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Everready made it to the roof with less difficulty than Valentine.
Duvalier crouched to spring up through the hole in a single leap and they were on her. She spun like a dynamo, slamming one against the fryer, even now moving from the pressure at the other side, screaming as another sank its teeth into her shoulder.
"Goddamn!" Everready swore as yet another grabbed her.
Though mad, though they felt no pain, her attackers weren't Reapers. She pushed one off, kicked another, punched a third, pale limbs and coat a whirling blur of motion. Everready shot a fourth with his carbine.
Valentine dropped back through the hole.
"No!" Everready shouted.
Valentine picked up her sword cane and used it as a club, swinging at the heads and arms coming around the fryer.
"Jump!" Valentine yelled as Everready shot another one down. Valentine struck a ravie on the floor as it clawed at her ankle; his kick broke its jaw.
Duvalier crouched and jumped, and went up through the hole like a missile.
Valentine drew the blade from Duvalier's sword stick. Using the wooden tube in his other hand, he battered his way back toward the office. He felt hands clutch at his canvas boots and broke the grip-if they were snakeproof they'd probably be ravies-resistant- then cracked one across the jaw.
"Val, where are you going?" Duvalier shouted.
"Lemme at that bite, girl!" he heard Everready say.
"Diversion!" he shouted.
Screaming his own head off, Valentine rushed into the office. The back wall had bloody splatters and buckshot holes. A staggered ravie, holding himself up on the desk, received Valentine's boot to his chest, throwing him back onto one coming through the door. Valentine pinned the fresher one like a bug on a piece of Styrofoam with the sword point and vaulted through the door, running.
"Oily oily oxen free!" Valentine shouted, banging a Dumpster with the wooden half of Duvaliers sword cane. "Come out, come out, wherever you are. London Bridge is falling down!" He hurried around into the next parking lot, banging on empty car hoods.
Ravies turned and began to run toward him, screaming. Fine, better the oxygen flowing out of their pipes than into their bloodstreams.
"Meet me by the casinos tonight!" Valentine shouted to the pair on the roof. He saw Everready applying a dressing and the iodine bottle to Duvalier's shoulder.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Valentine called again. "Hey diddle diddle, the freak and the fiddle-"
The doughnut shop began to empty, and other ravies hurried up from the direction of the riverfront.
Just about. Just about!
"Ring around the rosy!"
The last few around the doughnut shop turned toward him.
"Warriors, come out to play-yay!" Valentine didn't know what childhood game the last one signified, but an old Wolf in Foxtrot Company used to employ the taunt on hidden Grogs, clinking a pair of whiskey bottles together.
He ran.
The ravies followed, screaming.
* * * *
Ten minutes later and a mile away . . .
His bad leg ached, but he had to ignore it. Ignore everything but the staggered line of ravies running behind him. Valentine turned another corner, his third right through the suburban streets in a row. The pursuers were screaming less, growing weaker-which was just as well; he didn't know how long he could hold out.
Two more blocks, one more. He summoned the energy for one final sprint to the last turn, running with the sword cane like a baton in a relay race. His speed came at the cost of a deep, deep burn in his legs and lungs-
And there they were, a few stumbling ravies in a line, following the ones ahead of them, emitting an occasional strangled yelp. The very end of the long file of pursuers, formed into a wagon-train-like circle around six square blocks of Tunica suburbs.
