Sharky’s attention was riveted on his dying friend. When he heard the sound behind him, it was too late. The knife edge of a hand slashed into the back of his neck and he was thrown over The Nosh’s body, the pain from the blow stunning him as he lurched into the wall. He twisted as he flew forward, swinging one leg in a wide arc in the darkness, kicking blindly, feeling it hit something soft, sinking deep into human flesh. He kept rolling, away from the wall and into the dark hail until he was stopped by two legs. He swung his knees under him, balled his fist, and shoved himself upward, driving his fist between the two legs until it slammed into a crotch. He grabbed in the dark, his hand closing around the unseen figure’s genitals, and he jerked him forward. A toe found his back and buried deep just over the kidney and Sharky roared with pain and rage and twisted back in the other direction, swinging his fist in the dark. He missed, took another blind swing, and missed again, then remembered his gun and pulled it from his belt, but he was afraid to fire. He was disoriented in the dark, afraid he might hit The Nosh. He sensed movement all around him. A fist hit his shoulder and bounced away in the darkness and he roiled again, towards the main hail, away from the activity.
The beam from one of the flashlights swept the hallway, found him, and Sharky spun around, half sitting, and fired an inch above the light. The flashlight spun crazily in the dark, hit the floor, and shattered. There was a groan in front of him, the sound of a body hitting the floor.
A foot crashed down on his ankle and the pain stabbed up his leg. He swung the gun, trying to Imagine his assailant there, in the dark in front of him, and raised the gun, but before he could get another shot off a foot kicked his wrist, knocking his arm straight up. The gun flew out of his hand and clattered away in the darkness. Another foot slammed down into his stomach. Sharky gasped, grabbed the leg, and twisted hard, pulled himself up to his knees, his fury turning to blind hate. He wanted to hurt them, these unseen figures striking at him in the dark, to kill them.
And then a fist as hard as a gauntlet smashed into his temple and his brain seemed to explode. The floor tilted insanely under his knees and he floundered, trying to catch himself, to stay up. Another fist slammed into his neck and this time the pain could not be ignored. It fanned out through his body like an electrical shock. His hands went numb. His back gave out. He jackknifed and fell forward and it seemed forever before the floor came up to meet him.
The sounds around him were echoes that grew fainter and fainter. And then there was only the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sharky stirred and turned over on his back, but his foot was caught on something and he stopped. He tried wiggling it and felt the bite of a rope in his ankle. He was tied to something. He opened his eyes and his vision strayed crazily around the room. Nausea swept over him and he closed them again.
Pain mushroomed into his neck and temples.
He closed his eyes and lay still. He felt like he was moving, rocking back and forth.
I’m still dizzy, he thought.
Then he heard a weird scream, a sorrowful cry that seemed to echo over and over again, raising the hair on his arms.
My God, he thought, what was that?
It came again, a mournful shriek that died slowly and was answered a few seconds later by another echoing from farther away. He recognized the sound. It was a loon, lamenting insanely in the night, its demented love call answered by its mate.
A loon?
He opened his eyes and blinked, trying to clear his fuzzy vision. The room was shadowed, lit only by a lantern that swung in an easy arc overhead. He lay hypnotized by it until the nausea returned. He gritted his teeth to keep from vomiting and turned his eyes away from the light.
It was a small room, a cabin, and he was lying on the lower bunk of a double-decker. One side of the room curved in and there was a porthole in it. Facing it, on the other side of the cabin, was a hand-carved lattice-work partition which separated the room from the hail. The door was heavy and made of some kind of dark wood, rosewood or mahogany. The far side of the room, opposite the bunk, was dark. The lantern shed a small pool of light over a table and chair which sat in the centre of the cabin. He smelled pork cooking in garlic.
In the darkness opposite him, a cigarette glowed briefly. He concentrated, trying to make out a shape, a form of some kind in the shadows but he could see nothing.
Then he remembered The Nosh.
God damn them. God DAMN them!
He fought back tears, but they came anyway, dribbling down the side of his face, and he readied up and wiped them away.
‘Well, welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Sharky,’ a voice said from the shadows.
He squinted into the darkness
‘Oh, don’t try to see me,’ the voice said. ‘It’s much too dark. It will only strain your eyes.’
It was a big boat, too big for the river. Then the loon cried again and Sharky thought, I’m on the take. Seventy miles from Atlanta.
A voice he did not recognize, hoarse and trembling with fatigue, said:
‘Where’s my partner?’
My God, he thought, was that my voice?
‘Unfortunate,’ the voice from the darkness said, ‘but the sacrifice was necessary.’ It was a weak, whining, nasal voice and Sharky hated it.
The rage built inside Sharky, like a tornado in his gut. But he held his tongue. Nothing more would be
