SCOTTY, THE POWRIE, and Sniegowski, the hobgoblin, were as close to lifelong friends as two Unseelie mobsters could get. Neither had attended the college he favored or any other institution of higher learning for that matter. In fact, both had gotten their GEDs while incarcerated in Fulton County Juvenile detention where they’d met and bonded with one another.
Both of them liked knives. From homemade shivs to high end combat knives, Scotty and Sniegowski enjoyed the feeling of shoving metal into another living creature’s flesh. In fact, each of them carried no less than four different knives on their person at any one time. Scotty had three folding knives, which included a pair of straight razors, and a stiletto that he carried in a sheath between his shoulder blades. Sniegowski had four identical Cold Steel tantos, two in his waistband, and one strapped to either leg inside his pants legs.
Knives were great, but the job also called for them to carry guns. The bulky football jerseys allowed them both to conceal pistols. Scotty had a brand-new Glock G45 tucked into his waistband behind his belt buckle. Despite the name, the G45 was a 9mm, the civilian market version of the G19X Glock had tried to sell to the US military. Essentially, the G45 was a G19 upper on a G17 lower, which made it fairly compact to carry, but also allowed it to have seventeen rounds in the magazine instead of the G19’s fifteen rounds. Scotty liked to have a lot of bullets available. He’d earned his way into the ranks of Cutters on his knife skills, not his gun skills.
Sniegowski, on the other hand, was a naturally better shot than his friend, and he preferred power to capacity. He also preferred revolvers to automatics. His firearm of choice today was a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson 629 Deluxe with a three-inch barrel. Not quite Dirty Harry’s Model 29, but still one of the most powerful revolvers in the world. The hobgoblin was a rather large fellow, so the still massive revolver barely showed underneath his UT Volunteers jersey.
“What’s Alpha’s deal, man?” Sniegowski asked now that they were sufficiently far enough away from their leader to talk.
“What do you mean, ‘what’s her deal’?” Scotty protested. “I think she’s a lesbian, but she might be one of those lesbians that goes either way depending on her mood. I know Garcia hooked up with her once.”
“Not what I’m talking about, idiot,” Sniegowski sighed. “I meant why is she so hot to kill this guy? He looks like the fucking absent minded professor. Did he flunk her out of college? Is he her accountant, and she got audited by the IRS? What?”
“Alpha’s an Aes Sidhe. She’s older than she looks, right? She’s Avidan Baylor’s daughter, man. She had a twin brother they called Beta.”
“Alpha and Beta? Like the alphabet?”
“They’re nicknames, but yeah. Anyhow, Avidan is supposed to have sent Beta off to kill some rodeo clown and his wife...”
“Seriously?” Sniegowski interrupted.
“Yeah, the guy was a rodeo clown is what I heard, but it was the clown’s old lady that Avidan wanted dead, some feud from the old country or something going back hundreds of years,” Scotty snorted. “Anyway, Beta does the deed, right? Well, along comes the clown’s old lady’s brother, and he ambushes Beta.”
“How’d that work out for him?” Sniegowski chuckled imagining the accountant looking professor getting messed up by a Cutter.
“He killed Beta, man.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously, bro. Of course, he didn’t come out of it, um, unscathed, dude. The way I hear it, Beta managed to shoot this guy’s dick off. Sort of a, ‘fuck you for killing me, dude’ sort of thing.”
“Actually, it was just my testicles.”
The Cutters stopped and whirled, drawing their guns. The professor guy was surrounded by an aura of white light. He moved as fast as Alpha. The small pistol in his hand barked four times, the reports so close together they sounded like one shot. Two lead rounds buried themselves in Sniegowski’s throat and the back of his mouth. The other two rounds hit Scotty in the sternum just above the collar of his jersey. Both Cutters were dead before they hit the ground.
GARCIA, THE DRYAD, and Noel, the pixie, barely knew one another. They’d only been working together since Sunday and already they knew that they hated one another. Garcia would have preferred being paired off with her usual boss, Dayshon Monday, but he was stuck with Alpha, the out-of-town boss Cutter. Pairing up with Alpha was an appealing alternative, too. Garcia had spent one magnificent evening with Alpha, which Garcia felt had ruined her for other women. Alpha was probably a century to a century and a half old. She knew things about making love to another woman that most lesbians never lived long enough to learn.
