“That’s new.”
Sara pointed, with her good hand, to some steel doors.
Tom went through first, clenching the branding iron. It was a lab, lots of equipment on various counters, a table in the corner of the room, and standing next to the table—
Dr. Forenzi.
Tom set his jaw and raised the branding iron, beelining for the son of a bitch, when something he saw stopped him in mid-stride.
Strapped to the table. Shirtless. Bleeding. Hooked up to one of those dialysis machines.
Roy!
His friend had so many wounds he looked like he’d been pecked to death by dozens of birds. But he wasn’t dead. He was breathing.
Forenzi quickly took a revolver from his coat pocket and pointed it at Roy’s head.
“That’s close enough, Detective. Drop the weapon.”
Tom released his grip, letting it clatter on the tile floor.
“You and your friends have proven extremely resourceful,” Forenzi said. “I’m impressed. But your little coup d’état has failed, I’m afraid. If you take one step closer I’m going to shoot your partner and—”
Moni ran straight at Forenzi, smacking him upside the head with her metal bar. Forenzi fell to the floor, and she continued to hit him until Tom pulled her off.
“Let him stand trial,” Tom said. When he was sure she’d calmed down, he pocketed Forenzi’s gun and went to Frank and Sara, who were doing their best to release Roy each using only one hand.
“Hey, buddy, can you hear me?”
Roy mumbled something, but he was completely out of it. He needed immediate medical attention. Tom helped them undo the straps binding his partner, and then they helped him off the table.
He couldn’t even stand.
Tom looked around for a wheelchair or a gurney, and saw Moni in the corner of the lab, spilling chemicals onto the floor.
“What are you doing?”
Moni smiled, lighting a match. “I’m burning this fucking place to the ground.”
“Moni! Don’t—”
She dropped it, and there was a WHOOSH! of flame, spreading out across the floor.
“Everyone! Move!” Tom ordered. With Sara and Frank’s help, they dragged Roy out of the lab and into the tunnels—
—where Torble was waiting with a gun.
Before Tom could draw, Torble fired, shooting Frank Belgium in the chest.
Tom fired back as Torble ran off into the darkness.
Frank was down on his back. Tom set down Roy and knelt next to Frank, ripping open his shirt.
The bullet hole was near his heart, gushing bubbles of blood.
Sara was crouching next to Frank, her good hand holding his. “Frank, oh Frank, oh god.”
Frank stared at her. “It’s okay. I don’t don’t don’t feel anything.”
Sara looked at Tom, her eyes imploring. “Don’t let him die. Please.”
“Hold your hand here,” Tom said, placing it on Frank’s wound. “Keep pressure on it. Moni?”
“Yeah?”
“My room. The first aid kit in my suitcase.”
“I’m on it.” Moni ran off.
There was another gunshot, from the opposite direction. The bullet pinged into the metal door, inches from Tom’s head.
Torble.
“I’ve got to go after him,” Tom said.
Sara shook her head. “Don’t leave!”
“If I don’t, he’ll stay in the shadows and kill us all. I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on my partner.”
Then Tom ran after Torble, plunging headlong into the darkness.
Forenzi
Dr. Forenzi smelled smoke and opened his eyes.
Smoke had indeed filled the lab, and he was surrounded on all sides by fire.
His head hurt. So did his chest. But those pains paled next to the abject terror he felt by being trapped in a burning room. Everywhere he looked the flames stretched to the ceiling. There would be no escape.
Please. Don’t let me burn. Not like this. Anything but this.
Forenzi had never been badly burned, but he saw the pain and fear it caused in his patients. Torture with fire was one of the most effective ways to harvest metusamine.
Now that he was surrounded by fire, about to be roasted alive, the irony wasn’t lost on him.
But maybe I don’t need to be afraid of it.
Next to him on the floor, like an answer to a prayer, was a syringe of Serum 3. Forenzi had never used it on himself, but now seemed like the perfect time.
He bared his forearm and expertly gave himself an injection of his life’s work.
The effect was immediate and stunning.
His fear vanished instantly, to the point where Forenzi couldn’t even remember what fear felt like. It was replaced by an overwhelming sense of well-being.
He stood up, chin raised, chest out. The flames closed in around him, but Forenzi didn’t care one bit. Even as his coat caught fire, it didn’t matter to him. Forenzi felt invincible.
But in short order, it did begin to hurt.
Quite a lot.
As he burned, Forenzi wasn’t frightened at all, even when the pain became intolerable. And it occurred to him that being scared might actually be a good thing. Soldiers without fear would rush blindly into a firefight without taking the proper precautions. Nations without fear would hit that nuclear launch without considering the consequences.
“Maybe this wasn’t my best idea.” Forenzi thought as the flames ignited his hair.
Then his brain boiled and he didn’t think about anything anymore.
Fran
She hit the dirt, falling onto her chest, bringing up her rifle and not bothering to check if the shots had penetrated her vest or not. Fran quickly sighted the targets, all armed with handguns. An Asian man with black eyes, a woman dressed as a gypsy, also with black eyes, and a guy in a gray suit.
None of them were even attempting to take cover. They walked up the hallway, guns extended, acting as if they were bulletproof.
They weren’t. Fran took them out with three quick head shots.
“Clear!” she yelled to Mal and Deb, who had all fallen back.
Then she checked herself for damage. The Kevlar had stopped the rounds, but it still hurt like hell. Like someone had worked her over with a sledgehammer.
“Help! Help!”
Fran raised her weapon, saw a woman coming at her. She had at least a dozen bleeding wounds on her, and appeared unarmed.
“It’s Moni,” Deb said. “She’s with us!”
Fran covered her anyway.
“Frank got shot,” Moni said. “Sara is with him. There’s also another man who needs help. I’m getting a first aid kit. Also, someone may have started a fire.”
Moni ran past. Fran got off the ground and followed Woof as he led them down two turns and straight to the wounded. There was smoke, and it was quickly filling the tunnel.
Fran glanced at the man who was shot, and the other man, who looked like he’d been dropped in a blender on puree.
She didn’t see how either of them were going to survive.
But she shouldered her rifle and helped just the same.
Moni
She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but she was in a damn big hurry to get there. It didn’t help that the only light she had was the matches she’d found in the lab, and she had to stop constantly to light one to see where she was.
By some extreme stroke of luck, she found the stairs to the upper level, and less than a minute later she was opening the door to Tom’s room.
Her match went out as soon as she entered. As Moni began to strike another one, she heard something that scared the shit out of her.
“Hee hee hee hee.”
Lighting the match, Moni saw she was standing next to a bloody guy with a gas mask on, holding a huge meat cleaver.
“Hee hee,” he said.
Moni cracked him upside the head with her iron bar, and when he fell she kept beating him until he stopped moving.
“What’s so goddamn funny now, asshole?”
She lit one of the candles in the room and held it while she searched, finding Tom’s suitcase open on the bed. The first aid kit was on top, and Moni grabbed it and ran out of the room—