“Caught you in the act,” Alicia hissed into his good ear as they laid him out behind the slide, rowdy generator booming alongside. “Your weakness betrayed you in the end, Santino.”
The assassin bucked and struck out, catching Mai a glancing blow across the temple, too well-trained and dangerous to die without putting up a fight. He sat up fast, still choking, only to find Torsten Dahl’s size twelve planted firmly in his face.
Santino collapsed again, skull cracking against the hard ground. Alicia watched as his face twisted in agony.
“Too good and fast an end for the likes of you,” she said. “I wonder what else we could come up with.”
But the man called Santino hadn’t acquired the fearsome reputation that had earned him an invite to the world’s greatest fighting tourney for nothing. The agony did not matter. The crushed bones did not matter. All that mattered was escaping, fighting now to reap vengeance another day. With a spine-twisting body flip he was up and on his feet in less than a second, whirling on Alicia soon after that. The startled woman fell back in alarm, narrowly missing the wide arc of a blade. Santino leapt through the gap she’d created, scrambling through the slippery mud back toward the carnival.
“Feisty bastard,” Alicia said. “Should have made sure.”
“Don’t let him get among the people!” Dahl cried.
Drake took off after him like light chasing shadow. Mai was alongside, ranging to his right. Santino tripped and rolled under the air-filled slide, coming up in the darkness beneath. Drake dived right in after him, but the man’s heels were as fleet as a scared rabbit’s, carrying him fast to the other side. Drake was only inches away when Santino broke back out into the night and veered left, into the main body of the carnival itself.
Drake pursued hard, his eyes set on Santino as the assassin walked among families, long-bladed knife held flat along the side of his leg, not instantly noticeable but still poised to be used.
The group entered the carnival again, pushing through crowds and stopping errant children from getting too close to the assassin. The man paused once, at the back of a long queue at a donut stand, and fixed Drake’s entire team with a black stare; the stare of a soulless man, a merciless killer. Children formed most of the line in front of him. Carefully, unobtrusively, he raised the knife and placed its tip at the bottom of a boy’s spine. The warning was clear.
Drake stopped immediately, along with Dahl. Mai forced herself not to cry out a warning. Alicia was nowhere to be seen. Santino nodded and left the queue, twirling the knife on the tip of his finger. The only woman that noticed pulled her children closer, but laughed along with them as they watched, caution in her eyes.
Santino veered his ambling gait toward the carnival’s exit.
If the assassin noticed Alicia was missing he gave no sign. In Drake’s opinion the man must know she was AWOL. They had underestimated this assassin, and probably how good most of the participants were in this little charade. It would never happen again. Indeed, Drake wanted to live and tear apart the clouds that roiled between Mai and himself. And he wanted to unravel the many mysteries they’d discovered at Zoya’s place. The Russian monster had hoarded myriad secrets. And he wanted to slide a dagger into Coyote’s neck. For all these dreams to come to pass he had to survive this night.
Last man standing.
At any cost.
Now, he flicked his head at Mai. The Japanese ninja read his intent loud and clear. She melted into the crowd, flitting along its edges like silent, unseen death. Drake and Dahl increased their pace. Santino glanced back at them once more, eyes barely widening when he noticed what had happened.
Now the decision was his. Try to carry out his threat and die, or run to live. He chose the latter. He broke quickly for the exit, not anticipating the turnstiles. Though they were open they still clogged the path and the milling people did nothing but get in his way. After several moments of frustration Santino lost his temper and pounded toward a nearby collection of games and amusements stalls. Drake was well aware of the need for discretion. The last thing they needed now was a carnival brawl that brought cops from far and wide. He moved fast after Santino, then stopped in amazement as a carnival-ground basketball flew through the night and connected squarely with the assassin’s face. Santino halted as if he’d run into a brick wall, blinking and dazed. The basketball bounced away amidst chimes of young-sounding laughter.
Alicia appeared from the middle of a crowd, spinning another ball on the tip of her finger.
Santino fixed her with a glare of hatred. He leapt at her, snarling, but again experienced only pure shock as he landed face-first in the dirt. Mai had stepped in from the side, tripping him before he even got started.
Drake and Dahl stepped in, hauling him up by the armpits and laughing at the nearby people. Drake imitated a man downing many pints as Dahl scooped up the discarded knife and tucked it away. Santino fought and struggled but the combined strength of the men holding him gave him little room to maneuver. Fathers laughed. Mothers looked stern. Even those working the stalls smiled.
Drake and Dahl manhandled Santino past the last stall and into the shadows that surrounded the fence around this place. Tall trees stood alongside and hung their high branches overhead. The lights and laughter seemed far away. As they turned Santino around and flung him up against the fence, a couple jumped up from the overgrown brush not far away, both in states of undress and fleeing with clothes unbuttoned and pants around their ankles. Alicia chortled after them.
“I’d put that away before I reached the carnival, little man.”
Drake stood back from Santino, giving the assassin air. “We’re fighting in a tournament that I intend to win, dickhead. So here’s your chance. Go for it.”
Santino didn’t need to be told twice. Fast as a striking snake he struck at Drake; jab and punch, jab and sidestep, another knife appearing in his left hand, then more thrusts, feints and sharp punches. Drake ducked and dodged, letting Santino’s blade tangle in the side of his jacket.
Santino wrenched it free. The heave unbalanced him.
Drake pounced, breaking down the assassin’s defense in seconds and leaving him writhing on the ground. Blood coated the grass all around.
Dahl looked sideways at him. “You intend to win?”
Drake smashed Santino’s face into the dirt with his boot heel. “Who else is there?”
Alicia and Mai were staring too, perhaps waiting for the punch line. Drake didn’t have one and wasn’t about to make one up. Not on this day. Not when Coyote was so close.
Santino gurgled. Drake started to pile brush over him. Mai finally hunkered down alongside him. “He’s done. Let’s move on to the town and finish what we came here to finish.”
“Sure. I can do that.”
Alicia kicked at the slow-moving mound. “This is actually better than he deserves.”
A quick weapons search had found a utility knife, a military blade, and two powerful but small handguns. Drake handed the weapons out and consulted the map. Alicia swatted it aside.
“Let’s just get away from this piece of dying shit,” she said, “and worry about the damn town when we get there.”
She walked off. Drake looked at Mai and Dahl, sharing a moment of startled bewilderment. One thing only was Alicia Myles’ constant — she was never predictable. Numb to the visual delights and mouth-watering smells of the carnival, the four made their way through the crowds and the temporary stalls toward the heart of the town of Sunnyvale — their own personal Ground Zero.
It had begun.