City of Night

The chloroform had a range of fifteen to twenty feet.
    They also carried Tasers, the wand type rather than the pistol type. These were strictly for close-in work.
    Considering that O’Connor and Maddison were cops and already jumpy because of what they knew about the deceased child of Mercy, Jonathan Harker, getting in close wouldn’t be easy.
    After parking across the street from the O’Connor house, Cindi said, “People aren’t sitting on their porches around here.”
    “It’s a different type of neighborhood.”
    “What’re they doing instead?”
    “Who cares?”
    “Probably making babies.”
    “Give it a rest, Cindi.”
    “We could always adopt.”
    “Get real. We kill for Victor. We don’t have jobs. You need real jobs to adopt.”
    “If you had let me keep the one I took, we’d be happy now.”
    “You kidnapped him. Everyone in the world is looking for the brat, and you think you can push him around the mall in a stroller!”
    Cindi sighed. “It broke my heart when we had to leave him in that park.”
    “It didn’t break your heart. Our kind aren’t capable of any such emotion.”
    “All right, but it pissed me off.”
    “Don’t I know it. Okay, so we go in there, we knock them down, tie them up, then you drive around to the back of the house, and we load ‘em like cordwood.”
    Studying the O’Connor house, Cindi said, “It does look slick, doesn’t it.”
    “It looks totally slick. In and out in five minutes. Let’s go.”
     
     
     

Chapter 62
     
    When they came through the back door with shot guns slung from their shoulders, Vicky whispered urgently, “He’s in the house.”
    Pulling open a drawer, withdrawing a pair of scissors, Carson whispered, “Who?”
    “Some creep. Way strange,” Vicky said as Carson tossed the scissors to Michael.
    As Michael caught the scissors, Carson crossed to the inner doorway.
    Vicky whispered, “He’s looking for Arnie.”
    As Carson checked the hall, Michael made two cuts in the bindings and put the scissors down. “You can do the rest, Vic.”
    The hallway was deserted, a lamp on in the living room at the farther end.
    “He have a gun?” Carson asked.
    Vicky said, “No.”
    Michael indicated that he wanted to lead.
    This was Carson’s house. She went first, carrying the shotgun for hip fire.
    She cleared the coat closet. Nothing in there but coats.
    The creep wasn’t in the living room. Carson moved to the right, Michael to the left, until they were two targets instead of one, and halted.
    Decision time. Farther to the right, beyond the living room, was Carson’s suite, bedroom and bath. To the left lay the front door and the stairs to the second floor.
    The door to Carson’s room was closed. No one was on the first flight of stairs.
    With his eyes, Michael indicated up .
    She agreed. For some reason the creep was looking for Arnie, and Arnie was on the second floor.
    Staying close to the wall, where the stairs were less likely to creak, Carson ascended first, shotgun in both hands.
    Michael followed, climbing backward, covering the room below them.
    She didn’t dare think about Arnie, what might be happening to him. Fear for your life sharpens your edge. Dread dulls it. Think about the creep instead, stopping him.
    So silent, the house. Like the Christmas poem. Not even a mouse.
    No one on the second flight, either. Light in the upstairs hall. No shadows moving.
    When she reached the top, she heard a stranger’s voice coming from Arnie’s room. Arriving at the open door, she saw her brother in his wheeled office chair, his attention on the Lego-block castle.
    The intruder was maybe eighteen, nineteen, solidly put together. He stood facing Arnie, only a few feet from him, his back to Carson.
    If it came to shooting, she didn’t have a clear shot. The slug from the Urban Sniper might punch clean through the creep and hammer Arnie.
    She didn’t know who the guy was. More important, she didn’t know what he was.
    The intruder was saying, “Randal thought he could share. But now the castle, a home, ice cream, Mother—Randal wants it for himself.”
    Carson edged to the left of the doorway as she sensed Michael in the hall behind her.
    “Randal isn’t Abel. Randal is Cain. Randal isn’t Six anymore. From now on… Randal O’Connor .”
    Still moving, circling, Carson said, “What’re you doing here?”
    The intruder turned smoothly, so fast, like a dancer, or like something that had been… well engineered.