Child of Fire (16 page)

“What’s this?” Georgie asked.

I held up my hand. “It’s just a piece of paper,” I said. “Toss it here.”

I
reached
for the spell and called it to me. It shot out of the ex-Marine’s hand, passing through a couple of his
fingers on the way. As always, it passed through his living flesh as though he was not there.

The knife moved away from my throat. The ghost knife had done its work on the ex-Marine. I caught the spell and immediately threw it.

Georgie was taken by surprise, but not by much. The ghost knife went right where I wanted it to go, cutting through the top of his trigger assembly just as he began to squeeze it. The gun didn’t go off, and a second later I heard the trigger clatter against the floor of the van.

In the time it took the broken trigger to fall, I called the spell back to me and slashed it through Georgie’s leg. It cut a long slit in his pant leg, but the cut through his leg was bloodless.

I turned toward the ex-Marine. He was slumped and sagging, all the vitality drained out of him. For safety’s sake, I slid the ghost knife through his arm one more time. It never seemed to matter where the ghost knife struck a living person—it always had the same effect.

Georgie and the ex-Marine slid to the floor as though they were fainting. The third man lunged at me, his hunting knife aimed at my throat.

I threw the ghost knife at him and batted at the knife with the protected part of my forearm. The spell disappeared into his chest. The strength went out of him, but there was still a lot of momentum behind that knife. I mistimed my block and felt the tip of the blade slice my unprotected upper arm.

The third man fell against me. I
reached
for the ghost knife again. If the spell went through the wall of a moving vehicle, I could be a block away from it very, very quickly. I wasn’t about to leave my only real weapon behind.

“What the hell?” the driver said. I closed my eyes.

The ghost knife flew back into the van, cutting a slit in the wall and letting in a sliver of light.

The van swerved to the right and lurched to a stop. The third man fell on top of me, knocking me to the floor. I was pinned beneath him.

The driver climbed from his seat. I heard him open the glove compartment. I didn’t try to free myself. I didn’t have time. I switched the ghost knife from my pinned left arm to my free right arm. The driver turned toward me, gun in hand. It was another .38.

If I hadn’t been lying under one of his friends, he would have had plenty of time to shoot me. We were at point-blank range, but he didn’t have a clear shot. I threw my spell at him.

He tried to slap the ghost knife away but missed it. It entered just above his navel, and as soon as it disappeared I
reached
for it again. The spell boomeranged back to me, passing through the driver a second time. He collapsed.

I caught it. I’d never tried that trick before. I liked it.

I shoved the man off me and struggled to my knees. All four were still awake, but they were bleary-eyed and listless. I took both knives, Georgie’s revolver, and the driver’s, too. Both guns were identical to the one I’d taken from Floyd outside the bar. Maybe the construction workers in Hammer Bay bought in bulk.

Georgie looked up at me with glazed, pleasant eyes. “Sorry about the way I treated you,” he said. “I don’t know why I was so rude.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. The ghost knife didn’t just take away their strength, it also cut out a person’s rage and aggression. Temporarily.

I checked the cuts on my neck and left biceps. The one on my neck was barely a scratch. It had already stopped bleeding. The one on my arm would need a couple of stitches and had come way too close to my brachial artery.

I took their wallets. The four of them had a grand total of thirty-seven dollars on them. That’s how it goes in
the age of the debit card. I also took back the money Floyd “paid” me. I didn’t bother with the IDs this time.

“All right, you clowns,” I said to them. They all stared up at me with wet, docile eyes. I aimed the .38 at them. “Get on your knees beside the side door.”

They did.

“Put your hands flat on the floor. Get them next to each other.”

They pushed and nudged against one another, trying to position themselves.

“I’m sorry about all this,” the ex-Marine said. “We were just—”

“Shut up,” I said. I slid the ghost knife into my pocket and picked up the disabled revolver. I slid the cylinder release forward and dropped the rounds onto the floor. Then I picked up Annalise’s scrap of wood and put it in my pocket. “Where are the keys?”

The driver spoke up. “In the ignition.”

“What were you guys supposed to do with me?”

