I stared at him.
Ca.s.sius smiled again. "But there is mercy for me, is there not? Forgiveness. Indeed, G.o.d is great."
I turned away from him again and said, very quietly, "People like you always mistake compa.s.sion for weakness. Michael and Sanya aren"t weak. Fortunately for you, they"re good men."
Ca.s.sius laughed at me.
"Unfortunately for you, I"m not."
I spun around, swinging the bat as hard as I could, and broke Ca.s.sius"s right kneecap.
He screamed in shock and sudden surprise, and went down. Odd crackling sounds came from the joint.
I swung again and broke his right ankle.
Ca.s.sius screamed.
I broke his left knee for him too. And his left ankle. He was thrashing around and screaming a lot, so it took me maybe a dozen swings.
"Stop!" he managed to gasp. "Stop, stop, stop!"
I kicked him in the mouth to shut him up, stomped his right forearm to the floor, and crushed his hand with another half dozen swings.
I pinned his left arm down the same way, and put the bat on my shoulder. "Listen to me, you worthless piece of s.h.i.t. You aren"t a victim. You chose to be one of them. You"ve been serving dark forces your whole life. Freddie Mercury would say Beelzebub has a devil put aside for you."
"What do you think you"re doing?" He gasped. "You can"t...you won"t..."
I leaned down and twisted his false priest"s collar, half choking him. "The Knights are good men. I"m not. And I won"t lose a second"s sleep over killing you." I shook him with each word, hard enough to rattle his bloodied teeth. "Where. Is. Nicodemus."
Ca.s.sius broke, sobbing. His bladder had let go at some point, and the room smelled like urine. He choked and spat out blood and a broken tooth. "I"ll tell." He gasped. "Please, don"t."
I let his collar go and straightened. "Where?"
"I don"t know," he said, cowering away from my eyes. "He didn"t tell me. Meeting him tonight. Was going to meet him tonight. Eight."
"Meet him where?"
"Airport," Ca.s.sius said. He started throwing up. I kept his arm pinned, so it mostly went all over himself. "I don"t know exactly where."
"What is he doing?"
"The curse. He"s going to unleash the curse. Use the Shroud. The old man"s blood. He has to be moving when he completes the ritual."
"Why?"
"Curse is a contagion. He has to spread it as far as he can. More exposure to it. Make himself stronger. A-apocalypse."
I took my foot off of his arm and smashed the motel"s phone to pieces with the bat. I found his cell phone and crushed it, too. Then I reached into my pocket and dropped a quarter on the floor near him. "There"s a pay phone on the other side of the parking lot, past a patch of broken gla.s.s. You"d better get yourself an ambulance." I turned and walked to the door without looking back. "If I see you again-ever-I"ll kill you."
Michael and Sanya waited for me outside the door. Sanya"s face held a certain amount of satisfaction. Michael"s expression was grave, worried, his eyes on mine.
"It had to be done," I said to Michael. My voice sounded cold. "He"s alive. It"s more than he deserves."
"Perhaps," Michael said. "But what you did, Harry. It was wrong."
A part of me felt sick. Another part felt satisfied. I wasn"t sure which of them was bigger. "You heard what he said about Shiro. About Susan."
Michael"s eyes darkened, and he nodded. "It doesn"t make it right."
"No. It doesn"t." I met his eyes. "Think G.o.d"ll forgive me?"
Michael was quiet for a moment, and then his expression softened. He clasped my shoulder and said, "G.o.d is always merciful."
"What you did for him was actually quite generous," Sanya said philosophically. "Relatively speaking. He might be hurt, but he is, after all, alive. He"ll have a nice, long while to reconsider his choices."
"Uh-huh," I said. "I"m a giver. Did it for his own good."
Sanya nodded gravely. "Good intentions."
Michael nodded. "Who are we to judge you?" His eyes flashed, and he asked Sanya, "Did you see the snake"s face, right when Harry turned with the bat?"
Sanya smiled and started whistling as we walked through the parking lot.
We piled into the truck. "Drop me off at my place," I said. "I need to pick up a couple things. Make some phone calls."
