Coldwater Revenge James Ross (best fantasy books to read TXT) 📖

of his staccato heart. Why am I here? To prove something? Or to help Joe?

The truck dipped a sharp thirty degrees as he turned off the road into the driveway of Heller’s Junkyard. Yellow light oozed from under a pair of roll-up garage doors. The clang of metal on metal echoed behind it. Susan claimed to have heard Frankie Heller screaming at Billy that he was too stupid to live. Hours later, that prediction apparently came true. So you’re going to go down there to strike up a conversation about funny coincidences? Is that the plan? Tom opened the glove compartment, felt inside and remembered that Joe had returned his cop toys to the patrol car. He remembered, too, his brother’s rhetorical question about whether any local ever brought his car to Heller’s garage for repairs and why the answer was no. But from the sound of it, one was being disemboweled down there right now.

Sliding from behind the wheel, Tom stepped quietly away from the truck. He tried to minimize the crunch of shoes on the gravel and to ignore the angry inner voice that hissed, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” in a shrill crescendo that accompanied each hesitant step. “Little brother’s not going to save your ass this time!” As he reached the garage, the Susan-like voice was a full-throttle scream, “You’re going to get yourself killed, Tommy Morgan!”

Marching his kettledrum heart to the back of the garage, Tom took a position beside a door that opened onto the junkyard. The top of the door was quarter pane glass. Through it he could see Frankie Heller standing beneath a hydraulic lift doing something with a blowtorch to the floor of an old Ford Fairlane.

Frankie had gotten big, like his father. Though he was no taller than he had been in high school, maybe five foot nine, he’d acquired a substantial girth since then. Tom estimated him to be at least two hundred forty pounds. His hair was dark and greasy still, though it had gotten long, which struck Tom as ironic, since Frankie used to enjoy beating the crap out of boys with long hair.

A rolling metal tool chest with a Styrofoam cup on top and a pack of Marlboros beside it obscured the view. But from what Tom could see, Frankie Heller had been living hard these past years, a poster boy for multiple medical implosions a decade down the road. But he looked just as mean as Tom remembered, and a whole lot larger now.

As Tom eased closer to the window, a strip of fluorescent light from inside the garage brushed the side of his face.

“ARHG! ARHG! ARHG! ARHG! ARHG! ARHG!”

A bucket-mouthed mastiff crashed against the glass and two lethal paws hammered the door beneath it. Tom fell backwards, scrambled to his feet and ran into the junkyard. He made it as far as the first row of wrecked cars before the garage door burst open and the howl of moist, hot pursuit surged after him. He leaped to the hood of the nearest junker and from there to its roof, inches ahead of snapping jaws, fanged, slavering and maniacal.

The massive canine reared on its hind limbs, pressed paws the size of toasters on top of the doorjamb and opened his snarling maw to within a hot breath of Tom’s ankles. Frankie Heller’s voice followed at a more leisurely pace. Wafting through the darkness, it was almost musical. “What we got here tonight, boy?” The snarling canine rose another inch, lips pulled back from dripping, yellowed teeth. Tom heard a sharp click and then a powerful flashlight blasted a tunnel of light through the darkness. He pressed a forearm above his eyes and tried to peer below the glare.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” The sound of his old adversary’s voice, its self-satisfied intonation and malevolent intention, made Tom want to throw up. “You done good, boy!”

There was nothing for Tom to do but wait and try not to pee. The cone of light fell from his eyes to just below his belt, where it began a slow, steady circle.

Frankie laughed. “That’s where Soldier goes for, don’t you boy?” The slavering Mastiff answered in a low, Pavlovian growl. “You’re in a shit-load of trouble, Tommy Morgan. A shit-load of trouble.”

“Get that stupid dog out of here.” His voice trembled and his hands shook.

“Hear that Soldier? Why don’t we just pull this sorry trespasser off there and see who’s stupid? Whatdaya say?”

The dog growled low and long.

“I think Soldier here’s wantin’ a nice juicy taste of your privates.” Heller addressed the dog, softly, “Just be patient, boy.”

Tom’s knees and hamstrings began to vibrate. He tried to control them, but the smooth, sheet-metal roof of his car-top perch cantered sharply to one side, moist with evening dew.

“Now why don’t you just start to explain yourself,” Heller commanded.

Tom thought that might be a good idea, but could think of nothing helpful to say. After a long enough pause, Frankie grunted, “Have it your way.” He dropped the light to Tom’s foot and murmured something to the dog. Instantly, the animal sprang forward, snapped a row of teeth around Tom’s ankle and wrenched him off the car roof and onto the ground. Tom landed hard and lay stunned and panting.

“Release!” The dog stepped back and looked Tom in the eye, daring him to move. “Here’s the deal,” said Frankie, almost conversationally, “I shine this light on some soft, juicy part. Say ‘sic. ’ Then Soldier there takes a hold of it. I don’t call him off right away, he yanks it a bit. I still don’t call him off, he rips out a chunk.”

Tom tried to sit. The giant canine leaped forward and roared in his face, backing him down. “You getting the idea, yet?” Frankie asked.

Tom lay with his face toward the stars, his chest heaving and his torso basting in dog drool.

“Now let’s start again. What are you doing here?”

“I have a message for you,” Tom gasped. “From Dr. Hassad.”

“Heel!” The Mastiff took