The Magpye: Circus (33 page)

Taylor didn't raise his gun,
even though he had a clean shot.

It was personal for him too, it
seemed.

Ducking out briefly from the
recess, Able fired with both guns. Six shots, six hits. The bodies
were starting to pile up now, and Taylor's goons were
panicking.

Able flattened himself back
into the corner of the recess as they returned fire. Wally Wu
couldn't have gotten any deeper into the recess if he'd tried.

"Anyone who runs now lives,"
shouted Able. "I just want Taylor."

"Anyone who runs is dead before
they reach the elevator," replied Taylor.

Able waited. One second.
Two.

Taylor's men fired again,
chipping away at the wall on the other side of the recess.

"How many left?" whispered
Able.

"Twelve, plus him," answered
Hartley. The computer expert and tactician had stayed quiet up
until now. "There's another recess, eight yards up the corridor on
the opposite side."

"They've got me pinned, I won't
make it."

"You don't need to," replied
Hartley. "I saw you heal yourself back in the pit, remember? Just
try not to let them shoot you anywhere important."

Able took a deep breath and
spun out into the corridor, guns blazing.

Six bullets sped down the
corridor, finding their marks. Flesh was torn, organs punctured.
Blood burst forth and bodies hot with pain or icy cold with shock
fell against each other. Firing across each other, the remaining
shooters put bullets into the walls, into the floor, and into
Able.

The first went into his right
arm, wrenching it backwards and knocking the sub-machinegun loose
from his grip. The second hit his left thigh, almost taking him off
balance and sending him skidding into the recess head first.

Panting, feeling blood running
down inside and outside his body suit, Able put his weight against
the wall and fired around the corner. Rogers put three shots in a
neat triangle into the chest of one of the last shooters.

"See?" said Hartley. "Only six
left to go."

Able closed his eyes and called
Dorothy forward.

"Fix it, Dorothy," he
whispered. "I need my arm, at least."

"I can't do it on my own,"
replied the circus medic. "I'll need the bird."

"I'm here," replied the
chilling voice of the Magpye, the thing inside Able that was
neither ghost nor man. "But know that I shall take my tithe
later."

"Whatever," muttered Able.
"Just patch me up."

Close to the end of the
corridor now, Able could hear the ragged breaths of the remaining
shooters. He knew the ones he had hit were dead, their raw and
skinless ghosts were howling just on the edge of his hearing. He
wondered how many more he'd have to kill before he got to Marv, and
before he got to King.

Able gritted his teeth has he
felt his wounded flesh knitting itself back together, his stomach
churning as his unnatural digestion transformed whatever scant
remnants of corpse meat he had in his gut into new, undead flesh
for his body.

The process took just a few
moments, but it was long enough for Taylor to gather his
forces.

"He's wounded," Able heard him
bark. "Rush him."

Garrity was sweating and
gasping for breath by the time he reached the ground floor.
Thankfully, the stairwell had been empty except for him and, with
no one to get in his way, he'd made good progress. It had been a
long time since he'd run from anything. He could still hear gunfire
echoing down the stairwell shaft behind him, the smoke from the
fire on the roof was drifting slowly down with it and there was a
sticky coating of ash accumulating on every surface. None of that
mattered to Garrity though. He had scoped out this escape route
days earlier and it had served its purpose. Another one his little
dirty secrets paying out just when he needed it to. Now he'd just
vanish into the madness outside and let Cane and Taylor and whoever
the hell it was still running around in a mask sort things out
amongst themselves. Whoever came out on top was going to need the
police on their side, and Garrity was the police in this city.

Maybe, if things panned out, he could find himself playing
hero cop like Owen White. All he'd need were a few well-to-do
hostages, ushered out of here under his careful
care
… Garrity was almost
ready to turn back when the metal door that was his gateway to
safety opened and Owen White walked in.

"Garrity," said White,
seemingly unsurprised to find his nemesis-cum-mentor on the other
side of the door. "Abandoning the sinking ship?"

