Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  Behind him, he knew the other woman would be ready to attack. Using the car, he braced himself, readying a side kick. Properly executed, a side kick could be devastating. It was actually a misnomer, since a perfect side kick was more to the rear than the side, a natural angle that allowed the full thrust of the quadriceps to power it. He was situated perfectly for one, as he’d hoped to be. He glanced over his shoulder, weight shifted, muscles loaded, set to fire out.

  The brunette hadn’t moved. She stood in a battle-ready type stance, broken down, like a defensive back. Watching. Before he had a chance to ask himself why, he felt the redhead push off the car. His weight moved back more than a body width, despite pressing against her as hard as his muscles would allow. Goddamn, this is one hell of a strong chick.

  Then she put a foot against the car door and flipped backward, her lower body arcing over his head.

  Against his chest, he felt the pop of her shoulder as it dislocated. Her knee smashed into the side of his head, dazing him. He backpedaled, trying to maintain his grip on her arm. A jumble of sensations bounced through his skull and he had to fight to keep his balance. He was unable to follow her movements as she flipped again, forward this time, and there was no way to react in time when in almost the same move she speared one leg behind his and another across his chest. She twisted, her weight supported by his body, and Hatcher crashed onto the sidewalk, the back of his head knocking the cement.

  Pain shot into his eyes, hot, battering waves of it, bringing dark flashes as he squeezed them shut and the muscles of his face clenched into knots. He gripped the back of his skull with both hands, realizing too late he had let go of her arm to do so.

  He managed to open his eyes to a squint and saw her push her shoulder back into its socket.

  Combat had taught him many things, not the least of which was that the brain is the most important weapon. Without a functioning one, everything else in the arsenal was useless. He scrambled to get his working again, trying to focus, to shake off the dizziness and the knifing ache. His instincts told him he had seconds before a kill strike. A binary situation. Act or die.

  The sound of a baton slashing whistled nearby. He flinched, instinctively covering up. Nothing. He glanced up at the redhead and saw she was looking past him. More noises from behind. Moving as little as possible, he angled his body so he could see what was going on, not wanting to take his eyes completely off of the redhead with her so close.

  He looked just in time to see the brunette rip her baton across the throat of the large black man who’d been following him. It split the flesh of his neck wide. Blood began to drip down his sweatshirt. The gash was deep enough to open an artery, which meant the guy was as good as buried. Hatcher eased his feet beneath him, still trying to clear his head, still blinking, watching the man bleed. The redhead seemed to have lost some interest in him.

  As strange as things were, he realized something even stranger was happening.

  Sweatshirt guy wasn’t reacting. He wasn’t grabbing at his throat, wasn’t dropping to the ground. He wasn’t even bleeding that much. The only thing he was doing was keeping his eyes trained on the brunette.

  Then he launched his body at her, pouncing, surprisingly quick for a big man. The brunette seemed agile enough to avoid him, but she lowered another blow across his skull instead. It sliced a huge wound spanning the side of his head and face. In hindsight, Hatcher realized it was a tactical blunder, because the man kept coming. He managed to grab a fistful of hair and wrap an arm around her waist, before dropping like an anvil and rolling on top of her.

  Hatcher strained to unscramble his thoughts. This didn’t make any sense. Was this guy trying to protect him?

  The redhead suddenly turned to him. Hatcher pushed himself up against the car, knees bent, trying to find the energy to dive at her. Before he could, she cocked her arm to the side, baton bending in the direction of the move, and took a step toward him, whipping the baton diagonally, a hard, thrashing blow to the side of the neck. He ducked, a moment too late.

  Only the strike never reached him. It took Hatcher a few beats to realize that another body had insinuated itself between him and the woman, absorbing the sharp snap of the baton. The slash of it ripped off an ear and part of his cheek. The redhead followed up with a wheelhouse kick to the side of the man’s head, knocking him face-first to the concrete.

