Текст книги "The Butcher's Theatre"

Автор книги: Jonathan Kellerman

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Текущая страница: 40 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

Bloody eye of a bloody city. Abba's coming!

The fucking slaughterhouse of a hospital, rosy pink, the pink of diluted blood.

He aimed the Escort at the entrance, screeched to a halt, blocking it. Took hold of the Beretta, checked the clip, and jumped out.

The Arab watchman, Hajab, on his feet. Shaking a fist.

"Halt! You cannot park there!"

Ignore the idiot. Running, through the courtyard.

Hajab stepping in front of him, trying to block his way.

Idiot face flushed with indignation. Idiot mouth opening: "Halt! You are blocking the entrance! Trespassing on United Nations property!"

Charging the idiot.

Idiots arms spread to halt him.

"I am warning you, when Mr. Baldwin returns you'll be in big-"

Swinging the Beretta and hitting the idiot square in the face. Hearing bones crunch, the rustle and thud of collapse.

Running, flying, through the courtyard, trampling flowers. Gagging on sickly-sweet roses.

Funeral flowers.

No funeral today-coming, motek!

Through the door, mentally unfolding the Mandate-era blueprints.

West wing: servants' quarters. Staff quarters. Tagged doors.

The slaughterhouse, empty.

He ran, gun in hand.

Someone heard him, peaked a head out.

The old nurse Hauser, dressed in starched white, a white cap. Touching her hand to her lips in fear.

She shouted something. Ma'ila Khoury, the Lebanese secretary, stepped out into the corridor on awkward high heels. Saw his face and ran back into her office, slammed the door and locked it.

He transformed himself into a bullet. Shot round the corner.

Names on doors. Baldwin. DaroushaHajab. Blah blah blah. Carter.

Carter.

Nazi scum.

He turned the doorknob, expecting to find it closed, ready to aim the Beretta and blast the lock.

Open.

Carter in bed, blue pajamas. Under a top sheet.

Ghost-pale, propped on pillows, his mouth a dark hole in the beard, an elongated O.

No, Shoshi! Too late-oh, no, oh, God!

He pointed the gun at Carter. Screamed:

"Where is she!"

Carter's eyes opened wide. Yellow corneas around gray eyes. "Oh, shit."

Daniel came closer.

Carter covered his face with his arm.

Daniel took in the room as he ran to the bedside.

A real mess. Pig of a Nazi. Dirty clothes and papers everywhere. The nightstand crowded with pill vials, tubes. A plate of half-eaten food. A stethoscope.

The room reeked of medicine and flatulence and vomit.

Sickness-stench.

He forced Carter's arm down. -Ripped off the Nazi's eyeglasses and flung them across the room.

Shattering glass.

Carter blinking. Shaking. "Oh, God."

Nazis prayed too.

He put his knee on Carter's chest, pressed down. Nazi gasped.

Transferring his gun to his bad hand, he used the good one to grab Carter's neck. Big neck, but soft.

He squeezed.

"Where is she, damn you? Where is she! Damn you, tell me!"

Nazi gurgled. Made an unhealthy-sounding squeaking noise from deep inside of him.

He let go. Carter coughed, gulped air.

"Where is she?"

"Wh-Who?"

Slapping the monster hard. Handprints materializing like Polaroid images on the pale Nazi flesh.

Choking the monster again.

Carter's eyes rolled backward.

Daniel let go. "Where is she?"

Carter shook his head, tried to scream, produced more squeaks.

"Tell me or I'll blow your fucking head off!"

"Wh-"

"My daughter!"

"I don't kn-"

Slap.

Tears, gasps.

"Where is she!"

"I swear…"gasp-gulp… "I don't kn-know wh-what…" gasp… "you're talking about."

"My daughter! A beautiful girl! Green eyes!"

Carter shook his head frantically, began sobbing, coughing, retching.

"Cohen," said Daniel. "Nash. Fatma. Juliet. Shahin. All the others, you filth!"

Raising his hand.

Carter cried out, cowered, tried to slide under the covers.

Daniel grabbed his hair, pulled up hard. The Nazi's scalp hot, the hair greasy with sweat.

"Last chance before I blow your filthy head off."

An acid smell filled the room, a wet stain spread on the sheet near Carter's groin.

