Mortal Faults

by Michael Prescott

  She pulled Andrea behind the bed, kneeling with her, then yanked the lamp’s power cord out of the wall socket. Now the only illumination was the trickle of daylight through the curtains and the glow of a nightlight in the bathroom.

  There was a phone on the night table. Abby grabbed it. No dial tone. The phone line had been cut. That meant whoever had entered the house wasn’t just some junkie or random thrill seeker. Not your standard home invader, either. If it had been, the intruder would be shouting orders and stomping through the house, hoping to establish control through intimidation.

  This enemy was craftier, stealthier. No teenager, but someone older, more experienced, better organized. A professional assassin with notches in his gun.

  Still, the odds had improved. The bed provided concealment, and her angle of view through the doorway provided decent coverage of the hall. She could fire from her improvised sniper’s blind, take out the intruder while he approached.

  “Who is it?” Andrea whispered. Abby shushed her.

  Through the open door, she saw a shadow pass over the wall of the hallway as the intruder crept into the living room. Then more bad news—a second shadow.

  Two enemies. Maybe the odds hadn’t improved so much, after all.

  For a few seconds at least, they would be busy in the living room. Abby thought there might be a chance to get Andrea out through the bedroom window. She risked getting to her feet to pull aside the curtains but quickly shut them again. A third man was outside, in the backyard, toting a handgun with an unnaturally extended barrel that could be a silencer.

  Not good.

  She resumed kneeling behind the bed. There was no way around it—she was going to have to do some shooting. She flipped open the revolver’s cylinder. Fully loaded, six rounds. That wasn’t much against three armed men. She would have to be opportunistic about taking her shots. Her best bet was to take out the first man who came down the hall. If she did, the other two might run.

  Sudden darkness in the living room. The intruders had turned off the lights. The most logical reason was that they intended to make a move into the hall and didn’t want to be backlit. Abby had expected as much. It made her job a little harder, but she could see well enough. And she knew where to look. She had the edge.

  Footsteps in the hall. They were coming.

  ***

  Dylan worked his way down the hall, Tupelo behind him. He was pretty sure the bitch had taken cover in the room at the far end. A sweep of the other side of the house had turned up nothing, and she hadn’t had time to get out through either the front door or the door to the carport.

  It ought to be easy to bag her. But something was funny. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she wasn’t behaving the way a frightened woman should. She wasn’t screaming or trying to climb out the window or barricading the door. It was like she was waiting for him, luring him in.

  There was a chance she was armed. Maybe she kept a gun in that room. She might be hoping to get the drop on him. If so, she’d worked out a pretty good plan. She was hidden, and he was exposed. The darkness helped him, but not a lot. Even if he hugged the wall, she would probably see his silhouette when he got close to the open door.

  He would have to go in quick. When inside, he could take cover, and if she fired, he would identify her position by the muzzle flash. His own shots would be harder to pinpoint; the suppressor module eliminated the muzzle flare.

  Once in the room, he would have the edge.

  ***

  Abby peered into the dimness and saw a hint of movement. The man was creeping up to the bedroom’s open door. Though he had pressed himself tight against the wall, he was partially exposed to her angle of view. He appeared to be in a low combat crouch, his gun held across his chest.

  This was the one moment in the encounter when she had an unequivocal advantage. She could see him. He didn’t know where she was. As the mobile party, he was more vulnerable to begin with, and the hall was a free-fire zone—no cover, no concealment.

  She pinned him behind the revolver’s front sight. A fancy shooter would try for a head shot, but the smart money was on a hit to the body. She aimed for his torso.

  He was at the door frame. In a second he would pivot inside. He would do it fast, because that was the way the pros did it. She would have only a second to fire. If she missed, he would empty his magazine in the direction of her muzzle flare. The bed might absorb some of the shots, but she wouldn’t wager her life on it.

  Her heart, beating fast, counted off three seconds, four.

