Dying Is My Business

Eight

I spun the Explorer wildly onto Seventh Avenue. The tires screamed in protest, the smell of burning rubber coming through the window. Bethany yelled in my ear, “Go, go, go,” and I stomped the gas pedal to the floor and nearly torpedoed right into the back of the produce truck in front of us. I gritted my teeth and spun the wheel frantically, every muscle in my body tensing in anticipation of the collision. We just missed the truck, though the front of the Explorer clipped it. The right headlight shattered and flickered out. I pulled into one of the middle lanes and hit the gas again while my heart tried to pound its way out of my rib cage.

The bright lights of retail signs and enormous video billboards lit Seventh Avenue like it was daytime, illuminating the sea of shining yellow metal ahead of us. Taxicabs, a whole fleet of them, spread out over the road like an obstacle course. I cursed under my breath. Why did it have to be Times Square? Even at this time of night, the traffic was so thick it moved at a snail’s pace. I kept my foot on the gas, drove right up behind one of the taxis, then switched lanes and did it again. It was the only way to keep moving. The street was six lanes wide, though the far left lane was taken up with parked cars. Five lanes, then. Not good. Eventually I’d run out of room to maneuver, especially once we got closer to the intersection where Seventh Avenue merged with Broadway and the traffic of two major arteries was funneled into one. Then what the hell was I going to do?

I glanced at the side mirror. The man in black armor wasn’t far behind, maybe seventy yards but gaining fast as his horse galloped through the narrow aisle between cars. Weren’t horses supposed to be spooked by traffic and blaring horns? This one wasn’t. It wasn’t even wearing blinders. The drivers, on the other hand, were plenty spooked. They swerved and collided in the horse’s wake, metal grinding against metal, glass popping. On the sidewalk, pedestrians gawked, their well-honed New York apathy momentarily shattered. Slowly, inevitably, the camera phones came out and flashes burst along the sidewalk like a chain of supernovas. I kept my focus on the road. In the backseat, Bethany and Thornton twisted around and stared through the rear window.

“We’re screwed,” Thornton said.

“I knew the gargoyles were going for help, but I didn’t think it would be him,” Bethany said.

I swerved around a cab, then another, ignoring their angry honks. “Who the hell is that?” I demanded.

“The Black Knight,” she said. “He’s their king.”

I glowered at her in the rearview. “The gargoyles have a king?”

“You definitely don’t want to mess with him,” Thornton said.

I shifted my gaze to the side mirror. The Black Knight was still there, closing the gap between us. The neon lights glinted off his black sword, limning the sharp edge in red, blue, and green.

“He mustn’t catch us, Trent!” Bethany said. “Do you understand me? If the Black Knight catches us, we’re dead!”

“Speak for yourself,” Thornton muttered.

Bethany ignored him. The look on her face was one of desperate terror. This was a woman who was brave enough to take on six gargoyles with what was essentially a long stick, yet just the sight of the Black Knight had terrified her. I didn’t want to find out why. I swerved to change lanes again, hoping to put more cars between us and the Black Knight. I glanced at the speedometer: fifty-nine miles per hour. And yet somehow, maddeningly, the horse was still gaining on us.

A police siren cut the air, sharp and loud, but I couldn’t see the cruiser yet, couldn’t even figure out where it was. Ahead, the light at Forty-Ninth Street turned yellow, then red. I stomped on the gas pedal and blew through the intersection just as the cross street’s traffic started to flow. Cars swerved to avoid hitting us, honking and shouting. One was the NYPD cruiser with the shrieking siren, the red and whites flashing on its roof. It skidded to a halt behind us, directly in the Black Knight’s path. I figured that ought to slow the armored bastard down. Maybe even give us enough time to shake him.

“Jesus Christ, get out of there!” Thornton shouted from the backseat. He was twisted around, staring anxiously through the back window at the police cruiser.

