Steven

I protested and insisted that I should not go back over the bridge. But Miles was in a bad state and needed 'a hand' getting Cory back alive. "I wouldn't be of any help," I said. "I couldn't even manage to hit one of those... demon creatures when it was coming straight at me. I don't have the stomach for this, Miles."

"I just need someone there to watch my back and deter any Serpents from trying to murder me," he said.

"What?"

"Nevermind, just come on. You're a city cop; that makes you untouchable. No one and nothing is going to hurt you over there. And as long as I'm with you, then no one should mess with me, okay? All you have to do is walk with me. We're going to go get Cory and bring her back."

There was no arguing with him. He grabbed my arm in a grip so tight that my fingers went numb and started pulling me toward the smoke, all the while mumbling, "We'll just go get her and come back. She's probably fine. As long as she hung back like I told her to..." I couldn't tell if he was talking to me or not, but it became impossible to understand him.

We ran over the bridge and straight through the next intersection without seeing or hearing anything from the gatekeepers. If Miles even knew they were there, he certainly didn't show it. Several intersections later, I was out of breath and needing something to get the stitch out of my side. I didn't think I was out of shape, but the smoke in the air was making everything more difficult.

The gunfire grew louder and with it, the sound of raging fires and howling monsters, which, coupled with my light-headedness, made me feel like I was in a terrible nightmare. I started to question the reality of what was going on and wanted to wake myself up. But even Miles pinching my wrist with his tight grip didn't snap me out of it.

He never told me where we were going or what to expect. I became increasingly reluctant and slow to follow as the road we walked became flanked on both sides with burning buildings. But Miles dragged me on until the heat from the fire made me sweat all over. People's voices rose up over the noisy energy of the fires and the snap and crack of guns. Then Miles stopped and looked around, as if he, too, had just realized we were in Hell.

"We shouldn't be on the main road," he said--again mumbling so low that I didn't know if he was really talking to me or not. He looked all around us, searching for an opening for us to leave the street, but everything around us was burning and several of the buildings had already collapsed, closing off any space that might have existed between them and the next building. "She should be nearby," he said. "Somewhere..." he craned his neck as if to see over the two-story apartment buildings. "Maybe over there." He pointed to a small space between two buildings. One had already been burnt out, the roof collapsed in on itself. The other was about to reach that point--like a star about to turn into a black hole. "Quickly," he said and pulled me toward the space.

I resisted for a brief second and shook my head, but he didn't stop. Instead he let go of my arm and ran between the buildings to the other side of the street. I sighed and ran after him. The walls on either side of the small space were hot enough to burn me, but thanks to God, the building didn't collapse and I made it through to the other side without any serious harm.

"She should be around here," Miles said again, looking at the rooftops and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, which only put more soot and dried blood on his face.

The gunshots were right above our heads now, or at least they sounded like it. Every time one cracked the air, I ducked and spun around to figure out where it was coming from or where it was aimed at, but no guns seemed to be pointed my way. A few men in Serpent coats crouched behind a brick wall in front of me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" someone called from the building across the street. He was the only a shadow crouching on the porch and holding a rifle, which he reloaded as he spoke to us.

"We're looking for Cory," Miles said. "Do you know where she is?"

"What are you, her babysitter? Get off the street before you get shot."

"Where is she?" Miles said, walking over to the man at an even pace that was much too slow for a warzone.

I ran ahead of him and ducked onto the porch.

"What's a cop doing here?" the Serpent soldier said. "You're way out of your element down here."

"I... I'm looking for Cory," I said.

"You, too?"

I nodded. "The faster we find her, the faster we can get out of your way."

"Unless you're here to give her something, I don't see how that is. Cory is working here. She's not going anywhere, and I'd suggest you don't bother her unless you want to get her killed."

"Where is she?" Miles said, finally arriving on the porch with the two of us.