  It was the derelict sailor guy. Without a noticeable pause, sailor guy got back to his feet and turned to face the redhead, his back to Hatcher. Hatcher could see his ear dangling by a sliver of skin, bobbing around his shoulder. The woman delivered another lash with the baton. A splatter of blood exploded from the man’s face and his yachting cap fell to the sidewalk.

  Like the other one, homeless sailor guy didn’t seem to react. Didn’t make any noises, didn’t throw his hands to his face. He just moved to place himself firmly between the redhead and Hatcher.

  The man smelled horrible. His open coat swung when he moved. Sticking out of the side pocket of his coat was the neck of a bottle. Hatcher’s eyes fixed on it. A weapon. He grabbed hold of it and tugged it free. Vodka, it looked like. Almost empty.

  The woman delivered another roundhouse kick to the man’s head, knocking him to the side. Hatcher sprang forward as soon as the opening appeared and landed a solid blow with the meat of the bottle against the side of her head.

  Her head snapped to the side, but slowly righted itself. She launched another baton strike at his knee, but Hatcher saw this one coming and blocked it with the bottle. The glass exploded on impact.

  The redhead’s hands bounced to her ears, and she let out another yelp, this one more like a scream. She opened her eyes and stared at Hatcher, who was still holding the dripping remnants of the broken bottle.

  Stepping back, she held Hatcher’s gaze until the last second, then shot a look down at the brunette, who was struggling beneath the massive girth of the guy in the sweatshirt. The man pushed himself off her, pinning her down with a forearm across her chest. One of his shins was across her leg. She was kneeing him to the head viciously with her other leg, but he didn’t seem to care. Or notice.

  There was something in his hand. Elbow buried against the brunette’s throat, the big man raised it above his head. Hatcher realized it was the dagger. The man was holding it by the base of the blade instead of the handle, with only a few inches protruding from his fist. The cloth it had been wrapped in lay in a bundle on the sidewalk not far away.

  The redhead threw out a hand. “No!”

  Sweatshirt plunged the dagger straight down into the brunette’s stomach, tearing open a wound. Then he dropped the dagger and looked like he was about to thrust his hand inside of it. Probably would have, if the redhead hadn’t delivered a semi-airborne foot stomp to the side of his head, knocking him off balance. The brunette managed to roll free and stand. She was clutching her stomach in a way Hatcher had seen before, several times. Someone trying to hold his guts in.

  The redhead bent down to pick up the dagger, but the big guy had already rolled back and slapped a huge, black paw over it, just as homeless guy jumped on her back. She shrugged him off and kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling, then turned back and raised her baton, ready to take sweatshirt’s head off. Hatcher took an unsteady step, taking his weight off the car, his shoes crunching over bits of glass. He lost his balance a bit and put a hand back on the window.

  Baton cocked, the redhead stopped and shot a look over her shoulder. The whine of a siren grew in the distance. Her eyes left Hatcher and made a circuit, taking in the scene. Homeless guy was getting back to his feet a few yards away. Sweatshirt had pulled the dagger in close. She glanced at the brunette. The woman was still doubled over, but had a surprisingly game look in her eye. The redhead finally looked back at Hatcher.

  She stood like that for a pregnant moment, exchanging looks with the brunette. The siren was closer now. Throwing one final stare Hatcher’s way, the redhead took off running, smashing a should
er through homeless guy and sending him to the pavement again. The brunette immediately followed, almost as fast even with one hand still pressed against her abdomen. Hatcher watched them dart around a corner.

  The siren sounded very close as they disappeared from view, but quickly started to fade after that. It seemed to pass one or two streets over.

  Hatcher managed to stand and, with some effort, keep his balance. He surveyed the area, then walked over and pried the large man’s fingers from the dagger pinned to his chest and rewrapped it in the cloth. Sweatshirt and homeless guy lay on the sidewalk, motionless.

  Hatcher didn’t bother to check them. The men were dead. He’d known it long before the fight had ended. It hadn’t been too hard to figure out.

  Multiple blows to the head, kicks to the face and chest, and neither of them had blinked once. Not even homeless sailor guy, who still had a shard of glass sticking out of his eyeball from his first nosedive into the pavement.

