Dark to Mortal Eyes (67 page)

“Sarge.” Chief Braddock was crouched at the pilot’s side door. “You’re alive.”

“What’re you doin’ here?”

“Shhh. Been trying to wake you up. Didn’t know if I’d be able to, thought you might be a goner. Long story, but I heard about the hijacked helicopter over the radio. Should’ve known you’d have your backside planted in it.” Braddock eased through the mangled cockpit. Together they faced the table at the edge of the cliff. Turney noted the Addisons, Josee, Trudi, and four recruits. Good thing the chief had his firearm.

And Braddock looked ready to use it. Finger on the trigger. Pacing forward.

“Out of the way, Sarge.”

Wait, what’s he doing? He’s got a target in mind!

With an explosion of words, the chief stepped out toward the group. “Gertrude Ubelhaar!” His finger flirted with the trigger of his gun. “You murderer, destroyer!”

“Who are you?” she said unperturbed.

“After my mother was gone, my dad was all I had left. And you killed him! I’m the son of Major Johnson Braddock Sr., the colleague you murdered.”

“An accident. I’m quite certain that’s what the reports indicate.”

Braddock leveled the barrel at her, ignoring Turney’s arrival at his side. “You were there with him at the depot. You released the chemicals in that lab. You knew he was suspicious of your movements about Umatilla, and you removed the threat.”

Trudi’s head was alive with frayed and wild hair. Turney marveled at the sheer mass of it. With a twitch, she whipped a rope of hair at her uniformed aggressor.

Braddock’s eyes widened. He yelled, then drilled a round through Trudi’s calf. It exited in a bloom of blood.

Trudi looked down. “
Shhh
ouldn’t have done that.”

A revelation hit Turney: His superior, his chief, had every intention in the world of maiming and killing this woman before them. The evidence was in his stance, the position of his gun, the look in his eyes. Turney moved from the wreckage toward the others. “Don’t do this, Chief.”

First degree murder, with witnesses to spare? He’ll lose his career and more
.

“Stay out of it, Turney. What do you know about standing up to this thing?”

Turney begged him to reconsider, but the chief had lost all restraint. “She killed my father, and she’s aiming to kill others! I’m doing us all a favor.” He scanned the audience. “Don’t you know, Marsh? I was the one Chance commissioned to protect your family. I’ve been here all along, watching out for you. Staying close.”

“A little too close,” Marsh shot back. “Why you? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Your father, Marsh, saved my dad’s life in the trenches during the war, and he felt I owed him a favor. As a young detective, I agreed to help. I admit that in my desire to warn Kara about your contaminated offspring, I got myself in trouble—and I’m sorry. Okay, is that clear? I’m sorry. My intentions were to guard you from this insanity.”

Turney saw Trudi advancing on her good leg. “Trudi, don’t make him fire again!”

She was tugging at her hair, her voice purring with ridicule. “Mr. Braddock, if you’re going to throw but one punch, I suggest you not even step into the ring.”

One punch …

“Come on,
shhhoot
me again! Let your hatred have its way.
Come onnn!
”

Without a word, Braddock swung his firearm up and—

Kerrackkk!

Turney’s staggering uppercut was a masterpiece of leverage and motion that he could feel spring from his legs, gain momentum in his hips, and collect power from his arms. His meaty fist cracked into Chief Braddock’s jaw from below, lifting him on his feet and driving him back a yard through the air. The gun misfired into the night.

Satisfied, Thunder Turney rubbed at his sore knuckles.

Sorry, Chief. Just thinking of your career
.

At the picnic table, painted in weak candlelight, the Addison family sat stunned by the eruption of violence around them. Braddock was out. Stahlherz was weak but enraged. Trudi was gathering strength, flanked by her cohorts in bug-eyed masks.

Turney shook the fog from his head. He met Josee’s eyes. Nodded.

Gotta help her, but I need backup. Can’t do this all alone
.

He was sure that the county’s patchwork of airport radars had monitored the helicopter’s hijacked flight. A good chance that even now officers were on their way. Not that he could sit around and wait, no sir.

Disoriented, the sergeant moved toward the group.

So here I am, ready to serve and protect. What next, Lord?

The response was not what he expected. In a sudden spin, Karl Stahlherz circled behind him and, once again, laid the broken blade along his neck.

Josee felt blood drip down her jaw and spill onto the china. She leaned ahead, set her chin on the rim of a wineglass. Felt the fangs’ needle tips touch her ear-lobes. She sat still. Beside her, Kara’s face was wet with tears; beneath the table, her mother’s legs moved against hers.

And there, on the grass, stood Sarge. A mess, just like her. But still standing.

