A frown marred her perfect brow as the sky car came to a rumbling halt inside the cube, its temporary door already growing closed as the passengers waited for the stairs to roll to their door. Except no grunts were running around the massive wooden hangar pushing trolleys full of suitcases or waving orange-tipped dildo lookalikes to direct everybody else where to go.
I watched the car sway above the floor’s center, its cable glinting in the lights that had begun to glow the moment the roof shut. They’d been strung like Christmas twinklers along the frame of the building proper.
The planted sections of tower had their own set of support beams that had folded back to admit the car and then returned to center. I reminded myself to give Bergman a tour if we all survived this.
“Cole! We’re going to need you here as soon as—” I whispered. I heard a pop. “What the hell?”
“Don’t worry. Just a gum-bubble breaking. I’m on my way. Where should I leave Jack?”
“There will be no dumping of my dog. You figure out how to haul his ass up here or you don’t come.”
“Weakling,” Kyphas sneered.
“Spinster.”
She tossed her boomerang in the air and glared.
Vayl dropped to the floor, rolling to soften the impact. I saw fang flash as he ran, blending into the shadows even better than those of us who were standing perfectly still.
“I believe the Space Complex is safe for now,” he said as he joined us. “But we must free Ruvin immediately. Johnson has begun to show signs of illness.”
That meant the larvae could arrive at any time!
“How are we supposed to get to him? I don’t see any stairs,” I said. Before Vayl could suggest a plan, the gnomes began to climb out the sky car’s door. Working with remarkable cooperation, holding on to one another from wrists to ankles, they formed a living ladder that reached the floor. Johnson and Tykes came next, stepping on heads and fingertips, occasionally slipping. The gnomes moaned as Tykes made his way down because his waist alone had more rolls than a school cafeteria. He fell the last five feet.
The two gnomes left in the sky car came to the door, holding a struggling Ruvin between them. It looked like they intended to drop him. Apparently larvae didn’t care if the midwife’s flesh was full of broken bones, only that it still lived.
“Go!” said Vayl just as a shirtless Cole burst through the plant roof carrying Jack next to his chest in a homemade, sleeve-fluttering sling.
Kyphas flung her boomerang toward Ruvin’s guards. She hit the one on the right so hard that his nose imploded and blood sprayed out the door as if somebody had turned on a hose full of cherry Kool-Aid. I saw him stagger backward just as I slammed into the gnome ladder. The two nearest the bottom dropped to the floor.
I sprang up, grabbing the lowest hanging guard by his fancy pants and hoping he believed in belts as much as he felt that broken ankles should be discussed but never experienced. He wriggled and kicked, but didn’t think of loosening his grip until I’d latched on to the next gnome in line.
Later Vayl confessed he was so concerned about me falling and breaking another bone that he nearly let Cole and Kyphas do the rest of the work. They did make a disturbingly fluid team. While Kyphas immobilized an Ufranite on the floor, Cole stripped off the shirt sling and let Jack run, giving himself full access to the Parker-Hale he’d packed on his back. His first shot took out the second sky car guard, but not before he’d given Ruvin a hard push.
Vayl sped forward to catch the seinji. Who was a dense little man. The impact sent them both through the tower’s floor.
I began to pick gnomes off the ladder. Already breathing heavily from the exertion of climbing, holding, hanging, and fighting, they couldn’t seem to function when I punched them in the diaphragm. One after another they dropped, falling prey either to their awkward landings, or Cole and Kyphas’s attentions.
Finally I was in.
I took a quick look around. Plush seats on either end. Poles in the middle with handholds on the sides.
Where the hell are the controls? I felt along the smooth backrests and footkicks. Then I tore the cushions off. Under the second one I found a set of indentations in the seat, beside which had been written words in a language I didn’t understand. But above them, for the illiterate or slow-on-the-uptake, color pictures of the various destinations at which one might expect to arrive if she thumbed one of those hollows. I jammed my finger into the one next to a pristine white beach. The sky car lurched.
I looked out. Saw Kyphas grab Johnson by the collar and begin to whisper to him. He shook his head.
She bit a gaping hole in his ear. He screamed, but his hands didn’t go to the new wound. They were at his chest. Ripping his shirt open so he could watch his skin split.
“Kyphas!” I yelled. “Kill him now!”
She smiled, pretending not to hear as he fell to the floor, convulsing, blood staining his thighs and shoulders as the larvae began to emerge. A single loud shot. Cole, at least, had heard my order.
“Watch for larvae!” I called as a new section of roof began to retract and the sky car turned, performing an automatic cable change that hardly even made it sway. He nodded, saw one inching toward a downed guard and stomped. Jack had found another, taken a bite and pronounced it yummy. Holy crap, what kind of food would that mutt ever snub? While my dog ran around the room, snapping up snacks, I watched the distance between the sky car and the roof narrow. If I timed it just right I’d be able to jump back onto the tower supports. If not, I’d plummet to my death.
“Jaz!” Cole called.
I looked back. He cracked a stirring guard in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. “What?”
“We’re missing one!”
“Gnome?”
“No! Carrier! I think Tykes went out the hole in the floor!” No big deal. Probably. I mean, Vayl had gone first with Ruvin. No doubt they had him surrounded.
“You going to be okay?” I asked, not looking back. It was almost time for my jump.
“As long as Jack doesn’t puke right away I think we’re good. Meetcha on the other side!” I slid to the edge of the sky car’s door. And jumped.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
The sky car lurched just as I left it, throwing me sideways so that I hit the tower’s maintenance platform rolling. I scrabbled for a hold, my fingernails digging in so deeply that splinters flew. But I was moving too fast to stop my spin. I fell over the side, reaching for any kind of hold that could slow my momentum. My hand punched into empty air, my fingers flailed. Then my forearm hit a support beam and I locked my elbow around it, grabbing my wrist with my opposite hand to complete the circle just in time to stop my descent.
“Jesus!” I screamed as the wood dug into my joint, making me wonder briefly if my muscles and tendons were going to rip free, forcing me to go hook hunting before my next mission. They held.
I dangled there for a second, my knees banging into the tower’s supports, trying not to blubber from the pain and relief. Then I found a foothold and began a more controlled descent, wishing I had time to rub the sore spot. Or at least pout a little.
That’s it, Pete, you and I are going to— I stopped. Pete had died. Murdered in his own office. And I would never get to mentally bitch-slap him again. I took a deep breath.
Later, I promise. I will cry for you until my lungs bleed. And after that I’ll find your killer. That’s another promise, my friend. But for now, surely you’d want me to do this.
I hoped so. But even if my late boss would’ve preferred me to fall into a useless heap of snot bubbles I’d have kept climbing. Because that was the only way I knew to survive.
Vayl and Ruvin weren’t hanging out under the tower. Okay, then. Maybe my sverhamin was slamming Tykes into Crindertab’s porch-side wall while Ruvin clapped his hands in delight. Which wouldn’t last long once he heard about Tabitha.