“His sister? What do you mean, Number Five? Isn’t Victoria Number Five?”
“Read the article.” Hamilton’s life was indeed diabolical.
“Melinda Cramer was Handley’s sister, wasn’t she? The DNA match I ordered will come back positive.” He read the slightest wrinkle of Hamilton’s eyebrows as a confirmation.
“Stop the cat and mouse,” Cody said. “I know you’re going to tell me who Number Five is.”
“Jake Sallinger, my erstwhile editor at Metro,” Hamilton answered in a coy tone. “By now your boys have found his body-and my article. Alas, this is one piece I’ve written that the bastard won’t get to mark up with his illegible scrawl. They’ll decide to run it, of course, after a perfunctory wringing of their limousine liberal consciences.”
“What about Handley’s sister?” Cody pressed. “Why did you go after the two of them?”
“Victoria was right. You aren’t that good, are you? You’re a good clue man, but you stink at research. Read the article.”
“So thanks to your marksmanship, Victoria became Number Six…”
“She wanted to be the one to do you,” Hamilton said. “She always told me I get all the luck. I only wish I could have fucked with you a little more,” he added, “for all the aggravation and delays your reluctant cooperation caused me.”
“Your luck has run out, Ward.” Cody reached for the cuffs in his jacket pocket.
But his hand never got there.
Distracting the detective’s attention with the plastic lantern, Hamilton’s free hand had concealed something behind his back.
A distinctly marine odor made Cody cry out. He moved to block the man but was too late.
With a single fluid motion Hamilton lurched at him, using the arrow as a hand-held weapon, and stabbed him savagely in the leg, puncturing his pants behind and two inches above his knee.
Then he compounded the wound by yanking it back out.
Saxitoxin. Cody’s brain identified the odor, recognizing it from one of Max’s forensic pathology demonstrations. He broke into a sweat. The marine secretion was neurotoxic to mammals and caused a respiratory paralysis known as paralytic shellfish poisoning.
“Which leaves you,” Hamilton said, “as the very probable Number Seven. Though, of course, I always believe in backups.” There was the coy tone again. “Either way, I win, you lose.” His voice now sounded like a hissing snake.
Then, howling in ghoulish laughter, Hamilton watched Cody fall to his knees.
The detective lost control over his legs.
Echoing from outside the cave was Charley’s angry howl, backed by the distant chorus of the wolves.
“I’m not sure your canine pals can help you now,” Hamilton said, shoving Cody’s back against the wall of the cave and pulling his legs in front of him.
“Sit up! Sit up! That’s a good boy,” Hamilton chuckled-and disappeared into the darkness from which he came.
There must be another entrance was what Cody thought as the numbness rose through his midriff.?
Cody could think of only one thing: The poison’s effects would progress upward, finally paralyzing his heart. He must cut the toxin from his body while he could still use his arms.
His fear was replaced almost immediately by action. He remembered the words of Old Man.
Do not panic or you will die. Be calm but do not hesitate. Move slow like the possum, but do not waver. Do what you must do before the sleep comes.
Charley rushed onto the scene, yapping mournfully. Fending the dog away with one arm, Cody moved resolutely but in slow motion, using his hunting knife to slice open his pants and expose the puncture wound that was already reddening and beginning to swell.
Unflinching, he leaned over, cut a v-shaped incision an inch deep, and scooped the flesh away with the sharp blade. He could smell the venom as he discarded the scoop of bleeding flesh, and sliced two long strips of cloth from his pants. His teeth began to chatter. Pain overwhelmed him. His thoughts were a jumble of images flashing through his head:
Amelie’s face as he entered her in the sauna.
Handley in his death seat.
A shaft of blue sunlight.
The rattlesnake striking in the cave.
Uncle Tony’s frozen rictus.
His Pa vomiting in the bathroom.
The beautiful Song Wiley, serene in death.
The white wolf pointing him the way.
Hamilton’s infernal sneer.
Drawing on his last strength, he leaned forward to suck the venom from the wound. But the angle was impossible even for an agile man. No matter how he tried it, he simply wasn’t flexible enough to reach beneath and above his knee.
Reading his master’s dilemma, the shepherd’s lifesaving instincts instantly took over.
Cody’s heart jumped. “No, Charley,” he grunted from his near-delirium. But it was too late.
His faithful sidekick, whose life Cody had saved long ago, was settled on his haunches beside Ka-Wan’s leg, his rough tongue licking at the wound as though attacking one of Waldo’s bones, aggressively sucking the venom from it.
Never give up hope. Hope is a test. When you think all is lost, an answer will come to you. A solution will be found. A gift from the Creator?
It was working.
Though Cody was beginning to shake, and the pain that numbed his lower legs was intense, the numbness was not climbing higher. He looked straight into Charley’s eyes. The flashing download of thoughts slowed. He began a nimiipuutimpt chant to himself, slowing the words, lowering them deep in his throat.
He felt himself recovering, felt the blood flowing in his legs again.
Charley finished his licking. He stood up, stretched his legs and shook himself. He staggered across the cavern floor, looked back at Cody, put his head back and howled, a single, sustained, note.
A few seconds passed and, off in the distance, his song was answered with the same call.
Then Charley crumpled at his master’s feet.
Helplessly Cody watched the fire flicker out of his canine friend’s eyes until they were flat and cold and still.
Charley had taken Number Seven for himself.
The howl from the outside came again, this time mournful, echoing the sorrow Cody was experiencing.
Quickly Cody did his best to bind his wound with the strips he’d sliced from his pants. Reaching down to place his hand on Charley’s head, Cody held back his tears and stumbled after Androg.?
The far exit of the cave opened into a clearing in the woods. As Cody left the shelter, a flash of lightning made it clear that the clearing was empty. But his eyes instantly spotted Hamilton’s wet tracks, moving north.
Wincing at the pain of his cut leg and wobbly from the temporary paralysis, he followed the tracks till they entered the woods on the far side of the cave clearing.
Then lost all signs in the bramble bushes. Cody ducked and wove his way through, checking every inch for clues of passage. But without Charley along and his prodigious sense of smell, he was coming up empty-handed.
He’d gone half a mile when he stopped, squatting down behind a pin oak. He studied a bare circle of earth in front of him where the bushes had died out from what looked to have been a quickly-contained brush fire.
On one side was a mini-cliff, a sheer granite face dropping ten feet. If his night-vision had not been so keen he might have tumbled to his death.
Above the cliff were more tracks.
He needed to catch his breath anyway so he forced himself to be patient, studying the tracks for direction and estimating they were no older than a few minutes.
Where was Hamilton going? What kind of merry chase was his demented psyche leading him on?
Cautiously he stood up and, careful to avoid the precipice, walked across the bare circle back into the brush on the far side.
The bramble abruptly ended. A branch of the meadow was on the other side, and he could see the tracks clearly again. He was feeling stronger by the minute.?