By four thirty, Palmer had packed all but one rifle and one sidearm into massive ballistic duffel bags, borrowed from the weapons vault. He’d carry the rifle and sidearm when he went to meet the team at the harbor. “You have everything you need?” Noelle said, rubbing tiredly at her forehead. Palmer had caught a few hours of sleep during the research process, but she had been up and working for over forty-eight hours now. She looked more than ready to crash.
Palmer checked his watch. They were meeting at the harbor at 5:15, but he felt grimy and disgusting from the last two days. “Actually, do you mind if I grab a quick shower before I go?” The men’s room down the hall had a shower stall, presumably for when the engineers worked late.
Noelle waved him on. “There are some towels in the cupboard by the door, there. They’re not exactly five-star hotel quality, but they’ll work.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
In the washroom, Palmer locked the door, took off his gun belt, and climbed into the spray of hot water. He immediately felt revived, like he’d gotten a four-hour nap. Palmer wasn’t a fastidious man, but in his early forties, he considered himself too old to disregard the small pleasures of being clean. Besides, he’d be confined in small spaces with the BPI pod. This was for their benefit too.
Ten minutes later, Palmer stepped out of the stall and dried himself off with two of Noelle’s threadbare lab towels. He wished he’d brought some clean clothes along, but the gear in his car was what he’d worn to the raid on Lindy’s brownstone the day before. At least he’d only worn this outfit to hang out in a climate-controlled building.
He had just started buttoning his shirt when he heard a crash from down the hall.
Chapter 23
PALMER FROZE, LISTENING. There were a couple of other technicians and lab assistants in the building today—he’d seen them on the way to and from the washroom—but that had sounded like it came directly from Noelle’s lab.
Ignoring his socks and shoes, Palmer picked up his Glock and slowly unlocked the washroom door, hoping he was being paranoid. Noelle was exhausted; it would be totally understandable for her to knock something off a shelf. Still, he padded silently down the hall to the open lab door—and heard Noelle’s scared voice.
“Stay back,” she warned.
A male voice scoffed at her. “What are you, a lion tamer? Put it down, and this won’t even hurt. It’ll be just like going to sleep, I promise.”
Palmer inched his back along the wall until he was right next to the doorframe. The voices were coming from inside the door and to the left, near the desk, but just then there was another small crash from the right.
At least two of them.
The same male voice laughed. “Jesus, she’s jumpy. Come here, Wes. We don’t have time for this shit.”
Palmer risked peeking into the room. One man had backed Noelle into the far corner, behind her desk. She was holding a lab stool to her stomach—yes, like a lion tamer, but it was smart. If he couldn’t touch her, he couldn’t mesmerize her. If he mesmerized her, it was over.
But the second man had just run past the doorway in a near-blur. Shades. Two shades.
There were three leftover syringes on Noelle’s desk, but she’d have to drop the stool to get them. Palmer’s modified sidearm was two tables inside the door and three tables over; he’d never reach it in time.
But he had his service weapon.
Palmer stepped into the room. “FBI!” he yelled. “Stop right there!”
The man closest to Noelle sniggered, and Palmer realized that he recognized his face. This was Ambrose, the shade who had spent over a year imprisoned at Camp Vamp. Before he’d helped kill a bunch of BPI agents in order to escape.
The second shade—Wes—had stopped on the other side of the desk from Noelle. He’d obviously been just about to jump over it and come at her sideways, but now he looked to Ambrose for directions.
The famous vampire sneered at Palmer. “What are you, behind? Bullets won’t—”
Palmer squeezed the trigger, over and over.
He was pretty sure the first one had been a solid chest shot, but after that, Ambrose was moving toward him in a blur. After five shots Palmer stopped firing, because Ambrose was moving too fast to aim. He was suddenly in front of Palmer, clubbing him carelessly along the side of his head.
Palmer went down hard, losing the gun. His head hit the floor.
“Hang on a minute, Wes,” Ambrose called over his shoulder. There was a gunshot wound on his chest, and another had grazed his forearm, but Ambrose paid as much attention to them as Palmer would to a mosquito bite. Instead, Ambrose looked down at Palmer in his bare feet and unbuttoned shirt. “What the hell is going on here? I know you two aren’t banging. Our intel is that she’s a dyke.”
