Greenmantle (34 page)

So she searched the Green Man’s eyes, met his gaze for as long as she dared, but finally had to turn away, the question unanswered. Looking into his eyes, she felt something grow hot inside her, a burning. The fire that Mally had been talking about, she thought. It followed her nerves, sparking along their lengths like an electric shock. Not until she looked away did she realize that she was holding her breath.

She let it out, drew in a lungful of cold air, then another. Slowly the burning cooled, but she didn’t look back at the Green Man. Was it so important to know everything? Maybe it was impossible to know anything, let alone everything, about some things. But if she had to make a decision about the stag, she had to know what
he
wanted, didn’t she?

The sound of the hounds, much closer now, drew her away from the Green Man’s presence. Be a mystery then, she thought. She rejoined Mally, who was regarding her with a curious expression in her catlike eyes.

“What did you see?” the wild girl asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe it wasn’t so much seeing something as
feeling
it. But I don’t think he needs me, Mally. I don’t think a being like that needs anything or anybody.”

Mally nodded, though whether in agreement or understanding, Ali couldn’t tell. “He knows how to keep a secret,” she said.

“I suppose. Only how am I supposed to—”

The baying of the hounds was suddenly very close.

“We have to go now!” Mally cried.

She caught Ali by the hand and ran toward one of the stone formations. It reared above them, its base dark and shrouded in shadow as the tall heights blocked out the light of the moon. Ali tried to draw back as they neared it, but Mally raced on as though she meant to run right into it.

“Mally!” Ali cried, digging in her heels.

The wild girl didn’t reply. Instead she scooped Ali up in her arms. Undaunted by the weight, she sprinted for the stone. Ali shut her eyes. She expected them to hit it with a jarring impact, but in the next instant they were tumbling across grass. Mally landed like a cat, on her feet and running, but Ali sprawled in a tangle of limbs. She opened her eyes and saw that they were in Tony’s front yard.

A surreal mood fell over her. She’d been dreaming, she was sure. She’d wandered out of Tony’s house and dreamed it all. The hidden village in the forest, Lewis and the old stone and the dancers. The stag and the wild ride and that place that the mysteries came from.

She looked at Mally. If she’d been dreaming, shouldn’t Mally disappear, now that she’d woken up? Or maybe she was dreaming Mally, dreaming this, too.

The wild girl stepped close and offered her a hand up.

“Thanks,” Ali said, determined to be polite even if she was dreaming.

Mally regarded her, a half-smile on her lips. Her hat was still missing and her hair was a wild nest of burrs and twigs and bits of leaves. It wasn’t a dream, Ali realized as she took in the two small horns poking out of that thicket of hair. There were a hundred things she wanted to ask Mally right then and there, but before she had a chance, the quiet of the night was broken by a sharp gunshot. Right on the heels of it came a woman’s scream.

Ali and the wild girl turned as one to look down the road leading up to Tony’s. They saw figures on the road, the blond hair of two of them highlit by the moon. Ali recognized the one closest to them just before that figure went tumbling to the side of the road.

“Mom!” she cried and started to run.

Mally sprinted ahead of her. With a shock, Ali realized that the wild girl was growling as she ran.

“That’s my mom!” she cried after Mally.

Another gunshot stole away her words with the volume of its report.

17

The gunshot lifted him from the captain’s chair in the front of the van. He was out the door, crossbow in hand, before Frankie’s scream tore across it.

He didn’t think about where he was going. Automatically, he’d started for Valenti’s house. The sound of the second shot confirmed the direction and he ran all out, cursing himself for being so complacent once he’d let Louie Fucceri drive off. Christ, he could be stupid. Louie could’ve spotted him, or the van, and doubled back. Or he could’ve just sent another team in once he’d confirmed the target was in place.

He was getting too old for this kind of shit and that was all there was to it. A man should know well enough when to leave it alone. Let the young bucks take the risks. It wasn’t like he needed this.

Expecting the trouble to be up at the house, he wasn’t prepared for the struggling figures that suddenly appeared on the road in front of him. There seemed to be four or five figures in or around the action. How big a team had Louie sent in? This many men, it wasn’t going to look good to the families. How many men could it take to hit a limping ex-enforcer? they’d be asking.

As he closed in he tried to pick out a target, but it was too dark and he couldn’t make out who was who. A third shot rang out.

* * *

When Frankie screamed and fell, Bannon couldn’t tell if she’d been hit or not. The gun went off close enough to momentarily deafen him. He turned, trying to hit Howie’s gun arm, but was thrown off by the fact that Howie was using the weapon left-handedly. Before he could compensate, Howie fired again.

Something punched Bannon in the side. The force of the bullet half-lifted him an inch or so up onto his toes, and then he was falling backward. The left side of his torso went numb. A burning sensation spread from the wound. The whole scene took on a preternatural clarity as though he could suddenly see in the dark. He thought he heard a kid’s voice—Ali’s voice. He saw Howie taking careful aim at him, a gun in each hand. No way the bastard would miss at this range.

He hit the road hard enough to knock the wind from him. The wound in his side throbbed as though someone had kicked it. He tried to reach the knife that hung between his shoulder blades, but he had landed on his right arm and his left wouldn’t do what he told it to. The strange clarity of sight that had come over him let him look right into Howie’s eyes. He knew the exact moment Howie was going to fire—telegraphed by a certain look—but then Howie aimed at a new threat. The .38 in Howie’s left hand went off, the shot going wild, as something attacked him.

Bannon couldn’t make out what it was. Some kind of animal, he thought. Growling deep in its chest, like a panther. He saw it bowl Howie over, then his vision began to blur. Got to hang on, he told himself. This was no time to be wimping out. He had a job to do. Tony was depending on him to… He passed out, face turned into the dirt, before he could finish the thought.

