Orphan of Mythcorp (32 page)

We were safe at last—for now.

“
All right, Tiny,” Faustus said, still
in fine spirits. “Do your thing.”

Kana tugged on the overhead door handle.
Nothing. She grunted and yanked on it again. Still nothing. “It
ain’t budging.”

The brimstorm was beginning to peter out now.
A few minutes passed in silence as Kana and Faustus made alternate
futile attempts to open the heavy overhead door.

I happened to glance up at a nearby office
building. Movement. Sure enough, a few ticks later, the first dart
came whistling down at us. “Kana,” I said slowly. “You need to
hurry it up.”

“
Whoa!” Izzy leaped aside as a dart
clattered onto the concrete beside her foot.

“
Get behind me,” Faustus waved an arm
protectively at me and Izzy. “You heard the man, Tiny. Quit
screwing around and open that door.”

Sanson

A sudden, explosive rumbling shook the
parking garage. We stopped cold. Ash was the first to understand.
He peeked out at the sky from between two columns. It had darkened
considerably since our arrival. “A brimstorm?” Ash asked. Lamorak
nodded. “Impossible. When’s the next one expected?”

“
The weather station said not for three
weeks,” Lamorak answered. “But those are brimstorm
clouds.”

“
Well then,” Ash looked up at the
officers. “I guess we’d better hurry.”

I shoved my way forward to whisper in his
ear, “Maybe we should wait. I mean, all these problems, maybe we
aren’t meant to go in today.”

Ash cinched his backpack tighter and rubbed
his eyes. “Things have been put into motion. We’re going. Screw the
brimstorm.” He plucked the helmets from the officers’ heads,
plocked one on his own and the other over Lamorak’s head,
explaining to Agravaine, “He might have a concussion. He could drop
at any moment.”

Then we were off, racing Mother Nature and
Father Time so Ash could play Prince Morai.

I lingered behind in the garage. “’Things
have been put into motion’?” What did that mean? Eventually I
decided it was wiser to play the Devil’s advocate than his
enemy.

The first step was the hardest, but once I
saw the brimstone falling all around me, I skedaddled, keeping my
eyes up, scanning for burning death. The air was thick with sudden
heat, as it always is during a brimstorm, and on top of the
rumbling my thermal shrieked.

The worst part of running through this
unexpected weather was that I didn’t know if I’d been hit or if I
was free and clear. Most yahoos think that not being able to feel
pain would be the bomb, but that’s why they’re yahoos. If only they
knew.

Ash and the rest of his crew had already made
it to the front doors. I could see him lifting that golden key card
out of his pocket, the cops standing as sentinels behind him, the
Montaigne’s and Agravaine on either side. My attention was ripped
away when a tight grouping of brimstone forced me to duck and
roll.

I lay there near the sandbox in the park,
uttering “Please don’t seize up,” like a mantra.

My moment of stupidity passed real quickly
when I spotted a steaming blob of fire plummeting straight for my
face. I struggled to rise and barely made it to my feet in time to
dive out of the way. The fireball bombed into the sandbox, spraying
sand in every direction. Some splattered against my back. I didn’t
feel this of course, but I knew it because some of the sand doused
and lit the grass all around me like gritty napalm.

Forty or so feet to the group.

I stumbled and staggered, looking pretty much
like a major yahoo, but eventually I made it to the safety under
the awning. There was barely enough space here for all eight of us,
so Ash returned the helmets to the cops and made them stand at the
fringe of the group. They deflected a few particularly frisky
brimstones with their riot shields. These heavy plastic buggers
quickly melted into art-deco shapes.

“
What are we waiting for?” I
screamed.

“
The key isn’t working,” Agravaine
answered. He turned back to Ash. “Is it a fake? Did he give you
some kind of—”

“
It’s not a fake,” Ash hissed. I
shuddered at his tone. In a moment though he calmed himself and
swiped the card through the coding-slot again. Nothing, not even a
red light to indicate a forged card. Mr. Montaigne leaned in and
whispered something.

“
You’re right, of course,” Ash said.
“The power isn’t on yet, that’s all. We just have to
wait.”

“
Wait?” three of us blurted out
hysterically. “In this?”

