Iris hurried over to one of the few tables that hadn’t been overturned and lifted a kerosene lamp from its center.
“There are two dozen of these,” she explained.
“But without Michael—”
“I’ve got a lighter behind the bar,” she said impatiently. “Move your ass.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Last Lesson
They hustled toward the stairs, guns drawn. Dez skirted a broken lamp, yearned for a pair of shoes to protect him from the glass that littered so much of the floor. He could appropriate footwear from one of the many cadavers that littered the main seating area, but that would require time, and time was something they didn’t have. In fact, he realized as they trundled down the staircase, Wainwright had already doused the minotaur’s head again, the cool water reducing the flames to a smolder.
Still, Dez was heartened by the sight of the huge beast draped over the bar, the back muscles heaving with pain and exertion.
Would the change reverse? Or was Keaton merely regrouping for another onslaught?
He got his answer a moment later.
Wainwright spotted them, jabbed an index finger like a shrill elementary school tattletale. “There they are, Mr. Keaton! There’s the ones who caused all this badness!”
Dez almost laughed. Right, he thought. We’re the ones who set up a flesh trade business, the ones who orchestrated a public execution.
But Wainwright’s idiocy didn’t matter. What mattered was the way the minotaur swiveled its great horned head and gazed at them.
The fire, Dez saw as he approached, had done significant damage to the minotaur’s head. While the horns were merely scorched, the hide had been singed off, leaving raw, pink patches of skin to mottle the ochre-colored flesh. One eye, Dez saw with a quickening of hope, had been burned badly; rather than its former bloodred hue, it was now encrusted with a disgusting, oleaginous scrim of white. Dez was reminded of “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
The minotaur was turning to face them.
Dez had no idea how many were left in the bar, but he suspected there were no more than twenty. With the exits unguarded and the massacre so extreme, only the chronically curious, the overly confident, or the utterly demented would stick around for the battle’s conclusion.
Thirty feet away now, Dez cast a glance right and left to spot more hostiles. Of course, everyone seemed hostile, but he reminded himself of Michael Summers and Joe Kidd, of the man with the neck tattoo and his female companion. Of Lefebvre, who in the end had done the right thing and been murdered for his troubles. Yes, there was some good in the world, but you had to look hard to find it.
“Watch it!” Iris said, yanking down on Dez’s shoulder. He let himself be dragged to the floor. It wasn’t difficult. Iris was damned strong. But as the dark shape vaulted over them, Dez was glad he’d trusted her.
The werewolf clattered to the floor and raced toward Bill Keaton.
The minotaur leaped at the werewolf, Keaton’s remaining good eye shuttered wide in rage. Chaney leapt too, but it was as Dez expected. As ferocious as the werewolf was, he was a head shorter and at least a hundred pounds lighter than the minotaur. Their bodies crashed together in midair, Keaton’s overwhelming Chaney’s and tilting the werewolf backward. But even as they rushed toward the floor, Chaney’s jaws closed on Keaton’s throat, and Keaton roared in pain.
Iris had stolen around the side of the bar, where Wainwright stood with a shotgun, barring her from where the lighter was apparently stored.
Gun extended, Iris stepped toward Wainwright. “Get out of the way, Kevin.”
Wainwright leveled the shotgun at her. “You forgot who protects us, Iris. Just stop before I have to shoot you.”
Iris’s arm muscles tensed, the gun outstretched before her. “You know I don’t want to – oh, fuck it.”
She fired at Wainwright, whose shotgun exploded, and both of them went down.
Dez’s guts somersaulted. No!
He raced toward the bar, vaulted it. He landed, slipped, caught his balance, and, disregarding the old man – Dez had seen well enough how Iris had put a hole in his heart – he fell at Iris’s side. She was definitely alive, but she had her hands clutched to her hair, spitting out inarticulate sounds and drumming her feet.
“Iris,” he said. “Are you—”
She jerked her head up to glare at him. “That asshole got buckshot in my scalp!”
He saw it then. There was blood where the pellets had torn her hairline. But the damage appeared to be superficial, and what was more, Iris looked angrier than ever, ready to take on Keaton by herself.
