The Unluckiest Chapter 13

In celebration of finishing Chapter 13 of Hell Becomes Her, I offer you the following excerpt:

No guns were harmed in the writing of this scene.

The elevator rumbled to a halt, and dinged cheerfully.  Del waited, her guns down by her sides.  She was too tired to raise them up while the elevator doors decided to open.  Del had to conserve whatever energy she had left.  She’d need to if she was going to hold out for even a fraction of the time that the others needed to find Jordan and try to escape.  Provided the elves didn’t simply shoot her out of hand.  She drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and heard the door mechanism engage.

This is a bad idea, she thought.

The doors slid back exactly as they were supposed to, and Del lifted her hands to point her SIGs through the opening.  Both hands on one gun with a straight-thumbs hold was the correct way to give her the proper support she needed to aim and shoot quickly and consistently.  Hollywood liked to show action heroes shooting from the hip, or blasting away without aiming and taking down a room full of bad guys, whose best response was to fire impotently at the ceiling or comically into other bad guys.  It was all so much useless eye candy.  A gun in each hand gave support to neither and made it impossible to sight.  She’d need independent use of each of her eyes, like a chameleon, to train the guns on different targets at the same time.

But it looked damned impressive from the receiving end.

“Hold your fire!” a voice commanded from outside the elevator.  “Hold your fire!”

Del wasn’t certain if the order was for her, the two ranks of Ljosalfar soldiers in their body armor who surrounded the elevator, or both.  Either way, holes weren’t being punched into her favorite skin and that was a good thing.  She might still die, riddled with bullets and spitting blood, but not yet.  Not yet.

She unwrapped and wrapped her fingers on her SIGs, and smiled.

“Hello boys,” Del said.  “Who wants some?”

“Hold your fire!” she heard Alfred Waru say again.

“Alfred, you cunning bastard,” Del purred.  “Come on in and give me a hug.  I’ve solved almost all your problems.  There’s just one left.”

“I’d rather you put down your weapons,” Alfred replied.  Del homed in on his voice from behind the second rank of soldiers, but couldn’t make him out through all the helmets.  “We’ve locked the elevator.  The doors won’t close, and the car won’t move.  Let’s talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” Del said and laughed.  “How you lied to your people?  How you betrayed and murdered your own?  How you’ve doomed them through your schemes and plots?”

Hell Becomes Her will be the next installment following up on the events of Tears of Heaven.