On Broken Wings (58 page)

Time to wait.

She walked toward the sergeant's quarters that Tiny had made his own.

***

Malcolm Loughlin forced a last double handful of books into Christine's Chrysler and regarded the house at 633 Alexander Avenue, now completely dark.

"I'm sorry, Louis."

He struck a match and applied it to the end of a waxy line that ran from the curb to the back of the house and thence down to the basement, then mounted and drove away at top speed.

Sixty seconds later, an enormous explosion shattered the peace of the night. The house collapsed upon itself. A crimson glow rose from the basement. Fire mounted among the flinders of the home Louis Redmond had loved.

***

Tiny saw the ruined front doors of the barracks well before he'd dismounted and secured his bike. He charged into the barracks, then staggered back when he grasped the extent of the carnage around him.

Jesus motherfucking Christ.

It had to be the cops. Rusty didn't have anybody left. Lawrence must have heard about my chat with Magruder and called for a preemptive strike.

He counted bodies. They'd made a clean sweep, except for him.

I'm the one they wanted. I've got to boogie.

He picked his way through the fallen bodies of his men. There were a few things he wanted from his quarters. He hoped he'd hidden them well enough that Lawrence's boys hadn't found them, especially the bag of cash. Once he had the boodle bag, he'd kiss this candy-ass part of the world goodbye for good. He couldn't remember why he'd ever wanted to come back here.

He opened the door to his room, stepped through and slammed it behind him before he realized he wasn't alone. A soft voice pierced the night and his guts like a javelin.

"Hello, Tiny. Long time, no see."

***

Bikers of an earlier day had told new gang members, their colors still fresh on their backs, that Death was a biker too. When your time came you would see him, an enormous, hirsute figure with an evil grin, in black leathers picked out in silver, riding a chromed Harley chopper. He would appear at your left, and would jerk a thumb toward the shoulder to indicate that you'd come to the end of your road. You could go quietly or you could choose to rumble, but unless you were both incredibly tough and incredibly lucky, either way it would turn out the same. Most gangs had at least one aged member, replete with scars, who could tell a good tale of having rumbled well enough with Death to buy a reprieve.

Tiny had never heard the old story; the tradition had not survived into his era. But the big biker knew Death when he stared it in the face, and the face it had chosen to show him was Christine's.

Her bearing was triumphant. Nestled among the scars that latticed her features was a brilliant smile that held no trace of fear. She was garbed all in black: a black spandex jumpsuit, a short black leather jacket, and knee-high black boots with metallic stiletto heels and metallic pointed toes. The chromed automatic she leveled at Tiny's navel made her the personification of deadly vengeance.

"Your pack is gone." She spoke deliberately. "I have struck down every Butcher that rode with you since you first captured me. In a moment, all that will remain of you and your filth is a foul memory."

Her index finger curled around the trigger. It was a millisecond from claiming Tiny's life when he found his voice.

"Just like a woman. They'll never face a man even-up. They have to have a little something extra."

Christine's finger slackened, and Tiny began to wonder if he could pull it off.

"Who taught you how to use a gun, slut? The little shit that backshot Rollo and Duffy? What became of him, anyway? Did he get tired of tucking you into your crib, or did you use him up and throw him away? Maybe come back here to find yourself a
real
man?"

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes became opaque. Fighting back the shivers that wanted to erupt through his frame, Tiny spread his arms wide in a mock invitation and added his best leer for emphasis.

"Come to Poppa, sugar. I know what you need. It's never changed, and neither have you. I've got it right here."

Her left hand moved toward her right. At first he cringed, thinking she merely meant to fire two-handed. But it went to the butt of the automatic, flicked a catch, and pulled to extract the magazine from the gun. A heartbeat later she threw the separated pieces of the automatic in opposite directions.

Incredulity blended into exultation, and Tiny charged.

Christine whirled away to her right and whipped a kick into his lower back as he passed. The pointed toe of her boot sank deep into the flesh just below the edge of his jacket, at the geometric center of his right kidney. He screamed in pain and rage. He stumbled, lumbered about for another pass, and was bewildered to find her relaxed and smiling once again.

"What was that about something extra, Tiny? I recall you used to carry a bicycle chain for occasions like this. Do you still have it? Might be a good idea to get it out about now."

He watched her warily, but she stood unmoving, apparently at ease.

"What about the switchblade Tex gave you? Do you still have that? You were awfully fond of it. I remember seeing you remove a guy's nuts with it. Granted that you couldn't do that to me, but some other use might suggest itself.

"You weren't too shabby with a gun, either. Who knows? If you could reassemble my Beretta, you might have a decent chance of getting out of here alive today. Do any of these possibilities seem particularly attractive right now? Or would you prefer to face your former pack slut barehanded?"

The blood rushed to Tiny's face. Fury coursed through him, the bloodlust of the frustrated predator straining to sink its teeth into the woman who taunted him. As his adrenaline level rose, his agile mind shuffled the tactical options at increasing speed. He extracted the chain from his back pocket.

"Pack slut," he breathed. "You've got no idea. You think it was only Butchers that had at you? You were never more than half-awake for ten years, you stupid cunt. You were
trade goods
. You've been fucked and reamed by half the brothers on this continent. And we'll look up the other half as soon as our festivities here are over. I have fortunes to rebuild."

He charged swinging the chain, his other hand groping for her hair. She seemed to vanish as he arrived. Only as the heel of her boot sank deep into the wound her toe had drilled did he realize that she had flipped forward, over his head, landed behind him, and kicked him again, accurately and with power, in his right kidney.