"Oh Guh-God,' croacked Carter. "I sw-swear it, please buh-believe me. Oh, shit-I do-don't know what you're ta-talking about."

Hand around the throat again.

"Tell me, you-"

A voice at his back, female, indignant: "What are you doing? Get off him, you!"

Hands pulling on his shirt. He shook them loose, kept his knee on Carter, put the gun against the monster's temple, and swiveled.

The movement knocked Catherine Hauser loose. The old nurse stumbled backward. She fell, legs spread, revealing tallowry thighs encased in white stockings. Sensible shoes.

She pushed herself up, brushed off her uniform. Her face was mottled. Her hands shook.

"Out of here," said Daniel. "Police business."

The old woman stood her ground. "What do you want with poor Richard?"

"He's a killer. He has my daughter"

Hauser started at him as if he were mad.

"Nonsense! He's killed no one. He's a sick man!"

"Out of here right now," Daniel barked.

"Gastroenteritis," said Hauser. "Poor man's been sick in bed for the last four days."

Daniel turned and looked at Carter. The Canadian made no effort to move. His breath was rapid, shallow.

Identities.

Stage actor. Manipulator.

"Not that sick," growled Daniel. "Early this morning he took a walk into the city and killed three men, then abducted my daughter."

"Ridiculous!" snapped Hauser. "What time this morning?"

"He left around midnight, stayed away all day, returned just before six."

"Absolute nonsense! Richard was in the room from eight until now-throwing up, diarrhea. I've been here myself, caring for him. I cleaned out the emesis basin at twelve-thirty, gave him sponge baths around two and four, and have been checking on him since then, every hour on the hour. I took his temperature twenty minutes ago. He's got a fever-feel his forehead. Dehydrated. He's taking antibiotics, can barely walk."

Daniel removed the gun from Carter's brow, touched the Canadian's face with the top of his hand.

Burning.

Carter shook with sobs.

Hauser looked at him, raised her voice to Daniel.

"The poor man can't walk two steps, let alone hike into the city. Now I'm warning you, Inspector Whatever-your-name-is: The U.N. authorities have been called. If you don't stop brutalizing him, you'll be in serious trouble."

Daniel stared at her, then at Carter, who was whimpering and breathing hard. His neck was red and raw, already starting to swell. He coughed, gurgled.

Daniel stepped away from the bed. Hauser moved between him and Carter.

"I'm sorry about your daughter, but you've tormented an innocent man."

A hard-faced old woman.

He stared at her, knew she was telling the truth. Carter was vomiting onto the sheets. Hauser brought a metal basin, held it under his chin, wiped him with a washcloth.

Sick as a dog. Four days in bed.

Not Carter on the nightwalk.

Shifting identities.

A manipulative psychopath.

Carter rocked and shook violently. Spit up clear mucus and groaned.

Not acting.

"Please leave, Inspector," said Hauser.

Not Carter. Then who?

Oh, God, who?

Then he thought of the watchman's warning: When Mr. Baldwin returns you'll be in big-

When Mr. Baldwin returns from where?

According to the surveillance log, the administrator hadn't left the Amelia Catherine since Sunday morning.

Shifting identities.

Exchanging identities.

Dr. Terrific.

Runs the place. Boss over the doctors.

Takes on an alter ego when he goes out to kill.

Carter on nightwalk-but not Carter.

False Hassid.

False Arab driving a white Mercedes diesel. Carrying cardboard boxes labeled records. No beard.

Judged possibly large enough to conceal a human body if the body was bent to the point of contortion.

Or small.

A child's body.

He granted Hauser her wish. Ran for the door labeled BALDWIN, S.T.

Locked.

He aimed the Beretta, shattered the lock, stepped in, ready to kill.

A large room, tile-floored and whitewashed, twice the size of Carter's

Blueprint recall; storage pantry.

Big, cast-iron bed. The covers drawn and tucked military tight. Neat and clean, everything in its place.

A Hassid's clothes folded neatly on the bed. False red beard, eyeglasses.

Something shiny and green.

A butterfly pin, silver filigree with malachite eyes.

Not a sign of the monster.

No Shoshi.

He followed the Beretta into the bathroom.

No one.

