A train passed overhead. The concrete pillars supporting the track were broad, and strong enough to support the weight while preventing any specters from being able to see her.
“There’ll be a back entrance,” Baxter told Jennie. “A door used by the A-listers and the techies. If we can make it there, we should be set.”
“You think they won’t guard the back door?” Jennie asked incredulously.
“You think they will?” Baxter replied
“Of course,” Jennie assured him. “This isn’t my first rodeo. Expect everywhere to be covered, and you’ll never be taken by surprise.”
“Then how are we going to get in?” His eyes lit up. “Are you going invisible again?”
Jennie shook her head, not taking her eyes off the gunmen stalking the street ahead. “I realize there’s no way you’d know this, but that’s not how my powers work.”
“How do they work?” Baxter inquired.
Jennie put her hands on her hips. “Do you really expect me to waste time talking you through my process when we’ve got a band of gunmen looking for us, and they have taken my specter hostage?”
Baxter stared at her expectantly.
Jennie rolled her eyes. “Fine. Here’s the short version: in order for my powers to work, I have to be within a certain range of another specter. Ordinarily, I’m bound to powers based on the type of specter—DNA, bloodline, where they’re from and such—but sometimes, depending on the energy of a specter, I can harness powers beyond my usual range. That trick you saw with Rico and me becoming invisible? I was only able to harness that because he owned that power. That wasn’t something I could do with everyone, as useful as it would be.”
“So, your powers,” Baxter pressed. “They’re dependent on the powers the specter possesses?”
“Most of the time.” Jennie ducked behind the pillar as a gunman looked their way. “Sometimes a specter has a special reserve of energy I can tap into and perform certain miracles. I don’t always know what will happen, but over the years, I’ve learned to predict the outcome of a sudden burst of spectral energy.”
Baxter looked at Jennie with awe. “Fascinating.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” Baxter asked.
“Like you want to dissect me and study my components,” Jennie told him. “I’m not an iPhone you can take apart and reverse-engineer.”
Baxter blew out a puff of air. “Don’t even get me started on those things. The days I spent watching over the shoulders of the technicians in the phone repair shops, and I still don’t understand it. To fit that amount of gadgetry to power into such a small processor…”
“Now.”
Baxter broke out of his mental image of the internal components of the iPhone as Jennie sprinted across the road and toward the next pillar. He glanced at the street and saw that his chance was still open, so sped to catch up with her.
They skirted the front face of the theater, passing the furniture store under the cover of darkness. Occasionally they had to stop and wait for a gunman to go by before they eventually made it to the street across from the back door.
To Jennie’s dismay, a rotund gentleman specter in a suit and red tie stood in front of the back door with an AK-47 in his hands.
Jennie’s eyes lit up. “That’s a big baby.”
Baxter snickered. “Aren’t we all technically ‘big babies?’”
Jennie shot Baxter a look. “You know the last specter I had who couldn’t keep his mouth shut got taken captive by a spectral mob, right? Learn from his mistakes and keep quiet. I don’t actually need you to break inside.”
“Wrong,” Baxter winked. “You said it yourself; you need a specter nearby to activate your powers.” He spread his arms wide, presenting himself like a trophy. “Well, here I am.”
Whatever Baxter had expected as a response, it wasn’t what happened. He had thought Jennie would surrender; admit that she needed him and begin to draw power off him. Instead, she broke free of their cover and sprinted into the open.
Baxter’s mouth dropped open. “What are you…”
The rotund specter’s eyes widened with alarm. He aimed the spectral AK-47 at Jennie and made to shoot.
She ran across the street, closing the gap in seconds as she focused her energy. She connected to the specter before his trigger finger could pull and tore the gun from his grip.
She turned the barrel toward the specter.
His mouth dropped open and he muttered several incomprehensible words before the butt of the assault rifle smacked him in the face.
He fell and covered his head with his arms as he quivered on the floor.
Jennie turned the barrel back toward his head and growled at him as Baxter caught up with them both.
“How many of them are behind the door?” Jennie barked.
The man stuttered, his eyes screwed shut.
“How many!” She poked the barrel at his nose, causing him to open his eyes and yelp in alarm.
“I…I d-don’t know,” he stammered. “I was told to cover the back entrance. That was the only instruction I had, I swear.”
Baxter looked at the pitiful man. “Not the toughest nut to crack, was he?”
Jennie shrugged. “That’s what happens when you force recruits to join your cause. You don’t get the best, you just bolster your numbers and fill your clubhouse with imbeciles.”
She reached down and dragged the man to his feet before wrapping an arm around his throat and holding him in front of her.
She tossed the AK-47 to Baxter. “Here. This is yours now.” She marched forward and disappeared through the door.
Baxter rolled the rifle over in his hands, examining it as though Jennie had just tossed him something covered in dog shit. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll stick to my good ol’ reliable,” he told Jennie, following her into the building.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They emerged into a wide corridor that led to the staging area. Faded posters lined the walls, with instructions for the crew and the acts about how to access the dressing rooms and some housekeeping rules.
