Power Mage

by Hondo Jinx

  The driver stomped the accelerator. The SUV lurched, roaring like a monster, and rushed straight at them. The wide grille gleamed, stretching all the way across the narrow drive from fence to fence.

  Brawley grabbed Nina, meaning to shoulder through the gate and haul her to safety, but Nina gave an angry cry and thrust her hand forward in the direction of the onrushing vehicle.

  With a loud smashing sound, the SUV slammed to a crunching stop. Its ass end hopped into the air. The grille folded and the hood buckled. A hulking man in a blue and silver track suit smashed through the passenger side of the tinted windshield, skipped off the hood, and crashed into the gravel path.

  A geyser of steam erupted from the ruined hood, but not before Brawley made out a figure in the driver’s seat, struggling with his seat belt, and detected someone else moving in the second row.

  Brawley raised the Smith & Wesson and fired three shots at the driver, then snapped off three more, raking the cabin. The erupting radiator made it impossible to judge the effectiveness of his shooting.

  Nina called to him from where she had opened the gate, but Brawley waved her off and rushed the Escalade, staying low. He’d never been in a shootout before, but if life had taught him one lesson it was to see things through.

  When the world started bucking, you had to grab hold and ride to the fucking bell.

  He ran around the passenger side, cursing himself for not counting his ammo. Most of these 9mm Glock knockoffs held at least ten rounds.

  The backdoor popped open, and a skinny guy with a line of blood running down his forehead leaned out, shouted something in Spanish, and cut loose with an automatic weapon.

  Brawley fired two quick shots.

  The guy jerked, stitching the sky with gunfire, and crumpled in a twitching heap to the gravel beside the Escalade.

  Brawley fired again, drilling another hole through the bastard for good measure. The guy didn’t so much as yelp.

  Hunching low, Brawley slid along the fender. Still moving, he lifted his hand level with the front passenger window, squeezed off two quick shots into the cabin, shoulder checked the rear door shut, and dove over the fallen man.

  Gunfire exploded within the vehicle, punching holes through the door Brawley had just closed.

  Scooping up the dead man’s machine pistol, Brawley checked to make sure Nina was nowhere in sight then hooked around the back of the Cadillac and hosed it down with lead, burning through the rest of the magazine, smashing out the windows and hopefully killing every last motherfucker in there.

  For several seconds, there was no sign of movement from his attackers. In the distance, a siren began to wail, and Brawley figured there was about a 99% chance it was heading this way.

  They had to get out of there.

  Then the Escalade rocked, and there was a creaking sound as the rear passenger door opened.

  Brawley saw someone limping toward the rear of the SUV and heard ragged breathing. He waited for a clean shot. First, he saw the bloody hand gripping a pistol. Then the arm. Then a man covered in blood lurched around the vehicle, moving jerkily, and tried to pull down on Brawley, who blasted the fucker off his feet and dumped his dead ass back into the thick foliage lining the drive. The asshole’s legs jutted skyward, his white Nikes painted crimson.

  What a stupid way to die.

  Brawley slid along the SUV, listening hard for a few seconds. Nothing. Just the hiss of the radiator’s last bubbles and the siren growing louder with each passing second.

  Correction, he thought. Sirens. Coming from multiple directions now.

  He popped up, dropped back down, and gave himself a second to register what he’d glimpsed. Then he stood again just to make sure.

  The inside of the SUV was a fucking slaughterhouse. Two men in there, both of them deader than hell.

  The driver never made it out of his belt. It held him slumped to one side. The top half of his head was missing.

  Another man lay stretched across the footwell of the second row, eyes staring up at the ceiling and already glazing over like those of a gutted deer. One of the man’s legs was kicked over the other at a ridiculous angle like he was a showgirl in a chorus line. The cabin smelled like blood and shit and cordite.

  Brawley went back around the SUV and took a chest harness off the man who’d been carrying the machine pistol.

