Part 12 (1/2)

There was an explosion above them, and the stairwell sang with shrapnel. Something cold touched Jack's ear. Dust stung his face. He kept running, step after step, holding Emily's hand with the grim certainty that her survival depended upon it.

”Grenade!” someone shouted, and he heard the metallic clash of something bouncing from the stair railings.

Emily screeched and fell into him. He had no chance, tripping forward with his arms outstretched to break his fall. He struck Rosemary's back and she fell as well, striking the landing and twisting, rolling, and Jack was down with her, Emily clasping onto his back.

Clang...clang...the grenade still fell, and though he had no idea where it would explode, moving felt better than lying still.

Rosemary had found her feet and was starting down the staircase to the second floor, and Jack and Emily were following, when the explosion came. It did not seem as loud as the first, but it blew him against the wall, s.n.a.t.c.hing Emily's hand from his and spinning the world around his head. He was being struck from all sides, battered and thumped and cut; falling, or being hit by debris, he was not sure. When he gasped in a huge breath it was laden with dust and smoke. He opened his eyes, saw nothing, and for a few seconds he was terrified that he had been struck blind. But then someone wiped a hand across his face and Jack saw the blood.

”Jack?” Emily said, leaning over him, crying. He smiled and she cried even harder, and he thought, Do I really look that bad? More blood ran into his eyes and this time he wiped it away himself.

His head hurt. Everything hurt.

There was more shooting from up above, but it seemed to be receding.

Someone was shouting-Sparky-and the words faded in as if he was rus.h.i.+ng in from a great distance.

”...outside and meet you behind the hotel, find somewhere to hide?”

”Okay!” Rosemary called from much closer.

Jack sat up, and used the wall for support as he found his feet. Looking up, he realised how lucky he was to be alive. The whole flight of stairs they had just come down had collapsed, sending a shower of concrete, tiles and reinforcement rods tumbling below. On the landing above the gap, Sparky and Jenna were already peering cautiously through the door onto the third floor. Jack wanted to say something, but with a quick glance back at him, Jenna was through and gone. She looked terrified, and there was blood on her neck.

”Can you walk?” Rosemary asked him.

”Of course.”

”Don't worry, dear,” she said to Emily, ”it looks worse than it is. Head wounds bleed a lot.”

”Can you fix it?” the girl asked.

”Soon.”

This time it was Emily leading Jack. They went down to the second floor landing, then had to climb carefully over the ruins of the fallen flight to head for the first floor.

”Where are the Superiors?” Jack asked.

”Still fighting, somewhere,” Rosemary said. ”But they're farther away. Must have pushed the Choppers back.”

”So this is a normal day for you, I suppose?”

Rosemary surprised and delighted him by laughing. ”This is the first time I've ever been shot at, would you believe? And I've never in my life fired a gun.”

They pa.s.sed the first floor door, and with every step Jack was feeling stronger. He used a handkerchief handed him by Emily to dab at the blood running down his forehead, and he even managed a smile when she briefly aimed the camera his way. Glad that survived, he thought, chuckling at how ridiculous that was. Glad we survived!

Jack tried to think tactics, but his mind was not working very well. Blown up, shot at, he was confused and disorientated. He could not recall what the street outside the hotel looked like, and for a few seconds he had trouble remembering whether it was even day or night. Then he remembered Gordon being shot-the blood splas.h.i.+ng the air behind him, the way he'd fallen like a chunk of meat in an abattoir-and the present punched back at him.

”Won't they know we're in the stairwell?” he asked.

”Maybe,” Rosemary said. She paused between first and ground floors, and for a terrible moment Jack thought she was going to hand him the gun. She shook her head. ”It's all we can do. We can't afford to get trapped-”

The door a flight below them crashed open. It rebounded from the wall, and Jack heard the squeal as the mechanical door closer pulled it slowly shut again.

Silently, Rosemary signalled, Up!

They climbed back to the first floor landing. The door out of sight below them opened again, slower, and this time they heard footfalls as at least two people entered the stairwell, boots grinding on grit.

”Clear!” a voice whispered.

Jack opened the door, hoping against hope that the hinges on this one were better oiled. He glanced at the corridor beyond, then went through, pulling Emily after him. Rosemary followed, and he waited until she chose which way to go.

The corridor looked exactly like the one on the sixth floor, and that disorientated him even more.

He heard gunfire in the distance, then a m.u.f.fled explosion that thudded through the building fabric and brought dust down from the ceiling. Rosemary paused, looking up, tilting her head to listen.

”Can you tell-” Jack asked, but then Rosemary clamped a hand across his mouth. She looked at Emily and nodded across the corridor at a door.

Emily had it open in an instant, and Rosemary pushed Jack in after her. It was a basic room, though still quite large, with two double beds, a desk, and an en-suite bathroom just inside the door.

Jack went immediately to the window, careful not to touch the heavy curtains as he peered outside. Emily came with him, and Rosemary remained at the door.

The window looked down behind the hotel, at an area once used for staff parking, deliveries, and service access. He could see no movement, but he concentrated on the areas where people could be hiding: behind the overturned bins; under the verdant bushes that had broken out from the neighbouring garden; inside the three vehicles still parked there, all sitting on flattened tyres and with unreadable graffiti daubed across their doors, bonnets, and roofs.

”What do you see?” Rosemary whispered. She was standing behind the closed door, one eye to the spy-hole.

”Nothing,” Jack said. ”Back of the hotel. No movement. They must have come in the front.”

”They'll have it covered,” she said. ”They always...” She trailed off, and Jack watched her slowly raise her hand, then step back and point the gun at the door.

He motioned at Emily to lie between the two beds, then went to Rosemary, waiting for her to act. And then he heard the voices. They were distant at first, m.u.f.fled and mysterious. But they were coming closer.

”Did you see them?” he whispered. Rosemary did not answer. She looked even more scared than she had before, and the gun in her hand was shaking.

”No,” she said at last, ”but I heard him.”

”Him?”

”Miller.”

”Who's-?”

Rosemary held up her head and nodded at the door.

The voices outside were louder now, and Jack started picking up some of the words. ”...here somewhere, they must be, so I don't want any more...”

”...every floor, from the bottom up.” This was a quieter voice, obviously answering the man in command.

”...stairwell...dead, and blood everywhere, so we must have hit one of them at least.”

”...more than a bullet to kill some of these freaks.”