The Lost & Damned 2

by Keira Michelle Telford

  “I’ll bet he loves that.” Alex laughs.

  Maydevine lifts up Jennifer McAllister’s sliced wrist. “As a parting gift, he gave me the number of an Omega tag programmer who wasn’t adverse to the idea of accepting a bribe.”

  He drops her wrist and puts his cigarette out on the floor, crushing it with the heel of his shoe while Alex tries hard to compose himself.

  “Does Carter know who the tag was for?”

  “I’m sure he’s equipped with reasonable powers of deduction.”

  “And you think he’ll keep his mouth shut?”

  “He’ll have to. For what he did here in this room, he’d face enforcement.”

  “Wouldn’t we all?”

  Maydevine shrugs. “Illegally disposing of a corpse? I’d say banishment.”

  “Covering up a murder?”

  “That one’s a bit iffy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Needles & Haystacks

  After dropping Jennifer McAllister’s body into the ocean off a secluded Fringe District jetty, Alex and Maydevine stop in at the nearest South Town diner.

  Maydevine chooses a booth by the window, and leaves it to Alex to haul out the junkie who’s passed out on the tabletop with a needle still in his arm.

  Alex tosses the man to the floor and kicks the needle away, his actions drawing dirty looks from other Fringers in the diner.

  Two smartly dressed Police Division employees clearly don’t belong in this neighborhood. Fishers, yes—and plenty of them—but the Commissioner accompanied by an Agent in plain clothes? That’s an event sure to set off the whisper wagon.

  Alex boots up his laptop on the table and logs into the Omega network. Before they’ve even started, Maydevine’s already grumpy.

  “How do you sleep with a woman almost every night and not know where she lives?”

  Alex shrugs. “She’s a very private person. I don’t know why you’re yelling at me.”

  “Even if she didn’t take you there, she could’ve told you where ‘there’ was. For god’s sake, I don’t have to go to the sewer to know that it’s there. If someone tells me there’s a river of shit flowing right beneath my feet, I’ll just take their word for it.”

  Alex waves his scarred wrist in the air in front of Maydevine, waving away his criticism. Maydevine performs this maneuver a lot, when he doesn’t want to waste the time and energy explaining himself, and Alex’s adoption of it is a symptom of the number of years they’ve spent in each other’s company.

  “She couldn’t take the risk,” Alex mutters.

  That angers Maydevine more. “I’m the head of the Police Division! Nobody’s supposed to track tags without my say so, and how many times do I have to tell you people that I wouldn’t sell her out? She’s my daughter, don’t you forget.”

  “It’s not you she’s worried about.”

  “Phaeden Rist is dead.”

  “Yeah, and some new jerk has popped right up in his place.”

  “Better not judge too hastily. The new Governor’s formal inauguration is only just taking place this afternoon, so let’s try not to be so full of condemnation, shall we?”

  “Sure,” Alex snorts. “So the whole city grinds to a fucking standstill while we wait on some pompous formalities that have no real meaning. You know, if the new Governor was allowed to begin making executive decisions before being officially sworn in, Silver would’ve had her appeal date already.”

  “Oh, that’s what this little outburst is all about.”

  “If her appeal date had been set already, this never would’ve happened.”

  “Even if that were true, this is the future we’re facing now. And if it hadn’t been Silver, it would’ve been somebody else.”

  “So what?”

  “We’d be here anyway.”

  “But she wouldn’t be sick.”

  Silence.

  As Alex leans forward, something around his neck clinks against the tabletop.

  Dog tags.

  His and Silver’s, cleaned of blood.

  Always observant, Maydevine notices them straight away.

  “Look”—he softens his tone—“you’re not the only one who’s hurting here, son. So don’t you dare disregard what she means to me, too.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I know you feel like there’s nothing else in the world greater than your love for her, but there’s much more at stake right now than your own future happiness. Do you understand me?”

  “Protecting the city. I get it.”

