The force threw Finch up against the rail, drove Wyte down to one knee. Wyte's gun skittered across the floor. A piece of wood had grazed Finch's left arm. His ears rang from the blast. Through the wreckage of the counter, Finch could see the cannon of a gun that had done the damage. Mounted on a metal stand.
The woman had leapt to the spiral staircase. She was shouting to someone above her. Coughing, Finch got off a shot that bit into the steps at her heels. Then the darkness took her.
Wyte recovered his weapon, started to move toward the stairs. Finch followed, then stopped. Pulled at Wyte's coat sleeve.
"Fuck. Wait."
"Wait, Finch? Wait?" Straining against his grip. "Goddammit, she's getting away!"
The sound of gunfire. Coming from the top of the chapel. And a torrent of boots on steps from beyond the tapestry door.
"No! Didn't you hear Dapple? And there's a whole f**king army coming."
"Shit," Wyte said. No longer pulling away.
They ran back down the carpet. Past the pews.
Bullets sprayed in a torrent against the outside of the chapel walls. A muted cry from Dapple.
Brought them up short at the double doors.
Finch looked at Wyte. Wyte looked back at him. Knew they were thinking the same thing. Better outside with Partials than trapped inside with the rebels.
Finch heard the sound of the tapestry parting just as they burst through the double doors. Out into the light. Stumbled over Dapple lying on his back in the dirt between the doors and the archways. Face slack. Clipped by a fungal bullet. Left shoulder turning black. Neck covered in looping veins of dark red that made him look like an obscene map. Convulsions already. Eyes distant. Muttering through a mouth flecked with spit. His guns beside him.
Finch looked up to see Partials behind the sandbags, amongst the tanks. Dozens of them. Pale faces. Dark clothing. Aiming up at the top of the chapel and the sharpshooters pouring fire down on them.
Frozen for an instant. Caught between two bad choices. Didn't know how Dapple had gotten hit.
Then a roar from next to him. Wyte was roaring. Standing straight up. Not caring if he got hit. Finch could just see the Partials moving back and forth behind their shelter. The liquid muzzle flashes.
"No, Wyte!" But it was too late. Wyte was shooting at them, and shooting and shooting. Bullets stitched through the dirt. Smacked into the stone of the archways.
No chance for finding common cause now. They had to get away from the front door.
"Wyte! Come on!" Shoved Wyte toward the alcove to their right. Finch dragging Dapple, who had gone silent with shock. Wyte still blazing away with his gun, gone mad with the pressure. Goading them. Laughing at them. Their confused pale faces in Finch's confused vision like smears of fat.
Between the alcove and the archway in front of it: enough cover to get Dapple out of sight and Finch mostly out of the line of fire.
But Wyte, oblivious, was beginning to scare Finch. A fungal bullet ripped right into Wyte's arm as he shot back at them. The bullet just stuck there. Absorbed by Wyte's body.
Finch got off a couple shots at the Partials. Semi-automatic bucking in his hand. Smelled the acid smoke of the aftermath. None of the Partials went down. Had about ten bullets in the gun. More clips in his pockets.
But they'd still get shot to pieces. Now the double doors had opened. Rebels were firing back at the Partials. From the doors. From the dome.
Wyte jammed another bunch of sticky nodules into his gun from his right front pocket. Kept right on firing. The noise was hellacious. Wyte's bullets made an echoing thwack sound. Finch's a deeper crack. The Partial's return fire was like wood popping in a fire. The smell of the fungal bullets musty and metallic.
A scream from one of the Partials. Another scream. Finch, back up against the wall, shielding Dapple, had only a partial view.
A fungal bullet hit the dirt well to their right. Veins of red spread out across the ground. Seeking. Searching. Stopped next to a lizard sunning itself, oblivious to the threat.
"What's happening, Wyte," Finch shouted above the roar.
"I'm f**king killing them. Killing them all," he roared.
A conventional bullet clipped the side of Wyte's head. Left a bloody track. A runnel of flesh coming off. He roared again-this time with pain. Directed his fire to the left, toward the rebels or more Partials. The response was a fresh hail of bullets that sent even Wyte back into their shelter for a moment. Finch kept squeezing off rounds blind. Trying to aim high but not too high.
Wyte's face shone bright. His eyes were large and dilated and he was smiling.
"The bullets don't hurt," he kept saying. "They don't hurt at all."
"They'll hurt you eventually, dammit!" Finch got off another round.
Dapple convulsed. Blood rushed out of his mouth. His eyes stared toward the sky. Lifeless.
"Fuck."
Finch grabbed Wyte's shirtsleeve. Pulled him in close. Green pallor. Tongue purple. Eyes like black marbles shot through with gold worms. A bullet lodged in his left cheek. Coin-shaped. Like a curious birthmark.
"Wyte! We've got to get out of here. Do you understand?"
Wyte seemed to wake up. Spittle came out of his mouth as he said, "We'll go right through the Partials." Firing with his straight right arm as he talked. Bullets slamming into his side. Finch could hear them making impact. Being absorbed. "There's an alley behind them. Up or down the street you're dead. But if we're fast, right through the Partials works."
"How the f**k does that work?" Finch shouted at Wyte.
"I go out first, shielding you," Wyte said impatiently. Almost with a snarl.
"With your body?" Finch said, incredulous. "That's crazy."
Grinned at him. One eye on the street. "It's all f**ked up. What's one more thing? Trust me, Finch."
"You'll die if you do this, Wyte," Finch said.
"No. I won't." Never heard Wyte so confident.
A bullet spiraled into Wyte's left thigh. He didn't even flinch.
Grim smile. "I love you, Wyte." And he did, he realized.
A smile back from Wyte like it was the old days before the Rising.
Later, in memory, it would be a fractured mix of shouts and screams and bullets flying and Finch running into the back of Wyte to keep as close as possible. Tripping over the things crawling off of Wyte's legs. Wyte exploding out from their shelter, overcoat thrown aside to reveal a body become other. A garden of fungus. Arms ballooning out into sudden wings of brilliant purple-red-orange. Legs lost in shelves and plateaus and spikes of green and blue. Back broader and insanely strong and gray. Head suddenly elongated and widened. As he ran a high-pitched scream came from his mouth that frightened Finch and bloodied the ears of the Partials.