Night's Favour (23 page)

She took her glasses off and let them hang by their chain on her neck.
 
“I’m sorry lovey, he doesn’t look familiar.”

Spencer seemed about to speak before two men from hospital security walked through the administrative door behind her.
 
“Sergeant!”
 
One of the — Mavis could only call them
soldiers
— one of the soldiers spun around, his rifle dropping to level at the men from hospital security.
 
They froze, hands somewhere close to their walkie talkies.

Spencer cleared his throat.
 
“Gentlemen.
 
I know those walkie talkies have a panic assist on them.
 
I’d recommend — for the sake of your friends — that you do not send any signal you might regret.”

One of the security staff — Mavis remembered him as a man grown especially quiet since the death of his son; she’d taken some baking around when she’d heard — spoke up.
 
“For the sake of our friends?”

Spencer nodded.
 
“My men here and I are here to find a… my brother-in-law.
 
Once we find him, we’ll be gone from here, and you’ll never see us again.
 
You have my word on that.
 
Sergeant,”
 
he said, his attention shifting to the soldier whose rifle was pointed at the guards, “Please arrange for —”

The crash from the emergency room made Mavis jump.
 
She wasn’t the only one; a sharp hammering of gunfire blasted past her into the hospital security staff.
 
She screamed, and dropped to the floor, covering her ears.
 
The blast had been so loud!
 
From the ground she could see that one of the security team — well, he’d gone to join his son.
 
It was a relief, of sorts.
 
She could see the other security man fumbling for his walkie talkie; his hands jerked as another round of bullets hit him, spinning him backwards.
 
Splashes of red had appeared against the white paint of the the wall behind him, as quick as you like.
 
She rocked herself on the ground as she watched him fall.
 
She realised she hadn’t heard the second blast of gunfire, but she’d
felt
it.
 
That’s how someone dies
, she thought.
 
Mavis realised she was sobbing, but she couldn’t hear herself.
 
Had her eardrums burst from being so close to the gun when it went off?

She hadn’t even cried when the police told her about her husband.

The administrative door opened again, then shut quickly again as it splintered.
 
The wood rained down around here as she crawled around the desk.
 
Her hands fumbled through splinters on the ground, old age making her slow, her knees scraping on the fragments as she crawled on the tiled floor.
 
She was making her way towards the emergency ward.
 
There was an exit at the end of that, if she could get to there and to a phone —

The emergency ward door slammed open.
 
Her head swung up, took in a set of dusty coveralls —
that’s not Jimmy
! — as a man ran into the room.
 
She watched from the edge of the desk as he slammed into one of the soldiers, grabbing his rifle as the man fell backwards into his colleagues.
 
The other soldiers were spinning to cover him, but —

My God.
 
He was so fast.
 
He was already in the middle of them, using the stolen rifle as some kind of club.
 
He flailed around him with mighty swings, knocking a soldier flat to the floor with a blow to the head.
 
Another soldier was tossed backward into the panicking crowd in the waiting room.
 
Spencer had cleared his pistol from his holster, the bright flashes silent as he fired again and again into the man —

— Who wasn’t there anymore.
 
Spencer’s fire was wild, shots hitting the walls,
My God, he’s shot people in the crowd
, but not a single hit on the man in Jimmy’s overalls.

People in the waiting room surged for the exit to the street outside.
 
They were met by more soldiers who were coming in, their rifles pointed into the crowd.
 
Please,
thought Mavis,
Please don’t —

One of the crowd tried to duck past the soldiers.
 
That’s all it took, the match flare moment where something that was merely tragic became unspeakable.
 
Mavis covered her head with her hands as plaster cracked and crumbled from the walls around her, the gunfire levelling the room.

All those people
, she thought.
 
The tears were streaming down her face.
 
Who are these soldiers?
 
They’re not men, they’re animals —

A pair of boots halted her crawl across the ground.
 
She looked up into the flat eyes of Spencer.
 
He grabbed her arm and pulling her up in front of him, the arm around her neck holding her firm against him.
 
She could see his other arm holding the gun out in front of them both.
 
How curious
, she thought.
 
There’s something red in the bottom of that gun.
 
They always look all-black in the movies
.

The dust was settling.
 
She could feel Spencer’s breathing, his chest heaving as he turned her this way and that as he looked around.
 
In the middle of the room, amidst the plaster dust and broken furniture, something moved.
 
The man with Jimmy’s overalls pushed a body off him, getting unsteadily to his feet.
 
He’d been shot a couple of times, the blood leaking down the front of his overalls.
 
He looked around him, taking in the bodies, and the soldiers around him.

He tipped back his head and laughed, a deep belly laugh.
 
Mavis heard —
my hearing’s coming back!
— the happiness in it.
 
How could he be happy in the middle of this?

Spencer spoke behind her.
 
“Get the fuck on your knees, Volk.
 
This one’s got silver in it.”

The man in Jimmy’s overalls — Volk — turned to face them.
 
He looked at Mavis, then at Spencer.
 
“
Tak
.
 
You hide behind old women?”
 
He chuckled, his accent thick.
 
“I am not surprised.
 
Serebrom
?
 
It will not save you.
 
Your fate is certain.”

The soldiers were fanning out around Volk.
 
One of them — well, Mavis thought he looked a little younger.
 
