King and Corman walked to their bikes, positioned closest to the mouth of the concrete parking lot. Movements around us grew frenzied as the other men finished their preparations. The air stilled in anticipation.
King mounted his bike first and hit the starter. The engine turned over on the first try and killed the silence. Maybe one second passed before the air boomed with deafening mechanical thunder.
Wade turned to me, his face split by the widest of grins. Cupped in his palm was a set of orange earplugs. I took them gratefully and shoved them in my ears. They blunted the noise but did not erase it.
The sound vibrated every inch of my body, all the way to the root of every hair follicle. In perfectly timed intervals, the Six Gun Revolutionaries took off in staggered pairs. By the time we got to the main highway, the noise and the utter intensity of it swallowed me. I was in the belly of the monster.
After three hours, my toes went numb. After five hours, my back ached, and I’d learned I could sleep with my forehead pressed between Wade’s shoulders. His light pat on my knee woke me from a half doze in which I dreamed of a place that didn’t vibrate or smell like gasoline, or hot tire rubber. He pointed at the Bandera county limits sign as we passed it.
We slowed, and I became aware of the roar of a motorcycle approaching fast. The guy who went to high school in Bandera flew past us, leaning over his handlebars, his wild hair flying behind him like a flag. He took the lead position and led us through the town’s main street where tourists dressed in bright colors pointed and waved. The Six Guns grinned and waved back.
We found our way to the two-lane road in my vision and pulled to a stop in front of the sign reading “Weeping Woman Creek.” The motorcycles shut off one here and one there until all were silent. Even in the silence, my ears rang.
Wade helped me off the motorcycle, and it was all I could do not to rock, imitating the constant motion of the last few hours. King and Corman came straight at me, both faces set in grim lines. Corman snatched my arm and dragged me to the bridge from my vision. I jerked out of his grip and went to the spot where Isaac, the man in my vision, had knelt. A rust colored stain peppered the white rocks in the creek bed. I gestured at it. Corman and King crowded next to me.
“Where is my brother, ghost girl?” Corman barked the words at me.
I ignored him and opened my second sight, something I’d been learning to do, and scanned the area. The white sand on the ground hurt my eyes in the late afternoon sun. I squinted into the shadows, praying I found King’s missing family. And fast. King and Corman’s veneer of nice could wear off any second, and I didn’t want to be around when it did.
I didn’t want to see a child’s ghost, but I looked for a smaller figure thinking the spirit of a baby might be confused enough to hang around. The thought of a child hurt over Six Gun Revolutionary business sickened and angered me. But the thought of what the Six Guns might do if I didn’t fulfill my end of our bargain worried me more. I believed Wade. He’d die fighting for me. But he would die. Then, I would, too. I had to make myself do this thing, like it or not.
A movement in the monochrome shadows caught my eye. The apparition flickered and jerked, flitting at the edge of my field of vision. I motioned at King and Corman and headed toward the shadow, sliding down the rocky embankment in my hurry.
“Show us,” I called out to Isaac’s ghost, knowing he would take us to his earthly remains. Despite the heat, a cool otherworldliness burned at me, and I shivered in my damp clothes. Isaac’s ghost appeared a few feet away, and I led my entourage along, dread at what I was about to see beating at me.
Poor Isaac. He looked no older than thirty, my age. Further proof I could meet an end like this, maybe today. Fifty more steps, and we stood before his corpse. Animals had been at him, but the fist-sized hole in his head was done by a man. The wind shifted, and the stench hit me. A low moan went up from the men around me, and I covered my face.
The hum of flies a few feet away drew my attention. Shouldn’t they be here with Issac? I broke off from the pack and walked a few feet deeper into the woods, whispering a mantra of “please not the baby.” What I saw struck me speechless.
I barely recognized Ashley from the photo on King’s phone. Scavengers had picked away half the skin on her face and one eye. Her captors had tied her to a tree. The splash of blood on her inner thighs suggested they’d done quite a bit to her after tying her up. I backed away, holding my hands over my mouth, the horror of her last minutes playing in my mind.
