Page 99 of Prodigal Son

He chopped Clive right in that perfect place at the base of his neck, over the nerves that went down over his shoulder and into his arm. The blow was hard – not enough to take him down, but his hand spasmed, and he lurched back, off balance.

Nicky took the opportunity for what it was; he ducked down, got his hands on Clive’s arm around his neck – loosened thanks to Fox’s attack – and used all his considerable bulk and strength to get his back under Clive’s chest and heave him up and over.

It was a beautiful throw, really. The gun fell in the middle of it and landed on the hardwood with a clatter. A moment later, Clive landed on top of a round table with acrack. The table held, somehow, and Clive let out an explosive gasp as all the breath was forced from his lungs.

“Take his gun,” Fox said. “Get all the civilians out. Go.”

Flurry of activity around him.

Fox reached to put a hand on Clive’s throat–

And the man snatched his wrist.

“Tougher than you look,” Fox observed, before he was yanked off his feet.

~*~

“…always seen around the same building,” Carl had said of the stranger who’d killed the detectives. “Always all in black. Some kids followed him once, and he just vanished. Into thin air, like. But that building is part of it. Must have a flat there.”

So that was where Albie went, and where he now stood, head tipped back, breath pluming in the night air.

An old building, one that had survived the Luftwaffe, its stone façade acid-eaten, its iron railings ancient and flaking decades of paint. In the latter half of the twentieth century, after the ticker-tape parades and the bunting, and the flapping Union Jacks had all come down, once the building had stopped being a relic, and started just being another block of flats where people slept, and fucked, and shot-up drugs, and got drunk and screamed down off of balconies, the building had lost its luster and become something droop-eyed and sad. Rubbish in the shadows, crinkly leaves, old cigarette butts.

Albie spotted one lit window, up on the fourth floor. That’s what Carl had said: mannish silhouette up on the fourth floor, moving in out, the light only on for little bursts at a time.

Albie ducked under a tattered old bit of crime scene tape and slid down the alley. Pulled down the fire escape, and started climbing.

He should have called Phil. Should have gone back to the Hall to share what he’d learned from Carl, make this a group decision, get some backup. There was a zero percent chance that Cass was being held here, and that Albie was instead about to walk in on a trained, emotionless, barely human assassin.

But he was crawling out of his skin at this point. And the idea of delaying any longer, talking things over like a bunch of putzes, was unconscionable at this point. So, guns heavy on his back, and his hips, and under his arms, and around his ankles, he went up to the third floor, broke quickly and cleanly into a window, and slipped inside.

Cold as a tomb. Still, stale air. Empty rooms, the drywall long-since ripped down, old lath rotting underneath. Scent of mold, and dust, and something that had died months and months ago, decomp finally turning to that old cardboard smell.

The floors creaked horribly, so he walked up on his toes. Slow, slow steps. Long pauses in between to listen for movement. He heard rats scurrying – that unmistakable scuttling in the walls – but nothing heavy or human.

Albie slipped a .45 from his shoulder holster and thumbed off the safety. He pulled a small torch from a pocket, but didn’t turn it on yet, instead held it ready beneath the gun, police-style.

Long narrow hall, moonlight coming in through the windows, blue rectangles on old scarred floorboards. Patch of Victorian wallpaper, colorless with age, dangling down in ragged strips like picked scabs. A stairwell, narrow and switch-back. He went up. Slow, slow, slow.

It was a fool’s errand.

Until it suddenly wasn’t.

~*~

Fox didn’t try to resist, and instead went with the pull, landing on Clive sideways, driving his elbow into the man’s ribs. Clive grunted in pain, and kept rolling, toppling them off the table, landing on top of Fox on the sticky floor.

But Fox landed curled up like a little pill bug, his other elbow winging out at the last second before Clive’s weight pinned him, and slamming Clive right in the throat. He made a terrible choking sound, and Fox pushed off the floor and heaved him off, twisted, rose up onto his knees. Karate chopped him in the throat, right in the same spot, at his Adam’s apple.

Clive barked, harsh and loud, like a seal, back bowing up off the floor. One hand went to his own throat, and the other clawed at the ground, searching for a weapon, for purchase.

Fox ripped his hunting knife from his boot and stabbed it straight through the back of Clive’s hand, into the floor.

Without any air in his lungs, Clive’s scream came out a trickling whimper, though his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“Now.” Fox pinned his other wrist, with his hand, and then reached to pull his bandage off. The wound on his arm started bleeding freely. “You ready to hold still and cooperate? Or shall I ruin the other hand?”

~*~

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