Through it all, Anders sat listening quietly. When I finished, he spoke. "I know you," he said to Kate. "You're the girl on the TVs. Ten of you in every storefront. They say you killed your family."
"Sam here thinks I was framed."
Anders' gaze settled on the knife still jutting from the hardwood floor.
"Yeah," Kate said, following his gaze. "I'm really sorry about that. It's just that Sam had been gone so long, I was worried he'd been caught or something, and then things got really creepy here–"
"Creepy?" I interrupted. "Creepy how?"
"I don't know – just creepy. I mean, there was all kinds of commotion next door earlier, and I swore I heard a scratching in the walls. Then that damn dog started barking for no reason…"
Scratching in the walls. I leapt to my feet and hobbled to the wall that abutted the apartment next door, gritting my teeth against the pain. "Which wall – this one?" I asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"The others are either exterior or they face the hall." I scanned along the wall until I found what I was looking for. A heating vent, nestled in the far corner between wall and ceiling. My stomach dropped as I caught a flicker of motion like a snake receding into its hole, only this snake glinted like glass, like metal. Like the kind of camera a SWAT team would use to monitor a room.
"That dog wasn't barking for no reason," I said. "It's time to go."
But I was too late. As I hobbled toward the couch, the lights cut out, and the apartment was plunged into darkness. Anders found his feet and wandered over to the window, pulling aside the curtains and peeking out.
"It doesn't look like an outage," he said. "The rest of the block is fine."
"Anders," I said, "get away from the window."
"What? Why?"
"Get away from the window now!"
Anders must've heard something in my tone that rattled him; he leapt back from the window as if stung. In that moment, the window imploded, spraying glass and wooden splinters through the darkened apartment. Something clattered to the floor, and the room began to fill with thick noxious smoke, ghostly white by the reflected glow of the street lights. The hall outside the apartment echoed with a chorus of shouts. The floor resounded with the force of approaching footfalls, coming toward us from down the hall and up the stairs.
I realize now that someone must've tipped 'em to our presence – our faces had been plastered all over the news, after all, and with me in scrubs, carrying Kate's robed form down the street, we weren't exactly subtle getting here. No doubt some busybody neighbor spotted us and called it in. Cops were probably camped out all damn day, keeping an eye on Kate and waiting for her accomplice to return so they could spring their trap and snatch her back.
Like I said, now I get it. Then, though, all I knew was they were coming. They were coming, and I couldn't let them take her.
My leg erupted in pain as I sprinted across the darkened room. I paid it no mind. The gas was thicker here – it burned my eyes and clawed at my throat and sinuses like a rabid animal. All I wanted was to curl up on the floor and wait for the pain to go away. Of course, that didn't seem like much of a plan. So instead, I grabbed Anders and Kate by the arm and dragged them through the darkness toward the bedroom, slamming the door behind us.
The air in the bedroom was a little better. My eyes and throat still burned, but I felt a little more human – a little more in control. I pulled them close, shouting over the din of the raid. "Listen very closely. They're coming in, and if I don't do something to stop them, they're going to take us all. I can't let that happen. I'm going to need to create a diversion. You two stay in here and count to fifty. Then you go out the window and down the fire escape. Don't stop for anything, you hear me?"
"Won't they be watching for us?" Anders said to me.
"Not if I do my job."
"No!" Kate shook her head. "We're not going to just leave you here!"
"Kate, there isn't any other choice. My leg's shot – I ain't going anywhere. And without a diversion, you wouldn't make it five steps."
In the other room, the front door thudded. The jamb held, but it wouldn't for long. We were running out of time. Kate looked at me a moment, her eyes red and streaming from the gas, and then she leaned toward me, planting a kiss on my cheek. "Be careful, OK?"
I smiled. "You just worry about staying alive, all right? Once you're safe, I'll follow, I swear. There's a park at the corner of Ninth and Twenty-eighth – do you know it?" She nodded. "Good – I'll meet you there. And Anders?"
"Yeah?"
"You keep her safe."
The front door splintered inward with a sickening crack. It was time. I closed my eyes and concentrated, my lips moving in a silent prayer that this would work. Swapping bodies takes strength, strength and focus, and the shape I was in, both were in short supply. Not to mention the fact that possessing the living is not without its price. Still, my only alternatives were capture and death. If I were captured before I did my thing, then they'd get Kate, and she was as good as damned. As for death? Just because in my case it isn't permanent doesn't make it any more of a picnic. If ever I were gonna dig deep, now was the time.
They stormed the apartment. From my hiding place in the bedroom, I touched each of them in turn. The rookie, all fear and nerves – no use to me. The jaded old-timer, just looking to get through this so he could get back to banging his wife's sister. Ditto with him. The commanding officer who knows deep down he's thought of as an officious prick. Nope. But the one who was first through the door? Quiet. Competent. The one they all trusted. He was exactly what I was looking for.