Luggage in the corner: three suitcases, packed tight and fastened.

A messy one, Danny.

Swallowing his fear, he opened them.

Only clothes in the two bigger ones, neatly folded. He scooped his hands under the garments, tossed them out, opened the smallest.

Toiletries, a shaving kit. False mustaches, wigs, more beards, bottle of hair dye, tubes of theatrical makeup.

In the shaving kit was a one-way ticket on a Greek-registered ship to Cyprus, leaving tomorrow from Eilat Harbor.

He faked us out, Pakad.

He searched the closet: empty.

Looked for attic passages, trapdoors.

Nothing.

Where? The cave? Border Patrol staked out down there– he would have been notified.

He sank to his knees, looked under the cast-iron bed. Silly ritual, like checking for ghosts.

Saw brass hinges, a rise in the tile. Wood.

Trapdoor in the floor.

Blueprint recall: the auxiliary wine Cellar.

Moving the bed.

The door a solid hardwood rectangle stretching from the center of the room to one wall. The doorknob had been removed, the hole plugged with wood.

Pry marks around the edges. A crowbar or something like it.

He looked for the tool. Nothing-bastard had taken it down with him.

He struggled to pry it open, lost his hold several times, mashing his nails and tearing skin from his fingers. Finally he managed to pull up hard enough. Open the door, then stepped back.

Darkness below.

He slipped into it.

Abba's coming!

He descended silently, frantically, on narrow stone stairs. A score of them, pitched steeply.

The darkness absolute, dizzying. Touching moist stone walls for support and orientation.

Please, God.

The passageway twisted, shifting direction, then more stairs, a dank chill rising from unseen depths.

He sped down blindly.

A deep cellar. Good-perhaps the sound of the gunshot hadn't penetrated.

Another twist. More steps.

Then the bottom, gripping the Beretta, extending his bad hand. Metal. He explored, flumbing with damaged fingers, holding his breath. A low metal door, rounded at the top. Sheet metal-he could feel the seams, the bolts. Took hold of a handle, turned, and pushed.

Opening. Silence. No monster.

But he was assailed by icy white light.

Momentarily sightless, he stepped back reflexively, shielding his eyes and blinking. His pupils constricted painfully.

When they were partially adjusted, he took a step forward, saw that he was in a small, cavelike room, empty save for a troughlike double sink and two floor drains encrusted with something unhealthy-looking.

The floors, walls, and ceilings were rough-hewn stone, the entire space scooped out of bedrock. Age-blackened rock streaked with greenish-blue mold and overlaid with a warped wooden exoskeleton-widely spaced pine laths laid cross-hatched over the walls; knotted overhead beams from which hung panels of fluorescent tubes on chains.

Dozens of fluorescent tubes-half a hundred, emitting an eye-searing flood of light.

He heard laughter, turned toward it.

At the end of the room, beyond the light, was another door-old, flimsy, wooden, banded with rusty iron. He ran to it, nudged it open, stepped into another room, somewhat larger than the first, the light brighter, tinted an odd silvery lavender.

Cold air, chemically bitter. Another trough, more drains.

At the center was a long steel-topped table on stout metal legs that had been bolted to the floor.

Daniel stood at its foot, looking down on soft whiteness, white buds-the soles of two small feet. Two fragile calves, a hairless pubis, spindle ribs, concave belly, flat chest.

His baby's naked body, the dusky skin blanched by the light.

She lay motionless in a nest of white sheeting, a pinpoint of red in the crook of one Jimp arm.

Her neck and shoulders had been propped up on several rolled pillows, thrusting the head back, chin upward, mouth open. Her lily-stem throat forced into the most vulnerable of convexities.

The sacrificial arch.

He yearned to rush to her, cover her, was stopped by the knife that caressed her trachea. Long-bladed, double-edged, pearl handled.

White on white.

So still. Oh, God, no-but no blood other than the needle mark, the body sculpture-perfect, not a wound. Her chest rose and left in a shadow, narcotized cadence.

The gift of time

Behind her, a mass of white. White hands-big hands, thick-fingered. One gripping the handle of the knife. The other submerged in her curls, entangled. Stroking, caressing

Ugly laughter.

Baldwin, standing at the head of the table-looming, naked, Shoshi's head shielding his chest, her life contingent upon the turn of a wrist.

