Wow.
“Sleep well, you little perv.” I leaned back against the wall, unlimbering my 9mm from its holster. “Great, I get the first watch.”
Four hours—that’s how long I planned to let Rat nap. I was pretty knackered myself and in sore need of shuteye. In fact, I could barely keep my eyes open. The wall opposite became blurry, the blood spatters smearing into streaks of dark red that bled into nothingness, and I soon drifted away.
“You could join me, you know.”
Seductive, with a slow, steady undercurrent of deep masculinity, it was a voice made to reach down and coax trust and respect. It was a voice of an angel.
Or the devil.
“Joining me is simplicity itself.”
Mmmmm … I could listen to that voice forever and a day. It slithered along my skin like silk, wrapping my limbs in warmth.
“Join you?” My words emerged thick as honey, my lips moving in slow motion.
“Yessss.” Sibilant and sexy.
I couldn’t see the speaker; everything around me felt dark, warm, and comfortable. Like being under the covers at night, or in the womb. “Who are you?”
“You know.”
“Do I?”
“Of course you do, Dove Jacobs. You are far too intelligent not to.”
I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve run screaming down the hallway in an effort to get away, but my emotions were muted, blunted by the warmth and dark. “Yes, of course I do. You’re the Angel of Mass Murder, the Saint of Slaying.”
“Of course I am. That doesn’t shock you now, does it? You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
No I wasn’t, which surprised me. Then again, all warm and comfy and dark, nothing much could scare me at that moment. “You took Billings.”
“He came of his own volition.”
“Why?”
“Because I offered him something no one else could.”
“What was that?”
“Freedom.”
“Freedom? Freedom from what? The BSI?”
My question was greeted with laughter like smooth, sweet chocolate. “Freedom from restraint, from convention, and the sad little mores that humans inflict upon one another. It’s the freedom to be who you truly are without having to clothe yourself in society’s vision of what you should be or what you should do. How to dress, to talk and walk, all of it. I gave him the chance to shed the skin the world covered him in, and he burst forth like a butterfly. He’s happy now, happier than he’s ever been because he is fulfilling his dreams, his fondest ambitions.”
By killing his teammates?
“Yes.”
I don’t know what startled me more, the fact that he read my mind or the fact that I was so darn shocked about it. I figured I’d done enough time in the Bureau for things like that to roll off my back like water off Teflon, but apparently I wasn’t so jaded yet.
“So why this confab?”
“It is time to extend my offer to you, Ms. Jacobs. I ask that you join me in the greatest chapter in human history, one that will define the race for the rest of its existence.”
My brain didn’t want to work, or it couldn’t fathom a reply. For the longest moment in my life I simply was, unthinking. Stunned. When I snapped back to myself, I growled, “Why would I do that? I’d have to be crazy.”
That chocolate voice slithered over me in a slow-motion wave of sweetness. “Because you are ready. There is nothing for you at the Bureau, just a group of testosterone-fueled misogynists who look at you as a pair of tits with legs. You know that. Come with me, and you will be appreciated for what and who you are.”
My mouth felt thick and stuffed with cotton. “Who or what am I, then?”
“A woman who wishes to lash out at all the world’s pedophiles, a woman who has no qualms about strangling such loathsome offenders with their own intestines. I could use an effective person like you on my team, and I can be the one who offers those pathetically sick creatures to you for justice. True justice, of which the tolerant, weak, and ineffective judicial system of this era has no concept, doling out prison time that merely makes these monsters more brutal and efficient. You can provide the true justice that those people deserve. The justice of the blade, the justice of pain and death. The justice you handed to your Uncle Carl.”
Uncle Carl. My skin crawled at hearing his name said aloud. I felt heat flush my cheeks. “Why do you care? You’re a killer, a murderer; those pricks seem right up your alley.”
