Chapter 29 – The Sin of Wrath
Morgenstern wiped clean the knife he'd used to sever his optic nerve and approached Ashley. "An eye for an eye…" He straddled her, tilted her head back and positioned the blade.
The janitor coughed and stirred. He stumbled to his feet. The Reverend's collar was plainly evident and a hush fell over the room.
"I know you." Morgenstern lowered the knife. "Something you'd like to say?" he asked.
The drunken reverend turned away from the half-blind giant and projectile vomited all over Dunkirk and the Texan. The two men leapt to their feet, howling in disgust. The vomit reeked of fruit and alcohol as the man had been drinking rum.
The Texan raised his weapon; it was covered in red and yellow syrupy chunks. They dripped and ran from the gun, all down his hand and arm. He waved the slop from his arm, flinging the pungent bile to the floor.
The Reverend charged between them and crashed through the door, into the hallway toward the restrooms, vanishing from the hall.
Dunkirk had gotten the worst of it. He wiped the vomit from his shirt. It hit the floor with volume. He grabbed his machete and chased after the drunken reverend-janitor-bum.
Morgenstern turned back to the business of mutilating Ashley's soon-to-be corpse.
Dancer nudged Slick, "Do something, asshole," she said.
Slick was already pointing his gun in Morgenstern's general direction. When Dancer hit him, it fired.
The flechette gun was not a powerful weapon. Designed for self-defense, it was not a killing tool. Yet several of the darts found their target; two buried themselves in Morgenstern's back, another in his shoulder and a fourth gashed his neck and jaw.
Morgenstern turned on Slick, his knife glistening in the low light.
Slick fired again. The darts spread low, a few found Morgenstern's upper thighs as he lurched forward and hurled his knife at Slick. The blade penetrated his chest with a wet thud.
The wounded teen fired one last time.
Morgenstern took six darts to the chest and didn't even flinch.
Everyone remained silent, tense.
They waited for something to happen, and so it did.
The Texan then raised his revolver at Slick and the teens, but Slick collapsed, dropping his weapon.
Abbot moved, hurling his chair into the Texan's face. The weapon fired, the bullet ricocheting into the ceiling as the metal chair knocked the revolver from his hands.
Abbot threw himself at the unarmed Morgenstern. He delivered a haymaker catching the big man in the chin, knocking him from his feet. His momentum carried them both through another row of chairs and onto the raised platform of the podium.
The teen picked the pathologist up and drove him downward through the platform, slamming him into the lower floor.
Auntie leapt away from the fight, her knives flashing.
Keller stepped aside and watched Abbot pummel the struggling Morgenstern.
Nelson too backed away, while Nate, Dancer and Candy huddled over Slick's wounded form.
Abbot rained punches down onto the clearly loosing Morgenstern.
The other silent members of the evening's festivities, Courtland, Dr. Mallus and Escurrido's friend, the Gardner, watched as though they had ringside seats at an exclusive event.
No one seemed inclined to interrupt.
The massive teen savagely struck at the giant pathologist’s face over and over again. The wet thuds grew farther apart as he ran out of steam and it ended. Then Abbot stood, exhausted.
Keller stepped in front of him, deliberately confronting, challenging the teen.
Abbot laughed.
They attacked each other at the same time.
Abbot hit Keller in the nose, destroying the cartilage and breaking the nasal bone beneath, but Keller's Leopard Fist smashed into the young man's throat.
The collision knocked both men to the floor. They rolled apart.
Warden Keller had a fountain of blood running from his nose. He found his feet and pinched the bridge of his nose, shutting off the crimson stream.
Abbot fought to get to his hands and knees. He coughed; blood colored the air in front of him. He slumped to the floor where he lay, struggling to breathe.
Otherwise, the room was quiet.
The stinking Dunkirk entered the bathroom to find the reverend puking in a stall. He fumed, but didn’t advance. Wrestling a vomiting man from a toilet to hack him up was seemingly a bridge too far for the man who had reportedly murdered women and children without inhibition.
