by L. K. Hill
He turned to find seven people still present on the property. Damiens, Colt, Asper, and four techs, including Donald and Barbara. The two of them could have left hours ago, jobs done, but they’d stayed. All of them stood ten feet behind Gabe, eyes on the ground, waiting.
As Gabe turned, Damiens raised his eyes and Gabe nodded at him. “You can take him,” he whispered.
He didn't think Damiens heard him over the wind, but the sheriff seemed to understand and motioned to the other two techs. They laid out a black body bag beside the truck, unzipping it and pulling back the flaps. Gingerly, they lifted the tiny skeleton into it. More tears came as they zipped it up and carried it to the back of the last remaining van. The techs and officers dispersed, heading for their respective cars.
Gabe didn’t remember walking away. He found himself beside the jeep he’d arrived in. When the others left, leaving their jeep alone on the property, Damiens approached, looking grim. “My deepest condolences, Detective,” he said quietly. “Can I do anything for you?”
Gabe shook his head. “Just get me out of here.”
He climbed into the jeep. Before he could shut the door, the wind rose fiercely and slammed it for him, howling angrily across the desert. Gabe peered out at the ranch house. Nothing left here anymore, except emptiness. Desolation. Even the bodies were gone. Nothing except vacant buildings and ghosts.
The other three men climbed into their respective places in the jeep. Colt, for once, remained silent. Gabe didn’t know whether to bless the silence or wish for the chatter.
Evidently, he wasn’t the only one. Damiens twisted around and fixed his eyes on Colt. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
Colt didn’t answer. He didn’t shake his head. He stared vacantly at the sheriff, face ashen.
“Nothing at all?” Damiens persisted.
“Leave the boy alone, Sheriff,” Asper said gruffly. “He’s aged many years today.”
The sheriff grunted and started the car. As they pulled away, Asper wiped a tear from his eye.
Chapter 22
As promised, a woman Kyra didn't know with an Abstreuse police badge showed up at seven pm at her hotel. Tyke called half an hour before to tell Kyra of the woman's imminent arrival.
Carma Daniels proved to be a brusque, no-nonsense type, and not particularly talkative. She outfitted Kyra with a snug-fitting Kevlar vest and gave her forearm and shin guards to wear under her clothes.
“Are these Kevlar too?” Kyra asked.
“They’re not as thick,” Carma answered. “They’ll deflect, but a close-range bullet will still pierce them.”
Kyra nodded.
The woman left an hour later, and Kyra texted Tyke.
On my way, he wrote. Kyra checked her appearance one more time. Tyke had found her a dark wig. Not black and spiky like her Supra one, but dark brown and cut in a sleek A-line. She’d clipped it to her real hair, which was pulled back in a tight bun, as she’d always done with her Supra disguise. She wore her black, baggy Supra clothes over the Kevlar.
Twenty minutes later, Tyke knocked on the door. He smiled when he saw her, seeming approving of her disguise. He also handed her a small nine-millimeter with a holster to clip to her belt.
"We're meeting two groups of people in the Mire," he said. "We'll be going over the approach plan with everyone when we get there."
Kyra nodded. They passed the plain-clothes officer as they headed for the parking lot. He'd been reading the same paper all day. He glanced up at them, but made no other response.
As Kyra ducked into the passenger side of Tyke's car, lightning lit up the sky.
“Is it supposed to rain?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I checked. It’s a lightning storm. There may be some rain later tonight, but not until the early hours.”
“Just taking the weather man’s word, huh?” Kyra grinned.
Tyke smirked.
“I still don’t see why I couldn't meet you there.”
Tyke shrugged. “Easier this way. Need to know and all that. Did you talk to Gabe?”
Kyra sighed. “Yes. Did you?”
“No. Cora did. Told me about the body he found. It’s probably Dillon.”
Kyra nodded. “He sounded heartbroken on the phone.”
Tyke grunted.
“I should have gone with him.”
“I don’t think Shaun would have approved that.”
“Gabe said the same thing. I get it, but it still sucks.”
