Bitter Waters (13 page)

“Can I help you?” Ukiah gave the quick rote query, his attention on the indignant squawks coming from Kittanning.

The man glanced past him, toward the kitchen door.

“It's my son's feeding time,” Ukiah said. “Could you hold on a moment while I give him his bottle?”

Ukiah had turned, and gone four steps back to the kitchen when he heard the man move—a rustle of clothing, and a slight click of a snap behind undone, and then the whisper of gunmetal over leather.

He spun, saw a gun in the man's hand as the man pulled the trigger.

It made so little noise for something that hit him so hard, again and again, tossing him down the hall.

“Daddy!”
Kittanning's screams of terror filled him before the darkness washed in.

 

“Ukiah! Come on, son. Talk to me.”

Ukiah opened his eyes. He sat propped up in the dim office hallway, nearly to the kitchen. The smell of blood and spilt milk bombarded him. Mice with formula-covered feet darted across his limp palm to hide in his blood-crusted clothing. Max held his face in a vise, fury clear on his face.

“Max?” He shuddered, room temperature to his core. He had been dead. “Max? What happened?”

“I need you to tell me!” Max said.

“I don't remember. Sam called needing a ride, so I got Kittanning ready and—” He stopped. At the thought of Kittanning, he had reached out with his senses to check on his son.

Kittanning wasn't in the house.

“Kittanning!” Ukiah cried. “Where is he?”

“Whoever killed you took him.”

Shadyside, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, September 14, 2004

“What? Took him?” Ukiah cried. “Oh, no. No!”

As Ukiah flailed to get to his feet, realization hit Max. “Wait! You've already picked up Sam?”

There was a black hole punched through his memories. He could recall carrying Kittanning out the back door, anxious because he had already made Sam wait so long, and then nothing. “I don't remember.”

Max bolted up the curving front stairs, shouting, “Sam! Sam!” His footsteps traveled the upstairs hall to the guest room. After a moment of silence, he came back at a run. “She was here and had a shower, but she's gone too!”

Ukiah hunted weakly through his clothes for mice as Max unlocked the gun safe and pulled on a shoulder holster.

“What happened?” he cried at the first mouse he grabbed. “Where's Sam? Who took Kittanning? What happened?”

Flashes of recall from the mouse's perspective. Sam standing over him, giant tall, still wet from the shower, her gun thundering. Sam paused at the door, looking back at his body.

“Sam shot at whoever took Kittanning. She ran out after them.”

Max swore, “We need to find them.”

Ukiah reached out and found Bear ranging at the edge of his awareness.
“Bear! I need you! Call the others!”
Bear acknowledged the summons as he muscled his bike into a tight
circle. “Bear is coming. He can track Sam. The others are coming.”

“Why the hell weren't they here before this? I thought they kept an eye on you and Kitt.”

“I told them to keep their distance because of Hutchinson.”

Max spat a swear word. Bear's motorcycle rumbled up outside. Ukiah swept a hand across the bloodstained wood floor and found a single hair from Sam.

“Here, give this to Bear. Go. I'll catch up with you.”

“Shit!” Max wavered at the door, obviously torn.

“Go!” Ukiah shouted at him.

Max went.

“Take good care of him,”
Ukiah told Bear.

“I'll keep him safe,”
Bear promised.

Alone, he took inventory of himself. Caught in the narrow hallway, he'd been hit by three bullets. The first struck him high in the left collar bone, shattering the bone, which deflected the bullet back out of his body. The bone shards grated together when he tried to move his left arm, giving out jagged peaks of pain to accompany a continuous low throbbing agony. The bullet must have turned him with its force; the second bullet tore a path through his body, right to left. Entering just under his ribs, it missed his lungs, but clipped a major artery. It was the cause of his death as his body shut down, trying to keep from pumping out his lifeblood. A delicate web of protein now held together all the jagged edges, keeping his precious fluids in, but just barely. He had to move carefully or risk tearing the patches open.

The third bullet nearly missed him altogether, cutting a thin gouge across his back.

Wincing at the pain that the movement triggered, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and selected Indigo's number. As he lifted it to his ear, motes of blackness appeared on the edges of his vision and cascaded in, drowning him in darkness.

“Special Agent Zheng.” Her voice came out of the darkness. She was in a crowded place, voices murmuring all around her.

