She raised her sword to finish the job. A gunshot reverberated along the brick walls, and the muzzle flash lit up the alley for an instant. Trinh felt the slug strike her just below the shoulder, pierce her tricep, and bore into her side. She lost her air for a second time as the bullet ruined her right lung.
The impact spun her around and she dropped to one knee. Her sword flew from her grasp and skittered across the ground out of reach. Trinh snarled in pain, furious at once again failing to take Malone’s head. Unless she was willing to kill the cop too, the fight was over. It worried her that she actually took a second to consider it.
Trinh uncoiled her legs and sprang onto the rooftop some twelve feet above her. She raced across the roof, leapt off the far side, and ran to her motorcycle. She fired up the Hayabusa and took off like a rocket. She was bleeding profusely and she knew of only one person who could help her.
With every cop in New York either at, or enroute to, the 73rd precinct, Trinh was not concerned with getting pulled over for speeding. Even if they tried, it would be an easy feat to elude them on her racing bike. She did not have far to go, but she was unsure how long she would remain conscious. She was already feeling woozy from blood loss.
Trinh gave a relieved sigh when she reached the industrial area where Dr. Birch had set up her secret laboratory. Three homeless men, who were certainly part of Dr. Birch’s security team, looked up at her approach and made to move toward her. They appeared to recognize her and did not prevent her from entering the building, but they did follow behind, and one spoke into a radio.
Dr. Birch and two armed men approached. “Trinh, what is wrong?” The doctor noticed the way Trinh held her arm and saw the blood-soaked clothing. “Come, let me take a look at you.”
Dr. Birch guided Trinh toward the same exam room she had been in the first time she had arrived shot and beat to hell. The doctor worked with calm efficiency, cutting away Trinh’s shirt to reveal her wounds while she lay on the table.
Trinh felt the woman prodding at the edges of the puckered holes in her arm and side. “The wounds are already closing, which is remarkable except that I need to remove the bullet from your lung.”
Trinh nodded. “All right.”
“I’ll have to put you under, and with your enhanced physiology, that could be a bit tricky.”
“Fine, just do whatever you have to so I can kill that sonofabitch.”
Dr. Birch gave Trinh’s angry outburst a disapproving frown. She waved in more of her team members, and they went to work prepping her for emergency surgery. One fitted a mask over her mouth and nose and turned the valves. The gas hissed and flowed into her lungs while Dr. Birch maneuvered an X-ray machine attached to an articulating arm over her chest.
The medical team spoke in hushed tones until the gas muted them from Trinh’s ears altogether.
***
Castillo could hear the sounds of a war zone two blocks before she reached the precinct. She pulled her car over and leapt out with her gun drawn. She was not about to drive right into the middle of a gun battle.
The roar of an automatic weapon echoed from an alleyway across the street, just a block from the precinct. Hunched low and using parked cars for cover, Castillo moved toward the alley. She peered around the corner of the brick building and made out two silhouettes midway down.
One stood with his arms near his sides, his back toward her. The smaller one, a woman if she were to hazard a guess, raised her arm. Castillo could not make out the gun, but the motion was unmistakable. A flash and a bang filled the alley for an instant, removing any ambiguity. The man fell back and lay still. The woman stepped forward and pulled something out of the body.
Castillo pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, crossed her wrists to shine it beneath her gun, and rushed in. “Freeze! Drop the weapon!”
The woman, Castillo was positive it was a woman now, glanced at her before raising the sword over her head. Another goddam sword-wielder. Castillo fired without hesitation, her training taking over, and knew she had struck the woman in the side.
The impact spun her halfway around, dropped her to one knee, and knocked the sword from her grip. She stared at the ground for perhaps two seconds before making an impossible leap to the roof of the building in front of her. Castillo followed her jump with her gun, but the woman vanished over the edge.
Unable to pursue, she ran to the body to see if he was still alive. Castillo did not need to remove the mask to know that it was Malone, but part of her needed to see his face to make sure. Kneeling next to him, she reached forward with a trembling hand, her eyes darting between his face and the horrendous hole in his forehead.
Still holding the flashlight in her shaking hand, she pinched the neoprene mask between her fingers. Malone’s body spasmed, and he bolted upright just as he had after the explosion at his loft. Castillo stumbled back, never shifting the gun away as he seemed to scramble back out of the grave.
It was one impossibility after another as she watched the gunshot wound to Malone’s head stop bleeding and begin to close up.
“What the fuck are you?” she asked, barely able to force the words past the constriction in her throat.
Malone braced himself against a wall like a drunk about to puke. He held the pose for several seconds before seeming to realize he was not alone. He turned his head toward Castillo, appearing to be contemplating his next course of action.
“What are you?” Castillo asked again.
Leo looked back toward the ground. “Fucked. Well and truly fucked.”
“Who was that? Why was she trying to kill you?”
“Girl Scout. She was trying to sell me some cookies. I wanted Samoas, all she had was Ho Chi Mints. Things kind of escalated quickly from there.”
