Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) (28 page)

Fast Hands slithered from the chair, one great fist on the floor while he continued to twirl his pistol. “It’s sssso good to see you again,” he hissed. “I couldn’t believe it when my security chief showed me the monitor and I saw you two running through my building. The Big Boss told me this might happen—that the two of you might show up—but I didn’t believe him.” He paused, his tongue flickering in and out. “Do you know that in this world, you’re both dead? Dead long, long ago.” He slid forward, his giant left arm dragging uselessly behind him. “Sadly, I didn’t kill you, Yancy. No, the Savage Prophet did you for. But Ferraro”—he seemed to savor her name, like a fine-tasting Scotch—“you I killt
slowly
. We had many a long night together, you and me, before you gave up the ghost.”

I circled right, toward the bar, thinking I could use it for cover just like I had in the saloon. Ferraro caught the motion and followed suit, moving slowly.

“Listen, bud,” I said to Fast Hands as I drew closer, trying to make it look like a casual swagger and not the fearful shuffle it really was. “I know it’s probably been years and years since you last saw us, but it’s only been a couple of days from our end. I remember what happened in the Hog’s Head—we beat the shit outta you ten ways from Tuesday.”

The bar was next to me now, running just to my right … I could throw myself over if necessary, and Ferraro was just a step behind me. “So,” I continued, “this thing can play out the exact same way—you, busted up on the ground—or you can give us Princess Leia.” I pointed toward the knight. “And the Grail, and we can mosey our happy asses along. You and your boys, here, can go back to playing cards and throwing cookouts. Whatever.”

Fast Hands laughed long and hard, a slithery sound like sandpaper rubbing against slick stone—the noise made my skin crawl like a basket full of snakes.

“I don’t know how this happened, but I count myself twice blessed and thank providence,” he said as his chuck-fest finally wound down, “but I’m glad I’ll finally get the chance to kill you myself … and Ferraro, I relish the idea of killing you. Again.” He stared around at the tables, all full of his fellow freak-show cronies. “No one does anything … they are mine.” He looked hard at a bat-winged hulk nearest the throne. “Mine, Ringo—y’ hear?” Batwings—Ringo, apparently—nodded. “But I’m a benevolent ruler … so once I see this fool killt”—he pointed his pistol at me—“you can all dig in.”

Great, if I lost, I’d be finger food for poker night. My life.

But at least we had a chance—I was powerless, true, but I wasn’t alone. Ferraro was a sure hand and the two of us against just Fast Hands? Yeah, we could do that. Once Fast Hands was dead, we’d have the whole crowd to contend against, which didn’t seem like such good odds, but a fighting chance was a helluva lot better than no chance at all.

“Take one bite,” I said, glancing around the room at all the assembled baddies, “and I’ll give you the worst friggin’ indigestion you’ve ever heard of. No amount of Pepto will save you. And you,” I swiveled my gun till it tracked on Fast Hands, “I’m gonna put down like Old Yeller.”

I pulled the trigger twice. Fast Hands’s monstrous left arm, giant and deformed, whipped up almost faster than my eye could track. The rounds bloomed into the meaty flesh of his massive forearm, flattening out and clunking to the floor without so much as breaking the skin. Huh, how ‘bout that. Apparently Fast Hands, plural, was still an appropriate name for the guy.

“Nice try.” He dropped his arm back to the floor. “Now let me learn you how it’s done.” His gun stopped spinning mid-loop and flicked into place—I dove for the counter, but not fast enough. A bullet slammed into my left kneecap, a terrible heat like Greek fire burned in my leg, tendrils of black misery crawled into my brain, circled around a couple of times and settled in like a dog ready for a long nap. I spun and toppled through the air landing on top of the bar, my left leg splayed out at a strange angle.

“NO!” Ferraro screamed. There was a sound of more gunfire, the crack of Ferraro’s Glock. Then, the wheezy cackle of Fast Hands’s laughter.

“Take her, hold her,” Fast Hands commanded before slithering into view. More shooting … the howl of something inhuman shrieking. “Stop being such a bitch,” Fast Hands called over his shoulder to one of the henchmen in the room. And then Fast Hands was above me, looming over me, larger than life and twice as ugly as a breathing, slithering pile of dog shit. I knew I should do something, maybe pick up my gun, try to defend myself, try to save Ferraro and stop this awful future. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t even think.

