Now
Boxes were piled against the wall: Budweiser, Coors, Frito-Lay, Yuengling, Dos Equis, Miller Light, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper. A wide metal door in the far wall led into what was probably a walk-in freezer—for meat, maybe? Probably alcohol, too. No casement windows allowed sunlight into the room, but a pair of humming fluorescent lights hung from chains.
“How did you do what you did to me?”
Roused by the sound of an angry voice, Kenway looked around in a daze. His wrists were tied together and the rope was over a metal pipe in the ceiling. Three men wearing Los Cambiantes colors stood nearby, but they weren’t paying attention to him.
Magician Rook had been tied to a chair, a bandanna around her eyes. Her shirt was gone, though she still wore her sooty bra and black jeans.
“I want to know,” one of them said. “And you’re going to tell me.”
“Can’t tell you. Just something you have to learn,” Rook said exasperatedly, rote dialogue she’d probably been repeating all night. “It takes—”
A tall drink of water with salt-and-pepper Fabio hair slapped her across the face. To her credit, she didn’t make a sound, even though she had apparently already been through plenty. Her nose was bleeding, she had a fat lip, and her face was livid with bruises. “Then teach me,” said Santiago. His right arm was in a sling, his chest shrouded in bandages. His skin was a livid pink, and burn scars made grotesque whorls across his face and arms. “I want to know how you did what you did. How you move things with your mind.”
“Looks like Big Boy is awake,” grunted a short, barrel-chested guy in a pinstripe dress shirt. The patch on his biker vest said his name was MEZA. The pencil mustache made him look like a Latin Danny DeVito.
Santiago glared at Kenway, but his scowl broke into a grin. “Good morning, sunshine. Did you sleep okay?”
“Slept in worse places,” said the veteran. His mouth tasted like feet and cheese. “Where am I? What did you do with my leg?” Then he saw it dangling from Meza’s hand by the ankle, pointed at the floor like a baseball bat. “Man, it would really mean a lot to me if you could put that back on.”
Meza wound up and clubbed Kenway across the belly with his own prosthetic leg.
“Swing, batta-batta!” laughed Santiago.
“Urrgh.” Kenway bent double, though the impact wasn’t nearly as forceful or painful as he let on. He broke character and laughed, tossing his hair out of his eyes; he couldn’t help it, the display was pathetic. “I’m sorry, man, you hit like a little girl. How did Little League tryouts go? Make the team yet?” If he could piss them off and divert their attention, maybe they would leave Rook alone.
Meza stared, astounded. “This motherfucker!”
A grenade went off in Kenway’s sinuses as Santiago’s fist pumped into his face. He rocked back, the pipe in the ceiling the only thing keeping him upright. “Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Woo!” said Kenway, swaying giddily. Blood coursed from his nostrils and down the back of his throat. He spat it on the floor at their feet.
“Gimme that,” Santiago snarled, ripping the prosthetic leg out of Meza’s hand. He whacked Kenway in the knee with it like he was clearing brush with a bush axe.
The pipe in the ceiling creaked ominously under the big vet’s weight as he dropped onto his wrists with a shout of pain. “Talk shit now, pendejo!” Santiago stepped over to a workbench and hammered the fake leg savagely against the edge of the countertop until it came apart in a spray of titanium and plastic.
Damn, man, Kenway thought, despair washing over him. I’m useless on one foot. He scanned the cellar from where he stood, searching for something he could use as a crutch. A dry mop stood in an empty bucket next to a deep sink. Maybe he could use that.
Throwing the leg across the room, Santiago scowled. “I know what you’re doin’. Ain’t going to work.” As he turned away, he seemed to have second thoughts and came back. “Hey, you’re that wife-killing bitch’s boy toy, ain’t you? What’s it like, fuckin’ a butch lesbo like that? How you even get your dick in a pussy that dry?” He laughed. “Bet you kids go through a lot of Astro-Glide. How’d you even talk her into it? Bet you lost that leg in the sandbox. What’re you, Army? Marine? I bet you’re a Marine. Semper fi, buddy—you must be a hell of a man to turn a dyke.”
Kenway gripped the rope and pulled himself up, stomping Santiago right in the crotch.
Tearing out of its brackets, the pipe broke loose and dropped him on his ass. The pipe hit the floor, ringing like a church bell, and the president of the Los Cambiantes went to his knees, hunkering over as if he were praying to Mecca, cupping his balls. Kenway took advantage of the distraction and dove for the busted pipe.
Throwing himself forward like a frog, Santiago did a sort of stretching fencer’s lunge, stomped Kenway’s hand, mashing his fingers with a heavy, chunky-soled riding boot.
The bones in his hand ground together in excruciating pain. “Aah! Goddammit!” shouted the vet, grimacing. He let go.
Santiago stood, pulling his right hand out of the sling and massaging his crotch. Flying into a rage, he whacked Kenway across the back with the pipe. When the big vet rolled over with a bark of pain, the changeling biker beat on him. Iron pipe bounced off his forearms and knuckles. He turned his wrists so he caught most of the blows in the muscle. Still, it was everything he could do to keep from getting his arms broken.
