The Nine Page 16

“Knock that off.” Franco grabbed my arm again and pulled it down. “That was my best bartender.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. Here let me help.”

  I jumped up on a table and cupped my hands around my mouth, ready to kick the satisfaction meter up another notch. “The bartender’s dead, folks. You know what that means.”

  An uneasy hush came over the crowd and everyone stared up at me, even Franco.

  “Free Ta-Kill-Ya shots for everyone.”

  Cheers erupted like thunder, and Franco kicked the table out from under me. I leapt into the air and managed a graceful landing on my feet. Alex met me at my side, and I thought I glimpsed a gleam of pride in her eye. Franco’s expression burned with fury. That made me happy too. “What has gotten into you?”

  I glanced around at the floor. Woebegone workers were hauling away body parts and mopping up the mess while spectators rushed the bar for their free drinks. “Maybe I overdid it with the free drink bit.”

  Franco let out a long breath and smacked me on the shoulder. “Naw. The drinks were a nice touch. I’ll make four times as much after they’re loaded. I like the new weapon, and the hot little girl, too.” Franco nodded toward Alex. I developed a sudden urge to spin my whip around and give him a permanent grin.

  Alex smiled, winked, and then sneered at him in disgust. “Where'd you get that scarf? Your granny’s closet or did Big Bird throw up all over your neck?”

  I glanced down and noticed Franco had added a ridiculous looking yellow scarf to his usual silk shirt and slacks ensemble. Big Bird would have been insulted.

  Franco laughed. “Yeah. I like her a lot. You should work her into the act a little more. Maybe with less clothes, but you can’t be killing my ring masters like that. What am I going to do until they respawn and regain their memories?”

  I shrugged and tried to seem like I cared.

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to polish up this act of yours, and your little girlfriend is going to pitch in, running the sex stage. When Scarecrow gets back, he can run one too.” Franco lifted his head and scanned the thinned-out arena. “He should have been back by now.”

  “You want me to go check on him?” I said it too quickly. I knew I did, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Franco didn’t catch on. He seemed too preoccupied working out staffing for the rest of the evening.

  “Yeah. I sent him to the warehouse we built after the last firestorm. Have you been there yet?”

  I shook my head and tried to hide the nervous anticipation threatening to shake me apart inside.

  “The place is two blocks behind the club. You can’t miss it.” Franco turned to walk off. “Tell him to get his ass back here quick and don’t worry about that other job I gave him. He can deal with that guy later. We need him here right now.”

  The club settled back into its horrific routine, and Franco headed off to deal with a couple fighting at the bar. The empty rings had been abandoned for those that still contained some sort of entertainment, and the booze flowed faster than ever.

  I surveyed the crowd and twisted my wrist, making the Whip-Crack rustle and rattle with excitement. “Why don’t you head out and find Stray,” I said to Alex, without looking at her. “I’m going to stay here and finish up a few things.”

  I felt the rage building up inside me again, screaming for release, insisting I unchain my weapon and finish the job I had started.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Alex shook my arm and forced me to look at her. “You might be able to take half the place out, maybe more, but they would get to you sooner or later. What would that accomplish? You just wiped out three rings, all of the ring masters, almost a hundred of their best clientele, and it slowed them down for what, fifteen minutes? You try to take this place down, you will wind up dead, and this place will keep on going.”

  I clenched my teeth and let out a breath through my nose. “It would sure feel good until they got me.”

  “We’re not here for you. We’re here for Stray. You want to take down the biggest skin game in The Nine, you’ll have to do a little more planning. Now let’s go get who we came for.”

  I groaned my submission, recoiled the Whip-Crack, and fastened it under my coat. “This isn’t over. That was my cousin, Franco, and if he’s here, so is Charlie. If they’re the ones running this place ... This isn’t over. I’m coming back to finish this.”

  “I got that, stud.” Alex grinned. “Now let’s get out of here before your doppelgänger wanders in here and ruins your little charade.”

