Ashen Rayne (Shadowlands Book 1)

by Skye Knizley

  “I agree, Miss,” Rock said. “What do you want to do?”

  “Let’s go check out the club,” Ashley replied. “Maybe, for once, we’ll get lucky.”

  “It’s getting late, Miss, should we call Miss Kamryn?” Rock asked.

  Ashley shook her head. “Let her rest, we’re just going to go poke around.”

  Rock stared at her in the rearview mirror for a beat, started the Evade, turned around on the beach and headed back into the city.

  B-52 sat nestled in the middle of a large lot within walking distance of Miami City Center. Sometime in the 80s, a developer had gotten the idea of moving an old Quonset hut from a World War II airfield south of the city and plonking it down in the middle of Miami, turning it into a nightclub in the process. The result was the still-popular B-52, sold three times since opening, each time to another lowlife for a large profit. The club’s location made it the ideal spot to woo local politicians, and the underworld couldn’t wait to get their hands on it.

  The Evade was parked across the street from the club, a beast among kittens. Ashley watched several groups of men and women pass through the door, no doubt taking advantage of the club’s early happy hour.

  She went through her backpack and chose a few choice items, then tossed it aside and smiled at Rock.

  “I’m going to go poke around,” she said. “See you in a few.”

  “Try not to get caught this time, Miss. My heart can’t take it,” Rock replied.

  “No promises, big guy, but I’ll try.”

  Happy hour always started early at B-52, and as usual, a medium-sized crowd had gathered in the bar area, listening to soft jazz and enjoying two for one cocktails. The dance floor was empty, except for a janitor pushing a dust mop around the surface.

  Ashley took a stool at the bar where she could see most of the other patrons and ordered a glass of grape club soda. When it arrived, she showed the barman the photograph of Green.

  “Have you seen this man?” she asked.

  “What, old Geordi?” The barman asked. “He doesn’t get down here often. Usually not more than twice a year.

  He paused and looked thoughtful. You know, now that you mention it, he did stop in a few days ago. A check up, he said.”

  Ashley put her phone away. “This might sound strange, but did he seem like himself when you saw him?”

  “I couldn’t say, I don’t talk to him. You would have to ask Billi, the manager.”

  “Where can I find him?” Ashley asked.

  The bartender smiled. “Her. She’s probably in her office. Take the employees door on the other side of the dance floor and tell her Kevin sent you.”

  Ashley smiled and picked up her glass. “Thanks, Kevin, I appreciate your help.”

  A single, bare bulb glowed in a fixture hanging from the distant ceiling, and the back room smelled of mildew. Not uncommon in south Florida, but not something you expected to find in a popular downtown club. Ashley wrinkled her nose at the scent and knocked on the manager’s door. After the second knock, a short, plump woman opened the door. She was wearing a cream-colored blouse and a pair of pants that did nothing for her figure or her scarred left arm.

  “I said come in, are you deaf?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” Ashley replied. “Do you have a moment?”

  The woman paused, staring at Ashley’s face. “You’re really deaf?”

  “Do you really have one arm?” Ashley asked.

  The woman pursed her lips before her face cracked into a smile. “I like you. I guess Kev sent you back, yeah? What can I do for you?”

  “The owner, Geordi, have you seen him recently?” Ashley asked.

  Billi shrugged and moved to settle her bulk behind the desk. “Yeah, he was here a couple days ago, why?”

  “Dumb question, but did he seem like himself? Did you notice anything different about him? An accent or anything?”

  Billie shook a cigarette free from the pack on her desk and lit it with a battered Zippo. She blew a stream of smoke and nodded. “Since you bring it up, yes, he was a bit off. He didn’t talk much.”

  “Didn’t talk much? What does that mean?” Ashley asked.

  “Normally, Geordi is the sort of man who will talk your ear off over nothing. When he came in this past week, his lackey, a new guy named Valerian, did most of the talking and all he talked about was business.”

