Warriors (Gutter Dogs Book 5)

by Carey Lewis

  “Don’t worry about him, he’s having fun. You worry about your own fun,” a voice said in his ear but he didn’t know which side it came from. He looked at the one in front of him. He counted her to be three pews away but she looked further and closer at the same time.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Shiva baby. Just relax. Lundy’s Ladies got you now,” she said, her hair somehow flowing like she was underwater.

  He narrowed his eyes to focus, to think. “Got us now for what?”

  The giggles around him were almost unbearable, feeling like they were going to collapse his eardrums. “For fun baby,” they all seemed to say at the same time.

  Cleon heard the name before, tried searching his mind for the connection.

  “Relax,” he heard someone say, drawing out the word again. He looked up at Shiva, his mind almost making the connection. She wasn’t paying attention to him now, bent over and grabbing something from the floor.

  Looked over to Ajax, saw the two tangled up in each other’s arms. His mind was starting to come back, to see everything clearer. He looked to his left, at Foxy, saw her smile but didn’t trust the look in her eyes. He looked down, saw her midriff under the short jean jackets they all wore. Followed it down, seeing her legs in the torn jeans, followed them down to the combat boots where he saw the butt of a revolver sticking out.

  “The all girl gang,” he said.

  “Protector of men,” the voice on his right said. Now Foxy was trying to kiss him. He felt his head being pushed toward her.

  He managed to fight back, saw Ajax over her shoulder get thrown into the pews, disappeared behind them on the floor.

  “It’s enough ladies,” Shiva said.

  He saw her pointing a revolver at his head.

  “We all chilling here until the cavalry arrives.”

  And then the church doors opened.

  “Saint Catharine, you came back,” Shiva said.

  Catharine stopped at the double doors, looking over the church. Saw Shiva with the gun pointed at Cleon, flanked by Foxy and Coffee. Off to the side was Mercy.

  “Where’s the others?” Catharine asked.

  Cochise saw Cleon, got a huge smile on his face and ran over, saying “I got some news,” apparently not seeing the gun. Catharine heard the noise behind her, sounded like footsteps shuffling, but kept her mouth shut.

  “They’re around. Billie and Rosie are out. Bebe is beside you,” Shiva smiled.

  Catharine looked to her side, saw Bebe walking over, a small revolver in her hand.

  “Thanks for bringing them in, we got most of them now,” Shiva said.

  Cochise turned, “what?”

  “You don’t see the guns?” Cleon asked. “Even I see the guns.”

  “I had nothing to do with this Cochise,” Catharine said.

  “Do with what? Why do they have guns?”

  “I’m out Shiva. Just came to get my stuff.”

  “Oh, honey. You been out for awhile. Guess you can go with them.”

  “Go where?” Cochise asked.

  “Shiva? Think you got other problems,” Catharine said. Shiva laughed until Catharine motioned with her head.

  Shiva turned and saw him, the clown, the one with green hair standing in the back corner, half hidden by a pillar, staring at her. He pointed and Shiva followed it to the other side of the church, moving in and out of the shadows was a yellow haired one. Up top, on the balcony, was a blue haired one. The white haired one came out of the shadows beside Bebe and took her revolver. He looked it over, like he’d never seen one before, then placed it in a balloon, blew it up with a small pump and tied the end. He let go and they all watched the balloon fall to the floor. When the clown looked up, he was sad.

  Catharine saw Ajax stand, yelled “what the hell?” before he picked Mercy up over his head and threw her into the pews. They all looked over at him as he looked around, confused, asked why there were clowns here.

  When Catharine looked back to Shiva, she saw the red haired one, blood running down his costume from his head, the result of the wound Cochise gave him when they fell into the water passage. She was impressed with how quietly they moved, then realized they were only seen when they wanted to be seen.

  “Shiva,” a voice echoed through the church. “Shiva, we told you they’re ours.”

