Free Red Stripes by Matt Hilton Page B

little pain.” The tall one grinned, showing rotting teeth. “If it comes to that.”
    I dipped my head. “I must have lost you in the translation there, guys. I didn’t mean it was going to be painful for me.”
    Both men exchanged glances just as the stocky man dropped his hand to pull the gun from his waistband.
    It was what I’d been hoping for. When they both looked back at me with incredulous grins on their faces, I was already moving.
    I’d been twiddling the car keys for more than the exercise: I’d lined up one of them so that it was protruding from my clenched fist.
    The sharp point rammed directly into the side of the stocky man’s neck an inch below the lobe of his ear. On its own it wouldn’t stop him immediately, but the force of my fist behind it also rocked his skull and the man went down in a heap on the ground.
    Turning, I lifted my fist and a scattering of blood arched away from the key on the night breeze.
    Seeing the leader of the duo dispatched so decisively should have given the tall one pause. But he was even crazier than he looked. Unfazed by the sudden violence, he merely let out a laugh and launched himself at me. “It looks like it’s come to that !”
    He appeared ungainly and loose-limbed: in fact he was anything but. He threw a series of punches, and I was hard put to avoid them all. One cracked against my cheek, another in my chest. As I stepped away from the clawing fingers that tried to rake my eyes, I missed the man’s leg coming up and kicking at my groin. Only the angles saved me from a crippling blow, but it was still agony when the man’s boot landed square on the point where I’d been knifed.
    Chewing down on the pain, I pivoted and avoided the next kick. I dipped the keys into a pocket, then snaked my hand under the tail of my jacket to grab my gun.
    Again the tall man surprised me by pivoting the other way and kicking out with his heel with a classic reverse roundhouse kick from tae kwon do. His foot slammed into my gut and pushed me back against the Audi.
    I forgot about the gun. The crazy man was already coming at me, fingers tightened to spear into my exposed throat.
    “Cock-a-doodle-do!”
    He should have concentrated on fighting instead of crowing.
    Sweeping the attacking hand aside, I drove my opposite elbow directly into his face. There was a wet sound from where the elbow hit and he staggered backward, spitting out loose teeth. The sour smell washed over me again but this time it held a distinctly coppery tang.
    Following him, I drove a kick into his groin. More fragments of rotting teeth were spat on the floor as the man bent over at the waist. I avoided the foul stuff. It wasn’t easy while looping an arm over the man’s skull and under his throat so that the blade of my forearm was jammed tight against his windpipe. Catching hold of my wrist with my opposite hand, I reared back, arching my spine. All the pressure was centered on the man’s trachea, and I felt it collapse.
    I kept the pressure on.
    At first the man tried to claw at my arms. But when he couldn’t get any oxygen into his lungs, instinct took over and all he did then was scrabble at the ground with his feet and flap his elbows. Now he really was like a rooster.
    It took him the best part of a minute to die.
    Finally, I released him and he flopped down face-first.
    Looking down on him, I guess my gaze would be best described as dispassionate.
    Cock-a-fucking-doodle to you , I thought.
    The stocky man hadn’t recovered from the stab to his carotid. In fact, judging by the widening pool of blood reflecting the disc of the moon, he never would.
    Violence still surged through my veins. The same cold rush I’d experienced earlier in Don Griffiths’ basement when I’d recognized that—however I looked at this—more people were going to die. Releasing a ragged breath, I attempted to calm the rage within me.
    Then it was as if sense kicked in.
    I’d just killed two men in the middle of a parking