CHAPTER TWENTY: when the lights go out
Deafening sound clattered the steel walls. Bullets ricocheted dangerously, like drums rapping loudly to an odd, chaotic beat.
Natalie Cooke saw the boom of a spark, twisting in a half splits to avoid the bullet. Landing on her feet, immediately sinking to her knees, her partner cried out with a sickening squelch, falling to the floor as the bullet wound became increasingly visible, stained with red, on his chest.
Glancing up with a glare, Natalie took only a moment to breathe, before she dove into a roll, meeting another guard with a sweep of her leg, bringing him down.
The gun came off with a sputter and immediately, she twisted, bringing him up between her legs, shielding herself from the bullets that randomly targeted the people in the room.
"Having fun?" she asked the sailor, gritting her teeth as she wrapped him between her thighs, and began to squeeze.
--
The burn in her arm was now warmed with exertion, and Alex Munday paid no attention to the pain as she continued to make her way up the rungs.
Marlin continued his shots, bringing down sailors and missing every other minute – but his shots were getting closer, and Alex couldn't afford to wait.
The gun fumbled in her palm, and after a moment's grimace, Alex shoved it into her pants, nestling it snugly against the small of her back.
There was no question as to whether or not she could use it. Marlin was intent on killing her and her friends. Alex had killed before.
She was just fine with doing it again.
No matter how ordinary the person was.
--
A high-pitched scream drove her suddenly away from the darkness.
Dylan, plastered against the concrete, felt the cold of it seep against her back, filling her with an odd chill that kept her curiously glued to it.
Above her, hidden in shadows, a large spark of a burst came at her-
"FUCK!"
Pushing with her palm hard at the floor, she fell on her side, just as the ping of the bullet scattered shards of concrete, bits of it snapping her on the back like a whip.
"Owww."
Survival instincts had saved her life, but Dylan's body was severely taking away from the equation. Ribs throbbed, head pounded, lungs choked with dust, the rebel Angel felt nauseous and dizzy, room twisting around her in a carousal kind of way, keeping her mind fuzzy and her vision blurred.
The scream came again, and this time Dylan saw it, senses sharpening when a flash of a bare-chested body came at her.
"DYLAN!"
The warning came a second late, but Dylan was already down, ribs creaking in protest, leg splayed out like a beam of wood that the barreling Seamus tripped over, pounding into the ground, and coming up with a face full of blood.
Strong hands bruised her shoulders as she was pulled up, enveloped in a heady scent of cigarettes and sweat. Anthony pushed her behind him, sword gleaming as he continued to face her old lover, eyes narrowed in a murderous scowl.
Seamus wiped at the blood with a dirty palm, streaking brown dirt through the red stains.
He studied it with a smile. "There's gonna be more of this on you than there will be on me, Helen," he promised cheerfully. "And I'll lick it off ya."
A kick at his feet brought a shard of concrete right at her, and once again, a foreign grip twisted her body, and kept her out of its way.
"Freak bastard," Seamus taunted. "That girl's gonna kill ya."
And he came at them, a demon with blood running down him, making the skin slippery, impossible to get a hold of.
Seamus didn't care about the sword, or about the odds. He cared only to kill – and the only way to beat him was to be exactly the same.
Dylan's hand now locked in Anthony's, and she used it to vault off the floor, swing with momentum to bring her boots squarely into Seamus' face.
He reeled back – but it wasn't enough.
It would never be enough.
--
He was quieter now – shots sporadic but well-aimed. So far every shot had found its target.
Thank God her friends had quick reflexes.
It was stifling hot up here. No breeze, moist, hot air clinging to her skin, pasting her clothes to her body and making her gasp to breathe.
Okay. Okay...
Mouth opening to gulp in a mouthful of hot, stale breath, she carefully, quietly, unclipped the gun from her back.
Pressing back into the shadows, she closed her eyes, biting her lips as she cocked it.
The click went out loud and harsh, and suddenly, the ping around her made her bring her knees down, rump hitting the railing.
"I know you're up here!" she heard, shrill and desperate in tone. "I'll get you!"
Black strands stuck to her forehead, covering her eyes. With a too harsh gesture that was going leave a welt across her skin, she scraped it away with her nails, straining to hear the voice.
"Yeah..." She breathed her answer, handling the weapon easily, one step at a time into the darkness, toward the sound of the killer. "You're welcome to try, buddy."
--
The shots suddenly stopped coming down, but Natalie had nothing less to worry about.
There were five left, but five were enough.
One had a chain, another had a pipe – the third had a gun.
He leveled his shot, as the third threw the chain.
She took the brunt of the metal, letting it curl around her wrist before she yanked, throwing him off balance and landing him in front of her just as the man pulled the trigger.
