Thicker Than Water

A rubber bullet felled him at about ten yards out from the tortoise: his legs shot out from under him and he went down hard. He lay twitching, trying to rise, his hands fluttering like dying birds.

More bricks and bottles came down, but the tortoise headed on, straight towards me - then passed out of my sight under the walkways directly beneath my window. I had to judge what was happening now from the percussive sounds that came up to my ears. More screams, and a couple more rounds discharged. The smashing and rending of something heavy being moved.

Then the tortoise retreated the way it had come, moving at the same sluggish pace as before because of the need to keep the shields locked together.

Like I said, my mind wasn’t working all that well by this point. It took me a while to realise what payload the tortoise had delivered. I went out of the bedroom, up the stairs, and eased my way cautiously through Kenny’s boarded-up door out into the hallway.

The stairwell below me was in heÓow ooraving commotion.

Presumably the cops had lost their hold on the third-floor walkways and the blood-crazed trancers had ventured north to reclaim the territory. Now they were wishing they hadn’t, because Juliet was passing through them in much the same way that a scythe passes through corn.

I didn’t go down to join them: moving as slowly and clumsily as I was now, I could only have got in the way and most likely ended up with a bottle broken over my head or a knife in my ribs. But I played the summoning again, drawing some of the demon’s attention my way in the hope that it might have to loosen its hold momentarily on its possessed servants.

"

"The mismatched threesome came fully into view now, Coldwood coming first with Matt right behind him casting terrified glances to left and right; Juliet bringing up the rear and polishing off a last few attackers without haste or passion: she saved her passion for other things. One man stabbed her in the shoulder: she grasped his arm in an unbreakable grip, removed the blade from her own flesh and gave it back to him, hilt-first.

He slumped against the wall, blood gouting from his broken nose. I was amazed - and grateful - that she hadn’t killed him. One of the hardest lessons for Ajulutsikael to learn, when she made the decision to live among men and so became Juliet, was to pull her punches.

‘In here,’ I shouted. Gary looked up and saw me. A few moments later, he and Matt were making their way up the last few steps.