Page 110 of By Any Means

“She has a little hundred-dollar Kodak I’ve lent her. They’re so small; it’s marvelous. She’ll get photographs of August’s machine, and you’ll give the patent over to me, and in the end, it won’t matter to whose head or which I’ve put this pistol, because if I get what I want, nobody need die.” He paused. “Did you hear me about the patent application?”

“You can have it,” Chary said coldly. “Just as soon as I have it myself. I’m afraid I don’t know where it is.”

“Hm. I suppose we will see, then, how strong this medicine is. Will delirium withstand seven millimeters to the leg?” He pulled back the hammer.

“I don’t know where it is,” Chary hissed frantically. “And you’ve incapacitated the only man who does.” August was hardly breathing now. The pauses between his deep, soft breaths stretched longer and longer. “You may have k-killed him. In f-fact.”

Raberding believed him, at least. His handsome face worked for a moment, through a scowl, a sneer, disbelief, the set jaw of resignation. “Fine. One last play, August.” His arm came down; the gun pointed to the floor. The click of the hammer resetting was very loud. “Safety’s not set,” he warned. “Let us search. August was never particularly original… Do you have a lib⁠—”

He screamed: a short, sharp, high scream. August had launched up from the bed like the dead, snarling, sober, feral; he tackled Raberding down, straddled him flat onto the floor in his surprise. Metal thunked down, heavy-sounding, and there was a scraping, scrabbling noise.

August rose up on his knees, his shoulders bunched oddly, contracting: horror suffused Chary just as it seemed to do Raberding.

“Wait,” Raberding gasped, “no⁠—”

Three shots cracked, in succession so close, they blurred, smacking Chary with brain-splitting sound, waves of pressure he felt from his skull down to his toes. He scrabbled to the floor. Two more shots spat—one last one, after a beat. The waves came through the floor, through the wall against which Chary’d crouched, clutching his ears.

“Enh.” August grunted. “Semiautomatic. Excessive.” He was breathing hard, chest heaving; to Chary’s shell-shocked ears, he sounded a floor away. He looked down at the gun. “Trust you to have a fucking expensive gun, Tjo.”

Chary pulled up to his knees. He could barely hear his own breathing, but surely, it must’ve been loud. He looked over August’s shoulder.

Even with holes blown into his gilt vest, Tjofabier Raberding still looked surprised.

“Oh, dear Lord.”

“Nobody need die.” August leaned forward and spat. “Think again.”

“Oh, God. August. Stop.” Chary clawed at his shoulder, trying to pry him off the body, away from the pooling blood. “August. Come on. Come on.”

August fell free of the body more than he successfully dismounted it; Chary clutched at him, and both of them crab-crawled backward until they hit the wall.

“Chary!” The door burst open, nearly hitting the body; Laurie’s repeated blasphemy filled the room, and then came his pale, scared face. “Chary—Jesus Christ. Chary!”

“Here,” Chary whispered, though Laurie’s observant eyes, wider than ever, had already found him.

Laurie shut the door fast, locked it. Something Sarah hadn’t done. He neatly sidestepped the body, blood, and gun as though it were so much New York City refuse, then slid down to his knees before them.

“Are you all right? Whole? Whole and all right?” He was shaking so violently, his teeth chattered with his speech; either that or Chary was, and he couldn’t tell the difference.

“I’m all right. We’re all right.” He swallowed. “Raberding’s dead, though.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I see that. The shots went clear through the ceiling, I think. Holy shit, Chary, my knees gave out absolutely when I heard ’em; I didn’t think I’d make it. Thought—thought he’d done it. You or August. You’re sure you’re all right?”

Numbly, Chary nodded. “August?”

August was bloodied, he noticed now, speckled with it and also a black, greasy residue. Bits of burnt fabric, Raberding’s tie, his vest. Other things.

“All right,” he croaked. His pupils were deep black, pulled wide and round beneath half-shut lids, and his pulse beat fast at his throat as he swallowed, over and over.

Absolutely sober—excepting adrenalin and shock. And perhaps not totally all right.

“What the hell happened?” Laurie asked.

“I shot him,” August said, and stirred back to life. “Not Chary,” he said fiercely. “He did nothing. I did it. Understood, reporter?”

Laurie huffed. “Not that kind of journalist, thanks.”

“Raberding forced him to take a hypodermic,” Chary said. “Morphine. But he didn’t. He faked it. Again.” And shot him. “It was as though he came back from the dead.”