Chapter 8 #2
I’ve never been so happy to be an only child; I don’t want to connect with this woman on any level.
“We appear to have different definitions of fun,” I grumble.
I glance over at Bes, who’s currently pinned to the ground.
He reaches for a fountain pen in his pocket and presses the release along the side.
The black ink splats the man directly in the eyes.
He rears back, stumbling across the gravel.
Bes leaps to his feet in one quick movement, grabbing at his bad arm.
Ingrid doesn’t react beyond narrowing her eyes. Meanwhile, I can’t help being impressed by his resourcefulness.
“Miss Hawkins, get out of here!” Bes yells at me as he lands a right hook along Klaus’s jaw. Klaus rebounds quickly. Despite being blinded by the ink, he manages to land a hit to Bes’s stomach. He bends over, coughing.
Before I even have a second to consider his suggestion, Ingrid raises the Luger and aims it directly at my chest, drawing my full attention back to her. “You’re not going anywhere.” She holds out her hand. “Give me the amulet, Miss Hawkins, and perhaps I’ll let you live.”
My heart pounds inside my chest. “I didn’t know your kind dealt in empty promises. Why let me live when you can take the amulet, as you said, off my cold, dead corpse?”
Her lip twitches and she cocks the gun. “This is true.”
I swallow hard. I should be terrified that I’m about to die; logic tells me it’s extremely likely.
But I’ve stared down death enough times to not assume defeat.
And, again, if she wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.
The only hope I truly have is for Bes to get the better of Klaus so I can catch Ingrid by surprise.
When her finger hovers dangerously over the trigger, though, I’m forced to consider the possibility my quick wit won’t get me out of trouble this time—
A yelp pierces the night air behind me. I flinch.
Ignoring the gun in my face, I glance over my shoulder to find Klaus clutching his bleeding right hand, his face twisted in agony. Bes spits blood onto the ground in a crimson spray.
My eyes widen: Bes actually bit one of the God Men.
He doesn’t spare me a glance, much less react to my silent admiration.
Instead, he scrambles for Klaus’s gun, now resting flush against the museum wall.
Klaus reaches for him with surprising speed and latches onto his ankle with his good hand before he can grab it.
Bes slips and hits the ground hard. Undiscouraged, his fingertips scrape across the gravel mere inches from the grip.
Once again, Ingrid is completely mesmerized by the fight. Glancing down, her hand gripping the Luger has gone slightly limp and concern mars her gaze.
It’s now or never.
With the element of surprise on my side this time, I charge at her.
She catches sight of me at the last second, surprise scored across her manicured face right as I barrel into her.
We hit the ground hard, the impact forcing the weapons out of both our hands.
My switchblade skitters across the gravel and out of reach.
The gun doesn’t go far—I clamber over her for it.
She struggles beneath me, digging her nails into the flesh of my shoulders through my shirt.
For a moment, we’re nothing but a tangle of limbs and grunts. The gauze wrapped around my hands begins to loosen until it unravels itself entirely and gets lost in the tussle. Adrenaline numbs my knee but there’s a very good chance I’m already bleeding through my bandage.
Finally, something gives: the fabric of her skirt tears as she tries to sling her legs around mine.
And I’m once again thankful for the invention of pants.
With the long end of the Luger within my reach now, I grasp the metal with a steady hand.
Rearing back to straddle her waist, I point the still-cocked gun at her head.
She immediately stops struggling.
I expect to see fear in her eyes with death staring her in the face, but she sneers instead.
“Do it,” she spits. “Pull the trigger.”
She lifts her head so the gun presses directly between her eyes. I tighten my hold on the grip. Don’t flinch.
“Because if you don’t kill me now, I’m going to hunt you down, and then you’re going to wish you had.”
My chest heaves with indecision. I likely have less than five seconds before she tries to take the gun from me. I’ve already made up my mind, though: I can’t kill her. As much as I’ll regret not executing her when I had the chance, I can’t take another person’s life today.
I hope I live to regret this.
“You talk too much,” I tell her. “And I should know.”
Swinging the handle at her skull with as much force as I can muster, I smash the grip into her temple with a crack. She goes limp.
Breathing hard, I inspect her face: the skin where I clocked her is split open and bleeding more than it should, as head wounds tend to do.
