Mark for Blood (Mason Dixon Thrillers Book 1)

by Nick Thacker

  “So she wanted to stay with you?” he asked.

  I looked over at him, but found he was concentrating on the drink in front of him. He rolled a lemon peel against the edge of the glass and placed the drink on the tray.

  “Any day, old man,” he said.

  The jab didn’t hurt. It never did. For some reason, I didn’t think of myself as an old man. I said things that led others to believe I thought of myself as old, but I didn’t actually buy it. Age is a construct; age is a state of mind. And I wasn’t old. No way.

  I laughed. “Yeah, she wanted to stay with me.” I emphasized the pronouns to make sure he understood that it was a choice she’d made. Something that proved my worth and my youth.

  At this he stopped making the drink, grabbed the white rag he’d slung over his shoulder, and took up the unofficial bartender stance. Arms crossed, the rag draped over his elbow, his feet shoulder-length apart and his head titled back just slightly. He was ready to diagnose my situation.

  “You don’t say.”

  “I don’t say,” I responded. I tried not to look him in the eye. If I did, I would have to explain. Who the hell was I to have to explain anything to a kid half my age?

  I caught his eye. I sighed. “Fine,” I said. “Yeah, that’s what she told me.”

  19

  WE LEFT JOEY TO TEND the bar and kitchen for the few people remaining in the tables along the sides of the place. There was no one at the bar when we left, and I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be too many. It was Thursday, which meant that anyone from the town who usually went out would head to the city, and anyone from the city who wanted to go out would stay in the city as well. Only on weekends would people trek more than twenty or thirty miles from home to drink. And we weren’t exactly a destination bar.

  I had plans to change that, of course. This was a dream of mine since my college years. Not sure why, but I’d always been fascinated by mixology and business, and specifically how the two might be combined. Buying my place was a huge milestone, but there had been some setbacks over the years.

  The town was good to us, and even though there weren’t too many kids around of hirable age, there weren’t too many drinkers either. It was a quiet operation, but it was inexpensive enough to maintain that I didn’t need a packed-out $2-you-call-it night to get the riffraff in just to keep the lights on. It also gave me time to practice my craft, mixing new drinks and getting to know the regulars, and it gave me time for the other line of work I was in.

  I trusted Joey to run the place as long as he wanted, but I also told him to shut it down in a couple hours if it died so he could get some sleep — I’d still pay him for a full shift. I owed him at least that, and not just for taking out the trash earlier. He was a rare breed these days, a man willing to work his ass off and not expect much more than some respect and a decent day’s wage in return.

  Hannah and I drove through the town toward Marley’s. I knew she would want to grab her stuff and talk to her brother. She could have called him, I guess, but telling her brother she was going to stay the night at the new guy’s house might have been the sort of thing she wanted to do in person. Still, I didn’t mention either thing during the drive. There was a small part of me that was hoping for more than just ‘keeping her safe,’ and there was another part of me that seemed to think I would ruin any chances I might have if I opened my mouth and talked about it.

  It’s a weird, inexplicable component of being a guy, but I bought into it that night. If I said anything, it would screw with the alignment of the planets or some other voodoo and she would change her mind and want to stay at the bed and breakfast tonight.

  I chuckled to myself as I thought through the irrationality of the man’s lizard brain. She looked over, trying to figure me out.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Uh, nothing. Just…”

  I didn’t know what to tell her. I couldn’t say I was excited, that sounded sleazy and expectant. Nor could I say nothing at all, that would come across as overly confident and, again, expectant. Why couldn’t I just be James Bond, and look at her with that mystical look in my eye and then squint a little with one of them and have her just know, without saying anything at all?

  Hannah, I want to kiss you again.

  That’s what I ‘thought-spoke’ to her, across the car. I don’t think she understood.

  “You worried about something?” she asked.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I — I just don’t know what I’m going to be able to do to help you out. This whole thing is out of my jurisdiction.”

  “But I told you everything I know. There’s nothing else I can tell you about my father that would be any help.“

  “I get that, but I don’t think it’ll be enough. Whoever it was, they don’t want to be found, I’m sure. And I’m not trained to be able to dig around like that. If you were to hire —“

  “What happened earlier?” she asked, her voice suddenly ratcheting up a couple of notches.

  I frowned.

  “Before you picked me up and took me to the bar. Your face, and you’ve been babying your shoulder a bit. And when you called you said something had happened. Is that what this is about? You don’t want to help me because you found something out that scared you?”

  I was in multiple car crashes, back-to-back, and nearly died. But aside from that, no.

  “I was paid a visit by that guy’s friends. Not the same ones who were in the bar — those idiots were just his actual friends or maybe hired stooges, hanging out with him while he was on the clock. But two other guys, I think who might have worked with him.”

  “I take it they didn’t like what you did to their friend.”

