Alone tgitb-1

by Robert J. Crane

  Zack’s hand crept up to his face, covering his eyes as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know that he’s not, but I know we stand a better chance of taking him here than in the middle of a South Minneapolis neighborhood. What could possibly be in your house that’s so damned important that you’re willing to risk your life and ours?”

  I didn’t answer him. He shook his head and gestured for me to follow him, which I did. The truth was, I didn’t need anything from my house. When we got there, I was going to load up as many weapons as I could carry from the basement, but I didn’t really need any of them. And it’s not like any of my clothes were so amazing that I couldn’t live without them; nor personal items, none of it.

  I wanted to go back because I thought Wolfe would be there.

  I hated the way I felt after our last fight, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking about it – about how he beat me down, made me fear him. I wanted to run into him. This time I’d be ready. Mobility and agility were my weapons. I couldn’t beat him for strength, but I moved faster than him last time and if I hadn’t rammed my head into the iron wall of muscle that was his stomach…I think I could take him. I wanted to. I was faster than him, I knew it. Not by much, but enough. I just had to aim for the weak points – eyes, groin, kidneys.

  At least it would be better than sitting around the Directorate for tests I didn’t really want to do, waiting for a mom who probably wasn’t going to show up.

  I followed Zack to an underground parking garage where I found ten guys, all dressed in suits, carrying rifles and shotguns. Kurt was standing there waiting and he greeted me with a scowl and a grunt that bordered on rude. I waved coquettishly with a big, fake smile. “I should get a gun too,” I said as Zack and I walked up to their car.

  “No,” they both chorused. I shrugged; I hadn’t expected them to say yes and I didn’t press the point. If I was facing off against Wolfe and needed one, I’d take it from an agent. When Wolfe showed, I knew I was going to have to move fast; I didn’t want any of these guys to die, after all.

  We drove to a gate that opened for us, the entrance to the Directorate compound, which was surrounded by a high brick wall. I counted three security cameras without difficulty and I had a suspicion that those were for show; I would have bet the real cameras were much smaller.

  We drove down straight roads in a convoy, empty fields of rolling hills on either side. After about twenty minutes we hit a major highway and followed it for another twenty minutes until we hit a suburban area replete with malls, stores and retail outlets. Another few minutes and we exited a freeway into an area of older homes that looked familiar. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was the same cross street where Reed and I entered the freeway a couple days before.

  A few streets later I found myself staring at the front of a house that should have looked familiar, since I lived in it, but didn’t because I hadn’t seen the exterior in over a decade except while fleeing from it in a rush.

  “We’ll wait here until we get the all-clear,” Zack told me, leaning over the seat to talk to me. A few of the cars parked in front of us emptied and the agents were all wearing full length coats to conceal their weapons. They streamed across the street in a mass.

  “Um,” I said with amusement, “shouldn’t we have parked a few streets away if we’re afraid Wolfe is watching the house?”

  “Wow, you’ve outsmarted us. It must be our first day on the job,” Kurt answered with a snotty air of aggravation. “We are a few streets away. They’re going to walk the three blocks to get to your place.”

  I looked at the house I had thought was mine. I tried to reconcile the facade with the brief glimpse I had gotten of my home as I fled into Reed’s car days earlier. I shook my head. They were all snow covered, blotting out differences between them. I gave up and looked at Zack, who was shaking his head at his partner.

  We sat in silence for the next few minutes. Tempted as I was to make smartass comments to annoy Kurt to the point where he’d get out of the car, I restrained myself (not sure how). We waited, tension filling the air as mundane reports from the agents came across their radios. Staticky “all clear” calls came through over and over. Zack had unplugged his microphone so it piped out over a speaker.

  I gnawed on one of my fingernails as I listened. The voices didn’t sound unhappy, just clipped and professional. I wondered if Wolfe would show up, if he was even looking for me here. I mean, he couldn’t just hang around my house all day, every day waiting for me to show up, could he?

