Hammer of Angels Read online

  I roll off my partner as another shot rips through the air. Raj slumps to one knee with a loud grunt. As I get to my feet, a third shot rings out from the rear. This one hits me, but it only tugs a hole through my shirt, under my armpit.

  That’s enough of this bullshit. I ditch my MP-50 and activate Li’l Bertha. She vibrates like a puppy, eager to please.

  “C’mon, baby. We’ve got a job only you can do.” Li’l Bertha jacks in, analyzes the situation, and sets herself to .12-caliber pellets.

  I zoot myself up, then bound across the rooftops, circling toward the sniper’s hiding spot. Li’l Bertha is still low on ammo, so I refrain from laying down the hail of suppression fire my sidearm anticipated for me. Crack! The sniper tries to nail me. Crack! Crack! I bounce onto the building at the block’s back corner and pivot straight for him, dodging shot after shot.

  He’s on a four-story building, same as the one I’m on. Between us is a two-story house. I take a running jump and—

  Fuck!

  I haven’t suppressed my opponent, so he has all the time in the world to line me up while I float toward him like a goddamn balloon. My weapon switches to .50-caliber Explosives as her gyroscopes thrust my hand out in front of me. She fires at the same instant as my opponent. The two bullets roar past each other like jousting hot rods.

  Li’l Bertha’s shot penetrates my competitor’s right eye and detonates inside his skull. His head breaks open and expels its contents like a blender with the lid left off.

  The sniper’s bullet streaks toward me. I scrunch up as tight as I can and press my eyes shut. The rifle slug breaks the skin over my pelvis’s left side, clangs into my plated hip bone at an oblique angle, fires through a few inches of abdominal muscle, and then ricochets off the bottom of my polymetal-coated rib cage. I’m so hopped up that I can track the round drilling through my flesh like some kind of sizzling metal insect. The bullet rips an egg-sized hole out of my left side and splats against the inside of my SoftArmor vest.

  I crash to the roof screaming and skid into the semiheadless SZ sniper.

  “SCARLET!” Brando comms from across the block. “Oh, crap; are you hit?”

  “AGH!” My left side is drenched with blood and getting more soaked every second. “RRRR!” The pain is incredible, like I’ve been crushed in the jaws of a dinosaur. “Fuck! Patrick, get over here!” I let go of Li’l Bertha and press one hand on the entry wound over my left hip. My other hand fumbles with my SoftArmor straps, but I can’t open them to reach the exit wound.

  I’m growing faint. My neuroinjector cranks a shitload of Kalmers, Overkaine, and CoAgs. I rest my head on the roof, squint at the sky, and try to slow my breathing.

  My partner finally appears. He doesn’t have as many Mods as me, so he’s had to scramble across the rooftops like a believably acrobatic person. He unslings his X-bag and digs out his first-aid kit. This kit saves my life because ExOps first-aid packages are essentially a miniature field hospital complete with plasma, pressure bandages, antibiotics, a suction pack, tools for heavy stitching, sterilized superglue to hold wounds shut, and even a patch of freeze-dried Exoskin.

  Brando unbuckles my SoftArmor, rips my shirt open, and quickly inspects the two wounds. His face is knotted with worry, but his voice remains steady. “Only one shot?”

  “Only?”

  His hands whip in and out of his first-aid kit. “Sorry,” he says. “I mean, this is all we’re dealing with, right?”

  “Whaddaya want, more?”

  “C’mon, Alix! Fuckin’ work with me here, all right?”

  I take a deep breath, which hurts like a bitch. My face is drenched in sweat, and my spit tastes like copper. “Yes, he only hit me with one shot. I’m pretty sure I felt it exit.”

  Brando slaps a fat pressure bandage on the exit gaper, tapes it down, and then focuses on the entry wound over my left hip. He tilts me onto my right side and starts picking at the bullet hole.

  “OW! Darwin—AGH!—what the fuck are you doing? That hurts!”

  “Sorry, Scarlet, but the bullet carried a piece of cloth from your pants inside you. If we leave it there, it’ll get infected and you’ll die. Stop moving! It’s slowing me down.”

  No fucking way do I go out like this.

  I lie still and hiss through my clenched teeth as my partner carefully uses his forceps to pluck out the bits of clothing. My molars grind together as a streak of roasted electricity swirls around my hip. Tears drip off my nose onto the roof.

