Aggravated, he slipped his broken phone into his jacket pocket and marched down the stairs.
chapter 83
Dark was running down the fire tower when he saw the body, the FBI vest. He recognized her before he gently turned her body over and looked at her face. Spend enough time with someone and your mind files away hundreds of sensory details about them. So Dark knew it was her, even before he reached the landing. Even though it made no sense—how she could be here, in this building, in the middle of these explosions.
Because she came to find you.
“Constance,” he said, crouching down next to her, pressing his fingers against her neck. Dark repeated her name again, yelling this time. He felt his blood catch fire, as if he’d mainlined napalm.
Constance’s eyes fluttered open.
“. . . Steve?”
Dark exhaled and leaned forward, kissing her forehead in utter relief. He couldn’t lose someone else close to him. Not like this. Not to these monsters.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Dark said, preparing to scoop her up into his arms.
Constance winced, then shook her head. “No. Because then I’d just have to arrest you.”
Dark looked at her quizzically for a moment, but then she reached up and touched his face, reassuring him that, yeah, she was of sound mind and all of that, despite the blow to the head. She understood Steve Dark, and his gift, better than anybody else.
“Go,” Constance said. “Go catch that son of a bitch.”
chapter 84
Outside, Dark brushed debris from his shoulders. News media were everywhere, along with fire trucks, police vehicles, and haz-mat teams. Instead of walking with a purposeful gait, Dark stumbled around like one of the many dazed victims on the perimeter. His face was covered in ash and soot, but if someone recognized him, it was over. The Maestros had managed to make Dark look like the psycho here. It probably wouldn’t take much to connect him to these blasts, too. Someone could even argue that he planted the bombs to make himself seem heroic.
Dark turned to steal a glance at the Niantic Tower. Smoke poured out of a dozen windows, and through the windows were a few visible fires. But the tower refused to fall. They’d managed to send enough of the packages down to the basement, after all. Roger Maestro had enough to spark fires and cause general panic, but he’d failed.
The Niantic Tower would needs millions in repairs, but it would not fall.
On the plaza, Dark glanced over at two men sitting in the back of an ambulance, oxygen masks pressed to their faces. They looked like they could be father and son, with the older man in an untucked white dress shirt, and the younger one in a gray coat and black jeans. Dark instantly recalled the Tower card and the two figures plunging to the earth. Could have easily been these two men, but that hadn’t happened. Fate could be changed.
Something else on the plaza directly in front of the building caught Dark’s eye. A man being carried, arms over two uniformed EMTs. At first the man seemed dead. Until he convulsed, then tore himself away from his rescuers. The man took a few steps, then stumbled to his knees and began to vomit, shaking his head and waving rescue workers away. Then, amazingly, the man climbed to his feet, and Dark recognized him. Riggins. He was trying to fight his way back into the building, no doubt to look for Constance. Two EMTs grabbed his arms; a third tried to slip an oxygen mask over his face. Riggins responded with a flurry of punches, pulling his arms away and tackling the EMT with the oxygen mask, knocking the guy on his ass before charging back into the building.
Dark knew why. Riggins would never rest until he made sure every member of his team made it safely home.
Every ounce of Dark’s being wanted to tear after Riggins and shout No! at the top of his lungs. No! Don’t! You’re only going to get yourself killed!
But he knew such actions would be futile. You can’t stop a man like Riggins. There would be no time to explain. Dark would most likely find himself arrested.
Roger and Abdulia were still at large. Here, somewhere, within eyeshot of the Niantic Tower. They’d be hoping for the building to come tumbling down.
So where?
Still ambling like a traumatized office worker, Dark scanned the corners, the sidewalks, the windows of street-level cafes. Would they be sitting, sipping a coffee, as they watched the mayhem across the way? No. Stop looking for pairs. Roger would still be busy. Abdulia would be the one watching, her dark, deep eyes studying every detail. She was the mastermind. Her husband was the muscle, the executioner, the pilot, the provider. But it was Abdulia who laid out the plan. Just like she’d laid out the path for Dark. The need to bring Abdulia down was urgent, almost painful.
As Dark moved, he felt a fluttering in his upper thigh. He patted his pocket, then remembered. His phone.
There were seventeen missed text messages. Several were from Graysmith. But the last few were from a strange number he didn’t recognize:
HILDA HAS A MESSAGE FOR YOU
Graysmith answered. Dark gave her no time to speak.
“Tell me you’ve got transport,” he said.
“Get to Pier Fourteen, right off the Embarcadero,” she said. “I’ll have a chopper waiting. So where are they? If this isn’t the worst of it, where are they dealing the Death card?”
“I’ll tell you once we’re on board.”
X
death
To watch Steve Dark’s personal tarot card reading,
please log in to Level26.com and
enter the code: death.
DEATH
Transmission picked up by U.S. Coast Guard, Vessel Traffic Service, Sector San Francisco. Lt. Gen. Allan Schoenfelder, Director, Operations Center Supervisor.
UNIDENT. FEMALE: Roger.
UNIDENT. MALE: I’m here.
[static]
UF: ... so wish I could be with you, Roger.
UM: We will. Soon.
