Judgement and Wrath

by Matt Hilton

  Then fortune smiled on him again. The FBI helicopters forced Hunter away from the stream, giving him the opportunity to make his own break for freedom. He heard the roar of the choppers, the hard snap of rifles, and knew that the FBI had confused Hunter with him. Maybe they’d kill the bastard and leave the door open for him to get at Bradley a second time. Or maybe not. He couldn’t rely on Lady Luck. He had to make his own opportunities.

  He scrambled along the stream bed, found a place to climb out and crawled up on to the far side. Lying on the embankment, he watched as a chopper set down three armed agents and witnessed Hunter dispatching all three in the space of seconds. Impressive. Hunter was proving a dangerous enemy. Time, he decided, to finish him off.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, he scrutinised again the power station he’d intended taking Bradley to. The buildings had a decrepit look, as if they had not known service in some time. They were bordered by a chain-link fence, but here and there he could make out breaches in it as though vandals had broken into the compound many times over the years. One of the nearer buildings had metal sheets over its windows and doors, but he could also see a gaping doorway where the sheet had been prised loose.

  Rising up, he cast a look backwards.

  Hunter met his gaze, and he nodded in the direction of the buildings.

  Come and get it, asshole.

  Then he took off across the field, heedless of the two McDonnell Douglas choppers circling the nearby field. His leg pained him. His arm didn’t yet, but it would only be a matter of time. He had to reach the buildings before Hunter could get close enough to shoot. Exposed as he crossed the open space, Hunter would be easy meat for Dantalion’s bullets.

  A chopper came over the top of the power station, rotors buzzing like an angry hornet. It wasn’t one of the black gunships, but the liveried Bell Jet Ranger once piloted by the man whose clothes he now wore.

  The sun was behind the chopper, but he could make out a single man on board. One of the agents from back at Eunice Jorgenson’s home. Probably the asshole tasked with bringing him down.

  Dantalion came to a standstill and lifted the Glock. He saw a widening of the eyes of the man piloting the chopper. Dantalion fired. Three rapid bursts that cut a zigzag pattern across the windshield. Behind the starred glass the cockpit changed colour, scarlet puffing in the air.

  Then the chopper was dipping towards him and Dantalion was forced to move as the whirling rotors cleaved air above him as if in a decapitating frenzy. He charged to the left and he felt the displacement of air as the chopper hurtled to the ground. Behind him it sounded as if the earth had exploded. Dirt and dust and grass showered around him. There was the screaming of an engine on overload, the bang! bang! bang! of rotors churning into the ground, followed by shrieks as chunks of hot metal were torn loose and thrown into the air.

  He looked back.

  The Bell Jet Ranger was reduced to scrap metal. Oily black smoke rose like a funeral pyre from the burnt-out engine components. The rotors had been reduced to gnarly stumps. Still, the dying helicopter was groaning, but only until sparks jumped from the overheated engine into the spilled fuel and it gave out one final roar as the entire craft exploded.

  The concussion sent Dantalion sprawling to the ground. Searing heat washed over him and for the briefest of moments he felt as though all life was being sucked from his body. An image flashed through his mind of the petrified victims found in the ashes of Pompeii after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, charred and desiccated corpses twisted into foetal balls. He thought that was how he must look. Except now the heat had gone, the in-gust taking the flames back towards the wreckage of the chopper, and he realised that – apart from singed hair and a throat that felt like it burned – he was unharmed.

  He was face down on the ground with his arms over his head. He had no recollection of striking the pose. He quickly snapped to attention, wondering how much time his killing of the chopper pilot had taken, and how much of his advantage had been torn away in doing so.

  Rolling to his feet, he looked for Hunter. He was two hundred yards nearer and gaining. Then smoke from the doomed chopper rolled across the intervening space and Hunter’s charging form was lost from view. Dantalion broke into an ungainly lope, hand fumbling for his book. The book was there, but it took him a second to register that the hand he’d used should have been holding a Glock. He ground to a halt, turned round, searching for where the explosion had thrown the gun to.

