“What are you planning to do?” Miriam asked.
“If you see trouble, peel out of here without me, understand?”
Cynthia nodded. She and Miriam began scanning the street. I turned and ran into the building that contained the offices of The Mallet and Peter Lemly.
In the lobby, I scanned the directory. There was an actuarial on the second floor and marriage counselors on the third. The fourth was the editorial offices of The Mallet.
The elevator looked slow and confined to me, so I took the stairs, vaulting up them as quickly as I could. I nearly knocked over a middle-aged couple coming down from the third floor. I mumbled an apology and squeezed past them.
At the top of the stairs I saw the door for The Mallet, est. 1909. It wasn’t locked, and I let myself inside. There were three doors along a short hallway. The farthest door was marked EDITORIAL. I put my hand on the knob and hesitated. The air was very still. Peter wasn’t here, and I wanted to sprint back down to the car. Instead, I opened the door.
I immediately smelled blood. I walked toward the desk and window at the far side of the room. There was a pair of fresh blood splashes on the glass, and the desk had been knocked crooked.
Peter was behind the desk, mostly. His arm lay in the far corner, his hand still clutching a nine-millimeter. His head lay a few feet away beside a single spent bullet casing. I wondered if he had managed to hit his target.
I backed out of the room, wrapped my hand in my shirttail, and pulled the door closed, then wiped my fingerprints from the knob. I did the same to the knob on the door to the stairs.
I ran down the stairs, out the door, then hopped into Cynthia’s car. “Any trouble?” I asked her.
“No. You?”
“Oh, yes. Peter Lemly is dead.”
“Oh, shit,” Cynthia said.
“Shouldn’t we call someone?” Miriam asked.
“Like who? The cops are probably the ones who killed him.”
“An ambulance, of course. What if he’s just badly hurt?”
I turned around and looked in her eyes. “Miriam,” I said. “He’s very, very dead.”
She snapped her mouth shut and stared out the window. Cynthia raced through town and pulled into the county hospital lot. She parked as close to Arlene’s car as possible.
Within five minutes, we were all walking down the hallway toward Frank’s room.
Just outside his door, I saw a tiny, bald black man of about seventy. The top of his head came up to the bullet hole in my shirt, and he wore huge, black-framed rectangular glasses that make his eyes look like apricots. He held a long, black rifle in both hands.
Across the hall, a bird-thin woman of about sixty sat on the same padded bench Cynthia and I had sat on the day before. She held a World War II-era carbine across her lap.
The tiny man thrust out his chin and slid his finger over the trigger. “Stop right there, young man,” he said in a high, nasal voice. “You stop there.”
“Lord in heaven, Roger,” the thin woman said. “Can’t you see that they have Miriam with them?”
He squinted at us through his gigantic goggles, then scowled. Letting people into the room must have felt like a loss of much-loved authority.
I glanced at the far end of the hall. Two hospital security guards leaned against a door. They were watching Roger and us but were obviously unwilling to approach closer.
At that moment, Arlene pushed past the guards, with Rev. Wilson and a doctor close behind. Miriam, Arlene, and the doctor bent their heads together for a conference. The doctor’s voice was low but emphatic. He was unhappy about something, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was.
Rev. Wilson turned toward me but kept his gaze pointed off to my right. “Emmett was here just a few minutes ago, but he’s gone now.”
“He wouldn’t surrender his weapon,” Roger announced. “Or submit to a search.”
“And he smelled funny,” the bird woman said.
I imagined he would, if he hadn’t had time to wash off Peter’s blood. “What about his brothers?”
“There’s been no sign of them,” Wilson said.
I remembered the spent casing by Peter’s body. I went to the doctor, who was objecting most strenuously to something. “Hey, Doc,” I interrupted. “Have any of the town police been admitted to the emergency room today?”
“I’m a cardiologist.”
“Don’t be annoying, please. If one of them came into the ER, the whole hospital would have heard about it, right?”
The doctor obviously wanted to continue his argument with Miriam, but she was paying attention to me. He sighed. “Right, and no.”
