Murillo’s tires squealed as he pulled around a car that had partially blocked him in.
“I can’t tell you that right now. But I will. I promise, okay?”
He tried to pull away but she clutched at him and wouldn’t let go. “Where are you going?”
Grabbing her gently at the elbows, he looked deep into her eyes. “Trudy. Please. Napoleon is in very real danger. I need to get to him. Now.”
She let go of him and stepped back. “Okay,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. “But you come back, or I swear, I’ll kick your ass.”
Parker nodded, gave a faint smile and turned to get into Murillo’s car.
He noticed it immediately. The very act of turning his back on her. It hurt.
“We’re about five minutes away after we light it up, so let’s go!” Murillo barked, snapping Parker out of it.
“Thanks, Murillo,” Parker said softly as he got into the unmarked gray sedan and buckled his seatbelt.
“Don’t thank me for shit,” Murillo said angrily. They pulled out onto the street with two black and whites trailing behind them.
Again Parker felt another jab. But this one brought a little bit of fear. “We gotta hurry, Murillo.”
“Oh, man,” Murillo said, shaking his head angrily. But he floored it as requested. The V8 of the Crown Victoria roared to life as Murillo turned on the sirens. A second or two later the black and whites behind them did the same. Good, Parker thought, Nap needs to know we’re coming. The cholos needed to know it too. C’mon Nap. The calvary’s coming, man. Hang in there.
“Murillo, listen…”
“No, Parker. You listen. You were new to the precinct when all this shit started, so I was willing to cut you some slack. But no more. You haven’t been straight with us from the time we picked you up in Monterey, and I still don’t think you’re being straight with us now.”
“I was trying to protect—”
“Protect who? Those kids back in that room? Who almost got killed?”
“I thought—”
“Or maybe their mother, Tamara Fasano? Were you protecting her too, Parker? Tell me, how’s all this shit’s working out for you?”
Parker looked wearily out the passenger window as the city blocks sped by, a random pedestrian reduced to a blotch of clothing and color.
“And now? Even your partner may be fucked to shit because you didn’t want to tell us… right when we pulled up today… that he was alive and off to do some dirty work in the park!”
“We both shoulda—”
“No. Leave Nap out of it. He owns his own shit on this. You own yours. So tell me: what are you hiding from me still? Cause I got a wife and kids at home, Parker, and I’d like to go home to them, you know?”
“You’re gonna think I’m out of my damn mind, Murillo.”
“Try me.”
Parker took a breath. “Nap’s sister, she’s connected. Cuarto Flats, I think. Or Evergreen. I can’t remember. Anyway. She’s already sent some help to the park—”
“What?” Murillo’s rage was peaking. “Great. Again, I have to ask: how many?”
“I don’t know.”
Murillo grabbed the radio instantly and spoke into it. “Lincoln 10, requesting multiple units at Evergreen Park for possible armed gang activity.” He hesitated for a second before taking the situation up ten levels. “Officer involved. Repeat. Officer involved.”
Parker set his teeth. That was going to bring a veritable army of uniforms into Boyle Heights.
The dispatcher confirmed the request and before long the bark of her voice broke over the radio. “All units in the vicinity of Evergreen Park. Immediate assistance requested. Officer involved in situation with armed gang members.”
The radio began squawking madly as one unit after another confirmed their intent to head to the park.
Parker sighed.
It was just like in the war.
When one brother was in trouble, the other brothers came.
Often with a vengeance.
CHAPTER 30
KYLE STOOD STILL FOR a moment. The creature before him was tall, at least seven feet, but more than that he had a mummy-like face, with black rags wrapped around his skull. He recognized him immediately.
“You? From The Lake of Loneliness? How?”
“I’ve been assigned to you since the moment you were chosen.”
The blue was beginning to give Kyle something more powerful than bolts of light or miraculous healing abilities; it was giving him knowledge now, which was how he knew that this demon was from a particular sect in hell, one of the worst that existed, a sect that did not just feed on sin, but had the power to actually create it and use it to influence lives.
