Comes a Horseman Read online

  A flash of movement—coming at her from the side, from over the bed. An impact on her arms sent the gun flying.

  Brady! He’s with them!

  He was grabbing her, turning her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, squeezing her close.

  “No!”

  She thrashed, trying to free her arms . . . bite him . . . anything.

  He had her in a tight bear hug. They fell backward onto the bed. She kicked and twisted and slammed her head back, each time making contact with only the bed.

  The dark creature behind Malik rushed forward and seized her legs.

  “Hold on to her,” it ordered, “until she comes down.”

  51

  It all seemed so real,” Alicia said, shaking her head. She was leaning back against the bathroom counter, touching a towel to her hair. Apollo had insisted she take a long, hot shower. It seemed to Brady that both the shower and the passage of time—thirty minutes since he released her from the full-body hug—had done her a world of good. Her eyes were bloodshot, but considering the mind trip she’d endured, she looked remarkably composed.

  Then she raised a drinking glass, and he saw how rattled she was: her hand shook so violently, water sloshed out of the glass and she could not quite align it with her mouth. He took it from her and held it to her lips. She gulped. When he lowered the glass, she smiled, a weak smile that reflected embarrassment at needing help. He knew she would make a superhuman effort to regain her independence, her strength, to be the old Alicia.

  She had changed her clothes and was wearing a pantsuit nearly identical to what she’d worn before, but the colors were switched. The mock turtleneck was beige, the blazer—waiting for her on a door hook—and pants were coffee, no cream or sugar.

  She had rebandaged her arm; he saw that blood had already soaked through. He touched the gauze on his hand. It was sticky with blood, the wound beneath it tender.

  “Apollo said you probably got the equivalent of several hits of acid.”

  She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Remind me never to do drugs.”

  “I don’t think I’ll have to.”

  Her jaw tightened. Working it out, he thought, amazed by her fortitude. When her eyes opened, they were focused and determined. She nudged her head toward the door.

  “So what do we do with this guy?” she asked.

  Brady tugged up on his pant leg and rested his foot on the edge of the tub. The air was still heavy with steam. It helped relieve a tightness that had developed in his chest. The door was shut, but they could hear Apollo packing up and warning Malik to stop his squirming and mumbling. He had stuffed gauze in the assailant’s mouth and sealed it shut with duct tape.

  “Leave him,” Brady said. “After we’ve put some distance between him and us, we’ll phone the New York field office. Let ’em know where he is and that he’s connected to Pelletier.”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing to connect him. The symbol alone means nothing.”

  “Can you burn a CD of the audio? That ought to give them something they can use.”

  “Yeah. Me going out of my mind.” She looked at him hard. “We held him against his will, drugged him up. We’re the ones who’ll get indicted.”

  “Any better ideas?”

  She thought about it, then shook her head. “We can’t hang around. There are still people who want us dead. For whatever reason.”

  Her last remark jarred him hard. They were no closer to knowing why people were after them. They had a few clues for tracking down those responsible, primarily a name: Fr. Adalberto Randall. But the motive was still mysterious, which somehow made the unfairness of being targeted exponentially worse. They could not plead their innocence or bargain for a settlement or change anything to appease their pursuer. They simply did not know what he or she hoped to accomplish by killing them. “Frustration” did not come close to describing their feelings.

  “All right,” he said, glad to wash his hands of the revolting creature in the other room. “What’s our next move?”

  She brightened, always ready to take the next step. “We find this Father Randall. Maybe see what we can do about finding the leak within the Bureau. We do our jobs. We follow leads and take one step at a time until we come to the end.”

  The investigation’s end or our end?

  He didn’t say it. He was being pessimistic, and he was getting as tired of it as he was sure she was. Something was stirring in him that he had never felt before. It paced and growled. It wanted to protect the people he cared for and to rend revenge from those responsible for putting them in danger, for hurting them and frightening them. He wasn’t sure what the emotion was, exactly, but it felt powerful and wrathful and freeing. It was a tiger on a leash. He didn’t want to tug it back into its cage, but he was equally afraid to untether it.

