by Debra Dunbar
As Vincent struggled to catch his balance before the unstable time pinch dropped, he swung an arm high.
Too high.
The bullet, slithering through the time bubble, shot forward several inches.
Vincent’s arm made contact.
In a fraction of a second, the full force of the bullet impacted his arm, spinning him against the wall in a spray of his own blood as the time pinch released.
Chapter 27
The blast of a gunshot. The thickened air of a time pinch.
Hattie struggled to catch up with the sudden appearance of Dmitrevich’s second self, turning to her mother as the bullet slid through this strangely tenuous time pinch. Vincent must be too weak—or this was an instinctive action, and something he couldn’t quite control.
Before she could react, Vincent sent an elbow into her sternum. She coughed out a breath as her feet caught Dmitrevich on the floor. She slid into the air, not quite in the grip of gravity, but unable to right herself.
A wave of relief rushed over Hattie as she watched her mother slide away from the bullet, then the time bubble released without warning.
She fell over Dmitrevich, her head smacking the floor at Yulia’s feet. A warm spray covered her arm.
Blood.
Vincent lurched against the far wall, sliding down in a limp heap. Was he shot? How could that be possible?
Lefty lowered his gun a few inches, turning toward Vincent.
In that moment, Yulia rushed Lefty, the toe of her shoe catching Hattie in the temple. She blinked at the impact, a moment of dizziness resolving as she opened her eyes to find Yulia covering the others with Lefty’s gun.
“Now…you.” She motioned to Lefty. “Step back.”
Lefty complied, his hand opened in surrender.
Dmitrevich twisted beneath Hattie as his doppelganger strode into the room with a sneer, reaching down to jerk Hattie away.
Yulia moved the gun back and forth between Lefty and Vincent who remained on the floor. “I kill you all!” she hissed. “For Yasha!”
Hattie reached up with pleading hands. “Please. My mother has no part of this!”
Yulia snarled, “I do not care. A blood price will be paid.”
She cocked the gun, now aimed directly at Branna.
“Why?” Hattie shouted at her. “We’re not even part of the Crew! She’s my mother, let her go!”
The old woman stared forward, eyes hard and cold. Lost in her own world of pain, so deep she didn’t care who she murdered. She only needed to kill. To feel.
She was a woman lost in her grief.
Hattie sucked in a breath, patting her pockets until her fingers landed on the photograph she’d snatched from Vincent in their attic holding cell. A photograph of the woman’s slain son.
Yakov Dmitrevich.
How much power did Hattie have left? It had to be enough. Whatever was left…it was her last hope.
Hattie held up the photo. “Madam!”
Yulia cast a glance over her shoulder to spot the photo of Yakov. Her brow lifted, eyes filling with a stream of pinched light that Hattie sent her. Illusions. Fantasies.
Standing alone in a room with her son. Holding a grandchild. Hearing that grandchild play an upright piano as the family gathered around. Hot tea in some hands, vodka in others. The fragrance of spicy pipe tobacco and the sound of laughing children. Faces alive with smiles. Family. All alive, thriving, growing, as Yulia sat in a rocking chair, simply watching.
Hattie poured everything she had into the illusion. All senses. Sight. Sound. Smell. Taste. Touch. The immersion had to be complete. Just as Hattie had lost herself in her own fantasy of her vision of an idyllic past, this woman must latch onto a false future that might have been.
Blood streamed from Hattie’s nose as her insides ground and twisted. She’d passed the point of damage. This magic…this would kill her.
One of the Dmitrevichs turned back to Yulia, who had dropped the pistol.
“Mama?” he muttered. “Shto ne tak? Shto proiskhodit?”
The second Dmitrevich squinted at his mother, then back at Hattie. He lifted his heel to send his foot into Hattie’s midsection.
She wheezed, her chest heaving against her own lungs as the wind left her. Blood sprayed the floor, and she retched. The light pinch dropped immediately. Hattie struggled for air, and when it finally came, she barely had enough strength to turn her head.
