Matt Hilton - Dead Men's Harvest

They had brought him to a halt as he’d moved along the starboard side of the ship, retracing his steps towards the stairs to the galley. He turned, listening for more gunfire, but knew that those final rounds, so controlled and spaced, were punctuation marks in a very definite statement. The last was the full stop.

You should have kept a gun, he told himself. But he wouldn’t let the fact that he’d foregone his firearms in favour of his blades trouble him. He had all the weapons he required, plus one very special addition. Actually, he relished meeting Joe Hunter with only the simple tools of his trade. It would be far more satisfying showing Hunter that the last time they’d met had been a fluke. Hunter had brought guns that time, but their fight had still ended blade to blade, and it would be the same here. Someone once claimed you didn’t bring a knife to a gunfight. OK, you didn’t: not unless you were Tubal Cain, the Father of Cutting Instruments.

He heard his name, the shout challenging the level of the rainstorm, and he smiled. It sounded like Joe Hunter had indeed survived his meeting with Baron.

‘You piece of shit! I’m going to tear your fucking heart out!’

A poor choice of words from someone who had almost lost his heart to Cain’s blade.

I’ll show him the error of his ways, he thought. It was one thing killing a baron, quite another taking on a prince.

He chose the Tanto for setting up this kill. It had proven itself before and it would serve him well until he elected to show his ace card. Gripping the Tanto’s hilt, he carried the blade braced against his wrist and crept slowly across the deck to the port side.

There was a rumble somewhere to the east. Thunder?

Let the storm build, it would add atmosphere to the drama about to play out. He knew the roar from the heavens was a sign that Chaos favoured his actions and that today would be his.

Kill Hunter.

Take his trophy.

Move on.

He had a more important reckoning to see to, and that was with Hunter’s brother. Big bad Joe was simply a stepping block in the right direction.

He’d lost Jennifer to the sea, but he’d been seconds away from killing her anyway. Once Hunter was out of the way, who’d know that the woman was no longer under his control? He could still draw John Telfer to the prearranged meeting. It would be an even sweeter reunion when Telfer found out he’d come too late to save his wife.

Cain wiped the rain from his eyes. There on the port side, the full fury of the storm was once again in his face. Wind tore at his clothing, as though trying to strip it away, leaving him naked, and in his most natural, feral form. For the briefest moment he even considered helping the wind in its mission: tearing off his clothing to meet Hunter the way nature had designed. But that would be stupid: in this weather hypothermia would kill him as readily as would Hunter’s gun.

He moved slowly, but surely, towards the area where the lifeboat hung on its winches. Though he was still too far away to make anything out, he thought he saw movement through the drifting spray. He batted more rain from his eyes, thankful that he hadn’t discarded his clothes in that moment’s madness, because he needed the sleeve of his jacket to keep his vision clear.

The ship tilted, and he grabbed at the rail for support.

Again came that rumble from the east.

Was it thunder… or something else?

He searched the storm-tossed sea but couldn’t detect anything; even so, this time he knew that it wasn’t a product of the storm. That was a goddamn engine revving as a boat fought the waves.

Hunter and his friend must have arrived here by boat. They hadn’t just teleported aboard the frickin’ ship like this was a cheap TV sci-fi show. So, who the hell was out there? Jared Rington, the Jap who’d gone and spoiled everything last time? He hoped so: two birds with one stone, and all that.

Forget what’s out there, he told himself. Concentrate on Hunter.

He continued, steadying himself with one hand on the rail. Through the shifting veil of rain he saw the bulky outline of the lifeboat as it swung on its ropes. It thumped against the wall of the ship with a resounding boom. On the deck directly to the right of it he could see the pile of shattered humanity, all the dead sprawled in various poses, as though positioned by the hand of a deranged choreographer of violence. Standing over the pile of corpses was another figure. Dressed in a black jumpsuit, an equally dark cap pulled over his hair, there was no mistaking him. He looked strange, a stark shadow amid the spray, shoulders hunched, his fists clenched by his sides, swaying with the pitch of the deck as he peered down at his dead friend’s corpse.

Cain moved closer.

The man had his back to him.

Perfect.

Cain allowed the Tanto blade to swing forward and held it primed for a killing rush.

He was ten feet away now, and Cain held his breath. He wanted to leap in, but he recalled Hunter’s catlike reflexes and thought he’d only make it halfway before the man twisted round and shot him dead. He squeezed rain from his eyes.

Another step.

Another.

Then Cain could no longer contain the urge for slaughter, and he launched himself at Hunter’s back. He looped his left arm around the man’s neck, driving the Tanto under his ribs with all the weight of his body behind it. He twisted the blade, seeking the liver, howling a shout of triumph in Hunter’s ear.

He stepped back, pulling out the knife, and readying it for another plunge.

Hunter didn’t fall.

He didn’t even react.

He just swayed with the motion of the ship.

Cain wasn’t one for swearing, but he couldn’t stop himself.

‘What the fuck?’

Then he saw it, the thin wire supporting the man, and he followed it up to where it was fixed to one of the overhead cranes. He looked at the back of the corpse’s skull, saw where he’d recently jammed his Bowie knife through it.

Down on the deck, the other black-suited figure sat up and pointed his gun at Cain’s face.

‘Drop the knife, Cain,’ Joe Hunter snapped.

Using a friend in that way seems callous, but I believed that given the choice, Hartlaub would have said to go ahead. He’d given me his life, and now the means to draw Cain into a trap. The idea had come to me when I’d shouted my challenge at Cain. He was the type who couldn’t refuse an easy kill when my back was turned. I’d seen the winch and the hook and had fed it under Hartlaub’s armpits and hauled him off the deck. I’d positioned him so that he looked like a man stooped in grief, and it seemed to have done the trick.

It was difficult lying there among the dead, waiting as Cain crept forward, and more than once I’d wanted to leap up and shoot the bastard before he could reach Hartlaub. The ruse would only last so long, and I hadn’t honestly thought he’d spring on to my dead friend’s back like that. I’d waited, held myself lax, ready for my moment.

And then it had come.

‘I told you to drop the fucking knife,’ I said.

Cain shook his head sadly as I came to my feet.

I stood with my feet planted, one slightly in front of the other, toes turned inward to grip the deck, the butt of my SIG supported in my opposite cupped palm. Only ten feet away, I could shoot Cain in either eye without stirring his lashes.

‘That wasn’t very sporting,’ Cain said. ‘Tricking me like that.’

‘It isn’t a game.’

‘Oh, but it is. Don’t say you don’t agree. I know what you’re like.’

‘No, Cain. You don’t. You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be me. You aren’t human.’

‘I’m not?’

‘No. A human has a soul. Your soul died the day you picked up a blade and became Tubal Cain.’