Wet behind the ears
, her husband would have said.
 
He was holding something that looked like a tube with a drum attached to it with shaking hands.
 
Volk walked slowly towards the soldier.

“Volk!”
 
Spencer’s gun tracked Volk.
 
“Get down!
 
I won’t tell you again.”

Volk looked at him over his shoulder.
 
“I told you.
 
Your fate is certain.”
 
With that, he spun and lunged at the younger soldier.
 
The world exploded into light and flames as the soldier’s hand spasmed on the trigger of the grenade launcher.
 
The shell went wide, the ceiling spitting cement and steel through the room.
 
Chunks of shrapnel tore through the soldiers, a piece of the ceiling landing right on top of Volk.

There was silence for a moment.
 
Spencer was lying under her.
 
He pushed her aside, getting to his feet.
 
“Squad!
 
Report!”

The soldiers were getting to their feet around him.
 
There were so few of them left.
 
Spencer reached for the radio at his belt.
 
“Get in here.
 
It’s not contained yet.”

The growl was deep and low, like a tiger she’d heard at the zoo that time.
 
But it sounded like it was far away, heard from a distance.
 
It was so hard to see what was going on.
 
Why was the room getting dark?
 
Mavis looked down at her hands.
 
They’d come away from her chest sticky and wet, the blood bright and clean.
 
The last thing that passed through her mind was,
That’s odd.
 
He said, ‘Boo,’ to that young man
.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Val pushed open the door to the emergency waiting room.
 
He did it slowly; he remembered the police station and what could wait behind closed doors.
 
The crack of the room he could see showed a room completely different to the one he’d left.
 
The room was covered in dust, plaster, and concrete.
 
It looked like the ceiling had fallen in, and a hole had been punched through to the level above them.
 
It was charred black.

He also saw —
My God
— that the room was full of people.
 
No — not people.
 
Bodies.

They run in the sky now
.

Val pushed the door open slowly, giving it a nudge when it jammed against the cracked and broken floor.
 
He gestured behind to Danny and John, mouthing, “Wait here.”
 
He walked into the room, stepping carefully through the ruins.
 
He placed his feet carefully in amongst the rubble and — he swallowed — bodies.

A fragment of colour caught his eye.
 
He edged towards it, fishing out a piece of cloth from the concrete and steel.
 
It looked like a piece of heavy cotton, torn.
 
He turned it this way and that, until he could make it out.
 
That was a sleeve, the front zipper here, and that was —

The name tag, embroidered and clear, said
Jimmy
.

There wasn’t a body.
 
Just a torn and empty set of overalls.

He tossed them aside, looking further amongst the remains.
 
Black flak jackets, rifles, bodies.
 
He found an ammunition belt, a set of clips held in it.
 
The buckle was twisted and broken; it must have come away from someone.
 
There were six clips, three of them black and three of them red.
 
He pulled one of each out, holding the black clip up to the light from the windows.
 
He wasn’t an expert but it they looked like ordinary bullets.
 
He tossed it aside, and held the red clip up.
 
These were bullets as well, but the heads of them were a different colour metal to the other bullets.
 
Val turned the clip left and right, fiddling with it until a bullet popped free into his hand.

He yelped in surprise, dropping it to the ground.
 
It felt like it had burned, the heat like a cigarette against his skin.
 
He shook his hand, blowing on it, then held the red clip up again.

“What you got there, buddy?”
 
John walked in through the door ahead of Danny.
 
He looked around.
 
“Fuck me.”

Danny stepped through the rubble, taking it in.
 
“So many of them.”
 
She coughed in the dust.

Val hefted the red clip, then tossed it through the air to John.
 
“They’ve got some clips with weird bullets.
 
Careful.
 
They’re hot.”

John worked the spring on the clip, flicking a shell onto his hand.
 
“Hot?
 
Bullshit.”
 
He held out the clip to Danny.

She took it, turning it over in her hands, then smirked.
 
“I’ll be damned.
 
These guys are well funded.”

Val looked at her sideways.
 
“What do you mean?”

“Well, that or they’re just showing off.
 
You know what these bullets are made from?”

John shook his head.
 

Val pulled out another red clip then let the belt drop to the floor.
 
He held the clip up to his nose, but the acrid stink caused him to jerk the clip back from his face.
 
“God!
 
They reek!”

John held a clip up to his nose.
 
“Smells like metal to me, bro.”

“Here.
 
Try this one.”
 
Val tossed his clip over to John.

John held it up to his nose.
 
“Nope.
 
Smells like metal.”

“Asshole.”

“No, really.”

Danny spoke up.
 
“You haven’t guessed?”

Val reached down to pick up the bullet from the ground.
 
His fingers brushed the tip, and he swore.
 
“It’s still burning hot.”

Danny walked over to stand beside him.
 
He could smell her hair and feel her closeness.
 
She bent over, to pick up the shell —

Val grabbed her wrist.
 
“Careful.
 
It’s burning hot.
 
Look.”
 
He showed her his fingertips, burned red.
 
“I’m going to have a shitty blister.
 
I hate blisters.”

She put her hand on his, pulling free from his grip.
 
Crouching down, she put her hand over the shell, then grabbed it.
 
She stood up, holding it out to him.
 
“See?
 
Cold.”