The weapon was thrown, tumbling through the rain. Hagi’s outstretched hand plucked it from the air and snugged it into his shoulder. The barrel steadied on Lupei’s back.
Drake was caught in two minds. How could you possibly end a battle like this? It was pure combat, no quarter given and presided over by no commanders, no generals. Would killing the ringleaders even help?
Something barreled past Drake, something huge. It zeroed in on Hagi, approaching the Madhouse steps. Hagi was unaware, focusing through the gun’s sights. Drake took out two guards who noticed the attack and turned to help their boss. The blur launched itself from the bottom of the steps, smashing into Hagi at the waistline and grabbing hold, joining with him in a tumble through the front door of the Madhouse and coming to a stop inside.
Drake shook his head in bemusement. Dahl, the blur, was right where he belonged.
Inside, it was a vivid nightmare. Dahl wrenched the gun from Hagi’s hand and threw it away. Hagi kicked out at him and then tried to punch from a kneeling position, but Dahl just circled the man, a shark looking for the right time to strike.
It came a moment later. Dahl prepared to end the fight with one powerful punch but then a grating sound cut across his senses. Dahl paused, looking around. What the...
The room they’d landed in was a square box. Flame paintings covered one wall, elongated faces another. Screaming skulls coated a third. The fourth was a brainsick assortment of death from hangings, torture devices and guillotines. At first, Dahl couldn’t see the source of the ominous sound but then a movement above caught his eyes.
The ceiling was lowering.
Dahl dropped to his knees, looking up. The ceiling was by far the worst wall in the room. Dozens of horrific clown faces had been daubed over it, the spaces between filled with dripping blood. Hidden holes in the ceiling dispensed red droplets as it rumbled down.
Hagi kicked Dahl in the ribs. The Swede gave him a tolerant look. Hagi then produced a knife which Dahl eyed with resignation.
“Really?”
Since they were on their knees, maybe Hagi fancied himself to win. He scooted forward, sliding at Dahl, lunging with the blade as the ceiling grated and groaned inexorably toward them.
Dahl was a big guy, bigger than Hagi, and flattened himself to meet the other man’s attack, letting the Romanian fly over his back. Hagi hit the far wall face first and groaned. Dahl slid his body around so that his boots faced Hagi. When the man turned, Dahl kicked him full in the nose.
Hagi fell back. The ceiling was now only three feet above Dahl’s head.
The Swede crouched and then lay down. Hagi cursed as it struck the top of his head. Thick droplets of red splattered over them and pooled on the floor. Dahl knew it wasn’t real but in here, in this claustrophobic box surrounded by nightmarish visions, they lived in a different and irrational reality.
Dahl flattened himself.
Hagi had the knife in his right hand, close to Dahl’s face, as much through luck as design. He slashed now, back and forth. Dahl was able to turn his head to evade the attack and then bring his arm up, but Hagi managed to elude his grasp, hacking now at his reaching fingers. Dahl jerked his hand away.
There came a knock at the room’s only door.
“Ey up, dickhead, you in there?”
“Open the bloody door, you Yorkshire bell—” Dahl bellowed. The rest of his sentence was lost under the noise of the door being demolished. Somehow, Drake managed to stagger inside the warped room and fall on top of the ceiling, shoving it down further toward Dahl and Hagi.
“Dahl?” came the idiot’s Yorkshire accent. “Where the hell are you?”
The Swede kicked out. The ceiling was making all kinds of protestations and mechanical whirrings. Drake sounded to be above Hagi, so the Romanian stabbed upward. Drake’s gasp announced that Hagi had scored a direct hit on his vest.
“Bloody bollocking hell. I—”
Dahl put his back into it, kicking up, blow after blow. The ceiling cracked and then shifted. Motors blew. Smoke billowed. Hagi slashed at him once more, but Dahl stopped the strike with the sole of his boot. The ceiling cracked some more. Drake then reached out and tore the slab in half, dragging one side out of the way.
Dahl stared up at him.
“Lazy bastard,” Drake said and clouted Hagi around the head.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
Alicia threw Stevo into the Wall of Death.
It was a barrel-shaped cylinder, about fifteen meters in diameter, made of wooden planks inside which several motorcyclists would travel along the vertical wall, higher and higher, until they were traveling below the faces of the crowd, held there by centrifugal force.
