Game Of Cages (2010) (10 page)

"It came from over there!" Fat Guy said, and then a volley of gunshots rang out, all facing away from me. I dropped low anyway. The floor was concrete and the walls were cinder block; I didn't want to be killed by a ricochet.

The shooting stopped after a couple of seconds. One of them let out a high, quavering whine, like a fan belt about to give. "Dammit," Fat Guy said. "Gimme a clip. Somebody gimme a clip."

But it was too late for that. Their morale had been broken. There was a cascade of stomping footsteps as they fought one another up the stairs. No one wanted to be the last to get out of the darkness.

I crouched in the dark, listening. The basement was quiet, but I could hear footsteps above me, shuffling around. I felt a little smug. Those guys had been afraid of me--well, they'd been afraid of what they'd imagined was in the darkness.

There was probably a lesson in that, but whatever. Someone was moving toward the front of the house, so I headed toward the garage. I still needed to find Catherine. I held my hands in front of me as I went. Although I had to backtrack out of a couple of dead ends, I didn't run into anything dangerous.

The windows on the garage side of the house were about fifteen feet away when a metal shelving unit toppled onto me.

I raised my arm to shield my face, feeling for a moment that the whole building was falling onto me. Something slid off the shelf, bounced off my forehead, and shattered at my feet. I fell back against a second metal shelf, and the two frames closed on my head. I cried out as I scraped myself free.

"Got you!" someone said. It was Fat Guy again.

The shelves struck something and stopped falling. I slid close to the floor where the gap between them was widest.

A sharp pain in my knee froze me in place as a huge shadow moved toward me, black against not-quite-as-black. I'd knelt on something, but I'd worry about that later.

I could hear him breathing through his mouth. He had emptied his gun and asked for a clip. Had he gotten one before his buddies ran upstairs? I lunged for him, hoping to end this quickly. Trickery wasn't going to help me now.

I threw a punch at the general area where his head should have been, holding back a bit in case I missed and struck a piece of furniture. I connected. Lucky.

He took the blow in stride and grabbed my collar. Like a lot of big, slow, tough guys, he wanted to grapple. My shirt rippled. He'd hit me on the protective tattoos on my chest where I couldn't feel it.

Now I knew exactly where he was. I hit him with a right to the side of his jaw and, when he staggered, a left to his temple.

My left hand--which had never fully recovered from an old gunshot injury--throbbed, but the strength went out of Fat Guy. He rolled and fell flat on his back. I heard flimsy metal clatter around him in the dark.

I knelt and patted him down. He carried his wallet in his breast pocket. I took it. I also took his handgun from his shoulder holster and, after checking that the slide was back, pitched it into the darkness.

It only took another minute or so to reach the windows on the garage side of the building. I peeked outside. No one in sight.

By the light of the window, I searched Fat Guy's wallet. He was from Chicago and had two hundred dollars in twenties. How considerate of him. I took the cash and tossed his wallet into the clutter.

I cut a window out of the frame and pulled it free as quietly as I could. Cold, clean air rushed in. I boosted myself up and squeezed my shoulders through the gap.

A familiar voice said something in German. Tattoo was standing by the corner where he could watch this side of the house and the front. He began to stroll casually toward me.

I squirmed through the window and scrambled to my feet. He was smiling and his limbs swung loose. He said something else, sounding almost friendly, and gave a pointed glance at my stomach.

I absentmindedly wiped my hand down the front of my shirt. There was a long slash in the cloth, starting beside my solar plexus and going down and to the left.

Damn. Fat Guy hadn't punched me in the gut. He'd had a knife and I never knew it. The Fellows had been frightened of what they couldn't see, but I'd nearly been killed by the same thing.

Tattoo was just a few paces away from me now. He was smiling like a guy who was going to walk all over me and enjoy the hell out of it.

The ghost knife was still in my pocket. I left it there. Tattoo made me nervous and I needed to keep something in reserve. The marks on his body could mean all sorts of things. Maybe he could breathe fire. Maybe he could shoot tear gas out of his armpits. I wanted him to play his hand before I played mine.

