******
New Hampton: The woods
Kitty Cat raced into the clearing as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.
“Trouble!” he called out. “There’s trouble at the snake handlers’!”
“What is it?” Yeoman asked.
“Cauliflower called my cell. He’d gone to check out the commune because he heard a lot of noise over there. Got there too late to see all of what had happened, but saw your partner—” he nodded at Ackroyd—“and Mushroom Daddy get taken by a bunch of armed thugs.”
“Mushroom Daddy?” Ackroyd asked.
Yeoman gestured. “A local character. Harmless. He lives on Onion Avenue. He has some kind of weird ace—he grows the best produce in the area.” He turned back to Kitty Cat. “What’s happening now?”
“Cauliflower says they’re beating them up. Daddy and that Creighton guy. Beating them up and asking them questions about the boy, but they can’t answer ‘em.”
Ray looked at Brennan. “How far’s the compound from here?”
“Cross country, a couple of miles.”
“All right,” Ray said. “Let’s move.”
They paused, looked at Ackroyd. “Go ahead,” the private investigator said, “I’ll follow as best I can.”
Yeoman nodded decisively. “Kitty Cat—show him the way.”
“All right,” the tiny joker said.
“Follow me,” Yeoman said, and he and Ray took off through the woods.
They left Ackroyd behind in moments. Yeoman moved fast, Ray thought, but not super-humanly fast. He set a good pace, but Ray held himself back, necessarily following the archer down the thickly-forested hillside. Minutes passed, perhaps four or five, then they burst out of the woods onto the verge of a familiar road that ran along the hillside like an asphalt ribbon.
Yeoman leaned over, breathing heavily. Ray had broken a sweat, but his breath was still normal. “Stick to the road,” Yeoman told him. “You’ll move faster on it than cross country. This is Lower Road—”
“I know,” Ray said. “The compound?”
“Left. Uphill all the way. You’ll see a gated dirt road with a sign. You can’t miss it. I’ll follow as quickly as I can.”
“Do that,” Ray said.
He started down the road at an easy lope. Yeoman kept pace for the first ten or fifteen yards, then Ray started to pull away. He ran like an animal, just for the sheer physical enjoyment of feeling his muscles work like parts of a well-designed machine, without thought of what he would find when he came to the end of his run. Like always when fighting or exercising or screwing, Ray lived in the moment, concentrating on the play of muscle and tendon, of flesh and bone fighting against gravity, of mind and will battling the inevitable depletion of the energy that ran the machine of his body.
The road went uphill at a steady grade. Within moments he was breathing hard, gasping for oxygen that he needed to fuel his system, but Yeoman was a hundred yards back, moving okay for a nat, but beaten badly, Ray thought, just the same. Beaten badly. He looked at the slope looming before him and sucked in a long shuddering breath between clenched teeth. This hill wouldn’t beat him, either.
He leaned into it, pumping his arms harder as he lengthened his stride. The captives might be undergoing unspeakable tortures now at the hands of the kidnapper gang, but that was only part of what drove Ray. Not even the major part of it.
It was the hill under his feet that pushed him on, harder and harder, his breath whistling now like a dying bird as it escaped his throat. The damned hill was trying to slow him down. Trying to beat him. Trying to clip the wings off of his feet. But he wouldn’t let it.
He was in a full sprint when he saw the turnoff, and had to slow down so he wouldn’t get tangled up while he turned onto the dirt path leading into the woods. It went uphill, again. The grade was steep, right up the face of the hill, not rising gently along its edge.
He ran on the left shoulder as the path twisted and banked through the trees. It seemed like a long time before he saw the parking area, but it was probably only a few minutes. The lot was still a hundred yards distant as the meandering path leveled out. Between the intervening trees and the surrounding cars he couldn’t quite make out what was happening. A couple of big, dark sedans were parked in haphazard angles in the open space before some run-down wooden buildings. Barns or something. At least half a dozen men were standing around, watching something that was out of his range of vision.
His head started to swim, so he slowed down a little, realizing that he was on the verge of total system collapse as his muscles burned the last of the energy available to them. Fortunately, he would arrive on the scene in seconds and speed was no longer of the essence. Now silence was.
He took long, deep breaths. He tried to make his steps lighter, as if he were gliding over the ground. As he approached he got a better view of what was happening. He didn’t like what he saw.
He counted fourteen men in the parking lot. He figured this Mushroom Daddy was the hippie-looking guy being held with his arms pinned behind his back by one of the thugs. Two others held Creighton, Ackroyd’s partner, while a third systematically beat him with a truncheon. Eight others stood around watching. Ray grinned. Those were odds that he could enjoy.
No one had seen or heard him yet as he came closer and closer. No one... no one... no one...
