Matt Hilton - Judgement and Wrath

Bradley crumpled to the ground, landing so heavily that his upper body dug a trench in the soft earth. He gave a groan of agony as he half-rolled with his own momentum, then Dantalion was over him and the Glock was pointed directly at the back of Bradley's head. Bradley began to mewl like a cat, and his fingers stretched as the agony shrieking through his body sought outlet.

'Hurts like hell, doesn't it?' Dantalion shot a second bullet through the back of the same knee he'd just demolished. Bradley screamed. Dantalion kicked him over on to his back. He turtled up, hugging his damaged knee against his chest.

'You son of a bitch!'

'Don't,' Dantalion warned. 'Don't say anything about my mother.'

Then he shot Bradley again, this time through the bones of the foot of his right leg.

'Do feel free to tell me where Marianne is. Do that and I'll make the next shot count. The pain will end, Bradley.'

Bradley was in a place beyond comprehension. Dantalion's whispery voice wasn't registering; not when his entire being was screaming out in agony. Dantalion cocked his head, bird-like.

'I'm afraid you've outlived your usefulness,' he told the unheeding man. Then he aimed the Glock at the centre of Bradley's face. 'Your choice, Bradley. Tell me where Marianne is and I will kill you cleanly.' He lowered his aim so it was below the Kevlar vest. 'If not, I'll gut shoot you and leave you for the alligators.'

In a moment of clarity, Bradley stared up at him. The young man's face was contorted with pain, but it couldn't hide his revulsion. 'Go to hell,' he spat.

'No doubt about it,' Dantalion agreed. 'But you'll be there before me.'

Bradley sneered. 'Yeah? Well I'll say hello to your mother, shall I? Stands to reason that bitch will be there too.'

'I told you not to speak about my mother.'

'Tough shit, man!' Bradley yelled. 'If she's anything like you she's an evil, ugly, diseased old bitch.'

Dantalion's head swung from side to side.

'My mother was beautiful.'

'Yeah, right!' Bradley fought himself up to a sitting position. Beads of cold sweat broke along his hairline. 'So it must have been your father who was pig-ugly, then?'

Dantalion blinked his rheumy eyes.

'Ha! Thought so. You don't even know your father, do you? You're just another bastard born from a drugged-up whore!'

Dantalion felt a quiver of rage build in him. Bradley's words went beyond the insults he'd endured all his life. Aimed at himself, other people's insults had fuelled him, built him into the killer that he'd become, but he would not stand by while this pig of a boy cast aspersions on his mother. He loved his mother. He had proven the depths of his love when he'd sent her to be with his father rather than keep her all to himself. He could have been selfish, but, no. He had done her a kindness, even though he wanted his mother to be his for all eternity.

He pulled the trigger and the Glock barked like an angry dog.

The bang of a gun happened so close by I could have sworn that I felt the pressure of displaced air in my inner ear. It took less than a moment for it to register that the gun had been fired many yards to my left and it was an echo effect of the rippling grasses that made it sound so close.

Dantalion had made an effort at concealing the car, but I'd discovered the abandoned car within minutes of disembarking from the chopper. I checked it for Bradley's corpse, and — thankfully — found it empty. Two separate trails led away through the tall grass and at random I chose the nearest to follow. When I'd dropped from the helicopter I'd sunk almost to my knees into viscous mud. Water had splashed up my body and I had to take out the Ka-bar knife and wipe it clean on some scrub. It made sense to keep hold of it. My SIG was in my other hand. I moved through the green ocean in a crouch with both my weapons poised for killing.

The last time I'd stalked an enemy through grasses like these was on an island in the Indian Ocean. Sinhala villagers had been butchered by a faction of terrorists and my team was sent in to punish those responsible. The terrorists were a particularly devout group of fanatics prepared to die for their beliefs. They were known to carry cyanide capsules, preferring suicide to capture. It was a good compromise. We caught the murdering pigs and made them chew on their own capsules, but still shot them in their final seconds. Sounds brutal, but the sight of headless women and children is enough to make you forget your humanity.

So does an old lady sprawled across her own table with a bullet through her heart.

Moving through the whispering grasses, I thought back to how Rink and I, and half-a-dozen of our comrades, had used the cover of the elephant grass to get so close to the men we hunted that we could've reached out and snatched them one by one. It was the same now. I'd moved to within a couple of yards of Dantalion and the white-faced freak wasn't even aware of my presence.

He was pointing his gun down at the floor, and it took me a moment to realise that Bradley was there, concealed from my view by a dip in the ground. Dantalion leaned over him, and for the briefest time I saw one of Bradley's arms waving him back. He was still alive then. Dantalion fired his gun again. Bradley began screaming. I lifted my own SIG, only for the damn thing to jam on me. Bradley was still shouting, even after Dantalion shot him a third time, and I guessed that the man was torturing Bradley by shooting his extremities. I had moments to save Bradley, the seconds ticking down. However, with my gun jammed I had no other weapon than the Ka-bar. I could throw the knife, but there was always the chance that I'd miss. Then it would be my bare hands against Dantalion's gun, and bullets would always be faster than my fists.

It was a risk, but I didn't think that Dantalion was ready to kill Bradley yet. I slipped backwards into the longer grass, giving me the cover I needed while I disengaged the slide on my gun. I'm a fan of my modified SIG-Sauer because it has no safety to snag on clothing, and the sights are removed for the same reason. Normally it serves me well. I could fire a thousand rounds in quick succession and it would never jam. It was pure bad luck that the gun had failed me this time at the very moment I needed it most. Typically, I found that it was the bullet and not the gun that had let me down. I quickly ejected the jammed round, then racked the slide a second time, ejecting a second. Happy that the gun was good to go, I moved back towards Dantalion.

Both their voices were raised. Bradley was more angered than terrified and he was goading Dantalion with insults about his heritage. Dantalion was rising to the bait. His face looked like molten wax as he stepped over the top of Bradley. It was now or never.

I fired.

So did Dantalion.

But I had fired first and my bullet hit him in the meat of his right shoulder. Blood puffed into the air. Dantalion was knocked sidelong and his finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, firing off round after round. He made a high-pitched howl and toppled out of sight. I heard a splash and saw a gout of dirty water erupt into the air. The stench of rotting vegetation filled my senses.

Immediately I came out of hiding. My bullet had hit the killer, but it wasn't a mortal wound. Only once I had put a wad of lead through his skull or his heart would I relax. I moved from the grass on to an embankment over a drainage ditch where I saw Bradley had survived. He was sorely wounded through his right leg, but he'd live.

'Did you get him?' he asked hopefully.

'Not as clean as I wanted to.'

I stepped towards the ditch.

The water was putrid, murky and full of weeds. Scum on the surface had been broken and an undulating circle showed where Dantalion had gone under. There was no sign of him. Part of me hoped that he'd been entangled in the weeds and drowned, his lungs filling with the rancid water, but then a greater part wanted to kill him outright. Things had become personal between us.