Broken Souls Read Free Page B

up linebackers. Crew-cut blond hair, clean-shaven, thick cords of muscle, Cyrillic tattoos across his chest. There’s blood still on his face but there’s no sign of the broken nose I just gave him, or the busted knee. That can’t be a good sign.
    He reaches up with both hands, grabs my foot midstomp and yanks me onto my ass. I land on the hard concrete and the air punches out of me, my vision blurs. I reach into my coat pocket, struggle for a breath. Not-Kettleman, now a good fit for an extra in a Russian prison movie, pulls himself up off the floor. He reaches down, yanks me up, cocks back his sledgehammer fist.
    That’s when I get hold of the pocket watch, twist the crown with my thumb and push the button. I don’t have a lot of control over the watch. I can aim its time-twisting effect, but that’s about it. Like most magic it’s more like a negotiation than an actual command. I want this fucker over and done with. Tacking forty or fifty decades onto him ought to do it.
    As usual, the watch has its own ideas. Not-Kettleman screams, drops me and stumbles back, but I don’t see any noticeable difference. No wrinkles, liver spots, anything like that. What did it hit him with? A day? A week? I can’t tell, but even a few minutes ought to hurt like a sonofabitch.
    I get the watch all the way out of my pocket, air slowly coming back into my lungs. He’s backing away now, real fear on his face. I spin the crown a couple more times with my thumb. Let’s see how he likes another hit from the watch.
    I half expect him to rush me, but instead he runs to the fallen knife, grabs it and shifts back to his Kettleman form. There’s no flash, no pop, no downsizing of Hulk rage. He’s just a skinny academic beat to shit with a flattened nose and a busted knee. No help there, it seems. But I guess he doesn’t need much. He jumps off the roof.
    I hit the watch button again, but I have to see him for it to do much. Instead the concrete of the wall he’s jumped over blisters, a hundred years of wear pitting its surface. I look at the watch. Now you work? I crawl to the wall and look over the side. Not-Kettleman has gone back into Russian mobster mode, barely a scratch on him. Nice strategy. Use the Kettleman form to take the brunt of the fall and then saunter away.
    I bring up the watch for another shot, but he’s too far away. Dry firing it isn’t recommended. If it can’t hit the target I want it’ll hit something else and there’s no telling what kind of mess that’ll cause. I watch him get behind the wheel of the Bentley, gun the engine and tear out of the parking lot.
    With the fight over my hands start shaking from the dump of adrenaline. What the fuck just happened?
    “Told you he’d try to kill you,” says the voice in my ear, cutting through the sound of the revving engine, the screeching tires.
    “Yeah,” I say. “You want to tell me what this is about? You real? Or am I just going insane?”
    If it has an answer, the voice keeps it to itself. Just as well. I don’t think I could handle hearing the truth. I know that voice, know its inflections, I know the sort of thing it might say. It’s a voice I’m very familiar with. I just haven’t heard in a while.
    It’s the voice of Alex, the friend I couldn’t save, the one whose soul was chewed up by a ghost I couldn’t destroy fast enough. I’m not stupid enough to think he couldn’t come back from that. I’ve seen it happen before. But if he’s a ghost I should feel it. Not just get this disembodied voice in my head. And if he is back, I’m not sure if I should be glad or worried.
    After all, I’m the one who put a bullet in his head.

The memory of Alex’s voice rings in my mind, but I push it out. That’s a question for later. Right now I need to see what I can find out about what the hell just happened. I could try chasing the Not-Kettleman, but what’s the point? By the time I get to the car he’ll be halfway down the hill. Besides, I