Page 35 of Just Dare Me
Charlotte curses. “They saw you? Are they shooting at you?”
“Worse! I have to do a pull-up!”
Nora gasps. “Oh, I’d be dead.”
“Just shoot me,” Elle says.
“Stop messing around,” Charlotte orders. “Get your ass on that roof. We’re moving in.”
I haul myself up, kicking my legs frantically until I can flop over onto the roof and roll away from the side. My hair whips like crazy in the fifty-mile-an-hour wind. “I’m up. Elle, just sit tight. Nora’s circling back to pick you up.”
“Roger that and 10-4, and over and out.”
“Charlotte and Danny, that’s a green light. Get this party started.”
Immediately, I hear a burst of automatic gunfire from somewhere off to the left. Hillerman’s SUV—the mobile fortress—surges in close to the tracks, pacing the front of the train. Danny rips into it with an assault rifle.
The response is quick and severe. Fireballs shoot out from the windows of the train’s passenger car. The SUV swerves and drops back while Russo returns fire.
Leaning into the fierce wind, moving as quickly as I dare, I make my way to the space between cars. On the count of three, I throw myself across the chasm, landing on a freight container.
“ETA, Shayne!” Hillerman shouts. “We’ve kicked the hornet’s nest!”
“Next car’s a hopper. Thirty seconds!” Feeling more confident now, I sprint the length of the container and leap across the gap to a hopper car with three covered openings for top-loading raw materials like coal or sand.
Just as I’m reaching for the first lid, it pops open and a demon thug climbs out with his back to me. Kneeling down, he hauls a rocket launcher over one shoulder and aims at Hillerman’s SUV. I kick him in the ass, sending him flying off the roof just as he pulls the trigger. The rocket shoots straight down at the tracks and explodes, walloping the side of the hopper car. It tips to one side, and I fall backward, straight through the open cargo bay door.
I fall ten feet before crashing down onto two demons in a tangle of arms and legs. I’m the first one to my feet, beating them to the draw with my gun…only to find that the walls are lined with angry faces. All of them are marked with East Side tattoos. And all of them look like they want to literally eat me alive.
I wave my gun in all directions, but wherever I turn my back, they advance. “Eeny meeny miny…moe.” I fire high into a corner, sending the shot ricocheting off the steel walls. Demons scramble every which way in a panic. One unlucky soul finally catches the bullet with his butt cheek, but by then I’m halfway up the ladder.
Pulling myself out of the top loader, I hurtle across the roof and launch myself at the next hopper car as murderous demons spew from the opening like a geyser. I spin around, ready to blast anyone who tries to make the jump after me. But I don’t have enough shots for all of them. Not even half.
“Guys? A little help here?”
“A littlebusyhere!” Charlotte responds. I turn to see her SUV veering wildly as beach-ball size displacement bubbles explode all around it.
The first hoodlum reaches the gap between our cars, ready to make the leap. I level my handgun at him. Out of options. Time to start blasting.
He stops suddenly when something green flies at his face, tossed up at him from down in the gap between cars. With a flinch, he instinctively catches it, staring in bewilderment at a green flare. It explodes in his face, shooting neon sparks into his eyes and gaping mouth. The other demons back away.
No.They’renot backing away. Their entire section of the train is backing away, the distance between us doubling, then tripling in seconds. Somebody uncoupled our cars. My heart soars and my cheeks burn with a bright smile, because I know who that somebody is.
Charlotte hollers. “Shayne, we’re out of time. Now or never.”
“Now’s good,” I say, ripping the lid off another top loader. To my delight, the hold is full to the brim with a gray material that looks like sand. Tucked into the inner pocket of my Tigers jacket is a plastic vial. I drag it through the sand, filling it up. “That’s it, we got what we came for. Everybody fall back. Nora, you here?”
“Trailing to your right. Feel free to drop in.”
“Gosh, could we be any better at this?”
Russo cuts in. “Don’t be counting those chickens, Shayne. You’ve been spotted.”
Three cars ahead, I see a figure pull himself onto the roof. He looks right at me, and his silhouette is topped by the unmistakable round shape of a bowler hat. My heart pounds with excitement. This is too perfect.
“It’s one of them!” Russo exclaims. “A revenant! Get out of there.”
“Awww,” I coo. “It’s so sweet of the East Side to give us a wedding gift.”
