The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 846

The first bullets tore into the floor where Alex had been sitting.

He was not there any more.

The pearl was already disollved in his blood, and the whole world had gone slow. He could see the flash at the end of each barrel.

He could see the bullets come out of the dark, turning lazily, like bees in summer. He stepped between them the way a man steps between puddles.

The first gunman never saw him arrive. Alex took the gun out of his hands, turned it round, and tapped him once on the forehead with the handle.

The man folded up on the floor like a deckchair.

"He's there!"

"No, there!"

Nine guns swung left. Alex was already on the right. He caught the next man by the collar and threw him into the two behind him, and all three went over the sofa under its white sheet and did not get up again.

Somebody fired wildly at the ceiling. Glass rained down.

Alex caught the barrel of the gun, still hot, and squeezed. The steel bent in his fist like warm toffee.

The man stared at it. "What are you?"

"Handsome guy," said Alex, and put him to sleep with two fingers against his neck.

Three men rushed him at once from three sides. He did not move his feet. He moved his hands.

A wrist cracked, a knee went the wrong way, a head met the corner of the great table, and three bodies lay round him on the floor in a neat little star.

The last two were backing towards the door.

One of them dropped his gun and ran. He got as far as the doorway, where Alex was standing, waiting for him.

"How…" The man looked back at the place where Alex had been one second before. "How did you…"

He tapped him on the chest. The man sat down hard and stayed sat.

The last one was the leader. He had pulled off his mask to see better, and under it he was older than the others, with grey stubble and a broken nose.

He held his gun out in front of him in both hands, and both hands were shaking.

"Stay back!" he said. "I'll shoot!"

"You've been shooting for ten seconds," said Alex. "How's it going?"

He walked forward. The man fired twice. Alex tilted his head a little to the left, then a little to the right, and the bullets went into the wall behind him.

Then he took the gun away, like taking a spoon from a child, and crushed it in one hand into a ball of black metal the size of an apple.

He dropped it. It rolled across the floor and stopped against the leader's shoe.

The man sank to his knees.

The whole fight had taken less time than it takes to boil an egg.

Alex looked round the room. Ten men lay among the white sheets. The broken glass shone blue in the light of the open clam. There were bullet holes in the floor, the walls, and one of the windows.

"I've only just been given this house," he said. "Look what you've done to the floor."

"Please," said the leader. "Please, we only came for the shell."

" Who sent you?"

The man's eyes went to the door, as if someone might be listening there.

"I won't ask twice," said Alex.

"Master Gregory." It came out in a rush. "Master Gregory sent us. He said the shell was his. He said you'd be alone up here. He gave us the plan of the house, every room. He said…" The man swallowed.

"He said to take the clam and leave you on the floor."

Alex was quiet for a moment. Someone must gave Gregory this house plan.

So the master had not waited to see whether he would live to open it. He had sent ten guns to make sure.

"Get up," said Alex.

The leader got up.

"Pick up your friends. Carry them down the hill. All of them." Alex took out his phone. "But first, everybody smile."

The leader stared at him.

Alex held the phone up. Ten men on the floor, the ball of crushed guns, and behind them the great grey clam lying open, shining like a lamp.

Click.

"I promised your master a picture of the shell," said Alex. "I always keep my promises."

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There were small pearls left, too small for any elixir, round and pale as milk. Before he went home, he threaded nine of them on a fine silver chain and twisted it closed.

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