Ten feet away from the Explorer, with the vehicle—and us—confined in a half-circle, they stopped. And then, with a beehive buzz of synchronicity, the entire group of people spoke as one.
“PAXTON LOCKE. LEAVE YOUR WEAPONS AND YOUR COMPANION. YOU WILL COME WITH US.”
“Yeah, not going to happen,” I said. Settling on the biggest guy from the truck, I fixed the Mossberg’s front sight on target. “I’m already in enough fantasy leagues.”
“YOU WILL COME WITH US, OR WE WILL KILL YOUR COMPANION.”
“They’re telling the truth,” Cassie said.
“You’re using the spell now?”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“PAXTON LOCKE. LEAVE YOUR WEAPONS. YOU WILL—”
I shifted the barrel and squeezed the trigger, discharging a round harmlessly into the sky. None of the drones, or whatever the hell they were, so much as flinched. If there was anyone left in the neighborhood who wasn’t under the influence, maybe they’d call the cops. I doubted we could expect any sort of rapid response time, though.
I racked the pump and trained the barrel back onto the chest of flannel shirt guy. “They’re dead, Cassie. Right?”
She was silent for a moment, then replied. “Shit. No, they’re still alive.”
I don’t know if it was my body language or the look on my face that clued them in on my reluctance to pull the trigger, but the crowd surged silently forward. A wave of human flesh bowled me over. Somewhere along the way, I lost the Mossberg, and Cassie’s scream cut off as I slammed to the ground.
Rough hands rolled me onto my stomach and pulled my hands behind my back. With a click of plastic on plastic, one of the attackers secured a pair of zip ties around my wrist. Fighting the weight on my back, I raised my head and saw that Cassie was getting the same treatment. So much for leaving my companion alone. Our eyes met, and I saw the reflection of my own fear and terror in her own expression.
My shoulders screamed as the horde lifted me to my feet. I strained my ears, hoping beyond hope for sirens, for shouts from concerned citizens, but there was nothing. We were completely and irrevocably on our own.
I’ve spent most of the years since my dad died feeling guilty. That little nagging voice in the back of my head constantly whispered that I should have acted sooner. It’s faded, over time, but he’d been piping up a lot more lately since Mother’s coven broke her out of prison. Now the little voice liked to point that I could have stopped her, permanently, and any harm she does while running free is on me.
Logically I know that I’m not accountable for anyone’s actions but my own. And the one thing that I’ve always been able to lean on is the knowledge that I’ve never killed anyone. Melanie’s familiars, in any real sense, were already dead, and while I may have contributed to the phenomenon that put her down, it seemed a bit arrogant to make a claim on the seemingly divine action that destroyed the Edimmu and turned Melanie into a no-kidding pillar of salt.
I didn’t see any lights in the sky, now. No friendly crowd of ghosts had gathered to help us out of this predicament, and there was no sign of any mortal authorities. If I only had to worry about my own skin, I might have played along for a bit until I saw a better opportunity to escape, but I couldn’t risk Cassie’s safety. Call it what you will. Even though I was unwilling to put the feeling into words just yet, the thought of her coming to harm stoked an intense, white-hot rage inside of me. The fact that anything that did happen would be my fault just stoked the flames higher. I’d lived with such strict self-control for so long that the sudden emotion was both terrifying and intoxicating.
The crowd buzzed, and my heels dragged across the road as they began to move us. “DO NOT STRUGGLE AND NEITHER OF YOU WILL BE HARMED. TLALOC SUMMONS YOU.”
“There’s just one problem here,” I announced. Maybe the drones couldn’t get the subtle nuance of humor or sarcasm, but that had never stopped me before. We kept moving, but a few blank faces turned to look at me. “You have seriously pissed me off.”
I phased through the flex cuffs and the hands clutching my upper arms. Bodies crashed into space I’d formerly occupied, but I whirled away and through the crowd. If a fist going through me had felt odd, an entire body was nauseating, but I pushed the discomfort aside and kept moving until I got out into the open.
