Of course, in the scenario in his head, Darc hadn’t bitch-slapped him, so there was that. Trey shook his head and threw open the door, forcing his limbs into motion.
As he did so, he made the call to Dispatch. “Detective Keane here. We’ve got a possible situation in the 120 Block of South Kenyon Street. Requesting backup.” He started to put away his cell, then reconsidered. “Oh, and bring Animal Control.”
“What…?” came the response from Dispatch, but Trey had already pushed the button to disconnect. Hopefully, they’d figure it out.
It would take some time to get anyone out here, but for once, Trey was going to try to offset Darc’s single-minded approach with a little bit of by-the-book behavior. Hey, there was a first time for everything, right?
Trey took a deep breath, trying to push down his fear. Over the course of his career, he might have made a lot of mistakes, but Darc wasn’t going to have to face this alone.
Running off in pursuit of his bald-headed companion, Trey debated calling out. The sound of his yelling might alert whoever was here, but the barking dogs could possibly block it out.
No. If the men they were after were the ones Trey thought they might be, it was safer to go in silent. Putting on a burst of speed, he tried to catch up to Darc.
And to his shock, he actually succeeded. That had never happened before.
He glanced over at his partner, whose attention seemed riveted on something up ahead. Had Darc just let him catch up? That didn’t seem much like the autistic detective. But then again, that slap had been pretty out of character, too. Lately, Darc had been acting more than a little strangely.
That might be worth a conversation.
If they managed to get out of here alive.
* * *
Mala felt herself wade back into consciousness, fighting off the effects once more of the chemicals that were coursing through her system. Just how serious had her injuries been, anyway?
As she came to herself, she found the contours of a familiar form taking shape. Carly stood above her, a pinched expression on her face. She fussed with something below Mala’s range of vision… the covers, perhaps?
Mala blinked, trying to get Carly’s features to resolve into normal focus, but Mala’s eyes seemed to be fighting that process with everything they had. This was not pleasant in the slightest.
“You’re awake,” Carly said, blinking down in what looked like surprise.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Mala croaked, horrified at the sound that was coming out of her mouth.
Carly took a step back, and the dim echo of a smile turned the corners of her mouth up. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
Carly let out a sigh. “No one else is here. Darc and Trey are off who knows where. Maggie’s out cold. Janey is nowhere to be found. I was just feeling very alone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I kind of liked it,” Carly confessed. “I’m used to being by myself.”
The words reminded Mala in a forceful way that there was so much she didn’t know about this young woman. Even now that they were spending much more time together, Carly didn’t like to over-share. Or share much at all, for that matter.
“Janey’s with Cat,” Mala told her. “Darc and Trey are out investigating a murder.” Then something that Carly had said penetrated Mala’s fuzzy thought process. “Hold on. Did you say something about Maggie? What’s going on with her?”
Darc’s ex-wife and Trey’s current fiancé… or whatever she was… hadn’t been on Mala’s radar at all. But when Carly’s surprise turned into something far more mischievous, Mala’s concern turned into curiosity.
“Oh, that’s right,” Carly said with a smirk. “You have no idea what happened, do you?”
“You’re going to make me sweat this, aren’t you?”
“You know it! I don’t have many opportunities to get one up on you,” she crowed. “I’m always the one chasing around after you guys, trying to figure out what the hell is happening.”
Is that how it felt to be Carly? Mala resolved to do what she could to keep the teenager in the loop from here on out.
The young woman continued to grin at Mala for another long moment, then seemed to relent. She shifted her weight onto one hip, striking a dramatic pose.
“Maggie has given birth!” she shared, then dropped the pose and leaned in closer. “It’s a girl, and she’s perfect. Seven pounds, eight ounces, and guess what?”
“What?” Mala breathed, happy to see Carly so animated. It was the first time Mala could remember seeing a light like this in the angst-filled teenager’s eyes.
“They named her Darcie. Isn’t that great?”
Mala nodded, allowing Carly to continue to chatter away. Mala just listened, letting her eyes wander on their own. As they did so, she caught sight of something odd.
There, right next to Mala on the bed, was her IV cord. Nothing strange about that. But right beside the place where the nurses would give injections rested a hypodermic syringe, filled with nothing but air.
For a brief moment, Mala saw a flash of memory… this young woman standing above her, a strained look tugging at her features. A quick vision of her pulling back, moving away from Mala’s side for a second.
Away from that needle.
And the IV that connected directly into Mala’s vein.
* * *
Trey rounded a corner and gulped in a breath.
Right in front of him was a man getting his throat torn out by a vicious dog. This one looked to be a cross between a Rottweiler and a Pit Bull.
Seriously? Who would put those two breeds together?
On some intellectual level, Trey knew that so much of a dog’s behavior was based on how they were raised, but there was nothing intellectual happening right now. His body sprang into action.
Unfortunately, what that meant to Trey’s body was to turn around and run. That wasn’t what needed to happen right now.
