by L. K. Hill
If not for the lightning strikes, they would have been forced to feel their way in the dark like the blind.
When the sky lit up above them, they saw their way and the architecture around them clearly, if only for a handful of seconds at a time. As soon as the light faded, suffocating blackness enveloped them again. Perhaps the lightning wouldn’t be as much of a boon as Kyra hoped. The bright sky every few minutes blinded them, ensuring their eyes never adjusted to the dark.
The layout appeared similar to the Mire: a system of alleys and dilapidated buildings. Yet the styles were much older. Structures that should have been—and probably were—condemned decades ago peered down at them as they passed. Broken windows, splintered wood and hanging doors were all they could boast.
As they reached the next juncture of alleys, Tyke gave a signal, and the group split into four smaller groups. Kyra, of course, stayed with Tyke. Keen, Rendon and Ortiz followed. Wendel led their group.
The other three groups moved off in various directions, and Kyra felt naked. The number of people watching her back had been cut by three quarters.
As they approached the Dictum, Kyra's dread grew. From a distance, it looked like a crater. Splintered fragments of long-demolished buildings poked up along the perimeter, just like the last time she'd been here. She followed Tyke to the crater's edge and peered down onto a miniature valley in the center of the city.
A cleared track snaked down one part of the slope. Kyra would have preferred not to take the obvious path, but it seemed to be the only option.
Kyra couldn't see the other entry points. The crater gaped enormously—the size of a city block—and if the four entrance points lay equidistant from one another, her group would be far from their fellow officers when they all reached the bottom.
Tyke turned and addressed the group in a quiet voice. Kyra had no doubt everyone heard clearly, though. “Remember to keep your eyes on Wendel.” He glanced toward the tall man, and Wendel held up his green glow stick. “We must stay together. Watch each other’s backs. It's a bit of a labyrinth down there. You don’t want to get lost.”
Getting down went much as one would expect. Kind of like going down a trail one had hiked up. They stumbled down in as controlled a fashion as possible, kicking dirt and debris before them, making quite a ruckus for this part of the city. After the first twenty feet, they descended into darkness. Kyra wasn't great with distances, but it had to be at least another twenty before they reached the ground floor.
The passages truly were tunnels, or had been once. Made of concrete, complete with curved walls, the jagged tops lay open to the sky. The lightning illuminated them in ghostly ways.
Tyke said it should be dry, but it wasn't. Wet, sludgy dirt covered the ground.
"I thought you said water wasn't piped here anymore," Kyra said quietly.
"It's not," Tyke frowned. He went down on one knee to study the water.
"This isn't from the city's water supply," Wendel intoned, sounding annoyed. "It's seeping up through the cracks in the tunnels from the ground. We're directly on top of the oasis. Why do you think these tunnels have sunk so low?"
Even Tyke looked alarmed at Wendel's words. "Is there quick sand down here?"
Wendel shrugged. "Probably."
"What do you mean probably?" Kyra said. "We can't afford to get stuck in quick sand with all the dangerous people down here."
Wendel shrugged again, looking bored. "When you're walking, if you aren't sure a certain spot doesn't have concrete under it, don't step there." He chuckled like he'd made a witty joke.
"Let's move," Tyke said. "Everyone watch your step." Kyra stayed directly behind Tyke, her eyes on the eerie green light ahead of him, held by Wendel. They must be heading for the circular passage around the Dictum now.
Another ten minutes passed before their tunnel ended in a T-bone. Wendel stepped into the perpendicular passage and glanced both ways, then motioned to Tyke. Tyke made a forward motion with his hand, and the other officers nodded.
Heart pounding like a war drum, Kyra followed. Hurrying into the circular passage in a straight line, they went left, passing several entrances. Kyra glanced over her shoulder. Keen stopped by the first doorway they’d passed. Ortiz peered into the second. Rendon the third. She followed Tyke past the fourth, where Wendel took up position. When they reached the fifth entrance, she and Tyke flanked it. Kyra got her first look at the Dictum. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest.
