Michael Prescott: In Dark Places

"They'll beat us there," the driver said.

Hammond nodded. "But not by much."

Robin's head echoed with the punch. She tasted blood in her mouth. Her tongue seemed large and unwieldy.

She made an effort to rise, but fell down, coughing on dust and wood splinters.

Meg was screaming. Gray seized her by the hair and hauled her to the center of the room, where the two conveyor belts stood side by side under the skylight. He lifted Meg and flung her down on the nearest conveyor belt. The impact stunned her into silence. She lay on her back atop the rusted mechanism, the stars glowing down on her. She looked, Robin thought wearily, like a sacrifice on an altar.

"I been in stir a year without a taste of pussy," Gray said. "Got me a hard-on like a Louisville slugger, and it's all for you."

"Chief Hammond, Air Fourteen on tac one."

Hammond switched to the tactical frequency and heard the voice of the airship's observer.

"Air Fourteen. We have a visual on the Volkswagen. Parked in an alley in back of a large industrial site at Central and Pico. Second vehicle at the same locationone of ours, a slickback." Slickback was LAPD slang for a black-and-white police vehicle without roof lights. "No signs of occupancy in either car."

"A slickback?" Lewinsky said from the backseat. "Whose is it?"

It was easy enough to identify the car from the air. The last three digits of the shop number were stenciled on the roof, and the division number was similarly displayed on the trunk. But Hammond wasn't worried about the slickback at the moment.

"Forget the LAPD car for now, Air Fourteen. We're looking for a Caucasian male on foot. He's wearing a denim jacket and tan or brown pants." The carjack victim had given the description to the first patrol officers on the scene.

"Air Fourteen, roger. No visual on suspect. There's a means of ingress to the factory groundsan open gate."

"Gray could be inside the building," Banner said, master of the obvious.

Hammond turned to the driver. "Bring us around to the back alley. We're going in." He switched from the tac frequency to the main comm channel. "This is Hammond, requesting Central Area patrol units as backup."

The dispatcher rogered him.

"We wait for the backup, right?" Banner asked nervously.

"No, we don't." As the car swung off the freeway onto Central Avenue, Hammond drew the pistol from his belt holster. It had never been fired on the job. "Lock and load, gentlemen."

While Robin watched, Gray thrust the gun into his waistband, then climbed onto the conveyor belt. He straddled Meg, who lay unmoving, frozen by shock.

"Don't act like you never had none before," Gray said. "I told your mommy you ain't no virgin. Your cherry's been popped good. Am I right?"

From Meg, a whimper. "Yes."

Gray glanced across the room, meeting Robin's eyes with a smile of triumph. "Told you so. Your baby girl's a whore. Well, I know how to treat a whore." He unzipped his pants. "You're gonna like this, sweet thing."

Meg moaned. She still couldn't move.

But Robin could.

Her pain and shock had receded. Only anger and adrenaline remained.

Gray leaned over Meg, a jackal on a carcass. He wasn't looking in Robin's direction.

He didn't see her get to her feet, teeth gritted against a swirl of light-headedness.

She picked up a plank from the smashed carton. She advanced on Gray as his shoulders moved in the starlight.

"You want it, don't you, bitch? All you young cunts want what I got. It may be a little big for youI'm what you call supersizedbut I guarantee it'll fit just fine."

Robin lashed out with the plank. She caught Gray on the side of the head, and there was blood and a rip of flesh, and she realized there had been a nail in the plank.

He was howling as he swung off the conveyor belt, his face bleeding, penis hanging out of his fly.

She hit him again. He stumbled away.

"Meg, run!"

Shaken out of her paralysis, Meg scrambled off the conveyor belt and made a move for the exit. Gray darted in front of her to block her escape.

"There are other rooms in back," Robin shouted. "Hide there and don't come out no matter what."

She didn't wait to see if Meg complied. She ran for Gray and swung the board again.

He seized the plank by the edges, ripped it out of her hands, and threw it aside.

And he laughed.

The laugh told Robin that all this time he'd been playing games with her.

He liked games. He'd let her think she had a chance. But that was all over now.

"You're dead," he told her, his hand reaching into his waistband for the gun.

The chopper's Nightsun searchlight prowled the factory grounds, illuminating the vast expanse of the parking lot, as Hammond addressed his troopsBanner, Lewinsky, his driver, and four patrol officers from the crash site.

"All right, people, I want us going in prepared for anything. Gray's in there. He seems to have someone with him." He noticed Lewinsky on his rover. "Something up, Lieutenant?"

"Slickback's been ID'd, Chief," Lewinsky said. "It was signed out of Newton Area by Detective Tomlinson."

"Tomlinson? What the hell is he doing here?"

"Nobody seems to know."

Banner, looking more anxious than ever, drifted close to Hammond. "Chief," he said, his voice low, "you sure we don't wait for backup? Or for SWAT, maybe?"

"With the possibility of one or more civilians and a fellow officer inside?"

"I'm a media guy. I used to work Traffic. I didn't sign up for this."

"You're signed up now, Phil." Hammond raised his voice to address the group. "Move out."

Robin saw the gun in Gray's hand. At this range he couldn't miss.

She turned and ran. There was no place to hide in the empty room, no time to get to the hallway where other rooms might provide concealment. There was only the open door to the cellar. She threw herself onto the landing.

Behind her, the gun boomed.

Was she hit? She didn't think so.

On hands and knees she crossed the landing. The flashlight, still resting there, spun and rolled against the door, shining into the main room, lighting up Gray as he bounded over the conveyor belt and sprinted toward her.

She picked up the flashlight and pitched it at him, a feeble gesture. He laughed again. She reached the stairs and tumbled down, colliding with something soft and fleshy, which was Detective Tomlinson, dead, his face shot away, and in his hand was his gun.

She pried it out of his fingers, and Gray burst through the door, and she raised the gun in both hands and fired.

Her finger worked the trigger again and again, muzzle flashes flickering in the cellar. She had never fired a gun in her life, had never even handled one, and she had no idea if she was hitting anything or not.

She pulled the trigger until the gun was empty, and then over the furious clamor in her ears she heard voices.

"LAPD, drop your weapon!"

The police were here. Better late than never.

She set down the empty gun. Slowly she pushed herself upright and climbed the stairs.

The wavering beams of several flashlights had found Gray on the landing. He lay curled in a fetal pose, groaning softly. Blood crisscrossed his body in a red skein.

As she reached the landing, the flashlights discovered her.

"It's me," she said weakly. "Robin Cameron."

Her own name sounded unreal, as if it belonged to some other person, or to a person she used to be.

The police didn't respond for a moment, giving her time to think that these officers might be part of the conspiracy too. If they were, then all her efforts had been wasted, and she and Meg were dead.

Then one of the menDeputy Chief Hammond, she realizedcame forward. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

The statement struck her as absurd under the circumstances, yet somehow it was true.