by Jon F. Merz
My vision went blurry but I saw him come up and yank a knife free of its sheath in a butcher block. I tried to steady my breathing as he turned and rushed at me, bringing the knife high overhead.
I’d kept the pistol and brought it up.
Tapped the trigger twice.
And then dove to my left to avoid Amir’s body as it came down at me.
The rounds slammed into his chest and Amir dropped to his knees, clutching at the growing red blossoming across his heart. His incisors extended and then retracted as he died on his knees, finally slumping to the floor in a pool of blood.
I turned to Lauren. “Quickly now, go outside and tell the goon with you family to come inside. Tell him Amir needs his help. Bring the gun he gave you.”
I followed Lauren to the front door and then waited. A moment later she returned with Amir’s henchman. I came up behind him and pistol-whipped him at the base of his skull. He dropped hard.
Lauren’s family rushed inside and they all fell into each other with hugs and crying. It was sort of awkward standing there with an unconscious goon at my feet and two corpses in the kitchen. But I’ve had worse holidays.
Lauren finally looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Are you going to report me to the Council?”
She’d betrayed me, but I couldn’t fault her for it. Amir had threatened her family. Most people would have done exactly what she did. There wasn’t much point to reporting her. I shook my head. “No reason to report you.”
“Thank you.” She pointed at the goon. “What about him?”
“I’ll pack him in the car and he’ll be fine. I’m sure the Council will want to talk to him.”
“You could have killed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I’m not indiscriminate.”
She got to her feet and gave me a hug. When she pulled away from me, I looked at her. “You see now?”
“See what?”
“The difference.”
She shook her head.
I pointed to the goon at my feet. “There’s a difference between those who fight for good and those who do evil. We each kill, yes, but for different reasons. You might think it’s the same, but that’s only because you have the benefit of not knowing the world I inhabit. Be thankful for that. I don’t expect you to understand. But I do expect that you won’t judge things you don’t know anything about. Fair enough?”
Lauren nodded. “Fair enough.”
I took a breath. The rest of her family was eyeing me with a mixture of wonder, awe, and fear. Not exactly the most comfortable position I’d ever been in.
“Merry Christmas, Lawson,” said Lauren.
“Thank you.”
“Would you like to stay and celebrate with us?”
I looked at her and shook my head. “I don’t have any gifts.”
Lauren squeezed my arm. “I’d say you’ve given us a pretty awesome gift already.”
“You may be right.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Lauren.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll need your help cleaning up the kitchen.”
“And the living room,” I said.
She nodded. “Deal?”
I smiled. “Deal.”
Here Comes Santa Claus
December 2016
I was in hell.
Or at least the closest thing I could equate to hell - that is, my own version of it anyway. Not the hell fire and brim stone with the devil sitting nearby laughing at the endless torment of the souls he got to torture for the rest of eternity.
Not that.
I was at the mall. Again. Surrounded by soccer moms and their screaming, whining kids that they dragged from store to store as they shopped for gifts. Christmas jingles played on permanent rotation overhead. The constant din thundered in my head and I had to constantly move to avoid colliding with other people who had no concept of personal space or even how to walk properly.
“Mommy!”
“I want that!”
“Joey punched me!”
What had ever made me think that coming to the mall on a Friday night was a smart idea? It was probably one of the dumbest things I’d ever done. And man, I had done some stupid shit in my time.
Of course, these plaintive wails paled in comparison to the moms who clearly didn’t understand how to get their kids under control. How do I know? Because instead of snapping a simple command at them to shut up, or stop, or to behave themselves, this is how it came out instead:
“Hailey, can you stop kicking Hunter in the balls?”
And of course, the kids - who didn’t understand that they were being told to knock it off - would interpret this as a question and then not follow the command, because their brains didn’t process it as one. They weren’t old enough to understand the implied nature of the question.
In any event, I was wading through this morass in search of a gift for Talya. I should have already taken care of this, but I’d been away doing re-qualification training for my STA-F team designation. Three weeks of balls-to-the-wall close quarters combat refresher, field craft exercises, and a bunch of jump training wth both HALO and HAHO recerts. Since the techniques for this stuff changed all the time, we had to stay abreast of it as often as we could. Because all members of STA-F are drawn from the ranks of Fixers, scheduling things is a nightmare. Sometimes we didn’t even train with our designated teams, but had to join up with whomever was available.
Still, we made it work.
I’d gotten back into town this morning and I knew I had to get the gift shopping done as soon as possible. Talya and I were due to rendezvous for a nice tropical Christmas somewhere down in the Caribbean. I thought that ten days of non-stop sex, drinks, and sun were just the ticket for a happy holiday. Luckily, the love of my life thought so, too.
We didn’t always discuss work when we got together, but I suspected we’d both had a rough autumn and the R&R would do us some serious good. Ever since Syria I’d been on the go nonstop and my communications with Talya had been few and far between, which told me she was crazy busy as well. Being able to get together and just hang out enjoying each other’s company was going to be a great recharge for us both.
