And Hagen, grinning at the opportunity, came right up with his dick in his hand and pumped it into the girl’s mouth, already humping away.
“Now then,” the Dawg said with vicious good humor. He flipped up the girl’s skirt and gave the round, white cheeks of the girl’s heart-shaped ass a few good smacks, then wedged her legs apart (the Dark Man’s head came up again, and the Cow-Boy stood up and went to the furthest window) and put his hand right up her pussy.
“Jesus Christ!” Dawg said, his face contorting with what looked like genuine shock. “What, have you got a fucking hardware store up here?” He pumped his hand, and Fat Joey could hear the muffled jingle of metal. “What’s this? Oh fucking Christ, that’s a fucking tampon!” The Dawg yanked his hand back and wiped thin traces of blood on the girl’s thighs with exaggerated distaste. “All right, little girl. Funny fucking joke. You just won yourself an ass-banging.”
“Oh Jesus, no,” Fat Joey heard someone whisper. It was probably himself. He tried to move his chair back, and the legs stuck on a floorboard. He struggled with it, looking back over one shoulder in time to see the Dark Man slide out of his booth and casually stride towards the center table.
It was a testament to the sheer unspoken terror in the room that not one brother skinned a gun and shot the Dark Man. It was a greater testament that at least three backed away.
The Dark Man came up right behind Top Dawg, one arm swinging back with the length of his stride and coming up oddly-curled, kept coming up, rising until it was level with the back of Dawg’s head and only a few inches away. There was a sound, no louder and no scarier than the sound of Dawg slapping the girl’s ass, and the top of Dawg’s head blew away in a red mist.
Things happened very fast after that.
The Dark Man guided Dawg’s slumping corpse down onto the table beside his girl and then reached over and pulled the gun from Hagen’s hip and blew a hole through Hagen’s mouth. The Dark Man spun unhurriedly, his leather coat swirling out and flapping back down around his knees. He raised a gun in each hand, posed like Christ on the crucifix, and shot Charlie as the bartender came up with his shotgun. Charlie sank below the bar with a clatter just as the Dark Man fired his other gun three times at the brothers who had tried to skin. Then he brought both hands together, movie-style, and plugged away two-handed at the Pack dogs who had surged towards the door, and kept right on firing until that kill zone was emptied.
The Dark Man spun, raising one arm over the top of Fat Joey’s head, close enough that Fat Joey could feel the sleeves of his coat brushing over his hair, and fired again. Fat Joey stared at the sleek, black lines of the coat against the Dark Man’s hairless, powerful chest and listened to bodies hit the wooden floor. He kept thinking how much like a movie this was, even as the Dark Man put a hole in the head of every dog that had drawn on him. There were four.
Then silence.
The Dark Man turned again, put one gun carefully down on the table and touched his hand to his girl’s naked back. She stirred, spat several times, and uttered a low groan which the Dark Man answered with some gentle pats. “Easy,” he murmured. His eyes never left the Pack and they never stayed too long on any one face. “Easy, Raven. On your feet.”
The girl clawed back off the table, away from Dawg’s half-headed corpse, and fell on her butt on the floor. The impact knocked another groan from her, this one melting into a sob mid-way.
The Dark Man considered the room while she struggled to compose herself, and then finally nudged his girl with his foot. “You’re done,” he said. “Up.”
She took her hands away from her ears and stood, shaking slightly.
The Dark Man shook his gun like a warning finger. “Get these away from them,” he ordered.
She moved to obey. Heck, nearest to her, tried to reach his out for her and the Dark Man put a bullet right between his bulging eyes. The girl flinched back, swiping at the spray that spattered red over her bare skin, and stepped away from the body as it dropped. She hesitated, then turned to Fat Joey.
He opened his jacket and held it open so she could fetch out his revolver for herself.
It didn’t take long to disarm the Pack. The girl piled the guns and knives on the center table, next to Dawg’s body. It made a pretty good pile. The Dark Man put down his remaining gun and exchanged it for another. While he did this, Fat Joey, still seated at the table, finally got a good look at the Dark Man’s hands and discovered just exactly what was wrong with them.
They had only three fingers. Not as though he was mutilated, but as though he only came with three fingers. There was a claw, thick and sharp and cruelly carved, on each tip. In order to fire the guns at all, he’d had to hold them almost sideways, holding the barrel with one finger, aiming alongside with another, and working the trigger with the thin tip of his thumb.
The fucker wasn’t crazy. The fucker wasn’t high.
The fucker wasn’t human.
The Dark Man turned his eye on Joey, sitting there right at the level of the Dark Man’s elbow, and his eyes were empty and considering. “Get up,” he said.
Joey got up.
“Put the dead there,” the Dark Man ordered, tossing his chin at the bar. He put one hand over Dawg’s back. “Leave this one.”
Joey took hold of Heck’s feet and started dragging.
“Line up,” the Dark Man said to the rest of them. “Get on your bellies. Keep your hands flat before you. Females, come here.”
Sue-Eye and Cammy came, obedient as dogs. The bar whores hesitated, but when the Dark Man shot them his irritated glare, they came and huddled at his side, shivering. Sheila was crying, both hands over her mouth to muffle the sound of it.
When the bodies were out of the way and Joey had lined up with the rest, the Dark Man tucked his gun back into his pants and sat down, looking thoughtful, a man patiently puzzling out a thorny problem. “Raven,” he said.
The girl tensed and took a half-step towards him.
“Bring my pack and then find something…” The Dark Man trailed off, then held up his hands, wrists together. “I want them like this.”
“Bound,” the girl said, and looked around, a little helplessly. “You want them bound. Okay.” She went to the Dark Man’s booth, brought him his dark pack, and then took a few aimless steps towards the bar.
Sue-Eye cleared her throat quietly, attracting both the girl’s and the Dark Man’s attention. “Charlie’s got a tool box in the back room. There ought to be some duct tape in it.”
The girl looked relieved. “Okay,” she said again, and went off, returning in a minute or two with the silver roll around one wrist like a bracelet.
The Dark Man looked on with interest as his girl bound each pair of male wrists and ankles with tape, making sure she had good contact with bare flesh. She wrapped their mouths as well, and the Dark Man leaned back when this was done and turned his full attention on the women.
“Should I bind them, too?” the girl asked.
“Mmm.”
The girl didn’t move until the Dark Man nodded. As she bent over Sue-Eye, the Dark Man studied the men again. “You,” he said at last, leaning forward and giving Juicer a thin smile. “You touched her first, after these,” he added, dismissively patting Dawg’s dead arm and thumbing back at the bar where Heck was stacked with the other bodies.
Fat Joey felt something damp seeping into his thigh and turned his head to the right enough to see Ross. The low dog was shaking violently, trying to speak around his duct tape gag.
The Dark Man stood up, strode over and plucked Juicer out from the rest of the men. He backed up a few steps, ran an eye over the row of captives as though silently inquiring whether they could all see him clearly.