Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (32 page)

‘So why do you need me?’ Pete asked, suddenly suspicious. ‘I left my pistols in my other suit.’

‘I need you on the off chance I’m wrong about the whole “obeying the rules” thing,’ I said. ‘We’ll be dueling with swords but, as my second, I’ll need you to be ready for anything.’ I reached into the bag at my feet. ‘I’ll provide a pistol. This,’ I held up the weapon, ‘is a Colt .45 automatic. Ever shoot one?’

‘Nothing that wasn’t attached to an arcade game.’

‘OK, quick lesson. This is the magazine. It holds seven rounds. You slot it into the butt of the gun like this. Pull the slide back like so. That cocks the hammer. This is a single action pistol. It won’t fire if the hammer isn’t back. That shouldn’t matter if you chamber a round, but just know that. This is the safety. Leave it in this position until you decide you want to shoot, then disengage it with your thumb. It’s positioned to make that easy. As far as sights, you want to line the front blade up in this back notch. Aim at the biggest part of the target and squeeze, don’t jerk the trigger. It’s an accurate weapon, but it has a decent recoil, so after you shoot, let the weapon come back down before you shoot again. Here,’ I opened the slide and handed it over, ‘it’s empty. Now, push that, the slide release. Yeah, right there.’

He did, not flinching as the slide closed, which made me happy.

‘Now hold it in your right hand, and support your right hand in your left, like that. Good.’

‘So, apart from doing my best Dirty Harry, what does a second do?’

‘You’re there to observe for me, make sure that the rules are obeyed and the duel is conducted honorably. I think it will be. The thing is, when I win, if his second gets any ideas, I need you to watch my back. Don’t pull the gun unless things go to hell, and don’t shoot unless you feel confident you aren’t going to hit me. But once you decide to shoot, finish the job.’

‘Got it.’

‘What about us?’ asked Nique.

‘I think they’ll play the duel straight, but I want you two someplace safe where you can look out for one another. Stay together, and keep this.’ I pulled a second pistol from my bag, ‘This is a—’

‘Browning Hi-Power nine millimeter,’ Sarah answered matter-of-factly. ‘What? My dad was an MP in the Army. My uncle collects guns. I used to go shooting with him.’

I digested this fact for a moment.

‘You ever shoot an M1911?’

‘Yes. It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can still shoot a six inch group at ten yards.’

I paused for a moment, then took the .45 from Pete, handing him the 9mm instead. ‘This,’ I told him, ‘is a Browning nine millimeter. It’s similar to the Colt—’

‘Wait,’ he protested. ‘I get the little gun? Why?’

‘It’s got less recoil than the .45, so it’s easier to control, and the magazine holds more bullets, so you can shoot more before you need to reload. It’s a better gun for a less experienced shooter.’

‘It matches your mascara better, too,’ Nique observed.

Chapter 34

THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE EERILY QUIET. I laid low, recuperating, and keeping an eye on the news as well as checking in with Pete and Nique.

In a way, the lull made sense. We had agreed to a meeting, and any action before that would look bad, and hurt the very family honor that my enemy was trying to avenge. If he was planning some treachery, I had promised to show myself at a known time in a secluded location, so it was probably a safer bet to strike then rather than risk making a move earlier.

I had Sarah take Pete to a local pistol range and let him shoot a few rounds. If the meeting did go to hell, I didn’t want it to be the first time he’d ever fired live ammo. I wasn’t expecting to turn him into Sergeant York in a few days, but I’d feel better if he got acclimated to how the gun felt and sounded when fired. I’d have felt a lot safer with Bob standing behind me, but it was better that he not be there. Doors’ black ops buddies would know that Bob was out there with incriminating info; they’d want him to play this straight. If both Bob and I were at the scene, then removing both of us would look very tempting.