I hoped Peter had missed with his shot. “Thanks. Now run along and get us a wheelchair, would you? We’re taking the mayor out of here.” He blinked at me as he tried to generate a suitably outraged reply.
I heard a low growl behind me.
I turned. Luke Dubois stood by the door we had just come in. Standing next to him was a wolf.
Shit. Too slow. If only I hadn’t stopped for Peter Lemly, I might have gotten them away in time.
“Everyone stand where you are,” Luke said, looking pleased with himself.
The other wolves I had seen in Hammer Boy had been tinged with red or gray fur. The one beside Luke was black, and it was big. I remembered Wiley’s dark mop of hair, and knew this one was him.
“Not protecting your secret anymore, Luke?” I said. “It must hurt to have killed Wilma over something you’re just throwing away now.”
Luke was startled, but he didn’t break down in tears or anything. “I didn’t… I would have never… we don’t have to be afraid,” he said, turning the subject toward something he wanted to talk about. “All this time we thought we had to be afraid, but we don’t. And we’re not giving away our secret. Not today, at least.”
That wasn’t good. We were in for a bloodbath. “Roger,” I said, keeping my voice low, “shoot that damn wolf.”
The gun went off almost before I finished the sentence. It was brutally loud in the tiled hallway, and despite myself, I flinched.
A bloody hole appeared dead center on the black wolf’s head. Roger was a good shot. As I watched, the hole closed over. The wolf barely staggered.
“You see?” Luke said. “All this time we’ve been afraid, and we didn’t have to.”
Damn. Peter had shot one of them. We needed silver, and they knew it.
I heard screams behind me. A red wolf had knocked down one of the security guards and was tearing apart his forearm. The grayish wolf had already gone for the throat of the second man, who struggled weakly against the attack, red blood squirting onto the tile floor.
“Get into the room!” I shouted.
Cynthia barreled into the door. I heard her shouting at someone inside not to shoot her.
Roger worked the bolt of his rifle. His face was set, as though he was trying to work out a complicated puzzle.
The gray wolf charged us. The birdlike woman stepped toward it and lifted her rifle. There was another shot, but the wolf leaped on her, knocking her to the floor. It sank its fangs into her neck just below her ear. She didn’t get a chance to scream.
Roger grunted. The black wolf had landed on him. I kicked it in the ribs just as it snapped at his throat. Roger’s gun went off. Luke, still standing at the end of the hall, collapsed backward onto the tile floor. The wolf tore into Roger’s throat.
I rushed at Miriam. The red wolf came at her first. Arlene and Rev. Wilson both lunged at the creature. Wilson and the wolf went down. The reverend was not going to last long.
Arlene grabbed Miriam and shoved her toward the door to Frank’s room. They collided with me. Rather than fight my way around them toward the reverend I let myself be pushed into the room. I ran when Rev. Wilson, the guards, Roger, and the old lady could not, and I was glad to do it.
I slammed the door shut and threw my shoulder against it. There was no lock. Someone slid a chair under the doorknob. I looked u
p and saw that it was the cardiologist. I hadn’t seen him enter the room, but here he was, holding the door with me.
“What’s going on?” he asked me, his voice low and breathless. “What is that officer doing with those dogs?”
“Killing us, if he gets the chance.”
I turned and looked around the room. Frank was lying on his bed, tubes up his nose. Standing beside him were a fat middle-aged man with rake-thin arms and a fat elderly man with a handlebar mustache. Both were carrying identical doughboy-era rifles. Along with them were Cynthia, Miriam, and Arlene. Miriam was fussing over Arlene’s hand, but the rest were looking at me.
“Is everyone all right over there?”
“It’s Arlene,” Miriam said. “She’s been bitten pretty badly.”
“You have a patient, Doc.”
Cynthia fetched a rubber doorstop from the corner and kicked it beneath the closed door. Blood started to flow under the door. “I saw what happened when the old guy shot the wolf. It wasn’t hurt at all.”
“I know.”
