City of Night

in your kitchen. What I bring you, priest, is the hope you do not think will ever be yours. You need only have the courage to believe it, and grasp it.”
     
     
     

Chapter 33
     
    Carson parked the car on the shoulder of the service road, and they carried the suitcases through a stand of Southern pines, up a slight sunny incline, into a grove of well-crowned live oaks. Beyond the oaks lay a vast expanse of grass.
    Twice the size of New York’s Central Park, City Park served a population only a fraction as large as that of Manhattan. Within its reaches, therefore, were lonely places, especially in the last ruddy hours of a fast-condensing summer afternoon.
    Across the sweep of the meadow, not one person was walking or communing with nature, or playing with a dog, or throwing a Frisbee, or disposing of a corpse.
    Putting down his suitcase, Michael pointed to a grassy spot ten feet beyond the oaks. “That’s where we found the accountant’s head, propped against that rock. That’s sure one you never forget.”
    “If Hallmark made a remembrance card suitable for the occasion,” Carson said, “I would send you one each year.”
    “I was impressed by the cocky angle at which he wore his cowboy hat,” Michael recalled, “especially considering his circumstances.”
    “Wasn’t it their first date?” Carson asked.
    “Right. They went to a costume party together. That’s why he was wearing a midnight-blue leather cowboy outfit with rhinestones.”
    “His boots had mother-of-pearl inlays.”
    “They were fine, those boots. I’ll bet he looked really cool with his body and head together, but of course we never got to see the full effect.”
    “Did we ever know the killer’s costume?” she asked as she knelt in the crisp dead oak leaves to open her suitcase.
    “I think he went as a bullfighter.”
    “He cut off the cowboy’s head with an ax. A bullfighter doesn’t carry an ax.”
    “Yeah, but he always kept an ax in the trunk of his car,” he reminded her.
    “Probably next to the first-aid kit. How wrong can a first date go that it ends in a beheading?”
    Opening the suitcase that contained the shotguns, Michael said, “The problem is everybody has unrealistically high expectations for a first date. Inevitably, they’re disappointed.”
    While Michael checked out the Urban Sniper shotguns and fitted each of them with a three-way sling, Carson worked the slide on each pistol and inserted a cartridge in the breach.
    Except for the small noises that she and Michael made, a cathedral quiet filled the grove, and mantled the meadow beyond.
    She loaded the nine-round magazines of the two Desert Eagle Magnums with .50-caliber Action Express cartridges.
    “Before we blast our way into his place,” she said, “we have to be sure Helios is home. We’ll only have one chance to surprise him.”
    “Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing. We need to huddle with Deucalion on this one. He might have an idea.”
    “You think Arnie’s in any danger?” Carson worried.
    “No. We’re the threat to Helios, not Arnie. And he’s not going to try to silence you by grabbing your brother. He’ll figure it’s easier just to waste us.”
    “I hope that’s right,” she said. “It gives me some comfort.”
    “Yeah, nothing makes my day like being the primary target of an archfiend.”
    “Look at this—Godot threw in two holsters for the Eagles, no charge.”
    “What style?”
    “Belt scabbards.”
    “Custom to the piece?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Gimme. That monster would feel awkward in a shoulder rig.”
    “You gonna hip-carry the Eagle out of here?” she asked.
    “It’s not that easy to reach in a suitcase, is it? If Helios has people—or whatever they are—looking for us, we may need these monster-stoppers long before we go to his house.”
    While Michael loaded the shotguns, Carson loaded four spare magazines for the .50 Magnums.
    They belted on the custom scabbards and sheathed the Eagles. Both chose the left hip for a cross-body, under-the-jacket draw.
    At the right hip, each of them carried a pouch containing two spare magazines for the Eagle and eight spare rounds for the Urban Sniper.
    Their sport jackets provided acceptable concealment; but this new weight was going to feel awkward for a while.
    They closed the suitcases and slung the shotguns over their right shoulders—stocks up, muzzles down. They picked up the two nearly empty cases and retraced their route through the grove