Fall of Night The Morganville Vampires - By Rachel Caine Page 0,118

as he jammed a knee up into a region that made me wince. That guard doubled over. Eve, at the same time, lunged across my body at the guard checking me out, and I came alive to wrestle him down as she pulled his gun free and rose to point it at him.

The other guard’s gun went off as he and Pete struggled, but Pete put him down hard with a blow from that rusty piece of metal, and scooped up the weapon. ‘Get her!’ he yelled, and pointed at Liz as he threw himself to one side of the doorway. I scrambled up, grabbed Liz, tossed her over my shoulder, and was immediately thrown off balance as she started to struggle.

Dammit, this was not the time for the girl to be waking up. ‘We need out of this room!’ I said to Eve, who nodded and joined Pete at the door. She tapped him on the shoulder to let him know she was behind him, and he moved fast, out of the room and firing. Turned out that he was firing deliberately high, because when I followed him and Eve out, the guards were down behind overturned steel tables. There was a lot of confused shouting going on.

We ran the gauntlet before they could get organised, because there wasn’t much else we could do. Eve broke off and ran to Michael’s cage, which I wouldn’t have let her do if I’d had any kind of choice in the matter, but she was thinking ahead; she’d lifted the keys from the guard we’d tackled, and as Pete kept the others’ heads down, she fumbled through the selection and found the one that turned the lock.

Michael wasn’t nearly as debilitated as he looked. He uncoiled himself from the ball he’d been in, crawled out, and lunged at Eve.

For a scary second, I was afraid she’d just signed her death warrant, but it was just a hug, not a full-on attack; his fangs stayed in, and the energy of rising to his feet seemed to be just about all he had, because he sagged against her almost immediately, and she had to drag/carry him toward the door. I caught a glimpse of his face over her shoulder – my boy Mikey was back. Not well, not by half, but that was him, looking at me through those blue eyes.

You go, bro.

It all took about ten seconds, but it seemed like half an hour to make it to the far side of the room; the guards started firing back at us within half that time, and Pete stopped aiming over their heads and started punching neat holes into the steel tables they were hiding behind. That kept them down. I almost went over backward as Liz started kicking and writhing; she was taller than Claire, and strong, and panicked. I let her slide off as we reached the far doorway, and she nearly collapsed as she tried to take her weight on both feet. When she tried to break free of me, I yanked her closer. ‘I’m Claire’s boyfriend!’ I yelled at her. I guess the blood dripping all over my face didn’t make me look any more trustworthy, because she didn’t seem reassured. ‘Go!’ I shoved her ahead of me, and she stumbled on barely functioning legs to the closed steel door.

It didn’t open.

‘Eve!’ I yelled, and gestured for the gun she was firing. She tossed it to me and lunged for the door, trying keys with frantic haste. The semi-auto pistols that Pete and I were firing each carried fifteen shots, but Pete was already down at least nine, and Eve had popped off four. It wouldn’t last long if we were trying to intimidate a room full of guys with bullets and the hard-core training to use them.

None of Eve’s keys worked. She grimly started over, trying them again, and I used four more of our bullet inventory. I hoped I wasn’t hitting anybody, but at that moment, I wasn’t really opposed to it, either.

Michael came through for us. He moved Eve out of the way, grabbed hold of the handle, and yanked, hard. It broke off, and he pushed the hardware through on the other side, reached in, and pulled back the tongue on the lock. Then he half collapsed again, and Eve had to drag him out by the arms into the hallway.

We weren’t out of the fire, but at least we were off the frying pan, and