Watchers

chest from his shoulder, soaking his shirt. He still had the Uzi in his right hand, which functioned in spite of the wound in that shoulder. As Vince pulled off a wild second shot, Travis opened fire with the Uzi. His position was no better than Vince’s; the spray of bullets snapped into the house and ricocheted along the side of the truck, indiscriminate fire.
    He stopped shooting. “Shit.” He struggled onto his feet.
    Nora said, “Did you get him?”
    “He made it around the front of the house,” Travis said, and headed that way.
     
     
    Vince figured he was approaching immortality, almost there, if he had not already arrived. He was in need of—at most—only a few more lives, and his only concern was that he would be snuffed out when he was that close to his Destiny. As a result, he took precautions. Like the latest and most expensive model Kevlar bulletproof vest. He was wearing one under his sweater, which was what had stopped the four shots the bitch had tried to pump into him. The slugs had flattened against the vest, drawing no blood whatsoever. But, Jesus, they had hurt. The impact had knocked him against the wall of the house and had driven the breath out of him. He felt as if he had lain on a
    giant anvil while someone repeatedly pounded a blacksmith’s hammer into his gut.
    Hunched over his pain, hobbling toward the front of the house, trying to get out of the way of the damn Uzi, he was sure he was going to be shot in the back. But somehow he made it to the corner, climbed the porch steps, and got out of Cornell’s line of fire.
    Vince took some satisfaction in having wounded Cornell, though he knew it wasn’t mortal. And having lost the element of surprise, he was in for a protracted battle. Hell, the woman looked to be almost as formidable as Cornell himself—a crazy Amazon.
    He could have sworn there was something of the timid mouse in the woman, that it was her nature to submit. Obviously, he misjudged her—and that spooked him. Vince Nasco was not accustomed to making such mistakes; mistakes were for lesser men, not for the child of Destiny.
    Scuttling across the front porch, certain that Cornell was coming fast behind him, Vince decided to go into the house instead of heading for the woods. They would expect him to run for the trees, take cover, and reconsider his strategy. Instead, he’d go straight into the house and find a position from which he could see both the front and rear doors. Maybe he’d take them by surprise yet.
    He was passing a large window, heading for the front door, when something exploded through the glass.
    Vince cried out in surprise and fired his revolver, but the shot went into the porch ceiling, and the dog—Jesus, that’s what it was, the dog—hit him hard. The gun flew out of his hand. He was knocked backward. The dog clung to him, claws snagged in his clothes, teeth sunk in his shoulder. The porch railing disintegrated. They tumbled out into the front yard, into the rain.
    Screaming, Vince hammered at the dog with his big fists until it squealed and let go of him. Then it went for his throat, and he just knocked it off in time to prevent it tearing open his windpipe.
    His gut still throbbed, but he hitched and stumbled back to the porch, looking for his revolver—and found Cornell instead. Bleeding from his shoulder, Cornell was on the porch, looking down at Vince.
    Vince felt a great wild surge of confidence. He knew that he had been right all along, knew that he was invincible, immortal, because he could look straight into the muzzle of the Uzi without fear, without the slightest fear, so he grinned up at Cornell. “Look at me, look! I’m your worst nightmare.”
    Cornell said, “Not even close,” and opened fire.
     
     
    In the kitchen Travis sat in a chair, with Einstein at his side, while Nora dressed his wound. As she worked, she told him what she knew about the man who had forced his way into the truck.
    “He was a damn wild card,” Travis said. “No way we could ever have known he was out there.”
    "I hope he’s the only wild card.”
    Wincing as Nora poured alcohol and iodine into the bullet hole, wincing again as she bound the wound with gauze by passing it under his armpit, he said, “Don’t worry about making a great job of it. The bleeding’s not that bad. No artery’s been hit.”
    The bullet had gone through, leaving a hideous exit wound, and he was in considerable pain, but for a while yet he would be able to function.