Twenty-Five Percent (Book 3): Vengeance Read online

  Continuing around the building, he came to a metal staircase leading up to a first floor fire exit. Beyond the stairs was a back service entrance which looked like it probably led into the kitchen. There were no mentions of an alarm this time, only five eaters huddled outside, and no lights on in any of the nearby rooms. It was almost perfect.

  Alex stared at the door. All he’d intended to do was check Boot was here and make sure he stayed here until the morning when they launched their attack. Going inside hadn’t necessarily been on the agenda, but there it was, a way in. He could sneak in, find Boot, put a spiker between his eyes and get back out again without anyone being the wiser. No-one would have to risk their lives except for him. It was the perfect solution.

  Only hesitating for a moment, he took two skull-spikers from his pocket and stepped out into the open. It was pitch dark where he was and no normal person would have seen him in the shadows. The eaters, however, spotted him straight away. At first they simply stared, no doubt thinking by the colour of his eyes that he was just another one of them. He waved at them and hissed, “Come here!” Still they remained where they were, kept there by Boot’s fake pheromones. Except for one.

  A large woman wearing a filthy pink nightdress and a dressing gown stained red on the front shuffled towards him, moaning. Alex darted forward to shut her up. As soon as she went down, the other four eaters followed her. Ten seconds later, the area was clear of live eaters.

  Alex waited for a few minutes in case anyone inside had heard. When he was sure it was safe, he crept up to the building and peered through the window next to the door. As he’d assumed, it was a kitchen. It was also empty. He moved to the door and tried the handle. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. Without Boot’s personal horde to keep guard as they had at Omnav, he was obviously a little more careful about security.

  Alex briefly thought of abandoning his plan, then berated himself for considering giving up because of a locked door. After some thought, he decided to simply go for the obvious. After all, what would he normally do when faced with a locked door?

  Stepping up to the door, he knocked.

  When no-one showed up after fifteen seconds, he knocked again.

  A dim light appeared in the kitchen. Alex moved out of sight to the side of the door as it opened. A candle preceded a tall form in a black suit.

  “Where are...?”

  Alex punched the man. He collapsed to the ground, falling onto the candle and snuffing it out.

  Easy.

  “Simmons?” said a voice from inside.

  Okay, maybe not so easy.

  “Simmons, where are you?”

  Alex retreated to the side of the door again and did his best impression of a pain-filled moan. It was very convincing. He’d had a lot of practice in the last few weeks.

  Footsteps approached across the kitchen. “Simmons? Are you all right? I can’t see a damn thing in here. Simmons?”

  A light flared just inside the door, illuminating Simmons’ unconscious body. “What the...?”

  Alex lunged around the doorframe and punched the man in the face before he could react.

  He dragged both men into a walk in pantry off the kitchen before they regained consciousness. There was no duct tape anywhere, but there was some thin, blue plastic rope in a storage cupboard. He bound Simmons and the second security guard, who he vaguely recognised from the Omnav headquarters, to a shelving unit bolted to the floor and ceiling.

  Simmons’ eyes fluttered open as Alex was in the process of ripping off one of his jacket sleeves.

  His eyes flicked blindly back and forth in the dark. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” Alex said.

  Simmons’ eyes widened. “I know you. You’re that white-eye Boot is so pissed at.”

  Alex tutted. “White-eye? How would Mr Boot feel if he heard you say that?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Only if you give me a reason. I’m just here for Boot. Tell me where he is and I’ll come back and let you go afterwards.”

  There were a few seconds of silence. “And if I don’t tell you?”

  “I’ll find him anyway, kill him and let the eaters in. Then I’ll come back here and open the door so they have a nice, immobilised snack.”

  Simmons paused. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are you sure about that? Because you’re on your way to attack my home and kill me and my friends, so right now I like the eaters way more than I like you.”

  There was another long pause before Simmons spoke. “Fifty-eight.”

  “Good choice.”

