Six Times Deadly: A Lawson Vampire Story Collection (The Lawson Vampire Series) (19 page)

I hadn’t expected them to find my hotel so fast.
 
They hit me hard when I came through my door.
 
I could blame it on the lack of sleep.
 
I could blame it on anything and it wouldn’t change the fact that I’d screwed up.

The dark purple welt on my jaw served as a throbbing reminder of that fact.

I watched Dr. Feelgood rub his jumper cables together again.
 
He was right, of course.
 
Everyone talks eventually.
 
Holding out looks good in the movies.
 
And on television, the hero always manages to keep from spilling the beans.
 
Real life?
 
Not a chance.
 
You’ll reach a point where the pain will wear you down.
 
The agony of it will overwhelm and you’ll beg for a chance for it to stop.

I, of course, had already talked.
 
They just didn’t believe me.

No one expects a woman to act alone, especially a former-KGB assassin turned freelance hitter.
 
I didn’t know if they knew exactly who I was, but they knew I wasn’t the ordinary bored housewife out stirring up trouble.

That made them somewhat wary.

And in keeping with that, they’d sort of bypassed all the level one torture techniques.
 
They chose to go straight for level five.
 

Electrocution.

I’d seen examples of this over the years.
 
Afghanistan.
 
Pakistan.
 
Beirut.
 
It’s nasty.
 
And there’s nothing like the smell of burning hair – especially your own – to make you think your stomach could flip itself inside out.

Dr. Feelgood stood about five feet five inches and carried maybe two hundred pounds of flab on his skeleton.
 
His jowls hung low, bleeding into his neck.
 
Dark circles underscored his eyes and the mop of greasy black hair dribbled down past his ears.

Not the kind of guy I’d think about while I was lounging with a glass of wine in the bathtub.

He sloshed through the water coming closer to me.
 
“So, are you ready to talk now?”

“I already told you what you wanted.”

“You’re lying.”

I shook my head.
 
“I’m on my own.
 
Check it out if you want.
 
There’s no country in the world that would claim me as their own.”

He scowled.
 
“You expect us to believe that a woman could kill the Kensei?”

He was referring to the guy I’d helped kill in Japan.
 
I couldn’t take all the credit for it, but I’d sure helped put him away.
 
Gladly, at that.

Chauvinism existed all over the world.
 
It got really tiring sometimes, trying to convince people that a woman could be a better assassin than a man could.
 
Honestly, it didn’t matter what gender you happened to be.
 
People all have the capacity to kill.
 
It’s just a small minority that makes it into an art form.
 
Only a few have the discipline and skill to stay alive as long as I have.

Somehow I doubted me explaining this to Dr. Feelgood would convince him, however.

“The Kensei wasn’t nearly as good as his hype.”
 
My jaw hurt when I talked, but I had to keep those jumper cables away from me.

“Tell me who you’re working for or you will feel the sting of my twin snakes.”

That sounded so badly pseudo-pornographic, I almost laughed.
 
I could look at this guy and see his whole life.
 
He hated women.
 
Probably had only had sex by paying for it or taking it by force.
 
In his world, he was a king on the outside and a scared little boy inside.
 
Torturing people helped him feel good about himself.

And that concerned me.

If he’d been a professional, uninterested in the joy that could be derived from torture, he might have simply done his job.
 
Dr. Feelgood was going to milk the moments we spent together, probably mentally recording them for pleasure playback later on tonight.

I didn’t want to be a part of anything in his world.
 
Imaginary or not.

I had a problem, though.
 
Those jumper cables would send a lot of voltage into me if they touched my flesh or touched the water.
 
Somehow I had to get out of here without either of those two options happening.

“You really should talk to me, Talya.”

I frowned.
 
They knew my name.
 
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the fact that I wasn’t just some anonymous variable disturbed me.
 
In my line of work, not being known is part of the protection you put around yourself.

“You look so worried.”
 
He held up the small case.
 
“We got your passport from your hotel room.
 
You really should be careful with it.
 
In this part of the world, not having it means you can vanish.
 
And no one would ever know you even existed.”

I had others.
 
But I wanted my real one back.
 
Over the years, I’ve grown attached to my name.

Dr. Feelgood moved closer and bent so he and I were eye to eye.
 
I could smell the chili paste on his breath.
 
His yellowed teeth betrayed a lifetime of smoking.
 
I almost retched at the mixture of smells congealing on him.

“I am going to enjoy hearing you scream.”

I grimaced.
 
“There’s no need for this.
 
I’ve told you everything you wanted to know.
 
I’m here on my own.
 
I came to find the people who buy the organs from the Kensei.
 
That’s all.”

“And what would you do to those people when you find them?”
 
He smirked and it pissed me off.

“The same thing I’m going to do to you when I get out of this chair.”

He leaned back and laughed.
 
Or at least that’s what he started to do.
 
As he leaned back, I jerked my left foot up into the underside of his chin, snapping his head back.
 
I curled my toes back just before impact - no sense breaking them on Stubby the Wonder Midget’s chin.

My old martial arts instructor had a cool saying.
 
“Where the head goes, the body follows.”

He was right.
 
Dr. Feel good’s bulbous jowls slapped and waved from the momentum, but they also carried him back into the table that had the car battery on it.
 
He slammed into it and dropped the cables.

I held my breath.

But they clattered onto the table and stayed there while he clutched his throat.
 
