As much as I’d disagreed with the Sons’ methods, I had to admit that the Escapees we’d captured so far had needed to be locked up for the good of society. The Choker had managed to elude capture for the past six months because she was out of phase with our reality: she had the ability to drop into another, alternate dimension whose laws of physics favored the formation of a chlorine-based atmosphere, which meant that while she couldn’t breathe there forever, she could certainly do so long enough to evade capture. Unfortunately, the holes she created could stay open for hours at a time, blanketing the area in poison gas, which gave normal folks a lovely case of lung blisters—if they were lucky.
You’d think that the prospect of an escaped prisoner who could create clouds of choking, poisonous gas would keep my mind on the task at hand, but after about half an hour of staying on watch, my attention drifted as normal Londoners of every shape, age, and color drifted through the rectangle of Shepherd’s Bush Green. Watching the people go by, I thought about the emails that must be building up in the office in my absence. Because even secret, monster-hunting societies need stationery, power, and IT equipment.
I was in the middle of puzzling out the strategy for an upcoming armored car tender when my earpiece squawked, making my head snap back up in alertness. “We have eyes on target. She’s exiting Westfield Shopping Centre, moving toward the Shepherd’s Bush underground station. This is our window; as long as she’s outdoors, the gas should disperse enough to be nonlethal. Go,” Christian said.
From where I sat, I couldn’t see anything, but after about thirty seconds, another voice came through: “She’s spotted the team and is forming a portal. I’m going in after her.” The speaker was Vir. His words were followed by the first screams. A few seconds later, a crowd came running around the corner and into my line of sight. I did my best to ignore the random strangers, keeping my eyes peeled for the Choker: a whipcord-thin, late-middle-aged, white woman. Getting my head back in the game, I considered how I’d confront her. I’d been working on ways to stop someone without killing them. In particular, with Mia’s tutelage, I’d worked out a way to use the Dreamscape to make people go to sleep—what could be more natural? However, the Choker was just too dangerous, and I planned to fall back on my trusty blast of corrosive, negative-emotion-powered green energy, like I’d used against the golem.
My eyes started to water, and I turned to see a swirling cloud of gas forming in the air thirty feet away. I keyed my mic. “She’s coming out on the Green,” I said as a couple other voices provided the same intel. I took a step forward. A woman strode out of the cloud and locked eyes with me, her face pinching in annoyance as she realized that she’d walked into a trap. I reached inside myself for the Dreamscape and thought about all the people that the woman was putting in danger, how she’d been apprehended after killing her husband, how…how…damn. I just couldn’t summon up the kind of disgust and loathing that I needed to shape the Dreamscape into such a destructive blast. I knew academically that she was bad, but I didn’t feel it in my bones. So I stood there, staring at her with the clueless gaze of a cow trying to do calculus.
The woman must have seen the look on my face because she took a step in my direction and her lips turned up in a wicked grin. Suddenly, a gun was in her hand, and I reached for my power in a desperate attempt to drag some kind of protection, maybe a brick wall or bulletproof vest, into existence before she could pull the trigger, but I was going to be too late—
“Get down, you wanker!” growled a man, hooded and cloaked, who gave me an almighty shove. I gaped wordlessly, windmilled my arms ineffectively, and crashed to the ground in a spray of turf and cigarette butts a dozen feet away.
“You!” the Choker cried, her smile fading. Shots rang out, and the hooded man jerked once, twice, three times but didn’t go down. Screams echoed throughout Shepherd’s Bush Green.
I rolled onto my side, gasping, and my eyes went wide as the stranger blurred, moving literally faster than the eye could see, and dove on top of the Choker. There was a brief scuffle, a crunch, and then wet, sucking sounds. While that was going on, Vir spoke in my earpiece again: “I couldn’t follow her through the portal. Does anyone have eyes on her?”
I reached up and keyed my mic. “Uh, yeah, target has been…umm…neutralized.”
