Damnable
CHAPTER 20
IT WAS STILL DARK WHEN HATCHER STEPPED ONTO THE sidewalk, self-consciously wedging the dagger between his arm and ribs. The long piece of metal was heavy and awkward. The thick binding around it seemed almost as old as the blade itself. Or almost as old it was supposed to be.
He felt like he was crashing, the foggy remnants of a drug that was wearing off. The weight of the dagger tucked at his side was tugging at his mind, forcing him to wonder what the hell he was doing. Was he actually carrying some legendary weapon? Entertaining the possibility of using it? To fulfill a prophecy? Jesus, he thought. I need help. His grasp on reality felt strained, and the dagger wasn’t the only thing. He was having trouble believing most of what he’d just witnessed. Some sort of supernatural Maxim party.
The cool of the night chilled his nostrils and he breathed deeply, as if trying to exhale what air lingered in his lungs from where he’d been. The feeling of a crash made him think. Had he been drugged? He doubted it. In some ways it felt a bit like it, in other ways it didn’t. More like he had inhaled fumes that gave him a mild buzz. It took several blocks for his head to feel clear, even if his thoughts were jumbled, coming too many at a time.
Why hadn’t he just said no? He knew the answer. Because those gals were literally irresistible, and even now he had an erection that could bead water. The extent of his self-control was to not throw himself on top of any of them.
And the other reason was because he wanted to know what the hell was really going on.
The streets were quiet, but not quite empty; the splashy sound of tires lightly spraying water occasionally came and went. It was the time of the night that was really early morning, too early for business, too late for recreation, when most cities would be completely devoid of life. Hatcher realized New York was different. It wasn’t that it never slept, it was that it always kept moving a little even when it did, as if its existence depended on it, like a shark.
But even in a city like Manhattan, Hatcher figured a guy walking by himself at that hour was suspicious, probably up to no good. Especially when there were two of them, one across the street, one a block behind him. Shadowing him.
Hatcher turned at the cross street, then cut diagonally to the other sidewalk and waited at a bus stop. The one who’d been across the other street followed unsteadily after him, almost getting grazed by a taxi before stumbling forward. His clothes were ragged, a threadbare navy peacoat over several shirts and a dark pair of pants that seemed stained with even darker patches of moisture and specks of gray paint. He wore a cheap yacht cap, dingy white over a scuffed black brim with a little gold anchor on the front, and black gloves with no fingers. He looked homeless and drunk, the thick neck of a bottle sticking partially out of one of the side pockets of his coat.
The one who’d been tagging directly behind Hatcher arrived at the corner and stopped. He was a large black man, wearing a gray hoodie and matching sweatpants, the hood of his sweatshirt lipped back and bunched up behind his neck. He stared in Hatcher’s direction, but didn’t move.
The guy dressed like a bum stopped once he reached the corner, just like the other one. A pair of bookends, one on each side.
Weird, Hatcher thought. They weren’t trying to be inconspicuous, weren’t pretending not to notice him. He walked back across the street toward the homeless sailor. Just out of curiosity, to see what the man would do.
The answer was, nothing. The man just stood there, looking blankly at Hatcher as he walked by. On the other corner, the guy in the hoodie waited until Hatcher turned and resumed his prior course before starting to follow again. After a dozen yards or so, Hatcher looked back and saw homeless guy had fallen in a few yards behind. Hoodie and homeless, both looking right at him, staggering a bit.
They weren’t planning to rob him or kill him. At least, Hatcher didn’t think so. If they were going to make a move, they would have done it back there. They were just tailing him.
Hatcher walked a few more blocks, checking randomly to see if they were still there, then pulled the cell phone from his pocket. Having a tail had managed to stop his mind from swimming, and that was a good thing. If you didn’t master your thoughts, they’d run amok, drown out your ability to reason, to problem-solve. That kind of lack of focus cost many men their lives. He’d seen it happen. But tail or no, he had a lot of questions to answer, and if Soliya was to be believed, time was a factor.
Deciding whom to call first proved unexpectedly difficult. He knew he needed to check in with Fred, see if anything had happened in the past few hours. But he really wanted to speak to his mother. A few days ago, he knew he was an only child. Now, he was being told he had two brothers, one dead, one living. He looked at the time on the phone. Four forty-five a.m. He had no compunction about waking his mother up, but Carl would probably answer and refuse to put her on the phone. Waiting a few hours was impractical. He had a feeling there wasn’t much time.
The phone made the decision for him. It chimed out a sharp ring. He glanced at the number and flipped it open.