  CHAPTER 21

  IT TOOK HATCHER SEVERAL MINUTES TO CONVINCE HOSPITAL personnel at the front desk—first the receptionist, then a pair of passing physicians—that he did not need to go to the emergency room. He was just there to see his father.

  As he caught his reflection off the shiny steel doors of the elevator, he was surprised they didn’t take him to the ER by force. His face was bruised and cut, the shoulder of his shirt torn and bloody, his pants ripped with a wet, sticky-looking wound gaping through the tear. A bright red welt stood out on the side of his arm like a brand. On top of all that, he needed a shower and shave. Badly.

  No wonder hailing a cab had been so difficult.

  It had been almost half an hour since his encounter with the two women, and as the adrenaline dissipated he started to feel the effects. He winced with each step, his leg feeling like something had taken a bite out of it. His arm burned. Raising it might as well have involved a ninety-pound dumbbell. His cheeks felt like they had been sandpapered raw and covered with oatmeal.

  At least the dagger was reasonably well concealed, he thought. He’d managed to cram the handle down his sock, up to the hilt. The blade almost reached to his knee. He cut a slender piece of the cloth it had come in and used it to secure the blade to his calf, knotting it tightly. The dagger still wobbled a lot, and the blade and hilt edges made his pant leg protrude in odd ways when he moved, but as long as he was careful he figured it would do for now.

  He pulled out his cell phone. No signal. He still had to call Fred, but had been too rapt in thought trying to sort though what he knew to bring himself to do it in the cab.

  The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. He stepped into the hallway and paused. A question burst into his head, disrupting his thoughts like a slap. Would he be here if he didn’t need some answers? He tried to remember whether he had thought about his father’s condition at all on the way over, or whether he had simply imagined how he would go about asking him if he really did have another brother. This one named Valentine.

  He couldn’t be sure.

  Remembering the general layout of the floors, Hatcher veered to his left down the main corridor and found the nurses’ station. Several women in scrubs were behind the counter, chatting. He identified himself and noticed the sound of his name put a damper on the conversation. One nurse stood, a sober expression on her face, and asked him to follow her.

  The nurse led him to a small waiting room. Hatcher saw his mother there, crying. Carl had his arm over her and patted her back.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Hatcher said.

  Hatcher’s mother raised her head. Her gaze, wet and red, seemed to reach out when she saw him. She stood and held her arms up to receive him. He gave her an awkward hug.

  “Is it bad? Is he in surgery?” They seemed like natural questions to ask.

  His mother pulled away and looked at his face. Her heavily veined eyes skipped back and forth. Her lips trembled. She suddenly seemed much older than she did a few days ago.

  “Jacob, oh, Jacob . . . They just told us, not a few minutes ago. Your father’s—”

  Her face tightened and tears spilled down her cheeks. She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. Hatcher understood.

  The room was hospital-quiet for a moment, the kind of silence you don’t find anywhere else. His mother’s sobs were the only sound other than the subtle ambience from the hall, the faint footfalls, the barely audible roll of a distant cart. Hatcher saw Carl eyeballing him as he patted his mother’s back, realized he had been trying to console her the same way a moment earlier. Carl was standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, staring accusingly. This had to be awkward for him, Hatcher thought. Watching his wife become emotional over the death of her first husband. Driving her to the hospital, staying for hours, probably going sleepless, probably having to be at work in a few hours. He seemed to be supportive of her, which Hatcher grudgingly appreciated. It was possible that in his own way, Carl wasn’t such a bad guy.

  Hatcher shot him back a look intended to let him know he was not in any mood to be fucked with anyway.

  A few minutes later, Hatcher’s mother began to relate what the doctors had said, about the infection, the circulatory problems, the damaged organs, the weakened immune system. Hatcher listened, guilt festering in his abdomen. He’d hardly known his father, hadn’t developed any special kinship for him. They had never spent time together, and now they never would. He wasn’t certain what he was feeling.

  “Mom,” Hatcher said. “There’s something I have to ask you.”

