Mean Streets Read online

  I couldn’t think about anything but the detonator, and I clamped down on that with my left hand, crushing his fingers beneath mine so that he couldn’t release it. He jabbed his thumb at my right eye, but I ducked my head and he got nothing but bone. He slammed his head against my nose—again with the nose, Hell’s bells that hurt—and drove a knee into my groin.

  I let him, seizing his arm with both hands now, squeezing, trying to choke off the blood to his hand, to weaken it so that I could take the detonator from him. His left fist slammed into my temple, my mouth, and my neck. I bent my head down and bit savagely at his wrist, eliciting a scream of pain from him. I slammed my weight against him, slipping some fingers into his grasp, and got one of them over the pressure trigger. Then I wrenched with my whole body, twisting my shoulders and hips for leverage, and ripped the detonator away from him.

  He rolled away from me instantly and seized the bag. Then he was up and running for a doorway leading down into the building.

  I let him go and rushed over to Alicia. The dark-haired girl was trembling uncontrollably.

  Detcord is basically a long rubber tube filled with explosive compound. It’s a little thicker than a pencil, flexible, and generally set off by an electrical charge. Wrap detcord around a concrete column and set it off, and the explosion will cut through it like a piece of dry bamboo. Alicia was tied to the chair with it. If it went off, it would cut her to pieces.

  The detonator was a simple setup—a black plastic box hooked to a twelve-volt battery, which was in turn connected to a wire leading to the detcord. A green light on the detonator glowed cheerily. It matched a cheery green light on the dead man switch transmitter in my hand. If what Douglas had said was accurate, then if the light went out, things wouldn’t be nearly so cheery.

  If I let go of the switch, it would stop the signal to the detonator, which would then complete the circuit, send current to the detcord, and boom. In theory, I should be able to cut the wire leading from the battery and render it harmless—as long as Douglas hadn’t rigged the device to detonate if that happened.

  I didn’t have much time. The electronics of the transmitter wouldn’t last long around me, even though I hadn’t used any magic around them. I had to get the girl out now.

  I made the call based upon what I knew about Father Douglas. He seemed like he might have good intentions, despite all his shenanigans. So I gambled that he wouldn’t want the girl to die by any means other than a conscious decision from someone—either him letting go of the trigger or me blowing the transmitter by using magic.

  I took out my pocketknife, opened it with my teeth, and slashed at the heavy plastic tubing that held her tied down. I cut through the tube once, unwound it from first one arm, then the other, and she was free. She clawed away the blindfold and gag, her fingers still clumsy from being bound.

  “Come on!” I said. I grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the chair and away from the explosives. She staggered, leaning against me, and I ran for the stairs.

  As we got to the first landing, my ongoing presence apparently became too much for the transmitter. Something sparked and crackled inside the plastic case, the cheery green light went out, and there was a huge and horrible sound from above and behind us. I managed to get between Alicia and the stairwell wall as the pressure wave caught us and threw us into it. It slammed my already abused head into the wall.

  I staggered under the pain for a minute, and forced my way through it, like a drowning man clawing for the surface.

  “Come on,” I croaked to Alicia. “Come on. We have to go.”

  She looked at me with dull, stunned eyes, so I just grabbed her hand and started down the stairs with her, stuffing the heavy transmitter into my duster pocket with the other hand. We only had a few minutes before the place would be swarming with police and firefighters. I didn’t particularly feel like answering their questions about why my fingerprints were on an expensive transmitter and showed trace evidence of explosive residue.

  Going down all those stairs was only slightly less taxing than going up had been, and my legs were going to be complaining at me for days. We got to the bottom and I led Alicia out into an alley, then out to Monroe. I looked wildly up and down the street. Michael’s truck was there waiting right where it was supposed to be, out in front of the original building. I put my fingers to my lips and let out a shrill whistle.

