Mel Odom - Preying for keeps

McKenzie turned his hot gaze on Skater. "Kill those fraggers!" he roared to his men. "Kill them now!"

"Get down!" Skater shouted, pushing Silverstaff down with his free arm as he opened fire with the other hand. Two of his bullets caught McKenzie in the chest, but were stopped by the Kevlar woven into the suit. After that, he was covered by a wall of his yabos and Skater couldn't get a clear shot.

Trey had shoved Ariadne Silverstaff down as well, and was shielding her with his Kevlar cloak.

"Skater!" Elvis called.

"Do it!" Skater said. He fired the Predator dry, even as he felt bullets thud against the Kevlar under his jumpsuit, hitting hard from some ten meters away. Silverstaff crawled to his wife and pulled her behind one of the seats, bleeding from a neck wound.

For a few seconds, McKenzie's men were slow to react, crammed into too little space and trying to move too fast, getting in each other's way. That would change in heartbeats, though, as the quick separated from the dead.

Skater knew he'd put at least three of the yabos down with mortal wounds. Seven of them were still moving. Two of them opened the emergency door and shoved McKenzie through, going with him. Skater wanted to pursue, but he knew that would be suicide.

"Stay down, kid," Duran said calmly over the commlink. "The calvary's here."

Skater rolled behind a seat opposite Silverstaff and Ariadne. They had their arms around each other, one trying to protect the other. Bullets from Mafia guns ripped into the padding and sent the thin foam into the air in streamers.

Then the windows on both sides of the monorail car came apart and a blaze of gunfire followed. Elvis and Duran hung from webbing on either side of the car with the muzzles of their shotguns pointed at the pack of men standing in front of the exit through which McKenzie had just passed. They fired as quickly as the semiautos would reload, emptying the magazine tubes. The muzzle flashes lit up the interior of the car as pellets left scars on the walls. The din rendered everyone deaf while it lasted.

Dumping the empty clip from his pistol and reloading. Skater turned his attention to Trey's end of the car. Nothing human was going to survive the hellish onslaught Duran and Elvis had unleashed at the front end.

A Mafia yabo broke cover and tried to open the emergency exit.

Taking deliberate aim, his ears still ringing from the shotgun noise, Skater shot the man through the head and watched the corpse drop.

Trey gestured toward another. A second later, the man was swept off his feet by an invisible force and smashed against the wall. When he fell, he didn't move again.

Trey turned, his hands empty and ready to deal more magic. "We're alive," he said with a crooked grin. "I didn't really expect that."

"Neither did they," Skater said, nodding at the dead and unconscious men the mage's spells had left in their wake. He glanced back at Silverstaff and his wife. "Time to get you clear of this."

Silverstaff didn't look any too happy that his welfare depended on the runners, but he got his wife up and moving.

Skater watched through the broken windows of the car as Elvis and Duran tried to climb back to the top. The monorail was clattering along the single track below, the line of cars picking up the wind now and shaking from side to side. The ork and the troll were both having trouble gelling back to the top. They hung at the side of the car like fat fruit waiting to be picked off.

In the car behind them, Skater saw more Mafia guns swarming at the door. He opened his arms wide and slammed into the Silverstaffs, driving them back against the wall as a hail of gunfire ripped through the car's interior.

"Wheeler," Skater called over the commlink. "Can we lose the car behind us?"

"I'm working on it."

The door to the car in front of them opened suddenly and a man dived through, a machine pistol in his fist. He rolled, bringing the weapon up in a semicircle that swept a new line of holes across the ceiling of the car.

Skater fired from almost point-blank range, putting two bullets into the man's face as he tried to correct his aim. He looked through the broken window facing the car behind them, then fired another trio of shots that took out another gunner walking the connections between the cars.

The Mafia soldier shouted something when he got hit, then toppled from the connection and screamed louder as he started the long, four story fall to the streets.

"It's not the fall that kills you," Trey yelled across the car on the other side of the door. "It's that sudden stop at the end."

Skater kept watch, wondering how long before someone realized a grenade lobbed into the car would make all the difference in the world. He accessed the commlink. "Wheeler."

"I'm done," the dwarf replied. "Stand by. I've had to override the emergency relays. It's not going to be pretty, but it should work."

"Bloody frag," Trey said. "Somebody brought a rocket launcher as a party favor."

"Son of a slitch," Duran said with real feeling over the commlink.

Skater peered around the edge of the window frame and saw it was true. The Mafia gunners had pulled back from the front of the next car, giving the one with the collapsible M79B1 LAW rocket launcher over his shoulder room to fire the weapon.

The LAW was a telescoping length of sudden death, its wide maw gaping at them. It wasn't designed to be used at such close quarters, but the warhead didn't know that.

Skater shoved the Predator's snout through the window and aimed the whole rest of the clip at the coupling linking the two cars. Ejected brass caught the moonlight and the wind, then disappeared instantly.

The sound of screeching metal screamed just before the whoosh of the rocket launcher, and Skater hoped the blown coupling had thrown the LAW-operator off balance even as he fired the thing.

He got his wish. Instead of smashing into the rear of the monorail car or plowing through the door into the interior, the warhead exploded against the car's undercarriage. Smoke and fire belched out from under the car, and the shock waves of the detonation shivered the length of the compartment.

Skater forced himself up from the floor where he'd fallen. He stared at the huge rip that had opened up only centimeters from where he'd been, followed the line of it for meters till it ended nearly halfway down the car.

Through the half-meter-wide tear given birth by the explosive, he could see the rail the car was running along. The ringing in his ears didn't die down.and the smoke only got worse. When he saw the phosphorous-based flames clinging to the undercarriage, he understood why. The heat gathered intensity, becoming a live thing that whipped through the car's interior.

On either side of the monorail track, Skater saw the glow of neon adverts lighting up the sprawl below. The monorail lurched, and the split in the flooring grew even wider. Bullets continued to pound the rear of the car.

"Drek, Wheeler," Skater said as he tried to crouch down and press the magazine release on the Predator. He got it on the second attempt and the rectangle of metal clunked to the floor, slid toward his feet, then abruptly changed course and skittered through the widening hole at the side of the car. "I thought you were getting rid of the car."

"I cut it loose," the dwarf said. "Fragging explosion must have jammed the coupling releases."

Skater risked a glance out the window, and a rifle bullet nearly took his head off. Still, the momentary glance he got showed him that the coupling was barely hanging together. He brought his hand over the edge of the window and sighted from the point, banging out shot after shot to offer the mage cover. He accessed the headlink. "Elvis, Duran, you still with us?"

"We're on top of the car," came the ork's voice, "but those fraggers have us pinned down. We've also got some company coming from the troops in the car ahead of us."