He stepped toward the table nearest the door, the one with the duffel bags. Palmer sat up, but Ambrose just raised a finger at him, warning him not to go for the gun. “Wes can rip out her throat before you get your finger around the trigger,” he warned. He unzipped the bag and peeked inside, letting out a low whistle. “I see. Well. This is an unexpected bonus.” He looked at Palmer and shook his head almost sadly. “You guys are behind the times, huh? Hector had weapons like this years ago.”
“Not like this,” Noelle said through gritted teeth. She was pointing the stool at Wes now, but glaring at Ambrose. Good for you, Palmer thought.
“Wes, do it,” Ambrose said in a bored voice. He was still studying the bag. Palmer started to inch toward his gun, but Ambrose bared his teeth at the FBI agent. “Stay down.”
Wes slapped the stool away and climbed over the desk before she could react. His head darted forward and he slid his tongue up her cheek. “Ew!” Noelle cried, but her eyes were already glazing over.
Ambrose smirked, watching her. He waited two heartbeats, then asked Noelle, “Where is the woman who calls herself Rosalind Frederick?”
“I don’t know.”
Palmer had seen and done a lot in his career, but the sound of Noelle’s empty, lifeless voice hurt his heart. “Track that bracelet she wears,” Ambrose ordered.
Without another word, Noelle opened the laptop on her desk, bent at the waist, and began typing. “Don’t do it, kid!” Palmer yelled. Ambrose took three steps toward him and kicked him hard in the side of the head, right where he’d hit Palmer before. Palmer fell sideways with a groan, seeing actually bursts of stars, but the shade kicked him again for good measure. This time he got Palmer in the stomach, and the FBI agent doubled over into the fetal position, fighting not to vomit. He lost the battle, and threw up in a puddle.
Ambrose wrinkled his nose in disgust, backing away a few steps. “This is the best and brightest the FBI can offer?” he scoffed. “An over-the-hill bodyguard and a computer dyke?”
“She’s at Montrose Harbor,” Noelle said, in the same empty tone.
“Excellent.” Ambrose looked at the other shade and said, “Wes, text Hector.” To Noelle, he added, “How do I get there?”
As soon as they knew exactly where to go to find Lindy, the shades would have no reason to keep either of them alive. “Noelle,” Palmer gasped. “You have to wake up. You have to run.”
Ambrose chuckled, turning his attention to Palmer. “Do you know how many times I had to eat shit from you FBI guys when I was in that cell?” he said. “You assholes act so tough, but look at you. You’re just a pathetic skin bag like the rest of them. So breakable.” He stomped down on Palmer’s forearm, which made an audible snapping sound. Palmer cried out.
“See?” Ambrose said, as though he’d just made a complicated point.
“You . . . got what you wanted,” Palmer managed to say. “Just go. Security will have heard the shots.”
“Security?” Ambrose sounded incredulous, and Palmer’s last hope of rescue sank. The shade squatted down in front of Palmer. “You don’t think we ate everyone in this building before we came here? How do you think we found the right office? How do you think
I healed from bullet wounds so fast? I thought you were supposed to be like a detective.” He rolled his eyes, and a little chime sound came from the phone Wes was holding. Ambrose turned to look over his shoulder. “What’s he say?”
“Kill ’em and come back.”
“All right. Fun time is—”
But while Ambrose had looked away the FBI agent lifted a leg and braced himself. Now he stomp-kicked Ambrose right in the balls. He felt a very gross—and very satisfying—squish.
As it turned out, shades were still pretty sensitive there.
Ambrose let out a grunt and toppled sideways, his face frozen in pain and surprise. A human would have passed out from the pain, but he just made some strangled noises, and Palmer knew he only had seconds. He rolled over and started elbow-crawling toward his gun.
Wes, who hadn’t seen what had happened because of the tables, called, “Ambrose?”
“Noelle!” Palmer screamed, but there was no answer. Ambrose was already moving, starting to crawl after him with a look of intense, furious hatred.
