Jungle Of Steel And Stone

Sloane blinked slowly, and his lips drew back to reveal broken, yellow teeth. 'I need to have another bag before I do that.'

'No. That wasn't the agreement. With two bags you might feel that you're far enough ahead of the game to walk away. Do your job and you'll get the bags. They'll be where I said they'd be.'

'You got them with you?'

'They're in a safe place. When I hear you start shooting and yelling, I'll get them and take them to the wall.'

'You'll get them now, Kendry!' Carl Nagle's voice, strangely hollow and tortured, washed over them like acid from the deep well of night.

'Holy Mother of God,' Sloane croaked as he clawed frantically for the gun in his shoulder holster.

The explosive chatter of the submachine gun was deafening as the individual rounds blended into one jagged torrent of sound that reverberated off the massive tombstones and echoed in the darkness. Sloane's body was blown backward against a tree and momentarily pinned there by bullets; it jerked like a broken puppet, spouting blood from a dozen different places.

Then the firing stopped, leaving only faint echoes as a counterpoint to the rasping sound of Sloane's pulped corpse sliding down the tree trunk to the ground.

Carl Nagle walked unsteadily out from the trees, and suddenly the air was filled with the putrid, gagging odor of rotting flesh. As the huge man moved into the moonlight, Veil and Reyna could see that he held the Uzi braced in the crook of his left arm. There was thick, caked spittle on his cracked lips, and his eyes gleamed like lumps of banked coals in the puffed, waxy flesh of his face.

Nagle's right arm had ballooned out of the sling that supported it; it jutted grotesquely from his body, like a deformed, rotting gourd that had somehow taken root in his shoulder. Suppurating, swollen to almost twice its normal size, the flesh of the arm was a flaking, blackish green. Streaks of crimson radiated from the bicep to the hand, and up through the neck.

'Gas gangrene,' Reyna murmured in horror.

Nagle's eyes had turned mud-black with fever and madness. He chuckled insanely as he leaned back, aimed the muzzle of the gun just over their heads, and fired off a burst into the trees. Leaves and broken branches rained down on Reyna and Veil, who had taken the woman in his arms and was trying to shield her with his body.

'The Lord is my shepherd,' Reyna prayed. 'I shall not want . . .'

Reyna flowed out of Veil's arms, crumpling to the ground. There were confused shouts all around them as men tried to determine from which direction the shooting had come. Pistol shots cracked as men stumbled in the darkness, firing at shadows and each other. Sirens wailed.

'. . . He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He restoreth my soul . . .'

'Listen to me, Nagle,' Veil said carefully, his eyes fixed on the ribbed, black muzzle of the submachine gun pointed at his chest. 'The cops are going to be here any minute.'

Nagle's laughter was high-pitched and chilling. 'I am the cops!' he howled. 'I'm already here!'

Veil tensed slightly, but did not move. Nagle was six feet away, and Veil knew that it would take only a twitch of the man's finger to cut him in half.

'. . . He prepareth a table before me . . .'

Nagle coughed hard, then glanced over at Sloane's bloody corpse. 'Stupid shit,' he mumbled, his words blurred by pain and insanity. 'You're all stupid shits. Didn't you think this idiot would be missed? I've had men watching the cemetery, but I've been watching them. Sloane was so nervous when he came out of here that I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Then he brings back a rented car. Stupid shit.'

'You're a dead man, Nagle,' Veil said quietly. 'You know it. This may be your last chance to do something decent. Stop the killing. If you believe you have a soul, take this opportunity to save it.'

'Fuck my soul,' Nagle slurred, spittle dribbling from the corners of his mouth. 'I'm gonna be all right, Kendry. You can't kill Carl Nagle with a lousy toy arrow. Where's the rest of the heroin?'

'I'll give it to you if you put the gun down.'

'. . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . .'

The muzzle of the gun swung down toward Reyna, held steady. 'You give it to me now, Kendry, or I make the girl a few ounces heavier.'

'. . . Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me . . .'

'Don't do it, Nagle!'

Nagle's eyes and the gun barrel swung back toward Veil, and Reyna suddenly sprang to her feet. Shrieking, she leapt at Nagle, startling the man and causing the burst of fire from his gun to miss Veil. Then Reyna was on him, using both hands to pummel and claw at his gangrenous arm. Blood and pus spurted from the swollen, drumhead-tight flesh. Nagle's mouth dropped open, and he uttered a guttural, soaring, animal howl; the gun dropped to the ground, and he slowly toppled backward, his left arm groping in the air as if searching for some invisible rope that would hold him up. He ended up on his back, still howling and clawing at the air, as Reyna, screaming with mindless rage, methodically kicked at the rotting arm, bursting and shredding the putrefied flesh from the bone.

With her screams wed to Nagle's in a horrible duet of insane rage and death, Reyna wheeled and picked up the submachine gun. She pointed the muzzle at Nagle's head and pulled the trigger. The gun chattered and kicked wildly, but Reyna kept her finger pressed on the trigger until the clip was empty and Nagle's head had been transformed into a pulpy mass that was spread over the ground, glistening in the moonlight.

Veil tore the gun from Reyna's hands and threw it into the woods. 'He's dead, Reyna!' he shouted, grabbing Reyna's arms and shaking her. 'It's over! Stop it!'

Reyna's mindless screeching gradually died down to a drawn-out moan. Her shoulders sagged, and she slumped against Veil's chest as a helicopter swooped overhead, bathing the field of tombstones in a white light that glittered off specks of marble and polished granite in the stone. The panicked gunfire in the night had stopped, but there were thrashing sounds all around them.

'I'd say it's just about time to move on, lady,' Veil said quietly.

'Oh, Veil, how can we?' Reyna sighed, her voice barely audible. 'It's finished, but at least we tried the best we could.'

'It's not over till the fat lady sings, Reyna. Do you hear her?'

Reyna stepped back and looked at Veil. Slowly her face broke into a crooked grin. 'She may not be singing yet, but I surely do hear her clearing her throat.'

'Let's go,' Veil said, lifting Toby in his arms. 'You take the lead.'

Reyna picked up the Nal-toon. 'Straight down the cemetery?'

'It's too late to make it back to the mausoleum, so that seems as good a direction as any.'

With Reyna leading the way, Veil trotted through the stand of fir trees. Men moved in the darkness around them. Suddenly Reyna stopped, turned back, and frantically waved at him before diving into some underbrush. Veil stepped behind a tree just as two uniformed policemen, shining powerful flashlights, emerged from the trees to his right and walked over the spot where he had been. Their walkie-talkies crackled in the darkness.

Veil hurried forward until he came abreast of Reyna. Both stepped behind another large tree as a portly policeman, red-faced and gasping for breath, ran past with his gun drawn. Reyna darted ahead, and Veil followed.

Then they reached the end of the cemetery.

Reyna, running a few paces ahead, abruptly stopped and stifled a cry. 'Oh, no,' she moaned as Veil came up beside her.

Before them was the rolling, manicured expanse of a golf course on which scores of heavily armed police trotted forward like a phalanx of Roman legionnaires; flashlights bobbed up and down, boring holes in the night. There was no place left to run.

Veil caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, saw Reyna place the Nal-toon on the ground. She pulled her T-shirt over her head, then slipped out of her jeans, underpants, and sneakers.

'Put the sneakers on Toby,' Reyna said breathlessly as she scooped up a handful of the loamy soil and began to darken her body. 'Your jacket is big enough to cover the rest of him.'