Judgement and Wrath jh-2

by Matt Hilton

  Confident that Dantalion did not lurk close by, I moved further inside. Ten paces on, I paused again. The breeze remained constant. But something plucked at my olfactory senses, and I realised I could smell blood. The coppery tang was faint. But it was there. I moved again, and the smell grew stronger.

  I'm no bloodhound, so it wasn't as if I could sniff the killer out, but I was pretty sure that I was heading in the correct direction. A change in the draught told me that something ahead had affected the dynamics of the atmosphere. Dantalion had silently opened another door and was seeking refuge in an antechamber.

  The smell was now of rusting machinery coupled with a hint of ozone. Somewhere nearby I could detect a static buzz. I tried to tune all these things out, but it was no good. I opened my eyes, and my night vision had adapted so that I could now make out the bulk of machines on either side of me. They squatted like amorphous creatures, silently watching my progress through the building. Ahead of me I could detect a darker shadow. I edged towards it, the Ka-bar held tight to my body so that Dantalion couldn't knock it from my hand. My boot touched a raised platform and I found I could step easily on to the first of a number of concrete stairs. Grit crunched underfoot. I halted. Listened for a response to my movement.

  Nothing came back at me, so I continued.

  The stairway took me to the door I assumed Dantalion had used to leave the room. Probing for the door with my free hand, I readied the Ka-bar with the other, wedging my fingers into the narrow gap between the door and the frame and exerting the slightest presure. The door swung silently away, and I stepped into the space beyond.

  I was in a narrow passage, some sort of vestibule that led deeper into the guts of the building. I listened for any hint that Dantalion waited for me. But there was nothing.

  The air was close, like it had been sealed within this corridor for too long. Dust sifted on to my lips, so delicate, but apparent to my heightened senses. Someone had moved through here very recently, kicked up the motes of dust that were only now beginning to settle. I pressed on.

  Twenty yards further I came to a second door, this one wooden. I touched it with my fingertips and they came away sticky. Dantalion's blood. He had obviously brushed his injured arm against the door. I smiled to myself. Then I turned quickly on my heels, bringing up the Ka-bar.

  It was an old trick. One I was infinitely familiar with. A false trail misled the hunter while the pursued person backtracked, waited until the hunter passed by and then launched an attack at his exposed back.

  Dantalion wasn't as clever as he thought he was.

  As he burst from a doorway to my right I was ready for him.

  He came at me, throwing a punch aimed at what he thought was the nape of my neck. Instead I was facing him and he ran full tilt on to my Ka-bar. Six inches of razor-sharp steel rammed to the hilt into his gut.

  I twisted the blade, even as he slapped at me with both hands. His blows were ineffectual, but I felt a scratch from one of his ragged fingernails. He slumped on the blade and I grabbed hold of his windpipe, closing my hand into a tight fist to halt his sour breath exploding over my face.

  'Die, you freak.'

  He couldn't answer. Not with his windpipe crushed in my fist, but I could have sworn that his shudder was one of humour. What was so damn funny?

  I felt a weird rushing in my head.

  And I knew.

  That was no fingernail. It was a needle. A fucking hypodermic syringe!

  Then it was my turn to slump.

  43

  He waited in darkness.

  Coming here, stumbling twice as he'd sought concealment within the shadows, he'd put down his ungainliness to the human shell that his spirit inhabited. It was Jean-Paul St Pierre who'd stumbled, not the great Dantalion.

  It occurred to him that the racing of his heart, and the endorphins flooding through his system, had negated most of his pain, and after this he would be laid up for days, unable to function while his body healed itself. Feeling the ache in his many wounds, he knew he would continue to suffer the agonies of ordinary men until his book was put right. He didn't consider this long; he didn't believe that he would exist in this weak shell of mortality much longer. His mind had been working on a subconscious level, calculating formulae, figuring the numerology of all those that he'd killed, and it had come to a conclusion. The agent he'd recently killed had raised his tally exponentially. He needed only kill Hunter and he would equal the original Dantalion. All his worldly troubles would be behind him.

