the ground.
In that glimpse before she cowered down in front of the pickup, she had not seen
any blood on the man.
What was happening here? He could not possibly have survived three rounds in the
stomach and one in the chest. Not unless he actually was immortal.
Even as Nora scrambled for the cover of the truck, Travis had been getting off
his back, sitting up in the mud. Blood was visible on him, spreading across his
chest from his shoulder, soaking his shirt. He still had the Uzi in his right
hand, which functioned in spite of the wound in that shoulder. As Vince pulled
off a wild second shot, Travis opened fire with the Uzi. His position was no
better than Vince’s; the spray of bullets snapped into the house and ricocheted
along the side of the truck, indiscriminate fire.
He stopped shooting. “Shit.” He struggled onto his feet.
Nora said, “Did you get him?”
“He made it around the front of the house,” Travis said, and headed that way.
Vince figured he was approaching immortality, almost there, if he had not
already arrived. He was in need of—at most—only a few more lives, and his only
concern was that he would be snuffed out when he was that close to his Destiny.
As a result, he took precautions. Like the latest and most expensive model
Kevlar bulletproof vest. He was wearing one under his sweater, which was what
had stopped the four shots the bitch had tried to pump into him. The slugs had
flattened against the vest, drawing no blood whatsoever. But, Jesus, they had
hurt. The impact had knocked him against the wall of the house and had driven
the breath out of him. He felt as if he had lain on a
giant anvil while someone repeatedly pounded a blacksmith’s hammer into his gut.
Hunched over his pain, hobbling toward the front of the house, trying to get out
of the way of the damn Uzi, he was sure he was going to be shot in the back. But
somehow he made it to the corner, climbed the porch steps, and got out of
Cornell’s line of fire.
Vince took some satisfaction in having wounded Cornell, though he knew it wasn’t
mortal. And having lost the element of surprise, he was in for a protracted
battle. Hell, the woman looked to be almost as formidable as Cornell himself—a
crazy Amazon.
He could have sworn there was something of the timid mouse in the woman, that it
was her nature to submit. Obviously, he misjudged her—and that spooked him.
Vince Nasco was not accustomed to making such mistakes; mistakes were for lesser
men, not for the child of Destiny.
Scuttling across the front porch, certain that Cornell was coming fast behind
him, Vince decided to go into the house instead of heading for the woods. They
would expect him to run for the trees, take cover, and reconsider his strategy.
Instead, he’d go straight into the house and find a position from which he could
see both the front and rear doors. Maybe he’d take them by surprise yet.
He was passing a large window, heading for the front door, when something
exploded through the glass.
Vince cried out in surprise and fired his revolver, but the shot went into the
porch ceiling, and the dog—Jesus, that’s what it was, the dog—hit him hard. The
gun flew out of his hand. He was knocked backward. The dog clung to him, claws
snagged in his clothes, teeth sunk in his shoulder. The porch railing
disintegrated. They tumbled out into the front yard, into the rain.
Screaming, Vince hammered at the dog with his big fists until it squealed and
let go of him. Then it went for his throat, and he just knocked it off in time
to prevent it tearing open his windpipe.
His gut still throbbed, but he hitched and stumbled back to the porch, looking
for his revolver—and found Cornell instead. Bleeding from his shoulder, Cornell
was on the porch, looking down at Vince.
Vince felt a great wild surge of confidence. He knew that he had been right all
along, knew that he was invincible, immortal, because he could look straight