  I had forgotten about Mulch Monster, or even that I didn’t look like myself. If he came in and saw me, explanations might be tough. Every second we stayed was another second we risked getting caught. I followed Alex to a dark corner near the exit and shed my disguise, then we went out the same way we came in.

  “Thanks, Mulch, my man.” I gave the real bouncer a thumbs-up on the way by. “I think Franco’s looking for you in there. Said something about you getting the night off.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “How are we supposed to find this place?” Alex threw her arms out and spun, gesturing at the endless rust-colored shanties. The area was more packed with catwalks, hidey-holes, and ramshackle dwellings than my part of town. I couldn’t believe Woebegone would be willing to live this close to the Wax Worx. They were like a bunch of chickens waiting around to hand a starving farmer his axe.

  I put my hands on top my head as if that would hold down a little of my edgy frustration. “I don’t know. Franco told me Scarecrow was two blocks back in the new warehouse. He said the place would be obvious.”

  “Well, it’s not, and now we have about a thousand shanties to go through.”

  “It’s not that bad.” I peered around, studying the construction. Everything in The Nine was re-purposed, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t tell when something had been rebuilt. I searched for dirt, rust, and wear lines in the metal. Places that didn’t seem to match the patterns of the surrounding material. I narrowed our possibilities down to a few buildings within seconds.

  “Over there.” I pointed toward a structure that looked more disjointed than the others. It had few openings for windows or doors and could be a large open structure on the inside. “Let’s try that one first.”

  Alex shrugged. “We’re going to run out of time pretty quick. As soon as that door goon wanders back into the club, your cousin is going to send some friends to see what’s going on. Your little comment on the way out made sure he would do just that about ten seconds after we left.”

  “Not one of my best moves.” I shrugged. “But I would love to be in the room for the conversation.”

  We made our way over to the building and were about to poke our heads inside when a scream broke through the bustling crowd of Woebegone behind us. We turned to see smoke billow out of a third-floor window. A dark-skinned Woebegone burst out the door at ground level. Squat and fat, with a three-strand comb over. I recognized him. He was the Woebegone who had stalked Stray at the shop. He looked right at us, then took off running.

  “Scarecrow.” Alex and I spoke in unison.

  We tore after him as fast as we could, but a second scream pulled me up short. I recognized that voice. Stray.

  Alex skidded to a stop a few feet in front of me, crouched like a cat ready to leap in any direction. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Scarecrow is yours. I’ve got Stray.”

  “You sure?”

  Alex didn’t answer; she just sprinted through the open door of the tall burning shanty and disappeared into the darkness.

  I ran in the direction Scarecrow had gone. The man was portly and short, so it didn’t take long to eat up the distance between us, but being out of shape didn’t make him stupid. He was in a dangerous line of work. The kind where a quick getaway could save his skin. He must have anticipated this sort of scenario and had a few surprises waiting for me.

  He kicked a brace out
from under a large set of spiked barrels as he rounded a corner. Their platform, about fifteen feet above my head, collapsed, and the barrels came crashing down in a deadly landslide of sharpened spikes and jagged steel. I jumped to my left and managed to dodge into a small alcove opened by the destruction of the last storm. Had that opening not been there, I would have been a very ugly pin-cushion.

  I clenched my fists and thought about how many ways I would return the favor. The barrels crashed against the hollow metal walls with ear-shattering screeches and booms. When the racket subsided, I clambered over them to escape my crude bunker. Scarecrow had lengthened his lead, but every muscle in my body tensed, wanting him more than ever, and I lit out after him again. I reached for the Whip-Crack, then thought better of it. We needed him alive in case Stray wasn’t in that building. The Knuckle Stunner would have to do—for now. I wondered how hard I would need to hit someone to kill them with the Stunner, or even if it were possible. I would have to be careful.