“Josee, you’ve survived,” said Trudi, “longer than expected. With your genetic disorder, your debilitating symptoms. Tell me, dear one, how have you managed all these years? Tell us, what’s kept you so healthy, so vibrant?”

The ruptured skin of Josee’s eyebrow was throbbing. She felt far from healthy and vibrant. Her cross necklace slid against her chest.
Show me a way outta here. Please. What am I, a stinkin’ pincushion?

“Tell us, Josee!” Trudi bellowed. “What’s your secret?”

“Gel capsules.”

“Capsules?”

“One each day.”

“No, there’s no remedy so mundane as that. Come now, tell us the truth. This poison that has invaded your genes, altered your blood, has no cure. A long slow death—that’s what you can look forward to, my dear. Don’t be fooled into—”

“You’re a freakin’ liar!” Josee cringed against the reaction she was sure would come. “I’ve heard enough of this. You tried to turn me against my parents. Every step of the way you’ve deceived us.”

“Leave us alone, please,” Kara added. “Josee’s place is with me. With us.”

Across the grass, Turney found Josee’s eyes and gave a nod. Her throat tightened. She wished she could respond to these gestures, but the clasped fingers at her ears were shoving her face down. It was her turn to share in the soup and bread dinner. The swill was cold now, but the liquid burned as it touched her torn eyebrow.

She was coming up for air when she saw Sergeant Turney take a step in their direction. Lightning quick, Stahlherz wrapped behind him and pushed gleaming steel to the officer’s neck.

Groaning, Sergeant Turney shuffled across the grass, hostage to this madman.

“Keep those fat legs moving,” Stahlherz said.

“What good am I to you?”

“I’d like you to meet my mother.” At the table, Trudi watched with amusement.

“Gertrude … Trudi? She’s related to you?”

“She rescued and nurtured me. I also find out that she’s manipulated me.”

“Then let’s bring her to justice. You can have a life of your own.”

“Too late for that.” The man poked at him. “I want her to see you, to witness this pesky knight who’s bumbled about, unwittingly protracting our
goals past and present. I want her to see how easily her shrewd schemes do crumble.”

Certifiably loony tunes! I’m not doin’ a thing this guy says
.

“Keep moving, Sarge.”

The plan hit him like a load of bricks. In apparent compliance, Turney took three rapid steps that startled and dragged Karl Stahlherz along. He whispered, “When I am weak”—step four, step five—”then I am strong!” Thunder Turney let his muscles collapse and dropped to the grass like a prizefighter down for the count.

The weight of the police sergeant was overwhelming. Like a stone, Turney dropped through Steele Knight’s arms and, despite the upward dagger slice along his heavy jowls, fell in a heap on the lawn.

“Then I am strong!” His words echoed over the cape.

Before Stahlherz could react, the mountainous cop rolled backward upon his own wounded arm and pinned Stahlherz’s feet, snapping him at the kneecaps. Stahlherz cried out, felt his legs turn to jelly, then did a marionette’s untethered fall over the obstacle beneath him. As he thrust his arms out for support, he saw his broken blade, saw the sinews of his own hand where the edge had dug deep, saw the dagger’s tip turned upward as it landed with his fist on the path and waited for his unblinking eye.

Shloo-kerr-pawshhh!

The rook could now see through only one eye. His other was draining over his cheek. He tried to rise again upon feathered black wings, found little reaction. Far off, as if in a dream, he heard his mother’s voice.

“Stahli …”

Her deceptive nature rang through that one simple word. Even his name was a deception. So she had provided him proof of identity, but who was Karl Stahlherz really? Would he ever know his lineage with certainty? No, too late now. By his own line of reasoning, he had lost.
It’s over! I won’t keep living in defeat!

With the talons that had clawed through his ears, that had wrapped through his skull and scraped at his sanity, Steele Knight managed to crawl to the fence. He leaned an arm on the wood and crawled over. Removing the dagger from his ruined eye, he stumbled down the incline and wondered if this was the path taken by Trudi’s canister so long ago. His bitterness had nowhere to turn. All over now. He drew one deep track across his own throat and let his body carry him down.

Through the brush. Over the cliff’s gnarled brow.

Tumbling. Falling … in an easy descent.

Facilis descensus Averno! It was the last phrase ever to pass through his mind.

With hands on the fence, Trudi peered out at the cliff as though to convince herself of her henchman’s outcome. She shook her head. “You see, Marsh, Stahli always liked a rousing game of chess, the opportunity to strategize. He could’ve gone about all this far more simply, but he insisted we play it his way. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. That male ego of his. He could not bear to lose.”