Leo picked up his sword, turned away, and forced his feet to move.
Castillo increased the grip on her gun. “Stop! Goddammit, stop or I will shoot you, Malone!”
“No you won’t.”
Sight, sound, and pain all converged at once as Castillo squeezed the trigger. Leo’s leg collapsed beneath him as the bullet entered his left butt cheek.
“Ow, goddam fucking shit in an Easter basket!”
Leo forced away the pain, stood back up, and stormed toward Castillo. “What the shit?” he shouted and snatched the pistol from her shaking grasp. He looked at the revolver with contempt. “What the hell is this?”
Castillo stiffened her spine and fought back the overwhelming terror gripping her soul. “It was my father’s.”
Leo shoved the gun back into her hands. “Your nostalgia is going to get you killed.” He turned and walked away.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” Castillo shouted after him, her voice trembling.
“Go home…and get a real fucking gun!”
Malone’s pace quickened as his brain reconnected his nerves with the rest of his body. Castillo stood in the alley, unable to move until he vanished around the corner. Breaking the invisible bonds holding her in place, she shined her flashlight around the alley. Catching a glint of light off of metal, she walked over and retrieved the sword the woman had dropped. A few feet away, she found a shotgun with an enormous drum magazine.
She picked it up, languishing in the reassuring weight of the weapon. “I got a real fucking gun now.”
CHAPTER 22
I feel like I have cinder blocks for shoes and my muscles respond as if I just got pulled out of a frozen lake after falling through the ice. I reach up and touch the puckered lips of what remains of my head wound. Fingering the back of my head, I find another misshapen area surrounded by a bald patch.
It’s a good thing her aim was off. Had the bullet entered my brain closer to the center, my recovery would have been substantially longer, if I recovered at all. As it was, the left side completely took over as the lizard part of my brain amped up the healing on the damaged right side.
My muscle response continues to improve. A couple of blocks from where I left Cas
tillo probably shitting her pants, I enter a large park and manage a sprint, but no matter how fast I run, her face follows. Her face…the same face in my nightmares. The same face that had reflected my animal savagery so I could witness the monster I had become. I thought the flashbacks were bad, but seeing her real face, here, with that same look of hatred in her eyes, was unbearable. Her face broke me in Vietnam, and it was breaking me once again, shattering the illusion of what I thought I was.
I run without thought, without having a destination in mind. At least I think I do. Looking up at the steeple of the old church, I realize I am wrong. I almost expect to burst into flames when I walk into the chapel, but like most things, reality fails to live up to mythology.
I sit in the front pew with my head bowed. I don’t pray. I just sit and stare at my feet. I hear shuffling footsteps approach and someone takes a seat behind me.
A voice, rough and cracked by age, breaks the silence. “You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
“Add the sun and the moon and you’re getting close. I wasn’t sure you would still be here.”
The aged voice behind me chuckles. “Here in the church or on this earth?”
“Both. Either.”
“Do I know you?”
“We met…a long time ago.”
“What brings you here tonight?”
“I saw someone tonight that I hurt a long time ago and I felt the need to confess.”
“I stopped taking confession years ago and it’s well past regular hours, but I’ll listen if you need to talk to someone. When was the last time you confessed?”
I raise my head and stare past the altar. “December 8, 1941. It was to you.”
The old priest shuffles forward, still hunched over to get a glimpse of my face. He gasps and steps back as if I had slapped him. He does an admirable job of recovering and sits down next to me.
“The universe loves to close open circles,” I say.
He bobs his head up and down. “You nearly ruined me as a priest that day. You were the first confession I ever took and very nearly my last.”
“I’m good at ruining people’s lives. It’s a talent.”
“I was fresh out of seminary. I hadn’t even finished unpacking after being assigned here. I was so young and full of belief, full of myself and the righteousness of my calling. I thought I was a believer. I think we all do. But it was not until you came in and confessed that I truly knew, knew, that there was without a doubt, evil in this world, and if there was true evil, then there must be a divine as well.”
“You think I am true evil?”
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. I do not mean that to mark you as the source of evil, only that evil or darkness does exist, that things beyond Man are upon this world. Do you believe you are evil?”
“I have done horrible things. Some may not have been of my own volition, but others I did with aforethought.”
“What was different tonight?”
“I saw the face of my greatest accuser, perhaps my greatest victim.”
The priest nodded. “Yes. When one who possesses a conscience commits terrible acts, they often bury the memory into the darkest recesses of their minds so that they can go on. When you saw this person you wronged so terribly, they shined a light on all of those deeds, forcing you to see them.”
“They have haunted me. I have carried the nightmare of what I did for more than forty years. I can’t hide from it anymore. I have to face them, to face her, but I don’t know how.”
“If you are seeking absolution, it is not mine to give. I deal with mortal people with mortal problems. You are beyond me. Only God Himself can pardon you, and if you cannot speak to God, then you must face your accuser and accept their judgement.”