His grip loosened as he crumpled to the floor, and she used the momentum to curl the chain over the pipe as he struck, forcing it to fly from his grip, twisting it's flight to land into the gun bearer's face, as the gun shot in the air two inches too high.
She felt the jar of the wind against her as the bullet flew past.
Shit. That was close. Too close.
--
The cargo cage was only a few feet away. The steel bars held money, gold, pirate's treasure for a sailor of the twenty-first century.
He fought for her.
It was almost surreal, to consider the idea that this man, THIS assassin, for something simple as love for her, now bled and bruised, fist to fist against the man who had also loved her, also hated her.
Dylan never could admit to normalcy.
Anthony was more than a match for Seamus. Where the Irish gangster was muscle bound and heavy, he was wiry and strong.
The two-demi gods fought for the right to claim her, but no Guinevere, Dylan pitched in plenty herself, using Anthony's grips, Anthony's moves, to facilitate her own handicapped fight moves.
Without Anthony, she knew that Seamus would have her. She was grateful for it.
Then she became utterly terrified.
Anthony had a weakness that Seamus had long ago hardened into obsession.
When Seamus swept down on her, tangled fingers into her hair and yanked her off her feet, it through Anthony off his own guard, and into rage for her safety.
It was a deadly mistake.
Dylan screamed, burning fire in on her scalp forcing anything else out of her mind, the vicious abuse on her follicles suddenly overwhelming.
Another familiar high pitched scream came her way, but she could nothing, as Seamus breathed something hard and rough and unintelligible in her ear and sent her on her way, hair snapping in two as she pitched forward into the cage, crashing into a cabinet.
The metal connected with her forward, slamming a blinding pain into her senses, before her vision blurred with tears, and she crumpled on the floor, hands instinctively grappling for a firm hold on the floor as she saw a bleary version of the Thin Man thrown back.
Something started screeching, distinct rusted metal, and even as her mind begged for the release of passing out, she couldn't do it.
Because she was locked in the cage with Seamus.
--
There was a glimmer, just a glimmer, of movement.
Alex swallowed hard, taking a ragged breath before she held out the gun, tight, careful, relaxed grip.
Charlie said guns weren't necessary. There was always another way.
But she pulled the trigger, felt the burn of muzzle radiating to her face when it ricocheted off metal and he returned fire, spitting at his rounds and making her roll forward, nearly pitching off the thin railway.
"I'll get you!"
Right.
Alex's heart pounded, her body stank with sweat, and she was hardly in her element, dangling from the ceiling of a mad man's boat.
Still, she felt the cool anger, the cruel certainty.
She would beat him.
There wasn't another option.
"You know what?" she began, her voice a loud yell, carrying across the ceiling the complete contempt. "Then fucking do it. Come at me. You're so extraordinary? Prove it. Because all I see it an ordinary, freaked, coward."
The bullets came faster, harder, and she slipped from the railing, a gross mimic of her adventures on the plank.
But she wasn't the victim here.
With a grimace, she twisted, pulled up the gun, and setting her sights, shot once.
She heard the yelp, the clatter of metal on the metal, and the sound of boots pounding.
"Fine," she managed, one leg over the railing, pulling herself up with the good arm, now back on her feet. "I'll be Tom, YOU be Jerry."
Always careful, always focused, Alex kept going.
--
"DYLAN!"
Natalie's distracted scream resulted in a sailor getting the chance to land a jarring kick in her face. The steel-toed boot cracked across her chin like a whip, and the floor spun, shifting up to meet her back in a hard fall that stole her breath, stunned her into stillness for a horrible second.
The eyes of the sailor above her glittered in triumph. Natalie's legs scissored, fully prepared to take him down, when suddenly the orbs lolled, and an audible snap slumped the body down, revealing a Creepy Thin Man behind him.
Always a surprise with the Creepy Thin Man.
Natalie took a gulping breath, hesitating only a second before she took his outstretched hand, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.
"Thanks," she said breathlessly.
He never took the time to answer. A jerk back to Dylan's predicament, and he was gone, running another sailor through with his sword, and stepping over him.
Natalie would have followed – had the last remaining sailor not come at her with a fishing spear.
--
Blood smeared over the metal where he had hidden.
Alex glanced down, eyes following the black splotches barely visible in the pitch black over the one fluorescent bulb that lit the cargo bay below.
Pure logic told her that she could not concentrate on what was happening below her. The Angels were fighting for their lives, but up here, Alex was watching over all of them.
It meant bringing down a killer who had thus far proven to be proficient with close range shots, close range stabs, and the ability to melt into obscurity.
She was in more danger than she ever was.
