Eric Lustbader - Blood Trust

She turned, pushed the body off her, and stood, slamming the door shut. There was a pounding in her head and she felt her gorge rising. The taste of stomach acid burned her throat. She shivered as she put her ear to the door, waiting for the sound of brogues to resume, but instead she heard whispers and recognized Rudy’s voice. Intuition told her what they were talking about. She could not use the little-girl act on Rudy again, and now was certain she couldn’t use it on the other guard, either. Bending down, she drew the unconscious guard’s .38 from its holster.

“Conlon!” Rudy called. “Conlon, are you okay?”

The cool heft of the handgun in her fist felt good, her forefinger lying beside the trigger like a cobra ready to spit its poison. There was an intoxication that came from holding a loaded gun, a sense of power that seemed to flow from the weapon into her hand, racing up her arm and into her brain. And it was this disorienting, larger-than-life feeling that caused her to remember what Jack had told her. “I’d rather face an adversary with a gun than one with a knife,” he’d cautioned her. “Guns make you overconfident, they make you feel as if you can overpower any adversary, and that’s where the real danger to you raises its head.”

The problem was simple enough: She was in a cul-de-sac with no other egress but the one door; there was no window in this interior bathroom. This was why Rudy and his partner hadn’t stormed in. They didn’t know the situation in here, other than the fact that Conlon had been neutralized. But that also meant she was now armed, so they were waiting for her to emerge, at which time they would grab her and disarm her before she had a chance to shoot either one of them.

A shootout would only get her killed or wounded, so she couldn’t risk even poking her head out the door to assess the situation. She had to make do with whatever was available in the bathroom.

Her hands were shaking, her heartbeat elevated, her breathing erratic. Turning to the medicine cabinet over the sink, she scanned the shelves. She’d heard about spray cans, any of which she could have put into service now, but nowadays only pump sprays were available, and were of no use. But, scrounging around in the cabinet under the sink, she found a bottle of drain cleaner. Judging by its weight, it was at least half full. Her fear was palpable, a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth. She sought to tame it, because eradicating it was a waste of time.

Several deep breaths later, she jammed the bottle into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back, and turned her attention back to Conlon. He was still unconscious. Watching him softly breathe, an idea occurred to her. It might be crazy, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a better alternative.

Temporarily sticking the .38 into her left front pocket, she bent and, grunting, lifted Conlon in his sticky cocoon onto his feet. It seemed a long, laborious project, but at last she had him on his feet, propped against the wall beside the door. She took a moment only to regain her breath, then, yanking open the door, she pushed him into the hall.

A moment later all hell broke loose.

Someone grabbed for Conlon as he fell into the hallway. In a blur of motion, she tossed the contents of the bottle of drain cleaner all over the front of the suit’s shirt. He immediately recoiled, shouting in shock and pain, Conlon’s insensate body toppled to the floor, and that was all the time she got. She tore herself away from other hands clawing at her from behind.

Vaulting over the fallen men, she ran toward the open doorway to the kitchen, but as soon as she got there she was forced to jump over the body of the cook or the gardener—one of Uncle Hank’s staff, anyway—which lay crumpled just beyond the doorway. With no time to find out if the man was dead or alive, Alli made for the back door. After being trapped in the bathroom, she had no desire to trap herself again down in the wine cellar.

She reached the glass-and-wood door more or less at the same time as her pursuer. She felt his powerful hand on her shoulder, pulling her backward, and, drawing the acquired .38, she whipped the barrel at his face. She heard a satisfying crunch of bone fracturing, and, released, she whipped the door open and fled outside.

It was raining, and she skidded badly on the slick flagstone surface leading to the gardens that comprised the inner circle of property at the rear of the house. She heard his breath first, then felt him on top of her as she struggled to regain her footing.

“Got you now, you little bitch,” Rudy said.

NINE

JACK MOVED the young man deeper into the rear of the shop to make certain no one overheard them.

“Go on,” he urged.

“Underground,” Thatë said.

“How far underground?” Jack asked.

“Not far enough … now.” Thatë made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat.

Jack saw that McKinsey had turned around and, staring through the front window, was watching him and Thatë talk. He wondered if McKinsey could lip-read. Turning his head away, he said to Thatë, “I want you to move into a section of the store where we can’t be seen from the street.”

Thatë did as Jack asked, and Jack soon followed him.

“I don’t like those two,” Thatë said, clearly referring to McKinsey and Naomi.

“You don’t like me, either.”

“Yeah, but them I’d knife—for real.”

“You really are a badass.”

Thatë didn’t know how to take that, so he did not respond.

“About the octagon symbol,” Jack prompted.

“A club.”

“I know all about clubs.”

“Not this kind of club.” Thatë’s eyes cut away, as if he’d rather be anywhere but here.

“And that would be?”

“Shit, don’t make me say it.”

“If I don’t,” Jack said, “someone else with a uniform and a much different attitude will.”

Thatë put his head down. Maybe this kind of life was getting too much for him, maybe he wasn’t cut out for it.

“Nothing legal about it.”

Jack took a step toward him. “You’d better have more for me than that.”

“Hold on. Don’t lose your shit all over everything.” The boy worried his lower lip, which was growing redder by the moment. “The club has a name. The Stem.”

Jack was going to say that he never heard of a club named the Stem, but instead he held his tongue. Something here didn’t feel right, the way it hadn’t felt right at the Billy Warren crime scene. He studied Thatë’s face, which held an expression of anticipation. In this situation it was the wrong emotion, as if he was waiting to see if “the Stem” held a special meaning for Jack.

Jack looked at the octagons—the badge and the pendant. He could focus on the one word that was identical to both of them. After a short struggle, he said to Thatë, “Pronounce this word for me.”

“What?”

“This word.” Jack tapped the octagons.

Thatë’s eyes slid away again for a moment, and Jack could read him now. He might as well take advantage of the teen’s nervousness.

“Speak it!” he ordered sharply.

“Rrjedhin.” The word almost caught in Thatë’s throat, but he managed to splutter it out.

That was a word in a language with which Jack was familiar. Without missing a beat, he said, “Sa jveç jeni?”

RUDY SMELLED unpleasantly of blood and sweat. He was as heavy as a Brahma bull and, lucky for Alli, as ungainly. His wounds had both maddened and impaired him. Blood streamed down his face, forcing him to blink continually to clear his vision, and it seemed as if his left knee, where Alli had struck him with the ash shovel, was shattered, because he dragged the leg behind him like a wrecked ship. But as she tried to get up, he used it like a club, the massive limb slamming against her hip so that they both cried out in pain at the same time.