John Connolly - The Reapers

“Well, you should be.”

“You could look pleased about the fact that I’m still alive. I. Got. Shot.”

“The hell with you.”

Angel looked over Louis’s shoulder and saw the Detective and Willie Brew standing on the top of the small hill, staring down at them. His brow furrowed. Louis turned. His brow did exactly the same.

“You two on vacation?” asked Angel.

“We came looking for you,” said the Detective.

“Why?”

“Willie thought you might be in trouble.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You know, barns blowing up, that kind of thing.”

“I got shot,” said Louis.

“I heard.”

“Yeah, well nobody seems too bothered by it.”

“Except you.”

“With reason, man. You two come alone?”

The Detective shifted awkwardly on his feet as he answered. “Not entirely.”

“Aw no,” said Angel, realization dawning. “You didn’t bring them along.”

“There was nobody else. I couldn’t pick and choose.”

“Jesus. Where are they?”

The Detective gestured vaguely. “Somewhere out there. They took the road. We came on foot.”

“Maybe they’ll get lost,” said Angel. “Permanently.”

“They came here because of you two. They worship you.”

“They’re psychotic.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” The Detective gestured at Bliss. “By the way, who was he?”

“His name was Bliss,” said Louis. “He was a killer.”

“Hired to kill you?”

“Looks like it. Think he might have taken the job for free anyway.”

“Didn’t work out so good for him.”

“He was supposed to be the best, back in the day. Everybody thought he’d retired.”

“I guess he should have stayed in Florida.”

“Guess so.”

They heard the sound of a vehicle to the east. Seconds later, the Fulcis’ monster truck appeared over one of the rises, heading in their direction. Some of Angel’s anger had begun to dissipate, and he had deigned to examine Louis’s wound.

“You’ll live,” said Angel.

“You could sound pleased.”

“Asshole,” said Angel again.

The truck pulled up nearby, churning mud and grass as it did so, and the Fulcis emerged, followed closely by Jackie Garner. They looked at Bliss, then looked at Louis.

“Who was he?” asked Paulie.

“A killer,” said the Detective.

“Uh-huh. Wow,” said Paulie. He glanced shyly at Louis, but it was Tony who spoke first.

“You okay, sir?” he asked.

Willie saw the Detective trying to hide his amusement. There probably weren’t a whole lot of people that the Fulcis called “sir.” It made Tony sound like he was about nine years old.

“Yeah. I just got shot.”

“Wow,” he said, echoing his brother. Both of the Fulcis seemed awestruck.

“What now?” asked the Detective.

“We finish what we came here to do,” said Louis. “You don’t have to come if it doesn’t sit easy with you,” he added.

“I came this far. I’d hate to leave before the climax.”

“What about us?” asked Tony.

“The two roads converge about a half mile from Leehagen’s house,” said Louis. “You stay there with Jackie and hold them, in case company comes.”

The Detective walked over to where Willie was standing uncertainly. “You can stay with them or come with us, Willie,” he said, and Willie thought that he saw sympathy in the Detective’s eyes, but it was lost on him. Willie looked to the Fulcis and Jackie Garner. Jackie had taken some short cylinders from his rucksack and was trying to explain the difference between them to the Fulcis.

“This is smoke,” he said, holding up a tube wrapped at either end with green tape. “It’s green. And this one explodes,” he said, holding up one wrapped in red tape. “This one is red.”

Tony Fulci looked hard at both of the tubes. “That one’s green,” he said, pointing at the gas. “The other one is red.”

“No,” said Jackie, “you got it wrong.”

“I don’t. That one’s red, and that one’s green. Tell him, Paulie.”

Paulie joined them. “No, Jackie’s right. Green and red.”

“Jesus, Tony,” said Jackie. “You’re color-blind. Did no one ever tell you?”

Tony shrugged. “I just figured lots of people liked red food.”

“That’s not normal,” said Jackie, “although I guess it explains why you were always running red lights.”

“Well, it don’t matter now. So the green one is really red, and the red one is green?” said Tony.

“That’s right,” said Jackie.

“Which one explodes again?”

Reluctantly, Willie turned back to the Detective.

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

THEY APPROACHED LEEHAGEN’S HOUSE by the same route they had taken earlier that day, passing through the cattle pens. The car was still in the barn, the bodies of the Endalls still on the floor. The pens gave them more cover than they would have enjoyed had they approached by road although, as Angel pointed out, it also offered others more places in which to hide, yet they reached the rise overlooking the property without incident. Once again, Leehagen’s house lay below them. It seemed almost to give off a sense of apprehension, as if it were waiting for the violent reprisal that must inevitably come the way of those inside. There was no sign of life: no shapes moving, no twitching of drapes, only stillness and wariness.

Angel lay on the grass as Louis scanned every inch of the property.

“Nothing,” he said. His wound, although little more than a graze, was aching. The Fulcis had offered him some mild sedatives from their mobile drugstore, but the pain wasn’t bad enough to justify dulling his senses before the task was complete.

“Lot of open ground between us and them,” said Angel. “They’ll see us coming.”

“Let them,” said Louis.

“Easy for you to say. You’ve already been shot once today.”

“Uh-huh: a shot from an expert marksman at a moving target over open ground, and he still didn’t make the kill. You think whoever’s in there is going to do any better? This isn’t a western. People are hard to hit unless they’re up close.”

Behind them knelt the Detective, and farther back was Willie Brew. He had said little since the killing at the ruined barn, and his eyes appeared to be looking inward, at something that only he could see, instead of out at the world through which he was moving. The Detective knew that Willie was in shock. Unlike Louis, he understood what Willie was going through. Deaths stayed with the Detective, and he knew that, in taking a life, you took on the burden of the victim’s grief and pain. That was the price you paid, but nobody had explained that to Willie Brew. Now he would keep paying it until the day he died.

Louis looked to the sky. It was darkening again. More rain was coming after the brief hiatus. The Detective followed his gaze, and nodded.

“We wait,” he said.

He turned to Willie Brew, offering him a final chance to absent himself from what was to come. “You want to stay here while we go in?”

Willie shook his head. “I’ll go,” he said. Willie felt as though the life were slowly seeping from his body, as though it was he who had been shot, not the man whom he had left dead on the ground. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He didn’t think he’d be able to hold the Browning steady, even if his life depended on it. The gun was back in the pocket of his overalls, and it could stay there. He wouldn’t be using it again, not ever.

And so they remained as they were, unspeaking, until the rain began to fall.

They moved fast, running in pairs. The rain had returned suddenly, falling hard, slanting slightly in the westerly breeze, aiding them in their task by hammering on the windows of Leehagen’s house, masking their approach from those within. They reached the fence at the edge of the property, and then used the shrubs and trees in the yard for cover as they advanced on the main building itself. The house was surrounded by a porch on all four sides. The drapes were drawn on the first-floor windows, and the windows themselves were locked. A disabled access ramp ran parallel to the main steps below the front door, which was glassless and closed. They passed the nurse’s little apartment, a single room with a bed and a small living area. There was nobody inside. She would have been sent away, Angel guessed. Leehagen would not have wanted her as a witness to what was planned.