by Tim Stevens
From the other side of the car there was a yell.
A couple of seconds later, a man rolled across the hood of the car. Blond-haired, his foot bloody, and with a gun in his hand.
Venn, still crouched by the car, swung his arm across and fired at the man as he dropped off the hood beside Venn.
The man fell heavily onto his shoulder, his hand opening and his gun spinning and skittering across the tarmac of the parking lot, straight toward Beth.
She stared at it as if it were some malignant being.
Venn shot the man again where he lay.
Before Beth had a chance to process any of it, she saw a shape move like a blur round the other end of the car, Between Beth and Venn.
A woman’s shape, in a bright-colored dress.
Beth opened her mouth to scream a warning but no sound emerged. She stared as the woman fell onto Venn from behind, even as he started to stand up.
Then the woman’s hands were on either side of Venn’s neck, bunched into fists and... pulling.
Beth watched Venn rise to his feet, his own hands coming up to his throat. He was at least six inches taller than the woman, probably more, and he lifted her feet off the ground. But she clung on, wrapping her legs round his thighs.
The word hit Beth’s bewildered mind.
Garrotte. She was garrotting him.
Venn twisted this way and that, making no sound but a horrible strangled wheeze. He slammed himself backward against the car.
Still the woman clung on, like some bizarre hybrid of monkey and limpet.
The horror flooded in, then, invading Beth’s mind like a river bursting its banks.
The drug dealers pressing their guns to her head, back in her old home.
The explosion of the Jeep’s window outside her apartment as the shots erupted outside.
The endless violence and death...
Beth felt her vision swimming. Her throat was choked tight, and her chest pounded like a drill.
If she’d had strength in her limbs, she’d have got up and run. Run until she reached the sea, then carry on running, even as the water claimed her in its silent embrace.
Something flicked on to her face. Something wet.
She put her hand up, stared at her fingers.
Blood.
As if through the wrong end of a telescope, far away, she saw Venn staggering, dropping to his knees once more.
His fingers, up at his throat, were coated in red.
His thrashing had flicked his blood on to her.
As if in a dream, Beth picked up the gun in front of her, the one belonging to the blond man. Absently, she marveled at how heavy it felt.
She hefted it in two hands, extended her arms.
Venn, on his knees, was no longer trying to shake the woman off. She was back on her feet, standing behind him, her bunched fists still pulling.
Beth pulled the trigger. Felt the bucking of the gun, the recoil slamming back against her palm.
The blond woman was hurled to one side, something that looked like a rose blooming in the middle of her back. Her hands, wrapped in the ends of the garrotte, dragged Venn sideways with her.
Figures were approaching fast from the building. Harmony, and a couple of others.
Beth closed her eyes, slumped forward until her forehead touched the ground.
Chapter 42
The November rain gusted down in sheets, sending people scurrying ant-like in search of shelter under canopies and inside stores.
Venn and Beth sat in the warmth of the coffee shop, the windows steamed up, and watched the world outside.
It was the same coffee shop they’d met at before. The last time had been on that Sunday night a month ago.
Venn was glad of the cold, wet weather. It meant he could wear a scarf. The dressing beneath looked ridiculous, he thought, like he was Frankenstein’s monster with his head sewn on.
He’d been lucky, the ER doctor told him. A few more fractions of an inch and the garrotte would have breached his jugulars, or his carotids. He’d have a scar, and he hadn’t been able to speak in anything more than a croak for a week afterwards. But he was alive.
“Thanks to you. Again,” he murmured.
Beth raised her eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“Nothing. Thinking aloud.”
He’d stayed in hospital overnight. Beth had been at his bedside until he’d finally shooed her away, insisting that she rest.
Since then, they’d met up most days. To grab lunch, to be interviewed together about all that had happened. Mostly, just to talk.
There was one topic they’d avoided.
Beth had been on leave of absence form work for the last month. Her acting head of department, now that Soper was gone, had banned her from setting foot back on her wards.
“You’re too much of an asset for me to lose you to burnout,” the doctor said. “Take as long as you need. Get yourself healed.”
So Beth rested, and went for long, solitary walks, and read. And Venn had to admit, she looked a lot better. Less drawn, and without the wariness in her eyes.
He’d asked her about the PTSD symptoms, the flashbacks. She still got them. But there hadn’t been all that many, and she was able to ride them out better without feeling shaken for hours afterward.
Douglas Driscoll had been charged with the illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs. He’d sung like a canary, as the saying went, giving the Federal investigators not only Bruce Collins and his wife Olivia, but also most of the senior staff members at the Bonnesante Clinic. He further confessed to arranging the jailbreak at Horn Creek.
And to kidnapping Gene Drake’s son. The boy was found in a cellar within 24 hours, alive and unharmed. Physically, at least.
Drake himself was out of hospital, minus some of his large intestine and one of his kidneys. He was currently recuperating in the infirmary back at Horn Creek.
The blond man and woman who’d attacked Venn in the parking lot were identified as Herman and Gudrun Schroeder. A medically famous pair of brother-and-sister psychopaths, Venn learned with interest, though amazingly neither had criminal records as adults.
And the last of Drake’s gang, Howard Rosenbloom, had been found cowering in the SUV in the parking lot. He gave himself up without a fight, and was beginning a thirty-year accessory-to-murder sentence.
Now Venn studied Beth across the table. She’d asked him here, and something in her voice told him they were going to have to confront the issue they’d both been avoiding.
He felt dread gnawing in the very depths of his belly, like a tapeworm.
Quietly, Beth said, “I can’t, Venn.”
He watched her eyes. It was what he’d been expecting her to say. He nodded gently.
“I mean I can’t not see you,” she murmured. “Can’t break away from you. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”
He gazed at her. Between her lashes, wetness glimmered.
“I thought all of the killing, the violence, could only drive us apart,” she said. “But I was wrong. It’s the opposite. It’s bonded us. You and I have been through things together that few couples could ever dream of experiencing. And even though they’ve been terrifying things, things id never want to go through again... they’re part of our history. Part of us.”
Venn didn’t know what to say. Instead, he reached across the table, took Beth’s hand. Squeezed it until he was afraid he might hurt her.
“Let’s take it slowly, okay?” she whispered. “I’m getting better. But I’m still far from okay. Let’s just go with the flow.”
They sat there like that, holding hands, with the rain trickling down the glass of the window beside them, the rivulets sometimes separating, sometimes combining again.
THE END
FROM THE AUTHOR
Joe Venn is back hunting a serial killer in Sigma Curse.
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Tim Stevens
BOOKS BY TIM STEVENS
John Purkiss series
Ratcatcher
Delivering Caliban
Jokerman
Tundra
Haven (short story)
John Purkiss Box Set Volume 1 (Ratcatcher, Delivering Caliban, Jokerman)
Spiked (short story exclusive to mailing list subscribers)
Cronos Rising (coming in 2014)
Martin Calvary series
Severance Kill
Annihilation Myths
Redemption Road (coming in 2014)
Joe Venn series
Omega Dog
Delta Ghost
Alpha Kill
Sigma Curse
Epsilon Creed (coming in 2014/2015)
Shorter stories and novellas
Reunion
Snout