He’d interrupted her again. And now her blood was really boiling. “Excuse me, Sir, but have you mentioned the possibility to Director Peluso that the FBI doing nothing to prevent five more Smiling Jack murders would be much worse for her administration?”
Rez had to hold the phone away from her ear to avoid the blistering string of angry counter arguments salted with enough expletives to EVAC a shipyard. The Deputy Director ended with a very pointed career question for Rez.
She ignored the question and almost managed to restrain herself. “I have plenty of leave, Sir! I’m not certain when I’m coming back to D.C. I’m on vacation, remember?” She couldn’t have pressed the red button on her phone any harder. She screamed at the hotel room and slid her phone across the desk. It hit the side of her purse and bounced back a few inches. Just then, the throbbing began.
“No, not now!” she hissed. But her migraine headaches didn’t listen. And this one came pounding in as if someone was repeatedly shoving a javelin into the back of her skull. She grabbed her purse, snapped the cap off her pills, and dry swallowed them down. Then she stumbled to the bathroom and splashed some water into her face. It didn’t help. She clutched her head with her hands as if trying to prevent an explosion. She glared at herself in the mirror and wondered if she’d just thrown her career away.
The phone trilled and vibrated in the other room. Rez darted to it. She didn’t look at the number, flipped it open, and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, Deputy Director. It’s just that—oh, Mr. Spector. No, I was expecting someone else. Yeah, yeah, I can meet. Now’s fine. I need to get out. Maybe get a drink…or three. I don’t know the area. Wait, just a second.”
Rez put the phone down and grabbed the hotel’s “Amenities and Attractions” booklet. A few pages in, she found something and picked up the phone. “There’s an Italian place called Pompano’s off Emerald Coast Parkway on North Walton. Say in a half hour? You need a ride? No, okay, see you then.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It was only fifteen minutes to the restaurant, but the hotel room felt confining, so—head still throbbing—Rez left right away. The Miracle Strip, as the Panama City locals called the main beach drag, stretched along ten miles of the whitest shores in America. Towering resorts, condos, and hotels lined both sides, and there were more clubs and hotspots than you could shake a swinger at. Even on a Wednesday night, the strip was hopping.
Rez wished she knew the area a little better because her directions took her out of the modern touristy area into a slightly seedier part of town. Still, seedy for a beach town wasn’t so bad. Rez wasn’t too worried when she found that Pompano’s didn’t have its own parking area, but rather shared a little lot with the adjacent strip mall and apartments.
Latin music pounded from one of the little clubs nearby. That’s all I need, Rez thought, pressing her fingertips into her temples. Night insects made their own music. Rez left her car beneath the only streetlight that worked in the parking lot. Huge palmetto bugs dove beneath the light. One landed on the roof of the car right next to Rez. She cringed and flicked the thing away. Call it what you want, but it looked like a giant roach.
Rez clambered up the single flight of concrete stairs that led out of the lot and took a look at the shadowy alley ahead. Blank wall of the strip mall on the right, four-story apartment complex, complete with black iron fire escapes, on the left.
I can take the alley, or I can traipse all the way around the apartments. Rez decided on the alley. Superior grades in hand-to-hand combat in the Bureau, a black belt in Taek Soo Do, and private lessons in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu told her she could take care of herself. Carrying two guns didn’t hurt either.
Still, she thought, overconfidence in closed in spaces could get someone killed.
Chapter 16
I was getting more than my money’s worth out of the assassin’s sports car. It still had a quarter tank left when I parked in the lot a hundred yards or so behind the strip mall where Agent Rezvani and I were to meet.
A sensory assault awaited me when I got out of the car. Half a dozen delicious smells haunted the air: basil, cayenne, garlic, also something sweet, like a rich barbecue. Gulf Coast summer humidity hit me also, and it occurred to me that I’d probably need to spend a little of my remaining money on a change of clothes.
But the loudness of the music was the most striking. It seemed like two or three different apartments were having parties, and the little club across the street was competing decibel for decibel. But, alas, the mixture of Dubstep, Heavy Metal, and Salsa music wasn’t working.
