in,” one guard said.
“We’re going in,” I said firmly. “We can do this the humiliating way, or the super humiliating way. Up to you.”
Once again the guard put the gun to his eye and sighted down the barrel.
I went up a step.
He aimed right at my heart and pulled the trigger from half a meter away. Click! Nothing happened.
I let out a breath. No matter how much confidence I had in Clete, having a gun fired at you point-blank is still pretty scary. “Sorry,” I said, smiling at the guard. “The chips inside your guns are having a day off.”
With a roar of rage, the guard lunged at me, swinging his gun like a club.
I grabbed the gun and used the weight of his own swing to yank him off the stairs, flinging him down to the stairs below me. Right as he jumped to his feet, I stomped on his instep, then whirled and kicked him behind his knee. He sagged but recovered quickly. I spun and knocked the gun out of his hands with an axe kick. It clattered to the ground and I grabbed it, swinging it at his head. Wham! I clocked him right on the temple and he staggered, his eyes crossed.
I glanced back at Pietro, who was just barely holding his own against the other guard.
My guy had recovered and surprised me with a fierce uppercut that made my teeth smash together. I saw stars but stayed on my feet, ducking down and aiming a completely enraged kick at his kneecap. There was a satisfying snap, immediately followed by a scream of pain, and my guy was curled in a fetal position, holding his leg.
I smashed him in the head with the butt of the rifle—a pity move to knock him out. There’s nothing quite like a shattered kneecap to make you wish for unconsciousness.
The other guard was still swinging his gun at Pietro. I took a little hop, unfolded my wings, and flew over them to the top of the steps. The guard’s mouth dropped open and he stared, which gave Pietro time to hook his foot behind the guy’s ankle. They tumbled together down the last few stairs and ended with Pietro leaning way over the guy, still holding on to the gun. But something was wrong—Pietro was way too still.
Then I saw the blood running down the rifle, saw the smile on the guard’s face. He lifted one booted foot and gave a mighty shove, and Pietro simply fell to the side, his eyes closed. At the end of the rifle was a bloody bayonet.
I only had time to scream, “Pietro!” before the grinning guard had jumped to his feet and was lunging up at me with the bayonet still dripping my friend’s blood.
“Oh, you son of a bitch, you’re gonna pay for that!” I swore.
He only grinned wider, unaware he was looking at death’s face.
I jumped up as he swiped at me, then whipped my wings out, startling him when the last bit of soot left in my feathers flew into his eyes. For just a second I hovered above him, inches out of his reach—then I whammed him with the hard, bony tip of my right wing, knocking the rifle away. In the next second, both my feet smashed into his chest with everything I had. It drove him backward in one brutal move against the stair railing. His arms windmilled, his smug face now alarmed.
I landed, grabbed his feet, and yanked them upward, flipping him the rest of the way over the railing.
He yelled for a surprisingly long time as he went down, his screams rising above the smog as he fell.
“Pietro!” I said, falling to my knees next to him. I opened his shirt, afraid of what I’d see. It was bad—close to his heart and pumping out sluggish blood. But he was still bleeding, which meant his heart was beating. So I knew he was still alive. I shook off my already bloody jacket and tried to make a compress, tying his arm over the wound for extra pressure.
That was all I had time for.
CHAPTER 106
That had been it—two guards with nonworking guns. That had been the sum of security outside this door. Pietro had been sure McCallum was up here somewhere. Time to find out. I charged up the last staircase, took the knife out of my boot, and simply lifted the lock’s latch on the door. A rat could have done it. A rat