I threw my mind at him with all I had. The Friedlander body convulsed around me as I struggled to pull away. Every muscle clenched as one. Tendons snapped like rubber bands. I shrieked in agony, but still I pressed on. My nose erupted in a torrent of blood, and for a fleeting moment everything went red as a vessel in my eye burst under the strain. Then, suddenly, the pain evaporated, and all went dark.
Friedlander was gone.
My mind slammed into the cop's like a freight train. He buckled, but kept his feet. His stomach clenched, threatened to purge. By force of will, I kept it down.
I wheeled around. Just the three of them inside with me, armored up like they were heading off to war. A lot of effort for such a little girl. My earpiece crackled with static and shouted commands, but I ignored it. Instead I raised my firearm, a mean-looking fully automatic assault rifle that looked to weigh about a ton. This guy handled like a dream, his muscle memory doing all the work. He let out a panicked wail inside my head as I pulled the trigger, three quick bursts. Just like that, the advance team went down. My guy had decent aim – one of 'em took a stray bullet in the shoulder, but the rest hit them square in the breadbasket. If the vests had done their jobs, breathing was gonna hurt like hell for a while, but all three ought to live.
I approached the open doorway to the hall. A thousand shouted questions in my ear. I considered yanking the earpiece, but then I thought better of it. The better to hear you with, my dear.
A rustling to my right. One of my teammates was scrambling to get to his knees, his gas mask clouded with condensation from his labored breathing. His rifle lay useless halfway across the room. I watched him as he groped for the piece strapped to his ankle. Not on my watch. I cracked him hard in the face with the butt of my gun, and he fell limp to the floor.
I took a moment to check the others. They were both out. Best not to disturb them, I thought – they look so peaceful when they're sleeping.
The front door lay in the center of the floor, the hinges a splintered mess. I pressed my back tight to the wall beside what was left of the door frame and listened. If anyone was right outside, I didn't hear them. I rolled along the wall onto my belly, gun at the ready, and sprayed a few rounds into the darkened, fog-laden hall.
Again, the radio squawked. "Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on up there? Flynn! Jenkins! Skala! Fischer! Anybody – report!"
"We've got shots fired, and three men down," I replied, injecting what I hoped was the appropriate amount of panic into my voice. "They got past us, sir. Send all units to the front entrance – suspects are armed, and I think they mean to shoot their way out!"
I let off a few bursts into the hall to punctuate my point. From somewhere below me, I heard the pop, pop of return fire. The radio filled with chatter as cops were redeployed. I hoped that Kate and Anders were on the move – they were never going to get a better shot. I fought the urge to fall back and join them – for this to work, I was gonna have to keep the pressure on.
I crawled into the hall, pausing at the top of the stairs. If anyone had seen me, they didn't let on, and anyway, they had no reason to shoot at me if they had – I looked like one of them. Still, bullets hurt, so you can never be too careful.
The stairwell wound around a central shaft that cut clear down to the first floor. I rested the barrel of my gun between the wooden balusters and squeezed off a few shots toward ground-level. No response this time – they were either waiting me out, or they were already on the move. I slinked down the stairs to the next landing and tried again. Still no response.
The second-floor hallway was bathed in eerie white light, streaming in through the transom above the front door from the spotlight they'd trained on it from their position on the street. I steered clear of the beams, hugging tight to the shadow-clad floorboards. From where I lay, I had a clear shot at the front door. Gritting my teeth against the possibility of actually hitting anyone, I took it. Shafts of white light poured through the holes I'd punched through the door and swirled ghost-like with the settling remains of the tear gas. It was oddly beautiful.
I lay there a while, occasionally loosing a round or two on the poor innocent door to keep this standoff going. I wanted desperately to retreat and check on Kate and Anders, but they couldn't have been taken or I would've heard it over the radio. No, the best thing I could do for them was to stay put and give them time to run. When this was over all I had to do was find a quiet corner while they stormed the place and walk right out that front door. No one would be the wiser.
It was a decent plan. A solid plan. And all it took was a creaky floorboard to let me know it was never gonna happen.
The floorboard in question was about five feet to my right, just three steps up from my second-floor perch. By instinct, I rolled away from it, bringing around my gun – incessant yammering aside, this guy sure beat the last meat-suit for handling – but I was too late. It was the rookie, his face stripped of his gas mask, his eyes wide and frightened. He had his 9mm trained on me, the barrel bobbing between my head and chest in his shaky, unsure grip.
"Drop it, Mike."
I did what he said, setting the rifle on the floor beside me. I wasn't wild about my odds, lying flat on my back as I was, so I rose slowly to my knees, my hands raised in what I hoped was a placating gesture.
The rookie said, "Stay put, Mike – I don't want to have to use this."
"And I don't want to make you. Why don't we talk about this?"
I stepped toward him. He retreated.
I reached for the rookie's name. It wasn't hard to find – old Mike here was shouting to him at the top of his imaginary lungs. I said, "C'mon, Owen, it's me – why don't you put that thing down, and we'll walk out of this together."
