He hesitated, then there was the sound of his feet pounding against the dirt as he ran. I continued to stay flat, both to be less of a target and because breathing was agony. I didn’t want to imagine what trying to move would be like. The only part of me that disagreed was my fingers digging into the dirt as the pain crushed my ribs in a massive fist. It ebbed and flowed, the fiery, stabbing ache, and finally focused on the left side of my back.
“Jackson?” Hector was back. Already? It couldn’t have been more than minutes, although the agony in my back was saying bullshit to that-it felt more like seconds in recovery time. Unfortunately, Hector didn’t sound as if he was waving a flag of victory. I felt his hand below my scapula, his fingers probing. “Okay. I got it. The son of a bitch nailed you right over the heart.”
“The same son of a bitch who, I take it, got away.” The pain was the same, but I no longer felt as if my lungs had taken the weekend off. Breathing was easier and talking doable. I appreciated that, because I had something to say. “I asked you for a bulletproof vest. I felt the bullet fine. I didn’t feel the damn proof in it at all.” I pushed up on my hands and knees and groaned at the spike of pain. “Ah, shit. What’s it made out of? Your grandma’s leftover yarn? Christ.”
He hooked his arm under my right one and helped me stagger to my feet before juggling the blob of metal in the palm of his other hand. “It’s a big enough round. Nine-millimeter, same as I use. Without the Kevlar, it wouldn’t have just hit your heart; it would’ve exploded it.”
“I told you the vest was a better choice for me than a gun.” I winced as I tried to straighten. “But I still think someone at the nursing home crocheted the damn thing. It feels like my rib is broken.”
“I’m sure it is.” There wasn’t much sympathy in the pronouncement. I could’ve used more-a whole lot more. “But a cracked or broken rib is a hundred percent better than dead,” he finished matter-of-factly.
“And you didn’t catch the bastard?” I could be wrong. Ghosts could exist. This guy appeared and disappeared at will like one.
“I didn’t even see him, and this isn’t a sniper’s bullet by any stretch of the imagination. He had to be close.” Once I could stand semi-upright and take a step without the threat of being shoved into a Notre Dame bell tower, he let go of my arm.
“I swear, Allgood, if you had been behind me instead of beside me, I’d say you were the shooter. This guy’s goddamn invisible.” I swore out loud and proud with every step I took. I knew… knew I could feel the broken edges of a rib grating against each other.
“You’ve already read me. You know I’m noble and true. Red, white, and blue. Practically Superman, I’m so damn heroic, but apparently, I couldn’t find a killer if you dropped me onto death row at a supermax prison,” he said bitterly.
“I’m lacking in social skills except when it comes to flattering my older female clients, but I have a feeling I should say something here. Something to comfort you in your time of emotional upheaval…” I took one more step, blasphemed against God, his son, and the Virgin Mary as my rib howled again. “Here it is: fuck your emotional upheaval. Be a man, for God’s sake. At least your ass wasn’t shot.”
Strangely enough, that did the trick.
As Meleah was looking over my X-ray, after giving me a high enough dose of painkillers to have me seeing the world in a new and improved way, Hector was having the base searched. Not for a nine-millimeter-the base was full of them. Anyone who was carrying a gun was carrying a nine-millimeter. Instead, he was having the base searched for Dr. Sloane, and he’d sent two soldiers to Dr. Kessler’s house to bring him in. There was no more pickpocketing, and, while Hector knew I couldn’t do any more readings today-not after the axis of evil I’d already come across-he said he was fine with locking the two scientists up overnight for peace of mind. And if they wanted to trade their chances of being part of a potentially Nobel Prize-winning experiment to press kidnapping charges, he’d like to live long enough to see that day.
Hector, the bitterness faded and his mood improved by my newly enhanced social skills, returned and stood patiently at the foot of my gurney-at least, patiently until I asked Meleah why she wasn’t wrapping my ribs and followed it with the advice that if she caught Hector staring at her ass, she should take it for the compliment it was.