He grunted.
"So how's this going to play out, Tyke?"
He glanced at her, then nodded. "We'll go in with a large group. Even most criminals wouldn't attack a large group of armed cops. We'll be moving quickly, so even if they get any ideas, we'll be there and gone before they can arrange anything."
"Won’t there be guards in the Dictim?”
“Of course. We've already taken care of the guards. Our contacts have done a lot of preliminary work for us.”
"Okay, but who are your contacts?" Kyra asked. "Actual Prowlers? Undercovers?"
Tyke pursed his lips. "I don't want to go into all that, Kyra. Need-to-know, remember?"
“So,” Kyra said quietly, voicing her best guess. “Officially there aren’t undercovers. Unofficially—”
"Kyra," he said warningly.
She sighed. “Fine. You said there'd be a dozen Prowlers there, right? The leaders?”
He nodded. “All other Prowlers will avoid this place until well after midnight, to keep from interrupting the meeting. We need to get in, take them down, cuff them, and get them back out in the Mire before any backup arrives. We have to be swift and quiet or we’ll lose control of the situation.”
Kyra frowned. This still felt awfully risky. "And you're sure if we bring the leaders in, you can put them away for what happened in the Carmichael District?”
Tyke shrugged uncomfortably. “Not sure, no. But we'll have a case. After that, it’s a matter for the courts. Mob-mentality cases are always hard to prove because you can’t put one person away for something someone else did.”
Kyra frowned. “Obviously.”
“We can’t prove who did what. Too much going on and too many people involved.”
“So why risk this if you're not even sure you can put them away?”
Tyke glanced at her, then heaved a deep breath. “This doesn’t leave this car, understand?”
Kyra nodded eagerly.
“They have nearly thirty DNA samples from the warehouse. They collected more than double that, but the rest have been matched to victims and Mirelings imprisoned there. The rest either belong to victims who aren’t in the system, in which case it doesn’t matter. They’re dead.”
Kyra winced.
“Or, they belong to perpetrators.”
Kyra processed the information. “So you’re hoping some of the people you bring in tonight will match the DNA samples you have. If they do, you can prosecute.”
“That’s what they tell me,” he said grimly.
The car ride felt interminable, and yet too short. Kyra’s heart pounded when Tyke pulled up beside three other squad cars on the East side of the Mire. Six uniformed cops lounged against them.
She followed Tyke toward the cars. “Evening,” he said, addressing the unies.
They murmured their answers and each introduced themselves. Kyra didn’t know any of them. Evidently Tyke hadn’t met them before either. Two of the six, Officers Marion and Tuttle, would remain behind with the squad cars. Flashing lights kept most Mirelings at bay, but they could hardly expect to leave decently-kept-up cars in the middle of the Mire and not have them be stripped.
Tyke moved farther into the Mire. Kyra and the other four officers followed.
At one layer deep, Kyra caught sight of a group of people. A dozen men and women—at least she thought some were women; with all the dark, bulky clothing and pulled back hair, she found it hard to tell gender—loitered about. They all straightened when they saw Tyke co
ming.
When he reached them, they gathered around and Tyke pulled a thick, folded paper from the inside pocket of his coat and spread it out on the black top. Easily five feet by five, Tyke used his phone to illuminate the huge chart. It turned out to be a hand-drawn map.
He pointed to a large circular area on the map. “This amphitheater has four entry points. Four paths that lead to the bottom. It's steep, so watch your step. The four paths lead to the four quarters of the Dictum. One of our groups will enter from each direction. We’ve already made sure we’ll be able to get down to the ground floor without trouble. Once each group is down, proceed to here.” He pointed to a smaller oval inside the amphitheater. “It’s a circular passage that runs all the way around the Dictum. Like a circular hallway around an arena, except these tunnels are open to the sky."
"Tunnels?" an officer Kyra didn't know asked.
Tyke nodded. "The Dictim is basically an old sewer system. It should be dry down there. In many places, the buildings built over the sewer have sunk or caved in or just become desiccated, so the tunnels don't have roofs." He pointed to the map again. "There are sixteen entry points from this circular passage to the Dictum. We’ll cover every exit. Our goal is to take down the dozen Prowlers in there.”
