Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(163)

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.” He didn’t take his eyes off Lily.

“Yes, I will. The funny thing is, this dilemma of yours . . . it doesn’t even matter! You’re still bound, either way! Even if she were holding a gun to your head, you wouldn’t be able to hurt her.”

Bruno stared into Lily’s eyes. “Lily?” he asked, quietly.

Her face was like marble. “If you have to ask, then there’s no point in answering you.”

King guffawed. “Oh, so it’s like that? Oh, Lily, that’s harsh. No mercy, eh? Let him dangle and twist, you heartless bitch.”

Lily did not respond in look or word. She just stood there, proud and cold. And pure. Like nothing could touch her.

And Julian vibrated underneath him, like a volcano about to explode. It was like standing on the pin of a grenade.

Had King been f*cking with him all along? Hope made him almost giddy.

But hope was a luxury he could not afford. Hobart was moving cautiously down the stairs, his face wary in spite of King’s assurances. King shoved Lily, forcing her ahead of him.

There was a pattering sound. A pungent smell. Gasoline.

They looked up. Zoe hung over the railing. If she’d been a death’s head before, she was a full-out horror show now. Blood flooded from both ears, streaming down her neck. Her face was grayish, shiny. Veins pulsed in her forehead. Her bloodied teeth showed in a mad grin.

“I’ll save you, sir!” she yelled in the unnaturally loud tones of a person wearing headphs. “Don’t trust them! They’ll betray you!”

“Zoe!” King howled. “Whatever you are doing, stop it!” He thundered out one of those phrases, but Zoe did not turn her head.

She sloshed more gasoline and lurched toward the staircase.

Julian’s muscles constricted in a bid for freedom, and Bruno jabbed the gun under the guy’s jaw more deeply, staring at Zoe. At the blood flowing from her ears. “She’s deaf,” he commented. “She can’t hear your commands. You’ve got a rogue robot on your hands. And no off switch. Congratulations. Asshole.”

“Shut up!” King pulled Lily back against himself. “Zoe!” He let loose with the gobbledygook again. Zoe ignored him. Gasoline pattered the dusty floor with shiny, oily drops. The fumes were sickening.

“Hobart!” King bellowed. “Stop her!”

Bam. Hobart tried to obey. Zoe shrieked as the bullet hit her shoulder and spun her around. The gas can dropped, nozzle side down, glugging, cascading down the stairs. Bam, this time the thigh, but Zoe got up like a zombie ghoul and still came on, bleeding.

She hit the gas can with her foot. It bounced to the foot of the stairs, liquid still glugging out, spreading in a pool. Zoe tumbled to the foot of the stairs and lay still. Hobart walked over to her—

Her knife flashed up, stabbing into his hamstring. Hobart screamed. His gun went off, the bullet thudding into the stairs. He fell backward—and Zoe was on top, slamming her fist into his face.

A rapid movement caught his eye. Lily jerked to the side, and the movement caught King off guard, pulled him off balance. The two of them hit the aged, cracked wooden banister, which had born Bruno’s weight when he fell against it but could not bear the combined mass of Lily and King together. It cracked, sagged. Gave way.

“No!” Bruno yelled as King and Lily toppled out into empty air.





They took flight. Part of her hoping maybe it was all over. She might break her neck, please God. But the fall wasn’t far enough. They toppled in a sickening three-sixty flop, everything spinning—

Thud. The sudden stop stunned her. King was beneath her, his face empurpled, gasping for air. Horribly close. He’d landed on his back. Her on top. She’d knocked out his wind. She scrambled away and crab-walked through a puddle of gasoline, groping for the duct-tape necklace with the cell phones. Jerked them off, threw. One ended up in a pool of gas. The other fetched up against a tasseled velvet curtain.

Zoe and Hobart had paused in their combat to watch their idol fall, horrified. Lily looked frantically around for a weapon. A banister slat lay on the floor, a chunk of the handrail still attached, jagged and sharp. She seized it, hauled it back, loading a vicious swing at King.

Zoe and Hobart forgot each other and lunged to stop her.





Bruno jerked the pistol up. Bam. Bam. Hobart’s head disintegrated. Julian exploded into action, flipping him onto his back, slamming his gun hand to the ground.

The gun flew from Bruno’s fingers, spinning across the floor. A pinkish arc of Hobart’s blood and brain tissue had spattered across the room. Boom. One of the cell phones exploded. The sound hit him, like a blow to the center of the chest. The puddle of gas burst into dancing flames with a whump. Flames licked, leaped, spread. Fast.

Bruno tried to regroup, but Julian drove him hard, and he could only catch what was happening in jagged flashes out of the corner of his eye, like stop-motion animation amid a desperate dance to avoid the blows crunching into his ribs, the boot heels flying toward his chin. Julian fought like a demon, but the stench of burning hair dragged a split second of attention Bruno could ill afford to see Zoe lurching to her feet—on fire. Hair, clothes, face. Her back was aflame, her hair a torch, her face blistering. She’d fallen in a puddle of gas.

She didn’t seem to feel it. She just shambled toward King, arms outstretched. Smiling, as her skin crackled, melted. Come to mamma. Lily backed away from the flaming apparition. King staggered back, screaming desperately. Words her ruptured eardrums could not hear.