I reached for the pistol even as the first man closed in, knife flashing low in a disemboweling cut. My foot lashed out, cracking into his hand. He howled and pulled back, knocking into the man next to him.
Seeing a gap in the circle, I charged that way, ducking a vicious swing from the hook. The man I'd kicked, however, saw what I was doing and threw his knife left handed. It was a bad throw, but close enough to make me duck back to avoid the blade.
As I ducked, Nihat leapt the remaining distance between us and landed on my back, driving me to my knees. His knife flashed in reflected sunlight from one of the windows high above as he plunged it over my shoulder and towards my throat.
I threw my head backwards in a savage headbutt, catching his chin with the top of my head. I saw stars for the second time in less than a minute as pain lanced through my skull, but Nihat gave out a high pitched, bubbling scream and as I twisted to avoid the knife I saw that he had bitten through his tongue, blood spurting out as he released his grip and staggered backwards, knife dropped and forgotten.
Scooping it up I rolled forwards, coming up to my feet and spinning just in time to block another knife. Steel rang on steel as the blades met, his tiny darting lunges being stopped by my blade as I backed away, looking for a position where they could only come at me one at a time.
The man I was fighting was good, a proper knife fighter. He kept pushing at me, seeking a hole in my defenses that would allow his blade to slip through, one of the quick lunges slicing the arteries in my throat, thumb or thigh.
The others hung back, seemingly happy to let the man do his work, and he grinned from beneath his moustache as he launched a blistering series of strikes that my eye could barely follow. His blade licked out, cutting my shoulder, my wrist, my waist. I could feel hot blood trickling down my body and I knew that he was going to win, knew that I was going to die here, in an alleyway in Istanbul, because I'd been stupid enough to believe that no one would sell me out.
And then he slipped. Only for a second, but it was enough. Stepping inside his guard, I brought my blade up and buried it in his throat, staring into his eyes as understanding, then fear, then acceptance, flashed through them before they glazed.
Pushing him back towards the remaining two, I reached under my jacket and pulled out the pistol.
Without so much as a glance back, they ran, leaving me in the alleyway with Nihat, who was on his knees with both hands covering his mouth, and Erkhan, who stood, gaping like a fish while I stalked towards him, pistol in his hand forgotten.
"There are 97 ways to die in Istanbul, Erkhan," I said with a feral smile, "and number 96 is trying to kill me and failing."
Time slowed as I pulled the trigger, the empty click sounding wrong as it failed to fire.
I pulled again, the same empty click punctuating the sentence forming in my head. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he took the fucking firing pin out before he sold me the gun.
Erkhan grinned and raised his own pistol, knowing I was too far away to do anything, having dropped the knife to pull my pistol.
Left with nothing else to do as the barrel snapped up, his finger whitening on the trigger, I threw my pistol underhand, watching it desperately as it spun in lazy circles towards Erkhan.
Two things happened at the same time.
The first was a flash, a thunderclap and the hot, searing agony of a bullet tearing through the flesh of my upper arm. I staggered backwards and sideways, knocked off balance by the force of the round as it took part of my arm on its onward journey.
The second was my pistol, thrown in desperation, spinning straight into Erkhan's face, the heavy butt smashing his nose flat as he screamed with the pain.
Pushing my own pain to one side, I charged the distance between us and grabbed Erkhan's right hand as it went to his broken face, snapping his finger with a loud crack as I wrenched the pistol free and placed the muzzle against his stomach, burying the tip of the barrel in layers of fat.
I pulled the trigger twice, the rounds tearing through him as I angled them upwards, tearing through flesh, bone and organs before exiting at crazy angles.
Erkhan stumbled backwards, ending up sitting on the top step with a bemused expression on his face before he slumped sideways, the light going out of his eyes.
Dropping the pistol, I scooped up my own. A firing pin would be a lot easier to get than a new pistol, that was for sure.
I stumbled over to Nihat and grabbed him by the collar, jerking him to his feet.
"You and I," I said in flawless Turkish, "are going to have a little chat about the friend who told you about me. And if I don't like the answers I'm getting, I can assure you that you will know it. Are we clear?"
Nihat nodded as I pushed him out into the harsh sunlight. Sirens were already echoing from the walls of the tiny, twisting streets as we took turns at random, disappearing into the maze of alleyways in the city where, apparently, there were 97 ways to die.
BIO:
Despite the surname, Paul Grzegorzek hails from Sussex where he has lived all his life, having gone to school in the beautiful countryside town of Midhurst. He was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, within spitting distance of Brighton, a city he's called home since the mid 90's. Over the last twelve years, Paul has worked as a soldier (part time only), a bouncer, a security officer and a police officer, not necessarily in that order. In a 6 year police career, Paul worked on the beat (on a mountain bike of all things), on response, then on LST, specializing in riot duties and working as a riot medic. Paul then went on to join DIU (the divisional intelligence unit) and worked on undercover drug operations as well as dealing with vehicle crime for the city and anything else that caught his eye. During his police career Paul was twice given bravery awards in the form of divisional congratulations. Paul eventually left the police for a high-profile security job in the US which fell through, and now uses the skills he gained in the police in the private sector in the UK. While in the police, Paul met bestselling author Peter James and soon the two became firm friends, Paul helping Peter as an adviser on his “Roy Grace” series of novels. Outside of work and writing, Paul has studied white crane kung fu for about a dozen years on and off, and lives in Brighton which he loves and hates with a passion. Wherever he goes in the city he is reminded of a job that he attended, a person he arrested or a crime scene he worked, which is why he writes about the place with such vigour and realism.
Paul is the author of ‘The Follow’ and ‘When Good Men Do Nothing’.
He blogs here: http://diariesofamodernmadman.blogspot.com/
IT’S NOIR OR NEVER by Absolutely*Kate
She pounded a Smith-Corona like she pummeled bums in dark alleys that took her for a pretty pushover. She wrote in the shadows of the night. Just about every night. With hard booze and soft jazz. She swore she channeled Chandler best that way. And Fitzgerald. She even got snarky smirks from the Algonquin Club’s Dorothy Parker. Hail, Hail! Gang’s all here. She listened soft. She learned hard.
“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.”
That was Chandler. Whispers wisecracked between them. She dubbed him ‘Uncle Raymond’. They were so used to each other they kept the same scrawled crime-methodology notebooks. Knew what side dice should roll in a fixed craps game, the slickest way to pickpocket a rube just off the Greyhound from Poughkeepsie, Charleroi or Kalamazoo. It was Chandler who usually led off. Took her tenacity of subconscious thought down tough trails traipsing behind hardcore hoodlum minds. The hoodlums they sent her looking for. Nelle always found her man – the one she went looking for. With some of ‘em, she lingered lovin’ – hot whispers, sultry interludes, sassy entendrés – before turning them in. Others, she shot in places where they’d still be good for something after she learned ‘em her lesson.