Hook and Shoot (28 page)

The door was unlocked.

All the lights were working in the room, a space about twenty feet square. Each concrete wall had a door, all closed. The low ceiling was more poured concrete with exposed galvanized strut, with just the lights hanging off it. No idea what the area used to be, but Shuko had turned it into his playroom.

He'd probably found it the day we met in the parking lot. Crept down here and started nesting, knowing we'd all have to come to the arena eventually. There was a thin sleeping pad unrolled on my left next to a five-gallon bucket of dirty water.

In the far right corner a tarp was spread on the floor and up the wall. It sagged with chunks of brown and red, some of them crusty while others glistened. Burch was faceup on the tarp, his shirt torn open. Shuko had made a dozen shallow cuts over his ribs up into his armpit. Blood still trickled out.

Two angry pink and purple splotches on his chest showed where the darts had hit. Whatever recipe Shuko had dipped them in, it was making Burch's skin blister.

Eddie's eyes were closed but he was breathing. Tacky ribbons of blood ran down his face from the mini scalping Shuko had given him. He was tied to
the thing in the middle of the room, sitting on the floor with his back against it and his forehead duct-taped so he would have to look at Burch.

The thing in the middle of the room kicked on. I skidded back into the door I'd come through, felt the sudden flood of sweat suck my shirt tight. It squatted there, humming and vibrating, making Eddie's blood-matted hair tremble. An orange extension cord ran from it through the crack under the door across the room.

Somebody in the building above me was missing a box freezer.

I put it in the corner of my good eye so it could crouch and chuckle. There was a tiny video camera on a thin tripod aimed at Burch and the tarp. It was running. When I stepped into the room to swat the thing over, I saw a flat LCD tablet on top of the freezer.

It showed Burch's body live and in HD. There was a control panel ghosted in the corner of the screen: arrows, plus and minus, Record, Stop. Shuko could be anywhere in the room and see what the camera was recording, turn it, zoom in. Make sure it caught what he was doing to the person on the tarp.

The tarp rustled.

Burch screamed, a louder and higher version of what I'd heard in the passageway.

I dropped next to him. “Where is he?” The words
shredded my throat.

His eyes fluttered, showed white. “Vanessa.”

“He went to get her?”

“I think I told him.”

“Doesn't matter. Where?”

He squirmed. Fresh blood welled out of the slices. “Penthouse.”

“You kept her in the fucking casino?”

“Close to me.”

“And him.” I took a breath. Not the time for lectures. “Hold on. I'll come back.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Bringing her here.”

A door opened somewhere deep in one of the passageways. Impossible to tell which direction.

“He'll make me watch,” Burch said. The cords on his neck looked ready to snap. He was killing himself trying to get up. Tears slipped out of his eyes.

The door boomed shut. Then a high-pitched sound again and again over a deep hum, getting louder. Closer.

Screams? No, squeaks.

Wheels.

I stood up and spun, trying to watch every door. Backed into an empty corner and wedged my shoulder in. Was only a little more obvious than a battleship in a kitchen sink.

Shuko rolled closer.

Fuck me.

Silence.

No more doors banging or wheels squeaking. Shuko was coming in quietly.

I watched the doors and waited. Held my breath and fought the urge to yell, thrash.

The door to the left of the one I'd used shifted a fraction of an inch, then nothing. I was doubting it had moved at all when it blew open and Shuko sidestepped through with a short sword, landed in the corner on his bedroll, and braced himself for me.

He scanned the room, scowling in blue coveralls and a baseball cap that shadowed his eyes. The side of his jaw was a swollen, mottled bruise from where I'd caught him with the elbow. Fresh blood coated the right side of his neck from deep furrows carved under that ear; Vanessa had fought back.

Shuko leaned around for a peek at Eddie and Burch, slid the foot-long blade into a sheath he had sticking out of a thigh pocket. Chucked the hat onto his bed and walked through the doorway into darkness. Came back pushing a trash bin tipped on a dolly with two wheels.

He closed the door and flipped the hinged lid off
the bin. Reached in and pulled a handful of blonde hair up. He smiled at Burch. “Look who joined us. You need to make room.”