King approached me, stepping into my personal space. He yanked me against his chest, which was like hitting a brick wall. “Where’s my grandson? Where’s Justice?”
I shook my head, unable to speak. He was about to hurt me, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. A hand closed around my arm and jerked me away from King.
“Don’t touch her. She ain’t property of this club. She’s helping us.” Wade’s calm voice carried only an edge of menace. That small rebuke made the men around us stiffen, some of them reaching into waistbands for weapons.
“Forget it, Daddy.” Corman plucked something from the scrub grass near the body and stood, holding it up. A silver cross. “Holy Rollers. One of them must have lost it in the struggle. Bet they got Justice.”
What struggle? In the vision, King’s other son hadn’t struggled at all. He’d been resigned to his fate, only worried about his wife and son. And how much of a struggle had poor Ashley put up? Finding that cross was awfully convenient, but I sure as hell wouldn’t argue about it. The sooner I got out of this situation, the better.
“Sonsabitches. Bet they want money to get him back.” King narrowed his eyes. “All right. Teeter and Mook is behind us in the van. Then, we’re gonna get those fuckers.”
I glanced at Wade, silently asking if we could leave. He gave me a slight nod. I edged toward him. About halfway there, my cell phone rang. All eyes turned to me, and I wished I could shrink into a little ball. I groaned and punched the ignore button. The phone immediately began ringing again.
“Answer it.” I didn’t even see who gave the order. With all those mean eyes boring into my skin, I just did it.
“Oh god, please don’t take my baby.” The woman’s scream roughened voice raised the hair on the back of my neck. Helplessly, I hit the speakerphone button and held up the phone. “Don’t do that. No, please, no. I never would’ve called you if I’d realized it was going to be like this.”
King cut through the cluster of men, elbowing people out of his way and snatched the phone from me and held it close to his ear.
“Somebody shut her up.” The male voice sound cold, calm, as if he listened to women beg every day. The sound of flesh striking flesh came over the speaker, and I swallowed hard, desperate to get away from this scene, these people. The call ended.
Conclusions and questions raced through my mind. Of course, Ashley couldn’t have called me. She was dead right in front of us. I’d never had a ghost call my cell phone. It might have been funny had it not scared me so damn bad.
“She knew who killed Isaac,” one of the men said.
“Sounds to me like she set it up,” another voice said.
King and Corman exchanged a glance. Betrayal, especially from a woman, threw their authority into question. The air grew pregnant with tension. Wade gripped my arm and pulled me against him.
“I think I recognized that voice, and it ain’t no Holy Roller.” The young man speaking only had part of the Six Gun Revolutionaries emblem on the back of his jacket. His patch read “Prospect”. I knew enough about this culture to understand he was new, trying to earn full membership.
Corman appeared next to the younger man. “Who is it Dolan?”
“I think it’s Ashley’s brother. I talk to him every month when I pick up…” He glanced at me and gulped. “Shipments in Austin.”
King’s gaze shot to me and then back at Dolan who nearly cowered. He’d given away something in front of an outsider. The little turd just put me in more da
nger from these thugs. Idiot. I wanted to kick the shrimpy little fool where it hurt.
“How sure are you?” Corman gripped Dolan’s shoulder and spoke kindly, playing good cop to King’s bad cop.
“Sure as I can be.” Dolan swallowed hard, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and dripped off his jawbone. “They got a place somewhere out here. Just don’t know quite where it is.”
“Toad went to school with Ashley,” Corman said. “He’s at work, but I can call him.”
“Do that,” King said and turned to me. “I heard you date a cop.”
King held my eyes. In that second, I thought my fate was sealed. I knew something about shipments. I knew the Sixguns planned on making their own justice for Isaac’s—and now probably Ashley’s—murder. Begging wouldn’t do any good. All I could do was act tough and hope it worked.
“You think I’d tell him about today?” I didn’t have to fake my sarcastic snort. “He hates Wade already. This would be all he’d need to—”
“You don’t need to say more.” King held up his hand. You’re loyal to Mojo Rider, and he says you’re good, and I trust him with my life.”
