Dark Revelations (38 page)

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Authors: Duane Swierczynski,Anthony E. Zuiker

BOOK: Dark Revelations
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As Dark’s back hit the floor, Labyrinth was coming at him with a savage backhand swipe. Dark caught Labyrinth by the elbow and twisted. The man’s arm felt like steel-reinforced concrete. His strength was unreal, especially on such an average frame.
“Let’s start with a hand,” said Labyrinth, then head-butted Dark. Savagely. Cleanly. Bright flashes appeared in his vision. Dark struggled to keep his grip on Labyrinth’s arm, but felt his muscles trembling. His forehead felt like it had burst open. What was the man’s skull made of—iron?
Then Dark remembered the gun, a few inches away. He twisted his body to the right, finally releasing his grip on Labyrinth’s arm. The blade cut through the air an inch above his head. Dark rolled, grabbed the Glock. Firing it may not work. But even an empty gun was a useful weapon. Dark swung it and smashed it into the side of Labyrinth’s head. Again. And again. And again. Iron skull, meet gun metal. With every blow Dark could feel the raw hate bubbling up inside of him.
Then Labyrinth seized Dark’s hands, clamping down tight. Blood was running down the motherfucker’s face, but the monster was smiling anyway.
“Must drive you crazy,” he hissed.
Labyrinth increased the pressure, and it felt like Dark’s fingers were inside a metal vise. His entire hand throbbed and went numb.
“You have no idea why you couldn’t shoot me, do you?”
“Fuck you.”
The gun in Dark’s hands began to twist around, Labyrinth manipulating his struggling fingers like a lump of clay on a spinning wheel. Too much force, fingers suddenly too slippery, the gun rotating—until Dark was staring down his own barrel.
“Welcome to the maze,” Labyrinth said.
There was a soft beep.
In that tiny moment, Dark realized that it was his own Glock making that noise. He pushed forward and twisted his body away at the same time, but it was too late. The gun exploded and a bullet ripped through Dark’s bicep.
 
The pain—unreal.
One hand in front of the other across the cold tile. The gunshot wound throbbing. This wasn’t the first time Dark had been shot, but that fact didn’t make it hurt any less.
Somewhere behind him, he could hear Labyrinth recovering his saw from the floor.
“Where are you going? We still have plenty of time for some amputation techniques.”
One hand . . .
. . . in front of the other.
“I saw police photos of what you did to poor Sqweegel. You must feel pretty horrible, knowing that you sliced up your own
brother
like lunch meat.”
Dark told himself,
Don’t listen.
Just keep moving.
But the very mention of the name Sqweegel brought it all back—their final confrontation in that monster’s basement lair, the ax swinging up and down, his spindly limbs hacked away from his torso....
And now with the awful knowledge the black blood spurting from the wounds ran through
his own veins
. Through
the small strong heart of his baby girl
. . .
Don’t.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Block it out.
Keep moving.
Keep moving . . .
. . . to the case.
“Let me spare you some guilt and show you what it felt like. I think I’ll start with a leg.”
Ignoring the agony in his shoulder, Dark pulled himself to his feet and threw himself forward toward a display case situated along one curved wall of the amphitheater. His body smashed into it, shattering the glass, which rained down on ancient surgical tools. Scalpels. Hacksaws. Labyrinth lunged at him with his amputation saw. Dark spun and put a boot in the middle of his assailant’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. Dark kicked him again as he thrust his hand into the case, cutting his fingertips on the broken glass until they slid across something smooth . . . metallic. Now Dark had a weapon, too.
A scalpel, already stained with blood from Dark’s shredded fingertips.
Labyrinth caught his breath and came at Dark, holding the amputation saw low and to his left, gearing up for another vicious swipe. Dark felt like he was already bleeding in a hundred different places.
“Chopped your own brother up with an ax,” Labyrinth hissed, then made his move, whipping the saw through the air with almost superhuman power and speed. Dark crouched down. The blade whizzed by the top of his head, missing it by millimeters. Dark plunged the scalpel into Labyrinth’s side in a series of jackhammer-like stabs,
stick stick stick stick stick,
until the man cried out and lost his balance.
But it wasn’t a cry of pain.
It was laughter.
“HA HA HA HA HA!” Labyrinth exclaimed gleefully as he spun around to face Dark. “You are the equal of your brother! You are
very good
with that scalpel.”
“What do I have to do it with?” Dark asked. “I thought you were better than that.”
“Nothing,” Labyrinth said. “You’re just
fun
.”
“You say you want change,” Dark said, ignoring him. “What are you changing now by fighting with me?”
“The change has already begun, and there is nothing you or Blair or anyone else can do to stop it. For way too long men like you have steered the masses into false security while raping them blind. Your precious
establishment
, the one you so blindly serve, is designed to
use
people. Used for greed and profit and power . . .”
“Just like
you’ve
been using people to spread your nonsense. That’s the problem. People are smarter than that. They’ll see you for what you are. A monster.”
“Me? A monster? Maybe. Doesn’t matter, though. My role is finished. It’s up to another to lead them out of the chains.”
Another?
Dark thought.
Does he have a partner in this, or just another puppet?
Labyrinth smiled. “So go ahead, killer. Kill the monster.”
Dark looked at him calmly.
“No.”
chapter 79
 
