Over the past five years a lot of stuff has piled up in my office file cabinets. Given the size of the task of packing everything up, I recently started combing through files in order to determine what to keep, what to digitize, and what to toss unceremoniously into the recycling bin. Since moving to L.A. I've never had a lot of storage space at home, so my work filing cabinets are stuffed with the usual office detritus as well as papers I've had on file since I was an undergrad. Last week I discovered a gem I hadn't seen in over ten years--a short story I wrote back in college for a Detective Fiction class I took my senior year. I loved that class. I loved it not only because I'm a forever fan of detective fiction as a genre and I could get actual, real, legit college course credit for "studying" it, but because it was taught by the incomparable, delightfully sarcastic Betty Richardson. In my days at SIUE she was nearing her retirement, and had lost all patience for pretense with students. All of my interactions with her as a student were like taking a double-shot of scotch. She served her advice and feedback straight-up neat with no bull pucky, and it often left the one on the receiving end with a slight burning sensation. If you sucked, she told you so. That being the case, I count it as one of my greatest college achievements that she selected the genre piece I wrote for her class as one of the two stories submitted for the assignment worthy of sharing with the class. Sadly, I don't have the original with her comments, but they were something along the lines of, "Not bad. Someday, sometime, if you have nothing better to do, you could write." So here's to good professors, good times past, and to not being too proud to laugh at yourself.
***************************************************
The Exclusive
The bar was just outside of town, tucked
away off a two-lane highway in a grove of trees. The neon signs in the bar’s windows were
barely visible through the trees, and most travelers were never aware that they
had passed up their last opportunity for a cold drink and a hot bite to eat for
forty-six miles. Loyal patrons of the
establishment didn’t mind this. After
all, it was hard to speak candidly when there were strangers present, and talk
was of the utmost importance over a good drink.
Mayson Clarke found her way to that bar
one night through sheer intuition. She
was sure Quinn would show up there sooner or later, because his uncle ran this
bar and very few of his acquaintances knew of it, making it a safe and cozy
hideaway for times when he didn’t want to be found.
Her entrance caused something of a stir,
not because she was a stranger, but because everyone knew she was Jack’s nephew’s
fiancée. She eased onto a bar stool
amidst a chorus of greetings and rude speculations as to the reasons for her
visit. Mayson couldn’t help but crack a
smile at one suggestion in particular—she was certain Quinn would find the
charge of being henpecked objectionable.
Jack had, of course, noticed Mayson’s
entrance—he could hardly have missed it for it took several minutes for the
ruckus to die down. He tossed his dingy,
once white hand towel over his shoulder and joined Mayson at the other end of
the bar. “Why is it I get the feeling
you’re not here for a good drink and some casual conversation, Mays?”
“Jumping to conclusions again, Jack? If Quinn’s here you know exactly why I’m
here, but there’s no way I’m seeing him without at least one shot of whiskey.”
Jack grinned and had Mayson’s drink before
her in record time. “You know, for a
girl who came from a family of wine-tasters, you sure do drink whiskey a lot.”
“Actually, I only drink it when I visit
you and I never tasted liquor until I met Quinn and discovered a need to dull
pain and stiffen my nerve,” she replied wryly.
Mayson enjoyed bantering with Jack—usually about her affluent
background—but the reason for her visit overshadowed the conversation.
Jack chuckled. “Just be glad you found him after he mellowed.” Then Jack’s smile faded and his lined face
grew both puzzled and serious. “When he
got here, he was beyond pissed—he broke eight of my pool sticks and threw an
eight-ball through the back wall of my office.”
Mayson winced. “That bad, huh?”
Nodding, Jack continued, “That was
yesterday evening. Since this afternoon
he’s gone from being red-hot mad to acting like a whipped pup—all the fight’s
gone out of him and he won’t tell me what the hell happened.” The muscles at the corners of Jack’s jaw
bunched, betraying his hurt and concern for his nephew.
In one gulp Mayson finished off her
whiskey and made a face. She hated both
the taste and fiery feeling of it sliding down her throat, but something about
the action of throwing back a shot helped set her will and calm her
nerves. In a somewhat hoarse voice,
Mayson said, “You know the arrangement, Jack.
He can’t talk, and neither can I or I lose my exclusive. All I can tell you is that it’s the worst
he’s ever dealt with before and they’ve put him in charge of the entire
investigation. None of the other
detectives wanted to take the heat from the media when the leads ran out while
more people died.”
“How many more victims have there been
since he took it on?”
“Four.”
