Jack took a deep breath.
Aedan saw those flames flare up. In a moment of panic he covered Jack’s mouth with one hand and grasped at the demon’s fingers with the other, trying to draw some breath into a throat that was squeezed shut.
The demon exhaled and flames shot from between Aedan’s fingers.
He could feel his palm burning, smell the skin melting. He jabbed his extended finger into Jack’s eye, forcing it back as deep as he could reach.
Springheel clawed at the back of Aedan’s hand, scratching it but also freeing his neck. He jumped up and kicked Aedan in the side of the head with his injured leg.
Gasping for breath, Aedan went with the force of the kick, rolling sideways and to his feet. He pulled the other switchblade and slipped a set of brass knuckles over his burnt and swollen left hand. Blisters popped and the pain throbbed as he squeezed his fist closed around the weapon.
Jack laughed, pulling the switchblade from his leg.
The hunter stepped towards his prey.
Jack did a little bow and, cackling again, jumped away.
Aedan followed, and this time he gradually gained on the demon. He ran after the bounding fiend, and only then did he realize that people were watching them, trying to follow them. Cameras flashed and everyone he passed seemed to be holding up their cell phones to record the spectacle.
“Shit,” Aedan hissed as he followed Jack into Sloane Square.
“Gather round!” Jack screamed. “The show is about to begin!” He bounced forward once more and then sprang back, catching Aedan off guard and knocking him to the ground with a kick to the chest.
“Ever fought with an audience, hunter?” Jack asked.
Aedan stood. He felt like his energy was running out of a hole in his side, as if the broken rib had popped him and all the air was spewing from the tear. He took a deep breath, the expanding of his lungs pressing outward on his ribs and making the pain flare up.
Aedan let that pain wake him. Even if his energy ran out, the pain would drive him.
Springheel lashed out, and Aedan smacked the demon’s clawed hands out of the way and threw a hook punch that cracked the bone in Jack’s cheek. He kicked Jack in the stomach and then in the face. He slashed at Jack’s sinister grin with the switchblade.
Jack was breathing heavily now, flames sputtering from his mouth at the end of every exhalation.
Aedan attacked, throwing a flurry of punches and knife jabs. He caught Jack in the ribs with the knife, then hit him in the same spot with the brass knuckles.
Jack jumped back and then sprang forward, driving his knee into Aedan’s chest.
Aeadan took the shot, used it as an opportunity to stab the knife into Springheel’s uninjured knee, driving the switchblade in under Jack’s kneecap and then wrenching the blade sideways.
The demon howled and stumbled back.
Aedan’s eyes narrowed. The part of him that had been so concerned with his legacy, the part that had been confused about Nikoletta and that missed his father, the part that longed for the past or wondered about the future had shut down. He existed only in the present. Only his strength and pain and opponent were real. Only the weapons in his hands and the weapon that was his body mattered. The demon’s weak points were his only concerns.
There was only the hunt, and Aedan was only a hunter.
He threw himself at Springheeled Jack, throwing punches to the demon’s face with both hands, pounding the brass knuckles on his burnt left hand and the bony knuckles of his right fist—still wrapped around the switchblade’s handle—into Jack’s fiery eyes and over-wide mouth.
The metal across Aedan’s fist broke the demon’s nose and the next punch crushed the bone to splinters. Jack growled and Aedan cracked his front teeth with another punch.
The demon scratched at the hunter, but Aedan blocked with his left hand, slid in close, and plunged the knife blade into the demon’s right eye. The glowing orb burst in a cloud of foul smelling smoke.
Jack screamed, the dual sounds of a pig’s squeal and a roaring peel of thunder.
Aedan kicked the side of Jack’s knee. It buckled and the demon fell onto the ground on his back.
More of Aedan’s mind shut down. He no longer felt the pain of his broken rib or burnt hand. He could not recognize his own exhaustion, nor could he register the flickering of camera flashes from the crowd that had gathered around them.
The hunt was over. It was time for the kill.
Springheel kicked at Aedan, and the hunter caught the weak attack and brought his elbow down on the already wounded knee, bending it back with a loud crack.
Aedan threw a sweeping kick, driving the steal toe of his boot into Springheel’s side. Then he threw another. Then he threw a similar low kick into the demon’s head.
He straddled the demon and fell to his knees. He sat on Springheel’s chest and pounded down into his face, driving his knuckles into it again and again, breaking bones, tearing the clammy, inanimate-looking skin.
When Aedan paused for an instant, Springheeled Jack smiled, blood smeared across the front of his broken teeth, and said, “I’ll be back,” in a voice thick with his own swallowed blood.
“And we’ll kill you again,” Aedan growled, plunging the switchblade into the demon’s remaining eye.
Jack’s whole body exploded into a puff of acrid smoke, one that smelled of burnt skin and excrement. It burst up around Aedan, covering him in greasy soot.
Aedan stepped out of the cloud and saw the crowd of people filling the square, the blinding strobe effect of hundreds of camera flashes.
As reality returned, so did his body’s pain. He just wanted to go back to his room and nurse his wounds. He pushed the blade of his knife back into the handle.
