Cowboy Ending - Overdrive: Book One (51 page)

The Neanderthal
in my belly pranced a sadistic war dance and threw every last piece
of wood he had left onto his bonfire, howling maniacally the whole
time.

Reaching for
the well at the back of my neck proved fruitless. The tingle was
still there, but my mouth was dry and my empty stomach began to
chime in with the rest of the pain I was feeling.

Nothing left in
that tank.

My teeth
gritted together until my jaw hurt. But I managed to get an elbow
under me, my coat slipping a bit in the vodka and blood mixture
pooled on the floor beneath me.

Miller didn’t
wait, stepping forward with another meaty kick.

Catching
his foot as it hit didn’t make the blow hurt any less. It still
hammered into my chest, driving what was left of the air out of my
lungs in an agonized breath. What it
did
do was keep him from trying to complete the
Riverdance on my face as I tried to regain some semblance of
composure.

Miller tried to
yank his leg free with no avail. Finally he reached down, broken
bottle neck swinging towards my head.

Twisting my
body hurt like hell, but it succeeded in torqueing Miller’s leg to
one side. Turning his momentum away and driving him face first to
the floor beside me. The motion cost me my grip on his leg so I
rolled away to my left, trying to find space and air to breathe
that wasn’t completely filled with smoke.

Getting up to
my knees was tough. Up to my feet was worse. But I did it. The
smoke was very low now and making me cough like crazy. I wasn’t
certain which direction I was even going in anymore. All I knew was
that Miller was behind me and that’s where I needed him to
stay.

A movement off
to my left pulled me up short.

Officer Don
Mackie sat curled up in a tiny ball, shaking and trembling at the
base of a plush couch. The top of the couch was on fire as well and
adding to the acrid smoke in the air. His eyes were distant,
shocked and spaced out. Like a guy on wicked drugs. Or one who’d
finally slipped.

“So sorry,
honey …” he was mumbling, I could barely make it out over the
background noise. “So sorry, honey. Daddy can’t be there this
weekend. Mummy is taking you away. So sorry, honey…”

Thudding
footsteps were my only warning. I turned back in time to see
Miller’s huge frame come barreling out of the smoke to hammer into
me with a full speed tackle.

I was launched
off my feet into the couch Mackie was huddled in front of . It
rocked heavily under the impact, slamming back against the
wall.

The back of my
neck screamed at me, but not like the other day with the headaches
and nausea. The smell of burning flesh added to the other foul
aromas surrounding me. My body flailed in agony, twisting away from
the pain.

My coat. My
damned vodka soaked coat caught on fire.

Still flailing
and trying to roll away from Miller’s advance I managed to get my
left arm out of the coat, lessening the burning sensation slightly
as I staggered to my feet and stumbled into the mini bar in what
was left of the VIP area.

Miller seized
the capsized couch in both hands and hurled it out of his way as he
stalked towards me. He’d lost his suit jacket somewhere along the
way. His white dress shirt was now a ruin of sweat, soot and blood.
Where it wasn’t ripped and torn of course.

Seeing me on my
feet Miller strode forward, backhanding Mackie’s mentally shattered
form on his way by and charged.

My aching body
protested my next move.

Pushing myself
off the bar with a cry of agony I swung my right arm forward in a
short arc and caught the charging Miller with my blazing leather
bomber jacket right in the face. His scream was accompanied by a
faint sizzle as flames seared his flesh.

The momentum
he’d built up carried him forward into me. Reaching up with my left
hand I grabbed at the opposite sleeve and wrapped the flaming coat
tighter around Miller’s head, trying to keep the bull sized man
tied up and blind. The coat blazed in my face, I could only imagine
how it felt on his flesh.

Miller wrenched
and reeled, trying to pull away from me, his thick man paws
scrambling for a purchase point on the coat where he wouldn’t burn
his hands.

I was
screaming. Didn’t remember starting. But I knew I was doing it.

He kept trying
to pull up and away from me but I used all of my leverage to
maintain my grip on the coat. Miller roared in agony, bracing with
both feet planted wide and finally wrenched the coat out of my
weakening grip and flung it away. His face was severely burned,
blisters and raw flesh bubbling in the open air. His beard and hair
smoldering and charred.

Miller’s eyes
found mine and the rage expressed in that gaze blazed with
murder.

So I kicked him
in the balls as hard as I could.

What? He was
standing in the perfect position for it.

You’d have done
the same.

Anyways, after
taking a field goal in the pills Miller hunched over and began
staggering away from me. A reversal of roles if I ever saw one.

I reached
behind the mini bar and grabbed a bottle of liquor myself and
stumped after Miller’s retreating, wounded form into the smoke
looking to return the favor. My ribs ached like fury and I coughed
on every breath. But there was no way I was going to leave this
monster behind me until I was sure he was out of the fight.

Which of course
was when Mackie decided to regain lucidity.

He rushed at me
from out of the smoke, bleeding from the nose and with tears
streaming from his eyes. Both hands extended before him like claws
and his lips peeled back in a snarl. Words tumbled from his mouth
in a monstrous mish mash that I couldn’t decipher.

The tingle at
the back of my neck pulsed in surprise, sending a jolt through my
body as it reacted on instinct. Swinging the full bottle of whisky
forward like a major league pitcher and smashing it across Mackie’s
face in a shower of glass and amber liquid.

His body still
crashed headlong into me taking us both to the floor. My torso
protested in agony again as we hit the floor in a tangled mess. I
shoved him off of me as quickly as I could, trying to keep the
whisky from soaking me as much as possible. Fulfilling the role of
Human Torch after everything else was of no interest to me.

