Page 86 of Cole: Bloodlines
Across the potholed street, four men carried two restrained bodies from inside the factory's rusted side door and placed them in the trunk of a waiting black, our-door Sedan. The driver of the Jeep squinted through the gathering dusk, his attention pulled toward two of the men—a cowboy with a sweat-stained Stetson and a larger, Middle Eastern man with shoulder-length black hair—who climbed into the front of the vehicle, the cowboy sliding into the driver's seat. Their two companions—Hispanic, by the look of them—took the backseat.
When the Sedan's headlights cut through the predawn light and it pulled away from the factory, the Jeep's engine rumbled to life, a low growl of anticipation. The Wagoneer rolled slowly from the shadows of the alley, tires crunching over broken glass, and followed the car at a respectable, unnoticeable distance, just another vehicle in the sparse morning traffic.
When they arrived at the farm, they took a rutted back road that snaked toward distant pens, far beyond the silhouettes of the main buildings. Clint killed the headlights as the car crawled along the gravel, tires crunching like bones breaking in the silence. A heavy morning fog hung in ghostly tatters across the landscape, clinging to fence posts and transforming ordinary trees into hunched sentinels. The mist carried the acrid stench of manure and wet hay, a smell that seemed to coat the inside of their nostrils.
“Keep following this road to the end,” Cruz said, his voice unnaturally loud in the stillness.
Clint's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, catching Cruz's reflection in the dim light. “How do you know about this place?” The question hung between them, loaded with implication.
The Spaniard's lips curled into a smile. “I may have implemented this method a time or two.”
“Mm.” Clint nodded.
Cruz leaned forward from the back seat, the leather creaking under his weight, and pointed ahead with a finger adorned by a heavy silver ring. “Turn there. It'll take you around to the rear corner of the pen, completely out of sight of the main buildings, even on a clear day.”
Following Cruz's directions, Clint eased the sedan off the gravel road, tires sinking into the soft earth as he navigated along a wooden fence line, the planks covered in wire. He could barely see through the thick fog, catching only glimpses of the desolate landscape—skeletal trees, frost-stiffened grass.
“Stop here,” Cruz said, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence.
Clint braked, the tires crunching on frost-covered gravel, and killed the engine. He looked at Cochise, whose face was half-shadow, half-pallid in the pre-dawn light. “Let's get this party started.”
The four gangsters exited the car, doors slamming with hollow thuds that seemed to vanish into the fog. Clint's breath plumed in the frigid air, his boots crunching through a thin crust of frost as he circled to the trunk. The lid popped open with a hollow thunk, revealing the two killers contorted like broken dolls. They dragged the men out by their bound ankles and dumped them onto the ground as hard as concrete.
The Mangler's face contorted into a grotesque mask as he landed on his broken arm, still tied behind his back, a strangled sound escaping through clenched teeth. The deputy's eyes—pale as dirty ice—were glazed and watery, but alert enough totrack the men looming above him. His expression remained blank, devoid of fear or remorse. Clint hadn't expected them to be afraid—they were soulless psychopaths; their emotional circuitry had been severed long ago. But they could still experience pain—and that would have to be enough.
“Release them and stand them up against the pen,” Clint said, reaching into the trunk. His fingers closed around a tire iron—eighteen inches of cold, unforgiving steel.
The other men unfastened the killers' wrists and ankles, then hauled their deadweight bodies off the frozen ground. The Mangler's face contorted as they propped him against the splintered fence posts, his right leg buckling beneath him. His breath came in shallow, pained gasps that crystallized in the frigid air. Clint remembered Cole's account of him being slammed against the brick wall with massive force—yet somehow the man was still breathing, his eyes glittering with malice beneath swollen lids.
“Remove their gags?” Cruz asked, his breath forming ghosts in the frigid air.
Clint shrugged, frost crunching beneath his boots as he shifted his weight. “Why not? No one out here but us and the pigs.”
The two Spaniards yanked the saliva-soaked rags from the killers' mouths, revealing teeth stained with blood.
Clint extended the tire iron toward Cochise, the frost-coated metal catching the pale dawn light. “You want to do the honors?”
The Egyptian's face hardened into something ancient and merciless. “Don't need that,” he muttered, his voice gravel. He stalked closer, shoulders hunched like a predator, and drove his steel-toed boot into the Mangler's good knee with a force that echoed across the empty field. The sound—a wet, sickening crack—hung in the frigid air as ligaments tore and bone splintered.
The man's body crumpled, and he hit the frozen ground with a meaty thud, his mouth stretching in a grimace that exposed blood-filmed teeth. Steam billowed from his lips in ragged clouds as he gasped, crystallizing in the cold. His eyes—glassy and feverish—rolled upward to meet Cochise's, pupils dilated with a madness that seemed to pulse and writhe behind them. “Do you expect me to beg?” he rasped with a raw, scraping sound.
The Egyptian’s response was wordless and brutal. His boot connected with the Mangler's face with such force that the man's head snapped backward, skull meeting fence post with a hollow thud that sent splinters of rotted wood flying into the morning mist.
“I don't think he gives a fuck,” Clint said, his voice as cold as the frost crackling beneath his boots. “In fact, begging would probably just piss him off more. But by all means...” He gestured toward Cochise's hulking silhouette, backlit by the pale dawn filtering through the fog. “Piss him off some more. Let's see how that works out for you.”
The Mangler stared at him with eyes like burnt-out coals, then spat a stringy glob of crimson that steamed briefly against the frozen ground before congealing.
Clint moved toward the deputy, close enough to smell the metallic tang of blood and the sour reek of sweat beneath it. “You're the fucker who shot me. The sick fuck who had those boys locked in the basement. And that man in the crate...” A memory flashed, and chills rippled down Clint's spine like icy fingers. “What you did to him wasn't evenhumandepravity. It was somethingbeyondthe human realm.” He stepped closer until their faces were inches apart, watching the deputy's pupils dilate in the gray morning light. The man's breath wheezed through his damaged throat, the crude knot around it now black-brown with crusted blood. “Even a sadistic fucker like youmust have a reason for such prolonged torture. Care to share before...” Clint raised the tire iron, frost glittering along its length like diamond dust, and waved it in a slow, deliberate arc through the misty air.
The deputy's chest heaved once before erupting into a fit of hacking coughs that bent him double, spraying crimson mist into the frigid dawn air. His cracked lips peeled back from his teeth, revealing a pink froth that bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “Ask Henry,” he wheezed wetly, his voice a death rattle scraping through damaged vocal cords. A grotesque smile spread across his face, splitting his bottom lip further, sending a fresh trickle of blood down his stubbled chin. “Consider it my parting gift to the fucker.”
“Who's Henry?” Sanchez murmured to Cochise, his breath forming dense clouds between them.
The Egyptian's weathered face hardened, deep lines etching themselves around his mouth as his eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at the killer. His massive hands flexed unconsciously at his sides. “Cole.”
“You didn't break him,” Clint growled, his voice dropping to a guttural rumble that seemed to vibrate in the frozen ground beneath their feet.
The deputy's gaze remained steady, empty as a shark's. A flicker of something primal—triumph, perhaps—glinted behind his pale irises as blood-flecked spittle dribbled down his chin. “Are you sure about that? Somehow, I don't think he's doing so well right about now.”
