Aftermath (8 page)

I mimed lighting a match and tossing it behind me.

One of these days I was gonna have to befriend an architect who could build me a bridge I couldn’t burn.

Chapter Seven

Back on Earth I was starting to see a trend in the DSI’s prison planning. Each and every one of them were set around towns that had little intrinsic value to the United States government as a whole. Pitkin, nowhere Missouri—I’d never caught the town’s name—and now the outskirts of Detroit. While I couldn’t see anyone being glad these places ended up getting nuked I certainly began to understand why they’d chosen these locations to host their supernatural jail cells rather than say, Los Angeles or Washington DC. Should the unthinkable happen—exactly what was already happening—the
important
cities would live on and the troublesome ones, the burdens, well, did they really matter in the grand scheme of the nation?

“These bastards sure know how to pick their locations, don’t they?”

“They’re not exactly planting them in the middle of affluent areas, that’s for sure,” Rahim answered, his voice octaves below its usual deepness. He clearly didn’t appreciate the implications.

“I wonder what kind of insurance payout the government gets if a bankrupt city catches a case of the nuclear blues.”

“Aren’t we here to prevent that from happening?” Rachelle asked.

“I’m not really sure about that.” I glanced about at the barren, wooded area north of the city where Shaw had sent us. “Seems a great place to bury a few additional charred bodies without anyone being the wiser. Wouldn’t put it past the bitch.”

Rahim turned to face me and I could see the wheels turning in his head. “Something wrong besides the obvious, Frank? Your usual pessimism seems even more pessimistic.”

I met his gaze for a second before the intensity made me look away. “I’m not sure Rala is going to be much help in all this. She’s, uh, less than pleased with me right now.” This strange urge to tell the truth was really getting on my nerves.

“And why is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe because I felt obligated to tell her that I held her BFF Veronica against the wall by her throat and unloaded my gun into her head.”

“Frank! You didn’t—?” Rachelle started but swallowed back her question as she starred at me. She could see I was being honest. “Oh, Frank.”

Rahim sighed. “I wondered why we hadn’t seen her in Hell recently but I hadn’t expected you to…”

“Murder her?” I asked. “Not everyone deserves a happy ending, Rahim. Not her and definitely not me, but at the end of the day I’m okay with my daughter being alive in exchange for Veronica being dead. That was the price of Veronica’s life: her betrayal of my child.”

Rahim dragged his hands across his scalp, his palms
scritching
across the stubble. “When was this?”

“Right before I put the screws to Trinity and buried Judas alive under twenty tons of concrete.”

Rachelle just stared, unable to speak over the litany of my recent crimes. Disappointment gleamed in her eyes yet there was a hint of understanding. It was more than I expected.

“If it’s any consolation I’m sure I’ll wind up in Hell.”

Both Rahim and Rachelle were realists and they completely understood that DRAC wasn’t some offshoot of the Girl Scouts. People died in our business. We killed people; all of us have and we would again, likely many times before it happened to us. We had plenty of blood on our hands. I didn’t imagine Rahim or Rachelle were overly distraught that I’d taken Trinity or Judas out. Both were thorns in our sides that had caused a ton of deaths, Karra’s included, but the fact that I’d murdered my ex-wife was something different. It was a confirmation of all their fears. I was exactly who they had always worried I’d become, Satan’s baby boy come home to roost, the Devil inherent.

“I get it,” I told them. “It’s why I left town, why I surrendered Hell to DRAC. Why I’ve spent the last five months shoving needles in my veins and drinking Louisiana dry of anything resembling alcohol.” I exhaled loudly. It tasted bitter. “I’m not proud of what I did, and it’s gonna haunt me no matter how much she deserved it, but I would do it again without question, Abigail in exchange for Veronica. It isn’t a question. Not ever.”

“Frank—” That was as far as Rahim got before Michael cut through the tension, screaming in our heads.

“Poe is reporting incoming at the North Dakota site. They need you there now!”

Rachelle scrambled to her feet without hesitation and I felt her power welling up. Not two seconds later a gate split the dimensions in half.

