They didn’t, continuing to scale the sides of the buildings, moving laterally and coming back down as we managed to add back some distance between us and them. At the corner of the next street, the command center came into view, only a block away but partially obscured by the structures in front of it.

  The bottom level was obviously more heavily reinforced than the upper levels. Squat in design, its exterior was clad in metal armor plating. A pair of blast doors sat in the center, currently open to accept Coil’s killers, who were in the middle of their retreat. An all glass building nearly thirty stories tall had been constructed on top of the bunker, most of the glass broken. Vines and other vegetation had grown through the cracks in the shattered glass, taking over most of the interior. I spotted two shooters at the top and two more on the ground, ready to lay down cover fire once the gorathi got too close. And they were already getting close, chasing down the killers from the flanks and from probably the other side as well. All roads pointed to the bunker, nearly everyone in the city making a mad rush to the same central point at the same time, including us. If we didn’t reach it before the doors closed, I was sure we wouldn’t make it through the night.

  We raced along the side of the next building, sticking close to the wall and losing sight of the bunker. The gorathi poured into the streets around us, gaining again on us. To my left, a sharper scream stole my attention as one of the queens made her appearance, towering over her much lesser soldiers. She stormed forward, apparently aware of the bunker and the blast door, eager to reach it before we puny humans made it there before her.

  “Keep going,” I shouted. “Don’t slow down!”

  “Those snipers will cut us down before we can take two steps toward the bunker,” Druck replied.

  “In all this chaos, they might not guess we aren’t with them.”

  “Maybe not us, Boss. But what about Ixy?”

  He was right. With all the action, we could probably get into the bunker without drawing fire. She couldn’t. The good news was that the gorathi had no interest in her. “Ixy, fall back,” I snapped. “You need to wait out here.”

  She slowed down enough to sidle up beside me. “Waitsss?” she asked.

  “Yeah. We’ll reconnect at sunup, okay?”

  “Yesss,” she replied. “Good lucksss.”

  “You too.”

  She peeled away, scrambling up the side of the building and vanishing through another broken window. “Shaq, get under my scarf.”

  “Mmmhmm,” he agreed, shifting on my shoulder and tucking in beneath the cloth.

  We neared the edge of the building, the bunker up ahead and to our right, just around the corner. The gorathi were only twenty feet behind us and still gaining. I considered putting up another barrier, but that would have been a loud and clear signal to Coil’s defenses that we weren’t part of their group.

  “Zar, I’ve got Matt,” I said, transferring Matt’s hand back to my shoulder. "You and Druck give us cover fire.”

  “Copy that,” Quasar said, she and Druck both pivoting back and blasting the gorathi on our tails. We didn’t slow our advance, reaching the corner of the building just as the queen screamed again.

  The harsh noise echoed through the city, tearing at my eardrums. The queen was only a couple of streets away, still coming hard. She crouched down and stabbed a claw into one of the retreating killers, lifting him up. He screamed, and I looked away before he fell silent, not wanting to see his violent end.

  Breaking into the open, we sprinted toward the bunker, Druck and Quasar spewing rounds into the gorathi behind us, making it look like we belonged with the rest of Coil’s gang. I stole a couple of glances at the snipers as we raced for the blast doors, cringing when I saw them raising their weapons in our direction. Knowing I couldn't raise any kind of defense, I pumped my legs harder, making sure everyone else redoubled their efforts to stay ahead of me.

  When the guards on the ground turned toward us and started shooting, their plasma bolts thankfully went to either side of us, digging into the demons giving chase. On my left, the queen was closing in fast, leaving us with no extra time. Louder cracks sounded as the snipers opened fire too, bullets punching into the gorathi behind us and downing multiple creatures with each round.

  “Come on, come on, come on!” one of the guards cried, urging us forward. I picked up the pace, noticing the tide of gorathi on both sides of us, everything about to collide at once.

  Druck and Quasar both ran dry, their guns silencing as we closed within twenty feet of the bunker. The guards stopped shooting too, retreating to the doors, ready to close them. I slowed slightly, allowing Druck and Zar to reach the entrance first. The gorathi were only a few seconds behind me. The queen bore down on my position. The snipers had gone silent, likely retreating from the windows to steer clear of her, or maybe rappelling down to a top entrance in the command center.

  The blast doors started to close.

  “Wait!” I shouted, their movement more rapid than I expected. The guards looked out at me, terror obvious in their expressions, along with a hint of inevitability. A loss of a few killers was still a win, depending on how you looked at it.

  Druck and Quasar reached the door, both of them stopping to push back at the mechanism, hoping to slow the closure. The gorathi were right on my heels. The queen loomed almost directly overhead, claws drawing back to strike. I could have pushed against the doors myself and held them open so I could get in, but what if that broke the mechanism? What if that prevented the doors from shutting and allowed the gorathi inside? There were too many for us to fight. Too many to survive. The bunker was our only chance.

  Matt’s only chance.

  I didn’t warn him as I activated enhance and grabbed his wrist to swing him toward the door. He was shouting my name as he stumbled forward, caught up in my push when I shoved him the rest of the way. Quasar saw him coming and caught him, falling back inside with him in her arms. Druck managed to glance at me, a look of actual fear and sadness on his face as he ducked in before the doors slammed closed.

