and crushed bones with the pipe even though many of them didn't even have weapons, just hands that reached to pull me down, so I smashed those, too, watching for knives and swings for my head, and I smashed wrists and elbows and collarbones and fragile, fragile skulls as the pets kept coming for me, climbing over the ones I broke, stumbling, slipping in water and blood and tripping over fallen bodies, then I felt a sudden sharp pain in my calf and looked down to see a girl no older than thirteen stabbing a long knife into my leg, and my fury and adrenaline and hatred and rage made it so easy--so easy!--to slam that iron pipe across both her little arms and I know she screamed even though I couldn't hear it over the noise the other pets were making but God I saw her expression and the whole world should have stopped right at that moment but they kept coming and I kept fighting and I knew right then that it didn't matter whether I lived through this, in fact better if I didn't because I was becoming everything that was raw and evil in this world and I didn't deserve to be in it anymore, so I screamed, finally, letting out all my anger and hatred at predators and peers and most of all myself for what I was doing, because I was not going to stop, not ever, until I had done this damn job, and the ghost knife that fell out of my mouth began to zip around the room with the speed of a sparrow, circling me like a rock on a string, and I just kept hitting and hitting, because I wasn't tired at all, evil men never tire of doing evil.

Then one of them--Ponytail Sue--finally got the idea to kick the desk I was standing on. It skidded to the side and I overbalanced, falling into the pets. They were crammed together as tightly as kids at the front of a rock concert. I swung at the nearest one, but three or four people caught my arm and the pipe was yanked out of my grip.

They grabbed me, hands everywhere, pulling my clothes, my hair, my skin, scratching me, screaming at me, bearing me to the floor. Two inches of water splashed up my nose and down my throat. With my free left hand, I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of Annalise's green ribbons, and as I sloshed on the floor, I looked up and saw two kids, neither older than sixteen, lunging for me with knives in their hands and cold, raging murder in their eyes. I slapped the ribbon onto the top of someone's red rubber boot, and I saw the green firelight shine on them.

I closed my eyes. What happened next was something I could not watch.

When the sound of the fire and the throbbing of the protective spells on my chest finally died away, I opened my eyes again. The room was full of bones. The water sloshed back and forth, and soot and ash made a greasy film on top.

Some of those bones were small. Very small.

Annalise was still lying on top of the desk, and as I expected, she wasn't even singed. I kept looking at her, so small and frail-seeming, but so filled with power, because I didn't want to look at what I'd done.

A shadow moved on the wall. I turned back and saw another person at the door. There were two more behind him and who knows how many I couldn't see.

My dirty work wasn't finished. I moved my foot through the murky water until I found my length of pipe, then I pulled it out of a pile of bones. They came at me.

"They" were a skinny boy of about fourteen, a middle-aged woman with the hunched back of a vulture, and an old man with too much belly and too little biceps. They were all holding hatchets. I could see by their expressions that they weren't going to back down. I didn't need them to. I had my pipe.

It took less than half a minute for me to put all three on the ground. I left them alive because I could, but they wouldn't be bothering anyone for a while.

They screamed curses at me. I was the one who wanted to kill their beloved sapphire dog, and they were sure I deserved to die. I didn't bother to disagree. I felt my ghost knife nearby and called it to me. For once, it didn't feel good to have it back. I dragged the last three pets outside.

I carried Annalise to her van and laid her in the back. Then I found a tow truck near the edge of the parking lot with a full ashtray and a pile of fast-food wrappers on the floor. I cracked the ignition and backed it into the corner of the church, smashing through the wood frame and breaking partway inside.