Open shutters revealed potted flowers and herbs growing on windowsills. An elderly woman sucked on a cigarette, watching the Barracudas.
Rhino spotted Isaiah through an open window, wearing a hood that shadowed his eyes and covered his greasy hair. He nodded as Rhino passed underneath.
Ahead, Mac opened a hatch to an interior hallway. As the four men entered, Rhino got a view of two Praetorian Guards standing sentry under a crooked wooden sign that read, “The Purple Pearl.”
Though helmetless, the Cazador soldiers wore full armor and held spears. Swords hung from their belts, and red capes draped their shoulders.
Rhino recognized both scarred faces and steeled himself. These warriors knew how to wield sword and spear. The men inside would as well, but they would be no match for Isaiah’s arrows, the Immortal, and the Barracudas.
Mac and Felipe stopped just before the intersection with the next alley. After sneaking a glance around the edge, Mac held up three fingers, indicating the number of Praetorian Guards at the back entrance of the Purple Pearl.
Rhino squeezed past Felipe. “I’ll lead the way,” he said. Opening his robe, he pulled out the two shafts of his double-headed spear and joined them together with a click.
Mac hit a button on his cane, bringing out the blade, and X unsheathed his sword.
Rhino gave the nod. This was it. Time to kill that bag of shark chum.
Felipe came strolling around the corner—just a guy heading for the brothel.
“¡Alto ahí!” shouted one of the three guards.
Footsteps clanked on the metal deck, and two guards strode through the intersection, spears in hand.
“Hey, bub,” X said. “That whorehouse clean?”
Both guards stopped and peered into the shadowed alley. Rhino thrust his spear through the chest of the guard on the left, and X slashed the other across the neck. Blood spurted out, painting both Rhino and the king.
Felipe had turned and came running back. He threw both of his daggers. Rhino heard a muffled cry, then another thud.
By the time Rhino rounded the corner, the third guard was dead, and Felipe was wiping the two knives on his tangerine cape.
Mac moved ahead of the group, pulling out a key to the back entry of the brothel. He unlocked it and gently pushed the door open.
Rhino’s spear tip went inside first. Felipe drew a cutlass and went next.
Candles lit the corners of the dark room, illuminating a dozen stalls cordoned off by drapes. An empty desk and two couches occupied the front of the room. Curtains covered the only window, and the metal front door was closed.
By now, Isaiah would have taken down the guards in front and would be on his way to help. That meant they had only one Cazador left to kill.
The Barracudas filed inside the brothel. Rhino used the tip of his spear to pull back a drape of the first space on the left, while X did the same going the other direction.
Rhino found a mattress and bedside table but no Vargas.
Rhythmic grunting came from across the room, and Mac pointed his cane at a draped stall.
Nodding, Rhino took point, X on his right flank.
Killing a man while he got his rocks off wasn’t the bravest way to do it, but it would save a lot of problems later on, and Rhino didn’t feel any compunctions whatever. Ending the threat Vargas posed would save many lives, and when Sofia did return, they would be closer to the freedom they both had dreamed of. His heart thumped at the thought of seeing his woman soon.
He approached the drape where the grunting was coming from. Reaching out with his spear shaft, Rhino prepared to pull it back with the blade, but movement just behind the bottom of the drape stopped him. He could see boot soles in the half inch of space just underneath. Not just one pair.
“Back!” Rhino shouted.
He ducked as several arrows burst through the drapes and cut through the air. With his spear, he swiped under the curtain hard enough to sever a foot.
An agonized scream rang out as the drapes of other stalls opened. Cazador soldiers poured into the room, raising swords and spears.
Two men rushed out of the room in front of Rhino, and he swung his spear, taking a head off clean. Then he back-stepped away from the wide swipe of the other soldier’s sword. The man stumbled out of the enclosed space, right onto Rhino’s spear.
He had taken three Cazadores out of the fight in twice as many seconds. When he turned to help his team, everything seemed to slow down.
X and Mac fought back to back in the center of the large room. Both had arrows sticking out of their robes.
Felipe had lost his cutlass and threw one of his daggers into a soldier slashing at him with a sword. Then he sidestepped a low jab from a spear and stabbed the wielder twice in the neck.
The front door swung open, and in rushed the two Praetorian Guards Rhino had seen out front earlier. Following them in was a third man with an arrow nocked on his bowstring. He aimed it at Rhino and let fly.
The shaft caught Rhino in the shoulder. Adrenaline kept the pain at bay, but he did feel the deep cut of betrayal of his old friend and trainer.
Isaiah took another arrow from his quiver and shot it into Rhino’s other shoulder. At this range, he shouldn’t have missed the heart. That told Rhino the old man was disabling him so Vargas could finish him off.
Screaming in rage, he thrust at a Cazador soldier who came from the side with sword upraised. The spearhead ripped through the man’s exposed chest, opening him from navel to sternum.
The two Praetorian Guards moved in front of Isaiah to intercept Rhino, and Rhino jabbed at the one on his left. The soldier tried to parry but hadn’t given himself enough room. He backed into Isaiah, knocking a third arrow from his bow.
Rhino impaled the guard, through the stomach and out the back. He jammed it farther, hoping to get Isaiah on the same skewer, but his wily old mentor had jumped away.
As the other guard drew back his sword to strike, Rhino clicked the button in the middle of the shaft and twisted, disconnecting the two halves of his spear.
Leaving the top three feet of spear stuck through the first guard, he thrust the other half up under the second man’s chin, through his palate, and into his brain before he could bring his sword around.
Rhino was down to the knife on his belt, but instead of drawing it, he pulled the arrow from his left shoulder. Isaiah was renocking the arrow that the staggering Praetorian Guard had knocked loose. He managed to bring it up and release it, but nerves must have thrown off his aim, and the arrow sailed past, an inch from Rhino’s face. Rhino used the opportunity to slam into Isaiah and knock him to the ground.
“No!” Isaiah yelped as he squirmed under Rhino’s weight. “Rhino, please, don’t!”
Rhino wrestled Isaiah onto his back and raised the arrow he had plucked from his shoulder.
“No!” Isaiah yelled again.
With both hands, Rhino jammed the bolt into the center of his chest. He heard a satisfying crunch, then gurgling as blood filled Isaiah’s lungs.
“Why?” Rhino grunted. “Why did you betray me?”
A voice in Spanish answered, “Because I paid better.”
Rhino turned to see Colonel Vargas sitting on a bed in one of the small rooms, watching with a bemused smile.
The fighting outside the stalls had all but ended. Six Cazador guards stood in the open space, their weapons pointed down at X and Mac, who lay on the floor, bleeding from the arrows and sword and spear wounds.
Felipe was the only one still on his feet, fighting two soldiers near the back exit. But he was down to one dagger, and both men had swords. He kicked the leg out from under one soldier, ducked the other’s sword stroke, and jammed his knife into the face of the downed man.