  Leaving me outside.

  I slowed to a stop and turned around, my back against the thick metal doors, the gorathi bearing down on me. There was no point in activating reflect. Even with the smaller space to construct it in, I couldn’t hold out all night. I stood defiantly with my arms at my sides, ready to be torn to shreds.

  Would Coil kill Matt and the others? It was possible but I hoped not, at least not yet. Not if he really had a plan to get off the planet. And if he didn’t, we would be stuck here anyway, destined to die. I had given them all a chance to live another night. I could only hope they would find a way to survive.

  Still ten feet away, the horde of gorathi came to a sudden stop, formed into an impenetrable line that spread seemingly endlessly around the bunker. The queen came into view from the side of the structure, and I looked up at her as she looked down at me, bending and lowering herself so that our eyes were nearly at the same level. So close her breath was hot and fetid on my face, her jaws ready to snap me up in an instant.

  They didn’t.

  She remained in that position, frozen in place for nearly a minute. I didn’t move either, afraid any shift would break the spell she was under. Finally, she huffed one last breath in my face, straightened up, and turned away, walking off in the direction of the river. The horde of gorathi turned and followed her.

  Within minutes, they were gone.

  CHAPTER 42

  I spent the entire night in front of the bunker, resting in the corner against the door. Shaq moved from my shoulder to my lap at one point, and once the gorathi had moved on and the city went dead silent, Ixitat joined me there too. We each took turns keeping watch while the other two slept. I didn’t spend any time wondering why the gorathi queen hadn’t killed me. I already knew that somehow Succaath had prevented the creature and her soldiers from tearing me limb from limb. He had saved my life, and I believed he probably figured I now owed him something more than what I had already agreed to.

  And maybe I did.

  I did spend some time worrying about Matt and the others, but there was little I could do to help them. I’d taken a chance that they were safer inside the bunker than out here with me, and I still didn’t know if Succaath would have been kind enough to force the creatures to spare them too. With any luck, they had managed to convince Coil they had value, though I worried that would be a lot more difficult for Matt. Still, something in me believed they would make it through the night. Or maybe I had to believe that in order to get any sleep at all.

  In any case, I was ready to tear Coil limb from limb if he hurt them in any way.

  I lifted my head when I heard the hum of an approaching drone, finding it scooting low across the street in my direction. I briefly considered pushing it into the side of the bunker before deciding against it. The drone hovered directly in front of me, a few feet away.

  “Benjamin Murdock!” Sprite announced with way too much exuberance. “Day Three of Kill Spree, and you’re still standing. Amazing! How do you feel?”

  “Never better,” I replied. “I think today is going to be a good day.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a hunch. Sprite, how many players are left?”

  “I’m sorry, we’re not really at liberty to share that kind of information with the contestants.”

  “Come on, you’re smart enough to know I’m not a contestant.”

  “But he is,” she answered, meaning Shaq.

  “Will you tell me in private?” I asked.

  “Sure!”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Ixy and Shaq. They remained near the door while I walked out into the street with the drone. “Where were you last night, anyway? Massive demon horde, a race to safety. That was pretty exciting.”

  “We were here,” Sprite said. “You just didn’t notice because you were too busy running for your life. You know, Ben, may I call you Ben?”

  “Sure.”

  “You know, Ben, we’ve got over a billion people tuning in to the live feeds? That’s over a thousand percent above our normal audience. Pretty amazing, right?”

  “Yeah, that is pretty amazing,” I answered, faking my own excitement. “I should get paid for this.”

  Sprite laughed cutely. “You probably should.”

  “So what’s the score?” I asked. “How many killers are left?”

  “Forty-three,” she replied.

  “Really? I thought there would be more.”

  “It was a bad night to be a killer.” She laughed some more. “A good night to be Benjamin Murdock though. Tell us, how did you prevent the large demon from killing you?”

  “You saw that?”

  “A billion people saw that, Ben.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “I’m like a demon-whisperer.”

  “The Demon-whisperer. Ooh. I like that. Well, it certainly got you out of a sticky situation.”

  “Sure did.”

  A loud clang sounded from the bunker, indicating the doors were unlocking and about to slide open. “Sorry, got to go,” I said, just before pushing the drone into the ground. It shattered into a hundred pieces, smoke billowing out from the top as I hurried back to the command center, ready for a fight.

  The blast doors slid apart. Colonel Coil stood behind them, his arm around Matt’s shoulders. The two of them were laughing like they had known one another for years.

  What the hell? I didn’t know whether to be jealous, angry, or grateful.

  “There he is,” Coil said on seeing me. He offered me a curt wave before his eyes shifted to Shaq, bunched up and growling in the corner. “And my little traitorous friend. I should have known you would break our deal before you would hurt Ben.”

  I reached Coil and Matt as Quasar and Druck moved into the doorway behind them, along with the two guards who had shut the door on me and two other killers. They were all carrying rifles, apparently not prisoners of any kind.

  “What’s going on? Are you okay?” I asked, looking at Matt.

