The Soul Collectors by Chris Mooney Read Free Book Online

power, even at close range. They’d be useless against tactical armour. She’d have to try for a headshot. The gas mask’s polycarbonate visors were scratch resistant but not bulletproof.
    First, she had to find a vantage point.
    Dizzy, she pushed herself up on to her knees. One, possibly two men left in there. Using the wall for support, she got to her feet and immediately stumbled, dropping to her knees and sucking in air. She had to wait and couldn’t wait.
    From somewhere outside she heard tyres skidding across the pavement.
    Now heavy footsteps were coming her way and she knew the SIG wouldn’t put a dent in him, so she dropped it. With one hand she grabbed a flash-bang grenade from her vest, while pulling the netgun launcher from its holster with the other.
    The SWAT officer emerged through the smoke with his shotgun raised. He saw Judith Rizzo, stopped, and then placed the muzzle against the woman’s head and fired. Darby pulled the pin and tossed the flash bang across the hall floor.
    The grenade went off and the SWAT officer was stunned by an explosion of noise, the white light blinding him. Darby pulled the netgun’s trigger.
    There was a pop and hiss as the net hurled through the air, expanding into an electrically charged web. It wrapped itself around the SWAT officer’s chest and face, tangling him in the sticky strands. Sidearm back in hand, she heard the man’s squeal of surprise and pain as he stumbled and fell to the floor, writhing around like some insect caught in an actual spider web.
    Darby staggered to him while holding the banister, her breath coming back but her ribs still burning, muscles growing stronger with each step. The web had him locked up. She kicked the gas mask off his face. He tried to reach up to put it back on but his fingers got caught in the sticky webbing. Her boot came down on his hand, breaking his fingers. He screamed. She kicked him against the side of the head and he slumped back against the floor.
    She hadn’t knocked him unconscious; she could hear him choking on the smoke. The web had locked him up but he had conveniently dropped the shotgun on the floor next to him before it had done so.
    Standing with the shotgun, her lungs straining, burning as though they were on fire, she raised it at the man’s head, about to fire when an inner voice cautioned her to wait. You need him alive , the voice added. Darby turned and stumbled to the bedroom.
    The drawn shades flapped in the wind blowing through the two shattered windows. Smoke was everywhere, curling like snakes across the walls and ceiling, and she got a good, clear look at the bedroom: a SWAT officer kneeling on the floor next to the bed, his back facing her; the headless remains of the twins and Charlie Rizzo – they had been shot at point-blank range like Judith Rizzo. But there was no sign of the father. Mark Rizzo had been cut free from the chair. Taken alive.
    Four quick steps across the carpet and the SWAT officer turned to look over his shoulder. She didn’t shoot him. She dropped the shotgun and, grabbing him by the head, twisted violently. There was a snap as his neck broke and he collapsed on the floor.
    Sitting on the floor was a small device. It had a timer. And wires.
    Wires connected to six sticks of dynamite bound together with electrical tape.
    The timer’s numbers flashed a glowing red in the thin, blowing curtains of smoke:
    1:26.
    1:25.
    A quick glance over her shoulder and out the window: the APC was still parked out front, its back doors hanging open.
    1:23.
    You can do it. You’ve got time.
    Darby grabbed the shotgun and started counting down as she ran back into the hall, where the SWAT officer lay still. He appeared to be roughly her height, maybe two hundred pounds with all the gear.
    1:19.
    Another solid kick to the man’s head, just to be sure, and then she knelt down, propping the shotgun against the wall. She grabbed the man by the feet and hoisted his legs over her shoulder. He wore