The Iron Swamp (44 page)

Reaching Sikes, I opened my eyes long enough to grab him. The rooms were so full of the green gas they looked like a series of green cubes. Only Loshe's room was tinted, allowing no sign of whether he was alive or dead, though unquestionably he was dead.

I shut my eyes again as I began tugging Sikes towards the changing rooms. I got less than a met before a series of gut spasms hit me so hard and fast that I poured corrosive vomit over Sikes.

I didn't stop.

Even as I felt that something had punched a hole right through me, I was pulling. I was desperate to take a breath, but I held it, not wanting to be found scrunched on the floor lying in my own puke. Sikes suddenly felt lighter, and I sped up for the last few paces knocking through the door into the changing rooms.

I breathed deeply before I'd even opened my eyes, only to discover that the gas had spread. My lungs were alight! I screamed, but it surfaced as a pale whine. Baker had Sikes' legs and was pushing me backward into the foyer, one eye wide with fear while he kept the other closed. That was why Sikes was lighter. Baker was risking his life to help.

The foyer was still clean. Several heavy breaths, and I could feel life returning to my body amid stabbing pain. I had been outwitted again by the little girl. Loshe was dead, and Ruby was probably on a different continent by now.

My eyes filled up with water faster than I could wipe it away. Even without the gas, everything was shrouded in a thick mist. I tried to ask Baker where the steam tanks were, but all that came out was a wordless squeak. Still, I knew I wasn't done. I could lie down and pass into a coma, or I could chase her until the last of my energy gave out.

Through the windows, I could see the ambulances unloading paramedics, and two black smudges resembling men were staring in. Wiping my wet sleeve over my eyes did little except rub fresh poison into them, but in the moment of clear vision before they began to well up again, the men were gone.

I remembered the map. The door across from me led down into the basement which was as good a place as any for the steam generators. She must have fed the gas in through those.

I ran for it. If Ruby was still here that was where she was.

My muscles cramped as if miniature fires were starting all over my body, my ashen lungs failing to provide them with the necessary fuel. That meant nothing. Ruby was a monster, Sikes an innocent victim, and she had to be stopped.

I took the steps two at a time into a dark room full of whirring and tapping. Noises that sounded too loud to remain unheard from the other side of the door. Patches of color from unidentifiable machines stood out of the darkness in apparent randomness, cutting the floor space into a maze of narrow passages. Which of these were the gas tanks I had no idea, but I wasn't stopping until I did. Half blind and compelled by rage, I didn't notice her slip out behind me and bury a needle into my neck.

Blurred as she was, the eruptions and crevasses that warped half of her face were as prominent as the nausea that wracked my gut.

"You lose, little man." Her voice was a rasp, as if her vocal chords had been charcoaled, but there was no revelry in her words, just the plain statement of fact as I felt my body stiffening.

Her lopsided face glared at me with calculated ire. "I didn't want to do this you know, but you'll keep hunting me, and I can't allow that." She dropped the syringe to the ground and pulled out a knife no longer than a fist. "Becky said you were a good person, but we both know that isn't true. You're just Clazran's slave, too scared to do anything decent even if you wanted to." As her wiry condemnation died away she raised the knife. "Time to die."

I raised my gun to her head. The antidote had been coursing through my system ever since Signey told me how Kenrey died. "Yes," I agreed. "It is."

She stopped dead, swallowing so that I could see the burn marks on her neck, helpless against the outcome that awaited her.

My finger hesitated on the trigger. I was not used to killing girls, even mass murdering ones. Fache and Lisbold had been different. I had engineered them into killing themselves, and the swamp net had been a necessary intermediary. Here the culpability was greater, cause and effect starting more clearly at the contraction of my index finger.

"There's something I have to know," I said, stalling when I was not the one who needed to stall. "Why haven't you had surgery? I might never have caught you but for your face."

Ruby spat, answering quickly when she could have stalled me for longer. "I've seen what happens to pretty girls; the animals you men become when your passions are inflamed." Her eye closed and her monstrous face fell forward. "I'd sooner die like this than suffer a moment of your looks of love. Shoot me now and prove you're as corrupt as the rest."