"Look, White," said Garrity,
"This thing is shaking out bad, you understand me? Cane's lost it,
Taylor's worse. And that other guy? He crashed a fucking blimp into
the roof!"

White smiled. For once, Garrity wasn't the one sitting
on
all
the secrets.

Outside, the world was reeling
to the revaluations that White had spewed. The networks were in
chaos and, in the panic, White had simply slipped away. Right now,
he was the most famous face in America, and Garrity had no
idea.

"I saw," said White. "It's all
over the news."

"That's exactly what I'm
talking about," puffed Garrity. "We need to get out of here, both
of us, get us some distance and then start running
containment."

White limped inside, shutting
the door behind him. With the door closed, the only light was from
a dim emergency bulb over the doorway.

"What's our play?" he asked,
his voice low and conspiratorial.

"We go back in," replied
Garrity. "We tell Cane's crew there's been a change of plan. We get
the hostages out, and we come out of this thing heroes. You and me.
We're the cops, right? "

"What about Cane?"

"What about him?" asked Garrity. "He thinks he can play the
whole country, the whole fucking
world
, and convince
them all over again that he's a stand up guy. He wants them all to
think that he's the victim. I've told him, it will never work.
There's too much heat now. He's finished."

"But not us, right?"

"No, not us," said Garrity. He smiled his piggy smile, food
from Cane's buffet still stuck in his crooked yellow teeth. "We
play this right and we'll have whoever takes over from Cane
in
our
pocket."

"You think so?"

"Trust me," said Garrity. White
remembered the last time that Garrity had asked him to trust him.
He remembered the lives that it had cost. He took a breath, held
his rage in check for a moment longer. "Look,” continued Garrity,
“I've never told anyone this, OK, but when I was coming up the
ranks, there was this sergeant. Real old school skull-buster. Ran a
few blocks down-town, had himself the start of a little empire. Him
and me, we were on a collision course from day one."

White limped towards Garrity,
slumped down onto the stairs, and rubbing at his tortured ankle.
Garrity dumped his fat carcass next to him.

"So, I put out the olive branch, right? I've got a little
action, I offer to cut him in. He doesn't want to know. He thinks
I'm shit, thinks I'm nothing, and he's going to take what's mine
and cut
me
out."

"So what happened?" asked
White, still working on his bust ankle.

"One night, he gets jumped in
an alley. Couple of punk kids he'd been giving a hard time. Cut him
up bad and left him to die in a dumpster. He was missing for a
fortnight before someone smelt him out. Nobody could prove
anything, of course. Those kids got away with it."

"What are you saying,
Garrity?"

"I'm saying that you got to
have your eye on the next big thing. You've got to see the
opportunities that are coming your way because, otherwise,
sometimes those same opportunities just wash you away."

"You wash this guy away,
Garrity, was that it?"

"I did what I had to do,"
replied the dirty cop. "Only way to survive in this city. You stick
with me, I'll teach you how to make something of yourself around
here."

White lifted up the leg of his
trousers and pulled a short bladed knife from a holster around his
duff ankle. Garrity's eyes bulged as White stabbed him in the side
of his fat throat. Hot blood gushed out around the wound, drenching
Garrity and White. The fat cop tried to pull his gun, but his
strength was draining out of him too fast. Within moments, all that
was left was a fat pig with a slit throat, slumped forward on the
stairwell steps.

White bent over and slipped the
knife back into its holster before picking up his cane and limping
up the stairs, towards the sounds of gunfire and the flames.

“
I've learnt my
lesson,” he said, to nobody but himself.

"Rush him."

"Rush
them
."

Malcolm kicked Able's legs into
gear, driving him out of the alcove low and fast. He fired blind,
spraying a fan of bullets at knee height. Taylor's three remaining
shooters fell, their legs cut out from under them. Dorothy took a
silent inventory of shattered bones and torn muscles as they fell.
Criminals, killers, were made cripples in an instant.

