CROWS MC SET-TO LOAD

by Bloom, Cassandra

  Besides, all of this was based on nothing more than the immediate response of a panicked pessimist’s mind, a mind which, in all fairness, should have been going into shock instead of working overtime on saving itself and a loved one.

  And—Oh good!—Danny was here, too!

  Why not just invite the entire fucking youth choir while we’re at it? I thought bitterly, You know, really pack that pressure on!

  “GET BACK!” I roared at Danny, catching Mia around the waist—let’s not talk about how lovely the process of tearing her off her feet in that instant felt for my midsection—and tearing ass across the street like the gates of Hell were opening at my heels.

  Because, god-fucking-damn, the sound that came next sure-as-shit had me convinced they had.

  Gunfire was nothing new to me, nor the sound of ricochets. Automatic gunfire and the resulting ricochets are, justifiably, a bit more nerve-wracking—your sphincter certainly puckered a little tighter than usual when that BANG-BANG started up—but, again, nothing I hadn’t heard before.

  But when all that gunfire is focused ENTIRELY on you and every single ricochet is pinging away mere inches from your pumping shoe heels…

  Well, let’s just say I’m glad my sphincter was puckered up real tight at that moment.

  “JEE-ZUS!” Danny yelped—fucking yelped!—and started pumping his tree trunk legs faster than I’d ever known possible.

  You ever see three-hundred-and-fifty pounds give an Olympic-level sprint? It’s a pretty awe-inspiring sight. Almost enough to make you sit back and indulge. I did not—I could not—sit back and indulge. I would not be sitting back to indulge in much for some time, actually.

  Because, at that moment, I got shot in the ass.

  It was my time to yelp. A sharp, burning sting accompanied a sharp impact that nearly knocked me over with Mia still working to match my pace beside me. The left side of my leg hummed—seemed to scream “FUCK YOU!” to the rest of my body—and then basically just stopped responding.

  The bullet seemed to have found a switch somewhere in my left butt cheek that said “LEG SHUTOFF” and it thought, “Why not?”

  Half of me started to crumple while the other half kept on hauling.

  “Jace!” Mia cried, tightening her own hold on me. “Jace, no!”

  “H-hit…” was all I could manage as I tried to let go of her, tried to give her a chance to get out of there…

  But for every pound of pressure I released from her she applied another pound of pressure in holding on. Before I knew what was happening we’d traded places, and she was starting to drag me out of the street; providing the locomotion that had been robbed from my left side while I did all I could to contribute with my right.

  Danny, secured behind the wall of the nearby alley that Mia was aiming us towards, swung a massive arm around and began unloading round after roaring round of deafening hollow points from something that looked to be yanked out of a Dirty Harry picture.

  There was no cry of pain from behind us, but one of the rattling drones of gunfire ceased at once. I wasn’t sure if Danny had just dropped one of the shooters or if they’d stopped to reload, but I wasn’t about to look back to investigate. Three more Dirty Harry specials were delivered, and these were rebutted with a yodeling stream of lead streaks. One howled off the side of the wall mere inches from Danny’s exposed arm and he fell back to let the bullet storm pass.

  The Carrion shooter, seeing how close their line of fire was to the alley—and to us—adjusted his aim, and I heard the already deafening impacts grow louder as they started to crawl nearer towards me and Mia.

  “NO!” I cried, pulling us both into a heads-down, asses-up waddle-run that allowed the incoming stream of bullets to howl over us.

  We remained unperforated, but the spray of stone chips from the tormented brick stung our faces and Mia whimpered under the onslaught as we blindly threw ourselves across the small-yet-seemingly-limitless divide between open air and the protection of the alley.

  “Fuckers,” Danny was grumbling, tearing a section of his tee-shirt’s left sleeve off and fashioning a dirty, oil-caked bandage.

  Then I noticed that the shot they’d taken at his firing arm hadn’t missed.

  “Oh shit,” I groaned. “Danny…”

  “Fuckin’ Mercury!” he growled at me, struggling to tie off the length of fabric with one arm while trying to secure the other between his teeth. Finally, grimacing, he said, “Dammit! Will one of ya fuckin’ help me!”

  I nodded to Mia, leaning against the wall and relieving her of the burden of keeping me upright so she could tie off the unsanitary bandage. “Hope you aren’t all that came,” I groaned, daring to probe the back of my jeans to assess the damage to my ass.

  I was startled to find that more damage had been done to the denim than to my actual ass—the bullet had skimmed the back pocket, tearing the fabric open and more burning my skin than actually puncturing it. A trace amount of blood told me it wasn’t a total miss, but it seemed the heat of the bullet had cauterized more than it had left open.

  “There’s more on the way. We just went on ahead. Lucky us, huh?” Danny said with a nod, not even flinching as Mia tied off the makeshift bandage tight enough to make the meat on other side of his forearm bulge around the cinched fabric. Then, noticing my probing hand, he asked, “Are ya finger-fuckin’ yerself or what?”

  Mia frowned at that and glanced my way.

  I glared at Danny, not thankful for that kind of attention. “I got shot in the ass, thanks for your concern,” I grumbled.

