Cold Spectrum

by Craig Schaefer

We sat in low-slung chairs on the far side of the desk. Prospero looked from me to Jessie and back again. He pointed his fingers at us, then slapped his palms on the desk in an erratic little drumbeat.

  “I,” he said, “have seen you on television. I just can’t quite remember where. Was it an episode of Law & Order? No. Wait. A Western. An old rerun of Gunsmoke, perhaps.”

  Weird mirth danced in his eyes. He was playing with us—I just wasn’t sure what kind of game. Or how much he really knew. In the corner of my eye, Jessie shifted in her chair. Bringing her concealed gun a half inch closer to her hand. As my mind raced, I settled on a gamble. A big one.

  “That’s why we’re here,” I told him. “We’re deep-cover operatives for the Court of Jade Tears, inserted into the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a long-term mission. What you saw on the news, that so-called robbery, was actually an attempt on our lives.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Atlantic City is a long way from the West Coast. Caitlin knowingly sent operatives outside her prince’s territory?”

  “We’ve been investigating a serious threat—not just to her court, but to all of them.” I took a deep breath and rolled the dice. “We’ve become aware of an illegal black-ops program, buried deep inside the government. It’s called Vigilant Lock.”

  Prospero’s cheek twitched. The ghost of an “I know something you don’t” smile. “And the . . . purpose of this program is what, exactly?”

  My phone vibrated against my hip, a call coming in. I ignored it and looked Prospero in the eye.

  “It’s a band of humans who have somehow become aware of the courts’ existence. Their mandate is to detect, intercept, and kill our people by any means necessary.”

  “You say ‘our people,’” he replied, “but I don’t smell a whiff of my blood in your veins.”

  Jessie followed my lead. “We’ve been loyal to the Jade Tears. They took us in. Gave us a purpose.”

  “A purpose?” Prospero gave her a shy smile and another high-pitched giggle. “Ooh, are you idealists? Most humans just want cash in exchange for betraying their own species.”

  “The cash is nice, too,” I said. “But we thought loyalty was a two-way street. Vigilant operatives attacked us in the Diamondback Casino. We had to shoot our way out—idiot civilians got in our way. Next thing we know, our faces are all over the news. We called Caitlin for extraction. Know what she told us? ‘You’re useless to us now. You’re on your own.’”

  “They burned us,” Jessie grumbled.

  My phone started buzzing again, insistent. Prospero shot a pointed glance downward.

  “Do you need to get that?” he asked.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Really,” he said, “this is only the most important job interview of your mortal lives. I can wait.”

  “I’ll call them back.”

  He drummed his palms on the desk again. “Right answer. So. You’re in the wind, cast aside like yesterday’s rubbish. I wish I could tell you that our rivals didn’t have a reputation for that sort of thing. You arguably should have known better.”

  “We hear you treat your people with more respect than that,” Jessie said. “We’re looking for new faces and new identities.”

  “Hmm. Your usefulness as assets in the FBI is over—I’m afraid she was right about that much. What else can you do? What can you do for me?”

  “We’re trained in infiltration, abduction, interrogation, and assassination.” I spread my hands, trying to sell the role. I thought back to the first time I met Mikki. Channeling her movements, her speech patterns. “We’ve also both been diagnosed as clinical psychopaths, which, let’s face it, is an asset in this line of work. We’re the complete package.”

  “Try us out,” Jessie said. “Call it an audition. Point out a problem—or a problem person—and we’ll eliminate it for you. Free of charge. Once you see the results, pretty sure you’re gonna want us on your team.”

  Smart move. An audition would get us out of this office and away from the weirdly giggling toxic-magic-leaking demon on the other side of the desk. We could come back, break in, and crack his safe once the coast was clear.

  “Try before I buy?” Prospero tittered. “If the murder business doesn’t work out, you should think about getting into sales. You know, there is something. A reporter for the Times has been digging in to a shell company owned by friends of mine. Could be a scandal brewing, or legal trouble.”

  “You want us to take him out?” I asked.

  He stared across the desk at me. His dimples faded; the giggling stopped. His voice became cool and measured.