Leering, confident.

The tabletop bisected him at the navel. What was visible of his upper torso was massive, armored with muscle, slathered with something oily.

The fluorescence had bleached him an unearthly lavender-gray. Despite the cold, he was sweating, his thin hair plastered in strands, like wet twine, across the bare gray crown.

His body was shaved girl-smooth and prickly with goose bumps, the flesh glowing moist, shiny, slick as some nocturnal burrowing grub.

He stood slightly right of table-center, left leg exposed. Swastika-shaped scars covered his thigh-malignant purple brands. A fresh swastika wound had been incised just above the knee, the surrounding skin rosy with smeared blood.

Staring at Daniel, the eyes cold, flat, twin peepholes into hell.

Laid out before him was a sparkling array of surgical instruments-knives, needles, scissors, clamps-on a precisely folded napkin of white linen. Next to the napkin was a hypodermic syringe half-filled with something milky.

Shoshi dead-still.

Abba's here.

A carotid pulse bounced bravely under the knife blade. Daniel aimed the Beretta.

Baldwin pulled Shoshi's head higher, so that her curls bearded his chin. He laughed again, unalarmed.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"

All at once the knife began sawing across Shoshi's neck. Daniel stopped breathing, started to scream, pounce-but no blood.

Laughter. A game. The grin widening. More sawing.

"Like my fleshfiddle, kikefuck?"

The pearl handle of the knife caught the light and tossed it back in Daniel's face.

White on white.

On white.

A white swastika painted crudely on the dark stone floor. Painted words, familiar English block letters:

HEIL SCHWANN!! THE SCHWANN SEED LIVES!!!

Baldwin's face constricted with ecstasy. Drunk on the game, not noticing as Daniel shifted to the right. Took a step. Another.

"Don't move, kikefuck."

The warning uttered around that sickening grin. A harsh voice. Mechanical. No trace of the cowboy drawl.

Deep, yet topped by a strident tentativeness-echoes.

The echoing screams of abandoned, victimized women. Daniel swore he could hear them, wanted to cover his ears.

Baldwin's mouth spread the grin wider.

The fingers of his left hand fanned down over Shoshi's face, spatulate tips fondling her cheekbones, her lips, as the right one held the knife in place. Baldwin moved it back and forth in a horror-tease.

A giggle: "Never had one this tender."

Daniel moved another centimeter to the right.

"Drop the bang-bang or I'll whittle on her." Grin. Long white teeth. Purple tongue. Lavender lips.

Daniel lowered the Beretta slowly, watched Baldwin's eyes follow the weapon down-poor concentration. He pushed forward with his toes. Another quarter-step, and another. On the right side of the table now. Closer.

"I said drop it, nigger-kike. All the way." Baldwin pressed the flat side of the knife blade against Shoshi's neck, obscuring the pulse. He stretched luxuriantly, gorging himself on power. But shifting to the right, simultaneously, in unconscious defense.

It exposed his crotch. His penis was semi-erect, a starched-white cylinder hovering tentatively above the branded thigh.

He removed his left hand from Shoshi's body, lowered it to himself, began stroking himself. Leering.

"Two weapons." Giggle. "Real science."

Daniel lowered the gun until it was level with the organ. Took another step forward.

Baldwin laughed, quickened his stroke. Kept sawing the knife in counterpoint.

"Silly millimeter, bye-bye kikette."

The voice rising in pitch, the erection hardening, tilted upward.

Power was everything with this one. Control, the key.

Daniel played along with it. Said, "Please."

"Please," laughed Baldwin. He masturbated a while longer, stopped, and ran his nail along the upper cutting edge of the knife. The lower edge still resting on Shoshi's windpipe.

"This is a Liston amputator, kikescum. It knows how to fast-dance, cuts through bone like butter." Grin. Giggle. The knife lifted, then descended.

"Please. Don't hurt her."

"Blink the wrong way and we'll be playing football with her fucking head."

"Please. I beg you."

Baldwin's eyebrows arched. He licked his lips.

"You really mean that, you insignificant piece of roach shit, don't you?"

