AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They tell me he was in fact retrieved from the third-floor attic, having also penetrated the second-floor ceiling, but tall tales go with tall mountains.
I needed to block the door. The heaviest timber available was the bar, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy such fine finishing to the wood grain—the bar had carved-in grape vines and no fewer than three beautiful figures at the corners. Instead, I pried up one of the booth tables. The support came away with some nasty-looking four-inch wooden screws in the base, so I held that end toward those outside and stepped to the door. The glass would have gone eventually in a fight like this, so I didn’t overly regret wrecking it as I thrust the support through.
The biker rushing the door gave a squawk as one of the twisted wooden screws bit.
Two bullets made it through the wood before others yelled at the fools to stop firing—“Zihu’s still in there!”
Home had a bottle thrown at him and flinched, giving one of the throng a chance to knock the gun from his hand with a collapsible club. Maynes was doing well but swinging wildly. Still, his windmill blows had felled one man and backed Zihu up to the bar. Zihu circled and made for the back door. Maynes fell on his leg as he passed and bit down like a savage dog.
It occurred to me, braced there with my shoulder hard against the doorjamb, that in the movies my David and I would sometimes enjoy, the fights between leaders of the respective heroes and villains of a story were always the most spectacular. Zihu and Maynes were pawing at each other on the floor like a pair of teenagers fumbling through their first bout of lovemaking.
The brief oncoming roar of a motorcycle sounded, thunderously echoing off buildings outside; then the window and wall next to the door split with a crash. A black motorcycle with a massive shield at the front, reared up on its oversized hind wheel like a fighting stallion, crushed floor and furniture before it settled on its side, shedding two men and knocking over Home and his remaining opponent and staving out a panel in that glorious bar. The riders, wearing a mix of leather and chain mail, tumbled off the bike, goggles askew from the crash, and each drew a heavy automatic pistol.
I did my best to follow orders. If I couldn’t hold the door, I could try to throw them out as fast as they came in. Taking a position a little back from the door and the hole in the wall, I picked up one of Zihu’s mob and sent him spinning like a bowling ball at some others rushing in from outside. I achieved what’s known in bowling as a “cocked hat” split, leaving two to one side and one to the other.
I used the leverage from a thick post to kick out at another, who dodged under it. My fist connected with the head of a man in a heavy Kevlar vest coming through the door behind a shotgun barrel. He and his gun hit the floor with a satisfying clatter.
Matters behind me had gone from bad to worse. Both packs had instinctively rushed to the defense of their dominant wolf; the Zihu pack was just larger. Maynes had been pinned against the bar, with the diminutive Zihu poking a knife up into his throat from one side and a nickel-plated revolver pressed against his temple from the other. Both Home and MacTierney were on the ground and Zihu’s men were efficiently hog-tying them with cordage and cuffs designed for the purpose.
A deafening shotgun blast made all of us duck. Fortunately, my ears had been flattened against my head, offering me some protection from the noise.
“Fellas, you kill a Maynes, you have his blood after you’rn,” the bartender shouted, sounding to my outraged ears as though he were underwater. “It’s not bullshit. He’s the grandson of old King Coal. He’s Coal Country royalty, with friends all up and down the East right into the Control.”
I took three quick steps toward Maynes. Some of Zihu’s bully boys closed around the bar, but I shouldered through without undue difficulty by dislocating their shoulders.
Zihu lowered the knife. “Admit you’re beat.”
Maynes thrashed. “Road trash can’t whip me.” Blood splattered from his split lip and Zihu winced in disgust.
“We’re beat!” MacTierney shouted. “Admit it, Mr. Maynes. Please!”
Maynes thought it over. He laughed. “Yeah, we’re beat. But you fellas threw the first punch. The blood’s on you. In more ways than one.”
Zihu nodded and released Maynes’s jacket.
“I think Three-King Jake’s got a broke neck,” one of Zihu’s men reported from the Kevlar-wearing gunner I’d struck.
“We’ll let the Church sort it out,” Zihu said. “Maybe we can just be bygones over this?” He extended his hand to shake.
Maynes brought up his knee and caught Zihu in the crux. It was just the sort of move I had come to expect from this specimen of mankind.
“No!” Zihu gasped, but a gathering throng pressed toward us. I pulled Maynes over the bar and followed him. The heavy oak would buy us a few moments of protection—
“stop this nonsense!” A voice like a broken steam pipe cut through the gloomy, freshly aerated bar.
Those of you who live in these happier days have probably only seen waxworks or leftovers of the Reapers, though I know some lurk in the more remote jungles and deserts of the world. I will spare you the dangers of the journey and meeting.
They are of average Golden One height, which is to say about two heads above most male humans. Pale, fleshless, and stretched-looking, with a mouth full of black fangs, they’re just human-enough in expression to give sane humans a case of the horrors. To me, they look like a mad and depressed painter’s portrait of a human corpse. Their muscles are like steel cables, tied directly to long, grasping fingers I’ve seen push through viscera and muscle as easily as you might thrust your hand through a layer cake. It could throw me through the wall as easily as I’d lofted that unfortunate biker. Only a Bear with his blood fully up has a chance hand-to-hand with one.
One of the Coal Country troopers stood behind it. The trooper pointed at Zihu and whispered something.
This Reaper was the most scarred I’d ever seen. Its face bore white lines running every which way, like a pad of paper that had been reused for tic-tac-toe. Its up
per lip was missing, giving it a rather maniacal grin. The usual black fangs had been plated over with stainless steel and reinforced with wires near the root like some kind of disastrous experiment in orthodontia. The label “Frankenstinian” is often used in describing the Reapers, though the lurching image evoked mischaracterized their lethal precision of movement—but on this specimen its use would be more apt than most.
Home and MacTierney averted their eyes. I believe MacTierney muttered a prayer, but the bar and one of Zihu’s men absorbed any distinct words.
“What are you doing here, Screech?” Maynes said, breaking the intimidating silence. I’d never heard a Reaper called by a proper name.
