Free The Beast That Was Max by Gerard Houarner Page B

first pair. Explosions shook the ground, and smoke roiled in the night. Concussive shocks sounded through the flesh of his hands stuck over his ears. The roadbed trembled, and a fine rain of debris stung his face as he looked up at the circle of sky above him. Max's legs and arms tingled with restless energy as the Beast gathered itself for more direct participation in the killing.
    Max held the Uzi over his head, street level, and fired a burst, replaced the clip, and stood up. The Beast sang. A single high beam still gleamed like a miracle through billowing clouds of smoke. Max emptied a clip, reloaded, and emptied another. The light vanished. Someone gurgled. The Beast sighed with satisfaction. Strings of Khmer, French, and English curses laced the night.
    "That was really fucking helpful, Max," Lee screamed. "Now I can't see shit."
    Max put his last clip in and waited, flat on the ground on his belly, for a target to separate itself from the dissipating smoke, car, smoldering fires, street corners. "Use your night scope."
    "Those assholes around your car ain't showing up clear on it."
    Because they were cold. Because they were dead. Because Rithisak's power filled and moved them, and like an electrical or magnetic field, warped their immediate surroundings.
    Max passed the back of his hand across his forehead, wiping away sweat, figuratively pushing Mani's memory back into the Beast's hungry jaws.
    Doors slammed shut. Rubber tires squealed. A car drove past, and someone laid down a barrage of covering fire into the smoke. Another car started and rumbled off. The ball of desperate time shrank around Max.
    Max turned back to the Lincoln. Bodies seethed over the car like a blanket of grubs seeking food. He took out the .45 and the shotgun, left the rest of the equipment and weapons in the bags hanging from the manhole rungs, and charged the car. The Beast ran with him, for him, carrying him to slaughter's feast. Max murdered through the dissipating smoke.
    Lee cursed in his ear. From the heavy breathing and shadowy movement on the fire escape, Max thought he might be rappelling down to the street. Between his own and the Beast's excitement, Max tried to clear a corner of his mind to remember Lee, so he would not kill his ally in the throes of a blood rage. Something grabbed his ankle. One of the broken bodies from the center group lay on the ground, peppered by shrapnel and bullet holes, and hung on to him with both hands. A face, pale broken bone sticking through shredded skin, tracked him with sightless eyeholes stuffed with leaves, twigs, wrappers, and can snap tops, like a dying flower seeking out the sun. Max kicked, then went down on one knee and smashed the corpse's arms and hands with the butts of his weapons until pulped bones and flesh slid away from his ankle. Luminescent, viscous white liquid spilled from the dead man's wounds and from the newspaper-filled hole in his chest. Cinnamon scent mingled with the stench of smoke, burnt powder, and sewer-strong filth and decay. The fluid ran like sap from a tree. Tiny seeds and dried, crushed vegetation peppered the substance. For a moment, jungle memories camouflaged the Beast in another time's desperate firefight. Max grunted as he shrugged off another unwanted memory, un-sure if it was his own or Mani's. He stood, sidestepped the other corpse reaching for him, broke into a sprint, and hit the car in a bellowing rage.
    Shotgun blasts rocked the layer of figures piled against the hood scrabbling for a way to pry it open. No one turned around to fight him or defend himself or herself against his fire. Max brought the gun to bear against the nearest head, a businessman's neatly styled skull, and pulled the trigger. Flesh and bone sprayed across the others and onto the rear window. The body stump of the man's corpse continued to flail against the Lincoln's reinforced trunk. Max fired again, blasting a hole through the man's back and sending his tie flapping over his