Reaching for the pipe on the downswing, he tried to grab it out of Santi’s hand but missed. It skittered up his knuckles and he turned his face at the last second, earning a blow across the side of the head. Luckily, he’d slowed it enough that it didn’t break his jawbone, but the brain-jarring knock to the skull threw Kenway into a blind rage and he punched his assailant in the shinbone.
“Ay! Fuck you, boy!” Santiago tried another swing.
This time Kenway caught it, ripping it out of his hand. The vet sat up and swatted Santiago across the thigh with the pipe. Awkward angle and a short swing, but the biker still yelped. No doubt he was feeling the jabs Robin had given him the night before. Kenway pointed the pipe at the other men and they hesitated, but only for a second. Long enough for their new pack leader to interrupt.
“Let him stew,” said Santiago. “He ain’t got but one leg. He ain’t goin’ nowhere. Look at him. He’s a crip. What’s he gonna do? He’s a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” He laughed and opened the door, ushering Meza and the other guy out. “Come on, I have to take Carly home, and then we’ll come back and deal with these shitheads.” He turned to Kenway, his eyes flashing gold. “You best be glad I’m runnin’ on fumes, boy, or your ass would be grass.”
Before he slipped out, Santiago paused and smiled. “Your girl didn’t make it out, by the way.”
“What?” Kenway went cold all over.
“Your little Xena Warrior Cunt Princess. Didn’t make it out of the house before it went down.” Santiago grinned. “Last time I saw her, she was on fire. Eyes runnin’ out of her face like candle wax. She’s one crispy bitch.” He spat on the floor. “That’s what she gets for messin’ with me and mine. Mess with my family, you get dead.”
Tears pooled in Kenway’s eyes and ran into his beard. Sudden deep despair took his voice away. The sound his gritting teeth made in his head reminded him of the creaking of the timbers settling as the house burned above him, and that only drove the knife deeper.
“Maybe I’ll go back up there and piss on her ashes,” said Santiago.
Kenway threw himself forward and swung the pipe in rage, but came up short. The tip banged against the cement floor, ringing loudly.
“Tsk tsk.” Santiago wagged a finger.
“I’m going to kill you,” Kenway said coldly, breathlessly, and meant it. His heart was gone, and in the middle of his chest was a deep dark hole.
“I believe it.”
“I’m going to rip you apart.”
“Keep ahold of that anger. It’s all you got left. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got things to do. Peace out, white boy.” Santi flashed a V sign in farewell. “Ring the front desk if you get hungry.”
The door clicked shut, and keys rattled on the other side as someone locked it. Heavy door, probably solid oak. Considering the deadbolt was shot into a brick wall and it opened into the cellar, he’d never be able to kick it open even if he had two legs.
The only other door was the walk-in cooler across the room. He had no delusions they’d be able to escape that way.
Kenway dragged himself over to Rook. “You okay?”
Blood leaked from her nose, dripping into her bra. “Yes … yes, I suppose I am. They’re going to kill me, though. When that man realizes he’s not going to get what he wants, he’s going to kill me.” Her mouth drew into a deep, hopeless frown, and she hunkered down, her shoulders bunching up. Quiet tears ran out from under the bandanna, cutting tracks in the blood. “I don’t want to die, Mr. Griffin. I’m not ready to go yet.”
“They’re not going to kill you,” said Kenway. He peeled off the Origo’s blindfold to reveal haunted eyes. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“We’re not. We’re not getting out of here. This was a mistake, wasn’t it, coming down to Texas?” The longer Rook spoke, the more frantic she became. “Andy warned me about this, about getting mixed up with Martine. I should have listened.”
“We are.” His fingers worked at the knots behind Rook’s back, trying to untie her hands. “We are getting out of here.”
“What is that stink?” she asked, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “The pipe you tore down, was that a natural gas line?” Just faintly, at the end of the broken pipe where it jutted out of a hole in the joists, he could make out the ripple of distortion where gas spewed silently out into the air. “Hurry up,” said Rook. “We need to get out of here before it reaches the pilot light in the furnace. Or we suffocate, whichever one happens first.”
“I’m trying. Knot’s too tight and I don’t have anything to cut it with.”
“In my pocket—the lighter. My lighter. Take it out, please. Get it.”
“Busy trying to untie you.”
“Get the lighter, then go back to what you were doing,” said Rook. “I want you to have it in case we don’t get out of here before they get back. In case you escape and I don’t. I need someone to carry the relic out of here so this evil bastard doesn’t get his hands on it.”
Slipping his fingertips into her pocket, he dug around in the soft lining until he discovered the steel rectangle of her Zippo nestled against the curve of her thigh. “How do you use it?” he asked. “Maybe we can unlock the door with it.”
“That would be a good idea, if the room wasn’t filling up with flammable gas. I have to ignite it to use it. Power conduit, you have to use it to make it work. Use it in here, we both go up in a fireball.”
“Shit.” He coughed. The room was beginning to spin.
“Now put that in your pocket and get back to untying me. Hurry!”
Over in the corner, the furnace was a massive metal obelisk with a Rheem badge on the front. From where he sat, he couldn’t see a pilot light, and he didn’t hear any sound coming from it. “That thing even running?” He frantically picked at the knotted rope behind the magician’s back. “I mean, it’s summer; I wouldn’t imagine they’d need heat anyway.”
“No idea. Don’t want to find out the hard way. Hurry up!”