And mariachi music played from a radio and candlelight danced from a low window and a baby made its hunger or tiredness or displeasure known by its wailing.
The world was one sizable distraction.
Creep, creeping…
An odor. The odor was…
Puddled water. Shadows. A stray cat with a wound on its leg that was home to an extended family of maggots.
Shen.
Up ahead in the alley Shen sat on the ground. Legs splayed. Arms dangling at his sides. A gun spilled from his right hand. That odor: The air was sick with cordite. He'd gotten off a bunch of shots. No blood on the ground. If Shen had hit the target, the bullets didn't slow it any. The bullets didn't stop the target from getting close enough to Shen to punch a hole into his chest.
Into his chest.
Torn flesh and busted bone and flattened organs bent in on themselves like the heart of a black hole. That's what it was. The center of Shen was just a hole into which life had collapsed.
The expression on Shen's face, the one he wore when he exited existence: disbelief. He knew in his last half seconds he was going to die in a spectacularly horrid way. He wasn't ready.
Who is?
Soledad, voice above a whisper: "What is it?"
Raddatz didn't have an answer.
Unmistakable. The rapid, successive pops of nine-mil gunfire. The echo effect of the alley working against pinpointing the shots.
Raddatz, Soledad took their best guess. Ran.
On the street: screams and scurrying civvies.
Soledad, waving her badge at a tattooed cholo who was running like a muchacha.
"Esa manera! Esa numeral" And the cholo kept running.
The two cops went In the direction they were given, Soledad hobbling hard against her bad knee. Didn't have far to go before they saw what the running and screaming was about. Two people. One a corpse, one nearly.
Panama. Skull crashed. Dead. And Donatell'd be joining him shortly. A few wheezes-dying breaths-from his tamed body. Freshly, very badly burned. Even for Soledad, rock-hard Soledad, what a horrible, horrible…to take on fire once, to live, just so fire can catch up to you, give you all its hurt again.
The wheezing quit.
Shen. Panama. Donatell.
Soledad to Raddatz: "You fucking ass!" Cadre or not, Raddatz had gotten them killed.
Raddatz took a step, a step for Soledad.
Soledad's hand rushed up, out-swinging from her shoulder. Her shoulder's where she felt the impact. Back of her fist, center of Raddatz's face. She felt the cut of his teeth through the flesh, the commingling of their blood.
He dropped, Raddatz dropped straight down popping up only some when Soledad's swinging foot caught his jaw.
Most of that was straight anger. Three cops dead. Part of the aggression was self-preservation. She'd rather pursue the freak solo than have to keep one eye on Raddatz.
Swapping the green clip for the orange. Semtex-tipped slugs. No fucking around. Soledad was going to blow the shit out of the freak.
To her left, civvies standing, gawking. Something had gone by them eastbound.
Back to running. Yelling as she ran: "Police! Get on a phone. Nine one one. Get an MTac to this location!"
LA. Maybe the good citizens would make the call. Maybe they wouldn't.
Bum leg be damned, Soledad tore north on Union. Rounded the corner onto Shatto.
Apartments. Apartments. Apartments. Boles to shovel humans. Built tight to each other. No space to run, to hide. Windows barred. Doors locked, gated.
Soledad's thought: This is what comes of being a rat, a mole-running in the dark in the Valley, three dead cops behind you. A freak in front of you. At your side a cop you can't trust and the only thing you can-your piece.
Apartments. Apartments…
… construction.
A new building going up. Multi-unit. Bordered by chain-link. Part of it torn away. Wasn't damage a human had done.
It was Inside.
No hesitation. Soledad pursued. If inside was where it was, inside was where she'd kill it. Inside:
No light except what the moon was giving off. The moon wasn't giving up much.
Her knee was stiff, wasn't throbbing. Should've hurt like hellfire. Soledad's adrenaline was high. Kept the pain low.
Oughta keep steady. Oughta wait for MTac. Soledad thought she ought to…
Oughta what?
Back down? Hold off? Let a freak run wild, kill some more people?
Nan. Her adrenaline was BAMF high. Too high for fear. Too high for reason. She started to creep.
Fuckin' Raddatz, Soledad thought. What In the hell had he stirred up?
She brushed something. Jumped back, turned. Didn't fire. Just a work light. Minor miracle. Groping for it, groping a wire, she flipped it on. A string of lights went hot. The visual improvement marginal. The space was strung with thick plastic sheets. Dustcovers. Dust shields. They muted the light. Perception got messed with. Everything opaque. Gave the space a fun-house quality. Minus the fun.
Inching along. Gun out.
Like being wrapped in a chrysalis. Like moving through a fog of substance. Like living In oblivion. The unreal. It was all unreal. Except for the three uniquely dead bodies. The thought of those made everything truly real again.
Something moving through the plastic haze, moving for Soledad. Big and heavy, but it didn't lumber. Big and heavy, but it traveled with speed.
She turned, sidestepped. Twisted to take aim.
What Soledad felt: a punch by a hand so big it could drape her body in a single hurt. Make her twitch, lurch. Make her spasm. Make her see a serpent that ate and ate and ate its tail.
Wasn't a punch.
What it was:
What it was, was an electric charge popping- slamming-the air all around her. Picked her up. Threw her down.
Was only seconds that she jerked, flopped across the kind-of-finished floor. Only seconds that she could feel the tight of the muscles that clinched her jaws. Felt her eyes zipping around their sockets.
Only seconds that residual electricity flowed through her. Long enough the thing that was big and strong and fast should've been on her, finishing the job of trying to clean her clock.
Hearing coming back to her: the sounds of stumbling and grunting. The thing caught up in the sheeting.
Now. Shoot it. Kill it.
Shoot it, but she couldn't see.
Shoot it, but Soledad could barely command her movements.
The thing stumbling close, grabbing. The sound… the sound of a hiss. A whine. A hiss and a whine with its movement.
Soledad moved to shoot. The thing gave in return a blow. Physical this time. This time not electrical. The blow lifted Soledad, sent her slapping, slapping, slapping through the hanging plastic. Wrapped her up, but was no insultation from the splintering wood that waited to collect her. Puncture her. Or maybe it was just a busted rib ripping through her flesh. The agony of breathing was the same either way.
Slipping on the plastic, slipping on her own blood.
And then it was on Soledad, pulling Soledad close. Pulling her tight, tighter. A rash of air forced from her. Sounded like the collective wailing gasp of raving, exed-out youths losing themselves in the first shared bliss of an oncoming tsunami of euphoria. With that: popping, snapping. More ribs busting. Arms pinned, Soledad couldn't get her piece up, couldn't get a shot. Too close anyway. The Semtex going off: Wouldn't it kill her?
Did it matter?
Kill the beast.
Both thoughts running in her head: Did it matter? Kill the beast.
If she had to go, she'd take It with her. Get your arm up…
Squeezing tighter. Crashing her. Killing her. Not going to die today. Get your arm up. Kill the beast.
Use your head, she self-counseled. Use your fucking head.
She used it. Soledad reared her head back, drove it forward. Drove it.