Cassadaga infiltrated the crowd surrounding the police vans that were stationed outside the pub he’d just helped Ivana run amok in. The blood hadn’t yet dried on his hands and sleeves. It was still tacky, still the blood of someone who had, hopefully, died at his hands. He trod warily, keeping his head down and his hands in his pockets. He started on the edge of the sizeable crowd that was gathering around the scene. To begin with, he was behind them all, looking at the backs of a hundred heads, but then he pushed through them. Oh, it was such a pleasure and a pain. The killer was in their midst. How he could have so easily slipped out his knife and started slashing arteries, how he could have sunk his blade into their ribs, their kidneys, their throats. The opportunity sang to him. It called him like a siren’s song. But Daga clenched his teeth and held back. The only thing more important to him at the moment than blood-letting was Ivana.
And Ivana was sitting in that middle van, he knew.
Daga counted the cops. He saw five ranged around the perimeter, watching the crowd, an unknown quantity in the vans and at least a dozen in the pub. There were crime scene cops and normal cops and the higher-ups all represented. Daga didn’t look too closely; he stayed flitting among the crowd, finding the taller people and using them as cover. He fought to keep his true desires hidden, concealed from the masses at least this time. He ran his fingers along the shape of his knife beneath his clothing. He could feel the sharp blade and knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.
And then, as he struggled with a decision on what to do, on how to free Ivana, everything changed. Before Daga’s stunned eyes, one of the people he wanted to kill most in all the world turned up.
Joe Mason.
And with him, his colleagues.
Daga watched, his eyes like black lasers. He saw Mason converse with a cop who appeared to be in charge, saw the whole group traipse up to the van where Ivana was being held, and then saw nothing more. They were all hidden around the other side, but the meaning was obvious. Mason was going to try to get something out of Ivana, and Daga knew exactly what it was.
He wondered. What if …
… what if …
No. They wouldn’t agree to it.
Ivana for Marduk.
Maybe they would.
Daga could hear gunfire echoing from St Peter’s Square even now. He knew what Marduk was sending against them and, even though Marduk would eventually lose, the authorities didn’t know that. Shit, even Marduk didn’t know that. Or didn’t want to believe that he just didn’t have enough resources to take on the Vatican and Rome’s police forces. But he would do a lot of damage in the process.
Daga could offer to help stop all that. Would the cops give him and Ivana an even chance?
No way.
Even considering it was ridiculous. But he didn’t want to continue without Ivana. They were joined at the hip, inseparable. Over the last few months, she had got under his skin so much that she had become an extension of him. He didn’t work as well without her.
What to do?
Daga had killed and killed. It was his destiny, his way of living. Death was a lifestyle. Perhaps … the time had come to try something else.
Daga hesitated. This was world changing for him. Was he really going to negotiate with the cops for Ivana’s release?
You have to.
The simple answer was: he couldn’t carry on without her. Daga took a deep breath, steeled every nerve in his body, and pushed purposefully through the crowd. He knew both he and Ivana had a wealth of information to offer and that they could stop the attacks with just a few words, with the location of Marduk’s hotel. They had an awful lot to offer. It would be a shame not to get to kill Joe Mason, but maybe that could come later.
Daga reached the edge of the crowd. He stood behind a tall, wide man still not one hundred per cent committed. The van was right before him, just twenty strides away. Ivana would be inside, just on the other side of that thin metal sheeting, and she would be thinking of him, consoling herself with remembered bloody deeds. He knew it. They were soulmates.
Having decided to give up, to bargain for Ivana’s release, Daga suddenly remembered why he had been born. He remembered everything he’d done ten years before he met Ivana. The thrill of a messy kill, the bloodlust, was what he remembered. He knew, in that moment, what kind of man he was.
Blood before dishonour. Death before surrender.
Daga’s vision swam red; it swam with visions of slaughter. He couldn’t give that up. It was overwhelming. He needed to act on it now, right now. He drew his knife and stuck it in the spine of the big man concealing him. He whirled to the left and slashed at a woman’s arm before racing for the yellow tape that cordoned the crime scene off.
A woman screamed.
Daga fell on top of the first police officer.