Hounacier (Valducan Book 2) (16 page)

"So what's the plan?" Issach asked, adjusting his glasses.

"Depends," Malcolm said, still scanning. "It's too busy to nab him until late. Around midnight might be safe. I'll want a look at the building layout to be sure where everyone needs to be. Back door's probably best to get him in the car." He gestured to the alley beyond the fence. "I'm thinking through there. Gives two points of escape." He turned to Issach. "Can you get me inside?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's have a look around."

#

Malcolm sat in the front seat of the SUV, his skin sticky with perspiration. They'd parked in the T-alley behind the apartments, facing the northern street. Using the AC was pointless for such a long wait, so they'd opened the windows, but the heavy, humid air didn't move enough to make any difference. He'd made Quentin smoke outside, but the stink still drifted in.

He checked his watch.

11:44.
Sixteen more minutes.

He hated the waiting before a job. Time slowed to a painful crawl as the tension only raced higher and higher. Over all the years, it had gotten better, some, but it never went away.

Malcolm slid his hand into the oxygen bag and touched Hounacier's handle. She could always calm him. Tracing his fingers across the smooth grip, he petted the carved animal head curving from the end. He never had figured out exactly what type of animal the crude carving was supposed to depict. Panther, he suspected. It felt like a panther, sleek and menacing. It would help if anyone knew where exactly Hounacier originated, but no one did. Ulises had said stories of her first appeared in Les Cayes in the late Nineteenth Century. Then in the 1920s, a New Orleans bokor named Papa Peyroux carried her back to Haiti. If he had known what the animal was, he took it to his grave.

Malcolm remembered the way Ulises had touched her handle the day they'd first met. Protective. She was his love, and along came some half-Cuban American from some big university with big ideas and no faith. He couldn't imagine how that must have felt. But Ulises took him, trained him, and eventually gave his greatest love over to that same arrogant boy he now called his son. A son that never called, rarely visited so that Ulises could see him, see Hounacier, be in the room with her again.

Would that be his fate too? Would the day come when some pompous shit would appear, inherit Hounacier, and leave Malcolm to loneliness and booze as his only company? He'd deserve that.

Pushing the thought away, Malcolm checked his watch again.

11:51.
Close enough.

He took the radio from console and thumbed the rubberized button. "Check in. Issach, you got anything?"

"Nothin'."

"Sammy?"

"Just sweatin' my balls off," Sammy replied.

"Well, get ready. We're going in in five minutes. Remember the plan. Issach, we'll meet you up on three."

"Got it," Issach said.

Malcolm picked up the black wire earpiece and plugged it into the Motorola. Taking Hounacier's bag, he stepped out of the vehicle and clipped the radio to his belt. "Quentin, you ready?"

Quentin sucked a final drag off his menthol and dropped it. He nodded, blowing a long stream of smoke.

"Errol, go ahead and start the car." Malcolm slipped the silver-chain-wrapped dowel in his back pocket. "Call Atabei. Let her know."

The little man nodded and stuck the key in the ignition.

Before closing the Lexus door, Malcolm slipped the sawed-off into the holster along the back of his belt, beneath his untucked shirt. He kissed the crescent bone pendant then slung Hounacier's bag across his back. He nodded to Quentin, and they started down the alley.

His shoulder tingled with the familiar excitement, adrenaline trickling through his veins. His senses heightened, even beyond normal. He could smell every piece of mildewed garbage, the burger joint half a block away, even the lingering traces of Errol's cheap cologne behind him. Each scrawled graffiti picture and word was clearly visible in the dim light. They turned at the intersection and continued twenty yards toward the broken fence. Sammy was already by the door, rocking on his heels, antsy, looking over his shoulder.

Malcolm gave a quick scan, verifying no one was around, and slipped through the narrow opening into the parking lot.

Sammy nodded to him.

"You cool?" Malcolm asked.

"Yeah," the thin man said a little too eagerly.

"Good," Malcolm said. "Just stop bouncing." He motioned to Quentin, and the big man unwrapped the obsidian mask and offered it over.

Sammy accepted it like it was radioactive or something.

"Just stand at the door with this at your chest," Malcolm said. "That'll keep him inside if he gets past us. Just hold it tight, and for God's sake, don't drop it or put it over your face."

"Okay."

Malcolm pressed the radio button. "Going in." The metal door squeaked as he pulled it open. Flickering fluorescent tubes, their light yellowed by dingy covers, lit the hallway beyond. The men stepped in, passed a broken elevator, and turned up a tight stairwell that stank of vomit.

They came up on the third floor. The long hallways stretched from one side of the building to the other lined with numbered doors. Black pads of hardened gum and cigarette burns speckled the brown carpet. Issach stood at the other end, by the second stairwell, the other demon mask in his hands. He gave a little nod then headed toward them.

They closed in on unit 341. Malcolm put a finger to his lips. The muffled sound of a TV blared from a nearby apartment. Malcolm drew Hounacier from her sheath and pointed the two men where to stand. Issach took position before the door, the black mask at neck level. Quentin pulled his revolver from under his shirt and took position just behind and to his side. Taking a breath, Malcolm put his back to the wall beside the door handle. He held up a hand and counted down on his fingers.

3…2…1.

Cocking his knee, Malcolm mule-kicked back, smashing his heel just below the handle. Wood popped, and the door burst open.

"There!" Issach shouted.

Malcolm spun in a crouch, his head below the mask, Hounacier out before him. A black remote control flew into the wall near his face, spraying him with broken plastic. Silhouetted in the light of a flickering television, Shane Gruss, the man from the antique store, now shirtless, scrambled over the back of a couch and through an open door. The door slammed shut.

"Go!" Malcolm ordered.

They moved into the room, Malcolm to one side, Issach and Quentin moving together to the other. Glass crashed in the other room. Metal
thunked
. A man screamed.

