Floyd felt a hot, mean satisfaction right in the belly. He’d seen a lot of men die, been responsible for a lot of those deaths himself. He’d heard grown men scream and cry and beg and pray but never in his life had he heard a sound so sweet as that scream. He wanted to hold that sound in his head forever, take away his pain.
The guy sagged, dropped to his knees, his hands hovering over the arrow shaft, not knowing what to do, to pull it out or leave it.
Floyd knew what he had to do.
Die.
In unspeakable agony.
Floyd would see to that.
The second guy stared at his partner, not believing what he saw. Gunshot wounds he understood, knife wounds, yes—but a bow and arrow? It was the stuff of bad movies he’d watched in cheap motel rooms. It wasn’t real life. But there was no denying it was more than real enough for his partner. His head whipped around. He stared straight at Floyd. Even from the distance away he was, Floyd saw he had something wrong with his right hand. It was swollen and twisted. He was protecting it, dragging Buckley with his left.
Floyd fitted another arrow to his bow.
The guy dropped Buckley in the dirt and tried to get his gun out. Trouble was, he was right-handed, his shoulder holster under his left arm. Floyd watched him fumbling awkwardly to get at his gun with his left hand. He had all the time in the world. He drew back the bow string almost leisurely as the guy got hold of his gun by his fingertips, pulled it out the holster.
Then Buckley stirred, shifted at the guy’s feet. The guy lost concentration and dropped the gun. Floyd let fly his arrow as the guy dipped to pick it up again.
Never had anyone had such a lucky break.
It wouldn’t happen again.
The arrow passed a foot over his head, sailed away into the fields behind. He came back up with the gun in his hand. In his left hand, and he was still right-handed. He let off a wild shot. Floyd stood his ground as the bullet pinged away harmlessly, fitted another arrow.
Then Buckley joined in the fun. He pushed himself onto all fours at the guy’s feet, shook his head.
Suddenly everybody wanted in. The back door of the SUV opened—the man in charge Floyd reckoned. He wouldn’t be armed. Why have a couple of goons and carry yourself?
On the ground, Buckley was still woozy, swaying from side to side. He tried to kneel upright, toppled over again, falling into the guy’s legs at the exact moment he fired again. The shooter’s arm swung around towards the SUV as he fired, the bullet burying itself in the front fender. Whoever was in the back pulled the door shut fast, ducked out of sight.
Floyd let his third arrow go as the guy with the gun kicked Buckley off his legs. He didn’t miss a second time. The guy had his head turned to the side. The arrow went in the side of his neck, a blade severing his carotid artery and came out six inches the other side. He dropped his gun and stood there, the arrow in his neck looking like some weird African tribal decoration. He dropped to his knees like his partner before him, then fell forwards onto Buckley, knocking him flat. Buckley heaved and tried to throw him off as blood pumped out the guy’s neck, spraying him like a hot red geyser, drenching him.
Floyd jogged across to where Marlene lay, still alive, barely breathing, her blood soaking into the dirt. He knelt beside her, stroked her muzzle gently as she whimpered. He looked over at the man who shot her. He was on his back now, the arrow sticking straight up in the air as if he was pinned to the ground by it. His left leg shook uncontrollably, a low moan on his lips.
Floyd smiled as he watched the man suffer.
You don’t know what pain is yet.
Marlene twitched one last time and then lay still. Floyd patted her shoulder, rested his hand on her matted fur a long moment, then stood. If anyone had dared say they saw a gleam of wetness in his eyes, he’d have dug theirs out with a broadhead arrow, shown them what wetness in the eyes looks and feels like.
He walked slowly, calmly across the yard to where the guy lay. He looked down on him and spat in his face. By the time the guy died, he’d have prayed to whatever merciless God he worshipped, asked him why he hadn’t let Marlene rip out his throat with her teeth.
***
EVAN FELT LIKE HE was losing a wrestling match in a slaughterhouse. He was still woozy from the blow to the head, couldn’t get the guy off him. He was a dead weight—literally. Meanwhile his blood soaked into Evan’s hair, into his clothes. He lay still for a long moment, conserving his energy.