The response was nothing I expected. Fury lashed the voice as it said, “I am nothing like those … things.” Sudden cold leached the hope from my bones. “They are a disease that preys upon the weak, creating suffering that lasts for decades. Those who fall to my blade, or hands, experience only a brief suffering before their pain is gone forever. It is a quick release that sees their souls cross over.”
“But you’re a murderer.”
“Do not fool yourself, Ms. Jacobs. We are all murderers. Life is an act of consuming the lives of others. Do you really think that a cow has no right to life except to nourish the flesh that eats it? Do not the fish in the sea deserve to swim unmolested? The whales that face extinction? How many species has the human race murdered? Perhaps you’ve a heard of the dodo, a species that was entirely wiped out because it was not sufficiently afraid of man? How about the Tasmanian tiger? Or the passenger pigeon, the great auk, the quagga, the Falkland Island wolf, the Zanzibar leopard, the Caribbean monk seal? All species rendered extinct by man, hunted to death for silly things like fur, or eggs, or simple fear that they were a threat to livestock. Their like, and many more, will never be seen again on this earth. Entire species murdered.”
“And you are so much better?”
“Of course.” Gone was the cold, replaced by the sugary reasonableness. “I have no intention of hunting man to extinction. I merely cull the weak and the unwary. I am Darwinism in its purest form because I leave behind the strongest, those sufficiently wary to guard against my coming.”
The voice let me stew for a moment before continuing, “I am nature … cruel, brutish, and utterly in tune with this wide world.”
As I floated in that not-place of warmth and darkness, I considered the offer. What did life have to offer me? It had given me Uncle Carl and his sneaky games and all the dysfunction that followed. If there were any justice, he would have been castrated in a public square before being stoned, but instead it took a young girl and a screwdriver to set things to rights and didn’t that just suck? For years I told myself that killing the sonovabitch didn’t affect me, that I was fine. You know what ‘fine’ means? Fine is a mask that hides the screaming deep down inside.
Tempting, so tempting to give in to that sweet chocolate voice and unburden myself from the constraints of ‘acceptable behavior.’ No responsibilities except to myself. No more Bureau, no more leering men and their wolf whistles, no more smothering the anger that burned inside like a fiery tumor. No more BS, no more having to be polite or pay taxes or pussyfoot around others’ feelings in this politically correct, new-age hippie civilization my parents always dreamed of. Created not by hippie sell-outs like Mom and Dad, who realized that the summer of love was only for the young and that getting old meant that you had to take some measure of responsibility for yourself or wind up homeless, but by their kids, who rebelled against the notion of free this and free that. Those kids realized that absolute freedom to do whatever you wanted was just another concept that really meant being lazy and having nothing to look forward to except the next high. Kids like me who were named after birds or flowers or lakes or some such. Kids who didn’t want to eat granola, but instead wanted the deluxe cheeseburgers with a side of gravy fries and to go to the prom with the normal teenagers. We created this world of consumerism and pussyfooting around the really painful subjects because we were so used to ignoring our embarrassing parents.
I could exit this world of crooked politicians and vapid supermodels and taste the freedom my parents had
always dreamed of but didn’t have the stomach to achieve. All I had to do was leave it all behind.
Leave Alex.
Some things are worth staying for.
“[CENSORED] you,” I growled.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kal
Nine Years Ago
Demons
Frenchy Ledoux leaned around Brute to take a gander at what had captured the big man’s attention. “What is it, boss?” he asked, squinting at the case.
I took a good look and all I saw was a metal ring about five inches in diameter and a half-inch thick. Made of bronze, it was heavily tarnished, so much so that the intricate scrollwork around the edges had faded into black. What made the little metal circle more interesting was the bronze Star of David attached to the inner ring by each of the six points. The star was also crusty with centuries of tarnish.
“Is it a medallion?” I asked. “If so, it’s a pretty big one.”
Brute, staring raptly at the artifact, shook his head. “This is no medallion. Intel says all these were placed here this morning from storage for the big unveiling tomorrow. If I’m not mistaken, it’s—” A roar, so loud it stunned my ears, cut him off. It sounded like King Kong was having a prostate exam.
