Nightingale

by David Farland

  The Draghouls' efforts also used sophisticated software. If anything, their spy network was more advanced than the CIA's. Much of the security software developed by private corporations and sold to governments around the world was built by the Draghouls.

  All it took to build a spy network was money, and the Draghouls had a nearly limitless supply.

  Their criminal empire had flourished from the time merchants first traveled down the Silk Road out of China, smuggling stolen gems and antiques under piles of silk. They'd made a fortune selling blue lotus blossoms to ancient Egyptians eager for a high, and by rigging bets in the Roman Coliseum.

  Over the centuries, they'd amassed trillions of dollars.

  Nowadays, they made most of their money bootlegging prescription drugs and manipulating global stock markets.

  They'd tapped into the communications satellites decades ago. That's why Olivia seldom contacted other masaaks by phone, and why she spoke in vagaries and codes when she did. The Draghouls might well be listening to a recording of Olivia's call with Officer Walton at this very moment, analyzing every word.

  If so, the wisest course for her would be to throw her cell phone out the window so that her location couldn't be traced. She could drive away, disappear forever—leave Bron in his cell for the Draghouls, leave Mike to have his brain picked apart for any clues as to where she might have gone.

  The fact that she froze in indecision, considered driving the lonely roads to Elko, Nevada, and hiding out in the desert, indicated just how much the enemy terrified her.

  But she couldn't run. If I don't try to save the people I love, I'll never be able to live with myself. She had to squash this, and fast.

  Bron closed his eyes, imagined an old song called "Free Bird." He had a gift for remembering music. If he concentrated, he could almost hear a song, remember every note, every nuance to the singer's voice. He only had to hear it three or four times, and he had it forever. It was like having an iPod in his head.

  The engine roared as the police cruiser raced down the highway.

  The band that had sung the song, Lynyrd Skynyrd, had pretty much all been wiped out in a plane crash. Snuffed out and silenced in the dead of night.

  Such a loss.

  Bron opened his eyes to mere slits. The car bounced as it hit a bump. A purple light sparked in the air.

  Bron hadn't meant to do anything. His powers were still untamed. He couldn't help it, but he'd just drained something from Officer Walton.

  What happens if I drain too much from him? Bron wondered. Would he just crumple, clutching the steering wheel? Would he faint and veer from the road at seventy miles per hour?

  Bron didn't want to find out.

  He tried to calm himself, taking deep breaths, until they reached Saint George, turned into the center of town, and rolled into the police station.

  It was bigger than Bron had imagined. Officer Walton escorted Bron to a front desk and told the petite receptionist, "I'm going to need an interrogation room here. The prisoner's name is Bron, B-R-O-N. Last name Jones."

  The woman smiled at Bron as if she were used to working the counter at Taco Bell, rather than in a police station. She typed his name into a computer, then jutted her chin. "Room three is yours."

  Dozens of officers were bustling about.

  Walton marched Bron into the back room, keeping him in cuffs, and set him in a hard chair. Walton wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Lordy, I'm tired." He turned to leave.

  "Aren't you going to ask me any questions?" Bron said.

  "No," Walton smiled. "You lawyered up. Besides, I'm not all that interested in you. You're just a minnow. I'm after the big fish, and you're just the bait."

  Walton gave a gloating smile, turned, and left Bron beneath the glaring lights.

  As Olivia reached Highway 89, she made a quick call to Father Leery, the only other masaak that she knew locally. She briefly explained the situation and asked, "What should we do?"

  "First," Father Leery said, "don't be in such a hurry to get down to the police station. I know you're worried about Bron. By now, I suspect that the enemy knows that someone has been arrested. They'll be coming for him."

  "That's why I want to get him out now!"

  "It's almost 10:00," Father Leery said. "There will be a shift change at the precinct. Officers will be coming on duty, others will be filling out reports. The place will be busy. The enemy will send an extraction team, but they'll want to wait until things quiet down, to lessen their risk."

