“How many of them are there?” a small man with a bald head asked. “They have specters?”
“A handful,” the woman replied.
“We can take them,” another added.
The woman shook her head, eyes fixed on Jennie. “Not if what they say about that woman is true. Genevieve King, I believe?”
“Call me Rogue,” Jennie replied. “Only my friends have the right to call me by my true name.”
“Maybe we can be friends someday?” the woman replied. She pushed herself free of her chair and approached Jennie. She extended a hand, leaving a six-foot gap between them. “Cassie Ferriss. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jennie remained where she was. “I’ve heard nothing about you. I’ve heard your father was a big deal, though.”
Cassie’s composed expression faltered, but only for a moment. “Yes, it’s difficult walking in Daddy’s footsteps, but my men make it all the easier. He was a bold character, which is something that I’ve never been.” She studied Jennie through narrowed eyes and lowered her hand. “Tell me, is it true you have lived beyond the ages?”
“If you’re asking if I’m immortal, I don’t know,” Jennie replied. “People have tried to test that theory, and every single one of them now lives in the void. If you’re asking if I age, the answer is the same. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve lived long enough to be able to solve problems like the ones that you’ve been causing, and I’m growing tired of playing nice.”
The woman placed a hand on her chest, eyebrows raised in faux surprise. “You call this playing nice? You barged into our abode without permission, and you’ve no doubt slain my specters. Well, except for the traitor standing behind you.”
Terri shrunk out of sight.
One of the men to Cassie’s right made a move toward his waist. Jennie aimed her pistol at him and fired a warning shot that grazed the skin of the top of his hand. “Hands where I can see them, slim.”
“Slim?” Carolyn whispered to Baxter. “He’s larger than you are.”
Baxter elbowed her playfully.
“Semantics aside,” Jennie continued, hiding her smile, “are you going to be the one to tell me the master plan behind all this destruction, or are you going to be a footnote in the victory speech I write when this is all done? I’m planning on thanking the dead for their contributions.”
Cassie chewed her lip. The men grew restless around her. She lowered her eyes to the floor, then sighed and met Jennie’s again. “Very well. Let’s see what you’re capable of.”
She whipped her hand into her pocket and drew a small pistol. In a flash, she fired three shots at Jennie and the others.
Jennie threw herself aside, shoving Rhone out from the line of fire. The bullets passed through the specters, which they were all thankful for, considering they weren’t spectrally imbued.
Finding the wall and righting themselves, Jennie put her guns to work. She fired four times before they even managed to draw their weapons, each bullet taking down one of the enemies.
Cassie threw herself behind the men and women guarding her and ran for a door at the back of the room. The TV smashed. Lights went out. The specters engaged in their own battle as Jennie and Rhone focused on the mortals.
Rhone ducked through the door to the hall and used the wall for cover. Jennie dived forward and found a space beneath the kitchenette's countertop. She fired three more bullets and caught three individuals in their shins.
A bullet whizzed by her and smashed the window. Somewhere nearby, Baxter and Carolyn fought with the specters, Baxter’s wrench reverberating as the metal met bone. Sandra dragged Terri into the corridor to keep her safe from harm and under control.
Jennie stood up during a brief pause in fire, risking exposure for a glance at the remaining gunmen. Someone was waiting, and they managed to hit just above the side of her waist. Her leg still hurt from the machete wound she’d received previously, but she powered through, eliminating the man who had dared to attack.
Only three mortals were left. Jennie hated killing mercilessly, but she needed to get to Cassie. She couldn’t imagine how there would be, but she didn’t want the woman to take an escape route to the outside world and run away.
Jennie fired the Big Bitch. The bullets tore through one man’s gut and carried on through to the next. Red blood splatted the wall, and a chunk of plaster exploded from the impact.
The final man lined up his shot, aiming straight at Jennie’s face. Before he could fire, Rhone shot with his pistol and knocked the gun out of the man’s hand. He clutched the bloody mess where his fingers had been and charged at Jennie.
She was ready. She screwed her hands into fists and delivered a right hook to his jaw. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he corkscrewed to the floor and lay still.
“Jennie, come on,” Rhone called.
They passed through the specters fighting hand-to-hand, heading for the door at the back of the room. It opened into a large master bedroom, complete with a four-poster bed. Large glass windows looked out onto Boston below.
Cassie was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed. Her face was composed and neutral. Her hands were already bound in handcuffs. She looked at them expectantly.
Rhone turned to Jennie. “What trickery is this?”
“No trickery,” Cassie replied. “I knew your skills were unmatchable, but I wanted to see it for myself. The way Zhao described your powers, it seemed unreal. If there was a chance I could escape you, I would have taken it. As it is, I know I stand no chance.”
Jennie furrowed her brow. “What are you saying?”
Cassie’s eyes dropped to the bed in shame. “My father left a legacy that I could never hope to bear. His name is legend, my name is the footnote you described earlier. Yet, I tried and pushed to become something that I never truly wanted to be.” She glanced out the window toward where the collapsed roof of the market could be viewed. “I’ve done horrible things, I know that. I never felt like I had a choice. It was never an option to do something else.”
