by L. K. Hill
“Yes.”
Shaun nodded. “Everyone get in the car. Now,” he added when Gabe didn’t move.
Gabe turned and pushed Kyra ahead of him, helping her into the bronco. The tires spit gravel as they peeled out. Kyra gave Shaun instructions and Shaun turned on his lights and sirens, explaining that most of the city's police force would meet them there.
Kyra leaned close to Gabe and rested her head on his shoulder. “We’ll meet him again down there, Gabe,” she said, loud enough to be heard above the sirens. “The killer I mean. I’m sure of it.”
Gabe wrapped his arms around her and pressed his mouth to the top of her head. “I hope so,” he said firmly.
Kyra craned her neck backward to look up at him. “You shouldn’t hope that,” she said, looking frightened. “He’s a demon.”
Chapter 24
Kyra kept pace with the tight formation. Shaun walked directly ahead of her. Gabe stalked to her right, Cora to her left. More officers marched around them. She’d thought it would be more like this when she first went in with Tyke. Dozens of police men and women with guns, helmets, shields, and, as Cora suggested, flood lights.
They made it through the Mire and to the edge of the crater with minimal interaction. Most Mirelings who saw them coming skittered away into the shadows, probably feeling relieved when the cops passed by.
As when she'd come with Tyke, they split into smaller groups to approach the Dictum from multiple entrances. Unlike before, though, once the groups split, each still held dozens of people.
They followed the pathways down to the bottom of the amphitheater in single file. A dozen SWAT officers went down first, flood lights carving a path through the darkness before them. Shaun went next, followed by Cora. Gabe motioned for Kyra to follow her, and he came directly behind Kyra, face grim, eyes sweeping in every direction.
Long before Kyra saw the Dictum, she heard the chaos.
The thumping of movement. Screams and shouts. Calls of, “Police! Hands up!” A gunshot here and there.
By the time she made her way in, gun drawn, things felt controlled. Everywhere she turned, cops held groups of Prowlers at gun point while the officers still piling into the Dictum slapped on cuffs or helped guard them. They'd been taken by surprise, and the Abstreuse PD had things well in hand.
Kyra didn’t trust it. Everything in this city felt illusory.
Gabe wrapped the fingers of his left hand around her upper arm and leaned down close to her ear. “Which way did Tyke go when you last saw him?”
It felt like hours ago, and Tyke might be anywhere by now. She supposed they had to start somewhere. She nodded in the direction she’d last seen him, toward the eastern perimeter of the Dictum.
Gabe led, and she remained right on his heels. Cora and Shaun stayed with them, guns drawn, practically breathing in Kyra’s ears. They wove through groups of Prowlers, officers working together to hold down or subdue those putting up a fight, and in some cases, injured or obviously dead.
Curiously, Kyra didn’t see the remains of Rendon or Ortiz. She didn’t know where their bodies went, and didn’t want to think about it in too much detail.
Kyra scanned the space as they went, looking for Tyke. Gabe and Cora’s heads swiveled in every direction, doing the same thing.
They reached an exit directly opposite the one they'd entered from. Kyra wondered if the layout would be the similar. She stepped into the circular passage after Gabe. Less of the ceiling was intact, and more debris filled the corridor. Otherwise, it looked much the same.
Gabe stopped and peered back into the Dictum, looking frustrated. “I don’t see him in there. Where would he go?”
He turned to her expectantly.
“I don’t…” she trailed off, looking toward the nearest exit from the circular passage.
“What?” Gabe asked.
“Beyond this circle, it branches into more tunnels. When I ran, I headed back the way we’d come," she nodded back across the Dictum. "Up into the Mire. If Tyke broke free, he would have gone this way, farther in. In his place, I'd have started making turns, hoping to find some dark hideout to catch my breath and plan what to do next.”
Gabe nodded and headed for the nearest exit. As Kyra predicted, tunnels led in other directions beyond the passage. They didn’t branch in as many directions as she'd have thought, which made their choices easier. Each time a tunnel branched off, Gabe chose the darker, emptier one. She supposed it made a frightening sort of sense. If SWAT or others already searched the other passages, and Tyke went that way, they’d find him. Gabe headed into passages that hadn’t been explored by his fellow officers yet.