  Olivia nodded. Father Leery was wise in many ways, and she appreciated having a man with experience in such dangerous matters.

  "So what do we do?"

  "They'll come for him in the dead of night," Father Leery warned. "Four in the morning would be the safest hour, but they'll be too eager. They'll strike just after midnight."

  "Okay," Olivia said. That was only a couple of hours away.

  "I'll reach you well before that. We'll take Bron out before the enemy gets there. Don't be afraid. I'm on my way."

  "Bring guns," she begged.

  Father Leery didn't answer, merely hung up.

  Of course he'll bring guns, Olivia thought. But she wasn't sure. He was a man of peace, after all.

  Before she could put the phone back in her pocket, Mike called. "Did you hear the news?" he demanded. "Bron's been arrested!"

  "I know," Olivia said. "I'm on my way to the police station."

  "Okay," Mike said. "We've got to figure a way out of this. I don't believe these charges. I don't think Bron's a killer. He's a nice kid. There has got to be some kind of mistake."

  "I agree," Olivia said.

  "But we don't have the money to bail him out," Mike said. "I mean, if he goes up on murder, with a full trial? We could lose our life's savings real fast."

  She hadn't even considered the notion that she might get Bron out on bail. It seemed a faint hope. No, with the Draghouls out there, she really didn't have any hope at all.

  "Don't worry," Olivia said. "I'm not going to put the ranch at risk. I won't post any bail."

  "Do you want me to come down there?" Mike asked.

  He'd want to make sure that she didn't make a mistake, get emotional and throw away all of their money, of course, but Olivia heard something in his voice: a real concern for Bron.

  "This has to be some kind of stupid mistake," Olivia said. "Even if they do offer to let Bron out on bail, the best thing is to wait for a few weeks. The judges don't want to fill up the jails, so they'll keep lowering the bail every week or so, until someone springs for it. The best thing that we can do is to let Bron know that we love him, and wait."

  "Yeah," Mike said, sounding reassured. "Yeah, you're right. I think I'm going to come down anyway."

  She didn't want him there. This looked like it might get messy real fast, so she tried to warn him off.

  "Tell you what," Olivia said. "Let me find out what the situation is, and I'll call you later tonight, if I need you. Morning comes early. You go get some sleep."

  Olivia drove quickly to the police station, which was situated on a hill above Saint George. She glanced down over the city as she exited the car. The lights were soft and warm. The Mormon Temple, the largest building in the city, was all luminous white and gold, its central spire rising above the sleeping city.

  The Sheriffs office was imposing, big and blockish. Dozens of patrol cars parked out front, their bubble lights gleaming in a well-lit lot.

  Olivia would have preferred a smaller precinct—something where only one lone dispatcher might be manning the night desk. In her imagination it would be easy to subdue just one officer.

  She considered waiting for Father Leery, but she was too nervous. She wanted to see Bron now, to get him out quickly, if she could.

  As she walked up the sidewalk toward the doors, she glanced up at the security cameras overhead, and realized that she had another problem: there might be an electronic record of Bron's arrest—video footage
, photographs, induction records, dispatch transcripts.

  This incident could already be too large to contain, she decided. Maybe I should just snatch Bron and run.

  She was trembling as she reached the door. The automatic opener let the doors slide backward, yawning into a dark space.

  Like the Greek entrance to hell, Olivia thought. She peeked inside, saw a smiling desk clerk—a petite woman with dark hair. My very own Cerberus.

  Olivia stepped inside the building, with its bland beige walls. The place was bustling. Two dispatchers handled the desk, while a corrections officer milled about, processing a dejected-looking drunk. Dozens of officers were finishing up day shift, or coming in for the night.

  It was as if it were the busiest time of day. Her heart sank.

  It might still be possible to get Bron out.

  She imagined that the police would escort her to some kind of interrogation room. With any luck, she might overpower Officer Walton, wipe his mind, and then just walk away.

  She went to the desk clerk and announced herself. "Olivia Hernandez, here to see Officer Walton?"