  Dantalion did not fear Hunter now. He was confident in his abilities. He was a professional killer. He was an angel, and even one who'd proven as adept as Hunter was no match for a divine being. He would destroy him.

  Hunter had a gun but that did not faze him. There were more ways to kill a man than with bullets. Guile and trickery could defeat even the most powerful enemy.

  I'm better than Hunter is, he thought. I've beaten him every other time. Hunter has shot me a number of times and his bullets haven't killed me yet. Why should things be any different this time?

  With the syringe with which he'd controlled Bradley Jorgenson and the sodium amatol it held, it would be enough to put Hunter to sleep. It would be a simple task to take his gun from him, then use it to ventilate his head in a number of places.

  The thought brought a smile to his lips. He liked shooting people in the head. There was an undeniable finality to it.

  It was why he killed his mother that way.

  She wanted to join his father. So he'd answered her wish. The single bullet had instantly severed her spine at the point where it met her brain. She died instantly.

  He didn't need to keep on shooting her until he had no bullets left, but he knew now that he'd done that out of inexperience. And love. He didn't want to shoot the woman only to find that he'd failed and that she would be a cripple for the rest of her days. So he made sure. No walking away, he told himself. Like he wouldn't walk away from Hunter until he was sure he was dead.

  'Now,' he told himself. 'Do it now.'

  He attacked. Jabbing with the needle.

  He felt the solid thud of Hunter's hand connect with his gut, but it did not deter him.

  'Die, you freak.'

  Dantalion was not sure who had spoken those words. Hunter, or maybe it was even himself; he could not tell.

  Hunter's hand twisted against his abdomen. Dantalion felt a corresponding twisting of his gut. Then red searing pain flared and he realised only then that the man had not simply punched him: he had jammed a knife into his body.

  So it was Hunter who'd spoken?

  Let him have his little moment, he thought. Let him think he's won.

  Dantalion smiled. He felt the man slump and knew that his drug had done its work. And his book had been his salvation. Hunter's blade had pierced his book. It had pushed through the cover and the pages within, exited out the back of it, but with barely an inch of the blade embedded in his flesh, nowhere near his internal organs. It wasn't he who was going to die.

  The fingers round his windpipe loosened and Dantalion sucked in air. Hunter was lying against his shoulder, as though seeking support. Dantalion stepped away and the man went to his knees. His fingers were still on the hilt of the knife, but he had no strength to use the weapon. Dantalion reached down and teased away each finger individually.

  Hunter grunted.

  Dantalion snorted and kicked the man over backwards. Hunter slammed against the door marked with Dantalion's blood, throwing it open to reveal a room much brighter than the dark places they'd already traversed. A raised platform made up the nearest end of the room, then dropped away to ground level. The light was coming from below.

  Dantalion looked down at the knife standing out from his body. It hung suspended, held by the wound and the weight of the book caught up in his clothing. Dantalion tugged on the hilt, wincing as he felt the knife pull from his flesh. Warm blood trickled down his abdomen and pooled around his groin. He wasn't overconcerned
. Once he finished off Hunter his flesh would mend as he transformed into the higher being he'd always been destined to become.

  He pulled out his book and wrenched free the blade.

  Military issue Ka-bar, he noted. Man-killer by definition. Useless against angels.

  Hunter had rolled on to his side in an effort to get up. Dantalion saw the confused expression on his face and was only sorry that Hunter wasn't fully coherent. He wanted him fully aware when he was killed by his own weapon.

  Hunter made it to his hands and knees.

  Dantalion stood to his side, lifted the Ka-bar.

  Then he saw the gun thrust into the waistband of Hunter's jeans.

  The thunders of judgement and wrath are numbered.

  It was always about the numbers.

  He could offer a choice.

  'One: knife?' he asked. Then he plucked out the SIG Sauer. 'Two: gun? Which is it going to be, Hunter? How shall I kill you?'