Mayson stood up.
Jack’s eyes fell. “He’s in the back room.”
Jack’s back room was more of a cozy den,
with its soft couch and recliner in front of a thirty-six inch television,
surrounded by handmade coffee tables and dusty Indian rugs. Some people might have found the mounted deer
heads (one for each wall) a little disturbing, with their lifelike glass eyes,
but Mayson found them quaint. Especially
since Jack used one of the buck’s antlers as a hat rack.
Mayson stood in the doorway wondering if
Quinn had given Jack the slip until she saw a pair of large shoes hanging over
one edge of the couch. When she came
around the side of the couch she found Quinn asleep, his head awkwardly propped
against a very small throw pillow. The
low coffee table in front of the couch was covered with documents, photographs,
and notes on the murder case Quinn was currently working on. On the floor next to the table was Quinn’s
standard issue side arm, tucked tightly in a shoulder holster. A familiar uneasiness stirred in Mayson’s
mind when she saw it.
She had only been eight years old when one
of her playmates had gathered a few fellow classmates together in a far corner
of the schoolyard to show off something he had discovered in his father’s
underwear drawer. Like the other
students, Mayson was anxious to get a look at this forbidden fruit that adults
guarded so closely. It happened so
quickly, the repeat so forceful and loud, Mayson’s heart stopped.
Her playmate had been showing off his aim
when he really fell into his role and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed between two of the
spectator’s heads and struck a boy in the lower back who was playing nearby. Mayson had watched with horrified eyes as the
boy arched back and fell to the ground with an anguished cry. Though the gun was only a .22 that had been
purchased for the purpose of target practice, the bullet damaged the spinal
cord. Mayson’s classmate would never
walk again.
“Do you often stand around staring into
space?” Quinn was awake.
Forcing the memories out of her thoughts,
Mayson replied, “You certainly weren’t offering up any good conversation.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed a bit, seeing something
in Mayson’s countenance that puzzled him.
Then he noticed his gun, on the floor near Mayson, and was puzzled no
more. He was well aware of Mayson’s
aversion to firearms. Nightmares brought
those little things into the open with a very naked honesty.
Quinn sat up and wearily rubbed his
eyes. “It’s a good thing you came in and
woke me up. I’m so tired I might not
have come to until morning.” He began
rifling through the mess on the table, looking for his notepad. “I don’t know whether I should be cheered or
terrified that you figured out where I went.”
“I wouldn’t worry about being terrified so
long as when you slip town you’re always sleeping alone on your uncle’s ratty
couch.”
Quinn laughed for the first time in three
days, a realization that disturbed him a little but did not surprise him.
“So what the hell happened that you took
off without even telling me and made
you mad enough to redesign Jack’s back wall with an eight-ball?” She sat down next to him and leaned forward,
ready to listen and be supportive.
Quinn resisted the urge to grind his
teeth. “Hanks is taking me off of the
case as of nine o’clock tomorrow morning, at which time I’m to hand over
everything to Detective Uphoff.”
This announcement was too much for flesh
and blood to endure. Mayson sprung from
her place on the couch, propelled by extreme ire and agitation. “Uphoff!
Uphoff! That’s it then—there goes my exclusive. That woman has never liked me personally and
you know how she loathes reporters and the media in general. This will put me in the chief’s dog house for
the rest of my life!”
The source of Mayson’s anger and
frustration came from the fact that she and Quinn had a professional
arrangement as well as a personal one.
The deal was that Quinn would not talk to any other reporter about the
case in exchange for information gathered by Mayson from some of her most
useful sources in the criminal underground.
Mayson had no shortage of friends in low places. She had gained a reputation among such
persons as being straightforward and fair, but most importantly they knew that
she had never, never revealed a source.
Naturally, candor is not a prominent characteristic among criminals, so
they still spoke in vague, half-truths most of the time, but Mayson could glean
more information from them than others.
Though Mayson was impulsive and dramatic
in her outbursts, they never lasted long and as soon as they faded she could
again see all sides of an issue. She
fell down on the couch next to Quinn, slouching in as much despair as she ever
did in her high school algebra class.
“All right. I know I’m not the
most impartial person on the issue, but I know you’re pretty damn good at your
job. So why is that jackass taking you
off the case?”
“He’s taking me off the case because I
haven’t found the killer.”
“Since when do investigations have to fit
into a set time span? I always thought
they continued until they were solved.”
“You know how it works. Hanks is getting a lot of pressure to get
this thing solved from city officials who are in turn being pressured by the
families of the victims.”
