‘Is this just Doors and his organization, or are all the gang of supermen after me?’
‘Just Doors, as far as I can tell. His ancestors swore the oath. It looks like the family business is smuggling now. Actual blood relative would be able to teleport, the rest may be retainers or just hired muscle. The other families may or may not have wanted to see you punished, but nobody seems to have taken it quite as personally.’
‘Doors is just a descendant of this guy I killed, right? No chance he remembers it himself?’
She shook her head. ‘Iosef Toren is thirty-four. He’s the direct male heir, but he’s not like you.’ She touched my hand. ‘Not like you at all.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I just took her hand and kissed it.
‘One thing I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘The guys at the warehouse had guns, but none of the guys who attacked you on the street, or the ones who came to my apartment, carried anything but knives.’
‘Makes sense for what they’ve been doing. Knives are good for sending a message. They’re scary, and you can mark somebody up pretty badly without risking killing him. That way, instead of a dead dealer, you have a very frightened dealer who’ll probably be inclined to be more co-operative the next time you meet. And the cops don’t really care so much about drugs, or about dealers getting nicked up. Guns raise the stakes too much. With a gun, you pretty much shoot somebody and that’s final. The cops can’t turn a blind eye to that. Plus, I don’t think they felt they needed them to take out an unarmed paramedic, or a hospital admitting clerk or a professor.’
‘You don’t think they’ll keep on making that mistake, do you?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Too bad.’
‘Yep.’
‘So,’ she said, ‘now I guess we plan our next move? I’m just winging it here, I’ve never been in this kind of situation before.’
‘I wish I could say the same.’
‘Well, sooner or later you have to own up to your checkered past,’ she chided gently. ‘Now, what do you normally do after such a daring adventure?’
‘You mean after getting my ass kicked and narrowly escaping death while snooping around a secret smugglers’ hideout?’
‘Yeah, pretty much.’
‘Well, there are really only two options. You still don’t want to just run?’
‘You’re not talking about laying low for a few weeks. You’re talking about starting a new life in exile. I’m not cutting ties with my friends and family and leaving my career. I worked hard for my degree; I’m not hiding out in flyover country waiting tables at some truckstop. I’d rather get cut up.’
‘So that’s your final answer?’
‘Yup. Christmas at my mom’s house up in North Conway. You play your cards right, treat me nice and don’t get killed by drug dealers, you might get an invitation.’
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I said. ‘Well, that rules out option one. Leaving us with option two.’
‘Which is?’
‘We attack.’
‘There’s no nice safe middle ground? Like tip the police off to the whole drug-dealing thing?’
‘Using evidence that I stole, and that you translated from a language nobody speaks, so they can arrest a guy who will just Quantum Leap his way out of the cell the second the cop looks away?’
‘Huh. You don’t think that’ll hold up?’ she asked.
‘It would just annoy him a bit, make him move his business, and add a grievance to his list. Plus he’d still be coming after me. At least now I know to expect him.’
‘Alright, so that doesn’t solve anything. Good thing you’re experienced at this stuff.’
‘I may have been around the block a time or two,’ I said.
‘So what’s your plan?’
‘I’m still working on that,’ I admitted. ‘Thing is, blood oaths are a bitch. This guy has inherited this need for vengeance. It’s been handed down like a title, or the family silver. It’s unlikely that he’ll want to cut a deal.’
‘I don’t understand this. It’s been centuries. And you were cut off, thrown out with no memory, lost a title, lands, power and all that. Isn’t that enough?’
‘That’s not how revenge works,’ I said. ‘Your family’s Irish, right? Think of your most fanatic uncle. Does he still bring up 1918? Still swear at the mention of Ian Paisley even though he’s lived in America for three generations?’
‘That does sound like uncle Mickey.’
‘If he met Oliver Cromwell on the street, you think he’d buy him a beer and say all is forgiven?’
‘Point taken.’