Palmer cleared the last row of tables and picked up the Glock. He had a clear shot at either Ambrose or Wes, but it wasn’t going to be enough. They were too fast, too powerful. He felt a wave of despair, and a shameful thought flickered through his head: Turn the gun on yourself. But he could never do that to Noelle.
Noelle. Palmer had read all the reports from the Switch River case, and the cop who’d been shot, Amanda something, had said that she and the other cops who’d been mesmerized had been able to wake themselves up when they heard gunshots. They’d all spent years and years training to react to the sound of shots, and it had worked like an alarm clock.
Palmer took shaky aim and fired at Ambrose. He hit the shade in the top of the shoulder—but it didn’t seem to affect Noelle, who was still staring lifelessly at the screen. Ambrose snarled, a purely predator sound.
“Ambrose?” Wes called. He had started to move away from Noelle.
“Kill her!” Ambrose yelled.
Wes turned around again—and Palmer put a bullet in the back of his kneecap, causing the shade to buckle sideways with a howl. It bought him seconds. “Come on, Noelle!” he yelled again.
And then Palmer had his best, and last, idea. He raised the gun again, took the time to aim carefully, and fired a perfect shot, right through the meat of Noelle’s upper arm. The engineer yelped, clutching her arm and looking around the room in confusion. Oh, thank God.
“The syringes!” Palmer yelled, but now he had to turn his attention to Ambrose, whose eyes were fully red now. He’d already healed all his injuries, which just didn’t seem fair—so Palmer shot him through the right eye. Or he tried to, anyway—the bullet made a small hole in Ambrose’s cheek, and the shade got the strangest look of confusion on his face. He snarled one more time and darted toward Palmer like a lizard. Palmer tried to move away, but Ambrose grabbed his ankle, his thigh bone, both climbing Palmer’s body and pulling it closer. Palmer clubbed at him with the gun, but Ambrose grabbed his broken forearm and Palmer screamed, his vision exploding into white nothingness.
Holding down the broken arm, Ambrose dragged himself across Palmer’s body and bit down on the opposite wrist, his teeth tearing and worrying at the veins, breaking through the delicate bones there. Palmer could do nothing but watch, as his vision regrettably returned to him.
Behind Ambrose, Palmer saw Wes’s body fall. Noelle stood over him with her syringe, panting. Ambrose must have heard the sound, because he jerked away from Palmer’s wrist and turned to see Noelle advancing with the other syringe and absolute murder in her eyes.
Ambrose growled like a wild thing, but he recognized the syringe. “How would you like a trip back to Camp Vamp, asshole?” Noelle snapped. “All expenses paid. Leaving tonight.”
Palmer couldn’t see Ambrose’s face, but the shade flinched away from her, scrambling to his feet. He started to circle the tables toward the door, but Noelle advanced on him. Ambrose snarled, and Palmer didn’t know if he’d attack or run. He struggled to stand, but both arms were useless now.
Ambrose backed toward Palmer, grabbing the FBI agent by the neck and lifting him bodily to his feet. Palmer thought he was going to pass out, but his eyes caught a shape on the table nearest him, and it was like a splash of water on his face.
“Let me pass,” Ambrose snarled at Noelle. “Or I break his neck now.”
Don’t think about the pain, Palmer told himself. Just do it.
He reached out and grabbed the modified dart gun, the sidearm he’d been planning to take for himself, with his broken arm. Ambrose, who didn’t look away from Noelle, must have thought he was just trying to wriggle free, because he didn’t stop Palmer from scooping up the gun, screaming with pain. By the time Ambrose realized what was happening and released Palmer to grab for the dart gun, Palmer was able to shove his bloodied fingers in the trigger guard and shoot—
The dart hit Ambrose in the hand. Palmer crumpled to the floor, feeling things inside him give way. Important things.
Ambrose took one, two steps and collapsed. But Noelle wasn’t taking any chances. She ran forward and buried the second syringe in Ambrose’s chest, aiming straight for his heart.
