Shadow Box, page 16
Of course, Grant had been bluffing; there was no reverse function to the interphaser, nor was there any way to block an incoming or outgoing transit. But that nasty little possibility was just enough to give Grant necessary breathing space. A good lie was better than a hundred bullets, he reminded himself, a thin smile crossing his lips and raising the edges of his gunslinger’s mustache.
Grant took three steps after Carnack, passing Rosalia, who stood waiting impatiently against the rock wall. She gave Grant a look of contempt through slitted eyes and, once he had passed, she grabbed his arm and, with a swift movement of her feet behind him, flipped the big man onto his back. Then she crouched over Grant, unbuckling the holster of the Sin Eater he wore at his wrist.
“You could have just asked,” Grant told her.
“Shut up, Magistrate man,” she responded, spitting in his face before she let go of him and stood up once more.
KANE, BRIGID AND DOMI were preparing to leave Decard and his Incarnates at the little desert settlement when Domi suddenly turned her head, as though listening to far-off voices. “Roamers,” she said after a moment, turning to Kane and Decard as they settled on a contingency plan should they not return with Grant inside of two hours.
Kane’s eyes flicked to her as the albino woman walked across to the window of the shack and stared out at the bleak terrain beyond.
“Domi, what do you see?” he asked. Kane knew that Domi had survived life in the harsh Outlands; he trusted her instincts implicitly.
“Didn’t see,” she told him, still peering through the window. “Heard. Engines coming. Lots of them.”
Decard looked at Kane and Brigid where they stood in the little room. “It could be my men returning,” he proposed.
“More than that,” Domi said. “Combustion engines, old-school tech.”
Kane shook his head. “Coming here? But that makes no sense—who’s out here?”
Brigid looked at him with her vibrant green eyes, her face emotionless. “Carnack’s men,” she said.
Kane cursed. “We’ve covered a lot of territory,” he agreed. “Entirely possible we’ve hit close to one of that snake’s outposts.”
Domi turned from the window, mouth downcast. “We’ve got their man—Smarts. Bet you they’re coming for him.”
The whining noise of the engines was louder now, loud enough for them all to hear, and as the four of them stood in the little shack, out of the sun, they heard one of the Incarnates calling to Decard. “Incoming!”
“Damn,” Kane spit, running to the doorway and outside. “This is high on the list of shit I don’t need right now.”
“Agreed,” Decard said, his Sin Eater dropping from its holster into the palm of his hand.
Outside the shack, the remaining Incarnates were taking up positions around and on top of the buildings, facing out toward a cloud of dust that was kicking up on the western horizon. Brigid and Domi fanned out to take up defensive positions as Decard and Kane got a full report from the watch. The report was brief and to the point—hostiles were approaching, no demands, no warning.
“How can we be sure they’re hostiles?” Decard asked.
An Incarnate in a mask that resembled a stylized chimpanzee handed Kane a set of binoculars, while Decard engaged the targeting system in his Magistrate helmet. In unison, they studied the area where the dust cloud billowed.
“You got ’em, Decard?” Kane asked.
“Seven bikes, four quads and what looks like a—damn—is that a Sandcat?” Decard asked, studying the approaching group through the helmet’s sensors.
Kane ignored his question and posed one of his own instead. “Two bikers off to the left, you see them?”
Decard’s head made a minuscule movement beneath the intimidating faceplate of the helmet. “Got them. What’s that between—?” He stopped, realizing what the bikers were dragging.
It was an Incarnate, his mask lost, his powerful, sun-bronzed body covered in sand and stained with blood.
“Farouk,” Decard stated somberly.
“Oh, now we got worry,” Kane muttered, passing the binoculars back to the Incarnate in the chimpanzee helmet.
Then he raised his voice. “This is an organized group, people,” he explained, “which means they made the decision to come here together. My partner thinks they’re here for our guest, Señor Smarts, and I’m inclined to agree.”
One of the Incarnates hissed, muttering about the barrage of trouble that Kane and his people had brought down on the squad, until Decard held a warning finger in the man’s face, instructing him to silence.
