“Better here,” Ryan stated, ladling more stew into his bowl to make it appear they weren’t going anytime soon. “Outside, their numbers would work against us.
Twelve to seven aren’t the best odds. But we’ll be ready long before they start to leave and then”
“There they go.” Dean pointed with his wet spoon.
The mercies across the room were rising from their two tables, pulling on heavy coats and murmuring among themselves in guttural voices.
“Move fast, people,” Ryan directed, taking the lantern from their table and placing it on the fireplace mantel.
Quickly, the companions stepped free from the confining bench-and-table combo, moving to other tables for protection. Turning away from the cheery fire, Ryan watched the departing men head for the front door and loudly said, “So you’re going to ambush us in the alleyway, are you?”
Already past at the plywood, Phillipe jerked his head back into view with a shocked expression.
“Shit-fire, boss, they know!” said one of his crew, dropping his bedroll.
“Ace them!” cried another, drawing a brace of wheelguns from underneath his long coat. One blaster misfired, only spraying burning sparks, but the other boomed, and something slammed into the poster on the wall behind them.
Mildred flipped over the new table, and the companions ducked for cover as the first fusillade of rounds hit everything near them. The solid redwood table bucked and jumped from the impacts, but no holes appeared in the thick planks.
The barrage stopped for a tick, and J.B. fired the Uzi in a long burst. A line of holes crawled across the plywood barrier, splinters exploding from the furious assault of the 9 mm rounds. One man grabbed his face and spun away, spraying blood. Another dropped to his knee and clutched a wounded leg, but still fired his weapon.
“Corner!” Phillipe shouted, and the mercies retreated quickly.
Their leader grabbed the lantern and the others flipped over the old table and used it as a shield as the mercies backed into the corner where nobody could get behind them.
“Mine!” Jak shouted from the bar. The teenager leaned over the counter, holding his huge Colt Python in both hands. The powerful .357 pistol spoke three times, the big-bore wheelgun punching holes straight through the replacement pine boards in the repaired table.
A screaming man stumbled into view clutching the ruin of his belly, his hands full of writhing intestines. Krysty took careful aim and shot him in the heart. The noise stopped instantly, and the corpse slumped to the floor in a spreading pool of red fluid.
Sitting on her medical bag to keep pressure off her foot, Mildred sniped at the others with her ZKR target pistol. Dean aimed for the floor, trying to hamstring the mercies, while J.B. and Ryan maintained a steady holding fire. Trapped, Phillipe and his crew could do nothing until the barrage of lead eased enough for them to chance fighting back.
Switching the selector pin on his two-barrel LeMat, Doc triggered the monstrous handcannon, its black-powder roar deafening in the confines of the spacious room. A foot-long tongue of flame reached out from the pitted muzzle, and a fist-sized hole appeared in another pine board. A gasping mercie stumbled into view, moving backward, and went out the window in a crash of glass. Instantly, a bitterly cold wind blew into the bar as a woman began to scream outside.
With one of his dead crew propped in front as cover, Phillipe was firing a MAC-10 machine pistol through the narrow slot between the table and the attached bench. But the blaster constantly stopped, and he kept working the bolt to clear a jammed round from the ejector port. Oddly, he seemed to be aiming for the fireplace mantel.
Slamming a fresh rotary clip into the Steyr, Ryan realized the man was going for the lantern, trying to start a fire and force them into view.
“Cover me,” he shouted, and the companions began wildly shooting as fast as possible, forcing the others into hiding for a moment. Moving fast, Ryan stood and swept the lantern into the fireplace in a single movement. The glass basin shattered as it hit the burning logs, and the oil ignited into a raging fireball that swelled out into the room for a single heartbeat, then the flames died down to normal.