by Bryan Smith
Lucien’s eyes widened. “Goddamn.”
Andy laughed. “And now he begins to see…”
The scene the Eye displayed was like a shot from a movie, freeze-framed on a DVD player. Only he was pretty sure Jack Grimm hadn’t been a film star in an earlier phase of his troubled life. The Eye showed Jack flat on his back in an opulent hotel room, which had to be in The Maverick. He was lying amid an array of glass fragments and his long-lost wife--decked out in black leather and stiletto heels, like a dominatrix attired in nightclub gear--was standing over him. The demon lurking beneath the pretty surface was evident in her eyes--they gleamed with a fierce and unnatural light. Lucien peered closer and thought he detected a small pool of blood next to Jack’s head.
Lucien looked at Andy. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t abide the notion of failing Theodore Grimm. “She’s going to kill him. Unless we stop fucking around and go now.”
Andy heaved a weary sigh. “Lucien, time is stuck over there?” He said it like a question, which annoyed Lucien. “Try to remember that. And try to remember I’m showing you this for a reason. Besides, Mona won’t kill Jack. He’s too valuable a commodity, either for the information he possesses or as a pawn in the grand game being waged between the bad guys, represented by your former employers, and the good guys. The good guys being…well, us.”
Siegel said some more alien words and the frozen image of Jack and Mona was replaced by a different scene. Another hotel room. Also in The Maverick, Lucien assumed, although this room’s interior wasn’t quite so extravagantly appointed. A young girl stood at the room’s center, her head upturned, gaze fixed on the ceiling.
The girl, although small, was achingly pretty.
Siegel said, “This is Raven Rainbolt. My granddaughter.”
Lucien looked at Andy. “She’s in The Maverick, right?”
A nod. “Yep.”
Lucien drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “This help Ben is to provide us--it actually has to do with her. Right?”
Andy nodded again. “It has everything to do with her.”
Lucien grunted. “But she’s so...little. There’s no way she could get Jack out of there by herself. They’d slaughter her.”
Siegel glared at Lucien. “Don’t underestimate that girl. She can do amazing things. Things an entire pack of hellhounds couldn’t accomplish.”
Andy loudly cleared his throat. “Yes, she can. Raven is a formidable foe for any enemy. Nevertheless, she will not be attempting this rescue mission on her own. She’ll be assisting us, smoothing the way, clearing a path for us to get in there and do what we have to do. And if it comes down to a bad guys versus good guys fight to the death, she can kick as much ass as any of us.”
“Damn right she can.” Siegel’s voice crackled with pride.
Lucien kept his persistent doubts about that to himself. But something else was puzzling him. “Why is Raven at The Maverick? I know you didn’t have time to work this out prior to coming here. Her being there just when we need her seems...”
“Knock off the paranoia, Lucien.” Andy leaned over the table. “Hey, I know why you’re worried. Coming to our world was a hell of a risky move on your part. I can’t guarantee your old friends won’t get you someday, pal. They might. But I can guarantee something else--you are not being led into a trap. If you’ve got any lingering trust issues, now would be the time to lay them on the table.”
“Raven being there really ain’t so coincidental,” Siegel cut in. His gaze was again riveted to the Eye’s image of the girl. “She knows Las Vegas in and out. Better than me, even. And she knows The Maverick is the focal point of evil in our city. She goes there often, to keep an eye on what’s going on and look for weak links in their security.”
Andy’s nodded. “A fact I happened to be well aware of.” He grinned. “Stick with me, Lucien, and soon enough you’ll be a seemingly all-knowing Svengali, too.”
The outline of the door reappeared in the wall and a moment later it clicked open again. This time Delilah emerged from the darkness bearing a tray of hot food. The good smell of juicy steaks and steaming potatoes got Lucien’s saliva flowing. Someone else--a tall, thin man in a waiter’s uniform--followed her into the room, with trays full of food balanced on each of his upturned palms.
Delilah and the waiter set the trays on fold-out stands and began the process of arranging the plates of food around the table.
