Shadow Flare (The Ruby Callaway Trilogy Book 2)

by D. N. Erikson

  SHADOW FLARE

  THE RUBY CALLAWAY TRILOGY (BOOK 2)

  D.N. ERIKSON

  WATCHFIRE PRESS

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  1

  Penthouse Skywalk

  Downtown Phoenix

  Present

  “You’re causing us problems, Realmfarer. But then, this is nothing new.”

  “Sorry to be such an inconvenience,” I retorted as the tips of my ankle boots clung to the edge of the skywalk’s carbon frame, searching for purchase. Rough hands held my legs, keeping me from hurtling to the ground face-first—for now. Broken glass from the shattered window tore through my jeans. At 5,500 feet, the air was thin, the smallest of movements feeling fatal.

  Wind howling in my ears, I watched as a strand of spit drifted into the cloudless night. It was tinged red with blood. Or maybe that was from the neon holo-ads dancing thousands of feet below.

  A strong hand pushed me further toward the abyss. Donovan Martin’s henchman wasn’t playing around—this situation had gone from alarming to code red in about three minutes. Kudos for efficiency, even if I was on the wrong end.

  “Tell me all you know, Ruby.” Donovan’s kind voice was incongruous with the barbaric threat of throwing me off the penthouse skywalk. “Come clean before you die.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a door number two?”

  “There is no safe haven in this world for sinners.”

  “I wish someone had told me that two hundred years ago.” Wind streamed through my hair, the brown strands fluttering over my eyes.

  Just as well.

  It’d be better not to see the ground before I hit.

  Where the hell was Roark? Partners implied equal share. But here I was, head dangling over downtown Phoenix, my “partner” nowhere in sight. Then again, I had decided to investigate this lead alone. So maybe the problem started with me.

  But it’d still be nice if Roark checked his voicemail. Sooner rather than later.

  “Your conscience can be free.”

  “Already feeling plenty free,” I said, breathing heavily.

  “What have you uncovered about our crusade?” A sandal tapped against the carbon floor. “To whom have you whispered our secrets?”

  “I’ve got a file three inches thick on you assholes.” A lie. But like hell was I going to give this delusional prick the satisfaction of a tranquil mind before I died. Let him believe the FBI was on to his deepest, darkest mysteries.

  Even if I had no damn clue what those were. The Crusaders of Paradisum were nothing if not clandestine. They’d been dormant—gone, really, since 1923. But they’d returned with a vengeance here in 2039, announcing their presence with unabashed flair.

  Threatening to toss a newly minted FBI consultant off a skywalk couldn’t be construed as subtle, but it barely rated as newsworthy given their activities over the past 24 hours.

  Donovan finally answered with a derisive sigh. “You are a liar, Realmfarer.”

  “You drop me, the file goes out to everyone.” My heartbeat thudded in my ears as I dipped further over the edge.

  “You shouldn’t have come looking for me again,” Donovan said. “For us.”

  “I always was too curious for my own good.”

  “Such is the difference between you and I, Realmfarer.” His voice was barely a whisper over the roar of the wind. “I possess infinite patience. That of a man who plans to live forever.”

  His goon’s grip loosened one finger at a time, an unspoken countdown toward my demise.

  “You know I’m going to kill you for good this time, right?” I said.

  “That’ll be hard when you’re a ghost, Ruby.”

  “Then you haven’t met a ghost like me.”

  I heard him laugh, not unkindly. “The righteous shall always prevail.”

  “Indeed they shall.”

  And then Donovan Martin’s henchman let go, sending me hurtling to the ground more than a mile below.

  2

  Midtown Phoenix

  Kendrick’s Bar

  24 hours ago

  I grimaced as I slugged down another shot of whiskey. Special Agent Colton Roark’s blue eyes caught the bar’s dim glow as he watched me. His latest drink was untouched.

  “Can’t keep up?” My tongue felt thick. We’d been drinking for an hour. He wore the expression of someone who wanted to unburden his soul. But he probably hadn’t drank enough for that.

  Roark ran his hand through his neat hair and said, “Look, Ruby…”

  Kendrick limped over behind the bar, his wild mountain of white-hair flapping. “Eh, Colton, you gonna finally become a man tonight?”

  He gave me a wink as I rolled my eyes.

  Roark’s ears flushed. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

  Kendrick’s ruddy face burst into a wide smile. “Sorry ladykiller.” He offered us a faux bow and grabbed a bottle. “This one’s on the house.”