“We can discuss this later,” I said, if there was a later, and hurled myself through the portal. There’d be no quick and easy resolution to their dilemma of what to do with me after everything was said and done but none of that mattered right then. My daughter was still in the middle of something I’d helped to create and I’d be damned if I let Shaw or the Covenant anywhere near my kid.

On the other side with Rahim and Rachelle at my heels we appeared right alongside Shaw and her DSI goons.

“What are we looking at?” I asked.

Shaw’s eyes were unfocused but she pointed to an area just south of us. “Someone’s breaking through the wards right there.”

I didn’t bother to say anything in response, bolting off to where she’d indicated. Rahim followed after, Rachelle keeping her distance as befitted the nature of her power, and the army of DSI folks ran after us. We reached the place just as the wards broke down and three people popped in out of nowhere. I didn’t recognize a single one of them.

“Who the fuck are you guys?”

They might as well have been triplets as much as they looked like each other. Nephilim by the feel of their essences, each had an oversized briefcase and absolutely nothing else, to include clothes. They were naked, their little dingleberrys and roots hanging out as if this were some hippy commune they were taking a stroll through. Pale, thin, and without an ounce of fat on them it clicked in my head that they looked like marathon runners and not a heartbeat later they proved me right. All three grinned like psychotic morons—a look I know all too well—and bolted off in a sprint, each of them veering off at a different angle to make staying on all of them impossible.

“Stop the streakers!” I shouted needlessly and drew on my power, my brain scrambling gas to why there were three of them to begin with. That was a hell of a lot of boom for the buck.

Thud and Grace ran after the trio, their skillsets geared more toward melee fighting but Kit wasn’t so limited. She had a weapon already hobbled together and took a shot. There was a muzzled
pop
and a flash of light and a flower of red blossomed on the back of one of the Nephilim. He stumbled and fell, face-planting into the wild grass. I hissed and looked away for just an instant, grateful the world was still there when I looked back. That’s when it hit me we were playing shoot `em up with a group of people carrying nuclear weapons and I had no idea where the hell the prison was. It had to be close though, so why hadn’t they triggered the bombs already?

“Hold your fire!” I spun and waved at Rachelle. “Round them up and dump them in Limbo!”

Rachelle heard me and nodded, her magic spooling up but it turned out the Nephilim had heard me as well. The one Kit had shot scrambled back to his feet and fumbled with his briefcase, smearing blood across the handle. Rachelle didn’t give him time to get anything done. A portal peeled open below him and he disappeared with a yelp, briefcase and all. The portal closed after him and she turned her attention to the others.

“Why are they running?” Rahim asked. “We’re close enough for them to trigger the bombs and have them be effective.”

Our eyes met and a cold chill settled over me. I could see he was thinking the exact same thing that had popped into my head a split-second before. “It’s a distraction.”

Right then Shaw cried out, “More incoming!” That was all the confirmation I needed.

Rachelle scooped up a second of the runners when a new player appeared on the field ahead of them. There was none of the overtness of the others in her approach. She was dressed all in black and clung to a large duffle bag. Magic wafted off her and I could see she’d formed a defensive shield as soon as she appeared, ready to protect her package. She was the real threat.

“Rachelle!” I pointed at the new arrival but she’d been too distracted by the last of the runners to be quick.

The woman stood up and raised her arms, screaming something I couldn’t make out. Then she exploded.

I reached out with my magic, forming a giant arm of energy, and swung it about, scooping up Thud and Grace and all the rest of the folks nearby and pulled them to me, raising a shield at the same time. Everyone hit the ground in a heap, bitching and moaning as the barrier went up. I ducked my head and channeled everything I had into the shield. I knew from experience the next few second were gonna hurt bad.

There was a thunderous rumble as the nuke let loose, and I ground my teeth to nubs readying for the impact. It never came.

After about thirty seconds and the blast hadn’t hit us I dared to open my eyes and glance behind us. What I saw damn near blew my mind.

A glowing ripple in the dimensional wall stood between the explosion and us. It gleamed with energy and danced in the air but everything this side of it was unharmed. My gaze jumped to Rachelle. She stood looking ready to collapse, her eyes gleaming, arms outstretched and fingers twisted as though they were seizing up.

