Part 37 (1/2)

They couldn't see where they were going.

No sooner had he realized their situation when the car veered to the right and off the highway. It sailed over a drop. Tony felt weightless for a split ”oh f.u.c.k me” second. The car hit the ground hard, and Tony felt his teeth mash together. His head slammed against the ceiling. Bodies crashed into and landed on him. Hands of the headless grabbed and released him. He slapped the hands away. More blood blinded his vision. Death was yelling, ”f.u.c.kohf.u.c.kohf.u.c.kohf.u.c.kOHFU--”

And then the car was rolling.

Tony heard an explosion.

And for the second time in as many days, a first for Tony, he was unconscious again.

Chapter 45.

When Tony woke up, the first thing he realized was the amount of blood covering his face and in his eyes. Through his clogged vision, he blinked and squinted and saw the headless bodies of his captors slumped over at interesting angles. He moved an arm and wiped their gore out of his eyes as best as he could. He wanted a rag. He studied himself and groaned. He was covered in blood. He felt dizzy then, and closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth. He tasted more blood, winced, and spat it out. For a moment, Tony simply lay there underneath the bodies and limbs of the two men in the back seat with him. He realized being in the back seat had saved him. He had wound up on the floor, wedged in firmly between the seats. Feeling better, he opened his eyes again and moved his arms. Everything worked for him, and he untangled himself from the limbs and corpses, grunting in loud disgust. f.u.c.k, there was so much blood. How many litres were there in a human body? Eleven? It did not occur to him just how much eleven litres was until it was all over the place. Then multiply it by four. His clothes were saturated with it, dripping and sticky. He wiped his face again, leaving wide raspberry smears across his cheeks. A panic was building up inside of him, and he arched his back. He saw how the roof of the car had been splashed-sprayed with blood. Tony heaved bodies off himself. He reached over one and felt for the door handle. It would not budge. He studied the shattered window, noting the shards of gla.s.s lining the bottom where the pane rose and fell as needed. Tony put his elbow over the thick gla.s.s and wormed his way out of the car. He flopped his upper body onto the snowy ground and pulled his legs out behind him, landing on his chest and rolling over onto his back. The snow was deep and thick, and felt absolutely wonderful. The cold drove the fog of the crash out of Tony's brain He just lay there, gulping in mouthfuls of clean northern air. He drew it down through his nose, becoming instantly high from its purity. Or perhaps it was just the relief of being free of the car and the dead meat within. Whatever it was, Tony did not care. He laid there, closed his eyes and wished that when he died, he could be buried in a snow drift.

The cold began to work into his bones, until the blood coating him became thick. He opened his eyes and got to his elbows. He looked at the wreck of the car. Getting to his feet with loud grunts and curses, he staggered to the window. Tony peered inside and set his jaw against the sight and smells of the corpses inside. The four headless corpses.

Where was Frank?

Tony noticed the winds.h.i.+eld. It was shattered, blown outward by something leaving the car. He stood up and took in the huge tree that the car had wrapped its right side around, crunching its front and engine block with quiet indifference.

”Oh, s.h.i.+t,” Tony murmured to himself. He staggered through the deep snow, pus.h.i.+ng through thick spruce boughs covered in white, and headed behind the tree and beyond.

He spotted Death sprawled out and motionless at the base of a tree. Tony went to him, swearing all the way. He could see the man's right leg twisted out at a ninety degree angle and figured it for broken. Frank's face was also cut up and bruised, his flesh whipped by stiff boughs as he had flown through them. Blood seeped from a deep cut in his scalp.

”Holy s.h.i.+t,” Tony muttered, standing over the still form. Death looked banged up pretty bad but, seeing as he went through a winds.h.i.+eld, Tony supposed it could have been a lot worse. Death had flown from the car to come to rest some twenty feet away. Tony dropped to his knees and patted Death's cheek. No response. He felt for a pulse. There was none, but what did that mean? Was Death really alive anyway? He slapped him again, harder this time. No, Death was mortal, Tony thought. He p.i.s.sed out enough beer to prove it.

Then, Death's eyelids fluttered, and black eyes calmly looked up at Tony. The Mundane sighed.

Death screamed.

The sound froze Tony to the spot. Death screamed out again, ending in a deep throat sound of agony. He bared white teeth and hissed out steam on the winter air.