Dez tried to help her up, but she shoved him away and nodded. “The lighter’s in that drawer. I—” She looked at the glass-strewn floor behind her. “Dammit! I dropped the lamp. There’s another one over—”
“I got it,” Dez said, already removing the lighter from the drawer. It was rectangular, silver, the refillable kind. He hopped onto the bar, started to climb down, but looked back at her and said, “Will you get my crossbow?”
“That thing’s a pain in the ass,” she said, but she strode over and lifted the trapdoor. Before Dez turned away, he caught a glimpse of the weapons there: his crossbow, a rifle and a trio of handguns, all black. He knew weaponry better than he had before the world changed, but he still couldn’t tell a Luger from a Kahr, not without reading the name etched in steel.
“Toss me one!” he shouted. Iris tossed him a small black handgun, and after checking the safety, he got moving.
Head down, Dez made for one of the few intact lamps left in the Four Winds, one under the western balcony. As he ran he saw the werewolf and the minotaur struggling. Chaney was still locked on the minotaur’s throat, while the minotaur rained barbaric blows to Chaney’s ribcage.
Who the hell is left? Dez had time to wonder as he drew nearer the lamp. Nearly all of Keaton’s confederates had been killed, at least the ones known to Dez. Still, it was likely the remaining patrons were sympathetic to Keaton’s slave trade.
Dez grasped the lamp, ignited the cloth wick.
He gasped as a gunshot cracked behind him and he felt the sting of the slug in his right ass cheek. The lamp slipped through his hands, crashed on the table, and in moments the entire wooden surface was engulfed in flames. Dez dropped to his knees, a hand on his screaming buttock, and saw the kerosene pouring in runnels off the tabletop, the fire licking eagerly after it, starting a chair burning, the floor.
The whole place is gonna go up, Dez thought.
On the heels of that, a puff of smoke breathed over his face. His eyes instantly watered and stung like mad. Dez dragged a forearm over his eyes, but if anything, that only irritated them more. Dammit, it was like being blind. And of all the times—
The gun cracked again, and though the slug didn’t hit him this time, it passed so near his head that the skin of his left ear burned. Dez whirled in time to see Aaron, the remaining farm boy henchman, taking aim again. The boy was only ten yards away and clearly a terrible shot.
But Dez’s vision was so bleary he could barely keep his eyes from blinking shut. Aaron fired again, and this time the slug pinged off a curved decoration affixed to a pillar. An old-fashioned sickle, Dez realized as he turned tail and hustled toward the corner of the bar. The sickle might have come in handy were Dez attempting to harvest a fucking wheat field, but at the moment, it was no more help to him than the shattered lamp.
Another shot sounded and the wood of the bar’s façade splintered in a fist-sized spray. How many shots does the kid have left? Dez wondered. He weaved a little as he neared the corner of the bar, partially because he was trying to avoid being shot, but mostly because the smoke had half-blinded him and thrown off his equilibrium.
Dez rounded the bar, dropped down before the homicidal farm boy blew his head off. Where was Iris? And was Michael still aliv
e?
He had no idea about Michael, but Iris’s whereabouts were clarified a moment later.
“Hold still, Chaney!” she shouted. “I’m trying to get a clear shot.”
Dez could hear the werewolf snarling and thought, Good luck. You really think Chaney’s aware of your voice, or even his surroundings? The lycanthropic change, in Dez’s opinion, was utter madness, a mode of existence not unlike a tornado or tsunami. There was no thinking involved, no—
Dez froze, his back against the bar’s shelf-lined interior.
Why wasn’t Aaron still gunning for him?
Maybe he is, a voice suggested. He’s sneaking toward the bar to take you by surprise.
Or maybe he’s going for Iris.
The possibility galvanized him, made him stand and whirl, gun extended over the bar. Aaron was stealing around the overturned tables in an attempt to flank Iris. And Iris was so fixated on getting a clear shot at the minotaur’s face, she had no idea Aaron was coming.
No!
Dez stowed the pistol in the seat of his underwear, hustled over, heaved up on the trapdoor, and snatched his crossbow from the cache. The bolts were still intact.