  He made his move, spinning into the doorway.

  Abby fired.

  She took only one shot. Either she hit the target or she didn’t. If she hit him, one shot should be enough. If she didn’t, she would need the other five rounds to repel his attack.

  The gunshot set her ears ringing and drowned out any sound of impact. The muzzle flash, close to her face, erased her night vision. For a moment she was deaf and blind. But she knew she’d hit him because he wasn’t shooting back.

  “You got him,” Andrea breathed into Abby’s ear.

  “Did you see him go down?”

  “I didn’t see him at all, but I heard him cry out. You got him. I know you did.”

  “There are two others.” Abby drew a breath and smelled gunpowder. “Don’t celebrate yet.”

  17

  Bitch had fired before he could enter, the shot forcing him back. For a bad moment Dylan thought she’d nailed him in the chest, and all he could think of was he should’ve worn Kevlar.

  Then Tupelo was pulling him back, away from the open door, whispering, “You hit, man? You hit?”

  “Dunno.” His gloved hands searched the front of his shirt for blood, finding none. “Maybe not.”

  He’d felt the impact, but there was no blood and no pain. Sometimes a bullet wound didn’t hurt, though. It just went numb. Shock or something.

  “Sounded like you was hit,” Tupes said.

  “Yeah. Felt like it, too.” Dylan stripped off one glove and felt himself with his bare hand until he was sure he was intact.

  She’d missed. Somehow she’d missed. He checked his gun, and then he understood.

  He’d been holding the H & K at chest level, and the bullet had struck the goddamn gun. Shit, what were the odds on that? He could feel the nick in the silencer where the shot had been deflected.

  “She didn’t get me,” he whispered, amazed. “Banged my silencer, is all.”

  “Fuck, that’s lucky.” Tupelo was shivering with fury and fear. “Fuck.”

  Dylan unscrewed the suppressor module and stuck in his pocket. He couldn’t risk firing the gun if the silencer tube had been cramped or bent. A round could get stuck in there and blow up the damn gun in his hand.

  He put his glove back on and took stock.

  “We take up position there.” He nodded at the midpoint of the hall. “Angle some shots into her hidey-hole. And get Bran in on the game, too.” He keyed his walkie-talkie. “She’s in the last room on the southwest side. Couple windows with curtains. You know the one?”

  A burst of static, and Bran’s voice. “I see it.”

  “Take a shot or two at them windows. Bitch is armed, so watch out.”

  “Old lady’s packing? Cool.”

  “Yeah.” Dylan switched off the radio with a sigh. “Cool.”

  ***

  “Two others?” Andrea whispered, her voice cracking. “You said two others?”

  Abby nodded. “We’ll get out of this. I’ve been in worse jams.”

  This was probably true, but right now she couldn’t think of any.

  “Who are they? What do they want?” Andrea’s questions tailed into a helpless moan. “Oh God, this is bad, this is so bad...”

  “Don’t lose control. Just sit tight and keep your head down.”

  The advice was punctuated with a crash of glass from behind them. One of the windows had been shot out.

  Andrea screamed. Abby silenced her with a
hand to her mouth. A cry would only pinpoint their position.

  She knew that the man in the backyard had fired through the window. He wouldn’t have done so unless he was in communication with the men inside. They’d told him their quarry was hiding in the bedroom. The outside man was trying to flush out the prey.

  And she’d been right about the silencer. She’d heard no report from his gun.

  The flying glass, absorbed by the heavy curtain, hadn’t hit them, but the bullet and the glass had left gashes in the curtain that let in more light. If the curtain opened up too much, she and Andrea would be exposed to view. The only saving grace was that the shooter was unlikely to risk coming right up to the window, where he would be vulnerable to her return fire. Most likely he would keep shooting from a distance in an effort to panic them into flight or score a lucky hit.

  A second noiseless shot punched through the curtain and thudded into drywall across the room.

  “Keep your head down,” Abby whispered.

