there now to whack him.'
'Good. Good. Thanks a lot. That really helps me. You know what else would help a ton?' Both were smiling and nodding.
'What?'
'Anything for a pal!'
Dan hesitated. He wasn't as heartless as he'd thought. First he had to know. 'Are you bad men?'
'I've killed three people for Lenny Torrio!' said the first one proudly.
The second one snorted. 'Big deal, I once broke an old lady's hip because she owed Mr. Capone protection money; then I beat her head in 'cause she got lippy.'
That would do. 'Great, guys, just great. Do me a favor, would ya?'
'No problem.' They both were grinning stupidly.
'Give me a second to get out of the way, then I want you to kill each other.'
A Mouth couldn't force someone to do something that they normally wouldn't consider. It didn't work like that. Even someone as strong as Dan could only sway someone down his natural path. All he could do was push what was already there. If he'd asked a decent person to murder a friend, it would simply break the spell. Only a real piece of work would take such a small amount of Influence to do something so heinous. Dan wasn't even in the elevator before they started shooting.
Heinrich caught the door right before it closed and slipped inside. 'That didn't take long.'
'Not much loyalty amongst gangsters, I suppose. Tenth floor, please.'
Amish checked the safety on his Thompson. He wasn't going to screw this up. Brick was the biggest, so he moved up to kick the door. Hoss reached up and unscrewed the hall light, plunging them into shadow. The boys had done this kind of thing before. The Jap just hung back, looking bored.
There was a big glass window at each end of the hall, and enough street light was coming in that Amish could still see his buddies. This was going to be great. He squeezed the Thompson tight. 'Do it. Do it!'
Brick reared back and kicked hard. His considerable weight tore the lock right through the jamb, and the door flew open with a bang. Amish leapt through, screaming, turned toward the bed, spotted the lump in the middle of the blankets and mashed the trigger. He fired from the hip, stitching hot slugs through the bed, the headboard, and the wall. He jerked the foregrip back down and kept ripping the bed, flinging feathers and bits into the air, until he'd hammered through the entire 50-round drum in one continuous smoking burst.
'Take that, stupid Heavy! Yeah!' Amish shouted. 'That'll learn you up real good.'
Hoss rushed past him, double-barrel shotgun in hand, grabbed the blankets and yanked them off the bed, revealing nothing but a pile of bullet-riddled pillows and clothing. Hoss started to shout, 'Where is-' but then his chest and head erupted in a shower of red as a swarm of giant bullets stitched him. Hoss tumbled dead to the floor.
The Heavy stepped out of the bathroom, shirtless, holding an enormous black cannon to his shoulder. The smoking muzzle swiveled toward the doorway where Brick had appeared and there was a terrible thunder. Brick disappeared back into the hall and Amish blinked as something hot and wet splattered him in the face. It took him a second to realize that he had just been hit with part of Brick's skull.
The cannon settled on Amish last and the Heavy paused, with a little smile that seemed almost sad. 'Lenny couldn't even bother to come himself?' Amish pushed the release and yanked the drum out of the Thompson, then fumbled at his pocket for a stick mag. The Heavy just shook his head, disappointed.
Then everything was wrong, down was now behind him, and Amish screamed as he fell through the door and into the hallway. How- He felt his collar bone snap as he hit the wall. Gravity came back suddenly and Amish spilled onto the hall carpet. Pain washed through him in waves. The Heavy appeared in the doorway, glanced quickly both ways, and saw the Jap.
'Who are you supposed to be?' the Heavy asked.
The Jap didn't answer. He just opened his big coat and showed his sword. Amish looked back and forth between the two terrifying men and knew that he was about to see one hell of a fight.
But the Heavy just did his trick with gravity again, and now down seemed to be the end of the hallway. The Jap began to fall, but whipped his sword out and jabbed it into the floor, and he was hanging there as Amish tumbled down the carpet past him. The window barely slowed him.
Amish opened his eyes inside the shower of glass to see that he was gliding over the street ten stories below. I'm flying! It was the most wonderful thing he'd ever experienced, until he reached the end of Sullivan's range, then gravity returned to its normal direction and the street rushed up to meet him.
'Who are you supposed to be?' Sullivan asked.
The man at the end of the dim hall threw open his coat, revealing the blue-wrapped hilt of a sword. His hand hovered over the handle of the blade, waiting.
Jake's curiosity did not run as deep as his apprehension at facing a crazy guy with a giant razor. He Spiked, bending gravity's pull to a different angle. The dead body and the cross-eyed Reader slid down the floor, but the other drew his sword in a flash as the Power hit, took it in two hands, and drove the silver blade deep into flooring. The Reader zipped past, hit the window, and took the whole assembly with him into the city.
The swordsman hung from the end of the blade, parallel with the carpet, dangling, patiently waiting for the Spike to subside, watching Sullivan curiously the whole time.
The Power needed to distort gravity for so long was too much, and Sullivan let go, letting himself fall against the doorway. The swordsman landed on his hands and knees, then took his time getting up. He pulled his blade from the wood, then spun it once quickly through the air, before letting it dangle loose in his hand. His fedora had gone out the window with the Reader, but other than that, he seemed fine.
'I did not realize the Americans had developed their Heavies to this extent.'
'I'm big on self-improvement.' The man was an Oriental. Sullivan had worked in a few Chinatowns before, and the truck drivers that had driven the First Volunteer around France had been Vietnamese, so he had more cultural exposure than a lot of his countrymen, but this man spoke English better than Sullivan did, and had a much nicer suit. Probably almost fifty, but strong and fit, he was remarkably tall compared to the other Asians Sullivan had known, probably just under six feet, and appeared a little too confident. 'You ain't from around here, are you?'
'I am impressed with your level of mastery, Mr. Sullivan,' he gave a very formal bow. 'It is a great honor to battle one such as you.'
Sullivan raised the Lewis gun to his shoulder. 'There's nothing honorable about battle,' he replied, pulling the trigger.
A short burst of 30 caliber bullets hit the swordsman square in the chest. Sullivan lowered the machine gun, but the swordsman was still standing. 'Impossible.' A string of.30-06 should have put even the toughest Brute on their ass.
The swordsman started forward slowly, raising his weapon, both hands on the hilt, blade held rigid next to his head.
Sullivan leaned into it this time. When the first Heavies started drifting into the First Volunteer, they had been put to work as machine gunners. Even the least powerful Heavy could carry five times as much weight as a Normal. An Active Heavy could lower the tug of gravity on his weapon, so even a pig like the Lewis Mk3 was handy to run around with. But the less a gun weighs, the more it recoils, and the harder it is to control, so a clever Spiker actually increases the pull on his weapon when it's time to put the hammer down.
The giant barrel barely moved as Sullivan pounded the remainder of the drum magazine into the swordsman. Each.30-06 bullet hit with an impact sufficient to quarter an elk, but instead of tumbling through flesh, the bullets exploded into fragments against his body. The hallway was pummeled with noise, the air was thick with unburned powder, and shining brass cases bounced along the floor.
When the Lewis bolt finally fell on an empty chamber, the swordsman was still there, clothes tattered, but flesh unharmed, and his slow walk turned into a charge. The sword descended as Sullivan desperately used his Power, hurling his attacker back. The swordsman fell a few feet but instantly adjusted, and drove himself back toward Sullivan in a leap. The big man shouted as the end of the blade flickered through his skin.