I grabbed my silver case and shut the car door. I hopped up three steps and stopped. The music had really built to a cacophony. One of the singers was just brutally discordant, screaming the lyrics. I’d heard some pretty awful death metal in my time, but this was—I suddenly realized—this was not music at all.
Someone was screaming and grunting up ahead. I sprinted up the stairs to the alley just in time to watch a dark shape slam Special Agent Rezvani up against the alley wall. She dropped her gun and slumped to the pavement. The assailant flashed a knife.
I grabbed his wrist, squeezed until he dropped the blade, and then spun him around. I planted all four knuckles of my right hand onto his left cheekbone. I’d downed dozens of men with that punch. Out. Cold.
But not this guy. The impact turned his head, but he used his torso momentum and planted a snap kick into the center of my chest.
I landed hard on my back and stared up at the fire escape for a heartbeat. Then, I rolled toward my silver case and grabbed the handle. I had a feeling he wouldn’t give me time to get the case open, that he’d grab up his knife, and come after me. But I was wrong. He didn’t grab up his knife.
He pulled a gun instead.
I saw the muzzle flash, felt something like a hot coal on the right side of my chest, and…and my next breath caught in my throat. I looked down, touched the bubbling wound, felt the liquid warmth on my fingertips. And, while I know this won’t win me any intelligence contests, it was honestly the only thought I could muster: He shot me.
I blinked and looked up at the man. So many details poured into my mind: he was Latino, about 5-9, stocky but not buff. The muscles on his arms looked ropey but strong: the kind of strength an old sailor had after a hard life. His stringy hair was salted with gray, and heavy bags lay beneath his eyes.
The eyes.
Taken.
I could see that he’d been Taken a very long time. He wasn’t a professional, but he’d killed before. The blood of six people stained this man. I was so focused on reading him that I almost didn’t see him move.
He raised his gun and fired again. The slug careened off of my silver case. His turn to blink.
I slid inside fast, captured his gun arm at the elbow, clamped in my own armpit, wrenched upward, and heard the joint pop. I slammed my silver case into his gut. When he doubled over, I slid in behind him and found his spine. I dug my fingers in, depressed the three critical vertebrae in the thoracic region, and felt him go limp.
I eased him down against the alley wall and then darted over to check on Agent Rezvani. Her pulse was strong, her breathing normal. Beyond a stunning headache, she’d be fine.
I went back and stood near the killer. He shifted his head just a little to look up at me. The still touch leaves a person conscious and lucid, but paralyzed from the neck down.
“What…what did you do to me, man?” he asked in heavily accented English.
“I want you to listen very closely,” I said. “Your life depends on it. Your life and a great deal more.”
He cursed at me. It was a vile, venomous blast that seemed to ricochet up the alley.
I ignored the curses and figurative instructions and said, “I’ve triggered a release of neurotransmitters in your body. It’s kind of like the paralysis that happens when you’re in a deep sleep. By itself, it’s not harmful, and it will wear off. But you need to understand something: by your own decisions and ac
tions, you stand condemned. I am going to offer you one…last…chance.”
“Mannn, what the…? What you mean, my last chance? You think I’m some kind’a punk—”
I swooped in beside him. I spoke the offer low and clear, words just for him, directly into his ear. When I stood up again, he looked up at me and for the briefest, split-second, I thought I saw just a glimpse of hope in his expression. But a steel curtain of hatred fell, and he cursed me again. He told me what I could do with my offer.
Then, he did something that surprised me.
He moved.
Not just his head. He started to get up.
In very rare cases, the power of the Shade within a man can overpower the man’s physiology. He flashed to his feet with shocking speed and gave a brutal palm thrust to my chest wound. I grunted and stumbled drunkenly backward into the opposite wall.
I’d seen so few men overcome the still touch that, all I could do at first, was blink stupidly at him. He called my stupid blinking and raised me one slackjawed grin, reminding me horribly of Smiling Jack’s victims. I was getting pretty tired of crooked smiles.