  “Valerian, are you sure?” Ashley asked.

  Billi smiled. “That isn’t the kind of name you forget, dove. He was a huge man with more tattoos than I have ever seen on one skin, and he hovered over Geordi like a mother hen.” She paused and looked at Ashley. “Does that name mean something to you?”

  “It does,” Ashley said. “Do you have any idea where Geordi or Valerian may be?”

  “We don’t have the same social circles,” Billi answered, the cigarette wobbling between her worm-like lips. “But I’ve got his business card.” She rifled through an antique rolodex on her desk and plucked out a slip of plastic. “Here you go.”

  Ashley picked up the card. Geordi’s name, phone number and address in a downtown high-rise was emblazoned across the front. She slipped it into her pocket and nodded at Billi.

  “Thank you for your help.”

  She turned to leave, but was stopped by Billi’s thrown cigarette.

  Ashley slapped the hot ember off her shirt and turned in annoyance.

  “You don’t get off that easy, dove,” Billi said. “Information ain’t free. Where did you serve?”

  “What?” Ashley asked..

  “I know one when I see one, dove,” Billi said. “How do you think I lost my arm? Where did you serve, Iraq?”

  “Among others,” Ashley said. “Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Burma…”

  “I didn’t figure you for Spec Ops, but I’m not surprised. I heard the scuttlebutt about an all-female outfit, same as everyone else. Is that how you lost your hearing?” Billi asked.

  Ashley shook her head and hurried away.

  The address Billi had given Ashley belonged to a large corporate building in Miami City center, not all that far from B-52. The thirty-five story building loomed over the city like a chrome monolith and made Ashley feel as if she was being threatened by a gigantic electric razor.

  She and Rock sat at an outdoor café down the street, watching the comings and goings on the building’s rear dock and enjoying an early supper of sandwiches and coffee. Two container trucks had arrived while they were watching, and Rock declared that both were empty. The trucks were riding too high to be fully loaded, and the containers rocked slightly when the trucks went over speed bumps.

  Ashley had taken that as her cue to crack into the building’s main server and find out if there were any manufacturing facilities in the building. There were none. In fact, a large portion of the building was empty due to economic losses. Geordi Greene’s business took up the thirtieth and thirty-first floors, and the owners of the tower occupied the top four, though it didn’t look like more than a handful of their people were in the building at any one time. The rest of the building was empty.

  So what did they need two shipping containers for?

  It didn’t take Ashley long to get the container numbers and run them through the system. Both had been rented that morning from a local shipping company. Before that, the containers had sat empty in a warehouse lot, rusting in the sea air.

  “I have a bad feeling about this, Miss Ashley,” Rock said.

  Ashley took a bite out of her pickle and frowned. “Yeah, me too. We pushed Igor into a corner, and he’s using Geordi to finish his business and blow town. I’d bet anything he’s taking Rayne and the other girls somewhere in those containers.

  “What are you going to do?” Rock asked.

  “I have no idea,” Ashley replied. “I count at least ten men around those containers, and I’m betting the bulges under their jackets are MP7s or micro-Uzis. Taking them out isn’t going to be easy. Or quiet.”

 
“What about the cops?” Rock asked. “They can stop them, and we can go home.”

  “What do I tell them? That I think a local businessman with only minor criminal infractions is part of the skin trade? They’ll think I’m nuts,” Ashley said. “Besides, we started this, we’re going to finish it and get Rayne back to her sister.”

  “Can you break in like you did at his practice, then?” Rock inquired.

  Ashley brought up the building’s security system on her tablet. It was far more sophisticated than what she had encountered downtown. Given enough time, she could shut it down, but the adaptive algorithm they were using would take time to crack and would likely reset the password once her presence was detected, making her exit complicated. But fun.

  “It will take time,” she said, popping her knuckles.

  “I’m not sure how much time we have left,” Rock said.

  Ashley followed Rock’s gaze and sighed. The two trucks had backed up to the loading doors, concealing what was going on inside. But whatever was happening, it was happening soon.