Siegel smacked his lips like a dog and removed utensils from a folded napkin. “I’m so hungry I could eat a federal informant.”
Lucien nodded his head in vigorous agreement. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in eons.”
Andy said, “We didn’t order any food.”
Lucien frowned. “What?”
Andy was frowning, too. “I said, we--”
Delilah snatched Andy’s steak knife off the table and wedged it against his throat. Lucien moved without thinking, without even knowing he had a weapon in his hand. Andy struggled against Delilah, who was so much stronger and quicker than Lucien would’ve thought. The blade broke the skin of Andy’s neck and drew blood. Lucien dove across the table, knocking the Eye of Sylvain and several plates of food to the floor. The fork gripped tight in his right hand plunged through one of Delilah’s eyes. She shrieked and relinquished her grip on both the knife and Andy. Blood and fluid welled around the tines of the fork as Lucien drove her to the floor. He pushed the bent utensil up into her brain and her body twitched a time or two before going still.
A rapid succession of gunshots boomed out and Lucien rolled onto his back in time to see bright splotches of blood bloom across the front of the tall waiter’s white shirt. The dead man’s body crumpled and hit the floor like a sack of rocks. Lucien turned his head to the left and saw Andy O’Day gripping a .45 with both hands. He looked at Andy’s bloody throat and was relieved to see that the knife had barely pierced the skin.
Lucien got to his feet and was pained to see that Benjamin Siegel hadn’t been so lucky. The old gangster was bleeding profusely from a knife wound to his shoulder. The blade, in fact, was still embedded in his shoulder.
But there was no time to tend to him because more would-be assassins were pouring into the room through the open door. Machete-wielding men dressed all in black with black hoods over their heads.
“Goddammit!”
Andy started firing with one hand while his other hand went into his jacket and produced another gun. Now he looked like a cowboy in an old shoot-em-up movie, a two-fisted gunfighter mowing down the bad guys. But there were too many of them to take out on his own. Lucien jumped into the fray, ripping machetes from the hands of two of the fallen black-clad men. He waded into the sea of attackers, his arms a blur of motion as he hacked away limbs and heads. A machete nicked his arm and he went into hound-mode, dropping the machetes in favor of teeth and claws. Blood and flesh filled his mouth, sating him in a way sex never could. He heard Andy pop empty clips out of his guns and replace them with fresh ones. But he only fired a time or two more. Lucien, covered in blood, looked up and realized there were no more live attackers. The room was filled with broken bodies. Lucien slipped back to human mode and stood up in his tattered clothes.
“What the fuck happened here?”
Andy’s eyes were blazing. The man’s expression was the embodiment of impending wrath, of a gargantuan fury ignited and about to blow. “A hit, that’s what fucking happened. A failed goddamn hit.”
A scream filled the room. Lucien looked at Siegel and saw that he’d plucked the big blade from his shoulder. “Okay, now that hurts.” To Lucien’s astonishment, he managed a chuckle now. “Red Room’s the right name for this place. Look at this shit.”
Andy breathed hard through flared nostrils. “O’Scanlon. That son of a bitch.”
Lucien looked at him. “But he’s your friend...right?”
Andy slammed the butt of a .45 into one of Lucien’s open palms. “I always thought so. But this couldn’t have happened without his cooper
ation. I’ll tell you this--we’re sure as fuck gonna find out.”
Lucien’s hand closed around the .45 Given what had just transpired, he wasn’t sure he needed a gun to deal with these people, but he was glad to have it nonetheless.
Andy turned his attention to Siegel. “We have to blow this joint, Ben. Are you ready to move fast and fight hard?”
In answer, the old man got to his feet. Siegel no longer appeared to be in any discernible pain. There was anger in his eyes now, a hint of something feral and dangerous scores of unfortunates from his previous life would have recognized. The former gangster reached inside his tattered trench coat and removed a crumpled brown fedora. One side of his mouth tilted up in a sardonic smile. “In a past life this was a jester’s hat. I altered its appearance because who wants to go around wearing a goddamn jester’s hat, right?”
