When the Devil Comes to Call (A Lars and Shaine Novel Book 2) (16 page)

Nikki shut down his computer and stood up. For a moment he felt lightheaded from the rush of blood, something happening more and more lately. With his heart pumping at around fifty percent, so the doctors said, his resting blood pressure wasn’t enough to keep dizzy spells from happening once his heart picked up the pace.

He rolled his oxygen tank beside him as he shuffled out of the room. Every part of him shouted old man, and it made him even more anxious to get out and try to not only enjoy the last part of his life, but extend it a little.

He devised a fairly simple plan: sell out anyone who ever wronged him to the FBI in exchange for immunity. Check. Set up bank accounts under false names the FBI couldn’t trace. Check. Let them relocate him. Pending, but check. Then, after a few weeks of good behavior, jet out of there and end up on an island with topless native girls feeding him grapes.

He touched the brass doorknob of his office and got a static shock. His damn shuffling feet. He grabbed it again and pulled.

“Anthony!” he called. No answer.

“Anthony!” he tried again. Nothing. He knew his voice had turned so weak it wouldn’t wake a baby, but Anthony always came when called.

Where the hell was he?

Nikki felt alone in the house. Anthony was all he had left and now the punk had taken a night off without telling him.

Every sound became a footstep, a bullet being loaded into a gun. Every shadow became an assassin. With one day to go before his new life began under FBI protection, something inside him started to unravel.

He imagined all the people on the list he prepared for Qualls were out on the front lawn, Frankenstein style with torches and pitchforks, coming to get him.

Nikki moved to the stairs. His breathing was already short. He normally would disconnect from this tank, then walk upstairs and hook into the one beside his bed, but as weak as his lungs felt, he wasn’t sure he’d make it the whole way without collapsing, gasping with his lungs full of wet cement. He’d have to bring the oxygen with him, but without Anthony there to lift his tank, he’d have to do it himself.

A winter wind blew outside. Every cracked tree branch to him sounded like gunfire creeping closer. Paranoia crept along walls as shadows chased Nikki up the steps to his bedroom.

He put two hands on the pull handle of the tank and lifted. The four-foot tall slender metal cylinder raised and then thudded down on the bottom step. By the time he got to the landing, twelve steps from the top, he sweat through his robe and breathed like an asthmatic having an orgasm.

He pulled hard on the tank, determined to get to the top. As he hoisted, the plastic line running from the tank to his nose wouldn’t budge. The thin cord trailed along the carpet and ran under his foot. The pull and the resistance threw him off balance. He let go of the tank and reached for a railing, but they were out of reach. The tank tipped and banged his shin on the way down. It was all the push he needed to go over and start rolling down the steps.

He landed hard on the Italian tile floor of the entryway, cracking his head on the corner.

Disoriented and in pain all over his body, he got up on all fours and crawled tortoise-slow into his office, where he fished under the sofa for his gun, still there from where Lars kicked it away. That’s when he heard the first heavy footfall. He jerked and his hand banged the underside of the sofa. He slapped his palm around like he was patting down the dirt on a freshly dug grave. His hand landed on the gun.

The footsteps were picking up pace. They seemed to be coming down the stairs. Whoever was coming for him may have found him alone and vulnerable, but not defenseless. No fucking way. Not Nikki Pagani. He wasn’t going to lose the game this close to the finish.

He moved on his knees to the doorway, his gun out before him in a two-handed grip. Nikki saw movement in the darkness. He fired. The figure reached the bottom step and there was a clang of metal. He fired again.

The bullet pierced the side of his oxygen tank, tumbling end over end as it slipped down the stairs from the landing where he’d dropped it.

The blast lit up the entryway, shattered the glass in the front door and blew Nikki off his knees and onto his back in his office.

For a split second he thought the ringing in his ears might keep him from passing out, but he was wrong.

Splinters in his cheek. Better than the bullet meant for him, but Lars wanted to stop and dig out the tiny shards of wood despite knowing he couldn’t. To stop with one foot in the door would be death. These guys wouldn’t miss twice.

Lars ducked, and rolled to his left, away from the splintered doorframe where Mark landed a near miss as Lars came in from the garage. Lars stopped behind an oversized white leather armchair. He could see the wide expanse of sunken living room dipping down in front of him and the entryway on the other side like the couches and mirrored glass coffee table were sitting at the bottom of a drained pond. And in the center of it—Shaine, tied to a chair.