  44

  One of the more obscure facets of my training had been how to endure torture. I've ran the gamut of methods employed by those who find it necessary to prise information from an enemy soldier. Sleep deprivation, mind games, physical beatings: I had to suffer and defeat them all when a member of the Special Forces. When I was drafted into the team headed by the shadowy men who became known as Arrowsake, I was introduced to further methods. The Geneva Convention forbids torture. But those I fought did not give a fuck for conventions. So it was necessary for me to be exposed to the other methods that some governments and terrorist groups used with impunity.

  As soon as the needle went in, and I felt the rushing in my skull, I knew what drug was coursing through my system. I'd felt its effects before. Sodium amatol. Truth serum as it's sometimes referred to. It's an inhibitor. It lowers resistance. It makes you feel drunk. But at the low dosage Dantalion had squirted into me, it wasn't going to kill me. It wasn't even going to send me to sleep.

  What it would do was disorient me, take away my strength and make it difficult to fight back. But I knew I could shake off the effects. Given time.

  Dantalion kicked me over.

  He didn't know, but the pain acted in my favour. It shook off some of the debilitating fog in my brain. I rolled on to my side, looking for him.

  My eyes rolled in my skull and I could see his silhouette in triplicate as my vision swam.

  Aim for the one in the middle, I told myself. The thought struck me as funny, even as I knew that he was moving to kill me.

  I rolled on to my hands and knees. A tide rushed through me, and I was almost sick. My heart felt like a massive bellows in my chest, blood pumped supercharged through my veins. Blackness clouded at the edge of my consciousness. I shook my head. Clear the cobwebs. Clear the cobwebs, I chanted to myself. Fight the drug, push it aside.

  'One: knife?' I heard.

  Couldn't quite comprehend his meaning.

  'Two: gun?'

  Fingers tugged at my back and I realised my mistake. I'd shown him my SIG. I didn't have the strength to stop him taking it. I barely had the strength to hold myself upright on my locked forearms.

  'What's it going to be, Hunter?'

  I sucked in air, holding it, making pressure in my skull to push back the fluttering shadows from my mind.

  'How shall I kill you?'

  'With boredom,' I told him.

  Then I kicked out, pistoning from the knee so that my heel crunched into his nearest shin.

  Dantalion howled with pain, and the sound did more to clear my mind than all my previous attempts.

  Pushing upwards, I came to my feet. My head swam, and it felt like I was on the deck of a ship in the storm of the century. But I didn't stop. I slammed the heel of my palm into Dantalion's groin, took hold of anything I could find and squeezed with all my might.

  Now his pain was given high-pitched voice. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, sounding like he was going to sneeze. To give him something else to think about, I smacked my forehead into his face.

  Not the best idea. The effect of bone on bone set off a tsunami inside my own head, and we reeled apart, equally stunned.

  I grabbed for my gun: it wasn't there.

  Dantalion was holding both my weapons.

  Have to change that scenario.

  But even as I lunged at him, he brought up my SIG and fired.

  Luck rather than skill had caused me to dodge at the same time and the bullet punched through the space beneath my left armpit. I threw a looping right hook and drove my fist into his ribs. Dantalion was flung round by the force of the blow, but his left arm swept up and the Ka-bar slashed a line through my jacket. Dantalion stumbled away from me and I followed, chopping at his gun hand with the stiffened edge of my hand. My blow caught him on the mound of his forearm, shocking the radial nerve, and his hand opened in reflex spasm. The SIG clattered to the floor. It was out of reach for both of us and if I lunged for it I'd be inviting a knife in my back. So I threw a punch at his face instead.

  Still under the influence of the drug, my punch was neither powerful, nor precise. I didn't knock him out, but I did flatten his nose against his face. Blood splattered, a torrent ran down his upper lip and into his mouth. He exhaled harshly, making droplets of his blood fleck my clothes.

  He stabbed out at me and I grappled his arm. Holding his wrist with both my hands, I hauled him round even as I turned side on. His ankles bumped against my outstretched leg. It wasn't an expert judo throw, but it was enough to overbalance him and he went down to the floor. I fell on top of him, and loosening one hand from his wrist I drove my clawed fingers into his eyes.