Able tucked into a roll,
ducking under the few stray shots aimed at him, and landed in a
crouch just past his fallen assailants. Malcolm turned one of the
sub-machineguns back and fired again, finishing the job. Cripples
became corpses and the corridor fell silent, except for the sound
of applause from Jack Taylor.

"Very impressive," he said.
"Although, I never really thought they had a chance."

Able stood, dropping the
sub-machineguns to the floor with a clatter.

"Jack Taylor," he said
quietly.

Cane King's lieutenant needed
no introduction. The memories of the dead cops had run through
Able's mind so many times they were as familiar, if not more
familiar, to him than his own. Taylor was the man on the other end
of the gun that ended their lives. Taylor was the man who had taken
their friend and cut him into pieces just to draw them out. Taylor
was the man they had all come back from the grave to kill. And
Taylor was the man, on Cane King's orders, who had burnt down the
circus.

Between Able and Taylor, the
bodies of Taylor's men lay dead and bloody. Blood had turned the
thick beige carpet a dirty red and splattered the walls with
crimson. The whole place felt hot, the fire working its way through
the floors above, and the air had thin traces of smoke in it. It
was hell, a small patch of hell, and Taylor looked very much at
home there.

Taylor tossed his own gun to
his side.

"We've never actually met,
unless you count scooping you up off the floor and dumping you into
a hole in the ground," said Taylor with a smirk, "But if what I've
read is true, and if what I've guessed is right, then there's maybe
a few people rattling around in that rotten melon of yours who
think they've got a score to settle with me."

Able's ghosts whirled in his
head, all vying to be the one to take on Taylor while Able looked
at the man again. Able was used to seeing ghosts, but Taylor was
alive and yet somehow dead at the same time. He was a man with
something missing, with a void where his soul should have been. A
shell, like Able, but living. Living yet devoid of what should have
made him alive.

It scared Able.

"One at a time or all
together?" he whispered, knowing that Taylor could probably hear
him even through his mask.

"All together," came the reply
and although Able could have told the voices in his head apart, he
preferred to imagine that they had all replied at once.

The two men raced at each
other. Able threw a punch, the combined furry of the dead cops
behind it, but it glided over Taylor's head as the other man ducked
and tagged Able in the ribs with a pair of rapid punches. Able
threw a fast elbow, hitting Taylor in the soft part of his shoulder
and knocking him back a step.

Quickly, Able followed up with
a kick to the groin, a move that was entirely Terry Cooper's.
Taylor saw it coming, but couldn't move quickly enough to
completely avoid it, and Able's metal tipped boot collided with
Taylor's knee.

Taylor fell, cursing under his
breath. Cooper grabbed control again, and kicked Taylor in the
face, Able's boot opening up a deep gash above Taylor's eye.

Taylor ran his thumb across the
gash and licked the blood from it.

"Blood," he said, looking up at
Able. "That's what its all about, isn't it?"

"Right now?" replied Able.
"Just your blood."

"Want a taste?" taunted Taylor,
getting unsteadily to his feet.

"I'll pass," said Able,
ignoring the tell tale twist in his gut that reminded him the
Magpye was hungry again, and owed a tithe.

"Then let's get this over
with," said Taylor, lunging at Able.

This time, Taylor didn't throw
any punches. Dodging two punches from Able, Taylor came in low and
closed the gap between the two men. His shoulder going into Able's
stomach, Taylor got his arms around Able and lifted him up from the
floor. Twisting, Taylor tried to bring Able down as Able drove an
elbow down in between Taylor's shoulder-blades. Taylor's grip
didn't weaken, and Able felt himself moving off balance.

It was Rigby, surprisingly, who
suddenly wrenched control of Able's body. Planting a foot down at
an awkward angle, he rapidly shifted Able's weight and sent Taylor
spinning away from Able.

"Judo," said the bookish cop.
"It had to come in handy one day."

But no-one was listening to
Rigby, not even Able. As Taylor had spun away his jacket had ripped
open, revealing the complex apparatus of explosives strapped around
his torso. The reflexes of every cop screamed "bomb" and Able leapt
backwards, reaching for one of his holstered pistols.