Nemesis

THE TROLLEY'S DOOR WAS JAMMED, SO JILL and Carlos had to climb out of a window, Carlos look-ing as drained as Jill felt. It was a frankly weird coinci-dence that the trolley had ended up exactly where they needed to go, but then the last several hours  - hell, weeks  - had been weird. Jill thought it would serve her well to stop letting things surprise her. The clock tower yard seemed empty of life, nothing moving but a thin haze of oily smoke boiling up from the cable car's electrical system. They walked to the unused decorative fountain in front of the main doors, gazing up at the giant clock and the small belfry that topped the tower, Jill's thoughts heavy with images of Mikhail Victor. She'd never even been properly intro-duced to the man who'd saved her life, but she thought that they'd lost a valuable ally. The strength of charac-ter it took to die so that another might live... heroic was the only word that fit.

Maybe he even killed the Nemesis, it was practically on top of him when the grenade went off... Wishful thinking, probably, but she could hope.

"So, I guess we try to find the bell mechanism," Carlos said. "Do you think it's safe to split up, or should we..."

Caw!The harsh cry of a crow cut him off, and Jill felt afresh surge of adrenaline pump new life into her veins.She grabbed Carlos's hand as a fluttering sound filledthe dark from above and around them, the sound ofbirds' wings pushing air.

The hall of portraits at the mansion, watched fromabove by dozens of shiny black eyes as they waited toattack. And Forest Speyer, from the Bravo team, Chrissaid he'd been ripped apart by dozens, perhaps hun-dreds of them."Come on!" She pulled at Carlos, remembering therelentless viciousness of the altered, oversized crows atthe Spencer estate. Carlos seemed to know better thanto ask questions as a dozen more hoarse cries piercedthe air. They ran around the fountain to the front doorsof the tower.

Locked."Cover me!" Jill shouted, reaching into her pack forher lockpick tools, the wheeling cries closing in onthem... and Carlos threw himself at the doors, hitting theheavy old wood hard enough that splinters flew. Hejogged back a few paces and ran at them again, bam... and they crashed inward, Carlos following throughto trip and sprawl across the tastefully tiled floor, Jillquickly stepping in behind him. She grabbed the doorhandles and slammed the doors closed not a second toosoon. There were two audible thumps from the otherside, joined by a chorus of angry screeching and thebrush of dark wings, and then they were retreating, thesounds fading away. Jill sagged against the doors, ex-haling heavily.

God, is it ever going to stop? Do we have to face offwith every demonic asshole in the city before we 're al-lowed to leave?"Zombie birds? Are you kidding me?" Carlos said,pushing himself to his feet as Jill manually bolted thedoors. She didn't bother answering him, turning to takein the clock tower's grand lobby instead.It reminded her of the Spencer mansion's foyer, thelow lights and Gothic scrollwork giving it a kind ofshabbily elegant atmosphere. A wide marble staircasedominated the large room, leading up to a second-floorlanding with stained-glass windows. There were doors

on either side of the room, a couple of polished wood tables in front of them, and to their left... Jill sighed inwardly and felt something inside tighten a little. She hadn't expected the clock tower to be some kind of untouched sanctuary, even as far out of town as it was, but she realized that she had hoped  - a hope lost at the sight of more death. The scene told a story, a kind of mystery. Five male corpses, all of them dressed in somewhat military garb. Three of them lay next to the tables, apparently victims of a virus carrier; the carrier's bullet-riddled body was nearby. The victims' flesh had been gnawed, their skulls crushed and empty. The fifth corpse, a young man, had shot himself in the head, presumably after dispatching the zombie. Had he killed himself out of despair at the sight of his half-eaten friends? Had he been responsible somehow? Or had he known the virus carrier well, and taken his life after being forced to kill it?

No way we can ever know. It's just another handful of lives lost in some untold tragedy, one among this city's thousands.

