Judgement and Wrath

by Matt Hilton

  ‘Now,’ he told himself. ‘Do it now.’

  He attacked. Jabbing with the needle.

  He felt the solid thud of Hunter’s hand connect with his gut, but it did not deter him.

  ‘Die, you freak.’

  Dantalion was not sure who had spoken those words. Hunter, or maybe it was even himself; he could not tell.

  Hunter’s hand twisted against his abdomen. Dantalion felt a corresponding twisting of his gut. Then red searing pain flared and he realised only then that the man had not simply punched him: he had jammed a knife into his body.

  So it was Hunter who’d spoken?

  Let him have his little moment, he thought. Let him think he’s won.

  Dantalion smiled. He felt the man slump and knew that his drug had done its work. And his book had been his salvation. Hunter’s blade had pierced his book. It had pushed through the cover and the pages within, exited out the back of it, but with barely an inch of the blade embedded in his flesh, nowhere near his internal organs. It wasn’t he who was going to die.

  The fingers round his windpipe loosened and Dantalion sucked in air. Hunter was lying against his shoulder, as though seeking support. Dantalion stepped away and the man went to his knees. His fingers were still on the hilt of the knife, but he had no strength to use the weapon. Dantalion reached down and teased away each finger individually.

  Hunter grunted.

  Dantalion snorted and kicked the man over backwards. Hunter slammed against the door marked with Dantalion’s blood, throwing it open to reveal a room much brighter than the dark places they’d already traversed. A raised platform made up the nearest end of the room, then dropped away to ground level. The light was coming from below.

  Dantalion looked down at the knife standing out from his body. It hung suspended, held by the wound and the weight of the book caught up in his clothing. Dantalion tugged on the hilt, wincing as he felt the knife pull from his flesh. Warm blood trickled down his abdomen and pooled around his groin. He wasn’t overconcerned. Once he finished off Hunter his flesh would mend as he transformed into the higher being he’d always been destined to become.

  He pulled out his book and wrenched free the blade.

  Military issue Ka-bar, he noted. Man-killer by definition. Useless against angels.

  Hunter had rolled on to his side in an effort to get up. Dantalion saw the confused expression on his face and was only sorry that Hunter wasn’t fully coherent. He wanted him fully aware when he was killed by his own weapon.

  Hunter made it to his hands and knees.

  Dantalion stood to his side, lifted the Ka-bar.

  Then he saw the gun thrust into the waistband of Hunter’s jeans.

  The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered.

  It was always about the numbers.

  He could offer a choice.

  ‘One: knife?’ he asked. Then he plucked out the SIG Sauer. ‘Two: gun? Which is it going to be, Hunter? How shall I kill you?’

  44

  One of the more obscure facets of my training had been how to endure torture. I’ve ran the gamut of methods employed by those who find it necessary to prise information from an enemy soldier. Sleep deprivation, mind games, physical beatings: I had to suffer and defeat them all when a member of the Special Forces. When I was drafted into the team headed by the shadowy men who became known as Arrowsake, I was introduced to further methods. The Geneva Convention forbids torture. But those I fought did not give a fuck for conventions. So it was necessary for me to be exposed to the other methods that some governments and terrorist groups used with impunity.

  As soon as the needle went in, and I felt the rushing in my skull, I knew what drug was coursing through my system. I’d felt its effects before. Sodium amatol. Truth serum as it’s sometimes referred to. It’s an inhibitor. It lowers resistance. It makes you feel drunk. But at the low dosage Dantalion had squirted into me, it wasn’t going to kill me. It wasn’t even going to send me to sleep.

  What it would do was disorient me, take away my strength and make it difficult to fight back. But I knew I could shake off the effects. Given time.

  Dantalion kicked me over.

  He didn’t know, but the pain acted in my favour. It shook off some of the debilitating fog in my brain. I rolled on to my side, looking for him.

  My eyes rolled in my skull and I could see his silhouette in triplicate as my vision swam.

  Aim for the one in the middle, I told myself. The thought struck me as funny, even as I knew that he was moving to kill me.

