Highway To Armageddon (54 page)

           
The priest must take the sudden downpour as a sign from God to wrap things up.
He says a few last words before going over to comfort Machete. He places his
hand on her back and starts to say something when she grabs his wrist and whips
out a dagger.

           
“Oh boy,” I groan. I stand up and get ready to rush to the priest’s rescue.

           
Machete holds the dagger up to the priest’s face and. “I’ve endured enough of
your holier-than-thou dribble. I hate to burst your bubble, bub, but there is
no God. If there was, He surely wouldn’t have taken my son from me.”

           
The priest stutters, “Ma’am, I didn’t mean to upset you. I…”

           
Machete growls and twists the priest’s arm, sending him to his knees.

           
“Leave him alone, Machete!” I shout.

           
Machete snaps her head around and scowls. The hatred in her eyes is beyond
frightening. She releases her grip on the priest, who jumps up and runs toward
the funeral home, slipping in the mud and tripping over his robe.

           
“Who the hell invited you heathens?” she snarls, thrusting her dagger in our
direction.

           
I turn to Harpoon and Blade, who appear frightened by Machete’s outburst.

           
“Why don’t you guys go play in the rain?” I say calmly. “We’ll come get you
when we’re done here.”

           
“O… okay,” Harpoon stammers. She grabs Blake’s hand and they rush over to a
small pond on the far end of the cemetery plot.

           
I make my way toward Machete. Boom Boom and Krystal hesitantly follow me.

           
In as sympathetic a voice I can muster, I say, “We know you’re hurting, Machete.
We all are. But…”

           
“Don’t you
dare
act like you know how I feel,” Machete interrupts,
rising to her feet. The pouring rain does little to extinguish the white-hot
rage burning inside her. “Until you’ve lost a child you’ll never know how I
feel.”

           
Boom Boom brushes past me.

           
“Boom Boom, wait,” I say, reaching for her arm.

           
Boom Boom waves me off. “Hang on, Lance. I just want to talk to---”

           
Boom Boom turns around and walks right into Machete’s foot. Boom Boom yelps and
collapses next to Arrow’s casket.

           
“Boom Boom!” I run toward Machete and try to tackle her, but she punches me in
the nose and kicks me in the groin. I cry out in agony and keel over on my
side, clutching my privates. It’s almost less painful getting stabbed than it
is being kicked in the balls.

           
I hear Krystal yelp a few seconds alter. I guess Machete took her down as well.
I roll over to find Machete leaning over Boom Boom, placing her blade against
her neck.

           
With tears pouring from her one good eye, Machete says, “I blame you for
Arrow’s death. He died saving you. It’s your fault he’s gone. IT’S ALL YOUR
FAULT!!”

           
Squirming, Boom Boom cries, “Machete, I’m sorry! I never meant for---”

           
“Shut up!” Machete screams.

           
Machete keeps Boom Boom pinned to the ground, but she does lift the blade. “Now
you listen to me and you listen to me good. The only reason I’m not going to
kill you is because Arrow loved you. I have no idea why, but he did. He would
never forgive me for slicing your jugular, so I’m not going to. But if I ever
see you or your damn friends again, I will not hesitate hurling a dagger in
between your eyes. Do you understand me?”

           
“Y… yes,” Boom Boom whispers.

           
Machete sheathes her blade and jumps up. She briefly glances at me and Krystal
before marching toward her car.

           
I slowly rise to my feet and shout after her, “Where are you going?”

           
Machete stops in her tracks, but she doesn’t look back.

           
“I’m hunting down Klaxton. And when I find her, I’m going to kill her.”

           
She then storms to her car, hops in, and zooms off.

           
I help Boom Boom to her feet. “Did she cut you?” I ask, checking out her neck.

           
Boom Boom shakes her head. In between sniffles she says, “No, but I think we
should keep our distance from Machete. I believe her when she says she’ll kill
us.”

           
“I think you’re right.” I pause a moment because I know what I’m about to say
next will ignite a firestorm. I take a deep breath and finally blurt out, “I
also think Machete has the right idea about going after Klaxton. I think we
should do the same.”

           
Krystal and Boom Boom look at me like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.

           
“Are you nuts?” Krystal hollers at the top of her lungs. “We almost died a
million times going after Rasputin, and now you want us to go after someone
even more dangerous?”

           
“Krystal’s right,” Boom Boom says, still massaging her throat. “I just want to
stay home and take care of the kids. If we need to go after small-time
criminals again to make ends meet, that’s fine, but I don’t want to get dragged
into another international manhunt.”

           
“But guys, if we find Klaxton… if we get that $100 million… we can retire!
We’ll never have to go bounty hunting again!”

           
“Nice try, Lance, but that’s the same argument you used to convince us to go
after Rasputin, and look how that turned out,” Krystal says.

           
“And even if we were stupid enough to go after her, where the hell would we
even start looking?” Boom Boom asks. “She could be anywhere. At least with
Rasputin we knew his general location. Klaxton could be in Canada. She could be
in any of the hundreds of isolated oases in the Great American Desert. She
could be in Central America, in South America, in Antarctica. Hell, she could
even be over in Africa, or Bavaria, or Siberia! While she may be a
controversial figure, she still has ardent supporters all around the globe. A
manhunt for Klaxton will make our search for Rasputin seem like a childhood
game of hide and seek.”

           
“I concede that it’s not going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is,” I
say. “It’s our moral duty to go after her.”

           
“How do you figure?” Krystal asks.

           
“Well, until Klaxton is apprehended there won’t be peace between the U.S. and
China. The threat of war will still hang over our heads. We owe it to Dorothy…
and Arrow… to bring her to justice. If this world is to ever know peace… if
Blade and Harpoon are to live in a world free from the specter of nuclear war…
then we must go after her.”

           
Krystal shakes her head. “Sorry Lance, but Boom Boom and I ain’t joining you
for no suicide mission. Ain’t that right, Boom Boom?”

           
Boom Boom takes a quivering deep breath and says, “Actually, Lance might be
right. Maybe we should hunt her down. After all, we did find Rasputin when no
one else could. Why couldn’t we find Klaxton, too?”

           
Krystal’s eyes nearly bulge out of her head. “Wait, what?! Are you nuts?!!”

           
I smile at Boom Boom. She always has my back when it matters most.

           
“Don’t worry, Krystal, you don’t have to come along if you don’t want to.”

           
“Hell naw, I’m not letting you two get all the credit for capturing that psycho
bitch,” Krystal says, wagging her finger at us. “If y’all are stupid enough to
go after Klaxton, then I’ll be stupid right along with you.”

           
My grin widens.

           
“It’s settled then. But you’re wrong about one thing, Krystal. We’re not trying
to
capture
her. If there’s one thing we learned tonight, it’s that
Klaxton will never allow herself to be taken alive.”

           
 As a monstrous bolt of lightning splits the sky in half, I say, “Tomorrow
morning we begin our mission to
assassinate
the President of the United
States.”