"But you – you attacked us!"
"I'm sorry. I wigged. I thought they were behind us. This is all just a big misunderstanding."
Owen looked incredulous. "You wigged?"
"That's right."
"You wigged and took out your team?"
"Look, it was an accident. I said I was sorry." Again I stepped closer. This time, he didn't back away. "Just put down the gun. I mean, you're not really going to shoot me…"
I took another step, made a play for the gun. Owen screamed and backed away.
The last thing I remembered was a flash of white light, and the thunder of gunfire.
And then falling.
And then nothing.
10.
"All right, Mike. Why don't you walk me through this again?"
I was sitting chained to a table in a Tenth Precinct interrogation room. The fluorescent light overhead was making my head throb, and my chest was fucking killing me. Of course, it could've been worse – the way that rookie's hands were shaking, I'm lucky he didn't put a bullet in my head instead of my vest.
"I've been through this all a dozen times, lieu," I said, affecting a tone of weary resignation. "When we took the door, the room was quiet. I entered first. The gas was so thick, I couldn't see a goddamn thing. Something musta gone weird with my earpiece, 'cause I swore I heard movement behind me. I thought we'd been outflanked, and I panicked."
"You panicked."
"That's right."
The lieutenant gave me a look like I was something unpleasant he'd just stepped in. We'd been going around like this for hours, he and I. At first, I figured I could wait him out – after all, this particular meatsuit was a cop in good standing; they had no reason to suspect he was involved. But as the night wore on, it seemed less and less like they were just gonna cut me loose. Of course, I could've just pulled a little body-swap and left poor Mike sitting here while I walked right out the front door, but that plan came with a big fucking catch. See, a demon takes a body for a ride, all the vessel's left with is a blur of disconnected fragments and images; the demon's thoughts remain occluded. Me? I don't have that kind of power. Just one more reason I prefer the dead: I jump ship now and Mike starts singing. They'd mostly think he'd gone off his nut, I'm sure, but they'd probably send a couple cruisers to the park regardless. My guess is they'd have Kate in custody before I could get within ten blocks of her. So for now, at least, there was nothing I could do but wait.
"Listen, Flynn, I want to believe you, but honestly, I don't know what the fuck to think. I got a kid out there who swears up and down you turned around and popped your team just as cool as can be. I got a body on the scene that matches the description of the perp who marched the MacNeil girl out of the hospital two days ago, and I got a coroner who tells me he collected the same body damn near a week ago from the same goddamn apartment. I got a little girl who butchered her goddamn family slipping past the best-trained unit in the country. And in the middle of it all, I've got you, telling me it was all just a big fucking misunderstanding."
"So where does that leave us?" I said.
The lieutenant rubbed absently at the back of his neck, a pained look playing across his face. "I don't have a fucking clue. And I hope to God this shakes out your way, Mike, but until I get some answers, I'm afraid you ain't going anywhere."
The thing about a deal with the devil is you don't always know you've made one till it's too late. I'd like to think I didn't. Then again, looking back, I'm not sure knowing would've changed a thing.
I found Johnnie Morhaim on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Van Buren Street, shooting craps out on the sidewalk with a pack of drunks and kids. Every town's got a guy like Johnnie Morhaim: quick to smile with a temper to match, Johnnie had a hand in every bum racket and crooked deal from Edgewater to Rockaway Beach. I'd met him a few months before, when Elizabeth and I had just moved to New Brighton; he'd been putting a crew together for some job or another, and he'd heard I needed work. It didn't take me too much poking around to find I didn't want the kind of work he was offering, but he never seemed to get the message – every week or so he'd happen by and ask me how the hunt was going. Maybe I should've caught the twinkle in his eye, the swagger in his step when he stopped by. Maybe I should've realized the guy had juice, and if he wanted to keep me desperate, all he had to do was put out the word and not a soul in town would hire me. Maybe I should've seen the setup for what it was, but I swear to God I didn't. Nope, instead I cursed my lousy luck and hobbled my way right back to Johnnie, just like he knew I would.
Johnnie scooped the dice up off the sidewalk amidst a chorus of shouts and jee
rs, pausing just long enough to take a swig from the bottle of rye that sat brown-bagged between his knees. If anybody else saw him swap the dice for a pair within the bag, they sure as hell didn't let on.
"Johnnie," I called, "you got a minute?"
He never even looked at me. "Can it wait?"
"Not long."
He tossed the dice across the sun-bleached sidewalk. The crowd erupted. "Elevens again, boys! Guess today's my lucky day!" Johnnie snatched up the loaded dice and pocketed them in one swift motion. Another pull off the bottle and the straight dice came back out to play. He handed them to a kid on his right and rose stiffly to his feet. "Your roll, sport – me and Sammy got some business to discuss. And don't think I won't be back for my money, hear?"
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