When she first peered in, only blackness gazed back at her. The lightning struck overhead and the space in front of her came into sharp focus.
Larger than the warehouse in the Carmichael District, jagged mounds of crumbling concrete and low retaining walls filled the Dictum in a haphazard configuration. Kyra realized they were remnants of old tunnels. They'd been knocked down to create this huge, central space.
The lightning flashed again.
What nearly stopped her heart were the sleeping figures. Dark, breathing mounds of Prowlers currently at respite. Dozens of them, sprawled haphazardly in corners or on the open ground, spiraling out from the center.
The center looked darker than any other part of the space. Kyra couldn't put her finger on why.
The air smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and weed, combined with stale body odor, urine, and feces. Other smells she couldn't identify—and didn't want to—assaulted her nose. She hoped walking into this place didn’t get them all high. She thought she caught a hint of decomposition, and wondered if the smell came from animals or humans. Did the Prowlers bury their dead, or simply leave them to rot?
There wasn’t any meeting going on here. Far more than twelve Prowlers slept in there. Patches of free ground peeked through the sleeping bodies, but only patches.
Something was wrong. This was no meeting of leaders. Their intel had been bad. If everyone scattered, the cops might still make a few arrests for information, but the Prowlers weren’t exactly known for being timid. They certainly had no hope of identifying the killer from among this mob.
Kyra glanced at Tyke. Surely all this occurred to him as well. He must realize how outnumbered they were, and see the necessity of turning back. She wondered if he had any way to coordinate the information with the rest of the group. The instant they hollered at one another—or even talked in normal voices—they'd be exposed.
Tyke gazed down at her. His eyes held foreboding.
Kyra didn’t dare speak aloud. She used her eyebrows to nod back the way they’d come, hoping Tyke would understand. She couldn’t tell if he did. His face looked carved from stone, and it didn’t change.
A cry rang out from the opposite side of the Dictum. Kyra couldn't see anything. Perhaps one of the other groups had been spotted.
The lightning struck above. The Prowlers responded more quickly than Kyra could have imagined, leaping to their feet almost as one. Metal instantly sparkled throughout the room, throwing the light against the outer walls in a million different ways when the lightning flashed overhead once more.
Tyke grabbed Kyra’s arm and dragged her backward toward Wendel’s doorway, ten feet away. “Fall back!” he called to the others.
They didn’t make it to Wendel before Prowlers came lunging out of the entry ways, black auras filling the circular passage like blood oozing from a wound. They were more than surrounded. They were doomed.
Twelve pairs of hands grabbed Kyra’s arms and legs. They wrenched her cleanly from Tyke’s grasp. She squeezed her gun, getting off two shots before it was ripped away. Her index finger twisted backward and popped. She gasped as a sharp pain lanced through her fingers and hand.
“Tyke!” she screamed.
“Kyra!” his voice sounded far away.
They dragged Kyra back toward the fifth doorway and into the Dictum. Rough fingers twisted her hair in one direction while others jerked her torso in another.
She twisted her neck around, fighting them while trying to see where they were taking her. To her relief, Tyke and th
e other three officers all came into view. Prowlers besieged them too, but at least they weren’t being separated. Not yet.
Rendon struggled closest to her, only a few feet away. With more natural strength than she possessed, he kicked one assailant in the crotch and elbowed another in the nose, freeing his right hand. A swift right hook knocked another Prowler clean off his feet. He'd freed himself except for one Prowler holding onto his left ankle.
Something exploded from his chest. A spear. The metallic head looked bigger than Kyra’s hand and came to a razor-sharp point. Rendon dropped his eyes to it without comprehension. The Prowler who’d come up behind him yanked it back out. Rendon’s eyes crossed. He fell to his knees and then flopped, face first, onto the ground.
“ENOUGH!”
The deep, gravelly growl came from the center of the Dictum. The Prowlers holding Kyra in place froze, still holding her fast. Tyke, Keen and Ortiz were all in similar situations. Torches came to life around them, casting a dim, flickering light more constant than what the lightning gave.
