Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1) (25 page)

The air parts before us, the thick scent of some mind-numbing incense. Tim has walked up behind me and forgetting himself, drops character. “Fuck me…” His gaze darts around the room to take in the many other men flanking the walls and on either side of the door behind us. I look around the room myself, in complete awe that such a room exists just under the feet of the dancing kids upstairs.

The man with the buzz cut looks a little startled to see Han, and though he tries to maintain the tough exterior, it’s a miracle he doesn’t leave a trail of urine as he approaches the monster. Han’s eyes, the size of sewer covers, immediately focus on the morsel approaching him. His lips curl over fangs the size of machetes while tendrils extending from his chin curl and uncurl of their own accord.

The man kneels before Han. He rattles off in Chinese, and I feel like I’ve fallen off the edge of the earth as everyone in the room, including my temporary partner, understands what’s going on. Tim leans down and grabs me by the hair, then hauls me to my feet. I almost cry out at the pain of it, but I can’t take my focus away from Han, trying to remember that this titanic dragon was once the little pissant that tried to execute me on a freaking merry-go-round. Tim wraps an arm around my throat and holds me against him, making it look as though he’s got me in a much tighter hold than he actually does. As I draw breath, I hear him whisper into my ear.

“Didn’t pat us down.”

So they’re not all that worried about two little humanoids taking down
that
? Seems accurate to me.

The man chatters on to Han, the dragon not even lifting his eyes to look at us. And I’m grateful for that because I can only just keep my knees from shaking. For a brief moment, my mind flits back to the behemoth that was Bruce only a few days past. Bruce would be an appetizer to this guy.

“He’s saying he brought Han a gift. You, I guess,” Tim mutters behind me.

Han lifts his forelimbs, armed with five fingers, each bearing scythe like claws; two women clad in little more than makeup appear to stroke the scales of his hand. The man continues to rattle on. The dragon seems so little impressed by the gift that he actually yawns.

“He’s begging for his life.” Tim laughs darkly in my ear.

“You have a plan, right? You anticipated this without telling me, right?” I ask, and Tim shakes me in his hold. He stays silent. I hope he’s the stoic type, and his silence and shake is an “of course” statement and not a “nope, we’re screwed” statement.

The room shakes deeply at such a low frequency that my vision blurs and stomach goes queasy. It takes me only a moment to place it. Han’s lips curl further as he growls in guttural tones, punctuated by snarls.

One of the girls, who looks much younger than me, speaks up. Again, I have no idea what she says, but Tim is kind enough to translate.

“Han is not impressed. He feels that this fellow screwed up bad. Lost a shipment or something. More is owed.”

The girl turns away from the man and returns to massaging Han’s massive hand. She looks up at the great beast as she would a lover, cooing, and Han, in spite of looking upon her fondly, moves, disrupting her affections. His neck twists and curves as the great jaws whip forward, and the man who was so caring about my bruises suddenly ends at the navel, his torso fully engulfed by the head of the beast. Han pulls back, blood spilling across the floor in gushes as the legs flop forward and twitch momentarily before oozing red. The great dragon settles and loudly swallows.

“I suppose they’re even now,” Tim mutters.

The men standing along the side, dressed in crisp, fine suits all turn toward us, eyes hidden behind dark glasses and hands moving to guns and knives on their hips. The two girls, hands still busy caressing scales, look at us.

But it’s Han’s gaze falling on me that distress me the most. I suppose that’s not all that surprising. When a dragon locks eyes with you, it inspires a very strong release-your-bladder sensation. He growls low as he watches us, and the girl who spoke for him earlier stands.

“My master welcomes you into his hall and asks that you approach him.” She holds her hands out genially. Of course she would, she has no risk of entering the digestive system of her master.

Tim has more sense than I do and shoves me forward, shivering behind me with all the withdrawal of a junkie needing his drug. A junkie who doesn’t realize how screwed he is. But we both do. My body goes into autopilot as I walk, realizing I’m likely about to die. And so will Thomas, if he’s even still alive.

Mom was right. Never should’ve kissed a boy. I signed my death warrant…

The rug we walk on looks to be so fine that it parts beneath our muddy shoes like water. The room sparkles with each flicker of the flames adorning the torches lining the hall. And though I notice these things, what I focus more on is the pair of legs staining the rug only a few feet from us as we approach the freight train of carnage sprawled at the front of the room being attended to by his underage concubines.

The girl, apparently the mouth of the dragon, smiles as we approach. But it is not a welcoming smile. Nor is it particularly evil. It’s just a knowing smile. Her long black hair drapes down her back and wisps about like smoke as she turns to face Han and speaks quickly in Chinese.

Han’s eyes, reptilian slits bathed in a sea of gold, peer at me. And after feeling his low rumble, watching him devour half a man, and having a staring contest with him, he finally does something that sets my knees aquiver. He laughs.

A deep, throaty, otherworldly chuckle seeps between his scimitar fangs. The girl turns back to face us and presses back against the belly of her master, where his last guest is likely swimming about. She smiles broadly.

