Free Hellblazer 1 - War Lord by John Shirley Page A

days’ growth of beard, and a boy of about ten, in shorts; the boy took them in with wide brown eyes. “Not to shoot!” the man said, one hand around his son, clasping the boy to him, the other raised imploringly.
    “Back in the house!” Gatewood said, stepping up and pointing at the door with his rifle. He was trying to get some kind of handle on the situation. Marquand and Vintara might do anything, left to their own devices.
    The boy and his father backed into the house, the boy gaping at them in as much amazement as fear. The room, dimly lit with a kerosene lamp, contained a legless brown sofa, a threadbare braided rug, a few books in Arabic script piled beside the sofa, a small television with a wire-hanger antenna, and some half-dressed action figures—the Justice League—that could have come from an American Toys “R” Us, scattered on the floor. The room smelled heavily of cooked meat, tobacco, and some spice Gatewood wasn’t able to identify.
    “Found one weapon!” Binsdale said from the front room. “Was in the closet up there . . .” He came in with the others, tossed a sawed-off shotgun on the sofa.
    “Sawed-off is some pretty serious firepower,” Vintara observed.
    “For bandits!” the man said. “Drive taxi, I am taxi drive making! Bandits, all the time bandits!”
    “Everybody uses that excuse,” Marquand said.
    Don’t say anything, Gatewood implored himself. Go along with them for once . . .
    “You got a coalition permit for that weapon there, Dad?” Vintara asked.
    “Permit, yes! In my taxi, is in my taxi!”
    “Oh right, somewhere outside,” Marquand said. “I didn’t see any taxi.”
    “Is in mosque, so no one steals!”
    “We’ll check it out later,” Binsdale said. “What about upstairs?”
    “My brother, sick there, he is sick, please, no disturb!” the man said, looking at the ceiling.
    “Oh yeah?” Marquand snorted. “Maybe your brother’s ‘Ali Baba’!”
    “No, no Ali Baba, no insurgent! Makes wood!”
    Vintara sniggered at Marquand. “I’ll bet he likes to make wood!”
    “Probably a carpenter,” Gatewood muttered. “I’ll check out upstairs, Corporal, if you want . . .”
    “Vintara, you go with him. Yell if you see anything shady at all.”
    Gatewood nodded, headed for the narrow concrete stairs. He led the way, again trying to keep a step ahead of Vintara, and ascending with his rifle at ready.
    Upstairs was a narrow hallway with two doors opening to the right. The first was a bathroom with a tub rusting around the edges, a toilet, a few shaving implements. The next opened into a bedroom; there was a lamp on a table that was just a sheet of wood over sawhorses, illuminating a bed on the floor where a man writhed and whimpered. But he sat bolt upright when Gatewood stepped into the room, Vintara crowding in beside him.
    “Brother” was a shirtless, sweating man with sickly yellow cast, a scraggly beard, wild black eyes, matted hair.
    “Hands up!” Vintara said.
    The man just sat there, his lower lip quivering, one eye twitching.
    “The guy is out of it, man,” Gatewood said. “He’s no threat to anyone.”
    “He’s just scared he’s been caught. He could be on the most-wanted list, Gatewood, you don’t fucking know.” He pushed by Gatewood and aimed his gun at the man on the bed. “Get your ass up! Hands where I can see ’em!”
    “Vintara, I don’t think he speaks English!”
    “He understands me! Hands up! Now!”
    “What you got?” Binsdale called from below.
    “Some guy in bed—looks feverish or crazy!” Gatewood called.
    “His head!” the dad said. “Please, his head! He is hurt his head!”
    “I said get up!” Vintara bellowed—and he fired a warning shot into the ceiling.
    The man on the bed screeched and snatched at something in the shadows beside the bed. He swung it around between him and Vintara—who shot him right through the copy of the Qu’ran he was trying to keep between them.
    The man gave a final