“What the f—” Another roar drowned Waldo’s words.
Whatever it was, it sure got our attention. Six weapons were raised as we formed a circle, backs to the center. It didn’t take long to find out what was what.
It was Sue, all bones and wire, the long-dead T. rex, reanimated and hunting new game. Us. Thirteen feet tall at the hip doesn’t sound so big, but when you realize that’s only half of her, all crouched over for the hunt, then the sheer size of the skeleton is driven home like a punch in the gut when you least expect it.
Concrete broke apart, glass shattered, and displays were knocked about as Sue trundled through the exhibit store to the Yates Center, bashing through anything foolish enough to stand in her way.
What came our way wasn’t bone. When an organism’s soft tissues decay, the bones are left behind and water seeps into them. The minerals in the water replace the minerals that comprise the bones after the water dissolves them. What’s left behind are the minerals. For all intents and purposes … stone. Now a few dozen tons of rock was heading toward us, cracking stone flooring like it was balsawood.
We had about thirty seconds until it smashed us into salsa. Brute wasted no time on subtleties, barking out orders quickly and efficiently. “Team, fire at will. Waldo, do something about that thing.”
Flashes erupted as we all cut loose at once from magically silenced weapons. Sue took some damage as bullets gouged small chunks out of her with dull crackings, but she lowered her six-hundred-pound skull and the rounds shattered against it with minimal effect.
As for Waldo, he frowned around the stump of his cigar and stared at the approaching Paleolithic peril. “Uh, guys,” he began, frowning mightily, “this might take a while.”
Not good, I thought as Sue barreled toward us. My Lahti spit bullets, but the 9mm rounds simply flattened on her humongous skull. I jumped to the side as, with one mighty lunge, she was upon us.
Waldo backpedaled, eyes still locked on the ambulatory skeleton, keeping out of reach of teeth the size of bananas. Frenchy unloaded with an auto shotgun, and that had the most effect, the deer slugs tearing apart Sue’s ribcage. Unfortunately, there were no organs to shatter, no heart to stop.
Mouth ran around behind and got a gutful of dino tail that sent her flying. For a moment I feared she might be dead as she landed hard on the tile floor, but her curses put paid to that possibility. Growler used armor-piercing bullets to chip away at the T. rex, but at the rate he was going, it’d take a week before he could whittle Sue down to size. Still, the rounds did enough damage to send rock dust flying. I could feel it sticking to my teeth as I inhaled. As for Brute, he was hammering at the case holding the bronze circle with the butt of his rifle, the security glass forming starry rings under the weight of the blows.
How do you stop something that’s already dead?
An answer came to mind. Not a good one, but it might buy some time for Waldo to figure out what to do. If not, we were all destined to be road kill and Sue was the semi bearing down on us.
Before I could do anything, however, Sue lunged with such speed and such birdlike precision that it was over before I could blink. One second Frenchy Ledoux was blasting away off to the right of the beast, the next he was gone from the waist up. His legs and hips toppled to the floor as the upper half of him took an eTicket ride in Sue’s enormous jaws. His screams were mercifully brief.
And the rage hit.
It’s hard to describe—the fury that overcame me, enhancing all my physical characteristics. Safe to say it chased away all doubt, all fear, and replaced them with a singular, diamond-hard, red-tinged purpose that nothing could deter.
No thought, just action. No hesitation, just motion. Like a rhesus monkey at a jungle gym I climbed Sue’s ribcage so fast I left skin from my palms behind. Before she could react, I was perched behind her skull, holding on for dear life as the bones of her vertebrae did no good things to my kibbles and bits.
The bony monstrosity reacted pretty much like I expected.
As I mentioned earlier, when a T. rex charges, it leans far forward, lowering its torso until it is perpendicular to the ground with its tail straight out behind for balance. This makes the beast look smaller than it really is. When it rears up to its full height, then you see what’s what.