‘Some grudges have deep roots. If Doors’ family thinks my betrayal was the start of their fall from grace, the last heir has no choice but to avenge his ancestors. I can’t see a peaceful way out of this.’
‘You think you’ll have to kill him?’
‘That’s what I keep coming back to, and I’d rather not. It’s not that I’m squeamish about it. This guy is really pissing me off. No, it’s the fact that if we eliminate the head of the family, somebody else just steps in. Dynastic politics are tough. I’d rather not do the whole traditional “wipe out all the heirs” thing. Not my style.’
‘That’s what drew me to you,’ she smiled. ‘Your unwillingness to slaughter whole families.’
‘I have my good points.’
‘So how do noble families usually settle their differences? Is there a protocol?’
I shrugged, then regretted it. ‘Well, it’s usually unpleasant. Wars, assassinations. Duels, if everyone’s feeling really civilized.’
‘Any chance this guy and you could do the pistols at ten paces thing?’
‘I don’t know. First, this guy seems to share my aversion to fair fights. And if, as you say, talent relates to breeding, if Doors is the direct heir, he’s probably the best at teleporting, so his dying would be a big loss, the new heir would probably have even more of a score to settle.’
‘His heir wouldn’t be bound by some kind of honor? Wouldn’t going after you after you won a duel break that code of honor?’
‘Mr Doors would be bound by the terms of a duel. So long as he’s alive and in charge, yes, he probably would honor the results. Dead though? His heirs would feel compelled to avenge him.’
‘How the hell do these things end?’ she asked in exasperation.
‘Everybody dies. Come on, you’ve read Shakespeare. Either one side totally wipes out the other or, when they’re too evenly matched, the two sides come to a realization that nobody wins and they negotiate. That’s when you get partitions of nations or arranged marriages.’
‘You don’t see any negotiated settlement in the cards?’
‘Nothing springs to mind.’ I said. ‘This is all a shock. I never really had to think of something like this. I’ve had differences with people, but those all went away with the next move and the next name change. Why haven’t any of Doors ancestors found me in all this time?’
‘You were banished,’ she reminded me, ‘with no memory. It’s not like you were going to give anyone your name or your family name, since you didn’t even remember it. And the other family was supposed to lay off, accept that judgment. I’m sure they looked for a while, but after a few generations, I just don’t think they saw any point. Something just clicked for Doors when he ran into you and set him off researching the old records. If he hadn’t slipped on the ice, or a different ambulance crew went to that call, none of this would have happened.’
‘But then I might never have met you,’ I pointed out.
She smiled at that. Leaned in and kissed me gently.
She was quiet for a few moments. I took the opportunity to caress her cheek with my good hand. As I did, I noticed she was chewing her lower lip. That seemed to indicate that she was deep in thought. It also kinda turned me on, but I thought it best not to distract her.
‘I need to do some more picking around in those files and think,’ she said. ‘You get som
e more rest.’
‘We really should find someplace else to lay low, at least for a little while. If they really apply themselves, and they have any connections who could run either of our license plates, they could find us. They’re slick for drug dealers. Well financed. They tracked you down from a computer search, and got my old address from my employer. And how did they clean up three bodies from your place without the police getting suspicious? Maybe they have a connection somewhere. We should get out of Dodge while we plan.’
She thought for a moment. ‘How do you feel about the woods?’ she asked.
Chapter 24
A FEW HOURS LATER, I was trying to find a comfortable position in the passenger seat of a rented Jeep heading North on Route 93. We’d stopped at a locker I rented at the train station, picked up a fake ID and some cash. I didn’t want to rent a car in either of our names, and I didn’t want to get stopped by the police if they ran our plates.
Technology had made establishing a fake ID tougher, but you could still do it if you knew people. Working in EMS, I had access to billing info for patients, some of whom died. If you acted quickly, you could get a credit card with that info, and a decent fake license was just a question of finding the right person and paying enough. I kept a few ready, and changed them out every so often, just so I didn’t try to vanish with nothing but expired IDs.
