I pointed to myself, then to the door beside the reception window, then to myself again, asking without words if I could enter his worktime abode.
Officer Smith, seeming to collect himself a bit, nodded and waved me through. “You can let her in, Charles,” he said to Henderson.
I gave a tiny fist pump at my predictive powers. Charles indeed.
Once Henderson opened the door for me, I tucked my hands into my coat pockets and strode into the room. I didn’t want anyone mistakenly accusing me of having sticky fingers. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been called a shoplifter—mostly because I don’t care enough to keep track—despite that I’ve never actually stolen anything. I mean, what kind of monster do they think I am? Stealing—how mundane.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Officer Smith said as I drew near.
I gave his mug a pointed look. “Thanks, but no. I’d like to leave this place with all my teeth intact.”
The faintest rosy blush crept up Officer Smith’s tan neck.
“Nice place,” I said, looking around.
Officer Smith set his mug down on a desk. It had “CHIEF” written on its side in big, bold, black letters. “You’re acting like you’ve never been in a police station before.”
I adjusted the strap of my leather messenger bag on my shoulder. “You say that like you assume I have.” I tilted my head to the side and smiled sweetly. “I haven’t, just FYI. At least, not beyond the waiting area.” I pointed to the mug. “You’re a little young to be the police chief, aren’t you?”
Smith shifted in his chair. “It’s a nickname.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. It’s nice to see that the PD is so PC.”
Garth chuckled. “They mean well.”
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “So, talk to me about these kids.”
Officer Smith exhaled a relieved breath. “I was hoping you’d come around.” A hand on my back, he guided me toward the door to the reception area, grabbing a midnight-blue coat off the back of a chair as we passed by. “Let’s talk somewhere a little more private.”
As we left the station, I gave it an over-the-shoulder scan. All eyes were on us. Either the other cops were super interested in Smith’s love life or they hadn’t bought my act. Inconceivable, I know.
Smith pointed to a coffee shop across the street from the station, and I nodded. We paused at the corner and waited in awkward silence for the crosswalk signal to change.
Officer Smith seemed a little nervous and fidgety, so I took pity on him. “So . . . how about that local sports team?”
He blew out a breath of laughter, and shallow dimples appeared on his cheeks. “Sorry. I just really wasn’t expecting you to come by.” He looked at me sidelong. “The guys are going to give me a hard time about that little show you put on in there for weeks.”
I flashed him a cheeky smile a moment before the signal changed. I nodded to the other side of the road. “Our turn.”
We crossed the street and slipped into the coffee shop just as it started to drizzle outside. I headed for a small two-person table tucked away in the back corner and sat with my back to the wall so I could see everything in the shop. Old habit.
Officer Smith sat in the chair opposite me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “So, what changed your mind about helping?”
“I’m a bleeding heart.” I pulled back the flap on my bag to dig out my cards. I paused, the deck’s drawstring bag partially exposed. The bag was made of a midnight crushed velvet, an Eye of Horus embroidered in silver thread on one side, an Egyptian-style cat on the other. The first was a symbol of my Nejeret clan, changed from my clan of birth—the Set clan—to the Heru clan via an oath. The other I thought pretty obvious: cat . . . Kat.
I looked from the cards’ bag to Officer Smith and back, squinting thoughtfully while I tugged on the inside of one of my lip piercings with my teeth. I returned to looking at Smith. “Would you consider yourself a superstitious man? Like, on a scale of one to ten, how open would you say you are to things like, say, magic?”
“Which end is which?”
“Ten is ‘I wish I could do that,’ and one is ‘burn them all.’”
“I don’t know . . .” Smith scratched his jaw. “I was raised in Seattle, but I spent summers back on the Suquamish reservation with my people, learning our traditions and whatnot. I think a lot of folks would say there’s some magic in that.”
“Well, alright,” I said, mildly impressed. It didn’t happen often.