* * *

Howie felt good. Even when Bannon was turning—the move quick and sure like he knew what he was doing—Howie wasn’t bothered. He kept a grip on the stolen automatic, but used his .38 to shoot. His first shot was a clean miss, but the second caught the fucker and blew him off his feet.

He gave a quick glance in the direction that Frankie had fallen, saw she wasn’t going nowhere fast, not that babe, and turned back to Bannon to finish him off. What do you think fuckhead? he thought. Still going to brush right by Howie Peale like he don’t mean shit? You got about two seconds to feel sorry for yourself, but don’t bother apologizing.

He tightened his finger on the trigger of the .38, then some sixth sense warned him that he was blowing it. He lifted the gun to meet the new threat, thinking it was Frankie, maybe, except whatever was attacking him now, he didn’t even think it was human. He had just a momentary view of it in the dark. Wild hair, teeth white in a dark face. He pulled the trigger of the .38, missed, and then it was on him, bearing him to the ground with the force of its rush.

He lost both guns. He cried out when his shoulder hit the ground. There was no time for another sound. A small fist drove into his solar plexus, and then his pain and the need to vocalize it was gone.

* * *

Ali had forgotten how strong Mally was. And how fast. She ran at the wild girl’s heels, meaning to go to her mother, but then she saw Bannon get shot and Mally attack his assailant. When the guns flew out of Howie’s hands, she pounced on the nearest. By the time she had it in her hands, Howie was dead.

She started to lower the weapon, then saw a shadow coming toward them from down the road. When the crossbow registered, she didn’t even think about what she was doing. She just held the gun out with both hands and pulled the trigger.

The .38 bucked in her hands and she dropped it, the shot going wild. The man with the crossbow dove for the verge. When he sat up, he laid his weapon down on the grass and lifted his empty hands.

“I’m with Tony!” he cried.

Hands still stinging from the recoil of the .38, Ali found the gun again and lifted it, trying hard not to shake. “H-how do we know that?” she asked.

Mally crouched over Howie, her cat’s eyes gleaming as she studied the stranger.

“Fercrissakes, you can ask him. I’m here to help him—not make war on little girls.”

Ali frowned. She didn’t know what to do. “Mally?” she asked softly. The wild girl shrugged, her gaze never leaving the man.

He looked at the two of them, wishing he knew how to handle this. In another minute the blond kid might pull the trigger again and this time she might get lucky and actually hit him. As for the other one, she was the size of a kid too, but he’d seen the way she’d taken out the guy she was crouched over.

“Look,” he said soothingly. “Why don’t you just ask Tony, okay?”

“Ask him what?”

All three of them turned at the sound of the new voice.

* * *

When he got off the phone, Valenti had taken the UZI and a flashlight and gone outside to make a sweep of his property. He took his time about it, walking with the flashlight off and stuck in his back pocket. He put as little pressure on his leg as he could.

The information he’d received about Louie Fucceri—that he’d been within yards of the house, fercrissakes!—settled in with numbing force. He’d thought himself very capable, able to go up against anything the Magaddinos threw at him, but now he realized that he’d lost touch with it all over the past couple of years. Lost that hunter’s instinct that had kept him alive for so long.

He had to get it back if he wanted to survive, but he didn’t know if he could. Because it wasn’t just being out of touch that had let him lose it. Something had change inside him as well. Changed forever.

He’d been a hard man. A hunter. Now he was something else. He could still get angry, he was still tough, he supposed, but it wasn’t the same thing anymore. Before, the
padrone
had pointed him where he had to go. He’d been like a weapon in the Don’s hand. And he’d gotten things done. But now he was thinking about it, and thinking slowed you down.

He didn’t want to go back to what he’d been. He preferred what he’d become—was still becoming. But he had some unfinished business. He didn’t want to deal with it, but he had to. Trouble was, he didn’t even know if he could anymore. He’d been following something else now—following the mystery.

That was what it was, he realized. The mystery. The music had started to heal him, but it was the mystery that was finishing it. The mystery and the Treasures. It wasn’t until he’d met Ali that he’d understood what he was missing. She’d made him feel whole again, just like that. And her momma… Well, maybe Frankie wasn’t for him, but just knowing a woman like her made him feel good.

So he was going to stay. And he was going to help Frankie, too. He’d get Ali back from whatever had stolen her away—from whatever the mystery really was—and then he’d make sure that nothing hurt either her or her momma again.

Oh yeah, Tony, he thought. You’re talking the talk, all right. But what’re you going to
do
?

He came around to the front of the house, keeping close to the woods. He used his cane with his left hand. The UZI hung from his right shoulder by a strap, his hand on its pistol grip. He had a 32-round box in it, ready to go. Two more were in his jacket pocket along with the automatic.

Come on, Louie, he thought. Let’s stop fucking around. You had me in Malta, but you blew it. So either do it right, or step into my sights and let me show you how it’s done. No
pezzo di merda
like you’s going to keep me on the run. Not no more.

He was looking right across his front yard when suddenly two figures appeared on it as though they’d fallen right from the sky. Valenti’s finger tightened against the UZI’s trigger, then relaxed when he saw who it was. He was about to call out to them, when the gunshot split the night, Frankie’s scream following hard on its heels.

Jesus, no! Don’t let the Magaddinos make their play now—not with Ali in the middle of it.

Before he could move, Mally and Ali were on their feet and running for the source of the gunshot. A second report followed the first as Valenti hobbled across his lawn, making for the road. He saw figures struggling there. Bannon had to be the blond man.

Damn this leg! Valenti cried soundlessly as he saw the man he figured was Bannon go down. He was still too far away to do any good. Mally and Ali had both reached the scene as a third shot rang out. He saw the wild girl leap onto whoever had cut Bannon down. He tried to put on more speed.