Well, they did normally.
But the entrance to the Fallout Zone was not a normal place. Those who crossed over were generally not invited to return—and security measures made certain that doing so was difficult. The gate was a clear line in the sand, meant to contain a supernatural scourge.
One wondered why the powers-that-be didn’t simply finish the job. But, like all things, I’m sure they had their reasons for allowing the Fallout Zone to exist. Nonetheless, those purposes couldn’t cause problems in downtown Phoenix.
As such, the gate boasted impressive defenses, including essence suppression technology so powerful that any inkling of my abilities vanished. In effect, I was mortal near the gate, unable to intuit much of anything.
Luckily, I was a good bullshitter.
“How many bodies on each side?” I asked, staring at the sheets. Blood was seeping through.
“Twelve and eleven,” Janssen said.
“Ritual killing. Sacrifice to a long dormant god.” I rubbed my nose and sniffed the bitter air. “All still warm, I’m guessing?”
“Dormant?”
“Well, dead,” I said with a small smile. “But your killer thinks Pan is only sleeping. The god of the hunt. And Arcadia.”
“A book could’ve told you that.”
“A rib was removed from each body as well.” I stared at the growing blood spots on the sheet, then turned to Janssen. She wasn’t the kind of person to show surprise, but her expression told me that was unexpected. “Or were you expecting me to say heart?”
Her lips pursed in a satisfied smile. “You picked a good one, Colton.” With a magician’s flair for suspense, Janssen grabbed the sheet’s corner. Pausing for a moment, she met my eye. “I just hope you’re good enough to catch whoever did this.”
She flicked the sheet away, the blue cloth fluttering gently over the macabre scene.
My stomach turned again, but not from the hangover or anxiety.
I recognized the work—the symbol tattooed neatly on the center body claiming responsibility. Even with the heavy suppressive dampeners, the glow of essence emanated softly from the fresh ink. The curse pulsated with a foul, corrupted energy plainly visible to even the mortal eye.
“Well?” Janssen tapped her wrist.
I stared at the split cross. It resembled a normal Christian one—only half gone, cut vertically and arranged upside down. To symbolize their substantial disagreements with the regular church. Not that you’d ever mistake them for monotheistic. For one, they believed in the dead gods—plural. I wasn’t sure how that worked, but it made sense in their addled minds.
My mother was a true believer, but she looked positively sane by way of comparison. But had her church gotten its hands on magic like this, they might’ve gone a little insane trying to spread the good word, too.
“This isn’t possible,” I said, at a loss for words. Which was rare.
“And yet, here we stand,” Janssen said.
“They’ve been gone for over a century.” Until now, I’d assumed that someone was playing a sick joke—a twisted homage or tribute to a cult best left buried.
But once I’d seen the glowing magic, I’d realized that this was the original.
New and, unfortunately, much improved.
“You seem surprised, Ruby.”
Throat dry, I said, “You should let this sleeping dog lie.”
“I didn’t take you for a coward, Ruby Callaway.”
“Not a coward.” I stared at the glowing symbol. It could be the work of only one man. Their Crusading Prophet, Donovan Martin. Which was alarming, considering I’d killed him in 1923. “A pragmatist.”
“I’ll be sure to mention that to the media,” Janssen said. “The FBI has declined to investigate this murder because our new consultant considers it unpragmatic. Thank you all for coming. No further questions.”
“If you do that conference, you’ll be a target.” I leveled my gaze at the supervisor. “They’ll come do this to you. Your family.”
“What’s the symbol mean?”
“It’s the brand of the non-believer. The sinners keeping them from Paradisum.” Or Eden—call it what you wanted. The human body had twenty-four ribs. The bodies laid out in the pattern were a callback to the story of original sin.
One missing rib was the first domino keeping us all out of paradise.
And they were letting us all know about our sinful shortcomings.
“Guess they found me out,” Janssen said. “I’ll take my chances.”
I gave her a mirthless smile. “Your funeral.”
“Then we’ll die together.” Janssen loosened her shoulders, gray hair flitting in the light breeze. “But at least we’ll catch these bastards on our way to the gallows.” She cocked her head. “If you’re not still caught up on being pragmatic, of course.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Roark. A look somewhere between indignation and curiosity spread across his clean-shaven face. That’s the thanks you got for telling people to save their own asses.
Guess I had a little to learn about law enforcement.
With every bone in my body screaming to shut up, I said, “The Crusaders of Paradisum. They’re the cult who did this.”
“Anything these Crusaders want in particular?”
“Paradise on Earth. As ruled by Pan.”
“Sounds scary, doesn’t it Colton?” Janssen said.
And I said, “You have no fucking idea.”
6
Downtown Phoenix
10 hours ago
Heading to FBI HQ was out of the question, what with all the state of the art essence detectors on site. I’d be made in under five seconds, leaving Roark and his idiot colleagues alone against Donovan Martin’s ancient cult. After briefing Janssen and her team on the Crusaders—what I could remember off the top of my head, anyway—I went home and burned a few hours until Roark got off for lunch.
I left out the part where I’d hunted him in 1923. That seemed like a good way to get my ass thrown back into supernatural lockup.