  “We need to fix this. We need to be able to ensure the safety of our civilians, above anything else. And right now, the best way we can do that is to find out where and how Silver got infected. Do we agree on that?”

  No answer.

  He does agree, but his emotions are tumbling into freefall and he’s finding it hard to compartmentalize all the pain. He feels responsible for Silver’s infection, and if she dies, he’ll bear the weight of the guilt alone.

  It’s really got nothing to do with her appeal date, or the lack thereof. For as much as he tries to tell himself that the Governor’s administration is to blame for being so infuriatingly impotent, he knows that’s not the truth.

  Not the whole truth anyway.

  The night Silver was attacked, they weren’t exactly on speaking terms. He’d been complacent with her, and was careless with her feelings. Had she been where she was supposed to be—in bed with him, safe in his arms—all of this could’ve been prevented.

  Ergo, it’s his fault.

  Maydevine doesn’t know that, though, and Alex is too ashamed to tell him. All at once, he’s ashamed, guilty, brokenhearted, and angry—a volatile combination.

  He’s angry at himself, and angry at Maydevine for being so rational and calm. Such a temperate demeanor gives the impression of not caring, and Alex finds the notion of that utterly incomprehensible. The condescension in his tone makes it no better, and in his reaction to Alex’s show of emotion, Alex senses a hint of annoyance and disapproval.

  Disapproval.

  A familiar sentiment.

  Unable to regulate himself any longer, he lashes out.

  “You never wanted her to be with me, did you?”

  Maydevine pinches his nose between his thumb and forefinger, a tension headache blooming. “Where the hell did that suddenly spring out from?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Says you.”

  “Everyone knows you wanted Luka Kinsella for her, so why won’t you just admit it?”

  “You’re right. All those years ago in the Academy, when she was a Cadet and I told you to pay special attention to her, I didn’t mean for you to fuck her. All I ever wanted was for her to be safe, and you were the best—you still are. I never imagined that the two of you would become so entwined.”

  “Is that why you told me she was dead?”

  “Why are we talking about this again?”

  “You wanted to break us apart, is that it?”

  “I did what she asked me to do. Same as you.”

  “Was she seeing him?”

  “What?”

  “During her banishment. Was she fucking Luka?”

  Maydevine falls silent, but only momentarily. “No,” he asserts strongly.

  As far as he knows, that’s not a lie.

  The table falls silent.

  Alex stews. “If I find out that bastard touched her, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Alex? Beat him to death with a crow bar?”

  Maydevine locks eyes with him.

  Alex breaks it, but Maydevine’s not done with him yet.

  “When was the last time you went to a meeting, son?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you? ‘Cause your clenched fists say otherwise.”

  Alex hadn’t even realized. He relaxes his muscles and takes a moment to collect himself. “I’m fine. When she comes out of hospital, I’ll be fine.”

  Maydevine
has his doubts about that, but doesn’t press him further. He watches the junkie choke to death on his own vomit while Alex dutifully gets back to work, pulling up a map of the Fringe District on his laptop.

  “The place she’s in … it would have to be large. Somewhere with plenty of entrances and exits.”

  “Why?”

  “Her home is her fortress. Wherever she’s holed up, it’s going to have more twists and turns than a rabbit warren. She doesn’t like to feel trapped, just in case somebody wants to try and kill her. Again.”

  Maydevine lights up a cigarette. There’s no such thing as a smoke-free zone in the Fringe District. “Paranoid much?”

  “I think she’s got good reason.”

  “Whatever.” Maydevine shrugs. “What about a disused warehouse?”

  “Disused? Are you serious? That’s prime real estate on this side of the bridge, and not likely to be left free for the taking.” Alex shakes his head. “I’d be willing to bet that every single warehouse in the Fringe District is controlled by a dealer—arms or drugs, or both.”

  “Okay. So what does that leave us with?”

  “A much smaller selection of Old World industry buildings. We’ve got schools, libraries, museums, a meat processing factory, and a hospital.”