”Jesus Christ!” Death barked and looked down at his leg. What he saw made him roll his head on his shoulders in exasperated agony. ”Christ on a monkey stick! My leg! My legs!” He reached for them and stopped just before making contact. Setting his jaw, he grabbed Tony instead and hauled his face in close.

”Knock me out!” Death commanded.

”Wha?” Tony sputtered, confusion slackening his features.

”I said knock me out!! Oh, JESUS H. CHRIST!” Death released him and fell back on the snow. He bared his teeth at the pain he was experiencing. This was not part of his plan.

”Listen to me,” Death hissed through a set jaw. ”If you don't knock me out right now, the meanest G.o.dd.a.m.nedest b.a.s.t.a.r.d in all of existence is going to” Death winced. The pain he felt took his breath away. He crunched his eyes together and got his breath under control. ”he'll come right here.”

”Wha?” Tony could only say stupidly.

Death looked him straight in the eye. ”Do it.”

Not understanding why, Tony made a fist and, shaking his head, sent it across the side of Death's head.

It did not knock him out.

”SWEET f.u.c.k ALMIGHTY!” Death wailed in Tony's face. ”I said knock me out!”

Blinking, Tony reared back and struck again, rocking Death's head to the side.

Death's face rolled back to face him.

”You f.u.c.king moron!”

Tony's brow knotted up in annoyance. He hit him again. Harder.

Death only grunted, still conscious, and gave him a gla.s.sy-eyed glare, ”Y'punch like a gay leprechaun. No f.u.c.king wonder your Ma is in the hospital! Now hi”

At the mention of his mother Tony fired his fist out, twisting it for extra force, and slammed it square on Death's chin. The sudden force snapped Death's head back, his spinal cord cracking like a whip, and he went limp.

Silence enveloped Tony. He stared down at the unconscious mess that was Death, and gauzy snowflakes began to fall.

Chapter 46.

In another part of the country, on a straight strip of the 401 of the TCH, the force known as Pain tensed up, hunched over and put both of his hands on the dashboard as if bracing for impact. His eyes narrowed to slits as if he had heard something, but wasn't quite sure. He c.o.c.ked his head, straining to get a whiff of the vibe that had totally and unexpectedly caught his attention. It was a very special vibe, one that Pain had not felt in ages. Like an ancient, evil spider hanging in a web that spanned places even it had forgotten about, it waited for that one gossamer strand to vibrate again, to tell it exactly where its stricken prey lay.

But it did not. Pain grunted like a Cro-Magnon brute, his brow furrowing as he willed for that single delicious tingle he felt so abruptly. He bared his teeth, impressive incisors flas.h.i.+ng, as hope began to give way to b.e.s.t.i.a.l anger. Fingers began digging into the dashboard of the car, actually cracking it, displaying a strength the Stickman did not want to believe possible.

Instead, seeing an opportunity and recognizing it as such, he decided right then to rid himself of a pa.s.senger he had come to hate and fear.

Swinging with every ounce of might he could muster, Stickman swung his fist right into the exposed nose of Pain.

The nose exploded in a flash of blood and cartilage. Stickman felt the pebble-like grind of shattered bone and gristle under his fist. He could not bring his hand away fast enough as Pain's blood gushed over his fist. Stickman felt a very real chill electrify his spine and senses. Pain's blood was as black and crude as raw viscous oil. The sight of Pain's blood spraying from the wreck of his nose paralyzed the Stickman.

But only for a second.

”Bludovab.i.t.c.h!” Stickman swore and ploughed the edge of his fist into Pain's face, again. And again. He grabbed Pain's head and rammed it forward, bouncing it off the dashboard Stickman pressed his advantage. He kept his left hand on the wheel and reached with his right across Pain's body. He grabbed for the door release. The car swerved, and Stickman had to jerk the wheel to keep himself on his side of the road. His eyes flicked from the road to the door handle to the road, again.

Pain grabbed his wrist.

Screaming, Stickman yanked back. The door popped opened a fraction. Pain was regaining his senses, his eyes focused on Stickman. Pain smiled, showing teeth smeared in foamy black.

Stickman freaked.

His right fist flew into Pain's face again and again. He got his right leg up and drove it into the hip of Pain, shoving the thing, for this was no true man, up against the door and forcing it open. Pain grabbed for the head rest of his seat, eyes glazed from the force of Stickman's attack.