  The desk clerk punched a call to line three, spoke softly, and moments later Walton came scurrying from the back, with a female officer at his side. He smiled, his mouth as wide as a bullfrog's. "Olivia, thank you for coming down and making this easy for us. Right this way."

  Officer Walton led her down a hall. Through some one-way glass she spotted Bron sitting in an interrogation room, his hands cuffed behind his back, while a lone bulb shone overhead.

  Walton led her to a second interrogation room. "Go on in and have a seat," he said, as he opened the door.

  She felt certain now that she wasn't here to see Bron. Walton intended to arrest her. She had only one chance to escape. The hallway was empty except for the two officers.

  She had never used her sizraels as weapons, but she knew how to.

  Normally, a person's mind filters their thoughts, allows them to concentrate on only one thing at a time. But with a little burst of power, Olivia could open thousands of memories at once. The resulting "brain burst" was like an explosion in the mind. The stimulus knocked most people unconscious.

  Olivia entered the room, unsheathed her sizraels, whirled, and reached up to tap Walton on the temple.

  But Walton responded faster than a fat man should be able to, grabbing her wrist and twisting fiercely, digging the knuckle of his thumb into her wrist, in the bundle of nerve fibers in her ganglia. A throb of pain numbed her arm.

  Walton shoved her against a wall and slapped a handcuff on one of her wrists.

  He must have spotted the suction cups on her fingers, for he shouted, "What the hell?"

  Olivia immediately forced herself to relax, retracted her sizraels. They were worthless anyway. The ganglia in the human wrist was a pressure point used by martial artists, but attacks to this spot were doubly effective upon masaaks. Olivia's whole arm was numb with pain.

  Walton seemed scared now. Frightened people are often mean. He slammed her against the wall again for good measure and twisted her other arm up into the cuffs. For a moment he stood huffing, trying to catch his breath.

  He grabbed her cuffs and pulled them back and up, so that the metal cut into her wrists, as he examined her fingers. The suction cups were gone. By now he'd be wondering what he thought he'd seen.

  "Well," he said after a moment, confusion evident in his tone. "I think I'm going to pile 'resisting arrest' and 'battery' on top of all the other charges."

  Blair Kardashian had been listening to a police scanner in his hotel room when a message came over the radio. "This is car 7, Officer Walton. We have a 10-82, suspect in custody, on that freeway incident last Friday. I'm bringing him in for questioning."

  "That's a 10-4," the dispatcher said.

  Blair leaned close to the speakers, waiting for the dispatcher to ask the identity of the subject, but she didn't bother.

  Night was on, and the air was filled with end-of-shift chatter. Beyond that, someone had just called in a major accident down on the Arizona border, and emergency vehicles and police were rushing to the scene, so news of Walton's arrest got lost in the excitement.

  Blair picked up his cell phone and considered calling his master.

  His acolytes were out doing grunt work for the dread knights, watching store parking lots. It was a menial task, but someone had to keep watch: masaaks are nocturnal by nature. Darkness makes them feel safe, concealed. So the dread knights had reasoned that their quarry would most likely wait for full darkness to run their errands. They'd need to eat sometime. So each major grocery store in the area had one Draghoul guarding it.

  The fact that Blair was relegated to listening to a police scanner was humiliating. The dread knights were hindering him from finding his quarry. Using memories they'd stolen from him, they insisted on conducting their own search, hoping to win their master's reward when they caught this pair.

  It wasn't fair, Blair knew. But the dread knights were not known for being fair.

  Why should I let them have the honor? he wondered. Why should they gain a reward?

  Though he was growing old, Blair was far more capable than others imagined. He kept physically and mentally fit. Over the years he had gleaned a great deal of information from various fighters—Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, and the like. Killers all.

  So he slipped into his new Mercedes and drove to Harmon's Grocery Store. There he found Acolyte Riley O'Hare in the parking lot, keeping the store under surveillance. Blair pulled up to Riley's car, rolled down his window, and said, "Get in." The acolyte knew better than to ask why.

