Monk Addison tore into the Cyke-Lones, smashing arms and faces with his blackjack and slashing and stabbing with the knife. Blood filled the air like an explosion of rubies. Howls of rage became screams of pain that rose above even the mind control.
Ten feet away he saw Crow, who was twice his age and half his size, dropping bikers with some kung-fu bullshit that was frightening to behold. There was more than just survival in the frenzy of the small cop’s moves. Maybe he was down on that animal level where a pack leader becomes a monster in order to defend the young of the pack. Or maybe he’d personalized the threat. What had he said during their first meeting? That he’d lost a couple of kids? Maybe he was inside Patty’s grief about Tuyet, borrowing her outrage at the theft of life. Whatever was shoveling coal into his furnace it was burning hot as the sun.
But the man’s face was flushed a bright red and he was streaming sweat. He might win this fight, but it looked like it was going to kill him.
He felt his own body tiring. There had to be fifty cuts all over him from when the windows shattered, and his own blood was pooling in his shoes. There were still bikers outside battling to get in. Monk and Crow were individually a match for any of them, but this was going to come down to a numbers game. The two of them might win a lot of battles but lose the war from blood loss, age, and fatigue.
That thought—and horror at what would then happen to Patty and Gayle—dumped new fuel into his own engines. He pressed the attack, taking the fight to the bikers, letting the brutal soldier he’d once been come out of his cage. Saying fuck it and fuck you to the whole goddamn world. If this was where all of his miles on the pilgrim road were going to end, and even if that meant that he—unredeemed—was about to plummet through the bloody floor on which he fought and fall into the abyss, then so what? He would take as many of them with him. He would fight long enough for Patty and Gayle to get out of there. If he could save them by dying, then that was redemption enough.
The bikers howled as they rushed him, but Monk saved his breath for the killing.