Стефани Перри: Code Veronica

was going to get it right this time…"

He shoved at the ax again, straining, but it wasn't moving. "In other words, she was whacked. I guess she and Alfred were pretty close after all…"

Steve trailed off, his cheeks suddenly flushing with color. His hands started to twitch, his body trembling. "What is it?" Claire asked, afraid, so afraid, because his body was hunching over, his fingers clenching to fists, his eyes wild and terrified.

"Cuh … Claire …"

His voice dropped an octave, her name becoming a growl, and then he was writhing in the chair, his clothes ripping. He opened his mouth and a liquid moan came out, frightened at first but then angry. Furious. "No," Claire whispered, started to back away, and Steve grabbed the halberd, wrenching it out of the wall, standing up. His body continued to hunch over, his head dropping down, muscles rippling beneath skin that was turning a gray green. Spikes rose up from his left shoulder, two, three of them, as his hands elongated, as a giant, bloodless wound grew across his back, as his eyes turned red and animal. The thing that had been Steve Burnside opened its mouth and screamed, enraged, and Claire turned and sprinted away, sick with loss and fright, running for all she was worth. The monster came after her, swinging the massive axe, the sharp edge whistling through the air. She could feel the wind from the swinging blade and somehow found more speed, her legs pumping, pushing her faster. The monster swung again, hit something, the sound vast and deafening. Faster, faster, the small room just ahead… … and the gate was coming down, was about to lock her into the hall with the monster, how, didn't matter, she had to go faster still or she was dead… … and with one final, brutal push, Claire dove for the shrinking space between the bottom of the gate and the floor, sliding in on her stomach, the gate crashing closed behind her. The monster roared, began swinging the axe with abandon, sparks flying as it attacked the metal bars. In shock, Claire watched it break through three of them, bending the steel by the very ferocity of its blows, before she realized she could get out. Door, I propped the door open, she thought dazedly, and stood up, took a single step toward her escape… … and then something broke through the wall with a crash, not the monster, a thing that wrapped around her like a constrictor, lifting her, another of the tentacles. The monster continued to hack at the metal, it would break through in seconds, and the tentacle had her

tightly in its rubbery grasp. Awakened from her daze, Claire beat at her captor, pried at it, but the matter was impervious. It simply held her, waiting for the monster to breach the gate. It wanted to beat her and cut her, it wanted to rip her apart, so it slammed the weapon into the bars over and over, and finally, there was a hole it could pass through. She was making noises in the grip of the thing that held her, gasping noises that made its blood hot and excited, that made it raise the ax, lusting for the end of her. It brought the axe down, hard, remembering what he'd told her, promised her –

– you can get the next one I will

– and it, he, stopped, the blade almost touching her skull. The tentacle waited, gripped her tighter, and he remembered. Claire.

Steve lifted the axe again, strong, he was so strong, and slammed it down into the tentacle, slicing through. In a spray of green fluid, the thick coil snapped and hit him in the chest, throwing him into the wall before retreating. He felt and heard ribs break, felt the boil of his blood cooling, felt his strength going away. The pain came, sharp and dull and everywhere, but he opened his eyes and she was there, she was safe, she was reaching for his hand. Claire Redfield, reaching for his hand with tears in her eyes. The monster was gone. She reached out to hold his hand and he lifted it to his face, to his beautiful, dying face, laying it across his cheek. "You're warm," he whispered. "Hang on," she said, pleading, the knot in her throat choking her, "please, my brother came and he'll take us with him, please don't die!"

Steve's eyes were fluttering, as though he were trying very hard to stay awake. "I'm glad your brother came," he whispered, his voice fading. "And I'm glad I met you. I … I love you." On the last word, his head fell forward, his chest falling and not rising again, and then Claire was alone. Steve was gone.

Chris ran, knowing that their time was short as long as Alexia Ashford was alive, afraid that she might already have gotten to Claire. "Claire!" he shouted, banging his fist on every door he passed. It didn't matter, his shouting; if Alexia was even half as powerful as he suspected, she already knew

where he was … and where Claire was. Please, please don't hurt her, he thought, the thought repeating itself as he ran down another hall, through a door, another hall, and another. He didn't know if anything could stop Alexia, but if he could find Claire and get them to the evac elevator, he meant to try and trigger the self-destruct system before leaving. Alexia was halfway to omnipotence and purely evil, she was an apocalypse waiting to happen, and she had to be stopped.

"Claire!"

Through a familiar hallway, another Spencer estate copy, through a door that opened into some kind of shadowy prison, holding cells lining the walls. He had to find her, if he couldn't, he couldn't leave. He wanted Alexia dead, but he wouldn't endanger Claire's life, not for anything, and getting her out took absolute priority

– and somebody was crying behind one of the closed doors. Chris stopped running and listened, trying not to breathe, tuning out the relentless banging of a virus carrier locked in another cell. Another gasping wail… Claire, oh, thank God you're alive!

He ripped open the door, ready to hurt anything even close to her and saw her sitting on the floor, sobbing, her arms wrapped around a young man, his naked body bruised and pitiful. He was dead.

Ah, shit.

It could only be Steve, Claire's friend, and though he was sorry for the boy he'd never met, Chris's heart was breaking for her. She looked so fragile, so alone… … something else to lay at Alexia's doorstep. Chris had no doubt that Steve had died because of that crazy bitch. But as much as he wanted to sit down and comfort Claire, to hold her hand and let her grieve, he knew they had to get out. "We have to go now, Claire," he said, as gently as possible and was relieved when she nodded, carefully laying her friend down, closing his eyes with one trembling hand. She kissed him on the forehead and then stood up. "Okay," she said, nodding again. "I'm ready." She didn't look back, and in spite of everything, he was proud of her. She was strong, stronger than he would have been if he'd been asked to leave someone he'd cared about. Together, they ran back into the hall, Chris figuring that they had to be close to the southwest corner of the building, where he'd landed the jet and seen the emergency evacuation elevator. The self-destruct system was presumably close enough to the elevator to make a fast escape possible; if they could just get to that elevator, he'd check every floor on the way up. There were stairs at the south end of the hall, and Chris

ran for them, Claire at his side. He could feel the seconds ticking past as they hurried up the steps, felt like time was closing in on them, that Alexia was finished playing. Through the door at the top of the stairs, running out onto a giant metal grid platform and Chris laughed out loud when he looked behind them, saw the nondescript doors of the emergency elevator. "What?" Claire asked. He motioned at the doors, grinning. "That'll take us straight to the jet."

Claire nodded, not smiling but she looked relieved.

"Good. Let's go."