  Beside her, Andrea was shaking all over. Abby had once cradled an injured rabbit in her hands. It shook the same way.

  There was one good thing about the sniper fire from the yard. As long as it continued, the two men in the house couldn’t mount another assault on the bedroom.

  They could fire from the hall, though, if they chose a position that was safely out of the sniper’s range.

  In time with that thought, a muzzle flash lit up the hallway, and chunks of plaster flew off the wall near the bed. She heard that report. No silencer on that gun.

  Hell. She was taking fire from two directions. She had five rounds left, and no clear target. Her options were limited. She could sit tight until a ricochet caught her or Andrea, or she could empty the gun and then wait for the enemy to close in for an easy kill.

  There was a chance that a report of shots fired had already been called in to the police by a neighbor, but response time would be measured in minutes, which might as well be hours. Anyway, the house next door had looked empty, and the people on the other side might not even be home during the day.

  Two quick shots from the hall. One shot was silenced; the other was not. That was bad. It meant there were two guns, which meant both men were still in the fight. Either she hadn’t hit the first one, or the wound hadn’t incapacitated him. It was still three against one. She was outmanned and outgunned, and all out of countermoves. She needed to regain the advantage, and she wasn’t going to do it by crouching behind a mattress with bullets cracking overhead.

  Her gaze traveled to the glow of the night light.

  “What kind of stuff do you keep in your bathroom?” she asked.

  Andrea didn’t understand. “Stuff?”

  “Hairspray? You have that?”

  “Yes.”

  Another shot from outside. Across the room, something shattered.

  “Stay put,” Abby whispered. “Head down. Don’t make any noise.”

  “You’re not leaving me?”

  “Just stay put. I’ve got a plan.”

  The distance to the bathroom was about six feet. She could crawl, but once she left the concealment of the bed she might be spotted by the enemy in the corridor. Safer to run for it. But she would have to force the two bad guys down the hall to back off for second.

  She sprang up from the bed and angled a quick shot into the hallway, wishing she could pull the trigger a few more times and lay down some decent covering fire, but unwilling to waste ammo.

  Before the glare of the gun flash had faded from the room, she sprinted into the bathroom. No shots chased her.

  She should have asked Andrea exactly where she kept the hairspray. In the cabinet under the sink she found it. She didn’t have to read the label to know the stuff was flammable. Hairspray was a mix of hydrocarbon propellants like propane and butane, liquid while inside the canister but gaseous when released.

  She yanked a towel from the rack and jetted it with hairspray until it was thoroughly doused, using up a good deal of the can’s contents. She hoped there was enough propellant left to get the job done.

  Quickly she wrapped the can in the towel, knotting the towel at both ends. Now she needed an open flame, hard to come by in a lavatory.

  The sniper outside hadn’t fired in a while. Abby found his silence unsettling. He might have been emboldened to sneak closer to the house. If he got a clear shot through a gap in the curtains, it was all over. She had to act fast.

  On the countertop by the sink there was a comb with a rubber-coated handle and metal teeth. Abby popped the nightlight out of the wall, then shoved the towel-wrapped canister alongside the outlet. She took a breath and poked the comb into the wall socket.

  Short-circuit. A spark sizzled out of the socket, and the towel, soaked in flammable spray, caught fire.

  She dived for the bedroom door and tossed the canister and its flaming wrap into the hallway. Someone shot at her, but she was already scrambling back.

  Explosion.

  She flung herself facedown as noise and glare filled the hall.

  Heat had ruptured the canister, and its pressurized contents had burst free in a cloud of flammable gas, instantly ignited. A flash-bang grenade.

  The effect would be brief—rapid combustion would consume the fuel immediately—but the homemade bomb ought to drive the enemy back. She was counting on that.

