The Curse of the Dragon God (7 page)
Read The Curse of the Dragon God Online
Authors: Geoffrey Knight
Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Adventure, #Gay
He was met with a blaze of bullets and the screams of patrons all huddling under round tables, trying desperately to hide. Before he dropped to the ground, Will caught sight of the six black-suited attackers weaving their way through the tables, headed for the front door of the restaurant, dragging Sen and the Professor with them. Two of the attackers yanked their hostages out through the front doors of the restaurant, while the other four remained, blasting their submachine guns in an effort to keep Will at bay.
As bullets ripped holes in the red and gold wallpaper, Will hastily belly-crawled across the floor. Through the forest of table legs, he could see the feet of his attackers near the far end of the restaurant, blocking his path to the door. Outside he could hear the screech of tires as a vehicle made its getaway.
Will had no weapon, no plan, and he was fast running out of time. He launched himself to his feet, one foot digging into the carpet, one pouncing on a chair, one hand swiftly grabbing the back of another chair and plucking it off the ground as he leapt up onto the nearest tabletop.
The guns turned on him as he landed in the center of a round lazy Susan, his momentum sending it into a spin. As he whirled, he ducked and hurled the chair as hard as he could. It flew through the air, collecting countless bullets before slamming into the head of one of his attackers. The man dropped to the floor, unconscious, his gun flying out of his hand.
Will didn’t stop to watch.
He had already launched himself from one tabletop to the next. As the three remaining assailants tried to follow him with a spray of bullets, Will bent down and scooped up plates sitting on the table and threw them one after another at the men with machine guns. They flew like saucers. One plate smashed against the wall, another shattered against the front window, but the third managed to fly straight into the throat of one of Will’s attackers, smashing the man’s Adam’s apple and sending him to the floor, choking and spluttering.
Will crouched low and covered his head as he heard the whistle of bullets inches above him. He glanced at the dishes on the table speeding by in a blur—one dish was still aflame. He picked it up and sent it hurtling through the air. Spitting fire and hissing food shot across the room and sprayed both assailants. One of the men ducked to avoid the rain of flames, but the other was too slow. Burning oil splashed across his face mask, igniting instantly. The man lurched back screaming and flailing before crashing through the front window of the restaurant.
Will pulled the table down in front of him as a shield just as the last attacker steadied his aim and pumped off several rounds. Before he could get to his feet, the last attacker appeared over him with his submachine gun in hand.
Will froze, pinned down and nowhere to go. His fingers inched their way across the carpet in search of a weapon, anything, while his eyes stared down the barrel of his attacker’s gun.
With his prey sitting at close range and completely defenseless, the black-suited attacker began to laugh. When he did, Will seized a discarded chopstick off the floor in his fist and rammed it straight into the barrel of the submachine gun, jamming it in as hard as he could.
Startled, the attacker squeezed the trigger. The gun backfired, the rear of the chamber exploding in a spasm of bullets as the chopstick shot out the barrel, spearing Will in the shoulder. The attacker fell backward, his face suddenly full of shrapnel.
Will collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony, clutching at the chopstick protruding from his right shoulder. He tried to pull it out, but it had buried itself too deep to retrieve now.
As the blood began to stain his tattered tux, he stumbled out the front doors of the restaurant and saw a black van speeding away in the distance. He threw his good arm in the air and staggered into the middle of the street, trying desperately to wave down a ride of any kind. Brakes screeched and Will spun around in the headlights of a giant RV, which slid to a halt within two feet of hitting him.
He looked up through the windshield to see the startled faces of an older couple staring down at him, clutching at their chests.
“For the love of God, Howard, what are you trying to do? Kill someone?”
“Shut up, Gladys! I can’t think with you screamin’ at me!”
“Forget about thinking. Just look where you’re going! Oh, my God, he’s bleeding!”