Keeping her gun trained in front of her, Alex kept moving, watching her footing on her precarious perch, straining to listen for her opponent in the darkness.
For a moment, she could have sworn she heard sirens.
A cry from Natalie, screaming for Dylan, brought her gaze below her, where a Thin Man was running for a cage, and there was a red-head with a wild demon of a man painted red.
"Oh, God," she whispered.
The press of something cold against her cheek forced her to freeze, eyes close in silence frustration as she heard a soft, meek, "You're so beautiful" before the shot rang out.
--
It was a cage fight.
Dylan could barely keep her feet on the ground as he came after her – hole in his stomach, painted with dirt and sweat and blood.
It dripped on her jeans, stained her shirt, soaked into her skin – the fighting she did that she wasn't sure was foreplay to him or an attempt at murder.
The cage rattled as she slammed into it, chain links buoying her body for him to slam a fist into her ribs.
"You like that, Helen?" he breathed into her face. "It's a little bit of a cheat there, with that vest your wearin'. Maybe I should take it off?"
Fingers groped for her shirt.
Dylan stifled the cry, hand splaying about the cabinet nearing, hand closing over an ivory elephant tusk.
With a swing, she cracked him on the head, sending him back and allowing herself only a second for the pain.
Screams rattled the cage, and Dylan lost a precious moment to find Anthony furious on the other side, hand reaching for the button that would lift the door and get her out of this prison.
It began to screech again, up, and up, paving the way to her salvation.
And then a boom and sparks blew a wave of heat beside her, and she screamed, pushing into Seamus, bringing him down with her.
It was too late.
Anthony was down, the door was only a foot up, and Seamus held the gun he had acquired, laughing as she struggled against him, first cracking against his chin as the tears of anger ran down her face.
"You're alone, Helen," he said, scrambling against her grip, pushing her off of him with a powerful slap on her cheek. "What will you do?"
"Kill you, you fuck," she answered, as he swept her leg, arched his hips, and suddenly was the one on top, struggling to hold her, while she remained pinned – two fractured ribs preventing her from using the same move on him.
"You hate me yet, Helen?"
She nearly spat in his face, but apparently the reaction wasn't clear enough, because Seamus, her old lover, the man who had once been inside her nearly five times in two hours, pressed lips over hers, cracking teeth against teeth, before he let her arch again, and shoved her over.
She was now in the most dangerous position to ever be in, a rear submission.
She felt him hard against her, thrusting with his hips as she struggled against the weight.
His arms held her, forcing her left hand to curl around a gun, palming her with brute strength, and pointing it to Anthony's still body, head visible under the gap of the half open door and the floor.
"Let's kill him, Helen."
She whimpered, heart stuttering into rapid jolts when she felt his finger over hers, felt the trigger give.
--
He was nothing but an inconvenience.
With a quick hop, she moved over his attempt at a sweep, caught the spear when he launched it at her, and then used the same move that he had botched on her, to bring him to his back.
A quick ax kick stomped him out of the conscious, and then Natalie could concentrate on what was happening on the other side of the room.
Above her, there was a shot, in front of her that was about to be one.
"DYLAN!" she screamed. "NO!"
--
Alex felt the blood smear on her hands.
She swallowed hard, taking a step back to glance at it, almost numb with what had just happened. The inside of her head felt as if she had been inside of a gonging bell.
Marlin's index finger was gone, blasted by Alex's gun.
The blank look of horror on his face was not unexpected, but certainly not welcome. Alex brought the gun down, features passive as she placed a foot behind her, pivoting back as he looked at the blood spurting where the finger used to be, gun long ago dumped to the floor.
His eyes lolled to hers in a questioning startled gaze.
"You see, Marlin," she whispered, dropping the gun below them, letting it fall to the ground with a vicious clink. "When it comes down to it – you're only when you're dead. And I... didn't feel like being ordinary just yet." She smiled coldly. "So it's your turn."
He rushed her, face contorted in a murderous scowl.
All it took was a quick step to the side, and Marlin, a lost little man who was desperate in his search for the extraordinary, died in the most extraordinary way; toppling over the rungs, and flying through the air, flailing with his bloody stump.
Alex was sweaty, bloody, tired, and had a headache.
She had no satisfaction when she saw him land with the sound of a crushed watermelon, as if he was beaten by Gallagher himself, a foot away from a blonde friend with wild, panicked eyes.
Natalie registered the dead sniper for only a second, before she looked up into the darkness.
"ALEX! GET DOWN HERE."
Alex finally took the moment to look, saw Dylan, saw Seamus, and saw Anthony.
"Oh, GOD," she whispered, and nearly lost her footing in her rush to get down.
--
He started to move.