He screamed, staggered, and went to his knees. The chain slipped from his numb fingers as he crouched in agony. Inwardly he cringed, expecting a fatal blow at any moment, but none came.

It seemed forever before he could hoist himself to his feet again. He wasn't sure he wanted to. But he wanted her behind him, measuring him for the
coup de grace,
even less. He couldn't imagine why she had waited. As long as he was still alive, he could still win.

Pain and shock had left him half-paralyzed. He turned with the awkward shuffling motion of a cripple, his legs resisting his will, and found her still relaxed, still smiling, well out of arm's reach.

"Any taste for philosophy, Tiny? When is a man dead? Is it when his heart stops beating? Or when his brain stops working? Or maybe something subtler?

"Maybe it's when other people no longer feel him in their lives. How can you be sure you're alive if you have no effect on anyone? Of course, you've had plenty of effect, personally and through your scumbag packmates. But they're gone, and you're going.

"Or maybe it's when his future is all laid out, and beyond his power to change it. Life is change, they say. Even trees and grass change and grow. If you can't change, you can't possibly be alive. And you appear to be out of change.

"Or maybe it's when he surrenders his hope. There's a five inch hole in you, Tiny. It goes all the way through your kidney. I should know, I put it there. You're bleeding to death. You won't live without immediate surgery, and you won't get that without getting past me. Think you can do it, Tiny? I've spent the last year learning combat from the greatest warriors that ever lived. How much hope do you have left?"

A grimace of distaste convulsed her scarred face. "I remember more than you think. I was never as far out of it as you want to believe, not even with all the shit you and your slimeball brethren pumped into me. When my chance came, I took it and never looked back. I was more alive in my captivity, getting shot full of junk and raped twenty or thirty times a night, than you've been in fifteen years.

"It's over for you. I only wish I were hard enough to make you really suffer on your way out. But that's for the likes of you, not me. You've got one choice left to make. You can stand there and let your life leak into your belly until you collapse in that spot, or you can take one last swing at bringing me down with you. So what's it to be?"

Her taunt was gasoline to the embers of his fury. It blazed up and incinerated his pain. He pulled himself upright and charged at her arms outspread, as if he were a grizzly bear intending to crush his quarry against his chest and rake his claws across its back. As he closed with her, she launched a cartwheel kick with everything in her body behind it.

The toe of her boot caught him beneath his jaw and drove deep. The force of the kick snapped his spine at the second vertebra. He spasmed and toppled backward, pulling her with him by the toe of her boot. His back slapped the floor of the barracks with a thunderous crash as she landed atop him, standing on his chest like a hunter on her prize.

The world pulled rapidly away from Jordan Gunderson of Winnetonka, Michigan, who had used no name but Tiny for fifteen years. The last of the Butchers was dead.

***

Christine stepped off her final victim's chest and examined him for signs of life. There were none. Tentatively, unsure what to expect, she looked inside herself.

No trace remained of the terror that had come so near to suffocating her. She'd peeled it away like a caul. She waited for a twinge of remorse, but none came. Only exultation, and the sense of rebirth.

I did it. I really did it!

Yes, Christine, you did. Don't soften up. You still have to get clear.

All right, Nag. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.

She picked up the pieces of her Beretta, reassembled and pocketed it, grabbed for her bag of toys and headed for the front of the barracks. The cold wind had kicked up again. She wasn't looking forward to spending the night in the open, but she'd made no provisions to do anything else.

I could go give Ione a thrill, ask Helen if I could stay the night.

She grinned as she passed out through the doors she'd ruined, then stopped in confusion. A tall, longhaired male figure in biker leathers was approaching from the woods where she'd reconnoitered her assault. She pulled out the Beretta again.

"Don't move. Who are you?"

The tall man didn't answer. He drifted into the barracks as if sleepwalking, heedless of her threat, not even sparing her a glance. There was a Butcher sigil on his jacket, high on his back. She watched him pick his way among the bodies and enter Tiny's quarters.

A howl of loss rose up, punctuated by a dull, rhythmic thudding. She dashed back inside.

She found the young man crouched over Tiny's body, slamming the dead Butcher's head against the floorboards, howling and weeping a flood. She watched for a few seconds, then pocketed her gun, grabbed him by his collar and hurled him across the room with a twist of her forearm. He fetched up against the far wall, still weeping, and stayed there.

She stood over him for some time before he noticed her.

"You did this, didn't you?" he gasped.

She nodded.

"I figured, from the way you and your dog handled my guys."

It's the fifth guy from the attack group, and I don't know him!

"What's your name, asshole?"

"Rusty." He sniffled.

"You've never raped me, have you? You must've joined the pack after I got away."

"Yeah." He wiped his nose on his forearm and tossed his hair out of his eyes. "Wouldn'a mattered. I don't like girls."

"Then why did you try to take me yesterday?"

He jerked his head toward the fallen biker lord. " 'Cause of him. He got my guy killed, tryin' to get you back from that little guy you were keepin' company with. All I wanted outta life was to kick his ass before I died."

"Your guy? Which one?"

Rusty sniffled again. "Rollo Jurgens." His eyes screwed shut and he began to make blubbering sounds.

She took him by the collar and hauled him to a standing position, pulled her Beretta from her pocket and pressed the muzzle to his nose. He did not resist nor react.

Here was the man who'd caused Rolf's death. She'd exterminated an irrelevant group. She'd had every right, and the world would be better for their removal, but it was this man, not any of them, who had Rolf's blood on his hands.