Path of the Tiger, стр. 447
They rounded a corner, whereafter a long, empty corridor was splayed out before them, but after they had taken a few steps into it both felt the familiar tingling that revealed the presence of another beastwalker.
‘Damn, thank goodness,’ Njinga said, exhaling a sigh of relief. ‘Zakaria made it. Come on, let’s…’ She trailed off as she saw a familiar figure step out on shaky limbs from around the far corner. The acquaintanceship of that hulking figure, however, was not of the positive kind.
‘Time to die, whores,’ Joao Pelembe rasped, dark blood dribbling from his mouth and dripping from his chin as he swayed and lurched like an inebriated lush. He was back in his human form, barefoot and shirtless but wearing combat trousers and a bulletproof vest. A throbbing lust for violent retribution shone like a dope fiend’s desperation for a hit in his eyes, and in his blood-slick hands were the instruments via which he intended to exact his vengeance: in his right was one of his Desert Eagle pistols, and in his left a rocket-propelled grenade.
‘Fuck that,’ Njinga growled, raising her M-16, taking rapid aim and then squeezing the trigger. The distance between them was a mere thirty yards; even though Joao was wearing a bulletproof vest, it would be easy enough for her to get a shot or two aimed at his head on target, and that was all that was needed to deal with him.
The thundering chatter of automatic assault rifle fire, however, was not the sound that came from the rifle. Instead, there was only an impotent click and a refusal of the trigger mechanism to engage, accompanied by a calamitous gushing of icy panic through Njinga’s entire system; the weapon, at this crucial moment, had jammed.
‘I’m gon’ fill you bodies wi’ hot bullets,’ Joao growled, leering demonically at them through the red-tinged gloom, ‘an’ then I’m gon’ fuck you while you dyin’, so the last thing y’ ever feel is me big cock in you pussy, an’ the las’ thing you ever see is m’ grinnin’ face when I’m cummin’ inside you.’
As Njinga threw down the jammed rifle and scrambled for her sidearm, Joao raised his Desert Eagle and started firing, laughing maniacally as he did. The heavy rounds slammed into her chest, torso and shoulders, each bullet punching her with the force of a strongman swinging a sledgehammer. Although her armoured combat suit deflected the rounds, the impact of them hitting it was enough to knock her off her feet and leave her stunned.
Ranomi bellowed with fury and launched herself into a charge – a charge with which she intended, finally, to end her adversary’s life. He, however, was determined to do the same to her, and, realising the futility of shooting a charging rhinoceros with a handgun, even one as powerful as a Desert Eagle, he tossed the weapon aside, dropped down onto his knees and swung the RPG up onto his shoulder, taking aim at Ranomi’s barrelling form. While pistol rounds wouldn’t stop her, a rocket-propelled grenade certainly would, and he had plenty of time to take aim to make sure that his shot was on target, the rocket-propelled grenade guaranteed to turn her head and most of the front half of her body into a grisly mess of pulverised meat and shattered bone.
‘Fuck you, bitch,’ he hissed as he moved to fire the RPG.
That was when a jackhammer-pounding boom of a semi-automatic combat shotgun blasted its cannonade through the corridors. The first shot took Joao in his side, and the slug smashed through the poorly protected flank of his bulletproof vest and tore an anarchically destructive passage through his torso. The shock of this caused him to drop his RPG before he could fire it. The next projectile slammed into his left thigh, shattering his femur into a few dozen shards before exiting his left leg and mushrooming in his right. The next ripped his whole right foot off, and the one after that destroyed his left shoulder. The next one tore a football-sized chunk out of his buttocks, but he was already too far gone to even feel that shot. The final slug, squeezed off only two seconds after the first had been fired, hit him in the side of his skull, and before the thunderous report of the shot had even echoed down the corridor Joao Pelembe’s entire head had disappeared. All that was left was a gruesome mess of meat and shattered white bone, and jets of arterial blood spurting up from the red ruin of his neck and throat. His mutilated, blood-gushing corpse flopped to the floor, and Ranomi skidded to a halt just in front of it.
Njinga, gasping for breath as wave after wave of pain hammered her, looked up and saw a slim figure, clad in a white stormtrooper suit, step over the gory mess that used to be Joao. The newcomer was holding a smoking combat shotgun in violently shaking hands.
‘Chloe,’ Njinga gasped.
The girl pulled off her helmet, flung it down and sprinted over to Njinga. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her lips were quivering with emotion, while flecks of vomit and half-chewed food glistened on her chin … but she was alive, as was Ranomi.
‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ Chloe whimpered, dropping down onto her knees next to Njinga and wrapping her arms around her in a tight, desperate embrace. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay…’
Njinga hugged her back, quick and fierce, but then broke off the embrace and struggled to her feet; her animal-enhanced hearing was already detecting the thumping of combat boots charging up the steps behind.
‘Hurry kid,’ she gasped, fighting through the relentless waves of debilitating pain. ‘We gotta go, we gotta run, go, go, go!’
Chloe, high on adrenalin, nodded and obeyed; it was