The big blond whirled around, flinging one handle of the nunchakus out, still holding the other. The handle whipped around with a sizzling hiss, then thunked into the back of Fisher's skull. Fisher's eyes went wide as his body arched backwards, stayed suspended a moment, then fell face-first against the hard tile floor. A dull crack echoed through the room at the impact as Fisher's nose splattered and his broken teeth scattered across the tiles. Blood erupted like lava out of his collapsed skull, streaming down the back of his neck and onto the white floor, washing a chip of skull away like a tiny white raft.
The blond man spun back toward Eric. 'Before it was for Fallows, Ravensmith. Now it's for me.' His clenched teeth glistened with saliva, his eyes shone with hate. He charged forward, the nunchakus spinning over his head like a helicopter blade.
Eric felt the urge to panic. Could taste panic bubbling up in his throat, a bitter oily taste. It made him want to run, make a desperate dash for the door, or yell at the top of his lungs. But that would do no good now. He had to fight. And to do so he had to be in control of himself, remember how he used to do it.
He quickly reached down and snatched a jagged hunk of broken mirror from the floor. The blond man took a swipe at Eric as he stooped, but Eric easily dodged the blow. As he straightened up, he wrapped his tie around half the piece of mirror, forming a handle that he grasped firmly in his right hand. The piece that protruded was six inches long, hooked like an eagle's beak.
The door pushed open.
'…the same old shit, I told him. And he turns to me with that ass-kissing grin of his and-' The man doing the talking looked at the scene in front of him and swallowed something hard. 'J-Jesus, Bill.'
Bill winced, grabbed his friend's elbow and yanked him out of the room. The door sighed shut.
'They'll bring help,' Eric said quietly. 'In a couple minutes cops will be blocking every exit. You've had it, man.'
The blond man nibbled nervously on his thick lower lip, the nunchakus losing some velocity as he considered his problem.
'Just leave now,' Eric coaxed. 'I won't try to stop you.'
'Like hell you won't.'
'I mean it. Why should I? It's Fallows I want. Besides, why should I risk it?' He shrugged contemptuously at the small piece of mirror in his hand.
The blond blinked rapidly.
'Come on, there's not much time.'
'You give me your word?' the blond asked.
'You've got it.'
'You won't try to stop me?'
'I gave you my word.'
The husky blond dropped the nunchakus and burst out the door, hurrying down the corridor toward the stairs.
Eric scrambled across the unconscious body of Sam, tugged free the gun on the dead body of Fisher, and leaped out the door after the blond.
The blond man was nearing the stairs as Eric shouted his warning, 'Stop, or I'll shoot.' It was a shout intended less for the blond man than for the people walking along the corridor. They looked at Eric, saw him lowering the gun, and immediately dropped to the floor, some of them screaming for help.
The blond man glanced over his shoulder, saw Eric crouching, both hands gripping the handle of the.38 S amp;W, and tasted that same bitter flavor of panic Eric had. He paused a fraction of a second, considering his options. To surrender or bolt for the stairs?
It was during that pause that Eric shot him.
The screams increased at the sound of the explosion, then at the sight of the huge blond man stumbling forward. The bullet had only hit his hip, ripping flesh before glancing off the pelvic bone. He was hurt, but he was still moving toward the stairs.
Eric squeezed the trigger again. Click. Again. Click.
'Damn!' Click, click, click.
Fisher had only loaded the gun with one bullet, a sloppiness Eric should have suspected from the kid. He dropped the.38 and took off down the hall at full speed, his shoes whacking linoleum with a fierce rhythm.
The blond was at the edge of the stairs now, limping, dragging his left leg as blood soaked his gray pants with black stripes. He steadied himself on the brass railing as he maneuvered the first step.
But Eric was already there, leaping through the air with a flying kick that caught the blond on the shoulder and sent him toppling roughly down the marble stairs. Eric chased after the bouncing body, jumping three, four stairs at a time. Finally the blond man's arm hooked through the railing. The momentum snapped the forearm, but the broken limb remained wedged in the railing.
Eric yanked the arm free and dragged the groaning blond against the wall. The man's pudgy face was crumpled in pain as he panted, desperately sucking air. His face was torn and lumpy from the fall, his broken arm twisted at an impossible angle.
One eye was swollen shut. He squinted at Eric through the other. 'You promised,' he gasped. 'You gave your word.'
Eric's face remained expressionless, remote. 'I lied.'
5.
'Case dismissed!' The judge whacked his gavel three times, a look of relief spreading across his heavy face as he sprang for the door to his chambers.
Several reporters bolted for the exit door, elbowing their colleagues to the side. The sketch artist from Channel 7 Eyewitness News dropped her Staedtler Mars-Lumograph 3H pencil and watched it disappear under two rows of trampling feet before someone stepped on it. Just as well, she thought. That was the one she'd used to sketch Dirk Fallows, and she had a strict rule, a superstition really, about such things. Once she sketched a man like him with a pencil, she never used it again. Actually threw it away as soon as possible. Silly, maybe. But she looked at brushes, pens and pencils as some kind of spiritual antennas, receivers of the spirit. And she didn't want Fallows' spirit any where near her. She gave a brief shiver and marched briskly toward the doors.
A thick shoulder from Steve Jennings at Channel 9 nudged her in the back and sent her tripping forward. Her hands groped ahead as she started to fall, her briefcase flying from her shoulder, the contents spilling beneath urgent feet.
Then a hand was holding her firmly by the shoulder and she was falling no more. The hand came from behind and at first she thought it was Jennings. But no, there he went out the door, bullying past the Times Metro reporter with as much grace as a waltzing lumberjack. She turned to thank the man, gasped slightly when she recognized him.
'Uh… I mean, thanks… uh, thanks, Mr. Ravensmith.'
Eric didn't answer. He stooped down and somehow created a circle around her spilled briefcase. He didn't say anything to anyone, didn't touch anyone. His face wasn't threatening. Gentle, really, though after sketching him for two months, she knew that he was feeling anything but gentle right now.
He straightened up, carefully slipping her sketch pad back into her briefcase. 'I'm afraid there are some footprints on the one of the coroner,' he said.
'How'd you do that?' she said.
'Do what?'
She made a stirring motion with her finger. 'You know, get these animals to walk around you.'
'Maybe it's my cologne,' he said, but there was no smile on his face, in his reddish-brown eyes. In fact, he wasn't even looking at her, he was looking past her, over her shoulder. She knew at what, but turned to look anyway.
Col. Dirk Fallows.
He was standing, his lawyer smiling and chattering happily at him. But Fallows wasn't listening. He was staring
