She reached the staircase and went full-throttle down the stairs. The second-floor hallway was choked with smoke. Ellen reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into that billowing white cloud. God alone knew what was driving her. She was heading into the worst of the danger rather than away from it. The only thing Marcy could figure was she was trying to get out of the house. Too bad she lacked the intelligence to recognize the impossibility of escape by that route.

Marcy leaped over the last four steps and landed hard on the floor. Pain exploded in her ankles, but she ignored it and moved into the hallway. A lot of Black Brigade men were in front of her now. And Ellen. Bullets whined in the air, punching holes in the walls, blowing out lights, and occasionally shredding the flesh of the soldiers. The smoke wasn’t as thick at this end of the hallway, and Marcy was grateful for that. She figured they had a few moments of relative safety, a narrow window of opportunity of which she meant to take full advantage.

She grabbed Ellen by the wrist and spun her around. The girl yelped and looked at her with eyes wide with fear. She didn’t seem to recognize Marcy at first. Then she cried out and threw her arms around Marcy in a rough embrace. Tears welled in Marcy’s eyes. She broke the embrace and grabbed Ellen by the wrist again. “Come on, girl, back upstairs. We’re gonna go see Dream.”

Ellen opened her mouth and said, “Muhmuh…muh-”

Marcy began to drag her back toward the staircase. “Yeah, yeah. Tell me later, okay?”

Then Ellen let out a startled wheeze and Marcy turned to look at her. The front of Ellen’s shirt was red, and there was a big, ragged hole between her breasts. A stray shot had caught her when Marcy had her back turned.

Ellen dropped to her knees and Marcy dropped with her. She put her hands on her dying sister’s shoulders and tears filled her eyes again as she said, “Ohno. Ohnononono. Not again. Not again.”

Then Ellen sagged forward into her arms and Marcy guided her gently to the floor. The battle continued to rage ahead of them, but for the moment Marcy was oblivious to it. She stroked Ellen’s hair and continued to utter her desperate denials. Ellen’s breathing was shallow and uneven. Blood spilled from the corners of her lips. Her eyes were glassy and Marcy could see the life seeping rapidly out of her. She would be gone within moments and there was nothing she could do about it. Not a single goddamned thing. It was that night in that fucking hotel room all over again.

Ellen’s eyes cleared for a moment and focused on the distraught face of her sister. Her lips moved and a soft sound emerged: “Muh…muh-”

“Shush. It’s okay. Don’t try to talk.” Marcy sniffled and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m gonna take care of you, okay? Just like I’ve always done, you’ll see.”

But Ellen wasn’t listening. She grabbed the front of Marcy’s shirt, seized it with surprising strength, and struggled to lift her head off the floor. She opened her mouth one last time and this is what she said:“Muh… muh…Marcy.”

Then she was dead. Again.

Marcy felt a moment of total despair. Her mind replayed Ellen’s last moments, that heroic struggle to speak her sister’s name for the first and only time.

The despair evaporated.

Marcy stood and did a quick appraisal of the situation in the hallway. Many of the Black Brigade men had fallen, were either dead or dying on the hallway floor. Some went racing past her, heading for the staircase and the third floor beyond. A handful remained behind, valiantly defending their position against all hope of success. The smoke at the far end of the hallway was beginning to dissipate. She could make out the forms of the invaders as they drew steadily closer. She saw red bursts from the muzzles of their weapons. A stray round from one of those guns had ended the life of her reborn sister.

Marcy acted then on instinct, without even considering the implications of what she was doing. She raised the Glock and dashed into the fray, rushing past the Black Brigade men hunkered down in doorways. She squeezed the Glock’s trigger over and over and some of the bullets found soft flesh. She saw one round penetrate the throat of one of the camo-clad men. The man dropped his weapon and clamped his hands over the wound. Blood pulsed over his fingers as he sank to his knees. Another bullet punched through the faceplate of another man’s gas mask, sending him lurching into the arms of a startled comrade. She kept firing and two more men fell. The enemy returned fire, of course, but they kept missing, seemed somehow unnerved by the sight of the young girl coming straight at them. Marcy felt invincible. It was just like those months on the road with Dream. She was killing at will and nothing could stop her.

Then a bullet caught her in the thigh and spun her to the floor. The pain was immense and startling. Not invincible after all, then. The hell with it. This was the end for her. But she would not go down easy. She rolled to her side, lifted the Glock, and fired again.

Another man fell.

And another.

Then the Glock clicked empty and a moment later a burst of automatic fire tore apart her chest. The Glock slid from her suddenly numb hand and she rolled onto her back. She was still alive, but just barely, could feel the strength leaving her body. A fleeting thought crossed her mind in those last moments, the possibility that Dream might try to conjure her back.

She hoped not.

Then a man in camos was standing above her. He peeled off his gas mask and shook his head. The hallway was almost quiet now. The remaining Black Brigade fighters on this floor had been vanquished. The camo-clad man’s tone was incredulous as he said, “Any of y’all see that shit? That bitch was crazy.”

A small woman in black appeared next to him. She unsheathed a long, gleaming sword and said, “She is a warrior and deserves a warrior’s death.”

Marcy anticipated the arc of the sword and closed her eyes as it flashed through the air. It hurt for only a fraction of a second as the blade chopped through her neck.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The fiercest fighting was happening well ahead of their position. Chad was glad of that. But they were by no means out of harm’s way. Stray rounds whizzed by intermittently. Most of them thunked harmlessly into the walls, but one found the head of a man just behind and to the left of where Chad was standing. Chad felt a tightness in his chest and dropped to the floor, unable to breathe for a moment.

Then Allyson was kneeling over him, gas mask pushed atop her head, panic etched into her strained features. “Chad! Can you hear me? Are you okay? Are you hit?”

Chad sucked in a deep breath and sat up. “I’m fine. I-”

The smoke was thickest at floor level. But now some of it rolled away and he saw a black-clad man prone on the floor. The man had been shot multiple times, including one round that had passed through his cheek. At a glance, anyone would assume the wound to the face had been a mortal one. It was ugly and spectacularly gory. But a closer look revealed the truth. The round had passed through one cheek and out the other, leaving behind a mangled face and a mouthful of shattered teeth. But he was alive. And clutched in his right hand was a 9mm pistol. He raised it and aimed it at the back of Allyson’s head.

Chad snapped out of his stupor and shoved Allyson aside a moment before the 9mm discharged. The bullet smashed into the wall. Chad leaped to his feet and kicked the gun out of the man’s hand. It went skittering down the hallway, disappearing beneath the curling tendrils of smoke. Chad switched the M-16 to semiauto, jammed the barrel against the man’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet punched a hole through his forehead and blood fanned out around the base of his skull.