"Yes." Forward.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Yes, Doctor." Begging, putting on a servile face and keeping Baldwin's eyes off his legs. Moving close enough to Shoshi's leg to grab her ankle, pull her away. But the knife was still kissing her flesh. A muscle twitch could sever her jugular.

" Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor!"

"Yes, please, Herr Doktor Professor."

Baldwin smiled, sighed. Then his face creased abruptly into a livid hate-mask.

"THEN DROP THE BANG-BANG, FUCKHEAD!"

Daniel lowered the Beretta further. Begging for mercy as he did it. Scanning the room and taking in the layout.

No more doors. This was the end point.

"Please, Doctor, don't hurt her. Take me instead."

Idiocy, but it amused the bastard, purchased time.

Shiny things hanging from a nail embedded in a lath. Gold hoop earrings. Three pairs.

In the corner, an ice cooler. Next to it a crowbar. Too far.

Wall racks holding two large flashlights, more sheets, pillows. Stacks of folded clothing: Dresses, undergarments. A white dress striped with blue, torn, a strip missing.

Next to the clothing, jars filled with clear liquid and labeled with gummed stickers. Soft, pinkish things floating within.

Two he recognized as kidneys.

Others, unfamiliar. Roundish, clearly visceral.

"DROP IT, SHITBRAIN, OR I CUT HER!"

Bellowing, but subtle aftertones of panic.

Cowardice.

A passive monster, picking off the weak. Even after he had them in his clutches, putting them to sleep before doing his dirty work-terrified of resistance. Cutting himself superficially, but Daniel knew he'd chance nothing that endangered him.

He lowered the gun all the way. Baldwin was distracted, again, by its descent.

Daniel moved closer to the head of the table, looked at Baldwin, then past him, at a stuffed animal perched on the rack below the jars. Then he saw the black patch over the eye, realized it was Dayan. Stiff as a toy. No-paralyzed, the big brown eyes moving back and forth, following him. Begging for rescue.

"ON THE FLOOR OR FOOTBALL!" screamed Baldwin, sounding like a child having a tantrum.

Daniel said, "Yes, Doctor," and flipped the Beretta across the room, to the left. It hit the side of the sink-trough, clattered to the ground.

During the instant that Baldwin's eyes followed its trajectory, his knife hand lifted.

A millimeter of air between blade and throat.

Daniel lunged for Baldwin's wrist with both of his hands, pushing the knife up and way from Shoshi. Lowering his head, he drove it hard into Baldwin's oily abdomen, pushing the monster back.

Monster was heavy, a twenty-kilo advantage. Rock-hard. Thick wrists, A head taller. Two good hands.

Daniel injected the full force of his rage into the attack. Baldwin stumbled backward, against the wall racks, The baths vibrated. A jar tilted fell, shattered. Something wet and glossy skidded across the floor.

Earrings tinkling.

Baldwin opened his mouth, roared, charged, swinging the knife.

Daniel backed away from the death-arcs. Baldwin stabbed air several times in succession. The inertia threw him off-balance.

Big and strong, but no trained fighter.

Daniel used the moment to head-butt Baldwin again, drove his fists into the monster's belly and groin, kicking at naked shins, reaching upward, grabbing a wrist, struggling to gain possession of the knife.

Baldwin fought free. Stab, miss. Stepped on broken glass, cried out.

Daniel stomped on the wounded foot, went for the knife with his good hand, tried to claw Baldwin's chest with his bad one. The fingernails made contact with oily flesh, slid off ineffectually.

He looked for the gun. Too far. Kicked at Baldwin's knee. Punishing, but not damaging. Got both hands around Baldwin's hand, felt the smooth pearl of the knife handle.

Go for the fingers, stuffed with nerve endings.

He tried to bend back Baldwin's index finger, but Baldwin held fast. Daniel's leverage was poor, his hand slipped, came perilously rose to the knife blade. Before he could regain his hold on the handle, Baldwin yanked upward, gear-shifting the knife, up and down, back and forth, stabbing, wrenching, controlling it, as Daniel held on and pivoted to avoid being slashed.

The pinkie of Daniel's bad hand grazed the blade. The nail split open, then the soft flesh under it. Electric pain. A warm bath of blood.

He kept his good hand on the handle, gouging at Baldwin's fingers.

Baldwin saw the blood. Laughed, was renewed.

