A man was reaching for her from the right and he got a dislocated thumb for thanks then another kick to the balls followed by an elbow in the chin that drove him into unconsciousness. This left Barb balanced to the right and she used it to high kick to the left, catching one of the group in the throat and undoubtedly breaking his hyoid bone. That was a kill for sure and certain if somebody didn’t do a tracheotomy. But she didn’t let it slow her down.
The last two attackers were the one on the bed, who was getting off as fast as he could, and the guy who had been grappling him. She feinted a kick at the balls at the standing man and then followed the motion forward with an open hand blow to the nose. As the man’s hands came up to his shattered nose she punched him in the solar plexus and drove a hand up under his descending chin. Then she wrapped his head in one arm and stepped forward, over and back, rotating his neck through three dimensions and snapping it like a twig.
The last attacker was scrambling for the window but she was in no mood to deal with him later. She stepped forward and kicked him in the small of the back, throwing him into the wall, then punched at a pressure point in the upper back, temporarily immobilizing him with pain. Then she dislocated his shoulder, kneed him in the groin as she twisted him around, broke his instep and drove a hammer blow into his upper neck as he bent over from the blow.
She looked around the room and nodded. There was some groaning but most of the figures weren’t so much as twitching. At least two were dead, probably more. The thought suddenly made her queasy so she put it out of her mind, she had no time to throw up, and took one more look around.
“Time to leave,” she muttered, looking at the dark hallway and then the slight light from the window. “No real choice there,” she said, quietly, picking up her backpack and moving to the door as silently as she could. She looked at the broken glass and then leapt up and forward over it, legs stretched like a hurdler, body bent to avoid the upper sill. But while she was still in midair she saw the figure by the ladder rising up, holding a rifle or shotgun in his hands.
She landed carefully and drew her sidearm with a practiced and automatic motion, cocking the lever and firing twice at center of mass. She was rewarded by seeing the target fall off the roof with a quiet grunt of surprise and a small cry. He couldn’t know it was she who had come through the window and he’d hesitated so he wouldn’t shoot one of his friends. That wouldn’t happen every time. Especially now that the relative silence of the night had been ruptured by pistol fire.
She decocked the pistol and holstered it, buckling it in place, then ran to the edge of the roof, jumping down and landing in a roll. She came up on one knee, drew her pistol and scanned for targets all around. The previous target was on the ground, groaning, so she ran to him and looked for the weapon he’d been holding.
“A pistol in a gunfight is only good for getting a shotgun,” she muttered, scanning the ground. “A shotgun is only good for getting a long gun.”
She found the long gun a few feet from his body and picked it up, examining it and trying not to curse.
It was an AR-10, the identical model that Kelly had in the trunk of his car. What were the odds of that?
She went to the groaning figure and quickly rifled his body, looking for ammunition for the rifle. He was wearing a camouflage blouse that was just about covered in blood, so she wasn’t going to be borrowing it. There were two spare magazines, one in each blouse pocket. Those went in the back pockets of her jeans.
She straightened up and pulled back the charging handle of the AR-10, ensuring that there was a round in the chamber, then headed around the back of the hotel as voices and flashlights closed in on the front.
There was an overgrown garden in the back that terminated in the bayou. She moved through it as silently as she could until she was on the far side, away from the voices, and then suddenly bent over, pulled up her mask and was sick as quietly as she could manage.
When she was done throwing up she pulled the backpack off her back and took out one of the bottles of Pepsi. She carefully opened the top to quiet the hiss and let the shaken bottle relieve some pressure, then quickly opened it and used it to swill out her mouth, spitting to get the taste out. Then she capped it, put it back in the bag and listened to the night.
There was shouting from inside the hotel and she could see flashlights up on the second floor. None of the words were coherent but she thought she recognized the voice of Deputy Mondaine.
Big surprise there.
It was definitely time to get out of town. The problem was wheels.
She walked quickly to the edge of the swamp and rubbed mud on her running shoes, wiping her hands off on the grass. Then she picked up a twig by feel and slid it into the barrel of the gun to check that it was clear. It was.
That done she hoisted the rifle into a tactical position, butt by her shoulder, barrel down, and headed west, away from the voices. She wasn’t sure what was to the west, but it had to be better than this place.
Chapter Seven
Kelly awoke to screaming.
He had the worst headache of his life, like a pounding hammer in his head, and the screams were making it worse. But he couldn’t blame Dolores; he’d be screaming too.
He was in the nave of the old church, handcuffed and, from the feel of it, somehow shackled to the floor. The floor of the back of the nave had been removed, revealing an empty hole and, from the sounds of it, water. Apparently at one point the church had been built out over the swamp and for some reason the current group of madmen had opened it up.
There was a low wooden altar in front of him with Carlane standing in front of it, wearing black robes with green symbols on them, his hands raised above his head and chanting in some strange language. On the far side an old-fashioned whipping post had been erected and the hooker from New Orleans was chained to it, hands overhead, and two men wearing robes were working her over, in turn, with a set of cat-o-nine-tails. Each time the hard-swung leather thongs touched her flesh she let out a scream. There was blood running down her back and over her legs.
There were three other men in robes flanking Carlane, their heads bowed, chanting a low, monotonic response, and a group of worshippers, about twenty, down in the main area of the church, were waving their hands overhead and repeating the response.
“Agathalu Almadu!” Carlane chanted. “Asertu Almadu! Thagomod Tthu!”
“Asertu Almadu!” the robed figures chanted with the worshippers repeating.
“Souls for you, Almadu!” Carlane said. “Come to us, Almadu! Bring us to power!”
“Asertu Almadu!”
The nave was lit with candles and Kelly shook his head, trying to believe he was imagining the scene. But the screams were real, and the crack of the whips in flesh.
“Feel the pain, Lord Almadu!” Carlane shouted. “Calling to you, Lord Almadu! Pain for you, Lord Almadu! Give to us the power!”
“Asertu, Almadu!”
“He comes!” Carlane shouted, throwing his arms wide and his head up as if struck by something invisible. “Bring her!” he said in a deeper tone.
Dolores was unshackled quickly, falling to her knees in weakness, but the two men with whips expertly hoisted her up and dragged her to the altar. Then, as the other three joined them, four of them grasped her arms and legs, the fifth pulled up his robes and roughly mounted her. Dolores barely let out a whimper until her body began to rock against the hard wood, rubbing her lacerated back against it and eliciting a weak shriek of pain.