Tortured Spirits (47 page)

Jake leveled his Glock at Russel. “Going somewhere?”

Russel raised his hands. “You could say that.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Depends on how far the fuel will take me. Haiti. Jamaica. Hell, I'll settle for Cuba, if necessary.”

Jake grunted. “Someplace will always take in a mercenary like you, right?”

“I have a wide skill set, and my business is built on relationships.”

“And knowing when to check out.”

“It goes with the territory. I should have seen the handwriting on the wall as soon as you showed up.”

“You just exploit one third-rate country after another, don't you?”

“I go where I'm needed.”

“Kill the engine.”

Russel clicked the toggles back into place and powered down the engine. “I don't suppose I can convince you to come with me?”

Jake shook his head. “You're not going anywhere.”

“My staying here doesn't serve any purpose. What are you going to do? Arrest me? Execute me? Come on. Those would both be empty gestures. I'm a facilitator, not a despot. You and I are both pragmatic men.”

“You cut off my hand.”

“I admit I got carried away. It happens when a man like you or me spends too much time with people like these.”

Jake didn't like the turn the conversation had taken. “Where's Maria?”

A flicker of a smile flashed across Russel's lips. “Mambo Catoute's got her in the basement of the Church of the Black Snake. She's fine—or at least she was when I left her there.”

“Did you touch her?”

“No.” He pointed at the pressure pad over his eye. “But look at what she did to me. I bet she's wild in bed. Forget I said that.”

“I'd love to sit and chat with you, but I'm in kind of a—”

Russel kicked the Glock out of Jake's hand and caught the weapon.

Using his stump, Jake slammed Russel's gun hand against the rear partition of the cockpit, and the Glock fired. Jake punched Russel's chin and heard the man's teeth shatter. Russel's face turned beet red.

Jake slammed Russel's gun hand against the partition again and jerked his own arm back, using his stump to force the Glock from Russel's hand. The gun clattered on the floor.

Confined in the cockpit, neither Jake nor Russel could engage in full body contact. Since he was certain Russel knew several martial arts, this came as a relief. But Jake also knew that with one hand missing, he had to take the man down fast or not at all.

He punched Russel in the nose and felt cartilage crunching beneath his knuckles.

Grimacing, Russel seized Jake's head in both of his
hands and jerked him forward, delivering a head butt that caused red spots to flash before Jake's eye and in his brain. Russel delivered a kick to Jake's solar plexus that sent him sprawling over his seat, groaning.

Russel reached for the fallen Glock, but Jake drove his heel into the man's hand. This time Russel cried out.

Jake jammed his left elbow into Russel's lower back, forcing the man to stand erect and arch his back, abandoning the Glock. Jake snaked his right arm behind Russel's back and over his shoulder. Cupping Russel's chin, he slammed the man's head against the controls again and again.

Russel groped at Jake's face, and Jake turned his head away. Russel clawed at Jake's left eye and gasped when it popped out of his skull. Jake caught the glass eye in his right hand, then shoved it through Russel's broken teeth. Russel opened his mouth wider to scream, and the glass eye rolled over his tongue and down the back of his throat like a ball in the side pocket of a pool table. Russel gulped the glass eye, his own visible eye bulging in its socket.

Jake forced his stump against Russel's throat. Gripping his left forearm with his right hand, he pressed his arm against Russel's Adam's apple, crushing it against the glass eye he felt but could not see. Russel's fingers danced in the air, and his body spasmed. Clenching his teeth, Jake put all his weight on his arm, crushing the man's windpipe. Russel's body shook, and his hands dropped at his sides. Jake finally released his grip when he realized he might break his own arm.

Black energy rose from Russel's corpse, and Jake scooped up the Glock from the floor.

In the middle seat of the Humvee, Malvado grimaced. A flare in the night sky silhouetted the Church of the Black Snake as they approached it. How had two Americans—one of them a
woman
—caused so much damage?

The Humvee ground to a halt, and the soldiers opened the doors and climbed out. Maxime examined his ATAC. The second Humvee pulled up, and eight soldiers poured out.

“I don't see Russel,” Maxime said in a sarcastic tone.

“I saw him going for the helicopter,” one of the soldiers from the second Humvee said.

Malvado glanced at the sky but saw no helicopter.

“It serves you right for allowing a foreigner in your inner circle,” Maxime said.

Malvado slapped Maxime across the face. “You will not speak to me like that.”

Maxime glared at his father. “Your empire is collapsing around you.”

Malvado stepped closer to his son. “Pray it holds up, because you're nothing without it.”

In the distance, silhouetted in the moonlight, an army of one hundred zonbies raced toward them.

The living soldiers looked to Malvado for orders.

“Sergeant, park these vehicles bumper to bumper, perpendicular to the church, so you can use them for cover.”

The sergeant saluted and repeated Malvado's orders to two of his men, who rearranged Humvees.

With the Humvees parked according to Malvado's directions, the twelve soldiers took up positions behind them. The zonbies had cut the distance between them in half. A wall of machine gun fire assaulted the vehicles, with such power that the enormous trucks shook, but the armor plating and bulletproof glass held up.

“Shoot them in the heads!” Malvado said.

With a look of disgust, Maxime took up position between the Humvees and fired his ATAC.