Dunkirk took a deep breath, and walked over to the sink. He washed his face, arms and shirt, and then left the restroom.
In the main hall, Ashley woke. The last thing she remembered was gouging out Morgenstern’s eye and being throttled.
Mr. Nelson Gransil, her attorney, stood directly before her.
They stared at each other. The room was littered with victims.
To Ashley’s right, Nate, Dancer and Candy were huddled around Slick, trying to keep him breathing, despite the massive hunting knife protruding from his chest.
Across from them, the Texan tended a busted lip, courtesy of Abbot's flying furniture.
Beside her, Detective Cole lay sprawled against a wall, where he'd crashed after Texas put a bullet in him. Escurrido lay a bit further away, still unconscious due to Cole's superior, blind fighting skills.
Abbot was sitting on the edge of the podium, rubbing his throat and keeping a cautious eye on Keller, who sat nearby, smoking a cigarette.
Morgenstern lay beyond them, twitching occasionally.
Governor 'Auntie' Maime perched on the edge of her chair, watching everything, her hands still clutching her carving knives.
Ashley was breathing okay, her hands moved to her own throat. Her swollen and damaged left hand naturally caught the loose cuff of the right.
That was when she saw the gun on the chair next to her.
Nelson saw it too and leapt for it.
In slow motion, Ashley glided out of her seat, she moved straight forward, away from the weapon, it would wait. From a solid stance, she slammed her right elbow into Nelson's face.
Her defense attorney had been solely focused on the gun. His nose and spectacles snapped like cold glass against concrete. Mr. Gransil, serial killer, part-time lawyer and full-time sanitation engineer, went down like a sack of potatoes.
Ash snapped up the handgun as Dunkirk stepped forward. He froze, machete held low at his side.
Ashley moved to her right, keeping the whimpering Nelson between herself and Mr. Dunkirk, forcing him to navigate that obstacle first, before he could attack her with his blade.
"It's on safe," the vomit-soaked Dunkirk asserted.
Holding Dunkirk's stare, Gransil on his knees between them, Ashley’s thumb slipped over to the selector switch and clicked the weapon over to Fire. She cocked the hammer.
"Want to bet it's unloaded too?" she rasped. Her vocal cords hadn't escaped Morgenstern's crushing grip unscathed.
Dunkirk lowered the machete to his side.
The room was quiet and still.
Everyone's attention was now on Ashley.
To her left, Abbot stood.
Ash took the moment to grab the loose, gore-coated cuff dangling in the air. She deftly snapped onto her right forearm, then regained her hold on the detective’s handgun.
Keller remained seated in his chair and Governor Maime perched on hers, dangling her knife wielding arms like a demented chimpanzee.
The bleeding and whimpering Nelson, on his hands and knees, found his broken glasses and tried to piece them back together.
Ash moved past the unconscious Escurrido and Detective Cole, toward Nate, Dancer and Candy. Slick looked deathly pale.
Struck by the smell emanating from his clothes and skin, Dunkirk scowled. He swung his blade with impatience and stalked back toward the restroom.
Martin Dunkirk heard the sound of running water being turned off as he approached the
bathroom door. He heard the flick of a lighter, followed by sound of the man puffing on a cigar. The man was smoking.
Dunkirk tried to enter the room as quietly as he could, but the door creaked, the handle jiggled, the machete bumped against the frame and his foot hit the metal sill.
Except for the smoke, the bathroom stood empty.
Through the obscuring haze, he saw several liquor bottles standing on the counter, their contents, clearly mixed with soap, their tops plugged with soapy-wet paper towels.
A gunshot came from the main room, followed by screaming. The hysterical screaming of a man, screaming like a woman.
Dunkirk turned back just in time for a bottle of soapy alcohol to be broken over his forehead. Half-blinded by the glass and the runny syrup, he felt himself pushed and steered out of the restroom, his face used to batter open the door.
Moments Earlier...
Ashley held the detective's gun like the life preserver it was.