"She's in there." The man nodded toward the monstrous building complex at the end of the street--a disastrous-looking heap of old wood with so many poorly-built add-ons that just my stare seemed like enough weight to bring it all crashing down.

Miles shook his head. "No, no, no. I told her not to do that. She was supposed to hang back."

"Well, you're not the boss of her," the man said. "Ian is. And Ian sent her in to clear out whoever is shooting at us from the third floor window."

"Ian is trying to get her killed!"

"So? That's not my problem. If you want to go in there and get killed with her, be my guest. But do us all a favor and get rid of that shooter while you're at it. It'll make your death a little more meaningful to us all."

Miles peeked his head over the porch wall as if he was considering it. "Why don't you just light the whole place up? You've seemed to have done it with every other building in the area."

"I think the team on the east side are working on that one, but there's a bothersome shooter on that side, too. And between that and those damn, awful creatures that attacked us like wild animals, I think we lost a few key players for the assault to work as they had planned."

Miles peeked his head up again to scan the building. "Which window is the guy in?"

"It's hard to see it from here," the man said. "It's third floor, two from the right."

"Do you have any lighter fluid or anything to make a molotov with?"

"Miles!" I said. "Cory is in that building!"

"I know that! I'm not going to burn the place with her in it. But if we have a chance to end this, then let's end it!"

"'Let's' not do anything. I'm not a part of this! And I don't want to see you and Cory die here today, Miles, I already had to take Mikkel's broken body to the hospital."

"Cory is going to die if we don't get her out of there and end this whole thing!" Miles said. His bloodshot eyes burned through the black and brown streaks on his face made him look wild and crazy. "She's already hurt! And I don't know how many bullets she has left. ...She's too small and weak to fight any other way..." his head dropped and his sentence trailed off as he curled up like he was going to cry.

The soldier looked from me to Miles and then back again, eyebrows raised in an incredulous look. "This is getting weird," he said finally. "Here," he pulled out a bottle of sanitizing alcohol and a lighter. "You want to go on a suicide mission? Have fun with that. I'll even cover you on your way in."

"Please don't," I said to Miles. "Cory will be fine. That girl has survived all kinds of stuff. I thought she died years ago!" I smiled as I said it in a poor attempt to lighten the mood.

But Miles didn't listen to me. He took the bottle and lighter from the Serpent soldier and looked back over the porch wall to plan his path in. "Besides the one in the window, is there anyone else I should know about?"

"Other than Ian on the floor above us, who would love to put a bullet in the back of your head? No."

Miles's eyes slid over to me at that. "That's why you're here," he said, nodding in my direction. "Go talk to Ian."

"What?"

"Go talk to him. This guy--" he pointed his thumb at the soldier, "What's your name?"

"Julius," he said.

"Julius is going to cover me," Miles said. "You just go talk to Ian and try to convince him that he needs us."

"That, uh... That sounds..."

"He isn't going to hurt you," Miles said. "You're a cop. That would be all kinds of stupid."

I shook my head. "I thought you were supposed to be the reasonable one."

"I am reasonable," Miles said. His eyes lost all hint of sadness and instead, turned to a cold kind of look. His jaw hardened. "But this is my family. Cory is my family. And I am not going to walk away from my family in trouble. So this is me being reasonable in a warzone."

I truly wish I had let the conversation drop there and never said what I said next. But I was in a panic. The thought of watching Miles get gunned down in front of me was haunting me from the future. I could already see his head blown to bits as Ian puts a bullet in the back of his head. Or his torso bleeding from multiple places as the Jaggar in the window takes him down. With that bloody, awful scene in my head, I said, "Is that what Dr. Gore would have wanted you to do?" There was more to that thought, but I didn't finish it.