  Scarecrow streaked around a labyrinth of catwalks and shot through one shanty after another. He flipped over tables, tore down anything he could put his hands on, and even tossed an unsuspecting Woebegone or two into my path. Desperation drove him, but I ran on vengeance. Nothing would stop me now. Another corner, and he got a head start up a long steel ladder. Big mistake. I overtook him within a few seconds, and he had no way off until he got to the top. I grabbed his foot before he made the catwalk. Unfortunately, he managed to grab the leg of a Woebegone woman on the landing above him. It was enough to knock her off balance and over the short rail. She latched onto the lower bar with one hand as she tumbled, but her grip wouldn’t last long. Her feet dangled over four stories of open air. The woman screamed for help as she tried, and failed, to reach up and get a grip with her other hand.

  “What are you going to do now, hero?” Scarecrow tried to shake his leg out of my grasp. “Is it going to be me or the pretty lady?”

  I looked at the woman again, and she shrieked in fear. “Please help me. I can’t go back to the Fields.”

  Her fingers began to roll off the rail, and I glared up at Scarecrow. He smiled down at me, already knowing what I would choose.

  “I’ll be back to retrieve my property later. You can count on that. And I’ll make sure I pick you and your pretty little whore up with her, if my little surprise didn’t take care of her back at the warehouse.”

  Panic twisted my stomach. A trap had never occurred to me. It probably hadn’t occurred to Alex either. I swung my Knuckle Stunner at Scarecrow’s calf in a last-ditch effort to get a shot in.

  The hit was so low I had no idea what it would do, but the blow hit him like a dump truck. The shock didn’t knock him unconscious, but I saw his calf quiver and flex into a ball of torn muscle beneath his shredded pant leg. Scarecrow howled out a noise I didn’t know a man could make, and the Woebegone woman began to fall.

  I pushed out hard and swung around like an old shutter, using my right arm and leg as a hinge. My body twisted backward into the air, allowing me enough reach to snatch the woman’s wrist. I managed to hold onto her arm when everything jerked tight, but my fingers’ tenuous grip on the ladder did not fare as well. The two of us tumbled several more feet until my leg yanked us to a stop again. I had wrapped it through one of the rungs and around the side rail. I tried to slow my breathing and keep a series of high-pitched whimpers from escaping my lips. I was unsuccessful at the latter. I now hung upside down, holding the woman with both hands. She covered my puppy noises with a shriek of her own, then seemed to realize she would survive if she reached out to grab the ladder in front of her face. Her free hand shot out and seized the nearest crossbeam as if it were made of solid gold.

  As soon as she stood safe on the ladder, I wriggled around and got myself upright as well. My eyes went back to the catwalk, knowing what I would see. Scarecrow was gone. At least I gave him something to remember me by. I doubted that leg would ever be the same.

  The woman lowered herself to the bottom of the ladder, and I descended above her, wanting to kiss the dirt as soon as my feet touched the ground.

  “Thank you.” The woman reached out and threw her arms around me, sobbing like a child. She was small, thin, and not very tall. If she had been bigger, we’d still be on the ground, but we would resemble a mangled pile of meat spaghetti.

  “What can I do for you? Name it, and it’s yours.”

  I raised my eyebrow, and she looked away. She had a thick Russian accent I didn’t expect.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I said.

  Her eyes flicked back up to mine. “You saved my life.”

  “I saved you from the Gnashing Fields,” I interrupted. “It’s no big deal.”

  I started to leave, but the woman grabbed my arm. “That man you were chasing. He is bad man, isn’t he?”

  I tried to smile, but I had a feeling it resembled more of a snarl. “Yes, he is very bad.”

  “And I kept you from catching him. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “You had nothing to do with it. The fault was all his.”

  “I will find this man for you.” The woman nodded. “That is what I will do. I cannot bring him to you, but I will find him, and I will tell you where he lives so you may catch him.”

  I peered at the woman and smiled, this time for real. “Thank you, but he’s a dangerous guy. You should stay away from him. I’ll find him again.”

  “No! I will find him for you. Tell me where I may contact you when it is done.”

  I thought about it for a minute and shook my head. “My name is Gabriel, and you can contact me at the Judas Agency.”