  “He’s getting ready to bug out,” she said.

  She gathered her equipment and ran to the Evade where she had left her pack. A few seconds later, she was buckling on her knife and Beretta. Rock joined her, and she looked up at his disapproving frown.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Where are you going? You already said taking those guards head on was risky,” Rock said.

  “I’m not taking them on,” Ashley said. “I don’t even think Smoak is good enough to fight that many at once.”

  Rock folded his arms. “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m going to sneak in there and see what’s going on,” Ashley replied. “Call Smoakie and tell her to get her butt down here right now.”

  “Why not wait for her?”

  Ashley blew hair out of her face in exasperation. “Not this again, Rock.”

  “Miss Ashley, going in there is too dangerous.”

  “This is what I do, Rock,” Ashley said. “I don’t sit behind a desk, I don’t teach ASL. I learned, long ago, that the world had other plans for me. I’m not sidelining and leaving this to Smoak, so just let it go.”

  She didn’t wait for Rock to answer. She turned away and started across the road. Over her shoulder she yelled, “Call Smoak.”

  There was a shorter building next to Geordi’s tower, and a low concrete wall that gave anyone using the lawn the illusion of privacy separated the two structures. Anyone on either lawn was clearly visible to anyone above, but not to people on the first floor.

  Ashley skirted the wall and used it to hide herself from the guards around the trucks until she was well into the night shadow of the tower. She then hopped over the wall and landed behind a dumpster with a decent view of the docks. The nearest truck was swaying slightly as cargo was loaded, and she could see people moving in the gap between the loading ramp and the door. Lots of people with bare legs and feet.

  She sucked her lower lip and wondered what to do. There was no way she could get that many people out without being seen and taking out a dozen men with just her pistol was also doubtful. If she’d had a sniper or assault rifle with her, it would have been another matter entirely.

  She continued to watch the trucks, sweat trickling down her spine in the warm summer evening. Finally, she saw her chance—a gap in the guard’s pattern. She ran, hoping she was as quiet as she felt. She ducked under the trailer and grabbed a hold of the locking structure beneath. A little wiggling and she was wedged between the spare tire and the frame, out of sight unless someone crawled under the truck and looked.

  Ashley lay there in the gloom, her senses stretched to the limit. In the dark, she could see only shadows and her fingers were almost overwhelmed at the number of vibrations coming from the floor above her. There were dozens of people sitting on the floor, frightened and even more nervous than she was. She wished she could let them know they weren’t alone, that someone was trying to free them. The best she could do was send positive thoughts and hold on until she had a chance to do something.

  What seemed like hours later, she felt the truck jerk into motion, moving at a low speed out onto the street. Once it turned the corner, she could see the pavement moving by quicker as they headed toward the highway. Then there was another strong jerk, and she was knocked from her perch to hang onto the frame with one hand, her boot heels bouncing on the pavement beneath her. She struggled to raise her legs back into place, but in the darkness, with all the bouncing, she couldn’t see where the tire hung.

  Cursing, she let herself be dragged hand over hand to the back of the truck where she could rest her legs on the rear axle. But as she dangled there, she could feel her arms weakening and knew it was only a temporary measure. If she could even hold on until they reached their destination, her arms would be too weak to fight when she got there. She needed to move and it had to be soon.

  She’d spent nearly an hour looking at the trucks and could still see them in her mind’s eye. Both of them had ladders built into the side near the doors, complete with handrails. Considering the next best thing to being inside was probably on top, Ashley pulled herself to the side of the container and looked up. Far above, she could see the clouds and a sliver of moon. It would be full dark soon, making the climb even more dangerous.