Her eyes remain closed shut in unconsciousness.
The sight of another one of the God Men hurt by my hand should sicken me, but instead it gives me a warped sense of satisfaction.
She won’t be going anywhere any time soon.
Then, I remember Bes.
Tucking the gun into the waistband of my pants, I jump to my feet and pivot on my boot heel in his direction.
He already has the other Luger pointed at Klaus. Leaning back on his knees, the fascist’s blonde-white hair is caked in dirt and blood, hiding most of his face from me while he grips his still-bleeding hand.
Bes doesn’t look much better. His shirt is half-untucked and his vest lies in a blood-stained heap on the ground beside him.
A bruise blooms across his jaw, blood dripping from a slight cut on his lip onto the collar of his white shirt.
I can’t see his left arm so I have no idea if he’s bled through, but he’s favoring it more than before.
Despite my presence, neither of them seem to take any notice of me, or give any indication they witnessed what happened between Ingrid and I.
My first instinct is to sneak up behind Klaus to help Bes gain the advantage. Something about the way the two men are locked on one another causes me to hesitate. It feels personal, in a way. As if they know each other.
“—will find you. You won’t win,” Klaus seethes as I edge closer.
Sweat trickles down Bes’s temple and shimmers in the moonlight. Yet his hand remains steady, his finger hovering calmly over the trigger. I might not know Bes very well, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to kill someone in cold blood. Even if that someone is one of the God Men.
“It’s not about winning,” Bes argues, voice hard. “It never has been. It’s about doing everything in my power to purge the earth of demons like you.”
Grim but determined, Bes narrows his dark eyes.
“By any means necessary.”
The sharp sound of the gunshot ricochets along the museum wall as the Luger recoils. I duck reflexively and throw my hands over my head, but that doesn’t stop the ringing from echoing between my ears.
Klaus crumples to the ground.
Straightening slowly, my breath stutters. He did it—Bes actually killed him.
This can’t be the same man I met in the desert—the one who talks like he’s in a hurry to be somewhere, who has to push his glasses up his nose and constantly tuck his wild hair behind his ears. And now he’s killing these God Men with their own guns?
I might have to consider reevaluating my earlier assertion he’s never been shot before. Someone who handles a gun that well uses them often, and has likely had one or two pointed at them in return.
Chest heaving, my attention shifts from Klaus’s lifeless body to Bes. His expression is rigid and raging with fire, and I have to admit, I’m afraid of what I see.
By any means necessary…
As the fire slowly disappears from his deep brown eyes, he reaches back to tuck the Luger into the narrow space between his shirt and pants. Lastly, he runs both hands through his dark hair a few times, smoothing it back.
He approaches me, eyes roving across my body to discern if I’m injured. “Are you hurt?”
Grateful for this concern, I show him my unwrapped palms. “Never been better.”
He nods, pushing his glasses up his face. “Come on, we need to get to the motorcar.” He grabs my fingers, purposefully avoiding my palm. Heat zings up my arm from the contact. “We have to hurry—there might be more of them.”
Good Lord, I hope not.
Dropping his hand, I snatch up my pack and suitcase from where I dropped them, slinging my bag over one shoulder. “Hopefully they’re not as smart as you and we don’t have to worry about cut fuel lines.”
“The car belongs to the museum and would’ve been parked out of sight,” Bes amends. “But if Cec is correct about the curator’s assistant, then I don’t bloody care whose car it is. We’re commandeering it.”
I blink at the venom in his words. “Fair enough.”
Before I go any further, I glance over my shoulder at Ingrid.
She’s still unconscious, and I consider if I should follow Bes’s lead and kill her after all. She threatened to hunt me down if I didn’t, and I believe her.
No—I’m standing firm on my decision. I’ve killed enough people today. I could ask Bes to do it, but that doesn’t feel any different than pulling the trigger myself.
Besides, the gunshot likely drew people’s attention. It’s only a matter of time before curious bystanders come to investigate. We can’t be here when they do.
Bes rounds the corner with me at his heels, the two of us skirting along the side of the building. Once we make it to the front, I find a black automobile parked haphazardly in the middle of the half-moon driveway, waiting for us. That’s convenient.