Page 155 of Beware of Dog

Shep lifted his Colt, and fired from the shelter of the doorjamb.

The goon he’d struck lurched, as though he’d tripped over an invisible obstacle, staggered, and twisted as he went down, taking one of his friends with him.

The guy at the front of the assault shouted in Spanish—and then Mercy swung around the doorframe and caught him in the face with his sledgehammer.

Shep was in uniform in Iraq the last time he saw someone’s cranium cave in like that. It wasn’t pretty, but he grinned at the sight of it now; enjoyed the crunch of bone and spray of blood.

Mercy laughed as he stepped back, pulling his blood-slick hammer free as he went, so his target collapsed in a wet heap.

Then the rest of the Diablos were on top of them, and Shep lifted his gun hand to block the fall of another man’s arm. The guy cursed at him, and shoved. When Shep didn’t budge, he made a grab for him with his free hand.

Shep struck out with the knife and was rewarded by a scream. He struck again, then pushed the man back; he collided with one of his comrades, and Shep put the muzzle of his Colt right up against the man’s chest and fired.

Two birds with one stone.

Behind him, furniture crashed, and men screamed and shouted, in Spanish and English. It was chaos: thuds, and grunts, and harsh curses.

Shep couldn’t worry about them, because a man with a Bowie knife lunged straight for him.

He dodged, and the man’s shoulder clipped his, and then they were tussling, stumbling together into the darkness of the kitchen.

The guy was big, a half-head taller than Shep, and bulkier, wide and heavyset. His breath rushed hot across Shep’s face, and Shep brought his gun up in a hard arc and cracked him in the side of the head with it.

It landed with a satisfying smack, and the big guy wobbled on his feet, but his grip on Shep’s hoodie didn’t waver. Shep twisted his wrist in an attempt to press the Colt to the man’s temple, and got shoved back hard against the wall instead.

Knife, then.

The man snarled something at him in Spanish, and even if Shep couldn’t make out details, he knew this was the man who’d stared him down at Hauser’s.

“Eat shit,” Shep growled back, and thrust the KA-BAR into the man’s large, soft belly.

He wasn’t wearing a vest, just a t-shirt and a dark hoodie, like Shep, and the freshly-sharpened knife went through the material like it was smoke, and then sunk up to the hilt in giving flesh.

The breath punched out of the man, along with a garbled, wet-throated sound of shock. Shep pushed him back…straightinto the path of Mercy’s sledgehammer, and whatever pain he felt in his gut was wiped out when the hammer caved in the side of his skull.

“Shit,” Shep breathed. “I gotta get me one of those.”

“Hell of an arm workout,” Mercy said. One of his catcher’s mitt hands gripped Shep by the shoulder and pulled him forward. “Come on, this side’s cleared out, let’s see what’s going on next door.”

There was a lot of moaning and whimpering and pleading happening in the living room. Someone had turned the lanterns back on, and Shep saw bodies sprawled across the floor, some moving, some not.

Toly had a guy by the hair and lifted him up so she was kneeling, blood coursing down his face, mouth moving soundlessly as he grappled with pain. His hands lifted, but he couldn’t seem to reach up over his head and try to claw Toly off of him.

It was Ruiz. “I’ve got him,” Toly said. He cast a glance around the room. “Anyone want a last word?”

Fox straightened from where he’d been rummaging around in a dead man’s pockets, and came out with a cellphone. “Make him scream when I give you the signal.”

“No, please,” Ruiz said. Don’t—”

Toly clapped his free hand over his mouth.

Fox fiddled with the phone a moment, then held it up six inches from his mouth and started screaming in Spanish. After a string of panicked shouting, he pointed at Toly, who took his hand off Ruiz’s mouth and did something with his other hand that made Ruiz bellow and twist, and writhe.

Fox disconnected the call mid-rant, dropped it onto the dead body he’d pilfered it from, and turned to Shep as Ruiz’s screams subsided into pathetic sobs. “Anything you want to add?”

Shep watched the Tres Diablos boss fighting Toly’s grip on his hair, eyes shut, tears carving clean rivulets through the blood on his face, and felt only cold contempt, and nothing personal. “Nah. He’s just a hired gun.”

Fox nodded, and made ago aheadgesture.

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