Mackie’s face
was a disaster. The glass had ripped his cheek and forehead wide
open, blood pooled beneath his head and his eyes stared aimlessly
towards the ceiling.

His lips still
moved though. Whispering.

“…
sorry
… so sorry …. Didn’t mean to hurt her, Chris …. So sorry … it’s
them bitches …. Always making me hurt them ….”

He stopped
talking.

Mackie.

Mackie was the
client who killed Candace Cleghorn.

That’s why
they’d covered it up. To protect one of their own. And to deflect
attention away from the club when they were meeting with the
Koreans.

Shit.

I heaved myself
back up to my feet. The smoke was thicker than hell at this point,
the only things I could see for sure were the walls of fire where
the stage and the VIP section used to be. The main bar was going to
go up any second as flames licked at the casings and shelving units
where the liquor rested.

There. In front
of the main bar. A thick and stumbling form.

Miller.

I lurched
forward through the smoke and gathered what was left of my
strength. My belly was past growling and full on cramping with
emptiness. My head began to throb in time with the agony that
pulsed in my ribcage with every beat of my heart. My lungs burned
from the lack of oxygen and my eyes were as dry as the air.

But Miller was
not getting a chance to slink away from this mess.

Stumbling after
the man who seemed as wide as I was tall I built up what speed I
could and crashed into him, driving his body into the edge of the
bar in a classic two minute minor for boarding.

Miller grunted
in pain as we collided, flailing at my chest and pushing me back. I
stumbled a few feet until I regained my footing and drove my left
fist heavily into Miller’s face when he stepped forward. His head
rocked under the impact but didn’t go down. He took a return swipe
at me that I barely managed to duck, giving me the window to hammer
him with another shot right in the nose.

We continued
like that for a few frantic moments. It was a sign of my fatigue
that despite having a few clean shots at Miller’s head that I was
unable to put him down. A straight shot from me on a good day –
even before the crazy tingling stuff – would drop just about
anyone. It had been years since I’d needed to land more than three
punches on anyone in a fight.

I was just so
damned beat.

After the
fourth or fifth punch I managed to land my feet slipped on the
slick, glass strewn floor and I stumbled forward. My shoulder
coming into contact with Miller’s thick chest.

Like an
anaconda he vised his arms about my head and chest and began to
squeeze for all he was worth.

This was not
good. My ribs screamed at me. My voice would’ve joined in had there
been any air left in my lungs. Lights began to form in front of my
eyes again. Miller’s harsh, animalistic breathing panted in my
ears; dominating all the other sounds around us. He smelled of
whisky and burned flesh.

We fought
and jockeyed for position. I lurched and kicked with my legs,
slamming his back again and again into the main bar. Miller refused
to let go, pushing with his own legs and sending us stumbling into
the room. We swayed in this position eerily enough, locked in a
deadly struggle on the fiery remains of the
Cowboy Shotz
dance floor.

Our bodies
lurched left and right, my eyes beginning to lose focus. Miller’s
body language reflected that by tightening up on his grip somehow
and trying to position himself higher on my back.

Gasping and
agonized I blinked my dry and damaged eyes clear and tried to look
for anything to grab or swing or throw or …

Fifteen feet
directly ahead of us stood the damaged and enflamed deejay booth.
Sparks still sputtering out into the smoky gloom.

The back of my
neck tingled faintly, in time with the sparks as they flared.

Shit.

I let my body
sag backwards then, going loose in the knees. Miller crowed in
relief, his body lurching forward over mine in response – not
having had a chance to reset his footing. His grip loosening just
enough to allow me one smoke filled breath.

I love you, Mom
.

Reaching up
with both arms to trap Miller’s beefy mitts in place I planted my
booted feet firmly underneath me and heaved with all my might,
straining to stand with Miller’s weight hoisted up high on my
back.

He howled in
surprise, kicking his feet and trying to let go.

My ribs, my
knee and my head bellowed their disapproval of this plan.
Regardless of their complaints I started forward. First one foot,
then the other until I reached a lurching half stumble-half
jog.

We were a six
hundred pound staggering missile aimed directly for the open
electrical panels sparking directly behind the deejay station.

Dad, Donald …
Save me a seat on the bench. I’m coming home.

We hit the
panels as hard as I possibly could.
Everything went white.

Chapter
49

And then
everything snapped back into focus.

Sharp,
crystalline focus.

Forty
thousand volts. That’s what the
Cowboy
Shotz
PR team constantly boasted. How their sound and
light system was state of the art. The most powerful nightclub
setup in Winnipeg.

Hitting the
supporting wall around the booth with Miller high on my back drove
us through the cheap faux wooden frame and into the exposed
electrical panels that had erupted after my earlier display of
crazy. Cords and open sockets that had been fraying and exposed
connected with Miller’s body and mine.

For a moment I
thought I’d been struck blind. My heart stopped for what felt like
an eternity as everything from my eyebrows to my toenails
experienced that same thrill you get when you press an old nine
volt battery to your tongue.

Only four
hundred and forty four times as intensely.

Coming back to
myself was interesting. The back of my neck buzzed like an
overloaded beehive that was ready to burst. Life and energy flowed
through my veins like molten lava. Searing and sizzling through my
nervous system in a wave.

This time I
knew for sure my hair had done a full Einstein. All the hair on my
forearms was standing upright as gooseflesh pricked painfully over
my too dry skin.