Now that she had all of this new
information, Mayson again looked at the table and the mess of papers and photos
on it. “You’re going to try and solve
the case before tomorrow morning, aren’t you?”
“Naturally. Care to help me out? Two brains are always better than one.”
From the beginning everyone connected to
the case knew that these murders were the result of some sort of ritual. The five victims were all female, none
younger than twenty-two and none older than twenty-eight. All the victims were bound by their hands and
feet; rope marks were especially bad on their wrists, cutting deep into the
skin depending on how hard each victim had struggled. Once they were bound, they were bludgeoned,
then garroted, and finally their throats were slit. The bodies were found unclothed. Quinn was convinced this was for the purpose
of removing a means of identifying the bodies rather than indicating sexual
assault, and his conclusion was reinforced
by the forensic reports.
When it came to the disposal of the
bodies, each case was different. The
first two victims were thrown into a nearby river in approximately the same
area and both bodies caught in the same rough patch of rocks further down
river. The last three victims were
dropped into the river from three different, widely separated locations. The killer was trying to confuse the probable
search area in which investigators might look for him—or her. This detail annoyed Quinn considerably. He was trained to search out patterns and
trends first and the harder those were to find, the harder his job was. Quinn remained annoyed until he pulled Jack’s
calendar off the wall in order to map out the dates the forensic reports indicated
the victims had died.
Jack was an avid fisherman; he made sure
every calendar he bought indicated the phases of the moon because fishing was
better in certain phases than in others.
After Quinn transcribed all the dates onto the calendar, he finally
noticed a pattern. Every day a victim
died was also a new stage in the moon’s cycle.
Victims died on the first day of the new moon, the first quarter, and
the full moon. It also didn’t escape
Quinn’s attention that tonight was the first night of the next new moon.
When Quinn shared his new discovery with
Mayson, who had been going over the victims’ backgrounds for the hundredth time
hoping to find a common link that had previously been overlooked, she pounced
on it at once. “There’s our in! If your pattern holds, another ritual will
happen tonight and another victim will be needed. All we need to do is--”
“Hold on a minute, Mayson! We don’t even know where to find the damn
killer! We don’t know where he kills his
victims—we only know that he dumps the bodies in the river afterwards and the
points at which he does that are random.
Look, Mays, I’m sorry—I never really expected to solve the case tonight. I’m sorry you’re going to loose your exclusive,
but--”
Mayson put her hand over Quinn’s
lips. “Quinn. Stop apologizing and acting like it’s all
over. You’ve forgotten that I’ve been
doing my own investigating. Forget about
my exclusive. That doesn’t exist yet and
when it does, I want a happy ending to it.
So first thing’s first—let’s nail the killer.”
Quinn peeled Mayson’s hand from his mouth
and held it. In alarmed, accusatory
tones he asked, “What have you done?”
Mayson gave her fiancée a challenging
look. “I’ve found a man who looks to be
a probable suspect for these murders.”
Quinn gave her a skeptical look.
“Just listen to me before you decide whether you believe me or not. From the beginning we’ve known these are
ritualized killings. Your first thought
was that some satanic cult or one satanic individual was responsible. I disagreed—those type of people rarely
commit crimes and tidy up after themselves.
So what if these killings were the result of a pagan ritual, committed
by an entire cult or maybe even just one individual?”
“I do know that those kind of people are
around, usually hiding in the woodwork, but why did the killings just start?”
“I’m not finished and if you don’t stop
interrupting me I’ll take this information to Uphoff and damn the
exclusive.” Quinn’s mouth was open as if
he was about to speak, but when he caught Mayson’s eye he closed it. “Do you remember my friend Star?”
“That flaky psychic woman who runs that
New Age store?” The question shot out of
his mouth before he could stop himself.
Mayson laughed. “Yes, she is pretty flaky, but she also knows
her pagan religions. I described the method of the killings to her, and she said it definitely sounded like a pagan ritual,
but what kind was beyond her without more details. Like you I wanted to know why these killings
began just now, so I asked her if she had gained any new customers lately. She assured me she didn’t, but after I
questioned her some more, she mentioned that a little over a month ago she
started receiving phone requests for large numbers of ‘ceremonial’
candles. She never saw the customer—he
called in his orders (she told me the voice was a male’s) and paid for her to
mail them to his address. I have the
address, and I happen to know that that area is miles out of the city and only
fifteen or twenty miles from the river.”