I pulled the tarot cards out of their little drawstring bag and started shuffling. “So, officially, I’m a tattoo artist and a fortune-teller. Finding people”—I tapped the two halves of the deck on the tabletop, then shuffled once more—“that’s just an extension of the fortune-telling gig. I’ll do a reading for you here, but the rest of what I do . . . that happens behind locked doors. I’m going to need everything you have on the missing kids. The more accurate your information is, the more accurate mine’ll be.” I paused, glancing at Smith. “I don’t suppose you have anything that belongs to any of these kids?”
He shook his head. “Do you need that to make this work? Because I know where some of the kids were bunking down. We can go by in a little bit and—”
I raised a hand, cutting him off. “Thanks—I appreciate it, really—but no. I work alone.” I gave the cards one last shuffle, then slid the deck across the table to him. “Just give me the info and I’ll take it from there.” When Smith didn’t do anything, just sat there, I glanced down at the deck pointedly. “Cut it, please. And while you do, think about this case, these kids . . . how much it means to you to find them.”
Smith’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. He was actually taking this seriously, which was both a pleasant surprise and a welcome relief. He looked at the deck like he was trying to set it on fire with his stare alone, then finally cut it, dividing it almost perfectly in half. “Just the once?” he asked, eyes on me.
I nodded and reached across the table to retrieve the deck. I opted for a simple three-card spread to start off, wanting to ease Smith into my brand of divination.
Once the cards were laid, there was no ignoring the fact that the deck had altered itself once more. I wasn’t surprised this time. Of the three cards—the Five of Pentacles, a card representing poverty and insecurity, the Eight of Swords, representing isolation or even imprisonment, and the Tower, representing disaster, upheaval, and sudden change—two displayed a person, and each was a child. Both children displayed were strikingly different. It didn’t slip past me that Dom was the man tumbling out of the crumbling tower, but for the briefest moment, all I could think about was the children.
“How many kids have gone missing?” I asked. “That you know of, at least?”
“Seventeen have been reported missing by their friends, all in the last two months.”
I flipped the deck over and skimmed through the rest of the cards, double-checking what I felt in my gut—the major arcana cards like the Tower all still depicted Nejerets, but each and every figure of a person on the minor arcana cards, like the trio of girls on the Three of Cups, had transformed into a child, and each one was unique. Instinct told me I was looking at the faces of the missing kids.
“Seventeen,” I said quietly, shaking my head as I counted the children. “That’s not all of them.” Thirty-two . . . thirty-three . . . thirty-four . . . “There are thirty-five kids missing, total,” I said, finally setting the deck down.
Smith leaned forward, craning his neck to get a better look at the cards. “And the cards told you that?”
“Sort of.” I didn’t explain how it worked, partly because I didn’t understand it fully myself, but mostly because he wouldn’t understand at all. Smith was open-minded, and that was almost more dangerous than a skeptic. If I shared with him how I knew there were thirty-five missing kids, he’d want me to explain how it worked. He’d want me to explain everything. And then I would have to get rid of him, becau
se, in the case of my people, sharing is not caring. The Senate had a strict policy on not telling humans about our existence. It used to be allowable to share with parents, spouses, and children, but the Senate had tightened up the policy of the past few years to be explicitly “No humans allowed.”
When Smith opened his mouth and inhaled, preparing to dig further, I cut him off with a raised hand. “I won’t tell you more. I’m sorry, but I can’t.” I met his rich brown eyes. “It’s for your own good, trust me.”
He shut his mouth. Smart man.
“Officer Smith—”
“Garth, please.”
I nodded. “Garth, does this symbol mean anything to you?” I asked, tapping one of the snakes on the Five of Pentacles card. The external circle of each pentacle was an ouroboros.
Garth leaned over the table to get a better look at the card and the symbol I was pointing to. “Can’t say it means anything to me, personally.”
I huffed out a breath and drummed my nails on the tabletop, staring at the tail-eating snake. Why did the damn thing keep showing up?
