Shadow Prey

CHAPTER 28

"The basement," Lucas snapped.

He grabbed Jennifer by the shoulder and threw her toward the stairs as he drew his gun. She wrapped her arms around Sarah and went down, taking three steps at a time and leaping the last four, staggering as she hit the bottom.

In the garage, Shadow Love, stunned by the thunderclap of the falling shovel, brought the M-15 to his hip and fired three shots at the door's knob plate. One shot missed and blew through the door, into the kitchen cabinets and stove. The other two hit the knob plate, battering the door open. Half blinded by the flash from the weapon, his brain unconsciously registering the stink of the gunpowder, Shadow Love took two steps toward the door, then dropped to his face as three answering shots punched through the opening into the garage.

Lucas took the stairs a half-second behind Jennifer, but stopped three steps from the bottom. Jennifer was flattened against the wall, her arms wrapped around the baby, holding its head to her shoulder. Her face was distorted, as though she wanted to cry out but couldn't: it was a face from a macabre fun-house mirror. Lucas would remember it for the rest of his life, a split-second tableau of total terror. As the first of Shadow Love's shots smashed through the door, Sarah began to scream and Jennifer clutched her tighter, shrinking against the wall.

"Workroom," Lucas shouted, flattening himself against the stairwell wall, his gun hand extended up the stairs. "Get under the workbench."

Shadow Love's next two shots blew open the door from the garage, the slugs ricocheting through the kitchen. The door was at an angle to the stairway. Lucas fired three shots through the opening, hoping to catch Shadow Love coming in. There was a clatter in the garage, then a whip-quick series of flashes with the crack of the rifle. Lucas slid to the bottom of the stairs as the vinyl flooring came apart at the top of the stairs, the slugs slamming into the slanting head-wall over the steps. Shooting from the garage, with the rifle, Shadow Love had the advantage: he could fire down with a good idea of where his shots were going, but Lucas couldn't see to shoot up. Shadow Love knew that. The garbage can rattled and Lucas risked a quick step up and put two more shots through the wall where the can was. Shadow Love opened up again. This time, the shots were angled down into the stairwell. Though they were still overhead, Lucas was forced out of the stairwell and into the workroom, with the door left open.

Shadow Love controlled the stairs.

The garage stank of burnt gunpowder, auto exhaust and gasoline from the lawn mower. Shadow Love, panting, squatted by the step into the house and tried to figure the shots he'd taken. Eight or nine, total: better count it as nine. The gun was loaded with a thirty-shot banana clip, and he had one more clip in his jacket. He might need everything he had-they might not be enough-if Davenport barricaded himself in the basement.

The black spot was there, and he could feel the anger cooking in his heart. There was a very good chance that Davenport would kill him. The cop was on his home ground; he was well trained; and Shadow Love felt his luck had broken when he'd failed with the New York woman.

Still he had to try. The black spot grew, calling him in, and the anger rode into his veins like fire.

Jennifer was huddled under the workbench, wrapped protectively around Sarah, who was screaming beyond comfort.

"What are we doing?" she cried. "What are we doing?" "The St. Paul cops should be coming in. We've only got to hold out a few minutes," Lucas said. "He'll have to make a move or get out. You stay put."

Lucas scrambled crabwise across the basement to his gun safe and spun the combination dial. He missed the second number, cursed and started over.

Upstairs, Shadow Love was torn between attack and retreat. He wouldn't stay free on the streets for long. He had no place to hide, his picture was everywhere. If he was careful, very careful, he might grab a car somewhere and make it out into the countryside. But with Clay's killing, the hunt would be remorseless. He would never have another chance at Davenport. Never have another chance to avenge his fathers. On the other hand, the hunter cop was armed and waiting in a house he knew intimately. An attack straight down the stairs would be suicide.

He held his breath, listening. No sirens. With the cool nights of October, windows were closed and furnaces were running; the firefight would not be particularly audible. On the other hand, Mississippi River Boulevard was a favorite jogging route. He'd be lucky if a passerby hadn't already heard the gunfire. Somehow, he had to pry Davenport out of the basement, and quickly…

Squatting just outside the garage door, the M-15 pointed diagonally through the door at the stairwell, he noticed a telephone on the wall.

Shit. An extension in the basement?

Shadow Love crouched in a sprinter's position, listened for a second, then sprang through the open door into the kitchen, rolling when he hit the floor, coming up with the gun pointed at the stairwell. Nothing. He was inside.

With the gun leveled at the stairway door, he took a step backward, picked up the phone with his free hand. Just a dial tone. Okay. He let the phone dangle off the hook and eased back to the doorway, silent in his sneakers.

He needed a way to blow them out. Chancing a look down the stairwell, he stepped forward, feeling the vinyl kitchen floor creak below his weight. The floor. The floor would never stop a slug from an M-15…

Moving in a gunman's crouch, he crossed quickly in front of the open stairway door into the living room, listened again, then took a half-dozen strides farther into the house. A picture window looked out toward the street. Nobody. Shadow Love pointed the rifle at the floor and pulled the trigger a half-dozen times.