People began to close in around him…
Aedan had never been in such a situation before. He didn’t know what to do. He ran, and the crowd, not knowing what to make of it, parted to stay out of his way.
He sprinted, ignoring the burning in his ribs and the stabbing pain that made it impossible to take a deep breath. He ran and he put distance between himself and the crowd. He turned off King’s Road, headed a few block up a side street, and then turned again. Without thinking, he headed for Hyde Park. He ran into the darkness, the pursuing mob far behind him, and hid, nestled in a dark shadow, and caught his breath.
He waited there for a long time, until the curious people gave up searching for him. Aedan figured that most of them didn’t really want to find him.
He went back to the hotel then, and took a hot shower, washing away the greasy remnants of the demon and the blood and dirt from the fight. Then he fell into bed and passed out.
He slept well into the afternoon. Then he groaned as he got out of bed, his arm pressed against his side, as if to cradle the broken rib. His left palm was covered in blisters and scabs, and the back of his right hand had several long gashes across it. He walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There was the ring of a dark bruise circling his neck, dotted with crusted-over wounds where Jack’s claws had been driven into it. A bruised lump protruded from the side of his head.
Aedan lifted up his shirt to see bruises covering his chest and an especially dark and large splotch over his broken rib.
He made his way up the stairs and to the door to the hall. When he opened it, he found two papers there: the regular morning edition and a special edition that had come out later.
He hissed as he leaned down to pick them up.
The headline on the first said Like Something from a Comic Book over a grainy, black-and-white picture of Aedan and Jack, the hunter’s fist against the demon’s face. Aedan shook his head and flipped the papers so he could see the special edition. Authorities Call Sloane Square Battle Hoax the front-page headline announced.
“Thank God,” Aedan mumbled. Amazed and thankful for the lengths to which people would go to disbelieve what didn’t fit into their world, he closed the door and dropped the papers into the t
rash.
He thought about eating, but wasn’t sure he was up for a meal just yet. He decided he’d get dressed and get a taxi to the London House. There he’d fill out his reports and then he’d go straight to Heathrow to catch a plane back home.
Mason opened the door and smiled at Aedan. “Leave it to an American hunter to make all the city’s biggest papers.”
Aedan smiled back. “People are already telling themselves it was fake…some sort of show.”
“Yes, and thank God for the stupidity of the authorities that they would make such a claim based on such little evidence.” Mason stepped aside to admit Aedan and then closed the door.
“What evidence?”
“Apparently, when Springheeled Jack exploded, he left behind some sort of residue. I believe the man interviewed called it an unidentified film of some sort, which he said suggests Hollywood style special effects were used.”
Aedan shook his head.
“Pardon me for saying so, but you look terrible, Mister Halloway. We have a medic on the premises. I insist that you see her before anything else…”
Aedan’s ribs had been taped, his burned hand cleaned and wrapped in gauze. There was a thick bandage covering the back of his right hand. Mason gave him a grey scarf—muffler he’d called it—to hide the bruising and wounds on Aedan’s throat.
The hunter looked almost normal as he boarded the plane bound for Newark. The people around him assumed he’d been involved in some minor accident.
Aedan was eager to get home. He’d heal better at the New York house. He’d rather deal with Lucas’ ceaseless jabs about being in the paper and Father Stephen’s overly concerned offers to help with things… He’d have too much time to think if he stayed in London. Far too much time…
He put his head back and closed his eyes. He tried not to think of her, and again he failed.
Marc Sorondo lives with his wife and children in New York. He loves to read, and his interests range from fiction to comic books, physics to history, oceanography to cryptozoology, and just about everything in between. He’s a longtime student and occasional teacher. For more information, go to MarcSorondo.com.
Weapon of Choice
Paul Starkey
The operation was carried out with military precision.
There were three routes the prison van could take, and the decision as to which one to use wasn’t made until a few minutes before they left Blackmarch Prison. This was done to limit the possibility of the transport being intercepted by an overzealous relative of one of the victims (several had made very public threats) or the press.
In the end it didn’t matter, because the man who’d orchestrated the operation paid a lot of money for the details of all three options, and then paid even more to have an ambush prepared along each route.
At 09:45 the prison van drove through what the driver thought was just a large puddle across the road, but beneath the surface lay a stinger, and the tires were shredded.
Even as the van slewed to a halt, machinegun fire from a nearby copse of trees mangled the motorcycles beneath the two police outriders. Amazingly both survived, but it would be almost a year before either would walk again.
At 09:46 a distress call was sent from the van. A state of the art jammer ensured it was never received.
At 09:47 a half-dozen men in ski masks carrying automatic weapons surrounded the van. Two kept watch whilst the others split into pairs. The first pair used a small shaped charge to blow the lock on the driver’s door. When they wrenched it open they discovered a sliver of shrapnel had severed the driver’s femoral artery, spraying the cabin red. They left his body where it was.
The second pair planted another charge on the rear door. When the doors were pried open they found two prison guards on their knees, hands raised, terror in their eyes, and a single prisoner who looked amused.