Also, I didn't want to go for my weapon right away. I hate to show my fear.

I started toward the garage, but he stepped lightly into my way. His smile grew wide and he clucked his tongue. That wasn't allowed. Hell, if he was going to tsk tsk me, he was going to get the fight he wanted. We moved toward each other.

He was fast. When he threw the first punch, I almost didn't see it coming and barely got out of the way, staggering back. He looked surprised that I'd avoided his jab but not particularly worried.

I leaned into him, moving my head to the side while throwing a jab of my own. I hit him full on his tattooed nose while his counterpunch went just wide.

Now it was his turn to stagger back. He kept his balance and his smile. "Gut, gut!" he said, as though advising me to try body blows. My left hand stung from the shot I'd landed, but his nose didn't look damaged at all. Damn. His tattoos seemed to be the same as mine, more or less, and he was completely covered by them--even his face. Probably even his scalp. This guy was better protected than my boss.

He came at me again. I went on the defensive, blocking and weaving. I'm pretty quick--I was a promising baseball player once, and I've always had a sharp eye and fast hands.

Tattoo was fast too, but he wasn't unnaturally fast. He wasn't superstrong, either. I wondered just how complete his protection was. He threw a low right hand that I let hit my ribs while I extended my left, fingers out, toward his eyes.

He dodged sideways, almost losing his balance in his haste. In that moment, I landed a solid kick to his crotch.

We backed away from each other. My lunge at his eyes had wiped the smile from his face, but the kick had brought it back. It'd had no effect on him.

"Oh, hell no," I said. "Your johnson, too? That's just not right."

His smile turned sour. Whether he spoke my language or not, he understood what I was saying. Suddenly he wasn't having quite so much fun.

I kept backing away from him, my left hand still aching. I wasn't focused on the fight the way I needed to be. If my head was in the right place, I wouldn't feel my hand until after. My adrenaline was trailing away--I'd wasted it in the basement and I needed it now.

He caught up to me, feinted low, and hit me on the side of my jaw.

I managed to roll with it at the last moment, but the world still blinked dark. I felt something cold against the side of my face--mud? It felt solid. I pushed away and crumpled into the mud for real. As I fell, Tattoo's fist hit the side of the house where my head had been.

I tried to shake my mind clear, but I was still feeling fuzzy. My ass was wet. My hands were muddy and leaching heat, but that soothed the pain in my left.

Tattoo was talking again. Someone who didn't know about my protective tattoos would have kicked me in the ribs, but he circled behind me. The idea that he might return the favor of a kick to the nuts gave me a much-needed burst of adrenaline.

I rolled onto my hip and held out my forearm. That punch to the face frightened the hell out of me. If he did it again, I might never wake up. His kick struck my wrist. In a desperate grapple, I grabbed his right foot and twisted it with both hands. He yelped in surprise and pain, rolling against the steps Catherine and I had used to enter the house and falling into the mud to avoid a dislocated knee. His other boot scraped painfully across my scalp, but there was no power behind it. He got his arms under him. I didn't have much time. I jammed his foot behind the other knee, then folded his leg over it.

I remembered that sour-faced housekeeper. The old man had sacrificed her without a second thought, and Tattoo had laughed about it.

I rolled over his ankle and broke it.

He screamed. It was a high, girl-in-a-horror-movie scream, full of fear and unaccustomed to pain.

He reached back for me. I twisted his thumb too far, and he screamed again. I loved that sound. It was like a church choir to me. This bastard was faster than me and he hit harder, but the tattoos that protected him from cutting and impacts didn't protect against twisting.

And I couldn't leave him alive. He'd come after me again someday, and I didn't think I could take him a second time.

He swung with his good arm, stinging my ear. I let the momentum of his swing carry him onto his back, but I stayed close. I shifted my weight onto my feet, grabbed his wrists, and stood, lifting him off the ground with his head hanging down.

The stairs were made of stone. That should do. I waddled over there, pinning him with a bear hug. He struggled, but I could hold him long enough to break his neck.