  Brando applies a bandage to the entry wound. “Okay, that should do it.” He rolls me onto my back. His face floats above me. A brown lock of hair hangs across his eyes. He’s backlit by a beautiful blue sky, and whatever he’s saying helps me calm down.

  I reach my hand behind his head and pull his lips down on mine. When Patrick recovers from his surprise, I find out he kisses just as well as his late brother.

  I let go of him and gulp for breath. Patrick regards me with his gray-blue eyes for a long moment. Then his attention is drawn back toward our not-so-safe house across the block. “Raj needs us.”

  Oh, right. I find Li’l Bertha and stuff her in her holster. When I try to sit up, my midsection roils in agony.

  I gasp and collapse to the roof. “Fuck! It hurts everywhere!”

  Brando says, “The bullet made a shock wave as it passed through you. Try getting onto all fours first.”

  This works better. I crawl onto my hands and knees and then wobble to my feet. A wave of dizziness swims through my head. Before I fall down again, my partner puts his arm around me.

  “Darwin, grab that jerkoff’s rifle and ammo.”

  Brando leans me against the water tank and bends down to retrieve my dead adversary’s weapon.

  “How’s Rah-Rah?”

  Brando slips his arm around my waist again. “He’ll have a nasty bruise, but he’s okay. The bullet struck him at an angle, and his SoftArmor wasn’t pierced.”

  “How about Victor?”

  “He’s defending the safe house’s front door until we’re ready to go. Here.” Brando hands me the rifle.

  “Thanks.” I take it by the barrel and lean on it like a cane. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Raj is coming to us. We’ll go down to the street together.”

  “Lemme guess. Then we’ll swipe a ride and drive off into the sunset.”

  “Steal a vehicle, yes, then we pick up Victor. It’s a little early for the sunset part. Grey has some kind of distraction planned to help us get away.”

  “Well, button my shirt first. I don’t need Raj to see what color bra I wear.”

  23

  SAME MORNING, 7:28 A.M. GMT

  36 TALBOT ROAD, NOTTING HILL, LONDON, PROVINCE OF GREAT BRITAIN, GG

  Raj leans out from the doorway, peeks up and down the street, then leans into the front hallway of our temporary hideout. He says, “The Staatszeiger truck is across the road. I only see one soldier. He must be the driver.” Our big man sets his stolen MP-50 into his cavernous mitts and checks the safety. He rolls his shoulders and grimaces. Then he glances at me.

  Brando holds me upright. My blood is smeared all over us, and I’m simply drenched from the waist down. Brando’s hastily applied bandages aren’t adhering very well since I’m still walking around, leaving sticky red footprints everywhere.

  I shouldn’t be moving, of course, but we have to get the fuck away from here. All three of us know the only thing that will kill me faster than moving is not moving. This fact is being clearly reinforced by the gunshots echoing around the neighborhood.

  Raj comms on the team channel. “Victor, you there?”

  “Affirmative.” Victor’s voice crackles through the firefight. “Go ahead, Raj.”

  “Our exit is imminent. Break off contact now and come to us through the back garden.”

  “Understood. On my way.”

  Raj gives me another once-over. “Scarlet, I still think you’d better sit up front with us.”

  “Forget
it. I can’t drive like this, and one of us has to ride in back to fend off pursuers.”

  Raj’s eyes move to where Victor will come from, then to me.

  I cut him off. “No way, Raj. Victor is good, but he’s not enhanced.”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right,” he grumbles. “Let’s do this, then.” My fellow Level faces the street and charges outside. Brando and I lumber after him.

  Rah-Rah isn’t as fast as me, but he’s no slouch, either. Our athletic Vindicator quickly covers the half block and body-slams the driver right out of his boots. The Staatsjerk drops like a load of turnips. Raj circles the transport to make sure he hasn’t missed anybody while Brando hoists me onto the truck’s rear gate. Victor sprints from the garden across the street.

  “Victor,” Raj shouts, “you ride shotgun.”

  “I ride what?” Victor asks.

  Despite the pain I’m in, this gets a laugh out of me. Germans don’t have that expression, I guess.

  Brando pitches in. “He means ride up front with us.”