She jumped up and ran for the door, closing and bolting it, then she raced back to Palmer, looking down at Ambrose’s body on the way. “I think I killed him . . . Palmer? Gil! Holy shit, that’s a lot of blood.” Noelle began to move, holding a phone to her ear with a shoulder and babbling into it.
She was ripping up a lab towel at the same time, but Palmer knew how much blood he’d lost. His whole forearm was shredded, all those delicate little veins. “Noelle,” he whispered.
“I’m so sorry.” There were tears in her eyes as she pressed the towel over his forearm, but it didn’t even hurt. He was going into shock. He tried to speak, and she bent her head close to hear him.
“Get the guns to Alex,” Palmer whispered.
Noelle began to sob. “Gil, you can’t die! You just can’t! The ambulance is coming, it’ll be here—”
“It’s okay, kid. I’ll be with Lori soon.”
Noelle said something else, but he didn’t hear her. Special Agent Gil Palmer let his eyes close. He’d protected Noelle, and the two of them had killed Ambrose. He hadn’t gotten to go after Hector, but Alex and Lindy could do it. He could rest now.
He thought of his wife, and drifted away.
Chapter 24
Parking lot on Montrose Drive
Late Sunday afternoon
MONTROSE HARBOR WAS NESTLED inside a slice of beach shaped roughly like a hook. Alex had seen satellite images online, and the harbor looked like the inside of a huge, sideways letter D, with a small opening in the bottom of the letter that led to Lake Michigan.
By mid-October, most of the boats had been winterized and put away, but he’d managed to find a couple of commercial fishermen who worked until early November and were willing to rent out their vessels for a hefty fee. He’d said he was a law enforcement officer doing a team-building competition. Both Sloane and Ruiz knew their way around boats and could pilot them out to the water crib. The boats—or was it ships? Alex new nothing about nautical terms—were old but sturdy, and he’d deliberately chosen them because the Bureau could afford to replace them if something happened.
He’d also made sure there were plenty of life vests.
Now Alex and the others were in the large parking lot just across the street from the harbor. It was long and slightly arched, completely empty except for their three vehicles. The harbor office closed early at this time of year.
Alex paced back and forth, checking his watch every few minutes and berating himself for cutting everything so close. He’d wanted his people to get a few hours of sleep before they went against Hector and his shades, and Noelle had needed time to finish what she’d called her Franken-guns, but now it was starting to get dark. Already he could barely see past the stadium-sized lights of the parking lot.
&n
bsp; Hector couldn’t know where they were, but still. Palmer was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago to deliver the guns. Alex had checked in with Noelle’s lab several times during the day, and only an hour ago everything had been fine. It wasn’t like the FBI agent to be late, and now he wasn’t answering his cell. No one was answering the phone in Noelle’s lab, either, and her phone went straight to voicemail. Alex had planned to be out on the water crib by now.
He stopped pacing long enough to zip up his windbreaker. Chicago had been enjoying a rare streak of warm fall sunshine, but the temperature had plummeted during the day. Now it was fifty-five degrees, windy, and misting in that obnoxious sideways manner, where you got wet even with an umbrella. They had managed to dig up baseball caps for everyone so the mist stayed out of their eyes, but everyone was still soaked and miserable.
In a way, though, the weather was good: the harbor was deserted, and the clouds were so thick that all three shades had an easier time being out in the daylight. Even Reagan, the youngest of them, seemed fine with being outside. She was now flushed and bright-eyed. Lindy had driven separately with the other two shades so they could make a stop to feed before facing Hector’s people. All the humans had been a little uncomfortable about it, but Alex trusted Lindy to make sure no one were seriously hurt, and he couldn’t have his own people making blood donations right now.
“What do we do if he doesn’t show up?” Hadley asked, scratching at her neckline. At Alex’s request, they were all wearing civilian clothes over their gear, so they wouldn’t raise any red flags if they bumped into civilians at the harbor. She was sitting on the tailgate of Ruiz’s pickup truck. Faraday stood next to her: a lean, handsome Asian American cop in jeans and a black windbreaker. He leaned slightly so he was just touching her leg. He was obviously nervous, and had been pretty quiet since his arrival.
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