When I phased back in, my hands were shaking a bit from fatigue, but it wasn’t too bad. “Let her go!” I barked. The portion of the crowd holding Cassie didn’t move, but the rest surged toward me. Damn it.
Force blades snapped into existence around my clenched fists. Fueled by desperation, fear, and anger, lines of blue light traced the wedge-shaped implementation of my will. I jerked my arms out from my chest, leaving loops of afterimage contrail in front of me. If my display impressed the horde, they didn’t show it, and the leading edge lunged forward, intending to tackle me to the ground once more.
There was no grace in the fight. I flailed and twisted. If not for the mystical weaponry, the effectiveness of my attacks would have been laughable.
I slapped at the first hand to reach for me, and fingers tumbled away like clothespins. When I’d slashed at the salesman, he’d bled. The horde was different—where I struck, their flesh flashed and blackened, filling my nostrils with the smell of scorched meat.
A trio of drones tackled me painfully to the road, knocking the wind from my chest. I flinched a bit as my hands slammed against my own torso, but the force blades didn’t cut me.
That’s handy.
I don’t have much of a bench press, so pushing hundreds of pounds off my body would normally be impossible. Heat flashed against my chest, but the drones suffered in ominous silence as I punched my arms up and out of the bodies holding me down. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about what I was pushing through, or the fact that the guts spilling out on the pavement belonged to living people.
All at once, I was free. I lurched to my feet, and gobs and chunks of flesh fell away from my body as I did. The remains of the group I’d cut through flared with sudden heat and a corona of flame flashed up around me. It passed as quickly as it had risen, and a pile of denuded bone clattered to the pavement in drifts of fine cinders.
I brushed ash from the sleeve of my shirt and faced the crowd. “Who’s next?”
Something I could best describe as a ripple went through them. They kept staring at me, but I got the sense they’d be staring at each other uncertainly if not for the overriding intelligence pulling their strings.
“THIS IS NOT OVER, PAXTON LOCKE. YOU INTRUDE ON THAT WHICH IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN.”
“Not even a ‘get out of town by sunset?’ You’re in the wild, wild west, pal. Get with the lingo.”
The crowd began to evaporate like water, heading for backyards and impromptu roadblocks. For a moment I was afraid they were going to haul Cassie along with them, but the group holding her released her and backed away, watching me all the while. On the plus side, I’d shown myself as someone not to be underestimated. On the downside, if there was a next time, the drones would try something different.
I moved to her side. “Hold still.” I pinched the cable ties between my thumb and forefinger and applied the smallest bit of force. The tension released, and she brought her arms around to the front and rubbed at her wrists.
At once, she turned and there was a new sort of tension as she pressed herself against me in a desperate hug. I froze, unsure how to react, but I snapped out of it and wrapped my arms around her. We stood there, holding on for dear life as our attackers fled. Somehow, despite the roadblock, the street remained empty even after the tumult. Anyone who drove up probably backed up in a hurry. I let go of Cassie reluctantly and mumbled, “We need to get our stuff.”
The Mossberg had ended up on the side of the road. I tried to ignore the carnage I’d wrought, but I forced myself to turn and look after I retrieved it.
The wind had cleared much of the ash, but piles of bone littered the street. Based on the number of sk
ulls, magical fire had consumed any members of the horde I’d slashed. Helpful, but still strange. A conflict, perhaps, between my own magic and whatever spell our anonymous puppet master had used to turn a crowd of individuals into mindless drones. I frowned at the remains, reflecting on the fact that I’d just become a killer. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances, but I’d kick-started tragedy for a dozen or more families.
My knees wobbled. A bit was from the fatigue of my magical display, but just as much came from the emotional impact of what I’d done. Remember this feeling, I told myself. This is why you can never lose control.