Lars saw movement, a dark shape ducking behind a loveseat on the shore of the living room’s far side. He saw a timid head poke out from a hiding spot on the stairs, then duck back quickly. Lars didn’t know Luke, but knew he was the coward. Mark was the one to be afraid of since he was the one running toward the fight.

He watched Shaine open her eyes again. She’d been cowering in fear, helpless in the crossfire. She ran her eyes over the room and found Lars crouched about fifteen feet away behind the chair. They locked eyes.

Lars and Shaine didn’t need to speak. He gave her a sturdy look, telling her with his eyes, I’m here to get us out of this, but he didn’t need to. Merely his presence made Shaine confident it would be okay soon.

Lars realized how close he’d moved to the burial mound of Mrs. Ramoni. The stink of spoiled meat oozed out from the pile of coats and blankets like a runny nose. He scratched at his cheek where the tiny splinters had embedded in his skin.

Lars heard, “Now!” and bullets began flying from the stairs. He didn’t need to look up to know Luke was laying down suppressing fire while Mark made his way closer to Lars. Or maybe to Shaine. Lars let the thought cloud his better judgement and he rounded the chair still in his low crouch, his leg muscles used to holding awkward positions and not cramping up.

Mark was coming across the pond, not stopping at Shaine. Now Lars stood in the open and his target passed in front of Shaine, putting her in the line of fire. His pinky twitched a warning—no guarantee of a direct hit. Anything wide would land in Shaine’s lap, or skull. He had no choice. Meet him half way. With Mark now in between Lars and Luke’s cover fire, he was safe from any shots coming off the stairs.

Lars sprang. Mark had his eyes down, watching the ground for obstacles. The shag rug, the shin-height tables, the Chinese vase filled with pussy willows. He wasn’t expecting a flying human.

Lars hit Mark in the chest and reversed his momentum, driving the man back in the direction he came. Mark grunted loudly in Lars’s ear as he went backward. The two-bodied mass landed on Shaine.

The chair beneath her snapped as two full grown men bowled her over. When they hit the floor the snapping sound made Lars think both of Shaine’s arms had been broken, the way they were tied behind the chair.

He turned back to her before the momentum had even stopped him and it gave Mark an opening. Mark struck out with his gun hand and caught Lars on the top of his skull with the butt of the pistol. Lars winced and loosened his grip on Mark, who started to wriggle free.

Lars could see Shaine furiously tugging at the ropes no longer tied to a solid structure. The snapping had been the chair back, not her arms. The pain on his skull was real, though.

When she saw Anthony go out the door into the garage she figured it was the end of Lars, and now she was pissed for doubting him.

She kicked with both legs and both arms at the same time, throwing off the ropes and pieces of shattered chair. Lars was behind her now, fighting on the floor with Mark. She knew she could be no help to him unarmed, but she had a plan.

Shaine got to her feet, shaking free the last chair leg from the slack ropes. She turned to make sure Lars wasn’t about to be killed. She saw the two men locked in a grapple on the floor like drunken frat brothers. Frat boys with guns in their hands.

She turned and ran for the office. She underestimated how slow her legs would be to wake up after being bound for so long. The blood flowing back into her calves gave her a pins and needles feeling and her reflexes were a little slow so when she went to leap over the pile covering Mrs. Ramoni, she tripped.

The pile tipped and spread coats and towels around in an explosion of laundry. The smell being kept underneath the pile blasted out along with Mrs. Ramoni’s right arm and leg, both a dull grey color on top and a dark burgundy on the bottom from the pooled blood.

Shaine clawed at the tile on the landing to get her footing again, the office door only steps away. Behind her, she heard a gunshot.

One Chinese vase down, three to go. Mark’s gun had been pointing well away from Lars, but his own gun now pointed well away from Mark. Lars tried to bring a knee up into his opponent’s crotch, but their bodies were tangled in such an odd contortion, he had no reach to any vital parts without letting go of something first.

Lars slid the hand holding Mark’s wrist up to land on the gun itself. Lars fumbled for a moment, not knowing the layout of this particular model, but found what he wanted soon enough. Lars wedged his thumb over the release and pushed down. The clip dropped free from Mark’s gun.

Mark’s head spun to the side when his gun got suddenly lighter. In his distraction, Lars pulled his hand away from holding down the gun and punched Mark across the jaw.

