The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 43

Spencer squinted at Helms in disbelief, his hands raised. The Englishman took two steps toward him, and Spencer eyed the bandage wrapped around his head.

“How did you get away?” Spencer asked.

“Shut up or I’ll shoot.” Spencer heard the distinctive sound of the revolver’s hammer cocking. “Now here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to throw you a pair of handcuffs. You’re to cuff your hands behind your back while I look for an excuse to blow your head off. The slightest false move and I’ll paint the walls with your brains. Do you understand?”

Spencer nodded. “I can’t see anything with the flashlight in my eyes. Can’t catch what I can’t see.”

The beam adjusted a foot to the side. “Here they come,” Helms said, and tossed the cuffs with his gun hand onto the floor at Spencer’s feet. “Now then. You’re going to reach down with your left arm and, holding your right in the air, pick up the cuffs and snap one closed on your right wrist.”

“And then?”

“If you live through that part, I’ll explain the next step.”

Spencer debated ducking to the side and going for his gun, but Helms looked like he was expecting a trick and was ready to shoot. To try the maneuver would be suicide, and Spencer wasn’t feeling lucky. Instead, he slowly lowered his left hand and bent his knees, feeling for the cuffs on the stone floor without ever taking his eyes off the Brit. His fingers found the cold steel, and he rose to full height and closed a cuff on his wrist.

“Very good. Now, turn around and we’ll cuff the other wrist behind you. Lower your free hand first, and then your right after you’re facing the wall. Do everything nice and easy, or you know what will happen.”

“I’m surprised you can stand up after the clobbering you got,” Spencer said, doing as instructed.

“Ahh… well, that will seem like horseplay after I’m through with you, my boy,” Helms assured him.

When the second cuff was locked into place, Helms grunted and moved toward Spencer. A blow with the gun butt to the side of his head knocked Spencer to the floor, dazed. Blood worried its way down his cheek as Helms felt at Spencer’s waist and retrieved the pistol at his back.

Helms nodded in satisfaction as he slid the weapon into his belt. “I missed that gun. Hard to come by a good one these days. This Smith and Wesson is a poor substitute for a well-maintained Beretta.”

Spencer blinked through a haze of pain and moaned when Helms kicked him in the ribs.

Helms smiled at the sound and stepped away. “It’s lovely to put a name to a face or, in your case, to a sneaky backhanded blow. You’re Everett Spencer, fortune hunter, and soon to be deceased waste of space.”

Spencer remained silent.

“Yes, I know all about you. Easy enough after your idiot girlfriend introduced herself.”

“You should have taken the offer.”

“I couldn’t possibly have stooped so low. Wouldn’t be cricket.”

“Neither is hitting an unarmed man in shackles.”

“Hmm. Must have missed that in the King’s rules,” Helms said. “Now, on your feet. We’re going somewhere nice and quiet so we can have a little chat.”

“And how am I supposed to do that with my hands cuffed behind my back?”

“Very carefully, my boy, very carefully.”

Spencer shook his head to clear it and licked the blood away from where it had pooled in the corner of his mouth. “If you know who we are, you also know that we can afford to make you a very rich man.”

“Yes, well, I’m of an age where there are limits to how much I could do with all that money. Keeping myself safe isn’t one of them if I betray my paymaster. Doesn’t really matter how much I have if I don’t live to enjoy it.”

“You could buy a new identity and move to the other side of the planet.”

“As I said, it’s a persuasive idea. The only problem is I’m not remotely interested.”

“Ten million dollars? That wouldn’t whet your appetite? Imagine what you could do with ten million. Cars. Planes. Gourmet restaurants, fine wine, first-class travel. Girls. Or boys. Whatever you want. You’re seriously telling me that you’re going to turn that down?”

“Afraid I have to.”

“How did you find me?” Spencer asked.

Helms shrugged. “When I left the professor’s house, I had nothing to go on, so I had someone patch me up and then headed to the university to see what I could discover. I overheard his secretary talking about the mosaic in Jaipur with your friend Allie. Didn’t take rocket science from there.” He gave Spencer an ugly grin. “Now get up. I tire of your jabbering.”

Spencer tried to get to his feet, but couldn’t. “You didn’t think this through very well.”

“Get up or I’ll shoot.”

“You don’t get it, do you? Have you ever tried to get off the floor without using your arms? It’s impossible. Might as well tell me to levitate.”

Helms seemed stumped and then exhaled in exasperation and cautiously approached Spencer. “Oh, very well. Come on, then,” he said as he released one of the cuffs, “but no—”

Spencer swung the cuffs as hard as he could against Helms’s head and, with his free right hand, punched him in the face as he went down. Helms screamed in rage and dropped the flashlight, but maintained his grip on the gun. Spencer clubbed him again with the cuffs and wrenched the Englishman’s wrist to the side so he couldn’t shoot, and then grappled with him on the floor, landing blow after blow with the cuffs, pulverizing the Brit’s face with the steel bands.

The pistol fired and Helms stiffened. Spencer rolled away and knocked the gun free. It skittered across the stone and came to rest near the tarp.

He rose and moved to Helms, who was gasping like a beached mackerel, blood bubbling from a wound near the center of his chest. Spencer removed the Beretta from Helms’s belt and patted him down with his free hand to ensure he had no other weapon, and then tossed his wallet and car keys aside.

“Who hired you?” Spencer asked. “You’ll die if I don’t get you help. You must know that. Tell me, and I’ll get you to a hospital.”

Helms fought for breath and curled into a fetal position. Spencer drew closer and knelt beside the dying man.

“Who?” he asked.

Helms was trying to form a word, a name. Spencer edged nearer in an effort to hear whatever he was trying to whisper.

And almost missed the derringer the Englishman drew from an ankle holster and swung toward his head.

The gunshot was loud as a cannon in the temple. Helms flopped back, a neat hole smoking in the center of his forehead, the Beretta trained on him, Spencer’s expression flat.