UF: Is it cold where you are, Roger?
UM: I’m a little cold. But I have my jacket.
[static]
UF: Roger?
UM: Yes.
UF: Do you remember what I told you about this last card? That this is about rebirth—the raising of our consciousness, flow of life?
UM: You told me.
UF: Good. I just wanted to make sure you understood. You’re not afraid are you, Roger?
UM: I’m just tired, I guess.
UF: That’s okay, Roger. It will be finished soon, and then we can rest.
[static]
Rest, just like the bodies in that tower were supposed to rest.
But Steve Dark had ruined that, just like the young agent—Paulson—had threatened to ruin their earliest efforts. You step into the path of fate, and fate will find a way to step into your path.
Abdulia wondered if the person they’d originally chosen to play the role of the Fool knew how lucky she was to have avoided her fate.
But now Dark pieced their story together too soon, laying their plans clear. The authorities were supposed to analyze the murders, write books about it . . . and most important, spread their message to all corners of the globe. Embracing your fate brings balance to the world. Fighting fate was as futile as fighting the currents of a mighty river. You try to swim upstream, and you only end up hurting yourself and others.
Hadn’t humanity learned the lesson by now? The major corporations of the world were founded on the principles of challenging the natural order of things—squeezing the resources out of the struggling masses, being allowed to absorb an amount of wealth that would have shamed the Roman Empire. These same corporations were allowed to destroy the natural world in the process. Witness the growing mass of oil in the Gulf, and the corporate entity responsible shrugging its shoulders like some spoiled teenager.
The world needed a wake-up call. Abdulia would give it to them.
Everything depended on the final card.
chapter 85
Cape Mendocino, California
Cape Mendocino
is the westernmost point on the California coastline, with a squat lighthouse that had been attempting to warn sailors away since 1868. One flash of white, every thirty seconds. Maintaining its lighthouse over the years wasn’t easy. The area was notorious for seismic activity, as well as being exposed to the brunt of Pacific windstorms. The lighthouse, only three stories tall, was constantly broken, shifted, shattered, and at times destroyed by the worst nature had to offer. Still, the lighthouse was rebuilt time and again. The sharp rocks and sea stacks protruding from the Pacific coast were too dangerous, the risks too great. In recent years, however, modern navigation technology rendered the Cape Mendocino lighthouse obsolete. It was abandoned to the wind-swept salt during the mid-1960s, and was currently awaiting funding for renovation.
Inside its rusting hulk was Hilda. And the killers.
Abdulia’s second text had been brief:
LIGHTHOUSE MENDOCINO ... ALONE
Dark’s stomach churned at the thought of Hilda being held captive by these maniacs. She had been patient with him, even when Dark had lost it and began tearing up her shop. Hilda had saved him, and she’d asked for nothing in return. Not even the price of the reading.
He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
Now they raced over northern California in a Piper Tech chopper. Dark would have be to dropped somewhere within walking distance of the lighthouse, but no closer.
“That’s incredibly stupid,” Graysmith said. “You set foot inside that thing, you’re dead, along with that tarot-card-reading friend of yours.”
“If they see a chopper,” Dark said, “Hilda’s dead. At least this way I have a chance to bargain for her with my own life.”
“Let me put together a strike team. I’m good at this.”
“There’s no time. And besides, Abdulia wants me. If she can’t have me, she’ll settle for Hilda.”
Graysmith bit her lip. “I don’t like it. Give me fifteen minutes and I can have a gunship up here to blow those killers off the top of that cliff.”
But Dark thought that was probably what the killers wanted. After all, Hilda had explained to him that the Death card signified a new beginning as much as it did the end. One must sacrifice oneself to be born again.
He couldn’t let Hilda go to her death with these psychos.
“No,” Dark said. “It has to be me, alone. You brought me into this. Let me finish it.”
Graysmith looked at him for a long moment before she sighed. “You know, I’m doing it. Letting my feelings get in the way. And people used to think I was blithe.”
Before he left, Graysmith outfitted him in the bulletproof gear she’d acquired back in Fresno—as much as she could convince him to wear. It added weight, but Dark would deal with it. He checked his Glock 22, slid it into a holster clipped to his belt at the small of his back. He didn’t want anything dangling from his body. For a crazy moment he wished he had a version of the Sqweegel suit that fit him.
chapter 86
Johnny Knack never wanted to be in a war zone. That was his one rule—domestic assignments only, thank you very much. Hell, he even avoided going to the UK, because of the IRA. One of his greatest fears was being plucked from the sidelines of a story and dropped right into the violent, churning middle of a story. One minute you’re asking a question. The next you’re sucking air through a fetid black hood, on your knees, not knowing if someone was going to cut your head off, or rape you with a broom handle, live on the Internet. Or maybe both, take your pick which comes first. So yeah—no fucking Iraq, no Kabul, no Korean border, no India, no Pakistan, not even Northern friggin’ Ireland.
But Knack knew that if you take great pains to avoid something, you’ll eventually end up confronting it anyway.
That’s how life does ya.
Like right now: bound to a steel chair. Right arm behind his back, strung up in some kind of sling wrapped around his throat. If he tried to lower his arm, let the muscles breathe a little, then he’d start to choke to death.
