We booked it back across the club, wove through the five-person-thick crowd around the bar and pushed through a door. The storeroom proved to be a claustrophobic brick rectangle, with no windows and only a narrow aisle between shelves. But a small breeze drifted through a slightly ajar back door.
I pushed it open and found myself in a narrow courtyard containing broken pallets, bags of garbage and a couple cats. Their eyes glowed at me for an instant before they scampered up a fire escape to safety. On every side, buildings rose tall and dark, hemming us in, as Ray had said. The shortest was three stories, and while I might have scaled it on my own, I couldn’t do it towing a half-dead vampire.
It looked like the only way out was the one the cats had taken.
I tugged on the pull-down ladder, wondering how I was going to get Ray’s well-padded ass up four flights. And then I wondered if I’d get him up at all when the structure shrieked in protest and refused to budge. Decades’ worth of rust clung to my hands and sent a cloud of red flakes into the air. The ladder probably hadn’t been touched since the building was erected, maybe a century ago.
It finally came down, but it wasn’t wide enough for me to haul anybody up alongside me, and I doubted it would hold the weight of two adults anyway. So I sent the body up first. Its coordination was about what you’d expect for someone without a head, and it didn’t help that the stairs shuddered with every step. But amazingly, they looked like they might hold.
Of course, the universe wasted no time in punishing me for that nanosecond of optimism. Halfway up the second landing, a scream of overstressed metal echoed around the courtyard and a hail of old bolts came rattling down. The fire escape tore away from the building on one side and sagged out into the air.
The body stopped, quivering in fear, and one look at Raymond’s face showed why. The two parts were obviously in some sort of communication, or it wouldn’t have been able to move. But the only thing being communicated at the moment was terror.
So I slapped him.
Furious blue eyes swiveled up to mine. “Wasn’t beheading me enough?”
“Move. Or you’re going to be headless permanently,” I hissed.
Ray’s eyes swung back to his body, which had slumped over like the corpse it was, causing my jacket to begin to slide off. I moved forward to catch it, and thereby narrowly missed being skewered by a spear of metal that fell off the building. It took out the awning over the back door instead, crumpling the heavy aluminum like paper before slamming into the paving stones.
Ray gave a startled yelp, but the near miss got his body moving again. And this time, he wasn’t messing around. Freedom was a few steps away, and he went for it, taking the last few flights with the fire escape collapsing under him. He leapt into the air on its final shudder and grabbed the edge of the roof next door, dangling there precariously.
I didn’t wait around to find out if he made it. Rusted metal rattled down the old bricks and exploded against the paving stones, flinging shrapnel everywhere. Along with it went a crashing cacophony of sound loud enough to wake the dead—and that included the dead searching for us.
CHAPTER 11
Grabbing the duffel, I headed back across the courtyard at a run, leaping over fallen pieces while trying to dodge the ones still raining down. Something hit my right shoulder like a hammer blow, but I couldn’t waste time seeing how bad it was. I charged back through the storeroom and burst through the door—just in time to see half a dozen vamps converging on it.
I ducked back inside and slammed it behind me. It was sturdy old oak—probably a relic from the club’s original incarnation as a factory—but that would buy us seconds at best. Maybe they hadn’t seen us, I thought hysterically, before doing a Ray and throwing the lock.
“Did you see that?” Raymond sounded vaguely awed. “Did you see what I did?”
“What’s on the other side of this wall?” I asked breathlessly.
“I was like… like Superman or something! I almost flew—” He broke off as the door shuddered under a heavy blow. So much for hoping they hadn’t seen us.
“Ray! I need to know—”
“My office is next door. Why?”
“You’re going to need to redecorate.” I pulled a wad of explosive putty out of one of the duffel’s side compartments and worked to get the wrapping off.
“What’s that?”
“Something I planned to use on the portal.” It was the latest thing, specifically designed to use an energy sink’s own power against it. But it ought to do a pretty good job on the wall, too. I tore off a small piece and slapped it in place.
Ray stared at it, his small eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? This is an old building. You’ll bring it down on our heads!” He paused for a moment. “And that’s all I got left!”
“I’m not using that much,” I told him, tugging my jacket back on for protection. I retreated to the other side of the room, threw up an arm to shield my face and pulled my Glock—only to have a leg smash through the bottom half of the door and kick it out
of my hand.
So I grabbed my backup Smith & Wesson and emptied a clip into the vamp, but other than shredding the guy’s trousers, it didn’t have much effect. His flesh absorbed the bullets like water before forcing them out again, the wounds closing almost as soon as they were formed. He was obviously a master; all I was doing was pissing him off.
As he demonstrated by shooting a basketball-sized hole in the top of the door. For once, I didn’t feel like complaining about my lack of height. If I’d been a couple inches taller, Raymond wouldn’t have been the only one missing a head.
And then a cascade of bullets from a machine gun came through the hole, kind of negating the height advantage. Raymond was screaming, despite the fact that I’d hit the cement floor in front of the door, flattening us out. That didn’t stop the stream of bullets, but it allowed me to reach through the hole in the door, grab our attacker’s leg and pull.