Shuko let the hair slide between his fingers and drop. He stepped over to the tarp and bent to grab Burch's legs, then stood and looked straight into the camera.

His eyes popped and he turned to grab the tablet controller.

The one I had in my hands.

I dropped it and drove up out of the freezer. Don't know what made me happier—the shock on his face or getting the hell out of the freezer-bathtub-tomb—but I howled about it all and hit Shuko with a left uppercut that wedged under his chin and stretched him, lifted, sailed him up and back.

He tipped in midair and landed on the back of his head and shoulders. His knees followed, forked around his face and kept him going in a backward somersault until he thumped against the door next to the tarp.

I jumped out of the freezer and landed on Eddie's legs. He moaned. I pounced toward Shuko, planning to save my knuckles and use the door to finish him off. I was reaching over him to grab the handle when he rolled toward me and came up with the short sword flashing.

I sprang back. My right knee locked and I tripped
over Eddie again.

He stirred. “Muh.”

I grabbed the camera and tripod out of Burch's corner, swung and hit Shuko in the shoulder as he rose. Sounded like I'd smacked him with a handful of dry spaghetti—the damn thing weighed only five pounds. I spun it and jabbed the legs at him. He ducked and stepped to his left toward the door I'd come through.

Keeping the open freezer between us, I moved right, got to the trash bin. Vanessa was stuffed inside, eyes rolling. She saw me and her face crumpled. She tried to reach up but couldn't move her arms, hands flapping like seaweed.

“You're safe,” I said.

“No, she's not.” It sounded garbled, thick. Shuko's jaw was broken in at least one place. It sagged away from his head, his bottom teeth jutting out toward me. Blood and spit fell out. He smiled and I heard the bones creak.

“Burch, get up.”

Shuko snorted. “Yeah, Burch. Come and play.” He looked at him, then back at me. “Guess not.”

“Nice bruise.”

“Lucky. Coward's move.”

“Said the assassin. I was waiting in the cage for you, chickenshit. Thought you were gonna come in
there and try to chop my head off in front of everybody.”

Too quick.

“Yeah, honorable too. Like your daddy.”

The grin twitched. His jaw clicked and grated while he got it back. “You come here, I get all the time I want. Keep you in your little box.” White vapor welled out of the freezer. “Let you hear what I'm doing to your friends.”

“You want to hear what we did to your brothers?”

The smile left for good. “You shouldn't talk. Now I know something's wrong with your throat. Your right knee isn't working. And this freezer scares you almost as much as I do. You're giving me more than I need to kill you.”

“Your clan's good at sneaking around, huh? Sticking people when they aren't looking, like I tagged you. Not so good face-to-face, though. Surprised you didn't all starve to death a couple centuries ago. Assassins. Shoulda been practice dummies. You're much better at dying than killing.”

He pointed the sword at me over the freezer, his eyes black and dead.

“Yeah, I've seen it all night. Problem is, I've looked into actual dead eyes. Watched the light go out. Yours don't come close. Too jumpy, too much sickness wriggling around in there.” I collapsed the tripod, held
it across my chest like a pugil stick. “Now let's stop fucking around and give you some real ones.”

I was ready for him to shoot around the freezer, blade dancing. Instead he reached into his coveralls and took out the blowgun.

I dropped the tripod and yelled something, slammed the freezer into his legs, shoved it and Eddie across the floor, and pinned Shuko against the door behind him. Braced the freezer with my legs and reached across for the blowgun.

Shuko flicked the blade out and I pulled back, almost lost the tips of my fingers. He brought the blowgun up and I cracked him with the freezer lid, knocking him sideways. Again. Not much momentum but it was heavy.

Shuko's coveralls flapped open, revealing a row of plastic test tubes in elastic loops over his chest. Each one had a long steel dart with a red tuft. He blocked the lid with his left forearm—a stalemate, but I'd take it as long as that blowgun hand was busy. He lunged forward as far as he could to stab me in the face.

I rocked back, had to move my left leg away from the freezer to keep from falling.

He slashed down across my right thigh, jeans and flesh parting to let blood run out.

I yanked that leg away, couldn't help it. Put my
hands on the freezer to keep Shuko pinned but he didn't care.

