Posted by Extranjero on January 21, 2003 at 10:23:59:
TERROR SEX
“That’s what they’re all calling it,” Lucretia told them brightly. “A natural reaction to the horror we all felt. People have thrown off their inhibitions since September. It’s like, who knows if we’ll be here next week?”
Terror sex. Rebekah found the phrase unsettling. She glanced across the dim and crowded room. Candles glowed around her like a gothic constellation. The scattered light reflected off gold masks and silky skin.
“So we’re, like, screwing in the graveyard?” Jeff enquired salaciously. Rebekah felt her heart begin to sink. She’d known this was a bad idea. The guy was such a jerk. And yet her mouth was dry with expectation. She’d been on tenterhooks all day - as keyed-up as a girl on her first date.
“You could put it like that,” their hostess beamed.
“Guess that explains my boner, then!” He slipped his arm around Rebekah’s waist. The Lucretia tittered graciously, her true opinion hidden by her mask. It covered half her face with an impassive golden shell, like something from the Venice carnival.
Rebekah rolled her eyes and took a sip of Chenin blanc. Her own mask was a feathery affair. Jeff’s combined with his moustache to make him look like Zorro’s older brother.
Apart from masks, the dress code was quite simple: lingerie. Rebekah had gone shopping specially. She wore a costly Aubade bra and panties, trimmed with lace. Her body was petite – five two – her dark hair short, her brown eyes secretive. Her boobs were her best feature, and she meant to show them off.
She’d been appalled and thrilled when he’d suggested they come here. Lucretia’s monthly parties were the height of decadence. Entrance was by invitation only - and then the chosen couples had to pay a hundred bucks! But Jeff was picking up the tab, and she’d been too intrigued to turn him down.
She still was not quite certain what she wanted out of this. Spunky girl she might be, but she liked sex to be comfortable and safe. This was further out than she had ever swum before. Jeff might be a jerk, but she was glad that he was close enough to cling to.
Still smiling, their sleek hostess glided off among the guests. People were already touching, kissing. Rebekah reached down absently and fondled Jeff’s butt through his Calvin Kleins.
“Hi – is this your first time?” asked a woman cheerfully. She had a bob of ash-blonde hair and obviously liked purple: her bra and panties, satin gloves and polka-dot bow tie were all that colour.
Rebekah pulled a wry face. “How’d you guess?”
“I’m Joanne.” The beaming blonde clinked glasses with them both. “Welcome to the Borgias’ Ball. No low-life here, just concubines and scholars!”
“So which are you?” Rebekah asked.
“I’m a lawyer,” Joanne giggled. “So a bit of both, I guess!”
A brunette in a Batgirl mask came over with her partner. Her hair was like a satin hood; her fishnet bodysuit hugged every curve. Her tits were even bigger than Rebekah’s. “It’s nice to see new faces - or new bodies, I should say! I’m Alice – hi - and this is Marc. You’d never guess the two of us were teachers!” She grinned a tad self-consciously and squeezed her boyfriend’s arm.
“I lecture at Columbia,” said Jeff importantly.
“And I’m a cop,” Rebekah said. She smiled at the reaction. “Don’t worry! I’m not vice or anything. Most of the time I’m sitting in a squad car, getting bored.”
The guy called Marc was eyeing her. “I’d like to see you in your uniform.”
“Don’t you prefer me out of it?” she teased.
He reached his hand out – “May I?” – and caressed her upper arm. Rebekah felt her fine hairs prickling. He looked impressed. “You get those muscles handling a baton?”
She smiled a little coyly. “I work out.”
“Lovely olive skin,” he purred. “You Jewish? I like Jewish girls.”
“Part Portuguese,” Rebekah said. “Part English. All New York!”
“But we didn’t really come for conversation,” Jeff broke in. “Come on, Pussycat … let’s get a bit more comfortable.”
Rebekah almost sighed, but let him guide her through the crowd. The candles flickered on Renaissance paintings. The party was already spreading out into the loft. Down one book-lined passage to the bedrooms - or through to the wide living space, where mattresses and cushions strewed the floor.
“Or how about the pool?” Jeff drawled.
“They have a pool?” Rebekah asked, wide-eyed.
