The Meridians Read Online Free PDF

through the lock of one of the doors that lined the alleyway.
    Scott coughed, and felt wetness spray from his lips and wondered how much longer he could keep on. He knew he was dying, knew he should go back and lay down next to his wife and son, but instead he kept going, kept on his quest to destroy the thing that had destroyed his greatest treasures, shattered them like Ming vases under a sledgehammer.
    He saw the doorway the killer had gone through up ahead. The entrance to whatever establishment lay on the other side of the portal was wide open, but Scott could see nothing on the other side of it. His vision kept blurring in and out of focus, and the cold he had felt in his gut was slowly making its way up his body, through his chest.
    It was getting harder to breathe.
    But he kept going. He moved to the doorway, then peeked into the dark space beyond. Doorways were one of a cop's least favorite things. There were too many bad angles, too many places that a shooter could lay in wait to fire at anyone who went through them. But again, Scott found himself not caring about the danger. He was already dying, he had already lost everything he had to lose, so what more could be done to him?
    He went through the doorway full speed, heedless of the danger that presented itself with such a careless rush. But no bullet tore into him, no new slug pierced his body.
    He made it through. And again, heard a noise.
    It was the sound of someone rushing up stairs. Scott ran toward the sound, feeling his legs grow slower and slippery with blood, but willing them to speed in spite of it. He was in time to see the killer's feet as the man disappeared into the second floor of this place.
    Scott looked around. As bad as doors were, stairs were much worse. There was only one way up them, and that was to barrel straight ahead and hope that anyone waiting for a cop would not choose to lean out and shoot point blank into the limited shooting gallery of the stairwell.
    Besides, Scott didn't even know if he was capable of making it up a stairway at all, let alone move at speeds great enough to avoid incoming fire and return fire of his own.
    Shut the hell up!
    He realized that the voice he had just heard in his mind was his own; was his own consciousness overriding his fears and doubts and urging him onward, after his killer and the killer of his loved ones.
    Scott took a step up the stairway. No shots rang down.
    Another step. Still no shots.
    He looked down and saw that he was leaving bloody tracks with every step, was leaving an easy-to-follow trail for any second hitman that might be out there as backup.
    Stop. Don't think that. There's only one of them. There has to be only one of them .
    Scott took the rest of the steps as fast as he could, stopping twice on the way up to breathe and cough up bloody sputum as he rested. His eyesight had a permanent black tunnel around it now, almost completely cutting off his peripheral vision. Just one more handicap to go on top of the loss of blood and the massive internal damage he had undergone.
    He didn't care.
    He made it up the final stair and peered around the doorjamb that marked the outer limits of the stairwell. It was a fast look, just a glance in case the hitman was waiting for him to look out in order to have an easy target and blow his head off. But it told Scott that things had just gone from critically dangerous to...he didn't know. Whatever was worse than critically dangerous.
    He was in the Garment District - an area of Los Angeles that specialized in providing high quality, low cost clothing to those willing to travel a bit farther than their local chain stores. He had known that in the back of his mind, but had not known what that meant going into this place. Now he realized that he was in a dressmaker's shop. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem; might even have been an interesting place to tour through and look at. But now, at dusk, the place was dark and closed. Dust motes hung in