No Mercy

Candice's P.O.V.

Thickly, the magazine fell into the AR-15 with clacking that sounded like a heartbeat.

Mantovani hand touched mine and caught it, irritating me. “Elbow in. Cheek weld tight. Breath out, squeeze--no, no pull.

In the back of us the courtyard was bloody. Burning Harleys set the night ablaze in the orange, blood oozing dark in the floodlights. The gasoline, cordite, and copper scent were in the air.

The withdrawing foe had disappeared in the bushes, but we all had the knowledge that it was not finished. The reinforcements were coming back.

Mantovani gave me a glance, wild and alive, and horrifyingly beautiful.

“Ready, piccola?” I nodded once.

He grinned like a devil. “Then let's go hunting.”

We broke as a group -twelve brothers flaking out in a wedge, Mantovani and I at the point. Squeezing boots on glass and brass. Fifty yards in front lay a dark and silent treeline.

Too silent.

The initial RPG was wailing out of the darkness.

Mantovani approached me obliquely when the rocket had slapped the wall of the clubhouse behind us. The explosion knocked me deaf, fire cut across my back, hornets whining with bullets.

We hit the ground hard. His body fell down keeping me covered and the debris poured in.

"Keep down! keep down!" he heard bellowing in my ears.

Up he was and dragged me with him, dragged me to the charred remains of a pickup to protect himself.

Automatic fire was brought on--three, or four, guns, and they kept us in the same place. Bullets were falling and hitting metal a few inches of our heads.

Conti turned left together with four brothers, and opened suppressing fire. The flash of the muzzles brought lightning death to the woods.

After he shouldered his rifle, Mantovani came up, crossed the treeline firearm in control, controlled, lethal. Brass curved shining in the air.

One of the shooters screamed and fell.

I got up next to him, and my heart was bounding so hard I could scarcely make out anytghing. Had a target--black operation attire, with a muzzle flash that spotted him. I exhaled. Squeezed.

One shoulder of the rifle was against mine. The figure jerked, dropped.

Something beastsome and arrogant glared in the eyes of Mantovani.

“Good girl.”

We advanced.

Ten yards. Twenty. The brothers closed in.

One other intruder broke cover as he made off with an ATV concealed in the scrub. Mantovani followed behind, and twice fired. The man tumbled down.

Then silence--sudden, heavy.

We reached the treeline.

Five bodies. One of them that was still alive, gurgling blood through a wound on the throat.

Mantovani was crouching on his knee with his struggle boot to the chest of the man. “Who sent you?”

The man who was dying spat blood, and laughed. “Sheriff says… hello.”

The face of Mantovani grew stone cold. He inserted two bullets in the forehead of the man without even batting an eyelid.

At which he rose and wheeled and touched me (with hands reeking of gunpowder).

"You have only killed a man," he said to himself.

I waited for the horror. The nausea. The breakdown.

Rather, I felt adrenaline running through my veins like champagne.

I stooped down to him and kissed him--bloodthirsty, smoke-tainted.

"I could kill ten hundred more," I said to him, bringing my mouth close to his, "...if it will keep you alive."

His eyes darkened. He dragged me inside, and kissed me, as though the world were coming to an end.

Whooping in the distance behind us the brothers started--victory howls ascending the night.

Conti ran over, and in the process slapped Mantovani on the back. “Gate’s secure. We lost three. Took twelve of theirs.”

Mantovani nodded without ceasing to look at me.

Then we are just getting began.

He turned to the ablaze clubhouse, which burnt against the sky, beyond me.

“Call the crews. Torch what’s left. We’re going to war.”

Then, quieter, just for me:

And you, Mrs. President--you are shotgunning.

He gave me the AR covered in blood like a crown.

I took it.

The war had begun.

And I was not the New York girl anymore.

I had been the lady to torch kingdoms in order to maintain her monster.