Daemon

sprinkler wash, he smelled gasoline again, and he heard the
whoosh
of flames racing to overtakehim, but he outran it and stayed in the cool clear water that served as a buffer against the flames reaching the house.
    As he ran, Merritt clutched at his back for the sawed-off shotgun strapped there. He was still tugging on its rubberized pistol grip, trying to free it from the melted mass of his web belt, when he kicked in the wooden pool gate. Metal gate hardware clattered across the paving stones – but he was already smashing through a field of teak wood patio chairs and flipping tables in his quest for the French doors. Almost there. He was vaguely aware of spotlights focusing on him from the house, but he didn’t give a damn what Sobol was up to. He might drop dead once he got there, but he was getting inside that house.
    He whipped out his Mark V knife and slashed the melted bits of the web belt from the shotgun. To save time he hurled the knife ahead, where it stuck quivering in the door frame. He drew the Remington 870 shotgun into his gloved hands and chambered a round with a satisfying
click-clack
.
    Merritt hit the door hard with his booted foot – and damn near shattered his shinbone. His forward momentum sent him hurtling into the door, where his knee came up into his mouth – driving a sharp nail of pain straight to the center of his skull. He staggered back and reflexively wiped the back of his glove across his mouth. It came back covered with blood. His front teeth felt loose.
    Doesn’t matter.
    Merritt leveled the shotgun at the door handles and blasted a foot-wide hole in their place. He chambered another breaching round and quickly blasted similar holes at the top and bottom where the doors met – the most likely spot for reinforcing bolts.
    Hundreds of yards away, the FBI camp was pandemonium. Agents and police scrambled to gather rescue gear while others scrambled to order no one to go anywhere near the site of theattack. It was a disorganized mess. Somewhere in the chaos Trear heard distant shotgun blasts.
    He shouted, ‘Who’s shooting? Decker, order them to cease fire!’
    ‘Com is down.’
    Merritt rammed his shoulder into the French doors, bashing them in. He stumbled into a neo-mission-style entertainment room with wide-plank wooden floors. There was a sunken area of sectional sofas in front of a large plasma screen television. The lights here blazed brilliantly, practically blinding him. Nonetheless he craned his neck and weaved from side to side. He knew what he had to do.
    The bomb disposal team was taken out by weaponized acoustics, and he wasn’t going to let that happen to him. Merritt raised his shotgun and noticed half a dozen different sensors spaced along the ceiling over each wall – behind the brilliant lights.
    A clear and commanding voice called from the doorway leading farther into the house. ‘You don’t belong here!’
    Merritt’s response came out reflexively. ‘Fuck you, Sobol.’
    Merritt heard footsteps approaching him over the wooden floor. It was uncanny. There was definitely the sense that someone was there. A change in the echoes of the room. That’s when Merritt felt as much as heard the deepest sound he’d ever experienced pass over and through him. The nearby coffee table started vibrating so badly that the glass panels fell out of it.
    Merritt twisted to look back up at the ceiling and noticed a reflected LED light pulsating on the back of one of the round sensor pods. He raised the shotgun just as an ungodly feeling of horror gripped him. His intestines were trying to strangle him, and he felt his eyes preparing to explode. He screamed in agony and fired the shotgun.
    Immediately the pain stopped. Merritt paused for a secondto lean over and vomit on the floor, but he was immediately back up. His eyes and nose were bleeding, but he wiped it away and swiveled around to blast another Hatton round into an identical sensor on the far wall. Then the interior wall. He swayed as he pulled more shotgun shells from his cargo pants pockets and started reloading the Remington. Blood dripped onto his fingers from his nose.
    ‘You son of a bitch! I’m going to shut you down, Sobol!’ Merritt slid a shell into the magazine. ‘You hear me?’ His words echoed in the big house.
    A voice right behind him said, ‘There’s no need to shout. I can hear you.’
    Merritt jumped and turned around, letting loose a shotgun blast into the wall behind him.
    The voice