Felix didn't seem to be getting much of anything, come to think of it. And while Crow sounded strong and confident for the others and himself, a gnawing fear tried to grow in him that Felix wasn't going to cut it. He was just going to stand there in a petrified daze and if something went wrong and they needed his gun... Or worse, somebody would have to save him and while they were worrying about Felix they wouldn't be worrying about themselves and...
No, dammit! No! Felix will come out of it. Felix will come through. He will. He will. After a couple of kills, after he sees the fiends aren't invincible, he'll be all right. He will. He will!
He must.
And with that Jack Crow stopped worrying about it and concentrated instead on psyching everyone else up. He did a good job. By the time they re-entered the building and got set up between their lanterns and had the detector going Beep-Beep-Beep again, they were ready. And by the time the second goon appeared, a spindly middle-aged man with his throat still jaggedly gashed from his murder, Crow just knew they could pull this off.
And at first it was just the little things that started to go wrong.
Part Two Chapter 13
First the cable to the crossbow fouled. Jack had just lifted the weapon and prepared to fire when he realized he had no slack. He called Joplin on the radio to find the trouble and then stood there with the others, waiting for a reply, as the second fiend lumbered slowly toward them.
It had almost reached the left lantern when Joplin called back that he knew where the trouble was, that the cable had snagged in the doorjamb, that he would have to open the door to fix it. Jack sighed and cursed, then ordered the others back to the doorway.
He had to call Felix's name twice. The man seemed to be mesmerized by the sight of the ragged tissue on the goon's neck.
So they all faded back to the door and stood there, intermittently blinded by periodic bursts of harsh Texas sunlight, as Joplin fiddled with the door.
The repair took five minutes.
It made sense to keep the detector on, standing there blind as they were. But it was unlikely anything would attack them in that glare of sunlight either. And by the time the detector had gone from BEEP-BEEP-BEEP to beep... beep... beep, showing the second monster had retreated, Jack couldn't stand that sound anymore. He reached over to the machine in Cat's hands and snapped it off with an angry flourish.
"All set," announced Joplin, sticking his head inside.
"Good news," replied Cat wryly. "Now maybe you can fix this."
And he held up the detector to show where Jack had broken the switch off.
So they had to stand there blind some more while Joplin, wearing a miner's light on his head, replaced the toggle switch with a paper clip and wire.
That took another five minutes.
Jack was not in a good mood by the time they had resumed their stations behind the two lanterns. The delays had lost them their stride. His team looked jumpy-except for Felix, who looked paralyzed - and he wasn't feeling so hot either.
And he couldn't stand that goddamned beeping.
But the detector was doing its job. The beeps got closer and closer just as before, and when they reached the previous interval, the goon reappeared, this time from the right side. Cat's side.
"Okay, people," ordered Jack, lifting the crossbow, "get set."
It was about then that the right-side lantern began to flicker.
"Shit!" hissed Jack and he lowered the crossbow and stared with the rest of the team as the light blinked on and off. The only movement was from the goon. It was now only twenty feet away. And coming steadily.
Jack didn't know what to do. He didn't want to fight in the dark. But he didn't want to have to start everything up again. And besides, dammit, this was just a little short one!
"Cat!" he barked angrily. "Fix that light!"
Cat, whose mechanical ineptitude was legendary, just stared back and said, "How?"
"I don't know, dammit! Fiddle with it."
Cat hesitated. The goon was now only fifteen feet away.
"And hurry!" snarled Jack.
Cat nodded. "Right!" And he rushed forward and bent down over the flickering lantern.
"Well?" demanded Crow a few seconds later. The goon was now only a dozen feet - six shuffling steps - away. And whenever the lamp would flicker, it would