  “He’s been useful to me in the past, so I want you to send a message instead. I would like him to wake up and find the corpse of his five-year-old son. I would like the boy to be skinned, and his entrails placed to spell out something amusing. Is that a problem?”

  My guts clenched, and I fought to keep the revulsion from showing on my face. If I slipped, if I gave him any reason not to believe my act, we were both dead. I felt my cheek muscles tightening—and went in the opposite direction. Instead of struggling for a poker face, I burst out laughing and gave him a lunatic grin.

  “A kid? I thought you were going to give us a hard test.” I looked over at Jessie. “And you were worried.”

  She shrugged like she couldn’t care less. “Whatever, give us the address and we’ll be back in an hour.”

  Prospero beamed at us, his palms slapping a staccato beat on the desk. “Eager beavers! Now remember, I want lots of pictures—”

  A phone trilled. He glanced down, suddenly irritated, and arched his eyebrow.

  “Sorry, I do have to take this.” He put the phone to his ear. “Ben, what have I told you about calling me? This number is only for emergen—what? Wait. Wait. Slow down and take a deep breath—you’re babbling.”

  My stomach plummeted harder than the first drop of a roller coaster. Jessie and I shared a sidelong glance.

  “Wait, you’re here? Here here, or . . . I’m not going to tell you again, take a breath.” Prospero shoved his chair back, cupping his hand over the phone. “I’m sorry, I’ll be right back. Please, make yourselves comfortable. There’s coffee, if you’d like.”

  The door swung shut behind him. The only door. And from the sound of it, he was standing right on the other side, listening to a man who was about to blow our cover.

  TWENTY-SIX

  We jumped to our feet. “Desk,” I whispered, pointing as I padded over to the bookshelves. Every passing second dragged us closer to a fight with an angry demon, a fight we weren’t equipped for, but we had to grab whatever intel we could. I felt along the fake row of books, fingers searching for a seam or a catch, while Jessie riffled through his desk drawers. On the other side of the flimsy door, I heard Prospero talking on the phone.

  “What do you mean, a cell’s gone rogue? So what are you calling me for? Kill them and replace them. It’s not the team investigating Diehl, is it? Ben, we need a way to take down the Network. You’re not the only person who’s accountable for results. I promise you, my boss is a lot tougher on me than I am on—okay, then stop babbling and explain it to me.”

  I found the catch. The panel swung open on a concealed hinge, exposing a recessed steel safe with an electronic keypad mechanism. I took out my phone and snapped pictures. Nothing we could do right now, but once we had time to regroup with the team, we could come up with a strategy for cracking it open. Having the make and model might help. Behind me, Jessie dug through old files and receipts, shaking her head.

  “Does this have something to do with that Vigilant operation in Atlantic City?” Prospero said. He giggled. “How do I know about that? Oh, you’re going to love this. Those Jade Tears agents your people were after? They’re here, looking for safe harbor. I’m probably going to hire them. They actually came to warn me about—wait, slow down. What?”

  Jessie ran to the window. I shut the safe panel, leaving it exactly as I’d found it: if Prospero figured
out his safe was our target, he might empty it out before we came back for the break-in.

  Optimistic thinking. First, we had to survive the next five minutes. Jessie flipped the clasps, hauling the window up and open. The hall had gone silent. Then, as Jessie swung one leg over the sill and looked down to the alley below, I heard Prospero’s voice drop to a slow and venomous growl.

  “Ben. Listen to me. It is very, very important that I understand you correctly before I do something irreversible. Your rogue operatives are who, exactly?”

  Jessie shoved herself out the window. I was right behind her. I leaned out to take a look, and my breath caught in my throat.

  No fire escape. It was a straight drop to the alley, maybe fifteen feet down. I saw Jessie land with a thud, dropping to a crouch, then rolling on her shoulder with supernatural grace. She jumped to her feet and dusted off her sleeve.

  I didn’t have any occult-infused blood to ease my landing. My bones were all too human and breakable. Still, I hooked one leg over the sill, looking back at the office door. I froze for the space of a heartbeat, trapped between a demon and a long, hard drop.

