Harmony Black (Harmony Black Series Book 1)

by Craig Schaefer

  I caught Jessie’s look and snorted. “Magic? You’re crazy. No such thing.”

  “Poor, poor dears.” He sounded genuinely regretful. “I’m afraid you’ve stumbled into a world you know nothing about and cannot imagine. And once you’ve entered this world, well . . . escape is quite impossible.”

  The loading bay door on the far side of the plant rattled upward, chains squealing. Fredo came back with a new friend, a barrel-chested man in stonewashed jeans and a cowboy hat. Gold chains and black chest hair poked out from under his half-unbuttoned shirt, and he licked his fat lips as he took a look around the room. His gaze traveled from the corpse on the floor, to the unconscious cambion on the gurneys, to us.

  “Now, what the ever-lovin’ fuck,” he said, “happened here? Did I miss a party or what?”

  “A minor setback,” Victoria said, striding over to offer her hand. “You must be Buck.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She cringed, faintly, as it came away glistening wet.

  “And you must be the lovely and talented Dr. Carnes. Where’s my meat at, sweet thing? I wanna check out the goods before we talk price.”

  “Right here,” Emmanuel said, gesturing to the gurneys. “They’re on a morphine drip, and restrained. Quite harmless.”

  Buck shook his head and pointed at the body bag on the floor. “Told you on the phone, I ain’t interested in the dead one. My establishment don’t cater to necrophiliacs. Not often, anyway. That’s a special-request kinda deal. Besides, don’t got a freezer on my plane. He’d be all squishy and smelly by the time I got him back to LA.”

  “We’d really prefer to make this a package deal.”

  “Look,” Buck said, “live cambion? That’s always a winner. Some of these freaks really get off on cutting ’em up and guzzling some demon blood. As a consequence, there’s, ah, turnover in my stock that always needs replacin’.”

  Victoria strolled up from behind and rested her hands on his shoulders. “And you’re certain that none of these . . . freaks can come up with any uses for a dead one? Even at a discount?”

  “Ha. Honey, my place has all kinds of special attractions. Hell, we got a real live succubus chained up in the basement, if you’re crazy enough to take that ride. It ain’t a lack of possibilities, it’s just that humpin’ dead bodies is a niche kinda thing, and I don’t see myself recouping my investment. I’ll give you twenty grand for the two live ones, and that’s the deal.”

  “Listen,” I said. They all looked my way. “We’re federal agents. You do not want to be associated with these people. Set us free and we can work something out. Something that keeps you out of prison.”

  Emmanuel snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Twenty-two thousand for all three cambion, and we throw in those two.”

  Buck frowned, scratching under his hat. “What are they?”

  “What are they? Er, human.”

  “Now, what sounds like a better business plan to you?” Buck asked him. “Option A: I hold two feds hostage, have to keep ’em tied up and under constant guard the rest of their lives, and my customers get lousy service. Or, option B: I go to a couple of professional whores and say, ‘Hey, ladies. Wanna be my whores? I will pay you,’ in which case I get a couple of happy employees and a whole lot of happy customers.”

  “I . . . see your point,” Emmanuel said.

  “Trust me, there are enough women willing to work on their backs, I don’t need to force ’em. Now, you are gonna end these two, right? Considerin’ they’ve seen my face and all?”

  “With great pleasure,” Victoria said.

  “Good deal. So. Twenty grand for the two live ones. Take it or leave it.”

  Emmanuel’s shoulders sagged. “We’ll take it. Fredo, wheel them out to the truck while our new friend gets his money. He has a plane to catch.”

  As Fredo shoved one of the gurneys to the door, rolling it on a spinning, squeaky wheel, I wasn’t sure what was worse: that I had no idea how we were going to escape, or that the single lead we had for catching the Bogeyman was about to fly right out of our grasp.

  THIRTEEN

  Buck came back with a briefcase full of twenties, held in tight bundles by greasy rubber bands. Emmanuel didn’t bother to count it. They just shook hands and called it a deal.

  Jessie hadn’t said a word in ten minutes. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, head bowed, burrowing somewhere deep inside herself.