“It’s pretty small,” said Alice, who had tagged along with them. Marc had vanished somewhere in the dimness. Jeff slipped his free arm through hers, the perfect gentleman.
“Perhaps the three of us should check it out,” he said.
***
The elevator opened and the last two guests emerged. They padded down the corridor, not speaking. The woman wore a long mink coat that swished along the carpet, a lace La Perla bodysuit beneath it. A knotted ribbon barely kept her breasts from bulging free. Her face was framed by auburn hair, and hidden by a black and white cat mask. The man was dressed in black trunks and an ankle-length black coat, worn open on his lean and muscled frame. His mask was feathered like an Indian shaman’s.
They stepped up to Lucretia’s door. He rang the bell. They shared the briefest glance. The reinforced mahogany swung inward. Two doormen in tuxedos filled the narrow entrance hall.
“You guys are late. It’s nearly one. The invite told you midnight.”
“We like to make an entrance,” said the man impassively.
The second doorman glanced across his clipboard. “What names, please?”
He heard the man say “Mr Glock,” and then a fit of coughing. Next moment, something kicked him like a horse. His eyes jerked up and glimpsed a silenced pistol, vibrating like a tailpipe as the masked man fired at him. Holes erupted in his chest, and then a bullet blew his mind apart.
The woman, too, had drawn a silenced pistol. It spat at the first doorman viciously. The bullets kicked and pummelled him across the entrance hall, his white shirt sprouting poppies as he fell.
The guns coughed into silence. The woman blinked against the smoky haze. None of the doomed partygoers had heard the brief commotion. The murmur of the smug voices carried down the passageway. Languid music reached her ears. A girl was giggling brightly.
The man leaned out into the corridor and jerked his head. The four people still lurking in the elevator came swiftly to rejoin them. Three men and a crop-haired girl, all wearing flat black overalls and boots. Two of them had compact, boxy Ingram sub-machine guns, with tubular suppressors screwed in place. The third man and the girl were armed with lightweight M4 carbines. They closed the door behind them tidily.
“How many?” one man breathed.
“Twenty guests we counted in. There’s two more heavies someplace ...” The masked man pulled a fresh clip from his pocket. “M4s to secure the door – no noise if we can help it.”
The woman was reloading too. She shrugged out of her fur. Watching her, the thin girl wet her lips and glanced away.
“How do we tell which one’s Moretti’s daughter?” someone asked.
“We don’t. We simply kill them all.” The masked man smiled and worked the pistol’s slide. “Okay, let’s rock. Ten minutes. No survivors.”
He and the woman led the way, their handguns dangling loosely at their sides.
***
Rebekah sat beside the pool, her knees drawn up with unaccustomed coyness. She’d peeled her bra and panties off, then felt a surge of doubt. Behind her back, the city skyline filled the full-length windows, a galaxy of lights and spying eyes.
The pool was small and kidney-shaped. The surface shimmered in the candlelight. Jeff and Alice, also nude, had waded in waist deep. “Come on in,” Jeff coaxed her gleefully. He tried to fondle Alice, but she giggled and sloshed clear. Rebekah pursed her lips and slid her legs into the water. The three of them still wore their masks: it made them different people, their inhibitions slipping from their grasp. She and Alice found themselves in one another’s way. They hesitated awkwardly, like strangers in a doorway. Then Alice took a shaky breath and let her tits brush up against Rebekah’s.
“You won’t know till you’ve tried it, girls,” said Jeff, a little hoarsely.
The contact sent a sizzle through Rebekah’s every nerve. The girl’s breasts had a luscious weight, the rosy nipples stiffening like buds. Rebekah gave a startled gasp, delighted and alarmed. She sensed Jeff gloating somewhere, but he wasn’t relevant – this new experience had to be explored.. She slid her arms round Alice, staring deep into her eyes - then tentatively kissed her on the mouth.
***
Only a few people were still waiting in the lounge, too timid or self-conscious to join in the revelry. Some preferred to sit and talk. A redhead nibbled guiltily on grapes. A bright-eyed girl with short fair hair was trying to drown her nervousness with wine.
One man sensed a newcomer and glanced towards the door. A woman in a feline mask was gazing back at him. She had a splendid pair of tits, squeezed tight into a black lace bodysuit. He grinned a little bashfully, then turned back to the squiffy fair-haired girl. Her breasts were rather smaller, but quite pert enough for him.