Turning back around, Trey watched as Darc approached the man and dog. The figure on the ground had Darc’s shaved head, but where the detective only sported skin and the occasional shaving nick, this guy had tattoos covering every square inch of flesh.
Well, that’s what it looked like, at least. Hard to tell with all that blood.
Trey pulled out his weapon, leveling it at the dog, but Darc struck down with his arm, knocking the gun down and off to the side. Turning to face his partner, Trey opened his mouth to speak.
Darc cut him off. “Do not shoot the dogs.”
“Wait,” Trey protested. “There’s a man getting ripped apart, and you’re going all PETA on me?”
But Darc just shook his head. “You don’t have enough bullets.”
What the…? What did that mean? Trey had more than enough ammunition to take down one rabid dog. But then there was howl from nearby, followed by even more barking. Trey felt a panic rise up inside of him.
That look on his partner’s face was one that Trey knew well. Darc had calculated the exact number of dogs, and it was greater than the number of rounds that both of them carried on their person.
That was a lot of animals.
With one swift motion, Darc rushed at the attacking dog, pulling something from his pocket. Wait a minute. It wasn’t okay for Trey to shoot, but Darc was following a different set of rules?
But then, as the bald detective maneuvered into position near the dog, Trey caught a glimpse of what was in his partner’s hand. It looked like a small container of pepper spray. Sure enough, Darc depressed a button on the cylinder, and out rained a fine mist.
The dog gave out a high-pitched and muffled whine, but didn’t release its grip. And at that point, Trey lost track of what Darc was doing, as three more angry animals had begun approaching their position from the other side of the storage units.
Every policeman had some basic training in dealing with dogs. It came with the territory. But Trey knew from painful experience just what
a trained fighting dog could do, in spite of any training.
Standing rigid, Trey did his best to turn to the side, not making eye contact with any of the animals. Most of the time, doing whatever was possible to come across as a non-threat was the best way to go with upset dogs.
This didn’t appear to be one of those times. The dogs continued to approach, and Trey was pretty sure that at least the closest had blood on its muzzle.
“Darc…” Trey called out. “Once you’re wrapped up there, I could maybe use a little help. You know, whenever’s convenient for you…”
The sound of Trey’s voice didn’t seem to help much. Each of the three dogs began to growl, the sound trickling down Trey’s spine. Their hackles were up, and there didn’t seem to be any way out of this.
And then, from around the units on the far side, four more dogs appeared.
This was not good.
Not good at all.
* * *
Darc struggled with the dog, doing what he could to force the animal to release the figure on the ground. The man’s body had gone limp, and from the amount of blood Darc had seen, it did not appear likely he would live. Darc would put it at a thirteen percent probability at this point.
However, disabling the animal was of utmost importance. From the stance and attitude of the canine, the lines of logic had determined a chemical source of rage.
These dogs had been drugged. If Darc had to hazard a guess, it would be some sort of amphetamine.
From his peripheral vision, Darc could see that Trey was fast getting surrounded by the converging beasts. Adjusting his grip on the dog, Darc slid his arm around the animal’s neck, cutting off its air.
The only other option would have been to place his knee on the creature’s back and bear down, snapping its spine. That option seemed unnecessarily cruel, considering the fact that the man being attacked had so little chance of survival.
That did not take Trey’s predicament into consideration. If Darc could not subdue this canine within seconds, more drastic measures would need to be taken.
And while Darc had no issues firing on an armed human assailant, he would do everything in his power to avoid doing so with these dogs.
Someone had turned these animals into weapons. It was the person behind this attack they needed to find and incapacitate. Not the dogs themselves.
Although that option seemed less and less probable as the number of the canines increased with each passing second.
“Darc… dude…” Trey moaned, pulling out his gun and pointing it in the general direction of the largest grouping. “There’s only so far I can back up before I run into a storage unit here.”
As the body underneath Darc struggled, the information continued to flow into his consciousness. The ribbons of color traced the blood trail back to an area that appeared to be behind all of the storage units. If they could just incapacitate the dogs…
Trey fired his weapon into the air. The entire pack of animals seemed to wince and retreat for a moment before renewing their aggressive behavior.
“Trey,” Darc called out.
“I saw it,” he answered. “Sound.”
The drug, whatever it may have been, seemed to have created a hypersensitivity to sound in the canines. The threads of logic tangled about in Darc’s mind, looking for possible uses for that information.
At that same moment, the animal underneath Darc slumped, apparently passing out from lack of oxygen. Darc wasted no time, thrusting the body to the side and retreating to join Trey.
“I recommend making our way back to the vehicle,” Darc suggested.
“Good plan,” rasped Trey. “Except for one thing.”
Pointing behind him, Darc’s partner indicated something that Darc had not been able to see from his vantage point with the dog a moment before. From that side, more animals were converging upon them.
This was the plague of the wild animals, and Darc could see in their very movements the pattern that had been eluding him. But even while the discovery gave him vital information about the underlying plan of their unseen adversary, a more immediate issue loomed.
