But he doubted it.
It was awful, and it took too long.
Valentine looked around the abattoir. The knocked-over desk lamp illuminated walls splattered with blood, a floor painted in black and red depending on the fall of the light. The man with the slashed kidneys still twitched, in too much pain to rise again.
"General," Valentine said, lifting Xray-Tango to his feet. "General!"
"Spots. Alls I seeze spots," he said, drunkenly.
Valentine shook him in frustration.
"Scottie! Scottie!" he barked.
"Huh? Le Sain, what the hell-" The general's face fell into limp horror as he picked out a few details of the room with his damaged retinas.
"Everything the Smalls said is true. I'm a soldier with Southern Command. It's a rising, all over the TM," Valentine said, exaggerating the last a little. "I want you to join us. Fight the Reapers, instead of feeding them."
"God, the blood-"
"What'll it be, General? Fight or feed?"
"Ouch, you're hurting me, dammit."
Valentine felt a Reaper coming. Coming in anger, coming in fury, coming in haste.
"No time, General."
"Good God, they're all dead."
Coming fast.
"With me, General. You back me up, or I'll kill you. Give me that!"
Valentine gripped the pistol being taken from the general's holster. It turned into a wrestling match-which he had no time for. He raked his claws across the generals forearm, opening skin. The pistol came free. Valentine kicked it away, slipping off his claws.
He retrieved the gun, a standard KZ officer's revolver, rugged and reliable. He pulled back the hammer; the click sounded muted to his recovering ears.
"Out the door. I want you in front of me if anyone's shooting."
He heard banging somewhere below. In the direction of the Reaper. Locked in an underground chamber? "In case of emergency, wake the vampire"?
Xray-Tango poked his head into the hallway. Neither bullet nor Reaper claw removed it.
"It's clear. Don't get nervous, that thing triggers easy."
"Hurry, there's a Reaper coming."
"Jesus."
"The stairs. The gun stays pointed up as long as you keep quiet."
Valentine took a good two-handed grip on the gun. He heard a door give way and shoved the general with his shoulder. "It's coming. Upstairs! Upstairs!"
He pushed the general to the stairs and through the crash door at the bottom. As he slammed it behind them, he saw a shadow fly across the hallway and into the interrogation room. Mr. Smalls squealed-for the last time. Valentine shut the pathetically tiny bolt on the door.
"A bodyguard went nuts! Fuckin' tore everyone apart," Valentine shouted upstairs, pushing the general up in front of him. "That Hood's berserk."
An MP and another Quisling soldier stood at the top of the stairs, both pointing guns down at them.