His left hand was free. He brought the blowgun away from the lid.

I ducked. The freezer wasn't tall enough. I stared into the black tunnel and heard Shuko draw a sharp breath. He exhaled in a quick burst, the air puffing out the side of his mouth.

I looked past the blowgun. Shuko's broken jaw wouldn't let him make a seal.

He tried again, the air leaking out between his bloody lips and teeth.

“Well,” I said. I grabbed the blowgun, slammed him with the lid again. He stabbed at my chest. I caught his wrist, clamped on it with both hands, and pulled. Stretched him until I felt and heard his shoulder clunk out of its socket.

I peeled the sword out of his hand and dropped it behind me. Kept him stretched tight with my left hand and slammed a right straight into his chest.

Plastic shattered. Shuko hissed in my face.

Hit him again. The coveralls were thick canvas. I could barely feel the shards of plastic through it—Shuko seemed to feel them just fine.

Again. Drove the plastic into his chest.

Again. Needed to get the darts into his blood. Wouldn't take much.

Shuko grunted.

I hit him again.

He spasmed. His eyes rolled back and foam shot out of his nose. I let go. He tipped forward into the freezer. I dragged it and him and Eddie into the middle of the room. Hauled Shuko all the way over, dropped him faceup into the bottom of the freezer. He was jerking and drumming his feet.

I slammed the lid.

Extended the camera tripod and wedged it between the top of the freezer and the low ceiling.

Found Shuko's duct tape and wrapped it around my thigh.

Looked around the room: Burch, Eddie, and Vanessa, all unconscious or close enough, needing medical attention. I limped through door number one—the last door Shuko ever used—to find a fucking elevator.

I stole Shuko's hat to cover the bloody bandage around my head, told Vanessa we were going for a ride, and rolled her in the trash can through a maze to a freight elevator that opened into a small warehouse with a set of overhead doors.

Ignored those and took her down the long service hallway that ringed the arena, found the door closest to Eddie's private garage. The fights were over. I saw two people far away with heads down over brooms or phones; nobody gave a shit about a guy pushing garbage around.

The hot night air tasted beautiful. I punched the code into the garage and eased Vanessa down the slope to the limo.

Repeated the process with Eddie and Burch, spread everybody on the floor of Eddie's limo so they
could mumble and squawk and sweat. Found Eddie's phone and called Gil. Told him what I needed, gave him the code to the garage, and passed out across the front seat.

“Woody.”

Gil tugged on my foot. Maybe for the first time, maybe the fiftieth.

He and Denny stood next to the limo. Denny wore a purple kimono and leaned to one side to support the weight of his tackle box of herbs and acupuncture supplies.

I sat up and regretted it immediately—somebody lit a short fuse in my eyebrow that led to a block of C-4 in my brain. Standing up would help. My right knee buckled, and the slash across that thigh had a tight lace of pain over a constant aching thud.

Gil hooked my arm. “The hell you doing? Sit down.”

I tried to do it slowly, pretending I had a choice.

Denny leaned in, looked at everything. “I can fix that.”

“I need stitches.”

“Right, let's put more holes in you. Stitches. We'll see. What happened to your throat? Don't answer. I have a tea and a soup, but you can't have them together.”

“Backseat.”

Denny set his tackle box down and opened the back door. “Hello? Somebody get me a pallet of white sage. Wow.” He ducked into the driver's door. “Same guy did this?”

“Same guy.”

“Different toxin, though, yes?” I shrugged.

“Yes,” he said. “This one feels softer, not as runny. He had them captive?”

“Yes.”

“Mm. Didn't want to deal with the mucus.”

Gil said, “Where is he now?”

“Gone.”

He nodded, put a hand on my head.

I asked Denny, “You can help them?”

“Starting now, but we'll need more room. Auras are a mess back there, all tangled up.”

“Get in.”

We went to Eddie's place. Made three stacks of mats and blankets on the gym floor, spread out plenty of towels and buckets.

Sunday afternoon Eddie perked up enough to call the Warrior offices and slur about taking a vacation, then hand me the phone so I could hang up on a voice saying, “Is this a joke?”