Darc and Trey were trapped.
CHAPTER 8
Mala pushed herself up on her elbows, feeling the pull of the incision along her chest. For the last hour, she’d done everything she could to resist medication, looking to stay as alert as possible.
That hadn’t been easy.
It seemed like every five minutes someone would come into the room, offering her relief from her pain in the form of some additional drug. Even Carly had tried to encourage her several times to press the button for more morphine.
After the fifth such demand, Mala had told her to back off. Carly had gone stiff, her face had collapsed, and she’d headed out into the hospital, mumbling something about finding some food to eat. But it was clear that Mala had hurt her feelings.
Sometimes talking to a teenager was like trying to make out with a prickly pear.
And where was Janey? Mala had a hazy memory of her going home with Cat. Was that real? Things felt so fuzzy when she was doped up. Part of the reason she hadn’t wanted to take more painkillers.
But at the moment, all of those concerns were pushed aside. Mala lay there in the darkened room, the only light coming from the machines that surrounded her.
A sound had awakened her from a light slumber, and something about the noise had put her on high alert. Every nerve ending in Mala’s body seemed to sing, demanding that she give quick heed to… well… whatever it was that was going on.
That was just the thing, though. After that tiny scraping noise that had muted itself as quickly as it had appeared, there had been nothing but silence.
Had it been her imagination? Her mind said yes, but the resounding answer from her body screamed a negative loud enough that it forced her more logical mind to sit up and pay attention.
Which was why she was now pushing her body into a sitting position, against common sense and all medical advice. Not that she had any idea what she was supposed to do if she actually discovered someone here.
The likelihood that anyone could have made it past the battalion of police officers outside her door was slim. Darc had picked them personally. These were no any ordinary cops, but the best and the brightest, hand-selected to protect her.
In short, Mala was being ridiculous.
But just as she was about to settle back in, there was another slight sound. The crackle of the seal on the door opening. A burst of light flooding into the far side of the room, around the corner to the entryway that Mala couldn’t quite see from this angle.
And then, another sound, even more troubling. This time something closer to a quick inhale than movement.
Someone was in the room with her.
* * *
Janey watched from the backseat, where she sat with a sleeping Jessalyn, as Cat drove the car. Jake turned around and gave Janey a smile and a wink.
She could hardly believe that it had worked.
First, she’d gotten Jake to track down Darc, using the phone number Janey had given him. Second, she’d somehow managed to convince Cat to take her to the bald detective. In the dead of night.
Almost impossible how much a few tears could do. Janey congratulated herself on a fine performance. Popeye said that he thought it had been a bit over the top.
Not that her tears had been a lie. She did miss Darc. That happened anytime Darc and Trey were out investigating and she wasn’t with them.
And Janey knew that she could help right now. Something was wrong with Darc. The bands of color in her head wrapped around the idea of the bald detective, forming a gold shield. But in the middle of the shield, everything was turning black.
That picture seemed to fill up all of Janey’s mind. Nothing else could fit inside. All of the other information that might have been coming in just kind of got pushed away instead. That wasn’t a good thing.
Darc needed her, even if he didn’t know it. And onc
e Janey had helped Darc, then maybe she could help solve the case, too. Solving the case meant saving Mala, so of course Janey should be there with them.
The problem was, most grownups didn’t see it that way.
Cat was different.
“Sweetie,” Jessalyn’s mom called back from the front seat. “Are you sure about this?”
Okay, so maybe not so different. But at least they were in the car, headed toward wherever Darc and Trey were right now.
Janey nodded her head at Cat, who caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. Cat’s eyes seemed sad and tired, and after a moment, the woman glanced away.
Lots of grownups did that when they looked at Janey. Popeye said that it was because she looked like a mushroom, but Janey knew that wasn’t true. The colored lines had told her why they did that. It was because Janey’s parents had died.
And even though all of the lines were working on Darc right now, Janey was sure that’s what Cat saw. It’s what they all saw.
What no one understood was that Janey was okay. She had Darc and Mala and Trey and Maggie and Carly and Popeye. Her bear grumbled about being last on the list, until Janey told him that she had saved the best for last.
It was only a little lie.
Oh, and she had forgotten the baby. Now she had the baby in her life, too.
She missed her mom and dad. Of course she did. But there were so many people who loved her. And she loved them back.
Popeye said that if they really loved her, they would give her more ice cream. But Popeye was obsessed with ice cream, so Janey didn’t pay attention to him.
They got off the highway near a big building that said South Transfer Center. Jake started looking around, checking with his laptop every once in a while.
“Should be right around here.”
Then there was a sound that Janey knew really well.
It was a gunshot.
Darc and Trey were in trouble.
* * *
Trey fired his gun into the air again. Every time the gun discharged, the dogs paused for a little bit. Just enough to give him some hope.
There was only one problem with that. There were only a few bullets left.
The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin) Page 60