With his left hand, he pulled aside my jacket lapel, and, with his right, pressed the pistol into the meat of my left shoulder. “The boys like it when the meat gets all juicy and tender. But don’t fret, partner, I won’t kill you—they like it when the food squirms.” He pulled the trigger, bone and muscle flew apart with a bolt of agony, a fine warm spray of pink misted my face. I screamed. Moaned. A blackness filled my mind, the agony in my knee and the agony in my shoulder beating like twin hammers against my body. Knee,
throb
, an inferno blaze. Shoulder,
throb
, a meat cleaver sinking home.

I blinked open my eyes and looked down at my ruined arm—a gaping red hole, pulped and mashed, scorched around the edges. I was lucky he hadn’t blown the limb clean off.

Fast Hands leaned in close, his serpentine body writhing. “Not done yet,” he whispered, his tongue flicking against my ear. “Pay back and all that.” He pulled away and smiled, his mouth a wide slash full of curved teeth. He worked the gun into the palm of my left hand, positing the muzzle just below where my ring finger connected. Oh God, I knew what was coming next. This is what Ferraro had done to him—taken his fingers, maimed him and left him ruined.

My bladder went—not my most heroic moment, I’ll admit—urine, warm and wet, trickled down my bloodied pant leg, making the fabric heavy and warm. Undignified, that. But sometimes life is unfair and undignified, sometimes them’s the breaks and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.

He pulled the trigger a third time. A bright hot sun flared in my hand, a spatter of too-hot blood ran down my wrist. I let myself cry, the tears were wet against my cheek, but words wouldn’t come. Nothing would come. Now the pain was everything, my whole world—I was pain—it was impossible to distinguish between the three burning stars; the brain can only handle so much before it eventually collapses under the weight and shock of trauma. Cold was in my limbs, radiating numb through my body. And it was a sweet relief.

“One more, for good measure,” Fast Hands said as he watched me wriggle and moan on the bar top. “Just to make sure you don’t go anywhere before the meal starts.” The gun went into my side, a little poke I hardly felt, right below the ribs on my right side.

I wanted to say something clever and snarky, but the pain was too much—making it hard for me to see anything else, to think about anything else. “Go fuck yourself,” I breathed out, a mere whisper, but better than nothing.

“Not today,” he laughed. “Today I have company to keep me entertained.” A searing railroad spike of agony lanced through my skin and into my guts. I choked and sputtered, blood frothing up around my lips. The force of the impact drove me from the bar’s smooth wood surface and onto the floor behind the bar.

TWENTY-SIX:

Good Stuff

I lay looking up at the glass ceiling overhead, struggling to remain conscious, knowing these were the last few minutes of my life. This was all she wrote. Maybe I could’ve survived the knee wound, the shoulder injury, and even the missing fingers. I’d be maimed and crippled for life. I’d never play piano again, never play another chord on the guitar. I’d never run again—be lucky to walk after taking damage like that. Still, I could survive it. Grit my teeth and bear that shit. Life wouldn’t be the same, and I’d have to figure out some kinda new normal. But with the gut wound? Shit, with the gut wound, I was more done than burnt toast.

I craned my neck back. Sir Knight was not far from the end of the bar and completely unguarded. I couldn’t save myself, but maybe,
maybe
, I could break that joker loose. And
if
I broke him loose, maybe
he could save Ferraro. That was the kind of thing knights did, save damsels in distress. Not that I’d ever call Ferraro a damsel in distress, at least not to her face—she seemed like the kind of lady that would kick my ass up and down the block for saying something like that. But right now it applied. So free the knight. He’d save her. Shit, he could probably even stop this shitty future from happening.

A terrible consolation prize for me as these things go, but better than nothing.

I posted my good right arm and, with a heave, flipped myself onto my belly. My guts screamed, jolts of pain like a good blast of lightning flared up in the back of my skull. My leg and arm shared in the protest, though my wounded hand was silent. The limb felt dead and well beyond hope. I glanced down, looking at the extent of the damage: my pinky, ring, and middle fingers were gone—I spotted one of them off to the side. Just the very tip remained whole. Oh God. I turned my head to the side and vomited a small puddle of bloody granola.

The retch sent a renewed wave of misery skipping through my body.