  I thump onto the deck and drag myself between a pair of long benches into the cargo area. I slump against the cab’s rear wall, facing backward. Brando, Victor, and Raj crowd in up front. Raj fires up the diesel engine, and we rattle away from the O.K. Corral.

  My partner comms, “Scarlet, how you doin’ back there?”

  “I’m fine, but make Raj stop if you see a McDonald’s.”

  “Only if it has an eighty-mile-an-hour drive-through.”

  The wheels bounce through a pothole.

  Brando again. “Scarlet, you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You yelled. It sounded like it hurt.”

  Hmm. I hadn’t realized I’d said anything. “Don’t worry about it.” I switch to Raj. “Hey, Mario Andretti, can you avoid those bumps?”

  “Sorry, Shortcake. Will do.”

  After a few minutes we pull onto an expressway. Ahh, smooth, smooth highway. The tires’ fluid rolling sounds like a distant waterfall. Cars drift past and swush into the background. My head droops forward, like when I used to nap in math class.

  Madrenaline is off limits right now because it’ll make me bleed out faster. I could really go for some coffee or another one of Grey’s cigarettes. I’m daydreaming about cappuccino and Marlboros when I hear from up front, “Do you think he saw us?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Scarlet, we’ve got company.”

  A military motorcycle bounces over the median strip and pulls into the fast lane behind us. It follows us for a mile or so, maintaining a distance of about sixty yards. The motorcyclist holds one hand over his headset’s microphone to block the wind. He’s radioing for backup.

  Well, that won’t do at all.

  I pick up my rifle and look through the scope. The crosshairs jiggle all over the place. I bend my legs up in front of me, prop the rifle on my knees, and sight again. Better. I might not score a head shot, but I’ll still get this Heinie hopping.

  My first round smashes the bike’s headlight. The next one nails the motorcyclist’s arm. I miss with my third shot as the injured soldier swerves into the breakdown lane.

  “Guys,” I comm, “he’s stopped.”

  “Nice work,” Raj comms.

  I tug out my rifle’s magazine, stuff in a new one, and settle in for the ride. After five minutes or so, my eyes shut and my breathing grows steady and deep.

  Mmm, mocha latte…

  I’m jolted back to reality by Raj’s comm. “There’s a roadblock ahead, Scarlet. You’d better hang on to something.”

  The truck’s engine roars louder and louder as Raj accelerates. I drape the rifle’s strap around my shoulders and grab the benches. Victor’s submachine gun hammers from up front.

  Shouts from outside, then we hit with a resounding clong! that lifts me off the floor and smacks my head against the wall. I see white static, then dark gray with red spots.

  A flurry of gunfire and German curses from behind tells me we’ve bashed our way through. Several cars and a couple of motorcycles detach themselves from the mess and race after us.

  I blink the spots out of my eyes, prop the sniper’s rifle on my knees again, and open fire on our pursuers. Victor tries to engage them, too—his withering fire showers the cars in sparks—but his awkward position makes it tough for him to do more than suppress them. I shoot four troopers before I have to reload. The two motorcyclists see their opportunity and roar forward.

  The first rider pulls up to the rear gate, chucks something inside, and veers away. I don’t have to look to know it’s a grenade, but it’s at the deck’s far end. I lunge forward and curse in pain as I roll off my butt and onto my knees. I grip my rifle in one hand and crawl toward the fizzing potato masher. I stretch out with my rifle’s barrel and poke the grenade out of the truck. It bounces three feet off the pavement. I flop down and hide in the crook of my elbow.

  Boom! My right shoulder is hit. The first two-wheeler skitters off the road. The motorcyclist grimaces, and his body leans awkwardly to one side.

  The second motorcycle maniac closes in behind us with a grenade ready to throw.

  “Raj! Hit the brakes!” I comm.

  “What?”

  “BRAKES! NOW!”

  Raj stomps on the brakes. We lurch and suddenly slow down. I skid toward the front like a hockey puck. Our competitor crashes into the truck’s rear end and smacks his handlebars with his face.

  “Okay, now floor it!”

  The truck surges ahead, away from the teetering motorcyclist. His grenade falls to the pavement and skips alongside his ride before it detonates and blows the bike’s front wheel off. A moment later, the motorcycle’s gas tank explodes and sprays a flaming pool of gasoline across all three lanes.

