deeply. Something was different about her, but she could not put her finger on the change. Was it disorientation or some weird flurry in her tummy?
Your place is on the roof, said a soothing voice inside her head.
“I think I’m a little stoned.”
She forced herself to eat an ancient granola bar with extra-wiggly protein for strength and to down a generous libation of water. She liked the detached, floating feeling, like being in a Bullet Time reality where spectacular movement happened at a mind-blowingly slower pace. No tension whatsoever.
Morales waded through a herd of cattle to seek her out. He chatted about nothing of substance, giving Poe the impression that her friend with the Adonis body was a nervous wreck.
“I wish you’d brought one of those Anakin goggles for me,” he said after touching on Chinese take-out. “Oh, and Sainvire finally sent a messenger, a really skittish one.”
“Morales,” Poe sighed, a sure sign of annoyance.
“What did the messenger say?”
“They’re laying low. They can’t make a move until the third strike force gets here to cover us. We don’t have enough fighters to beat them back until then.” He wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead.
“Sainvire didn’t expect the number of sentinels sent to protect the depot after Trench’s hotel and Parker Center were decimated.”
“What’s the strike team? Where’s Sainvire?”
“The strike teams are escaped custodians and ex-cattle rehabbed in the California Central Valley.
They’re emptying Union Station of cattle as we speak.
Sainvire and his vamps are with them.”
Poe could tell that Morales wanted to be around her for the evacuation. She couldn’t be his security 321
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blanket at that point because she wasn’t sure her back and ankle were going to hold, even with the help of amped-up drugs.
“Get back to the front of the line, Morales. I need to pee.” She held up her hands near his light to show that the discussion was over. “I can’t protect you. I’m too whacked.”
Poe was in the midst of zipping up and discarding a travel-size tissue pack when the order came from one of Sainvire’s vampires to climb to the subway platform. She buckled her drunken sombrero cactus belt quickly and arranged her pack and weapons for easy access. By the time she hobbled back to the end of the line, she found that most people had been coaxed forward to be hauled up to the platform. With her tweaked back and ankle, it was almost impossible to squeeze past the crowd. She sat down, stretched some more, and waited.
“Sufferin’ succotash,” Poe said drowsily. “You have to be positive like Goss and Sister Ann used to be. If you’ve gone this far, then your odds are better than average,” she said in the dark. “The pills’ll help you perform better.” She wasn’t even nervous.
Watching cattle wiggle their way to the front gave her a bad feeling. At least I’m packing heat. The poor dolts can’t even protect themselves. Her attempt at optimism ended with a bang.
Several bangs, actually, seemed to originate from the platform above where vampires and subhumans of different factions clashed. The odds were getting lousier by the second, and with her injuries, Poe had an unpleasant premonition that she was going to die that evening. And she wasn’t ready one bit.
(((
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“Pull ’em out! Haul ’em up faster than this for fucksakes!” a croaky undead yelled from the platform.
From the looks of him, things weren’t going as smoothly as his boss had envisioned. Now that there was the possibility of whizzing bullets damaging him for ages to come, he didn’t seem so gung ho about rescuing a bunch of food.
“It’ll be hella faster if somebody’d give some boxes or ladders for the cows to step onto, you idiot,”
somebody replied from the tracks. “Pushing their flabby asses up is getting old.”
It was taking far too long to get the one hundred-plus cattle to climb to the high platform. A ridiculous amount of bullets reverberated around them. The chaperones practically heaved their weakened charges up. Careful handling of the humans was crucial since their bones were brittle after being bedridden for so long. The half-hour leeches gave the cattle to stretch out and roam each day wasn’t enough.
Flying to the platform with an impaled dead in his talon, Sainvire ordered, “Esper, make sure the cattle stay behind the riot shields until they’re deposited on our train.” He stabbed the wiggling vampire youth in his clutches one more time and let