He lowered his teeth to Daniel's shoulder, sank them in.

Daniel twisted away, torn, on fire. A deep wound, more blood-his shirt began soaking up scarlet dye. No problem, he had plenty to spare, wouldn't stop until he was drained.

But escaping from Baldwin's bite had caused him to lose his grip on the knife.

Baldwin raised the giant blade.

Daniel held out his bad hand, palm-first.

The knife came down.

Enough nerves left to register pain.

Old pain, memory pain.

Back on the hillside. Back in the Butcher's Theater.

Baldwin twisted the knife, both hands on the handle, the big blade eating muscle, severing tendons, threatening to separate the metacarpal bones, split the hand clear up to the finger webs.

The monster growling. Gnashing his teeth. The eyes empty, obscene.

Intent on destroying him.

Baldwin drew himself up to his full height, bearing down on the knife. Pushing, churning, forcing Daniel down.

Tremendous pressure, crushing, relentless. Daniel felt his knees bend, buckle. He sank, skewered.

Baldwin's grin was wider than ever. Triumphant. He pressed down, painting, sweating, the oil mixing with the sweat, running down his body in viscous streams.

Daniel looked up at him, saw the swastika brands.

The crowbar-too far away.

Baldwin laughing, shouting, churning the knife.

Daniel pushed up with all his strength; the knife blade continued devouring his hand, extended its scarlet dominion.

He bit back screams, locked onto Baldwin's eyes, held the monster fast, refused to succumb.

"You… first… her… for… dessert."

Daniel felt the blood leave him, the strength leeching out of his muscles, and knew he couldn't hold out much longer.

He pushed up again, harder, made his arm a rigid, jointless length of steel. Held his own, then let go suddenly, ceasing all resistance, falling backward in a paratrooper's roll, the impaled hand slamming to the ground, the knife pursuing it, but purposelessly, fueled by gravity, not intent.

The tension-release caught Baldwin off guard. He stum bled, held on to the knife, and went down after it, bending awkwardly at the waist to maintain his grip on the weapon.

Daniel kicked up at his knee, again.

This time hearing something snap.

Baldwin howled as if betrayed, clutched his leg, collapsed. Falling full force on top of Daniel, one hand bent under him. the other still clutching the knife.

Baldwin closed his eyes, pulled up on the blade, trying to free the Liston, go for a kill-zone.

But the knife was lodged between bones, refused to spread them. All he could do was saw it back and forth, open more blood vessels. Knowing time was on his side. The nigger-kike's pain had to be terrible-he was puny, inferior, bred for defeat.

But the little fuck was holding on, fighting back!

Hard blows stung his Aryan nose, cheeks, chin, mouth. His lower lip burst open. He tasted his own blood, swallowed it-hero-sweet but it made him gag.

The blows kept coming like razor-rain and his own pain got worse, as if the nigger-kike was taking everything he'd absorbed and spitting it back at him.

He forced a D.T. grin, looked down, searching for signs of fadeout.

Kikefuck was smiling back at him!

The scum-this fucking untermensch scum-didn't care about pain, didn't care about the Liston dancing on him, eating him alive.

He marshaled all his strength, pulled up on the knife. Scumshit used his hand as a weapon, pushed back, stuck to it.

Suddenly brown fingers were imbedded in his cheek and raking downward. Shreds of flesh peeling down like tree bark.

Oh, no!

Blood-his blood-splashing in his face, his eyes, everything red.

He sobbed with frustration, said farewell to the Liston and let go of it. Used one hand to block the endless blows, tried to clamp the other around the niggerfuck's throat.

Daniel felt big wet fingers scrambling over his larynx.

He rolled free. Punched Baldwin's nose, mouth, chin. Aiming for the cheek-gouges. Erase that grin, forever.

Keep smiling. It scared the coward.

Baldwin regained the stranglehold.

Getting a grip on the larynx. Squeezing, crushing. Trying to rip it out of Daniel's throat.

Daniel felt the breath leave his chest in a sad hiss. The perimeters of his visual field turned gray, then black. The blackness spread inward, blotting out the light. His head filled with hollow noises. Death rattles. His lungs filled quickly with wet sand.

He kept striking out, tearing at the monster's face. The big fingers kept choking him.