“Knowing from whence I came or what I will do will not save you,” the creature said. He was ten feet away, standing tall, the lantern in his right hand extended in front of him, a small flame burning within it. Kyle was again hit with a sense of… knowing. The flame was not of this world; it was hellfire. It did not just burn flesh, but had the power to burn one’s soul too.
He would have to be careful, because he was still human—at least he thought he was—and if he were struck by that fire, bad things might happen. Then another thought fluttered into his mind: no matter the rank or the power, no demon liked to be named.
“You are Homo Lanternae,” Kyle said. “The Lantern Man.”
The creature flinched, and then a cacophony of hisses spilled from it, the sound penetrating the cave, bouncing of the rocky walls and hard floor. A pulsating wave of evil began to fill the air.
Kyle suddenly realized that so much depended on seeing someone’s face. With no way to see a mouth that sneered or smiled, or eyes that squinted or burned with rage, it was much harder to read the intent of a person. The rags that were wrapped around this creature’s face were not skull tight—they were partially loose in places, just enough to read the set of its jawline or the bony outcropping of its cheekbones.
“You dare to name me?” he replied, taking a few sidesteps to the left and in the process blocking the cave exit.
Kyle exhaled gently. It didn’t matter. He had no intent to leave. He was all about ending this now. He could feel it all the way through to his bones. Victoria had been stopped. He’d been rescued from hell. The monster that had gone after his wife and kids was dead. And now, the creature who had created that monster stood right before him, and he had to be stopped too. Because if he got away? He would do as he’d been doing for millennia: corrupting human minds to murderous deeds, and then watching the tragic acts that ensued, before feeding, like some sort of grotesque mosquito, on the horror that followed, like blood to its belly.
Kyle thought of The Gray Man. “So,” Kyle said to himself, “this is what you meant when you said I was ready.”
The blue came to Kyle and filled him full up, like he’d never felt it before, and as it did he could actually feel it crowding out his humanity, changing him, perhaps forever. When it rolled down his arms and into his hands he held it there, and waited.
The Lantern Man seemed to sense all of this. He nodded. “I want you to know that after I’m done killing you, Kyle… Your daughter… There’s someone I know who lives not very far away from your house. He likes children. Young girls in particular. I will make sure he rapes her, more than once, and I will make you watch with me from hell, a guest forever in my cabin by the lake of fire.”
Kyle Fasano smiled, because it felt good, at last, to be above it all. “Words,” he said, and then he let go with a flash of blue from his core, from a spot right between his stomach and chest, a burst that illuminated the entire cave. Unseen things screamed from deeper in its depths, ghosts that had been dwelling there all along. A hundred and forty-three of them, to be exact, of people buried alive in 1938. The knowing just kept coming, with not just the facts but the harsh truths: most of them had been bad men, but not all. Many deserved to be remembered. But their families took the hush money from the coppe
r company and the whole memory of it was buried with their bones. Right here. A cave of bones.
The Lantern Man had stumbled backwards, bringing his hands up to cover his face, which meant that he still had eyes behind those bandages. Then he took his lantern and swung it forwards, the hellfire within it shooting out it in a wide swatch.
Kyle moved to his right in a blur of motion, beyond all human means, leaving the hellfire to crash against the wall and across the floor. It was like oil and stayed lit and burning where it fell, casting their shadows across the cave wall like two moving stick figures.
They circled each other for a moment longer before a small rumble shook the cave. Kyle looked to the opening; it was small to begin with, but was now closing up.
The creature laughed. “What’s the matter, Kyle? Afraid of the dark?”
There was a sound of shuffling behind him, forcing Kyle to glance quickly over his shoulder. He could barely make out miners’ caps, the lights on them shattered and bent, as they approached, bobbing in the shadows. He turned back just in time to see The Lantern Man charging him, his lantern held back behind him as his left hand extended outward, not to grasp but to stab, his fingers growing into long pointy sticks. Kyle ducked and stepped out of the way, barely in time, feeling the air blow past him as The Lantern Man went by, his needle fingers striking the cave wall behind them and leaving deep gouges.