  Catharine turned and saw the gang coming in, the Living Abortions, and stepped to the side. They all looked the exact same - stringy brown hair that hung in front of their eyes, large, stained, hunter green t-shirts with an ‘A’ spray painted on the front that covered their anorexic frames and baggy corduroy pants. They all had a hump in their backs and slouched.

  “Oh shit,” the one said, seeing the clowns.

  And then he threw the flaming bottle in his hand. Shiva ducked as it flew over her head. Her gaze followed the bottle but stopped on the clown behind her, smiling with his rotten yellow teeth that seemed to have too many to fit in his mouth. He put his hands on her shoulders and everyone heard the buzz, saw Shiva shaking like she was being electrocuted, smoke coming from where the clown’s hands were.

  The white haired clown pushed Catharine to the side to show himself to the Living Abortions, put his hands out wide and hissed at them, his hands sparking with blue electricity.

  “Cochise, can you tell me if that fire is real?” Cleon asked, looking at the altar where the bottle exploded. Cochise turned to look and sure enough, there was fire.

  “Yeah, it’s real.”

  Cleon jumped on Foxy, took her to the ground where he started wrestling for the gun in her hand. Coffee drew her gun and started to move toward Cleon but Cochise grabbed her wrist. She yanked it away, bringing Cochise over the pew and onto the floor.

  The blue haired clown jumped down from the balcony and landed on the Living Abortions. He and the white haired one cackled with laughter as they kept reaching to zap them. When one tried to get free, his flaming bottle fell to the back corner, exploded, bringing the rear of the church into flames.

  Catharine saw Bebe struggling to break the balloon with her gun in it, chasing it down the aisle, trying to hit it with her shoe but it kept bouncing away from her.

  The fire on the altar raged, moving along the entire wall at the rear of the church.

  Mercy stood up from being thrown by Ajax, stood up to see the yellow haired clown standing in front of her, smiling. Out of an aerosol can, he sprayed a string of goop into her face. She fell back, prying at it, trying to pull the silly-string off. The clown jumped on her, laughing maniacally, and kept spraying.

  Ajax, for reasons unknown to Catharine, had his arms raised above his head, his hands bent at the wrist. He seemed to be growling.

  She looked at the red haired clown, standing still with Shiva at his feet, the flames burning around him and he stared back at her, smiling ear to ear. That’s when she sprang into action, grabbed the spear resting on a pew, ran over to Cochise, and smashed Coffee across the face with it. She watched him smile at her, like nothing else was going on. Like every moment in time stopped for him when she was around.

  Cleon finally wrestled the gun away from Foxy and stood up. “What the hell Ajax?” looking over and seeing his monster impression. He immediately put his arms down and seemed normal.

  “We’re not doing that?” he asked.

  Catharine heard the crackling of wood, looked up to see the rafters starting to crumble, heard the red haired one laughing. She grabbed Cochise by the hand and started running out with him. Looked back to see Cleon do the same with Ajax.

  They stepped over the clowns zapping the Living Abortions, laughing as they prodded them. She looked back one last time, saw the bloody, red headed clown surrounded by flames, laughing as the building burned down around them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It took Boon driving up and down that damn street two times before he saw the hump on the sidewalk that might be Noah. Got out of the car and looked at him, the guy a mess, seeing limb
s that he was sure weren’t supposed to bend that way.

  He answered his phone, told Mesiah he’s not able to go anywhere, he’s coming back. Knowing how Mesiah didn’t like a lot of talk over the phone, man watched The Wire too much. Told Boon he had to go here and he had to go there. Boon said “I ain’t going nowhere, I’m bringing something back you going to want to see.”

  So he picked Noah up, heard the man’s bones breaking and cracking when he put him in the back seat. Heard the man’s soft moans of pain. He felt bad for him, Noah being the definition of broken.

  Boon got in the car, decided Noah back there didn’t have the time to go the long way, wasting his time on a dirt road a couple times, so he just drove straight back to the dry-docks, curious how Baptist was going to fix him.

