Criminal Minds (Fox Meridian Book 4) (27 page)

Jason took an offered glass and settled onto the sofa. ‘Expense is not a guarantee of quality, but of rarity. Most of the old vineyards are barren wastes now. I’ve
never
had French wine, so you are one up on me.’

Fox sat beside him, leaning herself against him. ‘I’m going to say that you aren’t missing much, but I don’t exactly have an educated palate. It was nice enough, but–’

Belle’s sudden appearance brought Fox to a stop. There was no way the house’s supervisory AI would interrupt them unless she thought it was important. ‘Fox, I am sorry to intrude…’

‘I know you wouldn’t without good reason,’ Fox replied. ‘What’s up?’ Nothing had come through from ops, but Belle was wearing her serious face.

‘IB-Nineteen is broadcasting a newsflash. They have received an email, apparently from the “Ripper” killer.’

Jason spoke up before Fox could. ‘I think we should see this. You will not relax again, Fox, unless you do.’

He was right, of course, a fact which unaccountably pleased her. ‘Run the clip, Belle.’

An image appeared in the air beside Belle’s avatar. A presenter was facing camera while a scrolling banner rolled past below him. ‘IB-Nineteen received this message from an untraceable source nineteen minutes ago. NAPA were contacted immediately, but have provided no comment at this time. IB-Nineteen stands ready to assist the police as and when required.’ Fox decided she hated the presenter already, though he was only reading a script. ‘The message purports to come from someone calling himself “Ripper,” and contains only the following cryptic text: “Though she uses the name she chose in France, I know her. None shall bar me from my greatest transformation. She will be made perfect.”’

Fox frowned. ‘The name she chose in France? Mute it, Belle.’ The sound cut off, though the text of the message continued to scroll past below the presenter.

‘Who is “she?”’ Jason asked.

‘Uh, he has an obsession with the original Jack’s last canonical victim, Mary Jane Kelly. He considered it the greatest of the murders, the most perfect. I think he’s selected someone to take her place, and I think he’s going to kill her on the eighth or ninth of this month, the anniversary of the original crime.’

Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Marie,’ he said. ‘The French form of Mary is Marie.’

Kit appeared on the opposite side of the video display from Belle, looking concerned. ‘Miss Kelly was reported to have spent two weeks in France in eighteen eighty-four,’ Kit said. ‘She was invited there by a client, but was not happy with her life there and returned. However, she adopted the name “Marie Jeanette” at that time.’

‘And Marie played Kelly in the vid,’ Fox said, ‘and she’s been splattered all over the channel in adverts for the series. Shit. Kit, contact Sam for me. Mark it private, give him the data. Tell him it’s unlikely to go down tonight, but he should be careful.’

‘Should we join them?’ Jason asked.

Fox shook her head. ‘It’s not going to happen tonight and Sam’s a capable man. He’s almost certainly armed too.’

‘Sam is carrying a small, semi-automatic pistol,’ Belle confirmed.

‘And he has confirmed receipt of the information,’ Kit added. ‘He says he will tell Marie about it in the morning. She will be with him tonight anyway.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Fox said. ‘Okay, you two can clear off. Nothing’s going to happen at all until Sam and Marie leave the club, and I still want my crazed and kinky.’

‘If you think it’s safe enough,’ Jason said, ‘I would not deny you.’

‘I do.’ Fox pursed her lips. ‘But just in case… Kit, get ops to put the RRU on the roof on alert. I want it ready to support Sam if it even
looks
like I’m wrong about this.’

6
^th
November.

‘Oh,’ Marie said. ‘Well, that explains why I heard engines overhead all the way home last night.’

‘You seem to be taking this very calmly,’ Jason commented. They were all in Sam’s lounge having breakfast: it had seemed the right way to brief Marie.

‘Not the first time some nut has wanted to kill me.’

‘Yeah, well, last time was probably my fault,’ Fox said. ‘Grant was looking for a target close to me, and you fitted. This time it’s all down to you. This is what fame and fortune gets you.’

‘I’m not so sure about the fortune part, but okay. Still, I’ve got the best bodyguard I could hope for, and the best detective trying to catch him. And if you had an RRU following us home last night, I’ve got something that’ll turn him into scrap in about a second watching over me. Am I under house arrest again?’

Fox looked at Sam, biting at her lip as she considered. She took a drink of coffee and then said, ‘Here’s how I see it. He won’t try during the day. He’d really
like
to get you alone, in your apartment if he can. Mary Kelly was murdered in her lodgings. But his chances of breaking into this place are up there with aliens landing on the White House lawn. I’m almost certain he’s going to try on the night of the eighth. If we could make him
think
he has an opportunity then, we could turn the tables on him.’

‘You want to use her as bait?’ Sam asked. His voice betrayed little, but Fox figured he was not pleased with the idea.

‘I’m saying that she should be safe with her normal routine through to Monday night. And on Monday night we set something up so that Ripper
thinks
he’s got an opportunity to take her. Yes, she’ll be bait, but I think we can handle this in a way that means she’s not the one at risk.’

Sam nodded. ‘I may not like it, but she’s in danger anyway. If we can control the situation, that would be better. You had better explain your plan.’

‘At the moment, it’s not so much a plan as an idea, but we’ve got the whole weekend to work out how to implement it.’

8
^th
November.

Nathan Shark, tall and blonde and smiling like a man who saw his fortune stretching out ahead of him, escorted Marie to the doors of Time Spire. It was late, almost seven thirty, but the lobby was bustling with people heading for the mall.