“Hello.”
“Hatcher? It’s Fred.”
“I was just about to call you.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I know you wanted me to wait to hear from you, but this is important. I’ve been trying to reach you for a while. Where are you?”
“I’m a few blocks from Hugh Hefner’s place in the twilight zone.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later. I’m not far from where I was before.” He twisted his shoulders to glance at the two men. They were standing a block back, swaying a bit from side to side, watching him. “And I seem to have attracted some company.”
“You mean, you’re being followed?”
“Yes, and they’re not trying to pretend otherwise.”
“Are you in danger? Can you talk?”
“I’m fine.” He turned away from the men. “I’d like you to look up something else for me, find out what you can about women who call themselves ‘Carnates.’ ”
“I, uh, okay, but, Hatcher, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“You sound like something’s wrong.”
There was a hiss through the line; Hatcher realized it was a heavy sigh. “Well, like I said, I’ve been trying to reach you. I got a call—”
“Does this have something to do with Am—with Detective Wright?”
“Well, not . . . there is that, yes. Lieutenant Maloney has been looking for you about her, too. He said she’s missing.”
“Missing? As in, she’s disappeared?”
“He said she’s not answering her cell phone, not on the radio, and not at home. He was quite anxious to speak to you. There’s that, and—”
“And he thinks I’m responsible?”
“Well, I’m not sure about that, but he said they can’t find her, her or a Detective Reynolds. I think he was the one with her earlier, at Garrett’s office. That Lieutenant Maloney fellow sounded agitated. I don’t think he believed me when I said I didn’t know where you were. I was surprised he didn’t threaten to arrest me. He left a number.”
Hatcher listened intently, committing the number to memory. “Okay, I’ll try her myself, and if I have no luck I guess I’ll give Maloney a call.”
“There’s something else, something more important. I—I was trying to tell you . . . the reason Maloney called wasn’t just about Wright. Hatcher, your father . . .”
“What about him?”
“There’s been some kind of complication. Maloney said you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible. He said there wasn’t much time.”
Hatcher said nothing. More thoughts started to bubble up, another layer of noise in the system. But before he could entertain any of them, a long black sedan screeched to stop near the curb. It looked very familiar. Two women piled out. They were trim, extremely attractive, and each sported a black cylinder in her right hand. Hatcher had seen cylinders like them earlier and suddenly realized what they were. Almost simultaneously, the woman snapped their wrists, the rods shooting out to full length. Telescoping batons. The shafts made whipping noises as the women slashed the air with them, the slicing sounds of a freshly cut switch.
“I’ll have to get back to you,” Hatcher said, flipping the phone shut.
STEPHEN SOLOMON GROPED FOR THE PHONE NEXT TO HIS bed with a heavy hand. He picked it up in time to cut off the third ring. He glanced at the blue digits on the nightstand clock. Somewhere in his mind he thought, You’ve got to be fucking kidding.
He answered in a dazed voice, almost slurring.
“Stephen! Good morning!”
Solomon looked at the clock again. Who the hell considers this “morning”?
“What’s that, Stephen? I couldn’t quite make it out.”
He rubbed at his eyes. “I said, do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I certainly do. Time for you to start earning your ridiculous monthly retainer.”
“What is it?” He felt his wife stir next to him, mumbling about him being too loud. He turned away and lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Did you get arrested?”
“No, Stephen.”
“Sherman, then? He knows he doesn’t have to answer questions.”
“No. Nothing like that. There’s something I want you to do for me.”
“Can’t it wait until morning?” He ran a hand through his hair, blinked at the glowing numbers on the clock. “Later in the morning, I mean?”
“Absolutely it can. And it shall. But I need to explain it to you now.”
Solomon listened, the side of his head sinking down into his pillow. He perked up after a few seconds, eyes popping wide.
“Why the hell are you telling me this?” he asked. He shot a look back at his wife and dropped his voice several decibels. “Have you lost your mind? You know I can’t knowingly be a party to anything illegal. There are rules, ethics.”
“Please, Stephen. You’re a lawyer. Your idea of an ethical dilemma is deciding whether to bill a client for the time you spend screwing his wife.”
“This is beyond the pale. I’m hanging up now. We can talk tomorrow—later, I mean. I’ll just pretend we didn’t have this conversation.”
“Speaking of wives, by the way, how’s yours? What do you suppose her reaction would be to knowledge of your multiple trysts with a certain irresistible female? Did you find the guest bedroom at my place comfortable? It certainly looked like you did. Hard to tell on video though. It doesn’t capture quite the same detail as film, the subtle facial gestures. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. I’m sure the divorce lawyer she hires won’t be so picky when he’s taking every dime you have. Or do you think he’ll be generous out of professional courtesy?”
