by LC Champlin
Chapter 23
Tight, Tight, Tight
Let’s Kill Tonight – Panic! At the Disco
The Caucasian male slid into the driver’s seat, grinning as if he’d discovered a pallet of crack cocaine with the winning Powerball numbers atop it.
Three, two, one.
Albin pulled the towel off while wedging his back against the passenger door. It made for a tight fit with his 183 centimeters. “Good evening.” The handgun glinted in the flares, outside the criminal’s reach.
The driver gaped.
“You are going to proceed to the center of the intersection. Is that understood, or am I going too quickly?” He employed the level tone he reserved for interns who couldn’t grasp the concept of punctuality.
“Y-yeah—”
“Yeah?”
“Uh, yes . . . sir?”
“Better.” Outside, buildings gave way to sky over Cyril Magnin Street. “Stop the car. Park it. Next, your weapon and your radio.” Albin held out a hand. “Slowly, unless you want to lose your major joints one at a time.” The .45 flicked toward the man’s right knee.
“Fucker,” the thief muttered as he withdrew a pistol and handed it over.
“Language.” The Springfield settled over the man’s center of mass.
The radio appeared next, without comment.
++++++++++++
Ellipses of tail lights burned as the Bentley rolled toward the intersection.
Private Gangsta Brown slump-bounced at the right as if part of a rap video. Ahead, the Altima finished its three-point and slid from view down Cyril.
“That’s not my car.” Nathan nodded toward the Bentley. “Some people take hotel soap. I take luxury autos.” He eased right a step as he drew the .45. “And you’ll be damned if some shithead punks take it.” Almost to Hotel Fusion.
“The fuck?” Bug-eyed, Gangsta gaped at the pistol under Nathan’s towel.
Bentley brake lights in the intersection.
“Ah-ah. I’d hate to waste the bullet. That’s why,” Nathan plowed on, “you’re going to keep quiet and pretend everything’s normal. We’re going to walk to the car. After you.”
Thirty yards and closing.
Hotel Fusion’s door flew open, spotlight beams streaming across the asphalt. A man half ran, half fell from the doorway to land on hands and knees. “No, no!” he gasped between dry heaves. “Let us go! We can pay if that’s what you want!”
Behind him loomed the silhouette of a male. The kidnapper stepped onto the sidewalk, flare light flickering over his pushed-in features. Hispanic. Jeans, black Giants jacket, do-rag. A pistol flashed in his right hand. He raised the handgun to the back of the escapee’s head. “Your woman’ll be worth a wad, so she’s staying. But your ass is a problem, muchacho.”
Fuckers! Light flared in the back of Nathan’s mind. Fire surged along his spine, down his limbs. Red over his vision. Then he had the .45 to Gangsta’s skull and the man’s left arm twisted up to his neck.
“Stop!” he ordered, Gangsta as a shield. “Drop your weapon and step away, or he dies.”
The semi-auto lowered an inch as its wielder cocked his head to stare at Nathan, then—BANG! Gray matter and flesh splattered the concrete as a bullet blew an exit through the kneeling hostage’s face. The familiar wet thump of meat hitting the ground, like steak slapping a cutting board, followed.
Chapter 24
Fire and Ice
Landmine – Three Days Grace
Nathan’s heart restarted, kicked his sternum as the fire of rage blazed through him. One, two, three, four. Hold. The .45 flicked forward, sight locked over the motherfucker’s face.
A woman’s grief-crazed howl ricocheted around the intersection. The murderer whipped back toward the doorway, in time to catch a hunting knife in the left arm. A second earlier and she’d have hit his carotid. She stumbled back. Her fuzzy sweater sleeves came past her fingertips as she raised her hands in defense.
“Fucking bitch!” The handgun snapped up, under her chin.
Nathan’s heart hammered in his ears almost louder than the gunshot that blew through the woman’s cranium. Mouth open, eyes rolled back, she dropped.
Howls sang in Nathan’s ears as ice swept in to extinguish the fire in his veins. Red lifted and the world came through in HD clarity.