“Hey, you. Stop,” Christian commanded from behind me. The hooded stranger looked up from…whatever he’d been doing, and although I couldn’t see his face, his head shook left and right in a clear indication that he had no intention of complying. Christian had his pistol out and aimed in the stranger’s direction faster than I could have done in a dream, but the hooded figure was faster still, disappearing into the old W12 Shopping Centre fifty yards away before Christian could get a shot off.
“Damn it,” Christian mumbled, and his posture relaxed. “Proceed to the extraction site,” he said into his mic, which was his fancy way of telling us to get on the tube and head downtown to headquarters. I relaxed, letting my power go unexpended and walking toward the tube station. I passed the bulky South African on my way, opening my mouth to ask what the hell had just happened. He frowned and gave a tiny shake of his head. Using the Guy Code, I instantly knew from the shake of his head that he wasn’t telling me anything, while the frown indicated that my hesitation in smiting the Choker had been noted. This wasn’t going to go over well back at base. Shit.
Chapter 5
1000–2200, Monday, June 13, 2016
“Mr. Adler, may I please remind you that your continued freedom, our offer of assistance in the search for your daughter, and any other benefits are contingent on your performance in the field?” Mia said, her mouth pursing in a measured expression of dissatisfaction.
“You can remind me, but all you’ll do is cause me to recollect that so far I’ve been working for you for nearly six months, I’ve been involved in the capture of half-a-dozen Escapees, and I’ve toed the line the whole time, but I haven’t seen one single, solitary shred of evidence that you’ve done anything to look for Olivia,” I said to the woman sitting behind her desk.
“Do you recollect,” she sneered, her cut-glass upper-crust accent mocking my choice of words, “that you are partially responsible for hundreds of people dying in the Bank riots last year and personally responsible for a few more?”
I shot to my feet. “Of course I do! If I could have nightmares, I’d wake up screaming every night. Why do you think I’ve put up with this crap for so long? But I need to get my daughter back. Otherwise…” Otherwise, I’d hate myself forever.
Mia’s face became an impassive mask; she glanced at the door to make sure that it was closed and then leaned forward. “What you need to do is start performing. Yes, you’ve been along on operations where we’ve captured Escapees, but you haven’t personally raised a finger against them—the golem wasn’t really alive, so it doesn’t count. Then, today, one steps out in front of you, and you freeze? You’re annoying, but you aren’t stupid. You must hear the whispers. There are people in the Sons who want to get rid of all the attuned, and you’re the poster child for that movement. I called in every favor that I had left and passed out a number of markers that I can’t cover just to get you in the door—outside of a cell. It isn’t a coincidence that they keep sending attuned under my command on these understaffed, dangerous missions.”
“You know why I’ve held back. I get one shot, one, and then I pass out. I’m not going to”—I was going to say blow my load but thought better of it—“err…waste my one punch unless I can be sure that it will connect,” I countered, crossing my arms.
“I know that, and that’s how I defended you. Until today.”
Silence stretched while I tried to come up with a good excuse. I didn’t have one, so I tried diversion.
“Yeah, about today. Who the hell was the Batman wannabe in the hood and cloak? He was strong and fast in ways that I haven’t seen from anyone fully human. Was he one of ours?”
Mia continued to stare at
me for another minute and then opened her mouth. “No. He wasn’t one of ours, but he isn’t your concern either. You’re lucky he showed up. I can put the focus on that enough to cover up your gaffe.”
I flopped into a chair. I knew that Mia wasn’t the real enemy here. More of a frenemy. “That’s great, Mia. I do hear what people are saying, but the Choker, today’s supposedly dangerous target. What has she done in the months since she escaped? Has she been running around murdering kittens? No, she was lying low, hiding after being in captivity for nearly a decade. I could be out trying to find my mother. If we’re talking about hearing things around the office, I’ve heard that you want to get your hands on her too. Let me help. Or even better, help me find her.”