The taken man had only one working arm, but, as I’d just discovered, he had augmented strength. His left hand found the knife in his belt. He lunged.
I exploded upward and drove an uppercut beneath his chin. He staggered and dropped the blade, but this time, I didn’t let him fall. I dropped my case, and with a lunge, hooked my hands into his armpits and thrust him bodily into the air. I drove his head between iron rungs of the fire escape. I turned him and then, using my upper body strength and weight, gave him a swift yank. I heard and felt the vertebrae crack as they pulled apart and separated. I stepped a few paces back and watched the body sway for a moment.
The wound on my chest throbbed, but I was pretty sure I got the better end of the deal. In fact, I was certain of it. He’d had a chance. He’d had The Offer. In death, as in life, he had chosen…poorly.
“You killed him?” Agent Rezvani asked from behind me. I heard her slow approach, her heels making a gritty sound on the pavement. I think she still had her gun out. I think she had it trained on me.
Staring at the corpse I couldn’t help but notice how weathered and shriveled the man looked now. His shell looked so utterly wretched and sad—it made me long to wash my memory clear. I shook my head and whispered, “He’s gone.”
When she spoke again, her voice was hardened with law enforcement steel. “He came at me from a window well. Up there. Just dropped down like some kind of mountain lion. Still, I would have liked to question him.”
“Trust me on this,” I said. “He wasn’t the cooperative type. After he shot me, I—”
“He did shoot you,” she whispered, gasping out the words. “But he missed, right? Had to miss. You were lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck.” I turned. I was right. The FBI woman had a Sig Sauer pointed at my chest. The big gun wavered. She was uncertain. “You don’t need that,” I said. “I’m no threat…to you.”
Her arm and the gun fell to her side, but she didn’t reply. Her jaw went slack and her eyes widened. “No…he didn’t miss,” she said. “Mr. Spector?”
I followed her line of sight to my chest. The bullet had punched a nasty hole in my shirt and into the flesh of my right pectoral muscle, beneath the collarbone right where the pec tied in with the shoulder. The shirt had absorbed a lot of the blood, but the wound still leaked freely. Any second now, it would change. This won’t be easy to explain.
“Your blood,” Agent Rezvani said, her lip quivering. “It’s glowing.”
I said nothing. Her mind was reeling too chaotically to grasp any explanation I could give. Then, I felt a familiar inner pulsing, a tremor of muscle and flesh washing up from my legs, in from my arms—all converging on the bloody gash. This isn’t going to help. I turned my back.
“Freeze!” I heard the Sig Sauer’s hammer cock. “Turn around—SLOWLY.”
“You might want to cover your eyes,” I said. The pulses met at the broken skin. Involuntarily, I arched my back. Pure white light blazed from the gunshot wound, wavering and flashing like the bubbling gleam of a welding torch seen from the other side of a metal plate. Sound bled away to a ringing silence. I felt a familiar tingling itch, like hundreds of tiny strands of thread were being drawn through seams in my flesh. The mangled bullet pinched out of my chest and fell at my feet. The light burned away, leaving a slightly luminous scar. The lightwash was over. Now the hard explanation.
I turned around. A cool breeze swept up the alley behind me, but I didn’t think much of it. I locked eyes with the FBI agent. She lowered the gun again and stared at my chest. “That’s impossible,” she said.
“Uncommon,” I said. “But not impossible.”
“I saw the wound,” she whispered. “I saw the bullet…it freaking popped out! How did it…how could you…heal?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, reflexively locating my silver case. It was near the apartment building wall, a few feet from the hanging body. I glanced at the dumpster in the back of the alley and said, “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee?” she echoed absently. “Cof…fee?”
She’d just blown a fuse. Somewhere in the multitude of mental pathways formed by each and every experience of her life, Agent Rezvani had just hit a wall. There was no frame of reference for what she’d just experienced, and it left her unstable. I was about to say something when I felt the cold breeze again. It wasn’t natural, and I thought maybe the Shade was taking its leave. But no, there was something different here. Something foreign and very, very dangerous.
