Grimm Awakening (18 page)

Andy turned his attention to Siegel. “We have to blow this joint, Ben. Are you ready to move fast and fight hard?”

In answer, the old man got to his feet. Siegel no longer appeared to be in any discernible pain. There was anger in his eyes now, a hint of something feral and dangerous scores of unfortunates from his previous life would have recognized. The former gangster reached inside his tattered trench coat and removed a crumpled brown fedora. One side of his mouth tilted up in a sardonic smile. “In a past life this was a jester’s hat. I altered its appearance because who wants to go around wearing a goddamn jester’s hat, right?”

He put the hat on his head and pulled it down tight over his ears. A change came over him as he spoke in the language of the Rainbolts. His slightly stooped posture became ramrod-straight. His gut receded. Flab melted from every part of his body and gave way to hard muscle. Age lines vanished from his face and the gray leached out of his hair. Within moments the old man looked like the young gangster from Murder, Inc.

He looked at Andy. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

Andy nodded. “Let’s go.”

Andy ignored the open door through which their intended assassins had come and went to the door through which they had originally entered the room. He unlocked it and stepped through into the hallway. Siegel followed immediately. Lucien bent to pick up a machete before catching up to them.

The hallway was dark, the lanterns that had lit their way extinguished. Lucien was tempted to go to hound mode to see better, but he resisted the urge. It wasn’t time for the primal fury of the hound yet. For now, he needed to be cautious and in control. He extended an arm and touched the tip of the machete to a wall. He moved forward, guiding himself with the blade. He could hear Andy and Siegel up ahead, their backs invisible in the near-perfect darkness.

Andy spoke up: “I’m at the staircase.”

A moment later Siegel said the same.

Then Andy’s voice came again: “Where are you, Lucien?”

“About ten feet away.”

Soon he was at the foot of the staircase with them.

Andy said, “No light I can see from the landing. We’re going up anyway. Be careful, and keep a hand on the rail.”

The steps creaked as Andy began to ascend them. Lucien waited while Siegel followed, then went up after them. With both hands full, Lucien didn’t bother with the handrail, choosing instead to stick out an elbow and drag it along the way. But he almost went tumbling back down the stairs when the side of his head grazed a lantern. He wobbled a moment before sinking the machete blade into the next step up. The sound made the other men gasp.

But Lucien managed to right himself by keeping a strong grip on the machete handle. He pulled the machete out of the wood and breathed a relieved sigh. “It’s nothing. Almost had an accident, but I’m fine.”

Andy said, “You know how much need I have for a crippled hellhound, Lucien?”

“How much?”

“None. Be careful, dammit.”

The ascent up the staircase resumed. Within moments they were on the landing, trying not to jostle one another too much. Andy gripped the knob to the next door and rattled it.

“Locked.”

Lucien sighed. “What now?”

Siegel said, “I’ll show you what now. Out of the way, O’Day.”

Andy sidestepped to his right as Siegel surged forward. His right leg whipped out and the sole of his boot struck the door with tremendous force, knocking it off its hinges. The top of the door settled against the far wall. Siegel stepped over the bottom half of it and entered the lighted hallway beyond. Andy followed and Lucien was about to step through the doorway when he heard Siegel shout a curse. Lucien rushed into the hallway and saw a new pack of black-clad attackers bearing down on them. Andy’s gun came up in a blur and began discharging bullets. Lucien knew the hallway was too cramped an area to fight the way he had in the Red Room, so he raised his own gun and started firing.

The bodies piled up in a hurry again, but one man got close and launched himself at Andy and Lucien. They stepped aside and the man flew between them, crashing to the floor and then sliding beneath the angled door. Siegel tossed the door aside and descended on the acrobatic attacker He snapped the man’s neck with practiced ease and got to his feet again..

Andy paused to reload while Lucien kept firing. Then Lucien’s gun clicked empty and there was a terrible moment of silence before Andy slammed the fresh clip home and started firing again. In that instant of defenselessness, another attacker got close enough to leap at them. Lucien, who wasn’t in hound mode but was operating on pure human adrenaline, caught the man in mid-air and tossed him over his shoulder. He glanced backward and saw Siegel taking care of him.

Andy’s gun clicked empty.

Two remaining attackers came at them, exhibiting the single-mindedness of attack dogs. Lucien launched himself at them, driving a boot into the abdomen of one. That man flew backward and hit the floor hard, the force of his landing rocking the machete out of his hand. Lucien’s weapons were dislodged as he hit the floor on his rear end. As he scrambled for the fallen machete, he heard Andy and Siegel struggling with the other attacker. But he had his own fight to finish and could only hope things went well on their end.

His hand closed around the machete handle and he managed to get to his knees at the precise moment his opponent did. Lucien recognized how much trouble he would’ve been in had the man come up armed, but luck was on his side this time and the man was empty-handed. Lucien drove the machete blade into the man’s midsection, then got to his feet for leverage and gave it a more powerful thrust. The man screamed as the blade passed all the way through him and exited through his back. The scent of all the fresh blood almost brought on the change, but Lucien willed it back. He yanked the machete out of the dead man and wheeled around to assist his comrades.

But Siegel and Andy had managed to dispatch the other attacker without his aid.

Lucien panted hard for a few moments before managing to speak. “What’s the deal with these people? They seem out of place in this world.”

Andy nodded. “I know. They’re like kamikaze super-ninjas. I’d thought they were agents of the big boss of hell, but now I’m not so sure.”

Siegel slid brass knuckles off his hand and flexed his fingers. “I have an idea.”

They looked at him.

Andy said, “So let’s hear it.”

“I don’t think they were after us at all. Think about it. It doesn’t make sense. Time froze in our world when we came here. Your enemies there couldn’t have sent anyone after us.”