  Mia’s eyes widened. “You were shot?” she cried, hurrying over and starting to pull at my side to turn me around so she could see.

  I winced and hissed between clenched teeth as my ribs screamed from the sudden movement.

  Realizing she’d hurt something else in the process, she jumped back, her eyes creeping over my body in an effort to discover any other sign of injury. When she found none, she looked at me with concerned, questioning eyes.

  I shook my head. “I’m… I’ll be fine,” I corrected myself. “Just beat up. Pretty badly beaten up, but just beaten up.”

  “Ain’t surprisin,’” Danny said with a nod, “judgin’ from the way ya basically flew off yer bike back there. How’d ya manage that, by the way? Damn wire was nearly invisible!”

  I frowned and shrugged, not wanting to get into it at that moment. “Just lucky, I guess,” I said.

  I caught Mia giving me a look that made me wonder exactly what she was thinking in that moment.

  She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  But that’d be crazy.

  I might have even asked her about it, but at that moment we were interrupted by…

  “MISTER PRESLEY!” I groaned and rolled my eyes at the sound of Papa Raven’s voice. “I BELIEVE I’VE WON OUR LITTLE RACE, AND I KNOW YOU REMEMBER WHAT OUR CONDITIONS WERE.”

  “Race?” Danny asked.

  I shook my head, caught Mia’s eye, and all-but heard her repeat “I don’t know why it’s always got to be a race.”

  I offered a shrug to both of them as a response.

  “AND I BELIVE I INSTRUCTED YOU TO COME ALONE!” Papa Raven went on.

  “THAT WHY YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY MEN WITH GUNS, YOU CHICKEN JERK!” Mia shouted at that.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “‘Chicken jerk’?” I repeated, teasing.

  “Great,” Danny grumbled, “Now I’m craving Jamaican food…”

  Mia blushed and groaned. “It was the first thing that came to my mind,” she defended.

  “THE WHORE?” Papa Raven called, his voice sounding closer than before. “PRESLEY, DID YOU BRING ME MY LOST PET AS SOME SORT OF BARGAINING CHIP? HOW THOUGHTFUL!”

  I looked at Danny, mouthing “Load up” and hoping he could read lips well enough to understand.

  Swinging open the cylinder on his monster revolver and starting to feed more hollow points into the chambers, I decided he could.

  As he did I rea
ched for my own pistol, only to find that it had been knocked from the waistband of my jeans in my crash.

  “Damn…” I muttered.

  “Here,” Danny called, tossing me a sad-looking six-shooter that my hand almost entirely swallowed as I gripped it.

  “That thing looks like a toy,” Mia said, any humor in the statement lost in the torrents of worry cascading from her voice.

  I sighed and nodded. “Feels like one, too,” I confessed. Then, to Danny, I asked, “Don’t suppose you’ve got an ETA on that backup, do you?”

  Danny shrugged and said, “Told ‘em to come in on foot. Didn’t want ‘em makin’ a ruckus and getting’ the Crew shootin’ early. Jus’ like ya said, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. It was a good plan,” I said with a nod, rolling my eyes at myself. “Glad I thought of it.”

  “MUCH AS I APPRECIATE THE GESTURE, HOWEVER…” Papa Raven’s voice was even nearer now, though the mouth of the alley warped the Carrion Crew’s leader’s voice and made it hard to tell just how close he was.

  Part of me wanted to chance it and just jump out and get the drop on him before he’d get the chance to do the same to us, but that part was reminded of the who-knew-how-many Carrion Crew members he likely still had stationed with their automatic weapons leveled back in our direction.

  I’d probably be doing a heroic jump straight into a line of gunfire and go out like something from the Godfather.

  It’d be a dramatic way to go, sure, but there weren’t any bonus points earned in real life for dying dramatically.

  Papa Raven’s “HOWEVER…” still hung out in the open, and it made the urge to just act and sever the painful tension that much greater.

  “… the fuck is he?” Danny muttered.

  The shot came from one of the rooftops across the street.

  Danny’s leg swung back under the force, and the big man went down with a loud, pained grunt. He swore, but the drawled words were muffled with hurt and a mouthful of the alley floor.

  “MERCURY!” Mia cried, starting to turn towards him.

  The movement carried her from the sidewall where we’d been standing to the middle of the opening. I could see my hand starting to raise to pull her back, but before I could another hand shot out and dragged her out by the air, yanking her into the broad, waiting chest of Papa Raven. His other arm snaked over her shoulder and clamped over her chest. With the first hand freed, he let go of her hair and started to reach for the holster at his hip, grinning and muttering “Here’s the hat trick!” into Mia’s face.

  I noticed with a sort of distant fascination that his teeth were yellow and speckled with bits of blackness. His face, old and haggard, looked more tired than I’d ever noticed. The bags under his eyes started to look less like the angry, shadowy effect of a villain and more like the dragging impact of an exhausting life. His hair, less the wild, wiry mane of a madman, suddenly appeared more matted and unkempt—the hair of the homeless and hopeless alike.

  In that instant, I saw Papa Raven not as the villain attempting to take over the city, but as Tyler Kapurton, the man who’d bitten off more than he could chew and was too embarrassed to admit it.