  Then he called for Nina, who was cursing as she unchained her moped and got it started. “Get on,” she said, slapping the seat behind her. “Ohshitohfuckpissshitfuckfuck.”

  Brawley headed toward the bike then noticed movement at the edge of the drive. In his excitement, he’d forgotten the big bastard who’d come through the windshield, the same big bastard he’d warned not to come knocking just hours ago.

  Gordo.

  Brawley marched that way.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Nina said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Give me a second,” he said and walked over to the asshole, who was pushing awkwardly up off the ground. “I told you what I’d do if you came knocking again,” Brawley said, and blew a hole straight through the bastard’s skull with his own pistol. Turning back toward Nina, he said, “I always keep my promises.”

  11

  Senior Officer Jamaal Whittaker managed not to spill his coffee when Krupski slammed on the brakes, stopping inches behind the cruiser.

  Or rather, one of the cruisers.

  Three had already arrived. And more were coming. In fact, judging by the sirens, every cruiser, ambulance, and fire truck on the island was racing in this direction.

  So Jamaal had to take care of this quickly.

  Krupski leaned forward, scanning the scene with an enthusiastic expression.

  Fucking rookies.

  Cops were taping off the area and examining the particulars: a few dead people on the ground and a black SUV all shot to hell.

  Without even checking the address, Jamaal knew this was the Mack girl’s house. Shit. A pretty little pain in the ass, that one, her father’s daughter to a tee.

  Was she lying out there, riddled with bullets?

  No. She was not.

  Jamaal was certain of that much, at least. Beyond that, however, he couldn’t determine much. He couldn’t even get a bead on the girl’s direction, let alone her location.

  That was strange.

  Krupski whistled. “Wowzers, this is a proper mess, isn’t it?”

  Jamaal sipped his coffee. “If it isn’t, it’ll do the trick until a proper mess gets here.”

  This call was a true pain in the ass. Such shit timing.

  Even if the call had only concerned an old lady worried about a cat halfway up a short tree it would’ve been a royal pain, given the timing.

  Because as of thirty-four minutes ago, Jamaal had a real situation on his hands.

  A situation?

  No. An event was more like it. And he suspected that the event in question, which had kicked him straight in the medulla oblongata as he had been trying to nap at his desk, was going to develop into a major fucking shitstorm.

  But duty called.

  “Ready, Grandpa?” Krupski said, popping his door.

  “You keep on with that Grandpa shit, you’re buying me lunch again,” Jamaal said, opening his door.

  Jamaal scooted his bony ass to the edge of the seat, held his coffee close, and grabbed the top of the door. Then he hauled himself up, wincing as his hamstring locked and a line of fire burned across his ass and down his left leg, all the way to the sole of his foot.

  Fucking sciatica.

  “Back hurting you again?” Krupski asked.

  “You’re an observant son of a bitch,” Jamaal growled. “You ought to be a cop or something.”

  Krupski laughed. Young and crisp and optimistic. Exactly the sort of pebble-brained rookie they needed to continue recruiting if they were going to keep this dog-and-pony show rolling. Because if you didn’t start out with stars in your eyes and an ass full of sunshine, there wa
s no way on God’s green Earth you could hang in until retirement.

  Retirement. That was the word of the day. The word of the year. The word of the fucking century.

  Retirement.

  With just eight months, two weeks, three days, and a few hours left until Jamaal could start collecting his pension, the word retirement had become more than a word. It had become a song. A sweet song of promise. A fucking hymn.

  Retirement. Dig it.

  “Let’s go, Grandpa,” Krupski said with one of his big, good-natured, shit-eating grins. “Let’s take care of this before the rest of the posse shows up.”

  “I warned you about that grandpa shit,” Jamaal said, and started limping up the driveway toward the police officers, who would, of course, instantly recognize both men as federal agents.

  Jamaal had never bothered to get more specific than feds. That notion got the job done fine, and he was too damned old to be worrying about artistry these days.

  Past a certain age, you learned to pace yourself. He was the walking, talking personification of the 80/20 rule. Hell, anymore, he might even be 90/10.