Kyle asked the blue to carry him to the other side of the cave, and it did. He levitated a good foot off the floor and moved out of harm’s way, coming to rest against the opposite wall, his feet dropping lightly to the ground.
This time there was no mistaking The Lantern Man’s shock. He snapped his head around in surprise, and then spun, holding the lantern out in front of him again, though now in a bit more of a defensive way, Kyle noticed.
They stood facing each other, the shuffling from the depths of the cave growing louder as the mouth of the cave closed completely.
Kyle brought his hands together and, pointing them at The Lantern Man, he released a double bolt of the blue, which the creature barely avoided as it scrambled to the side. Kyle saw him move, but for the moment, he couldn’t have cared less. Instead, he was studying the bolts: they were solid and focused; a far cry from the wobbly lines that had come from his hands in Victoria’s home back in Monterey, seemingly a lifetime ago.
Or maybe not seemingly. Maybe he was leaving that life, his life as a man, a person, a cheating husband and a sinner, behind now, at last and for good.
Those lines had been so weak and confused back then, as he himself had been. These bolts were strong and true, and they carved deeps line across the cave wall as Kyle kept them on full blast and swung them off to the left, into the dark, cavernous hole of the cave, where the ghosts of the evil dead were called to help this stupid creature.
Flesh, bone and screams erupted in the cave, bouncing off the walls with dull thuds, splatters and screeches.
The blue filled the hole, and one by one, struck them all down.
When the bolts receded at last, sucked back into his hands with a sizzle of electricity, Kyle looked back at The Lantern Man.
Kyle didn’t need to see his face to know what it meant when The Lantern Man took a step back and turned swiftly to the cave opening he had just closed, as if regretting sealing off his own means of escape.
“Did you think they would help you?” Kyle asked flatly. “Dead men and the tales they dragged with them from the pit?”
“Shut up, you little worm,” The Lantern Man said, stepping forwards. “You dare to challenge me?”
Kyle said nothing.
“I’ve been doing this for thousands of years, you fool!”
“And your thousands of years are about to tick to a stop,” Kyle said.
The Lantern Man laughed. It was a laugh heavy with hate. “Oh, that’s rich. You? You are to be my end?”
“No more tricks or games,” Kyle said. “Just you and me now, okay?”
“Oh,” The Lantern Man said ominously as the hellfire in his lantern began to glow brighter and a red light began to burn at the creases of the bandages on his face. “By all means, I concur.”
THE SHOUTS WERE COMING from all directions, the cholos’ words coming at Napoleon alternately in Spanish and English, asking him what his problem was, what trouble he was looking for and telling him to put down his gun. Napoleon wanted to tell them that he had too many problems to count, and that the trouble he was looking for he’d already found, which was exactly why, despite their requests, he couldn’t put down his gun. But he doubted that they’d understand.
Two of the cholos had stayed on target though, heading straight for Efren, and Napoleon took note. The first one was wearing a black jacket and shorts and was shorter than his companion, who Napoleon could see even from this distance had a long goatee and was wearing a Raiders cap and a short sleeve flannel shirt, checkered in large blocks of black and gray.
The two cholos had about a hundred feet or so to get to Efren, who was still frozen in place, still screaming at Napoleon.
Dammit, mijo! Please… “Run, Efren!” Napoleon screamed.
The ten remaining cholos fanned out across the field in front of him. Napoleon noted that the second, fourth, sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth had guns. The rest held weapons of a cruder fashion. But, truth be told, the seven that made up his left flank he couldn’t have cared less about. There simply wasn’t time to deal with them. It was the three to his right that mattered, because they were the ones blocking his way to a clear shot at the two going after Efren.
Napoleon heard a siren in the distance and thought, Oh, the irony, that a crime is being committed nearby at this exact time. Then he realized the siren was really a series of sirens, coming from all directions around the park, some police cars having already pulled up nearby, with others still on the approach.
