Ledger had recovered from his surprise. Spitting blood, he followed her movement, twisting hard to free his shooting hand. He still grasped the gun, and Miranda knew she had to force him to let go or this was over.
She focused all her strength and attention on that hand, twisting, trying to haul it across her leg so she could break his wrist. Ledger did everything he could to prevent her from doing so.
Which was exactly what she wanted.
He didn’t see her right hand swing around, the blade glinting in the hot Venetian sunlight, its razor sharpness kissing against his neck.
Now, she thought, and one flick would open his carotid artery. She’d watch him bleed out on this dirty rooftop, and it might be days before anyone found his body. Blinking Ledger’s blood from her eye, she saw Tess tucking her hair behind her ear, saw her beautiful smile.
Ledger grasped the moment, writhed and flowed in her grip, releasing his gun and plucking the knife from her hand, smacking her down onto her back, pressing the knife against her throat.
Blood smeared his face. He breathed hard, but not panicked. He was totally in control.
“Fuck you,” Miranda hissed, and she so wished she believed in any sort of God. If she did, then perhaps now she’d be looking forward to seeing Tess again.
It felt like a minute, but must have been only seconds.
“Whatever you think I did, you’re wrong,” Ledger said. He sat up, left hand raised in a gesture of truce, right hand still pressing the knife hard against her throat. Fighting her for less than a minute, he’d already grown to know her well.
Then he did the thing that shocked her even more than his stealth. He cast the knife aside and backed off her, both hands raised as if in surrender. The blade skittered and skidded along the rooftop, but Ledger remained on his knees, hands in the air, gaze locked on hers. Still on her back, Miranda was so stunned that at first she couldn’t think to move.
“The hospital bombing — I was one of the investigators, not one of the evil pricks behind it,” he said. “I made them pay. They’re not going to hurt anyone again.”
Heart pounding, breath shallow, Miranda scrambled to her feet, crouched and ready for a fight. Ledger still didn’t move. He’d had her, could have slit her throat, but he’d tossed the knife away. He was on his knees now, there would be no way for him to catch her if she ran for the knife or her rifle. All she had wanted was his death. She could feel it now, a tangible thing, could see in her mind’s eye what his face would look like when he breathed his last. Her hands opened and closed as she studied him. But while she was picturing Ledger’s death, she couldn’t see Tess’s face in her mind’s eye.
“Go on,” Ledger said. “Grab a weapon if it makes you feel safer.”
Miranda felt the hatred and grief rush up inside her. She took a step toward him. “I don’t need a weapon to kill you.”
“The way you fight, maybe you don’t,” Ledger said.
Nothing more. No explanation for throwing the blade away, no wheedling plea for his life, no further defense. Just letting his words sink in.
“I’m just supposed to believe you?”
“Up to you,” he said. “I guess in your situation, I’d want to backtrack to whoever put the wrong guy in my crosshairs, figure out their motives.”
Miranda felt the Italian sun on her back. From somewhere far off, two men began to shout amiably to each other — something about an upcoming wedding. She could smell peppers roasting on a grill in a patio restaurant someplace close by. Tess had never been to Venice, but she would have loved the people here. Loved the sounds and the smells and the ancient magic of this place.
She ignored Ledger now, walked back over to the edge of the roof, and picked up her rifle, began to break it down and pack it away. Her back remained to him for long seconds, so she wasn’t surprised when she stood with the gun case and turned to see that he’d risen to his feet. His hands were at his sides, but he’d kept a respectful distance.
Still, his eyes were hard. “Seems like we’ve got mutual enemies now.”
Miranda inhaled slowly. Exhaled. She believed him, of course. How could she not, when he’d given up an opportunity to kill her and put his life in her hands instead? It gave her some comfort to know the people responsible for the hospital bombing had been dealt with, but it was cold comfort indeed. She had wanted to get vengeance for Tess herself.
She carried the gun case at her side and headed across the long roof. This time she heard Ledger’s footfalls as he followed her. Pigeons scattered in an irritated shush of wings.
“You’re not just walking away after that,” Ledger said.
Hatred had distracted her before, too much noise in her head. Now she listened to the rhythm of his footfalls and the shifting of his weight on the roof as he caught up behind her.
“Look, whatever your deal is, I need to know what you know,” he went on. “I get it, you want to take out the people who pointed you at me, tried to get you to pull the trigger for them, but I was the target. So we need to talk. I don’t know you well enough to just assume you’re gonna get the job done. Damn it, are you even listening to—”
She sensed it the moment before his hand landed on her shoulder. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she drove her other elbow into his gut. Still holding that wrist, she twisted out to one side, wrenched his arm back, and swung the gun case with perfectly calculated force. It struck Ledger’s skull with the sound of a cricket bat connecting with a ball. He staggered, but the son of a bitch was so strong, so determined, that he stayed on his feet. He’d been staggering to his left, trying to stay upright and keep her from dislocating his shoulder, and now she released her grip on his wrist.
As he righted himself, turned to face her, shooting her a pissed-off look that said all of his patience was at an end, Miranda snapped a high kick at the center of his chest. Ledger stumbled back a foot — but the roof had only six inches left to give. His arms pinwheeled as he went over the edge. Knowing there might be eyes on her, Miranda didn’t stay to watch him hit the water, but she heard the splash in the canal as she bolted back toward the stairs.
A trace of guilt flickered through her mind as she fled, gun case in hand, but it was gone as swiftly as it had arrived. Ledger could have killed her. If the tables had been turned, she doubted she’d have been so understanding. But he’d taken the vengeance that should have been hers. The killing wasn’t over, but the important killing — the killing that would have given her a sense of balance — had already been done, and Miranda knew that would haunt her for the rest of her life. That, and images of Tess that would continue to flicker into view, continue to linger in her thoughts, the ghost who walked the corridors of her heart. She couldn’t escape the feeling that the two most important moments of her life had been stolen from her before she’d even lived them.
A wedding and a killing.
In a narrow back alley, passing over a canal in a dilapidated part of Venice that the tourists never saw, Miranda pitched the gun case into the water and walked on without watching it sink into the murk.
There would be other guns.
Christopher Golden is the New York Times number one bestselling author of Snowblind, Tin Men, Of Saints and Shadows, and many other novels. With Mike Mignola, he co-created two cult-favorite comics series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. As editor, his books include the anthologies Seize the Night, The New Dead, and Dark Cities. Golden is a co-host of the pop-culture podcast Three Guys with Beards, co-founder of the writing workshop and literary event company River City Writers, and frequent conference, school, and library speaker. His works have been published in various languages around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.