Quinn bowed his head and rubbed his
temples. He knew exactly what Mayson was
thinking. She wanted to pose as the
victim so that the killer could be apprehended that night. This was the best lead he had come across
yet, and if he and Mayson chose to pass it up, someone else would die. They could just watch the house all night,
but he had no idea whether or not the murders were committed in the house or
elsewhere.
He looked up and met Mayson’s steady green
gaze. “I’m calling James and Rob. They’re the only ones I can trust not to turn
me down or go running to Uphoff and throw me to the wolves. If Hanks knew I was going to do this he would
have to stop me, but if I pull it off, he won’t say anything—he’ll be too glad
to have this case closed.” He
paused. “When you write your story—if
this works out—your audience will get the edited version.”
“Well I have very little choice, do
I? Call James and Rob; we’re wasting
time.”
Quinn stood up and walked over to Jack’s
rotary phone which was hanging on the opposite wall. He picked up the receiver and held it for a
moment, then he slammed it back down in its cradle and walked over to Mayson
and pulled her to her feet. He wrapped
his arms around her and held her so tight her ribs creaked. At Mayson’s urgent demand for air he relaxed
his hold.
“Why don’t I just pass all this on to
Uphoff. She can try and get a search
warrant--”
“And someone else dies. This might not amount to anything, but it
might end up saving some young woman’s life.
Also, if you haven’t noticed, it’s too late to organize anything
official.”
Quinn looked at his watch and growled,
“Shit!”
“Do not take anything to eat or drink from
this guy. We don’t know how he chooses
his victims. If we throw a wrench in his
usual routine he may try to drug you. James
and Rob are going to be watching the back of the house from that side road down
there past the house. I’ll be watching
the front. You have thirty minutes
before I bust in through the front door and James comes in through the back.”
They were sitting in Quinn’s car about a
mile from the house. As Mayson looked
out across the countryside, she saw nothing but farm fields and an occasional
cluster of trees. There were no other
cars to be seen. Mayson’s palms were
cold and damp. She hoped that this was
the killer’s house and that they weren’t too late. “Is your cell phone on?”
“Yes.”
Quinn looked at her with intense blue eyes. “If you still want to do this, you can start
walking to the house. James and Rob can
see you, but I’ll radio them anyway.”
“See you in thirty minutes, darling.” Mayson smiled brightly and gave Quinn an
enthusiastic parting kiss. She was
careful not to touch him with her clammy hands.
The plan was for Mayson to ring the
doorbell and, if she found anyone home, to explain that her car had broken down
some distance down the road and ask to use the bathroom and the phone. She was to use her trip to the bathroom to
get a look at the house and see if she noted anything out of interest. If she did, when she made the phone call to
Quinn’s cell phone she would answer his questions with affirmatives or
negatives. If the answers were
affirmative, what happened next would be up to Quinn and his backup duo.
The house was two stories, white, and box-like. It reminded Mayson of the houses she used to
draw in kindergarten, before she figured out how to use curved lines as well as
straight ones. Mayson was still walking
up the driveway, heartily thankful for the bright outside security light, when
a dark-haired man came around the back of the house, his car keys rattling in
one hand, a stuffed duffel bag in the other.
He seemed not to notice her.
“Excuse me, sir!”
The man looked up sharply, his eyes
narrowed in suspicion. “Who goes
there? What are you doing here?”
Still walking toward him, Mayson said,
“I’m sorry to bother you sir, but my car died on me some distance back down the
road and I was wondering if I could use your phone to call someone to pick me
up.” She came within five feet of him
and stopped, trying not to think disturbing thoughts.
Now that she was closer to him, she was
able to see that he was of medium height and solidly built. Very
solidly built, she thought in dismay.
She also noticed that as soon as she had come within his line of clear
vision his expression lightened considerably.
In fact, Mayson would have said his eyes lit up suddenly, like gas and
fire when they collide.
“Of course you may use my phone,
ma’am. It would be too cruel to refuse
your request and leave you to walk up and down the road in the dark.” He smiled.
When he spoke, it was with a charming, good-natured Irish brogue. Charming and good-natured it was, but it sent
chills down Mayson’s spine. It was the
Bible that said evil will come disguised as an angel of light, she thought. .
.That is what makes it so deadly.
In no time Mayson found herself in
Declean’s (so he introduced himself) kitchen, holding a glass of cold tea that
she had no intention of drinking although she could have used it. Her mouth felt like the Sahara. She put her glass down on the table and asked
in her sweetest voice, “Do you think I might use your bathroom before I make my
phone call, Declean? I had no idea how
long my drive was really going to be, and then with this new problem it might
be quite a while before I have another opportunity.”