I checked the mirror and saw the Black Knight’s horse run straight into the cruiser. But instead of hurting the horse, the cruiser, a couple thousand pounds of metal and glass, slid sideways across the blacktop like it was made of cardboard. It collided with the rear of a delivery truck, and its windshield and the red and white lights on its roof shattered in a rain of glass. The horse barely noticed as it continued galloping after us. The cruiser stayed put. I couldn’t tell if the cops inside were alive or dead.

“Trent, look out!” Bethany cried.

I tore my gaze away from the mirror and back to the road. In front of us, a city bus pulled away from the bus stop at the curb, directly into our path. The glowing M20 on the digital display window on the back of the bus looked so big and close through the windshield that I gasped. I jerked the wheel to the left and stamped down on the gas, trying to get ahead of the bus, but it was too late. It slammed into the side of the Explorer, sending us skidding diagonally across the lanes.

“Hang on!” I shouted. I stepped on the brakes with my full weight, nearly lifting myself out of the seat. The tires locked and squealed against the road. In the backseat, Bethany and Thornton were thrown to one side as they scrabbled for something to hold on to. The Explorer rocked, threatening to tip over, then settled to a stop straddling two lanes. I looked through the passenger side window, which now faced oncoming traffic. I caught a glimpse of the Black Knight riding toward us. Then suddenly all I could see was a monster Suburban bearing down on us, its driver leaning on the horn. The Suburban’s wheels screamed as it braked, but the momentum kept it sliding forward. I stepped on the gas again and twisted the steering wheel, edging forward, but it was too late. The Suburban struck the rear of the Explorer. I heard shouts of alarm from the people on the sidewalk as our back wheels slid ninety degrees across the blacktop. Bethany and Thornton cried out, clutching the safety grips on the ceiling above the doors. We came to an uneasy stop rocking back and forth on the suspension. I held onto the steering wheel with white knuckles. My heart squeezed into my throat like it wanted to make a break for it.

Down the street, the Black Knight’s horse knocked aside a station wagon like it was a Matchbox car, and kept coming. I ignored the honks and the angry cries of the Suburban’s driver, turned to my two shaken but unharmed passengers in the back and barked, “Seat belts! Now!” Bethany and Thornton buckled themselves in without a word. I did the same and hit the gas again. The engine chugged and wheezed in protest, but thankfully the car moved. I continued down Seventh Avenue, but this time the speedometer stayed at forty-five no matter how hard I stepped on the pedal.

Thornton twisted to look out the rear window again. “He’s gaining on us!”

“Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” Bethany demanded.

“I’m trying!” I yelled back. I glanced in the side mirror. The Black Knight was shadowing us, relentless. “What does he want from us?”

“The box,” Bethany said. “He’s the one who sent the gargoyles after it in the first place.”

Everyone wanted the box, it seemed. It was bringing the freaks out of the woodwork. What was so special about the damn thing?

Another siren pierced the night. A second NYPD cruiser came rocketing down Seventh Avenue to pull up alongside the horse. It tried turning toward the horse to nudge it toward the side of the road, but the horse ignored it. The Black Knight swiped at the cruiser with his sword. There was a sudden eruption of sparks, and the police cruiser wobbled, lost control, and veered into a street-side lamppost. People scattered on the sidewalks. The Black Knight kept coming.

We shot across Forty-Eighth Street. I glanced at the side mirror. The Black Knight was so close I could almost make out each individual hooked barb on his sword. The horse’s enormous nostrils flared just above the stenciled words OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. I ground the accelerator into the floor. The engine wheezed and coughed. Wisps of smoke billowed out from under the hood. The speedometer dropped to forty.

I cursed and hit the steering wheel. It didn’t make the Explorer go any faster.

The Black Knight rode up alongside us. Holding tight to the metal reins with his free hand, he tipped himself toward the Explorer and slashed with his sword. The blade tore effortlessly through the metal chassis, trailing sparks that rained onto the street. Bethany and Thornton gasped and cringed away from it. The edge missed them by inches.