Yulia sat on the floor, eyes distant, a thin smile spreading across her face. She muttered and cooed, finally humming some low, baleful lullaby from her homeland.
One of the Dmitrevichs crouched beside her, tapping her cheeks. The one that had kicked Hattie free of the light pinch watched with dread. “It’s the girl. She’s an illusionist.”
The other turned to snarl at Hattie, “What are you doing to her?”
Hattie shook her head just a little. “Nothing now. It’s done. It’s done, and she’s not coming back.”
She wasn’t pinching anything at this point. The fantasy had taken hold, and Yulia was keeping it alive. That deep need to see her son alive again, that same force that had driven all of this violence, was now pulling her deeper and deeper into the fantasy Hattie had molded into being.
The new Dmitrevich lifted his gun and faced Hattie. “Stop it now!”
Hattie shook her head. “Too late.”
He cocked the pistol. “Did you not hear me, girl? Stop what you are doing to her. Stop it.”
Thuds shook the floor. Shouts from the hallway. More thuds…screams of pain and panic.
“Drop the iron, Smith,” Lefty growled. He’d retrieved the gun Yulia had dropped and now had it pressed against the back of one of the Dmitreviches.
The gun-wielding Dmitrevich clenched his jaw, sending a vein in his temple twisting back and forth. His fingers tightened around the pistol.
“Don’t know if this’ll kill you both,” Lefty added. “Be happy to find out, though.”
Dmitrevich sighed, “Nyet.”
His fingers withdrew from the pistol…which hung in midair. Then, with a sharp jerk, it flew up onto the ceiling.
A voice called from the doorway, “I’ll do you one better, Lefty.”
DeBarre stepped into the room, taking in the carnage.
Dmitrevich, the one still on his feet, threw a swing at DeBarre.
With a flick of DeBarre’s finger, the entire man dropped to the ceiling, and then back to the ground.
Lefty clubbed the other Dmitrevich with the butt of his pistol, sending him to the ground as well. With a heavy breath, he said, “You were supposed to stay in the car.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Guess you got your mojo back?”
DeBarre nodded, frowning as he spotted Vincent slumped against the wall. “What happened?”
Lefty stepped around DeBarre, and pulled Vincent away from the wall. “Not sure. It went down fast.”
Hattie tried to speak, but it only came out as a bloody gurgle.
DeBarre rushed to her, easing her to her feet, and bringing her to the chair.
“Easy,” he muttered as he settled her down. “Looks like you had a day.”
Hattie attempted a smile, unsuccessfully.
DeBarre gave her a wink and wiggled his fingers. “Powers came back. Hauled ass inside the second I was sure.”
A new set of hands landed on Hattie’s shoulders. She looked up to find her mother weeping over her. She pulled Hattie into a folded hug, crying as the terror of the moment passed.
Vincent stirred with a groan as Lefty applied pressure to the gunshot wound in his arm. “Aww…Jesus.”
Lefty chuckled. “You baby. The man just winged you.”
Vincent opened his eyes and sucked in a breath as Lefty shifted his grip. “What…where are we?”
DeBarre patted Hattie on the knee before withdrawing to help Vincent to his feet. “Baltimore, you pin cushion.”
Vincent shook his head. “What are you doing here?”
<
br /> “Saving your ass.”
Lefty nodded. “Took the rest of the building out. I think we’re gonna have to pay him, at this point.”
Vincent smiled. “Ain’t that our luck.” His smile faded as he regarded the battered pair of Dmitreviches lying on the floor. “I’ll be damned. I was right.”
DeBarre nudged the nearer Dmitrevich, who stirred with a moan. “Still alive.”
“Good,” Lefty groused. “Vito’s gonna want to take his time with this guy.”
“Sure it’s just one guy?” DeBarre asked as he examined the second.
Vincent answered, “He’s a place pincher. He can be in more than one place at a time.”
DeBarre shook his head. “Knocked this one out cold. How’s he keeping the pinch this long?”