“ …and then he dropped the lot,” she said, and burst out giggling. The man smiled genially, and then looked back towards the door. The babe had disappeared again. A man in black was standing in her place.
The sub-machine gun opened up, its long tube spitting flame and muffled noise. A couple on the couch were hit, and jiggled as the bullets savaged them. The redhead gave a little squeal, then squawked with pain as she was riddled next. The weapon’s whurrrrrp was mingled with the punchbag thud of bullets into flesh. She flopped back on the couch beside the lacerated lovers, her body bleeding from a spray of wounds. Upholstery tore open and the coffee table lurched. A dozen scented candles were snuffed out.
The gunman paused to take stock of his targets. The man who’d turned to look at him was open-mouthed with shock. His girlfriend’s disbelieving face was almost comical. Her pristine bra and panties were just begging to be soaked.
Her date began to talk, but he was wasting his last breath. The gunmen knocked the guy aside with one dismissive squirt. Then he turned his Ingram on the girlfriend. A brief pull on the trigger spat a dozen slugs at her. She threw her head back, gurgling, as they stripped her life away. The wine glass in her clutching hands exploded like a lightbulb. Her spattered body slithered to the rug.
Smoky silence filled the lounge. Those candles still alight grew calm again. The gunman changed his magazine, then stepped across the bodies, and headed down the passage to the bedroom.
***
If Joanne the ditzy lawyer had delayed another minute, she would have squealed and died with that first group. As it was, she’d slipped away to snort a line of coke in the bright bathroom. Blissfully unhurried, she had locked the door and laid the powder out. She still wore purple gloves, bow tie and panties, but had lost her bra somewhere along the line. Her sequinned mask was pushed up on her forehead. Her firm breasts swelled and dangled as she ducked her head to snort.
Somebody knocked meekly at the door.
Joanne sniffed, and felt the powder tingling. “Yeah?” she said.
“How long are you gonna be?” another girl’s voice asked.
Jesus! thought Joanne. “Not long.” She filled the other nostril.
The pouting girl outside stepped back and pressed her thighs together. Her name was Vicky, and she was a stockbroker’s PA. She hadn’t worn a mask because she couldn’t see a thing without her glasses. Like Joanne, she’d lost her bra: a guy had tugged it off while they’d been kissing. He and several others were still tangled on Lucretia’s king-size bed. Vicky’s cheeks were flushed; her passion simmered like hot soup. She’d had to scoot out here because the wine she’d drunk was aching to escape.
Had she stayed, she would have suffered with them. As it was, she listened to the noises in the bathroom, and never heard the smothered sounds elsewhere.
A minute seemed to pass with leaden slowness. Vicky waited, squirming in her scanty rose-pink briefs. No one in the office would imagine her in them, still less expect to see her at this party. She wet her lips and knocked again, her voice more petulant. “I’m going to pee my panties in a minute!”
Joanne sighed and straightened up. “I’m nearly finished, sweetheart!” As she cleared her coke away, she thought she heard a muffled cough outside. Then a clumsy slumping sound, like someone falling over. The bitch must be too drunk to stand. She smiled complacently.
Vicky’s body came to rest beside the bathroom door, her eyes upturned behind her spectacles The cat-masked woman sauntered up, her pistol smouldering. She’d shot the girl between the tits and watched her writhe and slither down the wall. Flecks of blood had spattered Vicky’s cleavage. The pee that she’d been holding in was soaking, warm and pungent, through her briefs.
The woman smiled down at her, then turned her gaze towards the bathroom door.
Joanne paused to listen on the far side of the wood – then shrugged and pulled her purple panties down. She settled on the toilet bowl, which faced towards the door. Bracing her arms against the seat, she let her bladder go.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Jesus, in a minute!” Joanne whined.
The door burst open.
Joanne convulsed, and gasped against her glove – then went stone cold. A voluptuous masked woman took a step across the threshold. She held a silenced pistol in one hand. The weapon’s tube protruded like a strange, metallic penis, about to shoot a horrifying wad. Joanne took a squeaky breath. Her breasts grew taut with fear. The sound of squirting water seemed to fill the silent room.
The woman waited.