Bang, and two Chinese vases down. Luke moved out from his hiding place and tiptoed closer to the sunken living room.

Lars rolled and brought Mark’s body up to block. He felt pain on his wrist. Lars looked down to see Mark biting him. He had a firm clamp just below his right hand like a rabid dog.

The tendons recoiled and Lars almost dropped his gun. He tried to pull away, but he felt flesh tearing. Lars snapped his neck forward and headbutted Mark, who didn’t let go. Lars growled out an angry note.

Shaine tried another key. The twelve tiny keys she found in the top desk drawer offered no clue which one opened the gun cabinet hanging on the wall. Three rifles, another shotgun and four pistols that looked like antiques lay there waiting, if she could only get the damn door open.

Another key. Not it.
Damn
tiny things, size of a dime and just as worthless.
Then she looked up.

It’s glass. Why the hell am I bothering with a key?

Lars heard a crash of glass and headbutted Mark again. He let go of Lars’s wrist, but the gun fell to the floor. The two men twisted and rolled, each with a renewed vigor for the fight. Lars’s back crushed onto a piece of the broken chair and he cried out in pain again.

He looked at Mark over him, nose bleeding from the headbutts, and realized they were both unarmed now. This high school wrestling match wasn’t his thing. Lars pushed off. He and Mark separated and Lars flipped onto his belly, crawling among the dismembered chair.

Mark did a sit up and seemed poised for an attack. Lars closed his hand around something heavy. It was Mark’s turn to spring. He came at Lars with teeth bared, blood running down across his lips and staining those teeth a deadly red.

Lars swung forward with his arm. The broken chair leg pointed a sharp wooden knife at Mark. The oversized splinter pierced the soft flesh of Mark’s neck and started a shower of blood.

Lars rolled out of the way and the chair leg tore free from Mark’s neck, shearing several veins and at least one main artery as it went. Mark hit the floor face down, his voice box exposed from the side and making an unnatural sound.

Two fast shots came from over Lars’s head. Loud and powerful. He turned to see Shaine with a hunting rifle in her hands. She looked focused and calm, her mind back on the beach firing at coconuts.

Lars followed the line of her barrel to see her target. Both her shots hit Luke in the chest. He stood only five feet from Lars, gun outstretched and aiming down at him. But his face hung in wooden shock, his mouth gasping for air but finding only a leaky balloon in his chest. Two lines of blood ran down his shirt and he began to sink.

Lars didn’t wait to watch him fall. He rolled for his gun, grabbed it in one hand and got himself to a crouch, expecting more. By the time he turned to face Luke, the coward was already face down on the floor, one hand reaching out, but grabbing only air. The white shag rug underneath him drank in his blood, long wisps of fabric like blades of grass turned red, fanning out from Luke’s body to form a halo around him. Lars watched the colors change, mesmerized for a moment.

The room fell silent except for the sounds of Mark and Luke bleeding out.

“You okay?” Lars asked.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.” He turned to Shaine. “Thanks for that.”

“Thanks for teaching me how.”

Lars smiled a bit. “Where’s Bruno?”

“He went upstairs, after you threw down the body.”

Lars looked to the bottom of the stairs. The mess was slaughterhouse ugly, but he saw no body. “Where is it?”

“He took it with him.”

Lars shook his head. “You wait here,” he said. “If he comes down the stairs and not me – shoot him.”

Shaine almost protested, almost demanded to come along, but she hesitated. What could she do other than stand behind Lars with a rifle and probably take off the back of his head if she saw fit to shoot?

She watched him go, feeling useless for a second. Then her eyes turned down to the two men on the bottom of the dry lake in front of her. Luke had been moving toward Lars, his nervous gun hand finding a target. If the man hadn’t spent precious seconds staring aghast at his friend going down with a torn out throat, he might have gotten off a shot at Lars.

Shaine felt a weird sense of pride that her shooting hand was steadier than this man who got paid to hold a gun.

With Lars out of sight, the reality of the room came back to her. She used the barrel of the gun to flip the coats and towels back over Mrs. Ramoni, but they did little good. Shaine picked up a bowl of dried potpourri in a ceramic bowl sitting on the mirrored coffee table and threw the contents over the makeshift burial mound. Might as well throw a breath mint into a sewer.

Oh well, at least she knew one thing she could do while she waited.