Vincent scowled. “Good point. What then?”
“Twins?” Lefty asked.
Hattie leaned forward to examine them. With a clearing of her throat and a couple tries, she said, “Could be.”
Vincent frowned. “When Hattie and I were tied up in that attic, he just popped out of nowhere. I could’ve sworn…”
“Perhaps they planned this, all of this, together?” Lefty offered. “If so, one of them could’ve been hiding the whole time, just waiting to hear what you had to say behind their backs?”
DeBarre nodded. “Smart. Devious and convoluted, but smart.”
Hattie gripped her mother’s hand tight as a wave of nausea racked her body. Once the threat had passed, she released low, slow breaths trying to get a rein on her body.
“What exactly did you do to that old bag?” Lefty asked with a nod to Yulia.
“Gave her what she wanted. The life that was robbed from her.”
A voice cackled in the hallway, “The ’ell is all this riot?”
Branna huffed. “Alton Malloy! You get right in here this instant!”
Hattie’s father shuffled into the room, his eyes wide, face pale from the carnage outside the room.
DeBarre lifted a hand to stifle a chuckle, then declared, “You’re supposed to stay in the car, old-timer!”
Lefty shot an elbow into DeBarre’s side. “Lot of that going around, you useless gorillas.”
DeBarre began policing bodies while Lefty left the building to phone the Old Moravia and fill in the Crew on the developments. Vincent pulled off his jacket and made a field dressing with a strip of one of the Dmitreviches’ shirts, twisting it around his arm wound with a little help from DeBarre. Once that was done, they tied their captives more thoroughly and set them against the far wall.
Vincent paused as he finished a knot in the rope and turned to Hattie. “How are you?”
“Bloody damned knackered.”
“I hear that.”
Vincent stood up, wincing and hissing at the wound in his arm and Hattie hid a smile.
“Oh, Jesus,” she teased. “Are you five years old?”
“Alright. Don’t give me the business. This hurts like hell.”
“Aye, and if your fairy godmother came down and kissed it, you’d bleed rainbows and rock candy, wouldn’t you?”
Vincent sucked in a breath to defend himself, until he spotted the grin on Hattie’s face. “Brat.”
Hattie blinked at that. “Hey. Only one person calls me that, and if he were here—”
“Is Raymond safe? His family?”
She replied after a pause, “Aye. Tucked away from your hordes and goblins.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment.
Vincent offered, “At least he, well, one of these guys, scared you all off before we got there.”
Hattie nodded, reaching into her back pocket to pull out the same note that was left for her at Raymond’s house. Vincent reached for it and she released it into his grip.
Unfolding it he frowned down at the bold writing. “Wait.” He stretched to collect his folded jacket, pulling a tiny card from its pocket. “The handwriting isn’t the same.”
Vincent held the tiny card up to the light. Hattie leaned in, her arm brushing his good shoulder, to peer at the two pieces of paper. The first, her note—warning her in quick, sharp strokes of the pen, The Crew is coming for the Bowleses. Show them you are smarter.
The second—a tiny business card with the words in florid, looping calligraphy, Nice pinch. Let’s talk after.
“Do you think they were each written by a different twin?” Hattie asked.
Vincent shook his head. “Why go to all the trouble of perfecting your mannerisms, your habits, and your appearance, but have such completely different handwriting?”
“So…so they didn’t send this?”
“No, I don’t think they did.”
Hattie took the note from him, trembling a little as she returned to her parents.
Alton lifted her chin with his finger. “You with us, girl?”
She couldn’t answer. Because, no matter how invested Vincent, DeBarre, and Lefty were in keeping her identity as a pincher safe from Vito Corbi, someone else out there had been watching her.
And this person knew exactly what she was.
Chapter 28
DeBarre kept the engine running as Vincent and Lefty escorted the Malloys back to their apartment. Both Vincent and Hattie held back from the rest as they climbed the steps, both of them exhausted from the use of their powers. Alton held the door open for his wife and daughter.
Hattie turned to face her father. “Can I have a moment, Da?”