She turned back to Jennie, eyes watery and pleading. “But you… You are my only chance at redemption. If I had ever gone straight, all of my father’s old followers would come for me. But under your protection, maybe I can live to see another day…”
Jennie considered this, eyes deep in thought. They certainly needed help, and having someone who knew as much as Cassie did about the Seven wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Please?” Cassie begged.
Jennie made her decision. She advanced on Cassie and offered the hand that had been neglected before. Cassie took it, both her hands reaching out due to the cuffs. When their hands connected, Jennie pulled Cassie toward her roughly. “Any funny business and I will not hesitate to destroy you. You are on probation. One wrong turn, and I send you out for the wolves to devour, you got that?”
Cassie nodded eagerly. Rhone moved to unlock the cuffs, the key laying neatly on the pillow.
Jennie held him back. “No. Leave those on. This may still be a trap.”
Yet, something inside her told her that it wasn’t. Jennie had learned to read honesty in people’s eyes, and Cassie had meant every word she’d said.
Chapter Forty-Two
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Taylor Bennett sat on her balcony and watched the sunrise.
It was a cloudier morning than they’d had for a while. Tufts of white smattered the skyline, exploding into crayon smudges of pastels as the city was thrown into long shadows.
This view was something that she had earned after nearly four decades of climbing the ranks through the military. She had bought the six-bed estate with a significant portion of her pension, and she spent most of her mornings watching over the city that she had fought so hard to defend.
Her wife was off in Austin, Texas, busying herself with conferences and cramped meeting rooms. It made the house feel empty on occasion, but she was glad for her. At nearly twenty years her junior
, Wendy still had a whole life ahead of her. How she kept herself busy was none of Taylor’s business.
Taylor enjoyed the quiet. She enjoyed the peace. Over the last few weeks, the stillness of the morning had been disturbed by the growling of machinery and drilling, but for some reason, that wasn’t happening today. Birds were singing, the streets were quiet, and all of the disruptions she had read about on her social media feed the day before had died down.
Whatever happened in the community center was a mystery. She had limited ideas on how the glass had been smashed across several floors without anyone witnessing the act. In her experience of planned attacks, she might have attributed the damage to a high-frequency sonar disruptor if this were a terrorist attack. Or perhaps some kids had coordinated their efforts to break all the windows at once. The papers and media outlets were at a loss to find the truth. No projectiles had been found, and no one there had witnessed anyone hurling rocks.
It was a mystery.
Taylor loathed mysteries. She liked cold, hard facts. Getting to the bottom of a mystery was like savoring the final melted droplets of a triple fudge sundae. Delicious, but the brain freeze along the way was painful and discomforting.
In the office behind her, a wall was lined with weaponry she had accumulated over the years. She still cleaned the items regularly, but she hadn’t fired a gun in nearly half a decade. She missed the electric thrill of the kickback as she pulled the trigger but had to admit that blowing holes in people for a living grew tiresome after a while. There was no pleasure in destruction, and only the affirmation that justice was its own reward allowed her to sleep at night. It was an exchange, snuff out one life in order to save hundreds more.
Taylor drank from a lukewarm cup of tea, then stretched her arms as the sun winked over the far reaches of the city. Directly above her, the moon refused to make way for its cousin.
Over the far reaches of the city, something shifted. A shadow, it looked like. Unlike the other shadows, this one was moving swiftly, disappearing into long dark stretches and appearing for half a second before vanishing again.
Taylor rubbed her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept well last night and worried that her migraines might return. Often an oncoming episode would be signified by dark patterns taking over her sight, swimming like minuscule fish in the liquid of her eyes.
But, no. The shadow was definitely still there, in the streets. She tilted her head and leaned forward, tracking its progress as it broke between shadows and grew larger on its approach.
A disquiet settled in her stomach. She looked at the sky, wondering if some silent machine was passing overhead. Not that that was possible, she knew, with the exception of hot air balloons and paragliders. But this shadow was moving too fast for that, surely.
The shadow reached Neverdon Crescent and that strange feeling grew stronger. Something in Taylor’s gut told her to prepare for the foreign invader, the unexplainable shadow streaking toward her.
The shadow took shape, becoming a ball of darkness with a smoky tail following in its wake.
What the hell?
Taylor rose from her chair. She turned, sliding the glass doors open to enter her study. She grabbed a pistol from the wall and rooted through the drawers for some ammunition. She was organized, the drawers were divided into neat portions where bullets and magazines were stored. Still, she hadn’t expected to reach in on such short notice, and it had been a while since she set the system up.
She could hear the shadow approaching, a faint whoosh as though a jet plane was nearing. She managed to secure a magazine and lock it into the chamber before she cocked the pistol and aimed it at the open balcony door.
The shadow descended upon her, arriving as a smoky orb at least six feet in diameter. It raised itself over the balcony and crashed toward her. Glass shattered. Taylor was able to fire one shot into the belly of the beast before it consumed her.
She was thrown backward. Her body hit the wall. Her grip remained tight on the pistol as she slid to the floor.
