Dragon Gate (33 page)

I figured they’d send the destroyers in first, so I took a deep breath, backed to the far wall, prepared myself, and waited.

The door swung open, and Brand entered with Esther behind him.

I sighed. “Did you set a new speed record?” I asked.

“There might be a few traffic cops behind me,” Brand said. “Way way
way
behind me.” He grinned.

“Esther, you were supposed to come right back.”

“I went to see Kelly.”

“Are we clear right now?”

Esther stepped through the front wall then back into the dojo. “For the moment.”

“Do me a favor and pop over to Rayna. See if you can figure out where she is.”

“Here goes nothing.”

She popped away.

“What’s your plan?” Brand asked. “I don’t want to be Purina Destroyer Food.”

I told him my plan and he nodded.

When I finished, he said, “Oddly enough, that just might work. You take one destroyer, I’ll take the other.”

“They’re fast, so you’ll want to get back here with me.”

“What if they come in through the back door?”

“Then we rush to the middle of the floor?”

Esther returned. “She’s cussing up a storm, digging through her purse at some football stadium.”

“Folsom Field,” I said. “Nice and open and the dragon could circle overhead and take out one or both destroyers. Not bad.”

“How’d you get her to leave?” Brand asked.

I started to fill him in, but the two destroyers crashed through the front window. Safety glass flew every which way. The animals landed in a dead run and raced toward us.

I palmed a few shuriken and let them fly. Brand did the same. We sent as many sailing toward the destroyers as we could in the time we had.

Our aim was true.

Three of the shuriken I threw plunged into my destroyer’s eyes. Brand managed to get four of his throwing stars into his destroyer’s eyes. Both beasts howled in pain, stumbled, and fell to the mats, rolling over and trying to paw the ninja stars from their eyes.

With them blinded, we had no trouble dispatching them with swords. I decided this was going to be easier than I thought.

Thomas Marshall and his sons entered the dojo armed to the teeth. Wesley was with them. One of the Marshalls had the MP5 Wesley and Lucas Junior had taken from me. Thomas and another of his sons had the Beretta and the Glock respectively.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

So much for easy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

JONATHAN SHADE

“Is it too late for me to back out?” Brand asked.

We stared at the remaining members of the Marshall Clan. We’d brought knives, swords, katars, sais, maces, staffs, and shuriken to a gun fight. But hey, at least there were no archers. Wesley, Lucas, and Junior stood with their hands zip-tied behind them, while the Marshalls stared at me and Brand.

“How’s life in the big city treating you, Thomas?” I asked.

Thomas stepped forward. He pointed the Beretta at my face. “Where is Rayna Noble?”

“She’s playing Hide and Seek with Waldo,” I said.

Brand looked at me. “You choose now to start cracking jokes again? I think I preferred you all moody and serious. At least then you wouldn’t get me killed by tossing lame-ass remarks at backward ass fucktards.”

“We’re not on their list of people to kill, Brand. They have a code to live by. They can only kill people who kneel before Zod here.”

“Numbnuts here won’t get that reference,” Brand said. “You’re all positive and light again. Jesus, dude, did you finally get laid?”

Thomas didn’t seem to know what to do, so he looked from Brand to me as if we were insane.

I glanced over at Brand.

Brand smiled. “Holy shit. You
did
get laid! Hell, if I’d known that was all it would take, I’d have given you a couple hundred bucks to tap some chick at the Asian massage parlor down the street.”

“I am in control here!” Thomas yelled.

I looked at the gun. “You realize the safety is on, right?” I figured it worked on Junior, I might try it on Thomas. Of course, in the case of the Beretta, it really did have a safety, and I could see that it really was on. After all, one does not simply mouth off to a man like Thomas Marshall without knowing one won’t get shot right away.

Thomas looked confused.

“You do know what a safety is, right?” I asked.

“Shut up and tell me where Rayna is.”

“Two orders that contradict one another,” I said. “If I shut up, how can I tell you where she is?”

“All I have to do is pull this trigger,” Thomas said.

“Been watching some TV since you left the Shire?”

“Father,” one of the Marshall boys said, “let me beat the information out of him. He killed Richard and Adam and Ian and Robert and—”

“Jesus, dude, it’s easier to name off the assholes in your family that I haven’t killed.”

Thomas held up his left hand. “Stay back, Kent. He is trying to provoke us into killing him in a valiant attempt to save Rayna Noble.”

I looked at the guy holding the Glock. “What’s your name?”

He looked at me as if he thought giving his name would give me power over him or something. Then with a little more hesitation, he finally said, “Nathan.”

“How do you clowns keep each other straight? There are so damn many of you, I’m surprised Thomas here can even remember all the names. I hope there won’t be a quiz next period.”

“Where is she?” Thomas said again, moving closer.

I glanced at Brand, who casually slipped his hand into his pocket. “Nathan thinks you’re cute.”

Brand removed his hand from his pocket and turned it slightly to show me he’d palmed a shuriken. “He’s not my type,” Brand said.

“Sorry, Nate. You’re outta luck.”

“Enough with your delays!” Thomas said, walking toward me. “Where is Rayna? Tell me or I’ll kill you.”

He was too close. I leaned forward so my forehead pressed against the barrel of the Beretta.

“Pull the trigger, baby, ’cause I’m not telling you shit.”

The next few things happened so close together, they probably seemed simultaneous to the Marshalls.

Thomas squeezed the trigger.

