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done urinating. He could feel Karen’s ghost in the air. He
zipped up and hurried from the room, eager to be away from this haunted place.
    He
returned to the kitchen table, raised the whiskey bottle to his lips, and
sucked it down. Not much left, but hopefully enough to knock him out. Because the
last thing he wanted to do was stay awake all day reliving his wife’s suicide.
    He
picked up his dagger and began working it with a whetstone. As the harsh rasp
of steel on stone filled the kitchen, he wondered if it would have been easier
to accept Karen’s death if she had left a note explaining why she had chosen to
take her life. But absent an explanation, he blamed Silas, believing that guilt
over their affair had driven her to put a blade to her veins.
    Kain’s
hands began to shake, the knife clinking against the whetstone. Time for
another shot to steady the nerves and silence the memories. He reached for the Jack
Daniels and brought it to his lips.
    The
bullet came out of nowhere, punching through the glass patio doors and then
shattering the bottle in Kain’s hand. He threw himself sideways out of the
chair as a hail of bullets followed the first. He hit the floor hard on his
shoulder, feeling the impact ripple through his muscles as the effects of the
whiskey evaporated. Nothing like almost catching a bullet in the teeth to sober
you up right quick. His face was covered with Jack Daniels and his eyes burned
from the alcohol.
    Kain
couldn’t even hear the shots. Which meant the gunner was using a suppressor.
Which meant a pro. Your average garden variety burglar could rarely afford a
silencer … or an assault weapon for that matter.
    More
slugs slammed into the table. Kain frantically rubbed at his stinging eyes. He
needed to see to survive. Through a blur of tears, he saw the auto-fire
fusillade hammer the SPAS-12 into a wreckage of mangled metal. The stream of
hot lead tracked toward him, digging holes in the linoleum as Kain rolled,
seeking cover. He felt something hot burn across his calf and then he was
behind the island in the center of the kitchen.
    His
heart raced, pumping with adrenalin. His vision had almost returned to normal. Drops
of whiskey dripped from his cheeks. There was a fiery pain just below his right
eye where a piece of glass had cut him. Not much worse than a shaving nick, but
the alcohol made it sting like hell. Somehow through all the diving, rolling,
and scurrying he had managed to hold onto the dagger. Of course, all that meant
was that he had brought a knife to a gunfight.
    He
heard footsteps coming up the basement stairs and cursed. There were two hitters,
closing in from opposite angles in a classic pincher ploy. If they caught him
in a crossfire he would be ventilated with more holes than a colander
collection.
    The
second hitter kicked in the basement door. Screws screeched in piercing protest
as one of the hinges tore loose from the frame. The black-garbed gunman burst
into the room in a combat crouch, his Heckler & Koch MP5/10 submachine gun swiveling
toward Kain, seeking target acquisition.
    A
dagger is not designed to be a throwing knife, but Kain practiced with it
constantly, the distance was short, and he had no other options. With a flick
of his wrist he sent the blade zipping across the room and sank the dagger into
the gunner’s left eye. The man went down instantly, cold steel impaling his
brain, the handle jutting from his socket like some obscene growth. The MP5/10 tumbled
from his lifeless fingers.
    Kain
eyed the MP5/10 and the distance that separated him from it. He wanted that
gun. He needed that gun. There was still another hitter out there, closing
in fast, and the MP5/10 might mean the difference between breathing oxygen and
sucking dirt. It was only about ten feet to the gun. A relatively short gap, but
in order to cross it Kain would have to briefly expose himself to the second
hitter.
    No
time for hesitation. His chances of survival slimmed with each second