Left arm: affixed, palm up, to the arm of the chair. At first the idea of his exposed palm and upturned wrist frightened the living fuck out of him. No worse torture for a journalist than to be forced to watch as your hands are mutilated.
But the crazy bitch didn’t use a knife. Instead, she taped Knack’s own digital voice recorder to it, his thumb poised so that it could easily reach the RECORD button.
“What do you want with me?” Knack asked. His voice sounded thick, slow. None of the precision and speed he liked to use. This lady had drugged the living shit out of him.
The woman—who’d helpfully introduced herself as Abdulia (which would come in handy when telling the police later, provided he lived through this experience, ha ha ha)—put her hand to his cheek.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Knack,” she said. “The Death card is not for you. You are to be its herald.”
“Death card,” he said, shuddering involuntarily. “So that’s next, huh. Guess I should have seen that one coming. What was the priest? The Holy Man card, or something?”
“Do I hear mockery in your voice, even after all that you have seen and experienced?” Abdulia asked.
“No mockery. Just trying to understand.”
“All will become clear if you keep your eyes open.”
Knack adjusted his right arm—God, it hurt—and nodded his head toward the opposite side of the room. “What about her?” he asked. “Is the Death card for her, then?”
In the corner was a sleeping woman—long dark hair, kind of pretty in a hippieish kind of way. He’d watched Abdulia kneel down and shoot her up with something. Probably the same shit she’d been slamming into his veins. Keeping him nice and blissed out.
Knack heard a buzz. Abdulia put a cell phone to her ear, turned away from him. Well, it was good to know that a killer immersed in the ancient way of the tarot stayed nice and connected.
But with whom? Knack knew she couldn’t be working alone. She would have needed help stringing up poor Martin Green. Help slaughtering those girls in Philadelphia.
“Okay,” Abdulia said. “I’m ready. Don’t worry, Roger.”
So “Roger,” huh?
So much great material, Knack thought. Other journalists would kill for access like this. Imagine being able to hang with the Manson freaks as they breached Cielo Drive? Hey, dirty hippie. Before you plunge that fork in that nice pregnant lady’s belly, mind if I ask you a question or two?
Abdulia finished her call to her husband, Roger, then crouched down and rooted through a small duffel bag. She returned to Knack’s side, and he saw that she had three objects in her hands.
“Wait,” Knack said. “You said Death wasn’t for me! What the hell are you doing?”
“This will be uncomfortable,” Abdulia said, “but it will not bring death.”
In her hands: A dirty rag.
A roll of medical tape.
A pair of surgical scissors.
chapter 87
Steve Dark never thought he’d think these words in his mind. But part of him wanted to thank Sqweegel.
The monster stole nearly everything in the world from him. But he did leave one sick gift behind: stealth.
For many years Dark had studied this monster’s movements and methods; he couldn’t help but pick up the skills and methods of the monster. He thought of him every time he patrolled his house in the middle of the night, listening for the tiniest sound, the slightest hint that another monster had come for him.
Now, as he approached the lighthouse, those skills came in handy again.
Adrenaline was a factor, certainly. Dark’s muscles surged with raw, nervous strength, even though he’d been through literal hell just a few hours ago. But it was Dark’s ability to crawl, duck, and contort his body as he approached the lighthouse that saved him. The terrain was rocky, which was ideal for crouching and hiding as he made his approach. This made his joints and bones loose, like rubber. Dark kept the location of the lighthouse fixed in his mind so he didn�
��t have to look up from behind a rock to see it. The structure was there, and it wasn’t moving; he guided himself to it.
Finally he found a pile of rocks that served as adequate cover. Dark used a tiny mirror on a thin metal rod to observe the lighthouse. Only three stories tall—about the size of your average Victorian home. He could see two figures inside the lantern room—one seated, one standing. The Maestros, alone? There was no sign of Hilda. Could she be in the watch room down below?
Dark put away his mirror, then crouched down low again, on his fingertips and the toes of his boots. Quickly, he scurried to the base of the lighthouse. The Maestros would be expecting him through the main entrance—the only way into the lighthouse. The structure was built long before building codes demanding fire exits or wheelchair access. Maybe Dark could come in on their level, surprise them.
When Dark reached the base, he began to climb immediately. The rusted-over rivets cut into his skin, but Dark didn’t care. It was something to cling to. He reached the main railing and looked into the lantern room.
chapter 88
The lens and lamp were long gone, as were many of the glass storm panes.
Reporter Johnny Knack, tied to a chair, lips around a rubber ball that was strapped to his head. The Maestros seemed to like their ball gags. His eyes were unusually wide, as if in a perpetual state of terror. Dark squinted. Knack’s eyes were taped open, thick wide pieces of medical tape affixing his eyelids to his brows and cheeks Clockwork Orange-style. His cheeks were wet with tears.
Standing next to him was Abdulia herself, cell phone pressed to the side of her head. Dark hadn’t seen her since Venice Beach, back before he knew the truth. But Abdulia seemed just as calm, at utter peace. Why were the worst monsters able to seem so cool and collected, even at the most desperate of moments?
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