  Her eyes widened a bit, but she nodded and turned to walk away without another word.

  I watched her go and then trotted back in the opposite direction, praying Scarecrow had lied about his trap at the burning shanty. If Alex had gotten hurt or hadn’t gotten to Stray in time ... My feet moved faster. And now my cousins would be on our tail.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The path that brought me back to the warehouse area was more twisted and meandering than I remembered. I met with several curses and dirty looks as I retraced our route of destruction, but I kept my eyes firm and my legs moving. I needed to make my way back before my cousins sent reinforcements.

  I still couldn’t believe I had left Alex to run into a burning building where an indeterminate number of no-neck goons could have been hiding. We didn’t even know if Stray was in the rusty inferno. She might have been twenty steps or twenty miles from our location. The place could have been full of traps, bombs, or those little toy dogs they sell at gift shops that never stop barking. The more my brain unraveled, the faster my feet moved.

  When Alex and Stray came into view, I paused and took a moment to close my eyes and thank the Big Man upstairs—way upstairs. I caught my breath and headed toward them. We still needed to move. Safe or no, Scarecrow could double back and spring another surprise or bring backup. He knew the area a lot better than I did. He probably had shortcuts scoped out all over the place.

  As I got close, relief chilled back to concern. Alex and Stray sat side by side on an old immovable hunk of machinery. Alex cradled an arm close to her body, and both shoulders were hunched with stress and pain. But that wasn’t what worried me. Stray sat next to her, still and silent. Alex, despite her obvious distress, faced her, speaking in soft, comforting tones. Stray stared at nothing in particular. Her face was an ashen mask of pain, the care and sunshine extinguished from her eyes. Her memories had returned. Stray wasn’t Stray any more.

  “What happened?” I gestured toward Alex’s arm, avoiding the gigantic Stray-shaped dinosaur in the room.

  Alex managed a pained smile. “Our friend was a little more resourceful than we thought. He rigged up a rain water bomb in the hall outside Stray’s room. I avoided most of the spray, but his little surprise misted my arm and back before I got away completely.”

  “Water?” Even I couldn’t talk
someone into smuggling in water. It was like asking someone to carry an armed nuclear warhead around in their back pocket. I made a slow attempt to pull away Alex’s sleeve and examine her injuries.

  The moment my fingers touched her skin, Alex clenched her teeth and flicked her eyes to Stray. “I think you may be focusing on the wrong thing here.”

  I cringed and looked over at my young shopkeeper. “How are you doing? Are you hurt?”

  Stray’s head jerked toward me, and she stared flaming daggers into my eyes. “I remember. I know what I am. You can stop pretending.”

  “What you were,” I corrected. “You aren’t any more. As long as I’m around, you never will be again.”

  “That makes two of us.” Alex met Stray’s intense gaze. “I know what you’re going through, and you will pull through this. The first thing you have to understand is that it’s over. The cycle ends here, and all the memories you have in your head fall one minute further behind you for every minute you spend with us.”

  They scrutinized each other in silence so long I began to feel like a third wheel. I tried to break the stalemate by waving my hand between them, but my spazzy little grabber had no effect.

  “We should move.” I said, trying to talk to them instead. “These guys know where Stray is.”

  “My name is Zoe.”

  I glanced over at Stray. “Pardon?”

  She looked down to the ground and relaxed again. “I said my name is Zoe.”

  I smiled a little bit and moved to sit next to her, forgetting about my cousins and their goons for the moment. “It is good to meet you, Zoe. I know you remember a lot of horrible things, but what do you remember about you? Where are you from? When did you get here?”

  Alex gave me an approving nod and a smile.

  “Everything’s still fuzzy. I keep getting flashes of stuff. I feel so angry.”

  “Try not to focus on that,” Alex said. “Focus on the parts you can remember about your past.”

  “I think I died in the ‘80s. I don’t remember how or anything. This guy took me to a bar after I got here or something ...”