Absorbed in his pain, Nelson pointed to Detective Cole and raged at her, "You know they sent you to us on purpose? You're bait! They don't care about you. We can kill you, or your brother, any time we want!"
"Not if I kill you first," Ashley replied. "Not if I kill you all.”
"You don't have enough bullets to kill me," Gransil laughed.
Auntie bounced maniacally on her chair.
Ash smiled, "Well then. Let's get started.” With no further hesitation, she shot Nelson in the stomach. He collapsed to the floor, screaming. Nelson was so loud that he woke Escurrido.
Then, from the hallway, the sound of breaking glass was heard, followed by another high-pitched male scream. The new screamer was being driven toward the closed hall door at full speed. It sounded like a dozen people running toward them.
Dunkirk was smashed through the flimsy wooden door. His chest and shoulders were engulfed in flames. He crashed through several rows of chairs, took three bullets from Ashley, and three more from the Texan, before collapsing in the center of the room, thrashing and burning.
The screams ended as Dunkirk inhaled the fire, cauterizing and sealing his lungs. Lying in the center of the room, riddled with bullets, flames danced across his squirming and flailing torso.
As the flames fell, his gyrations decreased. The fire had cooked his internal organs and the bullets let some air in. The man's brain, otherwise intact, experienced all of it.
The reverend stepped through the doorway. He had a lit cigar in his mouth and three flaming half-pint Molotov cocktails in his right hand.
With the free left hand, he removed his coat. He wore the preacher's collar and a large silver cross hung from his neck. Below it, dozens of weapons were strapped and belted over a shiny terillium-vest and shirt.
A massive blunderbuss was slung from his shoulder, and a bandoleer of fist-sized shells crossed his back.
Auntie leapt at him from her chair, her twin knives high overhead.
The reverend threw his long coat into the air, catching her knives and head under it. She crashed to the floor, the remaining bottles in the coat breaking around her.
She stumbled over the still flaming Dunkirk. The coat, dripping and soaked in soapy alcohol, burst into flame. Governor Maime screamed, jumped and thrashed, but the coat held her prisoner.
Keller rose to his feet as Morgenstern worked himself into an upright position against the back wall.
Governor Maime spun, jumped and shook, flinging liquid fire everywhere, but in the end, she had to drop the serrated knives to escape the fiery jacket.
Now free of the jacket, oxygen and flame dashed over her rum-soaked head and shoulders. As her hair burned off, her polyester sweater melted into her chest and shoulders. Screaming like a mad woman, she leapt for the floral carpetbag under her chair. She dumped it, knives clattered across the floor. She grabbed a new one for each hand. As her body burned, her eyes burned with the fire of hell, and she screamed and leapt at the Reverend.
He sidestepped her and broke another flaming bottle in her face.
Now completely engulfed, Maime screamed, inhaling the deadly mixture into her lungs and setting them on fire. She collapsed to the same sputtering fate as Dunkirk.
The Reverend and Warden Keller now found themselves facing each other. The gut-shot Nelson shook, whimpering on the floor between them.
The Gardener, Escurrido’s silent guest, had long since vanished. No one had seen him go.
Dr. Mallus and Courtland decided with a mutual nod, they'd also rather be elsewhere. They exited from the hall through the kitchen door. Dr. Mallus led Courtland to an obscured back door. He produced a key and the men slipped out.
Outside, they shook hands.
"A pleasure," Courtland said.
"Indeed.”
The two men nodded and each went in an opposite direction, fleeing both the building and each other’s presence.
Above them, innumerable insects congregated around a dim streetlight. Half a dozen broke off to follow Courtland. An equal number pursued Dr. Mallus. The rest remained transfixed by the dull bulb.
The Reverend's wide-brimmed hat was folded and tucked into his belt. His face was pale, and drawn. He looked like a man who had just thrown up a gallon of alcohol.
Morgenstern came off the wall, as Escurrido stumbled to his feet.
Ashley and Abbot stood with the Reverend, to his left, facing the killers with him.
Big Texas had flanked them on their right and crouched in a darkened corner of the room. He held his revolver, with only had two rounds left, pointed at the Reverend's back.