  Maydevine shakes his head. “The hospital was claimed by a homeless shelter four years ago. What about the meat place?”

  “The abattoir?”

  Maydevine nods. “Being surrounded by death does seem like something she’d be into.”

  “Maybe. And let’s say that it is, what do you hope to find there? She’s not exactly the kind of girl who keeps a diary.”

  “I don’t need a diary. I need a weapon that I can trace, a fingerprint I can identify, a piece of DNA—anything. Something real. Give me fifteen minutes in her place and I can tell you what she does, who she does it with, and what she had for breakfast.” He grabs his jacket and gets up. “Come on, let’s go save the fucking world.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Antenora

  With the Mid Town theater gone, Silver has claimed a new place on the outskirts of South Town’s easternmost coast.

  The abattoir.

  Alex and Maydevine stand out front, admiring her runic symbol—an Ella Cross —spray painted over the front face of the building. Casting his eyes over it, Alex digs a much needed cigarette out of his backpack.

  “That’s subtle.” He smirks at Maydevine. “Do you think we’re in the right place?”

  From a safe distance, Maydevine scans the entranceway for incendiary devices. “Is this godforsaken crap hole gonna be booby trapped?”

  “I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t.”

  “You know all her tricks, though, right?”

  “Who do you think she learned them from?”

  Making his way confidently to the side entrance of the building, Alex is relieved to find that Silver’s still using a simple keypad entry system, the likes of which are no big deal for a master hacker. He withdraws a pocket-sized keypad decoder from his backpack and attaches it to the keypad. In seconds, it manages to successfully isolate the correct PIN.

  Alex grins to himself, but Maydevine doesn’t get the joke.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Alex turns the decoder upside down and flashes the display at him.

  1134.

  Upside down: hell.

  Maydevine’s not impressed. “What’s that? Some kind of geek humor?”

  Alex pushes open the door to step inside, but Maydevine holds him back.

  “You’re sure it’s safe?”

  “Hacking the primary perimeter security system should’ve shut down all of the main breach response networks.” He shrugs. “It’s probably fine.”

  Maydevine steps back and lets him go in front. “After you, then.”

  He waits a handful of seconds before following Alex inside. Nothing explodes, so that seems like a good sign.

  In the slaughter room, meat hooks hang in sliding rows along metal railings suspended from the ceiling. Drainage gullies—designed to divert dripping blood toward the sewer—run along the floor, stained with bodily fluids. Stainless steel tables that were once used for the gutting of smaller animals line the edges of the room.

  Maydevine looks around. “Homey.”

  “It’s just the right shade of decay,” Alex concurs.

  Alex leads Maydevine to a staircase, taking them upstairs to the old accountancy department and staff lounges. Gently teasing open the first door, Alex reveals an office filled with things of absolutely no use whatsoever. Silver’s dressed up an old storefront mannequin and placed it at the desk, a frown drawn on its face.

  Maydevine looks disconcerted. “That’s not creepy at all.”

  “It’s a lot less creepy than some other things I’ve seen people do with dolls.”

  Maydevine doesn’t even want to think about that, and they move on. In the next room, also once an office, all of the furniture’s been removed. The center of the floor is stained a deep red-brown, and the whole place smells acrid.

  Thoroughly repulsed, Maydevine turns his back on it. “I don’t even want to know what happened in there.”

  He heads up a second staircase toward a makeshift apartment above, with Alex in tow behind him. Another entry system blocks their way at the top of the staircase, but this one’s more sophisticated than the last. Instead of a keypad, there’s a scanning plate that requires a whole palm print for entry.

  Silver’s palm print.

  “Well, ain’t that a bitch.” Maydevine reaches for his gun.

  He prepares to shoot the entry pad, but Alex stops him.

  “If you shoot it, you’ll trigger a remote detonator that’ll blow this whole place to pieces.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Alex looks apologetic. “I designed it, and showed her how to replicate it.”