Little by little, inch by inch.
Seamus' heavy weight was suffocating, as every part of him pressed down on every part of her, overwhelming her mind, her senses, her very being.
The sights of the gun landed inadvertently in her target. She saw the point of the gun, Anthony's head.
NO.
NO.
"Oh, fuck," she whispered, slipping on sweat as he pushed at her finger, yet another centimeter. "This is gonna hurt like hell."
And then she twisted, moving her hips, and bucking so suddenly, it gave her six inches of space for about two seconds. Ribs screamed, and her body almost collapsed, but she ignored it, bringing up a boot and wedging it between them, as the gun went off in a burst of sparks that were nowhere near Anthony's dark head.
Seamus slammed her head against the cement, but she kept moving, pushing with her boot and screaming in reaction to her own pain.
Her left leg came up immediately, catching him in a vicious kick to his temple, and she was free.
Seamus was down for only a second, but it was enough.
The gun was now at his head, and Dylan, frozen in an angry glare, kept her finger on the trigger.
He knew better than to move. One tough sole of a boot was pressing down at his esophagus, the other too far away to grab hold of.
And Dylan had the gun.
Behind her, there was the sound of metal screeching, indicating freedom from the trap, but she no longer cared.
She knew there must have been rage inside of her. Anger. Fear. Love. Hate.
All she felt was numb precision.
"You want to kill me, Helen?" Seamus whispered, staring at her with dark, soulless eyes. "Do it, then."
"I want you to know something," she said softly, husky and edgy. "You won, Seamus. You succeeded. I do hate you." He kept looking, and the small smile on her face never seemed more dangerous. "I never knew the meaning of the word until you. I know I'm no better than you, and you went to jail and you hated me, and I finally understand why." The gun cocked, and she pressed it close to his temple, ignoring the way his eyes closed, the way his breath sucked in. "And I don't care."
"Dylan, don't!"
"Stop, Natalie," she yelled behind her, never looking, eyes for no one but Seamus. "I'm not like you. As long as he's alive he'll come after us. I'm him. And there can be only one-"
Seamus made the mistake of moving.
She pivoted and shot a hole in his leg, in his hand, and then a flash of a second, the gun was back at his head, boot choking him at his throat as she stepped down, hard.
Seamus grit his head, grimacing in a yowl as he clutched his hand with his free palm, now full of holes, and still alive.
"Congratulations, Seamus," Dylan whispered. "I'm Helen. I'm alive. I hate you. And you're dead."
She began to squeeze the trigger.
Fingers caught hold of her sleeve, pulling her arm and suddenly yanking it to the side, as the books on the table above Seamus exploded in a flurry of dust and paper.
Anthony's face was passive, all angles and cold blue eyes.
His cheek was stained with blood, and there was a splotch of blood on his arm, but he was still Anthony, staring at her with his hands on her shoulders, meaning always so clear despite his long self-imposed silence.
It was in his eyes, in the quick shake of his head.
The warmth of his hands, the irony of the fact that in this cage, one man loved her and tried to kill her, and ended up hating her and one came from the other way around, rushed in her with a startled sweep of breath.
This wasn't who Anthony knew.
Outside the cage, Natalie watched with a desperate, horrified gaze. Dylan knew if she could see Alex, she would see the same thing.
Her hand stole to cover his, tangling her fingers with a desperate squeeze, before she eased her foot off of Seamus' neck, finally glancing down at this man. This past.
"No," she said finally. "I'm not going to do it. I can't be you, Seamus. Not when there's so many people out there who desperately need me to be Dylan Sanders."
The gun fell to the floor with a clatter.
The doors pounded open, and suddenly guns flooded the cargo bay as uniformed officers began to pound in from the hallways.
It didn't stop Anthony from swiftly turning from Dylan, eyes set on Seamus.
There was nothing Dylan could do when her new lover raised his sword, and brought it down on the neck of her old lover.
Seamus' head rolled from his body, as cops babbled and Mary Briggs entered just in time to see what had just occurred.
Anthony remained unapologetic, staring at Dylan and making no excuses.
It had to be done.
He just hadn't wanted her to be the one do to it.
"POLICE FREEZE!"
Guns pointed directly at Anthony's heart.
--
From her view, she could see everything, played out like a masterpiece theatre.
She had seen Anthony's murder of Seamus.
She had seen Mary witness it.
She saw the cops and she saw the big fluorescent light, the wire attached to it, running all the way from the ceiling to the walls.
Without another thought, Alex vaulted off the railing with a yell, closing fingers around the wire that strung above, pulling down with the momentum of her body.
Flames erupted behind her in an eruption of sparks.
And the lights went out.
--
end chapter