Vagabonds

Chapter Fifty-Five: Limits

"Otto..."

"Not now, Moose!"

Joe hovered beside Daisy, trying to focus. The suddenly bright lights seemed to warp and shift the air, making him feel like he'd been plunged underwater. In front of him, soldiers prowled, their eyes red, their mouths glowing like blown embers. The shortest among them seemed to beat with some evil luminescence, pulsing like a heart.

He shook his head, swaying in place.

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. 

"Hands up," snapped the nearest soldier, who had suddenly sprouted horns. The voice echoed, as if from the other end of a cave.

Joe barred his teeth.

The short woman stepped forward, grinning back at him through the blood dribbling down one side of her face.

"I'm not done with you yet," she spat.

Joe blinked.

Was he imagining the fangs?

"Otto....," Moose said, backing into his brother.

"One fucking second! I have an idea."

The ground seemed to tilt beneath Joe's feet as two soldiers advanced, flanking the short woman. There were more behind them. Always more. The soldiers were like a flood come to wash them away, pull them into darkness.

Joe shook his head again.

The visions were getting worse.

"There's nowhere to go," purred the short woman, holding her hands out like claws. They stretched long and sharp, ten glinting daggers. Ten lethal icicles. "May as well give up now. Our boss might even let you live."

"I think I've got it...," Otto snarled.

Suddenly, the air itself seemed to crackle. There was a flash, a jolt, a sudden swing from night to day as all the lights all surged at once.

"Look out!"

A ripping sound made Joe turn, but Daisy's arm hit his stomach, spines biting, shoving him out of the way as Otto plunged toward the soldiers with two wrist-thick wires crackling in his hands, the sparks playing up his arms like fairy lights.

"Time to play, donkey-fuckers."

The short woman's eyes flew wide. She scrambled back, barking orders.

"Shoot him! Knock him down!"

But it was too late. Otto charged at them like a bull, roaring obscenities, diving into the crowd with a blinding, horrible flash.

Joe closed his eyes, curled into the wall to shield himself from the screams, the wails, the crackling, the groan of the strained generators around them, sleeping giants waking up. It was a storm of strobing light, a wildfire of pain. Spines needled Joe's right arm as he hunched himself into the corner, holding his ears, waiting for the noise to tear him apart.

"Come on, morons!"

A hand grabbed Joe's elbow, yanking him away from the wall. Joe blinked, blinded by the sheer maelstrom of sensation, but it didn't matter. Daisy pulled him back to through door and into the now-bright hallway, dragged forward in Otto's violent, flashing wake.

Bodies twitched around them, bowled over. The tiny woman spasmed in one corner, all the muscles in her body straining, a fish on a line. Moose was darting between them, little more than a blur in the beating fluorescent lights.