“Go to hell,” she yelled, before another big fist found its target and knocked her into the wall. He kept hold of her wrist, punching wildly at her with his other arm. This time however she managed to swerve out of the way and the force of the swing knocked him off balance.
It was the opening she’d been looking for.
A swift knee to the balls and a sharp elbow in his face had him teetering on the edge of the top stair. She followed this up with a knee to the stomach she hoped would be the final blow, but what she hadn’t counted on as he fell backwards was him hanging on to her wrist for dear life.
“Shitting hell.”
With a cry she was dragged down the stairwell on top of him, but managing to position herself on his chest and riding him like a toboggan to the bottom.
“What the fecking hell is going on?” The hall light flashed on to reveal The Dullahan standing in the doorway to the front room.
“He… attacked me… was in my room.” She got to her feet, trying to catch her breath as a flash of anger burst across her awareness. In the bright light of the hallway she could see her attacker wasn’t actually made of much. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, he was small-framed, wiry. She pushed two fingers into the flesh of her stomach, disgusted at how out of shape she was, how she’d let herself get like this. In her prime she’d have handled a guy like this in a fast second. But it was over, at least. The man had landed badly, his head twisted to one side.
“Feck me. Mickey? No.” The Dullahan stepped over, shaking his head.
“You know him?”
“Aye, he calls himself Mickey Mad. He drove me down here. A tough fella, but I’ve known him a few years. I thought he was on the right side of wrong. Knew the code. Feck.”
She straightened herself, checking for wounds or anything broken. Apart from a banging headache she seemed unscathed. Sometimes the looseness of semi-drunkenness had its advantages.
She stepped over Mickey’s fallen body as Spook appeared on the stairs wearing a pair of blue pyjamas with a neon pink dinosaur pattern. “Who’s that guy?” she asked sleepily. “What’s he doing?”
“Not a lot, now,” Acid told her. “Come down, I need to get my head around this.” She closed her eyes, easier to think that way.
“I’m sorry, Acid,” she heard The Dullahan say. “Stupid fecking coot I am. Should have been more careful. Getting sloppy in my old age.”
“Why is he trying to kill me?” she asked, eyes still closed. “There’s no hit on me on the open market, is there?”
“No. Why would Caesar put one out now?”
Acid opened her eyes to see Spook standing next to her, staring at Mickey with her head on one side. She tugged at the kid’s sleeve, guiding her down the hallway towards the kitchen – away from the distraction – nodding at The Dullahan to follow.
“All right,” she snapped. “Tell me everything you know about this guy. And why the hell are you here?”
The Dullahan stared at her. “Are you serious? You don’t remember?”
“I’ve had a messy few weeks.”
“Aye. So ya have. Well firstly, I don’t know why the hell Mickey is trying to kill ya. Like I say, I thought he was a decent fella. And there’s never been an open contract on ya. Caesar was adamant he wanted to keep it in-house. Hmm. I guess that’s hard when you’ve almost wiped out his entire workforce. This has to be him. I’m sorry, love.”
She turned away, every fibre of her being telling her to go the cupboard and grab a bottle of something to drown out the pain and confusion. Because The Dullahan was correct. This had to be Caesar. Despite him going dark, he was still out there. Him and Magpie Stiletto.
Ah shit… Magpie.
That was why the old man was here. She lifted her head, about to tell him once more he’d had a wasted trip, but as she turned Spook screamed and pushed her against the wall. A loud crack of gunfire reverberated through the hallway.
What? Shit. When?
She righted herself in time to see Mickey’s grinning face over the top of a revolver. He closed one eye over the sight, but before he had a chance to pull the trigger there was an ear-shredding crack and his brains splattered up the wall.
Acid lurched around in a disorientated stupor, seeing The Dullahan standing in the living room doorway with his arm outstretched and a Walther PPK gripped in his bony, liver-spotted hand. Her head was spinning and her ears ringing. She opened her mouth to speak but no words appeared – the weeks of self-abuse combining with intense stress levels had finally bested her. As she slid down the wall, she saw Spook standing in the kitchen doorway. Her face was white. Her mouth open. She met Acid’s gaze, before their eyes simultaneously drifted downwards, to the dark red stain spreading out across the lower half of Spook’s pyjama top.
“Acid,” she mouthed, looking up with an expression of pure horror, just able to get behind her breath. “Help me.”
Nine
The manic energy coursing through Acid’s veins sent her dizzy as Spook slumped to the floor. She was by her side in an instant, placing a hand under her neck and lifting her head up onto her lap.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” she whispered, before tentatively lifting the kid’s top and sucking in a sharp breath. “Ah, no, Spook.”
The bullet had gone in an inch below her navel, a small hole, a .22 by the looks of it. Blood was already bubbling out of the wound. She reached around Spook’s back, poking around at her flesh. She glanced over