I saw Mouth’s lips move, and I was a good enough lip reader to see that the words she uttered would stand my mother’s hair on end … right before she used the soap to wash out her cussing mouth. Mom didn’t truck with foul language.
As for me, I held on for dear life while my cheeks ached from my manic grin. I was having the time of my life, a rider on the biggest damn bull in the strangest damn rodeo ever. It was more fun than I’d had in a long time, ever since that bug hunt in the Florida Everglades where I’d screwed the pooch but wound up killing a praying mantis the size of a Greyhound bus.
Sue shook herself like a dog shedding water, thrashing back and forth as I held on to holes on either side of her skull, my hands steel vises that refused to let go as she tried to buck me off.
I screamed in fury as she suddenly juked left. I would’ve flown off, but my legs were wrapped tight around her vertebrae. Still in the grip of my berserker rage, I pulled out a .45 ACP and started pounding on her huge skull with the butt, my left hand clutched in a death grip. On the third strike, bone began to crack and powder—not much, but enough to send a thrill through me. My eyes found Brute and I let out a victory scream.
Waldo’s eyes flashed a strange blue color, deep, almost black. I only noticed it because he’d stepped forward, hands in the air, palms out. I would’ve yelled at him to move it before he got his fool head bit off, but suddenly, with a sudden jerk and a groan, T. rex fell to floor, taking me with her.
An instant before the dino hit, I tried to leap free, but no dice, and I took a vertebra to the crotch. The rage blunted the pain, but my breath still left my lungs in a whoosh and my knees hit the tile with such brain-numbing force that I was sure they were broken. Not even the rage could sustain me after so much damage.
The world was a dark, hard place and I fell into it face first, my jaw cracking on the floor in the midst of a god-awful clattering of fossil bones. Before I went unconscious I saw stars.
“How is he, Waldo?”
“Ugly all day.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, boss. He’ll be fine, despite breaking his jaw and both kneecaps. If all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had me around, Humpty Dumpty would be just fine. This idiot was a piece of cake. Look, he’s coming around already.”
I knew exactly what was going on. The sensations of coming back from a major healing were unfortunately becoming all too familiar. One go
od thing I could say was that I did wake up. Too many Agents didn’t.
“Good job, Waldo,” I grumbled through a phlegmy throat. “Don’t feel any residual pain.” Both Brute and Waldo appeared when I opened my eyes, peering down at me. The Magician looked smug and the boss seemed irritated.
That irritation came out in his voice as he said, “That was the most boneheaded maneuver I’ve ever seen, Hakala. What were you thinking?”
Didn’t have the heart to tell him that thinking wasn’t at the top of my list at the time, but Waldo spared me a response by saying, “He was buying time, boss.” The stub of his cigar migrated from left to right, a sight so disgusting it turned my stomach. “That fool stunt bought me enough time to figure out what’s what. Turns out it was a minor possession spell, which, of course, a Magician of my caliber was able to break.”
I grabbed Brute’s hand and he hauled me to my feet. “Sure, Waldo, you’re so good, there should be two of you.” There, I was upright and feeling marvelously well, not a dent in the fender, not a scratch on the paint.
The portly Magician grinned. Not a pretty sight with that turd jetting foul wads of smoke. “World can’t handle two of me.”
It was hard, but I refrained from barfing on his combat boots.
Shouldering him aside, Mouth took my chin in hand and examined me critically. “You’re still ugly.”
“You’re still bossy and tactless.”
Her smile showed all her teeth. “Of course.” Then her face fell. “Frenchy’s gone.”
That cooled the mood. “Saw that,” I said through jaws tight with suppressed anger. “And we made a mess of Sue.”
“Boss put in a call to Special Branch. We got some egghead types and some Magicians who can put the old girl to rights. After we’re done here, the museum won’t be able to tell that ol’ bony just had her prehistoric ass kicked.”
Brute cut in, voice filled with hate. “Let’s get back on point, people. Something doesn’t want us here and I think I know what it is.”
The Spirit in St. Louis Page 21