Chicago Nights Ch. 02

Before Adrian could begin to rise, Hunter was on him. Well experienced in the urgency of a street brawl, Hunter wasted no time in using his combined position and weapon. The first time the club landed on Adrian's head, the pain was electric. The second time, it bounced his skull against the concrete. After the third, Adrian Burke was no longer moving. Red flecks of blood painted the untreated floor.

Hunter lifted the club anyway, but stopped. He elbow ached from the fall earlier, and his wrist was sore from the concussive use of the wooden leg. He threw it angrily away, turning as it clattered to the ground.

"Pig fucker," he slurred, spittle whipping out as he stumbled to the desk. "Fucking PIG fucker." He turned wild eyes on Ella, and she gasped. His right eye was a dark and ugly red, the area around it already swelling and yellowing. Grunting, he reached into his pockets and extracted a key. "Motherfucking pig fucking fucker." He continued muttering to himself as he fumbled, unlocking the top drawer of his desk before finally dropping the key. He ignored it as he extracted a small handgun from the drawer and turned back towards Adrian's unmoving form.

"Goddamn fucking..." he trailed off, face melting from rage to slack confusion. "Smoke," he grumbled. Then he sniffed, and looked bewilderedly at Ella. "Smoke! Why the fuck is there SMOKE?!" He rushed toward the door, stumbling a bit as he did so. "Smoke!" he screamed again, throwing the door wide to reveal a hallway filled with a slight greying haze. "No!" he moved forward, only to jerk back as a loud, clipped noise thundered in air. "Gaah!" Hunter clutched at his left arm, pulling his hand away briefly to reveal dark and expanding red. Swaying on his feet, he leaned out and fired a single return shot into the sightless growing grey, then swung back into the room, dropping the gun and turning mindlessly furious eyes on Ella's frightened form.

"It's you," he babbled, lips loose and pupils dilated. "All that shit about not remembering. All that shit," he swayed on his feet, coughing, and moved toward her. "Who did you belong to, you bitch? Who owned you that wants you back?" He staggered forward. "You knew what you were doing. Turned my own barman against me, even. Well, let me tell you, it won't matter. You know why? I've got fucking Chicago at my back. The goddamn Messenger. The Mad Dog." He picked up the wooden club again, and hacked a thick cough. "Nobody fucks with Chicago. Nobody fucks with Hunter. Oh, you fucking bitch. Come and get what you've earned!"

-=-=-

The world came back blurry. Adrian lifted his head off the concrete and into a moment's complete uncertainty.

Where was he? What was going on?

The combined sound of Ella crying out and something like something striking meat was all it took to remind him. He pushed himself up, and was rewarded with a nausea-filled pain that completely owned him. His shoulder, his face, the top of his head...they all hated what he'd done. Something wet was rolling down his forehead and streaking around his eyebrow before slipping down his cheek. He was dizzy. Somewhere, he heard Ella cry out again, and he renewed his efforts. He had to get to her.

Concentrating, moving with careful precision, he managed to stand up. But he couldn't seem to get his vision to focus.

Hunter was coughing, but it was a different sound from his usual hack. Adrian squinted, focusing on the sound.

Hunter was coughing a lot.

Smoke.

Yes. The air was hot and grey. It irritated the eyes and was dangerous to the throat and lungs. Adrian had to suppress a cough himself. So it wasn't his vision that had gone blurry. It was the whole goddamn world.

Smoke sent a very specific message. It was a message ingrained into all land-based life. It was impossible to misunderstand.

The Rage was burning down.

He turned in the direction of the coughing, and saw Hunter's form in the haze. Adrian squinted, stepping forward, and almost fell as his foot came down on something foreign. He reached down. It was a gun.

"You don't need that," the Stranger cooed. "Just slip your little self out the door. We can be gone before anybody knows."

Adrian frowned, putting a hand to his head. When he took it away, the palm was streaked red.

"Trust me," the Stranger insisted. "You know I can keep us alive. You know I can help."

Adrian hoisted the gun and stood up. The smoke was getting thicker, but he didn't care. "What good is staying alive?" he asked the Stranger.

"It's what we have to do," the voice responded, but for once the Stranger sounded scared. "Forget the others. It's just us two."

The sound of Hunter cursing at Ella drew his attention. He moved forward, looking past Hunter's shoulder at Ella's cowering form.

She glanced past Hunter at him, eyes pulled wide inside a swollen, battered face. Her whole body seemed to be racked by tremors.

Adrian breathed in the smoke. There was something about look in her eyes...

And then, suddenly, in the back of his mind, he heard the riddle. It came to him in a new voice, one untainted by anger or defiance. It came to him in the voice of a child.

"Two children are lost in the woods. They have nothing with them...nothing to save or carry. Neither one knows the way home. However, the girl knows something that the boy does not, and that one thing makes her very, very wise."

He saw it with a marksman's clarity. It solidified his thoughts and vanquished his pain. He understood everything. He knew why the riddle was important, why it kept bothering him. He knew why the Mad Dog had given it to him. The answer was right there, clear as weeping water, in Ella's human eyes.

It was about them. The barkeep and the woman who had forgotten herself...they were the children in the story. Adrian was lost in the woods. He had been ever since the accident. He didn't know the way home, or if home was even his to have anymore. The stolen whore was lost, too, and would never see her home again. But she had known, from the very beginning, something that he had not. Something important. Something he should have realized from the very minute that Hunter hired him to tend bar. And that one thing made her very wise indeed.

She knew fear.

