The Warrior

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John grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stop it! Stay here. I’ll deal with this.”

“But—”

He gave her a slight shake. “No buts. Just sit here and calm down. I’ll be back.”

That was easier said than done, but she did sit down, her gaze glued to the security screen as she listened to John’s receding footsteps.

It hadn’t taken Dieter long to find where John Nightwalker lived. Ironically, his success in locating the man was entirely due to the friendliness of Southerners. After a few wrong turns, he’d come upon a farmer fixing a fence on the shoulder of the road and stopped to ask him if he knew where an Indian called Big John lived.

The man swiped at the sweat on his face with the back of his sleeve, then pointed north. “About two miles on down the road. Got two big iron gates right across the drive. Can’t miss it,” he said, and went back to his fence.

Dieter quickly located the place. But the gates he’d been expecting were something similar to what he’d seen out in the farmer’s pasture to separate one field from another, not these. Not only were they every bit of fourteen, maybe even sixteen, feet high, they locked electronically. They were made of massive iron bars and very similar to the gates at the Ponte estate in Miami. It made him wonder who John Nightwalker was, and what he was doing up in those trees that he didn’t want anyone to see. Those gates told him that further security measures were no doubt also in place, but he was too afraid of his boss to listen to common sense and take a chance of failing him a second time.

There was a call button on the gate that was meant to be used, allowing whoever was at the other end to furnish access. But Dieter didn’t intend to announce his arrival.

He popped the trunk lid, then got out. Moments later, he headed toward the gate with his duffel bag in hand. He worked his way into the wiring, bypassed the electronic switch and disarmed it. When he heard it click, he grunted with satisfaction.

Within minutes, he was most of the way up the drive, running a mental checklist of his weapons and what he might need to get Alicia Ponte into his car.

When he turned a curve and saw Nightwalker’s black Jeep coming at him at full speed from the house in the background, his mind went into a tailspin. How the hell had the man known? No time for that. He switched into operations mode. He could ram the Jeep, but if the impact disabled his own vehicle, then he couldn’t get away. He was grabbing for his handgun as he stomped the brake and jammed the gearshift into Park.

He jumped out, keeping the open door between him and the vehicle coming at him, then hunkered down and fired.

The first shot hit a tire; the second went into the radiator, sending a spew of steam into the air. He expected the man to get out, but he thought the man would run for cover, not come at him with his bare fists. He hadn’t planned on leaving a body behind, but Ponte’s orders had been plain: Bring Alicia back at all costs. And now that order was about to cost this big Indian his life.

He stood up from behind the car door and took aim.

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot,” he yelled.

But John didn’t stop.

Seeing the gun was proof enough to him that Alicia had been right about her father. He wanted her back bad, and he was willing to do anything to shut her up. When Dieter yelled, John knew what was coming. He dreaded the first burst of pain, even while knowing it wouldn’t last.

“You’re trespassing on private property,” he called as he continued to approach.

Dieter’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I came to get Alicia. Turn her over to me now and I’ll let you live.”

“No,” John said coldly. “Get off my property now and I’ll let you live.”

Dieter’s heart skipped a beat. Why would an unarmed man make such a futile threat? Was there something here he was missing? He glanced nervously from side to side, searching the perimeter of the roadside for the possibility of guards he hadn’t taken into account, but no one showed. Convinced he was still in control of the situation, he pointed the gun straight at John’s chest.

“I’m warning you,” Dieter said. “Get back. All I want is the girl.”

“Not in this lifetime,” John said, and made a lunge toward the door.

Dieter fired and ducked just as the door slammed into his belly, face and shins. He was so blinded by the blood and pain he didn’t see his shot hit John in the shoulder, didn’t see the ensuing stain of red that began to spread across the front of John’s shirt.

The shot spun John around, landing him flat on his back in the dirt.

