Wrong Side of Hell (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 1)

by Sonya Bateman

  “How…never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “Good, because it’s complicated,” he said. “Anyway, I just came by to say that was a nice trick you pulled off back there. All that flashing-the-light business.” Murdoch’s grin dropped like a stone. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  Involuntary fear washed through me. But I knew he was doing it, so I pushed it away. “You were killing him,” I said. “And don’t think I won’t do it again.”

  “Well, look at you. It’s so cute the way you’re resisting.” His smile curled darkly. “Don’t worry, though. After all that Unseelie I had for dinner, I’m full.”

  “Goddamn it, Murdoch—”

  “Relax, little brother. Sorry…DeathSpeaker.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have killed him. In fact, your brother should thank me, because I saved his life.”

  “I could’ve stopped Daoin.”

  Murdoch laughed. The sound was colder than winter in Siberia. “In that case, I saved both your lives,” he said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Really. Did you forget I can read minds?” The bogeyman wasn’t smiling. “Daoin was programmed with some kind of hypnotic suggestion, and seeing Taeral triggered it. The programming basically ramped all his magic up way past his capacity, told him to kill Taeral and anyone else who got in his way. And in doing that, he’d self-destruct with the power overload.”

  All of my anger washed out, leaving me hollow. “Milus Dei did that to him?”

  “Yes.” For a second, there was something like sympathy in Murdoch’s expression. “They took him apart and rebuilt him into a suicide bomb. What I did was the only way to shut down that program permanently. I dissolved the trigger—but it was deep in him, so it cost him badly.” He frowned. “Now he’s just plain crazy, the poor bastard.”

  Damn. Maybe I did have Murdoch wrong. But in my defense, he was just as big a son of a bitch when he was doing something nice. “Well. Er, thank you for saving our lives, I guess, and I’m sorry for flashing you. With the light,” I added quickly. Man, did that ever sound wrong.

  “Actually, I’m not that mad about it. You fascinate me, little brother. It’s not just anybody who can scare the bogeyman.” He grinned again. “See you around.”

  “Wait. You’re not coming back with us?”

  “Nah. My kind, we’re a solitary lot. I only came along for the Seelie. Too bad he never showed.” He shrugged and headed for the exit. “Don’t worry. You’ll see me again—probably sooner than you want to.”

  The door closed on his laughter.

  Sadie finally settled back on her stool with a shudder. “Creepy bastard,” she muttered. “Did he…really save you guys?”

  “Yeah, I think he did.” I looked thoughtfully at the door for a minute. “I scare the bogeyman,” I said. “I’m not that scary. Am I?”

  “Actually, you kind of are.”

  I scowled. “Come on. At least I have a whole face.”

  “You’re scary, Gideon. But in a good way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She smiled and bumped my shoulder with hers. “It means I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  “Huh.” I returned the smile. “Me, too.”

  We settled into a comfortable silence to wait for Bob.

  CHAPTER 44

  More of the others had started to show signs of life when we returned to the underground station with the pizzas. One of them was Daoin. Sadie and I joined Taeral by the fire after we passed out most of the food, and Daoin was sitting up, alert and somewhat straight. His eyes were clear, and he didn’t cringe when he was spoken to.

  Unfortunately, he was still crazier than a rain of frogs.

  He watched us sit down and open one of the pizza boxes, and he leaned in closer to look. “Is that pie?” he said. “I had pie once. It was a…day. Not a Sun-Mon-Tues-day. Something else.” He frowned, and then his face brightened a little. “Holiday. That’s the word.”

  “It is not pie, Fa—Seven,” Taeral said in strained tones. “But it is food. You should eat.”

  Damn, it hurt to hear him call Daoin that. I could only imagine how it felt.

  “Okay. Is it time to eat?”

  “Yes, you can eat now.”

  I decided I’d better tell Taeral what the bogeyman said, sooner rather than later. “Sadie, can you help…er, Seven, get some food? I need to talk to Taeral real quick.” I looked at him. “If you don’t mind. It’s important.”

