Uncommon Assassins

by F. Paul Wilson

  “I know this part of the ’glades better than most of the ’gators. But be careful, kid. The next log you step on might bite your ass clean off.”

  The two floated the body about a hundred feet into the marsh through the saw grass where the mangroves grew the thickest, leaving Larry Arnello there like a bloated whale that had swum too close to shore. Climbing back to the elevated boardwalk above the basin, they watched the corpse lie face down in the hazy moonlight reflecting off the swamp.

  “Okay, fellas,” Sal whispered to the dark lumps surrounding Shark River. “Soup’s on. Tonight you eat Italian!”

  They searched the basin and the tall barbed sedges for movement, their flashlight beams skimming the water-sodden saucer like two lonely beacons.

  Nothing moved.

  Danny smacked a mosquito off the back of his neck, already sopping with sweat. Swamp crickets rang in his ears, screeching little cooties that did not chirp so much as shriek. A dismal moon crawled behind a dark cloud and winked out, shrouding the river in blackness so total Danny could feel it inside his bones.

  “Christ, Sal. He’s floating like a bar of Ivory soap. You’d think someone so fucking huge would sink faster than a stone.”

  “He’ll go under when he fills up with some of that marsh water. For now, it’s better he don’t. ’Gators feed close to the surface where they can smell what they eat. Ol’ Larry is about to become one meat-and-potatoes feast, don’t you worry ’bout that.”

  Turning to Danny, his face caught in the flashlight’s beam. Danny could see his partner was enjoying this. A smiling Salvatore DiLucca resembled one of those ever-grinning alligators.

  Downriver something went splunk! Sal aimed his flashlight at the smooth water below the walkway. A dark object that looked like a large tree limb drifted into the beam, barely noticeable in the black ink of the swamp.

  Upriver came another splash as a second one, larger than the first, crawled into the water.

  The men’s flashlight beams circled the basin like searchlights. They sliced through the steamy darkness of Shark River while a galaxy of bugs danced in the glare.

  From a small beach about a hundred yards away, another alligator charged the water in an awkward motion that looked like a crawl but was much too fast. It belly flopped into the basin like a clumsy child, vanishing beneath the surface. When it reemerged, its awkwardness disappeared as it slid silently toward the body. Only its twin periscope eyes and the upper portion of its back broke the water’s surface.

  “Come on, guys ... That’s it ... that’s it ... There’s plenty to go around,” Sal whispered. “... just a little midnight snack before callin’ it a night, hey?”

  Danny gasped, aiming the beam at a fourth alligator drifting toward Arnello, even closer than the other three. “Jesus! I didn’t even hear that one go into the water.”

  This alligator, larger than the others, probably had entered the river just below the walkway where they stood. Aware of its element of surprise, it glided toward its prey faster by keeping mostly underwater.

  Four alligators circled the body like a shadowy committee deciding some sort of reptilian pecking order. The large one moved first and fell on Arnello’s body so hard that it disappeared beneath the surface. The moment he reemerged the others went for him. There was neither rhythm nor pattern to their attack, just the crunch of bone and a constant cycle of tugging and chewing at whatever flesh they could wrench from the body. The attack became a blood-soaked taffy pull as alligators crawled over Arnello and one another, disappearing beneath him, pushing him under the water then pushing him back up, only to pull him down again. Arnello’s arms flailed wildly like a convulsing rag doll, and in the wild thrashing it was impossible to tell if the man was a living or a dead thing.

  An alligator tugged at his leg, gnawing it into meaty tatters at the knee. It allowed the limb to drift off, favoring another strike at the man’s fleshier torso. Another one took a run directly at Arnello’s face and managed to remove everything above his nose but an ear that hung ridiculously from a denuded skull. Much of the frenzied attack became lost behind the constant spray of swamp water, and each time Fat Larry reemerged the twin flashlight beams revealed less of him.

  Danny coughed up a taste of his dinner but he chose not to share that information with DiLucca. He snapped off his flashlight and turned away from the scene’s bloody denouement.

