Inside was a group of inmates in mixed-colored uniforms, holding what appeared to be a meeting in semi-darkness, cut through by the light streaming in through one tall window. They were mostly older, going from the number of gray-hairs I counted, and I couldn’t quite see the man they were all facing. Moving closer, I caught random phrases—moving up the timetable, second wave, reinforcements—but everything stopped when they noticed me in my sunny yellow attire.
“Are you lost, young lady?”
“I don’t believe so, sir.” I put on my very best airs, hoping to disarm this bunch with traditional good manners. “Actually, I believe you are the man I’ve been looking for.”
Snickers all around. I seriously had to work on my phrasing.
“This is a private meeting. In a private barrack, where you don’t belong,” the man told me briskly as he rose, becoming a long, thin blade of shadow against the light. He had the same build as Dawson’s blurry photo, and he had white hair. “I have to ask you to leave.”
I didn’t budge. “I’m afraid that doesn’t work for me, sir. I went to a lot of trouble to get in here to see you, and I’m not leaving until we speak.” If there was anything I’d learned from Lincoln, it was that stubbornness, coupled with politeness, got results.
“Gentlemen, it appears I have a conflicting appointment.” As one, they stood, turned, and filed past me, a few curious looks thrown my way. When the last person exited, I finally relaxed. I’d gotten through the worst part. Now that I’d located Henry, hopefully we’d be out of here in no time.
“Say what you came to say and then leave.”
Now that I was standing here, words didn’t come easy. “Are you Henry Saxon?” I asked instead, figuring that was a slam dunk.
“Of course, I am, and I just ended a very lucrative planning meeting for you, young lady. Now who in the blazes are you?” He was nothing but skin and bones, his sleeves rolled up, revealing thin forearms speckled by age spots. I didn’t sense a hint of magic about him, but maybe he was hiding his powers, like me.
“I’m a private investigator,” I said quietly, nervous about revealing my identity, even to him. “Since no one’s heard from you in a month, I was hired to locate you.” Something was off. I didn’t know what, but my instincts were going wild. He gestured to me to hurry it up.
“I’m here to help. I have a tech setting up your new identity, and a plan to get us past security. In order to do that, you’ll have to trust me.” This was a version of my standard client speech, intended to put the client at ease, and quell any nervousness they might have at hiring a PI to do their dirty work.
“A private investigator,” Henry repeated slowly. “You say you’re here to get me out?” I nodded, while watching him absently pick at his pant leg. “You’re pretty. I didn’t expect you to be so pretty.”
There was no curiosity, no hope, no relief whatsoever. I’d just offered him a way out of here. If he was really in trouble, he’d be eager, or at least intrigued. It was almost as if…
A terrible thought hit me. Right about the same time the guy grinned, revealing rotting teeth.
“You are not Henry, are you?”
“I’m afraid not,” he murmured, as the door burst open and heavy footsteps made the thin wooden floor bounce beneath my feet. “But I’ll bet these men have some questions for you.”
One of them was sunglasses guy from the alley, anticipation written all over his brutish face. The other was the talkative guard, his baton at the ready. Not-Henry skittered away without a backwards glance.
“Whole place is bugged,” the guard whispered conspiratorially as he indicated the walls with his baton. “You wouldn’t believe how many conspiracies we stop that way. Didn’t expect you to come looking for Henry. That’s going to stir up some trouble, let me tell you.” Alley guy just grunted in agreement.
I made the long walk back to the hospital with sunglass guy’s hand wrapped around my upper arm. Passing the group of snitches, Eddie didn’t even make eye contact. Chicken shit. They stashed me in a room for about an hour, then alley guy returned and beckoned me out. “The doctor’s waiting for you, said he’s got hours and hours set aside for you.”
“Wow, that sounds promising.”
“Oh, you have no idea the things he’s going to do to you,” he crooned, something flashing in his eyes as he steered me down the corridor.