  “Come on,” Jessie whispered, waving her hands at me. “I’ll catch you, I promise!”

  I sat on the edge and took a deep breath. Then I shoved my palms against the sill and let myself fall. Behind me, the office door exploded. I heard the wood shatter, the door blasting open on a torn and tortured hinge, splinters and sawdust flying above my head like shrapnel as I plummeted. My heart lurched into my throat, night wind whistling in my ears—

  Then Jessie’s arms caught me, scooping me up before my feet hit the alley floor. She set me down and hugged me tight just for a second. Above our heads, a guttural bellow of rage boomed from the office window.

  “I’ve got a great idea,” Jessie said.

  “Run really fast?”

  She nodded and pointed up the garbage-strewn alley, toward a distant streetlight. “It’s like you read my mind.”

  We broke into a sprint, footfalls pounding. I glanced back over my shoulder. If Prospero was coming after us, he wasn’t taking the window. I tried to figure the distance between the front door and the alley. How fast could he move?

  And what would he look like when we saw him?

  A headlight flared up ahead, punctuated by the roar of an engine. Prospero had called for backup. A motorcycle blazed toward us, its front wheel lifting off the ground, charging full throttle down the middle of the alley. I grabbed Jessie’s arm and yanked her to one side, taking cover beside a dumpster. Electric light glinted off chrome in the rider’s gloved hand. His front wheel slapped down on the broken pavement as he took rough aim and squeezed the trigger. His machine pistol’s muzzle flashed hot white, and bullets chewed into the dumpster, twisting steel.

  As he veered past us, I was already down on one knee, Sig Sauer in my hand and my eyes on the sights. I fired one shot. The back of his helmet ruptured like a crater on the moon, and he spun out, falling from the saddle and rolling, dead. His bike skidded across the alley in a shower of sparks. We ran after it. Jessie grabbed hold of the handlebars and hauled the motorcycle back upright while another headlight blazed at the opposite end of the alley.

  I summoned my magic as I swung into the saddle. Jessie got on behind me, her hands tight on my hips. I revved the engine. At the far end of the alley, straight ahead of us, so did they.

  I gunned it.

  We lurched forward, wheels bouncing, charging toward the oncoming headlight. I couldn’t see the riders in the glare, couldn’t see if they were taking aim. Only intuition could guide me now. I counted down—three, two, one—then flung up my hand, drawing a shimmering wall of air in front of us just a heartbeat before they opened fire. A trio of rounds hung frozen in the air, one aimed right between my eyes and six inches away, slowly boring through the magical shield. The speedometer read thirty, thirty-five, and the gap between our bikes closed by the second as we charged down the narrow alley on a collision course.

  I dug deep, drawing up every last reserve of energy, and mentally shoved. The air shield tugged, pulled, then snapped like a rubber band, sending the bullets winging back where they came from. The oncoming headlight shattered. The bike wobbled, but the rider, unhit, kept on coming.

  “You want to play chicken?” I breathed. “Okay. Let’s play.”

  I gritted my teeth and went hard on the throttle, picking up even more speed, holding the bike on a spear-straight course right down the middle of the alley. Close enough now to see the look of the cambion biker’s face in the wash of my high beam. I looked for the flicker of fear on his face, any indication that he wasn’t on a suicide mission.

  There it was. Three seconds to impact, his mouth opened wide as he realized I wasn’t going to stop.

  He yanked his handlebars hard to the left, veering out of our path, careening into a pile of garbage bags. His front wheel hit the debris, and his bike flipped. He went flying, hitting the asphalt face-first and skidding across the alley while his ride crashed and burned behind him. A gasoline fire glimmered in our rearview mirror as we burst out of the alley mouth and onto the street.

  I swerved, got my balance, and hit the throttle. Up ahead of us, a lone figure stepped into the middle of the street.

  Prospero.

  He hadn’t shifted into his true form. Still just a weird-eyed, twitchy accountant, and somehow that made him all the more threatening. Like he couldn’t even be bothered. He fixed us with a glare of pure venom and slowly raised one open palm, fingers curling.