Then I took a cab to a coffee shop in Midtown, where the skyscrapers weren’t quite as tall and a tinge of architectural humanity remained. I had the vague sensation of being watched, so I changed our meeting place and texted Roark about the new plan. After ordering a black coffee, I commandeered a table and stared out at the lobby, reflecting on the Crusaders of Paradisum.
No spies popped out at me, but that didn’t assuage my concerns.
Imagine a group of brilliant minds, united in a single, cohesive vision. Loyal disciples—all with brains, which they outright refuse to use for logical, rational thought. Then add the utter lunacy of a belief in Paradisum.
Paradise, for the uninitiated. Heaven. Whatever the hell you wanted to call it—their little organization had been founded in a time when Latin was the lingua franca. Didn’t matter. It was a fairytale. A pleasant one, sure. But fanciful nonetheless.
As a Realmfarer, I could travel freely between the nine worlds. And I could say with utmost confidence that one of those Realms was not Paradise. It wasn’t hiding on Earth, either, where the Crusaders wished to recreate it. And they’d had plenty of time to do that.
They’d been around since 33 A.D. and hadn’t found Paradisum yet. But they were stepping up their efforts. The public nature of the 23 sacrificial murders was unprecedented. But then, I’d heard rumors that Donovan Martin was a new breed of Crusading Prophet when he assumed the mantle back in 1923.
I just hadn’t known how true that was, considering he’d taken a stomach of essence-laced buckshot straight to the chest and somehow survived.
For a century.
Grumbling to myself, I nursed the cup of coffee. I used the downtime to search the internet for MagiTekk news. Buried in a bland press release, I found a few lines referring to the release of “a suppression and sterilization serum” on Friday.
If MagiTekk was changing the world as Malcolm Roark had said, they were doing so quietly. Probably
because this serum—which had turned Aaron Daniels from a full-blooded alpha wolf into a shantytown crook with a limp—would be met with severe resistance from the supernatural community.
Protecting MagiTekk’s interests were going to be a bitch if anyone decided to cause problems.
Lucky me.
But I had no intention of being Malcolm Roark’s lapdog.
I spotted the younger Roark gliding across the foyer, unwelcome intel or leads no doubt in tow. His biceps flexed with each stride, a smooth, synchronous machine.
He could do to lose the short-sleeved polo tucked into his pants. Homage to his late brother or not, it wasn’t doing him any favors. Then again, I’d never met a more charming man less interested in getting laid.
One had to wonder why he’d cultivated that charm at all.
I sipped the coffee as he sat down, refusing to acknowledge his presence.
“Good to see you’re finally recovered.” Roark smiled, but I maintained my sour frown.
“If you’d told me we had a gig today, then I wouldn’t have agreed to drink last night.”
“Still mad about meeting the old man?”
“I just wish you trusted me more,” I said.
“I trust you. I just wanted you to know.”
“He could stop us right now.”
“He’d rather bend us than break us,” Roark said. “Never waste a good soldier.”
I shivered, recalling his father’s cool ease. How certain he was that we would simply give up and trot over to the dark side.
“You have a plan for MagiTekk?”
Roark winced slightly. “Early stages, Ruby.”
“They’re less dangerous than the Crusaders,” I said.
“You’re paranoid,” Roark said with an eye roll. “You get me a coffee?”
“Right here.” I gave him the finger. The lobby hummed with people shopping during their lunch breaks.
“Funny.” Roark scratched his neck and sighed. “Look, this is the job.”
“You don’t want to fuck with Donovan Martin, Roark.”
“We don’t get to pick and choose.” He put his elbows on the small table, causing it to tilt slightly. “Protect and serve. That’s what we do.”
“I’d prefer to protect my own ass,” I said, batting the half-empty cup between my fingers. “Look, I left something out with Janssen.”
Roark’s blue eyes sparkled with curiosity, but he kept silent.
I scratched my ear. “Back in 1923, I was hired for a job. Around here, in fact.”
“And?”
“There were concerns from the certain supernatural parties—”
“Who?”
“The Sol Council. They don’t exist anymore.” A casualty of the supernatural’s coming out party back in 2017. “Anyway, they hired me to take Donovan Martin out.”
“And you failed.”
“I shot him right in the chest and watched him die.” I finished the last of the lukewarm coffee. “Which is why it’s very confusing that he’s back.”
“You’re sure he died?”
“I didn’t take a fucking EKG,” I said, realizing now that I should have pulled the trigger again.
“Cheer up. I have a lead.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Kind of odd that the symbols were glowing next to the gate, right?”
“Pretty much impossible,” I said. “My powers vanish from all the dampeners.”
“What’s that like?”
“What’s what like?” I stopped playing with the coffee.
“Losing your powers.”
“Disconcerting,” I said flatly.
“The lab took a sample.”
“That was quick.”
Roark moved a little shiftily in his seat. “Yeah, well, this is a high priority case.”
“Okay.” The wisps circling his head told a different story, but I wasn’t going to grill him about the boring details on FBI bureaucracy. “So what’d you find out?”
“Mana.”
“That’s the same thing as essence. Just the ancients’ word for it.”
