Page 81 of Night in a Waste Land

Gavin skidded into sight and blurted, “You did all that yourself?”

“He can cut chains in half,” Tris said, arriving alongside Gallo, expression made somehow grimmer by the blue and purple light. “What’re a few goons?”

“Good,” Rose said decisively. She started to turn back to Lance. “You–”

“We should keep moving,” he said, firmly.

She glared at him, but he stepped past her, and headed for the stairwell.

She went to Beck’s side, not bothering to step around the expanding puddle of blood. She was no stranger to standing in blood. “He’s hurt,” she whispered.

“And being proud about it, I see,” Beck said. “Well, it can be seen to later.”

She gripped his sleeve. “Our conduit, Morgan. She could heal it.”

“And will, when we return to base,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a chance of them flying her in now, is there?”

His expression, and tone, were pleasant, reasonable. Devoid of all worry.

Again, she found herself inhaling deeply.

“Let’s go, Rosie,” he said, touching her shoulder.

She went.

They encountered another team of guards on the stairwell. It was an open, tall, concrete set of stairs, and while Tris dispatched the first man in the knot, Beck spread his wings and flew up and over, landing in the midst of them. His movements were a blur, even surer and quicker than they’d been pre-fall. Blood sprayed up the walls in red-black arcs. The men fell. Again, Beck flicked blood off his claws, a fastidious little movement, and invited them to follow with a glance.

“This is…unbelievable,” Gallo said beside Rose, awed.

She could believe it, though. This was Beck. He’d always defied explanation.

When they reached the door that let out onto the twelfth floor – the floor that was Shubert’s personal domain – Beck paused, his hand on the door handle, and turned to give them all a toothy grin. “This is going to befun.”

Rose’s nerves crackled with anticipation; her hand tightened on the hilt of her knife. She tried to glance toward Lance, to check on him, after that climb–

But Beck turned the handle, and it was go time.

The stairs fed into a narrow foyer of sorts, its floor tiled in slate, just as Shubert’s old townhouse had been. The décor was modern and sleek, though, more cohesive – at least until Beck bodily picked up a guard and smashed him through a glass side table.

“Beck–” she shouted, as another guard came at his back.

But he’d noticed. He still held the collar of the man he’d swung like a bag of laundry, and he didn’t even turn toward the second; his tail shot out, lightning-quick, and the spade tip punched into the man’s chest. The man fell forward into it like a puppet with cut strings, blood exploding out of his mouth. Beck’s tail flexed, cracked like a whip, shaking off the now-limp guard. Then he strode forward into a massive, open-air space littered with couches, chairs, chaises, and even a large dining table.

Rose followed him. She caught a fast, confirming glance of Shubert: as tall and golden and elegant as she remembered, dressed in an impeccable suit, his eyes glowing blue. He was wrist-deep in a screaming woman’s stomach, phased right through her dress and skin as he drained her of life in prep for the battle to come. He glanced toward them, quickly, as her eyes flared, and she died.

But this was where he’d kept back most of his troops, and as they closed in on them, Rose lost herself to the fight.

She still didn’t dare draw her gun, not with all of them back-to-back: too much chance of hitting one of her fellow Knights. She fought with a knife in each hand, a jagged, fat blade in the left good for hacking and blocking, and her favorite slim stabbing blade in her right. She dodged slow, inelegant jabs, and struck again, and again, drawing grunts, wetting her blades in crimson up to the hilts. A gunshot cracked over her head, and she ducked and rolled, hamstringing a guard as she somersaulted between his legs. He went down hard just behind her, and she used his back as a stepstool to leap at another, catching him in the throat with her bigger knife. Blood sprayed hot across her face, salty on her lips.

Behind her, she heard the crack of Beck’s laughter, and it could have been five years ago, the two of them in a warehouse, cutting down bigger, stronger, better-paid thugs like it was nothing. Like it was a dance.

He’d been right: itwasfun.

She heard sounds of male effort around her.

Gallo said, “Tris?” tight with alarm.

“I’m fine. Watch out.”

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