  I rolled on to my hands and knees. A tide rushed through me, and I was almost sick. My heart felt like a massive bellows in my chest, blood pumped supercharged through my veins. Blackness clouded at the edge of my consciousness. I shook my head. Clear the cobwebs. Clear the cobwebs, I chanted to myself. Fight the drug, push it aside.

  ‘One: knife?’ I heard.

  Couldn’t quite comprehend his meaning.

  ‘Two: gun?’

  Fingers tugged at my back and I realised my mistake. I’d shown him my SIG. I didn’t have the strength to stop him taking it. I barely had the strength to hold myself upright on my locked forearms.

  ‘What’s it going to be, Hunter?’

  I sucked in air, holding it, making pressure in my skull to push back the fluttering shadows from my mind.

  ‘How shall I kill you?’

  ‘With boredom,’ I told him.

  Then I kicked out, pistoning from the knee so that my heel crunched into his nearest shin.

  Dantalion howled with pain, and the sound did more to clear my mind than all my previous attempts.

  Pushing upwards, I came to my feet. My head swam, and it felt like I was on the deck of a ship in the storm of the century. But I didn’t stop. I slammed the heel of my palm into Dantalion’s groin, took hold of anything I could find and squeezed with all my might.

  Now his pain was given high-pitched voice. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, sounding like he was going to sneeze. To give him something else to think about, I smacked my forehead into his face.

  Not the best idea. The effect of bone on bone set off a tsunami inside my own head, and we reeled apart, equally stunned.

  I grabbed for my gun: it wasn’t there.

  Dantalion was holding both my weapons.

  Have to change that scenario.

  But even as I lunged at him, he brought up my SIG and fired.

  Luck rather than skill had caused me to dodge at the same time and the bullet punched through the space beneath my left armpit. I threw a looping right hook and drove my fist into his ribs. Dantalion was flung round by the force of the blow, but his left arm swept up and the Ka-bar slashed a line through my jacket. Dantalion stumbled away from me and I followed, chopping at his gun hand with the stiffened edge of my hand. My blow caught him on the mound of his forearm, shocking the radial nerve, and his hand opened in reflex spasm. The SIG clattered to the floor. It was out of reach for both of us and if I lunged for it I’d be inviting a knife in my back. So I threw a punch at his face instead.

  Still under the influence of the drug, my punch was neither powerful, nor precise. I didn’t knock him out, but I did flatten his nose against his face. Blood splattered, a torrent ran down his upper lip and into his mouth. He exhaled harshly, making droplets of his blood fleck my clothes.

  He stabbed out at me and I grappled his arm. Holding his wrist with both my hands, I hauled him round even as I turned side on. His ankles bumped against my outstretched leg. It wasn’t an expert judo throw, but it was enough to overbalance him and he went down to the floor. I fell on top of him, and loosening one hand from his wrist I drove my clawed fingers into his eyes.

  Dantalion pushed me off him and I didn’t have the strength to resist. We rolled away from each other. Then it was a fight to be first to our feet. Dantalion won and came at me, launching a kick into my ribs. I felt something crack and white hot pain flared through my body. He kicked again, but this time I hooked an arm round his heel
and swept his leg high into the air. He toppled backwards and his fall took him almost to the edge of the platform. Then he rolled back towards me and I saw my own Ka-Bar glinting in his hand.

  I had only one option. My SIG lay on the platform not half a dozen feet from Dantalion. We exchanged stares for less than a heartbeat, and then we were both rushing for the gun. Dantalion got to it first. He snatched at the SIG, even as he scythed the air in front of my throat with the knife.

  But I’d never been going for the gun, I simply wanted him in a position where I could finish the bastard off. I leaped feet first at him. He fired, but he hadn’t brought the gun round far enough and the bullet missed by a mile. Both my boots drove into his chest. I slapped down on the edge of the platform, my hip and right shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. It knocked the wind out of me, but nowhere near as much as my drop kick had done to Dantalion. He was thrown backwards, legs and arms windmilling as he disappeared over the edge of the platform. I heard the dull thud of him hitting the ground, but then there was silence. Painfully, I crawled to the edge of the platform. He was lying in a pool of light ten feet below me, squirming as though his spine had shattered during the fall.