Alicia slipped inside the wooden barrel, its wooden planks slick with rain. Stevo rolled onto his side atop black rubber streaks, the ghosts of bygone performances.
“Who are you?” Stevo asked in a thick accent. “Cam’s new girl?”
Alicia was pleased they were alone. It meant she could focus entirely on this fool’s head. But as she stepped forward, someone struck her in the back and sent her staggering. Alicia turned to see Aurelia, Cam and Stevo’s mother, framed by pouring rain in the entrance.
“Come to change his fucking diaper, bitch?” Alicia snarled.
Aurelia threw a rock and charged at Alicia.
Shaw then fell headlong into the wooden barrel, followed by Nicu.
Cam and Mihai continued their fight back and forth across the entrance, two conflicting shadows locked in grievous combat.
Alicia kicked Aurelia in the stomach and met Stevo’s fresh attack, throwing the youth over her right shoulder. Stevo hit the planks beside his mother, groaning. In the next moment Lupei’s face appeared in the entrance.
“Welcome to the show,” Alicia hissed. “A minute ago, it was just me and your boy. Now, it’s a fucking family barbecue. Get your ass in here, Marko.”
Lupei sprinted at her. Shaw rolled against his legs, sending him sprawling. Lupei slid toward Alicia on his face.
“I like that look on you,” Alicia said.
Across the comms, Hayden’s voice ran out. “Report. Where are we with the leaders?”
“Could do with backup,” Alicia said. “In the wall thingy.”
Drake spoke up next. “Just saved Dahl from killer clowns and nabbed Hagi. We’ll bring him to you.”
It was all coming together. They had the Lupei brothers and parents right here. Alicia saw Hayden and Kinimaka enter the Wall of Death.
“You’re beaten, Lupei,” Alicia told him and then, to make him understand, went on: “You and Dumitrescu. The soldiers are gone. Your slave route is gone. Your carnival has ended, and you are no greatest showman.”
Lupei climbed to his knees. “My people will never stop fighting.”
“Your people?” Shaw kicked Nicu away and glared at the man, panting. “Your people are dying out there. Struck by bullets and cut by knives. You’ve wrecked and ruined your own Carnival of Curiosities. And for what?”
“To be king,” Lupei answered immediately. “To be the king.”
By now, all fighting had stopped inside the Wall of Death. Somehow, some way, the combatants had mutually decided to take a breather. Everyone from Aurelia to Stevo and Nicu, from Lupei, Hayden and Kinimaka to Alicia stood eyeing each other warily and catching their breath. A moment later Cam and Mihai joined them, staggering through the entry gate.
“There hasn’t been a King of the Roma in a hundred years,” Lupei said. “More. It is my birthright.”
“No, it isn’t,” Cam said. “You’re no leader and never were. You’re just a bully craving enough power to hide your weaknesses and failings. Nobody has the right to be King of the Roma.”
“Least of all a prick who glorifies in human trafficking,” Alicia added.
Lupei looked like he was formulating an answer but at that moment Drake and Dahl appeared at the entrance, dragging Hagi along with them. Alicia spotted Kenzie and Mai too, just shadows in the background
,
“Gang’s all here,” Dahl boomed out, throwing Hagi to the floor. “Does anyone have a plan?”
Alicia shrugged. “These two need to call off their dogs. Stop the bloodshed.”
“Never,” Lupei spat.
Hagi hauled himself up from the sodden planks and gave them all a defiant glare. “If you shoot that man now, I will end the battle myself.”
A shocked, profound silence fell over the Wall of Death. Nobody moved. The Lupeis gathered themselves, bracing for an attack. Alicia could see it in their bodies, in their eyes. They wouldn’t go down easy. Hagi was bunched up and ready to strike.
Cam stalked over to his parents. “What do you say? One of you for a hundred souls? A hundred friends.” He turned, appealing to his brothers. “You all know Marko Lupei. He belongs in an unmarked grave with the worst scum of the earth.”
Lupei leapt up and struck his son across the face. Cam wiped fresh blood from his cheek with two fingers and looked down at the red smears. The young man offered his cheek some more, lifting his chin to expose his throat.
