“What do you mean?”
“It likes to play games.”
“Who? Who likes to play games?”
“Them.”
“Them?”
“Them.”
He glanced across the lobby at Martin and Huston. They were still where he’d last seen them, holding one another, too wrapped up in their grief to have heard a single thing he and Felix had said.
“Martin!” Keo shouted, even though doing so stretched his throat and reminded him that he was in no shape to be shouting anything.
Martin and Huston looked over.
“It’s a trap,” Keo said.
“What?” Martin said.
“It’s a trap!” Keo shouted, ignoring the blistering pain.
“What’s a trap?” Huston asked.
“This. All of this. It led you, Martin, and Felix here. It wanted you to find us. It’s playing games. They like to play games, remember? The ghoul! The blue-eyed ghoul you’ve been hunting! It’s toying with us!”
He hadn’t gotten us out before he heard it:
It was a low, almost whistling laugh that got louder and louder.
Keo looked up, his hands going to the Glock pistol in its holster, the thoughts Shoot it in the head. Shoot it in the fucking head! flashing through his mind.
He didn’t have to search very far to find it.
The creature was perched on one of the rafters high above them, its skinny frame nearly invisible against the dark metal beams that crisscrossed the underside of the unfinished roof. If Keo didn’t know what he was looking at and had a general direction, he might have missed it completely.
And it was laughing.
At him.
At Felix.
At Martin and Huston.
“Motherfucker,” Felix said as he ran forward and unslung his rifle, taking aim.
Before the slayer could even pull the trigger, it fled, vanishing behind a finished part of the mall roof. There were no footsteps, no noisy retreat.
It was there, and then it was simply gone.
“Shit!” Felix spat out as he pulled his rifle back down.
Martin and Huston had run over, both of them with weapons in their hands.
“Where did it go?” Huston asked even as she scanned the interior of the mall around them.
The place seemed to have gotten noticeably darker, but maybe Keo was just imagining that.
“Anyone see where it went?” Huston was asking.
Martin didn’t say anything, but he did exchange a look with Keo. There was no fear in the other man’s face, and Keo wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“It wants you down there,” Keo had said to the man earlier tonight, when the ghoul first revealed itself. “Why?”
“Why what?” Martin had answered.
“You said it wasn’t personal, but all of this sure feels pretty damn personal to me.”
“It’s not personal.”
“You sure about that?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Keo. It’s not personal. This is business. I kill ghouls. When I’ve killed this fucker, I’ll move on to the next fucker, and I’ll put a bullet into its brain, too. That’s the job.”
Now, as he looked across at Martin, Keo had a feeling a lot of things had changed since that conversation. Maybe it hadn’t been anything personal for Martin then, but that sure as hell wasn’t the case anymore.
And me right in the middle of their personal grudge.
Dae-fucking-bak.
Twenty-Three
“It’s playing with us,” Felix said.
“Yeah,” Martin said.
“It’s probably out there right now, waiting for us to do something dumb. I have a feeling it’s not going to stay out there until daybreak.”
“No, I don’t suspect it will.”
“So what are we gonna do about it, Martin?”
The slayer leader didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t look as if he’d even heard Felix’s last question, but of course he must have since the Taiwanese-American was standing right next to him as they looked toward the exits on the other side of the lobby.
They hadn’t gone very far since the ghoul made its presence known. Keo’s first instincts had been to run outside, guns blazing, but sanity prevailed. He didn’t do something that stupid, and neither did Martin, Felix, or Huston. That was what the bastard wanted. Or, if not that, then something pretty close.
Because this was all a game to it, including everything that had happened at the Deuces. It wanted this. It craved it like a sadistic junkie looking for his next fix.
So what were their choices?
Felix was right; the creature wasn’t going to just stay outside the mall the entire night and wait for morning to chase it away. That was pretty goddamn unlikely, because all of last night and this morning had led to this, whatever “this” was.
“Martin?” Felix said when the other slayer still hadn’t answered him. “What are we going to do?”
Keo didn’t have a watch anymore, but according to Felix it was almost 4:00 a.m., which put them at just a shade under three hours before sunrise. The sun had a bad habit of taking its time during winter in Texas.
Still, three hours… He could survive three hours. Couldn’t he?
“Nothing,” Martin finally said.
Keo wondered if the shocked look on Felix’s face mirrored his own.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Felix asked.
“We’re going to do nothing,” Martin said. “If it wants us, it can come in and get us.” He looked over at Keo. “How’s your arm? Huston said it was dislocated.”
“I’ll live,” Keo said.
“You sure?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then it’s fine and dandy.”
Besides the spare Glock in his holster, Keo also had a six-inch blade to replace his lost KA-BAR. The only thing missing was a rifle or a shotgun, but the slayers hadn’t brought the extra weight with them. He had to be satisfied with a gun and knife, which was a lot more than what he’d had an hour ago.
“So we’re just going to stand here and wait for it to come in and get us?” Felix was asking Martin. “That’s the plan?”