Carlos moved closer to the bodies, frowning. From the grim look on his face, she got the impression that he knew who they were. He crouched down and pulled a blood-streaked duffel bag out from in between two of them, drawing a trail of red across the tile. Jill could hear metal touching metal inside, and it was obviously heavy, Carlos's bicep straining to lift the bag. "Is that what I think it is?" Jill asked. Carlos took the bag to one of the tables and eased the contents out. Jill felt a sudden, unexpected burst of glee at what was there; she hurried to the table, hardly able to believe their luck. A half dozen hand grenades like the one Mikhail had used, RG34s; eight M16 thirty-round magazines, loaded as far as she could tell; and, more than she could have hoped for, a US M79 grenade launcher with a handful of fat 40mm cartridges. "Weapons at the clock tower," Carlos said thought-fully. Before Jill could ask what he meant, he picked up one of the rifle grenades and whistled softly. "Buckshot loads," he said. "One of these would have blasted the living shit out of that Nemesis espantajo." Jill raised her eyebrows. " 'Espantajo'?" "Literally, a scarecrow," Carlos said, "but it's used like weirdo, or freak."

Appropriate. Jill nodded toward the men who had carried the weapons. "Do you recognize these people?" Carlos shrugged uncomfortably, handing her three of the hand grenades. "They're all U.B.C.S., I've seen them around, but I don't  - I didn't know them. They

were just dumb grunts, they probably had no idea what they were getting into when they joined Umbrella, or when we were sent here. Like me."

He seemed angry and a little sad, and he abruptly changed the topic, suddenly remembering how close they were to escaping Raccoon City. "Do you want to carry the grenade gun?" "I thought you'd never ask," Jill said, smiling. She could use a weapon that would, as Carlos so colorfully put it, blast the living shit out of the Nemesis freak.

"Now all we have to do is find a button somewhere, push it, and wait for our taxi to arrive."

Carlos smiled faintly in turn, tucking M16 mags into his vest pockets. "And try not to end up dead, like everyone else in this goddamn place." Jill had no response to that. "Upstairs?" Carlos nodded. Armed and ready, they started up. The clock tower's second floor was really only a bal-cony that overlooked the front room. It ran along three sides of the building, and there was a single door where it ended, which had to lead to another set of staks  - to the belfry, if Carlos remembered the term correctly. Where the bells were. Almost over, this is almost over, almost over... He let the repeating thought drive away almost everything else, too fatigued to consider his feelings of anger and sorrow and fear, aware that his breaking point wasn't all that far off. He could sort through his emotions once they left Raccoon behind. The balcony itself was as richly adorned as the lobby, blue tiles that matched the blue of the stained-glass windows, an arched overhang supported by white columns. They could see almost all of the fine balcony from the top of the stairs, and it appeared to be clear, not a zombie or monster in sight. Carlos breathed easier and saw that Jill also seemed more at ease. She carried the Colt Python and wore the grenade gun on her back, using Carlos's belt as a sling.

How did Trent know there would be weapons here? Did he know I'd be taking them from dead men?

Carlos realized suddenly that he was overestimating Trent's reach. There had to be another cache of weapons somewhere in the building, that was all, he and Jill had just happened across the duffel bag. The al-ternative  - that Trent had somehow known about the dead soldiers  - was too bizarre to consider. They started down the first leg of the balcony side by side, Carlos wondering what Jill would say if he told her about Trent. She'd probably think he was kidding, the whole thing was so spy-novel mysterious... Something moved. Ahead of them and around the first corner, something on the ceiling, a flash of dark movement. Carlos stepped to the railing and leaned out to look, but, whatever it was, it was either hidden be-hind one of the hanging arches or something that his exhausted brain had come up with to keep him awake. "What?" Jill whispered at his shoulder, holding her revolver ready. Carlos searched a few seconds longer and then shook his head, turning away. "Nothing, I guess, thought I saw something on the ceiling, but..." "Shit!"

