The Brotherhood of the Wheel (28 page)

Jimmie self-consciously patted his gut and shook his head. He knelt by the opening. He could hear Heck grunting as he struggled into the narrow drainpipe.

“You see anything?” Jimmie called out to his squire.

“Yeah … rats … fucking rats, Jimmie, and lots of rat shit and … wait.” Heck's tone lost all its attitude in a second. “Guys … I think I found her. I see shoes, pants … Jesus, she's so small.”

There was more scuffling and grunts as Heck tried to get closer to the body. Turla knelt as well and strained to listen. “Get the fuck off her, you fucking bastards,” Heck shouted. There were hollow banging sounds and audible squeals. “Jimmie, man, there's not much left of her. The little bastards have been chewing on her. You were right about her cutting her throat. There's a piece of beer bottle in her hand laying across her chest. She cut herself and just laid here to die. Why would she … I mean … how? Shit, man. Fuck. She's just a little girl, Jimmie.” Heck's voice was cracking, and Jimmie wished it were him down there in the hole with the little dead girl instead of the boy.

“You're doing fine, Heck,” Jimmie said. “Hold it together, soldier. You see her phone?”

“Yeah … yeah,” Heck said after a moment. “Beside her. Looks pretty trashed, though…”

Before Heck could continue, a bright beam from a powerful flashlight pinned Jimmie and Turla.

“Police,” a woman's voice said. “Put down the flashlights and put your hands on top of your heads. Stay kneeling. You make a move and I'll blow you sick fuckers out of your shorts. Y'hear me?”

Her voice had a strong southern accent. Turla noted that she was standing with her flashlight away from her body, the same way he had been trained. “I'm a cop,” Turla said, starting to rise. “My name is Gil Turla and I can—”

“You can get your ass shot if you keep standing up,” Lovina said. “I know who you are, and I know you're up to your eyebrows in this shit, Trooper Turla. Stay where you are.” Both men dropped the flashlights and remained still.

“Officer, my name is Jimmie Aussapile,” Jimmie said. “I can try to explain all this to you, if you can try to keep an open mind about—”

Lovina was moving down the hill, slowly, sweeping the beam of her Maglite back and forth between the two men's faces. “Yeah, I know about you, too,” she said. “You want me to keep an open mind about you and your buddies here abducting, raping, and killing children, asshole?”

“Bullshit,” Jimmie said. “I've never hurt a kid in my life.” The anger was welling up in his voice. “We're out, freezing our asses off a long fucking way from home, trying to find this little girl so we can get her home to her family and stop the sunabitches that put her here from doing this to any other kid. Who the fuck are you, exactly, lady? That accent is bayou, not Windy City. I don't see no uniforms, no badge, no backup.”

“Yeah, who are you with?” Turla asked. He remained kneeling, but his eyes, squinting against the light, were accusatory.

Lovina was impressed. He might look like a redneck trucker, but Jimmie Aussapile was nobody's fool. No wonder he had skated without being charged so many times—the sick child-killing fucker was smart. Lovina was within a few yards of them now. She decided she needed to double-down. She held the Maglite with her gun hand, keeping the kill circle on Turla, since he looked a bit more fit to jump and make a sudden lunge. She slipped two pairs of cuffs out of her leather-jacket pocket and tossed them on the dirt before the two men.

“I'm the cop who will put fucking holes in you both and write it up as pretty as you please on the paperwork,” she said. “Now, Aussapile, you cuff him behind his back.”

“Look, you really don't want to do this,” Jimmie said. “We're not who you think we are. We're the good guys. Swear.”

“Cuff him,” Lovina said.

Jimmie sighed and picked up both pairs of cuffs. He tossed them into the open drain. “Oops,” he said.

Lovina shook her head. She was close enough now for both men to see her behind the light—athletic, but still a little curvy, dark brown skin, and shoulder-length straight black hair, with straight bangs that looked kind of like Bettie Page's. Her eyes were maybe hazel behind the glare of the light, but they were, for sure, one hundred percent no bullshit. Cop's eyes, soldier's eyes.

“Get down on your bellies, both of you,” Lovina said. “And one more ‘Oops,' Aussapile, and I will put a bullet in your kneecap. Down, now.” Both men complied.

Turla looked over at Jimmie. “Well, that was a great idea,” he said to the trucker. “You really turned the tables on her.”