  “In fifteen minutes there won’t be enough left of Arnello to spread on a saltine,” Sal said, shutting off his flashlight. The thick tangle of slash pines and dwarf cypress swallowed the sky, making the darkness complete.

  “Are you okay, kid?”

  “I’ll be okay once we get out of here.”

  An awkward silence followed. It lingered in the darkness, forcing Danny to focus on the damp reek of the swamp.

  “You haven’t seen the second act yet,” Sal finally added. His voice, emptied of emotion, seemed measured and rehearsed. Danny could barely make out DiLucca’s outline silhouetted against the night sky, although the man stood close to him. In the darkness he somehow sounded distant.

  “Second act?”

  Danny snapped his flashlight back on, washing the walkway in light. His partner stood in front of him. He held a gun aimed directly at Danny’s heart.

  “Sal? What the—?”

  “Three words for you, Danny. Just three words.” He turned on his own flashlight and placed it in front of him to keep a bead on his target.

  “Sal, I don’t know what you’re—”

  “You fucked up.”

  “Sal, what in Christ are you—?”

  Danny shut himself up. It was pointless to protest further. Still, he could think of nothing else to do. DiLucca cut him off before he could utter another word.

  “—fucked up big time. ’Til tonight, I wasn’t sure if Arnello wasn’t just tryin’ to blow smoke up my ass by fingerin’ you as his partner. But when you mentioned Lorraine Arnello’s oregano, that sealed it. That asswipe wasn’t in the habit of invitin’ the freshies over to break bread at his wife’s table ’less he planned to talk shop over coffee and cigars.”

  He stepped closer to Danny, the smile melting from his face like a wax candle. Salvatore DiLucca now was all business.

  “Fat Larry pocketed Nick Borelli’s profits with an accomplice, Danny, someone the traffickers didn’t know. I’d hoped Arnello was just tryin’ to save his own sorry ass by namin’ names. You broke my heart tonight, kid.”

  A thought formed so quickly in Danny’s brain that he acted on it before it had fully taken shape. Talking Sal out of this was not in the equation. He had understood that much the moment he saw the gun.

  You never know when you might need that extra slug, kid ...

  Sal had been so right.

  He flashed the high-powered beacon into DiLucca’s eyes, blinding him long enough to lunge forward and kick the other flashlight off the elevated walkway into the basin below. A bullet tore into his right leg, causing a lightning bolt of pain to flash through the limb. Danny fell to his knees. Going down he tossed his own flashlight over his shoulder, throwing the two men into a darkness devoid even of shadows.

  Having no better choice than desperation, Danny rolled off the walkway in an excruciating head-over-heels journey down the embankment to the river’s edge. He crawled through a cluster of strangler figs, dragging his shattered leg behind him like a useless pine log.

  “I got one bullet left, Sal! Just like you taught me!”

  DiLucca fired at the voice coming at him from the darkness below the walkway. The bullet whizzed past Danny’s shoulder.

  Stupid! Stupid!

  Dragging himself into a clump of hammocks in the shallows, he clenched his teeth and waded through the cold water of the marsh as far as his agony would allow.

  Sal fired again and Danny heard the slug go plunk! in the swamp water in front of him.

  “I got a whole lot more bullets, kid! A whole lot more!”

  DiLucca receive
d no answer. Danny would not be stupid a second time.

  “Come on, kid! Take your best shot!”

  Still no answer.

  A thousand darning needles embedded themselves into Danny’s knee. Sal’s .45 must have shattered his kneecap and he could not pull himself to his feet without a land mine going off inside his leg. He let the water absorb his weight, and, biting his fist, he tried to muffle the agony he wanted to scream out. Hearing DiLucca step off the walkway, he pushed his way through the hammocks. Maybe Sal was searching for the tossed flashlight. Maybe he was searching for him.

  None of this mattered. All Danny needed was one clear shot.