  Alicia touched the tips of her index fingers together, indicating what she thought their first step should be. “Let’s get on the phone and find out—”

  From the bedroom came a crash and a deep-throated cry of pain. Alicia threw open the door and charged out. Brady was right on her heels, reaching for his pistol. The room was in near-darkness. The floor lamp had fallen over, shattering its bulb. Only the bedside lamp cast a tepid glow over the scene. Malik was standing. One wrist was lashed to the arm of the chair, which he swung around without any evident difficulty. Something glinted in his free hand. Brady quickly assessed it was a knife or razor, the way he held it out toward them. He stood in the center of the room, closer to the wall of windows than to Brady and Alicia. At his feet lay Apollo, propped up on one elbow, the other arm curved defensively over his head. His forehead and left side of his face glistened. Brady could not see its color in the room’s twilight, but it didn’t take a teenage Xbox freak to recognize blood.

  “I thought he was still unconscious!” Apollo yelled. “He . . . he waited for me to—”

  “Aaaagggghhh!” Malik howled through gauze and tape. He slashed down at Apollo. The arm of his shirt split open. Apollo pulled in a sharp breath and fell back on the carpet. Lying at Malik’s feet, he must have felt completely vulnerable, but rising on an arm put him in easy striking distance of the blade. Brady saw him make the decision to stay down.

  Brady aimed his pistol at Malik.

  “Put the blade down now!” he yelled. “Now!”

  Malik glowered. He was breathing hard and fast, his bony shoulders rising and falling like bellows.

  Beside him, Alicia whispered, “Where’s my gun?”

  “I’ve got him covered,” Brady said.

  “Shoot!” Apollo shouted.

  Malik bent at the knees, sliced down, and opened up the skin on the back of Apollo’s hand.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Brady ordered, but Malik had already done the damage he was going to do and was standing again.

  “Brady?” Alicia whispered. “Can you do this?”

  “Shhhh.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot?”

  If he did, it would have to be a kill shot, through the heart or the head. Anything less would give Malik an opportunity to fatally wound Apollo; it wouldn’t take much: a slice across the throat, a stab to his chest or into his eye or temple. And yet, he did not trust himself to make the perfect shot. He had never fired his weapon in the line of duty. Should he turn over his gun to Alicia? That would mean re-caging the beast inside, and that was something he did not want to do.

  Malik clawed at the tape over his mouth. One side of it fell away. It hung off his right cheek, a clump of wet gauze clinging to it. He raised his eyes, his arms, and his voice. “Master, help your servant now!”

  Apollo—the idiot, Brady thought in a flash—raised one of his big hands. Brady saw it coming, wanted to shout, “No! Wait!” But it all happened too fast.

  Apollo seized Malik’s crotch. He squeezed, and the veins in his hands bulged out. His big white teeth flashed as he gritted them with effort.

  Malik screamed, for a moment
in too much agony to perceive its source or plan a way to alleviate it.

  “Now!” Apollo boomed. “Shoot now.”

  “Do it, Brady!” Alicia. “Shoot! Shoot!”

  His finger slipped from outside the trigger guard to the trigger. Four pounds of pressure. That’s all it would take. He hesitated. How could he take this man’s life when another life was not immediately at stake? What if the pain of Apollo’s grip were enough to make him drop the blade?

  But it wasn’t. Malik’s tortured expression turned malevolent. He lowered his head and swung the blade down in a wide arc. It sank deep into Apollo’s forearm. Apollo screamed but refused to let go. Malik yanked the blade out—Brady saw that is was a scalpel. It rose again, trailing a thread of blood. If Malik stooped on the next thrust, he’d be within reach of Apollo’s head.

  The gun roared. Smoke burst into existence in front of Brady. Through it, he witnessed Malik take the hit in his shoulder. The slug passed through and knocked an eye-sized hole in the window behind him. A fissure broke from the hole and ran up the window; another ran down to the sill. Sounding like ice breaking underfoot, a fractal pattern of infinitesimal cracks radiated from all points of the hole. The force of the impact spun Malik around. Brady would never know if what happened next came from the assailant’s presence of mind or from the hands of chaos and chance. As he spun, Malik’s arms flailed up. The chair tethered to his wrist rose and crashed through the weakened glass. Cold wind rushed in. Malik tumbled out, chair first.