DARK
 
D
ark dropped his scalpel—and saw the expression of genuine bewilderment on Labyrinth’s face. A microsecond later, Dark lunged. Labyrinth flinched. Dark grabbed the edges of the amputation saw. Labyrinth redoubled his grip on the weapon, his arms like steel cables. Dark could feel the strength behind it.
“Kill me, killer,” Labyrinth hissed.
“Kill me kill me kill me . . .”
Dark focused his strength on twisting the saw around, violently bending Labyrinth’s hands by the wrists, until the blade was facing the opposite direction, however just a few inches above the man’s taut and muscled neck.
“Shut up,” Dark said, and then brought his knee up into Labyrinth’s crotch, followed by a brutal head butt. Dirty street moves—moves a man like Labyrinth, or Trey Halbthin, or whatever the fuck his name was, would not expect. Labyrinth loved to crawl inside his victims’ minds to learn which buttons to push. With Steve Dark, Labyrinth was pressing the buttons marked SQWEEGEL, thinking he could goad Dark into a certain set of predictable behaviors.
But Dark wasn’t channeling his “inner Sqweegel,” or any of that bullshit. He was tapped into his primal self, his
real self
—the scared kid in the orphanage, the moody teenager wandering the streets of downtown L.A. alone, the rookie cop staring down his first psychopath, the tormented father on the beach, missing the love of his life, holding his little girl’s hand. But most important, the man who was drawn to catch monsters, not join their ranks.
And that man fought mean.
Labyrinth curled up into a ball, dropping the hacksaw. Dark kept hammering him with punches and kicks to keep him off balance.
“You’re not a prophet or a savior,” Dark said. “You’re a fucked-up, overeducated asshole with too much money and power.”
Labyrinth reached up, as if to fend off a punch, but Dark elbowed him in the face, then squeezed a handcuff around his right wrist.
“And I’m a cop. Not a killer.”
 
Dark dragged Labyrinth down to the operating table, wrapped the other cuff around a thick metal leg that hadn’t been moved in over two hundred years, and cuffed the left wrist. No matter how strong this son of a bitch might be, there was no way he was moving this table. He’d have to break his own hands first, or snap the high-grade steel links between the cuffs.
He took a step back and gazed down at his prey. As much as his body ached and burned and bled, Dark felt a strange euphoria wash over him. The high of closing a case. No—that wasn’t it. This was the high of catching a monster, dragging him kicking and screaming into the light, for all of the world to see.
“You caught him,” a voice said behind him, filling the auditorium.
Dark turned to see Damien Blair enter the room, gun in his hand. Blair wasn’t a field operative; he prided himself on being the “facilitator.” Had he come over on a separate jet? Was he here for a J. Edgar Hoover–style glory moment—the ultimate photo op? That didn’t make sense.
“What are you doing?” Dark asked.
Blair raised the gun.
 
Chicago Tribune
 
 
Breaking: Patient records mix-up results in at least four deaths at two area hospitals; hospital officials say “under control.”
 
PBS NewsHour
 
Breaking: Medical mistakes sweeping big city hospitals; doctors overwhelmed.
 
AP News
 
Breaking: New Labyrinth riddle received at Pennsylvania General just one hour before the wave of hospital errors.
 
Philadelphia Inquirer
 
Breaking: Spokesperson for president of Penn. General confirms that he received a “Labyrinth” letter.
 
 
Breaking: Now Labyrinth is picking on the sick—what next? Orphans and the elderly?

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