John Connolly - Bad Men

It landed with the kind of sound that only three quarters of a million dollars can make.

Scarfe too had seen the shadows outside. Panicked, he held his gun in a double-handed grip and tried to catch the figures as they moved beyond the windows.

Then two noises came together: a scuffling from the staircase across from him, and a rattle as something thrust itself against the door from outside. Torn between the two threats, Scarfe retreated against the wall just as Macy’s voice called out: “Police! Drop your weapon.”

And then the door flew open, and the man in her sights turned to stare at what lay beyond. He raised his weapon and fired. Macy, aware only of the gun and the threat that it posed, fired at the same time, and watched the man buck against the wall, then slide down, the gun falling from his hand.

Macy advanced toward Scarfe and kicked his gun away with her foot. The doorway was empty. Only snow was entering. The shot had taken him clean in the chest and he was bleeding from the mouth. She tried to open his jacket but his hand gripped hers as he tried to speak.

“Tell me,” said Macy. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“Elliot,” Scarfe whispered. “Moloch!”

He was staring straight at her, pulling her closer, and then his gaze shifted to a point over her shoulder and his grip tightened. She was already turning when she felt a presence close by, flitting moth-like in the shadows.

The Gray Girl hung in the air behind her, moving swiftly back and forth, trying to find some means of access to the dying man. Macy could see her eyes, jet black within her wrinkled skin, and the edges of her teeth almost hidden beneath the lips of her rounded mouth.

She raised her gun as Scarfe began to spasm beside her. His nails dug into her painfully. The Gray Girl darted forward, then retreated again as Macy shielded the dying man’s body from her. Scarfe coughed once, and his fingers relaxed their grip as the life passed from him. Macy watched as the child’s features contorted with rage, her head and arms trembling with the depth of her anger, and then she seemed to sink back into the shadows in the corner. Seconds later, a flight of moths burst from the darkness and disappeared into the night, forming a mist that moved against the direction of the wind, heading deeper and deeper into the forest, making for the very heart of the island.

Dexter and Moloch left Carl Lubey’s burning house behind them, traveling southwest until they came to a road, banks of firs standing like temple columns at either side.

“You want the map?” asked Dexter.

“I know where we’re going,” said Moloch. He sounded distracted, almost distant. “We need to spread out, take them from every angle.”

Dexter stared at him.

“Spread out how? There’s just you and me.”

Moloch acted like a man suddenly awakened from a strange dream. Once again, the sensation of worlds overlapping came to him, but it was accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling of separation. Moments earlier, he had been surrounded by men, men willing to act at his command. He had strength and authority. Now there was only Dexter, and Moloch himself was weakening. Increasingly, he was troubled by the sense that he was less alive here than he was in the past, that each time he flipped between worlds he left more of himself behind in an earlier life.

“They haven’t come back yet?” he asked.

“Who, Shepherd and Scarfe? No, they ain’t back yet.”

Moloch nodded, then pointed. “Her house is just over that rise. Shouldn’t take us more than-”

He glanced at his watch. It had stopped.

“You know what time it is?”

Dexter wore a Seiko digital. No numerals showed on its face.

“I don’t know. It’s not working right.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Moloch, but again Dexter detected a wavering note in his voice. Don’t fall apart on me now, man, he thought, not after all this time.

The wind was dying down now, the snow falling a little less thickly. They leaped a small ditch that ran along the side of the road, now almost entirely filled with snow, and stepped out onto the trail. In doing so, they almost ran into the woman. She let out a little yelp of surprise, then saw their guns and started to back away.

“Now, where are you going?” said Dexter. He advanced upon her, gripped her by the hair, and dragged her back to Moloch.

Bonnie Claeson had given up on the phone, on her car, and on Joe Dupree. She had given up on everything. Something had broken inside her when she’d heard her son’s voice echoing down a dead telephone line, and so she had retreated into a beautiful illusion. Richie, her sad, troubled, loving son, was out in the snow alone, probably tired and afraid. She had to find him and bring him home. She wore only an open coat over her sweater and jeans, and her clothing was now crusted white with flakes Her cheap boots had not protected her feet, yet she did not feel the cold. She was lost to herself, and now she only wished for her son to appear out of the darkness, his orange jacket bright against the snow, his face filled with relief and affection as his mother came for him and drew him to her.

“I’m searching for my boy,” she said. “Have you seen him?”

She looked first at Dexter, then at Moloch, examining their faces. They seemed familiar to her. Briefly, her clouded mind was illuminated by a flash of clarity. She shook her head and moved away from the two men, never allowing her eyes to leave their faces.

They were Richie’s bad men, the men from the TV. She heard her son’s voice crying out its last words to her.

Momma! Momma! Bad men. Badmenbadmenbadmenbadmenbad-

Dexter saw the recognition in her eyes.

“Shit,” he said, “now we’re gonna-”

The gunshot came from so close to his head that he recoiled in shock, his ears ringing. The woman crumpled to the ground and began to bleed on the snow. Beside him, Moloch holstered his gun.

“We could have taken her with us,” said Dexter. “She could have helped us.”

“You going soft on me, Dex?” came the reply, and Dexter was sure now that Moloch was mad. In the unspoken threat he heard the death sentence being passed on Willard, the abandonment of Powell, Shepherd, and Scarfe to their fates, and the single-minded obsession that had brought them to this place. It was no longer about money, or a woman, or a child. Moloch might once have thought that it was, but it wasn’t. He had come here for some unknowable reason of his own, and those who stood alongside him were expendable.

We’re going to die here, Dexter realized. I think I always knew, and just hoped that it wouldn’t be true, but it will end here. I have no choice now but to follow it to its end, and to embrace it when it comes.

“No,” said Dexter. “I ain’t going soft.”

He walked over to where the woman lay and looked down on her. She was lying very still. Her eyes blinked and he saw her chest rise and fall, blood spreading from the wound on her left breast. Her lips formed a word.

“Richie,” she whispered, for the boy was beside her now. He had always appeared wondrous to her, always kind, but now he seemed transformed, his features perfectly sculpted and his eyes alive with an intelligence that he had never known in life.

“Richie,” she repeated. He reached out his hand to her and took it in his own, and he drew her to him and carried her away so that she would not feel the pain of the final bullet.

Marianne was on her doorstep when she heard the shots. They came from close by. Two overnight bags, crammed full of clothing, lay by her feet, and the knapsack hung over her shoulder. Danny sat on top of one of the bags, still drowsy. When he heard the shots, he looked up briefly, then resumed his previous position, his head cupped in his hands, his eyes nearly closed.