Mia huffed and looked down, her demeanor of cool detachment cracking as she glanced back up at me. “I’m sorry, Julian, but that is exactly the kind of talk that will land all of us in a cell. You know that I have to stop the Escapees. And for your information, we believe that the Choker was responsible for a pair of ‘asphyxiation’ deaths last month. The people at the top have decided that they’re too dangerous to be allowed to roam free, and they’re my father’s mess, so they expect me to clean this up, and they aren’t giving me nearly enough resources to do the job properly. There are five left. When they’re dealt with, we’ll be able to help you more actively,” she said. Mia closed her eyes, and the mask of professionalism went back on. “Nevertheless, you really must follow orders. There was no harm this time, but you’re not fully trained, no matter your experience in the Dreamscape. As I said, people have died before due to your actions, and if any of our people die now, there’ll be repercussions. For both of us. Maybe for all of us.”
“Understood,” I replied tiredly, stood up, turned on my heel, and slumped out of the office. I’d been helping the Sons for months without any help coming from them, but Mia was right—I had gotten people killed before. I’d been responsible for half-a-dozen deaths at Saint Mary’s Hospital when fighting the puca: nurses and orderlies that I’d accidentally used as human shields. I’d also lost control of a dragon that I’d summoned into the Dreamscape from the collective unconscious, causing a horrible fire that had immolated a handful of people. I’d been fighting Senior Auditor Brown, and I’d saved a man’s life, but the price had been high. I decided I’d toe the line—for now.
◆◆◆
That night, I enjoyed the highlight of the week—heading to Sticky Fingers Rib House with Dana. “So, I heard that Lady Antebellum was coming to London later this year, and I was thinking that we could get tickets?” I asked as I was tucking into my second half-rack, oozy sauce running down my chin. I’d always preferred more mainstream rock—the Foo Fighters or Oasis—but Dana was from Florida, and her Southern roots showed through in her musical taste.
“Sure—but we’ll need a…a babysitter unless the concert is in the next couple of weeks.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she went as still as a statue. Ten seconds passed, and then she blurted out, “Are you worried about the baby?”
I stopped mid-chew. I could have pretended to be ignorant about her question, but I respected my wife too much for that. I’d seen the sorts of monsters that lived between the worlds; I’d watched a man sprout wings and tentacles from being touched by one. “Dana.” I took her hand. “I’m scared of the same thing that you are. I’m terrified that the baby might have been…changed, but I would do anything for this baby. I just don’t know what we can do.” It was the truth. Dealing with extradimensional forces could do abominable things to humans, twisting their bodies and minds in bizarre ways. Dana and the baby had been exposed to those forces for months.
Hanging her head, Dana wiped at her eyes. A minute later, there was a sniffle, and she smiled up at me. “I know you will, Jules. You always feel like you have to protect everyone,” she said, forcing a cornbread muffin into her mouth.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to just protect it. I want it to be normal. I thought for years that my powers were a blessing, but look at all of the pain that they’ve brought to us. To other people.”
I dropped my eyes to the table, and Dana put her hands on top of mine before she spoke: “But if there is something…different. Would you still…” I kept staring at her hands. Her fingers were long and graceful, the skin a couple of shades darker than mine, and blue veins stood out ever so slightly, betraying the very first signs that she wasn’t in the full flush of youth anymore. They weren’t the hands of a girl; they were the hands of a mother, and where those fingers brushed my wrist, they trembled.
I rotated my wrist, grasped my wife’s forearms to reassure her, and looked up, meeting hazel eyes that burned with fierce determination. “Dana, of course I will. Olivia’s different, and you know what I’m willing to do to help get her back. I’d die for any child of ours. Hell, I’d kill for them. But if there was anything that I could do to help them avoid suffering with the problems that I’ve had as a Dreamwalker, then I’d do that too,” I said, hoping that my words were true. If my child were something monstrous, something like me, could I accept it? I hoped so.
Dana sniffed, wiped her eyes, and smiled. “I understand. Me too.”
“Good,” I said, and patted the table top decisively. “And tonight I’ll try to find Olivia in the Dreamscape again. We still have lots of her stuff from the time that she spent with Becky. This should work. We’ll make this work.”
