He glanced at her. “That a fact? What are ya gonna do, cop?” He pulled his knife -the same big bowie knife he’d threatened me with that first night- and touched it to her cheek. Gen glared at him, squeezing her long eyelashes together as he drew the blade across her cheek. The tip of the knife made the slightest cut, and a dribble of blood trickled down her jaw. Gen didn’t move, or even make a sound.
“That’s what I thought,” Zak said. “Yer gonna keep yer mouth shut and do what I tell ya to.”
“Hey, Boss!” said a hobgoblin in the hall. “We found their truck out back.” He tossed the keys, and Zak snatched them out of the air. He jingled them for a second and then jammed them in his pocket.
“Can this day get any better?” he said with a sneer. “Maybe me and the cop will go for a ride after I’m done chopping you up, Mossberg. How’s that sound, honey?”
Gen made a retching sound and spit in his face. Zak’s features twisted up as he wiped the spittle away with the hem of his muscle shirt. “Yer gonna regret that later,” he said in a menacing voice. “...And as for you,” he said, turning back to me, “I think it’s time we finish this.”
Zak made a slicing motion with the knife, mocking the action of cutting my throat. My hand shot out. I grabbed him by the wrist and his eyes went wide. He jerked, trying to pull away, but I squeezed. I could sense the panic rising in him, the realization that no matter how fast his friends got to me, I could kill him first. Their guns came up, but they couldn’t shoot. Not with the two of us so close together. They might shoot Zak.
I squeezed a little more, and felt the satisfying crack! of his wrist breaking. Zak screamed. He dropped the knife and yanked hard on his arm. The others came forward, pushing the barrels of their guns right into my face. A split second before he passed out, I released my grip. Zak was swooning with dizziness, eyes blinking as he struggled to hold on. He took a step back, the others jumping forward to steady him as his knees buckled. He brought his right arm close to his body, protecting the wound. His right hand hung limp at the wrist. Tremors of pain visibly shook him as he doubled over.
Zak stood there a few seconds getting himself under control. When he could finally breathe again, he straightened up, glaring at me. I glanced at Gen. She had a wicked grin on her face.
“Somebody give me a gun!” Zak demanded.
A hobgoblin helpfully offered up his AK-47. “Not that, you idiot!” Zak shouted. He shoved it away, and pulled the sidearm from another goblin’s holster. He held the weapon up in his left hand, testing the weight. He turned to face me.
“You know Hank, you just made things a lot harder on yerself. I’m a pretty good shot with my right hand, but this...” he waved the gun in the air. “This is gonna be long, and messy.”
He leveled the gun, lining up the sights. Even from a few yards back, I could see that he was aiming at my right shoulder not my chest or head. I could already see how it was going to play out. He’d shoot me in the arms, the legs, maybe cut on me for a while. He wanted me to suffer.
Good, I thought. It would buy me some time. Maybe the others would figure out where we were and come to the rescue. Yeah, right. I’d be dead long before that happened. But maybe I could buy Gen some time. Maybe she’d figure a way out of there while Zak was concentrating on me...
Zak squeezed the trigger. The kaboom! of gunfire rattled my ears, and I heard and felt the zip of a bullet by my ear. The projectile had missed me by a few inches at most. Zak winced visibly. The pistol in his hands was a decent caliber -ten millimeter- and he was shooting it one-handed. Not good for a small-boned fae creature. Too much of that, and the idiot would break his other wrist, too.
Zak wiped the look off his face and forced it into a grin. “Ooh, that was close,” he said, waving the gun in front of me. “I’m better at this than I thought. Let’s try again!” He lined up the sights, this time bringing his aim a little more inside. I could see that he was going to hit me this time. Unfortunately, his aim was so unsteady I couldn’t be sure if he’d hit my shoulder or plug me right in the chest.