Malvado watched with pride as the heads of half a dozen zonbies exploded and their falling bodies caused zonbies behind them to pile up.

Maxime fired a grenade at the pile, and body parts rained down.

“Someone's leading them on horseback,” the sergeant said.

“Give me those.” Malvado snatched the sergeant's night vision binoculars. On the left side, a white-haired man rode a horse among the zonbies. “Maxime, Santiago's out there!
Shoot! Shoot them all!”

Maxime raised his ATAC to his shoulder and scanned the advancing horde. “I don't see him.”

Malvado looked through the binoculars again. Maxime was right: Andre had dismounted his horse.
Or he's been killed.
Malvado handed the binoculars back to the sergeant. “Finish them off.”

Even as Malvado ran up the stairs and through the church entrance, one of the Humvees exploded behind him. The orange fireball threw the vehicle into the air and dismembered the nearest soldiers. He didn't look to see if his son had survived.

Andre dismounted his horse when he saw the machine gun fire cutting down the zonbies ahead of him. He recognized the muzzle flash and the sound of an ATAC machine gun.

A grenade exploded in the middle of the zonbie force, casting body parts and sawdust in all directions. Several more zonbies staggered around on fire.

Crouching behind a tree, Andre loaded a grenade onto his own weapon, raised the stock to his shoulder, and sited a familiar figure.

Maxime Malvado.

Lowering his scope, he fired the grenade under the Humvee. The resulting explosion flipped the Humvee over and decimated half the number of soldiers. The remaining zonbies charged forward, weapons firing. Smoke enveloped
the other Humvee and machine guns fired. Silence followed.

The smoke cleared and Andre moved forward. Zonbies and soldiers lay motionless on the ground, arms and legs strewn about in a random pattern. Seeing no sign of Maxime, Andre concluded the upside-down Humvee had crushed him. A single zonbie rolled over onto its back. Its legs had been blown off, and sawdust poured out of its midsection.

Free its soul.

Meeting the creature's pitiful eyes, Andre aimed his ATAC at the zonbie's forehead and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Discarding the weapon, he drew his Glock and finished the job. The zonbie turned still.

Andre ran into the church, which had not existed when he had been a free man. Running along a balcony that overlooked a cathedral, he spotted a large figure in a royal-blue uniform heading for a doorway below. “Malvado!”

The figure turned.

Andre gripped the Glock in both hands, aimed, and fired three times. None of the shots hit the mark, and Malvado disappeared in the doorway.

Andre ran to an opening in the balcony, down the wooden stairs, then across the floor. Reaching the doorway through which Malvado had escaped, he gazed down at stairs that curved beneath the floor he had just covered. As he stepped forward, he heard a whistling sound, then felt his chest turn numb. The gun fell from his hands and clattered down the stairs.

Malvado stepped out from behind the doorway,
gripping the hilt of the sword he had just buried in Andre's chest. He wrenched the blade free of Andre's shattered ribs, and blood gushed out of the long wound.

Andre swayed on his feet. “Malvado …”

Setting his left hand on Andre's right shoulder, Malvado drove his sword through Andre's belly.

Andre's body turned rigid and he shut his eyes. Unable to move, he sucked in his breath. When he opened his eyes, Malvado's sweaty face filled his view.

“Pavot is
mine
.”

Then Malvado pulled the sword out and stepped back, and Andre felt himself tumbling forward.

Maria recoiled at the sound of machine gun fire.

“That's right outside,” Pharah said. “It sounds farther away because we're underground.”

“Somebody give me a gun.”

Jorge pulled a .38 from his belt and passed it to Maria, who popped the cylinder open.

“Old school,” she said, snapping the cylinder shut with a flick of her wrist. “You got any more ammo for this six-shooter?”

“Oui.” Jorge took a box out of his pocket.

“I wish you'd brought a speed loader.”

“I'll remember that next time I help overthrow a government.”

An explosion roared in the distance, and everyone in
the chamber looked at the ceiling.

“I hope that was our explosion and not theirs,” Pharah said.

Another explosion sounded, and the lights went off, leaving only the candlelight, which cast long shadows on the walls.

“It may not matter whose they are,” Maria said. Hearing the chinking of keys on cement, she turned toward Catoute, who stomped on something. “What have you got there?”

Catoute shook her head in an innocent manner.

With her revolver aimed away, Maria crossed over the rim of the summoning circle, crouched low, and tapped the calf of Catoute's outstretched leg. “Step back.”

Catoute removed her foot from a single key.

Shaking her head, Maria reached for the key. “And what did you think you were going to do if you unlocked these bracelets? Run up all those stairs without us catching you?”

“Look out!” Pharah said.

Catoute kicked the gun out of Maria's hand, and it flew out of the circle and spun across the floor. A hand sank into Maria's curls and snapped her head back, and she felt the sharp point of a dagger press deep into the left side of her throat.

Catoute pulled Maria up by her hair and rotated her knife hand, pressing the dagger. “I've cut more than a few throats in my time. Use any fancy police moves on me, and I'll shower in your blood.”

Maria felt her lips drawing tight.
Son of a bitch!

Catoute glanced around the chamber. “Drop your guns. I'm an old woman with nothing to lose.”

Maria heard the sharp clatter of guns on the floor.