From her chair in the library, Alicia saw it all. The shock of realizing Dieter was willing to kill to get to her was confirmation of how desperate her situation was. When she saw Dieter fire and John fall back into the dirt, she ran out of the house and down the driveway, screaming Dieter’s name, begging him to stop and praying the shot wasn’t a mortal one.

Dieter staggered out from behind the door with the gun in his hand and his face streaming blood. His nose was broken. His lips had been crushed against his teeth so sharply that the insides felt like raw meat. There was a cut on his cheek and another on his chin, and he was cursing at the top of his voice, nearly blind with pain.

“You sorry bastard! You broke my face! All you had to do was back off, but you didn’t!”

He pulled the trigger again, sending a shot into John’s leg. The wound in John’s shoulder was already closing, and he was halfway to his feet when the next shot dropped him again. In the distance, he thought he could hear Alicia screaming. That meant she hadn’t stayed put. It also meant he needed to gain control of the situation before Dieter grabbed her and took off.

He rolled over onto his belly, grabbed a handful of dirt and then gritted his teeth as he pushed himself upright. Before Dieter could register the fact that the man he’d put two bullets in was up, John threw the dirt in his face.

Dieter ducked, but not soon enough. Dirt hit him square in the face, filling both eyes with painful grit and sand. He clawed at his face as John grabbed him, knocked the gun out of his hand with a hard chop to his wrist, then hit him in the chin with his fist. Dieter went down like a felled oak.

Once John had the man down and out, he gave in to the pain, leaning across the hood of the assailant’s car, bent double with the suffering.

That was how Alicia found him. The horror in her voice was evident as she arrived, out of breath and screaming.

“Oh my God, oh my God…You’re shot. He shot you. You need to sit down.” She started rifling through Dieter’s car, looking for his cell phone. She found it on the console and ran back to John’s side. “I’ll call for an ambulance. Oh…wait…I don’t know this address. What do I say?”

The pain in John’s leg had subsided to a dull throb. He pushed himself up from the car, took the phone from her hand and laid it on the hood, then grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stop. Look at me. I’m okay, see?”

“You’re not okay. You’re bleeding.” She yanked at his shirt, pulling it back so she could see the wound more clearly.

John gritted his teeth. Now it would come. He pulled away from her grasp, but she was still staring, her mouth agape.

Alicia could see where the bullet had gone in. Although the flesh looked red and swollen, the tear was almost shut. It didn’t make sense. She kept looking from the wound to John’s face and back to the wound again. Then he moved, and as he did, he put himself directly between her and the sun. Within seconds, Alicia’s view of him changed. All she could see was a dark silhouette, backlit by a halo of light. The skin on the back of her neck began to crawl as the thought went through her mind that John Nightwalker wasn’t human.

It was the only thing that made sense of what she had seen. He’d been shot. She’d seen him fall. The coppery scent of his blood was still strong in her nose, but the hole in his shoulder was almost closed. She looked down at his leg. The bloodstain on his jeans had quit spreading, too.

“How…?”

“It’s complicated.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and then took an unsteady step backward, staring at him in disbelief.

John had been there before, watching the looks on people’s faces, seeing the doubt, then the fear. Sometimes it bothered him. Sometimes it didn’t. Today was one of those didn’t-bother-him days, and besides, there were things yet to be done. He glanced down at Dieter’s unconscious body, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Alicia asked, then got her answer when he began to talk.

“Hi, Carl, this is John Nightwalker again.”

“Hey, John. How you doin’?”

“Oh…okay, I guess—although I’ve had better days. Someone just broke into my property and took a couple of shots at me. Shot out a tire and my radiator, too.”

“For the love of Pete! You don’t say. Hang on. I’ll dispatch some help right out to you.”

John winced, then shifted the weight from his right leg to his left. “Thanks. I’ve got it under control, but I want to press charges. Could you send someone out to pick him up? Oh…you’ll also need a wrecker for his vehicle. I’ll be needing a wrecker, too, but I’ll call Shelby’s Garage down in Justice.”