Ash motioned for us to calm down, like there
was nothing to get worked up about. “I told the mayor to call the
city Power Supervisor over at Clean Energy to turn the juice on
here. Something like that just takes a little time. Relax. The
Power Supervisor will listen to him.”

“
Ash is right,” a raspy voice declared.
We all swiveled to see Nimrod standing off to the side. “We just
need to wait one minute longer.”

Ash nodded at the man. “Glad you decided to
join us. Where’ve you been?”

Nimrod pointed down at his leg, a hunk of
meat and mangled augmetics held together by straps and some duct
tape. “I was delayed,” he said, eyeing me. “You and I will talk,
boy. Soon.”

So I had that to look forward to.

“
Later,” Ash said. “Now, are we sure
the Power Supervisor will listen to the mayor?”

Nimrod smirked. “I paid him a visit. Told him
he’d be getting a call from the mayor, and that if he didn’t juice
up the location the mayor gave him, I’d pay him another visit.”

“
And?” Agravaine asked, clearly
unimpressed.

Nimrod dug around inside his singed bearskin
cloak. He withdrew a small item wrapped in a napkin; handed it to
Ash, who raised it so we could all see. It was a finger, all
bruised-looking and just plain nasty. Nimrod favored us with
another ugly smirk. “He’ll turn the power on.”

He batted aside a stray fireball with his
metallic right hand. A few seconds later, while we were all
cowering under that awning, something beeped, and the distinctive
whining hum of electricity powering up gave us all a jolt of
sunshiny happiness.

The coding-slot was now sporting a blinking
red light. “Try it now,” Nimrod said. Ash slid the key card
through. A few tense moments—then the red light winked out,
replaced by a green light.

Ash shoved on the massive glass and steel
doors. They didn’t budge.

“
Move,” Nimrod growled.

All three Morai shuffled aside, careful to
avoid stepping outside the scant safety zone offered by the awning.
The big yahoo with the animal fur fetish lunged at the doors. They
gave. He stepped inside first. I watched Ash to see how he’d handle
this one-upmanship. He accepted it with grace, meekly following
Nimrod inside. What was their deal? Ash never showed anyone
deference, except this crazy looking Nimrod guy.

We started heading in when someone screamed
behind us. Officer Lent was dancing around, trying to reach over
his shoulders. During his breakneck twirling, I saw that his back
was on fire. Brimstone had wedged between his armor and was now
boring its way into flesh.

“
Oh man,” I ran back outside to try and
put him out, but he was in the throes of death now. The screams
were horrific. I wanted to cover my ears. Instead, I tried to get
close enough to knock poor Officer Lent down.

“
Calm down,” I kept yelling at him. But
he wouldn’t calm down. “Help me!” I yelled back at the others. They
were all standing there, watching. “What’s wrong with you? Help
him!”

“
He’s dead,” Ash said in a terrifyingly
calm manner. “Put him out of his misery, Nimrod.”

Nimrod drew the pistol from Officer Grahams’
holster (which Ash had been carrying), and fired two shots dead
center into Officer Lents’ face.

The man dropped instantly.

I gawked, then ran up to Ash and screamed in
his face. “What the hell was that? We could’ve saved him.” But the
shrimp wasn’t listening; his focus was on something across the way,
back at the parking garage. I turned around, trying not to let
panic take over.

“
Is that Morgan?” Agravaine asked.
“What is
he
doing
here?”

“
I told you,” Ash said, standing beside
me under the awning. “There is more at work here than you know.” He
turned to Nimrod, who was staring at his kill. “Bring the body
inside. Corpses invite attention.”

“
Everybody inside,” Nimrod growled as
he dragged the fresh corpse in after Ash. (The fire had been put
out when Lent fell dead on his back.)

I dragged myself in after them. What choice
did I have?

The doors squeaked closed behind us;
electronic locks clicked into place.

As soon as they had sealed shut, the roar of
the brimstorm died and silence reigned. We stood there, eight
yahoos and one corpse. I was finally inside Mythcorp—and I couldn’t
have been more disgusted.

“
Let’s just find your frigging
sorcerer, already.”