  “All right.”

  I stood and walked a short distance from the fire, and Taeral followed slowly. “I’ve managed to convince him that he’s no longer at Milus Dei,” he said when he caught up. “Now he believes I am Dr. Garret’s brother. He says I am someone named Billy, and he’s waiting for the doctor to come back for him.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Taeral, I’m so sorry.”

  He closed his eyes. “I cannot call him Father or Daoin. If I do, he…shuts down again. Says the baby is crying, and begs me to let him sleep.” He shook himself and stared at me. “I apologize. You had something to say.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath, and told him about Murdoch.

  He stopped looking at me about halfway through, and then didn’t say anything for a long time after I finished. At last, he met my gaze with sheer, blinding fury. “They programmed my father to kill me, and then himself?” he said hoarsely.

  I nodded with reluctance. “Murdoch said if he hadn’t done what he did, the trigger would still be there to set him off again,” I said. “He also said he would’ve stopped. Bastard could’ve mentioned that instead of acting like he wanted to kill him, though.”

  “I will destroy them all,” Taeral said through his teeth. Now he was glowing, the same way he did when the Duchenes had made a spirited attempt to beat me to death.

  I didn’t take that as a good sign.

  “Whoa. Settle down there, Captain Vengeance,” I said. “We will destroy them all.”

  “I’ll not need help to tear them limb from limb,” he seethed. “I’ll see them dead. Now.”

  “Taeral. Look at me.”

  He did. His eyes were blue flames.

  “I seem to recall a certain brother of mine trying to stop me from rushing straight to my death,” I said. “Couldn’t appreciate it at the time, because the son of a bitch chained me up and threw me down a well with no explanation. But he had the right idea. So now I’m gonna return the favor—because there’s no way I’m losing my brother when I just found him.”

  He stared at me, and the flickering light around him gradually diminished. “Fine. Perhaps you’re right, brother.” He threw a sidelong smile. “However, I would advise against trying to throw me down a well.”

  I grinned back. “I’ll skip that part for now.”

  “Good.” He glanced toward the fire, and his shoulders slumped. “We should return to Daoin,” he said. “He is…like a child now, in many ways. An unpredictable child, who may yet harbor vast powers he is no longer able to control.”

  I frowned as I followed him back. “Could there be any more good news today?”

  Just then my phone buzzed, like it was responding to the question.

  “It was rhetorical,” I muttered to my pocket, wondering how I’d managed to get a signal down here. This was right under an active subway, so maybe it was just strong enough to reach. I sighed and pulled the phone out.

  I had about half a bar of signal, and the screen showed Abe’s number. At five in the morning.

  Brow furrowed, I answered the call. “Hey, Detective,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep about now?”

  “Hello, Mr. Black,” said a voice that wasn’t Abe’s—but I recognized it anyway.

  Chief Nigel Foley.

  CHAPTER 45

  “Where’s Abe, you sick son of a bitch?” I snarled into the phone.

  That got Taeral and Sadie’s attention, but I couldn’t worry about them now. I waved them off and walked a
few paces away, hoping it wouldn’t disrupt the fragile signal. He had Abe’s phone. There were a few ways this could turn out, and none of them were good.

  “Detective Strauss? Oh, he’s busy. Trying to break down a door to rescue a little girl from a hostile gunman. Unfortunately, that ‘door’ is made of solid cement, and there’s no little girl behind it.” Foley paused. “Don’t worry, though. Reun is making sure he can’t feel the pain…yet.”

  My gut wrenched. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” He paused again, and my phone chimed. “I’ve just sent you a text with a video attachment. Watch it,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

  I drew the phone away and navigated screens with shaking fingers. A new message from “Abe,” with attachment. I tapped the message and played the video.

