The Cult of Osiris

‘Jesus!’ Amy gasped as Diamondback took refuge behind the overturned Ram. Then she realised what Eddie was about to do. ‘No, wait!’

But Eddie had already sprung out from behind the taxi, running at the pickup with the gun raised. His target was behind the Dodge . . . and it was no more bulletproof than the cab. He aimed low, hoping for a leg shot as he blew a line of holes from the back of the truck to the cabin—

Diamondback dived out from the front of the truck - and fired.

But he wasn’t aiming at Eddie.

The shot hit the hot dog cart’s gas cylinder - which detonated like a bomb.

The concussion knocked Eddie off his feet. By the time the roiling explosion dissipated and the cops recovered from the shock of the blast, Diamondback had sprinted away down 43rd Street, shoving through the fleeing crowd.

Eddie swatted away a burning hot dog bun and stood painfully. Amy hurried to him, other cops running past them - some to help the injured officer, the rest in fruitless pursuit of the killer. ‘You okay?’

‘I’ll live,’ he grunted, looking at the bald man. ‘Unlike him.’

Amy shook her head, still stunned by what she had just witnessed. ‘Cold-blooded murder, right in front of a bunch of cops? That guy’s insane.’

‘Maybe, but he’s good at what he does. I don’t think your guys’ll catch him.’

‘We’ll see,’ Amy said with wounded professional pride - but also a certain resignation.

Grant came over, face white. ‘Whoa. Man. You, you . . .’ He pumped Eddie’s hand vigorously. Amy’s eyebrows shot up as she recognised him. ‘You saved my life, man! I’d be dead now if you hadn’t been there!’

Eddie decided not to mention that it was Grant’s own fault he’d become a target. ‘All part of the job.’

‘No, man, seriously. Anything you want, anything you ever need, just let me know. It’s yours.’

‘How about your Lamborghini? Kidding,’ he clarified, seeing from Grant’s face that ‘anything’ didn’t literally mean anything.

‘Man!’ said Grant, gazing at the Murcielago. ‘I can’t believe it. You said not a scratch, and damn, you did it!’

Even with the scrapes it had taken the Lamborghini appeared unscathed, reflected firelight gleaming off its paintwork. ‘Yeah. Normally anything I drive gets totalled. Must have got lucky this time . . .’

The trickle of gasoline from the wrecked Ram reached one of the burning buns.

‘Buggeration—’ Eddie began, throwing Grant and Amy down as a line of flame scurried back to the pickup’s fuel tank—

The Ram exploded, somersaulting end over end through the air - to smash down on top of the Murcielago, crushing it flat.

Eddie sat up. ‘And fuckery.’

Grant gasped plaintively at the sight of three hundred thousand dollars of scrap metal. Somebody on the bus took another photo. ‘Oh, man!’

‘You had insurance, right?’ said Amy.

His expression gradually relaxed. ‘Yeah. Huh. Good point. And I wasn’t sure about the colour anyway.’

‘Eddie!’ Eddie got up as Nina ran to him. ‘Oh my God, you’re okay!’

‘Forget me, it’s you I was worried about.’

They embraced, then she looked back at her battered cab. Macy had done as Nina told her and run off, but there was still someone in the vehicle. She turned to Amy. ‘You’ve got to get an ambulance. The cab driver got shot.’

‘I think we’ll need more than one,’ Amy told her, radio already in her hand. ‘Eddie, I don’t know what just happened here, but you are sure as hell going to tell me.’ She regarded Nina, then Grant. ‘And so are you, and you . . . hell, I should arrest everyone in a five block radius!’

‘You know her?’ Nina asked Eddie.

‘Yeah, she’s a friend.’

Her expression became more suspicious as she looked the attractive police officer up and down. ‘Wait . . . your cop friend? The one you were with the other morning?’

‘Ah . . . yeah,’ he admitted. ‘That one.’

‘You’re Eddie’s wife?’ Amy asked. Nina nodded. ‘Okay, tell you what - how ’bout we make all the introductions down at the precinct?’

5

‘Well,’ said Eddie, slumping on to the couch the following morning, ‘when I said “Let’s see what tomorrow brings” . . . that was more than I had in mind.’ ‘Getting chased and shot at?’ Nina replied. ‘It was just like old times - in exactly the way I didn’t want. I’m amazed we didn’t end up in jail.’

‘You can thank Grant for some of that. You know who he rang with his phone call? His manager. Who rang his publicist, who rang the mayor . . .’

‘The mayor?’ said Nina, surprised.

‘Yeah. That charity thing the other night? They met each other there. And since the mayor was fawning over the hot Hollywood star and having loads of photos taken with him, it would’ve been a massive embarrassment if his new best mate got locked up a couple of days later.’ He grinned humourlessly. ‘Which is why Grant’s in today’s papers as a real-life action hero instead of as a mugshot. But it’s Amy we really owe.’

Nina’s lips tightened. ‘Why her?’

‘She vouched for us, basically. That twat in the snakeskin jacket blowing someone’s head off in front of half the NYPD made it pretty obvious who the bad guys were, but we’d still have been in trouble if she hadn’t stood up for us.’

‘Stood up for you, you mean.’

Eddie knew the tone. ‘Oh, God. What?’

‘You know what, Eddie. That woman, Amy - you were with her the other day when you said you were with Grant Thorn!’

He held out his hands in exasperation. ‘Yes, I admit it! But there’s nothing funny going on - she’s just a friend. I’ve got loads of other female friends all over the world, and you’ve never had any problems with them.’

‘That’s because you didn’t lie to me about them! How many other times did you tell me you were working while you were seeing her?’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he sighed, ‘I’m not seeing her, okay? We’re not meeting up in secret to bang each other’s brains out, if that’s what you think.’

‘Then what should I think?’ Nina demanded, but before she could get an answer the door buzzer rasped. She went to the speaker. ‘Yes?’

‘Dr Wilde? It’s Macy.’

‘Come on up.’ She pushed the button to unlock the outer door, then turned back to Eddie. ‘We’ll discuss this later.’

‘There’s nothing to bloody discuss,’ he said. ‘She’s just helping me with something, all right?’

‘So why didn’t you ask me to help you? That’s what husbands and wives are supposed to do - y’know, help each other.’

‘It’s not that kind of thing.’

Nina was about to ask what kind of thing it actually was when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find Macy, still in her skimpy clothes from the previous night. Eddie automatically checked her out, earning a scowl from his wife. ‘Macy, come in,’ she said.

‘Thanks, Dr Wilde,’ she replied, entering the apartment. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’

‘Yeah, me too. Are you okay? Is your friend all right?’

‘Joey? He’s fine, just a bit banged up. I called him after I found a hotel for the night. Oh, here’s your phone.’ She handed it back to Nina. ‘What about you?’

‘We spent most of the night being questioned by the police, which was fun. This is my husband, by the way,’ Nina said, indicating Eddie. ‘Eddie. Chase. Who lives up to his surname when it comes to skirts, apparently.’