Dez slapped an arm on the bar, vaulted over it, and though his smoke-irritated eyes still watered, he concentrated all his focus on Aaron, on the broad-shouldered zealot who was still protecting his leader in spite of all the atrocities Keaton had committed.
Dez closed the distance. Straight ahead, the minotaur and the werewolf were locked together, the werewolf pinned to the floor, its blood streaming from the many wounds the minotaur had inflicted. Iris was drawing closer, already drawing a bead on the minotaur’s face. Dez assumed she was planning on ruining Keaton’s remaining good eye, but she wasn’t going to do anything but die, for Aaron was closing in behind her, his gun extended. The shot was no more than eight feet, and even an inept shooter couldn’t miss at that distance. Iris, her back to him, would never even know the face of her killer.
There was no time at all, goddammit. If he shouted for Iris to drop, Aaron would fire, and if Dez attempted the shot now, with the two lined up straight ahead of him, he was as likely to nail Iris with the bolt as he was Aaron.
No choice, Dez thought. He took one last diagonal stride, and skidded to a stop.
There. Iris and Aaron weren’t quite in a line now, though the separation was minimal. Feeling very much like William Tell, Dez braced the crossbow on his left arm, squinted through the smoke tears at Aaron.
Squeezed the trigger.
Though the bolt was only in the air a moment, that moment seemed endless. He was sure, in attempting not to kill Iris with the shot, he’d erred too far to the left.
Aaron’s head snapped back when the bolt caught him in the temple. His gun didn’t go off – one of Dez’s fears – but instead dropped from his big hand as the farm boy staggered and gaped stupidly at Iris, who’d finally turned, the knowledge of how close she’d come to dying dawning in her face.
But to her credit, she didn’t pause to wonder how it had happened, didn’t give Dez a wink or a smile of thanks.
Instead she marched over to where the minotaur had pinned the now-unconscious Tom Chaney, brought the gun as close as she could to its horned head, and aimed. The minotaur’s head was swinging as it delivered its grim blows to Chaney, but Iris remained patient, kept the gun poised and ready for her opening. Dez hurried toward the trio, sure now Iris was aiming for the eye. Once she made the shot, the minotaur would be blind, and though Dez feared the creature could regenerate, he doubted the minotaur would be able to fight them both without sight in the fire consuming the Four Winds. Even now Dez could see the heads ranged along the base of the balcony catching fire, the flames licking the desiccated skin.
When Dez turned back to Iris and the minotaur he saw, in slow motion, the creature twitch its head away, parrying Iris’s shot with its great horns. One of its hooved feet sideswiped her, striking her left thigh in a glancing blow and sending her into the sprawl of tables and bodies nearby. She landed near Aaron, who lay without moving.
Then, as if it had eyes in the back of its head, the minotaur turned and charged at Dez.
His skin prickling, Dez fired a bolt. It pierced the minotaur’s snout, but rather than felling the great beast, the well-placed arrow sent it hurtling into the air, its face a rictus of mindless rage, and in that moment a revelation sizzled through Dez’s brain like a lightning strike. He threw up an arm, but the minotaur’s clawed hands clamped down on his shoulders, and with the beast atop him, Dez crashed down on his back.
A starburst of pain sent a billion pinpricks of light through his vision. When Dez could see again, he glimpsed the crossbow, which lay useless on the floor.
His brain foggy, his body numb, Dez gazed up at the minotaur. He knew the creature could slay him with a single swipe of its claws, but it was apparent that Keaton wanted to deal Dez a more satisfying end. Its milky eye oozed yellow pus, but its uninjured eye was slitted in a need that was almost sexual. The horned head drew nearer, the sinister face lowering toward him like a hideous portcullis that would separate him from this life, from Iris, from ever seeing Susan again.
Dez spoke without thinking. “You killed your son.”
Nine inches away, the minotaur’s face froze, the bloodred eye widening.
“You wanted to scare your boy, teach him a lesson. Didn’t you?”
Noxious saliva drooled out of the minotaur’s mouth, slopped over Dez’s face, but he barely felt it, barely smelled the creature’s gamy, scorched hide. Because the bloodred eye was watering, not in rage, not in irritation from the smoke, but in emotional anguish. Somewhere, deep inside Bill Keaton, there still lurked a trace of humanity, however meager it might be.
