quiet. The soft swish of the door opening sent a curl of cold air drifting over me.
My hand wrapped over the familiar contours of my gun. The nearby air
displaced as someone came to stand at my side. I held my breath as the zipper
inched downward. When it parted enough to reveal my chest, a soft, excited hiss
sounded.
Yep, no way in hell that belonged to a morgue attendant.
The zipper continued its sibilant descent. The heavy material stayed over my
arms but stopped just above my knees.
Good enough.
A hand slid over my waist, going for my left pocket. The same one I
deliberately slipped the drive into when I was at the garage. I struck out, grabbing the thumb and bending it backward with a brutal jerk. At the same time, I yanked Bosch across my waist, pulling him off balance. His hoarse yell
echoed weirdly.
No one expected a dead body to come to life.
I kept ahold of his thumb, and rolled off the far side of the table, dragging
him, me, and the bag to the floor. It hurt like a bitch when I hit, but I landed so my shoulder and hip took the brunt of the impact. I let Bosch go as I continued
my roll out of the bag and away from the metal table now leaning drunkenly on
its side. I came up to my knees and brought the Sig up in a two-handed grip.
Bosch kicked free of the table, sending it screeching across the floor.
“Don’t.” My warning froze him in mid push-up position.
His body might have stopped, but he had other weapons at his disposal. I flinched as a searing pain smashed against my mind. The distraction gave him the time to push off the floor and slammed into me. We wrestled for control of
the gun. He wrapped both hands around mine as he scrambled for control. The
entire time, he never let up on the psychic attack.
I was unprepared for a dual level fight. I tried to maintain my mental blocks,
but it was difficult when I couldn’t evade Bosch’s punches. Where the hell was
everyone? If something didn’t give soon, I wouldn’t make it until backup arrived.
Cracks appeared in my mental walls, veined with dark intent and insidious persistence. I twisted my hips and rocked Bosch off balance enough for him to
lose his grip on one of my hands. I didn’t hesitate and sent a short, brutal punch
into his kidney. The pressure on my mind stepped back, even as he switched to a
two-handed grip to wrench my wrist. Under the brutal pressure, the fragile bones
my wrist broke with an audible snap. A searing white swept over my vision, and
I lost my gun. I forced the pain back and found Bosch leaning over me with a vicious grin.
I slammed my head into his face, nailing his nose with my forehead. It didn’t
help the pain in my head, but it sure as hell got him off of me.
He reared back, letting go of my wrist so he could cup the mashed, bloody
pulp of his nose. Freed from his weight, I used my heels to get out from under
him, then curled both legs and jammed them as hard as I could against his chest.
The force of my kick sent him flying back into a tall, metal cabinet where his head left a satisfying dent in the surface.
The pressure in my head was still there, just not as debilitating as before. I
sent a mental SOS to Kayden in the brief lull gained by knocking Bosch back.
Then I scrambled for my gun in an awkward crawl. As my fingers closed over the matte grip, Bosch’s enraged roar filled the room.
I swung around on my knees only to fall back on my ass as I brought my gun
up with my left hand as my right was useless. I pulled the trigger, knowing my
aim was off. Still, the bullet slammed into his stomach and stopped his forward
momentum.
For a moment he stood above me, his hand going to his stomach, as red
spilled around his fingers. “You bitch.”
“You’re the second man to call me a bitch today.” My left hand shook, but I
steadied it. “I didn’t like it the first time, still not liking it now.”
Bosch reached out to the nearby counter, using it to help him slide down until he was sitting with his back to the cabinets. He watched me, an unsettling
smile curving over his lips. “You think this is finished?”