“Snap out of it!”
Garcia cast a frown at Noel.
“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” the pixie snarled in all seriousness. “Woolgathering gets you killed.”
The thing Garcia hated most about Noel was that the pixie was older and more experienced despite the fact that she looked ten years younger. Worse, Noel was always right when she corrected Garcia. Before heading out, Noel had insisted that they change out of the shoes they had been wearing in favor of sneakers. Halfway down the road and Garcia was grateful because her sandals would have twisted her ankles on this rough terrain. The two of them were still dressed in pantsuits, which precluded them from carrying the MPX submachine guns stored in the trunk of their Cadillac CTS sedan.
Noel had chided Garcia on wanting to bring the nearly rifle sized SMGs along. The two of them were disguised as upper-class businesswomen on an end of the week work jaunt. This being Mother’s Day weekend, they blended in well with most of the women visiting Dillard House. So, they’d stayed with their compact handguns, and that had been the correct thing to do. They’d already encountered several people out strolling in the early afternoon, enjoying the beauty of this place. Two businesswomen packing “rifles” would have been commented upon, and the police would have been alerted.
The pixie liked to extol the virtues of her Smith & Wesson M&P 9c Compact over Garcia’s preferred Walther PPQ Sub-Compact model. The M&P 9c had a 12-round capacity compared to the Walther’s ten. The M&P 9c had a longer sight picture for better accuracy. Garcia countered that the PPQ Sub-Compact could accept fifteen round magazines, was still smaller and easier to conceal, and despite the smaller ‘sight picture’ the Walther generated smaller groups thanks to its superior trigger.
“You’re woolgathering again,” Noel chided.
“No, I’m plotting how I want to murder you,” Garcia snapped.
A bright flash of light and what sounded like a car backfiring interrupted the impending argument.
“What the fuck?” Garcia muttered peering off into the distance. She could see Alpha and Monday looking in the same direction.
Noel rolled her eyes. “The target’s a Tuath De.”
“So what?”
“So, Tuath De aren’t ‘ordinary’ Aes Sidhe. They’re also Nephilim,” the pixie explained as if Garcia were a particularly slow-witted child. “That was the angel blood’s Grace flaring to life. They’re superhuman and nearly indestructible while they’re glowing.”
“Then we should go back to the car and get bigger guns,” Garcia insisted.
“No, you dolt. When they’re not glowing, they’re as weak and vulnerable as any mundane. That’s when we shoot him. Let’s go.” The pixie set off at a jog toward Alpha and Monday.
Garcia swore to herself and followed.
EBENEZER KNEW HE DIDN’T have much time. He recognized the powrie’s gun was a 9mm, so he grabbed it. A quick pat down of his pockets turned up two more magazines that Ebenezer claimed as well. Before leaving, he grabbed the powrie’s cap. If the hobgoblin’s blood touched it, the magical head gear might revive the powrie, and Ebenezer didn’t want that. If he’d used some of his own precious steel rounds, the death of both Fae would have been guaranteed. As it was, only the hobgoblin was certifiably dead since Ebenezer’s second round had blown apart the mobster’s brain stem. Done for time, Ebenezer left the revolver cl
utched in the hobgoblin’s hand.
He could hear Alpha and the svartalf in the distance changing course. Ebenezer ran into the brush, moving north for a hundred yards before veering sharply eastward, back toward the stables. He could feel Alpha on his heels. When he reached the stables, he slowed to a brisk walk and entered the alley at the center of the barn. Employees were cleaning out stalls, getting them ready to house the horses that would be returning soon from a scheduled trail ride.
“Excuse me, but who’s in charge here?” Ebenezer shouted.
“I’m the stable manager,” a middle-aged woman replied with a clear look of confusion on her face.
“My apologies, ma’am, but I must insist you gather your employees and run away,” Ebenezer said cavalierly as he brandished the Glock. “Now, if you please!”
The manager reacted with all the presence of mind Ebenezer could have wished for. She began shouting at her employees and herded them toward the other end of the long, narrow building.