He kept so close I felt his breath on the back of my neck, and since I figured I wouldn’t get the chance again, I asked, “Who do you work for? The government or the Sheltons?” I heard his gimpy foot catch on the floor, and his hot breath vanished as he fell back a step.
My money was on the Sheltons, personally. His gear and general appearance was a notch above the D-town guards, his tech more advanced than even the Darkwing squad. Everything pointed to private money, not government, even with the Darkwing tattoo starkly visible on his neck. Which confirmed Lincoln’s suspicion that the Shelton family was behind everything that was happening.
“What gave you the idea I work for anyone?”
“Because people like you never think for themselves. You’re nothing but grunt muscle. The kind the important people send out to do their dirty jobs and clean up their messes. Like get intel on Vanguard’s operation.”
The hot breath was back, and I shuddered. “Although, there’s no shame in doing someone else’s dirty work, hell, I’m sure your skills are in great demand. New York is a cesspool of corruption. You probably keep pretty busy.”
Talkative guard was waiting for us at the door, tapping his baton into the palm of his hand. Clichés, baby, gotta love them. “This is your last stop,” he warned in a dead pan voice, and I swore even alley-guy groaned.
“Doc doesn’t want us in there with her,” the guard warned my escort, and he blocked the door with his baton. “Said it messes with his flow.” He stopped, eyeing both of us uncertainly as alley guy tightened his grip on my arm.
“Bullshit, I’m going in. The people I answer to want this done right.”
I reached up under my hair with my free hand, to the bare patch I’d shaved off on my scalp, pretending I had an itch. One quick movement would tear the nanotech off, and then we’d rock and roll, and cliché guy could see what it was like to have that baton shoved right up his ass. Visions of alley guy aflame left me feeling all warm and fuzzy. Maybe, in the chaos, I’d get out of here alive, but somehow, I didn’t think that was in the cards.
Alley-guy’s hand cuffed my free wrist and pulled my arm down, before he shoved me through the double doors, and my feet turned to lead at the gruesome scene that greeted us. Every bed was empty, but bloodstained, tubes and wires lay on the floor in pools of liquid, and the nitrogen-rich scent of spent magic hung in the air.
Doctor Death himself waited for me, his eyes sparkling.
“I’m so happy I didn’t miss my chance with you,” he gloated, pointing to the nearest bed. “Put her in that dock and restrain her and stay out of my way, I don’t want any distractions while I work.”
With alley guy holding one arm down, I struggled to get my other one free, trying to reach the nanotech patch that would save my life. “Keep her under control and get her restrained,” the doctor warned my captor, his voice predatory as we engaged in our silent, clumsy wrestling match. “Hurry up, I only have the afternoon set aside, and you are wasting time.”
I wasn’t about to become some kind of freaky science experiment in a camp run by psychopaths and funded by the government. I’d go out in flames first and take these assholes with me. Yanking out of alley-guy’s grasp, I was reaching for the patch when I realized his face looked different beneath the sunglasses. It was thinner, older, and topped off with a shock of white hair.
“You’re the one who insisted on being present for this,” the doctor continued to gripe, dumping sharp, metal tools on a tray with a metallic crash. “If you don’t have the stomach for it, then leave. I’ll restrain her myself.” He turned and fiddled with the machine next to t
he bed, adjusting the dials as the device hummed to life.
Meanwhile, alley-guy was changing into someone else entirely. A sophisticated, lean-faced man of medium build with not a muscle in sight. Henry Saxon, I presume.
“Now, Andy,” he quietly urged, “take off the patch and finish this quietly.” I ripped the thing off, feeling light-headed as power swept through me. Focusing, I turned my magic into a needle-thin stream, hot as lava, and twice as deadly. After the smallest hesitation, I pierced the back of the doctor’s neck, cleanly slicing through his spinal cord, then withdrew the line of fire back into me, just before he hit the ground, his eyes vacant.
“Nicely done,” Henry told me, though I didn’t want praise for killing a man, even one so vile. I assumed I was talking to Henry, since he’d just saved my life. “Give me the nanotech so it doesn’t get lost.” I wrapped it in a rubber glove from the tray and pressed it into his hand.