  Scrunching the sleeve up, Alex wound it around Simmons’ mouth, his protests lost in the material. Alex repeated the process on the other guard as he came to, then left the pantry and closed the door.

  A set of swinging doors on the other side of the kitchen opened into a dark, empty dining room. The place was a mess. Tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly, half eaten, rotting meals abandoned on plates or spilled on the floor.

  Alex wended his way around the furniture to another set of double doors in the far wall and peered through a small window into the lobby. A single candle burned on a table next to one of two brown sofas. Lounging on the sofa was one of Boot’s gorillas. He looked familiar and Alex wracked his brain for a name. He was pretty sure it was either Jim or Tim. Or Tom.

  Anyhow, with his long legs stretched out on the sofa and a book over an inch thick in his hand, Jim/Tim/Tom looked like he was settled in for the long haul. Alex sighed, moved away from the window, and leaned against the wall.

  He had three choices; one, wait in the hope that at some point Jim/Tim/Tom left or at the very least fell asleep; two, rush out from the kitchen and hopefully be on him before he had time to shoot or call for help; or three, use his pistol from the door and then go through the hotel, gun blazing, and find Boot before he could escape. He could have also given up, but he discounted that as an option. He was committed to taking Boot out while he had the chance, he wasn’t going to back down now. Plus, there were already two men tied up in the kitchen and someone was bound to find them at some point. He needed to get to Boot before that happened and things got awkward.

  Alex had just settled on option two when voices drifted from the lobby. He peered out the window again to see another of Boot’s guards coming down the stairs beyond where J/T/T was lounging.

  “They okay, Tim?” the new arrival said, jerking his chin at the eaters visible through the two sets of glass doors leading to the outside.

  Tim. Alex remembered now he knew.

  “Aside from creeping me out, fine,” Tim said, closing his book and standing. “Have fun. There are magazines over there.” He gestured with his book at something Alex couldn’t see.

  “Nah, I’m all right. Jess will be taking over in two hours anyway.”

  Tim shrugged and headed for the stairs. The new guard settled onto the sofa, stretching his legs out and closing his eyes. Five minutes later, he was snoring.

  Alex pushed the door open and crept towards the stairs, eyes fixed on the snoozing guard draped across the sofa. Looking back one last time as he stepped onto the stairs, he noticed the eaters outside were silently watching him through the glass doors. Suppressing a shudder, he tiptoed up to the first floor.

  The corridor at the top of the staircase ran to the left and right, with signs on the walls indicating which rooms were in which direction. Fifty-eight was to the right. It was just as dark up here as it was in the kitchen, although weak light was filtering from beneath a handful of doors. Alex wondered how many people had come with Boot in the three helicopters. If all three were full, he estimated around twenty-four people could be in the hotel. He hoped they were all asleep.

  The sound of a door opening came from behind him. He darted around a corner into the shadows, then peered back the way he’d come. About halfway back to the stairs an older man emerged into the corridor. It was Chester. Alex had no troubl
e remembering him. He turned back as Valerie, dressed in nothing but red, lacy underwear a little too young for her age, walked out behind him. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with more squishy enthusiasm than Alex cared to see or hear. Back at Omnav Alex remembered Brian mentioning Chester’s family and he wondered if that included a wife. He briefly considered giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he’d just meant his children. Then he remembered Chester was Boot’s right hand man and decided he was simply a lying, cheating bastard.

  Fortunately, when the lip suction came to an end and Valerie closed the door, Chester headed away from him. Alex watched until he headed down the stairs out of sight, then turned and continued along the corridor.

  He’d gone ten feet before it occurred to him that Valerie wasn’t in the same room as where he’d seen her from outside. Maybe Chester wasn’t the only guard she was keeping company.

  He’d gone another ten feet before it also occurred to him that Chester might be going to the kitchen. Worried, he picked up speed.