The look on Miles's face grew so dark that I started to fear him more than the war around us. His head tilted down like a ram ready to charge at me and he clenched his teeth so tight I could see the muscles in his jaw and cheeks strain with it. Even his hands started to strangle the bottle he held. He didn't say anything until after he calmed himself down with a deep breath. "Look," he said through his teeth. "I'm going to run across that street and into the Docks. Unless you want me to get shot in my back by a man who is supposed to be on our side, I suggest you get up there and talk to him." He didn't say anything more. He just stared at me until I got up and went into the house to find Ian.

I hadn't gone more than a few steps into the house before I had to go back outside to ask, "Who is Ian?"

Miles dropped his face into his hands in a show of frustration.

"Second floor," the Serpent soldier said. "Just ask for Ian and they'll point you to him."

Ian sat on his haunches next to a window, gun in hand, but not in use. He must have heard me ask for him because he was already looking at me when I entered the room. "A cop?" he said. "Are you the one making all that noise down there? What on earth could you want around here and at a time like this?"

"Well..." I stammered and stumbled into the room. Gunshots echoed off the buildings outside. "I... I'm here with Miles Rea--"

"What?" His face immediately fell into a frown that looked like it would fall right off his face. But he quickly recovered it, turning it into a devious kind of smile. "And what does he want? Are the other Bastards with him?"

"You mean Mikkel and Markus? No." I started moving closer, but as soon as my foot reached the sunny spot on the floor, I remembered the shooter and thought better of it. "Miles just wants to help. He's offering to--"

Right about then, I was interrupted by gunshots in the street loud enough to punch the breath right out of me.

Ian lifted his head above the window ledge just enough to see down below. "What!" The sight of Miles running into the Docks was enough of a shock to make him stand up. He pointed his gun toward the street to take aim, but before I had time to respond, he pulled it back again. His posture fell into a disappointed curve. "That Bastard," he said and then added something in Gebrochen. "He's going to muck everything up." Ian shook his head and resumed his position crouching on the floor. Then, as if he had forgotten me, he looked up and lifted his eyebrows in sharp arches. "You're still here? What on earth for? Haven't you done your part in this... this treacherous trick?"

"Trick?"

"Yes, of course. This was all a plan by that deviant Bastard, Mikkel, wasn't it? I'm sure he planned all this from the beginning. This is just his way of making me look foolish... or catch me in the act..."

"The act of what? I don't know what you're talking about. Mikkel is--"

"You're that heich 'liaison' that Mikkel has in his pocket, aren't you. Here to play your part in all his versch?"

I didn't know what he meant by any of that, but something in the way he said it offended me. I straightened my posture and held my chin up. "Sir, I was sent here by the Easternport Police Department to find out what kind of threat the city is facing."

"Oh you were, were you?" Ian slid back up to a standing position like a cobra rising on its tail. "And what threat have you found? Hmm?"

"Well," I swallowed the dryness out of my throat. "It appears that this gun violence is between the Serpents and the Jaggars, and I do appreciate the 'gatekeepers' you have in place at the bridge. They seem to be doing an excellent job keeping Center City safe."

"Mmhmm..." He narrowed his eyes at me. "And what of this charade with Miles, then?"

"It wasn't a charade, sir. Miles asked me to talk to you about letting him go into the docks to help Cory and burn the building down."

"Oh, he did, did he? And yet he didn't wait for any kind of answer from me. Seems to tell you something about his character, wouldn't you agree?"

Multiple shots cracked the air in quick succession, all from inside the Docks. I wanted to inch closer to the window to search for some clue about the current situation with Miles and Cory, but Ian had a look on his face that told me to keep my distance. The sounds of a struggle across the street didn't even faze him--as if the war didn't matter anymore. All that mattered to him at that point was interrogating me.

"I suppose so," I said, "Though, I'm not sure what, exactly." There was much more activity in the streets below us. In the hollow spaces between gunshots, men shouted order to each other in Gebrochen. "Shouldn't you be..."

"Don't tell me what I should or should not be doing!"

And that was right about when Markus came tripping up the stairs, clothes torn, bleeding badly from one eye and clasping his cheek and nose where claw marks had ripped his face open.