Solomon sucked in a breath. That woke him up. The fucker had taped him? He slid his legs off the bed, eased his weight onto the floor. His wife rolled away, tugging her pillow down. Treading softly, he slipped out of the bedroom into the hallway.
“Okay, goddammit, what do you want?”
“I want you to hold on to something at your office and give it to someone when they show up.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. And no matter what happens, you mustn’t tell him anything about me. Absolutely nothing. Not about me, not about my whereabouts, nothing.”
“Demetrius, you’re my client. I couldn’t tell anyone anything even if I wanted to.”
“Glad you feel that way, Stephen. Nice we’re on the same page. Then again, you made a solemn vow before God to your wife, so your word isn’t exactly bankable.”
Solomon scratched at the back of his head. He turned and leaned back, peeked into his bedroom. “Jesus, did you really videotape me?”
“Fail to do exactly what I’ve told you, and you’ll be sure to find out.”
The lawyer said nothing. He thought Valentine had hung up, then he heard him add: “If you live that long.”
HATCHER EASED THE PHONE INTO HIS POCKET, KEEPING his eyes on the two women. One was a stunning redhead, the other a sultry brunette. He’d seen them before, in the hospital. These were the women dressed as nurses. Women like that were hard to forget.
He tossed a look back up the sidewalk. The two men were heading his way, moving at the same slow, deliberate pace. He chastised himself for not catching on sooner. That’s what they’d been up to, keeping him in sight until these two could arrive.
One of the women, the redhead, stepped forward. She held the retractable baton like she knew how to use it.
“You’re him,” she said. “You’re the one.”
“That’s very flattering, but I think we should slow down. You don’t even know if I’m good in bed.”
“You’re not going to see Valentine.”
“Are you asking me? Or telling me?”
The woman didn’t answer. Hatcher was about to ask her another question when she darted forward and flicked the baton across the side of his face. The move was surprisingly quick, catching him off guard. He stumbled sideways, then crashed back against the metal grating of a storefront. He pulled his hand from his cheek. A long, thin patch of blood started to drip from his palm.
“Ow!” he said. The pain made him grimace. He sucked air through his teeth. “That kind of hurt.”
The other woman moved quickly to his right, sealing off that flank. Without a word, she slashed her baton across the back of his leg. His body stiffened as his thigh seemed to ignite. Searing jolts exploded up the side of his torso, nerves screaming in protest. The leather-bound dagger dropped to the sidewalk with a muffled clang as he fell to a knee. He clutched the end of his hamstring. His pant leg was shredded. Blood oozed through his fingers.
“Son of a bitch! Will you cut that out?”
It was clear those batons were lethal, some kind of juiced-up version of the old cobra sticks. They were hitting him with probing blows, testing his defenses. The next one would likely be a coup de grace of some sort. The neck or temple, maybe. This was what his team used to call a Reaper Moment. He forced himself to think, to disregard the pain. They weren’t being distracted by his banter, they didn’t seem interested in talking. If their minds weren’t accessible, he’d have to deal with their weapons. He needed a paradigm for it, a defensive principle to latch on to.
But first, he needed to avoid the next strike. To do that, he had to figure out how to see it coming. They were not telegraphing their moves, not in any way he could read. But both strikes had been delivered right after he spoke. He guessed that wasn’t a coincidence. They probably assumed he’d be expecting a verbal response. Striking while he was talking was too predictable, something he could anticipate. These women knew combat psychology better than most soldiers.
Going for the dagger was out. It was too far and they were too quick. And it was too obvious.
He held up a hand, taking a gamble. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want?”
Before either was able to react, he lunged forward, bat tling through the pain in his leg, and threw himself at the redhead. He lowered his shoulder into her abdomen and drove her back across the sidewalk. He yanked on her legs and rammed her into the side of the black sedan. He heard the back of her head smash the passenger window.
The woman let out a yelp. Her hands shot to the sides of her skull. Hatcher took note. Soliya had said they were almost impossible to kill. But apparently they could be hurt.
Three moves, and quick. He knew every effective technique consists of three parts, and that each has a corresponding action. Balance, control, execution. With her weight back against the car, he pulled her arm across his chest and threw his own over it, pinning it against body. He grabbed hold of her wrist and spun, pulling on it, forcing her body to arc around his. Simple geometry. The circle she traveled had to be much faster than his, since he was turning in place. She slammed against the car, face-first this time, and he maintained control of her arm, barring it at the elbow.