  He couldn’t see it. Smoking debris lay everywhere. Chunks of hot metal and divots of earth obscured the ground all around where he’d fallen.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  Hunter burst through the smoke bank, his seething eyes picking out Dantalion like lasers.

  He wasn’t at an advantage any longer and the nearby building offered only a place to hide.

  If he could even get there before Hunter was close enough to use his handgun.

  This time his flight was fuelled by adrenalin and all his hurts were forgotten.

  42

  It seemed my CIA friend, Walter Hayes Conrad, wields only a limited amount of power. He’d pulled enough strings to ensure Kaufman offered me a level amount of leeway that I was allowed along for the ride. But SAC Kaufman had said that I’d only be given free rein until his own men arrived. It had obviously been his plan to take me out of the picture as soon as he had back-up at the scene. I’d been wrong about Kaufman. He was as much a bureaucratic asshole as most others in his position. He was still the Special Agent in Charge, and he wasn’t about to allow me – a loose cannon – the glory of bringing down the professional hit man who’d killed his colleague.

  It was bad form taking down Kaufman’s men the way I did. I probably hadn’t endeared myself to anyone. My only saving grace was that I hadn’t left any of them severely injured. I could foresee that Walter was going to have to kiss a few butts before this was over with. Maybe I would have to as well. But I didn’t let that concern me. I had Dantalion in my sights.

  The white-faced killer had a good lead on me. I jumped the irrigation channel, raced after him. I could have taken him out with a rifle, but something had made me throw down the FBI agent’s gun in favour of my trusty SIG. Things had grown very personal between us and I’d only be happy if I was looking into the bastard’s face when I killed him. Using my SIG meant I’d be able to see the whites of his eyes.

  It wasn’t hard to see where he was heading – a complex of buildings surrounded by a chain-link fence. My best guess was he wanted to find cover and then pick me off while I was in the open and exposed. So I ran harder, taking that option away from him.

  Then a chopper rose into view from behind the buildings.

  Recognising it as the Bell Jet Ranger I’d hitched a ride here in, I realised that SAC Kaufman was on an ass-covering expedition of his own. There was the roll of automatic gunfire and I staggered against the blast as the chopper went supernova.

  SAC Kaufman didn’t need to worry about answering awkward questions any longer.

  The air was full with the stench of aviation fuel, as viscous as warm treacle on my skin. Smoke billowed, but I caught a snatch of movement as Dantalion came to his feet. He set off running, and it was more than my approach that lent wings to his heels. The fucker was unarmed. And he was running scared.

  The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered, you freak!

  I charged after him. Lifted my SIG and fired a quick volley.

  Contrary to popular belief, even a trained gunman like me can’t hit targets at a run. Handguns are notoriously poor for killing people unless you are very close to a static target. But that was OK. My only wish was to keep him running and keep him frightened. My bullets kept him moving, and his face when he glanced back at me was a mask of horror.

  Dantalion reached the fence and he launched himself at a rent in the wires. His clothes snagged and he tore at the wire to free himself. All the while I was gaining on him and I fired again. Sparks marked where my bu
llets cut through the wires.

  Fifty yards or so separated us. But that distance was shortened with each step. So, I told myself, was Dantalion’s time left on this earth.

  The phone in my pocket vibrated.

  Without halting my charge I plucked the phone out of my pocket.

  There was only one person it could be.

  ‘Rink?’

  ‘Just lost your signal, buddy. Thought I’d check you were still alive.’

  Above my head was a tangle of high-voltage cables. The buildings appeared derelict but I could hear the faint buzz from the wires, felt the hair stirring at the nape of my neck. There was still power surging through the network, so we were lucky to be able to speak at all.

  ‘Still alive, Rink,’ I huffed as I ran. ‘Where you at?’

  ‘Can’t be far off. I can see vultures circling in the sky, and if I’m not mistaken they’re looking for pickings from some big old barbecue.’