And now, I heard the sirens. Typical. Cassie tugged at my arm with one hand and slid her Kimber back into her purse with another. “We need to go, Pax.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 16
Valentine
Luke Air Force Base—Friday afternoon
Val squinted in the sudden sunlight and fished his sunglasses out of the breast pocket of his jacket. They’d chased the sun across the country, moving with a speed that was a truly impressive display coming from a government organization. The plane they’d taken to Vegas and back had no longer been available. In the end, it was a moot point because the counterfeit moving truck turned out to be too tall to fit. They’d upgraded to a larger C-17, which was fine by him. It wasn’t as comfortable as flying commercial, but it had been a step up over their last flight. He’d gotten enough fitful rest that he hoped the jet lag wouldn’t hit too hard.
“Accounting’s going to shit when they get the invoice on this one.” Val grinned at Eliot as the other man joined him on the tarmac and squinted at the sun. “We may have to shake a can to raise funds for the Christmas party.”
“I usually bring my own beer anyway,” Eliot said.
“Snob.”
“I know what I like. There’s the liaison.”
The agent leaning against the Crown Vic shielded his eyes from the sun, saw that they were looking, then beckoned them over. The cargo aircraft had taxied into a hangar after landing, and their local contact had parked on the side of the building closest to the attached office.
Val conducted a silent assessment of their counterpart as they came closer. The guy looks like he should be in high school. The young agent was of medium-height, clean-shaven with his hair cut to strict regulation length. Wonder what he thinks of us? Eliot’s hair was more than a bit longer and sloppier than was acceptable, and his own goatee was a big no-no. It had been years since any supervisory agents had gathered the testicular fortitude to bring it up with either of the partners.
The young guy stuck out a hand. “Agent Jared Anjewierden, gentlemen. Welcome to Phoenix.”
“Valentine.” He jerked a thumb to the side, then shook the kid’s hand. “Eliot.”
To his credit, the young guy’s eyes only widened a fraction. “Keys,” he stammered, handing them over.
Valentine accepted them, then considered the parking lot. “Do you need a ride, Anje—Agent?”
“Anjewierden, sir. And yeah, that would be great. My partner got called away. Apparently, someone scattered a dozen skeletons across a street in South Phoenix.”
Val glanced at Eliot and raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Any eyewitnesses?”
“It’s a pretty shady neighborhood, so doubtful. Is it related to why you’re here?”
“Need to know,” Eliot interjected before Val could speculate. “Sorry. But we might take a look if we’re dropping you off there.”
“We’re keeping this close-held for now,” Val said, frowning at his partner. “How’s activity been? Anything pop out?”
Anjewierden laughed nervously, looking back and forth between the two partners. “Actually, no. It’s been weird. Damn quiet for the last few months. We claimed a peuchen corpse from the Border Patrol a few weeks back, but other than that, zilch.”
“Peuchen?” Eliot frowned.
“Flying vampire snake,” Val said. “Nasty little suckers.”
“That’s the critter,” the younger agent confirmed. Behind them, George pulled the moving van out of the hangar. The Air Force C-17 had more than enough lift capacity to bear its weight; the main issue had been finding something with a tall enough cargo bay. Even then, it was a close fit.
Val turned and waved to get George’s attention. He debated whether to mangle the other agent’s name again and decided against it. “Hop in, kid. You’re our pathfinder.”
Under Anjewierden’s direction, Val got the Crown Vic off of the tarmac and onto the base proper, followed closely by George and Morgan in the moving van. Eliot had silently taken the passenger seat, relegating the younger agent to the back seat. Rather than be put off by the slight, the kid stuck his head in the rear window and gawked at the moving van. “That’s Agent Laffer and Agent Patrick, right?”
Val glanced at Eliot and tried not to laugh. His partner rolled his eyes and said, “Agent Anjewierden, how long have you been around?”
“Why does everyone ask me that? Three years. I was in the Air Force for four years, before that. I’m 27.”
Val raised an eyebrow, impressed. The guy only looked and acted like a high-school kid. Eliot was a harder nut to crack, though.
“How’d you transfer over?” Division M didn’t actively recruit on a widespread basis, but they did show up and make offers to private citizens and government employees alike who’d had experience with the arcane. Well. These days, anyway. Things had evolved in the years since he and Eliot came aboard.