“Thank you! Oh, and call the police!” Ebenezer shouted behind them.
The horse barn was composed of stalls facing one another the entire length of the center alley. At either end was a tack room and feed storage. In the middle was another feed room and the manager’s office. Ebenezer chose the feed room. The bags of grain would hopefully act like sandbags. He wasn’t sure, though.
Quickly, he shed his tweed jacket, removing the Hellcat from the pocket. He’d already retrieved the EMP from his backpack, which he’d used on the powrie and hobgoblin. Now, he retrieved his ammunition from the bag and topped off the half-used magazine. He removed everything from his pants pockets, dumping everything into his pack. He stuffed his jacket in on top of it all, zipped the bag up, and hid it away behind a hay bale.
Next, he inspected the Glock. The fool powrie hadn’t even charged the chamber and one of the spare magazines was empty. No matter, Ebenezer had sufficient spare ammo to fill the magazine. He racked the slide, dropped the mag, topped it off, and returned it home. Three different guns, three different magazines, but at least everything was the same caliber. Ebenezer put the Hellcat in his right front pocket with the spare magazines in his left rear pocket. He tucked the EMP into his waistband on his left side and deposited those magazines into his left front pocket. The Glock magazines went in his left pocket on top of the EMP magazines.
He heard a noise from the far end of the barn where the employees had fled. Ebenezer peeked out and saw the two female Cutters. He shoved the Glock in their direction and started squeezing the trigger. He wasn’t so much trying to kill them as he was trying to drive them back. The Glock’s slide locked back. Ebenezer hit the mag release and flicked his wrist to clear the spent magazine even as his other hand sought a fresh magazine to replace it.
The Cutters had ducked back outside on either side of the door. They pointed their weapons around the open door frame and fired back at him. Ebenezer snatched up the spent magazine and dropped to the floor with a heavy stack of feed bags behind him. He didn’t feel any impacts and assumed he must have been right about grain being a natural bullet stop. Ebenezer let his Grace glow ever so slightly, just long enough to give him the speed to reload the empty magazine. While his Grace glowed, his sharpened senses picked up Alpha and the svartalf.
“The time is come,” he told himself. The grenade filled his right back pocket. He’d thought about how best to deploy the explosive. He would save it until he had nothing else.
Ebenezer closed his eyes and touched his Grace. The connection was fleeting. He’d poured it all into Billy’s silver legs. A piece of him would live on the child, and that made him extraordinarily happy. For now, though, he needed to borrow his Grace back for just a moment. The aura flared to life as Ebenezer stood in the storeroom’s doorway, the Glock in his right hand, the EMP in his left, arms crossed. He alternated between hands, firing the Glock twice for each single shot from the EMP. The women at the other end were getting the worst of it, which he wanted. As both pistols emptied, Ebenezer dropped the Glock behind him, and drew the Hellcat.
The svartalf had stepped free from cover. Several rounds from his pistol had scored hits on Ebenezer, but the Grace healed the wounds instantly. The Tuath De pointed the Hellcat and the svartalf and squeezed the trigger twelve times. Some of the steel and gold rounds must have hit unarmored portions of the man’s body because he dropped like the proverbial sack of potatoes.
Ebenezer fell back into the storeroom. The Grace faded away, and he was breathing heavily. He wasn’t going to be able to call on the Grace again. Ever. This last battle had burned away his tenuous connection. He didn’t mind. The Grace would do Billy more good. Quickly, he reloaded all three of his guns. This time when he poked out of the doorway to shoot at the Cutters, he wasn’t glowing.
“Now!” he heard the pixie scream.
She emptied her pistol at him. Twelve rounds went down range; six hit him. He wasn’t armored, so all six did him grievous bodily harm.
“Goddammit! I want him alive!” Alpha screamed.
Now. Ebenezer knew this was the moment. He scrambled behind him for the grenade, wrapped his fingers around it, pulled the oblong sphere to his chest. He pulled the pin and threw it out the door. He kept his hand firmly clutched to the arming spoon.
“He’d better not be dead, Noel, or I’ll kill you myself,” he heard Alpha snarl from one side of his door.
