Kingdom of the Seven Page 5

  My God, how many did I give Tom?

  People don’t really change, she supposed. She hadn’t and certainly Tom hadn’t. Her greatest fear for ten years now had been that he would walk back into her life and she wouldn’t have the courage to throw him out.

  And T.J. Fields wasn’t around anymore to come to her rescue.

  Get out … . Don’t bother packing.

  She sometimes wondered if it would come to that with Taylor. She didn’t approve of his friends, his clothes, or the way he was letting his wavy black hair grow rock-star long. Yet she hadn’t been around enough these past few months to voice her disapproval. Being fair under the circumstances meant trusting him. And trusting him meant resisting the temptation to smell his shirts for the pungent after-stench of marijuana, or inspecting the various zippered compartments of his black leather jacket to see what they might contain.

  “Any homework?” she asked, while he sat perched in front of the thirty-five-inch Mitsubishi.

  “Done,” he replied.

  “Dinner?”

  “Ate.”

  “Any of your answers gonna expand beyond a single word?”

  “No,” he said, wryly, the glint in his eyes showing for a moment before they returned to the television.

  “You could ask me how my day was.”

  “Yeah.” Still wry, liking it.

  “So go ahead.”

  His barely twelve-year-old face changing, softening, looking at her as though the television at last weren’t there. “I need a new computer.”

  “Really?”

  “The new Mac. Color monitor. The one that talks.”

  “More than one word at a time, I hope.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “And talking in sentences now …”

  “Mom!” Taylor slammed the arm of the couch in feigned exasperation.

  “Oops. Back to one word at a time.”

  She left the room to help Brandon with the Ben & Jerry’s he was scooping out. Somehow it was important for Karen to leave the den, if not in charge, then at least ahead. She supposed she would do anything to make sure Taylor didn’t grow up to be like his father, but she was unsure of exactly what that “anything” should be. One thing she could do was trust him, yet first she had to trust herself.

  Brandon still liked being read to, and exhausted, Karen dozed off in his bed to the mild strains of heavy metal coming from Taylor’s room down the hall. She awoke finally with a start in the midst of what must have been a nightmare. She lurched upward, feeling as though she had brought it out of unconsciousness with her, heart pounding and breath caught deep in her throat.

  Karen got up from the bed slowly and came alert. Something had awoken her, a sound, a voice. Taylor maybe, trying to sneak out to join his friends. She moved to Brandon’s window, which overlooked the front of the house.

  Down on the lawn, both of the lights that automatically burned all night were out. They were photocells, no inside switches to be bothered with. Besides, she told herself, Taylor had never sneaked out of the house in the past anyway.

  There had been a sound. That was what had woken her.

  A thunk, light and crisp. Like glass breaking.

  Karen pressed herself closer to the window, heart hammering anew. The outside lights were too far away to glimpse clearly, too far away to—

  Something or someone was moving on the lawn, a mere shadow set against a background turned utterly black by the loss of light.

  Standing at the window, Karen strained her eyes, trying to see through the dark. The night gave up nothing. The figure might have been there; it might not have been.

  She crept away from the window and moved for Brandon’s door. Wide-awake now, the adrenaline flowing. She moved into the hall and through the door to her bedroom, where a single light burned on the nightstand upon which she kept a phone. She snatched the receiver to her ear, fingers ready to pound out 911.

  There was no dial tone.

  The phone was dead.

  CHAPTER 4

  Karen jiggled the switch hook to no avail. Only silence came from the receiver.

  Her backup was the house’s elaborate alarm system, and she hurried to the keypad on the wall outside her room. Press the two bottom corner keys and a panic signal would have the police here in under three minutes. More, unlike traditional alarms, hers contained a backup power supply and radio transmitter that would insure its operation even after the phone lines had been cut or deactivated. Karen placed her fingers against the two symbols in the bottom corners and pressed, flinching involuntarily against the anticipated shrill piercing sound that would follow.

  There was no sound; only silence again.

  Karen’s fear gave way to panic. She was still thinking, but her thoughts veered chaotically, tumbling against each other. The front door and lock system were also the best available. Not impenetrable to a professional but certainly presenting a difficult and time-consuming obstacle.

  From downstairs came a soft noise like a click. Something working the door latch or scratching against window glass.

  Karen stood absolutely still, her orderly mind taking over. First and foremost, there were the boys to consider. Get them to safety or the closest thing that amounted to it, under the circumstances. But there was no second-floor exit, no convenient tree to leap out onto through an open window. There was only the single staircase.

  Back in Brandon’s room, she cradled his sleeping form and raised it from the bed. He stirred slightly, moaning. Karen moved past the window and caught the shadow of more movement on the lawn below: several shapes this time, two at least.

  Brandon came awake in Karen’s arms as she hustled him into the hallway toward Taylor’s room.

  “Mom …”

  As Karen opened Taylor’s door, she heard several muffled popping sounds coming from downstairs, immediately followed by the distinctive crackles of glass giving way.

  “Mommmmmmmmmm …”

  Brandon fought her grasp, his voice cranky and whining.

  “Shhh!” Karen followed, hoping he didn’t notice her fear.