  The brown liquid flowed over lip of the glass, spilling onto the well-worn bar.

  “I don’t think…” I looked at the shot, my stomach turning.

  “Well, you can’t say no to generosity, lass,” Kendrick said, pouring one for himself.

  “I’m not sleeping with him,” I said, although a voice—just a little one—whispered what if? Drunk Ruby had bad ideas. This was official business, hashing out how we were going to take down an evil multinational conglomerate.

  “I don’t think Colton likes women, anyway.”

  Roark’s face got redder. His muscles tensed as he grabbed his own glass angrily and choked it down. We followed suit. I immediately regretted my bravado as my stomach did a double-flop.

  “Well, get on to your important business.” Kendrick nodded and then limped off to talk shop with the regulars.

  “Asshole,” Roark muttered, but with some degree of affection. Kendrick had watched out for him and his brother when their old man wasn’t around. The elder Roark had an illustrious career in security. Corporate thug in a well-tailored suit.

  That didn’t leave a lot of time for father-son bonding.

  “I’m dying of suspense, here.” I tried reading the wisps buzzing around his handsome jaw, but it was futile. Too much whiskey, too late at night.

  Roark batted the empty glass between his fingers before answering. “We need to lay off MagiTekk.”

  That dampened my buz
z like a bucket of ice water. “What?”

  “It’s just—”

  “You promised, asshole.” I jammed my finger into his dorky polo shirt hard enough to move the bar stool. “Solomon Marshall passed us the baton. It’s our job, now.”

  I watched Roark’s lip turn upward in disgust. Good and evil were such complicated concepts. Yes, Solomon Marshall had used his powers of necromancy for murder and chaos. But it had all been for a good end—to expose MagiTekk’s massive corruption.

  The tech conglomerate, which sold everything from supernatural suppression rifles to magical dampeners, was quickly becoming a law enforcement monopoly. Their influence spread everywhere, burying its little tentacles deep within every facet of the government. Eager to make a profit, no matter the cost—and there were many costs, namely to creatures of essence. But the mortals were losing, too, since MagiTekk’s propaganda created boundless war, spurred on by the omnipresent illusion of the dangerous vampire or wolf.

  Of course, Marshall had also killed Roark’s older brother. As payback to Malcolm Roark.

  I swallowed hard, still tasting the whiskey’s burn. “I didn’t mean—you know what I meant.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “You can end this thing,” I said. “And I’m going to help you.”

  “How?” It wasn’t a question. More of a statement from a man whose mind was already made up.

  “Isn’t that what we’re hashing outt now?”

  Call Marshall crazy, sure—there was no denying that. But you spend a year in a time loop, gathering resources and researching how to bring down your darkest enemy, and I guarantee one thing. You learn a thing or two about their weaknesses.

  He’d done the research. He knew we could handle the job.

  All we had to do was keep pressing.

  “Too dangerous. Too much collateral damage,” Roark said.

  “Then we do it piece-by-piece.” Roark and I weren’t the barbarians sacking Rome. The goal wasn’t for the world to burn. MagiTekk had its tentacles wrapped around the heart—the government, the financial system, everything. Excising it carefully—like a bad virus—was the only option.

  Otherwise the host would die.

  “We can’t do it.” Roark stood abruptly. “End of story.”

  “Like hell it is.”

  Roark reached into his pocket and pulled out a lanyard with a laminated ID. “You’ll need this.”

  I squinted, the text wobbling in and out of focus. “FBI consultant? A supernatural behavioral psychologist. That’s what you call sticking to the shadows?” I was going to be right in the middle of crime scenes. Hardly stealth mode.

  “You’re the one who wanted to help, Ruby.” Roark reached the thick wooden door and looked back, blue eyes shimmering. “Leave MagiTekk the fuck alone.”

  I glared at him. “And what are we gonna do when the world starts to burn?”

  A piece of paper drifted from his pocket. The door shut with a loud creak.

  After a couple minutes, Kendrick limped back over. He ruffled his white mountain of hair with his craggy hands and said, “The boy’s just trying to protect you.”

  I pushed the glass across the scratchy counter. “One for the road.”

  “You need to understand that.”

  I downed the last shot of whiskey and said, “Put it on Casanova’s bill.”

  Kendrick gave me a wry smile. “And where are you headed at this late hour?”

  “Home.”