  “Not so much, no. They tried to ambush me when I…” I drifted off as I realized I didn’t want to tell her about what I was doing out there. “When I was driving. That’s why we’re in Joey’s car. Mine’s just about toast. They hit me out of nowhere, then stopped to finish the job.”

  She put a hand over her mouth. “Did you…”

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t kill them. Didn’t want to. I guess I was wanting them to feel it, you know? I was pissed they caught me off-guard like that, and I was hoping they’d get the message.”

  “Or they’ll get the message and just pass it along to their bosses,” she said. “Whoever they were, if they were with the guy from last night, they were organized. So they’ll have someone they’re answering to, and I’m sure they’re not going to like what you did to them.”

  “Won’t matter. If I’d have killed them, their boss would still be fuming that they failed, and now he doesn’t have two of his grunts. This way, I figure, maybe the boss decides I’m not worth it — he has to patch up a couple goons, but then he’ll just move on to an easier target.”

  “You really think that’ll work?”

  I snorted. “Not even a little bit.” I knew the truth. Whoever they were working for wanted something from me — they wanted me to be dead. Out of the picture. I had no idea why, except that I’d done it to one of theirs.

  We pulled up to Marley’s place and she got out, walking around the car to start up the steps. I watched her for a few seconds, taking in her figure one more time as she neared the front stoop, next to where Marley himself had been gardening earlier that day. There were no lights on in the house, which gave the mansion a gloomy sort of feel, like something out a horror movie. Deep, long shadows converged on Hannah and my car, casting the entire front yard in shades of black.

  Something moved out of the corner of my eye. Just a flash, a lighter black against the black backdrop of the hedges at the edge of Marley’s property, but it was enough. I was on high alert in milliseconds, and I knew it would be only a few seconds after that when I’d feel the first stab of adrenaline hit me. I made sure Hannah was still heading toward the front door of the house, but kept my peripheral vision focused on the moving threat at my side.

  I clicked the handle and swung the door open. They were c
oming right at me. A guy on the left, and another on the right, just behind the first guy. I lifted my fists, instinctively, hoping they’d at least give me a fair fight.

  They didn’t. I saw the brighter flash of a blade, glinting the glow of a distant streetlight into my eyes, and it was the only warning I had. I twirled around, catching the outstretched knife hand with the crook of my right arm. I pulled it toward me, locking it in and squeezing with everything I had. I aimed my own hands at the knife, waiting for a change in the attacker’s grip so I could shimmy it out of his hand.

  Meanwhile, I looked around in the dark for a foot. Finding their right foot just outside my own, I slammed my heel onto the bridge of it, feeling the satisfying crack of bone as the foot was pulverized under my own. It was a brutal attack, one that dealt far more damage than its simplicity let on. The man howled, a combination of rage and pain, and the knife fell away. I caught it, as my hands were still wrapped around his wrist and close enough to the handle to snatch it, and turned it around in my palm until it was at the right angle.

  I thrust my right hand forward at the dark shape that was rushing over. The man behind me had at least a few seconds to himself to recover, and judging by the wail of agony, he’d need them. I focused on the bear of a shadow running past me.

  Past me.

  Not at me.

  I ran, unable to tell how far away the second attacker was, but I quickly realized he wasn’t focused on me at all. I was gaining on him, but he wasn’t even aware that I was behind him.

  He was running toward the house.

  Toward Hannah.

  This was the moment I realized I’d made a significant mistake. Possibly more than one. First, these men were here to grab Hannah, but they didn’t want to kill her — at least not yet. Had they been instructed to take her out, they could have (and should have) just done it quietly, from afar, without getting me involved. They may not know what I’m capable of, but it’s never worth the additional body count or the risk of things not going the way they’re planned. Second, I realized that the man from last night had been one of these guys — maybe not part of their group, but certainly hired by the same group. He had a handgun on his person, then, and I’d assumed he was going to use it to force her to acquiesce, but now I realized what I’d missed then: he was hoping to use it on me, to get me out of the picture so he could grab her and take her back to his employer. He wouldn’t have needed a gun to snatch her. She would not have seen him coming, and besides, he was a far cry from a disturbed psychopath hoping to prey on an innocent woman.

  I processed all of this in the time it took me to change direction. I didn’t stop, or even slow down. I thought through the ramifications of my realizations as I chased the two of them. All of it had a startling repercussion, one I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit. It was true, but it was something I couldn’t believe.

  There were two groups after Hannah. That much was certain. I had no idea who the second group was — the group behind the men chasing her now, and the man I’d offed last night — but I knew, without a doubt, who the other group was.

  The other group was my group.

  I was after Hannah. She was the mark from last night.

  I had been caught up in the sight of the man’s pistol, and his trajectory toward the woman, and my instinct that he was something other than a well-fed college-aged lowlife. I had been caught up with her, smitten even, and I had placed any logical rationalization my mind had been prepared to offer into a deep corner of my brain, subconsciously refusing to believe the truth.

