9 Dragons

said. “They put a needle in her arm.”
    “We don’t know that yet. Let’s go downstairs and talk to the guy.”
    She didn’t move. She stared at the blood and tissue like it was a red-and-white flower.
    “Do you have something to put this in”
    Bosch always carried a small quantity of sealable evidence bags in his coat pockets. He pulled one out now and Eleanor placed the wad in it. He closed it and put it into his pocket.
    “Okay, let’s go.”
    They finally left the room. Bosch had one arm around Eleanor’s back and was looking at her face as they entered the hall. He half expected her to break free and run back to the room. But then he saw some sort of recognition flare in her eyes as she focused down the hall.
    “Harry”
    Bosch turned, expecting it to be Sun. But it wasn’t.
    Two men were approaching from the end of the hall. They were walking side by side with purpose. Bosch realized that they were the two men who had been the last passengers with them in the elevator going up. They had been going to sixteen.
    The moment the men saw Harry and Eleanor enter the hallway, their hands went inside their jackets to their waistbands. Bosch saw one man close his grip and instinctively knew he was pulling a gun.
    Bosch brought his right arm up to the center of Eleanor’s back and shoved her across the hall toward the elevator alcove. At the same time, he brought his left hand up behind his back and grabbed his gun. One of the men yelled something in a language Bosch didn’t understand and raised his weapon.
    Bosch pulled his own gun and brought it around on aim. He opened fire at the same moment shots were fired from one of the men down the hall. Bosch fired repeatedly, at least ten shots, and continued after he saw both men go down.
    Holding his aim, he moved forward on them. One was lying on top of the other’s legs. One was dead, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The other was still alive and breathing shallowly at the same time he was still trying to pull his gun from his waistband. Bosch looked down and saw that the hammer spur had gotten snagged in the waistband of his pants. He had never gotten the gun out.
    Bosch reached down and took the man’s hand off the weapon and roughly pulled the gun loose. The man dropped his hand to the floor. Bosch slid the gun across the carpet out of his reach.
    There were two wounds in the man’s upper chest. Bosch had gone for body mass and his aim was true. The man was bleeding out quickly.
    “Where is she?” Bosch said. “Where is she?”
    The man made a grunting sound and blood dripped from his mouth down the side of his face. Bosch knew he would be dead in another minute.
    Bosch heard a door open down the hallway and then quickly close. He checked but saw no one. Most people in a place like this wouldn’t want to get involved. Still, he knew it wouldn’t be long before the police stormed the hotel on the report of a shooting.
    He turned back to the dying man.
    “Where is she?” he repeated. “Where’s my?-”
    He saw that the man was dead.
    “Shit!”
    Bosch got up and turned back to the alcove and Eleanor.
    “They had to have-”
    She was on the floor. Bosch rushed to her and dropped down to the floor.
    “Eleanor!”
    He was too late. Her eyes were open and just as blank as the man’s in the hallway.
    “No, no, please, no.
Eleanor!
”
    He couldn’t see any wound but she wasn’t breathing and her eyes were fixed. He shook her by the shoulders and got no response. He put one hand behind her head and opened her mouth with the other. He leaned forward to blow air into her lungs. But then he felt the wound. He pulled his hand out of her hair and it was covered in blood. He turned her head and saw the wound in the hairline behind her left ear. He realized she had probably been hit as he had pushed her into the alcove. He had pushed her into the shot.
    “Eleanor,” he said quietly.
    Bosch leaned forward and put his face down on her chest between her breasts. He smelled her familiar fragrance. He heard a loud, awful groan and realized it had come from himself.
    For thirty seconds he didn’t move. He just held her there. Then he heard the elevator open behind him and finally raised himself up.
    Sun stepped off the elevator. He took in the scene and his focus quickly went to Eleanor on the floor.
    “Eleanor!”
    He rushed to her side. Bosch realized it was the first time he had heard him say her name. He had pronounced