Dagon screamed as he connected. The force of Ray’s kick propelled him right at the Angel, who wound up and hit him with everything she had on the point of his jaw.
Pain jumped through her hand, ran up her arm, and jangled through her shoulder. Her hand went numb, which was actually something of a relief, as Dagon changed direction again. He flew back towards Ray, hit the floor, rolled at Ray’s feet, and lay there bleeding.
Ray looked at the Angel crazily. “Hey, we’re a team,” he said, but his smile suddenly turned to an even more frightening frown. “But let me tell you something. The next time you pull that blazing pig-sticker out of the sky, I want you to gut that fucking blonde asshole before you put it away again. All right?”
The Angel smiled feebly and nodded.
“Where is that scumbag, anyway?” Ray asked, looking all around.
Before either of them could spot the Witness, every light in the auditorium suddenly cut out. The room turned pitch black. Ray swore, blundering about in the dark. The Angel stood where she was, counting a slow twenty before the lights on the stage went back on. A handful of seconds went by before the Angel and Ray realized that John Fortune was missing, as was the Witness, and some of the gunmen who had still been conscious when the lights went off.
The taste of failure was a bitter gall in the Angel’s mouth.
J erry had been in tough situations in the past where lives were on the line, but this was almost overwhelmingly desperate. If Ray hadn’t charged onto the stage he might have hesitated for a long time, but when the government ace had leaped into action something in Jerry made him follow Ray into the heart of danger.
It certainly wasn’t his brain. If he’d thought about it at all, he’d have run away from the flying bullets. Whatever it was that made him accompany Ray was something deeper in his make-up. His heart. Perhaps his gut. His reaction was more instinctive than rational. Jerry would have sighed to himself if he’d had the time. He’d always considered himself a smart guy, and this was just crazy.
Ray executed a sharp right and hurled himself into the off-stage darkness. Sudden sounds of fists hitting flesh and bone, the cracking of those bones, and screams of pain, quickly followed. Jerry didn’t follow Ray. Realizing that people on the stage needed help, Jerry passed by Siegfried and Ralph, who were petrified by fear but otherwise unharmed, and headed for Kitty O’Leary’s desk where the hysterical anchorwoman was covered in blood.
“Get your tigers out of here before something terrible happens,” he said to the entertainers as he went by. “Again.”
They glanced at each other and then took his advice and ran, their leashed cats roaring wildly as they bounded after them. Jerry dropped down to one knee when he reached O’Leary’s desk and checked the body propped up against it. It was the male half of the pair of floating Living Gods. Jerry didn’t know his name. Blood pumped sluggishly from a series of horrific puncture wounds in his torso. As Jerry grabbed his wrist to feel for a pulse, the injured man suddenly focused his large, beautiful eyes on Jerry’s face, and said something in Arabic. Jerry looked on helplessly as he vomited a gout of blood and died.
Jerry stood, suppressing a sigh. He didn’t have time for pity. He examined O’Leary quickly for wounds and discovered that none of the blood splashed on her chest and face seemed to be hers.
“Shut up,” he said, and “get down.”
She just kept screaming, so he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. When that didn’t catch her attention, he slapped her, adrenaline making his open-palmed blow a little harder than he’d intended. She shut her mouth and looked at him in amazement and anger flared in her eyes. Jerry was suddenly glad that he looked like tough guy Alan Ladd. It made it all the easier to act the part.
“I said, shut up,” he repeated, putting his hand on the top of her head, “and get the Hell down.”
He shoved hard enough to push her to the floor and she crawled under the stage furniture. That was the safest place for her. He turned away, hoping she’d stay put. He couldn’t waste any more time on her.
More sounds of gunfire and terror came from the auditorium. Ray, and Angel, Jerry supposed, were keeping the bad guys off the stage. At least for the moment. Jerry went swiftly to the overturned sofa where Peregrine huddled over the bloody, unmoving body of her son. He vaulted over the divan and went down to one knee beside her. Her teeth were clenched. She was panting like a hyperventilating dog, or a woman trying to give birth.
“He’s all right,” she gasped out. “Not hurt. Hit his head when the sofa went over. Just knocked out. Be... all... right...”
Her voice started to fade. Jerry took her arm and half lifted her off the boy, wincing at what he saw. A line of slugs stitched sideways across Peregrine’s body from her loins, across her abdomen and chest to her right wing where feathers had been shot away and delicate bones shattered.
“Christ,” he said in a low voice.
It didn’t look good. He stripped his off shirt, ripped it to rags and applied pressure bandages as best he could to what seemed to be Peregrine’s worst wounds. Her only response was to moan feebly. There wasn’t anything else he could do for her, and he realized that Peregrine didn’t have much time left if she didn’t receive immediate medical attention. He turned his attention to John Fortune, thinking that Peregrine really needed his new-found ace abilities. But the kid was still out cold.
What a time to get knocked senseless, Jerry thought. He tried to revive the boy, but the best he could get from him was an unintelligible groan. He could feel a knot on the back of the kid’s skull the size of a golf ball. He must have really slammed his head hard on the floor when the sofa had tipped over on them.
Jerry felt as useless as Rock Hudson in the opening scenes of one of his screwball comedies. He didn’t want to mess around with the kid, in case he had a real head injury. And Peregrine needed expert attention, fast. Someone would have to help. Angel, he thought. Or Ray...
Jerry stood and went swiftly to the edge of the stage, shielded his eyes from the light and looked out just in time to see Ray go mano a mano with a chubby little guy who looked like someone’s favorite older uncle until the guy suddenly turned into something that wasn’t so avuncular. Jerry recognized the transformed man. He was the British killer ace called Butcher Dagon.
Eerily, it seemed as if the world had stopped to watch their breathtaking exhibition of violence. He saw Angel, some stiff who was much too good-looking for his own good, and even a few of the goons with guns as well as some of the crazy-scared onlookers pause to take a breath as Ray and Dagon tore at each other like gladiators from another, much more savage age.
For a moment John Fortune was forgotten. Even Peregrine slipped from his mind until the epic battle ended with the brilliant one-two punch of Angel and Ray cold-cocking the British ace.
Jerry saw the handsome guy climb onto the stage. Some of the surviving gunmen followed him. Fortunately none were near Jerry. He knew that he had only a few moments in which to make the right move. Peregrine was now beyond any help he could give her. There was only the kid, his sacred charge, to consider. He suddenly knew what to do.
He ripped off his clothes and the lights went out as he took on mass.
The auditorium fell into utter darkness. It was all very much like that night back in ‘65 when he’d turned into the Big Ape and sucked enough energy out of his surroundings to start a chain reaction that blacked out New York City and ultimately most of the eastern seaboard.