  Michael’s truck pulled into the street and stopped in front of us. I hurried Alicia forward. The door swung open, and Molly leaned out, taking Alicia’s hand and pulling her in. I went in right behind her, though it made things awfully cozy in the pickup’s cab.

  “He’s loose with the swords,” I said. “Did you do it?”

  “Did it,” Molly replied, and promptly handed me a dashboard compass with one of her own golden hairs stuck to it with clear tape. The needle pointed firmly to the east, instead of to the north. The grasshopper had set up a basic tracking spell, one of the handier tricks I know.

  “He’s probably moving on foot through the park,” I told Michael. “Circle around to Lakeshore, get us in front of him.”

  “Are you all right, baby?” Michael asked.

  Alicia fumbled for his hand and squeezed it tight. Then she leaned against Molly and started crying.

  “Hurry,” I told Michael. “He’s got to know we’ve bugged the swords somehow. If he finds those hairs Molly tied onto the hilts, we’re done.”

  “He won’t get away,” Michael said with perfect confidence, and slammed the accelerator down as we approached an intersection sporting a bright red light. Maybe it was divine intervention, or fate, or just good driving, but the truck shot through the intersection, missing two other cars by inches, and sailed on forward.

  The needle on the compass pointed steadily toward the park as we went, but then abruptly began to traverse from one side to the other. I looked up ahead of me and saw a dark form sprinting across the road that separated the park from Lake Michigan.

  “There!” I shouted, pointing. “There he is!”

  Michael pulled over to the side of the road, and I hit the ground before the truck had stopped moving, sprinting after Father Douglas. He was in good shape, covering the ground in long, loping strides. Normally it wouldn’t have been a contest to catch him. I run three or four days a week, to train for situations exactly like this one. Of course, when I practice I’m not generally concussed, weary, and sporting a recently dislocated shoulder. Douglas was holding his lead as we sprinted down the beach, and I was tiring more rapidly than I should have.

  So I cheated.

  I reached into my pocket, drew out the heavy transmitter, and flung it at him as hard as I could. The black plastic device struck him on the back of the head, shattering, and sending several heavy batteries flying.

  Father Douglas staggered, and couldn’t keep his balance at the pace he was moving. He went down in the sand. I rushed over to him and seized the bag with the swords, only to have him sweep one leg out in a martial arts move, and kick my legs out from beneath me. I went down, too.

  Father Douglas ripped at the bag, but I clung grimly, while we fought and kicked at each other—until the bag tore open under the strain and spilled the swords onto the sand.

  He seized the hilt of Fidelacchius, a katana-type sword that was built to look like a simple, heavy walking stick, until you drew the blade. I seized Amoracchius, scabbard and all, and barely brought the sheathed broadsword up in time to deflect a sweeping slash from Father Douglas.

  He gained his knees and swung again, and I had all I could do to lift the sheathed sword and fend off the strike. Blow after blow rained down on me, and there was no time to call upon my power, no opportunity to so much as rise to my knees—

  Until a size-fourteen work boot hit Father Douglas in the chest and threw him back.

  Michael stood over me, aluminum baseball bat in his right hand. He put out the other one, and I slapped Amoracchius into it. He gripped it mid-blade, like some kind of gian
t crucifix, and limped toward Father Douglas with his bat held in a guard position.

  Father Douglas stared at Michael with wide eyes. “Stay back,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Who says you’re able to?” Michael rumbled. “Put down the sword, and I’ll let you go.”

  Douglas stared at him with those cold grey eyes. “I can’t do that.”

  “Then I’ll put you down and take the sword anyway. It’s over, Roarke. You just don’t realize it yet.”

  Father Douglas wasted no more time on talk, but came at Michael, the katana whirling.

  Michael batted (no pun intended) the attack aside like a cat swatting down moths, the baseball bat spinning.

  “Slow,” he said. “Too slow to hit a half-blind cripple. You don’t know the first thing about what it means to bear a sword.”