He put the hat on his head and pulled it down tight over his ears. A change came over him as he spoke in the language of the Rainbolts. His slightly stooped posture became ramrod-straight. His gut receded. Flab melted from every part of his body and gave way to hard muscle. Age lines vanished from his face and the gray leached out of his hair. Within moments the old man looked like the young gangster from Murder, Inc.
He looked at Andy. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
Andy nodded. “Let’s go.”
Andy ignored the open door through which their intended assassins had come and went to the door through which they had originally entered the room. He unlocked it and stepped through into the hallway. Siegel followed immediately. Lucien bent to pick up a machete before catching up to them.
The hallway was dark, the lanterns that had lit their way extinguished. Lucien was tempted to go to hound mode to see better, but he resisted the urge. It wasn’t time for the primal fury of the hound yet. For now, he needed to be cautious and in control. He extended an arm and touched the tip of the machete to a wall. He moved forward, guiding himself with the blade. He could hear Andy and Siegel up ahead, their backs invisible in the near-perfect darkness.
Andy spoke up: “I’m at the staircase.”
A moment later Siegel said the same.
Then Andy’s voice came again: “Where are you, Lucien?”
“About ten feet away.”
Soon he was at the foot of the staircase with them.
Andy said, “No light I can see from the landing. We’re going up anyway. Be careful, and keep a hand on the rail.”
The steps creaked as Andy began to ascend them. Lucien waited while Siegel followed, then went up after them. With both hands full, Lucien didn’t bother with the handrail, choosing instead to stick out an elbow and drag it along the way. But he almost went tumbling back down the stairs when the side of his head grazed a lantern. He wobbled a moment before sinking the machete blade into the next step up. The sound made the other men gasp.
But Lucien managed to right himself by keeping a strong grip on the machete handle. He pulled the machete out of the wood and breathed a relieved sigh. “It’s nothing. Almost had an accident, but I’m fine.”
Andy said, “You know how much need I have for a crippled hellhound, Lucien?”
“How much?”
“None. Be careful, dammit.”
The ascent up the staircase resumed. Within moments they were on the landing, trying not to jostle one another too much. Andy gripped the knob to the next door and rattled it.
“Locked.”
Lucien sighed. “What now?”
Siegel said, “I’ll show you what now. Out of the way, O’Day.”
Andy sidestepped to his right as Siegel surged forward. His right leg whipped out and the sole of his boot struck the door with tremendous force, knocking it off its hinges. The top of the door settled against the far wall. Siegel stepped over the bottom half of it and entered the lighted hallway beyond. Andy followed and Lucien was about to step through the doorway when he heard Siegel shout a curse. Lucien rushed into the hallway and saw a new pack of black-clad attackers bearing down on them. Andy’s gun came up in a blur and began discharging bullets. Lucien knew the hallway was too cramped an area to fight the way he had in the Red Room, so he raised his own gun and started firing.
The bodies piled up in a hurry again, but one man got close and launched himself at Andy and Lucien. They stepped aside and the man flew between them, crashing to the floor and then sliding beneath the angled door. Siegel tossed the door aside and descended on the acrobatic attacker He snapped the man’s neck with practiced ease and got to his feet again..
Andy paused to reload while Lucien kept firing. Then Lucien’s gun clicked empty and there was a terrible moment of silence before Andy slammed the fresh clip home and started firing again. In that instant of defenselessness, another attacker got close enough to leap at them. Lucien, who wasn’t in hound mode but was operating on pure human adrenaline, caught the man in mid-air and tossed him over his shoulder. He glanced backward and saw Siegel taking care of him.
Andy’s gun clicked empty.
Two remaining attackers came at them, exhibiting the single-mindedness of attack dogs. Lucien launched himself at them, driving a boot into the abdomen of one. That man flew backward and hit the floor hard, the force of his landing rocking the machete out of his hand. Lucien’s weapons were dislodged as he hit the floor on his rear end. As he scrambled for the fallen machete, he heard Andy and Siegel struggling with the other attacker. But he had his own fight to finish and could only hope things went well on their end.