  I had been given a mark last night the same way I was always given one: they’d walk in, sit down, order a drink, and I would know. Then, after some back-and-forth and my suspicions leading me to feign letting my guard down, I would say something that let them know I was the guy they had been told to come see. That I was the guy that could give them their next ‘hookup.’ They’d slap the token on the bar, knowingly, and I’d wink at them with my eye but I’d already be killing them inside my head. The problem was that I had called it wrong. The token was nowhere to be found, and my gut had led me to take out the wrong mark.

  I ran, but my mind was racing even faster than my legs. I was shaking slightly, even as I pumped faster and faster up the walkway toward the front porch. I had made a mistake, and it was going to be a mess to clean up.

  Hannah was the mark.

  20

  HANNAH HAD REACHED THE STEPS and turned around when she’d heard the scuffle and scream of the first attacker, and she was trying to see in the dark. I had a better line of visibility to her, and I had the backlight of a dim streetlight working to my advantage, but I knew it was also helping the second guy see her.

  She couldn’t see it coming. The guy nearly flew the last few feet and wrapped his beefy arms around her waist, lifting her completely off the ground.

  I pumped my legs harder, but the stretch of paving stones between the car and the house was getting longer. Time itself was slowing, but the distance in front of me, separating me from Hannah, was lengthening. I forced even more through my body, hoping it would be enough.

  He didn’t even slow down. Hannah had just opened her mouth to scream, but the shock of the impact and the devastating blow itself took her breath away, so she just stared back at me, not seeing me or anything else, her mouth silently moving up and down. The man sped up, apparently not at all slowed by the woman’s weight, and he bounded over the old wooden porch and around the side of the house.

  I was on the porch, running, leaping over twenty planks at a time, rounding the corner. Forcing as much as I had down through my feet, up through my arms, everywhere.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The man had me beat, and he knew it. He didn’t slow, but he didn’t look back either. Hannah was still frantically silent, but there was something in her face that told me what I knew.

  She knew.

  She understood what was happening.

  I saw the van too late. It was an obvious one, a blank, white van contractors use, and the door was standing open. Had I seen it as soon as I rounded the corner and started down the western side of the great house, I would have immediately ran back to Joey’s car — it was still running — and started off after the van. It was parked in the long driveway behind Marley’s. There was a road that connected all these larger old houses together, like an ancient neighborhood, but each house had their own hidden driveway that wound around their properties before finding the central road that would lead them to town.

  This van had parked behind the house, waiting, a perfect escape vehicle. By the time I could get around the house and down the road that led back there to the driveways, they’d be gone.

  She’d be gone.

  I had to act, and I had to act fast. It was too late to get to Hannah, but there was something else I could use as an asset. I went through it in my head, trying to work out all the pieces, trying to get the plan to make sense. It was a long shot, and I was paddling upstream, but there was one possible solution.

  One in the van, ready to drive them away. One with Hannah, taking her to the van.

  And one behind me, recovering from the shot I’d given his foot.

  I whirled around, silently pleading to Hannah to not be mad that I’d given up the chase. I wasn’t giving up for good, but there was no way I would reach them and get her back. Instead I tried to make out the location of the first guy who’d attacked me, the one I’d left writhing on the ground outside Joey’s car.

  Seemed like he was trying to get to me as much as I was trying to get to Hannah. He was nearly on me, and as I spun around, sidestepping to my left, he almost ran past me.

  Almost.

  He was limping just a bit, so I knew it was mostly adrenaline providing him with whatever speed and agility he had remaining, but the limp and my quick movement was enough to cause him trouble. He teetered around a bit, losing his balance, and nearly crashed onto the hardwood planks of the porch. I had hoped he would do exactly
that, so I brought my right leg up, using the momentum of my spin to help, and sent my foot flying into his face.

  I’m no NFL kicker, and I’ve never been a martial arts guy, so my legs don’t typically reach too high. This time was no different — I didn’t even get close to his face, but my kick was still hard, and he was still soft. It got him right in the side, right between two ribs, and I heard them both crack.

  He crumpled in a bit as he fell backwards, slamming up against the outside wall of the house. He looked sort of like a crunched-up aluminum can, but floppier. It made me a bit happier inside to see him like that, but not nearly happy enough. I was still pissed, and I still intended to let him know about it.

  You take Hannah, I take you, asshole.

  I meant it.

  He would die, but not here. Not right now. I needed one more thing from him.

  The van pulled away, clearly deciding that their main goal was retrieving Hannah, and not necessarily returning with their entire party. The man I’d attacked sat there against the wall, just beneath a massive curtained window, and glared at me.

  “Feeling’s mutual,” I said.

  He couldn’t move. His side was crushed, and he was holding it like he’d been shot. He didn’t seem to be in a position to offer much resistance, but I wasn’t one to take stupid chances. Before I knelt down to grab him, I walked over and crouched in front of him. A little to his side, so he wouldn’t be able to get a leg up into my groin, and I made sure it was his injured side so he wouldn’t try to punch me.