It was a good move.
Floyd chose that exact moment to stand up and walk past him to reach the other one of Vasiliev’s men, the one who was still alive—for the moment. Through eyelashes coated with blood from the man on top of him he caught sight of Floyd’s face, a picture of old testament spitefulness. He closed his eyes again, hoped Floyd thought he was still unconscious. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of anything a man with a face like that might do.
From his position half-underneath the exsanguinated body on top of him he watched Floyd calmly approach Vasiliev’s man and spit full in his face. Then he put his heel on the man’s belt and flicked the arrow shaft with the tip of his boot. The guy screamed as the razor-edged blades of the broadhead moved through his intestines, cutting, slicing. Evan’s gut tightened in sympathy—an involuntary reaction because he felt not one jot of sympathy for these men. If Floyd hadn’t come along, they’d have done the same to him as they did to McIntyre—with added cruelty for ruining the guy’s hand.
‘You killed my dog,’ Floyd said, in a voice that made the yard colder, bleaker.
The guy on the ground tried to talk—what the hell he thought he might say Evan couldn’t begin to imagine because sorry wasn’t going to cut it—before Floyd cut him short with another flick of the arrow shaft. The man screamed again, his whole body convulsing under Floyd’s boot, a pool of urine soaking into the dirt, mingling with his blood.
Evan had to make a move soon.
Once Floyd was finished with Vasiliev’s man, he’d turn his attentions to him. Who knows what twisted path his train of logic might follow? It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to argue the only reason Vasiliev’s men were here in the first place was because of Evan, ergo, the death of Floyd’s dog was Evan’s fault.
Floyd was explaining in exquisite detail, his voice calm, patient, almost soothing if you ignored the words themselves, exactly what he was going to do between now and when the guy died. If he’d been a more educated man, he could have saved himself a lot of talking and summed it up in a single word—evisceration. Whatever you called it, it sounded like it was going to take a long time. And hurt a lot.
The man would die in the end. Evan needed to be long gone by then. He didn’t want to be around once Floyd got into his stride, had a chance to see what worked, what didn’t, find that fine balance, the sweet spot between pain and passing out.
As if in response to Evan’s thoughts, Floyd dropped to his knees on the guy’s belt, squeezing another strangled howl of pain out of him.
Time to go.
The few minutes’ rest had done their job. Evan took a deep breath and heaved the dead man off him, rolled him into the dirt. Floyd was too preoccupied to notice. The guy under him had a lot on his mind too. Evan pushed himself to his knees. A gun lay on the ground a couple feet away—the dead man’s gun. He leaned forward, holding his breath and stretched out his hand. He needn’t have worried. He could have picked it up and emptied the magazine into the ground at Floyd’s feet without him noticing.
He grabbed it, slick with blood, stuffed it down the back of his pants. Cautiously he stood up, crept backwards towards the SUV, placing each foot carefully, his eyes never leaving Floyd’s back as he went to work on the unfortunate wretch underneath him.
He stopped a moment, his conscience putting stupid, irrational thoughts into his mind. His hand moved towards the gun stuffed down his pants. He pictured himself walking the few paces to Floyd, pressing the gun into the back of his head and pulling the trigger.
Feeling the gun buck in his hand, all his problems disappearing into the ether as Floyd’s head exploded in a red mist.
Or, if he couldn’t find it in himself to kill him, force him at gunpoint to leave the guy alone, let him die in peace. Then keep him there while he called the police.
No.
It was too fraught with risk. Floyd was sure to have a gun as well as his bow. He was a professional killer—trained by the U.S. Army, his skills honed to perfection in the worst corners of the globe. It was too big a risk to take. And for what? To save a man, one prepared to nail McIntyre’s hand to a table and cut off his finger, a few minutes pain. He deserved everything he got.
Besides, in a way, he owed Floyd. If not for him, he’d be nailed to a table himself at this very moment, a knife poised over his fingers as the man grinned at him in sadistic anticipation.
In a long list of bad decisions, it was the worst he ever made.