“But,” Garth continued, “I’d guess there isn’t a person in this country who wouldn’t recognize it these days.”
My eyes snapped to his. “Why?”
“That’s the logo for that company that’s making Amrita. I swear their commercial is on between every show on TV.”
“I don’t have a TV,” I told him. “What’s ‘Amrita’?”
Garth’s eyes rounded, like he just couldn’t believe I didn’t turn into a couch zombie along with the rest of America every evening. “Amrita—the elixir of life. You know, the one that claims it can add another fifty years to your life.” His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “You’ve really never heard of it? It’s on billboards and the sides of buses . . . in magazines . . .”
I shook my head. “Not ringing any bells, but then, I don’t get out much. So what’s this drug company called?” I pulled out my phone and opened the Internet app. “And how do you spell ‘Amrita’?”
Garth told me, then shook his head slowly, his eyes squinted in thought. “I can’t remember the company’s name. It’s something strange . . . definitely not an English word. Might be Latin.”
My phone was working at a slug’s pace, but I didn’t need it anymore anyway. I set it down and looked at Garth, a strong hunch perching on my tongue.
He frowned. “I think it starts with an O.”
“Ouroboros,” I said, letting that hunch fly free.
Garth snapped his fingers. “That’s it. The Ouroboros Corporation.”
I bolted up out of my chair, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I stuffed my cards back into their little drawstring purse and tucked them away in my messenger bag, then slung the strap over my shoulder, a genuine smile curving my lips for the first time since Nik arrived. Dom was alive, his disappearance was linked to the missing kids, and it all had something to do with this Ouroboros Corporation.
Finally, I had something to go on. A sleazy pharmaceuticals company that specialized in life-extension drugs; it was about as solid of a lead as I could’ve asked for.
“Thanks, Garth,” I said, standing beside the table and looking down at him. “This has been insanely helpful.”
“What—where are you going?”
I turned away and started across the coffee shop toward the door. “To track down your missing kids.” I glanced back at him. “I hope you’re not a fan of that corporation. They’re involved in this somehow, and I will burn them to the ground.”
Garth blanched.
I winked at him. “Figuratively, of course.”
Once I was out of the room, I uncrossed my fingers. If Dom was hurt in any way, I would stop at nothing to destroy them.
Chapter Six
I tossed back the remaining bourbon and thunked my glass down on the kitchen table beside my laptop, already reaching for the bottle. My eyes never left the computer screen. The rest of the apartment was a dark cavern compared to the glow from the screen. Afternoon had come and gone in the blink of an eye and the click of a mouse, and evening had fallen. Nik was still downstairs, working in my place, and I’d been alone in the apartment, barely having moved since getting back hours ago. I couldn’t, not when my eyes were glued to the screen.
I checked my inbox for the bazillionth time—I’d emailed Garth as soon as I got home, reminding him to send me the info on the missing kids—before maximizing the browser window again. I now knew pretty much all there was to know about the Ouroboros Corporation. At least, everything available to the public.
Ouroboros is the pharmaceutical arm of a multibillion-dollar global conglomerate called Initiative Industries, which owns subsidiaries in all branches of industry and commerce. Ouroboros focuses on what they call “life-extension technology and therapy.” In other words, they’re looking for the fountain of youth—eternal life—something they can cram into a pill and bottle up.
Funny. Nejerets have eternal life. At least, so long as we don’t get ourselves killed. There was zero chance that those two facts weren’t linked, and that left little doubt in my mind that the missing Nejerets hadn’t just been abducted for shits and giggles, they were being experimented on. Apparently, right alongside the missing street kids. These Ouroboros people were their own special brand of sick fucks.
I took a sip from the fresh glass of bourbon, thoughts of grim reapers dancing through my mind. I would find them, and I would hurt them. It’s what I did best, even if I was retired. This was worth getting back in the game for.