  I took stock of my surroundings.

  I was in a large room that had once been a loading dock of some kind. A large roll-down shutter dominated one wall. It was partly open, letting in the harsh Florida sunlight. Glancing to my left, I saw a flight of metal steps leading down from the raised dais I was kneeling on. A guard rail would support me going down.

  Down was where I wished to be.

  Dantalion was injured, but he wasn’t dead yet.

  Pushing up to my feet, I again had to fight the disorienting effects of the drug in my body. The steps were a challenge, but I went down them hanging on to the rail, my feet clanging on the metal stairs. At the bottom I faced Dantalion.

  Apparently his back wasn’t broken.

  He was on his hands and knees. His head swung up and he met my stare with a grim smile.

  ‘I cannot die.’

  ‘Want a bet?’ I demanded as I moved towards him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Raising my SIG.

  Suddenly all was sound and movement. The light went even harsher as the roller shutter was forced up and black-garbed men swarmed in. Laser scopes stabbed red beams through the room. Men shouted orders and commands.

  I kept walking towards Dantalion and he rose up to meet me.

  The gun was aimed at my face, but I just kept going.

  Dantalion waited. Fisting both hands round my gun, he swayed where he stood, his legs braced wide. There was a book trailing on the floor behind him, attached to him by some kind of chain.

  ‘Do not move!’ someone shouted.

  Neither of us was of a mind to listen.

  Dantalion swung towards the FBI commandos swarming into the room and fired. The bullet passed above their heads, but it had them dropping for cover. Then he swung back towards me and a smile played across his lips.

  One FBI man lifted his rifle and a red dot blossomed on Dantalion’s chest.

  ‘Drop your weapon or I will shoot,’ yelled the commando.

  ‘No you won’t, asshole,’ said a familiar voice. I heard the racking of a pump-action shotgun. The laser dipped away from Dantalion.

  I didn’t have to look to know that Rink was there.

  Dantalion knew he was there as well. ‘I owe you for ramming me off that bridge, Rink,’ he said. ‘Stick around and I’ll kill you too.’

  Rink laughed.

  ‘He’s all yours, Hunter,’ my friend called.

  I ran at Dantalion.

  Dantalion jerked the trigger.

  There was only the empty click of a firing pin in an equally empty chamber.

  In my mind’s eye I saw an innocent old lady lying dead on her table. I thought of Bradley brutally wounded. And, thinking of Marianne Dean – of what this beast intended doing to her – I barrelled into him with my shoulder, hooking my arms behind his knees, lifting and throwing him backwards at the same time. He slammed down on his back with me on top. The SIG went flying from his hand. I struck him in the chest with an elbow, holding him there even as I crawled up and sat astride him. His arms were free and he gouged at my face with his horrible fingernails, but it was futile. I drove my fist into his face, once, twice, three times.

  His face was flecked with blood, and his pale eyes rolled up at me from swelling eyelids. His mouth opened in a grin and I saw tusk-like teeth. ‘You’re wasting your time, Hunter. I can’t die. But you can.’

  Peripherally, I caught the blur of movement. Men shouted and over the top of them all, I heard Rink’s warning. My brain wasn’t so clouded by drugs that it hindered my natural response.

  I caught Dantalion’s right wrist in my left hand. He continued to push, and he was surprisingly strong. The blade pressed against the flesh below my ribs. I felt the prickle of steel, but that only served my determination. Squeezing with all my might, I felt his bones grating together. The pale-faced bastard must have had something wrong with his bones, because I heard them snapping like green twigs.

  Dantalion screamed. The knife fell from his nerveless hand.

  ‘You can’t die, huh? Let’s see about that.’

  I snatched at the book trailing like an abnormal appendage between his legs. It was attached to him by a silver chain and I wrenched it from him. He was stunned by the pain of his broken arm, but when he saw me holding his book, strength flared. He bucked upwards, grabbing at the book with both hands.