“I brought Kane’s team into this operation,” Decard stated. “I’ll take full responsibility when I make my report.”
“You’ll be lucky if you’re still alive,” the jackal-masked Incarnate retorted.
Just then, the eagle-masked Incarnate came out of one of the shacks, shoving Smarts before him. The fey Mexican was wrapped in a cord that held his arms tight to his sides, and he seemed to be having trouble keeping his balance. His leg wound had been bandaged, but the material was darkening with blood as he took successive steps. Behind the pair, Keb came from the shack, his medical kit in hand.
Kane pointed to the cloud of sand on the horizon. “Friends of yours, I think,” he told Smarts.
Smarts smiled, despite the obvious pain that he was in. “You should never have tried to hold us, Señor Magistrate.” He laughed. “You shouldn’t have even stepped into our world.”
Kane held the man’s gaze with his blue-gray eyes. “I like poking my nose where it’s not wanted,” he said.
“Do you have any idea what we do to Magistrates we find roaming outside of their safe little villes?” Smarts hissed.
“Run away from them in terror?” Kane suggested. “And, anyway, I’m not a Mag. Now, I think you’re going to call your friends off, don’t you?”
“And why would I do that?” Smarts asked.
“Because I’m all done with playing around,” Kane spit, flicking his Sin Eater from its holster and into the palm of his hand.
Smarts’s eyes widened as he looked at the weapon in the man’s hand.
Brigid’s voice came urgently to Kane’s ear as he locked gazes with the little Mexican.
“Kane,” she said. “They’re here.”
Kane looked back and saw the bikes pulling up about twenty feet from the shacks that his group sheltered around. Beside him, Brigid spoke quietly once more.
“Looks like negotiations are open,” she said.
Beside her, Decard grunted. “Look at what they’ve done to Farouk,” he said, unable to take his eyes from the Incarnate’s bloody, broken body. “And where is Amun?”
Kane glanced from Decard to Smarts, looking at the little man’s self-satisfied smile. In an instant, Kane’s left fist shot out, clipping Smarts across the jaw and knocking him, unconscious, to the ground.
“Including Grant, we’re down four men, Decard,” Kane said, turning back to the man from Aten. “We’ve got the goon squad out there and a tunneling monster at our backs. How do you want to play this?”
Decard just stood there, watching the crowd of brigands through the emotionless faceplate of his magistrate’s helmet.
“Decard?” Kane urged. “Dec?”
“I’m going to bow to your greater experience on this one, Kane,” Decard finally stated. “You run the show and I’ll back your plays.”
Kane acknowledged Decard’s decision with a single wordless grunt, then, senses alert, walked carefully between the two shacks before him, heading toward the gang waiting beyond the settlement limits.
Pushing his back against the side of one of the buildings, giving himself as much cover as he could, Kane raised his Sin Eater and aimed it at the centermost biker. Raising his voice, he called out to the group. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Kane began. “You seem to have something there that’s ours.”
A bike rider off to the right of the group pulled down the kerchief that masked his mouth, and called back. “An’ you have somethin’ of ours,” he said, his voice going hoarse almost immediately thanks to the swirling dust in the air.
“Then perhaps we ought to open negotiations,” Kane responded from his shadowy hiding place, moving his aim across to target the speaker.
“You don’t take what’s ours,” the biker replied. “End of negotiations.” Even as he spoke, the biker was reaching into the large saddlebags at the back of his motorcycle, pulling out a long-barreled shotgun in a matte-black finish.
“That’s a hell of a shame,” Kane replied. “See, I’d have been pleased as punch to get rid of this worthless sack of shit we’ve been hauling around with us.”
As he watched from concealment, Kane saw the biker snap open the shotgun and place two rounds in the breech. As he cracked it shut, Kane was aware that his companions were similarly readying themselves.
“Decard,” Kane called without turning his head.
Instantaneously, Decard’s voice responded. “What is it, Kane?”
“These punks want to play a little game of Last Man Standing. You think your troops can handle that?”