  “You’re forgetting something, Danny!” DiLucca called out. “You know what it is, don’t you? You know what else is out there in that saw grass!”

  Danny had not forgotten, but he was a man who had his priorities. Now DiLucca was playing with him, trying to goose him out of the water into the open, trying to get him to say just one word. Sal sloshed through a sea of sedges toward the wounded man concealed by the tall grass in the shallows.

  “The alligators, Danny! Hundreds of ’em! They’re out there in the dark and you have only one bullet. What you goin’ to do, kid? What you goin’ to do?”

  Danny shoved his knuckles hard into his mouth and bit down on them, trying not to scream. He could not move further if he wanted to. He would not have moved if he could.

  “Remember that quiet ’gator, Danny? The big one you couldn’t hear go into the water? Remember what he did to Fat Larry? Maybe that sneaky fucker is crawling through the saw grass toward you right now lookin’ for some dessert! Can you draw that picture in your mind, Danny? Can you hear him comin’ for you?”

  Danny could. He held the gun out in front of him with both hands, marine-style, wildly searching to his left, then to his right.

  Downriver, Sal shouted out something that sounded as if he had gargled his words, but Danny could not make it out. DiLucca fired another shot, then two more in rapid succession. If he had emptied his chamber he would have to reload right there in the swamp water, much too risky a move for a man who did not hold all the cards. This was not Salvatore DiLucca’s style. Unless ...

  Unless he was firing at something else!

  For several minutes Danny heard thrashing in the water. Then nothing. The stillness surrounding him was worse than anything Sal had screamed out. Danny crouched low in the steamy saw grass waiting for a sound, for something, for anything. His head ached with the riotous chorus of the swamp crickets while a thousand demons did a mad dance inside his brain. In the murky stillness of the Shark River swamp, one demon spoke louder than the others.

  Why had Sal stopped calling for him?

  The saw grass in front of him rustled like crunched paper.

  It was crazy to speak, to utter even one word that might give his position away. But the demons would not let him remain silent.

  “Sal?”

  There was no answer.

  “Listen, Sal. We can work this thing out!”

  Nothing.

  The tall grass rustled again. Whatever was there, it was moving closer.

  Holding the .45 straight out, Danny aimed it toward the sound of crunching sedges and sloshing water. He waited for the grass curtain to part, knowing that in the next moment either a ravenous ’gator or a man with a gun would emerge. He was ready for either. He could do this.

  One shot. Just one shot. If he could keep his eyes on the target right in front of him, he could pick it off with one bullet.

  “A walk in the park,” he whispered to himself. “Just like a goddamned walk in—”

  The thick saw grass in front of him separated. He held the revolver firm in his grip, one hand steadying the other.

  He heard another papery sound, this time from the grass behind him.

  ... something behind him ...

  ... and in front of him ...

  Danny stared at his hand that held the .45, then slowly dropped his arm to his side. He turned to watch one alligator splash through the grass into the shallows, then two others. They moved in the swamp water in a crawling swim as they circled, watching him, waiting. The grass separated again and two more appeared.

  Sal was right. The big one had found him, all right ... and he had brought his friends.

  Danny dug one foot into the soft mud while the other floated uselessly in the stinging cold water. One bullet. One shot. A walk in the park. He could do it.

  He could do it.

  He placed the barrel of the revolver into his mouth and squeezed the trigger.

  THYF’S TALE

  BY CHRISTINE MORGAN

  A wolf’s wind howled, winter snow whipping as white drifts piled, the whole world cold and dark as Hel’s domain.

  Within the longhouse, behind log walls mud-plastered and beneath wet thatch moss-heavy, the folk of Jarl Hodvard’s farmstead gathered against the night.

  Here around the hearths they sat, upon sleeping-platforms that lined the hall. Here were heaped furs and fleeces, thick cloaks and wool blankets. In stone-ringed pits the fires burned, shedding heat and light while smoke hung thick among the roofbeams.