While I had my little friendly brush with death, Sarah and Nique would be at the Harp. It was public, and sure to have a few off duty Philips Mills cops in it at any given time. They all knew Nique from working the street, so they’d all keep an eye on her. The fact that she’d be drinking with another attractive woman wouldn’t hurt on that front either. And Sarah had my pistol in her purse. All those factors would probably keep them safe.

By Saturday, I could walk on my ankle without much more than a twinge. My wrist was stiff and sore, and I winced if I lifted anything heavier than a ballpoint, but it was better than it had been, and it wasn’t my sword hand. With the lidocaine, I was pretty sure I could get through this.

The fact that somebody would be trying to shove a foot of steel through me would probably give me enough to worry about without thinking of some minor aches and pains. It’s amazing how imminent death can focus one’s concentration.

Pete, acting as my second, called Doors and confirmed the details. Smallswords. Doors would provide a matched pair, I would choose one. We would fight to a mortal wound.

Exactly what I hoped for.

Which is odd, considering it made me vaguely nauseous to think about it.

It’s one thing to face danger, to face the chance of dying. You can always rationalize it away and, generally, the real, scary moment when you
could
die comes on so suddenly that you deal with it in a mad rush of adrenaline and it’s over. To plan a brush with death for just after lunch next Tuesday, for example, sounds insane. And it is. Human nature doesn’t work that way. The rush of good old fashioned fight or flight chemicals is short acting and on a hair trigger. Keep them flowing too long and you get short tempered, queasy and irritable and have a hard time eating or sleeping. The sympathetic nervous system is designed to handle a leopard leaping down on you from a tree, not one sending you a note to meet him at sunrise.

I tried to tell myself that this would be an end. That after this, I would be free.

Of what?
my stubborn self preservation instinct demanded. Could I print up some business cards saying Sean Danet, Immortal Faith Healer? Could I stop running every few years? Settle down with a good woman and trade her in for a newer model once she got wrinkles and osteoporosis? And, assuming that everything did actually go according to plan, which is hardly ever a given even when there isn’t a swordfight on the agenda, on what was I basing my faith that the Doors clan would actually follow through on the deal if I did win? I was risking everything, and for what? A few more years at a job I enjoyed with a few short-lived friends.

And Sarah.

Was this in any possible way worth it?

Yes, I decided.

The sheer flat certainty of my answer surprised me. It came from somewhere deep and primal. More innate even than my knee-jerk self-preservation instinct. I hadn’t realized that I had a more ingrained motivation.

Being a man of science and reason as well as instinct, I felt the need to analyze my decision. It was a decision, as emphatic and final as any I’d made, of that I had no doubt. I just wanted to know, as a wise man had once put it, the cause in which I was expected to die.

What was it about this woman that made her so much better than a million others? Well, part of it was the year of her birth. Vast improvements had been made in the field of young women recently. For most of western history, they had been considered subservient to men, and while I’d certainly enjoyed the company of a number of them, and my tastes had always run toward the least subservient of the bunch, it certainly colored how they saw themselves.

Then, very recently, when women had begun to make strides, there was a tendency to have a bit of a chip on the shoulder. Again, nothing I wasn’t willing to work around.

But it was refreshing and exhilarating to meet a generation of women who truly felt that they were equals, who took it as a given that they deserved to be treated as such. That quiet expectation delivered results far beyond what any strident demands could have.

In a way, Sarah was the epitome of that new mindset. She didn’t just wait to be pursued or seduced; she was equally willing to take the lead or follow mine when I seemed on a roll. She was even helping me in my current situation, doing a lot of the mental heavy lifting.

Could that be it?

In a way, Sarah was a comrade in arms. We were sharing a foxhole, shoulder to shoulder in the line.

I hadn’t ever done that with a lover.

My world had always been segregated. There were girlfriends and squadmates and never the twain shall meet. I expected different things from each, and thought of them differently.

Did that make me sexist? I wondered. Probably. For most of my long life the world had been pretty clearly divided into what men did and what women did. I was still adjusting to the times.

