Revenant

Chapter 28

I returned the first-aid kit to the shadowy area behind the bar and gave my knee a few experimental flexes now that I'd re-wrapped the bandage. The pain was manageable, and was becoming even more so now that I'd had a chance to toss a couple of scotches back.

Time to turn that 'couple' into 'a few'....

After limping my way around to the front of the candlelit bar, I hopped up on top of it, then slid both my glass and my bottle of Glenmorangie a bit closer to where I was sitting. Nate would have had a fit if he'd seen me actually sitting on his well-polished countertop like that, but he wasn't around. He'd probably left town already, high-tailing it to Budapest so we could hook up later. Fantastic... one more complication to deal with.

I had problems galore, and they were starting to pile up uncomfortably. There was The Hand, for one, which would have been more than enough of a problem all on its own. Compounding that problem was GQ, who obviously had no qualms about using other people to try and set me up for something unfortunate. He wasn't the brightest hitter from what I'd gathered, but it seemed he'd been smart enough to call up Shoe and drop hints as to my general whereabouts. He might do the same with The Hand, if the opportunity presented itself.

And now Shoe was dead, which meant there was now the possibility that Diavolo would begin to lose patience, and put more pressure on me to hurry the job along. And even if I did manage to pull the job off in a timely fashion, there was the very real possibility of a double-cross at the end of it.

Agent Moss, the presence of those two feds, my injured leg, the very small window of opportunity I had to get out of town... all of these problems were important and worthy of consideration.

However, none of those problems were causing me to question everything I knew about the way the world worked.

Sighing tiredly, I pulled the cork and poured myself another scotch. Taking a lengthy sip, I once again tried to trick my brain into considering the actions of a few hours ago and explaining them in a way that made sense. I was currently zero for three.

A few images flashed through my forebrain as I attempted to picture what I'd seen. Stevie, holding a knife, crouched atop of Shoe's lifeless body. Stevie, just standing there with his back to me, a hole in the base of his skull. Stevie, angrily walking towards me moments before that, half of his face exploding outward from Alaric's bullet, a wound he'd practically ignored.

No, actually... he hadn't ignored the gunshot at all. It had made him angrier. Annoyed, even... as though a bullet through the occipital lobe and out the face was an inconvenient distraction.

And during that whole encounter he hadn't outwardly displayed a single shred of fear or concern. Not once.

I'd seen it happen. I'd been there, watching it go down. This wasn't being described to me, or something from a photo, or some near-infrared pictures, or anything else that I could dismiss. With my own two eyes, I'd seen a guy shrug off a kill-shot.

And then there was the freakishly violent way Stevie had dispatched Alaric right afterward... the way he tossed himself from the top of a three story building and onto asphalt, only to stand himself back up and pull everything that was busted up back into place, like he was cracking his neck. Like it was nothing.

But it was that final glimpse I caught of him that bothered me the most. Silhouetted by yellow-orange light, his curled fists held slightly away from his sides, head bowed slightly, radiating diabolical menace and just standing there staring at me from the middle of the road... with half of his leg on fire.

Every bit of it was something I'd witnessed myself. And the only thing that even remotely made any sort of sense was-

Revenant, a small voice in the back of my head whispered. The restless dead.