  She spun upright and launched herself into the hall, firing three times as she vaulted the flaming debris and charged into the living room. In the ebbing glow of the fire she could see the bad guys—two men in dark blue outfits, both wearing ski masks, one of them stripping off his mask as he stumbled away. Then he and his buddy disappeared down the back hallway, but for one instant Abby had glimpsed his face.

  An instant was all she needed. She would remember him.

  ***

  Dylan didn’t understand. There had been a flaming object thrown from the back room, then a crash of heat and noise that seemed to suck all the air out of his lungs, a pressure wave of fire, scorching him, burning his ski mask. Now he was staggering after Tupelo in full retreat, his eyes stinging and watering, his vision shot to hell, and the mask was smoking, goddamn smoking as he tore it off and threw it aside.

  Bitch had fucked him up somehow, maybe blinded him, scarred him, he didn’t know.

  Tupelo pulled him into the rear hall. They stopped running near the back door and crouched down in a huddled conference. “You okay, man?” Tupes asked.

  “Can’t see good.”

  “You was staring right at that fireball.”

  “Am I messed up? Did it fucking burn me?”

  “No, man, you’re okay. Handsome as ever.”

  “Still can’t see worth shit.”

  “Give it a minute, bro. Your eyes’ll come back. Then we go in again, right? We go in and get her?”

  Dylan didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah,” he said. “We get her.”

  ***

  Abby couldn’t count on them to stay in the rear hall for long. She ran to the end table where she’d left her purse, snagged the strap, then ducked beside the couch. Inside was her gun, fully loaded, with two speedloaders holding six rounds apiece. And her cell phone. Those assholes had cut the landline, but she could still call for help on her cell.

  First things first. She looped the purse strap around her neck. With Andrea’s gun in her left hand and her own Smith & Wesson in her right, she surveyed the shadows, waiting for the bad guys to come back.

  ***

  Dylan’s eyesight was returning now, the purple afterimages of the fireball fading. Tupelo had been right. He was okay. A little shaken up, but nothing serious.

  But what he would do to the old lady—now, that was serious. He had a major hard-on to nail her wrinkly ass.

  “Okay,” he said. Slowly stood up. “We finish things.”

  “You think she’s still in there?”

  “I think so. We woulda heard her if she left.”

  “Why would she hang around?�
��

  “Guess she wants to see some more action. We’ll give it to her.”

  He took a step down the hall and stopped. Behind him, there was a scatter of gunfire in the backyard.

  ***

  Abby waited. Over the continuous chiming in her ears, she could hear the tattoo of her heart, the pull of breath through her open mouth.

  And a new sound—gunshots.

  Not in the house. Outside.

  The sniper? Had he closed in on the bedroom windows? No, his gun was silenced.

  She waited through a long moment. She couldn’t say how long. She had lost the ability to gauge time. It seemed as if hours had passed since the first noise of the intrusion, though objectively she knew it had been only a couple of minutes.

  The shooting stopped.

  Silence.

  Then ... movement in the rear hall.

  Someone entering. Friend or foe? The police would identify themselves. If no one spoke, she was assuming the worst.

  Flicker of illumination. A flashlight.

  None of these guys had been using a flash. Abby didn’t think they would start now.

  The glow brightened. A dark figure appeared on the threshold of the living room.

  Decision time. If it was one of the bad guys, and the flashlight found her hiding place, she would be blown away before she could defend herself.

  She raised the gun in her right hand. She could take the shot.

  But she didn’t. Something in the figure’s stance and silhouette registered in her memory.

  Abby set down both guns and stood up slowly, her hands lifted. She let the flashlight find her. When it did, she smiled.

  “Hey, Tess,” she said. “Long time no see.”

  18

  “Anybody hit?” Dylan yelled as the van skidded out of the alley, making tracks for the freeway.

  Beside him, Bran shook his head. “Tree gave me good cover.”

  He glanced behind him. “Tupes?”

  “No holes in me. Goddamn, what the fuck happened back there?”

  “I dunno, I dunno.” Dylan just couldn’t figure it.