While he was trying to line up the sights, a strange glow filled the hallway behind Zak. I gave Gen a perplexed look. Somebody in the back of the room gasped. Zak frowned. He lowered the gun, turning to face the hall, and said, “What are you idiots-”
He was cut off by the sound of a scream. There was a blast of machinegun fire immediately followed by a chorus of desperate shouts, and a scramble of bodies pushing into the library. The entire group of Peacekeepers came plowing into the room. Gen and I toppled to the floor. Zak went bouncing by and disappeared in the crowd.
There was an ear-shattering wail in the hallway. This time, it wasn’t a Peacekeeper. The mind-rending shriek made my head instantly feel like it was in a vice. I caught my breath, reaching for the pain in my skull. All around us, the Peacekeepers put their hands to their ears and dropped to their knees. The piercing sound drowned out everything else; every noise, every sensation, every thought. If I’d been in my right mind, I could have walked out of there and nobody would have moved to stop me. Unfortunately, I was in just as bad shape as they were. None of us could move or do anything but wait for that horrible, skull-splitting torture to stop.
When at last the sound faded, it took us all a few moments to come back to reality. I rolled over on my side, looking for Gen. She was on the ground a few feet away. A trickle of blood was running out of her nose.
“Banshee,” she said under her breath.
I nodded. The doorway lightened behind us, and the creature appeared. The ghostly white apparition was brilliant; so bright that I couldn’t force myself to look straight at her. A quick glance told me that she was elfin in appearance, with long, pointed ears and a lithe, feminine form. I couldn’t make out any other details.
She floated into the room, her feet hovering about two feet off the floor. She passed over a few bodies, and slid between us. The Peacekeepers made helpless moaning sounds. They were no longer concerned with us. A few more minutes of that banshee’s wailing and we’d all be dead. The sound of a banshee cry is so powerful that it can literally shake internal organs apart. If she kept it up, it was only a question of whether the internal bleeding would kill us before our minds turned to mush.
“Go!” I said to Gen in a whisper. “Get out, I’ll slow her down.”
She gave me a look like I was nuts. I moved, trying to reach out to her to get her going, and my hand struck something hard. Dust rose in the air as chunks of clay and dirt scattered. There, on the floor next to my hand, I saw the box Siva had left as a gift. I glanced at Gen. Her eyes were wide. She mouthed the words “Open it!”
I pried the lid back. Inside, I saw a dozen little orange foam earplugs. My jaw dropped. Siva must have known... Of course she did, I thought. She knew I would come, that’s why she left the message for me. And she knew about the banshee, because she put it there! Siva foresaw everything. She had known about the attacks, about my death, even about my return. At that moment I was more in awe of her powers than I had ever been.
I dumped the entire box into the palm of my hand. Gen instantly recognized the earplugs for what they were. She snatched a pair out of my hand, and scrambled to get them in her ears. I did the same. It was a little frantic, trying to manipulate those tiny pieces of foam in my big fat fingers. I dropped one, and went for another. I twisted it up between my thumb and forefinger. As I jammed it into my ear, the banshee started up again.
I heard screams all around me as her wail took effect on the Peacekeepers. A split second later, they went quiet and I could hear nothing but that mind-destroying screech. I tumbled forward with one ear plugged and the other wide open. I saw red in my vision, like blood filling the room. I felt dizzy. I was starting to lose consciousness, and I couldn’t do anything about it. My eyes rolled back in my head and I blacked out.
A moment later, my eyelids fluttered open. I was still in the library, still surrounded by Peacekeepers. I couldn’t hear anything except for a
dull throbbing pulse, like my head was full of cotton candy. The room seemed to spin for a moment. It gradually settled into place. Gen appeared, her face hovering over mine. Blood trickled from her nose and from the wound on her cheek, and blood rimmed her eyes. She slapped my cheeks, trying to wake me. I blinked.
“It’s okay,” I said in a daze. I couldn’t hear my own voice, and I wasn’t sure if I was talking or not. “Okay,” I said again. “I’m okay.”
