The bolt burst from the crossbow.
I whipped my head around in time to see James P. Storm, who had been looking down and signing a book, reached up without looking and snatch the crossbow bolt out of the air.
I gaped, dumfounded. That did not just happen.
Storm looked curiously at the bolt, and then calmly looked up at us. Other people looked, too. No doubt they saw two people standing at the railing, one holding a gun, and the other holding a very medieval-looking weapon.
And that's when someone screamed.
Utter chaos ensued.
People were now running in every direction. But Storm didn't run; in fact, he hadn't moved. He continued sitting there, staring up at us, holding the crossbow bolt.
A mob of people passed briefly in front of him, screaming hysterically. When they cleared, he was gone.
This can't be good.
I had just turned to Veronica, had just reached out a hand to grab her, when I found myself flying backwards through the air. Yellow light burst through my skull as I crashed hard against an immovable bookcase. I crumpled in a heap, and might have blacked out for a few seconds.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that Veronica was gone. Amazingly, I was still holding my gun. I stumbled to my feet and searched the area and found her silver crossbow and a single bolt. I retrieved both just as the two policemen rounded the corner and approached me fast. I slipped the small crossbow and bolt into my jacket pockets.
"What the fuck is going on up here?" asked one of them. He was breathing hard, but not as hard as I had been.
My head was still groggy. Veronica was gone, and I wasn't sure what the hell to tell these guys. I still had no clue how I suddenly came to be flying through the air.
"I saw someone up here," I said. "Someone with a weapon."
"And who the fuck are you?"
"I'm a P.I. hired to find - "
"Never mind. Where's the shooter?"
"No clue. Someone...hit me from behind."
"Stay here," said the first officer. "We'll be back."
They dashed off and spread out, quickly searching the upstairs. They convened back at the escalators a few minutes later, conferred with each other, and then headed back down to the second floor mayhem.
As they had searched the upstairs, I noticed one had checked the "Employees Only" door. He had opened it, looked around inside for a few seconds, and then reemerged and continued on. Obviously he hadn't found what he was looking, but what he hadn't noticed was that the touchpad had been completely torn off the wall. Where it was, I had no clue, but it was gone.
With my head still throbbing and a fantastic pain in my right shoulder, I lurched forward toward the storeroom door.
With people still shouting below, I drew my gun and opened the "Employees Only" door.
The room was indeed a storeroom. I could smell dusty books and someone's lunch. A microwavable pizza, perhaps. The room probably doubled as a break room, too.
It was also quite dark. I flipped on a switch.
The back room was, in fact, a longish room, separated by another door. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Now only a few muffled sounds reached me from the craziness outside. I still felt woozy, but I powered through it.
I continued through the long room, holding my gun out before me.
The storeroom probably looked like a thousand other bookstore storerooms. Boxes and books everywhere. Broken bookshelves. Dusty display cases crammed in one corner. A circular Formica table sat near a glowing vending machine and a microwave.
I headed deeper into the room, listening hard. I heard nothing unusual. No sounds of a throat being torn open.
At that thought, I reached inside my jacket pocket and withdrew the stainless steel crossbow and silver bolt. I goofed with the thing for a few seconds, until I finally knocked back a bolt, thus arming the contraption.
At least, I hoped it was armed.
I cautiously stepped through the second doorway, a doorway which was devoid of an actual door, and into what I assumed was a second storeroom. I reached around the corner and flipped on another switch. More books, more broken equipment. Shelving everywhere. And something in the far corner.
Another door?
It was easy to miss, especially if you were a cop hurrying through here and wrongly assuming no one was inside. The difference being that I knew someone was hiding somewhere inside this storeroom.
The door appeared to be blocked by some boxes. But that could have only been an optical illusion. Indeed, the closer I got, the more clearly I saw a narrow path that led through the boxes and to this back door.
I stepped between the boxes, onto the narrow path. The door was directly in front of me. It was also partially open. From within, I heard some very strange sounds.
And if I had to guess, I would guess that someone - or something - was feasting hungrily.
I moved quickly through the narrow corridor of boxes, and as I did so, the sickening noises grew steadily louder from behind the door.
Without slowing or hesitating, I raised the crossbow, and kicked open the door.
The small room was mostly dark, but there was enough light from the single dusty bulb behind me to see inside.
And what I saw was something out of a nightmare.
James P. Storm was in there, hunched over Veronica, his face buried into her torn and bloody neck. Veronica's eyes were closed and she could have been dead.
As Storm turned reluctantly away from her neck, I shot him with the crossbow.
Had he been any further away, I'm certain I would have missed. But, in this case, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Or a vampire in a coffin.
As it was, the small arrow whipped through the air and plunged deep into his chest, exactly where I assumed its heart was.
What happened next still gives me nightmares to this day.
James P. Storm leaped back, staring down at the bolt protruding from his chest. He gripped the fletchings and pulled.
The bolt came out, along with a geyser of black blood that splattered the small room and turned immediately into steam. Indeed, the bloody hole in his chest gushed steam as well.
He stumbled backward and collapsed against some shelving, and as he hissed and steamed and bled, I ran over to Veronica and dragged her across the floor and out the door. I ripped off my jacket, wadded it up, and used it to plug the gaping wound in her neck.
With the jacket pressed firmly against her, I watched in horror and fascination as James P. Storm continued to hiss and steam. He looked at me confusedly, opened his mouth to say something, and then pitched forward onto his face.