His locked onto mine, pinning me where I stood. My upper lip prickled as sweat broke out on it. King smiled, and his eyes drifted lazily over me, more to let me know he owned me for the day than out of attraction. “Unless you double cross me, you ain’t got nothing to fear.”
Corman, still on his call, turned a slow circle in the road, looking all around with a disbelieving expression on his face. A crack of gunfire echoed through the woods, and Corman dove off the road, stuffing his phone into his pocket. We all ducked behind the scant cover of the motorcycles. All of us, except for Wade. He slipped a sawed-off shotgun from one of the fiberglass saddlebags on his cycle. I cringed at the expression in his eyes. Amusement. Mischief. He put one finger to his lips and winked at me. Then, he slipped into the woods, walking in a half crouch.
I leaned against the motorcycle, wondering if he’d come back. Our young friendship gave me no indication of the odds. If he didn’t come back, I’d be stuck with these men. I glanced around me at the dirty faces. Muscles clenched, I sank against the motorcycle and tried to think of what to do next. No plan magically presented itself to me. I wondered if a swan dive into Weeping Woman Creek would break my neck.
By the time I saw Wade dart through the deepening shadows, my shoulders were tight enough to throb. I pushed myself up and strode over to where he met King and Corman. They scowled at me, and I hunched my shoulders and crossed my arms over my chest but did not retreat. I caught the last of Corman’s sentence.
“From what Toad says, their house is right through them woods.”
“Then, they’re the skinny-assed tweakers playing with guns.” Wade’s eyes sparkled. He was enjoying this. No matter how sorry he was to involve me, he loved the risk. “They don’t even know we’re here.”
“So that’s the murderers shooting?” Between the stress and the casual acceptance of the day’s surreal events, I was fed up. Corman and King turned to sneer at me. I sneered right back. “Don’t look at me that way. This is crazy. How can you act like this is normal?”
“It ain’t so crazy.” King put his hand on Corman’s arm. “Ashley’s been trying to get away from us. We told her to go, but she couldn’t take Justice. She must’ve planned this trip so her brother and his tweaker friends could ambush them.”
“Only thing, she didn’t realize her tweaker brother done lost his grip on reality.” Corman said. “Smokes most of what he cooks.” He gave me a grin just like his father’s. Fear chased away my righteous indignation, and I shrank back from him.
“I’m guessing he sold her to his friends. Carpet sharks’ll do shit like that.” King watched me through half-lidded eyes. “You know, get desperate and sell out their own. But, now, we gonna make things right and you gonna help.”
“I overheard them talking.” Wade told me. “They got Justice, and they’re waiting for a baby broker to come pick up him and pay for him.”
“So, Miss Peri, you going in to get my grandson.” King said. “Nobody here knows you, and you can get Justice out of there safely.”
“No,” I said. “They have guns. They might decide to shoot me. Or tie me to a tree and rape me to death.”
The cold-eyed monster who’d peeked out of King’s face all day took over. He jabbed a finger into my chest, hard, and I resisted the urge to reach up and rub the sore spot.
“You will do this. Mojo here risked his life to save you and your granny’s life last year. And you’ll do this for me.” He leaned into my face, so close his sour, cigarette-tinged breath nearly gagged me. “You hear me?”
I wanted to fight, to claw at his face, maybe even bite him. But any fight I started would end badly. One glance at Wade’s face, full of dark, primitive anger, told me he was ready to fight for me if I wanted it. That sealed it. I was stuck.
“I’m going in with you,” Wade said.
“What? No you’re not.” Corman narrowed his eyes at Wade. “Let her go alone.”
“Oh, yes I am.” Wade glared at Corman. “You’re the one who wanted to bring her into this. I will do everything I can to keep her safe. And I’ll beat you senseless if you try to stop me.”
When the sky started to darken, we met the chaser van on a side road. Four club members, including Corman and King, crouched in the back amidst an arsenal. Wade rode shotgun, and Corman called out directions as I drove.
The indigo sky and blazing sunset hung over us. Was it the last beautiful thing I’d see? I didn’t fear death or dying, but I’d never told my boyfriend “I love you” even though I did, and my grandmother didn’t need the shock of me dying. If I left the earth this night, it would be with a heart full of regret over missed opportunities.