Behind Kane, hidden by the shacks, Decard began giving silent instructions to his Incarnates, using hand gestures to tell them to take up offensive positions.
“Ready when they are, Kane,” he called back.
Kane’s eyes flicked across the other members of the group of brigands, subconsciously taking in their weapons as they readied themselves to attack the little settlement. Mostly they carried revolvers and single shooters, but a woman to the left had loaded up a grenade launcher. Seeing that, Kane wondered if these people even hoped to bring back Smarts alive.
“I’m obliged to ask you,” Kane said, his voice carrying across the sand-swept plain, “to reconsider this course of action. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
The spokesman for the group spit sandy debris from his mouth before he spoke. “Too bad,” he said, revving his throttle as he rested the massive shotgun across the handlebars of his bike. Suddenly, the bike lurched forward, and his teammates followed his lead, rushing toward Kane and the desert hamlet.
Without conscious thinking, Kane’s index finger squeezed the trigger of the Sin Eater, unleashing a stream of 9 mm bullets at the lead biker. The bullets ripped into the man’s throat and face in a line of red-rimmed holes, and he fell backward as the bike continued to speed ahead, his shotgun blasting as he toppled from the saddle, discharged buckshot clouding the air above.
WITH THE EYES of every brigand in the cavern watching him, Grant followed Tom Carnack to the little, marked-off laboratory area of the underground hideout.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Grant said flippantly, looking around at the high stalactites and the jagged rock walls.
As soon as he said it, Grant felt Rosalia rabbit-punch him in the kidneys, and he staggered forward under the blow.
“Shut up and keep moving,” she told him.
Carnack gestured to the laboratory area where three whitecoats worked at the bubbling tubes while a fourth examined the interphaser under an illuminated magnifying plate.
“Right, then,” Carnack said, gesturing to the interphaser. “How’s it work?”
Grant looked at him contemptuously for a moment. “Just like that? You expect me to give up the information just…” He snapped his fingers.
“You doing that is the only thing that’s keeping you alive, friend,” Carnack said, a reptilian smile crossing his lips.
Grant nodded. “Which means that, once I tell you…”
Carnack laughed. “Oh, I see now. You think I’m going to get the information, then blow your brains out? Is that it?”
Grinning, Grant winked at the man. “Something like that.”
“So, what kind of reassurance would you like that I’ll let you live,” Carnack asked, “assuming I do let you live?”
“Put down your little hand cannon there and tell your associates to back off,” Grant said. “And then we can go from there.”
Carnack looked at the Colt Anaconda in his hand for a moment, then called “Rosie!” before tossing it over Grant’s head into Rosalia’s outstretched hand.
The dark-haired woman took the weapon and shoved it into the waistband of her silk pantaloons at the small of her back.
“Everyone else,” Carnack shouted, “back off and give us some space.”
The other brigands stepped away, watching warily from just outside the edges of the cordoned-off laboratory.
Carnack stepped forward, and his hot breath played across Grant’s face as he spoke, just inches from the ex-Mag. “Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Grant smiled. “Use mouthwash.” Even as the words were leaving his lips, Grant swung his huge right fist into Carnack’s belly in a solid haymaker.
The brigand leader doubled over at the end of Grant’s fist as the ex-Mag followed through with a left cross, cracking Carnack across the jaw and slamming him back into one of the wide tubes full of bubbling liquid the color of seawater. Carnack howled in pain, his arms windmilling as he crashed against the thick tube and keeled sideways.
Grant was already in motion. Before Carnack had even hit the large tubes, Grant swung his elbow backward, sensing intuitively where Rosalia was standing. His elbow smashed into her breastbone with a solid thud, knocking her off her feet with a gasp of expended breath. Pivoting on his right foot, Grunt swung out with his left until it connected with the woman as she dropped to the ground like so much deadweight.
Still turning, Grant slapped his palm against the work surface before him, using it as a prop to reach for Rosalia as she slumped to the ground. The fingers of his left hand probed around her waistband ungently, pulling the Colt Anaconda from where she had tucked it just moments before. As he did so, the whitecoats who had been working in the area rushed past, terrified, determined to get out of the way, blocking the potential attacks of the other brigands as they hurried away.