“I was an SP at Schriever AFB. Some of the satellite uplink equipment kept getting damaged. Turned out to be gremlins. Division M made me an offer during the debrief.”
Val clamped his lips shut and tried not to snicker. Eliot had much more success, though his tone was dry as the desert. “Ah. Must have been, ah, interesting.” Actual gremlins didn’t look or act nearly so frightening as the ones from the series of movies. They were four-armed, cat-faced bipeds that tended toward chubbiness. They could be a pest around electronics but were generally benign.
“I clocked out of rounds after the first wave—after that, I had to use a fire ax. The whole swarm was over two hundred.” Anjewierden shook his head sadly. “The Division M biologist said they aren’t aggressive like that, most times, but we’d done a ROHS-switchover on a lot of circuit boards and they had a bad allergic reaction to the lead-free solder.”
Eliot gave a minute shrug as Val raised an eyebrow at him. “Not bad, kid,” he said into the rearview mirror.
“Thank you, sir. That means a lot, coming from you. If I may, though—” Val gave him a nod in the mirror. “—I know you said I didn’t need to know, but if things are so quiet here, why are you heavy hitters here in force?”
Eliot remained silent, and Val took the lead. “It’s a recon mission, primarily. We’ve got a target of interest. The lack of activity is an interesting data point, though.”
“How so?”
“Cryptids and mystical-types are like your apex predators in nature. When there’s a disruption in the food chain, there are noticeable effects. I did some work with some Border Patrol guys on a chupacabra nest a few years back. They got smart. The critters, I mean. Started stalking the crossings the coyotes were using. It became obvious something was up when arrests in that zone bottomed-out while increasing in other areas. The prey headed elsewhere. What you call quiet gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I got to ask myself—what’s driving all the prey away?” The younger agent grimaced. “Got a job for you, kid. Start running the numbers. I need to know when things started to die down, and if there’s any sort of geographical connotation to it. Think you can handle that?”
“Yeah. I can come up with something, I think.”
“Good. Unless I miss my guess, our showing up might stir the pot.”
Paxton
Phoenix, Arizona—Friday afternoon
The need to wait for Kent ended up working out for us. Cassie and I spent much of the intervening time look
ing over our shoulders and driving in roundabout patterns. If we were being followed, neither of us could tell. Finally, after seeing more of Phoenix’s surface streets than was liable to be healthy, we called it good.
I gave a moment’s consideration to heading back to Kent’s house to get the grimoire. When we’d unpacked our things the other night, I’d decided the best place for it was inside of one of Kent’s gun safes. It occurred to me there might be some sort of spell in the book to block prying eyes from tracking us, but that was a catch-22. If we were being followed I sure as hell didn’t want to lead them back to Kent and Jean’s house.
We settled for the next best thing—we hit a shopping mall.
The scuffle had torn my button-down in a couple of places and streaked it with ash. I bought a baggy Arizona Cardinals hoodie to go over my T-shirt and a black knit cap to cover up my hair. Up close, I didn’t look all that different, but it made me harder to identify from a distance. Cassie’s clothes were in better shape, but she ended up with a different jacket and a baseball cap, herself. I wasn’t confident that it would be enough, but it was better than nothing until I could figure out an alternative. As for the Explorer, it was more than anonymous enough to blend into Valley traffic.
We did the fifth crime-scene on the move. I didn’t even bother to roll the windows down as we coasted by the dump site, a three-walled dumpster paddock behind a strip mall. There was nothing there, but I’d been almost certain that was going to be the result. Whatever, or whoever, this Tlaloc was, he or she wasn’t leaving any ghosts behind. That reminded me a bit too much of the Edimmu, but I forced myself to put that on the mental back burner.
Reasonably certain of our own safety, we settled down for a late lunch with former President Clinton.
Kent introduced me to Poncho’s the first time I visited him, and I made it a point to stop in at least once every time I came to town. The place was a Valley institution, with salsa to die for. By now, the mural boasting of Bill’s visit back in the day didn’t faze me, but Cassie kept sneaking incredulous looks at it.
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