  I needed free hands. I needed to ease my burning arms, my aching shoulders. It felt like my wrists were being sliced open every time I swayed on the rough, scratchy ropes. I needed focus, to conjure up a defense. They didn’t know I was a witch; that meant I’d get one shot, just one, to blindside them with my own magic. I had to make it count.

  Fredo wheeled in a cart, bringing it to a stop right beside me. I looked and wished I hadn’t. Scalpels, saws, a gleaming stainless-steel rib cracker—everything a mortician needed for an autopsy.

  Before I could kick out, Fredo grabbed my legs from behind. I squirmed as he lashed my ankles together with another coil of rope, then pulled the rope taut and tied it to a metal ring set into the floor. I hung there, suspended between the two ropes, breathing through my gritted teeth.

  Victoria hung back, watching from a few feet away, as Emmanuel moved in for the kill.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” I told him.

  “No, my dear, quite the contrary. Not only will your organs benefit many needy people—and, if I may be vulgar, my offshore bank account—but it’s a very effective means of disappearing a person. You and your friend will simply vanish off the face of the earth. No muss, no fuss.”

  Behind him, Jessie raised her head.

  “Let me out,” she growled in a voice that wasn’t entirely hers.

  Emmanuel reached out and fumbled with my tie, his fingers unraveling the knot. “Patience, please. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  I tried to head-butt him when he started to unbutton my blouse, but the ropes kept me from anything but useless squirming. He reached for a scalpel.

  “I will not be caged,” Jessie said through gritted teeth.

  With one quick slice, Emmanuel cut through the ivory fabric of my bra, right between my breasts. “Please relax,” he said, as he pulled the fabric aside. “I’m a surgeon, not some pervert. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

  He set down the scalpel and picked up a new tool with a long ivory handle topped by a round horizontal blade about the size of my palm, saw-toothed and gleaming sharp.

  “Now, then,” he said. “I must apologize. We are a very thrifty operation, and competition requires us to cut costs wherever we can. As such . . . I can’t really offer you any anesthetic for this procedure. That said, I’ve done this many, many times before, and while the first few minutes will be unpleasant for you, the pain will quickly lead to unconsciousness and death.”

  He flicked his thumb against a switch on the handle, and the saw blade whined to life.

  “Out,” Jessie grunted, eyes still squeezed tightly shut. She heaved herself up by her wrists and dropped down hard. The old track jolted on its bolts. She did it again and again in a thumping rhythm. “Out. Out. Out.”

  “Oh, for the love of—” Emmanuel sighed. “Fredo, secure her, please?”

  Fredo grabbed another coil of rope and strolled toward her, shaking his head. He reached for her ankles just as her eyelids snapped open. Her glowing eyes burned with hunger and hate.

  “Uh, boss?”

  That was all he had time to say. Her legs whipped up, scissoring around his neck, as she drew herself up on the ropes one last time. He fell backward, trying to wriggle free. Their combined body weight, one last sharp tug, was all it took: the upper curve of the meat hook snapped, rusty metal groaning, and they tumbled together to the floor.

  Fredo rolled onto his back, and his eyes went wide. Jessie, wrists still bound but gripping the broken meat hook in her hands like a samurai sword, crouched low and lunged
for him. She swung and drove the sharp end of the hook between his legs.

  I didn’t think a scream that shrill could come from a human throat.

  It only got worse as she pinned his shoulder with one foot and dragged the hook upward with all her strength, disemboweling him one brutal inch at a time. Emmanuel dropped the saw, shaking his head wildly. It spun in circles on the concrete near my feet and kicked up sparks as the blade dug grooves in the stone.

  “No,” Emmanuel said. “No, no, no! Victoria, slow her down!”

  He ran for the picnic table. For our guns. Jessie left the meat hook buried in Fredo’s stomach. He’d stopped screaming now, and all that came from his tortured throat was a wet, mindless gurgle.

  Jessie turned her gaze on me.

  “Jessie,” I said, “it’s me. It’s me. Get me down!”