  The hotel was arranged in a square around a central courtyard and Alex found room fifty-eight close to the next corner, facing the outer edge of the building. A faint light filtered from beneath the door. Alex pressed an ear to the wooden surface, but couldn’t hear anything. When he tried the handle, there was no resistance.

  Skull-spiker ready in his right hand, he pushed open the door quietly and slipped inside, closing it behind him.

  The room was empty, a candle burning on the bedside table the only source of light. The covers on the double bed were turned down. In the en-suite bathroom a toilet flushed and a tap ran. Alex barely had time to flick out the spiker and look threatening before the door opened and Harvey Boot walked into the room.

  He froze, staring at Alex in shock. His eyes jumped to the door.

  “You’d be dead before they reached you,” Alex said.

  The surprise slipped from Boot’s face and he drew himself up to his full four feet and change. “If you kill me, you’ll be dead when they reach you.”

  Alex shrugged. “After what you’ve taken from me, killing you will be worth it.”

  Boot looked confused for a moment. “Oh, you mean Dr. Sanderson. Yes, I can imagine you were upset about her turning.”

  Burning rage flashed through Alex’s chest. He lunged at Boot, grabbing his throat and slamming him up against the wall. Boot’s eyes widened in terror, his feet scrabbling for purchase against the smooth plaster.

  Alex raised the spiker. “This is for Hannah and everyone else you’ve murdered.”

  Boot clawed at Alex’s hand. “Stop,” he rasped, desperately trying to draw in more oxygen, “you can’t... she’s not...”

  The door to the corridor exploded inwards.

  Chester stood in the opening, a pistol clutched in his hand.

  Alex dropped Boot and dived behind the bed, a trail of bullets following his movement and slamming into the mattress above him. He pulled his pistol from its holster and blindly aimed over the bed, firing five times in quick succession before raising his head. Both Boot and Chester were gone from the room. The corridor outside filled with shouting voices and running footsteps.

  Alex leaped up and ran for the door. In the hallway, guards were running towards him. Beyond them, Boot was running away, Chester behind him. Alex raised his gun. Seeing him, the guards stumbled to a halt, their huge forms blocking his aim as they raised their weapons. Cursing in frustration, Alex darted back into the room as a salvo of bullets blanketed the corridor behind him.

  Dashing for the window, Alex grabbed a chair and heaved it at the glass. The panel shattered and he leaped through without slowing, plummeting the fifteen feet to the ground and dropping into a roll. Bits of glass dug into his exposed hands.

  Faces appeared at the ruined window above him, searching the darkness. Someone swept a torch back and forth across the ground and the beam passed across him. By the time it snapped back he was on his feet and running. Bullets followed his progress until he rounded the back corner of the building a couple of seconds later.

  He reached the door into the kitchen and stopped, panting for breath, wondering what to do. Would Boot try to leave after his attack, or stay and wait for his guards to find and kill Alex? Should Alex go in and find him, or stay outside and wait for him to come out?

  Alex wanted to scream. He had been so close. He’d had Boot in his hands.

  Shaking his head, he went back inside. This wasn’t over. It didn’t matter what happened to him now, as long as he got Harvey Boot.

  The door to the pantry was open and Simmons and the other guard were gone. Chester must have found them and gone straight to Boot’s room. Alex carried on through the dining room to the door leading to the foyer and looked through the window. Two guards stood by the staircase, rifles in hand. One had a torch and was moving it back and forth. The candle was still on the table by the sofa, but it wasn’t giving out much light. Without the torch they’d be almost blind.

  Alex waited until the beam was aimed away from the door then burst through, sprinting across the space to the reception desk and throwing himself behind it. Shots rang out, but they were nowhere near him. He crawled on his stomach to the edge of the desk and peered around it. With the beam of the torch pointed above the desk, Alex took careful aim and fired. The guard holding the torch yelped. The light vanished.

  “What the hell...?” one of them said.

  “He shot the damn torch!”

  “He’s behind the desk! Shoot the desk!”