His hand closed around the machete handle and he managed to get to his knees at the precise moment his opponent did. Lucien recognized how much trouble he would’ve been in had the man come up armed, but luck was on his side this time and the man was empty-handed. Lucien drove the machete blade into the man’s midsection, then got to his feet for leverage and gave it a more powerful thrust. The man screamed as the blade passed all the way through him and exited through his back. The scent of all the fresh blood almost brought on the change, but Lucien willed it back. He yanked the machete out of the dead man and wheeled around to assist his comrades.
But Siegel and Andy had managed to dispatch the other attacker without his aid.
Lucien panted hard for a few moments before managing to speak. “What’s the deal with these people? They seem out of place in this world.”
Andy nodded. “I know. They’re like kamikaze super-ninjas. I’d thought they were agents of the big boss of hell, but now I’m not so sure.”
Siegel slid brass knuckles off his hand and flexed his fingers. “I have an idea.”
They looked at him.
Andy said, “So let’s hear it.”
“I don’t think they were after us at all. Think about it. It doesn’t make sense. Time froze in our world when we came here. Your enemies there couldn’t have sent anyone after us.”
Andy sighed. “So why did they come at us so hard?”
“I think they wanted the Eye of Sylvain.”
“Yeah…yeah, I don’t know, but that could be it.” Andy’s gaze jerked to the left then to the right, examining each end of the hallway. “And I bet whoever these ninja fuckers were bribed O’Scanlon’s people to get it for them. Maybe Sean had nothing to do with it after all.”
Lucien frowned. “I don’t know. If these guys weren’t sent by my old boss, then who sent them? Maybe they were after the Eye of Sylvain, who the fuck knows, but it seems odd they just happened to make their move when we were here.”
Andy shrugged. “Not everything that happens is connected to our situation.”
Lucien still harbored doubts, but he didn’t say anything.
Siegel said, “What about the Eye? Maybe we should go back for it.”
Andy shook his head. “Right now all I care about is getting Sean’s end of this sorted out. Anything else can wait.” He moved past Lucien and paused at the door to the barroom. “I know this is asking a lot, but try your best to be nonchalant. Remember, this hallway is soundproofed and no one in the b
ar knows what happened here.”
Siegel said, “I’ll be as nonchalant as I can be with blood all over me.”
Andy unlocked the door and threw it open.
Lucien expected to hear the dissonant various noises of the barroom. What he heard instead was absolute silence. And that wasn’t his only clue that something was off-kilter. There was something in the air, a scent of recent violence, that rancid perfume born of slaughter, and of pain and anguish, of sweat and tears, of voided bladders and bowels.
The three men stepped into the barroom and stood stock-still as they drank in the bloody panorama of O’Scanlon’s pub. There were bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. None of the pub’s patrons had survived. However, someone had managed to kill a single black-clad super-ninja--he lay with his head propped against the bar, a knife sticking out of his throat.
Something caught Andy’s attention and he rushed over to the bar. He was halfway there when he let out a heart-rending cry. He staggered the rest of the way and stood leaning against the bar. Lucien caught up with him and saw Sean O’Scanlon’s severed head sitting atop a beer barrel.
Andy turned to face them. “Someone pays for this. Whoever sent these ninja freaks here. He’s going to die.”
Lucien didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. It was obvious how difficult finding the person or persons responsible for this massacre would be, especially when there were so many other more pressing matters still at hand.
Siegel coughed. “The Eye of Sylvain. We better get it.”
Andy departed without another word, running over the jumble of broken bodies and limbs. He disappeared through the doorway to the secret hallway a moment before Lucien and Siegel thought to follow him.
Lucien was first through the door. He saw Andy at the end of the hallway, a lantern ripped from a wall sconce dangling from his left hand. Taking Andy’s cue, Lucien and Siegel grabbed their own lanterns and followed. Then they rushed to the end of the hallway, vaulted over the lower end of the angled door, and started down the creaky staircase. The flickering light from the lanterns sped them along, but Lucien nonetheless almost stumbled a time or two before reaching the bottom of the stairs. He hurried down the next hallway to the open Red Room door.