“I know,” Roark said. “But the stuff in that tattoo was concentrated. Pure. Right from the ground.”
“All the wellsprings dried up a long time ago.”
“Yeah, well, we ran the test twice.”
“You’re telling me the Crusaders found a wellspring.”
“Looks that way.”
“That’s how he came back from death’s door.” More of a musing than a thought, but once the words were in the air, a shiver ran up my spine.
I’d almost killed Donovan Martin. Probably an inch away from crossing over into whatever Hell awaited assholes like him.
But, really, I’d given the Crusaders an excuse to create a monster.
One they’d nurtured in the shadows for a hundred years.
A commotion on the other side of the lobby broke my train of thought. Yelling—the sounds of a feverish argument. Roark swiveled around, sensing a threat. All the overhead lights shattered at once, accompanied by a high-pitched scream.
You’re not paranoid if someone’s out to get you.
Roark got up like someone was calling him.
Shit.
Sirens.
7
I kicked the table out of the way and tackled Roark. He squirmed beneath me on the slippery ground, fighting to get loose. With fifty pounds on me, I couldn’t hold him for long. So, thinking fast, I sunk my teeth into the fabric of his shirt and tore like a rabid dog. Strips of frayed cotton came out in my mouth.
He bucked, flinging me to the cold ground as the high-pitched whines continued. I felt myself being pulled toward their evil and empty promises. Spitting the fabric into my hand, I grabbed his leg, tripping him.
“Goddamnit, let me go,” Roark said. “I need to…I need to…”
“You need to stand still,” I said.
I watched as a little sporting goods store at the edge of the lobby began to overflow with people. That must’ve been the source of the scream. It was an awful noise, but it contained something hypnotic and alluring, like the twelfth shot of whiskey at the end of the night. Promising only heartbreak, but you did it anyway.
I rolled the fabric into little balls as best I could and clawed my way toward Roark. Through a minor miracle—his attention focused on the seductive allure of the death trap across the lobby—I got him in a choke hold.
“It’s…I have to.”
“Heard it before.” I jammed the little balls of fabric into his ears as deep as they would go, then pushed him over. My own head swam with mixed emotions and the temptation to rush across the lobby and join the happy throng.
Share in the riches.
This clashed with the larger urge to head over and burn the siren honeypot to the ground.
Prudence won out, however, as I monitored Roark. He stumbled to his feet and looked back, brow wrinkled in supreme confusion.
“Sirens.” I mouthed the word in exaggerated fashion.
He nodded, even though he could not hear. After a rueful glance at his ruined shirt, however, he started walking toward the shop anyway.
By now, at least a hundred people milled around the store’s entrance, with more streaming from all over the far-flung corners of the vast first floor area. Everyone bore that slightly zombified expression that they did when checking email.
But this was far more deadly.
For the sirens were recruiting.
Or executing—the Crusaders flexing their muscles for the world to see. Sirens didn’t exclusively work for the Crusaders—not even close. Like bounty hunters, they shilled their services to the highest bidders. But sirens were a favorite of those sick fucks as a sort of litmus test.
Those who succumbed to temptation were proven unworthy of paradise. And they would sacrifice for the righteous.
I had qualms regarding this screening technique, since I was semi-immune to the sirens’ calls, but was no one’s idea of an ideal c
andidate for the pearly gates.
If such a place existed, which it did not.
Roark drew his pistol as we walked across the lobby. The crowd stood in rapture, pressing against one another without crushing anyone. We pushed through the blissful throng, the sirens’ urges washing over the corners of my mind.
Give yourself over to a better life. To something bigger than yourselves.
They could’ve been shilling breakfast cereal—and plenty of morally bankrupt ad-men had enlisted them to do just that. But the script they’d been handed by their employers today was lethal.
Come on in.
My fingers relaxed, a calm spreading over my body. These were my people. Everything would be all right inside the store.
“Get on the ground.” Roark’s stern voice knifed through my thoughts, breaking the sirens’ temporary hold. I glanced at the counter, where two attractive women stood like stripper preachers holding an impromptu sermon. Even without their silver tongues, the ample cleavage and leather shorts were capable of plenty of persuasion.
The left one, with shimmering brown hair down to her hips, snapped her fingers. Immediately, the throng of loyal disciples turned on us, leering at Roark and I like we were fresh meat.
“You must be the one they call Colton Roark.” She gave her hip-length hair a sultry toss. “He’s rather adorable, is he not?”
Her long-legged associate slid off the counter, movements slinky and seductive. The crowd parted for their siren master as she walked toward Roark. I heard the hammer on the pistol cock backward.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she said. “That face is too handsome for the graveyard.”
I reached for the shotgun on my back, and the siren standing on the counter shook her head, majestic tresses rippling over her chest. “And you, Ruby Callaway.”
I fought against the urge to obey their unspoken call. We should’ve taken a hard left right out of this damn building. But even if Roark had originally joined the FBI to get revenge for his brother, he was still too much of a boy scout to let a bunch of innocent people die.
Me, well, you don’t live this long by being a humanitarian.
Shadow Flare (The Ruby Callaway Trilogy Book 2) Page 3