She had absorbed a hard impact, one that he felt vibrate through her bones. He was surprised she hadn’t dropped her baton, but didn’t have time to dwell on it.
Behind him, he knew the other woman would be ready to attack. Using the car, he braced himself, readying a side kick. Properly executed, a side kick could be devastating. It was actually a misnomer, since a perfect side kick was more to the rear than the side, a natural angle that allowed the full thrust of the quadriceps to power it. He was situated perfectly for one, as he’d hoped to be. He glanced over his shoulder, weight shifted, muscles loaded, set to fire out.
The brunette hadn’t moved. She stood in a battle-ready type stance, broken down, like a defensive back. Watching. Before he had a chance to ask himself why, he felt the redhead push off the car. His weight moved back more than a body width, despite pressing against her as hard as his muscles would allow. Goddamn, this is one hell of a strong chick.
Then she put a foot against the car door and flipped backward, her lower body arcing over his head.
Against his chest, he felt the pop of her shoulder as it dislocated. Her knee smashed into the side of his head, dazing him. He backpedaled, trying to maintain his grip on her arm. A jumble of sensations bounced through his skull and he had to fight to keep his balance. He was unable to follow her movements as she flipped again, forward this time, and there was no way to react in time when in almost the same move she speared one leg behind his and another across his chest. She twisted, her weight supported by his body, and Hatcher crashed onto the sidewalk, the back of his head knocking the cement.
Pain shot into his eyes, hot, battering waves of it, bringing dark flashes as he squeezed them shut and the muscles of his face clenched into knots. He gripped the back of his skull with both hands, realizing too late he had let go of her arm to do so.
He managed to open his eyes to a squint and saw her push her shoulder back into its socket.
Combat had taught him many things, not the least of which was that the brain is the most important weapon. Without a functioning one, everything else in the arsenal was useless. He scrambled to get his working again, trying to focus, to shake off the dizziness and the knifing ache. His instincts told him he had seconds before a kill strike. A binary situation. Act or die.
The sound of a baton slashing whistled nearby. He flinched, instinctively covering up. Nothing. He glanced up at the redhead and saw she was looking past him. More noises from behind. Moving as little as possible, he angled his body so he could see what was going on, not wanting to take his eyes completely off of the redhead with her so close.
He looked just in time to see the brunette rip her baton across the throat of the large black man who’d been following him. It split the flesh of his neck wide. Blood began to drip down his sweatshirt. The gash was deep enough to open an artery, which meant the guy was as good as buried. Hatcher eased his feet beneath him, still trying to clear his head, still blinking, watching the man bleed. The redhead seemed to have lost some interest in him.
As strange as things were, he realized something even stranger was happening.
Sweatshirt guy wasn’t reacting. He wasn’t grabbing at his throat, wasn’t dropping to the ground. He wasn’t even bleeding that much. The only thing he was doing was keeping his eyes trained on the brunette.
Then he launched his body at her, pouncing, surprisingly quick for a big man. The brunette seemed agile enough to avoid him, but she lowered another blow across his skull instead. It sliced a huge wound spanning the side of his head and face. In hindsight, Hatcher realized it was a tactical blunder, because the man kept coming. He managed to grab a fistful of hair and wrap an arm around her waist, before dropping like an anvil and rolling on top of her.
Hatcher strained to unscramble his thoughts. This didn’t make any sense. Was this guy trying to protect him?
The redhead suddenly turned to him. Hatcher pushed himself up against the car, knees bent, trying to find the energy to dive at her. Before he could, she cocked her arm to the side, baton bending in the direction of the move, and took a step toward him, whipping the baton diagonally, a hard, thrashing blow to the side of the neck. He ducked, a moment too late.
Only the strike never reached him. It took Hatcher a few beats to realize that another body had insinuated itself between him and the woman, absorbing the sharp snap of the baton. The slash of it ripped off an ear and part of his cheek. The redhead followed up with a wheelhouse kick to the side of the man’s head, knocking him face-first to the concrete.
It was the derelict sailor guy. Without a noticeable pause, sailor guy got back to his feet and turned to face the redhead, his back to Hatcher. Hatcher could see his ear dangling by a sliver of skin, bobbing around his shoulder. The woman delivered another lash with the baton. A splatter of blood exploded from the man’s face and his yachting cap fell to the sidewalk.