“Go on then. Kill your son. Take the crown.”
Lupei struck like lightning, smashing stiffened fingers into Cam’s throat. The young man collapsed, unable to breathe. Alicia dived to his aid. Lupei snarled and glared from face to face, daring anyone to defy him.
“I am King of Roma,” he spat. “They just don’t know it yet.”
Drake and Dahl moved forward, Mai and Kenzie too, but just then a striking noise cut through the horror and tension.
A thudding, thundering whump that Drake had heard many times before.
“The helicopters are coming,” Hayden said with hope in her voice. “The police regrouped and took action, finally. The helicopters are coming.”
With uplifted hearts the SPEAR team moved to take custody of the Lupeis and Hagi, but in less than a second Lupei whipped a two-way radio from a pocket and roared three dread-inspiring words across the airwaves.
“Take them down.”
“No!” Hayden sprang at him, batting the radio from his hand. It flew up the Wall of Death, sliding over the top and vanishing. In that moment of action and chaos everyone inside the wooden barrel burst into action.
Alicia cradled Cam. Hayden punched Lupei. Drake and Dahl grabbed Hagi as he whirled and tried to run, but couldn’t prevent him from screaming for his men. Kenzie and Mai confronted Nicu and Mihai. Kinimaka hulked his way in front of Stevo. Shaw scrambled toward the exit.
“I see them,” she shouted. “Choppers coming over the fields. At least... eight. Just above the trees now. They’re coming in to land. Oh shit, Hagi’s men are coming too.”
Shaw dived away from the entrance. As she moved, Drake heard one more terrifying sound he recognized.
“RPGs!” he shouted at Lupei. “You’re using fucking RPGs?”
The Yorkshireman sprinted for the door.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
From horizon to horizon, the skies were filled with fire, flame and blazing metal. Rockets streaked through the thrashing rain, lighting the droplets along their path. Helicopters were struck as they came into land; exploding, shattering and crashing to the earth. They came down near the large tents they’d cleared out earlier, setting what remained of the fabric alight too. Shrapnel detonated in all directions, slivers of metal and glass arrowing across the carnival fields. Several rotors sheared off as they smashed into the ground.
Drake watched every moment of the carnage with a desolate, grieving heart. From the great spectacle of the helicopters’ landing to the mind-blowing, horrendous vision of their deaths. Deadly fragments and chunks made a bloodbath of the battlefield. Drake saw men and women falling around the devastation like broken down stalks of grass before a harvester.
But it wasn’t done yet.
Several rotors sheared away at once. Fifty-meter-long blades snapped away from their hubs and skipped at incredible speed though the fairground. One sliced through the heart of a knot of men, cutting away limbs and faces, and tearing bodies apart. Another smashed, shuddering, into an earthen mound at the feet of a group of non-combatants who were sheltering to one side, leaving them staring up in terror at its vibrating, razor-sharp length, teeming with rain. Drake saw the third rotor flashing straight at him, reflecting in and out of the light, and dived for cover.
“Down!” he cried, using the comms too. “Hit the fu—”
Almost everyone hit the deck. Seconds later a devastating crack deafened them as the titanium vanes sheared through the Wall of Death’s wooden entrance, splitting it in two, and bounced into the wooden barrel.
The blades scythed above his head with a noise like nothing Drake had ever heard before. They skipped twice and embedded themselves into the side of the Wall of Death, shivering and trembling with an echoing, resonant reverberation which seemed to shake the entire barrel.
Drake looked up and winced at what he saw, heart sinking.
The rotor blades had cut through Stevo like scissors through an A4 sheet of paper.
When Alicia saw what had happened, she turned away. When Lupei saw, he became a madman.
“You bastards! You killed him. You killed my son! I will destroy everything—”
Alicia slapped him. “Don’t be stupid. You destroyed those choppers and killed all the men aboard. You—”
But they’d run out of time. Hagi’s men, having taken brief cover, now stormed the barrel, seeking their leader.
Drake rolled and fired into them, letting the M4 loose. Dahl climbed to one knee and did the same. Kenzie came in from the right and Shaw from the left, smashing the men to the ground. Hagi took advantage of the distraction to approach Lupei.
