Night wind funneled the stench of rot through the narrow alley. High walls pressed in on both sides, abandoned junk choking the path down to a sliver. Seven people crammed into the shadows at the mouth of the alley, breathing shallow and quiet.
Marvin leaned against the wall, one hand pressed to his bleeding left arm, shotgun leveled with the other. Leon held point at the alley entrance, rifle chambered, eyes locked on the street beyond. Claire had Sherry pulled tight against her, the girl's face buried in her jacket, small fingers clutching the empty pendant at her neck. Ben and Katherine brought up the rear, pistols trained on the alley's far end.
Ryan rested against the opposite wall, fingertips on the Desert Eagle at his hip. Everything within a hundred meters was already mapped in his head.
The snarling and thrashing on the rooftop hadn't stopped when they'd fled down the fire escape. He could still sense that stitched-together thing struggling in the wreckage up there, but it hadn't followed. Not yet. One glance was enough. He'd shifted all his attention to the shape barreling toward the alley: William Birkin.
G2 form. William had punched through the orphanage's side building like it was drywall. Half his body was plated in hardened keratin, his left arm split into three massive claws that caught the faint light. The bloodshot eye on his right shoulder tracked Sherry's position through two brick walls with surgical precision. A strangled, obsessive rasp ground out of his throat. "She... rry..."
Ryan swore under his breath. He slipped to the front of the group without drawing attention, scanned the full length of the alley, and found it: behind the junk pile at the far end, a sewer grate sealed with iron bars. The only way out. The main pipe would run straight to the rail tunnel outside the city.
A deafening crash at the mouth of the alley.
Rubble flew. William's bulk smashed through the perimeter wall and sealed off their retreat. The giant eye swept the alley, found Sherry, and a shriek tore out of him. Claws up, he charged.
"Sewer grate, back of the alley! Go!" Ryan swung Kendo's grenade launcher off his back. "Leon, take everyone and move. Pry open that grate and run. Follow the main pipe, don't look back!"
"What about you?" Claire said.
"I'll hold him." Ryan flipped the safety off. A reckless grin. "Relax. This thing can't put me down. Once you're clear, I'll catch up."
"No way. You can't take that alone!" Leon stepped forward, jaw set.
"Shut up and go." Ryan aimed at William, ten meters out and closing fast. "You stay here, you're dead weight. Move it. I'm going loud."
He pulled the trigger before the last word left his mouth.
The grenade screamed out and detonated point-blank against William's chest. The blast wave slammed shrapnel into that mutated frame, cracking the hardened shell wide open, spraying dark green fluid across both walls. William's charge stalled. He howled.
Ryan didn't pause. He pulled the trigger again and again, grenades pouring out one after another until the alley mouth vanished behind a wall of fire and smoke. The barrage pinned William in place, not one step forward. The launcher in his hands never ran dry. "Grenades count as ammo too," he said, half-laughing. The continuous detonations hammered the G-Virus monstrosity flat.
Marvin grabbed Leon's arm. "Quit stalling! Get the kid out!" He turned and shouted at Ryan: "We'll wait at the tunnel entrance!"
Ryan didn't look back. "Don't wait. I'll find you!"
No more hesitation. Claire ran for the far end with Sherry in her arms. Ben hauled Katherine along right behind. Leon and Marvin covered the retreat, pried the iron grate loose, and one by one they squeezed through. Leon took one last look at Ryan's silhouette framed in firelight, then pulled the grate shut behind him.
The alley belonged to Ryan alone.
William was beyond fury. Through the smoke came a roar that shook the walls. His back arched, and a volley of bone spurs erupted from his spine, punching through the haze straight at Ryan.
Ryan threw himself sideways, rolled clear, and came up firing. Grenade after grenade, aimed dead at the massive eye on William's right shoulder.
Direct hit. The bloodshot eye burst apart in the blast. William screamed, a sound so raw it barely sounded alive, and staggered backward into the ruined wall behind him. Stone crumbled. Rubble rained.
A quick check with his peripheral sense. Leon's group had made it into the sewer. Out of range. Clear.
Rearguard complete.
But William had lost what was left of his mind. Ignoring the burns across his body, he lunged again. Those claws cratered the spot where Ryan had been standing a half-second earlier, blowing concrete in every direction.
Ryan used the roll to get behind a low wall. Somewhere beyond the alley, faint and far off, he caught the sound of something heavy dragging. Then the wind swallowed it.
William had cut off the path to the sewer grate. He was closing in, step by step. Corrosive fluid dripped from his claws and hit the ground smoking.
Ryan looked at the monster and smiled. He lobbed another grenade at William's feet, and the second the blast kicked up a curtain of dust and smoke, he scrambled up a stack of wooden crates, vaulted onto the balcony of the neighboring apartment building.
William roared and swiped the entire balcony off the wall. Ryan rode the collapse downward, pumped three more grenades into William's chest on the way, right into the viral core. The creature dropped flat on the rubble, thrashing and screaming, and could only watch as Ryan swung himself over the far side of the building and dropped into a maintenance hatch for the underground pipe network.
Cold sewage hit him all at once. The current grabbed him and dragged him forward, pulling him in the opposite direction from Leon's group.
In the pitch-black tunnel, Ryan wiped the filth from his face and braced his feet on a pipe ridge to steady himself. His back burned where the debris had scraped him raw. He spat, winced, and swore. Great. Completely separated.
But he wasn't worried. He tightened his grip on the grenade launcher, rolled his numb shoulders, and started walking. One step at a time, following the current into the dark.