“
Hurry up, Kana,” my hands were
jittering from withdrawal. “The gangster-people up there aren’t
falling for my ploy. And Izzy looks like she’s about to pass
out.”

“
No I don’t,” Izzy retorted.

“
It’s okay to admit you’re scared,” I
said. “I’m a smidge bit ruffled myself here if we’re being
honest—whoa.” I flinched and just managed to sidestep a dart that
had been heading for my sniffer. “They’re getting closer.” I backed
up tight to the wall.

“
Yeah,” Faustus was standing on the
edge of the dock, dancing idiotically, daring the shooters to hit
him. No matter how many darts flew his way, he easily dodged each
one, making a game of it. “Hoo-boy! You were way off on that one,
bub. Here, I won’t look. Try hitting me now.” Unbelievably, Faustus
clamped a hand over his eyes. Even more unbelievably, every dart
fired missed.

Out of nowhere a dark blue sphere about the
size of a baseball whizzed through the air and struck the overhead
door Kana was failing to open. It stuck fast. Another sticky bomb,
only this one had a digital timer, and it was swiftly counting down
from ten ticks.

“
Hey!” Faustus ran up to the bomb,
pointing at it. “Cool. It’s just like the ones Batman used in Hong
Kong in the
Dark Knight
. He
was up—”

“
Get down,” Kana tackled him to the
concrete pad as far from the bomb as she could get, while I did the
same with Izzy. Unlike Kana with the gingersnap, I was able to
completely cover Izzy, which made me feel all heroic and
stuff.

KABOOM!

The sticky bomb didn’t actually make that
sound. I expected to be covered with flaming debris (I was even
looking forward to shoving it off and looking like a total badass)
but there was no debris, flaming or otherwise.

A dart twanged into the sole of my shoe and
remained there while I hoisted Izzy and dragged her through the
gaping hole. I wasn’t sure if the dart had pierced my foot, but I
saw no reason to linger on the loading bay/target zone.

For some inexplicable reason Izzy was trying
to fight me off, almost like she didn’t want to be carried. Girls
are so weird. Barely managing to hang on to the squirming chick, I
tripped over a jagged section of the decimated door. We toppled
inside. Though I managed to hang on to Izzy, she didn’t seem too
grateful; she thanked me by yanking on my hair and neck and shoving
me away. I whipped around as something huge heaved up onto the
loading dock.

“
Malthus,” I relaxed.

The big galoot stomped into the doorway,
kicking out what remained of the overhead door. He raised his
mechanical hand and caught the monster emergency door as it
clattered down from the ceiling. He held it up just long enough for
Faustus to duck inside, dragging Kana.

All safely indoors now, Malthus stepped in
too, and dropped that bad boy behind him. It crashed with the boom
bang of a train derailing. He glanced at a scrap of paper in his
hand, threw it down at me before stomping over to Kana, who was
conked out, ten or twelve darts sticking out of her torso. She
looked like a pin cushion, only prettier.

“
You okay?” I asked Izzy, who nodded. I
picked up Malthus’ discarded note and read it. “
Directional
grenade
. Wow,
that was awfully convenient. You just happen to be carrying that
around with you?”

The demon didn’t answer.

Faustus finished plucking the darts from
Kana’s body. Turning to Malthus, he said, “Darn good to see you,
big guy.” He embraced the demon. His arms didn’t reach even reach
around.

Things went quiet. The gurgling of the dying
storm, the rabble of traffic and the howling of the wind were muted
with the closing of the emergency door. We all just stood there
looking at each other and up at the cavernous warehouse here at the
back of Mythcorp. All we could hear was the hum of lights flicking
on and our own erratic wheezes.

“
Um,” I said, breaking the silence,
“who turned the lights on?”

“
That’s a good point,” Faustus said.
“Another good point I just want to make at this juncture, is that
you, sir,” pointing at me “were WAY off. Those gangers didn’t even
hesitate in shooting Izzy.”

“
Well excuse me for not knowing those
zipperdicks had long range lenses. Frankly I didn’t really believe
they’d still be up there, especially right at the tail end of a
brimstorm. They
really
don’t
want anyone opening this place, do they?”