Malcolm raced to the door and kicked it open. Torn blinds hung out a smashed window. He scanned the bedroom. Empty. He ran to the window.

Below, shattered glass and twisted window frame littered the dented top of a white van. Sammy was on the ground, crawling away on his back, mask against his chest. Lengthening, gray hair whipped along the demon man's skin as if he were in a wind tunnel. He growled, his face rippling in the phantom gale. It pushed its way toward Sammy.

Fuck!
"He's outside!" Malcolm slashed the machete across the bottom of the windowsill, knocking out the broken shards.

Sammy released one hand from the mask, jammed his hand down his pants, and pulled out a pistol.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

One of the rounds hit the monster in the gut. It staggered back.

"No!" Malcolm screamed.

Sammy kept firing. Blood exploded from the beast's shoulder.

"Stop!" Malcolm climbed through the window. Holding the edge, he swung down. Searing pain shot through his ribs as he caught his weight. Stifling a yelp, he dropped the rest of the way onto the parked van. He landed with a loud
thunk
and went to his knees. Glass bounced and tinkled around him.

The half-formed beast whirled. Growing circles of hairless skin widened around the bleeding wounds. Its eyes narrowed, seeing Malcolm. It fled toward the alley.

Gritting his teeth, Malcolm slid off the roof onto the asphalt. The injured monster squeezed though the broken fence and loped off down the alley.

Malcolm hit the radio button as he started after it. "Errol! It's coming your way." He ran to the fence, Sammy behind him, and slipped though the blood-smeared opening. Ahead, the monster turned the corner, headed toward the SUV.

Fighting through the pain, Malcolm squeezed Hounacier's grip and hurried after it.

Over the sounds of their pounding feet, glass shattered ahead. Errol's scream was cut off.

"Errol!" Malcolm rounded the corner. The monster, now mostly formed, crouched below the Lexus' open door. Blood splattered the pearl paint as the beast tore into Errol's stomach, his face the serene, distance-eyed calm as the demon claimed his soul.

Malcolm charged.

The creature's head snapped around, its lengthening maw caked in chunky red. The blossomed silver slug pushed itself out from its shoulder and fell to the ground. Gray fur sprouted from the bald spot around the now-closed wound, and the beast swelled to its full size.

It stood. Bloody and split blue jeans hung from the werewolf's waist.

Malcolm threw his left palm out, and the tattoo stretched wide. The beast winced, backing half a step into the open door. With a roar, it sprang, landing on all fours and charged with incredible speed, its bloody jaws wide.

Hand still extended, Malcolm braced for the attack.

The beast leaped, its claws stretched before it.

Malcolm whirled to the side, allowing a clear line of sight from the beast to the demon mask in Sammy's hands behind him.

The airborne monster jolted back. It slammed into a brick wall and fell.

"Stay on it!" Malcolm ordered as the scrambling beast tried to rise.

Holding the mask out front in both hands, Sammy moved to the side, trapping the werewolf between the wall and the mask. Fur whipping, it tried to crawl forward along the edge, but Malcolm moved in its path, warding palm out.

The beast gave a whimpering growl and cinched its eyes. Not looking at the tattoo protected it from the effects, but not from the mask. Head down, it tried crawling back, but Sammy adjusted his position, keeping it pinned.

Bones popped and shifted beneath the werewolf's skin. Its snout undulated and flattened and lengthened. The gray fur thinned, thickened, thinned again.

Footsteps raced up the alley behind them. Malcolm glanced back to see Issach and Quentin running toward them. Issach froze, eyes locked on Errol's bloodied form.

"Issach!' Malcolm snapped over his shoulder. "Mask!"

Issach jumped. He looked at Malcolm.

"Mask!"

Nodding, he ran up beside Sammy, his own mask out before him.

The demon wailed beneath the combined assault, its bestial voice cracking to human. Its fur shrank away, revealing pinkish skin as the body shifted and shrank to normal.

Shane Gruss lay trembling into the scummy alley corner, crushed beneath the power of the masks.

His palm still out and Hounacier ready, Malcolm looked to Quentin. "Tie him up."

The big man just looked at him, terror in his wide, pale eyes.

"Now, God damn it!"

Quentin pulled a dowel from his pocket and approached the demon man.

"Get his hands first," Malcolm said.

Shane didn't struggled as Quentin pulled one of his hands behind him and looped the chain around his wrist. He pulled the other arm back and wrapped the rest of it tight, finishing with a crude knot.

"Make sure that'll hold." Malcolm lowered his palm long enough to fish the chain-wrapped dowel from his own pocket. He tossed it underhanded. "Now his neck."

Malcolm looked around. They needed to move. Someone had to have called the cops about the shots. Errol moaned on the ground, his fingers fumbling with the gruesome wound as if trying to push the blood back in.

Malcolm's enhanced eyes caught movement along the far side of the alley. A homeless man lay in a dark corner beside concrete steps, his mangy beard hanging like Spanish moss. Caked in filth, Malcolm couldn't even guess the man's race. He shivered and twitched, eyes rolling like a crackhead in withdrawal. The man's eyes snapped to attention and met Malcolm's with a sudden and strange familiarity.

The loa looked at him, seeming curious, a question on his crusty lips. He glanced to the demon and back to Malcolm and shook his head. Pity? Warning?

"Got it," Quentin exclaimed.

Malcolm turned from the mounted man.
Sorry. No time for your riddles.
"All right, get him to the car. Sammy, go around to the other side. We'll pin him in the middle with Errol between you two."

"With Errol?" Sammy asked. "Can't we call him an ambulance?"

"He's marked," Malcolm said. "The demon's inside him now. We'll wrap his neck and take him with us."
I just hope he survives until we reach Atabei.