Page 38 of The Devil's Pair

“Now,” Ice said to the first man. “You were so helpfully saying?”

“The Right-Guardian is hiding in Salt Lake City,” the man babbled. “With a motorcycle club. We were all waiting and hoping for our Right-Guardian to call us, and today he did, so we were going out for supplies in preparation for the compound all travelling to Utah in the morning.”

“Whichmotorcycle club?” Ice said. “Give me the name.”

“I – I don’t know!”

“That’s a shame,” Ice said almost tenderly. “Here I thought I’d have to stop beating your head in to jog your memory.”

“Please don’t,” the man begged. “I’ll tell you everything that I know. Just please stop hitting me.”

“I swear toGideon, Guardian Eli!” The man sprawled on the floor just couldn’t contain himself. “Don’t! Not one more word!”

“Eli, huh?” Holt said. “Interesting name to have been given by your beloved Gideon… it’s really not very good for you in this situation though, is it?”

“Huh?” Cain said, who secretly loved Holt’s little bursts of weird trivia, all gleaned from his ferocious, copious reading. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Eli was a priest and judge in the Bible who had two really asshole sons… likereallyabusive to women. Anyway, Eli did nothing to rein in their behavior, which really pissed off God, who said thatEli and his house would be cut off from His favorforever. God told Eli as a sign of the truth of His words, both sons would die on the same day. Andguesswhat happened?”

“The abusive pricks died?” Holt said. “On the same day?”

“Damn right they did,” Holt said. “Thenyou know what happened?”

“What?” Eli asked, clearly not relishing the answer. “What happened?”

“Well, when Eli got the news that both of his worthless piece-of-shit sons had died because ofhisfailure to do the right thing, he fell from his seat, broke his neck, and died instantly.”

“Really?” Holt said. “That’s a pretty satisfying ending. I mean, not for Eli, but you know… on the whole it is. Which book is that all in?”

“Samuel.” Holt gave the men a brilliant smile. “Book one, verses thirty to thirty-four.”

He switched his focus to Ice, who was giving him the enlightened look that he so often wore after one of Holt’s seemingly-random and -meaningless little stories. Without a word, with zero warning, Ice pulled out his gun, stood over Smashed Knee and Hands, and shot him in the temple.

“Shit!” The other two men shouted in unison. “What thefuck?”

Ice pointed the gun at Smashed Nose, looked over at Eli. “Tell me something useful. Now.”

“I – I –” Eli sputtered. “I don’t – I can’t remember –”

A second shot rang out, and the other man now slumped in his chair, a thin blood trail trickling from the centre of his forehead. Eli’s mouth was opening and closing, gaping and gasping, as blind terror overtook him.

“Listen, Eli,” Ice said. “Iam your God here, and I am giving youevery chanceto do the right thing, but you are just fucking it up left and right, man. So here’s the last opportunity for you to have aprayerof getting out of here with nothing more than a bad concussion and twenty stitches in your brainwashed head…whois that fucker Michael with?”

“I – the guy is called –” He broke off, and the three men saw him desperately trying to recall the name that would save his life. “He’s the President of a Utah MC club – of the – the Highway something…”

Thatstopped Ice, Holt and Cain dead as realization crashed over them like a sickening wave. They all stared at each other, seeing the panic and shock in each other’s faces, then Ice said:

“Crusher Alcott? President of The Highway Hellions?”

“Yes!” Eli said in relief. “That’s it…Crusher. Michael is with Crusher.”

“I knew you’d get there in the end,” Ice said, then nodded at Holt, who knocked Eli’s chair over, throwing the man to the filthy ground.

Eli’s neck didn’t break as quickly and easily as did the one of his Biblical namesake. It took a bit more effort – Holt had to stand on it for a little while – but it was done in the end. And thirty seconds after that, the three Road Devils were ready to peel the fuck out of the warehouse and get to the airport in record time.

“I gotta say,” Cain remarked, looking down at the dead cult members. “They were relatively tough fuckers. They held outwaylonger than I thought they would.”

“Yeah,” Holt agreed as he slid into the driver’s seat. He turned to Ice and said, “I thought you were losing your touch. Seriously, almost onefullhour to finally break a head? You’re slipping, old man.”

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