  Douglas snarled and came at him again. Michael defeated this attack, too, with contemptuous ease, and followed it by smacking Douglas across one cheek with the hilt of the sheathed sword.

  “It means sacrifice,” Michael said as Douglas reeled. “It means forgetting about yourself, and what you want. It means putting your faith in the Lord God Almighty.” He swung a pair of blows, which Douglas defended against, barely—but the third, a straight thrust with the baseball bat’s tip, drove home into his solar plexus. Douglas staggered to one knee.

  “You abandoned your duty,” Douglas gasped. “The world grows darker by the day. People cry out for our help—and you would have the swords sit with this creature of witchcraft and deceit?”

  “You arrogant child,” Michael snarled. “The Almighty Himself has made His will known. If you are a man of faith, then you must abide by it.”

  “You have been lied to,” Douglas said. “How could God ignore His people when they need his protection so badly?”

  “That is not for us to know!” Michael shouted. “Don’t you see, you fool? We are only men. We only see in one place at one time. The Lord knows all that might be. Would you presume to say that you know better than our God what should be done with the swords?”

  Douglas stared at Michael.

  “Are you stupid enough to believe that He would want you to cast aside your beliefs to impose your will upon the world? Do you think He wants you to murder decent men and abduct innocent children?” The bat struck Fidelacchius from Douglas’s hands, and Michael followed it with a pair of crushing blows, one to the shoulder and one to the knee. Douglas went down to the sand in a heap.

  “Look at yourself,” Michael said, his words hard and merciless. “Look at what you have done in God’s name. Look at the bruises on my daughter’s arms, at the blood on my friend’s face, and then tell me which of us has been deceived.”

  Again, the bat swept down, and Douglas fell senseless to the sand.

  Michael stood over the man for a moment, his entire body shaking, the bat still upraised.

  “Michael,” I said quietly.

  “He hurt my little girl, Harry.” His voice shook with barely repressed rage.

  “He isn’t going to hurt her now,” I said.

  “He hurt my little girl.”

  “Michael,” I said, gently. “You can’t. If this is how it has to be, I’ll do it. But you can’t, man.”

  His eyes shifted back toward me for just a second.

  “Easy, easy,” I told him. “We’re done here. We’re done.”

  He stared for another long, silent moment. Then he lowered the bat, very slowly, and bowed his head. He stood there for a minute, his chest heaving, and then dropped the bat. He settled down onto the sand with a wince.

  I got up and collected Fidelacchius, returning it to its sheath.

  “Thank you,” Michael said quietly. He offered me Amoracchius ’s hilt.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  He nodded, smiling wearily. “Yes.”

  I took the sword and looked at Douglas. “What do we do with him?”

  Michael stared at him silently for a moment. In the background, we could hear emergency vehicles arriving to attend to the aftermath of the rooftop explosion. “We’ll bring him with us,” Michael said. “The Church will deal with its own.”

  I sat in the chapel balcony at St. Mary’s, staring down at the church below me and brooding. Michael and Forthill had been seeing to Father Douglas, who wasn’t going anywhere under his own locomotion for a while. They had him in a bed somewhere. It had hurt to watch Michael, moving in what was obviously great pain, hobble around the room helping to make Douglas feel better. I’d have been content to dump the asshole in an alley somewhere and leave him to his fate.

  Which might, just possibly, be one reason I was never going to be a Knight.

  I had also swiped Forthill’s flask of scotch from his room, and it was keeping me company in the balcony. Two more reasons I was never going to be a Knight.

  “Right at the end, there,” I said to no one in particular, “those two started speaking a different language. I mean, I understood all the words, and I understood the passion behind them, but I don’t get how they connect. You know?”

  I sipped some more scotch. “Come to think of it, there are a lot of things I don’t get about this whole situation.”

  “And you want an explanation of some kind?” asked a man seated in the pew beside me.

  I just about jumped out of my skin.