From the center of the Dictum came a man Kyra had never seen up close. She knew immediately who he was, though. He wore nothing above the waist, other than dirt and grime. Below it he wore only a pair of filthy khaki shorts. They ended well above his knee, exposing most of his legs. His bushy hair, obviously a wig, looked like a recently acquired eighties perm. It sat like a fluffy nest on top of his head and reached far enough down his back to brush the backs of his knees.
The wig seen by Tina when Mallory Butler was murdered.
Here stood Mallory’s killer. The man who’d killed close to a dozen working girls since, and who knew how many before that? The man who may have kidnapped Gabe’s brother twenty-five years ago. Though honestly, he didn’t look old enough.
Kyra pushed the thought away. Details for another time.
This was him.
The psycho who'd plagued the Mire for months. He stood in the firelight, perhaps fifty feet from where Kyra stood. A wide, firm jaw sat high above Kyra on broad shoulders. His eyes, dark pools full of disdain for the world and everything in it, flicked over the room, missing nothing.
The killer walked toward Tyke, ignoring Kyra and the others. He looked Tyke up and down, as a butcher might a cut of meat.
“Let him go.” his voice came deep and raspy, like a trucker’s. Yet it boomed loudly enough for Kyra—and she imagined the rest of the room—to hear it clearly.
The Prowlers holding Tyke let him go, shoving him roughly toward the killer. He no longer held his gun.
“Why," the killer rasped. “Abstreuse’s finest, down here. Are you looking for me?”
Tyke’s glared at the man, but didn't answer.
The man smiled, and the hairs on Kyra's arms tried to stand up. “How interesting."
The killer’s eyes ran over Keen, Ortiz, and Rendon’s still figure on the ground. They swept toward her.
Shit.
Kyra tried to put her face down, but her jailers yanked her hair back, making it impossible. She prayed he wouldn’t recognize her in this disguise. That he'd think her only another cop in Tyke’s unit.
His eyes slid over her, past her, froze, came back.
Shit, shit.
The killer walked up in front of her, scrutinizing her face. Up close, his eyes looked black, his face carved from stone. A sudden understanding came into his expression.
Shit, shit shit!
In a single movement, he yanked the wig from her head and ripped her hair from its bun so it hung limply around her shoulders. His grin split his face in two, sending shivers of fear across her heart. He leaned in so close their noses nearly touched. “Chameleon,” he whispered. “Have you truly wandered in to yet another of my haunts? I’ve searched for you, since you brought these pigs in to dig up my treasures and cart them away, but with no luck. Now you come all by yourself.”
Kyra’s breathing came raggedly. She had no idea what to say. Or how to form words.
Movement in her peripheral vision brought her head around.
Tyke reached down by his ankle, pulled out a pistol and fired it at the killer.
Two Mirelings slammed into the backs of his legs. Tyke toppled forward, and Kyra’s eyes rushed to the killer, wondering if the bullet struck him. Did Tyke just end this thing?
The bushy-haired man reached calmly across his chest and with his index and middle fingers, wiped blood from the outside of his arm. Tyke’s bullet only grazed him.
Damn.
Several Prowlers grabbed the killer and guided him away from Kyra and out of the path of Tyke’s gun. Loyal minions who protected their master, no matter the cost to themselves.
Tyke fought the Prowlers, kicking and throwing his weight around. They couldn't get a firm hold on him. Suddenly he flipped onto his belly and pointed his gun straight at Kyra. It moved at the tiniest of angles before Tyke fired.
Kyra winced, scrunching her shoulders to make herself small. Again and again he fired. Again and again, the Prowlers holding Kyra thudded heavily to the ground around her.
“Run!” Tyke screamed. “Go! Get out of here! Run!”
He got half the final word out before one of the Prowlers hit him in the head with wooden club. Kyra turned and fled. The Prowlers around her were all down. She stumbled over them toward the entry way, knowing she only had seconds before others sprang after her.
