I splashed back up to the chapel gift shop. Inside the shattered window display were some shelves. I grabbed one, ignoring the crosses lying there. I figured they wouldn't help in my case.

I waded back into the fray. The plank worked fine. The first bat I hit flew halfway across the hall-though not under its own power.

I pulled off a bat that had plunged its teeth in the heel of Ann's left palm. Its face looked familiar, like that of a dead president or someone of that ilk.

I swung it around me like a chicken marked for dinner. When its spine snapped, I threw it against the escalator steps for good measure.

The kid played it smart. She submerged as deep into the water as she could and ducked her head when one of them swooped by.

I grabbed my board and tried to improve my batting average.

Ann finally seemed to get the knack of keeping the bats away from her. Whenever she waggled her knife in a certain manner, they backed off.I caromed another flying rodent off the walls in a banked shot. It splashed about angrily in the water before drowning. As creatures from Hell went, they were pretty tame.

One of the bats fluttered too close to Ann's blade. She managed to nick it.

Its shriek became a sickly moan. It didn't seem as if she'd done it much harm. It acted, though, as if she'd shot it full of hydrofluoric acid. The moan became a pitiful, rattling sigh, like air escaping from a bottle. It took one last wing-flap and performed a graceless nosedive into the water.

That made the others go crazy. Almost as one, they swept toward Ann. Her hair whipped about as she swung her dagger in wide angles and sharp turns. She must have had all the aces on her side. The bats almost looked as if they were diving into the blade's path. Within seconds, the rest of the bats fell sighing to the floor.

The place sounded like a tire-slasher's wet dream.

The room fell silent. Slowly, Isadora rose up from the water. Slowly, Ann regained her composure. Slowly, I grew aware of the throbbing pain and hot wetness at the back of my neck. I dabbed at the blood with a soggy handkerchief.

One of the bats that Ann had killed floated near me, face up. Its eyes were closed and-as much as possible around those vicious fangsits human face smiled.

I felt that overall sort of shiver you feel when you touch something that's not supposed to be there.

"Come on," I said, trying to sound tough and cool. It came out sounding hoarse and old. I took the light from Ann. Isadora followed on her own, to my aching back's relief.

I felt around for the base of the escalator. My toe found it, painfully. We rose up out of the slime toward the inside entrance to North Tower. Halfway up, I turned to shine the beam back past the kid. She was climbing up naked and dripping wet, looking like a severely misplaced water nymph. The light threw a circle of white on the lumpy surface of the water, where it shimmered and cast rippling reflections on the walls.

I noticed something missing in the water. The bats.

I didn't want to know whether they merely sank or vanished or danced out doing the cha-cha. All I knew was that I had blood coming out of various parts of me and that I ached like a second-place prizefighter.

Dell Ammo's a real hard man. He fights Heaven and Hell. Ammo's real tough. Ammo wants to lie down on dry sheets with an ice pack and a heating pad. Dell Ammo wants life to ease the hell up on him.

I looked up to see a dark shape snarling at the top of the stairs.

Dell Ammo gets all the breaks.

I snapped the Magna-Lite up at it. The thing hissed and pulled back. I drew my automatic, whipped it a couple of times to get water out of the barrel, and waited. "Get behind me," I whispered.

"Right," Ann said. "I'll guard the rear." She wedged the kid between us.The thing stepped into the light, crouching low. It looked like a wolf, but I wasn't calling any odds tonight. It had lost its fur sometime in the past, but had made up for it with thick scales of blackened, flaking skin. From the way it crouched, it gave no sign of being weak or sick. Tiny droplets of foam dripped from its slavering tongue when it opened its maw to snarl.

"Oh, shit," said a small voice behind me.

I took aim as it reared up to leap. The muzzle blast stung my hand. The report rang in my head like the bells of St. Mary's.

The kick nearly threw me off balance on the slick steps. A firm hand at my back steadied me, pushing me upright.

"Thanks, sweetheart," I muttered through clenched teeth. I stared at the dog-or whatever it was. It had collapsed at the top of the escalator, dead before it could lunge toward us. The bullet had made a large, ugly crater in its crusted skin. This one bled, though, nice and normal from its mouth and nose. Its forequarters hung limply over the top step. Where there should have been paws, dirty, callused hands twitched reflexively a few times and grew still. They looked as if they'd once been slender, graceful hands, perhaps those of a woman.

I said nothing. Ann said nothing. The kid said nothing. We all kept saying it until we'd edged past the limp, lifeless hulk.

Ann poked it with her steel.

"Are you sure it's dead?" Isadora asked.

"It won't bother us anymore," Ann replied. She poked it harder. It hissed slowly, languidly. Like an old woman recalling a pleasant memory. The sound stopped as abruptly as it began.

"Did you puncture it?" The kid looked at Blondie with a queer expression.

Ann looked back, her features calm. "It's dead, Isadora. Gone for good. I just wanted to be sure it wouldn't… revive."

I turned to face the next flight of steps. "If you're through playing coroner, angel, we can try making it to the top. This escalator heads right up into the lobby of North Tower. The fire doors were locked from the inside before they began decontamination."

Ann took the kid's hand to lead her past the corpse. "I suppose you've got the key?"

I flicked the safety on my Colt back and forth, smiling. "I have an Open Portal spell. Hasn't failed me yet."

I couldn't coax a smile out of either one of them. I hadn't expected to. We were as raucous as a funeral home.

I beamed the Magna-Lite at the steel doors blocking the top of the escalator. Nothing there but some angular shadows and piles of rusty red dust. We started up the cluttered steps.

The stark shadows at the top shifted-with the bobbing of the light, I assumed, paying it no mind.

I felt that familiar shiver pass through me, though. Below us, I heard the scraping of tiny claws on steel. I froze.

The shadows above kept moving.

The footsteps below us slowed a few at a time. It sounded like rats.

"Just rats," I said out loud, more for my sake than the others. I took another step up and beamed the fire door.

The shadows looked even more solid in the direct light. Not good.

They continued to move and shift, keeping no particular shape for more than a few seconds. The wall behind them barely showed through.

A few high-pitched, thin voices at the bottom of the stairs squealed, "Forgive us!" A few more whined in, adding, "It's not our fault!" to the chorus.

Tiny feet scampered to reach the first step.

The lady and the kid crowded up next to me.

I sweated what to do. Rats are more suited to shotguns than pistols.

I fired into the shadows ahead. They made bigger targets than whatever was closing in on us from behind. The round went through the one in the middle and spattered against the wall.

I should have expected as much.

I fired again. This one marked the wall with a silvery splash. The shadow continued its wavering motions, unbothered.

The things below us gained a couple more steps. They shrieked like a thousand fingernails on slate.

I was getting more than nervous. Just to have something to do while I thought things out, I aimed a third time.