Everyone froze.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Gutiérrez stopped cold, shocked by the sudden burst of violence.
The fallen thug made for a poor launch pad as Joe stepped on, and then over him to stab the jagged-edged neck of the bottle forward. Gutiérrez staggered back a step and got his hands up in front of him. The soft flesh of his palms made for a poor shield. The shards of glass bit deep and he reflexively clamped his fingers down around it. With a furious heave, he wrenched it out of Joe’s grip. His balance gone and his hand burning with a pain only partly masked by a slow to arrive rush of adrenaline, the slender young man topped backward against the counter.
Joe didn’t wait for the man to fall. His left hand struck out and caught him in the throat. Gutiérrez gagged and coughed and fell to the tile floor, both hands clutched at his neck as if to pry it open and let the air inside his lungs once more.
Joe turned, fists balled up, to face the second thug and found the young girl hurtling his way, arms and legs flailing. She squealed as she flew, thrown by the beefy thug, and Joe only just loosened his fists to catch her in both hands. She hit him hard, and he struggled to control her momentum and bring her to the floor unhurt. Together they tumbled down, Joe spinning to cushion the girl with his body. She gripped his shirt with two small fists and pushed hard. In her terror, she fought to free herself from his protective embrace.
The weight of the girl left Joe, and a much heavier weight fell upon his chest. A large hand grabbed his t-shirt, and the floor spun away from his back. A moment of weightlessness and a shelf passed beneath him as another shelf covered in row on row of bagged chips filled his view. He got his forearms up in time to soften the impact. The bagged snacks crackled and tumbled, and pain lanced up Joe’s arm where a sharp corner dug into his forearm as he caromed off the heavy shelves and tumbled to the floor. He kicked out at the chips, no time to get to his feet, and shoved himself back across the dingy tiles toward the glass cases of beer and soda.
Around the corner, trusting to his luck, Joe set his back against a stack of bathroom tissue rolls at the end cap of the shelves. He squeezed his eyes shut, gripped the cut in his forearm, and listened.
The girl called for her mother and clattered through the wreckage of the store to reach her. Gutiérrez coughed, still unable to draw enough breath to do anything but fight for air. Beneath that chaos, he heard other sounds. Softer, and deadlier.
A dull click, followed by the metallic scape and crack of a firearm drawn, racked and made ready to fire.
Footsteps, louder as they approached.
“Come on out, hero,” an intense voice hissed. “Let’s see how you do in a fair fight.”
Slow, steady footsteps, down the aisle. They crunched on fallen bags of chips and other snacks.
When they were just a few feet away, Joe eased around the corner of the shelving, into the next aisle. He heard the shoes pause, then a quick shuffle as the man rounded the corner. A low laugh.
The sound of Gutiérrez hacking and coughing increased in volume, and Joe glanced at the fallen man. He slapped at the floor, gesticulated wildly. His eyes met Joe’s, but he could not form the words to tell his man where Joe crouched.
Fearing Gutiérrez finding his voice, Joe didn’t hesitate. He exploded up from his crouch, both hands spearing into the stack of bathroom tissue. The soft, white cylinders exploded before him, startling the man with the pistol. He had turned to check on his boss and been unprepared for the flurry of white. The man’s pistol barked twice, the shots wild before Joe landed on him.
The thug held his pistol in a two-handed grip, and turned at the commotion, powerful hips churning and his arms sweeping to the side. Joe found himself shoved to one side by the larger man and wrapped his right arm around the man’s bicep. His momentum carried him around the man’s back, and Joe managed to get one arm around the thick, corded neck. He trapped the big man’s throat in the crook of his arm and grabbed his own right bicep with his left hand. Squeezing down, Joe heard the big man gag and choke for breath.
One large hand clawed at Joe’s arm. Finding no purchase, no give, the thug threw himself backwards. Joe grunted with the sharp impact of his back against the solid glass door of the beverage cases and ducked as he spied the man’s hand blindly wave his pistol over one shoulder.
Thunder boomed in Joe’s ear followed by a shattering of glass and a tinny ringing. The pistol barrel shifted toward Joe’s right shoulder. Joe let go of the man to slap down on the pistol with his left hand. The barrel descended two scant inches as finger clenched trigger, and this time the report was muffled by the man’s flesh. A red mist burst from the man’s upper back where it met his shoulder.
He jolted and staggered, and Joe slid free.
Blinded by his rage, Joe’s assailant spun madly about, hunting for Joe, who danced back and forth, keeping behind him. Joe circled in a boxer’s stance, amazed that the thug could still function at all given the size of the spreading dark stain on the man’s shoulder and back.
