Read Online Omega Dog by Tim Stevens - Free Book Online

situations in which failure to react quickly would have meant certain death, Venn drew the Beretta and snapped off two shots in rapid succession.
    It was a close thing. He was directly under the dangling woman, and the other man with the gun was directly above her. Venn’s shots sang narrowly past the woman and she screamed again, swaying violently. Above her, the man ducked back through the window and Venn heard his shots ricochet off the brick wall into the darkness.
    She was looking down now, her face white with fear. Venn beckoned urgently with his free hand, keeping the Beretta trained on the open window beyond her. If she dropped now, he’d catch her. At least, he told himself he would.
    With a yell the woman’s grip slipped off the rail and she fell. Venn dropped his gun instinctively, holding out both arms. But she jerked to a stop once more, and he realized she’d grabbed on to a rung of the fire escape further down, so that she now hung adjacent to the third floor.
    Venn rolled on one shoulder, diving for his dropped gun and coming up in a crouch just as the man’s silhouette appeared through the window again. This time the other man got off two shots, three, and this time they were aimed at Venn. He rolled again, hearing the bullets spang off the sidewalk around him, and came up firing, taking only a split-second to aim. This time he hit the fire escape near the window, the bullet striking the metal with a clang.
    The woman was swinging under the fire escape, climbing her way down step by step, one hand at a time. That was good, Venn thought. The fire escape would afford her a degree of cover, while he concentrated on taking out the man above.
    In the distance, drawing nearer, Venn heard sirens.
    He supposed gunfire in the night on a New York street did tend to attract the interest of the cops. This wasn’t the 1970s anymore, after all.
    Venn dodged out from under the fire escape and loosed off another two shots with the Beretta. Damn, he was even closer this time. The guy up above jerked back out of view and Venn thought he heard a muttered curse. A cry of pain was what he’d been after, though.
    The woman was making steady progress, swinging like a monkey down the underside of the metal stairs. Venn saw her reach the level of the second floor. Then she dropped, landing with a yowl as one of her ankles gave way.
    He peered up, couldn’t see the guy at the window, and duckwalked over to the woman. She’d sat up. She wasn’t wailing, so he assumed her ankle couldn’t be that badly hurt.
    ‘Are you okay –’ Venn started to say, before the woman’s hand came out of the purse he noticed slung across her shoulder. She held her arm straight out toward him.
    There was a sharp hiss, and Venn felt one of the most agonizing sensations he’d ever experienced sear across his eyes.
    He staggered back, landing on his ass, his free hand clawing at his eyes, trying to tear the pain away somehow. Even in the depths of the agony he realized what had happened.
    She’d Maced him.
    He couldn’t see, felt as if he’d never be able to see again. Through the red darkness he tried to say, ‘Wait, you’ve made a mistake, I’m on your side,’ but the words didn’t come out properly through his distorted face muscles.
    And in any case, he registered footsteps. Her footsteps, scurrying away into the night.
    Choking, every nerve end screaming, Venn nevertheless understood that he needed to forget about the woman for a moment, because his priority was to stay alive. And if that guy up there with the gun saw Venn on his butt, clutching at his face and feeling sorry for himself, he’d put a bullet right through the back of Venn’s head.
    Opening his eyes, seeing nothing but a stinging, soupy haze, Venn rolled hard and fast, coming up against the wall of the building. He groped blindly with his free hand, clutching the Beretta in the other, till he felt the cold metal of the fire escape. He hauled himself beneath it. The