If I’d kicked him right, his trachea would be crushed.
 
His entire being would be dedicated to trying to relieve the awful pressure building up and the insane need to breathe.

He wouldn’t be able to do it.

I might have also triggered his retching reflex, in which case, he’d be trying to vomit, but with no immediate exit, he’d either have to choke it back down or risk drowning on his own spew.

The knots binding my hands were tight, but with Dr. Feelgood temporarily taken care of, I was able to use the minute space I’d gained by clenching my fists when they first tied me up to my advantage.
 
I flexed and twisted, slowly loosening the ropes.
 
The gaps in them widened.

And then I had one hand free.

I twisted in my seat and went to work on the other hand.
 
Dr. Feelgood was still gurgling near the table.

I’d just freed my other hand when something caused me to scream.
 
It felt like I’d been hit with a two-ton truck.
 
I heard the sizzle and crackle.

I gripped the chair and saw the cables in the water.

I tried to take a breath and then jerked my feet out of the drink.
 
The pain lessened, but I guessed the wooden chair might still be conducting voltage.

I needed to shut the damned battery off and get out of there.

Dr. Feelgood had slumped to the ground and his momentum had brought the cables with him.
 
He still had the hip waders on so he wasn’t feeling the juice.

I stood on the chair and then jumped.

Landing on Dr. Feelgood’s chest with both feet was tricky but I’d studied gymnastics at a special training school in the heart of Ural Mountains when I was much younger.
 
Funny how those lessons stay with you over the years.
 
I bent my knees and managed to maintain my balance.

Judging from the cracks I heard when I landed on his rib cage, however, I guessed Dr. Feelgood wouldn’t be living much longer.

I stood up and reached for the battery.
 
It was plugged into a rusted wall socket.
 
I jerked the cord out and the hissing stopped.
 
The wires were mercifully dead.

I stepped down off Dr. Feelgood and checked his pulse.
 
It took me almost twenty seconds to prod the flab enough to find one.
 
It was slow and thready.
 
I figured he had maybe five minutes to live.

His eyes were already going glassy and his pupils seemed darker than before.
 
They rolled over to look at me.
 
If he could have spoken, he might have launched into one of those boring monologues that bad guys everywhere wait their lives to deliver.

But Dr. Feelgood wasn’t talking.

And soon he wouldn’t be breathing.

I grabbed my passport and spotted my boots near the door.
 
It felt good stepping back into them.
 

The wooden door bowed in places, showing its years of abuse.
 
I had no idea what was waiting for me on the other side.
 
But no one had come in to check when the commotion had commenced.
 
That was a good sign.
 
Although they could have just as easily assumed the soon-to-be-deceased was starting with the torture.

Either way, I’d have to proceed carefully.

I glanced back at the room.
 
This wouldn’t be one of those cherished memories I’d look back in my later years.
 
Not by a long shot.

Although killing Dr. Feelgood did leave me with a small sense of accomplishment for the day.
 
No telling how much suffering I’d just erased by hitting his delete button.

I took a hold of the door knob and turned it slowly.
 

It creaked.

I froze.

Eased a breath into my lungs, held it, and turned some more.

This time it stayed quiet.

I exhaled and opened the door a tiny crack.
 
Light spilled into my eyes, making me wince, but I could see into the next room.

Empty.

I took another breath and noticed how much I’d been sweating.
 
Two things I’d need to do immediately when I got out of this dump: get another gun and take a long hot shower.

A bottle of wine didn’t sound too bad, either.

Chapter Two

In the wake of being compromised so soon after touching down, I opted for a new hotel in the swanky part of town.
 
The Ritz-Carlton has a nice joint on Bintang Walk, one of the upscale shopping areas, so I ducked in there.
 
The air conditioning felt great, but I wondered if it would stay on long.
 
Every time I visited Southeast Asia, it seemed like they were forever dealing with rolling brownouts.

Once I’d dropped my stuff in the hotel room, all I wanted to do was crash and sleep for twelve hours.
 
But knowing I had a fan club out there who wanted me – probably dead – meant I needed some protection.

Petaling Street is located near the old Chinatown.
 
There’s a sprawling market place on it where the locals go to buy pretty much everything under the sun.
 
Bootlegged videos of new big screen releases are sold with startling efficiency.
 
So are the diamonds and pearls and automobiles and big screen television sets.

I’ve known Shampi since I first came here back in the early 1980s.
 
Back then, he was a street urchin who made his trade stealing wallets and purses from tourists and reselling them at profit.

He’d obviously been doing well for himself.
 
His store now boasted a glass front and a pair of hulking dudes who gave me a quick once over and then let me pass.

Shampi manned his counter.
 
Behind him there were various lots of trinkets and other useless garbage he’d happily sell at exorbitant prices to anyone dumb enough to wander in without a real purpose.

“Holy crap.
 
Talya?”

“In the flesh.”

He nodded.
 
“I’d say so.
 
You look good, girl.”
 
He frowned.
 
“Aside from your jaw.
 
You piss someone off?”

“Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t, would it?”

He grinned.
 
“Yeah, but the people you piss off usually aren’t in any position to do much about it.”

“Someone got the drop on me.
 
Not the highlight of my career.”

“And you come to me.
 
I’m touched.”

“I need protection.”

Shampi nodded.
 
“You’re welcome to the two wonder idiots I have out front.
 
Not a lick of gray matter between them.”