"The duel?" Michael asked. "Harry, are you sure you don"t want me to-"
"Leave it to me," I said. "You"ve already got something on your plate. I can handle things. I"ll meet you at the airport afterward and help you find Shiro."
"If you live," Sanya said.
"Yes. Thank you, Comrade Obvious."
The Russian grinned. "Was that a quarter you gave Ca.s.sius?"
"Yeah."
"For the phone?"
"Yeah."
Michael noted, "Phone calls cost more than that now."
I slouched back and allowed myself a small smile. "Yeah. I know."
Sanya and Michael burst out laughing. Michael pounded on the steering wheel.
I didn"t join them, but I enjoyed their laughter while I could. The February sun was already sinking fast toward the horizon.
Chapter Twenty-nine Back at my apartment, I called Murphy on her personal cell phone. I used simple sentences and told her everything.
"Dear G.o.d," Murphy said. Can I summarize or what? "They can infect the city with this curse thing?"
"Looks like," I said.
"How can I help?"
"We"ve got to keep them from getting it into the air. They won"t be on public transportation. Find out if any chartered planes are taking off between seven and eight-thirty. Helicopters too."
"Hang on," Murphy said. I heard computer keys clicking, Murphy saying something to someone, a police radio. A moment later she said, voice tense, "There"s trouble."
"Yeah?"
"There are a pair of detectives heading out to arrest you. Looks like Homicide wants you for questioning. There"s no warrant listed."
"c.r.a.p." I took a deep breath. "Rudolph?"
"Brownnosing rat," Murphy muttered. "Harry, they"re almost to your place. You"ve only got a few minutes."
"Can you decoy them? Get some manpower to the airport?"
"I don"t know," Murphy said. "I"m supposed to be a mile from this case. And it isn"t as though I can announce that terrorists are about to use a biological weapon on the city."
"Use Rudolph," I said. "Tell him off the record that I said the Shroud is leaving town on a chartered flight from the airport. Let him take the heat for it if they don"t find anything."
Murphy let out a harsh little laugh. "There are times when you can be a clever man, Harry. It takes me by surprise."
"Why, thank you."
"What else can I do?"
I told her.
"You"re kidding."
"No. We may need the manpower, and SI is out of this one."
"Just when I had hope for your intelligence, too."
"You"ll do it?"
"Yeah. Can"t promise anything, but I"ll do it. Get moving. They"re less than five minutes away."
"Gone. Thank you, Murph."
I hung up the phone, opened my closet, and dug into a couple of old cardboard boxes I kept at the back until I found my old canvas duster. It was battered and torn in a couple of places, but it was clean. It didn"t have the same rea.s.suring weight as the leather duster, but it did more to hide my gun than my jacket. And it made me look cool. Well, maybe cooler, anyway.
I grabbed my things, locked up my place behind me, and got into Martin"s rental car. Martin wasn"t in it. Susan sat behind the wheel. "Hurry," I said. She nodded and pulled out.
A few minutes later, no one had pulled us over. "I take it Martin isn"t helping."
Susan shook her head. "No. He said he had other duties that took precedence. He said that I did, too."
"What did you say?"
"That he was a narrow-minded, hidebound, anachronistic, egotistical b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
"No wonder he likes you."
Susan smiled a little and said, "The Fellowship is his life. He serves a cause."
"What is it to you?" I asked.
Susan remained silent for a long time as we drove across town. "How did it go?"
"We caught the impostor. He told us where the bad guys would be later tonight."
"What did you do with him?"
I told her.
She looked at me for a while and then said, "Are you all right?"
"Fine."
"You don"t look fine."
"It"s done."
"But are you all right?"
I shrugged. "I don"t know. I"m glad you didn"t see it."
Susan asked, "Oh? Why?"
"You"re a girl. Beating up bad guys is a boy thing."
"Chauvinist pig," Susan said.
"Yeah. I get it from Murphy. She"s a bad influence."
We hit the first traffic sign directing us toward the stadium, and Susan asked, "Do you really think you can win?"
"Yeah. h.e.l.l, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I"ve tangled with today."
"But even if you do win, what does it change?"