  “Way to go.” Maydevine holsters his gun. “Now what?”

  Alex thinks for a moment, an idea suddenly springing into his mind. “Turn off the lights.”

  “What? Why? I don’t want to be in the dark with you.”

  Alex rummages around in his backpack. “Turn off the lights,” he insists, pulling a portable black light out of his bag.

  Begrudgingly, Maydevine flicks the switch.

  Darkness.

  Alex slips on a pair of goggles and turns the black light to the wall, scanning it. Next to the entry system is Silver’s right handprint—bold, glowing, and deliberate. Handing the black light off to Maydevine, Alex fiddles in his bag again.

  “How did you know it would be there?” Maydevine grimaces at the glowing smudge of his daughter’s hand, not caring to think about what type of bodily fluid she might’ve used to make it.

  Alex retrieves a sheet of sticky fingerprint paper from his bag. “Because she knew I’d look for it.”

  “But she didn’t even know that you’d be here.”

  Alex powders the handprint and peels the sticky translucent sheet down over top of it. “She didn’t have to. It’s an unspoken failsafe, in case anything ever went wrong.”

  Maydevine turns the main lights back on and hands Alex back the black light. “The relationship you two have with each other is weird. You know that?”

  Ignoring that, Alex presses the generated palm print up against the entry system pad and it begins to read the handprint … albeit very slowly. Seconds pass by like minutes while they wait for a red or green light.

  Beep.

  Green.

  “I really did not think that would work.” Alex grins.

  “What kind of failsafe would it be if it didn’t work?”

  “I don’t know. We never tested it.”

  “Morons,” Maydevine mutters under his breath, allowing Alex to push past him into the apartment.

  Inside, there’s a ratty Old World couch and a broken armchair. Bookshelves tilt dangerously to one side, and the coffee table’s been upended. The small kitchenette looks like a
health hazard, and it’s practically empty. The refrigerator doesn’t work so it’s being used as a cupboard, storing liquor, mostly. It doesn’t even have a door.

  Silver’s got very few personal belongings: only what she’s collected over the last four months. In a large, locked safe, she keeps a small collection of weapons—the start of a new cache.

  All of the windows were smashed out long before Silver took occupancy, and she’s tried to secure tarpaulin to the frames to keep out the elements. One entire wall of the living room has been completely cleared of pictures and ornaments. Shelves have been torn from their brackets and discarded on the floor, taking chunks of the dry wall with them.

  Silver’s turned the wall into a makeshift map, tracking information and statistics. She’s used a black marker pen to trace a rough plan of the Fringe District, and mark down cases of Chimera CV2 infection: where, when, and how many.

  Some of the cases are known to Omega, some aren’t. To the far right of the map, she’s scrawled the runic code for ‘war’ .

  Dumbstruck, Alex and Maydevine study the details.

  As the gloomy reality of it finally begins to set in, Alex feels a small swell of despair. “Did you know there were this many cases of CV2 within the city?”

  Maydevine shakes his head. “If we’d have known the numbers were this high, we’d have called a strike on the Chimera culling a long time ago.”

  “Meat or no meat, we can’t risk the exposure.” Alex sighs. “Silver was right.”

  “She told you about this?” Maydevine flashes him a deadly look.

  “Not the extent of it. She told me to be careful, and to take precautions. She said that leading the Hunter Division against the Out District Chimera colonies was an unnecessary risk, but I reassured her that Omega had the risk under control. I guess that makes me a liar.” Alex spots five names set aside from the rest of the Fringe District map. “And what the fuck is that?” He points.

  CV2 infections.

  Human lives.

  “The evolution of the virus.” Maydevine clenches his jaw. “We only had reports of a few infected Chimera in the Fringe District. A handful of isolated incidents—nothing major. And the pit fight owners are just asking for trouble, still trading Chimera despite the city-wide warning. But there weren’t any known cases of the CV2 infection being transferred to or between humans.” He slumps down into a chair. “I guess that’s all changed now.”