  Alex launched himself away from the wooden reception desk as it was shredded by rifle fire, rounding a corner leading further into the building two seconds later.

  He briefly considered reconsidering his determination to not kill anyone but Boot. He’d be up those stairs in moments if he simply shot the two guards. He discounted the idea immediately. He wasn’t that far gone. Not yet.

  “He’s down here!” one of the men yelled. “Bring torches!”

  Boot must have still been upstairs. Of course he wouldn’t leave just because one man was after him. Boot was too conceited for that.

  His mistake.

  Leaning around the corner, Alex fired three shots in quick succession. On the third the candle blew off the table, plunging the room into total darkness.

  “That’s it, I’m done,” the guard on the left said, backing towards the stairs. “I’m not staying down here in the dark. Let them send Jessup or the others down.”

  Alex stepped out from his cover, careful to not make a sound. The guard backing away had his rifle clutched in one hand while he felt behind him with the other. His back foot hit the bottom step and he stumbled, landing on his backside and uttering an expletive.

  “Harris?” the remaining guard hissed.

  Alex took advantage of the noise to move. Sprinting for the first guard, he slammed his palms into his chest, sending the big man flying backwards into the wall.

  “Ron?” Harris said. “Ron!”

  Ron had landed at the base of the wall and was lying on his back, waving his rifle back and forth frantically. “Someone bloody get down here!” he screamed. “He’s here!”

  Alex dashed back to the dining room as Ron opened fire, spraying the lobby with bullets. He ran for the kitchen, hearing glass shatter behind him.

  He couldn’t help but smile. “And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you create a diversion.”

  Through the kitchen and back outside, Alex was about to start up the fire escape stairs when he heard a sound. He stopped and looked around, searching the bushes and trees and waste containers dotted around the service area at the back of the hotel. He could have sworn he’d heard a sound, indeterminate, but human. But he could see nothing. After spending fifteen precious seconds searching for the source, he returned his attention to the fire escape, dismissing it as the wind or an animal. There was no time for distractions now.

  Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the top
in seconds, grasped the handle on the fire escape door, and pulled. The door didn’t open, but an ear piercing oscillation of sound exploded around him. So the alarms did have battery backup. He grasped the handle tighter and tugged at the door with all his strength. It held out for two seconds before flying open, throwing him off balance and causing him to stumble backwards.

  It saved his life.

  Gunfire filled the corridor in front of him, shredding the air where he’d been a split second earlier. Startled and already off balance, Alex jerked away from the line of fire and hit the railing, pivoting over the top and falling. He slammed into the ground hard, the impact shoving the air from his lungs and pain shooting through his right arm. His gun flew from his hand.

  For a few seconds he lay, unmoving and stunned, gasping oxygen back into his lungs. Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard a car engine.

  Moans snapped him back to his senses.

  Part of the horde from the front entrance had, for whatever reason, decided to come and investigate what was going on back here, and what was going on was Alex was lying on the ground. All thirty or so of them lurched in his direction.

  A torch lit up the concrete, moving around until it fell on him. On the fire escape above him, Alex saw Frobisher’s huge form leaning over the railing and staring down at him, a pistol in his right hand. They looked at each other and Alex knew he was about to die. Frobisher wouldn’t leave it to the eaters to finish him off. Boot’s lackey would make sure he was dead.

  Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but Alex felt no fear at his imminent death. His one regret was that he wouldn’t be taking Boot with him.

  He counted five seconds.

  What was Frobisher waiting for?

  The sound of gunfire erupted from the direction of the front of the building. Frobisher turned and went back inside, leaving Alex wondering what had just happened.

  The first eater to reach him snapped him back to the danger he was still in. He scrambled backwards on the ground, feeling for his spiker in his pocket. The eater, a rotund man with a strip of hair around the periphery of its otherwise bald head, dropped to its knees beside him. As the eater grasped his leg, Alex clutched the spiker and pulled it out, plunging the tip into the side of its head. It collapsed across him, its weight shoving him flat onto his back.