“We don’t wrap broken ribs these days. You read too many old private-detective novels. Move slowly and carefully, and it’ll heal fine on its own.” She glanced at Hector, whose face struggled to pick one emotion from the flood that crossed it. I thought he settled on resignation. “He’s quite the romantic, isn’t he, Hector?”
“He’s something, all right. There’s no getting around that.” He frowned, but it didn’t stick. Sighing, he snorted with visible amusement-or invisible amusement and blatant exasperation. He had the face of an Everest cliff, all granite and ice. It made it hard to tell. Normally, I could read people’s expressions like a mood ring, but not Allgood. He was a challenge. “Just how much pain medicine did you give him?”
“Too much, probably. But considering his reaction to the readings earlier and being shot, along with the bruising and broken rib, I thought he deserved the happy maximum.”
“You hear that, Jackson?” He gave a stinging flick of his finger to my sock-covered toe. “You feeling happy?”
“Happy,” I repeated agreeably. “You can shoot me every day if you give me a barrel of these pills to take home.”
“I don’t think that’ll be an issue. By now, the shooter’s found out that you’re still alive, which means he knows about the Kevlar. If he shoots you again, he’ll go for the head. All the happy pills in the world won’t help you there.” He gave my lower leg a brisk pat and me a large, wolfish grin.
“You’re being shitty, aren’t you?” In all honesty, the pills did make it difficult to tell.
“Yes, I am.” He patted me again.
“Was it the thing I said about Meleah’s ass?”
“You got it in one.”
“Fine. See if I use my social skills to help the romantically challenged again.” I yawned, feeling the room swing up and down, then back and forth. It was a nice sensation, the world as my personal hammock. I liked it. “You know, Meleah, you should take sympathy on the man. He hasn’t been laid in eleven months, two weeks, four days, and…” I checked my watch, willing the blurry numbers to coalesce. I stopped when a grip fastened around my ankle and tightened. “Hey.” I gave Hector a poisonous glare. “If I wasn’t doped up to my eyeballs, that might hurt.”
“Trust me, there’s no ‘might’ to it.” But he let go. “Time to get serious, Jackson. I know you haven’t felt this good since you were Mr. December on the Hot Psychics of Atlanta calendar, but I need you to tell me if you’re up for this tomorrow. It’s a long drive to the caverns, and I can’t have you high as a kite if something goes wrong-such as the recording kicking in before we’ve zeroed in on Charlie.”
That was a mental picture that sent the happy packing as fast as a Republican senator who’d knocked up his mistress. Charlie trying to fight through the ether was, as far as I could tell, seconds away from being simultaneous with the cycle of violence spinning into play mode. I thought about it, which wasn’t easy, as my thoughts were distracted more than once by the narcotic haze. Eventually, I locked it down and ran a hand over my face. “I won’t be able to wrestle any of your soldier goons like I did at the quarry. I won’t even be able to take Fujiwara or any of the other geeks, if it comes to that. But I will be able to tell you if-when-Charlie is coming. That’ll give you and your Charlie-busting machine two or three seconds to go to work.”
Then it hit me what he’d said-the location. It was astounding how fast that drugged-up contented feeling vanished.
“The caverns? The cannibal caverns? God, why there? Thackery said Charlie was drawn to you as his brother and me as a psychic link much more than the level of violence imprinted on the ether. Couldn’t you have picked someplace less dangerous? Someplace where we won’t be trying to eat each other?”
And where I didn’t hear little girls crying for their mommy before they were hung up on hooks, lambs to be gutted and drained.
Tender honey chile. Like fresh churned butter, melt on your tongue so tender…
“Ah, Jesus.” I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. I clapped my hand across them, squeezing from temple to temple, trying not to see the curve of metal, the crimson waterfall, the trailing brown waves of hair. “Go away, Hector. Go the fuck away, and don’t come back until it’s time to go tomorrow.”
He didn’t. He explained instead. I wasn’t interested. “We decided it would be best if all elements were optimal. You, me, and the highest level of violence-to be on the safe side. To make certain this time is the last