Someone finally spotted him and opened his mouth to yell as Ray launched himself into the air. He landed on the hood of a car, catapulted off, bounced back to the ground, and hit the Allumbrado as he went by. He pulled his punch, but only a little.
Seven left.
Two were standing next to each other. Ray went down, his leg shot out in a sweeping arc, and cut them to the ground. Ray rolled forward, once, and was on them. He grabbed one by his jacket collar and head-butted him into unconsciousness. The other tried to crawl away. Ray grabbed his belt and dragged him back, kicking and screaming. He wrapped a hand in his greasy hair, made a disgusted face, and slammed his head, face first, into the packed dirt of the parking lot, smashing his nose flat and stunning him like a steer in a slaughter house hit between the eyes with an ax. Ray left him choking on his own blood.
Five left.
Ray scrambled to his feet and saw that he had run out of luck. The man standing six feet from him had drawn a pistol. Well out of Ray’s reach, he smiled and aimed carefully as Ray launched himself. The gunman squeezed off two shots then lost his smile as he realized that actually he wasn’t well out of Ray’s reach. Ray’s grin turned savage as one of the shots ripped past his ear and the other tore through meat and muscle high on his right shoulder, punching a hole clean through from chest to back. Ray didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. He hit the man around the waist, like back in the days before his ace turned and he was playing six-man football in high school in Montana, only now his ace had turned. He was hurt and jazzed with adrenaline and pain and less conscious of his own strength. He felt the man’s ribs crack as he slammed him hard against a car fender and the shooter screamed as internal organs pulped.
Four left.
Two stood side by side, their automatics out. For the first time Ray remembered Yeoman and he wondered how long it would take the bowman to reach the battleground. The two thugs squeezed off shots that whined off the car’s fender, ricocheting into the night. Ray knew he wasn’t strong enough to throw a car at the shooters, so he threw the only thing he had, the body he still held. They ducked, splitting apart, and Ray went in on the heels of the dead man. More shots rang out and he felt the pain of a fiery poker drilling though his left thigh and upper right chest. He drew a deep breath, his smile a death’s mask, relieved when he realized that the bullet had missed his lung. That would have been trouble. Then he was on them. He grabbed a wrist and waltzed one around so that he blocked the other’s shot. He snapped his captive’s forearm and the injured man dropped his gun, screaming. The other, his eyes wide with fear, tried to blast through his comrade. Ray, wearing his captive like a bulletproof vest, rushed the shooter, who fired and back-pedaled as fast as he could. He clicked empty and Ray hadn’t felt any more impacts. Either he was beyond feeling, or his impromptu shield had absorbed all the shots. He tossed the body away and fell on the shooter, who screamed and threw his pistol. The automatic hit Ray in the cheek, the sight slicing it and pissing Ray off even more. Ray’s hand closed on the thug’s flailing arm and he pulled him close and wrenched his shoulder out of its socket. The man screamed. For good measure Ray grabbed his other arm and pulled that one out of its socket as well. The Allumbrado fell to the ground still screaming, and Ray turned.
Two left.
They were standing next to each other, ten feet from Ray. The others, who were holding the hippie and Ackroyd’s partner, had not moved. Two left, and one was unarmed. Ray recognized him. It was the blonde asshole who had abused Angel in Vegas. Ray smiled.
But the other was holding an automatic rifle and pointing it right at Ray’s chest. He realized there was no chance of dodging automatic rifle fire from the distance of ten feet. Fired from that close it could dish out more pain and destruction than he could deal with. It would certainly incapacitate him, and then it would be simple to deliver the coup de grace. Ray had never had to regenerate from a bullet between the eyes, and he didn’t want to try it for the first time so late in his career. He knew his only hope was to keep them talking as long as he could. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees, and took deep breaths.
“Witness,” he said, brushing futilely at the seeping bloodstains that had utterly ruined his suit, “what brings you to these parts?”
The blonde man frowned. “You recognize me?”
“Sure.” Ray took a deep breath to slow down his hammering heart. “I saw you in Vegas, picking on girls.”
Witness laughed. It was not a jolly sound. “Yes. I remember you now. Someone told me your name. Billy Ray, isn’t it?”
Ray nodded.
“So,” Witness said thoughtfully, “the federal government is involved. We weren’t sure, but we thought it might be when your partner made off with the boy.”
“My partner?” Ray asked. Then it struck him. “Oh, Angel.”
“Is that her name?” Witness said. “She’s quite striking. I’ll enjoy it when we meet again. Well.” He thought for a moment, then he glanced at the man who’d kept Ray covered the whole time. “I don’t think he can tell us anything more. Kill him.”
Ray tensed, ready for a desperate jump, knowing it would be useless.