Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth 2) - Page 171

He cocked the pistol and carefully opened the door. The basement was still empty as the tomb it had become. Valentine checked the main hall and saw Ahn-Kha tearing at the cage door. He turned off the alarm. It refused to die, so he did the next-best thing and shot out the speaker. Elsewhere in the building, it still brayed.

"Easy on the metal," Valentine said. "Twist it enough, and it won't open. I don't want to be stuck in here."

"I am thankful that you are well, my David. Did you find the armory?"

"The armory?" Valentine said, with the tone of someone who had forgotten to pick up a pound of sugar at the store. He went to the door and opened it, legs rubbery, trying not to stagger.

"Are you wounded, my friend?" Ahn-Kha said, ears pointed at him the like the horns of a charging bull. The Grog sniffed the nail-marks on his face.

"No. C'mon, let's find it-it has to be one of these doors."

They discovered the armory behind a steel door that was not even locked. The arsenal was not as well stocked as they had hoped: automatic rifles and pistols, a few shotguns, some boxes of grenades and mines, and two flamethrowers. Valentine found a case of satchel charges, and there was ample small-arms ammunition in cabinets and cases on the wall. Valentine looked in vain for bullets for his PPD and ended up arming himself with one of the Twisted Cross assault rifles. He filled his pockets with magazines.

Ahn-Kha selected a shotgun and a machine gun with a bipod at the front. He draped ammunition belts for it around his neck like a priest's vestments.

The pair moved out of the armory and to the basement gate. Valentine placed part of his load at the base of the stairs and crept up them with Kalashnikov at the ready. Ahn-Kha followed-only the slight klink-klank of the ammunition belts giving the Golden One away as he followed.

He could hear voices of Grogs at the balcony and stairs to the upper floors in the Great Hall.

"You cover the upstairs. I'm going try for the door," Valentine said.

The chattering sound of Ahn-Kha's machine gun behind him spurred him on as he made it to the entry vestibule. The Golden Ones who had been on guard had fled.

He slid open a wooden panel. In front of the hall, a group of Golden Ones crouched on the hill just beyond the concrete sidewalk. They wore the simple smocks of common laborers. Two more sheltered behind a defunct and overgrown fountain, wearing stained overalls. They had improvised weapons: iron bars, sledgehammers, and lengths of chain.

Valentine lifted the heavy bar fitted to the double doors and unfastened the locks. He stepped out, tried to signal the Golden Ones to approach. They crouched and looked at him as if they expected him to open fire on them. A zing-pow of a bullet chipping the doorpost got him out of the entrance.

After waiting for another long burst from his partner's machine gun to stop, Valentine called over his shoulder "Ahn-Kha, there are some of your people out front. I think they're ready for action, but don't know what to do. Let's switch. Talk to them."

Valentine ran to the base of the stairs and sighted his gun upward. "There's just one. You can't see him from the bottom of the stairs, but go halfway up and he shoots," Ahn-Kha warned.

The Grog went to the door and threw both the portals open wide. He began bellowing into the night, waving the gun above his head.

Golden Ones rushed in, brandishing picks and mallets. It appeared as though, without willing it, he and Ahn-Kha had started a revolt.

"My David, show my people the armory, I beg of you. I have business elsewhere," Ahn-Kha said, leaping up the stairs three at a time. The example inspired some of his fellows to follow despite their lack of weapons. A shot splintered the banister, and the giant sprayed bullets up to the third floor.

"Can you all understand me?" Valentine asked.

"Yes, sir," the growing mob said in various accents.

He led them down to the little room, wishing it had three times as many guns. He handed over the automatic he had taken off the dead radio operator. The Golden Ones just took the guns and grenades and left the explosives, Valentine was happy to see. Nothing saps the will to revolt like accidentally blowing up a dozen of your vanguard.

More and more Grogs gathered as the word spread. One of them, an oldster missing a hand, an eye, and with a pronounced limp, joined Valentine in handing out guns and the proper ammunition.

"My friend, was no-right at rail-gate," the elderly Golden One said in his halting, glottal English. "Own-eyes watched Hood-man drop dead. No-gun, no-hurt. Guard-mans watch their-eyes same-same, ranned away. Now my people done Hood-mans?"

"I hope so. I don't know," Valentine said.

The last guns left in the hands of their new owners. Valentine followed the flood of straw-tinted muscle to the door. He could hear shooting outside. The old Grog grabbed him by the arm as he went out the door.

"Careful-careful, sir!" he implored, and yelled something up the steps. "Or shoot you, maybe-maybe." The Grog led Valentine to the door.

In front of the old library, a bonfire had been constructed out of any wood the Grogs could lay their hands on, mostly in the form of railroad ties. Even now, pairs of what he recognized as females were carrying up more ties, adding to the blaze. Valentine heard shooting from the direction of the Twisted Cross Barrack, and saw further flames lighting the sky there. Guard towers on the other side of the wall were firing into the ghetto, but they were too far away for Valentine to tell whether they were achieving anything other than alerting every Grog in Omaha that something was seriously wrong in the Golden One quarter. Valentine, feeling that events were now well out of his control, just lugged his booty from the armory to outside the library and sat on the steps to watch. The old Grog barked orders this way and that to hurrying youngsters, but if they paid attention to his words, Valentine could not say. He could see the ears on the Grogs, twitching this way and that in excited confusion.

"My people were like that bonfire, my David," Ahn-Kha said, unexpectedly joining him. His machine gun was down to its last belt, and the Grog reeked like a sulfur pit as he kicked another of his kind, longer haired and fleshier, before him. "Sit, dog!" he told the prisoner. Then to Valentine: 'The fuel was there. They just needed air and a spark. You provided both-"

"We provided both," Valentine corrected.

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
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