Morgenstern and Keller watched Texas zero in.
The Reverend's left hand slipped to the pistol on his right hip. He pivoted it in its hinged holster. He fired three shots at the Texan without looking, only scoring a single hit.
Keller and Morgenstern remained still.
The Reverend spun and blasted the Texan with the blunderbuss. The small cannon was deafening in the confined space.
The Texan didn't cry, moan or move. He just smoked from the impact of several shots.
Morgenstern and Keller still held their positions, not moving.
Ashley organized Abbot and the teen survivors, moving them toward the chained doors. Abbot kicked at them, but they didn’t give.
The Reverend faced Morgenstern and Keller. Escurrido moved nervously behind them.
The Reverend reloaded the blunderbuss.
Ashley tugged at his elbow. “We need to get out of here,” she said, pointing to the small atrium and the chained doors.
The Reverend backed toward the doors and gestured for the girls to back away. Abbot dragged Slick back.
The blunderbuss fired again, ripping a three-foot hole in the center of the doors. The chains fell away but the door held their place.
Abbot kicked the doors open. He and Ashley helped the others from the building.
The Reverend turned back to find Morgenstern and Keller huddled over duffle bags, their back turned toward him and the main doors. He crouched, reloading the shotgun again.
Ashley was beside him, tugging at the wounded Detective Cole, but she couldn't get him very far.
Keller and Morgenstern remained occupied, their backs to him.
The Reverend helped Ashley drag Detective Cole outside.
Ashley dug through the detective’s pockets, coming up with his keys and fumbling at the cuffs on her right arm. She quickly grew frustrated, attempting to manage the keys with her damaged hand.
The Reverend said nothing, drew a pistol for his left, and with the slung pirate gun in the right, he turned and re-entered the building.
Keller and Morgenstern had assembled and armed themselves with fully automatic rail guns from the large bags they had carried.
The three combatants opened fire together.
The combined shock of the weapons blasted everyone from their feet. The Reverend flew backward ten feet.
Ashley fired at them with Cole’s handgun, from the open doorway.
They naturally directed their fire at her, only to watch the girl leap back behind a planter.
The Reverend's body lay broken and smoking, across the room.
In the distance sirens could be heard approaching.
Nelson peeked around the corner and seeing little threat, he limped into view of the doorway.
Nate, Candy and Dancer huddled and cried over Slick's pale and breathless corpse. Abbot stood with them, wary and alert.
Ash crouched behind a raised waist-high planter; the dirt and stone protecting her body as the brush obscured her eyes peering over the top. She rubbed her swollen left hand for a moment, until movement grabbed her attention.
With the detective's weapon aimed directly at Nelson in the doorway, Escurrido sprinted through the darkness behind him and Ashley's finger twitched on the trigger. The bullet slapped into Nelson's chest.
Ash held her aim on the doorway as Morgenstern and Keller lurched into view. She fired five rounds before automatic bursts from their rifles cracked the front of the planter she hid behind.
Keller came forward and put two bursts into the group of teens. Then he dragged the stumbling Morgenstern toward the kitchen.
Ashley returned fire, but her rounds seemed to have little effect. She suspected he must have been wearing a terillium-weave coat. She stood.
Dancer, Candy and Nate lay on the ground near Slick and Abbot. For ammo, the rail gun used water mixed with iron shavings, flash frozen before being fired by a magnetic charge. The teens’ bodies were shredded. Blood ran and mingled in a spreading pool.
In the kitchen, Escurrido found the door Courtland and Mallus had used. It was unlocked. Seconds later he was sprinting down the alleyway, driven by the sound of the approaching sirens.
Pablo Escurrido was also chased by a variety of robotic insects.
Several more airborne bugs left their place around the streetlight, and moved off in groups seeking out the other members of the evening's event, and settled, unseen, in their clothes.
The sirens grew louder.
Ashley moved into the alley running alongside the building, away from the well-lit street. The dark, litter-strewn corridor seemed quiet and safe. Bugs swarmed around Ashley's face and hair, she swatted at them.
