Bryce fell to the ground, the breath whooshing out of his body. For an eternal moment, it looked like he might lose his grip on the black device, but then he recovered and lashed out with his right foot, catching Darc square in the nose. Darc felt the cartilage crumple and blood streamed from his nose, choking off his breath. His broken arm was twisted underneath him, trapping him in place.
“I have to admit. You’re much more willing to risk destruction than I ever would have thought,” Bryce panted, wiping at his face again as he moved out of reach. “Anyone else would have given up the moment they saw my device.” He sighed. “But really, it’s about time we ended this, don’t you think?”
And then the lawyer’s baton swept down once more, striking Darc in the temple, and darkness swirled up to envelop him in its cool and lightless embrace.
*
Popeye would not stop complaining. He didn’t want to be high up. He didn’t want to be on this big steel bar way up here. He hated it when the wind ruffled his fur. Although he had liked it that she’d drawn him climbing up the Space Needle. That had been pretty cool. But it was different now that he was really up here.
Really, he was such a baby.
Janey understood how he might be scared about being up so high. She was a little bit scared herself. But Trey needed their help, so they just had to ignore the squirmy feeling inside their tummies.
Popeye said that he’d never really liked Trey that much, anyways.
He was such a liar.
Janey and Mala were moving quickly toward the platforms that were set up all along the scaffolding, but when they got there, Janey could see that there was a gate in front of them that had a big lock. Mala was way too big to get through the bars on the gate.
But Janey wasn’t.
Mala wouldn’t want Janey to go by herself. It was dangerous. It was scary. And right now, Mala was holding onto Janey’s hand so tightly that Janey almost thought her hand was going to break.
Janey knew exactly what to do. Before Mala could stop her, she pulled her hand away and slid between the bars. Janey had been right. She was more than small enough to get through.
Mala screamed, “No, Janey! Get back here now!” She reached her hands through the opening, trying to grab Janey’s arm.
But Janey was already on the scaffolding, running along the platform. It was made of big sheets of wood that rattled under Janey’s feet as she ran. It was even scarier than she had thought it would be, but she kept going.
Then there was a big blast of wind that almost knocked Janey over. Her foot slipped and went through a gap between two of the big sheets of wood. She fell to her hands and knees, splinters from the wood jamming into the palms of her hands.
She could hear Mala’s scream from back behind her. That was scarier than falling. Mala wasn’t supposed to scream. The only time Janey had ever heard her Mommy and Daddy scream was when the bad man hurt them. Grown-ups weren’t supposed to scream. Not ever.
Popeye said that he had told her not to come out here.
Well, that made Janey mad. And the mad made the scary almost go away. Not totally, but almost. Enough that she could pick herself back up and keep going.
When she finally got close to Trey, Janey could see that he had slipped even more. It was only his hand holding on to the bar, and it looked like he might fall any second. But he was so far out, away from the wood floors. The wood floors were scary, but the open bars were even worse.
But there was no one else who could help. Mala was too big. Darc was up above. And Trey was going to fall if Janey didn’t help him somehow.
She had to shimmy along one of the pipes, which was really super duper scary, because there was nothing at all below her. There was just the one bar for her feet, and the other one for her hands.
Popeye was saying something about how this was the worst idea ever.
She was about to tell him to shush when another big gust of wind almost knocked her feet off of the bar. Her stomach felt like it did fall, even though she hadn’t.
But then she was right there above Trey and she had to do the scariest thing of all. She lay down on the bar and held on super tight. Then she stuck her leg out.
Trey reached out and missed, then reached out again and grabbed ahold of her leg and swung himself to the next bar over. It hurt really bad for a second, but then he let go and Janey was fine.
When she looked back, Trey was swinging like a monkey, climbing his way over to where there was an opening in the bars. He was safe.
And Janey had helped.
*
Trey couldn’t feel his arms.
Right up to the last moment, he’d been sure that he was going to end up just as Bryce had intended, splatted all over the ground below. Sowing his blood, or whatever the freak the crazy lawyer had been talking about.
He could feel his body wanting to react, to shut down, to start shaking uncontrollably. But he couldn’t let that happen. Not yet.
Mala grabbed him in a big hug the moment he swung himself up onto the platform, squeezing through a small gap in the railing that he’d had to go halfway back to the elevator shaft to find.
“Oh, Trey. I was so scared when I saw you out there,” Mala babbled.
“You were scared?” Trey fired back.
Mala began to laugh through her tears. She had already managed to collect Janey, who attached herself to Trey’s leg like she was never going to let go. Trey had to admit it felt kinda nice.
“Okay, okay,” he finally said, gently extracting himself from the embraces. “We’ve got to get up there and help Darc. He’s out of his depth with that dead man’s switch Bryce’s got.”
“Dead man’s what?”
“Bryce has rigged this entire place to blow, and he’s holding the trigger.”
Mala’s mouth formed a large “O,” even as she began pushing Trey back toward the elevator. It was clear she wanted to get up there as soon as humanly possible.
He started moving back toward the shaft, but then stopped. He realized that Darc would have taken the elevator up to the top.