By 09:50 the two guards, along with the two wounded outriders, had been hooded and handcuffed, and the prisoner had been bundled into the back of a transit van. The prisoner, unhooded but manacled, felt the sharp sting of a needle as it was jabbed in at the base of the skull, just before the doors of the van were slammed shut.
The drug was calculated to knock an average person out for twelve hours, and whilst the prisoner was anything but average, the doctors had assured the man behind the operation that it would knock even Arnold Schwarzenegger out for at least eight.
At 10:00 the prison van missed its prearranged check-in and a search was instituted.
At 10:07 a police helicopter spotted the crashed vehicles and the alarm was raised. By this time, the transit van had been abandoned and the prisoner was in the boot of an Audi hurtling down the motorway at eighty miles an hour toward an airfield.
At 11:00 a nationwide hunt was begun, and police officers flooded ports and airfields. But the plane carrying the prisoner was already well over the channel…
Caroline Duggan woke with a pounding headache to find herself locked in a featureless little room that contained only a mattress and a bucket. It was three days before they came for her.
Her only sense of time was based on the rise and fall of the sun shining through a tiny slit of a window, too high for her to reach. She’d awoken dressed in grey paper overalls of the type she was all too used to wearing. The paper covered her modesty but was of little further use, tearing strips off to make a noose or a weapon was pointless, and there was similarly no bedding on the mattress.
Not that she needed any—the room was warm, a stifling heat that it took her some time to acclimatize to and she was certain she was no longer in England. Food and water were delivered three times per day by one of two men. The men looked similar enough to be brothers, and though neither ever spoke, they had the look of Italians, or maybe Greeks.
One carried a plastic tray whilst the other covered her with a 9mm Beretta, and when one meal was dropped off the remains of the previous one were removed. The bucket was replaced, whether she’d made use of it or not.
The meals were bland; fruit, vegetables, bread and rice, though once they bought pizza. Each meal came with two bottles of water. Caroline was smart enough to keep some back, creating a little store, just in case. If they noted this they didn’t do anything to prevent her stockpiling further.
She thought about trying to escape—there were only ever the two of them and only one was an immediate threat; there was no cutlery but the tray was tough enough to make a weapon, plus she had her hands… But she resisted the idea. She doubted they had sprung her from one prison to lock her in another indefinitely, and if they were going to kill her she wouldn’t have woken from the drug, so they wanted her for something. She decided to wait a while and see what it was.
On the third morning, just an hour after they’d brought breakfast, the two men returned. This time both had pistols leveled at her.
“Come with us,” one of them said, his English was broken but coherent; the accent suggested she had been right—definitely Greek.
They led her out of her room and up a flight of stone steps that were refreshingly cool against her bare feet. Both stayed behind her, a tactical error in her eyes as one faked slip could send them tumbling down the stairs while she made a run for it. This tallied with her assessment of them so far, the slumped shoulder and crumbled clothes, dirty jeans and creased shirts, the casual way they held their guns. Amateurs.
Of course amateurs could still be dangerous.
It soon became apparent that she was in a large villa, and that her cell had been in the basement. The building was light and airy, the architecture definitely Mediterranean. Windows were open everywhere—it was a security nightmare—and from outside a warm breeze did little to cool the air, whilst cicadas chattered from the nearby trees.
She saw no other people until she was led into a huge dining room. At the far end large patio doors were flung open revealing a wide, sun-bleached patio. There an old man sat laughing with a child in his lap.
As he saw her approach he said
something in Greek—she recognized the language if not the words, although she picked up the name Tabitha. The little girl, no more than five or six, kissed the old man on the cheek and clambered off his lap before running into the house, past Caroline.
She giggled as she looked at Caroline’s paper clothes. Caroline’s fingers flexed.
“Please, sit,” said the old man, his English polished. He was sat on one side of a white metal table, and he gestured to a chair opposite him.
As she sat down Caroline admired the view. Wooden steps led down from the patio to a narrow beach, the sand was a deep brown, and sunlight reflected off sea-polished pebbles. Azure waves gently lapped at the shoreline. A small wooden jetty reached out from the beach, and tied up at the end were two small motorboats bobbing gently with the tide.
The sea stretched towards the horizon, and the only sign of life was a small island, perhaps a couple of miles from shore. Caroline could make out a beach, and green hills, but little else. Birds circled overhead in a cloudless sky that seemed to be in competition with the sea to see which could be bluer.
As she sat she became aware of the two young men—and their pistols—taking up positions behind her.
“Please don’t mind Yanni and Jayson,” said the old man sensing her unease. “They are under strict instructions that you should come to no harm.” His face darkened. “Unless you try and harm me, of course.”
Caroline smiled. “My reputation precedes me,” she said.
He sat back in his chair. She couldn’t decide upon his age, his skin was weathered and lined, like an old seadog’s, but his eyes possessed a youthful vigor. He might be seventy, he might be fifty, she couldn’t decide.
“Yes it does,” he nodded. There was a buff folder on the table, held down by a green beer bottle, but it seemed he already knew the contents off by heart. “Caroline Duggan, aged thirty-two, formerly a serving member of the British Army, the Royal Military Police.”
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 30