Jennie felt that familiar buzz of excitement as she tiptoed ahead, the same buzz she felt every time she entered a theater—as though anything was possible, and the imagination was just the doorway to a better reality.
Posters were crookedly displayed in frames. One poster showed seventies hippie types flowing around an illustration of a band Jennie hadn’t heard in years. The words, “Jefferson Airplane” in bold, with additional text beneath yielding the dates to their 1970 tour.
There were posters for The Grateful Dead, and The Byrds, to name but a few. The final remnants of the last acts to ever play in the theater before its closure. A time when the auditorium was filled with the cheers of the crowd and the harmonic blaring of bands who would be all but lost to memory.
Jennie veered to her left, toward a door with a star on the outside. Whoever’s name had been last imprinted on the star was now nothing more than a black smudge.
She shoved the specter out in front of her with the Big Bitch wedged between his shoulder blades and nudged the door open to peek inside.
“What are you doing?” Baxter hissed.
Jennie ignored him. While she was here, she figured she’d at least take a look around. Why not soak in a bit of historical culture in the middle of a gang raid in which all members were focused on hunting her down?
The door creaked open, and Jennie could only stare. Slumped against the wall were several specters, their bodies gaunt and thin, their arms pocked with marks. The instruments they used for self-medication littered the floor around them.
A wave of nausea washed over her. She had never seen anything like this. During her time exploring the world of the dead, she had seen a great many sights, but nothing quite as disturbing as this.
“Didn’t mean to bother you,” she whispered to the room before backing out.
There was no reply.
&n
bsp; “What the hell are these people thinking?” Jennie whispered, looking back down the corridor and eyeing the other dressing rooms.
Were they all full of deceased drug addicts?
Muffled grunts and moans told her that probably wasn’t the case.
“I don’t know,” Baxter answered. He held his wrench tightly in one hand, while his pistol was gripped in the other. The wrench hung by his side, making his already gorilla-like arms look longer and more formidable than before. “But I don’t really want to find out.”
Jennie internally agreed but remained silent. She made her way to the end of the corridor and paused to place her ear against the door.
She could hear voices on the other side—hushed murmurs from the enemy. She closed her eyes and tried to understand what they were saying.
“Gone, just like that,” a female voice hissed. “Just like one of us.”
“That’s impossible,” another replied. “No mortal can vanish like that.”
A third voice spoke up. “What about those people with gifts? You know…oh, what are they called? Candidates?”
“Conduits, idiot,” the second voice corrected. “And no. Even conduits can’t just disappear. They can hear and see us, but they can’t just vanish.”
“We’ll find them soon. We always do,” the first voice asserted. “I don’t care what the bosses say about her, she’s no match for our weapons. If she can become a specter, then she can be harmed like a specter.”
“Haven’t you heard the stories?” the third voice asked uncertainly. “She’s not just a mortal or a specter. They say she’s called ‘Rogue.’ I heard she once went through an entire house full of mortals and killed everyone before they even had a chance to raise the alarm.”
“Where did you hear that?” The first voice sounded skeptical, a note of laughter in her words. “No mortal has that amount of skill.”
The third voice spoke up again. “It’s how the bosses died. I overheard them speaking last night. She shot them at point-blank range. They didn’t stand a chance.”
The second person blew a raspberry. “Oh, behave. That was when they were mortal. Mortals are notoriously easy to kill. Let’s just see how she deals with taking down a bunch of specters. I’m sure that’ll put a hole in her tires—”
Jennie chose that moment to appear through the door. The three specters were gathered at the foot of a staircase. One of them sat on the bottom step, while another leaned on the handrail. The third rested his back against the wall, pistol dangling lazily by his side.
“I can give you a demonstration if you’d like?” Jennie offered, enjoying the sudden scramble as the three rushed to raise their guns and aim them at her.
Jennie’s hostage began thrashing again, fear taking over as he fought to release himself from her grip.
Jennie tightened her hold on him and aimed the Big Bitch at his temple.
“You shoot me, I shoot him. Does that work for everybody?”
The three specters hesitated for only a moment before firing their guns.
The reports were deafening. The rotund specter grunted and spluttered as bullets tore into him, the spectral metal piercing his large stomach. He tried to call out to the others to ask them to stop but couldn’t get a word out as his body was pricked like a pin cushion.
At least they will have gotten her, too, he thought with an odd sense of satisfaction. If the bullets had gone through him, chances were they would have penetrated the woman behind him, too.
After several seconds, they stopped firing. The rotund specter smiled and fell to his knees, words forming on his lips but no sound coming out.
The three specters’ faces fell when they saw that there was no girl behind their comrade—not even the ghost of the girl they had just battered with bullets.
The woman looked for Jennie in shock. “What the fuck?”
“Where’d she go?” the second asked.
Suddenly the rotund man let out a gasp. “My leg,” he cried. “She’s pulling my leg.”
They craned their heads enough to see Jennie’s spectral hand clamped to the specter’s ankle.
They heard her laughter coming from somewhere beneath them.