  In any other circumstance I might have actually felt sorry for the creature I saw standing before me.

  But he was holding Mia as if she belonged to him…

  And he’d just boasted to killing my father and my brother.

  I wasn’t about to let him kill me, too; wasn’t about to let him claim Mia.

  Come to think of it, I wasn’t about to let him claim anything ever again.

  But with Mia in the way, I had no way of…

  “GET YOU’RE FILTHY FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!” Mia shrieked, plunging her hand into her jacket and yanking out the small pocket knife I’d given her way-back-when.

  It had seemed so insignificant then, so pathetic, and I remembered thinking that it was more for show—more about owning something that could represent a threat if she found herself in a pinch—but now…

  Small, dexterous fingers worked the small, wicked blade from the handle with a practiced flick of the wrist. The cute little handle fell into her grip like a dream. The afternoon sunlight caught the arc of metal, and it flashed like a lover’s grin across a short distance.

  Then it vanished into Papa Raven’s hip.

  Mia didn’t stop pushing until half of the handle had been pushed into the meat of Papa Raven’s side. Then she twisted it for good measure.

  The howl that she earned for her efforts was nothing short of Heaven’s song, and, pained and outraged, he pushed the creature that had delivered him such pain away from him; instinct demanding that he put her at a safe distance from him. Mia buckled, took two stumbling steps away from him, and then dropped to her knees.

  Giving me more than enough of an opening.

  As Papa Raven started working with blood-greased fingers to yank the pocket knife from his body, I began pulling the trigger on the seemingly harmless toy swallowed by my hand.

  It sure didn’t pop like a toy.

  Six shots seemed to scream from my clenched fist, and each one offered an after-image of something I’d lost.

  BANG!

  My father…

  BANG!

  My brother…

  BANG!

  Anne and our baby…

  BANG!

  My chance at normalcy…

  BANG!

  My sanity.

  Papa Raven’s legs carried him back five steps, one for each of the first five shots. The sixth shot nearly toppled him back, but he managed to bring himself down to a knee—his body teetering first from side-to-side, then almost all the way back before he forced himself forward again. He folded his arms over his upraised knee, struggling to remain upright, and panted around the pain of the six blossoms of gore that had bloomed across his body. It looked like he was praying in that moment.

  Then he looked up, sneering. His yellow and black teeth now had blood oozing from between them; angry, frothy bubbles of spit popping and beginning a grotesque stream of pinkish drool down the side of his mouth to stain the gray of his beard.

  “A boy and his whore…” he croaked, “… how—”

  The seventh shot, much louder than any of mine, took off the upper-right portion of Papa Raven’s skull; leaving only a wide, wondering left eye to blink back at us in confusion for a few seconds before he finally slumped to the street.

  “‘Bout time that faggot shut the fuck up,” Danny muttered, his Dirty Harry handgun still raised and smoking.

  The other Carrion Crew members, after bringing themselves back from the shock of having witnessed the death of their leader, started to open fire then…

  But the time that lapsed had, it turned out, been just enough for the rest of the Crow Gang to make their appearance.

  ****

  Nobody would ever be able to say with any real certainty how long the battle between the Crow Gang and the Carrion Crew lasted after Danny blew the top of Papa Raven’s head off.

  Some swore it was hours.

  Others promised it was only seconds.

  While a hearty chunk of those with mind enough to calculate things before they spoke said that it had to have at least lasted a few minutes.

  I won’t boast any further than I already have by saying which group I fell into.

  What everyone would agree on, however, was how it ended:

  With sirens and cops.

  Lots and lots of sirens…

  And lots and lots of cops.

  And a butt-load of very, very dead Carrion Crew.

  Seemed fitting to me.

  ****

  In the end, it had been Papa Raven’s own efforts at closing off the streets that he’d intended to use in his convoluted scheme to execute me that wound up getting Mia, Candy, and the Crow Gang off the hook. With no other witnesses present save for the Crows and a few members of the Carrion Crew to testify, it became a numbers game. Sure, a few of the lingering Carrions tried to thr
ow the blame our way, but the bulk of the survivors knew that the Crows had enough dirt on their gang’s activities to have them put away on any number of lifetime charges.

  Out of thirty-seven surviving Carrion Crew members, only six had the balls to try to testify against the Crows.

  Four of those six will be seeing their lives pass from behind bars. The other two had sense enough to cop out—one fleeing the state (likely the country) and the other hanging himself in his mother’s basement.

  She didn’t find him for three days. By then, most of his feet had fallen victim to her prized calico cat, who was known to indulge, despite a bit of a “weight problem”—as her vet put it—on midnight snacking.

  The story that the cops walked away with was, for the most part, the truth:

  I got stupid and accepted a challenge from one Tyler Kapurton to a street race. During this race, a few of his gang members set a trap for me, which I narrowly avoided getting killed by, and, upon discovering that it was this same tactic that he’d used to murder my father and my brother, we’d started to fight. Our fight, in turn, motivated my friends to come to my aid, at which point Kapurton’s gang began shooting at us.