Joe dropped to a crouch to avoid the man’s wild swings, ducked beneath a crushing right backhanded blow, and then leapt up. His right hand thrust up and caught the man’s pistol hand at the wrist, shoved it up to the ceiling where another shot rang out.
Joe followed that with a driving left hand, propelled with all the power of his legs and hips. A crack as loud as the pistol shot rang out on impact with the man’s jaw, and his head whipped back. He tottered on his feet for a moment, insensate but too big and too stubborn to drop.
Joe heard another pistol shot and the snap of a round pass inched from his head. Glass smashed and a white stream of milk container arced out onto the floor behind him.
Gutiérrez had recovered enough to draw his own pistol and squeeze off a round. He knelt amid the litter of gum and mints and jerky, one hand tugging his collar as he hawked and gasped for air. His eyes bulged with effort as his other hand struggled to control his pistol.
The business end of the weapon wavered in Joe’s direction. Momentary relief that it did not menace the girl and her mother poured through Joe – interrupted immediately by panic as the barrel came down to face Joe again.
He threw himself back against a shelf as another shot rang out. A lethal breeze caressed his cheek.
Joe slapped at a wire spinner rack loaded with potato chips, flung them and the rack headlong at the kneeling criminal, and dove in after them. The bright flurry of scattered packages and falling rack fouled the thug’s aim – another shot rang out, and the hot breath of death caressed Joe’s cheek, then the edge of his hand struck home. He felt the sharp impact of wrist bones, and the pistol clattered free. Joe drove his knee into the man’s ribs and felt an arm wrap around his own legs, then the two men tumbled to the floor. They wrestled, each man trying to stave off his foe with one hand while straining above his head, slapping and pawing at the floor in a furious bid to grab the fallen weapon. They rolled, and Joe felt hot breath on his cheek and caught the oily odor of hair gel.
Joe’s hand closed on the pistol a fraction of a second too late. He felt warm flesh in his palm, Gutierrez had snatched the butt of the pistol first, but Joe clamped his own hand around the trigger guard. Both held it, but neither controlled it.
Gutierrez growled as he brought his arms between his chest and Joe’s. The barrel wavered about between them, only the random uncertainty of where it pointed from one instant to the next checked Gutierrez from firing. They lay side by side on the floor, cool white tiles pressed against Joe’s face.
Joe’s arms burned with the effort of fighting to control it, and he felt fresh blood spill down his arm where the shelf had pierced it. Joe skinned his lips back from his teeth in a feral grimace, fighting against a wave of nausea.
“Who. Are. You?” Gutiérrez snarled.
The gun bucked once, the sharp report startling both men.
Joe felt the pressure against his arms ease. He wrenched the hot barrel of the gun against Gutiérrez, but t
he man’s finger had slipped from the trigger. Another heave and the gun clattered away.
As the fierce light in the man eye’s faded, Joe answered.
“I’m nobody.”
Gutierrez blinked once. Sucked in a last final breath, and to Joe’s shock, a faint grin danced across his lips.
“Nobody can defeat the Phoenix,” he murmured.
And then he breathed no more.
Keep Reading Overlook Now!
Nothing is more dangerous than an invisible man.
Joe’s spent his life being forgotten. Not even the IRS comes for his back taxes. He’s a ghost, a perfectly average, perfectly forgettable man. It suits his purposes, though it’s a lonely existence. He can live as he wants, plying his almost-invisibility for freelance jobs.
Then a pretty blonde finds him when no one else can, asking for his help solving a murder. He almost says no, despite his instincts to help a damsel in distress. But how did she find him? And who is she?
He takes the job to find out. But he bites off more than he can chew as he realizes a brutal secretive organization called The Phoenix Ring is behind the murder, and somehow they can predict his every move.
Can Joe defeat the shadowy Phoenix Ring? Or will his powers fail him when he needs them the most? Read Overlook today and find out!
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About the Author
Richard W. Watts is a husband, father of two, and a former accountant with a heavy reading habit and a tabletop gaming addiction. Since being released back into the wilds, he can usually be spotted roaming Auburn, AL with a growing pack of imaginary friends. You can keep up with his writing and his thoughts on books, movies, and more at slidingpast.blogspot.com
THE LAST ARCHON
Atlantean Knights Book One
By Richard W. Watts
Published by Silver Empire
https://silverempire.org/
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Copyright © 202o, Richard Watts
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The Last Archon Page 26