I think I’ve always treated women well, but had I treated them as equals? Not usually, I had to admit. I mean, I respected them, cared about them, I was thoughtful and generous. I tried never to take them for granted or lie to them more than I had to, to keep my secrets, but had I ever felt that bond of shared trust? No, I had to say I hadn’t.

Well, except for Nique, but she was—

Standing beside me in the line. I had mentally sorted her into the category of other men, since men served beside you and shared one kind of reliance, and women—

Huh. Maybe that was one reason I hadn’t felt any strong sexual attraction towards Nique. You cared about your buddies. Cared deeply. But you didn’t fantasize about sleeping with them.

OK, so how did that explain my feelings for Sarah? Was it that I’d lusted first, trusted second? Maybe. Whatever the reason, she, pretty much uniquely in my life, stood in both camps: a lover and a partner.

Which made her someone I wasn’t about to walk away from.

I hoped Doors didn’t kill me. It would be such a waste to have made this journey of personal discovery and not live to use any of it.

Chapter 35

PETE AND I DROVE OUT to the Essex Mill complex. As the erstwhile epicenter of the American textile industry, Philips Mills was full of abandoned mill buildings. Now most were just massive, empty brick shells, filled with pigeons. In place of the dirty, unsafe, exploited labor of the weavers of the industrial revolution, it now saw the dirty, unsafe, exploited labor of prostitution and drug dealing.

Developers were planning to turn the old buildings into condominiums, shops, and restaurants. The theory was that it would attract wealthy homeowners and shoppers to the city, creating legitimate prosperity.

The dealers and hookers would survive. Some would find other slums, some would sell better drugs and cleaner girls to the new arrivals, enjoying the new prosperity.

The Essex Mills had been one of the biggest complexes. Four long, narrow four-story mill buildings formed a quadrangle a hundred yards on a side. The enclosed space was littered with small outbuildings that had served as guard shacks, warehouses, and carpenters or machinist shops back when the mills were active. Now, they stood empty.

The area also held a good deal of construction equipment and trailers. Perfect for an ambush. Not that I thought they’d try that, given how he’d want this done right, and how he’d have to expect all my careful blackmail info to come out if he tried something, but a paranoid survivor streak can’t help but notice.

A trenchcoated heavy waved us to a corner of the yard where a trailer screened a small cleared space off from both the worst of the wind and casual view.

We parked and got out. Pete checking the placement of the Browning in his pocket and then slinging over his shoulder the jump kit that he had borrowed from one of the spare ambulances.

Doors stood at the far side of the space, three men behind him. I couldn’t see any weapons, but they all wore those stylish long black coats, so I was sure they were packing something. A table stood to one side. A case containing the swords lay open on it.

The man himself stood out from the rest of the crowd. Like me, he wore a white shirt under his long coat. This was part of the custom. It was easier to spot blood on a white shirt; too much blood, and the seconds could halt play.

If he was as nervous as I, he didn’t show it. There was an intensity etched on his lean face, a glint of predatory anticipation in those steely grey eyes.

Pete set the big jump kit on the table, made sure he had some bandages and IV supplies ready. We were only a block and a half from the hospital, and Pete had the numbers for today’s ambulance crews in his cell, so if I did lose, and nobody got too ugly, I might have a chance. I’m not sure just how lethal a wound it would take to kill me. I’d recovered from some bad injuries, but never anything that would be instantly fatal to a lucky man in good health. I hoped this wouldn’t be the day I’d find out.

Doors’ second indicated the case on the table. I looked in and saw an exquisite matched set of dueling swords. Narrow, pointed blades, triangular in cross-section. Stiff, sharp and deadly. No edge to speak of, just a swift, wicked needle to puncture a man’s vitals. As far as I could tell, they were identical. I lifted one out and gripped it, feeling the heft and balance as it settled into my hand.