He straightened. “They usually don’t have guns, so we don’t anticipate much gunfire, but we can’t be absolutely certain. Even if not, they’ll still come at us with other weapons. Our goal is to be in and out of the Dictum in under five minutes. Everyone be vigilant, ready for anything. Listen for my voice. When I say it’s time to go, no exceptions. Understand?”
Heads nodded around the group.
“We’re still waiting for more people,” Tyke said. “They should be here soon.”
Three male officers approached Kyra. The first, Rendon, looked middle-aged. Gray adorned his temples but his physique was trim and hard. "Evening, ma'am. I'm Officer Rendon. The three of us," he motioned to his fellow officers, "will be in your group when we get down there."
Kyra shook his hand. "Kyra. Have you been on the job long?"
"Twenty years. Worked most of the major departments in Nevada."
She nodded as the second officer stepped forward.
This one looked closer to her age with a hint of a gut. His dark complexion and a Mexican accent told her his nationality even before he said his name. "Only six years on the job for me. Only ever worked the 32nd precinct on the far side of the city. More local than Rendon here. But I got kids so I gotta stay close to them. Name's Ortiz."
Kyra smiled. "How old are your kids?"
"Four and six," he grinned proudly.
The third officer's head sat two full feet above Kyra's and was topped with straw-colored hair. "Keen, ma'am. Been on the force ten years. The last four have been with SWAT."
"Nice to meet you," she murmured.
They spoke in quiet tones for a time, each of them telling her about their wives and children. Rendon's children were grown and he had two grandbabies. Keen had no children of his own, but his second wife had brought him step children, both of which were teenagers. Kyra in turn telling them a little about herself, sticking where she was from and that she was single. She didn't mention Manny at all, nor what she did. She noticed they didn't ask whether she was cop. She wondered what they knew. The four of them fell silent after that, waiting for the action to begin.
The rest of the group Tyke referred to still hadn’t arrived.
Kyra leaned against one filthy brick wall, letting her eyes sweep the alley. After all her time as Supra, vigilance had become second nature. They were only one layer deep, so the alley being empty aside from the cluster of cops wasn’t surprising.
Lightning lit up the sky again. It happened every 5-10 minutes, and she swore each strike grew bigger and brighter. Perhaps it would be helpful in the darkness beyond the seventh layer.
The clomp of shoes on pavement brought everyone's heads around. Roughly a dozen people moved toward them. Tyke crossed to meet them, holding out his hand to the leader. The only thing Kyra could see of the leader was dark, slicked back hair. He glared down at Tyke's outstretched hand and didn't shake it. The two of them exchanged quiet words—more instructions, no doubt—and then Tyke came to stand by Kyra.
Odd, that the officer had refused to shake Tyke's hand. What a jerk.
“Ready?” Tyke asked.
Kyra frowned. “Is this everyone?”
He glanced down at her. “Yes. Why?”
“I thought it would be a bigger force. Shouldn’t there be SWAT teams and shields and helmets? It doesn’t seem like a big enough deal considering how much you all stress the danger of going beyond the seventh layer.”
Tyke gazed down at her, his face serious, his brows furrowed, but she couldn’t read his emotion.
Before he answered, the leader of the second group with the slicked back hair strode up behind him. “Detective.”
Tyke turned.
“Once we get past the seventh layer, my people will lead you to the entry points. They’ll be carrying these.”
Slick Hair held up what looked like a glow stick. When he snapped it in half, a dull green luminescence issued from it, confirming Kyra’s suspicions. It wasn’t bright, but beyond the seventh layer, even the red light of the Mire disappeared. The glow stick would shine like a homing beacon in there.
“Tell your people,” Slick Hair said. “If they fall behind or get separated, to look for these.”
Tyke nodded.
