The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(15)
The faint light caught for a second—not on the fist of his assailant, but on the weapon he clutched in one hand. The nunchaku: two handles fashioned of iron-hard oak connected at one end by a short horsehair rope. The ninja wielded the weapon as a club, bringing it down with vicious intent, striking Lucien’s head once, then twice.
His vision blurred as his eye socket collapsed. He heard the crunch of his skull fracturing beneath the second blow. He lost consciousness before he could register the next strike. He was unaware as the assailant kicked him viciously in the ribs and then stepped behind him and brought the himo, the horsehair rope that linked the two handles, beneath his chin and used the ancient weapon as a garrote to choke him until his tongue came out of his mouth, swollen and purple.
The assailant dropped him to the floor in a heap, and dropped the bloody nunchaku beside him. Shards of bone penetrated the left frontal lobe of Lucien’s brain, severing neural pathways, disconnecting the structures vital for forming thought and emotion. The damage set off an electrical storm, sending random signals to his limbs. His arms and legs jerked and twitched like those of a marionette in the hands of a mad puppet master.
*
THE ASSAILANT STOOD BACK and watched by the silvered light that fell through the patio door, mesmerized as the victim’s arms and legs jumped and flopped. The movement subsided slowly until the man lay still on the floor.
The face was caved in like a smashed jack-o’-lantern’s. His right cheek was lying in a pool of blood. The left eye hung from its shattered socket by a tangle of nerves and blood vessels. The nose was a lump of mush. He was still breathing in irregular fits and starts, gurgles and wheezes, causing tiny bubbles to form in the bloody mess of his mouth. Several teeth lay scattered on the Oriental rug.
The weapon lay near the man’s mangled left hand, as if he had been the one wielding it. Blood and hair stuck to the heavy oak handles.
Pulling a cell phone from a pocket, the killer leaned down close and took a photograph of the victim’s face, and then took another from slightly above, making sure to get the weapon in the picture, feeling almost giddy with the rush of excitement.
Killing felt good, satisfying, exciting. Very exciting. Empowering.
In no hurry, not concerned about being found, not concerned that the police might be coming, the assailant rose and went back into the study. A small lamp gave enough light to view the collection of ancient weapons mounted on the walls and in display cases. Knives and daggers, helmets and fearsome painted face masks of long-dead warriors from the other side of the world. And swords. Long, curving swords, some with elaborate scabbards and handles of carved wood, some with etched steel blades, some simple and plain. All of them deadly.
One of the swords was chosen and carefully lifted down to admire, and an idea formed and slithered through the killer’s mind like a viper. The blade hissed as it was slipped from its scabbard. The light shone down the length of it. The edge was tested against the pad of a thumb. A tiny bead of blood welled up and ran down the blade. The sight of it brought an almost sexual stirring within.
“Lucien?”
The woman’s voice was far away and tentative.
“Lucien? Are you down here? You should be in bed! You have that meeting in the morning.”
The voice was growing louder, coming closer.
The assailant went very still. Dead calm.
“Lucien? I hope you’re not eating something at this hour. You’ll get your acid reflux back,” she said as she came into the dining room. “Why do you have the door open in this weather? Everything is getting wet! What are you thinking?”
She came around the side of the table, stopping at the sight of her husband lying dead in a pool of blood.
“Lucien!”
She looked up and shrieked as Death came straight at her.
The scream died in her throat as the sword struck her in the side of the neck.
7
“So, I’m leaning toward Stench,” Kovac said as he walked into the cubicle with his third cup of office coffee.
He’d had the better part of a pot of the stuff at home, trying to rouse himself from a listless night’s sleep. Liska had given him a modern cup-at-a-time machine with all the lights and bells and whistles, but he turned his nose up at the fussy little flavored pods that went in it as “not real coffee.” He still used a Mr. Coffee machine from the last century. He and Mr. Coffee produced a brew that was capable of stripping varnish—not unlike the stuff that came out of the office coffeemaker.
Taylor looked up from his computer screen, green eyes bright and clear, no bags under them. “I’m sorry? What?”
“For your nickname. You need a nickname. I’ve been lax with that, I admit. It doesn’t usually take me this long. I’m off my game,” Kovac confessed.
“That’s okay,” Taylor said, going back to his work. “I don’t need a nickname.”
“Sure you do. We can’t just keep calling you Noob. It’s too generic.”
“That’s okay.”
“Did you have a nickname in the service?”
“Taylor.”
“That lacks imagination.”
Although, that might have suited him, Kovac thought as he looked at Taylor’s workspace. It was devoid of the ridiculous tacky and vulgar stuff Tinks had collected to clutter the place up—her coffee mug full of crazy pens, the cop cartoons printed off the Internet and pinned up on the walls, the voodoo doll of her ex, the framed photos of her kids. Taylor didn’t have so much as a Post-it. Boring. Finally, a flaw.