“Indigo.” He slid down the wall so his hand was level with
his heart, not above it. Slowly light filtered back in until he looked up at the ceiling. “Someone just kidnapped Kitt. They shot me and took him.”

In the silence from Indigo that followed, he heard her friend and co-worker, Agent Joan Fisher, say, “Indigo, what's wrong?”

“How hurt are you?”

“Extremely. I've got mice everywhere.” Safe code words for
I was dead, I don't remember what happened.
“Sam's on foot somewhere in Shadyside chasing after the kidnappers. Max and Bear just left to find her.”

“I'll put out an APB indicating that's she's chasing kidnappers and should be assisted.” She snapped her fingers, and Agent Fisher murmured something about a pen. “Female. Blond. Height? Weight?” Ukiah supplied them. “Any idea what she's wearing?”

Ukiah picked up the nearest mouse and checked the memories that it held. “A T-shirt and underwear. And a gun.”

With a rustle of paper, Indigo handed off the description to Fisher, who said, “Well, that will make her easy to spot. I'm on it!”

There was a change in background noise as Indigo changed rooms or shut a door. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“I'm at the office.” He told her as Rennie's presence rolled into his awareness like a thunderstorm. “Rennie is almost here.”

“I hate to admit how reassuring that sounded.” Her revolver clicked distinctly as she checked it. “Call me when you remember anything about the kidnapper.”

“Will do.”

“I love you. Be safe,” she commanded, and hung up.

After fumbling his phone back into his pocket, he concentrated on getting up without fainting. He actually had managed to stand, leaning against the wall, when Rennie stormed in the front door. The leader of the Dog Warriors wore his duster and a shotgun slung by his side like a sword, cloaked by long folds of black leather. In his left hand he held a Dog Warrior clan jacket. Rennie pressed a callused palm to
Ukiah's chilled face, rage and concern fighting for control of his features. “You were dead.”

Ukiah tried to push away his hand, but Rennie only tightened his hold. “The bastard took Kittanning. Walked in, shot me, and took my son.”

Rennie turned Ukiah's chin, exposing the mice hiding in his hair. “You remember anything?”

“No.”

Releasing his chin, Rennie gingerly lifted Ukiah's T-shirt to eye his wounds. “These were made by a forty-five caliber. One. Two. Three.” He counted the holes in Ukiah, and then scanned the hall. “Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.” He fingered two of the shells lying on the ground. “He emptied his gun. Your partner's love, Sam, shot once.” He went to the door, crouched, and lightly touched a spot of blood glistening bright red on the sill. “She hit him. White man, middle age, blond hair.”

“Ontongard?”

“No.”

“Why would a human take Kittanning?”

“I don't know, Cub.” Rennie came back to Ukiah as more of the Pack arrived, their bikes growling their anger. “But I should get you away from here quickly, in case your neighbors have called the police. There are too many bullets and too much blood for them to overlook.” Rennie held out the leather jacket. “Here, put this on. You've got an obvious entrance and exit wound. Anyone with the imagination of a doorknob can guess you shouldn't be up and walking.”

“I'm not anywhere near walking,” Ukiah growled, angry at his own helplessness.

 

Mom Jo laughingly called the Hummer Max's G.I. Joe car, but in truth, it was his war paint. It masked Max's fear, called up the spirits of those who fought beside him in the Gulf War, and announced his intention to the world:
I am a warrior seeking vengeance; get out of my way.
With Ukiah shot, Kittanning taken, and Sam missing, it came as no surprise to Ukiah that Max had taken the Hummer.

Rennie helped Ukiah out to the garage, pausing on their
way through the kitchen long enough to empty the emergency stash of power bars. Rennie got Ukiah into the passenger side of the Cherokee, and slid in behind the wheel. The car smelled of baby powder.

The Pack raced out in front of them, their minds linking together into one great hunting beast. Bear had tracked Sam on foot through a zigzag course; apparently the kidnappers had tried to lose her by turning at every possible corner, hampered by the rush-hour traffic. Abandoning that strategy, the kidnappers then turned down Morewood Avenue to Baum Boulevard.

“She's cut her left foot on a piece of metal,”
Bear reported at the distant intersection as Rennie hit Baum half a mile down.
“She's leaving a blood trail.”

Rennie slid down the windows, and under the smell of hot pavement and exhaust, they caught the scent of blood.
“We're on it.”

Thus they beat Max to Sam.