Andy sighed. “So why did they come at us so hard?”

“I think they wanted the Eye of Sylvain.”

“Yeah…yeah, I don’t know, but that could be it.” Andy’s gaze jerked to the left then to the right, examining each end of the hallway. “And I bet whoever these ninja fuckers were bribed O’Scanlon’s people to get it for them. Maybe Sean had nothing to do with it after all.”

Lucien frowned. “I don’t know. If these guys weren’t sent by my old boss, then who sent them? Maybe they
were
after the Eye of Sylvain, who the fuck knows, but it seems odd they just happened to make their move when we were here.”

Andy shrugged. “Not everything that happens is connected to our situation.”

Lucien still harbored doubts, but he didn’t say anything.

Siegel said, “What about the Eye? Maybe we should go back for it.”

Andy shook his head. “Right now all I care about is getting Sean’s end of this sorted out. Anything else can wait.” He moved past Lucien and paused at the door to the barroom. “I know this is asking a lot, but try your best to be nonchalant. Remember, this hallway is soundproofed and no one in the bar knows what happened here.”

Siegel said, “I’ll be as nonchalant as I can be with blood all over me.”

Andy unlocked the door and threw it open.

Lucien expected to hear the dissonant various noises of the barroom. What he heard instead was absolute silence. And that wasn’t his only clue that something was off-kilter. There was something in the air, a scent of recent violence, that rancid perfume born of slaughter, and of pain and anguish, of sweat and tears, of voided bladders and bowels.

The three men stepped into the barroom and stood stock-still as they drank in the bloody panorama of O’Scanlon’s pub. There were bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. None of the pub’s patrons had survived. However, someone had managed to kill a single black-clad super-ninja--he lay with his head propped against the bar, a knife sticking out of his throat.

Something caught Andy’s attention and he rushed over to the bar. He was halfway there when he let out a heart-rending cry. He staggered the rest of the way and stood leaning against the bar. Lucien caught up with him and saw Sean O’Scanlon’s severed head sitting atop a beer barrel.

Andy turned to face them. “Someone pays for this. Whoever sent these ninja freaks here. He’s going to die.”

Lucien didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. It was obvious how difficult finding the person or persons responsible for this massacre would be, especially when there were so many other more pressing matters still at hand.

Siegel coughed. “The Eye of Sylvain. We better get it.”

Andy departed without another word, running over the jumble of broken bodies and limbs. He disappeared through the doorway to the secret hallway a moment before Lucien and Siegel thought to follow him.

Lucien was first through the door. He saw Andy at the end of the hallway, a lantern ripped from a wall sconce dangling from his left hand. Taking Andy’s cue, Lucien and Siegel grabbed their own lanterns and followed. Then they rushed to the end of the hallway, vaulted over the lower end of the angled door, and started down the creaky staircase. The flickering light from the lanterns sped them along, but Lucien nonetheless almost stumbled a time or two before reaching the bottom of the stairs. He hurried down the next hallway to the open Red Room door.

When he entered the room and saw the look of disgust on Andy’s face, he knew they’d failed in their errand.

O’Day punched the air in frustration. “It’s gone. God, but I’m an idiot. I should’ve thought of it before we left the room.”

Lucien looked at him. “Okay, it’s gone. Now what?”

Andy paced around the room, taking care not to trip over the fallen bodies. He pumped his fist repeatedly and his face was a study in concentration. He looked like he was mulling over an infinite number of possibilities in rapid succession. He looked up when Siegel entered the room.

“Ben, you know this world as well as I do. Better, maybe.”

Siegel nodded. “I’ve spent years at a time here, yeah.”

Andy was nodding as Siegel spoke. “Can you think of anyone or anything--any single person, any sect or organization in this world--that would send assassins like these?”

Siegel’s brow furrowed as he thought about it. He shook his head. “No. Nothing I have knowledge of explains these guys.”

Andy sighed. “I thought as much. I’m fucking stumped, too.”

He knelt and pulled the hood off the head of one of the dead men. He sighed at the sight of the scorched countenance and looked up at Lucien and Siegel. “Here’s another thing we were wrong about. These are servants of hell. The hell of our world. But these would-be assassins weren’t actually dispatched from hell.” He pointed at the unmasked man. “See the way his face is mutilated? This man was a soldier in the service of hell’s most powerful representative on earth. Facial disfigurement is her signature way of branding her slaves and foot soldiers.”

Lucien stared at the dead man’s melted face. “Who is this person?”

“Mona Faust, Jack’s ex-wife.”

Lucien nodded. “I guess you know what you’re talking about, but why were they here? Why now? And what does the Eye of Sylvain have to do with it?”

“I can only guess. The Eye is a valuable relic--priceless, really--and that alone would be reason enough for Mona to send her people after it. Also, Mona must know Jack’s friends are coming to help him. She’s well aware of Ben’s connection to Jack and myself, so she might have sent these assassins here earlier as a contingency force.” With a nod Andy indicated the open service door through which the black-clad men had mounted their attack. “Could be one or more of these hell ninjas held back when it became clear we had the upper hand. Then when we were gone, they slipped in here and made off with the Eye, a token to take back to Mona in hopes she might spare their lives despite their defeat at our hands.”

Siegel said, “I bet that’s it. Goddamn, I just bet it is. Feels right, you know?”

Lucien nodded. “Yeah, it does.” He looked around the room again, then met Andy’s gaze. “Are we through here, then?”

Andy’s answer was non-vocal.

He seized each of his cohorts by a hand. Then he closed his eyes as he began to recite the transference chant. White light engulfed the Red Room almost immediately, making the men in the room--both living and dead--look like shimmery images on a malfunctioning television screen.

Then there was only white light as they moved to the world next door.

12.