“That’s exactly the plan,” Martin said. He focused on the main entrance, the same one he and Felix had used to enter the mall. “It wants us out there, where it can pick us off one by one. In here, we have numbers.” He glanced down at his own watch. “And it’s running out of time.”
Felix grunted. “I liked it better when we were hunting the fucker.”
“Things change, Felix. This is one of those times.”
“No shit.” Felix looked over at Keo. “You got any bright ideas, Chinaman?”
“Why are you asking me?” Keo said.
“I don’t know. You look like a guy who has bright ideas. Or dumb ideas he thinks are bright.”
Keo had to grin at that. Felix wasn’t entirely wrong.
“I agree with Martin,” Keo said. “There’s no reason to go out there, where it has all the advantage. In here, we can watch each other’s backs. We can see it when it comes. Not so much out there.”
“You think it’s the only one out there?” Huston asked.
“I think it’s the only blue eyes in town, yeah. If there were more, we’d probably have seen them by now.”
“I meant all of them. Including the black eyes.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“How many did you see out there? In the road when it attacked you?”
“Not many. I killed everything it threw at me and Jackson.”
“All of them?” Felix said doubtfully.
“The ones that it had with it, anyway,” Keo said.
“How many was that?”
“A handful. No more.”
“Maybe it really is running out of nightcrawlers.”
“So it could be the last one in Paxton,” Huston said. She hadn’t tried to hide the hope in her voi
ce.
“Maybe,” Keo said. “I don’t know.”
But shit, I sure hope it doesn’t have another small army of black eyes still waiting to unleash on us.
“Maybe we should move to higher ground,” Felix said. He was looking over at the closest escalator, on the other side of the fountain.
“Did you happen to see where that thing was earlier?” Keo asked him.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, I don’t think higher ground is really much of an advantage against it.”
“You have a point.”
“It’s been known to happen.”
Next to Keo, Martin was scanning the dark parts of the mall lobby, the forefinger of his right hand rubbing against the trigger of his slung rifle. What Keo wouldn’t give for one of those right about now.
“Martin?” Huston said to the slayer. “Are you okay?”
Martin might have been about to answer when there was the sound of hands clapping.
It came out of nowhere. Slowly and painfully drawn out.
Keo’s hand dropped, groped for, and found the gun at his side. The pistol felt slick and foreign against his hand, but he managed to get a good grip and draw the Glock anyway. The weight of the fully-loaded magazine was music to his ears.
The others had heard the clapping, too (Good, so I’m not crazy.), and they were also seeking out the source. Felix, next to Keo, raised his rifle and searched the second floor, while Martin and Huston stepped a little closer toward Keo and Felix. Instinctively, all four of them had turned their backs to each other until they’d formed a semicircle.
The clap continued, as agonizingly slow and mind-numbingly drawn out as it’d been when Keo first heard it.
Where the hell is that coming from?
Keo looked up at where the creature had been before, but there were no signs of it up there this time. There was nothing on the parts of the second floor that he could see either, but his vision was obscured by a protective three-foot wall all along the edges to keep people from falling over.
Slowly, achingly slowly, the clapping began to fade…until there was just the sounds of their slightly anxious breathing in the lobby.
“You guys heard that too, right?” Felix asked.
The slayer was to Keo’s right, with Martin to his left. Huston was on the other side between the two men.
“Yes,” Huston said. “I think we all heard it, Felix.”
“Good. Thought I was going a little bonkers there for a minute.”
“Where was it coming from?” Keo asked. “Did anyone see it?”
“I couldn’t tell,” Felix said.
“Me, neither,” Huston said.
“I guess it’s not going to wait till morning,” Keo said.
“I guess not,” Felix said. “Too bad. I was hoping it would.”
“You and me both, pal.”
“You have someplace to be, Keo?” Huston asked.
“Hell yes. No offense, but trapped in a mall with you guys wasn’t on my to-do list this month.”
“Shit happens, then you get stuck in an unfinished mall,” Felix said.
“Martin?” Huston said. “You okay?”
Oh right, Martin was there with them, too. He’d been so quiet Keo had forgotten all about the other slayer for a moment.
“Stick to the plan,” Martin said. “Just like we discussed. Let it come in and get us. Nothing’s changed.”
“What if it doesn’t come in alone?” Huston asked.
“Then we’ll deal with them like we dealt with all the others in the past. This isn’t the first time we’ve had our backs against a wall. It won’t be the last, either.”
Talking exactly like a man looking for a reason to get dead, Keo thought. Sorry, Martin, but I got things to do, people to see, and a woman to go home to.
Keo said, “You got any more of those C4 left, Felix?”
“Just a couple of bricks,” Felix said. “I’m not a pack mule, you know.”
“So why’d you bring them in the first place?”
“Force of habit. You can take the boy out of the army, but you can’t take the love for explosives out of the boy. What are you thinking?”
“How many of those would it take to bring this place down?”
“More than what I got.”
“How much more?”
“A hell of a lot more.”
“That’s a lot.”
“No shit, Einstein.”
“So—” Keo began.
“Martin!” Huston shouted, cutting Keo off.