  Apollo, stubbornly gripping the man’s groin, hit the climate control unit, which slanted like a ramp toward the window. As Malik disappeared, Apollo slid up toward the night sky. His head and hips smacked against the window frame’s metal uprights.

  “Let go!” Alicia screamed, dashing forward.

  “He’s got my wrist!” Apollo said. Fear squeezed his voice an octave higher.

  Alicia tried to lean over Apollo. “Can’t see,” she said and clambered right on top of him. Kneeling on his body, she braced her hands against the frame and leaned out to look down.

  Brady clenched his fingers into the material between her shoulder blades and leaned back to counterbalance her recklessness. Flailing, Apollo kicked him sharply in the ribs.

  Alicia said something, her voice lost in the buffeting wind.

  “What?” Brady yelled.

  She looked over her shoulder. “He’s got his claws dug into Apollo’s wrist! Give me your gun!”

  He immediately saw the insanity of that.

  “You can’t let go!” he yelled.

  “He’s not letting go either! He’s not trying to climb in. He’s pushing his feet against the side, trying to take Apollo with him!” Her right hand released the frame and opened to him.

  He slapped the pistol into her palm. Her arm whipped out of sight.

  “Get him off me!” Apollo bellowed. He squirmed under Alicia, who rocked farther out the window.

  “Hey!” Brady screamed. “Stop moving or all three of you will fall!”

  Apollo squirmed harder, frantically trying to roll off the climate control unit and onto the floor. Malik wasn’t giving him an inch.

  Alicia cursed.

  “What?”

  “Your gun! It fell!”

  Apollo gave himself a mighty shove away from the window frame. At that moment, Malik must have tugged, for Apollo buckled and half-slid, half-rolled out the window, jostling Alicia. She rose, trying to get her feet under her, backpedaling on him, as though balancing on a log. Her legs flew up and she went down. She hit the sill with her rump and tumbled forward.

  Brady saw her turtleneck rip away from his fingers, saw her spin to grab something, saw her face twist in sheer terror, saw her drop away from the window.

  Then he saw her no more.

  52

  Fingers—two sets of four, gripping the sill.

  Brady rushed for them, blindly reached over to grip the wrists. He looked down.

  Alicia’s face was two feet below the edge. Wide-eyed panic.

  Apollo was gone, probably still falling toward the huge marquee that announced the Marriott’s presence in Times Square. The thought of Apollo plunging to his death ruptured a bubble of disbelief in Brady’s mind: this was happening, and where Apollo went, Alicia could follow.

  No, she won’t! he thought. No, she won’t!

  Her mouth moved, but the wind tore her voice away. He read her lips. She was crying out to him.

  “I got you!” he screamed. She could not hear him, but he hoped she understood.

  Below her, Malik dangled, one hand in a death grip on her ankle. His other hand hung down, attached to the straight-back chair. The chair swung in the wind, battering his legs.

  And below Malik, far below Malik, the multicolored flashing gaudiness of Times Square. As huge as the signs were, they were too far away for Brady to recognize any of them. Spots of lights, like iridescent ants, marked the vehicles trying to push through the intersection. The sound of car horns, as constant as the press of people, could not climb this high; only the wind’s voice found Brady’s ears.

  He pulled. And pulled. Alicia didn’t budge. His hand began to throb. He ignored the pain and tightened his grip.

  He hooked his foot under the climate control unit and tried again. He leaned his body back, taking advantage of his weight to leverage her up. She rose an inch and scrambled for another purchase, this one on the front edge of the climate control unit. Her head was above the sill. He quickly repositioned his hands to her biceps.

  Lean and puuuulllll . . .

  Her stomach rose onto the sill. He gripped her under the arms. Puuuulllll . . .

