As he reached his car, he noticed it sitting low on one side. He walked around, having to squeeze down the side of a pickup truck that had been parked too close to his Audi.
The rear passenger side tire had been slashed open. Lock smiled to himself at the lack of joined up thinking of these bozos.
They wanted him to leave. They’d asked him to leave. Yet they were doing their best to make sure that he couldn’t leave. Not immediately, anyway.
To make it funnier, they hadn’t seemed to realize that these were run flats. Even with a hefty slash the tire was still good, for a few miles anyway.
He could change it here, but the pickup truck would make it awkward. Plus, he didn’t want to give the local wildlife the satisfaction of watching him sweat.
Lock decided to drive to the nearest gas station and change it there. Hunkering down, he made a final inspection of the damage.
Suddenly, he tensed. There was movement from behind him. He started to stand back up, catching sight in the passenger side mirror of someone appearing, directly behind him, from behind the tailgate of the truck.
That it had parked so close was no coincidence.
He saw only fragments of the person behind him. White, skinny, male, with cornrows.
There was a sparkling flash of rings as their right arm arced up high and then came down hard, catching him flush at the base of his skull as he was in the process of shifting to face the attack.
A sudden flash of light filled Lock’s vision as he went down, losing his balance, and tumbling forward, barely able to get his hands out in time to break his fall.
Landing prone, he started to roll onto his back so that he could up kick and buy the second he needed to clear his weapon. His stomach lurched from the impact and he struggled to hold on to consciousness.
The sudden, unexpected nature of the blow had almost put him out cold. As it was, everything around him was blurry and out of focus. Maybe two seconds had passed, but it felt like ten times that.
The scuffle of shoe leather from behind. The white guy with the cornrows was looking down at him, his face a mask of violent intent, eyes dead, lips peeled over teeth.
A boot swept through the air behind Lock’s head. The kick missed his head, but caught his shoulder.
Steel toe caps crunched against his left clavicle. As the guy in front drew back a ringed fist, Lock brought his leg down, catching the guy hard in the chest.
If he was going to take a beating, he planned on doing some damage of his own.
Lying flat on his back, one attacker in front, and one behind, his options were limited. Getting back to his feet was low percentage. He’d take any number of blows on the way back up, likely ending right back where he’d started, on his back, taking a kicking.
He reached down, feeling for his SIG. The guy behind him must have noticed because next thing Lock knew, his hand was trapped under the sole of the guy’s boot. He ground it around, like he was stubbing out a cigarette.
Meanwhile, the guy in front managed to grab Lock’s ankle. Pushing Lock’s leg out of the way, he moved past Lock’s legs and began to rain down blows.
His hand still pinned, all he could do now was bring up his left arm to shield his head from the worst of it. The guy was breathing hard. He was windmilling, most of his punches missing.
There was a shout from behind, as sweet a sound as Lock could remember.
“Hey! What’s going on back there?”
The blows kept coming. The rings made their mark, opening up Lock’s face. Blood began to pour into his eyes from a gash across his forehead.
The guy behind him removed his boot from Lock’s hand, but only long enough to bring it crashing back down, full force onto Lock’s head.
He scrambled again for his SIG. His hand on the butt, he started to draw. He didn’t think to aim. All he needed was his finger on the trigger and enough strength on the trigger to discharge as soon as he cleared it.
Another fist flew, catching him painfully flush just above his right eye. Lock’s fingers closed around the butt of his gun.
The boot came flying back down, catching the back of his head as he lifted it up to get a better view of where he was about to aim the SIG. This time the stomp came accompanied by commentary, the fuck high-pitched and recognizable as Monocle from back in the alleyway.
“Merry Christmas, asshole.”
Next came darkness, complete and profound.