Lucas pulled open the safe door as Shadow Love opened fire. The barrage came as a shock. Splinters exploded through the basement and shrapnel from the.223 slugs filled the air like hundreds of tiny bees. Jennifer screamed once and rolled, one arm wrapped over her head, her body covering the crying baby.

"The baby," she screamed. "The baby," and she plucked at the baby's back.

"Over here," Lucas shouted as the firing stopped. Changing magazines? "Jen, Jen, over here…"

Jennifer was partially sheltered by the workbench and sat sobbing, plucking at the baby. Lucas crawled across the floor and pulled her out and she flailed at him, resisting, not understanding.

"Into the safe, into the safe…"

Lucas dragged her and the screaming Sarah to the turn-of-the-century safe, threw the guns out on the floor and unceremoniously shoved them both inside.

"The baby," Jennifer screamed at him. She turned Sarah, and Lucas saw the splinters protruding from the baby's back.

"Don't touch them," he shouted. He and Jennifer were inches from each other, shouting, and Sarah was beyond tears: she'd reached the stage where she could barely breathe, her eyes wide with terror.

"Hold the door open an inch. An inch. An inch. You un- derstand? You'll be okay," Lucas shouted. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, yes…" Jennifer nodded, still wrapped around Sarah.

Lucas left them.

He owned twelve guns; he carried four away from the safe, along with three boxes of ammunition. He crawled into the space under the workbench where Jennifer had been. It would give him some protection from direct hits coming through the floor, and he could see the stairs. He first loaded the Browning Citori over and under; he used the twenty-gauge shotgun for hunting. His only shells were number-six shot, but that was fine. At a short distance, they would punch a convincing hole through a man's head.

Next he loaded the two Gold Cup.45s that he'd used in competition, seven rounds per magazine, one round in each chamber, both weapons cocked and locked. Then the P7, loaded with nine-millimeter rounds, waiting. As he finished loading the P7, he began to wonder if Shadow Love had fled: the firing had been stopped for nearly a minute…

Shadow Love could hear the woman screaming, could hear Davenport's voice, but not what he said. Damn walls, it was hard to tell where they were, but he thought to the right, and they sounded somehow distant, toward the far end of the basement. He watched the stairs for a few seconds, then took a fast dozen strides through the house, almost to the end, and once again began to pour gunfire through the floor. This time, though, he fired as he ran back to the basement door, blowing a trail of bullet holes through the carpet…

In the basement, the metal fragments and splinters filled the air, plucking at Lucas' back and sleeve. He was hit and it hurt, but it felt superficial. He rubbed at his back and left a trail of pain where the slivers stuck through his shirt. If he stayed in the basement, he could be blinded. Shadow Love's last run had gone the whole length of the basement. Lucas got the Gold Cups ready. If he tried it again…

Shadow Love had been counting on the bullets to ricochet rather than fragment. He imagined the basement as a blizzard of wildly careening slugs. Pleased with the idea of making a trail the length of the house, he waited near the top of the stairs for a rush, waited, waited… Nothing. He refig-ured his ammunition supply. He'd fired at least twenty shots, he decided. He pulled the clip, slapped in the new one and checked the first. Six rounds left. Still plenty for a fight. He waited another few seconds, then hurried again through the house, picked out a new pattern and raced back toward the stairwell, firing as he went. He was almost at the stairs when the rug suddenly popped up once, then again, not six feet away, and he realized that Davenport was shooting back through the floor, something big, something coming up through the carpet and into the ceiling, close, and Shadow Love dove into the garage…

Lucas watched the firing pattern develop, tried to anticipate where Shadow Love would move and fired back with one of the.45s. He had little hope of hitting him, but he thought it might force Shadow Love to stop firing through the floor.

As the firing run ended at the back of the house, Lucas stood and walked quickly across the width of the basement to the safe.

"Jen, Jen?"

"What?"

"The next time he fires through the floor, I'm going to pull the circuit breaker and try the stairs. The lights will be out. Stay cool."

"Okay." The baby was gasping. Jennifer now sounded remote and cold; she had it under control.

One of the.45s was almost empty. Lucas laid it on the floor, stuck the other in his pants pocket with the butt sticking out, and crossed the basement floor and waited, the shotgun pointing at the base of the stairs, the switch box open.

Shooting through the floor wasn't good enough: Shadow Love wouldn't know when or if Davenport was hit, and his time must be running out. The black spot, larger, pressed against his consciousness. Attack now. He had to attack.

The door to the garage was still open, and in the shaft of light coming from the kitchen, he saw the gas can for the lawn mower.

"Motherfucker," he whispered. He glanced at the stairwell, groped for a minute, found the switch for the garage light and turned it on.

There was a rack of shelves next to the door, with a variety of bottles, mostly plastic. One, containing a tree-borer insecticide, was made of brown glass. Keeping the M-15 pointed at the stairwell, Shadow Love unscrewed the top of the insecticide bottle, turned it upside down and drained it. When it was empty, he stepped over to the gas can, picked it up, then stepped back to a position that would keep the stairwell covered. Moving as quickly as he could, he filled the quart bottle with gasoline, then looked around for a plug. Newspaper. There were bundles of newspapers along the garage wall. He ripped off a sheet of paper, soaked it in gasoline and plugged the neck of the bottle.