“Quick, lock the door. He’s probably one of them homosexuals I was tellin’ you about. This city’s full of ’em. We never shoulda come here in the first place, but no, you wouldn’t listen to me. You never listen to a word I—”
Howard was right—Gladys didn’t listen to a word. Instead of locking the door, she was already opening it and in a flustered voice calling out, “Young man! Are you all right? Did my husband hit you?”
Will glanced down the street where the black van had disappeared, then looked at his watch. The tracking system had located the Professor, and he was moving fast through a gridlike map of San Francisco. Will raced around to the door of the RV and looked up at Gladys. “Ma’am, I need a ride.”
“To the hospital?” She looked at his bloodstained clothes. “Is that a chopstick in your shoulder?”
“Goddammit, he’s been fightin’ with the Chinese!” Howard muttered disapprovingly. “This city’s full of ’em. We never shoulda—”
“Oh, shut up, Howard!” she shouted, then smiled politely at Will. “My husband’s lost—again. If you need a ride I’m afraid we won’t be of much help to you at all. We’re not from around here.”
“That’s okay,” Will said, climbing aboard. “I’ll drive.”
“Oh, Lord Jesus!” Howard cried, springing out of the driver’s seat with his hands in the air. “Is this a carjacking? Just please don’t touch me inappropriately. I pray to God above to spare me from this homosexual.”
Will rolled his eyes, dropped himself into the driver’s seat, and turned to Gladys. “Has your husband always been this way?”
Gladys sighed and nodded her head yes.
Howard gave Gladys an incensed glare.
Will smiled and said, “Ma’am, you might wanna take a seat and buckle up. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”
As Gladys strapped herself into the passenger seat and Howard sat down at the kitchenette table in back, Will crunched the gears, flattened the accelerator, and spun the tires of the RV. The 30-foot vehicle took off with a squeal and rocketed down the street.
Gladys clung to her seat as though she was about to be ejected into space. Howard’s hands slid back and forth along the edge of the table, trying desperately to hold on. Horns blasted and drivers screamed abuse as the RV hurtled through the night.
“Ma’am, do you know how to read a map?”
“Better than my husband.”
“Poppycock!” Howard shouted from the rear as Will spun the wheel and turned a hard left.
The young man winced at the pain in his shoulder, straightened the wheel, and jerked through the gears once more, then held his left hand out to Gladys. “Take my watch. It’s a tracking device. We need to follow that flashing red dot.”
More shocked than ever, Gladys unstrapped Will’s watch. “What are you, some kind of secret agent?”
“Not quite. I’m a history major. And I play football.”
“Oh, my,” Gladys gushed with a flutter of her eyelids.
“Where’s the red dot now?” Will asked urgently.
“Oh, of course! The dot!” She tried to focus on the watch in her hands. “Oh, dear, I think it’s behind us!”
“You’ve got the damn thing upside down!” Howard shouted from the back.
Will turned the wheel a sharp right, and the sour old man rolled off the cushioned bench seat and onto the floor. “Excuse me, sir, there’s no need to talk to your wife like that!”
“I see it!” Gladys shouted excitedly, pointing to the flashing red dot on the grid. “It’s moving parallel now. Turn at the next corner, left, then—”
Suddenly Gladys shrieked.
The next corner was a hell of a lot closer than Gladys bargained for, but Will did as instructed. He slammed on the brakes, hauled the wheel sharp left, and everyone held on tight as the rear of the RV sailed wide. The vehicle took the corner, straightened up, and kept going at top speed.
“Hold on,” Will warned again, as the van hit the rise of a hill and for a moment became airborne—lifting Will and Gladys out of their seats while Howard rose off the floor—before slamming back down in an explosion of sparks. The chassis groaned, as did Howard at the unmistakable rattle of RV shrapnel trailing away on the road behind them.
“There!” Gladys pointed ahead, surprised at the level of excitement in her own voice. She felt as though she’d stepped straight into a movie, one with a handsome hero for a leading man—and Gladys at his side! “That’s it up ahead! Can you see?”