She heard a noise and a door opened beside her. She froze.
Keller dragged the unconscious Morgenstern into the alley. He moved away from the sirens, directly toward Ash.
The girl stood, the detective's weapon low at her side.
Seeing her, Keller stopped. His rifle was pointing down, to the side.
Morgenstern was barely conscious; his rifle was also directed at his most imminent threat, the looming ground.
Ash raised the pistol.
Keller tried to bring his rifle around, but muzzle couldn't possibly reach her in time.
Ashley fired. The bullet slapped into Keller's cheek and punched a chunk out of the back of his head.
Keller fell forward to the ground. Morgenstern fell with him.
Ashley fired three more shots into Keller’s back. His bullet-resistant jacket did little ‘resisting’ at this range. Blood splashed into the air. She then put four rounds into Morgenstern's back. His terillium jacket also tore and he bled. For good measure, she put a round into the back of his head.
Ash lowered the gun.
In the wake of the shots, the alley seemed silent.
She watched their blood run into the dirty water, together racing toward the lip of a sewer drain.
Gradually the vacuum of sound was filled with the wailing scream of approaching sirens and the shrill screech of electro-magnetic brakes. Doors opened and slammed shut. Voices shouted commands and were echoed by others.
Ashley sprinted down the alley at top speed, the pistol in her hand.
The narrow alley was at a slight decline and she moved so fast, the slightest misstep promised to throw her to the pavement with bone-snapping force.
A couple of blocks from the chaos, she spotted a junk bin and rested for a minute. She found a semi-clean rag, wrapped the handgun, tucked it into her waistband and moved on, holding it in place.
Rush hour was long over. Now the flowing traffic was directed toward restaurants and bars. Ash stayed to the alleys until she reached a stairwell leading down to a residential district.
The lithe girl slipped from the uptown commercial shelf and jogged through residential neighborhoods. She kept an even pace, parallel to the metro line. She didn't allow herself to break into a sprint or slow to a walk.
The only problem was the gun. She had to carry it in her hands, as her hospital pants really weren't up to the challenge of keeping it secure against her waist. It was a hassle but she didn’t think it would be wise to pitch it.
Thankfully, just as she threatened to overheat, the heavens cooled and a light rain chased the sweat from her body. The water energized her, giving her another twenty minutes of speed, carrying her away from the chaos on the uptown shelf.
Ash didn't have to wonder where she would go. Weary and battered, the rain soaked girl reached the next metro stop and punched her family codec into the ticket kiosk.
Her father had never fooled around when it came to security. After he’d been killed last time, he’d locked down a dozen secret family accounts. Ashley and Geoff had been forced to memorize all of them.
Ash was so tired and angry, she realized she was failing to properly appreciate her father’s forethought. She actually kind of hoped someone would suddenly arrive to either rescue or confront her, like last time, but no one did.
She caught her reflection in a poster glass and felt like she was looking at an alien. She hadn't seen herself in almost a week. She was bruised and battered. Her face crossed by scratches and blood from the evening’s excitement. Worse than that, she looked broken, defeated.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she glared at herself. Anger, fire; that was better. She could handle that. Yes. That was who she was. The hostile, competitive ballerina, the girl who’d beaten every boy at Kung Fu Camp and been nicknamed Everest. The girl who’d outrun a train and jumped from the crown of the city with nothing but a kite board. She was the girl who’d fought a serial killer and avenged her father’s murder.
The kiosk beeped at her. Her ticket printed and she took it.
A few minutes later the train arrived. She boarded and collapsed into an empty booth. Her feet hurt. Her neck hurt. Everything hurt.
Ashley watched the city from her window. She saw ambulances and police vehicles whizzing by, sirens flashing. Perhaps they were on a different call, maybe a fire, or a burglary. It was possible the emergency crews were headed somewhere else in the massive city. She laughed to herself, closed her eyes against the rain-speckled glass and slept.
Part Three – On Dying