Judgement and Wrath

39

Bradley Jorgenson could not have got far in the time it took Dantalion to conceal the Lincoln from the road. A couple of minutes, that was all. In his drugged and disoriented state, it was highly probable that he'd managed to get as far into the long grass as one determined rush would take him, before falling face down and going back to sleep. His trail was easy enough to see; there were bent and broken stems of the bamboo-like grass angling away from the front of the Lincoln into the green twilight.

Dantalion took out the Glock 17 he'd liberated from Seagram and checked the load. He fed spare rounds into the magazine as he started after Bradley. From somewhere ahead the sound of a body pushing through the long grass came to his ears. Then something else: the whup, whup, whup of rotor blades.

He craned round to see the helicopter, but he was surrounded by the tall grass, looking up at only a tiny patch of blue sky. The walls of this maze had the effect of distorting and redirecting the source of the noise and made it difficult to pinpoint where the rotor sound was coming from. He couldn't get a location, but he knew that this was the helicopter which had been on the lawn outside Eunice Jorgenson's ramshackle home. Hunter was proving to be one resourceful dude.

Bradley Jorgenson was still alive only because Dantalion planned to use him to bait a larger trap. He'd hoped to torture Marianne Dean's whereabouts from her lover, contact her, and then demand that she come to a prearranged location where he'd finish the two of them. Hunter and his friend Rink would be along for the ride, but Dantalion was capable of killing them all. He'd beaten Hunter every other time they'd met and felt sure he would do so again.

The sound of the chopper receded, and he assumed that Hunter would continue on towards Okeechobee, before backtracking this way. It would give him all the time he needed to catch up with Bradley Jorgenson.

Sure enough, he heard the drone of the chopper as it swung away to the west. Dantalion smiled to himself, then stepped into the tall grass.

Small biting insects called this grass home.

So did serpents and lizards and all manner of crawling things.

Not a place that Dantalion would choose to frequent. But he pushed through the grass happily, feeling that all was right in his world. The numerological equations in his book would soon be back in balance. He could write up the numbers of those he'd dispatched in the meantime, and he even made himself a silent bet that he was close to meeting the tally of the original Dantalion and his command of thirty-six legions of spirits.

The going was tough. The grass grew in great hummocks, but sent out feelers at ankle level that stretched taut across the clear areas, creating tripwires as effective as any he'd ever laid. The grass itself was as strong and coarse as hemp rope. Sheaves on the stems made long prickly spines where they frayed and split from the main growth, and they scratched and plucked at his flesh and clothing with each step. His hands were protected from the spearing grass, but his face was bare now that he'd ditched the helmet.

He couldn't hear the helicopter now, but he could hear Bradley's stumbling progress. Everything else was still and silent, the indigenous creatures of this sea of grass fleeing before the presence of alien invaders. There was an overpowering stench of rotting vegetation. A breeze touched his face like the caress of the lover he'd never known. Instead of following Bradley, he swung to the left and pushed through the grass towards a wide-open field. Separating him from the cultivated land flowed a sluggish stream, cut out of the earth to help drain the swamp this field had once been. The stream, clogged with black mud and decaying foliage, was the source of the stench. Across the field he could see the buildings and pylons that he'd noticed from the road. Strange place to have a factory, he thought, maybe some sort of electrical substation.

Following the edge of the drainage channel, he could gain time and distance on the fleeing Bradley. He took off at a lope, peering back and over his shoulder as he did so. Giving up the cover of the long grass was great for manoeuvrability, but it made him visible to anyone chasing him. The helicopter would be back and he didn't want to find himself in the sights of an FBI sharpshooter. Bradley's crashing flight through the grass was all he needed to tell he was still on his trail. He moved along parallel to the sounds, seeing every now and then a flash of clothing through the thinner stands of reeds.

Dantalion was aware that he carried injuries. Three bullet wounds were not to be trifled with. The one in his leg was the most troubling, and the most likely to become infected in this environment of clinging roots and decaying vegetable matter. A fall in the mud was only one stumble away.

He pressed on regardless, keeping pace with Bradley.

He was so close now that he could hear the rasp of Bradley's breath, and his sobs of sheer terror. Still under the influence of the sodium amatol, Bradley would be in a state of severe confusion. His last lucid memory would be when Dantalion shot the FBI man and jabbed a syringe into Bradley's skin. The rest would seem like a jumble of disjointed images interspersed with black gulfs of nothingness. He would slowly be coming awake in this world of green and brown prison bars, knowing he must escape, but not why or from whom he was running.

Maybe he should simply put a bullet through Bradley's head and have done, get out of this stinking marsh, and contemplate less muddy alternatives for luring Hunter, Rink and Marianne Dean to him. But he had come this far, so would see out his original plan. A gun was all he needed to ensure that the privileged scion of the Jorgenson Empire would do exactly as he commanded. A harsh word and a nasty promise and Bradley would give up his flight for freedom.

Dantalion swung round so that he was now facing the young man blindly thrashing his way through the long grass.

'OK, enough is enough, Bradley. Come on out now.' He lifted the semi-automatic handgun to add emphasis to the implied threat that there would be no second chances.