  There was a slightly curved concrete wall, like a subway tunnel, cracked and discolored with age. Dark stains on the surface, glistening in the low light. A few seconds in, Abe rushed from the left of the screen, running away at an angle with his back to the camera—and crashed full-speed into the wall, shoulder-first. He cried out and slid down, leaving a fresh dark smear on the concrete.

  Then he hauled himself up, shaking all over, and started walking back. The camera caught his bloodied, swollen face as he approached, and the way his right arm hung limp and disjointed at his side. He vanished from view.

  Seconds later, he came roaring back again, headed straight for the wall.

  I stabbed at the screen to stop the playback, and then shoved a fist against my mouth. It was almost a full minute before I trusted myself to speak. I raised the phone to my ear again. “Let. Him. Go.”

  Foley laughed. “You can’t really think it’ll be that simple.”

  “Fine,” I said roughly. “What do you want, asshole?”

  “You, of course. The DeathSpeaker.”

  A fist closed around my stomach. “And if you don’t get me?”

  “Then I let Detective Strauss bash himself heroically to death.”

  I had to close my eyes. I could save Abe, sacrifice myself—but I’d also be sacrificing every single non-human in existence. Some of whom were my friends, my brother, my father. Or I could let Abe die gruesomely and pointlessly, and maybe we’d all live until the next time Milus Dei caught up. Until they tried again to capture me, and possibly succeeded.

  But there could be a third choice. There had to be.

  “By the way, I forgot to mention,” Foley said while I was still thinking. “I also have all your friends from that underground rathole here, just waiting for mass execution. Unless you agree to my terms.”

  “What terms?” I ground out.

  “Unconditional surrender. Come to the Forty-Second Street station lower level, alone, and turn yourself in. Do that, and I’ll release the detective and all the rest of your friends,” he said. “You have one hour.”

  I made myself pause before responding. I knew the Forty-Second station well—Port Authority, the bus terminal. I’d picked up bodies there more than a few times. The lower level had been abandoned for years, and there was only a single, unused track running through the station. It was completely closed off from the rest of the subway system, but it had a few extra features. I’d have to hope Foley didn’t know about them. “Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll be there. Just…stop hurting Abe. Please.”

  “Done. But let me warn you, Mr. Black,” he said. “If you’re late, or if any of those monsters you’re with tries to come here at any point—the hostages are dead. All of them.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I growled. “One hour, alone. Fuck you very much, Chief.”

  I hung up without waiting for a reply.

  At least Sadie and Taeral refrained from hammering me with questions when the conversation ended. I took a few minutes to compose myself, and then approached them to deliver the news.

  After I sketched things out for Taeral and Sadie, I had to get everyone together and break the news to the rest of the original seven, minus Murdoch. I left out certain details, like where exactly I was supposed to go and turn myself in. Grygg reacted in typical fashion with pretty much no reaction.

  Denei went in the opposite direction—straight over the top.

  “You tell me where they are, right this minute!” she shouted. “I’m not waiting an hour, and I’m not puttin’ my kin’s lives in your hands. You think those slimy, scum-churnin’ whoremasters are gonna keep their word and just let them all go?” She bared her teeth and lunged at me.

  Zoba grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

  She glared at him. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’, brother?”

  “Maybe he was listening to me, because you weren’t,” I said. “If anyone who isn’t me shows up there, he’s going to kill everyone. Including your kin.”

  Some of the fight went out of her, but not all of it. She jerked her arm angrily away from Zoba. “Fine. What’s the brilliant plan this time, handsome?”

  “Well, it’s not brilliant. And it’s not much of a plan.”

  I told them.

  When I finished, Sadie was the first to speak. “Works for me,” she said.

  One by one, everyone else nodded.

  “Great,” I said. “Taeral, I just need you to show me a few things.”

  “Of course.”

  The group broke apart with a grim sense of purpose. We only had forty-five minutes until the end of the world.

  CHAPTER 46

  I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the lower level at Forty-Second from the service stairs, where I had an angle-on view of the single track. But of all the things I might have expected, this wasn’t one of them.