Cora produced a flashlight and shined it into the dark passages. Not as powerful as the flood lights, of course, but a high-power Maglite that projected a stream of intense, fluorescent illumination. More than enough to scare any hiding Prowlers away.
They moved forward through the passage. Sounds of the controlled chaos in the Dictum became muffled. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The scent of wet desert dirt hung in the air. Rain would soon descend.
A fork loomed ahead in the tunnel. Why was it so much darker down both sides of the fork? Then Kyra realized: the ceilings were intact here. Not open to the air as the rest were. True tunnels, they were blacker than pavement and ominous. Gabe peered down each passage. “Let’s split up,” he said.
“No,” Shaun shook his head. “There already aren’t enough of us. Hold up a second.” He turned and walked back the way they’d come. His muffled voice floated to them, talking to others he encountered. The seconds ticked by, seeming interminable. The quiet felt too still down here.
Footsteps tromped toward them from the direction Shaun disappeared in. Gabe and Cora tensed, then relaxed when Shaun came into view again, four officers behind him.
“Now we can split up,” he said when he’d reached them. "Stay in a circle, back to back as much as possible. I don’t think there are many of them down here, but we can’t be certain. Even one or two could ambush us.” He turned to Gabe. “If you find Tyke, text me.”
Gabe nodded. He moved down the right passage, and Kyra went with him, fighting a sense of claustrophobia as they moved into ceilinged tunnel. Two of the officers Shaun brought, one a blond man and one a tall woman, came with them. The woman produced a flashlight like Cora’s and used it to light their way.
Shaun, Cora, and the other two officers moved off to the left.
Their group crept quickly along the passage for what had to be more than five minutes. Smaller passages frequently led off to the right and left. The officer with the flashlight shined it into them. Most dead-ended within sight. Most were wider than the doorway leading to them, like long, skinny rooms. After peering into each corner, Gabe led them on.
A thud, followed by a rumble came from behind them. As one the group whirled, guns raised behind them. The four of them stood alone in the passage. Then came a creaking. It turned into a squeal. A roaring crash filled the air as the left side of the tunnel exploded.
"The tunnel is caving in," someone shouted. Kyra wasn't sure who.
Gabe's arms wrapped around Kyra. He swung her around, away from the explosion and forced her down onto her knees, covering her body with his own.
Kyra waited, but nothing happened. The sound faded, followed by a few creaks and groans, and the sound of rocks hitting one another. She didn't try to look up until Gabe loosened his grip on her, sitting up himself.
"Everyone okay?" he asked. "Officers?"
"Yes, okay," the woman said.
"Fine." A man's voice came from Kyra's right.
The flashlight, which had gone out at some point, sprang back to life. Behind them, in the place they'd stood not thirty seconds ago, a wall of debris blocked the passage.
"Shit," Gabe muttered.
"Did that just…cave in?" Kyra asked. What were the chances the entire wall would suddenly fall in, trapping them, right after they passed it?
"No," the female off
icer answered grimly. "Something exploded. Someone is trapping us here on purpose."
"Are we trapped?" Kyra asked. The dust in the air had already begun to settle, but she still felt as though she were breathing it.
The blond officer walked to the wall of debris and began picking chunks of cement off it and tossing them down at his feet. "It's all pretty loose," he said. "May be a bit precarious, but we should be able to dig our way out without much trouble."
Gabe looked down the tunnel in the way they'd been headed, then back at the wall of debris. "Start digging. We can't go any farther not knowing if we have an escape route."
"Gabe?"
The familiar voice came from room ahead and to their right. A whoosh of relief filled Kyra’s chest.
“Tyke!” Gabe lunged toward the voice. Kyra and the two officers followed, the blocked passage momentarily forgotten.
Tyke squatted alone in the corner to the left of the entrance. The officer with the flashlight shined it to the right of him. They saw Tyke clearly, but didn't blind him with the light.