“We need some kind of silver weapons, don’t we? Silver bullets or something?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t planning to fight them. That’s why we were running away. But I don’t know if silver will work.”
“What happened out there?” the man with the mustache asked. He looked like he wanted to throw his gun down and run. The middle-aged man was even more spooked. “Where’s Roger and Binky?”
“They’re both dead,” Arlene snapped. “So is Reverend Wilson.”
“What?” Mustache said. “How-“
Everyone began talking at once, in high, panicked tones.
I felt someone try the handle. Someone pushed. Someone strong. I pushed back. I could hear sounds coming from the other side of the door, but I couldn’t make them out.
“Hey!” I shouted at them. “Be quiet!” No effect. Everyone was still badgering Arlene for explanations. Frank began to look pale. Miriam rushed to him. “Shut up!” I shouted at them, but all I did was add to the noise.
From the other side of the door, a wolf howled. Then two, then a third. Everyone in the room fell silent.
“All right in there,” Luke Dubois said. He didn’t sound like a man who had just been shot. He sounded happy. “What say we talk terms?”
“Sure thing,” I said. “Let everyone in this room leave unharmed, and I won’t rain hellfire on your ass.”
Luke chuckled. “Hellfire, huh? You didn’t look like you had much hellfire on hand when you were scurrying into that hospital room. You looked like you had a load in your pants.”
“You don’t know who I am,” I said.
“Don’t care, neither. Not anymore.”
“That’s because you’re stupid.” I took the ghost knife out and threw it through the door. It cut a slit in the wood and passed through. I heard Luke grunt. Something metallic fell onto the tiled floor. I reached for the ghost knife. It flew back to me, cutting a second slit through the wooden door and landing in my hand.
“What…” Luke’s voice was small and frightened. “What was that?” I knew the ghost knife had taken the fight out of him. Hopefully, it would give him pause, too.
“That was just the start. That was small magic for small potatoes like you. Where did you get this trick for shape-shifting, Luke? Straight from the Hammer family, I’ll bet. I’ll bet the first Cabot gave it to your grandfather, and he’s passed it down over the years. I’m right, aren’t I? Didn’t you ever wonder where he learned the trick?”
“He’s rich,” Luke said, as if that explained everything.
“Please. He got his magic from the same place I got mine. From the same book, in fact. But he only taught the Dubois family that one trick, right? He only gave you that one spell. And you didn’t even know enough about it to be sure the magic protected you. Not until Peter Lemly unloaded a round into one of you.”
I just kept talking, hoping to stall him. I didn’t know what to stall him for, but it was all I had.
“So what? What does that have to do with you?”
Cynthia came up to me and held out her hand. “This was all I could find,” she whispered. She had a delicate silver chain in her palm. I took it. I hoped it would do some good.
“Damn, Luke,” I said, “you fellas have been stumbling around in the dark for years. And now, when you finally realize what you have, you blow it by killing Karoly and Lemly, and now going after the mayor. You drew too much attention to yourselves. Now we’re here to take the magic back.”
“We’re just protecting our own interests,” he said, his voice almost complaining. “This is our territory.”
I waved at the two fat men while Luke kept talking. They approached me timidly. Rake-Thin Arms was about to ask a question, but I held my finger to my lips. I gestured for them to throw their weight against the door. They did.
I ran to the window. We were on the fourth floor-too damn high to jump. But there was a ledge. I took out my ghost knife and cut a large hole in the window, as large as I could make it. Then I turned to Cynthia and the doctor. “Out onto the ledge,” I whispered.
Cynthia didn’t hesitate. She stepped through the window and climbed out. The ledge was only six inches wide, and there was nothing but parking lot below, but she inched her way along.
The doctor followed her after a moment’s hesitation. Frank didn’t have the strength for that kind of climbing, and Miriam wasn’t going to leave him. Arlene wasn’t going to leave Miriam.
I went back to the door and shoved the fat guys aside. “Go,” I whispered. What ever Luke had been saying, he was done saying it. I laid my arms against the door and braced myself, for what ever that was worth. I looked over my shoulder.