  Chief Foley had his very own train.

  It was a four-car Frankenstein of a contraption. The front car was a modern engine, streamlined and silver and bullet-nosed. Bringing up the rear, the end closest to where I’d come in, was an old-fashioned, rust-red car with tarnished gold accents that looked transported straight from an old Western movie. There was a lightning rod mounted on the roof. The sight of it chilled me—that had to be the brain-melting machine Viv told me about.

  And the middle two cars were like the cages on an old circus train. Both were filled with everyone they’d abducted from the Hive.

  Ruler-straight lines of Milus Dei soldiers stood four deep along this side of the train, stretching the full length of the thing. A mass of shadows suggested there were more troops on the side I couldn’t see. The line of guys directly in front of the train faced inward, performing occasional crowd control in the cages with Tasers and long sticks that looked suspiciously like cattle prods.

  At first I didn’t see Abe anywhere. When I finally spotted him, it took everything I had not to head straight for Foley and pound him into pulp, terms of surrender be damned.

  The son of a bitch had tied him to the railroad tracks.

  He was spread-eagled twenty feet behind the old-timey death machine, bound to the tracks with rope and mercifully unconscious. His face looked like someone had mistaken it for cheese and tried to grate it. One man stood guard over him—tall and thin, with long blond hair and a Diablo-style moustache and goatee. Reun, I presumed.

  It wasn’t long before Chief Foley strolled out from somewhere in the ranks, wearing the self-satisfied smile he reserved for press conferences and torture sessions. Three men in black accompanied him as he approached me—two of them back and off to the sides, one directly behind him. “Mr. Black,” he said. “I have to admit, I’m surprised you kept to the terms. I expected some kind of trick, like the one you pulled on poor Tom, here.” He stepped aside, revealing the goon behind him to be Hullman.

  “I knew there was something wrong with you,” Hullman practically sputtered. “Right from the start. You pushed the wrong doorbell.” His big fists clenched, and he took a step forward. “Not so smart now, are you?” he said. “You’ll get what’s coming to you. Right, Mr. Foley, sir?”

  “Yes, Tom. The guilty must be punished.” C
almly drawing his service revolver, Foley half-turned and raised the gun on Hullman. “Which includes you for compromising our location in the first place, you fawning idiot,” he snarled, and put a bullet in his forehead.

  Tom Hullman fell back dead, wearing an expression of terminal shock. The other two didn’t even flinch.

  “Now.” The chief polished his gun on a sleeve and replaced it in his holster. “Lace your hands on the back of your head, and we’ll see what you’ve got up your sleeves, Mr. Black. I don’t trust you to give up this easily.”

  I shrugged. “Suit yourself,” I said, and assumed the position. “By the way, I never liked that guy. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  “That was not for your benefit,” Foley said. “Mr. Hullman still has his uses.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that.

  The stone-faced soldiers marched over and frisked me. I’d figured they would—after all, Foley had been a cop once, and cops always searched the suspect. Procedures died hard. So I’d made sure they had plenty to find, because it’d look suspicious if I came in clean and ready to surrender.

  The search turned up two knives, two guns, a small wad of cash, a napkin from Italian Bob’s, the severed hand I’d borrowed from Zoba, and my phone. Most of the stash went into the thugs’ pockets. The hand drew disgusted glares and got thrown across the platform, and the phone was handed to the chief.

  “Hey, dumbass. You missed a spot,” I said to the nearest goon, and thrust my hips forward a little. “I might have a tool down there.”

  He stepped up without expression, then grabbed and squeezed. Hard.

  Okay, that was really goddamned painful. I didn’t expect him to take me up on it—and it took a lot of effort not to scream like a girl.

  “Doesn’t feel like it to me,” he intoned, and finally let go with a shove.

  “Right. Must’ve put that one in a different pouch this morning,” I said through clenched teeth. “You done yet?”