One of the first rules of survival in the Paranoid Handbook is to indulge your paranoia. If Doors was going to keep looking for me, it would be best to leave the apartment for a bit. Up until now, I’d been a footnote in the family history while their main focus had been drug smuggling and consolidating their position among the dealers and distributors. Drug dealers were easy to find. They had to be for their customers. There were signs, signals, graffiti. Even the cops can find the street dealers, but those guys are a dime a dozen, and usually don’t know enough to be of any use in bagging the higher level operatives.
Doors and his merry band didn’t have to find the higher level guys. They could squeeze the street dealers, chase off the clients, leave messages enough that the bosses would want to make contact. They weren’t trying to halt the drug trade, just make sure that the dealers bought from them, and that the money wasn’t skimmed.
That’s why they hadn’t needed to get good at finding people. It was pure fluke—pure fluke and plain bad luck on my part—that had put me in their path when they weren’t even looking.
Having found me, I’d probably moved up the old “to do” list. How can you ignore it, when the object of a centuries-old grudge suddenly lands right slap-bang in the middle of your life? Hell, I’d even arrived with a siren blaring.
Now they’d start doing the legwork to track me down. It wouldn’t be a good time for them to find me, injured as I was. I packed a bag, and left the World’s Oldest Cat with my downstairs neighbor who owed me a favor.
There were plenty of places in Philips Mills we could have gone, paid cash and checked in with no ID. Rooming houses, flop houses, places where people didn’t ask questions. The thing about those places was that Doors and his cronies were muscling drug dealers, interrogating the homeless, the addicted and the indigent, who made up a good portion of the clientele of the rooming houses. I had been to a lot of those establishments working as a paramedic, so people might recognize me, and thanks to the company nametag policy, some would know my name.
And while I had helped many of the pale and downtrodden, as Pink Floyd would say, these were fearful people easily intimidated by burly guys with knives. These were addicts, easily swayed by the offer of drugs or money for drugs. These were people who often couldn’t afford the price of loyalty to me for saving their lives.
I’m not really bitter about that. I often felt I wasn’t doing them much of a favor.
‘Where are we going, exactly?’ I asked, trying to find a position where the seatbelt didn’t bother my ribs.
‘My Uncle Bob’s place,’ she replied. ‘Well, he’s not my uncle by blood. He was dad’s army buddy, and we saw him a lot growing up. He used to do magic tricks. He’s a bit of a mountain man. Hunts, fishes, brews his own beer. I think he distills his own moonshine. He claims he can dowse for water. He was kind of a second father to my brothers and me. He has a place way out in the woods and we used to go snowshoeing and camping and canoeing. He bought a cheap camp when he got out of the army, fixed it all up, insulated it and made it livable year-round. He put in solar panels because he was so far from the grid and got sick of losing power for a week at a time. It’s about as good a place to hide as you could ask for.’
‘Perfect,’ I grunted. I’d shifted to where my ribs didn’t hurt, but that put my ankle in a strange position. I could tell that wouldn’t last long. ‘How long is this drive?’
‘Probably three hours. Maybe longer, depending on the weather and the roads once we get up in the mountains.’
‘Joy.’ I shifted again, taking pressure off the ankle. I was rewarded by a stabbing pain in my side. ‘Fuck this.’ I unfastened my seatbelt. Much better. ‘This thing is killing me. Try not to run into anything.’
‘I know it’s a long time crammed into a seat. You don’t think we could hide out closer?’
‘If I didn’t suspect a police connection, we could rent a hotel room around here. I just don’t want anybody running our descriptions past desk clerks. I can handle a little discomfort for the sake of safety.’
‘We should be far enough away from Philips Mills, anyway.’
‘So these are your old stomping grounds?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘Kind of. Dad loves the outdoors. Mom hates them. We compromised and took a lot of short trips. I like it in small doses. How about you?’
