But the people in those windows knew that now. Win or lose, live or die, that knowledge would never desert them. It could be ignored, forced down, loathed, but that wouldn’t change its essential truth. The men screaming as they burned knew it too.
It was not romantic. It was not moral. It simply was.
Luke had expected that as soon as the line was broken, as soon as some of the Sons had made it past the defenses and into the city, the will of the defenders would snap. He’d been wrong. Even as scores of his men broke the lines, as the militia penetrated the city and the sounds of battle rose from every block, the people in the windows fought. They fought with the will of people protecting their homes and their children, and Luke honored that in them.
The Sons continued to charge, firing as they ran, leaping the bodies of their comrades. In the windows, rifles flashed, bottles rained down. The street was bright now, and the beast lurched from flame to flame, slavering and laughing.
Discipline and restraint did not make him a good man. But they had allowed him to live with the beast for decades. As chaos flared around him, Luke was calm. He moved in a low crouch, choosing his steps carefully, the rifle held low. As his heart screamed to rage, he kept his finger off the trigger. He moved to the edge of the light cast by the gasoline fires and knelt down. He ignored the bullets snapping off the concrete around him, the smoke that brought tears to his eyes, the smell of cooking meat, and he watched.
The defenders had set up barriers in the windows and fired from behind them. But not every barrier concealed a target. It might be a shortage of manpower, but he suspected instead a shortage of weapons. The abnorms had put too much faith in their technology, taken too much comfort in their invisible wall. Once it was breached, they were vulnerable.
He watched and saw that though there were many windows, many barriers, the number of defenders was quite limited. Their strength was an illusion. They would fire from one window, stop as soon as they drew attention, and move to a different one. He doubted there were more than a handful of snipers in each building. The only reason they had held on as long as they had was that they weren’t facing an organized army—they were battling a horde.
Luke raised the rifle to his shoulder. He watched a man in his fifties empty a magazine, then drop from sight as bullets streamed upward. Luke waited.
When a muzzle flashed at a different window, he exhaled, sighted, and fired once.
The man jerked. Staggered. Fell across the barrier.
Luke waited.
From the neighboring building, another Molotov flew, the glass sparkling. He ignored it, ignored the blast of fire and the screams. Waited.
A woman rose like a cobra, a rifle in her arms. He recognized her. He had seen her earlier through the binoculars. She was even prettier up close. Or perhaps it wasn’t the distance; perhaps it was that since then she had experienced a facet of life she’d never suspected. Had embodied a savagery that had no place in her parenting or her parties.
Like Luke, she had seen the beast. Like him, she had made her offerings to it. Were she to live, no doubt she would be horrified at what she had done; the screams of burning men would haunt her midnight hours. But there would be a part of her that missed it. A secret, unacknowledged quarter that would revel in the moment she had held the raw stuff of life in her hands.
Were she to live. But having seen the beast granted you no protection from it.
Luke framed her face in the sights of his rifle and pressed the trigger.
The round took her through the forehead.
CHAPTER 43
Shannon could feel the heat from the burning drone even from here, the flames so pale they were nearly invisible, and even as she sprinted down the runway, she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing.
Behind her, Nick yelled something, but she couldn’t hear it and she couldn’t stop, not while the other UAV was already picking up speed, the engine whine loud enough to penetrate the gunfire and the crackle of melting composites.
She’d flown gliders hundreds of times, loved the feeling of them, the dance with wind and gravity, larking across the desert. Loved the knowledge that even though they were reasonably safe if you knew what you were doing, they were not merciful. Lose focus, lose the wind, misread a situation, and the ground was a hard teacher. It was the same thing she liked about going on mission, that feeling of hundred-proof life, and it couldn’t exist without risk, without gambling against fate. She had always known that one day she’d lose. She just hoped it wasn’t today.
The pilot crumpled under the wing wore a leather jacket and an astonished expression. There were bags near his feet. He’d probably been hoping for a last-second save against the militia and had waited too long. Soren’s knife had opened his throat so cleanly and so deep she could see the white of vertebrae. She hoped he had been a better pilot than fighter; there wasn’t time to check the body of the plane, to confirm that the wheels were unblocked, to ensure that the cable was properly attached and the release well-maintained. She just leapt his corpse, hauled herself into the cabin, and started flicking switches. The battery worked, the indicator lights snapped on, and then there was a streak of motion out the side window, the drone already barreling past, picking up speed rapidly. No time for niceties like safety, then. Time to do or die.
More like do and die, sweetie.
There’s only one way to bring down that drone.
Shannon buckled her seat belt and, with a prayer that the automatic systems were online, reached for the button marked CABLE RETRACT.
There was the familiar jolt of the winch engaging, and then she was thrown back in her seat as the glider jerked forward.
Cooper dropped his empty assault rifle and caught the shotgun in the air, then yelled, “Wait!” Couldn’t think what to add after that, and it didn’t matter, because Shannon didn’t.
He was about to start after her when a figure stepped from the hangar. Lean and graceful and filled with menace. Cold fingers seemed to wrap around Cooper’s torso. As though his heart had a memory, knew what it faced. The man who had only weeks ago slid a knife into his chest. Who had put his son in a coma and killed Cooper without breaking a sweat. The fear that gripped him was primal. Brain stem stuff, deep and certain, and with every step Soren took, it magnified.
Then a thought occurred to him.
They had to stop that drone. Neither his life nor Shannon’s meant anything compared to that. She would realize that. He knew his warrior woman, knew that she wouldn’t hesitate.
But maybe he could spare her the choice. Soren had launched the drone; he might be able to stop it. To bring it down before Shannon was forced into the only course of action available to her.
Cooper raised the shotgun. The stock was still warm from her cheek. Soren was twenty feet away. He stopped when he saw the gun come up. He had no intention to read, no plan Cooper’s gift could use. Calm as unmoving water.
Yeah? Make some waves.
Cooper aimed, exhaled, and pressed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand.
In the instant his finger began to squeeze the trigger, Soren spun like a dancer, took two quick twisting steps and stood smiling and unscathed.
Fear’s talons dug in. Soren’s T-naught was 11.2. Even the fraction of a second it took Cooper to pull the trigger stretched out to full Mississippis for him, seconds during which he could see the angle of the gun, gauge Cooper’s aim.
It wasn’t dodging bullets, but it was—
This is a pump-action Remington tactical shotgun. Seven shells.