  I thought about those black, soulless eyes and suppressed a shudder. He could. He would. I had to act fast here, get to him before he got to anybody else. My ears focused on the radio, waiting for the first hint of any trouble.

  “Found something in the basement,” came the voice over the speaker. I felt myself tense. If it wasn’t Wolfe, I could bet I knew what they found. “It’s…ugh…well, it’s not Wolfe. All clear.”

  “All clear,” came another voice in agreement. “That’s the whole house.”

  “You haven’t sent anybody here since the day I left?” I asked Zack, who was staring into space, concentrating.

  “No.” His head gave a quick shake. “You ready?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Is our driver going to give us curbside service or do we have to walk from here?” I looked at Kurt and the flash of a scowl was my reward.

  “One of these days, little Miss Daisy, you and I are going to go head to head,” he growled as he threw the car in gear and stomped on the accelerator.

  “And I shall look forward to that day with greatest anticipation,” I said in a mocking southern accent, “if for no other reason than I’ll get to watch your head cave in from finally meeting one stronger.”

  He said nothing else as we turned and flew down an alley, almost taking out a garbage can. His next turn was almost as violent and I didn’t get a chance to ask whether he was scared and pissed or just a bad driver, because he came to a screeching halt and the wheel hit the curb.

  “Settle down,” Zack told him, wide-eyed.

  “I’ll settle down when we’re out of here.”

  “Only if you can find a nice fella who’ll take you,” I quipped.

  “Oh, how quaint, a gay joke,” Kurt said without turning back. “I’m married.”

  “Actually it was my way of calling you a little girl. What’s his name?”

  “Haha. To a woman.”

  “Shocking! Because no reasonable man would have you?”

  “Can it, please.” Zack turned to me. “We’re here. Let’s hurry and get the hell out.”

  “Sure,” I said as I slid over and opened the door, stepping out onto the curb covered in a half foot of snow. He parked this way intentionally. Ass. “Just trying to express my happiness for your pissy partner that he could find someone to put up with his menstrual cycles.” That wicked feeling of glee buoyed itself in my soul again as I stepped onto the sidewalk. I ignored Kurt, who made a rude gesture at me from behind the trunk and made no move to join us.

  Zack followed me up the driveway, which had a thin layer of snow over it. I wondered if Mom used to shovel it herself after a snowstorm? No…she was always dressed nice before she went to work. Flurries fell around me and I found myself sticking out my tongue, trying to catch one.

  Zack watched me with a small smile of amusement that evaporated after a few seconds. “We’re in a hurry, remember?”

  My goofy grin faded. “Right.”

  There was an agent at the door of the porch, hands buried inside his coat. I stepped past him with a sarcastic salute and he rolled his eyes and smiled. Now there was a man with a sense of humor. The screens and windows of the porch were all boarded up and covered – so that when Mom left in the morning, I couldn’t see outside.

  It was dark as we stepped into the entry. The lights were on, but they didn’t cast much light compared to even the cloudy sky outside. I looked around the living room. Everything was where we
left it, upturned furniture and all. There were a few darts sticking out of the walls, and a couple of the agents were chuckling over them.

  I smiled as I passed them and brushed into my room. A few articles of clothing were on the bed, not where I left them, since the last thing I did before I left was sleep and then whoop the hell out of Zack and Kurt.

  I felt Zack edge up behind me. “If your men didn’t move these clothes around, someone else has been here,” I told him.

  He had the radio plugged back in and I saw his fingers move to touch his ear. “Did anyone move any clothes in this room?” He paused for a moment, waiting for responses, then looked back at me and shook his head. “Guess he’s been here.”

  “Or someone has,” I replied.

  He handed me a black duffel bag that he’d had slung over his shoulder. “Get what you came for and let’s go.”

  I threw some clothes in the bag at random, then tossed in my eskrima sticks after retrieving them from where I left them behind the couch in the living room. As I picked them up I half-smiled, half-frowned as I remembered leaving them behind while I crawled away from Kurt as he fired his dart gun at me.

