The Devil's Elixir

24

Walker felt a dizziness he’d never experienced before. The bear of a man had been wounded in battle, years ago. Bullets and shrapnel had cut into him, but he’d soldiered on and returned to the field. Then, since getting back from the Gulf and founding the Eagles, he’d seen his fair share of scrapes. He’d met up with all kinds of blades and seen batterings from brass knuckles and baseball bats. Walker could take a hit. They didn’t call him “Wook” just because of his thick, wild hair and the bushy goatee he wore.

This was different.

He was spiraling away, bleeding out. He knew that. But it wasn’t accompanied with any normal pain. It was a weird, far more uncomfortable sensation, an odd pain that came from within. Navarro had told him that this was visceral pain, pain that emanated from an organ itself, pain that doesn’t travel through the spinal cord.

Pain that ate you away from the inside.

He hadn’t been able to hold out. He’d told Navarro what he needed to know. And now, he was ready to die. Hell, there was no point in living.

Not like that.

“What the fuck is this all about?” he wheezed, his mouth barely able to form the words. “What are you after?”

Navarro stared down at him as he wiped his hands on a wash cloth. “Something I’m afraid you won’t ever have the chance to enjoy, amigo . But who knows? Maybe in another life . . .” He handed the towel to one of his enforcers, and when his hand came back, it was holding a gun. “ Vaya con dios, cabrón.”

Without flinching, he pressed the barrel of its sound suppressor between Walker’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

Navarro stood up, pulled his jacket straight and brushed it with his hand, then handed the gun back to the sicario closest to him.

“Go bring our guest out,” he ordered him in Spanish, “then let’s go find this Scrape.”