Bradley came to a halt. He held his breath, hunched over like a prey animal caught in the sights of an eagle. Dantalion's words would have carried like those God spoke to Moses from the burning bush — only a little wetter.

'You have three seconds to comply,' Dantalion added. 'One?…'

Bradley turned and crashed back the way he'd come, yowling something unintelligible.

Dantalion charged after Bradley, then, as he overtook the fleeing man, he pushed his way through the bamboo-like stalks to intercept him. Bradley saw him coming, and there was recognition in his face that no amount of sodium amatol could conceal. Dantalion brought up the Glock, aiming it directly at Bradley's throat. Bradley skidded to a halt. But even the dark unwinking eye of a handgun couldn't compel him to stop and face his nemesis. He lurched sideways, dodging past Dantalion's left arm that groped in empty space as it tried to snag him. He was sinuous in his attempt at avoiding the clutching fingers with their long, discoloured nails and scaly flesh. And even in his irritation at not catching hold of his quarry, Dantalion felt a pang that people found his touch repulsive. The aversion that most people experienced when Dantalion laid hands upon them had often been a major weapon in his favour, but he'd always longed for that singular encounter when someone would reach out and take his hand, without squirming or averting their gaze. The last person to do so had been his mother. Moments before he'd pushed his grandfather's rifle against her medulla oblongata and sent her to the longed-for reunion with his father with a swift jerk of the trigger.

Bradley charged deeper into the grass before twisting to the side and racing for the open ground he'd spotted. Dantalion kept pace with him, so that Bradley was mere yards ahead when he burst through the last stand of grass and on to the embankment above the foul-smelling ditch. He lifted the Glock. His finger danced on the trigger, but he did not shoot. He wished to be facing Bradley when the boy died. He wanted to look into his eyes and watch the soul die behind them. He wanted to hear the final exhalation of breath, wanted to taste it on his lips.

'You are prolonging your death, Bradley. Is that really what you want? Why not take fate head on like an honourable man? Turn around, Bradley, and I will kill you cleanly and painlessly. Should you choose to continue running, there will be a worse alternative.'

Bradley couldn't possibly have understood the implications of the choices Dantalion offered. He didn't stop running and he didn't turn around.

Dantalion lifted the Glock so that he was running with his arm extended, legs pumping high to avoid stumbling on the uneven ground. 'OK, then, Bradley. Have it your way!'

The Glock's report was startlingly loud in this wilderness. Animals shocked by the sudden bang gave voice to their fear, and terrified birds broke from the cover of the long grass and launched themselves heavenward.

Bradley crumpled to the ground, landing so heavily that his upper body dug a trench in the soft earth. He gave a groan of agony as he half-rolled with his own momentum, then Dantalion was over him and the Glock was pointed directly at the back of Bradley's head. Bradley began to mewl like a cat, and his fingers stretched as the agony shrieking through his body sought outlet.

'Hurts like hell, doesn't it?' Dantalion shot a second bullet through the back of the same knee he'd just demolished. Bradley screamed. Dantalion kicked him over on to his back. He turtled up, hugging his damaged knee against his chest.

'You son of a bitch!'

'Don't,' Dantalion warned. 'Don't say anything about my mother.'

Then he shot Bradley again, this time through the bones of the foot of his right leg.

'Do feel free to tell me where Marianne is. Do that and I'll make the next shot count. The pain will end, Bradley.'

Bradley was in a place beyond comprehension. Dantalion's whispery voice wasn't registering; not when his entire being was screaming out in agony. Dantalion cocked his head, bird-like.

'I'm afraid you've outlived your usefulness,' he told the unheeding man. Then he aimed the Glock at the centre of Bradley's face. 'Your choice, Bradley. Tell me where Marianne is and I will kill you cleanly.' He lowered his aim so it was below the Kevlar vest. 'If not, I'll gut shoot you and leave you for the alligators.'

In a moment of clarity, Bradley stared up at him. The young man's face was contorted with pain, but it couldn't hide his revulsion. 'Go to hell,' he spat.

'No doubt about it,' Dantalion agreed. 'But you'll be there before me.'

Bradley sneered. 'Yeah? Well I'll say hello to your mother, shall I? Stands to reason that bitch will be there too.'

'I told you not to speak about my mother.'

'Tough shit, man!' Bradley yelled. 'If she's anything like you she's an evil, ugly, diseased old bitch.'

Dantalion's head swung from side to side.

'My mother was beautiful.'

'Yeah, right!' Bradley fought himself up to a sitting position. Beads of cold sweat broke along his hairline. 'So it must have been your father who was pig-ugly, then?'

Dantalion blinked his rheumy eyes.

'Ha! Thought so. You don't even know your father, do you? You're just another bastard born from a drugged-up whore!'

Dantalion felt a quiver of rage build in him. Bradley's words went beyond the insults he'd endured all his life. Aimed at himself, other people's insults had fuelled him, built him into the killer that he'd become, but he would not stand by while this pig of a boy cast aspersions on his mother. He loved his mother. He had proven the depths of his love when he'd sent her to be with his father rather than keep her all to himself. He could have been selfish, but, no. He had done her a kindness, even though he wanted his mother to be his for all eternity.

He pulled the trigger and the Glock barked like an angry dog.