I turned the wheel, trying to ram the horse, but it galloped easily out of reach. As soon as I righted the car, the Black Knight rode back to us. The curved, black blade of his sword came through the roof at an angle, jabbing into the narrow space between me and the steering wheel. I cried out and pushed myself back in my seat so hard I thought I’d break all the way through it. The Black Knight yanked his sword free again, its hooked barbs tearing chunks of metal from the roof and leaving a jagged hole.

The Black Knight swung again, this time smashing the window beside me. Tiny cubes of safety glass spilled across my lap. I changed lanes, pulling away from him. The traffic had thinned, most of the drivers had turned off of Seventh Avenue to avoid the chaos. The good news was that the mostly empty street allowed me to maneuver more easily. The bad news was that it let the Black Knight do the same.

He kept pace with the Explorer, the jabs and swipes of his sword continually forcing me to change lanes and move farther to the right. Up ahead, I saw Times Square’s triangular pedestrian mall approaching on the right side of Forty-Seventh Street, marking where Seventh Avenue and Broadway intersected at a sharp angle. Only then did I realize that the Black Knight was trying to force me off the road. I tried to edge my way left again, but the sword came slicing toward the driver’s side door. I instinctively yanked the wheel to the right to avoid the razor-sharp blade and realized, too late, that was exactly what the Black Knight had wanted me to do.

We jumped the curb onto the mall, narrowly avoiding the tall stand of bleachers that angled above the TKTS windows at the north end, where theater buffs normally stood in long lines to buy cheap Broadway tickets. Luckily, at this hour there were no customers lined up there or I would have plowed right through them. Past the bleachers there were dozens of tables and chairs arranged along the pedestrian mall. They were all empty, the tourists and transients who normally sat there must have seen us coming and took off. It sounded like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun as the Explorer plowed through the tables. Plastic chairs, abandoned Styrofoam coffee cups, fast-food wrappers, and empty plastic shopping bags bounced and slid off the hood and windshield.

I hit the brakes and spun the wheel, but we were going too fast to come to anything resembling a controlled stop. The Explorer struck a cement barricade at the far end of the mall. The next thing I knew we were off the ground and tilting sideways, then upside down. The cubes of safety glass from the broken window jumped off my lap and out of the leg well, raining up to the ceiling. I felt the seat belt strain under my weight, the strap cutting into my shoulder and chest. The Explorer came down on its roof, skating across the section of Broadway that was closed to traffic, and crashed into the side of a clothing store, shattering the store’s floor-to-ceiling display window. Only then, finally, did we stop.

My head, neck, and shoulders throbbed. The wounds on my back flared with new pain. I reached for the seat belt and, bracing myself, released the buckle. I tumbled upside down from my seat, bumping my neck and shoulders against the ceiling. I winced and tried to get my feet under me again. I had to scrape my knees and shins past the steering wheel, but finally I lay on my side and did a quick check of my limbs. No broken bones. I was lucky. “Are you okay?” I called back to Bethany and Thornton.

They lay in a tangled heap below the overturned backseat, caught like flies in the web of their seat belts.

“I have some exciting new wounds and my right arm seems to be bent the wrong way, but otherwise I still feel dead,” Thornton replied. “Thanks for asking.”

“My leg,” Bethany groaned, her voice laced with pain. “I’m jammed in.”

From the way the car was lying, I couldn’t see the Black Knight, but I knew he wasn’t far. If he found us like this, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I thought about how easily that sword of his had cut through metal. I didn’t want to know what it would do to us.

“Thornton, help Bethany,” I said. I crawled through the hole where the driver’s side window used to be and out onto the sidewalk. I stood up, but I was still dizzy from the accident. I steadied myself against the side of the car. People on the sidewalks in the distance still had their cell phone cameras raised, flashes popping. Damn. If any of them got a clear picture of my face, not only would I have botched this job, I would have blown any chance of getting information out of Underwood. My only hope was that the cameras were too far away to capture any detail.

