“Oh, Daniel, that is so low. Next you’ll be making scatological culinary recommendations. How tiresome.” She was back to the pout. This was a bad sign and Broadax was finished making noise to his left. That meant the demented dwarf was up to something, and Fielder had to buy her time. At least Broadax had sense enough to spit out that damned cigar first.
“A quick death is the best you could have expected, Daniel, but now perhaps something more is called for. After all, my lover, only the brave deserve the fair, and we know that you are not brave. Now don’t we? You put up such a good front now, but oh my how you will whimper and beg under my knife.”
At one level his guts were turning to water and a whimper was striving to escape from his lips, but his finely tuned survival instinct knew that groveling would lead straight to death. The good news was that he’d pissed her off so bad that she wasn’t going to kill them out of hand. The old, “Let’s torture them in some creative way,” really meant “Let’s be stupid and not kill them right now while we have the chance.” Truly dangerous people didn’t threaten, they just killed. Quickly and efficiently. Melville, Broadax and Fielder were as different as three people could be from each other, but they had this in common: they were profoundly dangerous people.
Melville chimed in at just the right time, naive as a puppy but a master of tactics once the situation was clear to him. Now he was playing the same game as Fielder, maneuvering to give Broadax time. “Madam,” he said calmly, “do I understand that Princess Glaive Newra is your niece, and that the family disapproves of my attentions? I assure you that we’ve been quite honorable in our relations, and thus far none of her relatives have communicated any disapproval.”
Now she was back to angry. “You pathetic little man. Your superiors most certainly do not approve. Your own ambassador has turned you over to us.”
She gestured with her left hand to the elderly lady standing beside her. “Furthermore, this is my aunt Ondelesa, Princess Glaive’s great-aunt. She is the family matriarch and she most assuredly does not approve.”
“Actually, sir,” said Fielder, “she controls the money in the family, and money and morals are rarely on speaking terms. Are they, Maddy?”
“Daniel,” asked Melville with mock innocence as Aunt Madelia’s knuckles grew white from gripping the pistol in her right hand, “Whatever did you do to make this lady so angry?”
Angry is good, thought Fielder. Keep her talking. “You know how it is, sir. Put me next to a beautiful woman and one of two things happens. She either surrenders or screams. Sometimes both. You did a lot of surrendering and then screaming, didn’t you, my little Maddy? My back still has the scars. But in the end, it didn’t work out.” Cocking his head slightly toward Melville, he confided, “I dumped her when she started to get mean and fat.”
“Fat!” she screamed. Then she took control of herself and went icy cold. “Why Daniel,” she said, “don’t you find me attractive any more? Your discipline might have to take a very special form. Perhaps I will make you beg for me when I’m done. But when I’m done no woman will want you, and you will beg for death.” It was obvious that her pleasure was becoming intense now. The moonlight was beginning to highlight two shadows emerging across the front of her sheer maroon gown, like two thumbs protruding, as she licked her lips.
“Captain,” she said, licking her lips and turning the full power of her megawatt gaze upon Melville, “Daniel finds me unattractive. What do you think?”
Sylvan females seemed to have some kind of physical impact that was incredibly powerful. Perhaps a kind of pheromonal control. Melville found his knees growing weak. His stomach and regions further south seemed to ignite and twist into knots. Then he found his salvation, and a tactical diversion, in poetry. He gestured up at the moonlight flowing in from the skylights, intentionally pointing them away from where Broadax seemed to be moving, and said,
“You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies;
What are you, when the Moon shall rise?”
Their tormentor’s eyes crossed slightly as she absorbed this. It was like a fuse being lit as they waited for the reaction when she finally comprehended what Melville had said.
At the top of their peripheral vision, up in the high, vaulted, smoky dark ceiling, Fielder and Melville both saw movement in the shadows of the rafters, and they had to concentrate to avoid looking. “Captain,” continued Fielder, maintaining the momentum, “I think we should both forget about women, and stick to handguns. Handguns are infinitely superior to women. For example, a handgun won’t ask, ‘Do these new grips make me look fat?’ ” There, that was a good hint to get ready for a gunfight!
“You monkey scum! I’ve had about all the ‘fat’ I’m going to take off of you!”
“You know another way that a pistol is better than a woman?” Fielder continued relentlessly. “You can buy a silencer for a pistol.”
On that note, Broadax dropped like a red bolt of lightning from the sky. Or from the ceiling, as the case may be. She’d crawled from the alcove up into the rafters, creeping slowly, avoiding the moonlight flowing through the skylights, and moving quietly through the shadows. As soon as she was in position she dropped onto the shoulders of the big goon. She held a very short, sawed-off, double-barreled, 10-gauge shotgun pistol in her left hand, and a short hand-ax in her right. She must have kept them concealed on her body, which was ample in width and depth, if not height, and had plenty of concealment space.
Melville mentally numbered the goons, from his left to right, as one through four. Huge-goon was number four. Then came the two hags, first Aunt Madelia and then Great Aunt Ondelesa, back and up on the step, followed by goons five through eight.
As she dropped down to goon four’s shoulders, Broadax fired both barrels in the direction of goon five. For the unsuspecting Sylvans it was a deafening “BLA-BLOOM!” from out of nowhere. As always, she was a terrible shot, and even with a sawed-off shotgun, with barrels little longer than the shells, she only succeeded in spraying a few buckshot rounds into goon five’s feet. The really amazing thing was that goon four was not knocked to the floor by the impact of 250-plus pounds of compact marine. At least his knees buckled. Meanwhile Broadax swung her ax to the right, cleanly cutting a cleft halfway through goon three’s skull, her ax coming out in a vivid arc of blood and brains that sprayed across Aunt Madelia’s décolletage.
Melville and Fielder took completely different approaches to life, but there was one rule they both could firmly agree upon: “Be polite. Be professional. And have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” Thus they were both completely, mentally and physically prepared for Broadax’s signal. They saw the feet emerge before her body fell, giving them a split second’s warning, and they began to move as soon as her body began to drop. Already the effects of auditory exclusion had kicked in, so they barely heard Broadax’s shotgun blast.
Melville crouched and cut to his left, since the right was blocked by the two dumbfounded innocent bystanders. He drew his .45 with his right hand as he pulled young Hayl along with his left. He raised the pistol up before his eyes. Thousands of practice reps made it smooth, like a martial art. Weapon up, thumb safety down with a comforting “snick.”
He brought the front sight into focus, pressing the trigger as the sight covered goon six’s face and . . . “_____!” You never “pull” a trigger. There are many things in life that are good to pull, but not triggers, not if you want to hit your target. The recoil pulled his pistol up. He forced it rapidly down and to the right, covering goon seven’s face with the front sight and, “_____!” A very satisfying fountain of blood and brains erupted from the backs of both goons’ skulls, spewing an interesting pattern of red and gray across Great Aunt Ondelesa’s ashen face.
Fielder also cut to his left and drew his weapon. He didn’t try for fancy head shots. Not bothering to get a good sight picture, he simply shot goons three, two and one as quickly as he could in the gut, turning the weapon sideways and letting the recoil carry the pistol to the left, covering each target in turn, “_____!, _____!, _____!”
He wanted very badly to shoot Madelia. She scared him profoundly and he derived great personal satisfaction from shooting people who frightened him, but she cut back behind the massive bulk of goon four and there was no clear shot at her.