  “Do I not look okay?” he replied. “The colonel is an excellent host. He has food in there. It’s a couple centuries old, but it’s been in cans so it’s edible.”

  “You have food?” I asked Coil, mouth already watering.

  “I do. The bunker’s very comfortable, at least short term. I’d invite you in but the suns are coming up. Last night it was humans against monsters. Now it’s humans versus humans again. Kill or be killed.” He shrugged. “It didn’t seem right to me that I should simply dispose of your team when you worked so hard to get them to safety. That would make me and mine no better than the creatures hunting us.”

  “We called a truce for the night,” Matt said. “He fed us and provided bunks for us to sleep in. We played cards and told stories. You know, just a group of warriors kicking back and relaxing.”

  “All we were missing was booze and whores,” Coil agreed.

  “I see,” I said, still off-balance from the whole scene. “What kind of stories?”

  “I hear you aren’t very good with women,” Coil said.

  “Seriously?” I said, looking at Matt, who laughed.

  “We both know it’s true.”

  “I’ve had more women express an interest in me since we got to the Spiral than you have.”

  “Alter wasn’t a woman, Gia wasn’t that into you, Emerald is crazy,” Matt retorted. “And Ixy is a spider.”

  “Xixitlsss,” she corrected.

  “Whatever,” I said. “I’m glad you were able to use me as a punching bag in between sleeping fitfully on a bunk and eating while I was out here with the gorathi all night.”

  “You’re the one who threw me in here. It was just as likely Coil would kill me.”

  “I had a feeling he would be more civilized than that.”

  “You hooked our lives on a feeling?”

  “I wasn’t wrong.”

  “It was a smart move,” Coil interjected. “I would’ve done the same thing if anyone I cared about was in trouble like that. Except I don’t care about anyone that much. Anyway, you and your team have one hour to go wherever it is you plan to go, and then the truce is over. Let the game continue.” He turned to Shaq. “I’m going to enjoy skinning you alive, you little rat.”

  “Screw you,” Shaq buzzed, lifting his small hand and flipping Coil the bird. Coil’s face reddened with growing anger.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “We were coming to you when the gorathi arrived. We need to talk.”

  “Truce is over, Ben,” Coil repeated. “And the clock’s ticking. I know you’ve got some kind of weird space wizard powers, but I’ve been watching and learning. And I’ve got snipers on you right now from three different buildings. You even look like you’re going to cast a spell and they’ll shoot you dead.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Your killers have been hiding inside all night.”

  “The bunker has an escape hatch underground that leads to one of the buildings. I sent my snipers out through it as soon as the first sun cracked the horizon. Let me show you.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a mirror, using it to redirect sunlight across the street. I turned and looked at the light hitting a broken window about twelve floors up.

  We waited a few seconds for a response that didn’t come. Coil repeated the signal. Still nothing. Raising an eyebrow, he turned to the next building and repeated the gesture, with the same result.

  “I guess your snipers are either sleeping or dead,” I said.

  “Sumbitch!” Coil cursed.

  The guard standing next to Druck slowly collapsed, beginning at the knees, before the first sharp crack of a rifle echoed across the settlement. The other guard’s head snapped back before the first hit the ground, the rifle round going clear through his skull. The other two killers with them went down in rapid succession, the bullets expertly placed.

  I reacted without thinking, pulling Coil and Matt to the ground as I ducked and covered, adding reflect to protect all three of us. A half-second later, a round skipped off the shield where Coil’s head rested.

  “Sheeet.” Coil said, staying down as the gunfire ceased. Druck and Quasar had taken positions just inside the bunker, using the door frame as cover and searching for the shooter.

  “Ben! Hey, Ben!” Emerald’s voice echoed in the street. “What are you doing? I had him in my sights!”

  I lifted myself to my knees. “Emerald?” I shouted back. “Where are you?”

  “Turn around and look up.”

  I stood up and spun around, trying to find her.

  “Keep turning!” she shouted gleefully.

  I spun about two hundred sixty degrees before I found her standing in the frame of a broken window, waving to me with one hand, the other clutching the sniper rifle.

  “Could you do me a favor and let me shoot Coil?” she asked.

  “I need him!” I shouted back.

  “What? Why? I told you he’s full of shit about having a plan.” She stopped waving to do one-handed air quotes.

  “Hold on,” I yelled before turning to Coil. “Do you have a plan to get the—” I was interrupted when Emerald’s rifle went off again, a killer who had come running to the doorway of the bunker stopped dead by the round. “—to get the extraction team to come down to the surface or not?”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Coil said. “I give you my word as an officer.”

  “Good enough for now,” I said, turning back to Emerald. “He gave me his word that he has a plan.”

  I couldn’t hear her sigh or see her eye roll, but her body language said it was happening. “Fine. I won’t shoot him in the head yet, okay?”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Only for you, Ben. I’ll be right down. Don’t kill anyone without me!”

  I turned back to Coil, dropping reflect and pulling him to his feet. “You’re going to help us get off this planet.”

  “You want to get out of here? Why didn’t you just say so? We could have teamed up yesterday.”