“You’re getting better, Detective Hodges, and you still have a minute to go. Just relax and keep tapping. It’s easier when you relax.”
The voice is no longer echoing down a hallway; even though Brady is now standing right in front of him, it’s coming from a galaxy far, far away. Brady bends down and stares eagerly into Hodges’s face. Only there are fish swimming between them. Pinkies and blueies and reddies. Because Hodges is in the Fishin’ Hole now. Except it’s really an aquarium, and he’s the fish. Soon he will be eaten. Eaten alive. “Come on, Billy-boy, tap those pink fish!”
I can’t let him inside me, Hodges thinks, but I can’t keep him out.
He taps a pink fish, it turns into a 9, and it isn’t just fingers he feels now but another consciousness spilling into his mind. It’s spreading like ink in water. Hodges tries to fight and knows he will lose. The strength of that invading personality is incredible.
I’m going to drown. Drown in the Fishin’ Hole. Drown in Brady Hartsfield.
By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful s—
A pane of glass shatters close by. It’s followed by a jubilant chorus of boys shouting, “That’s a HOME RUN!”
The bond binding Hodges to Hartsfield is broken by the pure, unexpected surprise of the thing. Hodges jerks back in the chair and looks up as Brady wheels toward the couch, eyes wide and mouth open in startlement. The Victory .38, held against the small of his back only by its short barrel (the cylinder won’t allow it to go deeper), falls out of his belt and thumps to the bearskin rug.
Hodges doesn’t hesitate. He throws the Zappit into the fireplace.
“Don’t you do that!” Brady bellows, turning back. He raises the Scar. “Don’t you fucking da—”
Hodges grasps the nearest thing to hand, not the .38 but the ceramic penholder. There’s nothing wrong with his left wrist, and the range is short. He throws it at the face Brady has stolen, he throws it hard, and connects dead center. The ceramic skull shatters. Brady screams—pain, yes, but mostly shock—and his nose begins to gush blood. When he tries to bring up the Scar, Hodges pistons out his feet, enduring another deep gore of that bull’s horn, and smashes them into Brady’s chest. Brady backpedals, almost catches his balance, then trips over a hassock and sprawls on the bearskin rug.
Hodges tries to launch himself out of the chair and only succeeds in overturning the end table. He goes to his knees as Brady sits up, bringing the Scar around. There’s a gunshot before he can level it on Hodges, and Brady screams again. This time it’s all pain. He looks unbelievingly at his shoulder, where blood is pouring through a hole in his shirt.
Holly is sitting up. There’s a grotesque bruise over her left eye, in almost the same place as the one on Freddi’s forehead. That left eye is red, filled with blood, but the other is bright and aware. She’s holding the Victory .38 in both hands.
“Shoot him again!” Hodges roars. “Shoot him again, Holly!”
As Brady lurches to his feet—one hand clapped to the wound in his shoulder, the other holding the Scar, face slack with -disbelief—Holly fires again. This bullet goes way high, ricocheting off the fieldstone chimney above the roaring fire.
“Stop that!” Brady shouts, ducking. At the same time he’s struggling to raise the Scar. “Stop doing that, you bi—”
Holly fires a third time. The sleeve of Brady’s shirt twitches, and he yelps. Hodges isn’t sure she’s winged him again, but she at least grooved him.
Hodges gets to his feet and tries to run at Brady, who is making another effort to raise the automatic rifle. The best he can manage is a slow plod.
“You’re in the way!” Holly cries. “Bill, you’re in the fracking way!”
Hodges drops to his knees and tucks his head. Brady turns and runs. The .38 bangs. Wood splinters fly from the doorframe a foot to Brady’s right. Then he’s gone. The front door opens. Cold air rushes in, making the fire do an excited shimmy.
“I missed him!” Holly shouts, agonized. “Stupid and useless! Stupid and useless!” She drops the Victory and slaps herself across the face.
Hodges catches her hand before she can do it again, and kneels beside her. “No, you got him at least once, maybe twice. You’re the reason we’re still alive.”
But for how long? Brady held onto that goddam grease gun, he may have an extra clip or two, and Hodges knows he wasn’t lying about the SCAR 17S’s ability to demolish concrete blocks. He has seen a similar assault rifle, the HK 416, do exactly that, at a private shooting facility in the wilds of Victory County. He went there with Pete, and on the way back they joked about how the HK should be standard police issue.
“What do we do?” Holly asks. “What do we do now?”
Hodges picks up the .38 and rolls the barrel. Two rounds left, and the .38 is only good at short range, anyway. Holly has a concussion at the very least, and he’s almost incapacitated. The bitter truth is this: they had a chance, and Brady got away.
He hugs her and says, “I don’t know.”