I was looking for something unique. I’d done the jewelry bit in the past, but Talya didn’t go a whole long way on bling. I needed something that would really tug at her heart strings and show her how much I loved her.
It’s not all that easy to shop for one of the world’s preeminent assassins.
A line of kids and their weary-looking parents waited for a picture with Santa. But Santa wasn’t sitting in his throne. A sign said that he was on a quick break and to please be patient. Patience, however, looked like it had left a long time ago judging by how the parents looked. And the kids whining made it all the worse.
“When’s he coming back?”
“Does Santa have to go poo?”
“Mommy, I need to tell Santa to bring me a new brother.”
“Does Santa smoke cigarettes?”
And then I heard this:
“Cade?”
I frowned. Whatever happened to kids with names like Bill, Joe, and Steve? I wondered if there was a competition for soon-to-be-parents to try to find the most unusual names for their kids. Honestly ever since that idiot of a celebrity named her kid after a fruit, the whole naming process had gone downhill in a hurry.
“Cade?”
The tone of the mom’s voice grew more insistent. I was lingering now, without even realizing I’d slowed my walk to a crawl. My damned instincts knew something was wrong even before my conscious brain caught up. What else was new?
“Cade!”
I stopped now and saw that the mom looked young, perhaps thirty. She was clutching the hand of another kid, a toddler, who looked like he could pull apart a toy doll in two seconds flat. He wanted to go one way while she pulled him the other. He was close to whining.
Without
even thinking, I drew closer to her. “Everything okay?”
She looked up at me, suddenly alarmed or relieved. I couldn’t tell which because the toddler started crying. She looked at him and the back at me. “I can’t find my son.”
“Cade?”
“Yes, that’s right. He was here a second ago, we were going to see Santa, and he got away from me and now I can’t find him.”
“You tell mall security? They ought to be able to help.”
She shook her head. “Not yet, it just happened. Can you help me? He’s about four with blonde hair and he’s wearing jeans and red parka. Please?”
“You go to tell security what happened and I’ll take a look around.”
She looked relieved. “Thank you!”
“Yeah.”
Now what the hell had I gone and done that for? I had my own shit to worry about. I chalked it up as Talya’s influence on me. She had a soft spot for kids. I think it was starting to infect me. Or maybe I was looking for a reason to avoid figuring out what to get her for Christmas.
Find the kid.
Yeah, I could do that.
I started walking up the line of kids and their parents who were waiting for Santa. If I’d been a young kid, that’s exactly where I would have headed.
“I’m trying to find a kid. His name’s Cade. Blonde with a red jacket. Have you seen him?”
All I got for my trouble was a whole bunch of head shakes and “no,” and I was about to turn away from the crowd when a little girl pointed to the area behind where the Santa throne was.
“I saw him go there.”
I squatted down next to her. “You did?”
She looked up at her mom and her mother shrugged. “If you saw him, tell the man honey.”
The little girl looked back at me. “He ran through that curtain. Is he seeing Santa Claus?”
I smiled. “I don’t know, but thank you. I’ll go see if I can find him.”
I stood and headed for the curtained off area behind the Santa area. If the kid had come through here, then he might have gotten lost and not know how to find his way back.
Behind the throne, the din of the mall died to a low roar. Ahead of me, I saw the door marked Employees Only and pushed through it. Surprisingly, it was open.
I found myself in a corridor that stretched before me for fifty meters, curving slightly and descending. If little Cade had wandered back here, he would have been scared for sure. The lights overhead were dim and cast long shadows that would have easily scared a small child.
I stopped for a second and tried straining my ears to see if I could hear anything. Should I call the kid’s name? Or would that just spook him? He’d been here with his mom. My voice was pretty damned deep. It might just scare him all the more.
I caught a whiff of smoke. Cigarette smoke. I smirked, maybe that kid did have something about Santa needing a smoke break. Hell, maybe the old guy had seen the kid come through here.
I jogged down the corridor and came to a branch with other corridors leading off left and right. Decision time. I sniffed the air and decided that the left corridor probably held the better chance of finding Smoky Claus. I don’t know why I figured it was Santa firing up, but maybe it was the thought that listening to whining kids all day could drive anyone to inhale cancer-causing agents into their lungs in the hopes of checking out early.
Down I went, my footfalls sounding ominously louder than I wanted them to. Ahead of me, I saw a door that was marked with Garage and pushed through it.
As soon as I came outside, the cold air embraced me. The day had dawned ice cold, the coldest of the winter so far. My breath steamed the air before my face and I paused, listening, smelling, and watching.
I heard a whimper.
Far, but still close enough for me to hear.
Cade?
There was smoke on the air, too, although it was a lot more scattered than it had been back in the corridor. The cold air diffused it to the point that I was having a hard time getting a fix on where it was coming from.
But the whimpering continued. I’d have to use that to pinpoint the kid’s location.