“Don’t touch it, it’ll render you powerless,” I warned as he carefully folded the glove around it and shoved it into his pocket. I was starting to equalize, my magic humming, but not overpowering me. It felt good to have it back.
“Now on to the important question. What’s Lincoln’s plan for getting us out?”
“It’s actually Gabriel’s plan at this point,” I corrected him, watching his eyebrows rise, furrows appearing on his forehead. “He’ll hack their systems, plant false identities for you and I, and we’ll walk out the front door. Theoretically, at least.”
“Who, may I ask, will I become?”
“A lawyer. Dawson said you’d know who.”
“Did she now?” Henry chuckled. “All right then, I’ll need my suit in order to make this schtick work. Let’s head to my barrack and fetch it.” He sounded like he was asking me to take a walk in the park, not a sniper-infested gauntlet of threatening inmates and bare dirt ground.
I saw a lot of dodging and weaving in my near future.
“There’s no way we’ll make it past the guard, and someone’s sure to come here and discover the doctor before we can even make it to the front doors.” That long-ass sentence was adrenaline doing the talking, my heart beating so fast my chest ached. “They’ll come, and they’ll find us, and we’ll never get out of here,” I tagged on, somewhat wildly.
Sure, I’d killed Frank, in a bad situation when my magic got away from me. I hadn’t planned it, I hadn’t foreseen it happening, until flames burst out of me like serpents. But this? What I’d just done strayed into dangerous territory. I’d killed Doctor Death by carefully crafting my magic into a deadly weapon, with foresight and planning. Not a lot, but some. I hated what I’d just done. But I also knew I’d do it again if I had to.
I didn’t like that one bit, nor the doubts that came along with it, but I had to get out of here before I hurled. The place stank of blood, the metallic smell filling the air, and that was only the first layer of the stench.
“This piece of shit”—Henry nudged the limp body with his boot—“sets every afternoon aside to hack some poor soul to bits, and that’s after he’s met his quota for harvesting magic. He has strict orders not to be disturbed, so no one will come looking for him until after nightfall. We have an hour, maybe two.”
“What about the guard outside?” I watched as Henry’s elegant face morphed back into the sun-glassed visage of muscle-bound asshole-ishness.
“I’ll send him on his way right now,” Henry assured me. “He’s a grunt, no skin in this game. He’ll do what he’s told to keep his position here secure.”
Henry pushed his head through the door and explained while I waited, wondering if I should scream or whimper for effect. A moment later, he pulled the door shut, his face changing back into himself.
“There. Gone. I only had to listen to two idiotic comments.”
“Did he say, ‘I’ll be back’ when he left?” I asked, in my very best Austrian accent.
“As a matter of fact, he did. I swear, he has an unnatural bond to that baton of his. He probably sleeps with it.”
Henry surveyed the hideous, bloodstained room, before shaking his head. “This never should have gotten so far,” he said quietly. “I should have been able to stop this months ago.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I assured him. “But we should get going.” I was itching to leave this whole mess behind. But I found Henry, I reminded myself, my spirits soaring. Technically, he found me, but that’s just semantics. I’d accomplished my task and was one step closer to my wonderful, new life.
“I should…” His gaze skipped across the room to a bank of dark monitors. “Before we go, I have to download some information. It’s too important to leave behind.”
“Nothing is that important,” I protested. “You’ve been here a year, according to Gabriel. You’ve had all that time to gather intel. Unless you’re a procrastinator?”
“The very worst,” Henry remarked absently, lifting the mirrored sunglasses to peer at the tangle of wires and tubes that led to the monitors. “This looks like a closed control system,” he remarked before sitting down. “The doctor’s daily harvest information goes into a main database, but I’ll bet he left himself a back door,” he explained as the screen lit up. “You did me a favor, Andy. I’ve been searching for months for ways to access these records, and now it’s wide open.” His fingers blurred as he pulled up report after report.
