End of Days (Pike Logan #16)(118)

Truthfully, I was hoping to stop her rage. I knew what killing for vengeance did, and it was just as hard on the killer as it was on the one killed.

The car docked and she said, “I know,” but I could tell she wasn’t listening.

We exited the cable car, following the path to the entrance of a cave. We entered, the darkness of the space dramatically different from the daylight just outside, forcing our eyes to adjust to the gloom.

I saw a cave that looked like something from the ending of Planet of the Apes, with lit walkways leading in multiple directions and the sound of the ocean crashing about, the briny smell of the sea heavy in the air.

Shoshana pulled my arm and we went to the left, searching for the old railway line, dodging tourists who only wanted to see the ocean crash into the walls. We cleared a main group, saw a lit tunnel, and then the serial killer.

He locked eyes with me, I saw the recognition, and then he took off running, straight down the tunnel. Shoshana grunted like an animal, sprinting right behind him. I shouted, “Wait, wait! Don’t follow him into a trap.”

She ignored me. I started racing behind them and we hit the railway tracks, the tunnel getting narrower, the light starting to fade as we went beyond the tourist area.

I leapt over a chain, telling visitors not to continue, and the light disappeared, leaving me running blindly in the dark, following the sound of the footsteps in front of me like a bat in the night.

I heard a noise that wasn’t footsteps, sounding like something heavy sliding in the gravel, then a scream. I ran forward, holding one hand out to prevent me from bashing into a wall, then was tripped up by a body on the ground.

I rolled over, raising my fists to fight, saying, “Shoshana?”

I heard a thrashing in the gravel and realized it was two bodies on the ground. Like every teenager on earth, I whipped out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight, seeing Shoshana enveloped around Garrett’s body, just like she’d done in Bahrain, her behind him, his head cradled in her arms, her legs cinched around his waist, one of his arms stuck straight up in the air, trapped from when she’d wrapped him up.

I saw her snarl and leapt up, saying, “Don’t do it!”

Garrett felt the death wrap around him as surely as if he was in the coils of an anaconda. He quit struggling. Shoshana had lost all semblance of reason, hissing into his ear, “The man you killed in Switzerland saved my life. And now I’ll take yours.”

I said, “Shoshana, don’t. He’s defenseless. Let’s get him out of here and to your people. Let’s solve the problem.”

She seemed for the first time to realize I was there. She slowly shook her head and I said, “Killing him won’t bring back the Ramsad. It’ll only corrupt you. Don’t do it. I’m not ordering. I’m asking.”

Garrett said, “It won’t matter what you do to me. I’ve been chosen by God for a mission, and killing me won’t stop that.”

Disgusted, I said, “You sound like every terrorist I’ve ever heard.”

With a weird light in his eyes, he said, “You’ll never hear it again, because I’m going to stop every future terrorist of the Islamic faith. I’m going to wipe out Islam as a religion.”

Keeping my light on him, knowing he couldn’t see past the beam, I said, “What you’re going to do is tell me where your last Turtle went.”

He said, “Fuck you.”

Shoshana glared up at me and said, “Let me kill him. Please.”

I squatted down, getting right in his face and saying, “I will let her do that if you don’t answer.”

He said, “God has a plan for me, just as he did for Abraham. And God will protect me.”

He slid his free hand into his front pocket, pulled out a folding blade, flicked it open, and stabbed behind him, hitting Shoshana in the shoulder, causing her to release her hold. She screamed, and I leapt forward, trapping his hand with the blade still in her. The force of my move caused her to scream again. I dropped the phone, needing both hands, but I was more than willing to fight in the dark. I didn’t need to see to destroy him. As this asshole was about to find out.

I jerked his arm backward, pulling out the blade. I rotated against the joint in a tight, violent circle and heard it snap, eliciting a guttural shout. The knife bounced somewhere in the darkness and I rolled backward, bringing him with me, him on top and me on my back. I wrapped my legs around his waist, cinched my arms around his neck, then pulled his face into mine. I couldn’t see it in the darkness, but I could smell the sweat of his fear.

I hissed, “I would have let you live if you hadn’t tried to kill her. Reap what you sow, asshole.”

Huffing above me, trying to get out of my guard mount, I ignored his thrashing, keeping him in place. Calmly I said, “Shoshana, do you hear my voice?”

In the darkness I heard, “Yes.”

“Can you still fight?”

“Yes.”

“Come to the sound of my voice. His neck is right there.”

And I heard Garrett scream, the noise abruptly cut off by the sound of something breaking, as if Shoshana had cracked a stick in two. His body collapsed on top of me and I pushed it off, rolling over and finding my phone, the flashlight still on and shining in the darkness.

I sat Shoshana down and said, “Let me take a look.”