  He was an older man. He had dark skin and silver-white hair, and he wore a blue workman’s jumpsuit, like you often see on janitors. The name tag read “Jake.”

  “You,” I breathed. “You’re the archangel. You’re Uriel.”

  He shrugged. The gesture carried acknowledgment, somehow.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked—maybe a bit blearily. I was concussed and half the flask was gone.

  “Perhaps I’m a hallucination brought on by head trauma and alcohol,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. I peered at him, and then offered him the flask. “Want a belt?”

  “Very kind,” he said, and took a swig from the flask. He passed it back to me. “I don’t exactly make it a habit to do this, but if you’ve got questions, ask them.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Why did you guys let Michael get so screwed up?”

  “We didn’t let him do anything,” Jake replied calmly. “He chose to hazard himself in battle against the enemy. The enemy chose to shoot him, and where to point the gun and when to pull the trigger. He survived the experience.”

  “So in other words, God was doing nothing to help.”

  Jake smiled. “Wouldn’t say that. But you got to understand, son. God isn’t about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He’s all about you making choices—exercising the gift of free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but he can’t gift wrap them for you. You have to choose the actions that lead you to that life.”

  “Free will, huh?”

  “Yes. For example, your free will on that island.”

  I eyed him and sipped more scotch.

  “You saw the Valkyrie staring at Michael. You thought he was in danger. So even though it was your turn, you sent him up to the helicopter in your place.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” I said, with one too many “sh” sounds. “That’s where he got hurt.”

  Jake shrugged. “But if you hadn’t, you’d have died in that harness, and he’d have died on that island.”

  I scowled. “What?”

  Jake waved a hand. “I won’t bore you with details, but suffice to say that your choice in that moment changed everything.”

  “But you lost a Knight,” I said. “A warrior.”

  Jake smiled. “Did we?”

  “He can barely walk without that cane. Sure, he handled Douglas, but that’s a far cry from dealing with a Denarian.”

  “Ah,” Jake said. “You mean warrior in the literal sense.”

  “What other kind of warrior is there?” I asked.

  “The important kind.”

/>   I frowned again.

  “Harry,” Jake said, sighing. “The conflict between light and darkness rages on so many levels that you literally could not understand it all. Not yet, anyway. Sometimes that battlefield is a literal one. Sometimes it’s a great deal more nebulous and metaphorical.”

  “But Michael and me are literal guys,” I said.

  Jake actually laughed. “Yeah? Do you think we angled to have you brought into this situation because we needed you to beat someone up?”

  “Well. Generally speaking. Yeah.” I gestured with the flask. “Pretty much all we did was beat up this guy who had good intentions and who was desperate to do something to help.”

  Jake shook his head. “The real war happened when you weren’t looking.”

  “Huh?”

  “Courtney,” Jake said. “The little girl who almost got hit by a car.”

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “You saved her life,” he said. “Moreover, you noted the bruise on her cheek—one which she acquired from her abusive father. Your presence heightened her mother’s response to the realization that her daughter was being abused. She moved out the next morning.” He spread his hands. “In that moment, you saved the child’s life, prevented her mother from alcohol addiction in response to the loss, and shattered a generational cycle of abuse more than three hundred years old.”

  “I . . . um.”

  “Chuck the electrician,” Jake continued. “He was drunk because he’s fighting with his wife. Two months from now, their four-year-old daughter is going to be diagnosed with cancer and require a marrow transplant. Her father is the only viable donor. You saved his life with what you did—and his daughter’s life, too. And the struggle that family is going to face together is going to leave them stronger and happier than they’ve ever been.”

  I grunted. “That smells an awful lot like predestination to me. What if those people choose something different?”

  “It’s a complex issue,” Jake admitted. “But think of the course of the future as, oh, flowing water. If you know the lay of the land, you can make a good guess where it’s going. Now, someone can always come along and dig a ditch and change that flow of water—but honestly, you’d be shocked how seldom people truly choose to exercise their will within their lives.”