  Snatching a glance over my shoulder, I saw Rink’s vultures. The two ‘Little Birds’ circling the devastation of the Bell Jet Ranger. The barbecue was SAC Kaufman’s funeral pyre.

  ‘Follow the portents,’ I told Rink. ‘You ain’t too far off. The FBI are playing at assholes now. Can you keep them off my back so I can finish Dantalion?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Would have liked you with me, Rink, but things are about to come to a head here.’

  ‘Just kill the frog-giggin’ asshole so’s I can go back to my mom.’

  The phone cut out.

  I jammed it back in my pocket, then vaulted through the hole in the fence that Dantalion had used. A metal door in the large building directly in front of me had been pulled askew. Dantalion must have rushed through the door and into the darkness inside.

  I was pretty sure that Dantalion had lost his gun. But I would have been an idiot if I’d blundered inside and been cold-cocked if he was waiting just inside the door. I slowed down. Peripherally I was aware of one of the sleek gunships racing my way. Perhaps they blamed me for the death of their leader. Maybe they were coming to shoot me. But I didn’t think so. I waved to the pilot, directing him over the building to cover the exits at that side. The chopper had to swing around the high-voltage cables strung above the compound, but it looked like they were complying with my directions. The other chopper headed away, taking Bradley to safety.

  Marianne Dean was safe. So now was Bradley Jorgenson. There was only one thing I wanted: to ensure that Dantalion couldn’t threaten either of them again.

  Pressing myself against the wall to the side of the open door, I drew my Ka-bar. Dantalion could be hiding anywhere, and the knife would be a better weapon than my gun if I stumbled into him in the dark. I shoved the SIG into the waistband at the small of my back, then quickly slipped inside the building.

  My first act was to move away from the light seeping in through the door. Randomly choosing to go left, I moved silently through the shadows. Then I came to a standstill. I held my breath, closed my eyes against the darkness. Even in a pitch-black place the eyes can play tricks on the mind. You see movement in the darkness that isn’t there, you jump at images conjured by the mind as the brain attempts to make sense of the sudden blindness. Far better is to trust your other senses and shut off the one suffering deprivation. We naturally close our eyes, so the brain does not rebel against the act; rather it heightens your hearing, your senses of smell and taste and touch. I’m also a firm believer in a sixth sense, that extrasensory perception that warns of impending danger. Maybe it is simply all the senses working in complete unison, maybe it’s something paranormal, but it’s there. I attuned myself to the dark, listening, smelling, tasting the air. A cool but steady draft wafted from deep inside the building. It caressed my face, but there was no flutter in the breeze, nothing to indicate that a human body moved nearby, disturbing the flow.

  Confident that Dantalion did not lurk close by, I moved further inside. Ten paces on, I paused again. The breeze remained constant. But something plucked at my olfactory senses, and I realised I could smell blood. The coppery tang was faint. But it was there. I moved again, and the smell grew stronger.

  I’m no bloodhound, so it wasn’t as if I could sniff the killer out, but I was pretty sure that I was heading in the correct direction. A change in the draught told me that something ahead had affected the dynamics of the atmosphere. Dantalion had silently opened another door and was seeking refuge in an antechamber.

  The smell was now of rusting machinery coupled with a hint of ozone. Somewhere nearby I could detect a static buzz. I tried to tune all these things out, but it was no good. I opened my eyes, and my night vision had adapted so that I could now make out the bulk of machines on either side of me. They squatted like amorphous creatures, silently watching my progress through the building. Ahead of me I could detect a darker shadow. I edged towards it, the Ka-bar held tight to my body so that Dantalion couldn’t knock it from my hand. My boot touched a raised platform and I found I could step easily on to the first of a number of concrete stairs. Grit crunched underfoot. I halted. Listened for a response to my movement.

  Nothing came back at me, so I continued.

  The stairway took me to the door I assumed Dantalion had used to leave the room. Probing for the door with my free hand, I readied the Ka-bar with the other, wedging my fingers into the narrow gap between the door and the frame and exerting the slightest presure. The door swung silently away, and I stepped into the space beyond.