Dammit.
That meant Trey was going to have to climb stairs. He hated stairs. So very much.
He reached down to pull Janey into his arms, then broke into a trot. At least he’d get a good workout in. It wasn’t like he had gotten any exercise lately. Being chained to a bed didn’t do much for you, cardiovascularly speaking. And it wasn’t that far up to where they were going.
As he ran, he listened as Mala got him up to speed on what had been happening on their end. Darc and she had been working together to figure out what Trey would have seen? That sounded so crazy that Trey almost had to stop running to laugh hysterically. When had Darc ever cared enough to get inside Trey’s brain?
But when they got to the top, it was time to be still and listen and watch. Too bad he was gasping for breath. After a few moments, once his heart rate had begun to approach normal levels, Trey stuck his head out into the main restaurant there in the saucer of the Space Needle, Mala and Janey following right behind him.
And there, about a hundred yards from where Trey was standing, was Bryce. The lawyer had pulled up a chair and was sitting with one leg casually draped over the other. He might as well have been smoking a cigarette or stroking a white cat. He waved at Trey, motioning for him to come closer.
Behind him, Trey heard a gasp. He turned and looked at Mala, whose face had blanched almost white, which for her was a pretty big deal. He frowned a question at her.
“I… He… That…” Mala sputtered. “He asked me out on a date.”
“Mala,” Bryce called out. “I’d been waiting for you. If it weren’t for the fact that you were up here, I would’ve jettisoned out of here and blown this place to bits.” He waved a hand at a heap twenty yards in front of him and off to one side. “You can see that I’ve already had a run-in with Darc.”
Mala cried out and ran to Darc’s side. Trey watched as Bryce’s face hardened, with a quick fl
ash of anger before he managed to smooth it out.
“I see. Is that your decision, then?” the lawyer asked Mala. Mala turned her face up to peer at Bryce, her expression confused. “I built you an apartment. I took care of you.” He pointed a stiff finger at Janey. “I even treated that brat with respect. But when it comes to making a choice, you turn to Darc?” His voice rose up to a near-shriek.
Mala backed away from the crumpled form of the bald detective. “No, that’s not true, Bryce. It’s not true. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
Bryce sucked in his breath through his teeth. “Lies. That’s what it’s been from the beginning. All lies.” He howled out his frustration at the room at large. “Lies to get you away from me. Lies to disguise your betrayal now.”
“No, no, please…” Mala begged.
“I was only waiting for you.” Van Owen straightened the pack on his back. “This would have supported us both. But now it will only see one to the bottom. Goodbye, Mala. Take comfort in the fact that your death will be swift.” He turned and began moving toward the door that led to the outside of the saucer.
Trey could see that this would end in seconds if he did nothing. But what could he do? He had no gun, no weapon that would reach Bryce from where he stood. Any attempt on his part to get near to the attorney would cause him to move faster. And then he would leap off the building and blow the C-4 on the way down.
Okay, so he couldn’t get closer to Bryce, but what if he forced Bryce to get closer to him? An idea blossomed. A terrible idea, but the only one that Trey thought might have a chance of working.
Before he could second-guess himself, Trey called out to the lawyer. “Hey, Van Owen.”
As Bryce turned around, Trey moved to Mala’s side, grabbed her by the shoulders, and planted the biggest, wettest, sloppiest kiss on her that he could muster. He felt Mala’s body tense under his hands, but she must have guessed halfway through what he was doing, as she softened and began to act out a response.
“No!” The cry seemed torn from Van Owen’s throat, as he rushed toward Mala and Trey, his face crazed, his focus intent on separating the two apparent lovers. He pushed over chairs and tables in his frenzy to stop the horror in front of him.
Trey continued kissing Mala soundly until Bryce was steps away from them both. At that point, Trey lunged sideways with no warning, grabbing the device, placing his thumb on the trigger, and ripping it out of Bryce’s hands. Within seconds, the danger to the building had been averted. Trey pressed the black box into Mala’s hand, closing her fingers around the lever.
But that brief moment had given Bryce time to get out his baton. A blaze of white-hot heat ripped down Trey’s back as the rod struck him right in between the shoulder blades. Man, that hurt. Trey felt his vision tunnel for a moment, and then he was scrabbling like a crab off to the side, hoping that he could get away before Bryce could land another blow.
No such luck. Another crack, and the ball of the baton connected with Trey’s collarbone, snapping the small bone there. Trey’s left arm fell limp at his side. He might be able to get some use out of it, but not without the cost of extreme pain.
“He that spareth the rod…” Bryce screamed, kicking over a chair to better get at Trey. Trey lashed out his fist in the direction of the voice, and was shocked when he made contact. There was a grunt, and Trey danced away from the danger, waiting for another blow to land that, thankfully, did not connect this time.
Trey’s mind searched for an advantage, anything that would help to even the odds. He opened his mouth and thrust out the first thing that came to him.
“This is how you treat a rival?”
Bryce stopped in his tracks for a moment. Seeing the response, Trey continued. “So, if you can’t have Mala, no one can. I get that. But you’re not even going to try to take me in a fair fight? How do you expect to win her admiration with that move?”