When he was ready, he vaulted through the door, past the open stairwell and into the living room. From there he could lob the bottle down the stairs to the tiled floor at the bottom.

"Hey, Davenport," he yelled.

No answer. He lit the newspaper with a cigarette lighter, and it flamed up.

"Hey, Davenport, suck on this," he yelled, and threw the bomb down the stairs. It hit and smashed, the gasoline igniting in a fireball. Shadow Love braced himself against the living room wall, waiting.

"… suck on this," Shadow Love yelled, and a bottle came down the stairs. There was a crack and a whoosh and the gasoline went up in a fireball.

"Sonofabitch," Lucas said. He looked around wildly and spotted a gallon paint can. He pulled the main circuit breaker, throwing the house into darkness, except for the light from the fire. Dashing across the basement floor, he grabbed the paint can, vaulted the fire at the base of the stairs, fired one barrel of the shotgun up the stairs and went up them two at a time. Three steps from the top, he hurled the paint can through the door.

The sudden and virtually complete darkness disoriented Shadow Love for a moment, and then Davenport was on the stairs, coming, and Shadow Love, not waiting, fired a shot through the wall from the living room, then tracked the dimly seen movement out of the stairwell and fired once, the muzzle blast blinding him, firing again, seeing the can and thinking, No…

The first shot nearly took Lucas' head; it sprayed his face with plaster and blinded him in one eye. The second shattered the paint can. The third gave him a muzzle blast to follow. Lucas fired once with the shotgun, panning behind the blast; he dropped the long gun and pulled the.45.

Thinking, No, Shadow Love saw Davenport and dragged the muzzle of the M-15 around, the movement taking an eternity, then Davenport's face froze as though caught by a strobe light, but it was no strobe, it was the flash from a shotgun muzzle reaching out, and Shadow Love soaked up the impact as if he had been hit in the side with a baseball bat. He flattened back against the wall and rebounded, still desperately struggling to bring the muzzle around, still trying, his finger closing spasmodically on the trigger…

Lucas saw Shadow Love in the flash of the shotgun, just the pale eyes, saw the M-15 coming around, the muzzle flash, the bullet going somewhere, and then he was firing the.45, and Shadow Love went over, falling, tumbling. The M-15 stuttered again, three shots that went through the ceiling, and Lucas fired again and again and again, and then the pain and the smell hit him, and he turned, seeing the fire on his leg, and he rolled into the kitchen, rolling it out…

Shadow Love couldn't move. He didn't hurt, but he couldn't move. He couldn't sit up. He couldn't move the gun. I'm dying; why's my mind so clear? Why's it all so clear?

Lucas crawled across the kitchen floor in the dark and groped under the sink for the fire extinguisher, thinking that it was old and might not work. He pulled the seals and squeezed the trigger, and it worked, spraying a stinging foam on his leg, wiping out the small tongues of flame that crawled over the surface of his trousers. He took his hand off the trigger and dragged himself back to the stairs. The gasoline was still burning and the carpet had caught fire, but nothing else. He hosed the fire down, wiped it out, then crossed in the dark to the switch box and turned the lights on.

Jennifer: "Lucas?"

"We're all right," Lucas said, his voice creaking. The stench of gasoline, burnt carpet, gunpowder and fire-extinguisher fluid was almost overpowering. He had to hold on to the doorjamb to keep himself upright. "But I'm hurt."

He staggered back across the basement and pulled himself up the stairs and looked carefully around the corner. Shadow Love was lying on the rug like a pile of dirty clothing. Lucas stepped over to him, keeping the.45 centered on the man's chest, and kicked the M-15 across the room.

He felt Jennifer behind him.

"You're a mean sonofabitch," Shadow Love groaned. Nothing moved but his lips.

"Die, motherfucker," Lucas croaked.

"Is he dead?" Jennifer asked.

"In a few minutes," Lucas said.

"Lucas, we gotta call…"

Lucas grabbed Jennifer's coat and sank to the floor, pulling her down with him. She had the baby, who now looked almost sleepy.

"Lucas…"

"Give him a few minutes," Lucas said. He looked at Shadow Love. "Die, motherfucker," he said again.

"Lucas," Jennifer screamed, trying to pull away, "we got to call an ambulance."

Lucas looked at her and shook his head. "Not yet."

Jennifer tore at her coat, but Lucas wrapped her up and pinned her on the floor. "Lucas…" She beat at him with her free hand and the baby started to whimper again.

"Who told? Who gave us away?" Shadow Love coughed. Still no pain, only a growing cold. Davenport was a mean sonofabitch, Shadow Love thought.

"You did," Lucas snapped.

"I did?"

"Yeah. Your mom's grave. You had them send the bills to Barbara Gow."

"I?" Shadow Love asked again. As he exhaled, a blood bubble formed on his lips and then burst. The salty taste of the blood was his last sensation.

"Die, motherfucker," Lucas said.

He was talking to a dead man. After another moment, with no further movement from Shadow Love, Lucas released Jennifer. She was looking at him in horror.

"Call the cops," he said.