“Just hang on to him!” Claire called.
Bex, still running, hugged Kim to him, and when his feet left the roof, he cradled her to his side like a football. His landing was smooth, but Kim had to take a moment we didn’t have to get her bearings. The mob still came at us, most of them falling to the alley below when they tried to make the jump.
My hands flew to my mouth. Children were among those falling to their deaths.
We made the jump four times, and then descended a set of stairs that lead us to another series of corridors.
Jared hunkered down, letting Kim catch her breath. “We’re in the Christian Quarter. The Sepulchre is two klicks away. We’re going to take the west bypass, and make a path. It’s a high traffic area for tourists, with high rock walls on each side, so we’re going to have to mow a path.”
“Copy that,” Ryan said, cocking his rifle.
Jared began to speak again, but a small group of young men shot at us from above. We ran again, dodging shells and bullets. Bex followed up the rear, turning and shooting as he ran. Ryan and Claire were at the front, their rifles against their faces, pointing the barrels in every direction they looked. As many times as I had tried to imagine it, we really were in the middle of a war. The sounds of the AK-47s trading shots and the bullets ricocheting off the walls and roads just made me run faster.
Already exhausted, Kim had trouble keeping up, and Bex kept encouraging her to keep moving. We took cover behind dumpsters and parked cars every few seconds, and the noises around us paused ever so often when we hunkered down, and began sounding like a familiar beat.
Claire and Ryan would reload at nearly the same time, and then we’d start again. Jared would drop a clip and reload as we ran, and Bex did the same. At one point, he pulled a second pistol, turning to lay down more cover fire until Jared yelled for him to keep up. He was next to Kim in less than a second.
Shells that were unarmed simply tried to grab us, but the demons were still human on the outside, and Ryan quickly learned how to incapacitate them. He would use his elbow or the butt of his gun, and shooting the ones he didn’t have time for. I noticed most of his bullets landing in their kneecaps or shoulders, hoping to give them a chance once the demons let them go.
In the court of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a large crowd obstructed the two giant wooden doors that led inside. They stood like statues, their arms calmly at their sides, their black eyes and ashen skin confirming control by the demonic. Some of them were civilian, but most were in fatigues, holding AK-47s. The building itself was massive, much larger than I had imagined, made of stone. I suddenly felt much better about being holed up in there for the next sixty days or so, but the high rock walls made it impossible to do anything but initiate a head-on invasion.
“Should we wait until dark?” Bex asked.
I grabbed his bloodied shoulder, pressing my palm against it. “You’re hit.”
He winked. “It’s not bad. So...should we wait?”
Jared shook his head. “We just need to get in there.”
Kim sighed. “But how? There are hundreds of people out there.”
Claire pulled a pin from a grenade. “Like this.” She rolled it into the crowd, and in seconds a large explosion blew people and body parts in different directions. A huge brown cloud of smoke filled the area and Claire and Ryan ran full speed into it.
Jared grabbed my sleeve and we followed. We didn’t get five steps before a hail of bullets rained down on us. Jared was hit several times and faltered. A bullet ripped through my arm. At first it didn’t hurt, but the closer we got to the Sepulchre, the more the burning surged through my veins. The memory of the pain in my leg at the Japanese restaurant in Providence immediately came to the forefront of my mind. Jared flipped around, and emptied his pistol into the dissipating cloud. He pushed me forward, and Claire and Ryan took me into the church.
“She’s hit!” Ryan said.
They had already cleared the main room. Ryan tied a piece of cloth around my arm while Claire took out the shells in the rest of the church and secured the entrances. Jared, Bex, and Kim came into the doors as one unit, with Kim sliding in on her knees. Bex slammed the door closed behind them, and immediately covered the window.
After a few minutes and sporadic gunfire, Claire returned. “We only have a few minutes before they reorganize. The barricades won’t hold for long. We need to get underground.”
I winced as Jared tightened Ryan’s tourniquet. “I thought they couldn’t come in here.”
Jared frowned at the dark red saturating the cloth on my arm. “It’s the tomb they can’t violate. The church and basilisk itself are fair game.”