Poor Joanne gaped back at her with big don’t-hurt-me eyes. Her heart throbbed like a punchball in her chest. And suddenly she realised what the witch was waiting for. “Oh God … Oh please,” she whimpered, as the spurt into the toilet bowl grew weaker.
The woman’s trigger finger flexed. The muzzle barely stirred. Joanne’s breasts began to heave. Her heart pumped rising panic through her veins. She clenched her pelvic muscles, tried to squeeze out every drop – and realised there was no more pee to come. They listened to it tailing off. A dribble in the bowl. A final drip.
The pistol coughed.
The bullet punched into her chest and made her body jerk. Then the slug exploded, and she bucked against the cistern, a croaking gasp escaping from her mouth. The bullet was a Glaser, bursting open as it hit. It riddled Joanne’s heart with tiny shot. She reared back with her tits stuck out, a gout of blood erupting from her chest. The woman sighed, delighted by the sight. Joanne just mewled in agony, her gloved hands clutching at her spattered breasts. The pistol drooped, and coughed another round into her stomach. The doomed girl flailed convulsively and sagged back on the bowl with thighs apart. Her arms fell loosely to her sides. Her pretty head slumped forward, and she died.
The woman licked her dry lips like a cat, and moved towards her.
***
“All right …?” Alice murmured, as Rebekah held her close. The young cop nodded, nuzzling her hair. Each could feel the other’s heart, pulsating through the pressure of their breasts. Rebekah felt aroused, and calm, and deeply comfortable. She knew she wasn’t gay, and yet she loved the feel of this girl’s tender flesh.
Water lapped around them as Jeff tried to muscle in. “You wait your turn,” Rebekah told him sweetly. She glimpsed a shadow moving by the doorway as she spoke. The poolside candles flickered in the draft.
A sudden burst of flashes lit the room and made her flinch. Her panicky first thought was: Paparazzi! But instead of cameras whirring, she could hear a coughing sound. Something zipped into the pool and water spouted upward. The flashes lit the shadow’s face. His mask was like an evil bird of prey’s.
“Jesus, what the hell …” Jeff said - then gave a startled grunt. Alice gasped and lurched against Rebekah. The newcomer kept shooting, kicking spurts out of the pool. Rebekah fought for balance, and Jeff floundered into her. Blood exploded from his neck, and then he bore her down into the water.
She struggled for a moment in the suffocating gloom. Jeff convulsed against her, and rolled free. Alice was flailing helplessly, but all of them were trapped. Their threshing sounded muffled underwater, but Rebekah could have sworn she heard the pistol bullets plopping through the surface.
You’re dead, a voice said in her mind - and dead people don’t move!
Every instinct made her want to claw her way back up. Another moment and she’d drown, or feel a bullet ripping through her flesh. It took enormous force of will to let herself go limp. The water boomed and bubbled all around her, but she just drifted, weightless in the dark. The sloshing noises faded, and the silence swallowed her. Then she felt her body start to rise towards the light. Terror sparked and sizzled in her belly. She knew she’d be a sitting duck, but now she couldn’t move a single muscle. Her helpless body bobbed up to the surface. She felt the touch of air on her bare back.
The gunman’s pistol clicked on a dry chamber. He changed the clip unhurriedly, still staring at the bodies in the pool. The water had grown darker, tinged with red beneath the waning candle flames. The dead girls floated side by side, face downward. Batgirl had looked mortified as he’d pumped bullets into her big tits. A shame he’d missed the other one’s expression as she died.
Rebekah’s lungs were burning, but she floated motionless. The bullet’s tearing impact never came. Time became compacted as her heartbeat speeded up. Finally she had to breathe or else her chest would burst. Hopelessly she raised her dripping head.
The room was empty.
Quivering with shock, she stood, and looked around for Jeff. His shattered head just broke the bloody surface. And Alice was still belly down, her bare back glistening with exit wounds.
Rebekah sobbed against her hand, and clambered from the bloodbath of the pool. The air was chilly on her naked skin. She wrenched off her bedraggled mask and crouched there on the tiles, convinced that she was going to puke - or faint.
- Get a grip, Officer Palmer. The voice of the dispassionate dispatcher in her mind. She ran her hands back through her short, wet hair. The bleak light of the city filled her horrified brown eyes. Elsewhere in the loft, she heard things breaking fitfully.
