“What score?” Landon raises his voice. “What’s there apart from the forgery?”
“Leave us the Chronie and walk away.” Marco’s tone thickens with authority.
“So you’ll have one less witness to your crime?”
“Don’t bite off too much, John. Think of your family.”
“No, Marco.” John locks his jaw. “This Chronie is my responsibility.”
Marco flicks at a safety catch with his thumb. “You put me in a spot, my friend.”
This is it. This is the cue John has been waiting for. Thaddeus had warned of Marco’s notoriety and now that he has comprehended the state of their affairs he is convinced that Marco will suffer no compromise for the fulfilment of his objective.
He still has options. But he also has scruples so he can’t just walk away. He has given his word to Landon, and now that word is funnelling him towards a dreadful decision.
John stands at the crossroads wishing he had the time to explain everything to Landon. He thinks of Ginn and Fanny and makes up his mind. He has but one shot at it.
“Nice knowing you, Landon,” he turns his pistol upon Marco and pulls the trigger.
A flash, and the air ripples to the shockwave of a dull report.
John’s forehead bursts open in a spray of blood and bone. His broad, strong body folds and crumbles to the ground.
Landon catches it all in a state of shock and denial, his senses acutely aware of every grisly detail. A debilitating numbness consumes him, as strong as on the day he broke his oath and ceded his family plot. He sees John’s lifeless body, the set of sad-looking, half-opened eyes below the bloodied cavity of the skull, and his soul descends into a furnace of guilt and rage. It seems an impossibility that John should die. It isn’t real. Maybe it’s the neuro-thing. Maybe it’s an illusion and this entire affair is nothing more than a bad dream.
“Fastest gun in the west!” Marco guffaws and points his smoking weapon at Hannah. “I tell you she’s ten times faster! You’ve got to try her.”
Landon sees fear and resignation in her, as if at an appalling discovery.
“Lose the gun.” Marco tells Landon.
His fingers open, and the pistol slides from his hand.
Marco then slips in behind Hannah and speaks over her shoulder to Landon. “You know, Miss Alpine-One went through great lengths to cover you up but it wasn’t quite enough, was it?” He presses close to her and Landon sees her throat strain in a swallow. “I’ve been watching you, my friend, waiting for that perfect blunder to make it all official.” He turns and croons lavishly into Hannah’s ear. “Hullo, dolly. It’s been a long time.”
The revelation strikes home like a head-on with a runaway locomotive. A spell of nausea besets him.
“Voilà.” Marco throws open his arms and does another bow without taking his eyes off Landon. “You will remember me, you measly piece of shit.”
The broad face, the sloping hulk of Marco’s once-toned shoulders, all bear a sudden, dreadful resemblance to someone. Landon’s mind settles like the dying ripples of a millpond. And from the depths of his memory a malevolent name rises.
Khun.
Hannah’s chest heaves; her mouth twitches with inaudible speech. She senses Landon looking at her, probably wondering why she isn’t shooting him dead. Truth is she hasn’t prepared for this. She has grossly overlooked this possibility.
When Arthur pulped that maniac decades earlier she had foolishly allowed CODEX to retrieve him. She could’ve stalled the whole thing so that he’d be dead by the time they got to him. She had the break she needed but she did nothing.
And that’s where it hurts the most.
“It’s amazing what a little Serum and lots of surgical reconstruction can do.” Marco slaps his belly and grins. “Gained a little weight but still me. Five years in a coma and another sixteen in a rehab tank. Do the math. CODEX would’ve left me to rot if I hadn’t kept them in check by withholding the location of my hidden omnicron. They can’t afford to lose such gadgets.” He laughs at his own humour, then his gaze abruptly freezes over. “I’ll make sure you never forget this, Arthur Lock.”
Her fingers squirm over the weapon she’d got when John made the switch. It carries the Neut on its hand-grip, and is armed with useless blanks. She can hit Marco with it. A well-placed blow will dislodge the jaw, send him into a traumatic shock. Then she can take his gun and blast his head open. There will be consequences—the Coterie will see to that. But she’ll risk it if it means getting Marco out of Landon’s way also.
I’ve got him within reach, she tells herself. With a little distraction I might just—
A burst of searing whiteness tears out of her abdomen. There is the same report and shockwave, and the stench of ozone and scorched flesh pervades the air. She slides to the ground clutching the terrible wound. Marco kicks the gun out of her hand and sends it skittering across the tarmac.
“In case you’re wondering,” Marco proudly waves his smoking gun. “It’s a Syntec P-5 that fires plasma pulses at an eighty-watt range. Serum-tech. Totally cool stuff.”
Landon gawks and his mind spins, suddenly unable to comprehend speech.
“It’s coming together so beautifully,” Marco orates to the heights above them. He addresses Hannah: “Don’t forget it was I who convinced the Seers of your worth. And it was I who got you out of Torment and back into service.”
Hannah doesn’t look at him. She raises herself on an elbow and goes on gasping as a ghastly, partially-cauterized wound slowly bleeds out in a small pool around her.
“Kill me,” Landon says.
Marco turns sharply to him.
“Kill me,” Landon says again, “and appease yourself.”
Marco flies into wild, brutish laughter. “Being alive is going to be a hell lot tougher than death, my long-living friend.”
While he is speaking, Landon lunges, his arms clawing at Marco. But the seasoned Agent makes short work of the gallant attempt by side-stepping and plunging his fist into Landon’s spleen, slamming the breath out of him. Marco’s glass eye falls out at the sudden movement and rolls away.
Marco hauls Landon to his feet and presses his face close. Their eyes lock, and Landon defiantly holds his stare upon the cavernous rawness of the empty eye socket.
“You will live and suffer for my pleasure, you spineless little squirt!” Marco’s spittle flies into Landon’s face. “You’re the pesky fly that’s been buzzing in my head for the last eighty years and now I’m leashing you up and plucking your little legs off one by one.”
He drops Landon with another blow and paces around his victims, inspecting them, savouring their agony with a sadistic glitter in his remaining eye. He crouches beside Hannah and points at a writhing Landon with his pistol. “Maybe you could get him to kill you,” he tells her. “It’d be an easy cover for the Inquisition. A botched mission of a Tracker: killed while trying to kill.”
He turns to Landon. “Bust out her brains quick and painless,” he says, jabbing the pistol mockingly into his own temple. “I’ve mashed up her guts so she won’t live very long. Used her up a thousand times over.” He puts a fresh cigarette between his lips. “She’s all yours now.” He flicks a lighter and holds it to the tip.
Landon, bruised and defeated, painfully draws up his knees.
Marco returns to his GTR, opens the door and drops into the seat with a gratifying grunt. “This is only the beginning of your pain, Arthur Lock,” he says in a coarse drawl. “And when you’re through with it I’ll return to dish out more.”