  I’m crumpled under one of the benches, tangled in the rifle’s strap. My face presses into the grubby deck, which is gradually being coated with liquid, wet and sticky. The road buzzes in my cheekbones. I close my eyes.

  A bump makes me open them again. A girl perches on the other bench, reading a Spider-Man comic book. She’s about my size, maybe a couple of years younger than me. She puts down the comic book and gawks at me. Two dark lenses descend over her eyes. I see myself reflected in the lenses. Left Me sips a coffee, and Right Me puffs a cigarette.

  Her left arm turns into a long knife that she uses to slice her legs and right arm off. Then she chops off her own head, which bounces across the floor until it stops directly in front of me. Her lenses retract and reveal her wide-open eyes. She says, “Die, my dear? Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do!” Then the girl’s head breaks into wild, hysterical laughter.

  24

  SAME MORNING, FOUR HOURS LATER, 11:52 A.M. GMT

  ENGLISH CHANNEL OFF DOVER, PROVINCE OF GREAT BRITAIN, GG

  When I was young, bath time wasn’t about cleanliness—it was about adventure. On my eighth birthday, my dad gave me a fleet of toy boats and a set of kids’ books about ships. For months, I read the books over and over. During my nightly bath, I’d splash around with the little plastic boats and reenact the Battle of Trafalgar where Admiral Nelson defeated the Barbary pirates or when the U.S.S. Constitution single-handedly sank all the Spanish galleons.

  Even though I jumbled up my stories a bit, they taught me the English Channel is the final resting place of something like half the sailors ever lost at sea. You’d have to be fuckin’ nuts to use a small, open powerboat to ferry a gunshot victim cross-Channel in the middle of February. Naturally, this is exactly what we’re doing.

  It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten much lately or this dinghy would have a fresh coat of barf beige. I don’t even remember getting into this tub. Raj must have put me here. The last thing I recall is passing out in the truck. Then there was a long, commercial-free series of nightmares. I woke once, here in the boat, when Brando connected a can of blood plasma to my intravenous port. When the plasma was empty, he switched me to a can of antibiotics and salin
e solution. That can is tucked into a pocket in my SoftArmor vest.

  I’m snuggled into the craft’s prow, wrapped in an enormous wool blanket. Brando is tucked in behind me to cushion my body from the boat’s pitching as it battles the waves. Despite the cold, I’m covered in sweat. My Eyes-Up display unhappily traces my rapid heartbeat and low blood pressure. I try to divert myself by watching our new buddy pilot the outboard motor.

  Victor Eisenberg’s face is slick with salt spray. The low winter sun throws his chiseled features into high relief as his blue eyes beam anxiously across the approaching sea. He’s right to be on edge. If a whitecap hits this teeny boat the wrong way, we’ll flip over and go down to Davy Jones’s locker.

  “How’s that?” Victor comms on our team channel. He holds one hand over his comm-set’s microphone because of the wind.

  “A little more left,” Brando answers. “There. Good.”

  Victor has his hands full just keeping us upright, so Brando takes care of me and tracks our position. Navigation is easy for my partner because of his built-in global positioning system. You never get lost with El Brando around.

  Between the arctic wind, the buffeting swells, and the blaring engine, it’s too loud for regular talking. I comm, “Ahoy there, Cap’n Vicberg!”

  Victor glances at me. His white teeth gleam when he smiles. “Darwin,” he comms, “she’s awake.”

  My partner shifts position so he can see me. “Hey! How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Can you give me some more detail?”

  You asked for it. I bitch about my nausea, my dizziness, how cold I am, and that I’m as thirsty as a sailor on payday. I’m also in a lot of pain despite my Overkaine.

  “Are you still bleeding?” he asks.

  “Hang on.” Beneath the blanket, I use my hand to examine my injuries. Then I wriggle my arm around until my fingers shake into view, revealing blue nails and moist, bloody tips.

  “Affirmative,” I comm.

  “Damn. Our med-kit only has one can of plasma.”

  “How far do we have to go?”

  Brando tucks me under the blanket. “We’ll be in Calais in fifteen minutes, but we still need to meet our contact. It’s not like we were able to call ahead and make a reservation, so I have no idea if she’s around.”