people they passed fleeing from it. He ran as fast as he could, and even without being able to slip the heavy chains of normal time, that was plenty fast enough to carry him toward the carnage that had cleared the streets. Ahead of him, Karen was a dark shadow blurring around and sometimes over abandoned cars and yellow cabs. Her boots landed on the hood of a taxi with a dull, hollow boom. The cab sank on its shock absorbers before rebounding enough to lift an inch or two off the asphalt. The driver had already abandoned the vehicle in front of a big-ass cathedral, right next door to the besieged apartment block. Both passenger doors stood wide open in back.
Dave ran without regard to saving energy, trusting in the vast quantities of meat he’d only just consumed, and the energy gels he’d shotgunned like understrength beers. He wasn’t warping past the few frightened New Yorkers fleeing this latest horror, but to their eyes he must have moved with animal swiftness, because they pointed and gasped as he flew past. He’d seen the same reaction to Karen ahead of him.
She was already at the police cordon hastily thrown up around the scene of this latest atrocity, and Dave, dodging around another abandoned car, frowned when he saw her slide into cover. She slammed into the side of a blue and white cop car, shunting it sideways and forcing the cops who’d already taken shelter against the vehicle to crab walk after it. He could hear them cursing her, could hear her telling them to shut the fuck up.
The patrol car rocked as a giant harpoon speared into the roof, blowing out every window. Dave almost tripped over his own feet as he tried to arrest his forward momentum. Smaller bolts rained down on them from high above. He recognised them, or rather Urgon did, as the arrakh-mi fired by Sliveen crossbows. Another spear-length arrow, a shot from a great war bow, punched into the police car, detonating the flashing lights on the roof. Dave didn’t need to be told twice. He dodged into a doorway across the street, getting out of the direct line of fire, just as a couple of bolts sparked off the pavement where he’d been standing, stupidly, gawping at the scene.
Five patrol cars ringed the entrance to 530 Park Avenue, and one large white truck that he took for some kind of tactical unit transport. It was riddled with war shots and darts and, before getting his ass out of the firing line, Dave had counted seven dead men, dressed identically to him in black combat coveralls. Their bodies lay sprawled around the van, which was still running, occasional puffs of exhaust coughing from its tailpipe. Other bodies, some whole, some roughly hacked and torn into parts, lay in the road, or hung from open windows of the white art deco apartment block. Still others lay atop the crushed and crumpled vehicles where they’d landed. Or perhaps where they’d been thrown, as improvised missiles. The once white facade of 530 Park Avenue was disfigured with thick runnels of blood, shockingly red in the artfully arranged spotlighting that would once have shown the building’s architecture off to elegant effect.
Lucille’s killing song was loud inside his mind, but soothing, especially after the violation he had so recently suffered at the hands of . . . what? His partner? His ally?
Neither felt like they caught the truth of Colonel Karin Varatchevsky. Trinder had pronounced her a very dangerous woman, and that was surely true. He’d also called her the enemy, which possibly was not true. Or not exactly. Still, right then Dave was not much concerned with working through yet more relationship issues, and listening to Lucille’s hymn allowed him to shut out the violent mayhem he could clearly hear coming from within the high-end condo. Having a superhuman ability to hear conversations well beyond normal range was a mixed blessing. Not everybody loved Super Dave and it sucked ass having to hear them go on about it. But now his super-hearing was a
Dave ran without regard to saving energy, trusting in the vast quantities of meat he’d only just consumed, and the energy gels he’d shotgunned like understrength beers. He wasn’t warping past the few frightened New Yorkers fleeing this latest horror, but to their eyes he must have moved with animal swiftness, because they pointed and gasped as he flew past. He’d seen the same reaction to Karen ahead of him.
She was already at the police cordon hastily thrown up around the scene of this latest atrocity, and Dave, dodging around another abandoned car, frowned when he saw her slide into cover. She slammed into the side of a blue and white cop car, shunting it sideways and forcing the cops who’d already taken shelter against the vehicle to crab walk after it. He could hear them cursing her, could hear her telling them to shut the fuck up.
The patrol car rocked as a giant harpoon speared into the roof, blowing out every window. Dave almost tripped over his own feet as he tried to arrest his forward momentum. Smaller bolts rained down on them from high above. He recognised them, or rather Urgon did, as the arrakh-mi fired by Sliveen crossbows. Another spear-length arrow, a shot from a great war bow, punched into the police car, detonating the flashing lights on the roof. Dave didn’t need to be told twice. He dodged into a doorway across the street, getting out of the direct line of fire, just as a couple of bolts sparked off the pavement where he’d been standing, stupidly, gawping at the scene.
Five patrol cars ringed the entrance to 530 Park Avenue, and one large white truck that he took for some kind of tactical unit transport. It was riddled with war shots and darts and, before getting his ass out of the firing line, Dave had counted seven dead men, dressed identically to him in black combat coveralls. Their bodies lay sprawled around the van, which was still running, occasional puffs of exhaust coughing from its tailpipe. Other bodies, some whole, some roughly hacked and torn into parts, lay in the road, or hung from open windows of the white art deco apartment block. Still others lay atop the crushed and crumpled vehicles where they’d landed. Or perhaps where they’d been thrown, as improvised missiles. The once white facade of 530 Park Avenue was disfigured with thick runnels of blood, shockingly red in the artfully arranged spotlighting that would once have shown the building’s architecture off to elegant effect.
Lucille’s killing song was loud inside his mind, but soothing, especially after the violation he had so recently suffered at the hands of . . . what? His partner? His ally?
Neither felt like they caught the truth of Colonel Karin Varatchevsky. Trinder had pronounced her a very dangerous woman, and that was surely true. He’d also called her the enemy, which possibly was not true. Or not exactly. Still, right then Dave was not much concerned with working through yet more relationship issues, and listening to Lucille’s hymn allowed him to shut out the violent mayhem he could clearly hear coming from within the high-end condo. Having a superhuman ability to hear conversations well beyond normal range was a mixed blessing. Not everybody loved Super Dave and it sucked ass having to hear them go on about it. But now his super-hearing was a
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