“She tried to enact her judgement three times already.”
“But you fought her on it.”
“I did.”
The priest, probably out of habit, made to lay a hand on my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it and dropped it back to his side. “People think that the only way to be in control is to fight whenever anything threatens them. But the only way one can truly be in control is to submit. If one is fighting, then they are not in control. It is the one who submits that is in control because they are the one who has decided how it ends.”
“I know how it will end and it ends with my life.”
“You fear death?”
I chuckle and shake my head. “Not in the least. At times, I almost welcome it. There is an evil running loose in New York, and if I die, there may be no one else to stop it. At least not until Jack hurts a lot more people.”
“You are still fighting for control. You are not responsible for this man or his actions. You are only responsible for yours.”
“What if my action or inaction is the cause of more suffering?”
“Can you effectively fight this creature when you are still engaged in a battle that has been going on inside you for decades?”
I stare at the image of Jesus hanging on the cross and start to understand what the old priest is saying. “No.”
“If you insist on fighting two battles at once, you are likely to lose them both.” He nods at the life-sized crucifix. “He understood that better than anyone.”
“So He submitted.”
“And in doing so, He was victorious.”
“I am more monster than savior.”
“No one is beyond redemption in the eyes of God.”
I stand and make for the door. “God once destroyed the Earth with a flood, but I don’t think He ever held a grudge like hers.”
The priest smiled. “Hell hath no fury…”
***
Castillo walked out of the alleyway in a semi-fugue state. The precinct was crawling with cops and tactical teams. Paramedics rushed into the building, just now given the all clear by the officers to treat the wounded.
Several cops went on alert and raised their weapons as Castillo approached the rear of the building. Someone recognized her and ordered them to stand down. Captain Starks, his shirt slashed open in several places and covered in blood, not all of it his, pushed through the cordon.
“Castillo, what are you doing here?”
Castillo’s eyes travelled across the building to the upper level and back down at the flashing police and paramedic lights. “I was tailing Malone. Heard the call. What happened?”
“Some motherfucker calling himself Jack the Ripper came in shooting and cutting people with a goddam sword is what happened.”
“Same guy from Jamaica?”
“Our guys are pulling the security tapes now, but yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s the same fucking lunatic.” Starks shook his head. “We hit him, I know we hit him, but he wouldn’t go down. Sonofabitch just kept jumping and diving around, cutting and stabbing and laughing.”
“Armored.”
“I guess…”
Castillo nodded. Starks shared her doubts.
“Then Malone showed up with a cannon looking an awful lot like the one you have.”
Castillo took a step back and cradled the shotgun as if it were her child. “I found it. It’s mine now.”
“Sure. Malone was wearing a mask, but I know it was him. That lunatic, he even said his name as if he was expecting him. Look, I know you have it in for him, and probably rightly so, but he saved a lot of cops tonight.”
“So he gets a pass?”
“No one gets a free pass in my city! But he did put his ass on the line for me and mine, so he earned some slack until I know what the hell is going on.”
Castillo looked at the motorcycle lying not far away. “That’s his bike.”
“I suspected as much, which is why I’m having Lopez park it in the motor pool out of sight for now.”
Even as he spoke, Castillo spotted Angel moving toward the bike. “What now?”
“I contain what I can. The feds are going to take this from us as soon as everyone gets done making th
eir phone calls, so I need to know what you know before they do.”
Castillo looked over her shoulder, back toward the alley. “I followed Malone, but he was faster and got here first. I never saw this Jack character. I guess Malone was chasing after him when he got jumped.”
“Jumped?”
“Yeah. Same one who attacked him in the street before. Asian female. Late twenties, early thirties. It was dark, so the details are sketchy.”
“Malone walks into a gunfight with a man who just took on an entire precinct of cops, and a woman, no offense, takes him on—twice?”
“Three times if my hunch is right about who planted the bomb at his place.”
“What happened?”
“She got the upper hand on him.”
“Who the hell is she?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure Malone does.” Castillo considered how much she was willing to share at this point. “She was about to kill Malone when I got there. I ordered her to put down the weapon. When she failed to comply and made to use it, I shot her.”
“Where is she now?”
Castillo shrugged. “She ran off. Malone was down and I was more interested in his condition at the time. I couldn’t have caught her anyway. She was too damn fast.”
“And Malone?”
“Also took off.”
“So we have another person who doesn’t seem to mind getting shot. What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know. I asked Malone, but he just told me to go home and get a real gun. That’s when I found this. I’m keeping it.”
Starks rubbed his chin with a nervous hand. “Fine. Do what he says. Go home. You were never here. I need someone outside of all this when the feds take over.”
“Assuming it really is the feds.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have been telling you that there is something fishy going on with everything surrounding Malone. Every time I get close to him, so-called feds come in and chase me and our people away, and yet, whenever I make calls, no one seems able to corroborate any federal involvement.”
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