Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3)

by Craig Schaefer

  “It’s a prototype,” Harmony said.

  Winslow reached across the cluttered workbench for a jeweler’s loupe. He fitted it over one eye and squeezed the other shut. Then he turned the rifle in his hands, searching every lethal inch.

  “Ain’t expecting a serial number, but…here we go.” Under the hard-edged, trapezoid shape of the muzzle, his cracked fingernail pointed out a tiny, almost unreadable string of numbers and letters. “We got ourselves a maker’s mark. Your wayward prototype walked out of Talon Worldwide’s workshop. Big defense contractor, got themselves a handful of sweetheart deals with the government. If I had to guess, this particular weapon—along with its buddies—got jacked in mid-shipment.”

  Harmony and Jessie shared a glance.

  “Thank you,” Harmony said. “You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  “Do I get to keep the rifle?”

  “No,” Jessie said, “but you get to not be arrested today. How’s that for a deal?”

  He sighed as Harmony bundled up the prototype in her arms, and gave them a tired wave.

  “Pleasure doin’ business. Don’t come again.”

  * * *

  On the drive back, Harmony called the rest of the team and handed out marching orders. A machine sprang to life, and calls traced red lines across the map of the nation. An embedded operative in the Department of Defense sent out tracers, hunting down a missing shipment. The Pentagon was involved by midafternoon, and they roped Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms into the loop. ATF wasn’t much help tracking a missing shipment of guns, seeing as Talon Worldwide had never reported one.

  A C-130 Hercules descended from an azure-kissed sky. The sun was going down and a midwestern chill hung in the air, the first warnings of a shift in the weather. Ezra Talon was waiting, standing beside his limousine with his hands resting on his silver-tipped cane and a light coat draped across his shoulders. His entire legal team was waiting with him.

  “We want you to know,” one lawyer said, stepping up at Ezra’s side and speaking for him as Harmony and Jessie approached, “that our internal investigation is ongoing.”

  “But,” the woman on Ezra’s other side quickly added, “we are fully prepared to cooperate with all legal inquiries, and Mr. Talon is present to answer any questions you may have.”

  “You gonna let him talk?” Jessie asked, nodding at Ezra.

  “He is talking,” said a third lawyer, clutching a leather attaché so stuffed with papers it could have been a bowling ball. “He is speaking right now, through us. Metaphorically.”

  “We’ve advised Mr. Talon to let us mediate these proceedings and remain silent, considering the…unfortunate circumstances,” the first lawyer said.

  Harmony’s eyes darkened.

  “‘Unfortunate circumstances.’ That’s an interesting way to describe a massacre.”

  “A massacre committed by shooters using your guns,” Jessie added. “Guns that aren’t for sale yet, with prototype parts.”

  “Which you didn’t report stolen,” Harmony said.

  “Because we didn’t know,” said the woman at Ezra’s side.

  She snapped her fingers. The lawyer with the attaché opened up his case. He sifted through it, drawing out a thumb-thick stack of printouts, and pressed them into Harmony’s hand.

  “It was covered up. Internally, by the person responsible. If one of the weapons hadn’t been recovered from the crime scene, it could have been months before we found out. And by then she would have had time to cover her tracks—”

  “Angelica Rosales,” Ezra grunted.

  “Sir, please, let us do the talking—”

  He thumped his cane on the tarmac. “My own head of security. She stabbed me in the goddamn back.”

  “You’re certain?” Harmony asked.

  “The documentation confirms it,” the lawyer with the case said. “Those prototypes were taken from a warehouse in Boston. Ms. Rosales has a company-issued transponder in her car; it places her at a tollbooth less than a mile from the scene of the theft. She then requisitioned one of the company jets.”

  “Who flew her?” Jessie asked.

  “She flew herself. Rosales is a military-trained pilot. She landed at a civilian airstrip just outside of Washington, DC. Her next stop was Las Vegas.”

  Harmony saw her reflection, doubled up in Jessie’s dark glasses. DC. If she hadn’t already been certain that Nyx was working with Senator Roth, either directly or using Calypso as a go-between, that would have clinched it.