He nodded and guided his wife to the kitchen. “I could use some tea, Branna. What d’ya say?”
Vincent glanced at Lefty over his shoulder.
Lefty returned a weary grin, then said, “I’ll wait for you downstairs.” He added halfway down the hall, “Don’t take forever, huh?”
When he was out of sight, Vincent turned to Hattie. “Listen,” he said with a shuffle of his feet, “I want to apologize again, but you’ll probably just bust my balls and make me regret I ever met you in the first place.”
“Try me.”
“I’m sorry. For diming you and your family out to the Crew. For getting you and your family caught up in the middle of all this. I know you’re ready to spit nails over this whole thing. Ready to maybe never see me again, and I get that.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Here’s the truth of things as I see’t. We were both in an impossible place. No choices. Lives were at stake, and I can’t really blame you for thinking that was more important than my freedom. Still, we were set against each other, and you broke a promise to me. That’s going to stay with us for a while, I imagine.”
He nodded.
“Don’t go making yourself a martyr, Vincent. You and I will be just fine as long as your boss leaves us alone, especially if Lizzie gets her business back.”
“I’ll talk to Tony and Lefty before I get sent off, make sure that happens,” he offered.
She winced. “Are they…do you think he’ll really send you off? Sell you?”
He sighed. “Maybe. I didn’t just screw up, Hattie, I defied my Capo. Maybe us finding and taking out the rest of the Russians will even things up a bit, but maybe not.”
They stood in silence for a while, Hattie staring at her feet.
At length, Vincent asked, “Sooo…where do we stand?”
“I don’t know,” she chimed. “Where did we leave off?”
“Hunting down a Hell pincher.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “Aye. That.”
“Look…if I’m still here when all this blows over, then maybe we can talk about that Hell pincher up in Pennsylvania?”
She nodded, extending a hand to Vincent.
He reached out, gripping it gingerly.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “But you should understand one thing, right now.”
“What’s that?”
“Things will never be the same.”
She turned, stepped inside the apartment, and slowly closed the door. Vincent ran his hands over his face, cleared
his throat, then turned back for the stairs. As he reached the top flight, the door opened again.
“Eh, there. Time pincher.”
Vincent peered around the banister to find Alton hobbling forward with two shot-glasses pinched between his fingers.
“So, it dawned on me that I offered you some whisky and never followed through.” He held one of the glasses for Vincent. “That’s bad luck, don’t you know?”
With a tired smile, Vincent took the glass.
Alton raised his own in a toast. “To all the right bastards getting what they’re due!”
They downed the whisky then Alton collected both glasses with a wink. “You need a place to run, boy, you come to us. We’ve a lifetime of raising a magical person, and there’s room here enough for another.”
Vincent nodded deeply as Alton returned to his apartment, then headed down the stairs. Lefty lingered by the door, giving him a leering smirk.
“Is she gonna be a problem?”
Vincent cocked a brow. “How could she be a problem?”
“We’re entering some choppy waters here, Vincent. I need you focused.”
“I am focused.”
“You’re focused right now on that Irish chippy upstairs, but I need your focus where it’ll do us some good.”
“Shut up.”
Lefty chuckled. “The hotel’s crawling with the G. Entire outfit’s relocated.”
“The vineyard?”
“No,” Lefty replied as he held the front door to DeBarre’s car open for Vincent. “Not the vineyard.”
“Where?”
“Poker hall.”
Vincent lifted his face to the sky. The morning light had matured into a broad bolt of yellow, spilling in from a cloudless blue sky.
“Listen,” Vincent whispered, “keep what you know about Cooper under wraps. Got it?”
“What’s the play?” Lefty asked as DeBarre did his best to eavesdrop from inside the car.
“Just…cool the spool. I got something cooking.”
“Won’t get the two of us killed, will it?”
Vincent shook his head. “No. Might even help.”
As they climbed into the car, DeBarre turned to Vincent with a grin. “And just what are we getting killed over this time?”