“I’m waiting for you, Althea!” he shouted.
“Who’s the commando, Ben?”
“What commando?”
“The one who was with your lawyer!”
“Oh. I really have no idea, Althea. Some mercenary she hired, I think. Maybe a boyfriend. Let’s not chit-chat. I’m bleeding out, and I so wanna send you to hell with your loathsome brother!”
His left hand found the Hellcat. Ebenezer grinned as he emptied the 13-round clip into the wall to the right of the door where he suspected Alpha was crouching.
“Missed me!”
“Oh, pooh.”
Ebenezer watched as the pixie rounded on him from one side of the door and Alpha from the other. He opened his hand, letting the grenade fall toward them even as the arming spoon when pinging off into the air. Alpha continued her spin away from the door. Ebenezer was mildly disappointed as the Program issue fragmentation grenade detonated killing just the pixie and himself.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” GARCIA moaned as Alpha tackled her. Then, the grenade went off killing Noel. Well, the day just improved a thousand percent.
“Move,” Alpha snarled. “Nobody’s gonna mistake this for anything other than a gunfight gone horribly wrong. Where’s your car?”
“This way.” Garcia stumbled toward the end of the barn she’d entered from, dropping her PPQ as she went. The gun was clean, and she didn’t want to get caught with a weapon if and when the police intercepted them.
Alpha likewise was discarding her own weapon, a .22 Ruger. “Goddamn Llewellyns.”
“What?” Garcia mumbled.
“Nothing. The end of an old feud, and my family just won.”
Chapter Thirteen
Big Sky, Montana
Sunday, May 12, 2019
MACK AND KC HAD NOT returned directly to Big Sky that fateful Tuesday. Instead, Athena took the sedan Ebenezer had left for her and returned to Dover that morning. Mack and KC spent the morning loading supplies into the Airstream before following Athena. They parked the trailer at a campground south of the city before driving in to meet Athena at her office. At the law office Mack and KC were debriefed by a pair of “FBI” agents named Perkins and Fischer.
To Mack and KC’s pleasant surprise, half of the mobsters they’d killed had outstanding warrants on them, the “dead or alive” kind. The bounty money wasn’t as good as what they would have gotten for capturing fugitives, but it would cover their expenses so far. Of course, the “FBI” agents had admonished them not to make a habit of killing mobsters, even ones trying to kill them, but both men gave the impression that
they approved of how the incident had turned out.
That evening they took Athena back to her house to examine the damage. Secondary fires from the various explosions had rendered the house uninhabitable. The fire department had managed to prevent a total loss. Surprisingly, her Lexus SUV was in good shape, but since it lacked proper plates, she couldn’t drive it yet. Getting new plates wasn’t going to be too much of a hassle for her. She insisted that Mack and KC should take the Maxima with them, especially since it, like the truck and trailer, was in Mack’s name. The law firm owned an apartment in town that the partners offered to Athena to stay in while she got her life sorted back out. Her plan, at that point, was to give her notice to the partners, get all her affairs in order, and then meet Mack and KC in Big Sky by the end of the month.
The next day, Mack and KC began the long trek back home. Mack led the way and KC followed in the Maxima. On Friday of that week, they stopped in Kansas City again to spend some time with KC’s family and to wish Karol a Happy Mother’s Day. Late in the morning, just before lunch, Mack suddenly gasped and fell to his knees in pain. KC was terrified, but Mack assured her that he was alright as he climbed back to his feet even though tears were streaming down his face.
They arrived at the Double M Ranch two days later on Mother’s Day. KC had driven the rest of the way back, choosing to leave the Maxima with her parents for the time being. She’d figured it out first that Ebenezer must have died, and Mack had felt it as if he’d been wounded by the same killing blow. Seeing Silas and Rosalee was the first thing to change his mood for the better. His godparents were pleasantly surprised by the bear hug that he embraced the two of them in.
“I am so glad to see you guys,” Mack gushed.
“You’ve only been gone a couple of weeks,” Silas chuckled. “You’ve been gone for a year before and not been like this.”
“I found him. My mother’s brother,” Mack sniffled.
The Weapon Bearer's Son Page 13