  Bread and cheese and barley beer had been their meal, with a broth of boiled beef and leeks and garlic. Now men passed the mead-bowls hand to hand, that sweet drink, honey-made. Voices rose as spirits did, in merriment and laughter. Children played with hounds on the rush-strewn, hard-earth floor; the women sewed and spun.

  And they did not know how Death waited among them.

  Ate and drank, spoke and laughed, among them.

  Hodvard had at the head of his hall a great chair, oak-carved, antler-adorned, and draped in deer hides and bearskins. A sword, sheathed in leather, rested above it on wooden pegs. To one side of the sword was a shield painted oxblood-red. To the other was a helm, old and much dented.

  He had been a warrior once. A hewer of men, a blood-letter, a death-bringer, a cleaver of limbs and skulls. He had plundered rich silver from cities and monasteries. He had won worthy followers to his boar’s-head banner.

  He was a warrior still, for all that the years might weigh upon him. Though his shoulders might be stooped, his hair and beard gray-streaked, though a softness of paunch rolled over his belt, he would set himself against any number of foes.

  He would set himself against them unflinchingly, eager for the battle rage, the red fog that clouded the eyes yet let them see all with an eagle’s clarity.

  Oh, his youthful times of raids and pillage were done, yes, and they had well served their purpose. How else could he have settled here, wealthy and content? He had fine farmlands, the soil not thin and rough, not rocky and miserly to yield. The fields provided good pasturage, the woods good hunting.

  Olrunn, his first wife, had given him six sons. His second wife, young Esja, had already borne him another. Among those of his hall were daughters and in-laws, kinsmen, grandchildren, nephews, bastards, war-brothers, guests and friends. Servants there were too, and slaves, well-treated.

  Hodvard was known as a fair and just jarl. His hospitality and generosity were beyond compare. His nature was jovial, his wise judgment often sought in counsel.

  Strange, it might seem, that any would wish him ill will.

  Or bring violence against him here in the fastness of his own hall.

  The mead-bowls passed ’round again.

  Men called for music and Erik Deft-Handed fetched down a harp. He played to them a familiar tune, an oar song, one they knew from riding the whale road, Njord’s gray waves, in the dragon-headed ships, and they sang along heartily. When it was done, Hodvard acclaimed the harpsman, and threw to him a silver ring.

  Then was another song called for, and this time a girl arose, pretty Lundis, Bergulf’s sister. Her voice pure as clear water, she sang of Brynnhild’s sorrow, the valkyrie maid pining in her love for Sigurd.

  The women of the hall found this to their liking, and Hodvard gave the girl a comb of ivory. But the rest wanted next some
entertainment more to thrill the nerve and chill the blood, and so turned to Thyf.

  “You have traveled far and seen much,” they said to him. “Tell us a grim tale!”

  So Thyf settled himself near the fire and began to speak.

  “This is the Saga of Guldi and Svarti ...”

  Once there were two friends known since birth

  Babes in arms together, orphaned of mothers

  Playmates, they were, and inseparable

  Guldi fair-haired as Svarti was dark

  The both of them handsome lads, and strong

  When they came of age and wished to go to war

  Their fathers armored them in mail coats

  Gave them swords and shields, helms and horses

  And sent them to be trained, to be made battle-ready

  Proud sons to bring honor to their names

  Guldi proved a bold and fearless warrior

  Shrinking from no challenge

  Valorous, a true leader of men

  Winner of renown and rewards

  Gold-girt, with rich rings thick upon his arms

  But for Svarti, swift and clever

  In the clash of shield walls, the slash of sword blades

  The drumming of hoofbeats and the singing of bowstrings

  Muster his courage though he would

  Time and again it failed him

  The others, at first, laughed and jeered

  Making much mockery of his plight

  Until even Guldi took part

  Their brotherhood since boyhood

  Their long friendship, forgotten

  Soon it was that none would stand beside him

  Shoulder-to in the line where lime wood overlaps

  Where each man must rely upon his neighbor