 

Baum Boulevard cut a rare straight line along well-to-do Shadyside and into the poor neighborhood of East Liberty. At the end, Baum collided with Penn Circle, changing names and continuing straight another block before ending, as Penn Avenue took traffic on a dogleg turn before shooting off toward Wilkinsburg. Sam's trail led down Penn as far as the busway, and then suddenly veered across the street and into a bar called Aces and Eights.

Rennie slammed the Cherokee to a stop in front of the bar, sprang out of the SUV, and went snarling through the door. Ukiah stumbled along in his wake. The bar was a narrow, dark, smoky cave of a room, inexplicably crowded, a shock to Ukiah's senses. A wall-size menu of beers explained the countless varieties of smells that hit him. Pirates baseball played on the TV screen, generating roars from the men packed around the bar and milling between the crammed tables. In the back corner was a doorway, leading to a dining room.

Sam's voice came from a back room, loud and hoarse. “If you haven't noticed, this is a fully loaded, semiautomatic
nine-millimeter pistol and I'm very pissed off. Unless you want your balls blown into the next county, fuck off!”

Rennie had checked just inside the door, orienting himself. He exploded into movement now. Ukiah had never seen Pack fight normal men before. It was like watching a wolf tear through a display of rag dolls. Heavily muscled men swung at Rennie, only to strike at thin air. Rennie struck back, iron hard, lightning fast, and deadly accurate. Those that didn't get out of his way fast enough were flung through the air, landing behind the bar, through the window, behind tables. After Rennie mauled through the bar patrons, the rest of the Dog Warriors poured through the shattered windows and pinned the hapless prone men, making sure they stayed down.

The last man already had his hands up in the air, surrendering to an armed and pissed off Sam.

Rennie stalked forward, drawing his knife, murder on his mind.

“Rennie! No!”

Sam fired at Rennie's feet, the crack of her bullet making the Dog Warriors tuck themselves behind hard cover, pulling weapons out.

“I'm on the phone!” Sam snapped, her pistol still aimed at the Pack leader. “Keep the noise down!”

“Damn it, woman, that's a good way to get shot,” Rennie growled.

Sam just glared at him and told the person on the phone, “Yes, that was gunfire! No, I'm not in danger. I told you to get on your fucking radio and call it in! They're getting away! They took the baby down a limited access road just across the street from where I'm standing. No! I don't know the name of the road!”

“It's the busway,” Ukiah told her, pushing past Rennie. The Pack leader was already directing scouts out to scour the limited access road.

She made a surprised, choked sound and dropped the phone to reach out to Ukiah. “Kid! Oh, shit!” She pulled him into a painful hug. “I thought you were dead—again—oh, damn, I forgot about your weirdness.”

“It's okay,” Ukiah said. “I'm fine. They went down the busway? What kind of car was it?”

“Yeah. Where the buses were coming up.” Sam freed Ukiah to slump against the bar's back wall, the fight draining out of her. “A Ford Taurus, white, fairly new. The license plate was CBC 3002. I put a bullet into the back window. I didn't see the kidnappers themselves, except for one guy's back.”

And the Dog Warriors surged away en masse, relaying her information to the forerunners. Ukiah wavered in place, wanting to go, but reluctant to leave Sam hurt and alone. Max appeared, pushing his way into the bar against the sudden outflow of Dog Warriors.

“Max, can you take care of Sam?” Ukiah pointed at the bloody footprints on the bar's industrial tile floor. “She's hurt!”

“And you're not?” Sam snarled.

“How bad are you cut?” Max asked her.

“I don't know.” Sam lifted her left foot and displayed a bloody, grit-filled wound. She swore at the sight.

“I'll take care of her,” Max said. “Ukiah, get out of here before the police come or they'll be dragging you to the hospital too.”

“I can take care of myself,” Sam said.

“You're hurt. You're half-naked.” Max put an arm around her, encouraging her to lean on him so he could get her out to the Hummer and its first-aid kit. “You've got a gun but no carry permit or ID. And there's the trashed bar complete with unconscious men. Even if you weren't hurt, I wouldn't walk away and leave you to deal with that alone.”

Sam deflated. “Add totally lost and you've hit it pretty good.”

“I'll call you if we find anything.” Ukiah started for the Cherokee.

“Wait!” Max caught Ukiah by the arm, and tucked a tracer into his pants pocket. “Okay. Go. Find Kitt. And keep yourself safe.”