“Better'n being cuffed,” Jimmie muttered.

“You, down in the hole—Sinclair,” Lovina shouted, keeping her gun on the other two men and sweeping her flashlight toward the drain. “Climb up here nice and slow now.” There was only silence. “Come on, Sinclair. You really want to be dragged kicking and screaming out of there by the uniforms, like a little bitch? I thought you were a badass biker?”

Moving to the edge of the drain, Lovina aimed her gun down in a Weaver stance, with both arms locked in a triangle, both hands steadying her .40-caliber Glock and the Maglite, together, as she took a quick look over the ledge of the drain and down into the dark. It was a good five-foot drop to the drainpipe below. The light caught Heck Sinclair's eyes, red, like a rat's, in the beam as he hurtled up toward her. The biker launched himself out of the well, springing up with a snarl. He cleared the drain with a good three feet to spare and tackled Lovina, who managed to snap off two quick, barking rounds at the almost flying biker. They crumpled together in the cold, trash-strewn dirt of the small basin by the drain, struggling.

“I am a badass biker,” Heck growled as he tried to wrestle the gun out of Lovina's hand. “And I'd like to add that I feel the term ‘little bitch' is hurtful and demeaning.” She drove the Maglite, like a club, into the side of his face, accompanied by a metallic crunch. Heck rolled to one side from the impact, and Lovina scrambled to capitalize on his momentary discomfort and disorientation. She began to get to her feet. Heck swept his leg out and knocked her back down. As she fell, she twisted toward Heck and planted an elbow in his stomach. Heck groaned and rolled away from the cop, struggling to his feet. Lovina was half crouched, trying to do the same thing. She had heard Aussapile and Turla getting up during the struggle, and the panic of being piled on from different directions filled her with the numb momentum of pumping adrenaline. She fired another round, and this time it blew a hole in the shoulder of Heck's leather jacket, missing his skin by fractions of an inch. Heck paused, thinking for a second that he had actually been hit.

“I am not fucking around here, Hector,” Lovina said.

“Do not fucking call me Hector,” he snarled, rubbing his shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me, kids,” Jimmie called out. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume they're not with you, Officer.”

Both Lovina and Heck turned their heads to look toward the top of the hill, where the trucker was pointing. There were six of them, children, all hooded by their jackets. They were silhouetted by the light pollution of the city, all still as statues. Jimmie's flashlight moved over them. Their faces were impassive, their eyes a cold, black void.

“Shit!” Lovina said. She lowered the gun and renewed her Weaver stance and grip, catching her breath. She recognized the two in the middle as the same ones she had encountered outside Dewey Rears's apartment, and who had pursued her. “You three get out of here. I'll deal with you later, I promise you that. Go on, run!”

The two children who knew Lovina each raised an arm. They did it in a fluid, perfectly coordinated motion. They both pointed at Lovina.

“You,” all six said as one. “You need to come with us, you have been summoned. You have seen.”

“Seen what?” Lovina asked. She looked at the three men, who were all looking at the kids and then at one another. “I told you to get the hell out of here, right now! Now go!”

“Come,” the pack of children all said. “You must come with us.” They began to move down the hill as one, slowly fanning out in groups of two.

“No,” Lovina said, the same mind-numbing fear slipping into her again. She fought to shake it off, as she had before. The gun, raise the gun. Shoot. “No” was all she could muster. Suddenly, Jimmie was stepping between her and the approaching pack; he slapped his aluminum flashlight against his palm like a fighting baton.

“No,” Jimmie said. “Lady's not going anywhere with you, whatever the hell you are. She's under my protection. You want her, you got to get through me. Now, come on!”

Heck threw up his arms. It was obvious from the shudder going through the old man's legs that Aussapile was scared shitless, but he was getting ready to tumble with whatever the fuck these things were—Black-Eyed Kids … yeah, right. He could rabbit. No, he couldn't. He wasn't some chicken shit who left anyone behind. He hadn't left his crew in the desert. He had fought that thing to the bitter end.

Heck was suddenly back in the drainpipe with the shrunken, skeletal face of Karen Collie near his own. She had such a sad look on what was left of her face. He could feel her fear, her regret, her pain. She was just a kid, with a million, million amazing things still to do with her life. These were the bastards who stole it. Heck felt the anger swell in him, the same anger that carried him through a dozen firefights, the same anger that allowed him to laugh as he took on a bar full of angry rednecks. The anger made him invincible. The anger felt like home. Heck slid the large combat knife out of his belt sheath and twirled it in his hand as the squire stepped up beside his knight.

