I take cover behind a plinth that once held a lion. Rain drips down my nose. I hold my gun up next to my head and unsuccessfully try to imagine this is a scene from Escape from New York.
There is a scuffle of limbs from above. I kick back and away from the stone. A decidedly unheroic grunt bursts out of me. A grunt and a half yell from someone out of sight. I blink water from my eyes and try to stare down the pistol sights.
Clyde’s head appears, his hood pushed back, sodden hair matted to his mask. He collapses over the plinth into an untidy pile of limbs. I collapse next to him.
“Magical metal cats,” I say as he unfolds. “Last week extra-dimensional brain parasites used them to attack us, and now these sodding Russians. I can’t believe our bloody luck.”
Flippancy is a good way to keep the fear at bay.
“The aliens used panthers, though,” Clyde says. “These are lions. Kings of the jungle. Totally different ball game.”
“Panthers?” I say to him. “I always thought of them as tigers.”
This is the conversational equivalent of hysteria. Things are going to shit fast. I need to focus, need a plan.
“We get any of the Russians yet?” I ask him. Gather information. Ask the right questions. Do detective work. Of a sort.
Clyde shakes his head.
“They get any of us yet?”
“Not for lack of trying. Enthusiastic bunch, I have to say.”
I nod. A plan. Shock and awe. That’s what Coleman said. It’s what the Russians used. Worked for them too. We did not anticipate the lions. We probably should have, but we didn’t. We need to do something they’re not expecting.
I poke my head around the corner, try to assess the scene. Coleman and Felicity are crouched together near a fountain taking potshots at Proto-Lenin but the amazing anorak boy is holding them down with lightning. Kayla is set apart, battling with the blond woman who has apparently strayed too close to Devon and the van. She flicks her sword lazily at the woman, batting her away.
Stab her, I find myself willing, but Kayla seems satisfied with slaps of the blade, knocking the woman off-balance, beating her back, but refusing to advance.
“You see Tabby?” Clyde asks. “I’m trying to remember the words to the Wall, but I’ve forgotten them.”
“I’m pretty sure they involve them kids being left alone by teachers.” I’m not helping, I know.
Clyde shakes his head. “That came about four hundred years after the version I’m looking for. Not Romanian enough either.”
We need to get back to Felicity and Coleman, to regroup. To get Kayla to actually fight. And where is Tabitha?
Shock and awe.
I need to take one of them down. I have to. I have to find a way to get close. Except they’re standing in the middle of an empty square and they’ve got most of the cover prowling around and attacking us.
“You a hundred percent sure there’s no way for you to teleport me next to someone?”
Clyde says something which is less sarcastic than I deserve, but I’m not really listening. The tall Russian is in the center of the square. The ringleader, I think. And if there’s no way to sneak up on him… Well I only see one way to get close to him.
“Clyde,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Cover me.”
“Whatever with?”
I’d reply, but apparently I decided to hurdle the plinth about two seconds too early. Now all that’s left to do is put my head down, charge, and regret it.