Gen rose to her feet, gesturing for me to get up. She offered her hand, but I refused. The last thing I wanted to do was knock her out at a time like that. I pushed to my knees, moaning as my internal organs screamed. I could no longer hear the banshee, but her wail continued to have an effect on me. I crawled to my feet. Gen headed for the door ahead of me, but paused as she came across her bow. She yanked it from between the bodies of two hobgoblins, and then kicked one of them on her way out. I went stumbling after her.
Out in the hallway, the walls deadened the banshee’s scream enough to lessen the effect. Gen turned right, heading back towards the truck, but I caught her by the arm. “This way,” I said, motioning towards the front door. “Zak has the keys.”
She nodded. Neither one of us were going back in there for them. We hurried down the hall and out the front door, not even slowing down until we were all the way down to the canal. Even as we climbed into one of the speedboats, Gen and I kept in the earplugs. The banshee may have been a hundred yards away and inside the house, but we weren’t risking it.
I fired up the engine as Gen dropped into the seat next to me. I spun the boat in a quick one-eighty, throwing a wave up onto the shore, and then revved it all the way up. Instantly, we were on a plane and shooting up the canal like a torpedo.
Half a mile away, I finally felt like I could safely remove the earplugs. Gen did the same. The roar of the engine and the rush of wind filled our ears. I heard the crashing sound of water against the bow, and as we entered the canal district, the splashing waves against the stone arches and buildings around us. For a moment, we just let it wash over us.
The sound remained somewhat hollow, as if temporarily deadened by the banshee’s effect. It reminded me of the numb, slightly shaken feeling I’d had walking out of a Black Sabbath concert once. That time, the effect had been temporary. I hoped it was this time, too.
I heard a loud beeping sound coming from somewhere in the boat. I turned my head left and right, trying to discern the source. Gen pointed out that it was coming from my pocket. I reached in and pulled out the two-way radio Tas had given me. I’d forgotten all about it. I eased back on the throttle, and turned up the volume.
“Hank, are you there!” a staticy voice said. “Can you hear me?”
I put it to my mouth. “I’m here. Is that you, Tas?”
“Hank! We have a problem. You have to get back here!”
I glanced at Gen, and her face darkened. I pressed the mic button: “What’s going on, Tas?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the radio. Something terrible has happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was Zane, Hank. Just get back here. We need you, right now.”
“We’re gonna need a ride, Tas. Can you meet us at the canals?”
There was a moment of silence. I almost thought we’d lost contact, until I heard Tas say, very quietly: “Hank, what happened to my truck?”
Chapter 12
When we got back to town, Gen and I left the boat at the mouth of the canal without bothering to tie it off. We climbed the stairs to the street, and Tas came screeching up in his van. Butch was riding shotgun. They stopped just long enough for us to pull the side door open and jump in. We were moving again before I could even close the door.
Once I had it latched, I sat back on the bench and looked at Butch in the passenger seat. He wore a grim expression, with his brow furrowed, and his eyes dark and glaring. Considering his normal personality, it was a little disturbing. Butch didn’t have an angry bone in his body. Something bad must have happened. Something real bad.
“What’s going on?” I said. “What’s the big emergency?”
Butch twisted in the seat to face me. Tas shot a nervous look at me in the rear view mirror. “She went out for groceries,” Butch said in a throaty voice. “That’s all, just groceries.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“They took her,” Tas said. “They took Talia, Hank.”
“Who took her?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
The gnome tapped a button on the dash. A video screen popped down out of the ceiling. As it flickered to life. I saw an image of Zane appear. He was in his penthouse, wearing a robe that was open in the front, exposing his huge gray blob of a gut, and the barely visible straps of his purple silk underwear.
“Good morning, Hank,” he said, grinning into the camera, his one big eye blinking unnervingly. “As you probably already know, I’ve sent my Peacekeepers out to find you. In fact, you might be dead already. However, just in case, I decided to grab a little insurance. This is a reminder of who’s boss.” He gestured at someone off-screen. Zak appeared, dragging Talia into the image. They had her bound and gagged, tied to an office chair. He went on:
“I’m sure you and your little band of merry fairies recognize this attractive young lady. What was her name?”
“Talia,” Zak said.