The ramps in this part of the parking garage led me to the employees parking area, which was good because there was next to no traffic that might have hit the kid. He had a better shot of surviving if he could stay away from moving cars.
Another whimper broke the air and it sounded closer than before. That was good. At least I was on the right track.
I took another level up. To my far left, I could see outside and figured I was at least five stories up already. Much higher and I’d be at the rooftop level. If the kid had made it that high, then I didn’t want to think about him falling. I had to reach him first.
Nothing came over the intercom system, and I wasn’t even sure if it extended into the garage itself. I hoped the kid’s mom had made it to the security guys and they were looking for Cade already. I doubted they’d find him before me, however. Something told me I was closer than they would be.
I heard scuffling. And then I heard a deep voice uttering some sort of command like, “Stop fighting!” It was low but the urgency with which it was said sent my system into an automatic reaction. My heart switched on and I found myself breaking into a run now as I scrambled up the next ramp.
Six stories up now.
I saw shadows and heard the whimper. There were three trucks ahead of me, parked closest to the wall. I heard the gruff voice say something unintelligible and then I heard the smack of a hand on flesh.
Without thinking, I reached for my pistol, but I’d left it in the car. Walking through a shopping mall with a piece wasn’t always the smartest move. Even though right now I wished I’d brought it with me.
I saw the shadows first. But as I rounded the side of the truck, I saw the awful reality.
Santa with his red trousers down by his ankles.
Naked from the waist down.
Cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Holding a young boy - I assumed it was Cade - by the hand, trying to get him to come closer.
Too close.
My blood boiled. “What the fuck?!”
Santa recoiled, let Cade go, and then immediately started jerking his pants back up.
He must have been in his forties, but his white facial hair would have easily made him look twenty years older. Regardless, I saw the cruelty in his eyes now that no amount of jolliness could ever conceal.
As Cade drew back away from him, Santa spat his cigarette out and rushed at me.
I heard the snikt of the switchblade a moment before the first slash came at me. I was already ducking out of the way, avoiding the blade the swept the air where my throat had been an instant before.
I punched up and caught the fucker in his gut. But that was a lie, too. Ol’ Santa had padded himself to look fatter than he was. My fist sank into something like a pillow and then he rotated and punched at me with his free hand. The punch landed on my temple and I saw stars.
He drove me back, pumping at me with the blade. We fell back and away from where I’d found him with Cade, drifting across the garage. He stabbed at me over and over again, and I dodged each blow, trying to find the moment when I could counter. I didn’t force the moment, but let him dictate the flow.
And then I saw the opening. As he pumped twice at my midsection, he withdrew the knife and I followed it back in, checking him at the elbow and then chopping him across the throat. His beard absorbed some of the shot, but I put enough force behind it that he drew back and away from me, trying to massage his throat with his free hand while he gripped the knife tightly with the other.
I didn’t let up.
But chased him down and as he half-heartedly tried to slash at me with his knife hand, I punched the back of his hand and it shot open, sending the blade skittering away from us and under a nearby car.
With the blade gone, Santa abandoned all hope of killing me and tried to tackle me instead around my waist. As he came
in, I sprawled and drove both elbows into his back with all of my body weight behind them.
We fell to the cold concrete floor, rolling and struggling. He came up astride my chest, raining punches down at my head. I took two of them and then managed to duck the next two, bucking my hips to dislodge him and then rolled free.
The cold air bit at my face as it swept through the garage. We were close to the edge of the parking platform and the frostiness streamed in, pecking at us with the first snowflakes of the season.
Santa circled me with a sneer on his face that made him look like a hippie Billy Idol. Which was really unfortunate since I happen to really like Billy Idol.
“I don’t know who you are, but you’re dead.”
Like I hadn’t heard that before.
I refrained from saying anything. Sometimes when you don’t rise to the bait of idiots, it just pisses them off all the more.
Like now.
Santa grunted and came charging in at me, throwing a huge haymaker that started from a mile away. I could tell he was putting everything he had into the punch, trying his best to end this before it got out of hand.
Unfortunately for ol’ Saint Nick, I used his momentum to my advantage, pivoting inside the loop of the punch and allowing the inertia he’d built up to carry him right past me and over the ledge of the garage platform.
As he shot past me and started to lose his balance, his weight continued carrying him closer to the precipice. I thought he was a goner, but at the last moment, he reached out and grabbed a bunch of my jacket, dragging me with him.
The precipice loomed closer and then I found myself perched on the very edge. Santa hung below me, still clutching my jacket, his legs dangling in the air six stories above the ground.
He looked up at me. “Don’t let me die!”
His weight continued pulling me closer to the edge. I dug my heels in against the wall and braced myself back.
He clawed at my jacket, trying to find purchase against the outside of the building so he could somehow climb back up and in to the garage.
He wasn’t a fat guy, but he still had at least fifty pounds on me.
And I was getting tired.
One of his hands fell free from my jacket. I could have reached out and grabbed him. Dragged him back into the garage.