  Taylor lay atop his bedcovers in sweatpants and a Metallica T-shirt, a pair of stereo headphones draped over his ears. Lowering Brandon to the floor, she pulled the headphones off and shook him awake.

  “What?” he started.

  Karen covered his lips. “Someone’s downstairs. Take your brother and—” She was about to say hide in the closet, but her thoughts veered in midstream. They could not hide from what was invading their home; it was after them, it wanted them. Thieves did not usually disable phone and alarm systems before launching their intrusions. Thieves, in fact, most often fled if the front door would not yield quickly and easily before them.

  “Take your brother and stay by the door. Keep it open a crack and wait until I call for you. Understand?”

  After a moment, Taylor nodded. Karen couldn’t remember the last time he had looked so innocent and childlike. She slid reluctantly away as he snapped upward in bed. Turning back one last time at the door, she pressed a finger against her lips. Taylor nodded as he tried to bring Brandon all the way awake.

  Karen was back in the corridor, cursing herself for the fear and loathing she felt for guns. If she had a wellpracticed one in the house, a means of defense would be hers. As it was, she needed something in its place, a weapon where none existed.

  But weapons existed in every home, recognized by anyone who had spent a portion of her life around chemicals.

  The sounds downstairs continued, soft and muted. Not even two minutes had passed from the first glimpse she had caught of the shadow on her lawn, to this moment when Karen entered the boys’ bathroom and opened its vanity. The liquid drain cleaner was just where she remembered, the plastic container resting near a small white pail. Karen rolled the plastic container and found it to be just over half-full.

  Plenty.

  Working fast now, she emptied all of the drain cleaner into the white pail. Th
en she stuck the pail under the faucet and added a few ounces of water to create an acid compound, turning her face away to avoid the fumes.

  She held the pail low by her hip for safety when she slid back into the corridor. She passed Taylor’s room to find him staring out through a crack in the door, his brother a huddled, shivering form beneath him.

  Mom, he mouthed.

  Karen nodded as confidently as she could manage and kept going. Her eyes gestured toward the stairs, and the boy noticed the pail in her hand, grasping her intent when he caught a whiff of its contents.

  She pressed against the wall near the top of the staircase. Moonlight shining down from the large skylight flickered off an approaching shadow. At least one figure was ascending, the sound of his steps swallowed by the thick Oriental runner that climbed the length of the staircase.

  Karen neared the end of the wall and clearly heard the muffled sounds just passing the halfway point of the staircase. Above her the trees looming over the skylight shifted beneath the moon and a pair of shadows a step apart shifted with them.

  Karen started to bring the pail upward and spun away from the wall. She faced the dark shapes of the invaders and tossed the contents at them, high for their faces. The great portion landed on target with a splashing sound that was instantly replaced by piercing screams of anguish, as the acid burned into their eyes.

  “Taylor!” Karen cried out, turning back toward her sons.

  He had charged into the hall with Brandon in tow when the screams began. She turned back to the stairs to find the two men staggering and stumbling, screeching horribly as they clawed about their faces. The guns had dropped from their hands. The men bounced madly from the wall to the railing on the staircase’s open side. Their wails intensified, no relief found from the acid which was eating away at their flesh the same way it chewed through a drain clog.

  Karen lifted Brandon in one arm and grabbed hold of Taylor’s wrist in her free hand. They started down the stairs as a clumsy trio, trying to avoid the desperately groping hands of the now blinded men who had invaded their home. One of them managed to latch on to Taylor’s ankle as he surged past.

  “Mom!” he cried, pulling free at the expense of their balance.

  Karen kept hold of Brandon but lost her own footing in the process. Her ankle turned painfully. Her shoulder rammed against the railing and she felt a fierce stab as though a nail had been driven through it. She touched down at the bottom of the stairs and nearly tripped again on one of the still-shrieking gunmen’s silenced pistols. Still she clung to her senses, flailed out in search of Taylor with her good arm.

  “I’m here!” he yelled. “Lean on me!”

  She lowered Brandon to the floor, then, hanging on Taylor’s shoulder, started for the front door.

  Before they could reach it, his small frame gave under her weight, and they both tumbled to the hall carpet. The fall actually saved both of them from a three-shot barrage fired from inside the living room where the invaders had made their entrance. A third figure stormed forward, the muzzle of his semiautomatic gleaming dully in the darkness.

  Karen heard Brandon sob, and sensed that Taylor had yanked him to one side as she dove to the other. She landed almost on top of the gun she had accidently kicked aside upon reaching the bottom of the stairs. Her experience with shooting was meager, limited to a pair of trips to a range when she had contemplated buying a gun.

  Shoot and keep shooting. Don’t stop … .

  The instructor’s advice returned to her as she scooped up the nine-millimeter pistol. She fired before she was ready, before she could even aim. Squeezed the trigger and kept squeezing. The cartridges coughed back at her and stung her face. The first few shots had left her thumb sticking out behind the hammer, but Karen didn’t feel the stinging pain until the muzzle locked open, the clip exhausted.