He kept moving backwards, didn’t see the dead dog behind him. He stood on one of its front legs stretched out along the ground. The sudden, unexpected feel of it under his foot caught him by surprise. He pulled his leg away quickly, not knowing what he’d trodden on, and lost his balance. He blamed it on the blow to the head. Whatever it was, he went over backwards and bounced off the SUV, landed on his ass. The gun stuffed down the back of his pants stabbed into his tailbone, forcing a grunt of pain through his teeth.
Floyd heard the noise as Evan hit the deck. He twisted around, unintentionally grinding his knees harder into his victim’s gut. The guy gasped, his whole body rigid. His arms and legs shot out like he was doing a star jump on his back, his fingers touching the gun he’d dropped when Floyd shot him.
Evan pushed himself away from the dog and staggered to his feet, holding onto the SUV for support. Vaguely aware of a man in the backseat, crouching down, he pulled the driver’s door open.
On the ground, Vasiliev’s man discovered an inner strength hidden deep inside him, something that pushed away the pain if only for a few seconds.
Those few seconds were all he needed.
His hand closed around the gun butt, his finger finding the trigger. Floyd saw movement out the corner of his eye. He turned away from Evan, saw the gun in the guy’s hand. Instincts honed by bloody skirmishes in streets and dirty alleys across the globe kicked in. He threw himself flat along the length of the man under him, reaching for the gun. The arrow shaft snapped under his weight, driving it deeper. The two men writhed and struggled in the dirt, bodies pressed hard together, the guy coughing blood in Floyd’s face as Floyd grabbed his wrist.
Evan was in the driver’s seat now. The key was in the ignition, thank God–he hadn’t even looked. He turned it, revved the big engine into a manic howl in his panic, too preoccupied to see the man who loomed up behind him from the backseat.
Outside on the ground, Vasiliev’s man called again on that inner strength, that unexplained energy that gives a madman the strength of ten men, gives a mother the strength to lift a bus off her trapped child. His gun arm rose steadily, inexorably, towards Floyd’s head. Floyd butted him full in the face. The guy jerked, a violent spasm wracking his body, the back of his head crashing into the ground as the gun went off. The bullet went wild, ten feet over the SUV’s roof.
Evan felt the shift flex in his hand as he slammed it into gear and hit the gas. He caught a blur of movement in the mirror, saw Vasiliev himself poised over him. Not as big as his enforcers, he was still a big man. Solid and powerful, even if he was running to fat around the middle. He hadn’t always been the boss. He’d come up through the ranks. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out the sort of skills that takes.
He threw his right arm around the headrest and clamped it across Evan’s throat, crushing it into the headrest, cutting off his air, as the car started moving. He caught hold of his right fist in his left hand, locked them together and pulled with both arms like his life depended on it.
Evan choked and gurgled, stomped hard on the gas, like he wanted to push the pedal through the floor. Immediately hit the brake. The car bucked, lurched, came to a rocking stop. Vasiliev flew forward, face first into the headrest. His arms slackened with the jolt. Evan sucked in a huge breath, a high, wheezing wail coming from his mouth. Then the arm was back, clamped twice as hard, squeezing the consciousness from him.
Outside, Floyd pushed his body up off the man under him and drove it back down, twisting from side to side, grinding the broken arrow in further, anything to stop the guy’s crazy strength. The guy’s arm dropped a fraction. He fired again. Another wild shot, lower this time—directly at the SUV as it bucked to a standstill.
Broken glass showered Evan as the back window exploded. A thousand tiny cubes of glass splattered his face. Then blood, hot and sticky, flesh, little bits of brain and bone, as the bullet entered Vasiliev’s head at the base of his skull and punched a gaping hole through the top of his head. Vasiliev twitched, the pressure around Evan’s neck falling mercifully away. He gulped in air with a sound like a sucking chest wound, hit the gas again, bouncing Vasiliev’s lifeless body off the backseat as the car surged.