“Oh, right. Yet another ex-cop. What is it about you and cops, Hank? Anyway, I don’t think I need to explain to all of you what’s going to happen to this sweet little thing if I don’t get what I want.” He pushed her off camera. “This is my message, Hank: I want you back here, in my casino. I want you to come in here on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness for the trouble you’ve caused me.
“Now, don’t be mistaken. This doesn’t mean I’m going to let you live. It’s too late for that. But, if you beg hard enough, I might finish you off quickly. More importantly, I won’t break Talia’s pretty little neck and leave her hanging off my balcony. On the other hand, if you’re not here by midnight tonight, I won’t just kill Talia, I’ll also send my men down to your little hideout with rockets and grenades. When I’m through with your little army of revolutionaries, you won’t be anything but a puff of gold dust blowing in the wind.”
He took a step back, leaning up against his desk. “So that’s the deal. You come in here begging, and I might spare your friends. I might even let this pretty thing go back to her family. But you’re gonna die, Hank. This time, you won’t come back. I’ll make sure of it. Just consider yourself a sacrificial pawn. You have twelve hours before I kill her. It’s your move.”
The video ended, and the screen went dark. A thousand thoughts went running through my head all at once: How had this happened? Had Zane known about Tas and the others all along? Then there was the thought that always goes through my mind at a time like that: This is all my fault.
“This isn’t your fault,” Gen said, reading the look on my face. “You had no way of knowing, Hank.”
I drew my gaze to Butch. His eyes had the glazed, wild look of a man on the edge. “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “I’ll get her back, Butch. I swear it.”
“I know,” he said. He reached down to the floorboards, fumbling with something I couldn’t see. A moment later, he sat up in the seat brandishing a massive battle-axe. The honed edge gleamed under the glow of the streetlights. “Just drop us off out front, Tas,” he said.
Tas glanced at me over his shoulder. He had an exhausted look, and I could tell that he’d been through this argument a dozen times already. He’d probably only managed to keep Butch under control by telling him they’d have to get me first.
“Butch, are you crazy?” Gen said. “Are you trying to get her killed?”
The dwarf glared at her. “If ya don’t wanna go, just say so. Otherwise, keep outta my way!”
I leaned back in the bench. I didn’t know what to tell Butch. How do you tell a man he’s supp
osed to sit by in a situation like that? I understood how he felt. I wanted to go charging in there and kill Zane myself, and Talia wasn’t even my wife.
“What are we going to do?” Gen said. “We can’t just go along with him. If he gets you in that casino alone, he’ll kill you! We also can’t attack him. That’s exactly what Zane wants.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve already been in there, remember?”
Butch twisted around in the seat, sitting on his knees so he could face me. “I’m not gonna leave her there, Hank. If you wanna do that, I’m gonna-”
“No,” I said. “You’re right. We have to do something. But like Gen said, we can’t just go walking in through the front door. We need a distraction, something to catch Zane’s thugs off guard. That’s the only way we’ll get to Talia back safely.”
“What then?” said Butch. “What’s your plan?”
I turned to Tas. “Take us back to the cave. I have an idea.”
“But-” Butch started to object. I silenced him with a wave of my hand.
“You have to trust me, Butch. There’s a way to do this without getting Talia killed, but we have to do it right.”
That pacified him for the moment, but the truth was that I had no plan. I’d just laid out my entire “plan.” It was a plan to come up with a plan. That’s it. If Butch knew what was going on in my head at that moment, he’d have used that axe on me instead of Zane. I had to say it, though. I had to lie to him in order to keep him alive. He might end up hating me for that later, but I had to do it.
The drive took about ten minutes. By then, I still didn’t have a plan, so I told Butch and Tas to go on ahead to the hideout and gather everyone together. They hurried to do this, while I hung back with Gen down at the edge of town, down the hill from the cave. I started racking my brain.
“What are we going to do?” Gen said after Butch was out of earshot. “This is a suicide mission. You must see that.”
“I know. Truth is, I have no idea what we’re going to do.”
A Dame to Die For Page 10