Well, at least I wouldn’t live much longer. Death was actually looking pretty good in the face of all the pain and suffering dancing and grooving through me. So many hurts—it was like my body had become a college kegger party for pain: my knee, the loudmouth drunk in boxers doing keg stands. My shoulder, the fat, shirtless guy playing beer-pong-o-pain, and winning big. My hand, that socially awkward comic-book guy lurking in the corner, staring out with creepy stalker eyes. And the gut wound … the gut wound was that crazy, mohawk sporting, punk-rocker anarchist setting your curtains on fire and instigating a general revolt against The Man.

I reached out my good right arm and worked my left leg up—bringing my knee toward my gut felt like having someone dig a friggin’ red-hot poker into my guts and then wiggling it around.
Ignore it. Block it out
. I pushed with my leg and pulled with my arm, the motion clumsy, inefficient, and about as much fun as dragging my body through a kiddie pool full of broken glass, razors, and piranhas.

The bar was maybe fifteen feet long, but damn if it didn’t seem to stretch out like the Sahara desert. Right arm, left leg. Pull, push. Right arm, left leg, pull push. I crawled past the edge of the bar and pulled my ass around the piano—an Emerson, just like back at the Hog’s Head—thankfully devoid of its tentacled piano man.

So tired. Breathing was a herculean effort, moving seemed like a Sisyphean task designed by the gods solely for my torture. Now that I had line of sight, I glanced back into the room proper. The mob stood circled around Ferraro, grubby, disgusting hands holding her, touching her. Fast Hands slithered back and forth, bragging about all the terrible things he would do to her.

Ferraro fought, lashing out with legs, catching the occasional unwary monster with a fierce kick. She bucked against her captors, raking with her nails, swearing with enough passion and inventiveness that even the most salty drill instructor would blush. Damn, she was a piece of work, fighting to the end. She was also buying me time—every eye was fixed on her, leaving me free to slug my way across the floor.

I could save her. I would save her, dammit. I’d dragged her into this mess and though she was certainly a big girl, I felt responsible. She could live. She needed to live—the world needed people like her.

Right arm, left leg. Pull, push.

Right arm, left leg. Pull, push.

Over and again, until at last the knight was there, almost in front of me—one booted foot close enough that I could reach out and touch it with a bloody hand.

“Gotta … save … her,” I sputtered, fine droplets of blood spraying against the straw floor. “Help. Her.” But as I looked up at him I noticed that there was something wrong with him too. Aside from being wrapped in coil after coil of shimmering chain, his eyes looked hazy—the look of someone sailing high as a kite on something powerful.

“Can’t help,” the knight mumbled, the noise hard to make out over the din of the saloon goers. “The chain. Magic—clouds. Mind … He ….” The knight lazily bobbed his head toward Fast Hands. “He has key. Metal … hand.” He uttered the last word like an asthmatic blowing out a candle.

I lay my face flat against the floor, rough straw poking at my cheek. All this for nothing. Nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. This knight was as good as useless and my whole body was finally going numb from shock and blood loss. I’d bleed out here, in this nightmare future. Ferraro would be tortured, tormented, murdered, and eaten. And it was all my fault. Randy would go free, kill more people, and maybe bring this horrible future to pass. I’d never eat another good meal, never play another set, never get a chance to ask Ferraro out to a nice dinner.

Tears crept down my cheek, partly from the pain, but also from the weight of despair hammering down on me—

I caught a twitch of movement out of the corner of my eye—the knight flopped his head over to the side, the motion seemed to take a tremendous effort of will. “Grail,” he whispered, rolling his eyes up and to the right, directing me to Fast Hands’s throne. I hadn’t seen it when I’d entered, because Fast Hands had been occupying the seat, but the Grail had been inset into the back of the chair. Right in the center amidst the red velvet padding. Fixed in place like a key in a lock.

“Drink,” the knight finished, a slur in his words, before his eyes fluttered shut completely. Damn chain must’ve been some heavy-duty badassery to put a Knight of the friggin’ Round Table down like that.

An ember of hope flared to life inside me, no larger than the glowing red cherry of a burning cigarette. The Grail.

I didn’t have much left in the gas tank, and what gas I did have was currently on fire and threatening to blow up the car.
But
there was still something there and with that hope in my belly, I dug deep and pushed my tired, broken body along the floor. Right arm, left leg. Pull, push. So close now. I grasped one of the throne’s carved white legs with my good hand and pulled hard, dragging my chin up to the seat, using my face for leverage to climb a little further into the chair. After a few grueling seconds of agonizing, teeth-being-pulled-without-Novocain-level pain, I managed to prop my chest and bleeding gut onto the seat—probably looked like a contrite saint in prayer.