The room, if it could be called that, was small. Smaller than most of the hotel rooms Kyra had rented. It was rectangular, and might have been longer than it looked, but fifteen feet away, rather than a "back wall," stood a black grate. Made of heavy metal with plenty of dollar-sized holes in it, the grate filled the passage entirely. Kyra crossed the room and tried it. It didn't budge. Not even a rattle.
"I already tried that," Tyke said. "It's locked. And watch out for that soft spot over there," he pointed.
Kyra looked. She'd walked past a brown spot on the ground. The concrete was obviously missing and wet dirt filled a hole six feet in diameter.
"Quicksand?" she asked.
Tyke nodded grimly. "Yeah."
The female officer ran her light along the edges of the grate. "No lock on this side," she said. "Must be on the other one."
"We'll know if someone comes," the male officer said quietly. We'll see the light."
Kyra shook her head. "The Prowlers don't need light. If they come through that, our escape is still blocked."
"She's right," Gabe said. "Officers, can you go start clearing us a path. I need to talk to Detective Burrel here. Then we'll join you."
The two officers nodded and headed back out into the corridor. Gabe took out his cell phone. The light from it shone dimmer than the flashlight, but it was enough.
Only then did Kyra get her first good look at Tyke. A mass of scrapes and bruises covered his face. A gash above his left eye dripped blood into it, and down his cheek. His right shoulder drooped in a strange way, and when he straightened his legs, he favored his left ankle. Yet he was alive. Blessedly alive.
“You okay?” Gabe asked Tyke.
Tyke nodded grimly.
“What’s going on, Tyke? Who approved this operation? Shaun didn’t know anything about it.”
Tyke gazed at Gabe with haunted eyes. They shifted to Kyra.
“Out with it, Tyke,” Gabe said. “What’s going on?”
“We were looking for the killer,” Tyke said quietly. “We knew he’d be down here. Wanted to catch him.”
"Kyra told us that much in the car. How did you get authorization for this op if not from Shaun?"
Tyke swallowed. "It came through a…specific channel."
Gabe looked exasperated. "What channel?"
Something clicked in Kyra’s head. Another channel. She stepped forward. “Wendel's group. They aren’t cops are they?”
Gabe frowned at Kyra. Tyke raised his head and slowly shook it.
“Who then?”
Tyke heaved a deep sigh. “Mobsters.”
Chills rumbled down Kyra’s spine as the pieces fell into place. No wonder Wendel hadn’t acted like a cop.
“The m—” Gabe began. He froze, staring at Tyke in disbelief. “Are you the leak in the department?”
After interminable seconds, Tyke nodded. "The mob has contacts high up in the PD. They arranged the op somehow. The details were above my paygrade."
Kyra felt like an intruder. Maybe she should go help the others clear the passageway. Her feet felt cemented to the spot.
Gabe stared at Tyke. “How long?”
“Two years.”
Gabe’s eyes grew wider, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Why?”
“They only wanted small things at first. Looking the other way on things that can be explained by lack of funding or training. They paid me well for it, Gabe. I wanted to get my family out of this city.”
Gabe shook his head, anger entering his countenance. “You’ve worked here long enough to leave whenever you want. All you gotta do is put in a transfer.”
“Yeah, but I’ll always struggle to make ends meet.”
“We all will, Tyke. That’s part of the job.”
“I wanted more for my girls, Gabe. You don’t have kids, so you don’t understand.”
Kyra wanted to object. That statement was hardly fair. But this conversation had become one between brothers, now. Kyra stayed a step behind Gabe and kept her eyes on the ground.
“If I'd kept it up another year,” Tyke continued, “I would have left Abstreuse with enough to put both my girls through school, and never worry between now and then.”
Kyra's eyebrows jumped on their own. Tyke’s girls were four and six. Enough money for the next fourteen years and college tuition? He must have stacks of cash squirreled away.
She glanced up at Gabe. He studied Tyke’s face, a grimness in his eyes she’d never seen before. Her heart went out to him. She knew something about looking your brother in the eye after he’d made terrible decisions.
