by Domino Finn
"Shut up!" commanded Garcia.
Maxim took a breath. Backup could not arrive too soon. "He's right, Garcia," he said, keeping his pistol raised. "We arrest them now, we don't have anything on them except criminal trespass. Let them go. Our hands are full here."
Sergio cocked his head. He knew he had stumbled into the middle of something. He didn't know what but he was smart enough not to care. He turned to Garcia. "What do you say, federal?"
Garcia sneered. He took a step backwards, but stopped. He was exposed where he was. Slowly, he shook his head.
"I can't do it, Maxim," he said gravely. "You showed me that you could be trusted. You came to me with information, regardless of whether it implicated the Seventh Sons. Now I need to show you that you can trust me." Garcia reached for his handcuffs.
"It's not necessary, Ray. We could pick them up another day."
"We just need to hold them until backup arrives."
Maxim saw Hector's face contort at the news of impending police. This was a man who wasn't going back to prison.
The detective wanted to impress on Garcia that it was too dangerous. That he already trusted him. He wanted to tell him that Kelan was in the back and had probably been a part of these crimes all along. He wanted to tell him the Yavapai outfit was the real danger. He wanted to tell him about the new moon, and the coming wolves.
Instead, Ray flashed Maxim a confident smile. It was the kind of expression that assured the innocents that the police were the good guys. That the authorities were in control.
The moment didn't even last long enough to be considered a moment. Garcia's eyebrows shot up, and his posture tightened.
"Look out!"
He raised his weapon towards the corner of the building and fired. Maxim spun around and saw Yas Harjo in the driveway. They both fired at the same time.
Everybody went to the floor. Even Hector. But the Indian wasn't fast enough.
Maxim hit the man in the shoulder, then the elbow as he recoiled. It was only lead but it hurt him. The Yavapai retreated out of sight. Garcia kept firing after him. Then Maxim heard the shotgun blast.
He turned, still on his side, as Garcia crumpled to the ground. Hector was behind him, aiming the weapon for another go as Maxim opened fire.
The wild shots missed, a couple hitting the motorcycle as Hector ducked. Sergio stood up and reached for his bike. Hector fired a blast towards the detective, who took cover inside the doorway.
Maxim laid out some covering fire to keep the Pistolas ducking behind their bikes. He tried to give Garcia time to get up, but he didn't move.
"Ray! You okay?"
He heard a groan as Sergio drew a pistol. A glance to Hector revealed that he was having trouble with the weapon. It was an autoloader—it could've jammed.
It was a pretty shitty opening, but it was all he had.
Maxim burst out of the doorway and bolted towards the downed FBI agent. He fired a shot to make Sergio duck again and hooked his hand into the shoulder of Garcia's vest. He heaved.
Garcia had his eyes open, and he was conscious enough to understand what to do. While being dragged on his back, he lifted himself awkwardly to his feet. It was like dragging a wheelbarrow without wheels. They stumbled, but they covered ground quickly. Ray raised his gun and pulled off a few shots. Maxim trained his Glock on the driveway, keeping it clear, then dragged Garcia up the porch. The threshold of the building was cloaked in darkness, somehow a deeper shadow than the moonless sky. At that moment, it was the most inviting thing Maxim could imagine, like the safety of hiding under a thick blanket.
As the detective crossed the threshold, a single thud rapped against his back.
Maxim burst into the dark hallway and ducked into a lobby, placing Garcia out of the line of fire. This was a good room. Central. No windows. A view of the front door down the hall but a corner to take cover behind.
The FBI agent slid strangely against the wall. He didn't have enough strength to sit up. Maxim crouched and stretched his shoulder. It smarted, but the pain wasn't especially nefarious. He'd played paintball a lot in the past, and that's what it felt like—that he had been tagged.
He was out of the game.
The detective put his gun down and patted his bulletproof vest. The Kevlar had stopped Sergio's slug. In this game, the rules were different. He wouldn't gladly walk away, congratulating his opponents. If he went down, it would be kicking and screaming, to the last.
