The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(94)

Pale gray eyes blazed with understanding as he took in Ocho’s bloody hands, realizing that he had a traitor in his midst, even as everyone else was distracted by the captive boy who still drove the knife into Glenn Stern.

Ocho didn’t give the lieutenant a chance. He took a quick step up to the man and drove his blade into Sayle’s gut. Did it again, to make sure.

The lieutenant gasped. “Why?” But Ocho didn’t have time for him. He slapped the man’s blade away and shouted for a medic, and then he turned as weapons chattered on full auto.

Bloody holes spattered up and down Ghost, small perforations in the front, big gaping wounds in the back. Chips of stone whizzed past Ocho as bullets missed and ricocheted, and then a mob of Eagle Guards fell upon Ghost.

Roaring and screaming. The ratcheting of automatic weapons. Blood mist in the air, a whirlwind of viscera and bones and bodies. Men seemed to disappear before Ocho’s eyes, replaced by sprays of blood on the walls and columns.

In their rush to aid the Colonel, some of the Eagles had strayed into the half-man’s reach. They simply came apart in the monster’s grasp and then the monster had their weapons, and the rest of the Eagles were dying as well, gunned down with terrifying marksmanship.

Ocho dove for the ground and crawled behind a column, wishing he could find shelter. The half-man roared and fired, emptying clips. Men were screaming. A body tumbled down beside Ocho. He grabbed for the man’s weapon as more Eagles boiled into the command center. They were ducking and dodging behind columns, snapping shots, but the half-man seemed to anticipate them. Every time a soldier showed himself, he took a bullet in the face.

Ocho belly-crawled behind a desk, hoping to make it to the door. He just had to get out…

He glimpsed the girl, still tied. Trying to lie flat as bullets whizzed around her. She was sobbing and trying to reach Ghost where he lay in a spreading pool of his own blood.

The half-man’s weapon clicked empty.

Ocho wasn’t sure if the other soldiers realized it, but the half-man was a sitting duck now. With a curse, Ocho took his rifle and leaned out, and then, with a prayer to the Fates, he slid his rifle across the floor, right to the monster.

The half-man caught it. Locked eyes with Ocho.

What am I doing?

But it was already done. When Ocho put the knife in the Colonel it was done. There was no going back now. Ocho crawled across to where the Colonel lay in a heap. He rolled the man over and started going through his pockets. The man flailed at Ocho, but Ocho shoved his hands away.

“Fight the good fight, soldier,” Stern whispered.

“You got the key?” Ocho asked. “You got the key, Colonel?”

The Colonel looked at him. “You’ll keep the fight going? You won’t let the traitors ruin everything?” he gasped.

“UPF forever,” Ocho said. “That’s right. But you got to give me the key if we’re going to fight. Gotta get that dog-face free.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You…”

But Ocho had found the key for himself by then. He pulled it from the man’s breast pocket and hurled it toward the half-man as a blow like a fist hit him in the leg and spun him.

Ocho gasped at the numbness. He’d been shot. Keep moving. Don’t be an easy target. He crawled toward Mahlia. He got out his knife, started sawing at her ropes. They gave under the razor edge, but when she got free, she went after him, beating at him with her stump, clawing at him with her last fingers.

“I didn’t do it!” Ocho tried to fight her off. “It’s not my fault!”

But she wasn’t listening. Bullets whined and zipped around them. He threw himself flat, but Mahlia was stumbling to her feet. Ocho reached for her, but with a bullet in his leg, he couldn’t prevent her from standing upright.

“Get down!”

Stone and marble and bullets ripped around her, a maelstrom of death, but she seemed unaware, uncaring. Like she wanted to die. She ran through the whirlwind, slid down beside Ghost.

Ocho pressed his hand to the bullet in his thigh, praying that it hadn’t hit an artery. Fates, it hurt.

Suddenly, he felt something big rush past him, wind and movement. Ocho whipped around, but it was already gone. Before him, chains lay abandoned. Unlocked. The half-man was running free.

A roar reverberated through the crypt, a challenge that penetrated Ocho’s bones and made him want to piss himself for fear. Gunfire chattered. Screams, high-pitched and terrified. More gunfire. The soldiers were trying to get a bead on the half-man. Ocho could barely keep track of the monster as it ducked between columns.

More gunfire. Six shots, fast and even. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Six electric lights shattered, plunging the place into gloom. The monster was taking out the lights now, too. Ocho thought he caught a glimpse of the half-man moving again. A shadow of death, there and gone. Someone was shouting orders, trying to get rallied, and then the man just started screaming and screaming. Another bestial roar numbed Ocho’s ears. Fates, it was loud. Louder than war.

Mahlia wasn’t paying attention to any of it. She was down on her knees beside Ghost, sobbing. Cradling her warboy to her.

“Mouse,” she said. “Mouse.”

The boy wasn’t going to make it. Ocho didn’t even have to look close to know it, but still she held him to her, his blood all over her arms and legs and body.

Ocho dragged himself over to them. He grabbed a dead Eagle’s pant leg and slashed it with his knife. They had real uniforms, he thought inanely. He’d never had a real uniform. More gunfire echoed distantly, followed by the cries of soldiers begging for help.