Rahim was on his feet and gone before I’d even realized what Rachelle had done. He raced to her and I followed, arriving after he’d wrapped his arms around her waist to ensure she didn’t fall over. She moaned but held the portal in place while Rahim held her, her eyes narrow with determination. I turned back to watch the blast as it rippled away from us, wiping out everything in its path.

They sky grayed and clouds billowed just past the gate Rachelle had opened to shunt the blast away from us. No clue where we were geographically I didn’t know if the blast would hit a populated area or not. All I could do was stand there and watch it tear its way across the countryside. There was no stopping it now. It was like watching a documentary at an IMAX theater. The ground shook and the sky trembled and the air tasted like burnt copper but the explosion was entirely contained before us, not so much as a wisp of wind coming our way to ruffle our hair.

Rachelle let out a weak groan a short while later and the gate fell away. I flinched, expecting some of what I’d felt at Pitkin but there was nothing. After a relieved exhalation, the air surprisingly clear where we stood, I turned to see Rahim cradling Rachelle’s thin form in his arms. She clung to him, her head on his chest, and breathed hard. Comatose was the closest analogy I could think of to describe how she looked.

“You okay?” I asked.

She gave the barest of nods. “I will be.”

“She needs to rest and recover her strength,” Rahim told me, no room for contradiction in his tone. “Send us to Hell so I can make sure she’s taken care of. I’ll return shortly.” I nodded and ripped open a gate without question. Rahim carried Rachelle through it and I sealed it behind them.

“That was impressive,” Shaw said, coming over to stand beside me. “She saved our lives.”

“Keep that in mind the next time you send the Army to kill us all,” I spit out as I walked off toward the bomber.

Kit and Grace gave nodded at me as I walked past, recognizing what I’d done for them. They’d been the other side of Rachelle’s portal. Thud just stared at me and Styg continued his campaign of not daring to look at me at all. After his inability to raise Karra—even though that wasn’t his fault—he had fled Hell when I opened the way for him, neither of us saying a word. I don’t know if he thought I’d hold it against him or what but he apparently decided it was in his best interest to deal with me as little as possible. He was probably right.

As I drew closer the bomber twitched and tried to get to her feet, much to my surprise. She lay face down in the smoldering grass and didn’t look so much as scratched by the blast. I grabbed her arm and rolled her over so I beat some answers out of her but I’d clearly been wrong in my appraisal.

Her front half, which had apparently not been shielded by Rachelle’s gate, was a crispy mess. Ashen gray and black flesh with oozing dots of red ran from her forehead down to her toes. Her face had melted, pools of wet skin forming where her eyes and mouth should have been, a wax museum mannequin with aspirations of being Icarus.

“Guess we’re not getting any answers from her,” Thud said over my shoulder. “Put a fork in toots there, she’s done.”

I ignored him but he wasn’t wrong. Whoever our brave suicide bomber was she was beyond the point of telling us anything. That said, there was still some chance she could be useful.

“You there, Mikey?”

“Who’s Mikey? You losing your shit already, Frankie boy, things ain’t that bad…yet.”

“Shut up, Thud,” I told the demon and repeated my question.

“Here,” Mike answered after a moment.

I forced myself to think my question rather than speak it aloud so I wouldn’t have to deal the dumbass demon.
Any chance you can take a looksee into Crisp’s skull and scrounge for info?

There was silence for a moment, and then Mike came back with a mental sigh, clearly displeased by what he’d seen. “She’s done, Frank. Nothing left of
her
inside there.”

I nodded though Mike couldn’t see me and pulled my gun out, putting a round into the bomber’s head. She slumped without a sound. The report echoed in the stillness after the blast, and I’d only noticed it had faded when there was a metallic
crunch
that sounded damn near as loud as the bomb had. I spun about, as did everyone else, and stared off toward the sound.

“The prison,” Shaw said just above a whisper.

“Ah, fuck.” Distracted as I’d been by the bomber and Rachelle’s heroics I hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she had only defused half the bomb, so to speak. There was no doubt her little trick had sucked up some of the power of the blast but clearly it hadn’t been enough. What had exploded outward had disrupted the prison’s defenses sufficiently to allow whoever was inside of it to break out.