  Pick your battles, conventional wisdom advised, and in that case, at least, conventional wisdom was right.

  Meanwhile, Jamaal had one hell of a battle unfolding before him. Not here. On the Latticework.

  Actually, based on the waves of dread chilling him like a man coming down with the flu, Jamaal suspected that the clusterfuck presently unfolding on the Latticework might shape up to be not a battle but a full-blown war.

  But rather than trying to get in front of that situation, he was here, sweeping the Mack girl’s dust under the rug again.

  He wondered distractedly if this mess had anything to do with the Mallory Square incident.

  Yes, his gut chimed with certainty. It did have something to do with that. And so did the Mack girl.

  Jamaal ground his teeth.

  One of the Key West policemen approached, looking shaken.

  Which was understandable, given the scene. At a glance, Jamaal perceived the basics. Five dead, one of them—that big-ass lump over at the edge of the drive—finished execution-style, a hollow-point to the back of the skull at point black range.

  Wowzers, as Krupski was irritatingly fond of saying.

  The dead men were assholes. And a few of them were known assholes, he realized, their names rising unbidden into his mind like so many helium balloons drifting away from a toddler’s birthday party.

  Three of the dead men had been employees of Mr. Dutchman.

  Of course, these cops didn’t know shit about Mr. Dutchman, and five bullet-ridden corpses were five bullet-ridden corpses any way you cut it. So yeah, the cops were understandably shaken.

  After all, these weren’t the mean streets of South Chicago, where Jamaal had spent twenty-five grueling years on the beat and where he’d slipped on an icy sidewalk one winter, cracked his L-5, and conjured the cruel-ass demon named sciatica into his life. No, this was Key West, the posting Jamaal had been dreaming of since joining the force, and that meant that these conch cops didn’t see even a murder per year. Now they were chalking lines around at several years’ worth of homicides in a single driveway.

  And no shooter yet identified, Jamaal realized.

  The rattled cop, whose name tag read Barclay, nodded hello. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Wowzers,” Krupski said. “That’s a lot of dead people, Officer Barclay.”

  Barclay started talking about the scene, predictably compelled to surrender information to Jamaal, who nodded as Barclay’s anxiety shifted gears, and his speech picked up speed, releasing a jumbled torrent of poorly organized details.

  The number of bodies. Weapons and calibers. Three identities, all of them with outstanding warrants. The officers in attendance were thinking this was gang-related, maybe a drug deal gone bad, and Jamaal kept nodding, amused that even police officers, if their beat was tame enough, fell victim to overused Hollywood tropes.

  “But the one thing we can’t figure is the Escalade,” Barclay said, nodding toward the shot-up vehicle. “The thing looks like it plowed straight into an oak tree, but here it sits in the middle of the driveway. And there’s no way someone drove the thing here in that shape. Unless maybe someone brought it on a flatbed and dropped it off before the trouble started.”

  Jamaal scanned everything, letting Barclay ramble. Then Jamaal interrupted with an ingratiating smile and released a trickle of juice. “Relax, Officer Barclay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Barclay exhaled a long breath, nodding, and Jamaal saw a good deal of tension leave the man’s shoulders. Barclay had been hoping that everything would be all right. Helping someone to believe something was always easier than making them believe it.

  Jamaal nudged Krupski and pointed to the nearest telephone pole.

  Eager as always, Krupski didn’t ask for clarification.

  The cops shouted in dismay as the SUV whipped around, pitching gravel into the air. Then the Escalade shot straight across the drive and crashed loudly into the telephone pole. There was a loud crack. The upper half of the pole snapped away and smashed down on the SUV, crushing the hood, flattening the roof, and hauling wires through the surrounding foliage. One of the lines sheared away, hissing sparks like an electrokinetic snake.

  Shit. They couldn’t ignore a downed power line. The last thing Jamaal needed was another stack of paperwork to complete later.

  Meanwhile, Barclay and the boys in blue were losing their collective shit.