‘I’ve spent my share of time out in the boondocks, but I prefer cities. I like being around people, I like being able to walk to a dozen different ethnic restaurants, or to see a band or a show or just not having to drive everywhere. I like hearing different languages. I also like the fact that you can have anonymity when you want it. City people mind their own business. Move to a town of a hundred people and ninety-nine will know your name in a week. Move to a city of eighty thousand and maybe five people will know you in a year.’
‘I never looked at it that way.’
‘The larger the city, the less chance a mob will try to burn you for witchcraft,’ I replied.
‘Realtors never mention that kind of thing.’
We drove north for about four hours, counting a stop at State Liquor Store for a bottle of good Scotch for Bob, and for dinner in Lincoln.
A snowstorm caught us halfway through Franconia Notch, reducing visibility to a few feet, so instead of a breathtaking view of the steep granite cliffs sloping down to the river, we got much too close a look at the dented and rusty guardrail. Since Sarah was driving, I just did what I usually did when my actions couldn’t affect the outcome.
I closed my eyes.
We eventually arrived at the house. Off the beaten track was an understatement. Uncle Bob’s place was down a dirt road, off a slightly less rutted dirt road off a barren stretch of Route 16. Only about twenty miles and a few hundred moose separated us from Canada. The driveway was unpaved and too steep to attempt in winter. It ran maybe fifty yards through the woods down toward the house, a frozen lake beyond that.
The house sat in a clearing in the trees. It had begun life as a simple cabin with a few bunks and a woodstove, a place to stay while hunting, fishing and canoeing, but it was newly sided with cedar shingles, the windows were modern and a mast of solar panels was aimed out over the lake through the gap in the trees.
The temperature was twenty degrees colder than it had been in Philips Mills, the snowbanks on the sides of the road were five feet high. The bite in the air, the chill seeping through my jacket, the snow falling through the evergreen branches all brought back memories. It felt a lot like the Ardennes had back in forty-four. Maybe expecting to get jumped at any moment by guys with central European accents highlighted the si
milarity.
We parked at the top of the drive and made our way down to the house. Uncle Bob met us at the front door.
He was a big man, probably around sixty, long hair and untrimmed beard gone to grey. He wore an old army jacket, a 3rd Infantry Division patch on the left sleeve. It stretched a bit over his midsection, but other than that, he seemed in fighting trim. He reminded me of a French Canadian fur trader I’d spent some time with on the St Lawrence. Hell, he might have been a direct descendant. God knows Jacques spent enough time producing them.
He had a smile and a hug for Sarah. I got an appraising look. Not unfriendly, but not warm either. One of my old sergeants had given out the advice “be polite, be respectful, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet”. I think Bob had heard the same, and taken it to heart. There was a look in his eyes that I recognized. He’d been in real combat, killed men who were trying to return the favor. He looked even more like Jacques up close. I remembered that face, calm and concentrated in the firelight, sharpening his tomahawk the night before we rescued his Huron wife from the Iroquois. Uncle Bob looked like he’d be right at home sneaking into the enemy’s longhouse.
‘Uncle Bob, this is Sean.’ Sarah nodded at me.
I stuck out a hand. He took it in a grip that would have put me on my knees had it been my injured one. ‘Sarah says you’re a good man but you got some trouble.’
‘She’s half right,’ I replied.
That got a genuine smile.
‘Come on in out of the cold. I have dinner in the oven. Should be about a half hour.’
We walked in to the house, through a mud room filled with coats and boots, skis and snowshoes on the walls, into a large kitchen. A big woodstove sat in the center of the room, along with a good sized table. The sitting room beyond was dominated by a gun rack. And I mean dominated. Uncle Bob had a .30-06 bolt action deer rifle, a pump action shotgun, an old side-by-side shotgun, a semi-automatic .22 rifle, a lever action rifle and a Soviet SKS assault rifle, although it was probably made in either Bulgaria or China depending which hemisphere he’d brought it home from. There were a few sidearms as well. A big Ruger revolver, probably a .44, and two semi-automatic handguns.
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