  He drove over the wooden plank, got out of the car and hit the button, waited for the door to shimmy on up so he could drive the car through and hit the button on the other side, then drove some more so everyone could get a look at the broken man.

  Boon got out of the car, saw Baptist and Joseph putting the finishing touches on the wall, surprised it didn’t take longer to put that big son of a bitch in the pillar. Joseph was getting a good touch for Spackle.

  Mesiah came over to the car, said “Jesus Christ,” when he saw Noah, Boon thinking he dropped the African accent for a moment. Mesiah called Baptist over as he and Boon started taking Noah out of the backseat.

  “Jesus Christ,” Baptist said when he saw him. They carried him over to the backroom where Baptist did his medical thing, put him on the table that still had blood on it from when they brought Cyrus in.

  “Will he make it?” Mesiah asked.

  Baptist was looking him over, prying open the man’s eyelids to flash a light in there. Then he started poking around his tummy, his ribs, looking at the mangled arm and leg. Boon thinking the man was going to end up in the wall, just like the others.

  “There’s no gunshot wound,” Baptist said, meaning they could take him to the hospital, say they saw him get hit by a truck or something. It came down to Mesiah, see how heartless he was.

  “Who would take him?”

  “I’ll fucking take him,” Baptist said. “Get him back in the car,” had a look on him like there wasn’t going to be an argument. So they picked up the mangled man and brought him back to the car and put him in there. Boon got in on top of him, stripped him of any weapons or anything that would bring trouble. Took the phones out of his pocket. Then Baptist got in the car and left.

  “Jesus Christ,” Mesiah said again, watching the car drive off.

  “What you want I should do?” Boon asked.

  Mesiah took out another cigar filled with weed and lit it. Walked his way up the stairs, up to the office, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Boon followed. Joseph went back to patching up the pillar.

  Mesiah sat down on the chair, blowing a good deal of smoke out of his mouth, his head tilted up in thought. Boon sat in the chair opposite him, toying with the new phone.

  “The Ladies have two of them in that old church over on Townline. Asteria put a message out she’s got the cop and the snitch over at the station.”

  “Got that phone now to call those other two,” Boon held up the piece of plastic.

  Mesiah went back to thinking, all that weed he smoked seemed to make him slow on decisions, so Boon waited.

  “The cop, he tells Asteria to play a song and dedicate it to me. Get Ready by the Temptations.”

  “Telling you he’s coming.”

  “Baptist will be quiet. They’ll hold him for awhile but he won’t talk.”

  “Thought you was going to put Noah in the wall like the rest of them.”

  “Baptist puts his mind to something, there’s no changing it. Let him take Noah to the hospital, he won’t talk.”

  “You thinking the man’s got a way to get to you?”

  “He doesn’t. He can’t.”

  “What you want I should do? You want the Orientals, you want the cop, or you want the ones the Ladies got?”

  “Shiva said the ones they got are young. She can hold them a while longer.”

  “Leaves the cop and the Orientals.”

  Again, Mesiah went into thought, taking a pull from the blunt, let it out slowly.

  “Cop says he’s coming, I don’t see a point of going to look for him. The boy he has, he doesn’t have anything on me. The Cyber Punks might if they’ve been talking.”

  “You think it’ll work again? Call them up, say I’m going to take them to their buddies?”

  “Never hurts to try.”

  Boon took the phone out of his pocket, struggled to unlock it, then went in the contacts list, scrolled down to Gibson and hit the button and waited.

  “Yo homie, your friends want me to bring you to them. Been devising a plan.”

  “What’s this I’m listening to?”

  “I gather from the radio, it’s something called an Asap Rocky. That rumbling you’re hearing in the background? That’s a car.”

  The Boss moved his head closer to the phone on the glass table, said “I can’t hear shit other than this guy saying he likes bad bitches. This is why you came over?”

  They were sitting on the back deck, The Boss enjoying his tea, wearing a checkered bathrobe. There was a bottle of Wild Turkey for Cowboy. Like before, he did a shot and was now sipping from the second. They were listening to the phone, the crickets chirped in the dark yard surrounding them.