- If you stay in here, he will come back and finish you. You can’t play dead another time. You have to find a phone.
She’d never felt so naked with her clothes off, so vulnerable without her holstered Glock. She squirmed into her briefs and felt them cling to her wet skin. No time for her bra. No time to say goodbye to Jeff. Hugging her breasts, she crept towards the door.
***
The Ingram’s fat suppressor led the way into the bedroom. Vicky’s friends still frolicked on the big four poster bed. The gunman took his stance and started shooting. The briefest blurt sent twenty bullets tearing into them. One girl in a feather mask was relatively lucky. She caught a single round between her sculpted shoulder blades, enough to pitch her forward to the floor. The bullet spattered blood as it erupted from her chest, but she was dead and never knew what hit her.
The other lovers tried to scramble clear, but it was hopeless. Bodies flopped as bones were smashed, and limbs flailed helplessly. The punctured mattress ripped and twanged as people bounced against it. Feathers from the pillows clung to slathers of fresh blood.
The lethal gun fell silent. Corpses settled where they’d slumped. But one girl was still whimpering, hunched up against the headboard, her leather-masked face miserable with pain. A shot had pierced her belly, and blood oozed between her fingers. She had a mane of pale blonde hair. Her shapely form was nude.
The gunman trained the gun on her, and squeezed a muffled burst. The girl squealed as the bullets punched fresh holes in her soft breasts. More wounds bloomed like roses in her midriff as she writhed. Abruptly she was splashed with blood from mask to pubic hair. She flopped amid the pillows and was still.
***
Rebekah tiptoed down the dim-lit passage. She couldn’t keep from shivering. Her breath rasped in her throat. She couldn’t hear a thing beyond the thumping of her heart. The party was most definitely over. An eerie, gutted silence filled the loft
Electric light was spilling from a doorway up ahead. She crept towards it cautiously, her wet hairs prickling. Peering in, she found it was a storeroom of some kind. A man in a tuxedo lay face downward on the floor, with bloody wounds stitched right across his back. One of the security guys, she guessed. Perhaps he had been trying to reach a phone. She looked beyond his outstretched hands, and saw the tall grey box against the wall.
Her stomach clenched.
The steel door of the gun safe was invitingly ajar. The shotgun he’d been trying to grab had slithered partway out. Rebekah darted in and picked it up. It was Mossberg 590 – the same kind that she carried in her cruiser. She held it close across her chest. The stock felt cool against her panting breast. She stood there undecided, with her wet fringe in her eyes, her soaking panties moulded to her crotch. And then she heard a footfall in the passage.
The second of the gunmen had just cleared the living area. The last guests had been humping on the faux-fur mattresses, or canoodling on the cushions round the room. The silenced Ingram finished them with brisk efficiency. Men had grunted, girls had squeaked, and then they all lay quiet.
He came back down the passageway, still changing magazines. When the babe swung into view, he couldn’t quite believe it. A wet dream come to gleaming life, as sleek as if she’d stepped out of the shower. Her panties were transparent and her tits were fabulous. The shotgun took a beat to register.
“Fuck!” He snatched the Ingram’s bolt.
Rebekah fired point-blank.
The blast lit up the passageway and thundered through the loft. The gunman’s chest exploded and he flipped away from her. The Mossberg bucked. Rebekah’s muscles bulged against the recoil. She’d practised on the range enough. Her left hand pumped the slide instinctively.
The flat boom of the shotgun made the other killers freeze. The gunman by the bloody bed. The snipers on the door. The woman in the cat mask, who was fondling Joanne’s breasts. The birdman, who was standing in the lounge.
Rebekah felt her training taking over. No matter that she’d never shot a person in her life. Fizzling with adrenalin, she dropped into a crouch and scurried to the far end of the passage. She swung into the doorway of the lounge. The birdman fired.
What saved her was her size. His bullet whirred above her head. She sighted on his chest and squeezed the trigger. The dim room seemed to fill with sparks. The gunman tumbled backwards. Rebekah let the gun ride up, ejecting the spent shell over her shoulder. She ducked out of the room again, and heard the ripping crack of rifle fire. The muzzle flash was over by the hallway. She hit the carpet breathlessly as bullets snapped and moaned along the passage.