  “She falsified the flight log,” said the first lawyer. “Given her status in the company, it wasn’t difficult. Not only didn’t we know where to look, we didn’t know there was anything to look for.”

  “Until now,” said the woman at Ezra’s side. “We do hope you’ll be noting our full cooperation.”

  “Noted,” Harmony said.

  Twenty-Seven

  Everything was fucked.

  Rosales listened to Ezra on her voicemail. And again, as the reality sank in.

  “…whatever you made on your little arms deal, and I have to assume you’ve done this more than once, I hope it’s enough to sustain you in retirement. Needless to say, your access to the office is terminated, as are you, and there is absolutely no need to come in for an exit interview.”

  Fuck me, she thought, squeezing the phone like a life preserver.

  “We’re cooperating with the federal authorities. As for you, I suggest you take your ill-gotten gains and hire an extremely talented lawyer. If you’re very lucky, you might be able to negotiate a plea bargain.”

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Nyx and her people were supposed to get the job done. Quick, clean, easy. They were not supposed to do it in the middle of a crowded casino. They were absolutely not, under any circumstances, supposed to leave an evidence trail behind.

  “This is what happens,” she hissed, pacing. “This is what happens when you don’t take care of your own business.”

  Her phone lit up. Adam. He didn’t let her get a word out before he started in on her.

  “Are you incompetent or insane?”

  “I can fix this,” she said. “I just need a little time.”

  “You’re going to be doing time. More than a little of it. Not only did you lose the women and lose the bell, you managed to get fired and lose your access to Talon Worldwide’s laboratory in the process. So tell me something: what use are you? You don’t seem to be any good to me alive, and at this point I’m contemplating cutting my losses.”

  “I can fix this. Just…just give me a couple of days, okay? Two days.”

  “Bring me something, Rosales. Bring me a reason to let you live. Two days.”

  He hung up on her.

  “Fuuuck,” Rosales moaned. She paced more. She grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged hard, like she could kick-start her brain. She needed a lifeline.

  Yes. She dialed fast.

  “Senator Roth’s office.”

  “Yes, hi, hello, this is Angelica Rosales, from Talon Worldwide. I met with the senator just the other day. I was wondering if I could have a quick word with him, please.”

  She sat on hold for five minutes. The receptionist came back on the line.

  “The senator is afraid that you’re mistaken.”

  “Mistaken?” Rosales said. “No, we just talked—”

  “He says he’s never met you and has no idea who you are. Please don’t call back.”

  The line clicked.

  Rosales stared at the dead phone. Then she threw it against the wall. It made a satisfying crunching sound as the plastic casing shattered into tangled shards.

  And now I need a new phone. Fine, feds will probably be tracking that one. Think. THINK! What do I have, what resources can I get my hands on? Can’t run. I can dance away from the cops, but Adam can find me on this planet or any…

  She stopped in mid-pace.

  Or any other one.

  * * *

  Harmony and Jessie n
ever realized how close they came to their quarry. Rosales returned to the scene of the crime, dressed in white overalls and oversized sunglasses and toting a stolen toolbox. Workers were milling around the casino floor, breaking down bullet-riddled slot machines and lifting out the remnants of a craps table under the watchful eye of cops from Metro.

  One of the uniforms waved her to a stop. Her stomach clenched.

  “Where you going?” he demanded.

  She pointed to the facade of Frankie’s, the steakhouse closed. Broken glass and a crusted puddle of red wine still marred the polished floor.

  “Cleanup crew,” she told him.

  He tugged on the radio clipped to his shirt pocket and ducked his chin. “Hey, did the detectives clear Frankie’s? Hotel wants to send the cleaners in.”

  The reply came back on a burst of static, and it sounded like a blurted “yeahgoahead.”

  “G’head,” the cop said to Rosales, nodding her away.

  A security guard had made secret backup copies of the footage from the gunfight, thinking he’d sell it to the highest bidder. Rosales had cracked into her rainy-day fund and convinced him to walk away with five hundred bucks and his life. There wasn’t any surveillance in the steakhouse or the kitchens, but a camera out back showed Nessa’s escape that night.