I held up my hand. The hair on my neck stood up. I heard a predatory clicking behind me. I hadn’t heard the sound for some time, but it was unmistakable. “Agent Rezvani,” I said. “You need to run…right now.”
“I’m not leaving you without an expl—”
“RUN! NOW!”
She backed away a few steps, and something hit me hard from behind. I pitched forward, rolled to a crouch and almost lost consciousness. I felt a combination of burning and numbness on my back. Either an especially large Shade or the more lethal Knightshade, I wouldn’t be able to tell without a Netherview. But my vision swam, and I couldn’t focus enough. I heard movement.
It was coming.
I leaped up, grabbed the fire escape, and—hoping to let it pass beneath me—kicked up my legs. The thing slammed into my heels, launching my torso into a backward swing. Nearly inverted but still holding on, I crashed into the fire escape’s lowest landing. I lost my breath and my grip and fell headfirst toward the pavement. If only I’d hit the pavement.
Whatever it was grabbed my ankle out of the air and flung me cartwheeling toward the dumpster. I heard a deep metallic thud, felt the jolt of my body slamming into the metal, and then collapsed to the pavement. I coughed hard and spat a bloody gob. Then I heard the clicking and sharp scrapes on the street. I blinked, saw my case, and made a desperate grab.
In a clumsy, painful dive, I sprawled toward the case. The thing took hold of my leg and started to lift. I snatched the handle of my case, released the catch, and twisted around. I fired both streams of netherwield, the powerful agent used in any particle nether weapon. I prayed I hadn’t missed.
There was a grating shriek. I fell back to the pavement and snatched up my case. I needed to know what I was up against, so while I reached around inside the case, I constricted the thin muscles around my eyes, and attempted a Netherview.
The alley fell into twilight. Where there had been buildings and fire escapes and sidewalks, there now stood a thicket of ethereal trees, swaying gently near a stream’s bank. A weed-strewn walk of cobbled stone curled from my position up to a pair of massive hoofed feet. My head pounded, and I couldn’t stay focused. The nether flickered, and I saw that the shade wore a black crown. A Knightshade. The netherwield surged on his massive arm and he flexed his fingers, trying to regain motor control. Then he turned to me.
My focus wavered. The last thing I saw was the Knightshade removing a huge hammer from its back hanger.
A brimstone bludgeon.
“Blood and thunder!” I exclaimed, scrambling through the contents of my case for my favorite dagger. I found it, the corded grip sliding into my palm. Then I leaped into the dumpster and tried to brace myself.
The Knightshade growled. The right panel of the dumpster collapsed inward, and the whole thing slewed farther back into the alley. Before the next blow, I leaped back out of the dumpster, cracked my knee smartly against the side of the red building, and limped up the alley.
There was a heavy crunch of metal and another shriek behind me. I flexed my eyes, trying to penetrate the nether and see the thing. It was running toward me again.
“Spector, what’s going on?” Agent Rezvani yelled. “I can’t see what—”
“You’re STILL here?” I bellowed. “RUN, NOW!”
I saw into the nether just in time to witness the bludgeon wheeling toward me. I ducked and fell backward, and the fiery weapon crashed into the side of the building causing a hail of brick shrapnel. Tiny fragments sprayed into my eyes as I tried to crab crawl backward.
I was lifted bodily three feet off the ground. It had me by the neck and began to squeeze. I swiped with my dagger, but it must have been holding me at arm’s length…like a bully teasing a smaller child. I gasped and choked and felt my senses starting to leave me. Then I heard a click. Agent Rezvani had ignored my command. Of course, she wouldn’t know the threat. I had an idea. After all, the Sig Sauer was a respectfully powerful weapon.
I grabbed the Knightshade’s arm with my free hand, strained the muscles around my eyes, and channeled all my strength into Netherview. Amazing how much power you can find when you’re about to have your throat crushed. The sight of the Knightshade was nearly blinding from my perspective. Every feature within the nether burned with white hot intensity, and I knew that slowly…some of it would become visible in Earthveil.
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