Shadows (Ashes Trilogy 2)

Stop. She slapped her right cheek, a stinging blow that jerked out a breath and cut tears. For an instant, the images broke apart the way a pond’s perfect reflection of sky and trees fractures the instant you shatter the surface with a rock. Come on, come on, stay with it . . . She slapped herself a second and then a third time, much, much harder, enough that the sharp crack echoed. Something seemed to snap in her head; a jagged flash of white sliced through that deadening swirl, and that awful feeling of falling evaporated as her mind cleared.

She was panting. Leopard’s aroma was hot and heavy and cloying, like boiled honey laced with sewage, and he must have just eaten because his breath was foul, thick with the greasy stink of fat and wet copper. The yellow spray of his light was a dusty glow growing firmer and more coherent by the second. She scrambled back like a crab, stumbling over Daniel in her rush. She heard Daniel’s breathing change, and she had a split second when she thought maybe now would be a good time to scream, while she still had the chance. Stupid. No one would hear or help, and she was too deep anyway. The only person who gave a damn about Leopard was Spider, who must be busy somewhere. Maybe filleting steaks for the chow line.

The spear of light swept into the drift like a searchlight and tacked her into place. Squinting against the sudden brilliance, she put up a hand to shield her eyes but couldn’t see anything. The light left her for an instant and found Daniel, who barely reacted. His eyelids twitched and his head rolled; he swallowed. But that was all. No help there. No help anywhere. The light slid back and held on to her for a good five seconds. Now that she knew what to expect, she braced herself against another mental slip, but the monster was either playing possum or she really might be able to control this after all. Anyway, nothing happened. If she lived through the next ten minutes, she might even figure out why it had happened at all.

Click.

Full dark. All she saw were purple afterimages of Leopard’s head and shoulders and the outlines of his Uzi. Could she get the gun? Her ears tingled. She heard a slight shush, a whisper of cloth and leather, and then the grind of metal against rock. Putting down his gun. His boots crunched closer. Rock squealed.

She got her feet tucked under in a crouch. The geometry of the tunnel was simple. Daniel was on her right; Leopard was ahead and a little to her left—because he was right-handed, he’d worn the Uzi in a cross-carry that could be shrugged off his right shoulder. So his weapon was on her left. One gun down. Leopard normally wore that Glock tucked in his waistband. Had she seen it earlier in the day? She couldn’t remember.

She felt him move closer. His smell was huge now, a boiling black fog. His breath was ragged and sour with excitement.

Click. Light, hot and bright, shining directly into her eyes. The brightness was so intense it felt like needles, and she could feel the tears spilling down her cheeks.

Leopard was only ten feet away, no more, and he had a decision to make. If he stayed true to the brief glimpse she’d seen of what he wanted, then he needed both hands. Hard to take a struggling girl one-handed. So, either he’d turn off the light, or put it down to free up his hands. She bet he put it down. From what she’d seen, the Changed didn’t absolutely need the light, but she thought he’d brought it so she would understand just what was going to happen, or maybe he wanted her to not only feel what he would do to her but see it, too. He might also leave the light on out of habit, too. In his previous life, Leopard was probably the kind of guy who liked to watch.

Then Leopard surprised her. Sidestepping to his right, his eyes on her the whole time, he wedged the flashlight between two timber supports at waist level. Smart. Keep the light on her and behind him. But when he sidled away, her gaze clicked to his waist and she got a good look because Leopard wasn’t wearing a jacket. After all, the mine was relatively warm, and he figured on working up a swe—

All of a sudden, he was there, so fast she had no time to spring from her crouch or knee his balls or jam her thumbs into his eyes. One minute he was ten feet away and the next he was slamming her into the rock. Her head bounced against stone. Pain detonated in her skull, and the air bolted from her lungs.

Breathlessly, she bucked and flailed as he rode her: his weight on her chest, his hands scrabbling to grab her arms. She swiped with her left hand and felt her nails, jagged and cracked, rake his face. He jerked away with a grunt of pain, and in the light, she saw sudden rails of blood. His grip loosened, and then she was rearing up, cocking her right fist, aiming for his Adam’s apple.

His hand shot out. Deflecting the punch, he grabbed her wrist, then jammed his knee into her bad left shoulder, grinding the bone into the rocks. She screamed. He hit her, a fast open slap and much harder than she had managed on her own. A bomb of pain exploded just beneath her left eye. Her mind blanked, and her arms loosened up. In a kind of haze, she saw him winding up to hit her again—

From somewhere beyond the tunnel came a low boom, faint but unmistakable: a shotgun.

Leopard stiffened, and she felt his weight shift. Felt the pressure against her shoulder ease as he craned over his shoulder.

Grab it! Her left hand pistoned, her fingers found hard polymer, and then she was yanking the Glock free. She jammed the muzzle into Leopard’s stomach, right at his navel.

A Glock is a Glock is a Glock, and the beauty of a Glock: no active safety, nothing the owner has to remember to flip off and on. Just point and shoot. So Alex knew Glocks, very well. She’d had days to study this one. She’d watched Leopard kill Ray with it. She knew a Siderlock when she saw one, because she’d installed the very same on her dad’s Glock herself. So her father’s Glock had a cross-trigger safety.

But Leopard’s didn’t.

The only gamble was whether Leopard kept a round chambered. No time to check or even jack the slide, because that took two hands, and she only had one.

Big gamble.

Her best and only shot.

She took it.

77

The rack of the pump was a nightmare that echoed and bounced off rock: ka-ka-CHUNK-CHUNK-crunch-cru—

Tom let the rock fly in a hard, vicious cut, a Frisbee throw that was two parts arm, three parts wrist. The rock whirred and struck the girl square in the chest just as she swung the shotgun up— because Tom had seen that she was sloppy and overconfident, racking the shotgun before she’d even slotted the butt or brought the muzzle to bear. Total time, maybe a two-second jump—but he grabbed it.

The shotgun baROOMED. He was instantly deafened. Light sheeted in a bright tongue of muzzle flash, but he was still alive to see it. He would not have a second chance. Either his Uzi or her shotgun, and his Uzi was closer. He hurtled to his right, but now she was pivoting, racking the shotgun, leading, anticipating where he would land.