BANG! Recoil pushed the .45 deeper into Nathan’s grip. This time the murderer dropped.
Another silhouette appeared at the doorway, AR raised. “You’re fucked!” the gunman roared.
The 1911 pressed against Gangsta’s skull. “The Buick keys?” Nathan hissed in his ear, dragging the human shield back toward the LeSabre.
“In . . . da car!”
Nathan yanked him left, just before bullets peppered a car to their right. From . . . a gunman in a window above the Italian restaurant.
“Albin, go!” Nathan snapped in his shoulder mic, his back against Puccini and Pinetti’s.
In the intersection, the Bentley’s door swung open and Private Faker toppled onto the blacktop. The door slammed shut. More shots hammered, this time from the Bentley’s open driver’s side window as Albin leaned out. The gunman on the ground dodged back inside as bullets sprayed.
Fire from the sniper pounded the surrounding cars as Nathan zigzagged through debris.
Tires screeched and W12 roared in the intersection, then the Flying Spur’s tail lights vanished down Cyril.
Buick ahead. Nathan ducked around the front and yanked the driver’s door open. Empty ignition. “Keys?” he asked, tone and affect flat.
Private Brown wore a lopsided grin. “Fuck you!”
Gunfire roared through the street, forcing Nathan to take cover. The accomplice in Hotel Fusion picked his way toward the Buick. The yellow in his Golden Gate Warriors windbreaker glowed in the flares.
An improvised pat down of the human shield produced a .38 Smith & Wesson but no keys.
“Get in.” Nathan waved Gangsta into the driver’s seat with the 1911.
The thug complied with a grin. “Yo, you dead meat. You ain’t dealin’ wif—”
Nathan stepped back. The handgun discharged once, twice, into the target’s groin.
“Aaaag! Motherfucker! The fuck—” Blood poured from the femoral artery, soaked jeans and upholstery.
“Thug’s life, Private Brown.”
Chapter 25
Snake Bite
The Draw – Bastille
Albin pulled back into the Bentley and slid the car into gear.
The thief’s companion came in over the radio. “Joe, how’s it going? Was that gunshots or what?”
At Albin’s touch, the Flying Spur glided around wreckage and construction barriers. “Where are you?” If not an exact imitation of the car thief’s voice, he made a passable attempt.
“I stopped just down the street when I heard that shit.” Indeed, tail lights glowed ahead.
The Bentley slid in behind a parked van, which sat behind the Altima. He keyed the HT. “I’m right behind you. Come back here a second. I got an issue.”
“Shit, you can’t deal with it? Fuckboy. I’m coming.” The Altima door slammed.
Gunfire popped like firecrackers from the direction of the intersection. Mr. Serebus would escape. The man had constructed his own shoot house at the upstate retreat, after all, and they used it at least monthly. This, however, wasn’t a practice drill.
Albin opened his door enough to put a foot on the ground.
The thug appeared from around the van. “What the actual fuck, man? We gotta go back and check—”
Albin stepped out of the vehicle, assuming an isosceles stance. “Hands up. Get on your face.”
“What the fu—”
“On your face.”
The man squinted at him, then laughed. “Yeah right.” His hand snaked behind him for a weapon as he backpedaled for cover.
Metal flashed in the enemy’s hand.
The
Springfield thundered.
“Gah, fuck!” The gunman coughed, blood bubbling on his lips and pumping from the hole in his neck.
A poor shot. Grandfather Conrad would have made Albin fire another hundred rounds to improve his aim.
The 1911 kicked again, its report echoing around the man-made canyon. “Much better.” The bullseye to the bridge of the nose would redeem him in Grandfather’s eyes.
Chapter 26
Evolve. Attack. Dominate.
Carnivore – Starset
Weapons discharged to the southwest.
Ten to twenty seconds until the gunman would reach the LeSabre. Nathan crouched at the fuel flap. He twisted off the cap and jammed a St. Regis kitchen rag half down the filler pipe. The cotton ignited with ease.
He sprinted east down Ellis as more bullets chewed into brick, steel, and glass.
