You couldn't tell that to him. He hit the gunmen as if he'd been fired from a cannon and knocked them flying in all directions. Then he began to swoop back and forth, driving back the mob like a flying hammer.
Damsel held clasped hands before her face. "My Hero," she breathed.
Billy looked at me. What the fuck? he mouthed.
I shrugged. The Librarian was the one with all the answers, and he was gone.
Lady Black was at Ray's side. "You're hurt," she said.
He had a bullet through one shoulder and a bad break in the other arm, and I noticed he'd taken a good shot to the face with a rock or some such, that had pushed his right cheekbone in pretty well. He shrugged her off. "I'm fine," he said, and the words were only slightly distorted.
There was no rear door in the next building, and I could hear voices inside the one we'd last vacated. "We need to get moving down the alley," I said. "Paul! Paul, come on!"
I don't know if he heard me. He was swooping back and forth, enjoying a power he'd never known, having the time of his life.
I saw him fly back into view at the head of the alley. He paused a moment, hanging in midair, to flash us a V-for-victory.
From out of sight down the street a heavy machinegun hammered. Paul Chung came apart in midair like a melon dropped from a skyscraper.
"Paul!" Damsel shrieked. She started to throw herself toward the place where the bloody bits of her Hero were raining from the sky. Ackroyd caught her arm.
"Come on," he said, "let's get out of here!"
We ran. Into the alley stormed the mob, heartened by the arrival of heavy support. Shots cracked.
One caught Amy Mears in the calf. She screamed and went down. Her wrist came out of Ackroyd's grip.
The crowd flowed over her like surf.
Ackroyd started popping frantically, dancing, trying to get a line of sight to her. The mob formed a writhing impenetrable wall between them. I caught a glimpse of Damsel as her headrag came free, revealing her unmistakably Western and feminine mass of curls. The crowd howled in outrage mixed with lust. There's nothing like old-time puritanical religion to give a mob the taste for rape.
"Help me! Oh, God, help me!" Amy screamed, as her clothes were wrenched away. The mob closed in between us, forcing the rest of us back like incoming tide.
Billy Ray waded back into the crowd. Somebody hit him in the chest with a fire axe. He rocked back, busted the hardwood handle with a hammerfist blow, then plucked the sharp stub from the wielder's hands and jabbed it through his belly.
For the moment the mob had lost interest in chasing us, but they hadn't forgotten us. Guns flashed. Billy Ray grunted again as more bullets hit him.
I grabbed Ackroyd by the arm. "In the name of God, come on! There's nothing we can do!"
"They'll rape her!"
"They'll do worse to us if they catch us. Run, you idiot."
He flailed at me with his arms. I slapped his face. Then I took my own advice. He followed, weeping.
Lady Black was helping support Ray. The pain and sheer structural damage were taking toll. Another man would've been dead long since. He was still on his feet, if barely.
Yeah, he had his ace, that gave him strength and endurance and the power to regenerate damage — if that system hadn't been overloaded by what was done to him. What kept him going now had nothing to do with the wild card. It was guts.
Lady Black had them too. If I'd been her, and seen what was happening to my fellow female up the alley, I'd have taken off in huge bounds like a gazelle.
Oh, yes, we were a gutty bunch. Even Ackroyd, who'd stood his ground as long as any man ever did in the face of odds like that. The problem was those odds. Comes a time when they beat guts, every time.
— The pack was holding itself up in the narrow alley, fighting like hyenas over the spoils. Rape was gone from even their reptile brains by now — I hope. I saw one wave something white and slim above his head, brandishing it like a trophy. Damsel's right leg, I think it was….
Around the building, out onto the street. And after all we'd survived and sacrificed, we weren't home free: here came a fresh bunch around the next corner back from the alley, waving swords and clubs and cheering as if Tehran had just won the World Series.
Lady Black and Billy had fallen inevitably behind. Ackroyd and I looked at each other. In his eyes was raw hatred, but also raw determination. We turned and faced the mob, prepared to go down fighting.
Bearded faces opened in triumph. Clawed hands reached for Joann and Billy. Jay was popping the bastards, and I was running through magazines as fast as my piece would cycle.
It was all for nothing.
Lady Black let go of Billy and stepped to the side. She reached to the front of her baggy blouse, tore it open. Then she grabbed the neck of her protective black suit and pulled it down to her navel, baring her chest.
The sheer unexpectedness of it made the crowd falter briefly a few steps from her. Possibly they were admiring the prizes they were about to lay hands on.
White light exploded from Joann's face and chest. My vision went away for a moment.
When it returned, I could just make out a street filled with writhing bodies. As I blinked away great bright balloons of afterimage I saw that many had their faces seared and fingers seared away. Others lay still, blackened to motionless mummies.
Joann stood there with a faraway look in her eyes. "It's been building for a long time," she said. "Building and building."
I grabbed the hanging front of her suit and pulled it up. She nodded, absently, and started pulling it back into place. The pursuit was off our tails. For the moment. We turned and made what speed we could.
"Archangel One, Archangel One, do you have an answer yet, over?"
With a little room to move, we had found a three-story building with pointed-arch doors and windows and climbed up to the roof. Since our pursuers didn't know where we were, the risks of staying at street level outweighed the risk of being trapped up here.
Down in the streets they still hunted us. They'd broken into packs now, a few in vehicles, most on foot.
Joann bent over Billy Ray, who lay on his back with his head propped on the radio pack. The unit miraculously still worked. Jay Ackroyd sat with his head between his knees and just breathed. He had thrown away his kaffiyeh. His hair was in serious disarray.
"Stud Six, I'm afraid the word is negative, over."
"Negative on what? Fire support or pickup? Over."
A pause. Atmospherics crackled. I wanted to squeeze an answer from the microphone with my fingers.
"Stud Six, that's negative on both." Archangel One had the decency to be weeping openly. "We got the word. We're pulling out; Angels One and Three are already gone. It's over, man. Over."
I didn't think he was handing the conversational ball back to me. Nonetheless I grabbed it: "On whose orders?"
"This came all the way from the top." And in the sudden thunderous silence I barely heard him say, "Good luck, Stud Six. Archangel One — out."
"They're leaving us," Ackroyd panted. "The fuckers are pulling out and leaving us."
"That about sums it up," I said, throwing down the mike. No point in handling it gently any more.
He raised his head and looked at me and gave me a shaky smile. "Well, I guess I drew the short straw, didn't I?"
"How do you mean?"
"I pop you all back to Desert One," he said. "Then I guess I get to go play Twenty Questions with the Revolutionary Guard."
"No."