The thin girl lost her target but kept shooting. Her bullets smashed a vase and wrenched a picture from the wall. Others drilled through plasterboard partitions and whined like dying insects through the loft.
Rebekah slithered back towards the first man she had killed. She didn’t even know how many shots were in her gun. The Mossberg could take eight, but sometimes only carried five. The firing stopped. She raised herself and slid around the corner, then waited with her back against the wall. Her breaths were coming quickly now. Her nipples rose like stalks. She glanced along the passage that she stood in. It led through to the kitchen, with the bathroom halfway down. A girl in wet pink panties was sprawled dead beside the open bathroom door.
Rebekah swallowed, looked away, and listened for a movement from the hall.
The woman in the cat mask had picked up her gun again. She waited by Joanne’s slumped body, wary of emerging - not sure what turn events had taken now. She wanted to get back to her enjoyment of the girl, but not until she knew that it was safe.
Rebekah thought she heard a stealthy movement in the lounge – and then a creeping footfall in the hallway. She took a breath and leaned around the corner, firing twice, the recoil sending quivers through her breasts. A slim, dark figure spun away and dived into the lounge. She guessed she might have winged him (her?) but didn’t think she’d put the bastard down.
Maybe only one shot left. She had to get herself another gun. Aiming with one hand, she crouched and fumbled through the clothes of her first victim. Sure enough, he had a pistol pushed into his belt. The grip felt as familiar as the handshake of a friend. Drawing back, she stared at it. A Glock 17, a gun she almost liked. Angular and lightweight, like a child’s lethal toy.
She glanced towards the kitchen, where the strip-lights were still on. Perhaps there was a phone extension there. She slipped along the passage with a weapon in each hand. Stepping round Pink Panties, she glimpsed someone in the bathroom. A blonde in a bow tie was sprawling naked on the john.
Rebekah pulled a face and kept on walking. From the tail of her eye, she glimpsed a movement in the bathroom mirror. Adrenalin blazed through her and she swung around again, as someone stepped into the open doorway. A woman in a cat mask, bringing up a silenced gun. Rebekah fired the Glock into her stomach without thinking. The woman doubled forward with a groan of agony. Her bodysuit popped open as its ribbon came undone, exposing her impressive pair of tits. The broad pink nipples made her think of bull’s-eyes on the range.
“You have the right to remain silent,” said Rebekah huskily. The woman gurgled, clutching at her blood-soaked bodysuit. Her pistol clattered to the tiles. Rebekah took fresh aim.
“… Or you have the right to scream.” She fired again. The bullet clipped the edge of the right bull’s-eye. It sank into the woman’s breast and threw her body back against the bath. Rebekah’s full lips tightened, and she put a slug into the other breast. The sleek assassin whimpered like a schoolgirl, her death as agonising as Joanne’s. Rebekah watched her shudder and collapse into the tub, besmirching the enamel with her blood.
Breathing hard, she went on down the passage. Just before the kitchen was an archway to her right. The loft was labyrinthine, and she had all but lost her bearings, but this would surely take round the lounge. She laid the Mossberg down, and gripped her pistol in both hands. Easing through, she stepped into a dead-end passageway. Two bedrooms faced each other in the dimness. The door of one was open, and she glimpsed the scene of carnage on the bed. She turned to look the other way. Another arch led through into the lounge. She stole towards it very carefully.
The lounge was dimly lit by scattered candles. Bodies lay abandoned on the carpet and the couch. One still wore a bird mask, and his blood had splashed across the floor like wings. It seemed a million years since she had flirted in this room. But three people were still alive, and waiting for her there. A guy was at the doorway on the far side of the lounge, an M4 carbine levelled from his shoulder. He was aiming down the passage, at the corner which she’d disappeared around. Another man was closer, but his back was turned to her. Between them, a young woman had slumped down into a chair. This must be the one her final shotgun blast had winged. Her face was tight with pain, but she had an M4 resting on her knees.
