And he shot Carson, right up close, without looking down at the gun in his hand.
And it was not a loud sound, not loud at all, more like the sound of a large pneumatic nail-gun, but it was final and definitive and accompanied by a yellow-blue flash, and Chevette could never remember,
215 exactly, seeing this, though she knew she had: Carson blown back by however many thousand foot-pounds of energy trying to find their way to kinetic rest at just that one instant in his body.
But it didn’t take, in memory; it did not stick, and she would be grateful.
And grateful too, though for other reasons, that this was when Tessa, in the sound booth overhead, killed the lights. 216 53. (YOU KNOW I CAN’T LET YOU) SLIDE THROUGH MY HANDS
RYDELL knew that sound: a subsonic projectile through a silencer that slowed it even more, draining off the expanding gases of the ignited charge, and still the muzzle velocity would be right up there, and the impact, where it was localized.
He knew this through the pain in his side, which felt like a white-hot ax blade between his ribs; he knew it through his shock (he was literally in shock in a number of ways) at discovering Chevette (this version of Chevette, with really different hair, more the way he’d always wished she’d wear it). He knew it in the dark that followed the report, the dark that followed the death (he was pretty sure) of whoever the man was who’d gone after Chevette, the man he’d decked, the man who’d gotten up and, it felt like, driven Rydell’s broken rib halfway through his diaphragm. He knew it, and he held on to it, for the very specific reason that it meant the scarf was a trained professional, and not just some espontaneo in a bar.
Rydell knew, in those first instants of darkness, that he had a chance: as long as the scarf was a pro, he had a chance. A drunk, a crazy, any ordinary perp, in a pitch-dark bar, that was a crapshoot. A pro would move to minimize the random factor.
Which was considerable, by the sound of it, the remaining crowd, and maybe Chevette as well, screaming and heaving and struggling to get out the door. That was bad, Rydell knew, and easily fatal; he’d been a squarebadge at concerts, and had seen bodies peeled off crowd barriers.
He stood his ground, nursing the pain in his side as best he could, and waited for the scarf to make a move.
Where was Rei Toei? She should’ve shown up in the dark like a movie marquee, but no.
And zooming past Rydell’s shoulder, toward where he’d last seen the scarf, there she was, more comet than pixie, and casting serious light. 217 She circled the scarf’s head twice, fast, and Rydell saw him hat at her with the gun. Just a ball of silver light, moving fast enough to leave trails on Rydell’s retina. The scarf ducked, as she shot straight in at his eyes; he spun and ran to the left. Rydell watched as the light expanded slightly, to whiz like cold, pale ball lightning around the perimeter of the dark bar, people moaning and gasping, screaming as she shot past. Past the struggling knot at the door, where several lay unconscious on the floor, and still no sign of Chevette.
But then the Rei-sphere swung in and down, and Rydell spotted Chevette on her hands and knees, crawling in the direction of the door. He ran over to her as best he could, his side feeling like it was about to split; bent, grabbed her, pulled her up. She started to struggle.
“It’s me,” he said, feeling the complete unreality of seeing her again, here, this way, “Rydell.”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Rydell?”
“Getting out.”
The blue flash and the nail-gun f-wut were simultaneous, but it seemed to Rydell that the flick of the slug, past his head, preceded it. In immediate reply, one tight white ball of light after another was hurled past him from behind. From the projector, he realized, and likely straight into the scarf’s eyes.