Garcia groaned again. Maxim eyed the door and then bent over him, pulling away his blue FBI jacket. A large swatch of blood stained Garcia's torso, just under the vest.
"Holy shit," said Maxim.
"That motherfucker," said Garcia, still clutching his gun. "That motherfucker."
Maxim kneeled closer to his friend. "He got you below the vest."
Garcia stared past the detective, as if the darkness could reveal its secrets to him. "That motherfucker."
Maxim got on his phone. He called 911 and asked for an ambulance. He gave his badge number and told them an officer was down. It was a slower process than he would have thought. All the people that had called for him—had they gone through the same desperation?
Then he called Gutierrez and Kent and updated them on the situation. The rookie said they were en route, flashing reds and blues.
All the while, Maxim glanced nervously at the front doorway.
Where was their backup?
"It doesn't work," said Garcia, finally turning to the detective.
"What's that, Ray?"
"It doesn't work if we're dirty too."
Maxim stared hard at the man. He was controlling his breathing. It took effort to speak.
"You were looking at me and I was looking at you," said Maxim. "I thought you had a relationship with them."
Garcia laughed. "No. I never did."
Maxim shook his head sadly. "I don't have one with the Sons either."
The FBI agent nodded, slowly, with measure. "Maybe you don't. Not yet. But you're heading down that path, Maxim. You need to cut it off before that happens."
Maxim checked up and down the hallway and sighed. He turned to Agent Garcia, watching the blood pool on the floor. "I know, Ray. I know."
Chapter 58
Diego emerged through the door and practically fell down the two steps to the dirt. He didn't think about how stupid it was to call attention to himself—he just coughed up the vile stench of death and bleach that permeated the portable. It felt good to be right-side up again. He breathed quickly, almost hyperventilating, and couldn't get enough of the fresh air.
He had thought he was going to die in that hellhole.
Automatic gunfire brought Diego back to his senses. At first the biker guessed the men were after Kayda. Then the thought of West and the Seventh Sons came to mind. But he knew his brothers were tied up tonight. No. The gunfire was Maxim. The police. He knew they would show.
Diego scanned the courtyard. No signs of Kayda at all. Where could a hurt girl have run off to?
The property's back fence was easy to scale. Fifty yards west was an open desert. Escape was easy. As the biker tried to cut through the darkness, his eyes caught a red reflection. At first, he was afraid it was a wolf. The thought of Hotah sneaking up on him again made him wary. Diego squeezed the silver knife until his knuckles were white.
Hotah had chased West. The two wolves would likely keep each other busy for a while. Real wolf fights, not backyard brawls with a bell, were vicious, extended affairs. At this time, with the new moon, both men would be at peak strength, and any wear and tear would immediately be repaired as soon as they transformed, ready to fight anew.
It wasn't going to be a pretty night for the two wolves. Hotah was tough, but Diego would put his money on West any day. That was one cold Apache.
Confident that the yard was quiet, Diego continued surveying the area. Staring at the reflection in the distance longer revealed that it didn't move. It was the brake light reflector of a vehicle. Diego
squinted as his night vision returned. It was a black van, the one the Yavapai had used to gun down Clint. It wasn't visible from the highway—it was just barely visible from here. An abandoned property seemed as good a place as any to dump it.
Closer to him, there was the smaller portable. It was still closed up, lights off. Diego trudged over to it and checked the door. It was locked.
The next most obvious spot was the main building. The light was still on in the back room where he had gotten the jump on the Yavapai.
"They're inside the house," said Jim.
Diego ducked against the smaller building. Jim and Yas circled the visitor center, moving from the driveway to the back door. They passed a pickup truck that hadn't been there when Diego first crossed the yard. Diego assumed it belonged to Kelan. Hotah had called him up after the biker was captured so that Kelan could enjoy skinning him alive.
What a friend.
"I know that," snapped Yas. He favored his left arm, not supporting his ACR properly. He'd been wounded. "Go around through the front. Flush them out towards me."