“Bring you to the Curl Club,” the driver answered, “so Phyllis could talk to you.”

“Phyllis?”

“Phyllis Henstrick. She runs the place, and Henstrick Construction.”

“Why does she want to talk to me?”

“She didn’t say,” the driver answered. He crouched beside the others like a little lamb. All of them stared at the barrel of the pistol in my hand. They couldn’t look away.

“I think,” Georgie said, “that it had to do with a rumor she heard about Charles Hammer sending jobs overseas.”

Of course, I thought. “Okay, boys,” I said to them. My voice was low. “Live or die?”

Georgie understood right away. “Live,” he said. The others agreed.

“Fine,” I told them. “I’m only going to be in town for a couple of days, I hope, and I don’t want to see any of you again. So I’m going to take out some insurance. Hold still. If any of you yank your hands away, I’m going to assume that means you’ve changed your answer.” I turned the revolver around and held it like a club.

“Please,” the ex-Marine said. “Please don’t.”

“It’s gonna hurt,” I said, letting some of my anger show, “but not as bad as a bullet in the guts.”

I slammed the butt of the revolver onto the backs of their hands, aiming for the knuckle of their index fingers.

It wasn’t the smartest move, but the smartest move would have been to kill them all. I didn’t want them shooting at me from a moving vehicle tomorrow. I had to take them out of the game somehow, and I had to teach them, and whoever pulled their strings, not to mess with me. Breaking their hands was gentle compared with what I should have done.

They cursed and whimpered like scolded boys. When it was done, I slid open the side door.

“School’s out for the day,” I said, and kicked Georgie through the open door.

He tumbled out onto the curb, and the other three scrambled after him on their knees and elbows. They crouched on the sidewalk, blinking in the drizzle, holding their arms across their chests just as I had outside Sara’s bar. I slammed the door shut.

The keys were, in fact, in the ignition. I laid the guns in my lap, started the van, and pulled into traffic.

At the first red light, I picked up the driver’s revolver. I took out my ghost knife and cut off the hammer, then sliced through the cylinder. I tossed it into the back of the van. Georgie’s gun was already ruined.

I have my reasons for not liking guns.

On impulse, I opened the glove compartment and
peeked inside. My curiosity was rewarded with an envelope filled with five $50 bills.

Things were looking up.

My arm was bleeding pretty freely. It was annoying and I’d need to have it taken care of. I took the tourist map from my inside jacket pocket and consulted it. Looking around the neighborhood, I oriented myself to the two main roads in town. The hospital was behind me and to the east. I turned at a corner, then did it again.

I was a couple of blocks from the hospital when I saw a McDonald’s. Half an omelet and toast hadn’t held me, so I pulled into the drive-through. If I was going to wait in an emergency room, I might as well have lunch with me.

And wooden men don’t have to worry about cholesterol.

I ordered the biggest, sloppiest burger they had, along with fries and a milk shake. In for a penny, in for a pound. As I pulled up to the pickup window, a pretty teenage girl with a splatter of pimples over her face leaned out the window.

“Hi, Uncle Ethan!” she said.

Then she saw my face. Her mouth dropped open, but she didn’t say a word. “Hello yourself,” I said. I paid her with Georgie’s money. She gave me the food.

“That looks like my uncle’s van,” she said.

“Really? Weird,” I said to her. I set the bag of food on the seat next to me and drove to the emergency room.

To my surprise, there were no other patients. To my further surprise, I didn’t need stitches. The doctor cleaned the wound, glued it shut, and packed a bandage against it. It cost me three hundred dollars. Luckily, I hadn’t bought two milk shakes. Uncle Ethan paid my bill for me, leaving about six dollars in my pocket. Easy come …

I thanked the emergency room staff and walked toward the exit to check on the van. Through the glass doors, I
saw the Escalade slowly cruising through the parking lot. I stepped away from the glass. The SUV circled Uncle Ethan’s van, then drove around the building.

I turned away from the doors and hustled through the hospital, moving as fast as I could without attracting attention. I had planned to visit Harlan Semple while I was here. That would have to wait.