The two fat guys rushed toward the window. Mustache looked out at the ledge, then turned back to me. I could see he wasn’t going to risk it. Rake-Thin shoved him aside.
“You have two choices, Luke,” I shouted through the door. “You can stay in Hammer Bay and be hunted like animals, or you can run for it. Rio is nice, I’m told. I’d think that would be a good place for a murderer to lie low.”
“No,” Luke said. I could hear courage in his voice. Damn. He was recovering from the ghost knife too quickly. “I don’t think so. I’ve been to Rio.”
The door seemed to explode right in front of me. Splinters of wood struck my face. I felt a dead pressure against the tattoos on my stomach. Gunshot.
I fell backward. Splinters fell around me in slow motion. I fell in slow motion, too. I knew a second gunshot was coming, but it seemed to take a long time.
Then it boomed. I hit the floor and rolled to the side. A third shot slammed past me. Then a fourth. Mustache dove for the ground. Rake-Thin Arms toppled through the window like a sack of flour and vanished. Miriam screamed as more shots blasted through the wood. At first I thought she was screaming over the death of the middle-aged fat guy, but then I noticed a single round bullet hole just above Frank’s right eye.
Arlene grabbed Miriam and dragged her to the floor. Mustache crawled toward me, holding the rifle.
Boom boom boom. The barrage seemed to be endless, although I’d guess there were no more than ten or twelve shots. When it ended, the door was Swiss cheese. I heard Luke eject a clip and replace it. He racked the slide.
I expected him to say something before he started shooting again, but he just jammed his pistol into one of the holes in the door and started shooting.
The barrel of the gun was only a couple of feet above me. I slashed at it with the ghost knife. The trigger fell free and landed with a ting on the floor outside.
Luke drew back the weapon and cursed. He kicked at the door and broke open a section with several bullet holes. His foot got stuck in the hole.
Mustache shot him through the ankle. Luke cursed violently as he yanked at his foot. Mustache and I saw the wound heal in seconds.
“Jesus wept,” Mustache said. “What do we do now?”
I had an idea. “Gimme.”<
br />
Mustache handed me the rifle. I took the silver chain from my pocket and cut it in half. Then I cut the halves as well. Might as well try it.
Luke pulled his foot free, and the black muzzle of a wolf jammed through the hole in the door. The wolf snarled and snapped at me, throwing itself against the splintering wood, forcing itself into the room.
I dropped a piece of chain down the barrel of the rifle. I held the shoulder stock low and the muzzle up, so the chain wouldn’t slide out.
The black wolf lunged at me. Saliva splashed against my face. The creature’s jaws gaped.
I jammed the rifle barrel down the wolf’s throat, as deep as it would go. Then I tilted it up. I heard the chain slide down the barrel.
The wolf yelped. It froze in place for just a moment, its eyes widening, then started to pull back.
Before I could even think about it, the ghost knife flew into my hand. I slashed it across the wolf’s throat. The gun fell backward and so did I.
The wolf tried to scream, but a solid inch of gun barrel was stuck in the back of its throat. It tried to retch. It wrenched itself back through the broken door and fell to the floor, shuddering.
“What do you know?” I said quietly. “It worked.” The gun barrel was cut at a slant now. I felt a twinge of guilt at ruining what looked to be a family heirloom.
I tried to slide a second piece of chain into the barrel, but my hands were shaking too badly. Mustache reached over my shoulder and held the weapon steady.
My thanks were drowned out by howls from the hallway. Luke called Wiley’s name. I glanced through the hole in the door and caught a glimpse of pale, blubbery flesh. Wiley had turned back into a human. Damn, it was like the movies.
I slid another length of chain down the barrel. “I’m sorry about the gun,” I said.
“Forget the gun, boy,” Mustache answered. “Just don’t let those bastards in here.”
“Fair enough.” I slashed the ghost knife through the barrel, cutting it at a sharp angle. Then I shaved the leading edge until it came to a rough point. It wasn’t as sharp as a spear, but it might do the job if I put my back into it.
Child of Fire Page 25