“The great dragon of the Tzu Dynasty wishes to congratulate you.”

The dragon’s tail stops moving and becomes statuesque as it points toward us. Though I can’t see them, I hear Han’s men moving. Away. Fast. Tim grips my arm hard, digging fingers into my skin.

The girl spreads her arms out, lying against the beast and looking enraptured by the entire experience. She sighs deeply as she speaks. “My master wishes to congratulate you,” she repeats, seeming as though she needs to gather her thoughts all over again. “On getting so far. On surviving for so long. But he says your journey ends here,
siren
.”

“Fuck,” Tim says behind me. He tugs back slowly as the great clawed hands before us move away from his girl-toys and press into the floor, the claws sinking in and crushing the marble and gold stones beneath him.

“He says the Donahue vault is surely not so empty that they are not willing to pay the original bounty. For you. Dead, or alive.”

Tim jerks me in a back step toward the door. I want to look away, assess the situation. Figure out an escape. Pull out my knife that will be little more than a splinter here. The concubines giggle with delight as they step away, and Han moves with the slowness of a predator that doesn’t need speed. He doesn’t need surprise. Because he gets to fully enjoy his kill.

A feeling I have fond memories of.

“Dead is far easier for my master, though,” the girl calls as Han prowls forward.

“Hate to be a poor house guest,” Tim says. He rummages into his pocket and pulls out a small device that’s no bigger than a stopwatch. And it has only one button.

Shit.

His thumb presses down, and the earth opens up as a blast tears through the wall behind us, shaking the hall and toppling each of the torches, spilling their blazes to the floor. The men behind us shout and scramble, opening the doors to try to escape, only to be set upon by fire and burned where they stand. The girls scream and shrink against the far wall as the room is devoured in darkness, the fires unable to hold the same light now that they’re spread out on the ground.

Far less impressive than the blast, but no less terrifying, great impact tremors shake the room. Not from explosions, though. From Han. He roars, a bellow from an ancient time that forcibly takes me off my feet as he moves lightning fast now. The distance between us closes as a hand―a human hand―grabs me and pulls me with such weight that my arm makes an audible pop. There’s so much noise that I can barely make sense of the world, my eyes useless in the dark. The great roars of the dragon bounce off the walls as I sprawl over crumbled floor slabs. The dust chokes me out as I cradle my arm, burning phantom pain coursing from my shoulder. I rise to my knees and the room explodes with light. Han has charged the distant wall in an attempt to run us down.

And in so doing, let the explosions that Tim set off above come down. The raging fire of the stairwell beyond bursts into the room, coating the dragon like nothing more than raindrops. I look around and see that it’s Tim beside me, and that we’re a significant distance from where we once stood as dragon chow. The room looks more like a poorly lit sandbox than a throne room now, the dragon’s rage having demolished a clear path to the far side.

Han turns on us and lets out a screech as he rears back.

“Follow me!” Tim shouts, his voice only just audible as he bolts for the far side, near the huddling concubines.

I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I don’t trust. But I run. I follow him as he bolts. He pulls a cylinder from his back. He fiddles with it while running and drops a piece. My foot steps on a metallic pin. The room quakes as Han stampedes from his collapsing palace to devour us. Tim pulls back his arm and throws the cylinder forward. And keeps running.

I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life. Hell, one time I plotted to have a guy get eaten by a crocodile. And given how that turned out, I can’t believe I’m following a guy who’s just thrown a grenade and intends to run into the ensuing explosion. But, given that the alternative is the several-ton beast barreling toward us, I think an explosion would be a better death.

So I follow.

Hissssss
.
Boom.

The grenade explodes, tearing a hole in the corner of the room, wreathed in fire and smoke. Tim covers his face with his arms as he charges into the billowing blackness and jumps. I mimic his movements, if only because if it works for him, it might work for me. And I may not fully trust Tim, but I assume he’s not planning on dying here. The heat of the blast rips at my bare skin, lashing me with whips of anger. I expect to hit the floor. But I tumble forward, falling. Falling. Falling.

Splash.

I tumble beneath water, my lungs already begging for less smoke and more oxygen, and now they are rightfully upset with me. I kick for the surface and draw in a breath, only to be met with the foulest smell I could ever possibly experience as my world rings with the great boom of Han’s roar fading into the distance as I’m swept away.

I try to suck in more air as I tread water, and it hits me where I am.

One of the cleaner parts of Saint Roch. The lovely sewer system.

And in spite of the sludge, the smell, and the disturbing solids I’m bumping into, I laugh with glee.

o,” Tim says, squishing as he walks across his retired train car toward me. “I’ve got this guy pinned. He’s flailing, and I’m sure he’s an Inhuman. No one could rob a bank like this guy did, right?” He wipes his face clean with a towel and immediately throws it in the trash. His dog, Cerb, sits on the far side of the train car and whimpers at the smell of us. “And I realize, shit, I’m in the park. At night.”