She remained there for a few minutes, surprised by how little pain she felt. Warm liquid leaked from her ears, but she was okay. By God, she was okay.
Taylor pushed herself to her feet and cracked her neck. Her eyes roamed the weapons decorating the walls. A sudden desire to take each and every firearm and load them, head out into the streets, and put them all into action overwhelmed her. A primal desire to kill and destroy consumed every fiber of her being.
She felt young. Younger than she’d felt in years. The creaks and aches of her bones and joints had vanished, and the strength…Oh, the strength she felt, as though there were two people inside of her.
Taylor laughed, a deep, throaty, cackling laugh. Somewhere outside, someone shouted up to her balcony, drawn by the shattering of glass. “Hey! Are you okay? Hello?”
Taylor’s head spun so suddenly it should have made her dizzy. Her eyes were drawn to the shattered glass doors.
“Hello?” the woman repeated. “Do you need me to come in?”
Taylor paused, that boiling feeling of superiority roiling in her gut. From out of nowhere, a voice spoke in her head.
Well, aren’t you going to answer her?
Taylor nodded and strode to the balcony. She rested one hand on the guardrail and stared down, her brow furrowed, her eyes nothing more than milky orbs.
“Oh.” The woman sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay. Do you need help? What happened—”
Taylor took a single shot, the bullet finding its target dead center in the woman’s forehead. The woman fell to the ground. Nearby, faces peered from curtains to look for the source of the disturbance.
Taylor lowered the gun, hiding it from sight. The voice inside her head, a masculine voice filled with years of experience and wonder, chuckled.
Good girl. Come now. There’s much work to be done.
Taylor didn’t argue. She couldn’t. How could she argue with a sentiment that made so much sense?
* * *
Lupe followed Hendrick like a shadow, remaining only a couple of steps behind him, wherever he went.
The laboratory was coming together. Only when instructed did Lupe leave Hendrick’s side to collect equipment or to tidy the mess the old man had left behind.
He was entrancing to watch. Each movement, each contribution to a formula was measured and precise. Lupe had imagined that Hendrick would have some kind of recipe book, or at least need to refer to notes to double-check his working on occasion, but not until then had he realized just how much knowledge was held deep inside his brain.
Lupe loved it. He didn’t think he would, but he did. He asked questions, he listened closely, making notes on a yellow legal pad as he went until Hendrick reprimanded him for writing down his secrets and told him to hold the information in his head.
“If I wanted to create a public cookbook, I’d be able to write it down myself,” Hendrick scolded as he dropped three droplets of silvery solution into a metallic box with thick glass windows and filled with a thin green liquid. “These are secrets, Lupe, passed down from generation to generation. You soak it all up in that big brain of yours, or I find a new apprentice. Understand?”
Lupe had no clue what they were working on, but Hendrick certainly did. The moment the silvery solution dropped into the box, rather than gathering at the bottom, or sinking to the top, it took on a life of its own, swimming around the mass of green liquid like a fish. After a few seconds, the silver liquid coalesced, concentrating on the left-hand side of the box.
Hendrick spun the box, but the silver remained in the same location each time.
“Perfect,” he exclaimed, his face creasing as he smiled.
“What is it?” Lupe asked.
Hendrick ignored him and handed Lupe the box. “You’ll see soon enough."
The liquid acted even more strangely when they met the others in the reception room. Twelve hours had passed since they had discovered that the darkness invading the two women was gone, and they’
d joined the rest of the group on the couches as they stuffed their faces and drank greedily from coffee cups.
Heads turned when Lupe and Hendrick entered the room. Lupe did as instructed and placed the box in the center of the table where the silver liquid inside started spinning in slow circles around the edge of the box.
The two women were sitting between Roman and Triton. They were still under guard, but the threat of another possessive episode had clearly passed. Light poured in from the large windows and brought the sun’s warmth into the house. Jiao was nowhere to be seen.
Tanya glanced at the others around the room as silence followed the box’s placement. “Am I going to have to be the one to ask this?” When no one replied, she added, “What the heck is that?”
Lupe looked to Hendrick expectantly. While there was plenty of space to sit, Hendrick chose to stand, fingers laced behind his back. “Your compass.”
The silver liquid spun to the wall nearest the window as the poltergeists continued their never-ending race outside of the house and sped past. The liquid followed their trajectory, slowly moving in circles around the box. Each time the McFarlene brothers appeared at the glass, the fish met them in its box by the closest side.
“A spectral compass?” Feng Mian asked. “How is that possible?”
Once again, Lupe turned to Hendrick for help.
Hendrick cleared his throat. “Simple, really. From the distilled essences of specters remaining from the concentration we took in the Umbra’s HQ, I’ve been able to slowly sift through the solution and separate the parts of the specters’ remaining organic matter. I was able to concentrate the silver solution further, giving us access to the abilities the specters once possessed.”
He lifted the box. “In this case, this specter who provided this energy once had an affinity of spectral detection. Something both Jennie and Sandra have shown an aptitude in. I know nothing about the specters and their stories, but their essences are biologically different and can be used in different ways.”
Agents, Agreements and Aggravations: In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service™ Book Three Page 33