From the corner of my eye I saw Promise take the head of one revenant with her sword while tossing another of the creatures fifteen feet straight up to smash against the ceiling of the tunnel. A third hit her as she handled the first two and took her down to disappear under the water. I only had time to take one step toward her before she surfaced…alone. Three for her, three for me, at least six for Nik, which left only ten.
Unless you counted the next twenty that appeared from the gloom.
And behind those … I stopped counting. When it came to mathematics, there were three numerical concepts I was interested in: barely worth the time, doable, and strategic fucking retreat. I didn't need a calculator to know we were looking at the latter.
"Promise, go," Niko rapped. "Cal, cover us."
"Got it." The big gun was coming out after all. I pulled out the .50 and emptied the clip. I hit the revenants in the lead and concentrated the rest of my fire on the ceiling. It didn't fall, but chunks of it did. Between that and the heads of their companions exploding like a Fourth of July event gone catastrophically wrong, they did hesitate slightly. It was enough to give us a head start and we took it. I stopped once more in my headlong rush to slide another clip home and fire again. Normally this would've been enough to put off a group of revenants, even one this large. They weren't bright, but they weren't usually suicidal either.
These were different. Sawney, not their own instincts and intelligence, controlled them. I didn't know if it was through sheer force of his maniacal personality or through something more unnatural in its domination. And in the end, the "how" didn't really matter; it was the results that concerned me. The ones that were left kept coming and coming, no matter how many I dropped. There were probably close to thirty-five to forty of them still remaining by the time I ran out of the explosive rounds.
"Cal."
"I'm coming." I turned and ran again. Niko was waiting a short distance ahead as I splashed along. The revenants weren't far behind me…like I'd said, they were fast. "All out of the good shit," I panted as we both raced along. As we approached, Promise stood still in a sickly pool of yellow light by a metal door she'd pried open. I saw the remains of the lock hanging, shattered by her deceptively slim hands. It was nice having a vampire on your side when it came to breaking and entering, especially when the breakage involved was fairly high.
"This way," she said, seemingly untroubled by the horde behind us. As the three of us passed through, she slammed it behind us and turned the handle with a flick of her wrist. That flick led to a creaking of metal and one seriously jammed door. Body after body hit it behind us. It held, but it wouldn't for long. We didn't wait around to time it. This tunnel was higher than the other, the water only ankle deep.
"Think Sawney is making this his permanent headquarters?" I asked as we moved. We needed him to settle in, to choose his territory—the one he wouldn't be able to abandon. The one he'd be forced by his own nature to stick around in so we could kick his ass, the home he'd defend to the death…hopefully his.
"Difficult to say. He's long-lived and the long-lived tend to be cautious. Especially, I imagine, those who've been burned to death." Niko had slowed to a fast lope and Promise and I followed suit. "Even if that death was only temporary. I think it's more likely he'll try several locations before choosing the one most suited to his particular lifestyle."
If you could call eating random strangers a lifestyle—cannibalistically inclined seeks open-minded cave dweller. No vegetarians please.
Nik's conclusion wasn't what I wanted to hear, but he was probably right. Sawney was cunning. He wasn't going to pick a place without checking out all his options. As for the revenants…"We're going to need more firepower or more hands or both," I pointed out. "I swear, that son of a bitch has every last revenant in the city working for him. The line at Monster Manpower must be short as hell now."
In the distance, I heard the sound of a metal door slamming back against concrete, and it was time for more serious running—not to mention a little serious cursing. By the time we reached one of the tunnels close to the surface, I was torn between barfing up a lung and lying down to die of a welcome heart attack. Damn, those bastards could run. They'd pulled back at the last second when we'd finally reached the lights and sounds of civilization. It was a good thing we weren't in active tunnels. Vaulting off the rail followed by a mob of ravenous revenants would've ruined the evening of any average commuter who happened to be standing on the platform.
I sat on the floor and leaned against a square pillar. "Enter"—I wheezed—"taining."
Vampires did breathe. They weren't dead, undead, any of that—a common misconception, no matter how much it made for good literature. They did have a larger lung capacity than humans, though. Promise was barely breathing deeply. At least Niko, who thought the New York Marathon was for those without the commitment for genuine exercise, was pulling in the occasional heavy breath of his own. It made me feel a little better about my burning chest.
"So …" I sucked in a breath and the oxygen deprivation spots began to fade around the edges of my vision. "What now?"
"That is a good question." Niko looked back toward the tunnel. "A very good question indeed."
12
Charity work in the tunnels didn't mean I got to skip the "day job." Two hours later I'd cleaned up after the tunnel battle, was back at the bar, and facing something worse than a horde of hungry revenants. A whole lot damn worse.
"Let me tell you a story."
Goodfellow was drunk. Not buzzed, not a little loose, but absolutely shit-faced. I'd long lost count of the number of drinks he had. What was the point? He never paid for them anyway—another way of thumbing his nose at Ishiah.
"How about I tell you one? It's about the moron who got loaded when there was someone out there trying to kill him." I kept my eyes on the rest of the bar. I always did, but this time I did it with a mental target branded on every patron's vulnerable areas. Robin seemed to have forgotten about the attempts on his life, but I hadn't.
"Why don't you stop serving him?" Ishiah said at my shoulder before finishing acidly, "Although the alcoholic fumes emanating from his pores should drop any creature in its tracks."
"I tried. He threatened to go somewhere else and guzzle." I checked my watch. It was nearly three thirty a.m. I'd gone to the apartment to change after the tunnel fiasco, then had come to work. I'd been dead on my feet before I even got there. Now I was wondering just how difficult it would be to drag the puck back home with me, because it was doubtful he was up for fighting off a foot fungus, much less your generic inhuman killing machine. The thought didn't make me feel any less beat. "At least I can keep an eye on him here."
"And why do you bother? Most do not. He's an extraordinary amount of trouble. He always has been. He always will be." It was said without anger or accusation. Ishiah said it as if it were nothing more than the truth—the sky is blue, the earth is round. Neither good, nor bad. It simply was what it was. Although there did seem to be a trace of more personal observation of this particular puck than simple general knowledge of the race at large.
"He saved my life." I caught the glass that came tumbling through the air across the bar, refilled it, and set it back in front of Robin. "He stood with me and Nik against some pretty nasty shit when he damn well should've run the other way." I would have. At the time I didn't give a shit about anyone but Nik and myself. Goodfellow, the ultimate self-serving creature, had risen above in a way I know I wouldn't have. Not then.