Jim shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. Mind if I tag along?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You could always try to outrun me.”
“It’s not nice to make fun of cripples.”
“Show me one.”
Matthias laughed in a short burst. “Fine. Help yourself.”
Outside, the night was unseasonably warm with a thick mist choking the air, the moisture hanging between the clouds above and the asphalt below like it couldn’t make up its mind whether to be a downpour or not.
Taking out his cigs, Jim lit up and exhaled a stream of smoke. Between the mist, the Marlboros, and the resonant sounds of their footfalls on the sidewalk, the whole damn thing was film noir in real life…and that was especially true as they came up to a group of men who were striding along—or marching, as was the case.
What. The. Hell?
The six bastards were all dressed in black leather, which might have marked them as Goths—except the way they walked in formation behind their leader had a professional soldier vibe.
As they passed by, Matthias and Jim moved to the side, and the one in front glanced over.
An ugly son of a bitch for sure, with eyes that were pits of aggression.
Huh…in his old life, Jim might have considered them candidates for recruiting. They looked like they could kill anything or anyone in their path, especially the guy in the lead.
But he was different now. And hopefully, so was Matthias.
“I remembered something,” his old boss said, after the stretch of concrete was their own again.
“Yeah?”
“Just personal shit. Nothing I was interested in.”
As the silence became as prevalent as the fog, Jim took another drag and talked out the exhale. “Waiting for me to fill the void?”
“You were the one who wanted to come along. You could at least make yourself useful.”
“And here I thought I was decorative.”
“Not for me, buddy.” When Jim didn’t comment further, Matthias glanced over. “So, I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Not romantically, I hope.”
“No, I used to like women. A lot.”
“Used to?”
Matthias stopped and faced off. “What I want to know is—”
At the far end of the block, a figure stepped out into the sidewalk with the ease of someone trained to ambush, and the gun that was discharged in their direction didn’t make a sound. All Jim saw was the brief flash as the bullet left the tip of the silencer.
With a cursing lunge, he tackled Matthias into an alley, the force of his two hundred and twenty pounds sweeping the other man off his feet, the pair of them going parallel to the ground in slow motion. In midflight, and with perfect synchronization, they took out their guns, trained their muzzles at the shooter, and pulled their triggers—and as their rounds left their silencers, Jim pivoted so that they landed on the damp pavement with him on the bottom, and Matthias using him as a mattress.
There was no time to fuck around, and he didn’t need to tell his old boss that—clearly Matthias’s preference in nooky wasn’t the only thing the guy remembered: he was on his feet and ready to bolt for cover behind a van that was about three yards away—
More shots were fired at them, pinging off the pavement, the GMC’s quarter panel, the wheel well. The shooter had followed them and was keeping to the shadows as he closed in.
That kind of stealth was another identifier. Their attacker came at them without sound, and not just because he was using the same kind of autoloader with a suppressor on it that Jim had against his own palm: No footfalls, not even heavy breathing; this was a trained killer, operating in his element.
XOps, Jim thought. Had to be.
With another curse, he looked around for options. The van wasn’t good for shelter, because it had a gas tank: he knew where the lines were in terms of what he could survive, but he wasn’t exactly sure where Matthias fell on the spectrum of untouchable, and a mushroom cloud over their cover was not a good way to test that shit out.
Grabbing one of Matthias’s arms, he helped run the guy down the back of the GMC—and by dumb luck, the thing was parked at an industrial rear entrance to the hotel, the set of ugly steel doors inset into the brick. Jim went right for the handles, latching on, giving a twist.
Locked. Duh.
Annnnnnnnd fuck that for a laugh.
Throwing a blast of energy down into the metal, he blew the locking mechanism apart and threw his shoulder into the reinforced panels. As the pair gave way with a squeal, Matthias froze, the response so quick it was as if he had been trained into the fear.
Jim dragged the man in with him and slammed the way shut. Propping Matthias up, he hit the steel with another blast of heat, this one longer and stronger, putting a quick solder in place to buy them some escape time.
The good news was that it worked—and his old boss was too busy checking his clip to notice the sleight of hand.
Cane in one palm, autoloader in the other, Matthias regained control of himself. “Down that way,” he barked like he was in charge. “There has to be an out.”
Rather than get into a dick-toss, Jim took off, hitching another hold under that armpit and falling back into the half drag. As they shuffled along, he kept an eye over his shoulder.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was the target. Matthias had been the former head of XOps, and had “died.” SOP was to visually confirm the body, and given that Isaac Rothe had gotten rid of the remains, no one had been able to do that.
Somehow, they’d figured out that Matthias was up and around in Caldwell.
Maybe Devina had an “in” in the organization?
“Did you lock the door behind us?” Matthias grunted.
“Yeah.” But chances were good that the assassin was going to have—
The explosion was the short and sweet kind, little more than a flash of light. And then that squeal came again as the operative busted into the corridor.
Up ahead, no doorways. No cover. Just a straight shot as far as he could see.
As if he and Matthias had a single brain, they swung around and both pulled their triggers, emptying everything they had. Bullets ricocheted around as the operative shot back—and it went without saying that Jim shoved Matthias behind him, and used his own body as a shield.
A couple of slugs hit home, the sting unpleasant, but nothing that would kill him or particularly get his attention. And then he and Matthias ran out of shots.
So did the operative.
There was a brief lull, which was a loud and clear “RELOADING NOW,” and Jim had no choice but to get running again. Protection spells were great against Devina’s minions; not really all that effective against Remington-onset lead poisoning: Keeping his body as a block, he chose one side of the hall and hustled like hell. And as they passed stacks of banquet chairs, Matthias helped as much as he could—but with the damage to his lower body, it would have been better for him to stay still and be muscled off the ground.
Not like they had time to debate deadweight etiquette.
They’d gone about ten feet when Jim realized they weren’t being shot at.
No professional would take that long to put another clip in. What the hell—
At that moment, he felt Devina’s presence, sure as a shadow passing over his own grave.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Chapter Nineteen