  “Now that’s just a handy perk I found while looking through the phone. The icon says it’s called Big Brother.”

  “So what am I listening to?”

  “You’re listening to the phone of the guy I hit with the car. He’s being brought back to the Black Knights the way I figure.”

  That got The Boss’s attention, looked up to Cowboy. “No shit?”

  “Yeah, now see this?” Cowboy slid the phone to himself, brought up another screen and slid it back over to The Boss. “See that red dot? That’s the phone.”

  “It’s tracking him?”

  “Right back to where the hideout is if they’re doing what I think they’re doing.”

  “And we can hear them?”

  “Provided this guy on the radio gets over all his problems, I think we’ll hear them just fine,” Cowboy smiled. “That’s why I came over, thought you’d want a listen.”

  “You thought correctly.”

  “There’s also this,” Cowboy reached over and grabbed the phone.

  “It’s like a Swiss Army Knife with all the things it can do. My first phone was a Nokia.”

  “Battery’s probably still got the charge too,” Cowboy hit a few buttons.

  “You’re not going to lose the call are you?”

  “Found this when I was exploring. All these red dots are the phones this one here can track. This one here,” pointing out one of the dots, “that’s our boy going back home. This one I reckon is the phone from the kids, the one I didn’t take. It’s these two here that are causing me some concern.”

  “Other gang members?”

  “The dots haven’t moved since I found this way of putting them all on the screen.”

  “They’re home in bed?”

  “Think they’re dead. What concerns me is if these dots start moving.”

  “Does that mean they can track this phone?”

  “There’s a chance, but I don’t think the one we’re looking for knows about all this.”

  “But the kids you stole this phone from would.”

  “They’re not the type. He’s doing something.”

  They both listened to the phone. Heard a car door slam, then heard “Jesus Christ,” then the same voice calling someone called Baptist over, then heard another voice say “Jesus Christ,” then some talking and rustling.

  “They’re taking him to the hospital,” The Boss said.

  Cowboy took the phone, looked at the map, pointed at the dot, “that’s where they are. That’s where you’ll find Mes
iah.”

  They listened more, heard Mesiah and Boon talk about what to do. Heard Boon say “thought you was going to put Noah in the wall like the rest of them,” and they looked at each other. Listened some more as Mesiah told Boon to go after the Cyber Punks. And then the phone rang.

  They looked at it, the name flashing Deckard with a red exclamation point. They looked at each other again and Cowboy answered it.

  “Yeah,” listened to Boon, said “where you want to meet?” then listened some more and hung up.

  “You’re going to meet with him?”

  “Might as well have a chat, make sure he doesn’t come after the kids.”

  “Why?”

  “Figure I did enough to them, got to get their car fixed. Besides, he sounds like the muscle if Mesiah’s sending him out. Might want him gone while you decide what to do.”

  When they came out of the radio station, the way Dax was being paranoid, Jamal thought the entire parking lot would be covered in gangs waiting for a lynching. He kept saying things like, ‘we have to go now, they’re coming for us, they’ll be here soon,’ sounding like he was in a horror movie.

  So it was a relief when they opened the steel door and saw only one other car in the parking lot near the back, ready to take off down the road. The only person they saw was the fat guy holding an assault rifle, leaning on Jamal’s car.

  “That’s Max,” Dax said from the top of the metal staircase.

  Jamal took out his phone and got the number from Ray’s text and dialed the number. It rang until Kevin’s voice-mail picked up so Jamal ended the call and dialed again, this time waving at the car at the far end of the lot while the phone rang.

  “With whom am I speaking?” Lex asked.

  “Your buddy’s putting a dent in my hood. I can see it from here.”

  “Boy’s got a weight problem. He tells me it’s glandular.”

  “Tell him he should lean more on the sides where the fenders are. Middle’s the weakest part. There’s no support.”