Jennie took advantage of her immaterial state and swung from his leg and through the concrete below like a spectral Tarzan. She released her grip at the right moment on the upswing to land in front of them and fire the Big Bitch into the face of the woman.
Her head exploded into pieces, leaving nothing behind but the ghostly stump of her neck.
“Aw, now is definitely a bad time to lose your head,” she crooned, immediately holstering the Big Bitch and grabbing the second specter by the neck.
Foregoing his weapon, he tried to claw Jennie’s face, hoping to find some way to get purchase and break her grip. Unfortunately, all he succeeded in doing was giving her the momentum to take a small jump from the stairs and slam him into the ground.
The specter cried out and massaged his neck, leaving Jennie enough time to take out number three.
Or so she thought.
As she spun around, she found herself looking directly down the barrel of a pistol.
The sound of running feet was all around them now as the alarm was raised and specters began flooding back into the theatre to help out.
The specter holding the pistol smirked. “Oh, I so wanted to be the one to capture you,” he told Jennie with a stupid grin on his face.
He thumbed off the safety. “Now, would you please follow me—”
Jennie caught a flash of metal followed by a heavy crunching sound as Baxter swung his wrench in a deadly arc and drove it into the specter’s skull, causing his head to dent into the shape of a heart.
“You can’t say the kid doesn’t have manners,” he commented, breathing heavily. He looked at the other two specters. “You really don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Not when I have cause to,” she replied, keeping her eyes on Baxter as she drew her pistol and shot to the side. A grunt followed as the rotund specter who had been crawling to pick up his comrade’s weapon yowled in pain.
Shouts rang from all around. Figures appeared at the top of the stairs. Bullets rained down upon them. Jennie grabbed Baxter’s arm and dragged him out of range, moving away from the stairs and through a door to the side.
Several more armed specters were there to greet them, the surprise on their faces quickly replaced by the excitement of catching the enemy.
Jennie pulled Baxter back, and they sprinted past the stairs again. A bullet whizzed by her ear, close enough that she could hear the whistle. She found another door and was met by more armed specters. Another turn, another door, and even more appeared. Soon enough, every exit was blocked.
“Well, we had a good run,” Baxter told Jennie. “At least we tried, eh?”
Jennie placed her hands in the air, then laced her fingers behind her head and got to her knees.
“What are you doing?” Baxter asked.
She shrugged. “Cooperating.”
Baxter hesitated, then, seeing the number of guns aimed at him, he fell to his knees, too. “Okay. It’s just, I’ve never seen you cooperate before.”
“What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”
Apparently, so are these guys, Jennie thought as footsteps on the stairs signaled the arrival of two men. She recognized them but couldn’t place where she knew them from.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The leader of the pack, a man who looked like a large portion of his genetic code was Italian and who had an accent to match, snapped his fingers and sneered. Specters tied blindfolds around Jennie’s and Baxter’s heads before they marched them through the theater toward an unknown destination.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, Jennie was shoved to her knees again and the hands released her, leaving her and Baxter in a silence that was altogether unsettling.
“You should know I don’t do so well with quiet,” Jennie called to people she wasn’t
even sure were there. “That’s why I shoot so much. Guns speak rather loudly. They silence the neuroses arguing in my head and ensure that I don’t go crazy.”
“We’re all crazy here,” a voice growled from somewhere far away. “That’s the beauty of it all. The crazy ones should stick together, no? Otherwise, how will we survive in this increasingly crazy world?”
Jennie tensed. She knew that voice. Knew it rather well, but hadn’t heard it in…years? Decades?
“Crazy is beautiful, for the most part,” Jennie called back. “Except when it comes from the psychos. The murderers, the rapists, the addicts. Then crazy can become a dangerous thing. I should know, I’ve snuffed out enough of the crazies to save the mortals that I’m something of an expert on it.”
A pause.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“You know it’s rude to ignore people?”
A second voice spoke. She could practically hear the smile on his face. “Crazy is as crazy does. It’s just a shame you won’t be able to save the dead the way that you saved the mortals all those years ago.”
There was the sound of a struggle, and a man cried out muffled words.
A moment later, Jennie heard Worthington’s sobs. “Please, Jennie! Do as they say. They’ll let us go. Just listen to their demands, and we can go back to England. They’ve promised us life if we turn back now.”
Jennie bit her lip, her frustration growing as the identity of the speakers continued to evade her. She could see their shapes in her head as nothing more than silhouettes.
“Oh, Worthington, you know I can’t do that,” Jennie replied placidly. “See, the problem with me is that once I get a whiff of injustice, I can’t be shaken off the scent—particularly by those who tarnish the queen’s honor and try to run their own regime in her name. So, what’ll it be, dirtbags? Are you going to come willingly, or do I have to make a ruckus and fuck your shit up?”
A moment later, she heard the dirty chuckles. They were raspy, the sounds of a chain smoker who had made it into their fifties and now lived with a permanent frog in their throat. “Oh, Rogue. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
Rogue, Renegade And Rebel (In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service Book 1) Page 19