  Rosales watched her run into Frankie’s intact, then come out the back door wounded, with the writer clutching a first-aid kit that she didn’t have going in.

  She found what she was looking for in the kitchen, next to the door. A few spatters of dried blood clinging to the side of a stainless-steel island. She knelt down and opened her toolbox.

  “Come to mama,” she murmured, uncapping a scalpel. She put the blade to the stain and held a microscope slide underneath, ready to catch.

  “Pardon me,” said a voice that seemed to echo from the air all around her. “But I’m afraid I’m going to need that blood.”

  Rosales turned, staring at the empty kitchen. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Who’s there? Show yourself.”

  “If you wish, but please, no screaming. So many people have screamed at me today.”

  A slow rope of black tar oozed from the kitchen sink’s tap. Rosales watched it plop into the stainless-steel basin, the wet rope coiling and growing as it continued to pour. It overflowed the sink and squirmed up onto the countertop, moving like no liquid found in nature. It finally slid over the side, curling around the bloodstains, and formed the shape of feet as it rained onto the tile floor.

  The feet grew legs, then a torso and arms. The last dollop of ink slithered from the tap and rippled its way up the blobby mass, becoming the figure’s featureless head.

  “What are you?” Rosales said.

  “You don’t recognize me?” the voice asked. “But we used to work for the same company. Not that you seemed happy to see me, the last time we crossed paths.”

  Now she knew.

  “Savannah Cross,” Rosales breathed. She backed up, her hip bumping the kitchen island and making the pans rattle. “Holy shit, it’s really you. What…happened to you?”

  “I’ve had a breakthrough.”

  She lifted one fluid hand. The hand went jagged, sprouting a lethal spear. The spear went soft and took on the form of a rose. Then it melted back into the impression of fingers once more.

  “You know, lots of people say they believe in transhumanist philosophy,” Savannah said, “but who does anything about it? By replacing my mortal flesh with a stable alchemical matrix, I think I may have pioneered a scientific first. That or Dr. Cross did it, and I’m nothing but a sentient puddle of goo that retained her memories and personality when she died. I’m honestly not sure, and I love that. There’s a beauty in that uncertainty. Anyway. Hi.”

  “Hi,” Rosales said. Her mouth hung open a bit. “I’m…having a really bad day.”

  “Tell me about it. I broke ties with the Network. Adam sent a surveillance team after me, along with a fake surveillance team that was supposed to distract me from the real one. I’ve been hunting and killing and eating them all morning long, and I am exhausted.”

  “Eating them?”

  “Well, just the ones who were addicted to ink. Keeps my body stocked up on nutrients. I just open them up and slurp it out of them.” Savannah leaned in close, her torso stretching as her head hovered an inch from Rosales’s. “Just slurrrp it out of them. You’re not an ink junkie by any chance, are you?”

  “Never touch the stuff.”

  The goo body squished back into place. “Well, I had to ask. You know how it is, never let a good opportunity go to waste. So. I know why I want Vanessa Roth’s blood. Why do you want it?”

  “Because it’s my last chance to dig myself out of a hole. Adam had me embedded at Talon Worldwide—”

  “I know.” Savannah wriggled her oily fingers. “Chief Network scientist here. Former chief. I was recruited after you, but, well, I’m brilliant and you’re a thug, so I was promoted a bit faster.”

  Rosales yanked off her glasses. Her turquoise eyes flashed a warning.

  “I never wanted to work for the damn Network.”

  “But you liked the paycheck.”

  “Yes,” Rosales said. “I liked getting two paychecks for doing half of one job. And now I’ve got no paychecks, and that’s just the tiniest part of my problem, considering Ezra’s disowned me and the feds are on my tail. Anyway, Adam believed there was some kind of artifact, a really old bell, hidden in the cathedral under Deep Six. I was supposed to snag it, but Marie and Vanessa got it before you and your sidekick crashed that party. I need to bring Adam a peace offering, a big one, or it’s my ass on the line.”

