LITMIR.BIZ

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Ray said.

      ‘I can’t help you,’ she said numbly. ‘You know I can’t.’ She couldn’t look him in the eyes.

      Ray stood before her, took her arms, and lifted her from her chair. Supporting her weight, he held her upright before him.

      ‘You have to,’ he said. ‘But not me. You have to help those people on that goddamned boat. There’s no telling what will happen to them.’

      ‘I’m sorry—’

      ‘I know you are,’ Ray said earnestly. ‘And I know you’re hurt. I understand if you can’t do this anymore. But if you have anything left, now’s the time to dig down deep and find it. Just get me there – that’s all you have to do. I promise.’

      Ray could feel her body stiffen, her legs take her weight, and she stood upright, on her own.

      ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but we’d better step outside.’

      Ray smiled. ‘Good point,’ he said. He turned to the others. ‘Follow as quickly as you can.’

      He tossed the keys to the Escalade to Huginn and hand in hand he and the Angel ran out the motel room door, down the hallway, and to a side exit off the first floor.

      The night was hot and muggy, as usual for New Orleans. They stood together in the parking lot, bathed in the light of the incandescent bulbs illuminating the rows of cars.

      The Angel put her arms around him. ‘I could drink a case of you,’ she murmured, and pulled him close.

      He put his arms around her and they kissed. Ray felt as if he could feel the hurt and need in her and kissed her as if to draw it all out of her and into himself. After a moment he felt heat all around him and he knew it for the touch of the unburning flames that covered her wings, and suddenly they were airborne. Ray could feel the rush of the breeze from her beating wings upon his face and he laughed aloud as the Angel’s strength bore him effortlessly through the sky.

      The city of New Orleans was spread below them, its streets outlined by lamplights and rows of car headlights moving like tracers over the ground. After the Angel gained sufficient altitude she turned toward the river and the bend bordering the French Quarter. It took only a minute or two, traveling as the angel flies, until they could see the lighted deck of the Schröder moving on the river, being pursued by half a dozen launches as well as the Coast Guard cutter Triton, which was quickly gaining on her.

      ‘She’s under way,’ Ray said.

      The Angel’s expression was serene as a Madonna’s. Ray felt a stab of happiness to see her so. All the cares and worry and anxiety were washed away from her face as she bore them both through the sky.

      Ray frowned as he looked down at the ship. ‘She’s moving pretty fast,’ he said. ‘The cutter is trying to block her way – they’re going to collide!’

      The ships hit with the anguished scream of shrieking metal as the Angel spiraled down to the Schröder’s main deck. The much larger freighter smashed the cutter aside as if she were a plastic toy. The Coast Guard vessel buckled where the freighter’s prow struck her amidships. The Schröder continued to plow serenely upstream as the Triton broke into two pieces. The launches trailing the runaway freighter stopped to pick up sailors who’d abandoned the wrecked and rapidly sinking Triton.

      The Angel touched down on the stern of the freighter, unnoticed in the darkness.

      ‘All right,’ Ray said quietly. ‘You stay here. I’m going to go see what the hell is going on.’

      The Angel shook her head. ‘No, I’m coming with you.’

      ‘You going to be all right?’ he asked, his expression concerned.

      ‘Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that there’s someone I wouldn’t mind seeing again.’

      ‘All right. If you’re sure.’

      ‘I already said that I’m not.’ Ray didn’t mind the impatience in her voice and in her expression. It was at least a sign of engagement, of a return to the world. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’ She smiled and Ray liked that even better. ‘One sword at least thy right shall guard.’

      Ray remembered those same words spoken a dozen years ago and moved off into the darkness feeling whole for the first time in a long time.

      The decks were deserted and quiet. His first thought was for the refugees. They found a companionway headed down into the hold and cat-footed it into the eerily lit space where they bivouacked. The lighting was provided by strung bulbs of low wattage that gleamed like will-o’-the-wisps hovering over a swamp. The air still smelled terrible. As they went silently down the ladder, they could see the mass of people sitting and standing in close ranks in the cramped hold, three men covering them with automatic rifles.

      ‘Jesus,’ one of them was saying, ‘what a sorry-assed lot. Be lucky if one in ten of them was worth keeping.’

      ‘They are a pretty useless bunch of rag-heads. Still, I reckon some of them will bring a nice price. The rest, well, fuck ’em. They can go down with the ship when we scuttle it.’

      ‘Hey,’ said the third, the one in the middle, ‘give me a cig, will you? I need something to cover up the stench in here.’

      Ray reached the hold’s floor, maybe twenty feet behind them.

      ‘I need a light myself.’ The three men sidled together, keeping their rifles pointed at the mass of people in front of them. Many of the refugees, at least those who hadn’t sunken into complete lethargy, must have seen Ray creeping as stealthily as a panther, but no one gave him away with either a look or a gesture.

      One of the men cradled his rifle to his side under his arm while he bent down to light his cigarette with the match offered him by the middle man, while the third reached for a packet he kept in his shirt pocket.

      Morons, Ray thought, and when he was six feet away sprang with his arms widespread.

      He grabbed the collars of the man to the right and to the left and smashed both their heads into that of the man in the middle. The colliding skulls made satisfyingly loud sounds. Ray held the two up by their collars as their knees sagged while the third slipped silently to the hold’s floor.

      The refugees looked almost as stunned as Ray’s victims as he shook the two guards like a terrier with rats in its jaws, just to make sure they were out, then swiftly checked them all for more weapons. ‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ he told the refugees, ‘someone tie them up.’

      Twenty-odd prisoners leaped forward in response. It probably would have gone more efficiently if they didn’t keep getting in one another’s way, but Ray let them have their fun. In a few moments the three were tied and gagged and Ray had distributed their guns to refugees who professed familiarity with the weapons.

      ‘Keep your eye on them while we take care of the rest,’ Ray told them.

      ‘Let us go with you,’ one of the Kazakhs offered.

      Ray shook his head. ‘This job is for professionals. You stay here and guard these bozos.’

      They reluctantly accepted his advice, and Ray returned to the stairway, where the Angel stood watching him.

      ‘I didn’t think you’d need my help,’ she said.

      Ray snorted. ‘Not with those idiots. But there’s five left. Let’s check the bridge.’

      The Angel nodded, and they went up the walkway to the deck above, where all was still darkness. Ahead, in the bow, they could see the lit bridge and the figures who occupied it, who were unidentifiable at this distance.

      They moved quietly toward the light. Halfway there, Ray put out his arm in warning and he and the Angel stopped. They could hear something slithering before them in the darkness.

      ‘The snake,’

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