12

The few Kickers on the front steps of the Lodge did not seem their cocky selves. They looked shaken.

“Hey, what’s up?” Jack said, shaking out a cigarette and offering the pack to one of the hangers.

The guy waved him off, saying, “It’s awful.”

The Fhinntmanchca, maybe?

“What happened?”

“I didn’t see it go down, but Hags and Ansari, man . . . I got a peek at them. The others are bad, but they’re just awful.”

Something awful had happened to that creep Ansari? Well, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Diana’s warning popped into his head. It’s dangerous. It’s deadly.

“I’m not following. What—?”

“Darryl . . .” The guy shook his head.

“Darryl?” He remembered Ansari telling him about his HIV. “I thought he’d been kicked out.”

“So did I. But he was back this morning and . . .” He shook his head again and looked away.

“Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

As Jack turned and climbed toward the entrance, he heard the wail of sirens. From the top of the steps he could see a pair of ambulances making their way down the street. He hurried inside where he found more shell-shocked Kickers milling around.

Where would Darryl and Ansari be? A group of guys were clustered around the stairway down to the basement. He headed in their direction. The basement looked like the place to be, and after following Thompson and Drexler yesterday, that made sense. If the Fhinntmanchca was here, that was where he’d find it.

“All right, everybody!” he called, clapping his hands as he approached. “Let’s get clear! The ambulances are here. Let’s let the EMTs through.”

He began clearing a path down the steps, but a big guy at the door wouldn’t move.

“Off-limits. And who the fuck are you?”

Jack looked him square in the eye. “One of your Kicker brothers. And I’ve got EMTs right behind me. You gonna keep them out while Hags and Ansari bleed to death?”

His eyes shifted. “Ain’t bleeding.”

No? Strange. Now he wanted more than ever to get past that door.

“You know what I mean. Come on, clear the door. You really gonna stand there and keep them from getting help?”

That last seemed to do it. With a grunt he turned the knob and shoved the door open. Jack slipped through and found a mess.

He counted eight Kickers, each seemingly damaged in a different way, lying or sitting on the floor. Moans and sobs filled the room. Half a dozen others stood and stared at them or tried to help. He spotted Ansari on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks as he felt around on the floor with his left hand.

“Anybody seen my hand? Where’s my fucking hand?”

What?

And then Jack saw the stump of his right wrist, but no blood there—it looked charred.

Hagaman sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his face a sick pale green. He clutched the stump of his left arm, charred as well. The rest of the arm lay across his lap.

He kept repeating, “You think they’ll be able to sew it back on? Do ya? Do ya?”

Half a dozen other Kickers had deep, deep burns in their arms and backs. One lay facedown on the floor. He had a fist-size hole in his upper back, all the way through into his chest cavity. Except for the lack of blood, it looked like the kind of exit wound a Magnum hollowpoint would make. The guy’s eyes stared at nothing and he wasn’t breathing.

What the hell happened here?

“Where’s the boss?” he asked one of the dazed-looking Kickers standing around and watching. The guy wore his sandy hair in a long mullet.

“Huh?” He blinked and focused. He seemed to have been in a trance. “He followed Darryl.”

“Where’d they go?”

“The fuck should I know?” he said, his voice thick with the Deep South. “I just hope I never fuckin see that guy again.”

“Who, the boss?”

“You fuckin kiddin me? Darryl!” He gestured to the fallen Kickers. “Look what he did!”

Jack stared at the guy. He seemed sober. His pupils looked okay.

Shock seeped through as he surveyed the devastation again.

“Darryl did this?”

“Fuck yeah!”

Jack tried to imagine it and failed.

“How?”

“The fuck I know? Like anything he touched turned to steam. Never seen nothin like it and hope to God I never see it again.”

Darryl? This guy had to be on drugs. But then again, the wounds Jack had seen sort of fit with what he was saying.

But how? Could it have anything to do with the Fhinntmanchca? Had to. What other explanation could there be?

Over the guy’s shoulder and past his mullet, Jack saw the door to the smaller side room standing open. He needed to see what lay at the bottom of that circular stairway.

“How about Drexler? He around?”

“Who?”

“The dude in the white suit.”

“Oh, yeah. That his name? He went with the boss.”

The EMTs arrived then, and suddenly the focus was on them. Jack used the diversion to slip into the back room.

Inside, the closet door stood open, with the trapdoor up as well. Looked like someone had left in a hurry. Jack closed the door to the main room, then stepped into the closet and listened for sound from below.

All quiet.

Okay. Make this quick.

He drew the Glock and started down at a quick pace, but the way the staircase wobbled slowed him. He spotted gaps in the railings. They looked melted . . . charred . . . like the wounds he’d just seen.

Darryl?

When he reached the subcellar he found the lights on. It smelled like the hold of a slave ship. A quick search proved it empty except for a leaking, gelatinous mass in an alcove at the far end. Jack approached it cautiously, wondering what it could be.

A close-up view was no help. He nudged it with a boot and the toe popped through the skin or whatever encased it. Thick, milky-white goo began to leak out onto the floor. Jack slapped a hand over his nose and stepped back. It stank like a rotten egg . . .

Diana had described the Fhinntmanchca as emerging from an egg. Was this it? If so, where was the Fhinntmanchca?

Darryl. Darryl had the Fhinntmanchca. That had to be it. He’d carried it up from the subcellar and whoever got in his way got hurt.

Had to find Darryl.

He ran up the wrought-iron stair, ignoring the wobble, and charged into the main room. The EMTs looked baffled as they tended to the wounded. Jack slipped past, made it up the steps, and out to the front entrance.

“Anyone see where Darryl went?” he called from the top step.

The dozen or so hanging about ignored him, but Kewan was just arriving from the right.

“Just saw him, Johnny,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Crossing Allen. The boss and the suit weren’t far behind.”

I owe you, Kewan, he thought as he hurried down the steps.

“Thanks, man.”

Kewan smiled and held up two fingers, scissoring them open and closed. “Got a cig?”

Jack pulled the pack from his pocket and pressed it into his hand.

“All yours, my friend.”

“Hey, awright!”

Jack left him shaking one free as he trotted up the street.

Thompson and Drexler following Darryl. Only one reason he could think of for that confirmed his earlier suspicion: Darryl had the Fhinntmanchca.