“Oh certainly!” Declean jumped up and gestured for her to
follow. Mayson was starting to get
nervous when he stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to face her. “You’ll have to use the upstairs bathroom,
I’m afraid. The one downstairs is torn
apart right now. In fact, it’s always
torn apart. I’m in the middle of
remodeling it. Just go up the stairs
here and turn left. I’ll just wait for
you in the kitchen.” He smiled.
Mayson smiled. What the hell was she doing here? This was not just nuts, it was pure,
undiluted insanity. Damn Quinn! He should have talked her out of this!
As she had hoped, the bedroom was located
just down from the bathroom. Stepping as
lightly and as quickly as possible, she peeked in the door then stepped inside. On first glance it was just an ordinary man’s
bedroom, being decorated sparsely and in dark colors. Then something caught her eye in the back
corner of the room. The light of the
outdoor security light spilled in the bedroom window and fell on what Mayson
believed was a large German sharank, or cabinet. She drew closer to it and put her hand out
and touched the surface of the doors.
The light was weak but with the help of her hand she found that the
doors were carved with odd, weaving circular patterns. As she ran her hand along the door, Mayson
sensed that something evil was behind those doors. She had felt that vague sense of uneasiness
before. Still, her curiosity was yet
stronger than her fear. She opened the
doors.
In the beginning she could see nothing,
but she pulled out a small yet powerful flashlight and twisted it on. When she could see inside, the breath caught
in her lungs. One shelf was lined with
large, gleaming ceremonial knives; the glint of light off the blades declared
how dangerously sharp the edges were.
They could probably cut leather like it was paper, she thought. Next to the blades lay a thick purple robe
made of what appeared to be velvet. The
next shelf was much worse. There were
several skulls on the next shelf, some of which looked to be very old. As Mayson looked at the skulls, something
stirred in the depths of her mind, like bubbles rising to the surface of swamp
muck.
Being a compulsive reader, Mayson had
gotten her hands on an extremely wide variety of books through the years. Some of her less well-read acquaintances were
fond of joking that Mayson had turned herself in to a veritable mine of useless
information. Those acquaintances failed
to recognize that it is impossible to predict when seemingly useless
information will become useful, as in this instance.
Since she was already thinking along the
lines of pagan religion, the skulls on the shelf before her recalled what
little she knew of druidism. Ancient
druids had served as priests and intellectuals in Celtic culture. These ancient priests worshiped nature and
believed that the head harbored the soul; skulls were placed in sanctuaries to
ward off evil. The skulls by themselves
would not necessarily confirm that Declean practiced his own, modern version of
druidism. However, the large
bloodstained bowl tucked away in the bottom of the cabinet certainly pushed the
evidence further in that direction because Mayson also knew that druidism
involved studying the death throes of human sacrifices and collecting their
blood, both for the purpose of divination.
Mayson was just beginning to feel dizzy
from nausea and revulsion when a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and her heart
leapt into her throat.
So this was it—she had always wondered,
morbidly, how she was going to die.
Mayson supposed it was a natural human impulse, but there was no way by
any scope of the imagination that she could have come up with this
scenario. Really, what were the chances
that she would end up in the basement-lair of a man who practiced druidism,
prostrate on some sort of altar, her hands and feet tied and fastened with rope
to either end of the altar while rescue waited nearby for the countdown to
end? Impossible to predict--unless of
course she walked knowingly into such a situation.
As Mayson fought with her bonds she
believed that, at long last, she had finally reached the very pinnacle of
idiocy. Declean was in the next room,
alternately staring into space in some sort of trance and crooning over a bowl
of blood. Apparently he saved the
stuff. Mayson could only see his back; her
eyes remained fixed on him as she struggled but he made no move to come in and
stop her.
With a growl of frustration Mayson ceased
her struggles. Her hands were tied
together above her head, so for obvious reasons she could not see her watch,
but she estimated there was at least ten minutes before rescue would swing into
motion. By that time she would surely be
filleted. Declean began to croon again
and Mayson tried to turn her head so that she could see the ropes that tied her
hands. Her hands were being
scorched. Declean had lighted numerous
candles (likely the ones he had ordered from Star) and set them everywhere
around the room—including around Mayson’s head and feet. She had been about to pull her hands as far
away as she could from the candles to keep them from being burned. Instead, she now pushed her hands toward the
candle, angling her hands so that the majority of the flame was concentrated on
the ropes.