  I was in a narrow passage, some sort of vestibule that led deeper into the guts of the building. I listened for any hint that Dantalion waited for me. But there was nothing.

  The air was close, like it had been sealed within this corridor for too long. Dust sifted on to my lips, so delicate, but apparent to my heightened senses. Someone had moved through here very recently, kicked up the motes of dust that were only now beginning to settle. I pressed on.

  Twenty yards further I came to a second door, this one wooden. I touched it with my fingertips and they came away sticky. Dantalion’s blood. He had obviously brushed his injured arm against the door. I smiled to myself. Then I turned quickly on my heels, bringing up the Ka-bar.

  It was an old trick. One I was infinitely familiar with. A false trail misled the hunter while the pursued person backtracked, waited until the hunter passed by and then launched an attack at his exposed back.

  Dantalion wasn’t as clever as he thought he was.

  As he burst from a doorway to my right I was ready for him.

  He came at me, throwing a punch aimed at what he thought was the nape of my neck. Instead I was facing him and he ran full tilt on to my Ka-bar. Six inches of razor-sharp steel rammed to the hilt into his gut.

  I twisted the blade, even as he slapped at me with both hands. His blows were ineffectual, but I felt a scratch from one of his ragged fingernails. He slumped on the blade and I grabbed hold of his windpipe, closing my hand into a tight fist to halt his sour breath exploding over my face.

  ‘Die, you freak.’

  He couldn’t answer. Not with his windpipe crushed in my fist, but I could have sworn that his shudder was one of humour. What was so damn funny?

  I felt a weird rushing in my head.

  And I knew.

  That was no fingernail. It was a needle. A fucking hypodermic syringe!

  Then it was my turn to slump.

  43

  He waited in darkness.

  Coming here, stumbling twice as he’d sought concealment within the shadows, he’d put down his ungainliness to the human shell that his spirit inhabited. It was Jean-Paul St Pierre who’d stumbled, not the great Dantalion.

  It occurred to him that the racing of his heart, and the endorphins flooding through his system, had negated most of his pain, and after this he would be laid up for days, unable to function while his body healed itself. Feeling the ache in his many wounds, he knew he would continue to suffer the agonies of ordinary men until his book was put righ
t. He didn’t consider this long; he didn’t believe that he would exist in this weak shell of mortality much longer. His mind had been working on a subconscious level, calculating formulae, figuring the numerology of all those that he’d killed, and it had come to a conclusion. The agent he’d recently killed had raised his tally exponentially. He needed only kill Hunter and he would equal the original Dantalion. All his worldly troubles would be behind him.

  Dantalion did not fear Hunter now. He was confident in his abilities. He was a professional killer. He was an angel, and even one who’d proven as adept as Hunter was no match for a divine being. He would destroy him.

  Hunter had a gun but that did not faze him. There were more ways to kill a man than with bullets. Guile and trickery could defeat even the most powerful enemy.

  I’m better than Hunter is, he thought. I’ve beaten him every other time. Hunter has shot me a number of times and his bullets haven’t killed me yet. Why should things be any different this time?

  With the syringe with which he’d controlled Bradley Jorgenson and the sodium amatol it held, it would be enough to put Hunter to sleep. It would be a simple task to take his gun from him, then use it to ventilate his head in a number of places.

  The thought brought a smile to his lips. He liked shooting people in the head. There was an undeniable finality to it.

  It was why he killed his mother that way.

  She wanted to join his father. So he’d answered her wish. The single bullet had instantly severed her spine at the point where it met her brain. She died instantly.

  He didn’t need to keep on shooting her until he had no bullets left, but he knew now that he’d done that out of inexperience. And love. He didn’t want to shoot the woman only to find that he’d failed and that she would be a cripple for the rest of her days. So he made sure. No walking away, he told himself. Like he wouldn’t walk away from Hunter until he was sure he was dead.