  Hatcher took a breath. He had questions he needed answered, and he’d just been informed the only other person who could give them was dead. Soliya had impressed upon him how time was a factor. He wasn’t sure how much of that he should believe, but he wasn’t sure how much he could afford to dismiss outright, either.

  “What is it, Jacob?”

  His eyes crept over her shoulder to Carl. He gently steered his mother toward the far wall, near the doorway.

  “Did you have another son?”

  “I told you about Garrett.”

  “No, mom, I mean, another one. Besides Garrett. Do I have another brother?”

  The unfocused, searching look of confusion shone in her eyes. I’m a complete jerk, Hatcher thought. Asking a woman who just lost a son, or someone who thinks she lost a son, a question like that. He tried to think of an appropriate apology.

  Before he could, he saw that look give way to another. Her features slackened, her eyes set. The hyper-focused stare of shame. Whatever was going through her mind, it mortified her.

  “Tell me,” Hatcher said.

  “What’s going on?” Carl was on his feet, bulling forward. “Are you upsetting her?”

  “Stay out of this.” Hatcher leaned in close, pressing his gaze tight. “Tell me.”

  Carl grabbed Hatcher by the arm, squeezing it. “Get away from her! Who the hell do you think you are?”

  It hurt just enough. His arm was just sore enough, the wound just fresh enough, that the jolt of pain was more than he was willing to tolerate. Hatcher spun around, clamping a hand on Carl’s throat, and almost lifted him off the floor as he rammed him into the wall.

  “You know, I’ve had just about enough of you.” He pinched his hand tighter, kept pinching until he saw all the bravado drain from the man’s face. “Pathetic cocksuckers like you make me sick. You think being some dickhead makes you tough? Huh?”

  “Jacob!”

  “Do you? Answer me, you potbellied loser. Where’s all that lip now?”

  “Jacob! Please!”

  So much hate. It bubbled up like molten lava, hotter for the depths it had occupied for so long. This lame excuse for a man who appeared in his life unbidden, who immediately started fucking with what little Hatcher the teenager had, his independence, his space, his brooding peace. And what the hell was he? A nothing. An ignorant jerk.

  “Jacob! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

  When a person is in
actual fear for his or her life, facial muscles contract and peel back, exposing the eyes completely, maximizing perception. It’s a primal, atavistic look, one that cavemen surely had when attacked by a vicious predator. Hatcher saw that look in Carl’s eyes, a look he had seen many times, a look he had intentionally induced many times. It took him a moment to realize that not only was the man genuinely afraid of dying, but that his fear was completely rational. Hatcher was choking him to death.

  Hatcher dropped his hand from Carl’s neck and stepped back. Carl coughed violently. He bent forward and grasped at his throat, looking like he might vomit. His face was changing from a shade of purple to more of a pinkish hue. The dark veins in his forehead and neck were fading. Hatcher’s mother put her arm around him, crying again, asking him tenderly if he was going to be okay, and if she should get a doctor.

  That was bad, Hatcher thought. Jesus, that was bad. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He could not ever let that happen again. Ever.

  As the coughing subsided, Carl raised his eyes. He glared at Hatcher, but it lacked conviction. If he was expecting an apology—or even if he wasn’t, for that matter—Hatcher wasn’t about to give him one. He didn’t feel sorry for what he’d done, didn’t feel remorse. Just anger. At himself. He’d lost control. That was inexcusable.

  Besides, Hatcher thought, his mother was doing all the apologizing for him. Karen Woodard kissed her husband’s cheek and hugged him over and over, sobbing a tune of “I’m sorrys.”

  His mother’s words finally registered. “You said you were going to tell me.”

  She wiped at her eyes. Carl snarled, cleared his throat, but deferred to his wife as she patted his shoulders and told him it was okay.

  “Do you want to step into the hall?” Hatcher asked.

  “No.” She wiped at her nose, leaving one hand on her husband’s back. “I have no secrets from Carl.”

  “But you do from me,” Hatcher said. “You lied.”