Free Deathlands 117: Desolation Angels by James Axler Page B

down. Its owner was obviously meaning to fire blind, hoping to hit one of the defenders beneath the sill level.
    Fortunately the shooter wasn’t having any luck bending his wrist far enough. The trigger finger clenched twice, causing the barrel to erupt in two stunning bursts of sound.
    But Krysty was not the type to stun easily. She pivoted the short-barreled scattergun upward and pulled the other trigger.
    Nothing. The Angel who’d dropped it had fired it once already.
    Krysty was quick thinking and not easily deterred. She simply swung the weapon by its stock in a quick, savage arc. It caught the intruding arm right on the ulna. She heard the bone crack over all the echoing shots and shrieks.
    The blaster fell from suddenly numb fingers. The arm was snatched back.
    Krysty dropped the empty shotgun and grabbed for the handblaster.
    Mildred, having fired her own 6-shot cylinder dry—Krysty had the impression her friend had deftly refilled the weapon with a speed loader at least once—was just grabbing for a fallen compact Glock. At some point in the past somebody with little artistic skill and less taste had painted the grip of the blocky black blaster in stripes of red, yellow and black. Not recently by the chipping and wear.
    As Mildred’s hand closed over the gaudy grip, another blaster appeared. This was a Ruger Mini-14, gripped two-handed with the muzzle down. Bad luck had positioned it perfectly to blast Mildred’s head apart from above with a high-velocity slug.
    Krysty rolled away from Mildred, trying desperately to bring up her own retrieved blaster.
    She already knew she could never fire in time to save her friend.

Chapter Nine
    “Mildred!”
    Ricky heard Krysty cry. He crouched toward the door end of the big southwest-facing window. He had his Webley Mark VI revolver in his right hand. His left gripped the DeLisle by its fat front end. Fast as he could work the bolt action, the carbine was only a blaster of last resort at a range like this, where the smell of stale sweat and unwashed bodies was still strong enough for his flared nostrils to detect, even over the stink of burned blaster lubricant, propellant smoke and spilled blood. But he was already a seasoned enough fighter to know he was likely to have need of its useful built-in head-bashing qualities.
    He was also seasoned enough to have some idea just how deep in the glowing nuke shit he and his friends were right now.
    But he wasn’t dead yet. So far neither were any of his friends. He would do all he could to keep things that way. As long as he could.
    Meaning, likely, until he died trying.
    He spun away from the window, straightening his arm and swinging up the hefty top-break Brit wheelgun. He saw a pair of brown hands holding an inverted Mini-14 right over Mildred’s helpless head.
    Without thinking he lined up the sights on the trigger hand and pulled the trigger. Even in the heat of dire emergency, he didn’t yank the shot off. His Tío Benito had trained him better than that. And his mentor J.B., Ryan and former Olympic pistol competitor Mildred herself had all made sure he didn’t forget it.
    He saw the hand spill blood. Shattered, it spasmed open. Krysty lunged and grabbed the skinny black barrel, twisting the carbine deftly out of the Angel’s other hand.
    “Ace shot,” called J.B., who stood with his back to the wall by the door and his Uzi in his hands. A crouched Ryan was cranking shots out the door as fast as he could trigger them. “But mind your own place!”
    The Armorer pivoted into the doorway and unleashed a firestorm in the form of a shuddering burst of full-auto fire, right into the chests and guts of the Angels still trying to barge into the restaurant.
    Eyes wide in sudden panic, Ricky started to wheel back to the giant oblong opening right over his own head.
    And a weight like the world landed on his shoulders and smashed him to the floor.
    * * *
    A S THE SLIDE of Ryan’s SIG Sauer P226 locked back on an empty