Page 73 of Cole: Bloodlines
The Egyptian's body convulsed as if struck by lightning, his massive frame suddenly puppet-like as his arms uncoiled from around Byrne, and he collapsed with a bone-rattling thud that Cole felt in his marrow. Shock and horror crystallized Cole's blood, every muscle locking in place as if he'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and throat before the scream tore free from some primal place beneath his ribs:“NOOOO!!!”
CHAPTER 33: GHOSTS IN THE DARKNESS
Byrne scrambled away from the Egyptian, the machete lost, but his face wild with a kind of reborn hope. He was halfway onto his feet when Cole lunged forward awkwardly. Racked in pain, his aim was off, and rather than impale the killer with the rebar, the makeshift weapon stabbed through the meaty part of Byrne’s thigh. The man’s scream was enormous, echoing through the chamber, but a second gunshot instantly obliterated the sound.
Cole instinctively dropped, his body hitting the freezing concrete as the world spun. He looked up to see the Mangler step through the doorway, wounded but still operational. The second shot hadn’t been aimed at anyone, just a warning shot.
Daniel looked at the Egyptian, lying still like a big-game kill, then at the squalling man writhing against the rebar, with no emotion for either. Cole’s attention was on Cochise, his panic escalating with each second.We need an ambulance! I need to call a fucking ambulance!But he was frozen—he didn’t even have a fuckingphoneanymore!
The Mangler crossed the floor slowly and methodically, as if he had all the time in the world. He stepped over Byrne’s spasming body, stopping to nudge the handle of the machete with his boot, as if checking if it still had any use. The air around him seemed to stiffen, the cold growing stronger with each step. He moved toward the fallen gangster and looked down, head tilted, as if the Egyptian was not a person at all but a trophy to be won. The pistol was steady, the muzzle a black hole pulling in the light. He aimed it at Cochise’s head, his own slightly tilted, his eyes dark, murky depths of pure death.
“No…”Cole struggled to his feet. “Don’t!”
Daniel craned his head toward Cole, eyes narrowed—and slowly drew back the hammer. “Bad behavior doesn’tget rewarded,” he murmured. “How will you learn… without punishment?”
“Then punishme!”Cole cried.
A faint, barely discernible smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “I am.”
“No...” Cole swallowed hard as tears blurred his vision. A part of him had believed that the two gangsters were invincible—indestructible. Seeing the Egyptian lying motionless scared the fuck out of Cole. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real—wasn’tpossible. Theycouldn’tdie!
The Mangler’s face turned deadpan, eyes like the devil himself. “Your husband’s faith is misplaced,” he said with a vacant tone.“Iam God.” He straightened his arm as his finger curled around the trigger.
“NOOO—”
A figure hurled out of the gloom—massive, hooded, an avalanche in human form—slicing off Cole’s cry. The Mangler spun around, but the giant was faster, a blur of monstrous muscle. He grabbed the killer’s arm, twisted it with a crack of bones, and hurled him. Daniel’s head slammed into the wall with a force that shook flakes loose from the concrete. The Mangler went limp, falling to the floor with a heavy, wet smack.
The giant loomed over the heap, chest heaving, and for a moment, Cole thought the world had simply run out of new horrors. Then the heap shifted. The Mangler tried to rise, pawing for the gun that was out of reach as if his depth perception was broken. The giant responded with a boot to the torso that caved in the ribcage. The air filled with a wet, collapsing sound, as if someone had stepped on a bag of pudding.
“Fucker…”Byrne rasped, and with a furious cry, ripped the rebar from his thigh. Blood jetted out in a stream, but he paidno attention as he scrambled across the cold floor toward the abandoned sidearm, leaving a smeared blood trail behind.
Cole lurched forward, his legs suddenly giving out and dropping him onto his cracked ribs. The air rushed out of his lungs in an instant, and he couldn’t move as he struggled just to breathe.
Byrne’s hand clamped down on the gun when a chittering noise—a titteringcackle—broke the tension. Cole looked up just in time to see something small and furious dart from the shadows and fling itself onto Byrne’s back, wrapping its legs around the man’s waist with gymnast’s grace, and driving its hands straight into the thigh wound, fingers digging deep into the flesh.
Jitterbug.
The killer howled and tried to throw the smaller man off, but the thing only shrieked louder, biting deep into the side of the man’s neck. The cartilage gave with a sickpop. Blood jetted sideways, splattering the floor. The little psychopath clung tight, mouth working like a lamprey, and with a series of savage jerks, he ripped away a chunk of skin and spat it to the ground with a splatter.
Byrne’s screams, twisted up with the creature's shrieks, were something straight out of a horror movie, chilling Cole’s blood. Byrne staggered, slackening, but the thing didn’t let go. It squeezed harder, a python on a dying rabbit, and when the killer finally collapsed, twitching and seizing, the little man clambered over the ruin, panting, face lacquered with blood and flecks of pale, shredded tissue.
Jitterbug looked at Cole with a wild, feral intelligence—a glint that recognized him not as kin, but still something less than prey. His tongue flicked out, feline-like, as if testing the air. Then he skittered backward, hands and feet splayed, barely human in its movement, and vanished into a well of shadowsamidst the old machinery, leaving Byrne to leak and shudder in the gathering puddle of blood.
Cole could barely process it. Cochise was down, the Mangler unconscious—or dead—and the only sound was Byrne whimpering and bleeding out. Somewhere behind him, Jitterbug giggled, a sound so out of place in this slaughterhouse silence that it sent a cold trail of fear through Cole’s spine.
Cole crawled through the muck, every inch an agony, vision doubled and tripled at the edges. Something primal inside was pushing him, the will to live shrieking even as the body flagged. He focused on Cochise, who lay silent, unmoving. Cole dragged himself toward the gangster—his husband’sbrother—ignoring the gristly horror display behind him. He reached the Egyptian’s side, his hands shaking as he tried to turn the big man over, but each strain of his body sent blinding pain screaming through his ribs and lungs.
There was no exit wound in his chest, and Cole didn’t know if that was bad. He didn’t think it was good. Or maybe it was. He didn’t fucking know! He checked for a pulse, and relief shuddered through him when he felt thethrumagainst his fingertips. “Stay with me,” Cole choked. “You’re gonna be all right…fuck…you’re gonna be all right.” He looked up, tears streaming down his face.What the fuck am I gonna do? He can’t die… he can’t…
A radio suddenly crackled, and Cole jumped.
“Cochise—where are you? I heard gunshots—are you okay?”
Clint!
Cole dug the radio from Cochise’s belt, the device slipping in his trembling hands. His unsteady fingers slipped off the call button when he tried to press it, and he swore brokenly, then managed to push it. “Clint!” Cole cried. “Where are you?!”
A brief pause, then, “Who the fuck is this?”Alarm turned the cowboy’s voice brittle.