Sliding through the entry way, she grasped the side to slingshot herself around the corner. The circular passageway proved blessedly clear. As she ran, she turned her head. She couldn’t see Tyke any longer. The thought of leaving him behind made her sick. Perhaps she could find him. Figure out some way to free him so they could flee together.
As she neared the T-bone passage leading toward the Mire, she slowed, peering into the Dictim. Ortiz struggled with his captors directly in her line of sight. Prowlers clubbed him all over with bats. As she watched, one of them produced a knife and drove it into his belly. Screams of pain and terror rang out from other parts of the Dictum, nearly drowned out by the whoops and hoots of the Prowlers doing the violence. It was the Carmichael District all over again.
Tears blurred her vision. A feral growl came from behind her. She turned. Lightning lit the sky, revealing the killer standing at the exit she’d used, staring directly at her.
The passage darkened when the lightning did. It flashed again seconds later, revealing the killer much closer to her, and coming at a dead run, his face screwed up in a snarl, like a demon ready to devour her soul.
Chapter 23
Gabe breezed into the precinct a little past ten, carrying a box of files, and headed for his desk. The air felt heavy and stale as usual, but Gabe found the familiarity comforting. Cora glanced up and spotted him from across the room. She stood as he approached the bull pen, looking surprised.
“I thought your plane didn’t come in until two.”
“It didn’t. I drove north to the next airport and hopped the red eye.”
Cora frowned. “Why? It only saved you four hours. And you spent all that money on gas.”
Gabe shrugged. “Wasn’t about time or money. I needed to get out of there. The drive helped me clear my head.”
Cora gave him a sympathetic look. “Any word yet?”
He shook his head. “No. The bodies have been transported. It’ll take at least a week to get DNA results.”
She nodded. “You’d better let Shaun know you’re back. He’ll want to talk to you about it.”
Gabe glanced toward Shaun’s office. The open blinds gave him a clear view of Shaun sitting at his desk, talking on the phone.
“Where’s Tyke?”
Cora hesitated. “I’m not sure. He’s off on a ghost errand again.”
Something about how she said it made Gabe’s stomach twist. Tyke's behavior became weirder by the day. “He okay?”
Cora shrugged. “As far as I know.”
Gabe nodded. He hefted the box and started for Shaun’s office, Cora walking behind hi
m. She knocked on Shaun’s door for him and at Shaun’s rough bark of an invitation, they both entered. They took the two chairs in front of Shaun’s desk and Gabe set the box of files on the floor at his feet.
Shaun stayed on the phone another two minutes, muttering one-word responses, before dropping the receiver into its cradle.
“Got back early?” he asked, making a note on the form in front of him.
Gabe nodded. “Yeah. I have notes from the crime scene. Thought you might want to see them.”
Shaun dropped his pen on top of the paper. “I do. First, I’d like to hear your impressions.”
Gabe shrugged. He’d thought about what he’d say the entire way home, knowing his colleagues would want his take on things. He’d planned exactly how he’d describe the events of the ranch. Now all the words left him. He studied the name plate on Shaun’s desk.
“Definitely the place,” he said quietly. “I think a lot of children are buried out there. It'll take some time to find and ID them all. At least we’ll bring a lot of people closure.” He took a deep breath. “I told you about the boy in the truck, which is probably Dillon.” His voice cracked as he said it. He pushed through, not allowing himself to give way to the pain. “There is also an adult male buried out back. Above ground.”
Shaun raised an eyebrow. “Above ground?”
“Yeah. It looked like half-shed, half Native American burial site. We’re not sure who he is."
"One adult body amongst a cemetery of children has to be significant.” Shaun said.
“How long had the body been there?” Cora asked. “If this person held some importance to the killer, maybe his death is the trigger that caused the killer to leave the ranch and come to Abstreuse.”
Gabe nodded. “I thought the same thing. I have no idea how old it is. At least months, but I’m no expert. We’ll have to wait for the forensic archeology reports.”
Shaun’s cell phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up, glanced at the screen, and frowned. He threw Gabe a significant look.
“What?” Gabe asked.