  She could also see the ladder handrail above her, and she reached for it with one hand. Her fingers brushed it on the second try, and she realized it was going to be an all or nothing maneuver. Either she had to grab the rail, or she was going under the wheel just a few inches away from her feet. She took a deep breath and swung, letting go with her right hand and reaching with her left. Her hand closed on the rail, and she was hanging again, dragging behind the truck, so close to the wheel that she could feel it’s pull on her foot. She focused everything on the hand that was keeping her from a close encounter with the pavement and reached with her right. Her right hand seized the rail, and she started to pull, reaching the top to flop onto the roof like a beached whale.

  Ashley lay there for several seconds, watching the sky go by and breathing, grateful she hadn’t been pancaked beneath the wheels. When her hands stopped trembling, she rolled and started to crawl toward the front of the truck. Ahead, she could see that they were on the highway heading north with the other trailer some distance ahead.

  She was almost to the front when she saw a hand come up over the edge of the container, followed by a man’s head, and then the rest of him. He was a burly fellow with black hair that whipped around him in the wind and a scar that traveled up his face and made him look as if he was smiling. He approached, one step at time, a piece of chain gripped in his left hand.

  Ashley stood and drew her KA BAR knife. She didn’t move as she let her legs become accustomed to the swaying of the truck beneath her and her eyes get used to the stinging salt wind that threatened to blow her off the truck at any moment.

  The man moved closer and swung his chain in a roundhouse motion. Ashley ducked under the chain and stepped forward, her blade reaching for the man’s midsection. He jumped backwards and swung again. The chain missed Ashley’s leg by millimeters and threw up sparks by her foot. She stepped on it and swung the knife again. The blade sliced across the man’s stomach leaving a light cut in his flesh that made him grimace in annoyance. He yanked on the chain and pulled it from beneath Ashley, making her sway and dance backwards to regain her balance.

  The pair fought atop the truck for several minutes. Geordi’s guard had the upper hand in reach and strength, and he was pushing Ashley slowly back toward the rear of the truck. As he moved closer, Ashley rolled forward and pushed with her hands lashing out with both feet. The maneuver caught the man off guard, and he fell backwards onto the truck’s upper rail. Ashley fell on top of him, her knife searching for his neck. He caught her wrist and smiled, showing gold teeth.

  “They sent a woman. Never send a woman,” he sneered.

  The man squeezed and Ashley f
elt the bones in her wrist rubbing together, a painful, grating sensation that made her fingers go numb. She let go of the knife and watched it tumble over the side to disappear behind the truck.

  “That was my favorite knife, you Russian fuck!” she yelled.

  With her free hand, she grabbed the guard’s chain and yanked. It slid out of his grip, and she wrapped the open loop around his throat. He instinctively let go of her to grab the chain, and she used both hands to pull.

  The guard’s face reddened, and he struggled beneath her, his body bucking and trying to throw her off. With superhuman effort, he pulled the chain free and twisted his torso, pushing Ashley off the side of the truck. She caught the upper rail with one hand and hung on, her body flapping against the side like an old rag. When she looked up, she could see the man looming above her, his foot over her fingers.

  “It was a good fight, for a woman,” he said. “Goodbye, woman.”

  “Goodbye, moron,” Ashley replied.

  She drew her Beretta and fired. Her single shot punctured the guard’s right eye and exited through his skull. He disappeared from her view, and she felt certain he had fallen off the other side.

  She holstered her pistol and tried to pull herself up again, but her arms were spent. She was wondering how long she could hold on when she felt something on her leg. She looked down and saw the Evade with Rock leaning out the window. She smiled and pushed off the side of the truck to land on top of the utility vehicle. The impact knocked the wind out of her and she rolled, ending up spread eagle and gasping for breath between the racks. A second later Smoak rode past, bent low over the handlebars of her bike.

  “You’re late!” she yelled at her friend.

  Smoak arrived downtown as the sun was creeping beneath the horizon, throwing its final rays onto the city and letting twilight settle over the buildings below. She pulled up next to Rock and lowered her sunglasses.

  “Where is Ash?” she asked.

  Rock ran a hand through his hair. “She didn’t really say.”