  She was in. And clenching her teeth in pain.

  “My leg . . . !”

  Malik’s hand still clutched her ankle, grinding her shin into the sharp edge of the sill and the broken glass encrusted there. Blood spilled out onto the metal frame from her torn flesh.

  Brady wrapped his hands around Malik’s wrist, hoping to shake him loose or squeeze the tendons into submission. The man’s hand was as unyielding as a shackle on Alicia’s ankle. He leaned out, sure for a split moment that he would teeter too far and tumble right past Malik to join Apollo’s corpse. He sank his teeth into the back of Malik’s hand. He bit hard and sawed his teeth back and forth. Warm, coppery blood bubbled up into his mouth. Still gripping Malik’s wrist, Brady tightened his bite. Finally, the fingers sprang open.

  Malik swung away from Alicia’s leg—dropping down, giving Brady a fierce tug as he took Malik’s full weight. He leaned back, wiggling to get off the sill and into the room. Malik rose with him. He was twisting his wrist, trying to wrench free of Brady’s grasp.

  Is he trying to fall? Brady thought. Could he still be delusional from the drugs?

  Malik raised his other hand toward Brady.

  Grab my wrist!

  Instead, Malik raked his black claws over Brady’s hand. Brady growled in pain. Four deep furrows oozed blood. It ran down into Brady’s grip, making it slick. He felt the bandages on his left hand tearing away, breaking free. He squeezed with everything he had.

  Their eyes locked. A surge of repulsion and contempt made Brady see nothing redeemable in the creature whose life he held in his hands. Here was the man who had wrapped a wire around Alicia’s neck and pulled her out a forty-ninth-story window. Here was the beast who had sent Apollo to his death, who had a connection to the attack on him and his son. This assailant was a cog in a machine whose purpose, as far as Brady cared, was to destroy him, his son, and his partner. Independent of that, Brady believed Malik’s ranting during the Amytal interview was tantamount to a confession that he had slaughtered children.

  And he’s going to get away with it.

  Without him and Alicia to take him in, press charges, and get an investigation under way, Malik would walk away from this hotel a free man.

  His grip slipped from Malik’s wrist to his hand. Only the tips of his fingers protruded from the top of Brady’s clutch
. Brady’s damaged hand trembled in pain; he focused on keeping it pinched around Malik’s fingers.

  Brady closed his eyes. To let go would be murder. Not the way things were done. He squeezed even tighter; Malik’s bones were crunching under his grip.

  He felt Alicia grab his belt.

  “Pull me back!” he bellowed. He felt the tug. His arm and hand muscles burned.

  He’s going to walk.

  Not if he flies.

  Malik’s hand slipped through. One arm reaching up, fingers splayed, Malik plunged down. There was no fear in his eyes, only a hatred so fierce, Brady could still feel it boring into him after Malik disappeared into the shadows below.

  He allowed Alicia to tug him away from the whipping wind, from the night that hungered for more sacrifices—he felt in his heart that it did.

  He collapsed with his back propped against the climate control unit. Alicia sat hard on the floor beside the bed. The wind thrashed their hair.

  He was looking at her, but all he saw was Malik falling, getting smaller and smaller.

  What was I thinking? That he would walk . . . but not if he flies. Did I drop him? On purpose?

  He could not answer. He honestly did not know.

  After giving herself less than thirty seconds to catch her breath, Alicia rose. She used the bed to hoist herself up, groaning with effort. It was painful to watch. He held her injured forearm. Both of her shins were bleeding from being scraped over the sill and broken glass.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said. She stooped to retrieve her pistol from the floor, where it had fallen when Brady knocked it out of her hands. She put a suitcase on one of the beds, unzipped it, and pulled a lavender item from it. A fresh blouse. The one she wore was torn up the back. She walked to the bathroom door and turned back to him.

  “Get Apollo’s bag and medical supplies,” she said. “Forget the EKG and IV stuff. We don’t have time to pretend we were never here.”

  She paused, eyeing him sympathetically. She looked as weary as he felt. “We have to move fast, Brady.”