“Yeah,” Heck said. He hardly recognized his own voice when he got like this. “Like the man said. Come and get some.”

Lovina blinked. The fear was falling away again. Behind her, she heard the oiled snick of a gun slide. She glanced over to see that Turla had pulled a .380 pistol out of a small holster hidden under his shirt. The former trooper moved beside her, his arms and hands also in a Weaver stance. “You ready?” Turla said softly. “Back-to-back.”

The children were starting to move faster, almost blurring as they built up speed. The impassive look on their faces was now replaced by something primal, something that knew nothing of reason, only blood. At first Lovina thought it was her imagination, the fear, but now she could see that it was really happening. The Black-Eyed Children's mouths had widened; their teeth were now an impossible mass of slender, razor-sharp bone needles—hundreds of them in their mouths. With their dead eyes, it made them look like sharks.

“Why … why are you doing this?” Lovina asked as she moved to cover Turla's back as he was covering hers, both of them positioned to keep any of the pack from flanking Jimmie and Heck.

“Because,” Jimmie said as he raised his makeshift club, “this is what we do, what we've always done. Fight the monsters.”

Jimmie had one second to glance at his squire. Heck was licking his lips, his eyes glazed with simmering anger. The boy nodded to him, and Jimmie nodded back. That was all there was time for before the pack fell upon them, snarling, snapping.

Jimmie swung the flashlight and caught the one on the right hard on the side of the head. The little creature flew back several feet and dropped to the ground. It growled and sprang back up onto its feet, almost immediately, with inhuman speed and agility.

The one on the left Heck took. The Black-Eyed Kid launched himself at the biker from about ten feet away, making a sound like a scalded cat. To the creature's surprise, he was met in midair by the biker, who had also launched himself with impossible speed and distance, just as he had surprised Lovina by leaping out of the drain. The two crashed to the floor of the basin, and both found their feet almost at once. Heck crouched and quickly pivoted, using the knife to keep the creature at bay while it hissed and tried to get close enough to use its teeth. The thing fought more like an animal than like a human being.

The other four had veered off—two going to the left and two to the right of the vanguard. Lovina fired at the two scampering BEKs, who were almost on all fours as they crouched and ran. They were trying to drive a wedge between the lines of Heck and Jimmie and her and Turla.

Lovina exhaled the dregs of the fear, held her breath, and squeezed off two rounds. Behind her she heard Turla's gun bark as well. The Black-Eyed Kids moved at dizzying speeds, running up and launching off tree trunks like parkour runners, as if gravity didn't hold them. Her bullets struck one, and it fell, kicking, thrashing, and howling before it finally lay still. She missed the other, and it was on her, grabbing at her coat and opening its mouth full of death to sink its teeth into her throat. Lovina grabbed it by the throat and pushed it away with all her strength, but this thing, disguised in the body of a young boy, had the strength of a perp on bath salts. The mouth was moving closer, closer. An odd thought struck Lovina as she struggled with this thing for her life: Absolutely no odor came from the Black-Eyed Kid's mouth—no bad breath, nothing. Lovina brought the pistol up under its chin and fired. There was a flare of heat, a roar, and then the aural sensation of going underwater. Everything smelled of scorched gunpowder. There was a ringing in her ears and some nausea from the discharge, almost like being hit with a flash-bang grenade. The Black-Eyed Kid was on the ground, mostly headless.

Lovina became aware that she didn't have a drop of blood on her. She should be bathed in blood and brains and bits of skull, but there was nothing. She looked over to where the other one she had shot had fallen. She was in time to see the body disappearing—evaporating into thick black smoke. She looked down at the headless one and saw the same phenomenon starting to occur. There was a groan behind her. Lovina spun to see Turla wrestling with the other two who had flanked him. His gun was still in his hand, smoking, but it looked as if he had been unable to hit the fast-moving creatures. One was wrapped around his gun arm, trying to pull it down and slowly succeeding. The other had him by his other arm and was getting ready to bite him. Lovina began to move to help the beleaguered ex-trooper, but she froze when she saw the face of the Black-Eyed Kid that was about to bite Turla. She almost vomited when the realization came to her. It was Shawn Ruth Thibodeaux.