Like the other one, homeless sailor guy didn’t seem to react. Didn’t make any noises, didn’t throw his hands to his face. He just moved to place himself firmly between the redhead and Hatcher.
The man smelled horrible. His open coat swung when he moved. Sticking out of the side pocket of his coat was the neck of a bottle. Hatcher’s eyes fixed on it. A weapon. He grabbed hold of it and tugged it free. Vodka, it looked like. Almost empty.
The woman delivered another roundhouse kick to the man’s head, knocking him to the side. Hatcher sprang forward as soon as the opening appeared and landed a solid blow with the meat of the bottle against the side of her head.
Her head snapped to the side, but slowly righted itself. She launched another baton strike at his knee, but Hatcher saw this one coming and blocked it with the bottle. The glass exploded on impact.
The redhead’s hands bounced to her ears, and she let out another yelp, this one more like a scream. She opened her eyes and stared at Hatcher, who was still holding the dripping remnants of the broken bottle.
Stepping back, she held Hatcher’s gaze until the last second, then shot a look down at the brunette, who was struggling beneath the massive girth of the guy in the sweatshirt. The man pushed himself off her, pinning her down with a forearm across her chest. One of his shins was across her leg. She was kneeing him to the head viciously with her other leg, but he didn’t seem to care. Or notice.
There was something in his hand. Elbow buried against the brunette’s throat, the big man raised it above his head. Hatcher realized it was the dagger. The man was holding it by the base of the blade instead of the handle, with only a few inches protruding from his fist. The cloth it had been wrapped in lay in a bundle on the sidewalk not far away.
The redhead threw out a hand. “No!”
Sweatshirt plunged the dagger straight down into the brunette’s stomach, tearing open a wound. Then he dropped the dagger and looked like he was about to thrust his hand inside of it. Probably would have, if the redhead hadn’t delivered a semi-airborne foot stomp to the side of his head, knocking him off balance. The brunette managed to roll free and stand. She was clutching her stomach in a way Hatcher had seen before, several times. Someone trying to hold his guts in.
The redhead bent down to pick up the dagger, but the big guy had already rolled back and slapped a huge, black paw over it, just as homeless guy jumped on her back. She shrugged him off and kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling, then turned back and raised her baton, ready to take sweatshirt’s head off. Hatcher took an unsteady step, taking his weight off the car, his shoes crunching over bits of glass. He lost his balance a bit and put a hand back on the window.
Baton cocked, the redhead stopped and shot a look over her shoulder. The whine of a siren grew in the distance. Her eyes left Hatcher and made a circuit, taking in the scene. Homeless guy was getting back to his feet a few yards away. Sweatshirt had pulled the dagger in close. She glanced at the brunette. The woman was still doubled over, but had a surprisingly game look in her eye. The redhead finally looked back at Hatcher.
She stood like that for a pregnant moment, exchanging looks with the brunette. The siren was closer now. Throwing one final stare Hatcher’s way, the redhead took off running, smashing a shoulder through homeless guy and sending him to the pavement again. The brunette immediately followed, almost as fast even with one hand still pressed against her abdomen. Hatcher watched them dart around a corner.
The siren sounded very close as they disappeared from view, but quickly started to fade after that. It seemed to pass one or two streets over.
Hatcher managed to stand and, with some effort, keep his balance. He surveyed the area, then walked over and pried the large man’s fingers from the dagger pinned to his chest and rewrapped it in the cloth. Sweatshirt and homeless guy lay on the sidewalk, motionless.
Hatcher didn’t bother to check them. The men were dead. He’d known it long before the fight had ended. It hadn’t been too hard to figure out.
Multiple blows to the head, kicks to the face and chest, and neither of them had blinked once. Not even homeless sailor guy, who still had a shard of glass sticking out of his eyeball from his first nosedive into the pavement.
Wyszukiwarka
Podobne podstrony:
quin?81101129081 oeb?9 r1Blac?80440337935 oeb?8 r1de Soto Pieniadz kredyt i cykle R1Pala85515839 oeb toc r1mari?81440608889 oeb?9 r1Pala85515839 oeb?6 r1Thom?80553904765 oeb?4 r1knig?81440601187 oeb fm3 r1Bear53901087 oeb qts r1byer?81101110454 oeb?2 r1knig?81440601187 oeb?0 r1Lab2 4 R1 lab24anon?81101003909 oeb?6 r1Bear53901826 oeb p03 r1byer?81101086520 oeb?0 r1knig?81440601187 oeb?1 r1R1 1schw?81101134702 oeb fm1 r1więcej podobnych podstron