Out of the Black - Lee Doty [65]
Ping made another connection as the sound that Rodriguez described as a flag in high wind died and the newcomer stopped in the midst of the destruction he'd wrought. His still-ringing sword was traced with fading lines of power and edged with blood. Eddies of dusty air still swept around him as his clothes again succumbed to the downward pull of gravity, settling over his now motionless form. An instant later, sparks flew as the blade retracted.
Ping must have blinked because the newcomer was now standing over him, staring down intently. "If it makes a difference, I'm not going to stand between you and your cooking." Ping wheezed.
The guy's face softened into a smile. It was an amazing transformation... his face and eyes were expressive- pure. In the span of a single tick of the clock, he was transformed from cold fury to warm compassion with no hint of pretense at either extreme.
"Why did you kill them?" Ping asked between waves of pai from knee and chest.
The newcomer's eyes flicked to the corpses by the door and back. "They didn't take my cooking seriously."
"No," Ping paused as the last bit of numbness left his broken knee and he almost passed out from the pain. "Why did you kill Roy and Lutine?"
The newcomer looked troubled, hurt, then angry again... uh oh, this was it! Ping reflexively brought up an arm to ward off what would come next.
But it didn't come.
"I didn't." The newcomer said, voice thick. "I was too late."
Ping lowered his arm and again regarded the newcomer. The shark's face was desolate, but just when Ping was convinced he would break down into tears, his face hardened again. "But I think we're about to find out who did, and why." His damp eyes shifted to a point behind Ping.
"Excuse me." He said politely, stepping over Ping, toward Good Cop.
"No problem." Ping got out before the world gave a final shiver and went black.
Getting farther from the light, Ping heard Rae shout from far away. "Roy! You're alive! I knew it!"
"Nope." Came the reply from almost as far away. "My brother's dead."
Garvey moaned, a weak and utterly hopeless sound. He'd also heard the accusation in the newcomer's voice.
***
The pain was intense. There was no sheltering fog of shock, no refuge of unconsciousness to separate Anne from the screaming of her flesh. Her head hurt from the fist she'd taken, but by far the worst pain was from her arms and hands. The Harm seemed to be grinding them to giblets. She'd been trying to scream for what seemed like an eternity of pugilistic hell, but her voice was just starting to catch on.
She saw a few stars, but not much else. Her eyes were still squeezed shut. A part of her wanted this guy to kill her and get it over with. But beneath the familiar fatalism was something unfamiliar, something new- her will. Through the pain, behind the closed eyes, under battered flesh, something kept her pushing forward, struggling into the storm. Wyler was somewhere on the floor just behind her and this Harm was not going to get another crack at him.
She remembered what death felt like before: the fallen man tearing into her, the near-death convulsions of that night, the sinking paralysis of the next day. She remembered those helpless times at what she'd thought was the end of her wasted life. She didn't remember much of the physical pain, or really any of the fear of death. What she remembered clearly was burning remorse for a life unopened; its gift still sitting beneath the evergreen and ornaments, its brightly colored wrapping paper still intact.
She remembered the pain of looking back over a life so utterly wasted, squandered on fear and self-pity, its wonders and failures unexplored. She'd spent her days clinging to the fence between life and death, afraid of both.
She still stood between life and death, but now she was different. With life cowering behind her and death's ruthless henchman before her, she had finally picked a side in the struggle. Sure, her old God Fear was lurking in the corners of her mind, yammering. But now the sound of his voice evoked only a hot fury.