Keo turned toward the sound of her voice. Huston was facing one of the rear doors, and he saw immediately what had prompted her to call out Martin’s name.
A pair of ghouls had entered the mall, moonlight dancing off their pruned black flesh as they bounded across the lobby. They were moving on all fours like cheetahs, except there was nothing natural about these creatures.
Just two? Keo thought, when two more entered the same doors behind the first two. They were moving just as fast, just as low to the ground.
Not just two, then.
Still, the number surprised him. He was expecting more than just four. Four ghouls, against the four of them, was not even a challenge, especially when they had silver bullets. The blue eyes had to know that, didn’t it?
Martin and Felix moved first, stepping between Huston and the ghouls and opening up. The suppressed pop-pop-pop of their weapons felled all four creatures before they could even make it halfway across the lobby.
Well, that was easy, Keo thought as the ejected empty brass casings clink-clink-clinked on the tiled flooring around his boots.
The bang-bang-bang! of Huston’s handgun made him turn toward her a second time.
The medic was shooting at two more ghouls as they raced through the front entrance. She hit one and it fell, but its partner kept coming. Not that it got very far. Felix turned, aimed, and took it down with one shot to the chest.
And just like that, it was over. Keo hadn’t even had to fire a single shot.
That was easy. Is it really going to be this easy all night?
The answer came in the form of movements flickering at the corner of his eyes. Keo looked up just as two more black shapes vaulted over the three-foot wall that circled the edge of the second floor above them.
More ghouls!
He fired, striking one of them while it was still in the air. His bullet punched through its chest and pinged! off one of the metal beams along the unfinished roof.
Martin shot the second one, and it landed on the floor with a painful crunch, like watermelon breaking in half against the ground.
The one Keo had killed had touched down a few feet from the second one. It lay crumpled on its stomach and head, legs twisted in impossible angles behind and slightly above it. If it’d been able to feel anything, the uninspired landing would have hurt beyond words.
But it wasn’t the dead creature’s painful final form that Keo was staring at. It was its right arm. Or, more specifically, its right wrist. There was something on it. Something odd that didn’t belong.
What the hell is that? Keo was thinking when Martin walked past him and over to the creature.
“Martin, what are you doing?” Huston asked.
The slayer leader ignored her and crouched next to the dead black eyes. He reached down to touch the one Keo had shot, then turned its head slightly, almost gingerly. Whatever he saw down there kept Martin from getting up and returning to them.
“Martin,” Huston said again. “What’s wrong?”
“Hey, Martin,” Felix said. “We have to stay together, remember?” Then, when Martin still didn’t respond, “Buddy. Hey.”
But Martin continued to ignore the both of them.
Keo exchanged a look with Felix, who shrugged. The three of them walked over to join Martin, looking around the lobby the entire time for more ghouls. But the attack had stopped. At least, for now.
This can’t be it, Keo tho
ught. It’s too easy. It’s way too easy.
This can’t be all it has. Can it?
He stopped behind Martin and got a better look at the dead ghoul that the slayer couldn’t seem to pull himself from. Martin remained crouched, almost transfixed by what he was seeing. So what had so entranced him?
It was a watch. An all-gold watch. It dangled off the right wrist of the ghoul that Keo had shot. The leather strap was cinched as tightly as possible to keep it from falling off the emaciated wrist.
It was a gold Rolex 36mm Datejust, as blingy and out of place now as it’d been when Keo first saw it at the Deuces not very long ago.
On Jack’s wrist.
The ghoul was Jack.
Or it used to be, because nothing about the dead creature in front of them resembled the human being it once was. The ghoul could have been anyone in a past life—maybe Rondo or McBroom or even Merrifield—but the watch was the giveaway. Martin had spotted it immediately and put two and two together. Keo couldn’t see Martin’s face, but he imagined a hurricane of emotions rushing across it this very second.
“What the fuck?” Felix said. “Is that what I think it is? Why’s it wearing a watch? They don’t wear watches. They don’t even wear clothes.”
No, they didn’t, unless it told them to. There was no reason whatsoever why the ghoul should have been sporting jewelry that, once upon a time, cost thousands of dollars. The only reason would be…
It’s fucking with us.
But specifically, it was playing with Martin. It knew exactly how to get to him.
Through Jack.
“It’s a trick,” Keo said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Martin.”
Huston glanced over at Keo. “What are you talking about? He’s not going to do anything.”
Keo ignored her and focused on Martin. “Remember, it’s toying with us. Don’t give it what it wants. We need to stay right here and let it come to us, just like you said. Stick to the plan. Let it come—”
The sound of laughter bled across the open lobby air.
Keo looked up toward the second floor where the voice had come from.
It was leaning over the three-foot barrier, spindly arms casually draped over the top of the wall as it laughed. Moonlight bounced off its hairless domed head, and its blue eyes gleamed with mischief and pleasure.
Keo’s face tingled at the sight of it, and a part of him wanted to turn and run. But he didn’t, and instead lifted the Glock—
Road to Babylon (Book 8): Daybreak Page 22