I had nothing to prove. "You earned your death when you sent me to that swamp, and I wouldn't be doing you any favors by letting you fall into the hands of the SP."

Her drooping face offered me a warped smile. "Tell yourself what you must."

Slowly, the metal contracted, but not until the door off to the side opened and the same two black smudges I'd seen from the foyer walked in – hooded SP agents with guns large enough to bring down armies. Distracted for a split-click, Ruby dodged as I pressed down on the trigger, ricocheting the bullet off the machine behind her with a clap of metal. She swiped the gun out of my hand and disappeared into the maze of machinery.

The hoods opened fire spraying bullets down the walkway, forcing me to throw myself behind what looked like an engine. I clapped my hands over my ears as I picked myself up from behind the machine, red and yellow lights going out along the side as it absorbed more gun fire.

Head down, I ran in the opposite direction to Ruby, swinging the rucksack off my back as I went. I scrambled around a different machine that was making a noise sufficient to hide the pollination calls of howler trees. Huddled in the corner of the room, I unzipped the rucksack and got out the little shotgun, the perfect weapon for a blind man in an enclosed space.

If Ruby managed to pick up my gun as she ran away, then I was facing three armed enemies. Panic would be the death of me. In this arena my size was an advantage. Bullets hit big men more often than little ones, and we all died just as easily. I pocketed the houthar weapon and left the pistols in the bag.

My best chance was to hide and spring out on them. I was already panting faster than a man running along the Line of Knives. I needed to find a gap in the machines or a dark corner where I could see people approaching before they saw me.

I caught another glimpse of a black hood and cocked the shotgun ready to crater his chest into mush if he turned towards me. When the other one came up just behind, my heart started beating so fast I thought it might rupture. I'd hoped one might stay and guard the door, or they would split and one of them would go for Ruby. Even if I killed the first one, there was no way I could take out two SP assassins without one of them shooting me, not if they stuck together.

One of them fired back towards the doorway, and I guessed that Ruby had made an attempt to escape. I knelt down and watched them move away from me towards the entrance again.

Almost immediately, I saw Ruby dart along the back wall and head down past a series of tanks towards me. She stopped when she saw me and lowered my stolen weapon. She raised two fingers into the air like rabbit ears. A truce.

Instinctively, I nodded. The two men with semi-automatic weapons weren't going away until both of them had breathed their last. She pointed at me and snaked her arm around to the right. Then she pointed to herself and snaked her arm off to the left. She wanted to catch them in the middle. She looked away as more gunfire clattered against metal and more lights went out. Looking at me, she made one final gesture opening her mouth and shaking her arms before disappearing behind a tank. I guessed I was supposed to make some noise and draw them over.

What she asked of me was a lot, considering I had no reason to trust her. I could be a diversion for her to escape. But the alternative was to hope that they went for her first and she managed to take one or both of them out before dying. I saw no reason why they would do this when I was most likely their primary target.

Grabbing a replacement shell, I fired the shotgun in the direction of the entrance, ripping off the corner of a shelf full of towels, and filling the air around with bits of white fluff. A clearer signal of my location they could not have asked for.

The shell was hot to the touch but it came out easily enough. I took another round from my pocket and slipped it in the chamber. Crouching behind a blackened machine covered in a thick layer of dust, I waited for their arrival, shaking with adrenaline.

At first glimpse of them a few mets away, I fired. Nothing happened. I hadn't cocked it.

Frak!

A tirade of gunfire rained down on the area where my weapon had extruded, filling the air with metal and dust. A piece of shrapnel sliced right across my bicep.

I fell backward, ready to have both men descend upon me. My finger tightened on the trigger. I would get one of them before I died.

Gunfire broke out again, but this time it was not aimed at me. Ruby was keeping up her end of the bargain.

I pushed myself to my knees and dived out into the alley firing once, cocking, and again. The closest man convulsed after both shots, falling forward without even raising his arm. The other man was already on the floor.