  Dantalion pushed me off him and I didn't have the strength to resist. We rolled away from each other. Then it was a fight to be first to our feet. Dantalion won and came at me, launching a kick into my ribs. I felt something crack and white hot pain flared through my body. He kicked again, but this time I hooked an arm round his heel and swept his leg high into the air. He toppled backwards and his fall took him almost to the edge of the platform. Then he rolled back towards me and I saw my own Ka-Bar glinting in his hand.

  I had only one option. My SIG lay on the platform not half a dozen feet from Dantalion. We exchanged stares for less than a heartbeat, and then we were both rushing for the gun. Dantalion got to it first. He snatched at the SIG, even as he scythed the air in front of my throat with the knife.

  But I'd never been going for the gun, I simply wanted him in a position where I could finish the bastard off. I leaped feet first at him. He fired, but he hadn't brought the gun round far enough and the bullet missed by a mile. Both my boots drove into his chest. I slapped down on the edge of the platform, my hip and right shoulder taking the brunt of the fall. It knocked the wind out of me, but nowhere near as much as my drop kick had done to Dantalion. He was thrown backwards, legs and arms windmilling as he disappeared over the edge of the platform. I heard the dull thud of him hitting the ground, but then there was silence. Painfully, I crawled to the edge of the platform. He was lying in a pool of light ten feet below me, squirming as though his spine had shattered during the fall.

  I took stock of my surroundings.

  I was in a large room that had once been a loading dock of some kind. A large roll-down shutter dominated one wall. It was partly open, letting in the harsh Florida sunlight. Glancing to my left, I saw a flight of metal steps leading down from the raised dais I was kneeling on. A guard rail would support me going down.

  Down was where I wished to be.

  Dantalion was injured, but he wasn't dead yet.

  Pushing up to my feet, I again had to fight the disorienting effects of the drug in my body. The steps were a challenge, but I went down them hanging on to the rail, my feet clanging on the metal stairs. At the bottom I faced Dantalion.

  Apparently his back wasn't broken.

  He was on his hands and knees. His head swung up and he met my stare with a grim smile.

  'I cannot die.'

  'Want a bet?' I demanded as I moved towards h
im.

  'Yes,' he said. Raising my SIG.

  Suddenly all was sound and movement. The light went even harsher as the roller shutter was forced up and black-garbed men swarmed in. Laser scopes stabbed red beams through the room. Men shouted orders and commands.

  I kept walking towards Dantalion and he rose up to meet me.

  The gun was aimed at my face, but I just kept going.

  Dantalion waited. Fisting both hands round my gun, he swayed where he stood, his legs braced wide. There was a book trailing on the floor behind him, attached to him by some kind of chain.

  'Do not move!' someone shouted.

  Neither of us was of a mind to listen.

  Dantalion swung towards the FBI commandos swarming into the room and fired. The bullet passed above their heads, but it had them dropping for cover. Then he swung back towards me and a smile played across his lips.

  One FBI man lifted his rifle and a red dot blossomed on Dantalion's chest.

  'Drop your weapon or I will shoot,' yelled the commando.

  'No you won't, asshole,' said a familiar voice. I heard the racking of a pump-action shotgun. The laser dipped away from Dantalion.

  I didn't have to look to know that Rink was there.

  Dantalion knew he was there as well. 'I owe you for ramming me off that bridge, Rink,' he said. 'Stick around and I'll kill you too.'

  Rink laughed.

  'He's all yours, Hunter,' my friend called.

  I ran at Dantalion.

  Dantalion jerked the trigger.

  There was only the empty click of a firing pin in an equally empty chamber.

  In my mind's eye I saw an innocent old lady lying dead on her table. I thought of Bradley brutally wounded. And, thinking of Marianne Dean — of what this beast intended doing to her — I barrelled into him with my shoulder, hooking my arms behind his knees, lifting and throwing him backwards at the same time. He slammed down on his back with me on top. The SIG went flying from his hand. I struck him in the chest with an elbow, holding him there even as I crawled up and sat astride him. His arms were free and he gouged at my face with his horrible fingernails, but it was futile. I drove my fist into his face, once, twice, three times.