A bullet tore a chunk from the plywood counter just in front of me. I scrambled to my feet and dashed the other way. The rest of the hunters moved toward me, closing in on my position like sharks.
“One for my master, one for my dame . . .”
The gunfire died. Silence claimed the store. I inhaled.
Four voices chorused in perfect unison. “And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”
I had them. They were mine.
Oh my God.
I straightened. The four hunters emerged from behind Sephora’s walls. The leading hunter pulled his ski mask off his head, revealing the scarred face of a white man in his thirties, and gave me a shy little smile.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi,” they chorused. A woman on my right gave me a little wave with her HK MP5. If she had shot me with it, the spray of bullets would’ve cut me in half.
“Tell the team upstairs that everything is clear. So they don’t have to worry.”
The scarred man got on his radio. “False alarm. Continue the sweep. Clear. Over.”
A static-softened answer came back. “Copy.”
I slid the sword into its sheath on my belt. “Can one of you bring me my cell phone and my coat? It’s the one that was on the zombie mannequin.”
The scarred man jerked his head at one of the other hunters. The hunter took off at a run and returned with my cell phone and my expensive coat, which now sported a couple of fresh bullet holes. Damn it. I turned the phone’s alarm off.
“Follow me, please. I have to get my shoes.” I walked to the corner of the store, where a lone cash register had somehow survived the looting. The hunters trailed me.
“Who sent you here?”
“Mr. De Lacy,” the scarred man told me.
“What were your orders?”
“We’re supposed to apprehend you and bring you back to his residence.”
Benedict was a sick asshole.
“We’re supposed to kill you if we couldn’t capture you,” a female hunter added.
“Sorry,” the scarred leader said.
Sorry didn’t quite cover it.
I took my boots from where I’d hidden them under the counter and put them and my ruined coat back on. My new bodyguards watched. I pushed aside the debris I had piled against a cabinet to keep it closed, opened the door, and took the little dog out. It licked my face.
I cradled the dog in my arms. “The people upstairs don’t realize I’m nice. They’ll try to kill me. You’ll keep me safe, won’t you?”
“We need to take them out,” the leader said. “It’s the safest way.”
The woman with the HK smiled. “The escalator is nice and narrow.”
The scarred hunter touched his radio. “We have her pinned down. Take the escalator down and cover us.”
“Copy.”
The leader pointed to a spot on the floor. “Stand there please.”
I stood. The four hunters flanked the escalator. Two hunters came down the steps, sticking close together, a third slightly behind. My four bodyguards let them get halfway down. Gunfire burst, deafening in the silence of the mall. Three bloody bodies fell.
Three more people I killed. I would deal with the guilt later. Right now, I had to survive.
The leader turned to me. “We should take care of the rest of the crew as well, while we’re at it. Safer that way.”
I forced my mouth to move. “Good idea.”
The hunters fell into a defensive formation around me, the scarred leader in front, two people on the sides, and the female hunter covering the rear. We walked back to the Keystone Mall entrance.
“Do you often capture people for Mr. De Lacy?”
“We’ve done it a few times,” the leader said. “Mostly we’re given termination jobs.”
“Was Sigourney Etterson one of your contracts? It would’ve been last Sunday.”
“No,” the scarred man said without a pause. “We did a wet job last Saturday. Sunday we were dark. I got some killer fishing done.”
Killer fishing. He didn’t even realize what he’d said.
“Did you go out on your boat?” the hunter on the right asked.
“Naah. Went kayak fishing on Lake Anahuac. Got a six-pound largemouth bass.”
“Nice!” the hunter on the right said.
“Who did you kill on Saturday?” I asked.
“Some lawyer,” the leader said. “A clean, easy job. He came home, we put a gun into his mouth, pulled the trigger. Left him for the wife to find.”
“I wish they were all that easy,” the female hunter said.
“Ain’t that the truth?” the hunter on the left added.