A shadow fell over them. Iris.
She shoved the gun into the minotaur’s eye and emptied the clip.
The creature let out a roar that shook the building, and Dez saw, beyond the beast’s furiously flailing arms, the flames climbing up the vaulted ceiling, the whole room becoming a conflagration. Dez tried to scoot out from under the minotaur, but it still sat astride him, its body immovable, so Dez stretched out, dragged the crossbow closer, got hold of it, raised it toward the creature’s exposed underjaw, fired.
The bolt damn near disappeared in the tender flesh of the minotaur’s underjaw. The creature howled in agony. Who knew what thoughts teemed within the minotaur’s massive skull? Maybe its brains had been pureed to mush by Iris’s bullets. As it tilted to its left, its claws scrabbling to dislodge the bolt from its gullet, Dez was finally able to extricate his legs and scuttle away from the beast.
He’d made it to what he thought was a safe distance when he noticed Iris limping away. The room was clouded with smoke, the heat from the growing flames raising the temperature at least twenty degrees. Dez winced as a shard of glass sliced his knee. Sucking in air, he reached down, removed the shard, and wondered if he’d have time to commandeer a dead man’s clothes before he escaped. He was tired of fighting in his underwear.
Iris returned to the minotaur, this time bearing the sickle that had been affixed to the wall. Dez opened his mouth to ask her why she was bothering, but then he remembered stories of nearly dead creatures revivifying and slaughtering those who’d maimed them. Dez couldn’t see how the minotaur, which had fallen onto its side and was barely moving, could recover from its wounds, but he supposed he saw Iris’s point. If there was any chance of Keaton exacting revenge, they’d do well to remove it. Vindictiveness was the man’s defining trait.
Iris began sawing into the creature’s neck. One of the minotaur’s arms whipped out, nailed Iris in the shoulder. Whether it was intentional or part of the creature’s death throes, the impact was powerful enough to send her hurtling into Dez. He half-caught her, opened his mouth to ask her if she was okay, but she was muttering curses, shoving away from Dez, and collecting her si
ckle. She crouched over the minotaur and refitted the sickle into the untidy slot she’d created in the beast’s throat.
Something landed on Dez’s forearm – a scrap of burning ceiling wood. Hissing, he shook it off. In its place angry red skin formed, a couple of blisters rising like miniature ice caps. Then Dez heard a sound that made him forget all about his burned arm.
The rafters were creaking.
Dez gazed up at the vaulted ceiling in dread.
Two minutes, he thought. Two minutes until the whole thing caves in. Maybe less.
And Michael was lying insensate in the balcony.
Chapter Thirty
Escape, Return
As he rose, Dez heard a wet coughing sound, glanced down and saw that the werewolf’s change was reversing, the hair retracting into the skin, the bones crackling and reforming as he returned to human form. Despite their lack of time, despite the shouting voices and the sounds of skirmishes that still echoed in the Four Winds, Dez found the sight of the werewolf’s reversal spellbinding. But Dez couldn’t help but notice the damage that had been done to Chaney’s body in the battle with the minotaur. His chest was a wicker weave of stringed meat, his throat flayed open like a dressed deer. Blood was seeping from his red mouth, the yellow eyes glazed with pain. The cracking arm bones were raised and spread as though Chaney were imploring the heavens for mercy, and his legs, similarly bloody, kicked feebly at the floor.
Dez forced himself to bypass Chaney, to hurry toward the staircase. Michael might be dead already, but Dez knew if he didn’t at least attempt to save him, whatever time Dez had left would be haunted by his failure.
In spite of his shrieking feet, Dez took the stairs two at a time, and in moments he was weaving through the wreckage of the tables, chairs, lamps, and bodies. The smoke wasn’t as severe up here, but the fire was fast eating its way in this direction. Dez kept the gun ready, told himself he’d fire on anything that moved, but he knew he wasn’t at that point yet, despite all that had happened. While so many had forgotten their consciences, Dez’s had always remained hyperactive.
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