He didn't fully realize he was in motion until he heard the thunderous echo, felt the jarring push of the recoil, watched the fat pimp's death come to take him.

Ella screamed. Hunter only grunted and spasmed on the floor.

"You...fuck..." he sputtered. His arms spasmed, as though he were trying to get up but couldn't make them work.

"We have to go," Adrian turned to Ella. "Can you walk?"

"Y...yes," she held out her arms, and he pulled her up. "I have no clothes."

"A problem for later. Let's go."

"Wait!" she pulled at his arm, sending agonizing warnings from his shoulder. "There's someone out there." She coughed, bending over. "They...have....a gun. They shot at him when he tried to put out the fire."

Adrian was coughing, too. The smoke was getting thicker, and the heat was unbearable. "When we step out, go right," he managed to say. "Use the...back....door."

"Adrian-" She looked up at him.

"Go!" He pushed her forward. "Run!" He turned, coming out the door with her so that his body shielded her from the direction of the bar. He flinched, pointing the gun at fire and ash, and waited to die.

Nothing happened.

Adrian swayed, uncertain. He felt dizzy. The smoke...

"Adrian! Hurry!"

He turned, almost falling in the process, and leaned against the wall for support. She stood outside, at the bottom of the small stairwell near the back of the bar, holding the door open.

"Ella," he muttered, dropping to his knees.

"Adrian! Please!"

He crawled, fighting for awareness, until he reached the threshold. She began to pull at him, pleading to someone to help her, and he felt strong hands hoist him out into the alley.

He lay coughing for a few minutes, fighting for every breath. When he had gained some degree of control, he looked up.

The Mad Dog was smiling down at him, hands tucked deep in his pockets. Next to him, Ella was wrapped in a tall trench.

"I was starting to worry," Andro admitted.

Adrian coughed, and sat up on the concrete. He noted two unmoving bodies face down in the dark. "This wasn't you." He coughed again, and slapped his own chest. "You...you knew this was going to happen, though."

"We knew that a peon of a man named Buscetta was looking to hit something of ours in as noisy a way as possible. He was on his last legs, and thought that if he could put on a little fireworks show he might be able to draw the dregs together under his banner." Andro sniffled, pinching his nose. "Cold out here. Let's get going." He turned toward the end of the alley, and started walking. Somewhere, there were sirens. "At least get in the goddamn car."

Adrian climbed to his feet, swaying, and Ella stepped up to help him. "You look terrible," she said.

"You've seen better days yourself." He smiled, still calculating his breathing.

"Shit. You're both ugly. Hurry up," Andro opened the door of a black sedan and stood waiting.

As soon as they were in, the driver took off. Craning around to look out the back window, Adrian could see smoke billowing out of the Rage. The sirens were getting close.

"That's what you wanted him for," he muttered to himself. "Hunter was a sacrifice."

Andro looked out the window. "Sometimes, the gun gets pointed in your direction, and you find someone else to stand in the way."

Adrian nodded, remembering.

"Hunter was a real piece of shit," Andro continued, "with a real piece of shit operation. Almost valueless, to be honest. But Buscetta didn't have the resources or men for a large hit, and we just wanted to draw him out. A bar like that, centrally located and known? It was perfect for what he had planned. Still, we were starting to think that maybe it wasn't going to work...right up until you told me about your good friend the beer drinker."

Ella shook her head. "You let them come to kill us, and then you killed them."

The Mad Dog smiled. "But you didn't die."

Adrian frowned. "Why? Why didn't we die? Why tell me that riddle, why help me see what was going on beneath my nose? Why would you even care about the two of us, anyway?"

The tall man yawned. "Maybe I don't care. Maybe I just like to play." He winked. "Or, maybe I saw something familiar in you. And maybe the savior really does cry with Joseph's eyes."

"I still don't understand that phrase."

Andro smiled. "That's because it's time for the riddle, but not the answer." He turned to the driver. "Pull over here." Once the car had stopped, he climbed out before ducking his head back in. "This doesn't seem like the town for you. Too cold, you know?" He tossed a roll of bills into the car. "This man will take you to Kankakee. If you don't go dying of a concussion along the way, he'll take you to see someone who will look at your injuries. After that, you're on your own, kids."

Ella pulled the trench coat tight around her. "Why are you doing this for us?"

"Oh," Andro looked around the interior of the car, "who can say why any of us do anything? I suppose I'm just kind of fond of underdogs." He touched his index finger to his temple. "Right, Adrian?"

Adrian snorted. "I'm not Stranger anymore?"

"You are what you are." And then he was gone.

That night, as Chicago disappeared around them and the stars began to make themselves known, Ella cuddled up against Adrian and yawned. "What will you do now?" she asked.

Adrian looked out the window. "I thought you'd want to go south...maybe find out who you are. I was hoping you'd let me help you with that."

There was a long silence. He began to think she was phrasing her rejection, and prepared himself for it. But when she spoke, she said, "I don't think I want that...to go chasing after someone who no longer exists. I think I want a new me. One that lives someplace new. In an average place, where I can have an average life full of everyday things like love and hope and sorrow." She snuggled in closer. "Maybe you could help me with that?"

He put his arm around her, looked out into the dark, and wondered what might keep a person from wanting to know their own history. Then he thought about Laura, and her new baby....about a single green Taurus speeding madly down a stubborn hill on the plains, and of a lonely stop sign just outside a small Midwestern town.

He shook his head. Maybe he didn't have to wonder after all. "I'd love to help," he whispered, "if you'll have me."

But she was already asleep, her breath blowing warm against his neck.

-=-=-

End.