About Death's Touch:
Excerpt:
A ping and the man collapsed. There was a split second where he wondered what was happening and the sharp warning jerked him upright to let the man fall. He was dead and death he was used to. Tomas flung himself backwards into the doorway and the safety of the building as bullets sprayed through the people only preparing themselves for the mild horrors of a winter’s evening in London. For a moment there was only the sound of the bullets hitting flesh and the walls around them, then the soft mutter of something happening before the realisation of hurt, and the confusion over the appearance of the deep red blue spray of arterial blood.
These people had no idea, instincts he’d not had to use for years resurfaced – he had to get to safety. Too aware of his own soft flesh, he ducked under shoulder height of those still standing, pushing past and hoping to hide. A brief flicker of guilt at others dying was subsumed by the rage of someone shooting here in a civilised country. He’d come here to be a number amongst many, to get away from battles and war. Where were those fucking bullets coming from?
Tomas shoved his way past the last person, pulling the stranger in with him through the door. It was chaos out there, bodies strewn in a widening pool of black puddles in the neon light. There was a ripple of horror as those inside saw the injured and heard the bullets ripping into and through the open door. He almost heard the collective indrawn breath before the screams began. Tomas feigned a stagger and the man he was using as a shield automatically extended an arm to help him. His mind was working overtime, it would be ten minutes at least before the police could get here, he had to find a way out. The panic started inside, the noise rising. People with phones to their ears frantically called numbers, others looked for another way out while yet more people, detached from the scene held up their phones to record it.
The crowd began to turn into a shifting pushing mass and Tomas wondered about his instinctive reaction to get under cover, being trapped in here could be equally dangerous. A woman stumbled into him and he pulled her upright, trying to make eye contact with those around him. The music that people had been dancing to only minutes before now drowned under the rising hubbub. He hoped it wouldn’t take long for the police to get here, they’d cordon off the area and make it safe. There were some benefits of living in civilisation despite the restrictions someone in his position had. That gun man would be found or at least spooked off. Tomas wondered who he’d been aiming at and grunted as he was shoved hard against the bar.
He saw a flash of long dark hair and remembered his hoped for paramour. The woman was holding onto others in the shifting mass, her eyes wide and darting everywhere. Her gaze met his and they widened further. That made him react, he’d get her out and then he’d have an excuse to talk to her. These places always had a back passage, the slowly thinning crowd and heave of people in one direction proved it. Tomas knew this woman wasn’t who he wanted her to be but he could have a pleasant hour or two pretending. Who knew what might happen after that hour with a grateful woman and a shared traumatic experience? He shoved himself away from the bar where he’d been trapped and began to work his way towards her.
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