“Thank God. The doc left his personal profile open, so all I have to do is copy everything.” He created a folder and dumped everything into it.
“This is where you tell me this is a big joke, and you’re really not doing computer work when we should be running for our lives.”
“This is where I tell you to be patient and trust me.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, drawing blood. “Henry…” I warned him. The adrenaline was gone, but fear was taking its place.
“Almost done… Gods, what is all of this?”
A string of ghastly photos filled the screen, and I had to hold down the contents of my stomach. The doctor, it seemed, kept a record of everything, including his little hobby.
Henry looked green as he whispered, “I’ll just send everything to Gabriel, he can sort out what’s what. Oh...” He stopped, gaping at the screen, sounding like someone had knocked the air out of him. “Oh, my heavens.”
Against my better judgement, I leaned in, gripping Henry’s shoulder to get a better view of the official government report frozen on the screen. Once I realized what we were looking at, I couldn’t read fast enough, skimming through the scientific doublespeak that made up the bulk of the document. You couldn’t miss the Shelton family crest at the top of the page, nor Andrew’s signature at the bottom.
It was what was in between that I couldn’t comprehend. My hands were shaking when I pushed away while Henry and I stared at each other in horror—and yes—a bit of fear.
“I have to… Andy, Gabriel has to know about this. The entire world has to know.”
I nodded in agreement. What we’d just discovered was so monstrous—if it was even remotely true—we might as well just let the guards shoot us on the way out.
22
Ten minutes later, Henry prepared to make the final transfer as I nervously paced behind him.
“This way, we’ll have the only evidence of this atrocity,” he explained as he sent another batch of files. “I’m deleting them from the doctor’s personal profile as I go, as well as everything from the main database.”
“It’s getting dark. How much more can you possibly need?” I asked, bouncing back and forth from one foot to another.
“Silly girl,” Henry scolded. “This is our chance to ensure we hold all the cards. It’s the only way we’ll have enough leverage to expose Devilton and the Sheltons.” His hands danced over the keyboard, reminding me of Lincoln.
“All you need is the letter,” I suggested quickly. “That’s leverage enough.”
“But Gabriel loves his data,” Henry countered, sounding dead seri
ous. “The poor boy would be bereft if he didn’t have numbers to play with.” As Henry arranged his massive information dump to gods-knows-where, I had to give him my two cents.
“Do you know how many perps I’ve caught because they’re careless and leave a digital footprint?” I watched him transfer the huge batch of files. “This will be easy to track, Henry. You’re making a huge mistake.”
“Were any of your perps as talented as me?”
Henry was sounding more and more like Lincoln, or maybe I was projecting. I’d have to figure him out once we were free. But right now, the prospect of leaving Devilton seemed impossibly far off as he moved gajillions of terabytes—or whatever they were called—from one place to another.
“By the way, young lady, I have a bone to pick with you. I resent being referred to as nothing but grunt muscle. There was no worse affront you could make than that.” His teasing tone sounded oddly familiar and caused goosebumps to break out on my arms.
“Clearly,” I managed, giving him a closer look, seeing only his elegant, lined face topped by a shock of white hair. But the more I was around Henry, the more familiar he seemed. “What are you doing now? We don’t have time for this.”
“Storing everything on the doctor’s server at his home, so Gabriel can easily access it. I’m not much of a computer person, but I think this will be an adequate solution.” Henry hit the last key with such a Lincoln-like theatrical flourish, I stilled, the vague sense of familiarity finally crystallizing into recognition.
“Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before…” He paused, catching sight of my face. “Are you all right, Andy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“How do you know my name’s Andy?” I asked, heart in my throat.
“Oh… that? Uhm… the guard told me. He’s very talkative, as you know.”
Henry was a very bad liar. Lincoln had been a master, and I did okay under pressure, but Henry must have been born with a good conscience or something.
“I never told you my name, and neither did the guard. You’re Lincoln’s brother.”
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