Then, slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn’t the one they were taking pictures of. The Black Knight trotted up and slowed his horse to a stop. He dismounted. He didn’t pay any attention to the crowd across the street. His attention was fixed on me.

I tried to tug open the car’s back door, but it was wedged stuck. I dug in against the sidewalk and gave it another yank, a hard one. With the loud groan of metal scraping against metal it opened, but only halfway. “Can you move?”

Bethany looked up at me, her teeth clenched against the pain. “I don’t know, but I’ll damn well try.”

I looked over the top of the overturned car. The Black Knight was striding toward me, holding his sword low.

“If you’re going to try, you better do it now,” I said. I pulled my gun from the back of my pants and aimed down the barrel at the Black Knight. “Back it up,” I shouted. The Black Knight ignored me, continuing toward us. I cocked the gun. “Back the fuck up.” He drew closer, lifting his sword. “Fine. I warned you,” I said, and squeezed off two shots in quick succession.

Both of them ricocheted off his armored breastplate. It didn’t even slow him down.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. I put the gun away and squatted down by the open door again. “Can one of you tell me why everyone is immune to bullets all of a sudden?”

They’d gotten free of their seat belts, and now Thornton was trying to push Bethany toward the door with his left arm. It wasn’t working. “See if you can pull her out,” he urged me. His right arm hung limply at his side.

I took both of Bethany’s hands and pulled, but she gritted her teeth in pain and didn’t budge. “Get out of here, Trent,” she said. “There’s no point in all three of us dying.”

“When are you going to stop trying to get rid of me?” I said.

I spotted the Anubis Hand lying near her. If the Black Knight was the king of the gargoyles, did that mean the Anubis Hand would have the same effect on him that it did on the gargoyles in the warehouse? There was only way to find out. I pulled the staff out of the car.

“Just run, Trent, before you get yourself killed!” Bethany yelled.

I walked around to the front of the car and faced the Black Knight, holding the staff in both hands. “We don’t have the box you’re looking for,” I said.

The Black Knight lifted the heavy, angry-looking sword over his head and brought it down toward me. I swung the staff, knocking his blade aside. I followed through with the momentum, spinning around and ramming into him with my back. I brought one elbow up hard into the Black Knight’s breastplate. The metal felt as hard as rock. Pain surged up my arm. The Black Knight didn’t so much as stumble.

Still, he moved slowly in all that armor. I could use that to my advantage. Before he had a chance to get his sword up, I spun again, and this time I swung the staff up and out. The Anubis Hand struck the Black Knight’s helmet full on.

I waited for the flash of light, for the Black Knight to be thrown backward in a blazing inferno, but nothing happened. Instead, he shrugged off the blow and came at me again.

Shit. I backed away, holding the staff defensively in front of me. I risked a quick look over my shoulder. Thornton was out of the car and helping Bethany through the door. His limp right arm was crooked at the elbow in a way that looked painful. The leather bracelet hung cockeyed at his wrist. Bethany had an angry cut on her right knee that dripped trails of blood down her jeans leg. I turned back to the Black Knight just in time to see him raise his sword, preparing to strike.

As the blade came down, I brought the staff up to block it. The sword cleaved the staff in two, and suddenly I was holding two useless pieces of wood, one with a mummified fist attached to it. Damn, I thought, now what?

“Run, Trent!” Bethany shouted. “You can’t win! He’ll kill you!”

Maybe I couldn’t win, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave them here for the Black Knight to cut to pieces. I held the two halves of the broken staff like clubs and took a deep breath. I didn’t have a plan, let alone a strategy for fighting him, but there was no way I was going to let this asshole get past me.

I ran at him and got past his sword before he could swing it. The Black Knight pivoted, and hit me across the face with his armored forearm. It felt like getting hit by a steel girder. I fell onto my back. The two pieces of the staff fell out of my hands.

The Black Knight loomed over me. He lifted his black-bladed sword high, its sharp point gleaming above my face.

“Fuck you,” I said, “and the horse you—”

Before I could finish, the Black Knight drove his sword down toward me.