I’d moved on to reading reviews of some of their products. The most elite was Amrita, a series of injections given weekly for one year, but there wasn’t much information about what the injections actually did, other than “rejuvenate the body and soul,” let alone a price tag. The most popular product seemed to be Amrita Oral, a pill taken twice daily for some undisclosed period of time that was purported to slow the aging process through metabolic and adrenal regulations. It was pricey, though they offered the first month free for anyone who visited one of their many nationwide open houses. They held them weekly in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and—what do you know—Seattle.
Their Seattle open house was every Sunday morning at ten thirty at their corporate headquarters downtown. It was Saturday night. The next one was tomorrow.
I clicked back to the official website and started filling out the registration form, a requirement to attend. First and last name—I went with Katherine Derby. Date of birth—I shaved off a decade and a half there. Email—easy enough to create a new account for Ms. Katherine Derby. Phone—I hesitated here, not willing to enter the numbers for my cell or the shop phone.
I stood and went into the kitchen, opening the drawer where I used to keep a stash of unopened burner phones back during my former, illicit career. Although, technically, I had been licensed to kill by the Senate, it still felt like my sixteen years as one of their leashed assassins was about as wrong as a thing could be. All of the old burners were gone, leaving just one antiquated cell phone in the drawer—my mom’s old phone.
I picked it up and pressed the power button, knowing full well the battery had died eons ago. Nothing happened. But even though the phone was kaput, the line wasn’t. I’d purchased the rights to both her and my cell phone numbers seventeen years ago, just after the bill legalizing the universal privatization of all forms of “intangible property” passed in Congress. I grinned. When I’d purchased her line, I’d registered it to her—Genevieve Dubois—not to me. It was perfect.
I swapped out her name for my hastily created pseudonym, signed her up for a brand-spanking-new email address, and typed in her phone number. My pointer hovered over the REGISTER button. I’d made it this far at least a dozen times so far, using a dozen different identities. Don’t be a moron, my brain screamed. It’s too risky—I’m a Nejeret; they’re abducting Nejerets . . .
The apartment door opened, and Nik walked in.
>
I clicked the register button reflexively, then closed out the window. Decision made. I was going.
I gulped down half the glass of bourbon and slid the bottle toward Nik as he neared the table. “Drink?”
Stopping to stand at the end of table, he spun the bottle around and whistled. “You might be a culinary prude, but your taste in booze doesn’t suck.”
I snorted a laugh, my gaze trailing down the length of his body. He looked damn good right now. It was the alcohol, I knew it, but I couldn’t stop myself from appreciating his appearance. Tall and lean. Athletic, but not bulky. His thin, faded black T-shirt just snug enough to show some muscle definition across his chest and shoulders. The front hem of his shirt tucked precariously into his jeans, showing off his silver Eye of Horus belt buckle. The black and graying ink staining his arms and neck. I thought his neck piece—a tattoo of the goddess Isis, kneeling, her extended wings wrapping around to the back of his neck—just might be my favorite. At least, of the ones I could see. Who knew what was under his shirt—my eyes traveled lower—and elsewhere. But that Isis tattoo was similar to something I’d been planning for my forearm for a damn long time.
And then there was his face, all pristine, hard lines and sharp edges. It was perfectly symmetrical except for a slight bend in his nose where he must’ve broken it and been too slow to reset it before it healed. He could still fix it easily, if a little painfully. But then, Nik had never shied away from pain. Rather, so far as I remembered, he reveled in it.
His dark eyelashes and brows contrasted with his eyes, making his pale blue irises stand out even more, icy and calculating. There was nothing soft or warm about Nik. Especially not the way he was watching me study him.
“See something you like?” he asked, his striking gaze locking with mine. There was heat in his stare. Heat, and a challenge. I wondered what would happen if I told him, “Yes.” Something, I felt certain. But what? It was impossible to predict.
The Kat Dubois Chronicles: The Complete Series (Echo World Book 2) Page 5