  ‘Give it back!’

  Hooking my heels under his kidneys, I rode him like a rodeo bronco. Then I slammed the book against the side of his head and jammed his face against the floor. He squirmed beneath me, spittle shooting from his mouth as he cursed me. His hands clawed towards my face again, so I grabbed his broken wrist and gave it an extra squeeze. He shrieked in agony. Both hands dropped on to the book and touched it spasmodically. I wrenched it from him.

  ‘What’s so fucking important about this damn thing?’ I demanded. I flicked it open and saw nothing but row upon row of numbers written in a scratchy style.

  The numbers meant nothing to me.

  Evidently they meant everything to the killer.

  ‘You want it back, do you? Well, here you are! Have it!’

  I tore pages from the book, crumpled them in my fist, then as he shouted in alarm I jammed the wad of paper into his open mouth. He gagged, but I forced the wad further in. Then I held his mouth shut and placed my other hand over his sealed lips and nostrils. Adding to the pressure, I threw my weight on top of him and stared into his eyes. We were inches apart and I saw his pupils dilate in realisation that he was wrong. He could die.

  There were shouts of consternation from behind me. A rush of bodies. Hands clawing at me. But I trusted Rink to keep the FBI off me long enough for it to be finished. Dantalion thrashed under me in one final attempt to break free but there was nothing he could do to stop me now.

  It didn’t take long.

  I wasn’t sure he was dead until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘He’s dead, Hunter,’ Rink said. ‘You can relax.’

  I looked down at the man beneath me. Marianne and Bradley would be safe now. The old lady was avenged.

  His eyes were bugged wide, pale and milky in death.

  The flesh round his mouth was blackened, lips blue. Blood vessels had erupted all along his jawline.

  ‘That put a little colour in his cheeks.’

  45

  Rink and I made an unscheduled visit to the local FBI field office. We were in cuffs and treated like we were the ones responsible for slaughtering upward of two dozen people. But then Walter Hayes Conrad IV arrived and a few asses were metaphorically kicked. When we walked out of the FBI building it was with handshakes all round and congratulations on a job well done, even if the plaudits weren’t reflected in the faces of the men doing the congratulating. Maybe the way in which I’d killed Dantalion had somethi
ng to do with it.

  Not that anyone lamented Jean-Paul St Pierre’s passing. He was a psychopath with delusions of grandeur. He was responsible for murder from a very young age. He’d murdered his mother, an uncle and a school friend when he was only thirteen years old and had spent the next eight years incarcerated in a high-security hospital. At age twenty-one, he’d been released into an unsuspecting world. He had enrolled in a school for performing arts where he’d learned all about theatrical make-up and the assuming of other personas. Later he’d trained to be a stuntman and studied driving, guns and unarmed combat. He should have stuck to the fantasy world of movies. His training was all make-believe. All fake skills when it came to the very real, very serious world of a contract killer. He thought he was a professional, but he wasn’t. He was simply crazy. But that was what had made him so dangerous.

  Walter didn’t hang around.

  He stayed only long enough to remind me that his debt to me was cleared.

  ‘Nothing like this can happen ever again. I can’t keep on advocating murder, Hunter.’

  ‘Won’t ever come to that again,’ I promised him. But we both knew our words were hollow.

  Violence follows me around like stink on a mangy dog.

  Anyway, my treatment of Dantalion wasn’t murder. The fact I’d stopped a maniac who’d murdered dozens outweighed my ‘drug-clouded’ actions and I wouldn’t be facing any charges.

  Rink took a flight out of Miami International, headed across the country chasing the setting sun. I promised him that I’d follow in a day or so, as soon as I’d finished up here. I told him to give his mom a kiss for me.

  ‘Kiss her yourself when you get there,’ Rink told me. ‘She isn’t going anywhere. She’s getting stronger all the time.’

  I called Richard Dean.

  We met at a diner a whole lot nicer than Shuggie’s Shack. The food must have been good judging by the clatter of cutlery on plates. People talked and laughed with each other. Patsy Cline was playing on the jukebox.