Something came at me from the top of the stairs and slammed into me. The sudden impact broke Tattoo from my grip, and I wanted to cry out like a terrified child. I smelled a lemon aftershave as I sprawled in the mud.

It was the old man's assistant, Frail. I flipped him up and off me, letting our momentum roll me clear of Tattoo. He scuttled off, his hands over his head. Tattoo crawled away from me, dragging his crooked ankle behind him.

I heard shouting and footsteps through the open kitchen door. Tattoo's screams had brought help. My head still hadn't cleared--all I could think about was guns. I turned and ran around the garage into the woods.

I fled blindly, pushing through a break in the blackberry bramble and dodging through the trees so they wouldn't have a clear shot. It wasn't until I tripped at the bottom of a steep slope that I realized they weren't chasing me.

I leaned against a tree, fighting to catch my breath. Why hadn't they come after me with their shotguns? I rubbed my aching hands and face. My head began to clear.

And I remembered the floating storm.

Damn. I scanned the woods around me. I didn't see any floating balls of light, but my visibility was pretty limited. Damn and damn again. I'd planned to steal a car and drive to Catherine's. We could have gotten off the property in a few minutes.

I looked back up the slope. The cars were still there, of course. I could try to sneak back.

No. They knew I was out here. And even if they weren't going to chase me, they were probably watching from the windows. It's what I would have done.

I really wished I'd killed that tattooed bastard.

I jogged along the base of the slope, watching the treetops for any trace of the reddish light I'd seen the floating storm give off. The ground was covered with moss, fallen branches, and a few scattered ferns. I made a lot of noise, but it was better than pushing through brambles. After a few minutes, my head had cleared. There was still no sign of the creature.

Predator, I reminded myself. That old man had summoned a predator out of the Empty Spaces. And the Twenty Palace Society existed to kill people like him.

I had bought into that mission. Not an hour ago, I had wondered if I could bring myself to kill again. Now I had a list.

I thought about the people caught up in this mess: Regina and her staff, the Fellows, the old man and his dangerous little crew, and the well-dressed Chinese gunmen. The society was just another gang after the same prize, and Catherine and I were the only ones here to represent. Maybe that should have bothered me, but it didn't. I had bought in. I knew what predators could do, and I was ready to do whatever it took to destroy them.

And God! This was what I'd missed since Hammer Bay. I'd thought it had been the excitement and the danger, but it was really this feeling. I had a clear purpose. I had important work. I would do whatever I had to do to stop these people.

But no. That wasn't true. If I'd done to Ursula what Annalise would have done--if I'd killed her--I wouldn't have been trapped in the basement and I wouldn't have fought Tattoo. Hell, the old man wouldn't have summoned the floating storm. That maid's death was partly my fault. Annalise was ruthless but she wouldn't have gotten herself into this situation. It was something to think about.

The wind had picked up, and my wet pants and sleeves were leaching body heat. I wished I'd kept my jacket. I moved forward, scrambling over uneven ground and fallen wood, hoping I was headed toward the long asphalt drive.

I came across a trail of footprints in the mud and stopped. Was someone out here hunting me? I couldn't see anyone. There were actually three pairs of footprints. Two headed toward the house, and the third went back the other way.

They were mine, Catherine's, and Catherine's again. Perfect. At least I was on her trail. I followed the footprints to the long drive and then down the hill.

A thunderclap echoed from somewhere up ahead. Had I failed Catherine already? Had the floating storm killed her? I kept running. I wasn't going to give up on her until I saw her corpse.

That little thought prompted a quick series of ugly mental images that didn't do anything but slow me down.

I reached a steep part of the hill and crouched at the base of a tree. The crashed truck lay on the road below. The Acura was close, and I couldn't see anyone.

I fell once going down the slope. My pants were already as wet as they were going to get. No one shouted or shot at me. A few minutes later, I came to the stand of trees where Catherine's car was hidden.

It was still there. I approached cautiously. Catherine wasn't around. Damn. I peered inside. Nothing.

I circled the car, hoping to find a second trail of footprints to follow. Something moved out from behind a tree. I jumped and cursed before I realized it was Catherine.