Unfortunately, though the candle’s flame
was burning though the ropes, it was also burning her hands badly. The pain was intense, but Mayson put tension
on the ropes by pulling her hands in opposite directions so that the moment the
ropes were sufficiently burned through they would snap apart. A few seconds more and they did snap apart,
and Mayson carefully sat up and grabbed a candle to start burning through the
ropes that bound her feet—burning was faster than trying to untie Declean’s
thick, complicated knots.
Mayson kept shooting apprehensive glances
back at Declean. Before the flame had
quite completed its work, Mayson glanced over and saw that Declean was
rising. She put her candle down and
grabbed the ropes with her burnt hands to pull them apart. The pain from her hands made tears run freely
from her eyes but the ropes came apart.
The moment her feet were free Mayson was up and running. She did not look back to see if her would-be
killer was following her.
In his arrogance Declean had failed to
lock the door at the top of the basement stairs so Mayson ran into no problems
there. She tore through the first floor
directly toward the front door. Hoping
Declean might think she had gone for the back door, Mayson used all her
self-control to make herself open the front door slowly and step quietly
outside and down the porch steps. Just
as she reached the last step someone rose from the shadows and grabbed her from
behind.
Without even thinking Mayson elbowed her
opponent in the ribs, then spun around and backhanded him with her fist, which
was powered by a frenzied, adrenaline-packed force. He groaned and fell back on his backside with
a solid thump. Mayson thought there was
something familiar about that groan, so she grabbed him by his collar and
dragged him out of the shadows. Sure
enough, it was Quinn; the upper portion of the right side of his face was
already swelling.
“Oh my God!”
Mayson dropped to her knees and whispered vehemently, “Where’s your
gun?”
“I dropped it when you hit me,” Quinn replied
somewhat indistinctly.
Mayson’s hand touched the cold metal and
she rose to her feet. Declean, in his
long robe of purple velvet, was standing less than five feet away, holding a
very large, nasty-looking knife, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Quinn saw him just as Mayson did, and tensed.
Mayson leveled the gun at Declean, who was
still laughing. “Very good. I’ve never offered up anyone with such
ingenuity, Mayson Clarke. I don’t know
who this man is, but he’ll serve as an offering as well. Tentates is always ready for human blood—it’s
the only way to appease him, you know.”
By this time Quinn had had enough. “What the hell are you waiting for,
Mayson? There’s a bullet in the chamber. Shoot him!"
Mayson had never held a gun until this
moment. She could still see the boy
falling to the ground as the bullet pierced his back. All phobias gained in childhood are intense
and extremely difficult to face and overcome.
Mayson had never tried to do either, and now she was in a cold sweat and
shaking terribly. Declean took the blade
of the knife between his fingers and prepared to throw the knife. His eyes were focused on Mayson’s chest.
“Shoot him!”
Quinn knew he could wait no longer, he
shot to his feet and threw himself at Declean just as Mayson’s damp finger
began to squeeze the trigger. The bullet
contacted just before Quinn landed on Declean.
Without waiting for the numbness to fade and the pain to set in, Quinn
began to throttle the man under him.
After a few moments Quinn suddenly
realized that his opponent was not fighting back, and that his right fist was
slick with blood. Mayson had shot
Declean in the shoulder, and Quinn had inadvertently pounded the bullet wound
with his fist. Declean had fainted from
the pain.
Still sitting astride the fallen druid,
Quinn looked up to see James and Rob running toward him, their guns out and
their faces pale. Together they managed
to get Quinn off of Declean and between the two of them they carried the
wounded man off to their car. Quinn went
to Mayson, who was still standing but still shaking badly.
He took his gun from her hand and put it
in his shoulder holster, and saw Mayson’s badly burnt hands. He pulled a large handkerchief from his back
pocket, then ripped it into two pieces and began to wrap Mayson’s hands. A few minutes later they were sitting
together on the steps, considerably calmer.
Quinn put his arms around Mayson. “Just so you know, darling, I’m never taking
professional advice from you again.”
Mayson did not turn to look at him, but
she leaned back. “I think I’ve just been
cured of giving it out, so don’t worry.”
After a moment she went on, “I didn’t hurt you very much, did I?”
“Actually, it hurts like hell. I think I’m going to have a damn shiner.”
“Sorry.”
“Like hell you are. You’re delighted to find that you can hit
that hard, and I know it.”
Mayson grinned.
After a few minutes, Quinn sighed. “Well, Mayson, you’ve got your exclusive.”
.jpg)