Carlos swung around as Jill jerked her weapon up, pointing at the ceiling just in front of them as a creature the size of a large dog skittered in their direction, a thing with a humped body and multiple legs, its thickly furred feet thumping stickily across the ceiling faster than seemed possible. Jill unloaded three rounds into it before Carlos could blink, but not before he registered what he was looking at. It was a spider, big enough for Carlos to see his own reflection in its shining eyes as it crashed to the floor. Dark fluids spouted from its back as it thrashed its mul-ticolored legs in the air, ichorous blood pooling beneath it. The wild, silent dance lasted only a second or two before it curled into itself, dead. "I hate spiders," Jill said, a look of revulsion on her face as she started forward again, scanning the ceiling.

"All those legs, that bloated stomach... yuck." "You've seen these before?" Carlos asked, unable to look away from the closed fist of its body.

"Yeah, at the Umbrella lab in the woods. Not alive, though, the ones I saw were dead."

Jill's apparent calm as they skirted the dead spider and continued on reminded Carlos how lucky he was to have hooked up with her. He'd come across a lot of tough men in his experiences, but he doubted very much that any one of them, put in her position, would be handling themselves as capably as Jill Valentine. The rest of the balcony was clear, although Carlos uncomfortably noted a shitload of webbing on the ceil-ing, mounds of the thick white stuff accumulated in every corner; he didn't care much for spiders, either. When they reached the door and swept their way through, Jill going in low, Carlos was relieved to be outside again. They'd come out on a wide ledge in front of the tower itself, a barren space surrounded by an ancient railing, a couple of defunct spotlights, and a few dead plants. There was a doorlike opening set a story higher up in the tower but no way to get to it. It seemed like a dead end, nowhere to go but back the way they'd come. Carlos sighed; at least the crows, if that's what they were, had migrated somewhere else. "So what now?" Carlos asked, looking out over the dark courtyard, at the still smoking wrecked trolley car. When Jill didn't answer, Carlos turned and saw her standing by a copper plaque he hadn't noticed, set into the stone face of the tower. She reached into her bag and produced a wrapped set of lockpicks. "You give up way too easy," Jill said, selecting a few pieces from the bundle. "Watch for crows, and I'll see what I can do about getting us a ladder."

Carlos covered her, vaguely wondering if there was anything she couldn't do, smelling rain on the cold wind that blew across the ledge. A moment later there was a series of clicks followed by a low hum of hidden machinery, and a narrow metal ladder descended from just beneath the opening above.

"How do you feel about standing guard for another few minutes?" Jill asked, smiling. Carlos grinned, feeling her excitement; it really was almost over. "You got it." Jill quickly scaled the ladder and disappeared through the open door above. She called down an all-clear a second later, and for the next several minutes, Carlos paced the ledge, thinking about what he was going to do after they were rescued. He wanted to talk to Trent again, about what needed to be done to stop Umbrella; whatever it took, he was there.

I bet he'd be interested in talking to Jill, too. When the 'copters come, we play stupid until they let us go, then plan out our next step  - after a good meal and a shower and about twenty-four hours of sleep, ofcourse...

He was so fixated on their deliverance from Raccoon that he didn't notice Jill's expression at first as she de-scended the ladder, didn't really think about the fact that there weren't any bells tolling. He smiled at her... and then felt his heart sink, understanding that their trial wasn't over yet.

"There's a gear missing from the bell mechanism,"she said, "and we have to have it to make them ring.The good news is, I'm willing to bet that it's some-where in the building."Carlos arched an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"I found this next to one of the other gears," Jill saidand handed him a tattered postcard.The picture on the front was of three paintings hung

in a row, each piece incorporating a clock. Carlos flipped the card over and saw "St. Michael Clock Tower, Raccoon City" in fine print on the upper left corner. Below that was a printed line of verse, which Jill said out loud.

" 'Give your soul to the goddess. Put your hands to-gether to pray before her.' "Carlos stared at her. "Are you suggesting that wepray for the missing gear?"Ha ha. I'm suggesting that the gear is whereverthese clocks are."Carlos handed the card back. "You said that was thegood news  - what's the bad?"

Jill smiled sourly, an entirely humorless expression.

"I doubt that the gear is going to be laying out in plain sight. It's some kind of puzzle, like the ones I ran across at the Spencer estate  - and a few of those almost got me killed."

Carlos didn't ask. For the moment, at least, he didn't want to know.