Jim nodded and disappeared down the driveway again.
Two Yavapai taking on the police? What were they thinking? Maybe Kayda was inside after all. Maybe they were so wound up about tonight's events that they were willing to die to get her.
As Diego watched them split up, he knew they'd made a mistake. Yas stood alone, his gun trained past the open back door.
At first, the biker crept silently towards the unsuspecting Yavapai. When his foot crunched on a dried plant, he abandoned all sense of stealth and charged.
Yas heard the sound and started to turn. Diego swung his knife down as he raced forward. Yas threw his forearm up to counter. Their arms cracked against each other without the knife connecting, but Diego bowled ahead into the Yavapai at full speed. He lifted Yas up off his feet and pushed him through the open doorway, where they both slid along the floor. A silver knife rolled across the tile.
Diego immediately reached for the ACR. It was strapped around his opponent's neck but he twisted it away from the wounded arm easily enough.
Yas cried out in pain but tugged on the Remington with his good hand. He kneed Diego in the stomach and scrambled to his feet.
The biker didn't release his hands from the weapon.
Both men forced their weight against each other, vying for control of the rifle. Diego slammed Yas into a wall. Yas spun Diego around and they fell deeper into another room. At one point Diego thought he'd gotten the weapon loose, but Yas head butted the biker and slipped away again.
Momentarily dragged by his grip, Diego twisted and bore all his weight over his shoulder. The strap of the ACR closed around the Yavapai's neck. The two men were back to back, and when Diego bent forward, Yas lost his footing. His body lifted onto Diego's, all his weight constricting his throat. Diego stood firm, unmoving, holding the assault rifle in front of his face with a death grip while he felt Yas kick his feet, searching for ground.
In a moment, it was over.
Diego squatted lower, sliding the dead man to the floor. The biker's thighs burned. He was dizzy. He wasn't fully recovered from the ordeal in the portable, and he had lost a lot of blood. But at least he had his knife back. And a rifle to boot.
Behind him, a loose tile cracked. The biker spun around and tried to pull the weapon into a firing position, but it was still attached to Yas. The maneuver was clumsy and slow. By the time he faced his six, a gun squared at his head.
"Diego."
The biker let out a heavy sigh of relief and slumped to his ass. Yas clumped down like a rag doll. Maxim Dwyer lowered his gun.
"Detective."
"The Pistolas are out front. Sergio and Hector. Ray's hurt."
Diego blinked away his sluggishness and saw the blood on Maxim's hands. He turned and untwisted the rifle strap. The corpse rotated unnaturally, like an alligator clamped to its prey, until the biker shook it off without regard.
Maxim, however, circled Yas with interest.
"I don't think this homicide needs solving," said Diego.
"US Patriot Tactical."
Diego checked the magazine of the rifle and only partially made out what Maxim had said. "What?"
The detective crouched and pointed at Yas. "The boots. There's a mark on the right sole. This is the man that stabbed Omar in the heart."
Something washed over Diego's face, then his whole body. It took a second to realize it was relief. "Then it's done. I'm done."
"What's that?"
"I'm out," said Diego, picking up his silver knife. "Of the Seventh Sons. I'm free."
Maxim's face tightened. "We haven't made it out of this yet."
Chapter 59
Kayda pressed her eyes closed in a panicked grimace. That was how dreams were supposed to end, right? Dying. Choking on her own blood. Shot by her own brother. The aftermath had carried on far too long already, but certainly she couldn't actually die in her dream.
The girl opened her eyes. She rested her head against the wall of the portable. It was no good. She wasn't waking up.
Kayda coughed and red spittle dotted the stucco. Her breathing was labored. She knew the liquid was in her lungs. That was the worst part. The fear that her body wasn't working the way it should. That her organs were failing her. The easiest things, like drawing breath, couldn't be taken for granted anymore.
As Kayda swallowed a gulp of blood, she again recalled the rabbit blood. What kind of strength did her essence provide?