Rebekah waited with them for a moment – and heard the distant thud of rotor blades. An NYPD chopper, had to be. The three intruders shared uneasy glances. Rebekah brought her pistol up, her left hand closing firmly on her right. She wasn’t dumb enough to shout a warning. She shot the furthest sniper first, and punched his body backward through the doorway. His carbine spat a round into the ceiling as he slumped. Rebekah switched her aim and tried to nail the other guy. The man was moving, galvanised, a gun with a suppressor in his grip. The girl was just as quick, despite her wound. Rebekah glimpsed her diving to the floor. The guy was her first target, though – she blazed away at him. A counter in her head was whirring: twelve, eleven, ten … He tried to draw a bead on her - then reared away, rebounding off the wall. A candelabrum fell against the nearest set of drapes, and hungry flames went creeping up the velvet. The gunman fought to right himself as fire snagged his sleeve. The burning glow lit up the room. Rebekah couldn’t miss. She put two rounds into his chest, enough to throw him back against the window. It shattered, and he plunged into the yawning New York night. The burning curtains billowed out - a signal fire that someone had to see.
Then the girl was firing back from somewhere on the floor. Rebekah ducked as bullets split the air. The girl rolled and kept shooting with the archway in her sights. Rebekah backtracked hurriedly, and dodged into the nearer of the bedrooms. A slug chipped long white splinters off the doorpost, and she winced. The carbine in the lounge lapsed into silence.
Rebekah waited in the darkened bedroom. Nobody had loved or died in here: the quilt was smooth. She flexed her sweaty fingers round the pistol’s moulded grip. This must be Lucretia’s space, the room she slept in when her guests had gone. Its tidiness contrasted with the party she had thrown. Her soft toys lay forlornly on the bed.
The helicopter sound was drawing closer.
The girl’s M4 was empty, and she cursed despairingly. The pain beneath her ribs was getting worse. She wouldn’t walk away from this – but first that crazy slut was going to pay. She crawled between the bodies to the Ingram that still lay where Jake had dropped it. Gripping it, she sat up straight. The racket of the chopper filled ears. Suddenly a floodlight bathed the room with its cold glare.
She raised the stubby tube towards the end wall of the lounge. “Suck on this, you little bitch,” she grated. Her trigger finger tightened and the weapon sprang to life, the recoil dragging it from left to right.
Whhrrrppppppppppp!
Rebekah heard a drumming on the far side of the wall, as if a heavy squall had struck from nowhere. She brought her pistol up in puzzlement. Then the room began to fill with blue-white laser beams. Dust and bits of plasterboard were spinning in the air. Rebekah’s eyes grew wide, and then she realised what was happening. Terror flooded her like icy water. An outsize rag doll ripped and flopped behind her on the bed. The dressing table mirror flew to pieces. And all the time the stabbing spars of light were crowding closer. Rebekah cowered back, but there was nowhere she could go. The doorway to the passage seemed a hundred yards away, receding through a blur of plaster dust.
Even as she wailed aloud, a bullet flipped and ploughed into her belly. Gagging, she began to double forward. Light-beams sprang to meet her; the bullets corkscrewed through her chest and bit into her breasts. Rebekah bucked and squirmed beneath the impacts. Wounds exploded in her back and sprayed the tidy bedroom with her blood. Her mouth gaped in a silent scream, but then her face went slack, the life shocked out of lacerated organs. A judder threw her head back and she slumped against the bed, upsetting the array of fluffy toys Suddenly her punctured tits were doused with liquid red. The spars of light went marching on, but she was finished with. Saucer-eyed and open mouthed, she slithered to the floor.
The gun locked into silence in the bright glare of the lounge. The thin girl gave a grunt of pain and toppled to one side. Rebekah’s head lolled forward. She stared down at her bloody breasts with stupid, sleepy eyes. Then she too slid sideways and lay still.
The helicopter dipped towards the windows. A bullhorn crackled orders through the shadows of the loft. The ringing words got no response. Joanne and Vicky sprawled where they had slumped. The catwoman lay crumpled in the crimson-spattered bath. Alice’s limp body had subsided to the bottom of the pool. Dead girls slouched unmoving like machine-gunned mannekins. Lucretia lay among her luckless guests.
Rebekah’s corpse oozed silently beneath a web of light. A bloodstained bunny lay nearby, as if to comfort her. The Glock pistol was close to her right hand. Then the chopper moved away. The light beams were snuffed out. The young cop’s naked body disappeared into the dark.