  “Is that it?” Zack’s voice almost cracked with the sound of his nerves. “Can we go yet?”

  “Just a few more things,” I said as I headed toward the door to the basement. My hand froze for a moment at the handle, then I slowly turned it. “Anyone down there?” I asked as I hovered in the doorjamb, waiting for Zack’s answer.

  He shot a look at the other agents in the room. “Not right now.”

  The white plaster of the living room walls gave way to concrete block at the entry to the basement. The staircase made an abrupt turn to the left ahead, following the foundation of the house. The steps were an old, unvarnished wood, and the only illumination was the single light overhead. I used to walk down these steps several times per day, but it was the last time I came up them that was giving me pause.

  I reached the landing and turned, most of my thoughts about Wolfe forgotten. I knew he wasn’t down here. The smell of old sweat, blood and other foulness filled the air.

  I looked back at Zack and saw him scrunch his nose in displeasure at the aroma. “Did your mother kill someone down here?”

  I didn’t blink. “No. But not for lack of trying.”

  He laughed, and I continued down the last few steps and felt the concrete underfoot. Even though there was a thick sole on the boots I was wearing, my mind filled in the sensation from the thousands of times I had trod these floors barefoot while Mom was away, giving my feet a ghostly feel of the familiar chill. It crept up my legs, infusing my body, and I felt an involuntary tremor run through me.

  The smell was worse down here, and my eyes wandered over our assorted weapons, hanging from hooks on the far wall. Katanas, nunchuks, scythe, rapiers and so many more. Mats covered the floors in the middle of the room and pipes crisscrossed the ceiling overhead from the exposed beams of the floor above. A slight clinking could be heard from overhead, as well as soft footsteps of the agents treading upstairs.

  A couple of buried windows provided a little bit of light in the back, but they were covered by a film of white, providing enough opacity that it was impossible to distinguish anything through them. For illumination there were three naked bulbs swinging from the ceiling. In the far corner I could see the faint outline of a blocky shape in the shadows and the tremor got a little worse; I shook for a second.

  I had halted in place and I felt Zack’s hand brush my shoulder. I looked back in slight surprise and found his eyes looking into mine. My goodness, they were pretty. “Hurry up, okay?” His face was all sincerity, so I shook off my reverie and pushed myself to cross the mats to the far wall. I pulled a katana off the hooks and slid it into the loops of the bag, then threw a pair of sais and a dagger into it as well.

  Zack watched me with wide eyes and a look of abject absurdity. “If you wanted weapons, we had plenty back at the Directorate…”

  “Just figured I’d get them while I’m here,” I replied. “Besides, Kurt’s not too keen on me being armed.”

  “I’m not that excited about it either,” he admitted with a wry grin. “But that’s because I’ve felt what you can do with those sticks.”

  “In fairness, you did break into my house.”

  “Yeah, I…” His words trailed off as he looked into the corner. “What is that?” He started across the mats to join me on the far wall, but I met him halfway.

  “Nothing. I’m done, we can go.”

  “No, wait.” He was peering into the darkness.

  “It’s really nothing. You were worried about Wolfe, weren’t you?” I plastered a smile on my face. “We should go.”

  “Just a minute.” He reached up and grasped one of the overhead lights, pointing it toward the corner. He took a step closer and I withheld any additional protests and felt myself brace internally. I turned away and shut my eyes, facing the stairs and took a couple steps in that direction. There was an agonizing and sudden tightness in my belly. “What…is…this?” Zack’s voice was low, but rising with each syllable, incredulous. I heard the squeak of hinges behind me, then retching from Zack, then a firm declaration. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tighter.

  “OH. MY. GOD!” The last declaration was the most frightening, but it was nothing compared to the sound that followed it.

  “I’m not a god, but it’s always nice to get a compliment.” I opened my eyes to find twin pools of blackness staring into mine from just a few feet away as he descended the stairwell. “Hello, little doll,” Wolfe breathed. “Time to play.”