The last thing he saw in the blood-spattered mirror was Floyd’s arm rising with the gun in it. He was sitting astride the man below him. Evan ducked instinctively but Floyd wasn’t aiming at the SUV. The gun was reversed in his hand. He brought the butt down onto the guy’s head like he wanted to do with his bare hands what the bullet had done to Vasiliev’s head.
Evan swore he felt it all the way from inside the SUV. He hoped for the guy’s sake, it was a lethal blow.
He didn’t, actually.
After the day he’d had, he didn’t care if Floyd kept the bastard alive for a week.
Chapter 46
EVAN DIDN’T BRAKE AT the end of Hendricks’ driveway. He threw the SUV to the right, the big car on two wheels as it hit the pavement. In the back Vasiliev rolled sideways into the door, knocked it open, his body hanging half-in, half-out, arms trailing along the ground.
Evan glanced in the door mirror. He had to get rid of the body, get rid of the car.
He put his foot to the floor, covered the half mile to where his own car was hidden in seconds. The SUV skidded to a halt on the shoulder, ten yards past the dirt road. He jumped out and bundled Vasiliev’s slack body back into the SUV, cramming his arms and what was left of his head in. He slammed the door on him, thrust his hip into it to get it shut. Then he sprinted down the road to get his car. He’d drive it out and back the SUV in, then put as much distance between him and Floyd as possible.
He stopped dead, his feet sliding on the grass, and stared open-mouthed before he got half way. He didn’t need to get any closer to see both rear tires had been slashed—Floyd again. Shit. He ran back to the SUV and backed it down the road, hauled Vasiliev’s heavy body out again, dragged it into the undergrowth behind his car. The guy was big and bulky and the road was rutted. By the time he’d got his carcass hidden, Evan was sweating, the sweat mingling with the blood and brain matter and whatever else his face and hair were covered with.
He didn’t want Vasiliev found, wanted to take it to Guillory first. He covered the body the best he could, then stood up straight and took a moment. Resting his fists on his hips, he arched his back and stretched, easing out his aching muscles. His head throbbed with a curl-up-and-cry-for-your-momma headache, his arm was sore as hell from the blow with the piece of lumber, his neck bruised from Vasiliev’s forearm crushing it into the headrest. A stinging open cut on his chin made him wince when he touched a dirty finger to it.
He was getting too old for this.
He’d have to take the SUV now, he had no choice. Despite the inside looking like a slaughterhouse after a busy day’s killing.
His phone pinged.
He didn’t want to look now, had to put some distance between him and Hendricks’ place. He looked anyway, it might be Guillory.
Charlotte.
He groaned. This he didn’t need. The text w
as brief and to the point.
Call me. Now!!!
He wasn’t going to call, three exclamation points or not. After the day he’d had, she was the last person he wanted to talk to. He’d call her back once he’d got his head together—inside and out. He stuffed it back in his pocket as it started to ring. He ignored it, let it go to voicemail, and got in the SUV.
He couldn’t help himself slowing as he passed Hendricks’ driveway, craning his neck in an attempt to see into the yard. It was impossible, the house was in the way. Through the broken back window, he heard something that might have been a scream, or it might just have been the wind. It sent a shiver rippling up his neck all the same. He put his foot to the floor and the SUV responded instantly, surging away, before he caught himself, dropped back to a normal speed. The last thing he wanted was to be pulled over for speeding with a roof lining covered in blood and brains and looking like he’d been rolling in them himself.
His phone rang again.
She wasn’t going to give up. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, answered it without looking, his eyes flicking between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror.
‘Hi, Charlotte.’
There was a short pause.
‘It’s not Charlotte, it’s me.’
The me was Guillory. In the midst of all the pain and trauma of his day so far, it made him smile that they were at the point where it’s me was all that was needed between them.
‘Hello, you, then.’
‘Where are you?’
He picked up on her tone of voice immediately. This wasn’t a half-joking, half-serious question with the implication she knew exactly where he was, like she’d suspected.
No, her tone was urgent. It wasn’t something he heard often in her voice. An unpleasant churning sensation started up in his gut. Despite the tone of voice, he couldn’t tell her anything other than where he was.
Sins Of The Father Page 28
