The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(55)

Prince of the heavenly host, be my protection against all evil spirits . . .

I was in the still place that had no center. And all I had to do was wait for Flat-Face to join me there.

. . . who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Three feet away, he paused, his big head cocked to one side, expecting me to run or try to, I guess, but I didn’t budge; I froze, he froze, and then I raised my free hand and crooked my finger at him.

He came into my centerless space, dagger raised. I punched his upraised wrist and pushed off hard, driving my shoulder into his chest. Off balance, he fell back onto his wide butt. I slung the four-inch-wide canvas strap around his big bull neck, whipped it three times around his head, then yanked it tight. Slipping on the loose boards, I hauled him to his feet and drove him toward the opposite side of the truck.

He sailed over the edge; the canvas line played out until it hit the clasp holding it to the truck; and then the strap went taut. Over the rush of wheels and howl of the wind, I could hear Flat-Face’s strangled corpse popping up and down in a series of rhythmic, sickening thuds.

I scrambled away, scooping up the fallen dagger as I went.

Vosch’s turn.

Only Vosch was gone. I looked behind, I looked ahead, I looked over at the northbound lanes—maybe he had crossed the median strip—but the bus was nowhere in sight. I scooted to the front of the bed, dislodging boards as I went, sending them over the side, where they fell with a loud clatter onto the road, until I reached the cab. I pounded on the top to let Samuel know that I had made it, that Vosch was gone, that at least for now we were safe.

Then I looked over the cab and saw the bus, about a hundred yards ahead, not speeding away, not coming back at us the wrong way, but turned sideways, blocking both lanes.

The trucker must have seen it too, because the wheels locked as he slammed on the brakes. He whipped the wheel hard to the right, which sent me hard to the left. I lost my balance and fell onto the jumbled stack of wood, flailing for a handhold in the slipping two-by-fours, while the truck, its wheels still locked tight, slid sideways toward the bus, then completely around, creating a slingshot effect: I flew off the back of the truck on a rollicking raft of lumber heading straight toward the bus.

At the last second I tucked my chin into my chest and flattened my body onto the bucking and bouncing wood that carried me under the bus and out the other side. I saw a flash of muffler and tailpipe before coming to a stop twenty feet later.

I pushed myself up and stumbled around on the lumber like a drunk. I heard sirens wailing in the distance, but I hardly paid attention to them. A man was standing between me and the bus, and that man was pointing a pistol at my head.

“Hands where I can see them, please,” Vosch said.

I dropped the black dagger and raised my hands over my head.

“There’s something you should know before you shoot me,” I said.

“A cliché,” Vosch said. “But better than begging.”

“Samuel St. John is standing behind you.”

“Drop your weapon, Vosch!” shouted Sam.

Vosch didn’t flinch. “Perhaps I’ll kill you first,” he said to me.

But he dropped the gun. Sam rushed forward and twisted Vosch’s arm behind his back and forced him to his knees. He put his gun against the side of Vosch’s head.

“No!” I said sharply. “Don’t kill him.”

“It is the only way to stop him, Alfred.”

I picked up the dagger.

“If you shoot him, I’ll cut myself open and heal him, understand?”

“Actually, I would prefer that you kill me,” Vosch said.

“I bet. Jourdain’s not going to be happy that this went hinky. You might lose your job.”

“And I love my work.”

I looked over his shoulder into Sam’s dark, deep-set, black-ringed, hound-dog eyes. “Let him up.”

“You shot him at the airport,” Sam reminded me.

“Only because I didn’t have a choice.”

“What if I just wound him grievously?”

His right eye was twitching. The hand gripping the gun was shaking.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked him.

He showed no sign of emotion, other than the twitching of his eye and the quivering of his hand. For the first time since our reunion at the airport, I noticed something odd about his hand: he was missing his pinky finger. I looked at his other hand. The little finger on that hand was missing too.

“You did that?” I asked Vosch. “You tortured him?”

“We considered it a no-brainer.”

That sent Sam over the edge. He twisted his fingers into Vosch’s hair and yanked his head straight back. He commenced to whisper something that sounded like Latin into his ear.

“. . . Per sacrosancta humanea reparationis mysteria—By the sacred mysteries of man’s redemption—remittat tibi omnipotens Deus omnes praesentis et futurae vitae paenas— may almighty God remit to you all penalties of the present life and of the life to come. Paradisi portas aperiat, et ad gaudia sempiterna perducat—May He open to you the gates of paradise and lead you to joys everlasting . . .”

“You’re wasting your time, priest,” Vosch said. “I’m not Catholic.”

“And I’m not a priest.”