“Things didn’t start to go bad until this bastard killer came to Abstreuse.” Tyke said quietly.
Gabe’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“When the working girls started dying, the mob put pressure on me to give them information. Not anything official. This guy is killing off their clientele, and you know how they are about revenue streams. They’d happily dispatch with the killer themselves, except they can’t find him. Only a little added pressure at first. It's gotten worse and worse.”
Tyke’s eyes shift to Kyra. “The intel we got didn’t come from undercovers. It came from the mob. They’d sent people beyond the seventh layer to look for this guy. Most of them died. They managed to get the layout and clear the route down so we could make it in. They knew he’d be here, and they wanted me to come in and get him. They sent me men to help. I prayed we’d get a hold of him without a problem. The intel was bad. It…” he studied his dust-streaked, pock-marked hands. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”
"Why you?" Kyra asked, her own voice surprising her. Both men turned to look at her.
"What?" Tyke asked.
"Why did they want you specifically? If they knew he'd be down there, why not take him out themselves?"
After a moment, Tyke shook his head slowly again. "I don't know. I asked them, but couldn't get a straight answer. They just said it had to me. Wouldn't give me a reason."
“Tyke,” Gabe said, still sounding shell-shocked. “You brought a dozen good cops down here. Some are dead. You brought Kyra into danger,” his voice rose to a shout. “After all we've done to save her, why would you think that's okay!? Why would you trust the intel at all?”
“It's not about trusting it,” Tyke said. “It's about not having a choice. Gabe, they threatened my children.”
Gabe blinked at him. He shook his head as if to clear it. “Why didn’t you come to us, Tyke? You know we can protect you. You know we would, no matter what you’ve done.”
“You would,” Tyke said grimly. “Others wouldn’t. You can’t protect me from the mob, Gabe. You know my cousin, the one who died last month?”
Gabe nodded.
“Whoever killed him carved the Carlotta crest into his chest. I didn’t even know the guy, Gabe. Met him once when we were in high school. I couldn’t have given them his address if they’d asked."
Gabe had gone very still. "You never told me that."
Tyke spread his hands, looking desperate. "How could I without telling you everything? They told me if I didn’t come down here tonight, didn’t find the killer and get him off the streets for them, they’d come after my wife and kids.” His eyes took on a pleading look. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I had to protect my girls.”
Gabe heaved a deep breath. “Where are they now?”
“I put them in a hotel before coming down here.” A look of fear danced across Tyke's face. “This killer found Kyra in a hotel. He, or the mob, could find them. I need to get them out of the city."
Kyra shook her head. “The killer did something specific to find me there. I doubt anyone knows where your family is this soon, Tyke.”
Gabe frowned at her. He didn’t ask, though, instead turning back to Tyke. “Come on. We need to go find Shaun. We’ll deal with this, Tyke. We’ll make sure your family is safe. I promise. But this has to come out.”
Tyke looked heavier, his face ghostly. He nodded.
A loud crack, like plastic breaking apart, gave Kyra all of two seconds' warning. The metal grate that closed off the passage burst toward them. A dozen people burst out. Half had knives or other blades raised above their shoulders. The other half carried handguns.
Kyra did no more than raise her gun before being tackled. The man who crashed into her flipped her onto her belly, shoving her face into the musty-smelling pavement. She fought, but could only flail her arms and legs weakly. The man’s full weight pressed between her shoulder blades.
The group ran right over Tyke and Gabe as well. Their muffled voices reached her ears. She couldn’t register what they said. Gunfire exploded around her, bullets whizzing above her head. She couldn’t see anything except shoes, and couldn’t tell whose belonged to whom.
“Kyra!” Gabe called her name more than once, first from her right, then to the left and behind her somewhere. A woof of air followed each time, as though he’d been slugged in the stomach.
The movement stopped so abruptly, Kyra blinked. Had she gone deaf? The shoes around her stood motionless. The weight still pressed her chest into the pavement, the hand held her face to it as well. What happened? Fear grew in her chest. Were Gabe and Tyke still breathing?