  “I bet.”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and headed out the door, into the dry summer air. The magically augmented shotgun rattled on my back as I knelt down to pick up the paper Roark had dropped.

  Meeting with Malcolm. 3:00 AM.

  I certainly had no intention of going home.

  Instead, I had every intention of doing what we’d agreed to do.

  Bring MagiTekk down.

  3

  Old Phoenix Outskirts

  21 Hours Ago

  The autocab dropped me at the edge of the construction site. Whatever project had been started here was now forgotten, the skeletal structure crumbling into the desert dust. Glowing skyscrapers loomed around the empty space like they were eavesdropping.

  I climbed a rusted steel girder up to what would’ve been the second floor. No sign of Roark or his father. My legs dangled off the side of the beam as I took in the glowing moonlight and waited.

  A large SUV, the government issue type, rolled up. My muscles tensed from instinct, and I reached back for the shotgun. Malcolm Roark stepped out of the vehicle’s back seat.

  Malcolm stood taller and straighter than his son—no small feat—carrying himself like a man confident in his ability to do terrible things. He’d earned the aura of invincibility: his résumé as was the platinum standard, each bullet point purchased in blood.

  But no one got into wetwork for the career building prospects. They did it because it offered them a license for their creative outlets.

  Murder, extortion, being a general asshole. That sort of thing.

  Malcolm buttoned the top of his suit jacket as headed across the dusty debris field.

  I racked the shotgun, aiming straight at his head.

  He stopped and looked up, halfway between me and the car.

  “I don’t have time for games, Miss Callaway.”

  “How do you know who I am?” I arched my eyebrow. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “I’m good at my job.”

  “Where’s your son?” I glanced at the black SUV, but no one else appeared to be coming out for a little chat.

  “You should come down, Miss Callaway. Before something happens that we’ll both regret.”

  It wasn’t a threat. A flat statement of fact. The sun sets and rises. People go to work and come home. And Malcolm Roark did bad things those who he saw as a threat.

  I slid down the girder, landing in the chalky dust.

  “Son of a bitch knew I’d follow the trail,” I said, putting the pieces together. The note slipping out of Roark’s pocket had been an obvious breadcrumb. One I couldn’t resist.

  “My son understood that we needed to have a little discussion.” Malcolm Roark didn’t smile or tense up as I came closer. His bravado was slightly annoying. Coming out here alone, without bodyguards. When I was armed with a big ass gun.

  His son had an interesting concept of the shadows. First a consulting gig, now a meet and greet with MagiTekk’s very own infamous Chief of Security. If I had a bone to pick with Roark before, that was compounding at a rapid rate.

  “I have nothing to talk about.” I stopped about five paces away from Malcolm and raised the shotgun.

  A curt nod. “The two of you wish to bring MagiTekk down?” Malcolm’s voice didn’t change tone. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t anything.

  That was unsettling.

  Facts were facts.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I could read it on Colton’s face.” Malcolm looked into the distance, past me. Through me. “It’s a fanciful notion. Futile. I told him as such.”

  I gripped the shotgun tighter. “And?”

  “And I’d prefer to keep you alive, Miss Callaway. For a mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “You’re not going to haul me off for treason? Kill me like you did Marshall?”

  “You’re of much more use to me alive.” Malcolm Roark reached toward his suit pocket, and I racked the slide. “Relax, Miss Callaway.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t trust you.”

  “You don’t have to trust me.” Malcolm Roark took out a piece of paper, yellowed and old. Wisps danced around it, telling a story. This had something to do with me. No bluff. “All you have to do is listen.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “My son listened.”

  “Roark says you aren’t close.”

  “We aren’t, and we never will be.” His frankness was disarming. “But allow me to explain
something.”

  “This ought be good,” I said, watching the paper between his fingers flap in the late-night breeze. But I was curious enough to resist blowing him away.

  For now.

  “You understand that the FBI was involved in your set-up and capture back in 2018, of course. They wanted to study you. The legends swirling about your abilities outstripped any creature on the face of the Earth.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Some might consider immodesty a character flaw.”

  “I learned a lot in two hundred years.” I recalled my mentor Pearl’s instructions. They still bounced around in my head, even though she was dead going on twenty-one years.

  “Indeed,” Malcolm Roark responded, his posture stiff and unmoving. “But, of course, the FBI never could quite figure out who you were—or what. I blame government bureaucracy. Stifles innovation.”