Slick Hair turned back toward his group, but froze when his eyes fell on Kyra. They fastened on her face, then slid slowly down her body, a small smirk turning the corners of his mouth up. Kyra wanted to deck him, but he gave her the creeps. She felt a stronger compulsion to hide behind Tyke. She locked her knees and lifted her chin.
Tyke noticed the man’s leer as well. “Get going, Wendel,” he said firmly.
Wendel shrugged and sauntered back to his group.
“Sorry about him,” Tyke sighed. “He’s kind of an asshole.”
“So I gather.”
“Sorry,” he muttered again.
Kyra shrugged. “Guess they all can’t be like you and Gabe, huh?”
Her words seemed to disturb him. He frowned, passing a hand across his eyes. “Right.” Throwing one more side-long glance her way, he walked back to the first group to explain the glow sticks.
Kyra sighed. There must be off-the-books UCs in the Prowlers’ territory. Nothing else made sense. They’d already done some preliminary planning and reconnaissance, which is why Shaun had allowed this op. They must have control of some variables. Perhaps Wendel was an ass because he did undercover work and wasn't used to being around normal people.
As the minutes ticked by, Kyra studied Wendel's entire group. They seemed different than the group of cops Tyke showed the map to. Darker somehow. She noted the two groups didn't mix or socialize at all. Like there was some unspoken animosity between them.
It felt odd for Wendel to leer at her. It wasn't only the sexual element. Something was truly off about the whole situation. Not all policemen were the Officer Friendly type. Still, it struck Kyra as odd for one of them to choose now to leer. Both groups included women, all dressed in dark, frumpy, not-even-remotely-flattering attire. Why would a cop preparing to work a dangerous op suddenly turn into a horny teenager?
The more Kyra thought about it, the stranger it seemed. The way Wendel addressed Tyke as “detective” had an odd ring to it as well. Tyke called Wendel by his first name, yet Wendel used a title. It distinctly felt like Wendel was not a detective. Of course he could be some other kind of cop.
Kyra hurried to stand next to Tyke when he motioned her over. “Who are they, Tyke?” she asked, nodding toward Wendel’s group. "Are they from another precinct? Another city?”
Tyke frowned. “Something like that.”
Kyra opened her mouth to demand a better answer, but just then Wendel’s group joined theirs and everyone straightened in antici
pation. Time to go, it seemed.
“Okay people,” Tyke said. “Let’s do this.”
*******
Half an hour later, Kyra’s heart tried to pound its way out of her chest as they reached the seventh layer. Her last visit hadn't exactly been pleasant, and she felt a sense of sickly dread at the idea of returning. Images of burial mounds in The Purple Valentine and being paralyzed floated through her mind. She did her best to banish them.
It felt strange to walk through the Mire in a guise other than Supra’s. Strange that already the Mire seemed distant and alien, where mere days ago she’d felt at home here.
They reached the correct turn. Rather than going through the tunnel Kyra had used, they went by way of the spot Johnny Bronco witnessed Chyna fleeing from the night she’d encountered the killer. Kyra’s heart beat harder. The killer had walked this way before. The man killing prostitutes in the Mire. Probably the man who’d taken Gabe’s brother from him twenty-five years ago. The man who’d squatted over her in the Carmichael District and called her Chameleon.
She shivered.
Tyke marched forward, his mouth set in determination. Kyra stayed on his heels, hands wrapped around her gun. The sky lit up again as she rounded the bend. As though the heavens heralded their passage. Or perhaps gave them one final warning to turn back.
Passing from the sixth layer to the seventh only entailed passing from one street to another. The alley they walked ran east and west, part of the sixth layer. They turned left, taking the connecting alley to the next east-west running one. That would be the seventh layer. One alley to another. Simple.
And yet passing into the seventh layer seemed like passing into another world. Which said a lot, in a place as depraved as the Mire. An uncomfortable chill permeated the air. Did the temperature actually drop between one street and the next?
It became so dark, Kyra barely saw her hand in front of her face when she held it there. Some ambient red light did filter in from other streets. The negligible amount didn't truly illuminate anything, though. It only made the alley walls appear to have sinister red halos.