  “And you know that the blood of the first story’s characters—in their veins or out of it—can act as a beacon. You’re going after them.” Savannah flapped an arm at the stain. “Which, unfortunately for your needs, is exactly why I’m here. I want Vanessa and Marie. Mostly Vanessa. In my new form I can slip across worlds. Well, sort of. More or less. It is excruciatingly painful and I boil off a good chunk of my biomass each time and it might kill me, but it’s still an impressive skill.”

  Rosales had a supernatural predator’s senses. She could smell the blood in a man’s veins and the fear in his sweat. Savannah didn’t smell like anything at all, the lack of pheromones like a blind spot in Rosales’s vision. All the same, she did catch the scent of something else. An opportunity in the making.

  “What if I had a better way?” Rosales asked.

  “I don’t have actual ears anymore, but I promise I’m listening.”

  “You want the women, I want the bell. I’ve got a way to reach them, a better way than yours, and you’ve got the science and the magical know-how to make sure it actually works.”

  “You’re proposing an alliance,” Savannah said.

  “I’ve got nothing to lose—trust me, right now I have nothing to lose—and you’ve got nothing to gain by turning me down. We get the job done and we go our separate ways.”

  “And you do realize that I’m being hunted by the Network as we speak?”

  “I won’t tell Adam if you won’t. He just wants results, and if I can bring him that bell, I figure that’ll buy me back into his good graces.”

  “That won’t help you with your legal situation,” Savannah pointed out.

  “I can handle that. Worst-case scenario, hey, interdimensional travel. I find a decent parallel world, and I fuck off and stay there. Best-case, Adam offered me a zoo.”

  “A zoo—” The blob of her head tilted. “Wait. Vandemere?”

  “It’s apparently in upstate New York, in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yes. I’ve been there. I had a bad time.”

  “I’ll just go into hiding,” Rosales said. “Live at the zoo, hunt in the forests. The cops’ll never find me.”

  “Sounds like a singularly unambitious life.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what? I’m down for all kinds of mayhem if it pays well, but a
t the end of the day, all I want is to lie in bed, eat pizza, and watch shitty reality TV shows. I’m not a complicated woman. So, what do you say? Are we going to fight over that blood, or are we going to team up and get shit done?”

  The gelatinous torso stretched as Savannah leaned toward her, invading her space. Rosales held her ground, motionless, as the eyeless head bobbed around her. She had the distinct feeling that she was being sniffed.

  “Have you ever wanted to be a knight?” Savannah asked her.

  “Not even a tiny fucking bit.”

  “Oh well. Nobody’s perfect. We should probably scrape up that blood and get moving. Can I ride in your toolbox?”

  “Sure,” Rosales said.

  Twenty-Eight

  On a dying ship, at the heart of an angelic battlefield, the Marquis laid out his plan. Nessa folded her arms, eyes narrow behind her glasses, and judged his every word.

  “I can get you past security,” the Marquis said. “Fly you right in under their noses. Everything after that, well, that’s up to you. Like I said, people have tried to scavenge the Logos before. Don’t go looking for them, because they’re still on that ship. Assuming anything’s left of ’em.”

  “It doesn’t sound like we’re getting a lot for Nadia’s money,” Nessa replied.

  “She owns most of a planet. She can afford it. Don’t act like it’s coming out of your own purse. Anyway, you ask me, you’re wasting your time.”

  “Why’s that?” Marie asked.

  “You’re hunting for the biggest game of all, right? You’re going after the big man.”

  “He owes us,” Nessa said.

  “Elysium’s just another word for heaven. You ain’t gonna find him in heaven. Of course I can’t prove it, but I’d lay serious cash on that bet and sleep like a baby.”

  “Oh?” Nessa said. “And what makes you so sure?”

  “Because God isn’t in heaven. Hasn’t been for ages. First place anybody would look. Think about it.” His index finger wagged from side to side like a metronome. “Countless worlds filled with death, misery, plague, war. Unanswered prayers and suffering. You have any idea how many people want that fucker dead? No. He had to run and hide. It was either that or answer for everything he never did.”