Excerpt thread from a book I'm writing:

I put the pistol in my mouth. The .45’s barrel is cold, familiar.

Then the doorbell rings.

The chime’s echo rolls down the front hallway to the parlor where I sit. My lacquered antique furniture resonates with the loud sound.

But I ignore the summons. I caress the .45’s trigger with my callused finger. You can change your clothes, but your calluses prove your history.

The doorbell rings again. Someone knocks four times. Light, but fast and frantic. Someone with a weak arm.

I pull the pistol from my mouth, heave my lanky carcass from my wingback chair, and storm to the door. The icy tiles lining the hallway and foyer burn my bare feet.

More knocks, continuous now.

I yank open the oak door as far as the chain allows. “What do you want?”

A little girl stares up at me through the crack, two brown eyes in a doll’s face. She’s puffing like a tiny steam engine. Blood smears her sailor suit. More crimson slicks her black hair flat on her scalp.

“Are you Jonah Hawke?”

“You’re hurt.”

“Are you Jonah?” She screams the question.

“I was.”

Her little black eyebrows furrow as she works that out.

“If you’re hurt, go to a hospital.”

“No, I need your help! They’re coming to kill me!”

Engines roar up the street. Two black cars leap the curb and skid across my lawn, their expensive tires digging ruts in the long grass. Men in suits and shades leap out, pull guns, and open fire. Their bullets hammer my door frame.

The girl screams.

“Get down!” I shut the door and slip the chain. More bullets punch through the front wall. The girl screams again, and I wonder if she’s been hit. I tear open the door and she spills inside, but she’s so coated with blood I can’t tell if they shot her.

I drag her in and slam the door. I don’t have time to throw the lock before more bullets chew through the door and drive me back. The shooters pulverize my plush foyer in an explosion of glass and marble shards. I drag the girl just ahead of the carnage.

When we hit the hallway, I pick her up. She barely weighs seventy pounds. That’s nothing to me. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I run.

The door crashes in behind us. Thundering footsteps fill my foyer as we round the corner into the parlor. I cross it in ten long strides.

The kitchen’s left wall is French doors and lattice windows. They explode inward in a hailstorm of glass and lead. Bullets ping off my nickel-plated appliances and throw chips from my marble countertops.

I toss the girl across the polished tiles toward kitchen’s island and slide after her. Three goons leap through the broken windows and shoot up the floor as we scramble behind the island.

When we reach cover, I return fire. My first shot punches through an intruder’s sunglasses into his right eye. His head snaps back and he collapses in a heap.

The other two attackers blow apart the wine glass rack hanging over the island. Glass rains down on me and the girl. She screams and covers her head.

I duck around the side of the island and shoot another intruder in the heart. Blood and bone shower out his back and he flies out through a shattered window. The other guy hammers my cover with precise shots, forcing me to duck back. I can barely see his knee.

I blow it apart with another shot. He falls and cracks his head on the tiles. I finish him with a shot that splatters his brains across the floor.

“Come on.” I grab the girl’s hand and yank her after me. We run to the far archway leading deeper into the house.

Two suits are waiting for us. They raise their guns but we’re too close. I kick out one’s knee. The bone snaps, and he twists as he collapses. I drop the girl’s hand and seize the goon’s wrist to redirect his aim. When he pulls his trigger, his shot catches his buddy in the guts.

I shoot the crippled attacker in the head. As he falls, I put a second bullet into the gut-shot intruder’s face. Their blood spreads across the floor as I drag the girl into the next room.

We hurry through the library. There’s no windows, and no gunmen. The girl’s breathing in little gasps now. I can’t tell if it’s shock or if she’s injured. But she manages to suck enough air to ask, “How are you killing everybody?”

“You know my name. You know where I live. You came to me for help. But you don’t know who I am?” I stop at a bookcase along the back wall and press a red book, a green book, and a white book in sequence. The bookcase swings backward on a hinge. I pull the girl in after me.

I have to peel her death claws off my hand. When I do, she looks up at me in confusion. But she freezes stiff when she sees what’s lining the walls.

“Jonah, why do you have so many guns?”

I ignore her and yank open the steel mesh cage holding my pistols. I toss a few in a black bag and add some magazines as the girls stares around us in shock.

“There’s got to be a hundred guns in here…”

“One hundred and twenty. Don’t touch any, they’re all loaded.” I open another cage and pull an MP5 from its mounting. And I add five more loaded mags to the bag.

“Can we hide in here?"

“They’ll know we disappeared from the library. A tracking dog could locate us. Or maybe they’ll just smash open the walls. Either way, we’re dead if they trap us.”

“So what do we do?”

I chamber a round in the MP5 and toss her the bag. “You hold this. Stick close. I’ll get us to the garage. But it’s gonna be a messy run.”

/End of chapter