  Ten

  “Hello, big poodle,” I replied, edge in my voice. “Time for your ass to get housebroken.” My hand had been clutching the katana and it slid from its scabbard, all thoughts of Zack’s discovery filed away to be dealt with later. I whipped the blade across Wolfe’s chest as he dodged, fast as I remembered.

  Unfortunately for him, he dodged into the bag I threw with my outstretched hand. He recoiled when it hit, making me believe that one of the eskrima sticks got a piece of his face. Not enough to do any damage, but enough to piss him off. He grabbed the strap as it fell and winged it back at me with a little extra mustard. I dodged as it flew by, katana in my hands and a self-satisfied smile on my lips.

  “You’re awfully confident,” Wolfe said as he slid sideways in a feint, “considering last time we met I left you broken on the pavement.”

  “It was two days ago,” I cooed, “and I’m all better, so I don’t think you broke me.”

  “She likes it rough,” he said with enough suggestion that I doubly wanted to chop him into ground beef.

  “Last time we met,” Zack said from Wolfe’s side, shotgun in his hand, raising it toward the beastly, hairy face, “I ran your canine ass off, in case you forgot.”

  “Wolfe doesn’t forget,” the beast said with a smile. “He was feeling a bit out of sorts and couldn’t play; otherwise he would have enjoyed eating your entrails.” Wolfe cocked his hand back and flung it at Zack faster than the agent could dodge. The hit blasted the young man in the face and the crunch told me something broke – either the cartilage in his nose or a bone in his cheek – and the Directorate agent crumpled to the ground. But not before the shotgun discharged into Wolfe’s side, leaving holes in his already dirty shirt. No blood trickled out.

  I met Wolfe’s eyes as he lunged for me. I evaded and clipped him with my sword, ripping his shirt further. He didn’t even finish his landing before he reached for me again. His arms were long but my sword was longer and it dragged across his wrist as I dodged him again.

  I looked at the place where the blade had kissed him but there was no evident sign of contact; only immaculate skin with twisted black hairs all over it. He caught me looking and made a very predatorial tsk-tsk sound. “Wolfe has very thick skin, little doll. Bullets don’t hurt him much.” He reached down and lifted his shirt where the shotgun bl
ast had impacted. It was very hairy, but the only things visible were small red discolorations – not even a break in the skin.

  My mind reeled. He’s not vulnerable to the shotgun , I thought. Maybe a pistol or a rifle – if I had one . Desperation filled me. My sword doesn’t seem to do much in glancing blows – but maybe a full on, impaling strike…but doing that would put me in reach of his arms, unless I did it from behind…

  I was faster than him, I reflected as he jumped for me and I dodged him again. Every time he lunged he had to commit all his momentum to his forward motion, and when he missed he was off balance for just a second. I slipped to his right on his next lunge and drove my sword down with all my strength, aiming at his Achilles tendon at the back of his leg. My sword blade sliced through his baggy, dirty pants and caught him right above the heel.

  I felt the blade stop against my gloves as though I had driven the sword into a steel block. A grunt from Wolfe was all the acknowledgment I got for my efforts and I rolled to my right as he turned and I narrowly dodged a wild swing from him.

  “Little doll,” he growled, the menace in his voice sending chills through me, “Wolfe’s amusement is running low…Wolfe is bleeding…and Wolfe doesn’t like bleeding…a few drops of his blood is of more worth than this entire, stinking gutter trash city…”

  I chanced to look down at my handiwork on his ankle, but what was there could scarcely be described as bleeding. A few drops no bigger than the head of a pin dotted the mat where he was standing. His grin had faded, replaced by a look of savagery that brought back the fear of our first encounter full force. I was face to face with a seemingly unkillable menace – what was I supposed to do now? Run for the stairs? He’d catch me on the turn.

  My breathing had become ragged, not from exertion but from fear. I put myself in this situation because I was sure I could beat him. Now I was almost sure I couldn’t. Unless…

  I lunged forward before he made another move, holding my sword at maximum extension and aiming for his eye. I might not be able to break his skin, but the eyes were always a weak point…