Will spotted the taillights of the black van weaving in and out of the night traffic ahead. “I see ’em.” His fist seized the gearshift as he pumped the clutch and gave the accelerator hell. The engine strained and the RV flew up the hill.
Will changed gears again and swung out onto the other side of the road to avoid a slow-moving station wagon, only to find himself directly in the path of a flower delivery truck sailing down the hill. The truck veered left, right, not sure what to do.
Howard moaned fearfully in back. Gladys held her breath and gripped her seat even tighter.
As the truck sped toward them, Will watched the driver clamp his eyes shut. Then, at the very last second, the delivery truck turned out of Will’s path—
—only to reveal the Powell-Hyde cable car, which had been tailing the truck, racing down the street, about to collide head on with the RV.
Will tried desperately to accelerate clear of the station wagon, blasting his horn.
Panic gripped the cable car driver. At first he started ringing his bell like a fire alarm, but quickly abandoned it to crank on the brake lever with both hands. A terrible, ear-piercing grinding sound filled the street, the cable car squealing as it tried to grind to a halt, passengers screaming.
The station wagon peeled over to the side. Will spun the wheel hard, but by now he was too close, traveling too fast, to avoid some sort of impact with the oncoming cable car.
A split second later there was a loud
CRACK
as the corner of the cable car connected with the RV, snapping off the left mirror. The cable car scraped along the entire length of the motor home in a lightning storm of sparks.
CRACK
as the corner of the cable car connected with the RV, snapping off the left mirror. The cable car scraped along the entire length of the motor home in a lightning storm of sparks.
Panels from both vehicles buckled, ripping loose and spitting out onto the road. The cable car finally screeched to a halt as the motor home kept speeding in the opposite direction.
“Is everyone okay?” Will shouted.
Howard was too stunned to answer. Gladys nodded and began to laugh. “Okay? I’ve never felt so alive in all my life!”
Will smiled, then glanced ahead to see the black van reach the crest of the hill, brake, and make a sudden turn, as though the driver was acting on a hunch. “Where’s he going?” Gladys asked.
“I don’t know, but wherever it is, that’s where we’re going.”
As the RV hit the top of the hill, Will turned the wheel sharply to follow, then gasped, “Oh, shit!” suddenly regretting the move, trying to spin the wheel out of the turn. But it was too late. He’d missed the signs. Now the almost unmaneuverable 30-foot motor home had just careened nose first down steep, zigzagging Lombard Street.
The RV didn’t stand a chance of negotiating these hairpin bends.
In a single glance, Will realized that if he attempted a single corner he’d either wedge the RV or be unable to turn at all and crash headlong into one of the houses on the first bend. So instead he did the only thing he could—he turned the wheel straight down the middle of the slope, taking the RV off-road completely and plowing a beeline through the winding curves, churning up the gardens and leaving a trail of destruction.
The black van smoked its brakes at every switchback as it raced down the crooked street. But the RV was gaining fast, thanks to Will’s desperate move. Gladys held on to her safety belt for dear life, while Howard was thrown relentlessly up and down in back.
As the van reached the bottom of the street, the beatenup RV crunched through the last concrete retaining wall, flew into the air, and hurtled into the back of the van, sending it into a spin. In a shroud of burning rubber, the vehicle performed three full revolutions, and for a moment Will thought they had caught them. But the driver of the van regained control and hightailed it down the street.
“Son of a bitch!” Will wiped the sweat from his brow and revved the engine of the RV. It didn’t quite sound the same this time—the motor rattled and clunked.
“You’ve broken it!” Howard hollered from the floor.
“Not yet, I haven’t.” Will put his foot to the floor once more, and the motor home buzzed and sputtered as fast as it could down the street, dragging twisted chunks of metal behind it.
With Gladys navigating, the RV raced as fast as it could through the streets of San Francisco, heading west, then sweeping north toward the Golden Gate Bridge. On the tracking grid of Will’s watch the distance between the RV and the van grew wider and wider until they could no longer see the van through the windshield.
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