  Jamaal almost spit out his coffee when he saw that one of them, a freckle-faced officer who looked about fifteen years old, had actually drawn his sidearm and was pointing it at the driver’s side door of the demolished Cadillac.

  Jamaal spread his arms. “It’s okay, everyone. Everything is all right.”

  “The vehicle,” Barclay stammered. “It just—”

  “No,” Jamaal interrupted, shaking his head and letting the juice flow. “You’re all confused. The SUV hit that pole before you arrived. Remember?”

  The cops exchanged looks, nodding. Someone laughed nervously.

  “Everything is okay here,” Jamaal assured them. “You have a pile of bodies to deal with, and that is unfortunate, but these men were scumbags. This is an open and shut case, obviously a drug deal gone bad.”

  The police officers mumbled in agreement.

  Krupski went back to the car, pulled out a brick of heroine wrapped in a brown paper sack, and tossed it through the shattered back window of the Escalade.

  Krupski was a pain in the ass with his lame jokes and nearly intolerable enthusiasm, but Jamaal liked that he didn’t have to hold the rookie’s hand during moments like this. Krupski was a go-getter and in that sense, at least, a perfect partner for a senior officer in the twilight years of his career.

  The officers started asking what Krupski had tossed into the vehicle until Jamaal assured them that his partner hadn’t done any such thing.

  “All right,” Jamaal said, “we’ll get out of your hair now. It’ll be like we weren’t even here. Oh, one more thing. What happened here is completely unrelated to any of the residents, okay?”

  The officers nodded.

  “You’ve done your due diligence and can now report that you have located and interviewed the residents. They were not involved and were not harmed in any way. There is no need to follow up with them. They have no information.”

  Pointing at the home of the Mack girl, Jamaal said, “If anyone at the department seems curious about this resident, inform Officer Barclay, and he will call me.”

  Jamaal handed his card to Barclay, who promised to call if he heard anything.

  “Thank you,” Jamaal said. “Otherwise, you won’t even remember that you have the card.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  An ambulance pulled into the driveway. Seconds later, a fire truck stopped alongside the road, lights flashing, making one hell of a racket.

  “Okay, folks,” Ja
maal said, raising his voice and heading toward the car. “You’re doing great work here. Thank you for your service. Could two of you please get these paramedics and firemen out of our way? Thank you.”

  Jamaal got back into the passenger seat. In the days of his youth, he had always insisted on driving. But he was too old for that shit now. And given everything presently sitting on his plate, if he climbed behind the wheel, he would probably get distracted, reenact Krupski’s telekinetic handiwork, and plow straight into a damned phone pole.

  Besides, the eager beaver liked to drive. Gave him something to do.

  Krupski got in behind the wheel and shut his door, looking satisfied. “That went well.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here before I have to stop and talk to more people. I’m getting too old for this shit.”

  Krupski laughed and started pulling out but had to wait while the officers shooed the emergency personnel out of the way.

  Jamaal was glad to be done here. He needed to head back to the office, lock himself away, and get busy figuring out what, exactly, had rocked the Latticework like a 9.5 magnitude earthquake.

  If this call hadn’t interrupted him so unfortunately, Jamaal might have already cracked the mystery.

  Now, with so much time having passed and him having spent some of his juice rewiring the cops’ memories, he would have a hard time catching up to the event. By this point, it might be lost to him altogether.

  A maddening notion, that.

  No matter how long he lived, Jamaal would never forget the moment the event had hit him. Something out there in the world had shifted sharply. Something huge and eventful, a game-changer of historic proportions. He’d been dozing pleasantly when the disturbance had smacked him right between the eyes like a sledgehammer.

  The blast had left Jamaal reeling and he’d needed fifteen or twenty minutes just to regain his mental feet. Then, approximately two seconds after he’d shaken off the psychic hammer blow, this fucking call had come in and t-boned his intentions of unraveling the mystery.

  Now, as they sat there waiting for these slowpokes to clear a path, Jamaal’s frustration turned to anger.