Right, down brick-paved Powell, to Hallidie Plaza. High-rises and decorative trees blocked the stars, forming a cavern, while dead cable cars hunched on their tracks to the left.
Fwoom! Light glowed behind him as the concussion rattled streetcar windows, reverberated in his chest, rang in his ears.
“Mr. Serebus,” Albin’s voice crackled over the shoulder mic, “what is your status?”
Nathan slowed to a walk, his reflection a wraith in the storefronts’ plate glass. “I’ll meet you at Hallidie Plaza on Market and Cyril.”
“Yes, sir.”
Just keep moving.
You’ve lost control of yourself and everything around you, doubt mocked. Hell, you never even had it! You’re drunk on killing. And you call yourself a man? A voice with a heavy Greek accent. A voice from seventeen years ago: his father’s.
“Shut the fuck up,” Nathan grated. “Why couldn’t They take you instead?”
Footsteps behind.
Halting, he turned, 1911 rising. A figure stumbled around the corner. Male with an AK, well built but injured; his breath rattled like a wounded beast’s. The light flickered, revealing details: tank top and tac vest, dark hair, goatee.
The man’s AK came up as Nathan’s trigger finger pulled back. Muzzle flare and recoil, but no sound. Then the prey staggered, fell, remained still. Afterimages glowed on the back of Nathan’s eyelids: The aggressor’s face, but it was like looking in a mirror. No, impossible.
The body lay in a heap at the head of the street. Shadow and gore obscured the details. Nathan’s flashlight flicked over the scene. Gold and blue jacket. No vest or tank top. The accomplice from Hotel Fusion.
“Hallucinations?”
His surroundings began to soften. No longer HD-sharp, they resumed their muted colors and vague edges in the dark. Warmth returned to his chest as the ice thawed. Ribs and sternum ached with every breath.
Images jumbled in his mind, a collage of confusion: flames, gore, muzzle flare—He shook his head.
A wave of heat like that from Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace washed over him as the .45 slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the sidewalk. Silence turned into the buzz of a thousand hornets. He tried to swallow, but gagged as nausea engulfed him. The tunnel of ink and shadow spun.
Panting, gulping, he supported himself against a tree. Eyes closed. Blood spraying, bone cracking on tile.
Dry heaves doubled him over.
Gold eyes. Fangs. Jaws.
Another spasm.
Snow. Cold. Stars.
Chills rattled his teeth.
Pack circling. Breath fogging. Heart pounding.
Deep breath. Heat poured over. Sweat ran.
Jaws slavering. Jaws snapping. Jaws lunging.
Legs collapsing beneath him, he pitched forward onto hands and knees. His back arched with more retching. It overcame him, consumed him. He couldn’t continue living in dread of the wolves. But he couldn’t give in—
Blood, raw muscle.
My treasure.
Pain seared through stomach, chest, and throat. Stealing the wolves’ meat? A scavenger’s act, not a man’s. It only invited their retribution.
Howls.
Sirens. No more bargaining, no more appeasing. No use resisting. If they wanted lives, they could take his. If it would end their harrying him, if it would protect Janine, David, Albin . . .
“Come.” Skin for skin.
Shadows slithered and heaved around him. He squeezed his eyes shut. Blood wouldn’t ransom his life anymore after he had been cheating them of their sacrifices for so long.
Not his life but . . . his soul.
“Take . . . it.” What was left of it.
The muscles of his back bunched in a spasm that wrenched a groan. In his raw throat it turned to a growl. His shoulders tensed as cement bit into his hands. His nails dug for purchase as the world spun; tired of him, wanted to throw him into the abyss.
Still kneeling, he sat back on his heels, head back. Stars glimmered through gaps in the foliage. He closed his eyes, and gold orbs stared back from the dark. The Wolf. It always wanted more. So did he.
We are one now.
Skin for skin.
No more the hunted. Now the hunter.
Using a nearby bollard for support, he pushed to his feet, and promptly slumped against the cable car. Breathe. Men fear and fall. Wolves fight and feed. He who lives among wolves must howl like a wolf.