Guns were being raised all around him, Grant knew, the confusion dissipating, replaced with thoughts of retaliation by Carnack’s foot soldiers. But as they raised their weapons, Grant heard Carnack gasping, struggling to raise his voice.
“Nobody shoot,” he cried. “You’ll hit the equipment!”
“That go for me, too?” Grant asked as he crouched beneath the worktable, using it for cover as he pointed the long-barreled, stainless-steel revolver at the nearest of the bubbling tanks.
“Careful, man,” Carnack shrieked. “You have no idea what you’re about to—”
“Then enlighten me,” Grant cut him short, cocking the hammer of his gun.
SIX MOTORCYCLES and four quad bikes roared across the sandy expanse to the little desert settlement, while the driver of the Sandcat held back, waiting beyond the main area of the fray, ready to mop up the survivors. From their hiding places on the roofs of the shacks, Incarnates stood up and fired the translucent energy beams from their staffs, while Brigid, Domi, Kane and Decard picked off riders with their handguns.
The biker with the grenade launcher pumped two grens into the air before Kane’s bullets caught up with her, driving straight through the gas tank of her vehicle. The bike was turned into a hurtling inferno, its rider shrieking in agony as her skin charred and she lost control. Even as the bike exploded, Kane was running back between the shacks, his head low.
Instructing everyone to get down, Kane dived to the sandy ground in the main thoroughfare. Behind him, he heard the twin grenades slap against the shacks, exploding in a cacophony of fury and shaking the flimsy single-story buildings where they stood.
The Incarnates on the left-hand building had moved quickly enough, leaping from the low roof of the shack before the grenades hit. Only one of those on the right building had moved in time, and his partner howled as flames licked the walls and the whole structure began to collapse.
Just ten feet away, Domi sprang from her position on the ground like a puma after its prey, leaping toward the Incarnate as the building beneath him sagged. She shoulder-slammed into his body, knocking him from the roof, clear of the flames.
“You okay?” she asked, breathless.
The Incarnate in the chimpanzee mask nodded, his body trembling with adrenaline.
Across from the explosions, Brigid’s arms cut the air as she ran past the other shacks and headed away from the settlement. She glanced over her shoulder as she heard the second explosion, and saw the shack crumble to the ground in a burst of dust and splintering wood. TP-9 in hand, she continued to sprint, turning to her right in a long arc around the hamlet. While all eyes were on the main fray, Brigid had decided to take the chance to secure a decisive victory.
She rushed in a long ellipse, far from the bikers speeding between the shacks to engage the Incarnates in battle. But Brigid’s eyes were on just one target—the heavy-duty Sandcat.
Head down and keeping her body low, Brigid kept herself in the driver’s blind spot before running the last few yards and leaping atop the little tanklike vehicle’s roof. She clambered across the armored bubble that contained a pair of USMG-73 heavy machine guns, even as their operator was spinning them toward her, reacting to her surprise attack. Without turning back, Brigid tossed what appeared to be a little ball-bearing behind her, straight at the armored dome. As it hit, the silver ball cracked open, and a lightning-bright flash of light was emitted, right into the gunner’s field of vision. Brigid knew she couldn’t take out the gunner from outside, but the flash-bang would be enough to put him temporarily out of commission until she had gained entry.
The gunner reacted, pulling the twin triggers of the USMG-73s, launching two long streams of bullets over the length of the vehicle. Yet Brigid had already dropped from the roof, crouching across from the driver’s door, grinning as the man looked at her in astonishment.
Silently, Brigid gave him the come-on, her index finger curling to draw him nearer. She saw the man shout something angrily before reaching for the pistol he kept on the dashboard and flinging the door open.
As the door opened, the man was leaping from his seat, swinging his pistol around and spitting a curse at Brigid. “I’ll do you, Red…” he began, as Brigid revealed the TP-9 in her other hand, blasting a bullet straight into the man’s forehead.