The attorney glanced over at Mala, a moment of vulnerability showing on his face. “It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t love me.”
“Okay, okay, maybe not,” Trey continued. “But what about you?”
Again, this seemed to give the lawyer pause. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how are you going to respect yourself if you beat me this way?” Trey dug into the weak spot he could feel was there, twisting without mercy. “How can you ever look in the mirror again and think yourself a man? All you’ll see is Mala’s face, staring back at you, silently asking you if she wasn’t worth fighting for in a fair contest.”
A glaze seemed to come over Bryce’s eyes, and he tossed the baton away from him. “Fine. But don’t expect me to break my own bones. No fight is that fair.” He turned to face his opponent.
But Trey was already prepared. He’d been waiting for the right moment to strike, and when he saw it, he leapt forward… and pushed.
It was a simple push. It shouldn’t have been able to do much. And it wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Janey was kneeling right behind the Deputy Attorney, her spine at the level of the back of his knees. Bryce was down on the floor before he could register what had happened.
And Trey gave him no time to recover. Grabbing a steak knife off the table, he slashed the blade sideways, the trachea severed from the vicious cut. A spray of blood splashed into Trey’s face, blinding him for a moment, but he brushed it away.
Bryce had fallen to his knees in front of him, clutching at his neck with his right hand, as blood spurted out from around his fingers. His left hand was extended, pleading with Trey for mercy.
Trey looked for that mercy within himself.
He didn’t find it.
Taking the point of the blade and reversing it once again, Trey opened the homicidal lawyer from his navel to his ribcage, watching as Bryce tried to hold his intestines in with his left hand.
Leaning in close to Bryce’s ear, Trey spoke each word with precision.
“They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Asshole.”
He turned around and saw Mala looking at him in complete shock. He shrugged at her, trying to put a smirk on a face that didn’t want to bend.
“What? I know scriptures, too. Catholic school, remember?”
*
Popeye was swearing.
Janey didn’t know that many swear words, but all the ones she did know, like butt and stupid and fat, well… Popeye was using them.
Mala was stitching up his ear, poking the stuffing back inside every few stitches. And Popeye was screaming at her that he didn’t know what kind of doctor gave her patient stitches without any anesthetic.
Everyone was okay. Well, mostly okay. They were still in the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle, and Darc was awake and holding a napkin from one of the tables to his bloody nose.
Trey was flat on his back, groaning and moaning more than Daddy used to when he would get sick and stay home from work. But Trey was being funny about it.
“Ow!” Trey yelled up at the ceiling. “Ow, ow, owy, ow. You know, I wouldn’t complain if those paramedics got here like now. You know, with one of those little syringes that make things all better.”
Janey giggled, and Trey lifted up his head and winked at her. Then he winced and lay back down right away.
Darc was reading some paper he had pulled out of his jacket. He was looking at Mala with a weird expression on his face, like he wasn’t sure what to do. Darc didn’t ever not know what to do. That was crazy.
But Mala looked up from stitching Popeye and smiled at Darc. “Well, that was one hell of a family outing, wouldn’t you say?”
And Janey wasn’t positive, but it looked like maybe Darc smiled back. It was the first time she’d ever seen him do that. And it was for Mala.
Something about that made Janey feel very, very happy inside.
EPILOGUE
The Master grimaced.
Another soldier in the cause of the cleansing taken down.
It had been inevitable. This one had thought t
oo small, acted too slowly. By the time things began to heat up, the two detectives had been far too close to avoid forever.
But there were others.
There were always others.
It had been a simple plan, really. Find the zealots. The true believers. The ones who would stop at nothing to make, first Seattle, and then the entire world, a better place.
Surprisingly easy, once the process had begun. The markers were clear for any that chose to look for them. A chance phrase here. An overly intense look there.
And then the courting would begin.
That was the real challenge of the endeavor. The courting. It was the riskiest part of the entire process—but also the most fun.
In a very strange way, it was like dating. The thrill of the chase, the flush when the other person began to open up, that red heat when they finally said yes.
And if the answer was no? No matter. There were plenty of soldiers that were willing to take care of the lose ends. And always somewhere else. A sudden “resignation,” a “transfer” or a “long vacation,” and the matter would quietly be dealt with far away from where it could be tracked back here.
It took time, of course, this recruitment process. But that was okay. The cause was just. The workers were willing.
And the Master was nothing if not patient.
Afterword
Thank you very much for continuing with Trey, Darc, Mala and of course, Janey!
If you did enjoy 7th Sin, we'd love to ask you a favor and go back to Amazon and leave a review. We indie authors live and die by our reviews!
We’d also like to enlist your help. If you find any, and we mean any typos, spelling errors or anything funky, please contact us directly at [email protected]. Even though this book has gone through a gazillion edits, we are all only human and your input is greatly appreciated!
Be on the look out for 5th Pentagram this fall! Looking for other great mysteries to tide you over?
Check out the next section for more mystery/thrillers from Carolyn and Ben!
7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Page 31
