Shadow Prey

Barbara Gow’s wagon in the street and the open door of the white Colonial house. He slid into the circular drive, stood on the brake and piled out, the P7 in his hand. The cruiser was just behind him, and then there were more lights on the lane, more cops coming in. He waited just a second for the first cruiser and heard the shotgun roar . . . .
     
    “Cops,” Sam screamed from the top of the stairs, his scream punctuated by the shotgun blast. Both he and Aaron favored old-model .45s, and had them in their hands. The girl, nude, ran down the stairs, saw Aaron waiting and stopped. Sam pushed past her, with Leo just behind.
    Drake had his hands on his head and began to back away. “Fucker,” Aaron said, and shot him in the chest. Drake flipped back over a sofa and disappeared.
    “Try the back?” Leo shouted.
    “Fuck it,” said Aaron. “Clean the driveway out with the shotgun, then get out of the way.”
    Leo ran to the door. The car’s headlights were focused on it but he could see figures behind the lights. He fired three quick shots, emptying the gun, and ducked back inside as a hail of bullets tore through the doorway into the living room.
    “Go out the back,” Aaron said to him. He kissed Leo on the cheek, looked at his cousin.
    “Time to die, you flatheaded motherfucker,” Sam shouted.
    The return fire from outside had stopped. There were shouts, and Sam lifted his head, smelling the perfume of the house. Then Aaron was out the door at a dead run, Sam a step behind, the .45s jumping in their hands.
    • • •
    Lucas looked at the cop and said, “Get somebody around back. They’re in there, I just heard . . .”
    He never finished the sentence. There was a shot inside the house, a pause, and then a shotgun opened from the doorway. The muzzle blast flickered like lightning in the dark and the cop who’d started for the back went down. More squads were roaring into the driveway, one sliding sideways as another cop went down.
    Lucas fired a quick three shots at the doorway and started toward it as the gunner ducked inside. Then the Crows were there, coming out the door at a run, their pistols firing wildly. Lucas fired twice at the first one as the other cops opened up. The Crows were down a half-second later, bullets kicking up dirt around them, plucking at their shirts, their jeans, enough lead to kill a half-dozen men.
     
    And then there was silence.
    Then a few words, like morning birds outside a bedroom window. “Jesus God,” somebody was saying. “Jesus God.”
    Sirens. Static from the radios. More sirens. Lots of them. Lucas crouched behind the car.
    “Where’s the shotgun?” he screamed. “Anybody see the shotgun?”
    A cop was crying for help, the pain on him. Another was a lump in the dirt.
    “Who’s around back?” somebody called.
    “Nobody. Get somebody around back.”
    A uniform dashed into the headlights, stopped next to the cop who was lying still in the dirt, and began tugging him out of the light. Lucas stood, aiming his pistol through the doorway, and squeezed off two suppression shots.
    “He’s gone,” the uniform screamed, holding the dead cop in his arms. “Jesus, where are the paramedics?”
    More lights in the lane, then Sloan coming up the driveway.
    “Heard you on the radio,” he grunted. “What have we got?”
    “Maybe a shotgun inside.”
    There was a figure at the door, and two or three separate voices screamed warnings.
    “Hold it, hold it,” somebody shouted.
    The girl appeared in the doorway, her eyes as wide as a deer’s, shambling out of the wreckage.
    “Who’s in there?” Lucas called as she came across the driveway.
    “Nobody,” she wailed. She half turned to the house as though she couldn’t believe it. “Everybody’s dead.”

CHAPTER
28
    “I don’t know what else we could have done,” Lucas said. In his own ears, the words sounded like excuses, quick and chattery as if tumbling out of a teletype, harsh with guilt. “If we hadn’t gone straight in, we’d have lost Clay for sure. We knew they weren’t far in front of us.”
    “You did okay,” Daniel said grimly. “It was that fuckin’ Clay, sneaking out like that. The Crows must have known. They set him up, slicker’n shit. Fuckin’ Wilson is dead, Belloo’s maybe crippled, it’s that fuckin’ Clay’s fault.”
    “It must have been Shadow Love with the shotgun,” Lucas said. He was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets and his head down. His