“Thank you.” Mrs. Barten took a deep breath. “How will I know what’s happening?”
De la Cruz took out a card and wrote something on it. “This is my cell. You call me anytime, night or day. My phone’s always on and always with me. And as soon as the examiner’s done, you’ll be the first person I dial.”
Mrs. Barten nodded and then shifted her focus, her eyes training on some infinite middle ground between her and the detective.
What part of Sissy’s life was she remembering? Jim wondered. The birth . . . the birthdays . . . the Christmases or Easters? Was it Halloween or the Fourth of July, or no particular holiday, just some offhand recollection of a sweet moment between the two of them? Or maybe it was something witnessed between Sissy and someone else that showed the girl’s kindness or empathy or humor. . . .
He wanted to see what she saw. Even if it was nothing good. Or nothing at all.
But he didn’t intrude on her. Enough of her daughter had been stolen—
The vibration against his chest wall was not his heart going haywire on him. It was his phone on vibrate.
Taking the thing out, he read the text from Adrian: Ben tryn 2 reach u—need u now.
Jim didn’t want to leave, but he was out of the house in a second. Speeding over to the east, he zeroed in on Adrian—
And flashed right into a fight on the back lawn of Veck’s partner’s house.
What the fuck?
Devina’s minions had apparently boiled up out of the night, their smoky bodies circling Adrian like scavengers over a fresh corpse. But at least his boy wasn’t dead—and wasn’t about to be, given the way his deadly body was poised to do battle.
Jim upshifted immediately into full-on aggression and he didn’t wait for the bell to ring. He jumped right in, throwing himself at the closest minion, tackling it hard. As the bastard screeched, that high-pitched sound was what got things rolling—between one second and the next, everything went shit-wild.
Holding the SOB down, Jim curled up a fist and pummeled the thing with a punch to the “head”—and then he took advantage of the split second of paralysis to look up and summon a visual and audio barrier around this freak show. This was a neighborhood, not a vacant field. And all the hand-to-hand was happening mere yards away from three other houses. All of which had plenty of phone lines that could call the police.
CPD uniforms were not what they needed right now.
Outing his crystal dagger, he offed the minion under him and then stabbed at everything in front of him, slashing and lunging, leading always with the sharp point of the weapon Eddie had given him and taught him about.
Everything came out in the violence, all his pain and his fury unleashed, until he didn’t notice the acid blood from the enemy splashing his face. And he didn’t care that the shit was eating through his leather jacket and beelining for more of his skin. In fact, he couldn’t feel the earth beneath his feet as he powered from demon to demon ; he was at once totally with it and utterly disappeared.
And in his wrath, they couldn’t touch him: These were boys coming for a man’s job, and they were getting served.
After Jim stabbed another black chest cavity, the acidy spray hitting his jaw and throat, he dumped the body and got ready for the next—
The blow across his back was a real tooth rattler, the kind of thing that made you see stars and hear birds chirping. But like the trained solider he was, Jim went with the momentum, letting himself fall to the ground and then curling at the shoulder at the last minute to avoid further injury.
When he stopped his roll and looked over, the minion who’d gone after him was ready for round two.
Well, hello there, yard man, he thought.
The bastard had gotten itself a shovel and obviously used the thing like a tennis racket, swinging and following through with the flat metal end. And it was hard to tell, but it seemed like laughter was coming out of the three-dimensional shadow.
Clearly, the dumb bitch thought he was in charge, and Jim was more than happy to teach Devina’s lackey a life lesson in assuming shit. Staying down and playing like he was compromised, he waited for it to come on over—which it did, sure as if Jim were holding the strings to those oily arms and legs: Moving like a robot with stiff joints, the minion approached with the heavy tool balanced between both hands. Closer. Closer . . .
When it was in range, Jim jacked up his torso, double-palmed the handle, and yanked hard. The minion jerked forward and fell off balance, gravity grabbing that body and pulling it right on top of Jim.
Good thing it wasn’t bleeding.
Jim’s boot met the thing’s pelvic bone to stop the descent, and then it was a case of rolling back and kicking the weight free—while keeping the shovel, of course.
As the minion went for a little joyride through thin air, Jim sprang up, stayed with it, and was the first to welcome it to its new home on the ground: Swinging the shovel around, he drove the business end into the bastard’s shadowy chest.
The scream was satisfying. But even more fun was to step back and watch as it pinwheeled in slow-mo: Apparently, Jim had put so much into the strike, the tool had penetrated right into the ground—about three feet, going by how much of the wooden handle was showing. The minion was locked on its back, an insect mounted.
The thing looked up and snarled.
“Yeah? So come and get me.” Jim gave it a second to get up. “No? Prefer being a welcome mat? Suits you, motherfucker.”
Jim kicked it hard in the head, going soccer ball on that loose skull, and then left the SOB where it was; across the lawn, Adrian was about to get back-doored by a minion that had found a spade and was gunning for him at a dead run.
“What is this—Home fucking Depot night?” Jim muttered as he got out his dagger again. “Behind you!”
Adrian dropped to the grass just as the gardener from hell stabbed forward. Great timing—the minion caught one of his buddies right in the gut. Trouble? All that blood was going to golf-sprinkler Ad.
Jim was just about to pull a breathing tarp when Adrian took care of the problem, going combats-over-cranium and getting the fuck out of the way.
There were only two upright minions left and he and his buddy split the difference, Jim taking the one with the hoe-hoe-hoe and Adrian whipping up onto his feet and circling the other, crystal dagger in hand.
Unwilling to wait for a strike, Jim lunged forward, and grabbed onto the spade’s handle, yanking it vertical and then snapping out so the tool’s hardwood hello’d the minion in the frontal lobe. Cue the duh moment—which Jim exploited by stabbing the thing.
As he wheeled around, he got to watch Ad dust the other fucker by opening a trapdoor in its intestines, and then nailing it in the head.
After that, there was nothing but panting breath and steaming leather and stilled lawn supplies.
Jim glanced around, wondering where all the—Ah, yes, Reilly had a neighbor with one of those backyard shed things, and the squat box had been busted open. Too bad the lawn mower was still nestled in there—that would have been fun.
Coulda given a whole new meaning to a high-and-tight haircut.
“You okay?” he said to Ad.
Ad spit on the lawn. “Yeah.”
They were both bleeding from scratches, but at least on Jim’s side, he was feeling better. The fighting had blown the carbon out of his pistons, and he was more himself. Calmer. More capable of focusing.
Good timing, he thought as he went over and knelt down by the bastard who was nailed to the ground.
“You ever work one of these over for intel?” he said as he measured the thing. It was moving slowly, clearly still alive. Whatever the fuck that meant.