  She prowled toward me like I was a piece of fresh meat, ripe for the taking. Then I heard the chant. Victoria’s sibilant whisper, trying to snake its way into my ears. I pulled on my ropes, deliberately hurting my wrists, focusing on the pain. The pain kept me awake. Kept me fighting.

  Jessie snatched up the saw. She peered at it, then at me. She wobbled on her feet, Victoria’s spell starting to take hold, but that didn’t diminish her hungry smile one bit.

  “The ropes,” I said. “Please.”

  Jessie lashed out her arm. The blade whined as it chewed through the rope, a quarter inch above my clenched hands. I fell to all fours, hard, on the concrete at Jessie’s feet.

  A gunshot snapped through the air. It went wide, the bullet chewing into a cinder block. Emmanuel clutched the stolen Glock between his shaking hands, his aim wavering like a drunk as he fought his terror and lost.

  Jessie bared her teeth, crouched low, and charged at him.

  I didn’t have time to cut the ropes on my ankles, but at least I could stand. Victoria was distracted, splitting her focus between me and Jessie, but her sleep curse still wove tendrils of warm velvet around my brain.

  I unfurled the ropes around my wrists and tossed the severed ends to the floor. Shook my hands out, working the circulation back. Then I called to my power.

  Earth. Air. Water. Fire. Garb me in your raiment. Arm me with your weapons.

  Water coated me, coalescing over my body like a suit of armor. Not literal water, but the idea of water, pure and elemental, water like blue singing steel. I held up my left palm, blossoming in my second sight with a blazing equal-armed yellow cross. It spun like the blades of a fan and became a disc, a shimmering shield of elemental air. Her spell broke against my defenses, scattering into motes of violet light.

  Victoria could see it, too. She blinked, taking a step back. “Wait, how are you—”

  In my right hand, a sword. A sword of flame. I pointed its tip toward her. The air crackled between us and ignited as if someone had suspended a gasoline trail in midair. A thin streak of fire lanced across the factory and blasted Victoria in the face.

  She went down, shrieking, clutching her burned face. Then she clambered back to her feet and ran for the door, leaving her partners to die. I fired another gout of flame, slicing across her shoulder. She flailed, trying to pat out her burning dress with her bare hand, still screaming as she disappeared into the night.

  I moved to chase her and tumbled to the floor. Damn ropes on my ankles. The elemental energies flickered and snuffed out, my concentration shattered. Now I felt the cost, the rush of power paid for with leaden muscles and sudden, sharp cramps in my stomach.

  Fight through it, I told myself. Fight through it.

  I grabbed the saw and cut myself free. Jessie had Emmanuel pinned to the floor, her fists raining down as she pounded him into hamburger meat. I stumbled up behind them.

  “Jessie,” I said. “Jessie. It’s done. Stop.”

  She froze with one clenched fist suspended over the doctor’s bloody, terrified face.

  I thought back to her reaction when she first spotted me, how she’d hesitated and cut me down from the ropes. Something in my voice had given her pause, pulled her just an inch out of her killing fugue. “Jessie,” I said again. “Listen. Focus on the sound of my voice.”

  She didn’t move. Her fist trembled, frozen.

  “Come back to me,” I whispered. “Come back.”

  Her hand slowly opened. She shook her head and tiredly pushed herself to her feet. I stood beside her, looking down at Hirsch.

  “Emmanuel Hirsch,” I said, “you are so under arrest, you have no idea.”

  My bra was a lost cause. Under my blouse I wriggled my way out of the shoulder straps, then tossed it aside. Funny. With all that had happened, with the sheer chaos of the last ten minutes, all I could think was, Well, that’s forty bucks I’m not getting back. I buttoned my blouse and grabbed my holster from the table, slipping it on.

  “Please,” Emmanuel moaned, “it’s not my fault. It was all Victoria’s idea. She made me do it.”

  Jessie rubbed her eyes, now pale and soft, and winced. “Sorry. Spaced out there.”

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” She put her palms flat against the table and pushed herself up. She glanced back toward the overhead track, the dangling hooks. “How’d you get loose?”

  “You cut me down. You don’t remember?”

  “Like I said, I spaced.” She tilted her head. “Wait. I came at you with a knife, and I just cut you loose? Didn’t hurt you?”