The knife still piercing in his hand, lodged tight, hurting so intensely.

Two loci of pain.

Baldwin cursed, spat, throttled him. The blackness was almost complete. Acid flames raged in his chest, licked upward, scorching his plate, advancing toward his brain.

So hot, yet cold.

Fading

The monster, stronger than he. Intent on destruction.

Her for dessert.

No!

He reached inward, beyond himself, beyond sensation, mined a last filament of strength, embraced the pain, went past it. Arching his body, blind, breathless, he bucked, groped, found one of Baldwin's fingers. Took hold of it, bent it backward, breaking it in a single, swift movement.

A popping sound, then a distant cry. The grip around his neck loosened. A drink of air.

Two more fingers grasped together. Bent, broken. Another.

Baldwin's hand flapped loose. He screamed, flailed aimlessly.

Daniel pushed him hard, threw himself upon the big oily body, dived after it as it went down.

Baldwin was bawling like a baby, eyes closed, flat on his back, clutching his hand, unprotected.

Daniel pulled the knife out of his hand. Baldwin thrashed wildly, one of his feet caught Daniel in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him.

Daniel gagged, gasped for breath. The knife fell loose, clattering on stone.

Hearing it, Baldwin opened his eyes, sat up, reached for the weapon with his unbroken fingers.

Daniel threw himself upon Baldwin, avoided gnashing teeth, clawing fingers. Baldwin snarled, head-butted, tried to bite Daniel's nose. Daniel pushed back reflexively, felt something soft. Familiar. Yielding.

His fingers had discovered Baldwin's left eye. He closed them around the orb, pried, ripped it loose.

Baldwin shrieked again, and sank his teeth into Daniel's shoulder. Finding the wound, chewing it, enlarging it.

Daniel felt his flesh give way-he was being consumed.

Nearly blacked out from the pain, he forced thoughts of Shoshi into his mind, struggled for consciousness, plumbed Butcher's Theater memories, and went for the other eye.

Realizing what was happening, Baldwin twisted maniacally out of reach. But Daniel was pure intent now, his hand a hungry land crab, stalking its prey, undistractable. It found what it was looking for, seized it, tore it loose.

His world immutably blackened, Baldwin whipped and pitched, weeping blood from empty sockets. But his teeth remained embedded in Daniel, crushing, gnawing, the force of the bite intensified by agony.

Daniel punched at Baldwin's scarlet-washed face. His fists grazed bone, skin, gristle. Finally he managed to get the heel of his good hand under Baldwin's chin and gave a sudden, sharp push. Baldwin's jaws relaxed involuntarily. Daniel pulled himself free.

Baldwin struggled to his knees, a moaning, swooning ghost. His face a bleached-white death mask, the holes below his brow yawning, black and bottomless.

He screamed and swung his arms wildly, seeking context in the void.

Daniel retrieved the knife, clutched it in his good hand. Stepped in fresh blood, slipped, and staggered backward.

Baldwin heard the sound of the fall. He got to his feet, staggering and groping for support.

And found it. Broken fingers embraced the cold metal rim of the surgical table, then advanced with a mind of their own.

A hellish smile spread across Baldwin's face, corroding its way through pain and blindness.

His unbroken hand, huge, blood-slick, lowered itself onto Shoshi's face turned claw-like.

Now it was Daniel's turn to scream. He charged forward and up, shoving his torn shoulder into Baldwin's rock-hard torso and pushing him away from the table.

Baldwin flailed, took a drunken step forward, and embraced him, ripping his nails into Daniel's back. Blood-pinkened teeth chattered and lowered, searching for a familiar target.

Daniel struggled to break loose, felt Baldwin's grip tighten around him. Despite what had done to him, strength remained in the monster. Daniel's hand was gripped around the handle of the knife, the blade was pressed between them, flat against their torsos. Useless and inert.

Baldwin seemed impervious to the coldness of surgical steel against bare chest. He raised his hand, buried it in Daniel's hair, and yanked hard. Daniel felt his scalp separate from his skull.

Baldwin yanked again.

Daniel twisted the knife free, found the spot he was looking for just under Baldwin's rib cage.

Baldwin snaked his fingers through Daniel's hair, over Daniel's forehead, onto Daniel's eyes.