How many shots had she fired a few minutes before? She was surprised to discover that she couldn't remember, and she kicked herself inwardly. When the bullets started flying at the Eagles, she had just aimed and squeezed the trigger again and again, her blood pumping so loudly in her ears that it drowned out the thunder of the guns and made her forget to conserve her ammunition.
She offered a silent prayer to anyone who'd listen as she flipped open the revolver's cylinder, spinning through the chambers.
All empty. She'd fired all six of them without even realizing it. And as far as she knew, only her sixth bullet had managed to put one of the bastards down. She may as well have shoved the rest of them up her ass for all the good they'd done her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The kind of rookie mistake that was usually made by some amateur who couldn't keep her cool, not the daughter of one of the founding members of the Blood Eagles. Not the kind of mistake Missy would ever have made in a million years, if she hadn't been so worried about...
No. No time to think of him now. Only Death, and how to deal with him when he got to her.
As if on cue, Missy heard the flat smack of the door being kicked open in the motel room next to hers. She gritted her teeth as she listened to Death tearing the place apart like a cyclone, slamming the closet door open, flipping over the small desk, and shoving the bed aside to check underneath. She heard the sharp rasp of plastic rings sliding against a curtain rod on the other side of the bathroom's thin wall.
Well, so much for hoping Death is dumb enough not to check the shower, Missy thought queasily. She peered down at the gun in her hands and wondered if she could try to bluff him.
She immediately realized the question was moot. There was no choice. It was either that, or throw it at him and hope for the best.
And even if I don't shoot like a girl, Missy thought, I do happen to throw like one.
She stifled a hysterical giggle at this thought. Her nerves were sparking, stripped down to the copper. She knew she just had to keep it together for a few more minutes. Just enough to get out of this tub alive. Just enough to find a way to save her endangered Eagles from sudden extinction.
Missy heard Death stomping back to the door of the room next door, and braced herself. A moment later, she heard the sound of the cheap wood splitting away from the lock as the door to the room she was in slammed inward. There were the same sounds of furniture being pushed aside, this time accompanied by frustrated grunts.
Missy raised her gun, preparing for the inevitable. She told herself that she had to look cool, menacing, and in control. She had to instantly convince Death that she had the drop on him. Even a momentary flicker of fear or uncertainty in her eyes would be her undoing.
The shower curtain was raked aside, revealing the face of Death. He had beady black eyes that were set close together over a beak-like nose, and there were three tear-drop tattoos running down his left cheek. His upper lip was fixed in a permanent snarl by a jagged scar that lifted one corner of it.
Death carried a .44 semi-automatic with a long barrel that gleamed in the dim light of the bathroom, but before he could raise it, Missy thumbed back the hammer of her revolver with a loud click.
“Drop it,” Missy growled, “or prepare to feel fresh fucking air on your brain.”
Death blinked for a moment, surprised. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“Man, I knew girls were supposed to be bad at math, but this shit's ridiculous,” he snickered. “Here, chica, let me teach you some basic fucking arithmetic. Six bullets...”
With the speed of a striking cobra, he smacked the revolver out of Missy's hands. It bounced off the wall and hit the bathroom floor, cracking the tiles into splinters.
“...minus six bullets...”
Before Missy could even raise her hands to defend herself, the barrel of her attacker's gun smashed against the side of her head.
“...equals you're fucked,” he finished.
Black waves of pain crashed against each other in Missy's skull until the world around her was swallowed up by a dark and bottomless ocean. She felt her knees give out and she started to sink beneath the churning waters of unconsciousness, lower and lower with no bubbles, no way up, and no way of knowing whether she'd ever see the sunlight shimmering on the surface again.
Chapter 1
Cain
Four Days Earlier
It was an unseasonably warm evening, given the fact that it was December 12th in the small town of Micanaw, Ohio.
As Cain Vale stood a short distance from the rear of the Happy Teepee Motel & Trailer Camp and pissed into the scrubby grass, his thoughts turned to this same date two years before. It was a day he felt sure he would always remember, for three reasons.