Brand threw his shuriken.

The gun didn’t fire, and I moved quickly to grab the barrel and twist it hard and down, breaking Thomas’s finger.

The shuriken stuck in Nathan’s face, and he screamed in pain.

Brand followed the shuriken, charging Nathan.

I took the Beretta from Thomas.

Brand knocked the Glock out of Nathan’s hand and tackled him.

The other Marshall boy whose name I didn’t know but who held the MP5, froze for a moment. That happens a lot when sudden violence erupts.

I thumbed off the safety and put three rounds into MP5 boy’s head. He dropped. I turned slightly and fired two rounds into Kent’s chest. He went down hard.

Brand snapped Nathan’s neck.

I pulled Thomas to his feet and put the gun in his face to see how he’d like it.

The look on his face told me he didn’t care for it.

“Sit down,” I said.

His ears were probably ringing from the gunfire. I know mine were. I told him again to sit, this time much louder. He sat.

I took a deep breath.

“If my math is correct, Thomas, you and two of your sons are still alive. Peter is in the hands of the Boulder Police Department. Your other son, whatever his name is, is probably at the hospital, but he’s also technically in custody.

“Matthew,” Thomas said.

At first I thought he said “Meth You,” but then I realized he was telling me the name of his other son. Maybe he was trying to tell me he remembered all their names.

“Whatever,” I said.

He looked defeated. He held his broken finger and refused to look at me.

“What about us?” Wesley said.

“What about you?” I asked.

He turned around and wriggled his hands to show he was still zip-tied. “You gonna cut us free?”

“You brought these assholes down on us.”

“But I gave Rayna a warning so she could tell you and you could either be prepared or be gone.”

“What’s he talking about?” Brand asked.

“He called Rayna and made sure not to disconnect the call. That way we could hear Thomas make his plans to come after us by tracking the GPS on Rayna’s phone.”

“That was clever,” Brand said. He grabbed a dagger from the table and went to cut them free.

“You were much better than I thought,” Lucas said.

I ignored him and focused on Thomas. “What am I going to do about you, Thomas?”

“You defeated me in battle. You have swords over there. I shall do the honorable thing and accept my death.”

“I’m not sure that’s the right way to handle this.”

“I have been defeated. You must do me this honor. My gods will not be pleased if I’m held captive.”

“So now you’re telling me your gods will come after me?”

He shook his head. “No, they will not allow me access to the afterlife. You are a worthy warrior, Jonathan Shade. The honorable thing for you to do is to take my head.”

“There’s already more blood on the floor that I’ll have to clean up later. I don’t want to make an even bigger mess.”

“Then take me outside and do it.”

Brand finished freeing Lucas and his sons. They rubbed their wrists.

“I’ll do the honors,” Lucas said. He looked at me. “It is the way of our people. To deny him this is wrong.”

“Even after he killed so many members of your family?”

“It is our way.”

“Can you lay down some plastic first?” I asked.

“Kelly has some trash bags in the back,” Brand said.

“This doesn’t feel right to me,” I said.

“Having us cure Alzheimer’s didn’t seem right to you either,” Lucas said.

“Please,” Thomas said. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but now that you’ve seen to keeping Rayna alive, it costs you nothing to grant my request.”

“Honor is good,” Brand said. “It has the added bonus of getting him to shut the fuck up.”

“There is that,” I said.

“I’ll handle it,” Lucas said. “I know you’d see it as murder, and as you’ve saved us, I’ll take it upon myself.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“I’ll get the trash bags,” Brand said.

Junior and Wesley shuffled their feet a bit while Lucas led Thomas toward the front door. Brand returned with two large black trash bags.

“Hey,” I said. “If you’re going to do it, at least do it out back to avoid potential witnesses.”

“Good idea,” Brand said. “This way, guys.”

Brand led Lucas and Thomas out the back door.

Wesley and Junior moved to follow them.

“Hold up, guys,” I said.

They turned toward me, their backs to the tables of weapons.

“We want to watch this,” Junior said.

“Fine, but answer me one question first.”

They nodded. “Anything.”

“You guys took my guns, so you had two handguns and a submachine gun, plus you thought you had a dragon.”

“We heard the dragon leave, but what’s your question?” Wesley said.

“How did the Marshalls get the drop on you when you had them outgunned?”

Wesley and Junior looked at each other then sheepishly turned back to me. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Why would I laugh?”

Junior cocked a thumb at Wesley. “Because this loser fell asleep when he was supposed to be keeping watch on the back. They came in the back way and got the drop on me. Father gave up because Thomas promised to let us live if he’d cooperate.”

“You fell asleep?” I asked.

“Well, they took forever to get to the castle, and I got bored. I’m not cut out for this kind of shit.”

I shook my head.

“Can we go?” he asked.

I motioned for them to leave then turned toward the front. Esther popped in.

“Where the hell were you?” I asked.

“I went to see Kelly and Rayna. I got to ride a dragon!”

“So you just left us?”

“I didn’t want to watch you die.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks for that.”

The front door opened and Rayna entered. She saw the bodies then looked at me. “You’re okay!” She ran over to me and grabbed me in a tight embrace. She kissed me. “I’m so glad you’re okay that I’ll forgive you for stealing my phone.”

“All’s well that ends well,” I said. “Clara?”

“She dropped me off out front then hopped on the roof. Where’s Thomas?”

“Out back. Lucas is going to decapitate him.”