“We’ll make this work,” Dana repeated, and I think we both knew that she meant more than just our unborn child, and more than just finding Olivia.
The waitress came with refills on our margaritas. “Hey, is it just me, or is it ironic that pregnant women have to drink virgin cocktails?” I asked, bringing the serious moment to a close.
“I think it’s even more ironic that after nine months of drinking this fancy fruit juice, I’ll still have a higher alcohol tolerance than you,” Dana said, and stuck her tongue out in reply.
The rest of our dinner together passed pleasantly enough, although we avoided mentioning that we could only have this meal because Olivia was still missing. Speaking of missing, we missed someone else that night—someone who we overlooked in the crowded restaurant. But she didn’t miss the words of her abandoned child. Those words stung her into actions that were going to get a lot of people killed.
Chapter 6
0800, Tuesday, June 14, 2016–0400, Wednesday, June 15, 2016
The next morning, after dealing with a nightmare involving bloodsucking bill collectors, suited, booted, and be-fanged (metaphor much?), I walked to the station and caught the Central Line from Ealing Broadway to St. Paul’s. When I got to my desk and fired up my laptop, the first reminder that my Outlook brought up was for a meeting that hadn’t been in my diary the day before. The title read: Team Bonding Prebrief. Shit. That meant that we had another operation to find one of the Escapees coming up soon—the title was Mia’s idea of a joke. If the British were well known for having a dry sense of humor, hers was the Sahara.
The meeting was due to start in just a couple of minutes in Conference Room B, so I hustled across the office, thinking that at least this would take me one step closer to rounding up the Escapees and thus one step closer to gaining the Sons’ help in looking for Olivia. I stopped outside the frosted glass door, straightened my tie, and entered. “Good morning,” I started to say, a big, fake, American smile plastered on my face before I noticed the throng in the room.
“And good morning to you, Mr. Adler. If you could take a place?” Mia asked from her spot at the head of the table, gesturing toward an empty bit of wall. I glanced around, taking in the surroundings; Christian was seated to her right, his chiseled face set in stony silence, and on her left was a woman that I didn’t know but had seen around the office. She had black hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, pale skin, and hazel eyes. She was dressed in a charcoal business suit, and when she glanced in my direction, her face screwed up for just a moment as though she had gotten a whiff of
week-old garbage.
The other eight chairs around the table were filled with a mix of men and women dressed in the standard black suit favored by the Sons for their junior field agents. I recognized a few from previous operations as belonging to Christian’s unit, and one, Craig, even gave me a nod. Bensen was standing on the opposite side of the room from me, having just gotten back into the office from sick leave, his arm in a sling. The door slid open on its own, and Vir slipped in, both arms carrying trays of coffees and teas.
Mia took a Starbucks cup and sipped appreciatively. “Ahh, now we can begin. As you know, we have recaptured fifteen of the original twenty Escapees. The Chapter Master has recently increased the priority on bringing this situation to a conclusion. For the last six acquisitions, we’ve operated with only Senior Agent Christian’s four-person unit, backed up by one special assets triad.” She paused, sweeping her gaze around the room to make eye contact with everyone present before she proceeded. “That approach will not suffice for our next target…”
◆◆◆
Later that evening, while I put together a crib, I brought Dana up to speed. “Mia made it very clear that tomorrow’s target, the Protean, is the most dangerous yet. That’s why they pushed the mission back a day. But there are less than a handful of the Escapees left after this.”
She stood in the doorway to our bedroom, her curves silhouetted by the glow from the bare lightbulb in the hallway, and looked at me. “That’s great, sweetheart, but do you think that they’ll ever actually help look for Ollie?” she said.
“I made a deal. What, do you want me to quit? You know we’ve been over this—the Sons are our best lead,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose before continuing. “Look, I’ll get a meeting set up with Jack over at the Redderton Detective Agency tomorrow. I’ll see about putting more pressure on them to look harder for Ollie.”
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