With a deep breath, he shoved from the car. When internal resources ran dry, where did he turn? What did he seek to emulate?
He turned to look fully into the window, a mirror of darkness. A warped image recognizable only as humanoid gazed back from pits of murk where eyes should shine. Hair bristled in all directions as the face bared a rictus of ferocity. He lifted his chin. Starlight glinted deep in the sockets.
Adapt. Advance. Achieve.
Evolve. Attack. Dominate.
Two stumbling steps put his back against a tree. Bile burned in his throat as he fumbled for the water bottle. He spit the first gulp, then sucked down the rest, his eyes on the sky.
When he lowered his head, the creature in the streetcar window grinned at him before sinking back into the Stygian surface.
Let the hunt begin.
“I will fear no evil.” Taking a breath, he stepped forward and retrieved the handgun.
He turned and trekked toward the intersection. Ahead, moonlight and vehicle fires lit the passage’s end.
He broke from the cave’s darkness, onto the turntable yard. On his right, stairs descended into sunken Hallidie Plaza below the guard fence. The pool of darkness gaped up in a reflection of the sky’s nothingness.
He moved southwest, using the odd bench and sign for rest points. Each step in the moonlight brought more strength.
Jewel-shaped LED headlights approached up Fifth like the eyes of a predator. He stopped to wait with one hand on a bollard, tilting his head back to regard the moon. Amazing how little imagination he needed to see the silver mirror as if from the Aleutian Islands. Campfires, wolf howls, and hot copper rounded out the symmetry.
Chapter 27
Windows of the Soul
Awake and Alive – Skillet
Ahead, in the high beams, waited the man of the hour. One hand on a bollard, Mr. Serebus looked up at the moon with casualness, yet even at this distance he radiated warning more clearly than a disgruntled viper.
Albin parked, then exited, leaving the door open for the revenant that strode toward him. Mr. Serebus approached with head down and shoulders back. Wild black hair obscured his eyes in shadow.
Then with a growl he diverted to lean on the vehicle’s bonnet. His chest heaved while the muscles in his neck stood out.
Albin edged closer. “Sir? Are you—” The words died when his employer looked over with a wholly inhuman aspect. Black orbs—narrowed eyes and fully dilated pupils—sized him up. Their dark sockets enhanced the image to the point that Albin fought the urge to step back. What on earth had precipitated this devolution? If the night continued this way, they would both requ
ire psychiatric help.
Mr. Serebus pushed off of the vehicle and shouldered past his adviser. Albin held his tongue as he returned to the passenger seat. Mr. Serebus should not drive in his current state, but Albin would rather attempt to soothe a rabid wolf than dissuade his employer from anything at the moment.
“Fifth and Mission, correct?” The voice hardly resembled Mr. Serebus’s. A state of shock, perhaps? No, a survival mode straddling the border of madness.
“Yes, sir. What transpired after I left, if I may ask?” He needed to risk prodding the beast to gauge the situation’s severity.
“I saw things through new eyes.”
Whose eyes? “That is all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Mr. Serebus’s gaze flicked over the surroundings. The set of his jaw and line in his brows indicated his mind was searching its internal territory. Then he resumed his previous mask of resolve.
“I see.” This new outlook and its secrecy could mean trouble if given its head.
“No more sacrifices, Albin. I’m not dreading them anymore.” Mr. Serebus’s lips curled back in a snarl. “I’m not their prey anymore. I faced the wolves.”
Perhaps allowing the man to drive was ill advised. Albin edged closer to the door. Walking to the 5th and Mission Garage through cannibal- and criminal-infested streets appealed more than did traveling with a delusional man who possessed an intensely violent streak. But Albin could not abandon his employer when he needed support the most. No Conrad abandoned his duty.
“Mr. Serebus, I truly do not know to what you refer, but I’m pleased you came to terms with them. This involves your rescue of the wounded woman, correct?” He added, “Katerina. That was your mother’s name.”
Twitches of pain flickered across the man’s dark features. Uncertainty and confusion—states Albin had never seen in his employer—sparked in his eyes.