  Half an hour later, Blair had gathered all four of his acolytes. It was nearly 11:00 by the time he reached the police station. An officer was just leaving. Civilian cars crowded the parking lot. Too many.

  Blair huddled behind the driver's seat. The acolytes in the car did not speak. They'd been trained to remain silent.

  "All right, my little nightingales," Blair said. "It's time to go to work. You know what to do."

  "Is this a wet op?" Riley asked.

  "Yes," Blair said. "Prepare to get bloody."

  So, Olivia," Officer Walton said, "our tipster tells us that a woman in a white Honda CRV was driving when the attack on the highway occurred. Would you like to tell us what happened?"

  He bent his ear, as if Olivia might whisper. A female officer sat at his side, sprawling in her chair, with a bemused expression—the look that a child might have on her face when she's getting ready to tear the wings off a fly.

  Olivia bit her lip and simply waited. It had been more than an hour since they had cuffed her. She needed a drink, but dared not ask. "I want my lawyer," she said for the tenth time.

  "You and I have been friends for a long time," Walton said. "You're a good woman. The kids down at your school love you. So I've got to say, these accusations sound downright crazy to me. I've got to wonder what really went on?"

  Olivia tried to keep calm. With every second that she waited, it increased the likelihood that the Draghouls would come. Yet she couldn't tell them the truth. She'd contacted Father Leery, but it would take some time for him to reach the precinct. She had to hope that he'd make it, that he'd be able to do something.

  "I told you, I'm waiting for my lawyer," she warned Officer Walton.

  He circled, scratched his head. The female officer leaned back in her chair, looking bored.

  "Was it some kind of road rage?" Walton asked. "Did these folks do something to you? Were you afraid of them? I mean, if it was self-defense...."

  A soft rapping came at the door. The interrogation room door opened, and the desk clerk poked her head in and whispered, "Her lawyer's here."

  "Well," Walton said, clearly annoyed, "the more the merrier."

  Olivia breathed a sigh of relief—until the Draghoul from Best Buy strode into the room, grinning like a skull.

  "Watch out!" she shouted to Walton. "He's not a lawyer!"

  She threw
herself backward, hoping to break her chair, but merely landed on the floor.

  Officer Walton whirled and reached for his gun, just as the Draghoul touched his temple. Walton spasmed so hard he was thrown into the air. He bounced off the wall, fell, and began to convulse and growl.

  Stunned, the female officer tried to pull her gun as the old Draghoul leapt. He grabbed her head, jerked to the right. Neck bones snapped. She sagged to the floor.

  The Draghoul turned to Olivia and flashed a baby-killer smile. "I love to see a woman in cuffs."

  Bron sat in his chair, beneath a bulb that beat at him. Though it gave little light, it seemed to exude a great deal of heat, enough so that he found sweat dripping down his armpits, beads of it twisting down his nose.

  He wondered if the government had special bulbs made just for interrogation rooms. With all of the examinations that the military made of Iraqis and Afghans at places like Guantanamo Bay, he imagined that they probably needed such bulbs.

  Bron decided that he would simply endure—the heat, the boredom, the silence. He'd been in the room for a long time, and no one had come to speak to him. No one had offered a drink, or asked him if he needed to relieve himself.

  It was part of their strategy, he decided. This was how they hoped to break him down.

  They'd come for him in a couple of hours, the interrogators, when he'd been up all night and all day. They'd let his own fear work on him.

  The problem was, he didn't really fear the police. Bron had long ago learned to turn off his feelings, not just for others, but for himself. Worry, fear, fatigue—if he concentrated, he could ignore them all.

  He heard a scrape at the door, and a plastic card swiped through the outside lock. He expected Officer Walton, but instead a teenage girl entered the room, a pretty brunette. She walked toward him with a strangely mesmerizing gait, her hips rolling gracefully, her back straight and poised.