  The pavement in front of us erupted. The street burst open, chunks of rock flying like fist-size bullets, as a two-foot-deep pothole sprouted straight ahead. I veered left, almost hard enough to lay the bike down, and swerved around it. A second pothole erupted. The front wheel missed it by a scant inch as I dodged at the last second. I realized what he was doing: forcing us closer to him. And unlike the rider in the alley, he wasn’t going to flinch.

  I knew what incarnates were capable of. If we hit him full-on at fifty miles an hour, he’d be the only thing left standing.

  Heart pounding, magic all but drained, I dug deeper into my center. Down to the last flickering sparks of energy, scooping them up in my hand and turning them into alchemical fire. One chance, one shot. I pointed my finger like an accusation and let it fly. Another thing I knew about incarnates: they might be faster, stronger, and harder to kill than humans, but they could still feel pain.

  A stream of fire, like a lit trail of gasoline, streaked through the cold night air. The fire dart hit Prospero square in the eye. He yelped, clutching his face, his concentration shattered.

  I yanked the handlebars, careening around and past him, leaving him in our dust. I hooked a right at the next intersection and streaked through a red light. Then another turn, and another, until I was sure he wasn’t running after us. As sure as I could be. I slowed down and pulled the bike over to the curb.

  “You okay?” Jessie said. “You didn’t get hit, did you?”

  “No, I’m—” I doubled over, pale and shaking, as the first wave of cramps hit me. My body reacting to the volume of raw energy I’d just forced through it, protesting being used as a tool of the universe. “Bill’s due, that’s all. Switch with me. You drive, I’ll ride.”

  We found an all-night diner in Bensonhurst, halfway down a street lined with butchers’ shops and pizza parlors. I was still shaky, but a mug of black coffee had me feeling human again. Jessie sat across from me in a booth with padded vinyl benches.

  “It wasn’t a total wash,” she said. “We’ve ID’d a hound, which is good intel. And we know about two pieces of property he supposedly owns. Once we get Vigilant under control and back on its feet, we can start digging in to the paper trail.”

  I smiled faintly into my coffee. “These eastern courts . . . they never had to be careful. Vigilant wouldn’t target them, period. How much you wanna bet they’ve got all kinds of weak spots we can exploit?”

  “Silver
linings.” Jessie clinked her mug against mine. “Didn’t find anything useful in his desk. How did the safe look?”

  I fished my phone out, remembering the calls I’d gotten during our “job interview.”

  “High quality. Electronic lock, though. Hopefully Kevin can work some magic on it. This might be . . .” I looked at the screen. Two missed calls, two voice mails—both from Burton Webb, the director of the RedEye program.

  “What?” Jessie asked.

  “Trouble.” I set the phone on the table and played the first voice mail.

  Burton’s voice was a strained whisper edged with fear. Beyond his heavy breathing, a distant clatter punctuated his words. Muffled gunfire.

  “Agent Black, I’m . . . oh fucking God, I’m in trouble here, and you’re the only person I can trust. Can’t get hold of my NSA handler, the hotline’s down, they cut the Internet. These people, they . . . they stormed the building, killed the receptionist. I ran to my office and barricaded the door. I’m hiding under my fucking desk, but it’s only a matter of time. Please, help me!”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jessie stared at the silent phone on the table.

  “We had it wrong,” she said. “We thought we screwed up—that Crohn was in town because he figured out we were in New York.”

  I cued up the second voice mail. “He doesn’t know where to look. But he knows how to find us. Linder used to run the RedEye program; of course Crohn would know it exists.”

  The second message started with a rhythmic thumping. Thudding steel against wood, and from the jarring, splintering sounds, the wood was losing fast.

  “It’s me again,” Burton breathed. “I don’t have much time. Think I’m the only person left. I was watching the security feed on my desktop. This woman, she just stared at one of my IT guys and lit him on fire from ten feet away. I don’t know who these people are, what they want. I’ll try to get out one last—”

  The sound washed out in the crash of a door bursting open, and the thudding of hard-soled boots rushing in fast. Burton’s message ended with a click and a beep.