She had exited the other portable and stumbled to this one, towards the truck. The gunfire had caused her to circle around the back of it, on the edge of the yard, hugging the fence. It was as good a place to hide as any, but it wasn't a good place to die.
Was there such a place?
The night was still now. Peaceful. The shooting had stopped.
She pulled away from the wall to take in the surroundings. The sheer amount of blood that was on the side of the building struck her. How was that possible?
Then she realized some of the marks were shaped like handprints, leading toward the driveway.
It was Kelan's blood.
Kayda's brow hardened.
The steps came easier to her now. Before she had been wayward, but purpose drove her spirit and her body.
Death served a purpose.
She leaned against the wall for support, just as her brother had done, and followed in his footsteps.
Chapter 60
"Aren't you supposed to have a whole team or something?" insisted Diego.
Maxim grunted and headed back to Garcia. "Ray was my team. We were just staking out the place, keeping eyes on it to build a case for a search warrant. We weren't supposed to move tonight, remember?"
The detective would have been annoyed if he had the time. Diego was here for the Yavapai. West showed up to rescue him. If the Seventh Sons had stayed out of this, he and Ray would be watching safely from a distance as the Pistolas and the Yavapai, and Kelan, all connected the dots for his case.
"Coming here during the new moon was stupid," he added.
"Sorry," said Diego in earnest, "but I always told you that's the best time to hunt."
Maxim didn't answer back. This wasn't about blame. The three of them were trapped inside, surrounded, until backup arrived. "What was Kelan doing here?"
"It was all him. He killed his brother. He strung him up so his people would see it and fall in behind him."
Maxim stopped. He tried to fight the shudder that rumbled in his stomach. The things people did for power didn't usually shock him anymore. Not after the Paradise Killings. Not after his wife succumbed to rabies from a self-inflicted injection. But Kelan killing Carlos gave him pause.
The detective shook it off. As he advanced into the spacious lobby, he exposed himself to the open hallway—to the front door. He reacted to the blur of movement and dove forward before he heard the shots. Three, four reports rang out. Maxim slid forward to safety without getting hit.
He rolled on the tile floor and saw that Diego was still behind cover.
That had been a pistol. Inside the building.
"Drop the weapon, Lima," shouted Maxim, scooting up against the corner. "We have you surrounded."
He heard scathing laughter. Maxim smiled and looked to Raymond, right next to him. He was still breathing, holding his side, blinking slowly. Maxim's smile vanished.
"Are you serious, ése? That's not what it looks like to me."
"It's because you don't realize it yet, asshole. In two minutes you're gonna have ten units blocking the exit."
More laughing. "You hear that, Hector? El cabrón thinks the Chino Valley police are his friends." Maxim's face scrunched up. There was no way the Pistolas had that kind of juice. But this was government property. Maybe the Yavapai had some kind of deal with the locals. Maxim had assumed that they only had Tribal PD in their pocket, but why not Prescott and Chino Valley too? They might as well own the entire Quad-City area.
Still, there was no way they could have the police dispatchers throw away an emergency call. From another officer needing assistance, no less. But maybe it did mean the local department would drag their heels getting here.
Maxim blind-fired around the corner and peeked out, just catching Sergio jumping out of the hallway. His last pull of the trigger clicked empty.
Sergio was inside somewhere. Suddenly, Hector swung around from the front porch. Maxim pulled back as a well-aimed shotgun blast threw up shards of ceramic.
Diego peeled himself away from cover and aimed the Remington ACR down the hallway. Its automatic burst took Hector off guard. Maxim heard a cry as he went to reload. Diego shouted, "That's my Benelli you bastard," then fired another burst. He swept his aim from side to side, tearing the hallway apart.
Maxim checked the damage as the silver magazine clicked satisfyingly into place. Sergio darted outside. The detective fired one shot their way, but they were too far already. He couldn't afford losing the ammo, to be honest. It didn't matter that the rounds were silver; it mattered that they were all he had left.