Now they were moving toward us. It seemed they’d happily stab Niko and sing a hymn or two as his soul was lifted up unto Heaven, but they’d also just as happily kill me and where my soul went, they didn’t give a crap. As I wasn’t sure I had a soul or that souls existed at all, I didn’t much give a crap myself, but I would like to stay alive—screw the philosophical debate.
I pulled the Eagle and aimed it at the one in front. My hand wasn’t as steady as I’d like, but at least I didn’t have double vision. “Okay, Nik, time for a little guidance. They’re killers, but they could be insane so technically it might not be their fault. This is one of those gray areas where someone with a better handle on morality should call the shots. My decision might be extreme.” I’d already proven that once before. “Do we kill them or not?”
I personally thought that if they were crazy, it wasn’t a kind of crazy you could fix. It was a kind of crazy they had chosen. They’d picked up knives instead of pamphlets. If they had chosen Jack on top of the rest of it, hell, there was no pill for that. Also, I didn’t like being stabbed. It was one of my least favorite injuries. Avoiding that would be good.
“No killing.” Niko had his sword out. “Even impaired, you’re more than good enough to take them down without necessarily killing all of them.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was what I expected. Unless one of them got very lucky there was still more than enough distance to do as Nik wanted. The same hadn’t necessarily been true at the Ninth Circle, but, then again, whose fault had that been?
“You will not touch us. We are sanctified, soon to be apprentices. You took once, but you will not be allowed to take again,” said the one still striding toward us.
Yeah . . . that sounded good. But he was wrong. The crazies usually are. I liked that dependable quality in them.
I started firing. I was a good shot. I practiced daily and had since I was sixteen. That made a thigh shot easy enough and hopefully shatter the bone. They might walk after that, but they wouldn’t ever run again, with or without a knife. If I hadn’t been trading shots of vodka with Boris, I would’ve done that. But it was too risky now. If a single shot went astray, went past one of them, someone two blocks away could die while talking on their cell phone. Not good. I aimed for the good old center mass as they taught you first day on the gun range. The first three fell before the others realized what was happening and dissolved into a small charging mob. They had guts, crazy or not, and if Niko had thought they were more of a threat their guts would’ve been on the grass. As it was, he had ample time to flank them and hamstring four of them. That left one turning on him and two still coming at me. I shot them both in the stomach. Depending on the speed of the ambulances and the skill of the surgeons, some of them could survive. I’d made the effort. It was the best I could do.
Niko had grabbed the hair of one he’d put down either about to ask what cult he belonged to or to give him tips on how to better grip his knife while attacking, but the scream of approaching sirens put an end to that. I grabbed one of the bottles of vodka and tossed it to him and carried the last myself as we ran. I’d never been fingerprinted. Nothing would show up, but neither did I want my fingerprints on file as unknown assailant in a homeless Hibachi practice gone horribly wrong.
We were halfway home when Niko finally said what I wasn’t jumping to volunteer. “I don’t think that was any sort of coincidence, do you?”
I thought about opening the vodka, thought long and hard never mind my head was already aching, before admitting, “I think it’s the second noncoincidence to happen to me this week.”
12
Niko
Twelve Years Ago
Coincidence, I wasn’t a big believer . . . philosophically or practically.
The books I’d started reading on men and women throughout history and their thoughts on the universe, the ones I was drawn to the most told me coincidence was my mind glimpsing a truth I didn’t understand.
There were more coincidences around Junior than I cared for.
But a serial killer next door—it would be ridiculous overkill on the universe’s part with all the rest we had in our lives. How could someone believe that? What I meant, of course, was how could I believe that?
I decided what I found in the library at the end of the day would make up my mind for me. If I found something about a missing prostitute, unlikely, Cal and I would leave. If I found nothing, I’d tell Cal he was wrong, to stay out of Junior’s backyard, and we’d get on with our lives—as weird and strange as those lives were.