A dash of red hair came towards me so fast I didn't even have time to get up off the floor. Ruby pointed her gun at my head. Mine was empty and hers was not.

"If you had a trace of decency, I wouldn't have to blow your brains out right now." Anger and bitterness filled her voice.

I sat up with my hands in the air. "I'm not the one killing innocent people."

She spat a gob of phlegm too large for such a small mouth. "You just protect pedophiles and murderers. You're a fracking hero."

My eyesight was recovering enough to see the full monstrosity of her visage. A huge lump extended low enough from her brow to completely cover her eye. All over her right side her skin was warped and discolored. Her bottom lip disappeared off to the right as if she was half houthar, and her one visible eye contained mad flecks of yellow in the green rings.

I raised both hands into the air. "I never claimed to be a hero, but I'm better than you."

She laughed, violently. Bitterly. "I'm going to kill Clazran."

"Only after you've finished murdering people like Sikes who never meant any harm to anyone."

She shook her head. "I have nothing to explain to you, little man. Goodbye."

I closed my eyes.

"Don't do it, Laurie." The call came from the doorway where the SP agents came in. I opened my eyes to see Becky pointing a gun straight at Ruby, her hazel eyes glistening in the low light. "Let him go, and you can walk out of here."

I was too confused to register her presence properly. Perhaps it just looked like her, or I was already dead.

Ruby didn't move the gun from my head. "Does he know how many times you betrayed him?"

Becky took a step towards us. "He knows everything. Put the gun down."

After everything, she had come to save my life for the second time in as many days. All I ever wanted was someone who cared. Her pale beauty that contrasted like yin and yang with the darkness of her hair and lips banished my pain and nausea. The broken part of me was healed. I forgave. I forgot. I trusted as I had never done before.

Ruby jammed the barrel into my forehead. "And why have you changed sides?"

"The only thing that's changed is my opinion of you. Put – the – gun – down."

Ruby sighed. "I don't want to hurt you, Becky, but you're standing in my exit."

"Stop pointing the gun at Simon, or I'll shoot you."

Ruby laughed, not moving the gun. "You're a kitchen girl not a fracking sniper, and I don't have time for this conversation. If it weren't for those SP, this place would already be crawling with police. You either let me pass, or I kill you, and please don't think that is an idle threat." She rammed the gun harder into my forehead. "Our friend here will tell you that I'm not one to play with."

Becky didn't budge. "What happened to you, Laurie? I thought you were supposed to be better than this. You kill pedophiles, not police, not innocent people. I believed in you."

"This man isn't innocent. He's not even fit to be called police. He's just another of Clazran's flunkies doing whatever he can to get ahead. Ambition is all that's left in him." She gripped my neck, pushing the cold metal into my cheek. "Now get out of the way, or he dies first, then you."

"Shoot her," I shouted. "Do it now and run." I didn't want to die, but I'd made peace with it. It was Becky I feared for, and that was my best evidence that I wasn't the person Ruby believed me to be. "Shoot her and run!"

Ruby's hand dropped away from me down to something on her belt, a button possibly. "I don't have time for–"

Fire and wind picked me up and threw me like a speck of dust in a JC engine. I skidded along the concrete before I came to rest in a crumpled mass next to a round plastic tank.

Both nerve and muscle were void of charge. I felt nothing, not even pain. For a moment I was sure my spine had snapped, but the agony of sensation came flooding back like a flicked switch. The silence was replaced by a single high-pitched note that went on forever.

I moved my fingers, then my hands, and I was alive again. I sat up as the room spiraled around me. Flashes of red hair, and Ruby was on top of me, plunging a knife down into my chest.

I raised a hand deflecting it, but I wasn't fast enough. The metal sank into my gut just as I managed to grab her arm. She was speaking, but blind and deaf, I could ascribe no meaning to her words.

I forced a fist into the lumps on her face, and she fell backward, losing grip on the knife. Ruby began to run towards the fresh hole in the wall where she had blown herself an exit, right above where Becky was standing.