  “It was an electric saw, actually. And no.”

  She rubbed the back of her head. “Huh.”

  “Please,” Emmanuel begged, still fetal. “It was all Victoria. I’m innocent.”

  “Did you read him his rights?” Jessie asked me.

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Because he doesn’t fucking have any.” She picked up her phone from the clutter on the table and hit the speed dial. “Special Agent Temple. Authorization ninety-three slash ninety-three. Yeah. We need a cleaning crew. Got two . . . wait.”

  She paused, then glanced over at me. “Is Fredo dead?”

  I craned my neck to look. He lay flat on his back, glassy-eyed, the broken meat hook jutting out from his ruptured chest.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s pretty dead.”

  “Three spills, one toxic,” she said into the phone. “Also one package for offshore delivery. Also need an H. E. designation for one Dr. Victoria Carnes, details to follow in our debriefing report.”

  “Offshore delivery,” Emmanuel repeated. “What does she mean?”

  Jessie finished giving the details, hung up, and unceremoniously kicked Emmanuel onto his stomach. He groaned as she pinned his arms back and clicked the cuffs tight around his wrists.

  “Funny story,” she told him. “We’ve got this place; it’s called Detention Site Burgundy. It’s sort of like Club Med except it’s not fun, there’s no beach, and you can never leave. You’re gonna make all kinds of new friends there.”

  “You . . . you can’t do that. I want a lawyer!”

  She stood up and dusted off her hands. “What was it you told us? ‘You’ve stumbled into a world you know nothing about, and cannot imagine. And once you’ve entered this world, well . . . escape is quite impossible.’”

  “Poor dear,” I added, my voice a flat monotone.

  Jessie looked over at me. “You good to fight?”

  “Yeah.” The stomach cramps ebbed away slowly, just the occasional stabbing tug to punish me for conjuring up that much energy that fast. I’ve had worse.

  “Good,” she said, holstering her pistol. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

  FOURTEEN

  Headlights strobed as the Crown Vic slammed over a pothole, tearing through the ghost town.

  “We need details on anyone filing an FAA flight plan for Los Angeles,” Jessie told Kevin over the phone. “It’ll be a private plane, leaving tonight, if we haven’t missed it already.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” I heard him say, fingers rattling against his keyboard. “I have a hit. Got a B
uck Wheeler, filed a route from Willow Run Airport to Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. He’s due to leave in about twenty minutes.”

  “Shit,” she said. “That’s him. How far?”

  “Willow Run is in Ypsilanti. You want to get on I-75, then take exit 41 to I-94 West.”

  “How far, Kevin?”

  “It’s, uh . . . about thirty minutes away.”

  “Drive fast,” Jessie told me. “Kevin, get on the phone to the tower at Willow Run. They need to stall him. I don’t care what they tell him, but they are not to give him permission for takeoff. Give them my number if they have any questions.”

  She hung up. I focused on the road, white lines flashing past like daggers in the dark. The Crown Vic bottomed out as I hit the on-ramp, speedometer needle kissing seventy, and we launched onto the highway.

  I slid through the sparse late-night traffic like I was threading a needle, weaving and drifting. Every passing minute, every click of the dashboard clock, was another pound of weight on my shoulders.

  Jessie’s phone buzzed. She put it on speaker.

  “Special Agent Temple.”

  “Yes,” a hesitant man’s voice said, “um, this is Miles Stanton, in the tower at Willow Run? Your supervisor, Special Agent Finn, said we should call you.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, Jessie arched her eyebrow at the phone.

  “Yes,” she said. “What’s the situation? Is Buck Wheeler’s plane still on the ground?”

  “Well, that’s why I thought I should call. We told him we had to delay takeoff due to unexpected air traffic overhead. Well, that was fifteen minutes ago, and he’s not answering his radio anymore. We’ve hailed him twice, and nothing. I’m about to send a security guard over to his hangar—”

  “No,” she said sharply. “Don’t do that. This man is dangerous. We’ll take care of it.”

  She hung up and looked my way. “He knows something’s up.”

  “I know what I’d do in his shoes,” I said.