I found the turnoff easily enough and drove up to a turn-of-the-century rock house. A curtain twitched in the window, and nervous bile stung my throat. Showtime.
“All right,” King said. “Y’all go on up, tell him you’re there for the kid.”
“Once he goes to get Justice, we’ll exit the van,” Corman said. “So be sure to leave the door partially open.”
“Get the kid back to the van and wait for us,” King said. “I’ll signal if we want you to just go on and meet us back where we left the others. Understand?”
Wade and I both said we did and glanced at each other. The fear had left Wade’s face. In its place was the same wild mischief I saw when we heard the gunshots on the road. I hoped he knew how to keep us from getting killed. Because I sure as hell didn’t. I was so far out of my element, I might as well have been in a foreign country.
We got out of the van, both of us leaving our doors half open, and approached the house. The horrific situation had a dreamlike quality. As we crossed the plank porch, I reminded myself this was really happening. I knocked while Wade took a position where he couldn’t be seen from the peephole.
A dude so skinny every rib plus his sternum was visible answered the door. He picked at a nasty scab on his chest and seemed to vibrate in place. When he realized I was female, his face slipped into a nasty leer. Wade stepped forward. Then, he turned sullen. “Whatchu want?”
“I’m here for the kid.” I pulled the wad of cash King gave me from the pocket of my jeans and held it where the man could see it. His eyes widened, and he licked his lips. Damn, that was easy.
He needed some gank so he could think straight. He’d promise me anything to get it. I suppressed an eye roll. I had enough of this shit with my ex-husband to last a lifetime. My impatience took over.
“ Get the kid,” I said. He reached for the money, and I shook my head. A guy who’d let his sister be killed would sell his nephew as many times as he could.
The guy walked away without another word. Footsteps crunched on the ground behind us, and a warm body pressed against my back.
“What’d he say?” Corman’s hot breath on my ear made me want to jerk away, but I didn�
�t dare. The odor of gun oil on whatever he carried reminded me why I’d do as told.
“He’s getting Justice.” My heart thudded so hard I thought I’d pass out.
“Fucker,” King snorted from somewhere behind me. “Double crossing bastard.”
Anticipation spurred the adrenaline until I shook. Behind me, Corman inhaled deeply. I stood rooted to the spot, too freaked out to do anything else. After an eternity full of scary thoughts, the door swung open again. The guy stood before us holding a sleepy-eyed toddler. The kid’s eyes widened at the sight of his grandfather and uncle, and he grinned and held out his arms, saying something I couldn’t understand in baby talk.
“Take him.” King shoved me toward the kid, and I did as he said, ignoring the angry shrieks and wiggling you’d expect from a scared kid being grabbed by a stranger.
Wade grabbed my arm and yanked me off the porch. Justice made a high-pitched sound I couldn’t believe came from a human being. He kicked me so hard it was all I could do to hang on. I wondered if I really wanted kids after all.
Behind me, the tweaker babbled explanations, his words running together. I tried not to listen. The first gunshot echoed through the night air, and his body thudded to the floor. I forced myself to keep my eyes forward.
“Can you drive? I’m shaking too hard.” I shifted Justice higher on my hip. His bucking had nearly dislodged him. All I could manage was getting one foot in front of the other as gunfire and screams played like the soundtrack of a made-for-TV war flick behind us.
“Yep. Just get in the passenger side.” Wade’s calm voice raked over my raw nerves, stinging like acid. I wanted him to freak out, too, but he wasn’t going to. No telling what he saw or did in Iraq.
Sitting in the van, Justice’s wails straining my eardrums, I had no choice but to look at the house. Flames now flickered behind the windows, and dark figures moved through the flames. Black smoke billowed out the open front door. Just as the flames grew so bright I thought King and Corman had fallen prey to their own mess, four silhouettes came from around the side of the house, carrying armloads of packages. Wade and I both stared straight ahead as they got into the van.
Allegories of the Tarot Page 12
