The Gates of Hell

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Hayden’s free fall was short lived. It wasn’t far down to Boudreau’s boat but she struck the man a glancing blow on the way down before she crashed to the deck. The air wooshed out of her body. The old wound in her thigh screamed. She saw stars.

The chopper spiraled down into the rushing river about thirty feet to the left, the thunderous sound of its death drowning out all cohesive thought and sending a gigantic wave across the speedboat’s bows.

A wave powerful enough to alter the very course of the boat.

The vessel lost its velocity, sending everyone flying forward, and began to tip. Then at the end of its forward momentum, it rolled right over to land belly up in the white water.

Hayden held on as the boat tipped. When she went under she kicked hard, aiming straight down, and then struck out in the direction of the nearest bank. Cold water made her head ache, but soothed her aching limbs a little. The tug of the current made her realize just how tired she was.

When she surfaced she found herself near the bank, but facing Ed Boudreau. He still had the knife clamped between his teeth and snarled when he saw her.

Behind him the wreckage of the steaming helicopter began to sink beneath the river. Hayden saw Mai chasing Boudreau’s two remaining men to the muddy shore. Knowing she would not survive a water fight, she struck out past the madman and didn’t stop until she hit the bank. Thick mud oozed all around her.

There was a heavy splash at her side. Boudreau, gasping. “Stop. Fucking. Running.” He panted.

“You got it,” Hayden scooped up and flung a heap of mud into his face and scrambled up the bank. The mud and dirt clung to her, tried to drag her down. What should have been an easy crawl to dry ground got her only a couple of feet above the river line.

She turned and smashed a dirty heel into Boudreau’s face. She saw the knife he gripped between his teeth slice deep into his cheeks, cutting him a wider smile than the Joker’s. With a scream and a spit of blood and ooze, he belly-flopped onto her legs, using her belt as a means of hauling himself up her body. Hayden struck down at his unprotected head but her blows had little effect.

Then she remembered her knife.

With her other hand she reached beneath her, pushing, straining, lifting her body an inch as the mud squelched and tried to hold on to her.

Her fingers clasped around the hilt. Boudreau practically tore her trousers off as he heaved one more time, coming to rest right on her back, head and lips suddenly right beside her ear.

“Nice fuckin’ try.” She felt blood dripping from his face onto her cheek. “You’re gonna feel this one. It’s going in nice and slow.”

He spread-eagled his weight over her whole body, driving her farther into the mud. With one hand, he pushed her face into the goo, stopping her breath. Hayden struggled madly, bucking and rolling as best she could. Every time her face came up, covered in sticky filth, she could see Mai in front of her, taking on Boudreau’s two henchmen alone.

One fell in the three seconds Hayden’s face was held under. The other backed away, prolonging the agony. By the time Hayden’s face had come up for air the fourth time Mai had finally cornered him and was about to break his back over a fallen tree.

Hayden’s remaining strength was almost gone.

Boudreau’s knife pricked her skin around the third rib. With an agonizingly slow and measured thrust, the blade began to slide in deeper. Hayden reared and kicked, but couldn’t remove her assailant.

“Nowhere to go.” Boudreau’s wicked whisper invaded her head.

And he was right, Hayden suddenly realized. She should stop fighting and let it happen. Just lie there. Give herself time—

The blade sank deeper, steel grating against bone now. Boudreau’s chuckle was the call of the Grim Reaper, the call of a demon mocking her.

The knife beneath her body came free with a heavy sucking sound. With a single movement, she reversed it in her hand and jabbed it hard behind her into Boudreau’s own ribs.

The psycho reared back, screaming, the knife’s hilt protruding from his ribcage. Even then Hayden couldn’t move. She was jammed too far into the mud, her whole body being sucked down. She couldn’t even move her other arm.

Boudreau wheezed and panted atop her. Then she felt the big knife being removed. This was it then. He would kill her now. One rigid thrust to the back of her neck or to her spine. Boudreau had beaten her.

Hayden opened her eyes wide, determined to see the sunlight one last time. Her thoughts were of Ben and she thought, judge me on how I lived, not how I died.

Again.

Then, looming large and as terrifying as a charging lion, Mai Kitano came storming in. About three feet from Hayden, she launched herself off the ground, pouring every ounce of momentum into a flying kick. One second later, and all that force shattered Boudreau’s upper torso, breaking bones and organs and sending splintered teeth and splatters of blood in a wide arc.

The weight was lifted from Hayden’s back.

Someone lifted her out of the mud with seeming ease. Someone carried her and laid her gently on the grassy bank and stood over her.

That someone was Mai Kitano. “Relax,” she said easily. “He’s dead. We won.”

Hayden couldn’t move nor speak. She simply stared up at the blue sky and the swaying trees and at Mai’s smiling face.

And, after a while, she said, “Remind me never to piss you off. Truly, if you’re not the best there’s ever been I’ll…” Her thoughts were still mainly with Ben, so she finished with something that he might say. “I’ll show my arse in Asda.”