  She realized at that point she had no idea where the third gunman was. The doorway he had owned for a dangerous moment was empty. Beyond it the living room was drenched in blackness. Karen let herself hope he lay shot and bleeding within it. Behind her the first two attackers had crumpled to the staircase, still writhing and clawing at their faces.

  “Come on!” she screamed to her sons, pushing herself to the front door.

  Karen had the dead bolt undone when she heard Taylor scream.

  “Mom, look out!”

  Taylor came around the side of her and intercepted the lunge of the bloodied shape of the man she had shot. The man threw him hard against the wall, and Taylor gagged with pain.

  Karen shrieked. Lost in that instant was the hulking size and brute force of the killer. Lost was the blood spilling out of him from the two shots that had found their marks. She only knew she was the one thing standing between this animal and her children.

  With a throaty, raspy shriek, Karen threw herself upon him. Impact nearly stripped both of them of their balance, and the result was to carry the pair in a bizarre twirling dance step back into the living room. Karen felt her sneakers crackling over shards of the glass broken when these men gained entry. The big man was going for her throat and she shoved forward, trying to force him off. But her twisted ankle betrayed her and she went down, the hulk landing atop her.

  One of his massive hands found her throat and dug into her flesh. She tried to scream and only a gasp emerged as the breath bottlenecked. She tried to pry the hand off her, but it wouldn’t budge. The pressure in her head was building, her ears starting to bubble. What little light the room gave up began to fade.

  With a fierce yell, Taylor leaped atop the man’s back and began tugging at his hair. He tried to shake the boy off, but his wounds, coupled with Taylor’s feral determination, weakened his grip enough to give Karen back her senses.

  Her right hand scraped desperately across the floor, feeling for the jagged remnants of the window. She closed her hand around some ground glass and drove it upward into the scarlet, raging face above her. The bloodied man tried to turn away at the last, too late to stop Karen from raking the shards across both his eyes. He howled in anguish as Taylor’s last determined yank spilled him all the way to the floor. Then the boy was helping Karen to her feet, starting to drag her back for the front door.

  “Get your brother,” she ordered, aware of the blood dripping from the cuts in her palm for the first time. “Get Brandon!”

  Her younger son was leaning against the doorjamb, his face a mask of shock. Taylor grabbed hold of him as Karen threw open the front door.

  “Come on!” she rasped, reaching to grab Brandon’s other side.

  They ran together for the garage with Brandon in the middle. Karen had to bite down the pain in her ankle every step of the way. She led them through the garage’s unlocked side door and helped her sons into the backseat of her rosewood Mercedes 300D, before lunging into the front. She reached across the seat and popped open the glove compartment. Concealed inside was a valet key she kept for those occasions when an attendant parked the car for her and she didn’t want to leave him her house keys as well. Karen jammed it into the starter and turned, hitting the switch that activated the automatic garage door opener as the car jumped to life. She squeezed the steering wheel and felt the blood from her cut palm soak into the leather.

  Swinging round, she caught a brief glimpse of her terrified boys before she started the Mercedes backward. The windshield had just cleared the door still churning up the rails when the shape lunged atop the hood. Karen’s scream echoed with those of her sons as a burned and ruined face pressed itself against the glass. She accidentally turned on the windshield wiper and it snared the attacker in its sweep.

  His face was puffy and blistered. His eyes were virtually closed, and what little emerged through the slits looked red and raw. Enraged, he swiped at the windshield wiper with a hand holding a pistol.

  Karen jammed on the brake. But the man held fast to his grip, teeth gritted and full of hate. His gun scraped against the windshield glass as he struggled to right it.

&nb
sp; Karen shifted back into drive.

  The Mercedes shot forward above an ear-wrenching screech that took all the tires would give it. The big car thumped back into the garage. The man bounced once on the hood and fought to steady his pistol once more. Karen felt the strange spasming of the antilock brakes when she slammed her foot into the pedal, but they merely cushioned the jolt when the Mercedes’ bumper slammed into the wall, throwing the gunman forward and up. He crashed into an assortment of hanging yard tools that spilled with him to the garage floor when Karen shoved the car backward again.

  She remembered hammering down on the buttons that automatically locked the doors and speeding from reverse into drive as soon as she hit driveway, spinning the Mercedes around toward the road.

  She tore off, not daring to turn back. The rearview mirror told her all she needed to know. Her boys were there in the backseat, afraid to raise their heads, Brandon cradled in Taylor’s arms.

  “It’s all right now,” Karen tried to soothe, wondering if it really was, as the Mercedes surged out of her driveway and onto the roadbed. “It’s over.”

  Wondering that too.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Doc says I’ll be good as new in no time,” Sal Belamo told McCracken and Wareagle from atop the bed in one of the Grand Hyatt’s suites.

  Of course, that same doctor had told him to stay overnight at the hospital, advice to which Sal had nodded politely before he checked himself out.

  “No way I’m cutting myself off from the action,” he’d said by way of explanation.

  “Most of which took us by surprise today,” McCracken added. At the hospital he had given the doctor a number in Washington to call. As a result of the brief conversation that ensued, no report of Sal’s gunshot wound would be filed with the police and no record of his ever being treated would exist.