“I don’t think this is going to work, Shia. If Arnold couldn’t fix it, what makes you think that Gideon can?”
I gave Sara’s arm a reassuring squeeze, though I was nowhere near as confident as I forced myself to sound. “Arnold doesn’t deal in the dark arts. This guy does. What he knows is closer to what David was doing than the magic Arnold uses. Gideon’s the best chance we’ve got.”
And damn whatever fates were responsible for making that the sorry truth.
Chapter 26
It was long past nightfall before we were able to make it across town to Santa Monica.
Tiny had taken the wheel. Not that there was anywhere for us to go for a while—not with the mess in front of us.
Gideon had planned his diversionary tactics well. There were just enough zombies still stumbling around to keep the cops and local news stations frantic with activity, drawing everything from the National Guard to the CDC. Not only did the mess keep us locked in place for hours, unable to chase after him, but it also meant that any rapid response teams that might have come after him at Clyde’s place would be delayed and unable to stop whatever plans Fabian and Gideon had in mind for the master of Los Angeles.
We had to get the hell out of this trap, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. Cars were stopped bumper-to-bumper in both directions.
The anthill of activity centered on the worst of the jam was disrupted when a few people figured out they were about to be detained by the government for “testing;” they then drove over curbs and bumped other cars out of their way to escape.
It wasn’t a bad idea. We took off with some of the initial rush, maneuvering around the abandoned cars, before any barricades could be set up to keep us from hightailing it. We’d lost a couple of precious hours, but it had given us the time to work together to come up with a stronger plan than just “show up and melt faces.” Once we got off the freeway and away from the cemetery, there was little traffic on the surface streets.
Devon had been on his cell phone nonstop. Making arrangements with other White Hats to bring weapons and meet us not far from Clyde’s place. We were going to need to try for stealth sneaking into the gated community, which meant we needed a back way in. A half dozen or more cars and trucks carrying vigilante hunters bristling with weapons wasn’t going to fly with the security guards.
Neither were the zombies, I was sure, but Gideon had the advantages of an insider who might clear a path for him and a lack of moral compunctions preventing him from messing with the minds of people who might try to stop him on the way in.
Plus, none of us were magi, so we didn’t have that power. Damn it.
We would have to hope that we arrived either shortly before or after Gideon and Fabian attacked. My assumption, based upon what little experience I had in Other-to-Other wars, was that Gideon would be responsible for handling the remainder of Clyde’s bodyguards, while Fabian would be the one to attack Clyde. Most likely, Gideon would stop somewhere to pick up a few extra zombies on the way and attack shortly after sunset.
There was a slim chance we were wrong. He might be waiting for sunrise, when Clyde would be at his most vulnerable, but I had to hope that Fabian was too cocky and impatient to wait that long. They wouldn’t want to give up the advantage of the mess Gideon had created on the freeway.
If I was wrong, we were all screwed.
Either way, both vampires had to die tonight. The thought of Fabian being killed didn’t give me so much as a twinge. On the other hand, as much as I didn’t like Clyde, I was sorry he was caught in the middle of this. He was a prick, but that wasn’t enough to merit his death.
Still, I wasn’t sorry enough to stop it.
Even if I had a last minute attack of conscience—ha!—it was far too late to stop the gears that had been set in motion. Everything was about to come to a head.
Some of the other White Hats were held up on the freeway, and a few others were caught up in other activities Devon didn’t choose to explain. By the time we arrived at the rendezvous point on a service road that ran around the perimeter of the community, the sun had set about half an hour ago, and there were maybe thirty White Hats in a variety of tactical gear waiting for us, hovering in the shadows just outside the cones of illumination from nearby street lamps.
It surprised me to see so many hunters out here. The New York chapter boasted maybe half this number. Probably even fewer now that Jack was out of the picture.
Some of them gave deferential nods to Devon as he walked down the line, exchanging a word here and there.
The guy from the White Hat bar we’d visited on our first night out on the town—Jesus—was passing out weapons to some of the other hunters. Tonight he was wearing a vest, combat boots, and cargo pants—no shirt, no jacket—and carrying a long, heavy duffel. He put what had to be an illegal assault rifle into my hands. It was so unexpected and heavy that I almost dropped the stupid thing before I got a good grip on it.
He didn’t bother to see if I was okay. He kept moving at a good clip, pulling a sawed-off shotgun out of the bag and thrusting it at Tiny, and following up by tossing Sara an Uzi. Thank God she didn’t drop the damned thing, or accidentally flick the safety off in the process. She looked at the weapon in her hands like she’d never seen a gun before, though we’d both spent time at the range together.
After the initial surprise wore off, we both gave the guy death glares, but he didn’t appear to notice, continuing down the line to toss weapons at the few White Hats who didn’t have their own. No one else seemed ruffled by his actions.
Someone had disabled the alarm and security camera by a recessed gate in the thick stucco wall surrounding the property, and the door was being held open for the White Hats to slip through. Most of them were wearing dark colors: grays, browns, greens, and slashes of black, blending into the deep shadows of the towering bushes and trees that had been grown close to the wall for an extra layer of privacy from prying eyes.
As the White Hats filed inside, I examined the rifle that the walking arms dealer had put in my hands.
Damn. The guy meant business. It was an AK-47, matte black, and a magazine was already attached. I wasn’t used to anything bigger than a handgun, and it took me a moment to figure out how to check if a bullet was chambered.
Once I figured out the bolt action and barrel extension, I could see that, yes indeed, this gun was ready to go. If I weren’t already in so much trouble, I would have been having a minor panic attack at holding a gun that wasn’t registered to me and that I wasn’t technically trained to use. Dim recollections of the information the sentient hunter’s belt had given me about the use of various guns would be enough for me to get by, but if the gun jammed or anything else went wrong, I was screwed.
I couldn’t be sure if the magazine was full, but hopefully whatever was in there would be many times more bullets than I would need to use tonight.
When I looked up, Sara was still examining her gun. She was running the thumb of her free hand over the safety, frowning down at the weapon. The knot between her eyebrows didn’t ease away when she tilted her head up to look at me. She must not have been pleased at this turn of events either.
Hefting my rifle up so the barrel was to the sky, resting against my shoulder, I sidled closer to her and nodded at her gun. “Bet that thing will cut right through a zombie.”
“Maybe,” she said, lifting it one-handed to give it a more critical eye. “I hear they have a tendency to jam, though. Hope the White Hats aren’t planning on putting me in the front lines. I’m not sure I’m going to be much of a shot with this thing.”