The park became ringed with blue and red lights, flashing in danger, flashing with hope.
But the cholos kept screaming and advancing regardless.
None of it mattered.
His nephew… the only little boy he would ever have… was all that did.
And he still wasn’t running. While the Raider fan and his homie closed the gap between Efren and certain death, he stood still, his confused gaze fixed on Napoleon.
Napoleon noticed figures bobbing in the distance. Shards of sunlight hit them and their badges shone against their dark uniforms. Like the one he used to wear, so long ago, walking the streets around here, the streets he’d escaped but never abandoned, the streets that he’d loved so much, his chest out, so proud.
How often a man finds his pride in things like a badge. What a stupid man he was back then. Esperanza was just ahead in his future, as was a broken heart that had stayed open ever since, waiting for someone, anyone really, to fill it.
“Dios mio…” he muttered beneath his breath, panic exploding in his every nerve. “Por favor. Protegerlo.” My God. Please. Protect him.
The uniforms were coming from everywhere. Five, ten, fifteen, then a good twenty of them.
The first shot came from Cholo Two, and missed wide. Instinctively, Napoleon sidestepped to the right, ignoring him and instead trying to get a clear shot on the two men advancing on Efren. Then a volley of shots erupted around him. A few bullets whizzed past him and a few more blew holes in the grass in front of him.
Another wave of shots came, now from the uniforms, these directed at the cholos. As the fire fight spread rapidly, five of the cholos to his left turned to engage the officers nearest them approaching across the field. The two in front of Napoleon were unarmed but running at him regardless, one with a knife and the other with a small club. He shot them both in the chest and they went down.
Cholo Nine and Ten, to his right, fired at Napoleon next, and one of them managed to clip him in his left forearm. The pain was searing as a chunk of his arm disappeared, the force of the bullet reverberating down Napoleon’s arm and to his wrist. He screamed but c
ouldn’t even hear himself; there were too many gunshots going off.
A loud boom shook the air. A shotgun. Police issued. He’d know that sound anywhere.
When the second bullet struck him in the hip and a third in his left ribs, Napoleon faltered and almost fell.
Resigning himself to the fact that at least the police were here now, that maybe they would save the day, Napoleon looked again for Efren and saw that he was running now, so hard, to…
Of course.
Parker. He was there, just outside the dugout near third base.
The stupid rookie who hadn’t been listening to him since day one. Thank God for that.
He was the one who’d brought the army to Evergreen Park. And why not? Who else but an ex-army ranger to bring reinforcements? Napoleon snickered, in spite of himself, as his head grew foggy.
That’s when he noticed with horror that Efren wasn’t going to make it. The bastard with the Raiders cap had pulled out a gun, and was firing it at him.
Trying to blow a hole through his ten-year-old nephew.
“Mother fucker.” Napoleon grunted, coming alive again with full fury. Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was God. But he felt a surge of energy like he’d never felt before in his entire life.
He dropped the unarmed cholo in front of him with three shots to the chest, which gave him a clear shot at the son of a bitch with the Raiders cap, but left him totally exposed to the two remaining cholos coming at him, guns blazing, bullets flying.
Some choices were so easy to make that you hardly even had to make them.
Napoleon stopped moving, got in his firing stance, leveled his weapon, and prayed again. “Padre, tiempo. Por favor, dame el tiempo suficiente.” Time, Father. Please just give me enough time.
He tracked the Raiders cap as it moved across the infield, sighting down the barrel with a determined eye. Then he squeezed the trigger. Calmly. With confidence. It was a perfect shot.
A puff of pink exploded from the cholos’ head and he went down, a mass of bones and flesh no longer in control of itself.
Napoleon was just beginning to feel a small bit of relief when a bullet struck him in the chest, his entire body shuddering at the impact, his lungs forced to exhale against their will.
One Plus One (The Millionth Trilogy Book 3) Page 27