I passed bare corridors with no doors. For a moment I felt lost, then I burst through some double doors and found myself in a storage room filled with plastic tubes in plastic bags, and IV stands. Feeling relieved, I broke into a sprint, running to the loading dock I knew had to be at the end of the hall.

There was a small panel van backed against the loading dock, and an eighteen-wheeler backing up beside it. A man in jeans and a polo shirt called out to me, telling me I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I jumped off the loading dock and ran to the street beyond.

I reached the sidewalk. The street was nearly empty, and the Escalade was nowhere in sight. I was standing at the exit of the parking lot. Nothing there, either.

Wait. There it was. The Escalade pulled into view, then stopped, as if the driver was looking around. I ducked behind a tall hedge, bumping against the stop sign that controlled traffic entering the road.

The vehicle turned toward the exit and puttered toward the spot where I was hiding. I watched it through a break in the bushes, trying to get a glimpse of the driver. I couldn’t. The overcast clouds reflected off the windshield, blocking my view. Still, I was sure it was Charles Hammer in there.

The Escalade pulled a little past the stop sign and paused on the sidewalk. I knew the driver would be watching the traffic to the left, so I stepped from my hiding spot, yanked open the passenger door, and hopped into the seat.

“Hello,” I said.

The driver cried out in a high-pitched voice, and for a second, I thought Charles Hammer looked much shorter behind the wheel than he had in his offices.

Of course, it wasn’t Charles behind the wheel. It was a well-dressed, dark-haired woman. She had broad, even, lovely features, hair that reached just below her ears. Her legs were thick with well-toned muscle. She looked to be about thirty.

And I had just jumped into her car like a carjacker.

“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, I … um …”

“Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked her.

She glanced at the cell phone holstered beside her car radio. “Do you want to call the police?” I asked. “Go ahead. I think that’s a terrific idea.”

“Look,” she said, shrinking fearfully against the door, her hand inching toward the door release. “I’m sorry about following you around. You met with my brother, and—”

“Who’s your brother?”

“Charles Hammer. At Hammer Bay Toys.” I nodded. I could see the resemblance. “I wanted to talk to you—”

“Then why did you pull away when I approached you the first time?”

“I wasn’t sure then. I just decided this morning.”

She’d laid her hand on the door release, looking like she was ready to throw herself out of the car at any moment. I noticed a diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist. It was tasteful and worth more than Uncle Ethan’s van. When she grimaced, I saw that her teeth were as white as pearls.

“What ever,” I said. I felt sour. I didn’t want to terrify some woman. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. “Whoever you are, stop following me around. I don’t like it.”

I opened the door and slid out of the vehicle.

“Wait!” she called. I waited for her, both of my feet on the concrete and my hand on the door, ready to slam it shut.

“I’m sorry. I really do want to talk to you. I think you can help me. Would you meet me at this address in an hour?”

She held out a business card. I didn’t take it. There was no point in getting distracted in my search for Charles Hammer.

Unless she was willing to help me.

“Please?”

I shrugged and took the card. She thanked me and apologized again. I shut the door. She pulled away.

I looked at the card. It read
Cynthia Hammer
. Below that was an address on Hammer Street. That was the right last name. I turned and walked back to the parking lot.

The fright I had given Cynthia Hammer had taken all the fun out of being a bastard. I returned to Uncle Ethan’s van and tossed the keys on the floor by the brake pedal. I was tempted to wipe it down for fingerprints, but I noticed drops of blood on the driver’s-side door and decided not to bother. Uncle Ethan, Georgie, and their two buddies should be turning up soon to have their hands worked on. They might as well find their ride waiting for them, even if they couldn’t drive it home.

I walked around to the front of the hospital into the reception area. The very polite matron working there told me that visiting hours had just started. It was one in the afternoon. When I admitted that I was a friend of Harlan’s, not a family member, she told me I would need permission from the family to visit.

She called a volunteer over and spoke to her in low tones. The volunteer then said, “Follow me, sir,” in a shy voice. She led me to the elevator.

The inside of the elevator was stainless steel polished
as bright as a mirror. I saw my dirty, rumpled pants and bloody, torn shirt. I didn’t like the way I looked.