“You killed your own son, Marko,” Hagi said. “Your greed. Your stupidity. First you murder my daughter and then your own son. The gods will judge you.”
Hagi pulled out a small pistol, but Alicia was ready and struck it away. Lupei lunged at Hagi but the leader was already turning to flee, his last chance of killing his rival thwarted. Shaw started after him.
Hayden and Kinimaka dragged Mihai and Nicu to their feet, the brothers looking shellshocked. Cam hadn’t yet recovered from seeing Stevo killed and was regarding the scene in disbelief.
“I didn’t want you dead,” Cam was whispering. “I didn’t...”
“No!” Lupei suddenly roared, a mad and twisted soul raging against the end of everything he held dear. In one fluid movement he sped away from Alicia and after Hagi. Aurelia joined him, following her husband.
Alicia glared after them in despair. “Don’t know when they’re fucking beaten.”
Cam jumped up. Mihai and Nicu spun in the wake of their father. Lupei was at the edge of the globe, jumping out into the field and hitting the mud. The rotor blades had sheared through part of the light display, and drooping wires discharged sparks and flames above their heads. Hagi raced ahead.
“Bollocks,” Drake cursed.
The team split away from what remained of Hagi’s guard, still seeing control of the two leaders as imperative to stopping the bloodshed. Out in the fields, the choppers blazed away, the Ferris wheel revolved in the wind, and the Madhouse strobed with blue lights, reds and crazy greens. Music still blared, a raucous number by Need To Breathe already blasting out the chorus: “Let’s have a great night.” The rain teemed down, and thunder and lightning cracked open the skies.
Hagi appeared to have a plan, and jogged for the row of parked up motorbikes that the stuntmen used to perform inside the Wall of Death. There was a wooden key cabinet standing beside the bikes with ten numbered keys inside. Hagi grabbed one and ran to the nearest bike, threw a leg over, inserted the key, and started it up. With a last look over his shoulder, he gunned the throttle so the back wheel spun around in an arc until he was pointing in the right direction.
“Next time,” he yelled at Lupei.
The bike roared and sped away with the hunched figure on top. Lupei and Aurelia reached the bikes next, grabbing keys from the ca
binet and leaping across the seats. Drake led a charge to stop them accelerating away, but missed by inches, fingers outstretched to pluck at Lupei’s jacket, and ended up sprawled in the mud.
Dahl handed him a key. “Get up, dickhead.”
The Swede, Drake, Cam, Alicia, Kinimaka and Mai took six of the remaining bikes, tearing holes through the soft earth in pursuit. That left Kenzie, Hayden and Shaw to deal with the remaining brothers—Mihai and Nicu.
“Don’t worry,” Shaw said. “I’ve already kicked this one’s ass.” She confronted Nicu, but this time took out her knives.
Mihai, bloody and bruised, swayed before Hayden and Kenzie. “Stand back,” he said. “Or I will kill you.”
The brothers, dead on their feet and grief-stricken for Stevo, swayed in front of their opponents, preparing to die. Shaw had moved in and so had Kenzie, looking to debilitate, when a strident, female voice rang out over their shoulders.
“Stand down, brothers, stand down!”
It was Oana and with her was Alba. Hayden shouldn’t have been surprised to see the two sisters, despite being told to remain at the hotel. They had come a little late to the battle and looked like they’d both been fighting off wild animals for the last twenty-four hours.
Both Mihai and Nicu turned to their sisters with bright eyes and heartfelt greetings. But Oana stepped up to them, screaming in their faces. “Are you mad? Have you lost your senses? Look around you! Look around!”
Both brothers gawped at her and then stopped, raising their eyes beyond their opponents for the first time. To left and right, north and south, the Carnival of Curiosities stood in burning ruins, its people scattered, its identity destroyed. The legacy of a lunatic that would be king.
“I...” Mihai said. “I...”
“Father did this,” Oana cried. “And he wanted to trade me for reinforcements. Alba too. You should no longer follow him, brothers, you should loathe him.”
In the next few seconds Hayden saw the fight go out of the brothers. It drained from their bodies like blood, soaking away and leaving them weak. Both men fell to their knees and let their sisters hug them, the shambles of a reunited family. Both men wept as they knelt inches deep in mud, battered by the unceasing rain.
The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27) Page 23