‘You’re okay getting home?’ Shark asked. ‘I can get you a cab here in a couple of minutes.’

Marie grinned and waved the option away. ‘It’s fifteen minutes’ walk. Twenty tops. And I’m not famous enough yet to get mobbed on the street.’

‘Give it a couple of months. Stay safe.’

Marie nodded. ‘Oh, I will.’ And she set off to the slideway which would take her down to ground level. She would head up Broadway to 42
^nd
Street, probably turn up 8
^th
Avenue, because that would take her past some of the few theatres which still existed. Down West 46
^th
Street and she was basically home. It was all pretty convenient, really. It would be a shame if fame
did
stop her from walking to work.

She pulled her coat closer around herself as she walked. The weather had shifted in the last day or so: cold winds from the north bringing cloudy skies. The temperature had dropped and Belle’s forecast called for rain during the night. So Marie hunkered down in her coat and stretched her legs. Being inside would actually be really quite nice just now.

~~~

Following her was easy enough: she had a preference for bright colours, it seemed, and her short, lemon coat was visible at some considerable distance. He was glad of that, because she also had long legs and he wished to appear casual as he followed her through this benighted city. He had to hurry as she crossed at the corner of 42
^nd
and 8
^th
, briefly losing sight of her before picking up that coat again as she walked into the theatre district.

Somehow, he was going to have to get to her tonight. In her home would be preferable, where he could take his time over her transformation. The security on her lodgings was, however, formidable and he had found no way to breach it. He might have to settle for an outdoor venue and hope that he had the time to perfect her.

Not here, however. There were far too many people here. It was not dark either: the street lights and signs saw to that. The world he had come from had shadows and darkness, but this place seemed to be alight and alive twenty-four hours a day. There was always something happening somewhere in this city which never seemed to sleep, never seemed to rest, but he knew that there would be fewer people out on the streets around her house. It was quieter there and he would have more chances to take her.

She turned the corner ahead and he lost sight of her. A flash of worry took him by surprise and he rushed to the corner, looking around quickly in case she had gone into one of the buildings. But no, he saw the bright, yellow coat and followed it. She actually seemed to be moving faster now: undoubtedly the thought of being inside and warm was quickening her pace. He stretched his legs and tried to keep up, but she was pulling ahead until she stopped to look in through a shop window. He caught a quick glimpse of dark, red hair as he closed the distance a little, careful not to get too close. And then she was off again.

He was
not
going to be able to catch her on the street, not at the pace she was going. If he ran after her, she might well hear him and she was pulling ahead again. He ran through his options and came to a conclusion: he had one chance, but he estimated that it was a good chance
and
it would put him inside her home. He
had
to make it happen.

He watched as she stepped up to the door, closing as fast as he could while appearing casual. There was a second or two of pause, which allowed him to get closer than he had hoped, and then she was opening the door and stepping inside. He began to run, and almost threw himself down the steps as the door began to close. He shoulder-barged it, smashing it back open, and he was in. There, to his right, was Marie Jeannette in her yellow coat. She was turning in surprise. He righted himself, kicked the door shut, and his blades popped out as his arm swung right at her throat.

But the razor talons scraped over her skin as though it was armoured. She stumbled backward, through the porch door and into the lounge, and he saw her face. The wrong face!

~~~

Fox had been intending to leave the door unlocked and wait for him, and the sudden impact behind her had been a surprise. She had not expected him to try anything
that
stupid to get in and was not ready for him. The immediate strike for the throat she
had
expected, and at least the knife-proof collar had worked, but now she was trying to gain distance and get her pistol free of her coat before he could get another swing in.

Not easy. Claws swung and she dodged backward. The first swing skated past her, but the second bit into her stomach. The stupid coat, a duplicate of Marie’s, took some of the bite out of it, but she still felt hot pain as the blades cut her skin. It was like he smelled the blood, and maybe he did given that his olfactory system was supposed to be enhanced. She saw his eyes widen and his lips curl into a predatory smile, and she got her pistol free and fired three rounds at almost point-blank range.

The first round hit his stomach and pancaked, gluing itself to his shirt where the radio jammer would soon kick in and block communications through most of the house. The other rounds were solid-core antipersonnel rounds and they punched through into his torso. Damaged, he reeled back, but he was still very much on his feet and moving. And Fox did not really want to have to use the next round in the magazine because it was probably going to hurt.

‘I can blow you in half now, or you can surrender!’ Fox yelled, and she knew before he reacted what he was going to do.

She had managed to get a couple of metres between them and he pressed forward, hands swinging up to claw at her face, and she fired. She felt the heat on her face, felt shrapnel hit her coat and bite into her hand, and saw the jet of flame blast out through his back. She stepped back and his flailing arms never came close, but the damn thing was still moving!

It staggered. She heard motors whining as he struggled to press the attack. ‘Damn it!’ Fox snapped, and she stepped back, bringing her gun up, bracing it, and firing. Three rounds, solid-core, straight into the key electronics she knew from the specs Kit had found for her were right there in the chest cavity. There was a sound like someone screaming through a distortion filter, though the android’s lips did not move, and then it fell to its knees, then its face.

‘Think it’s dead?’ Fox asked silently.

‘With the jammer in effect, it’s difficult to tell,’ Kit replied. ‘The damage looked extensive, but it may still be partially functional. You did not aim for its primary computer.’

Fox popped the empty magazine from her pistol, pulled a replacement from her pocket, and snapped it into the well. ‘I can rectify that. What do you think?’

‘I think that the law does not have mechanisms for handling homicidal AIs. I think that the dangers of studying this monster outweigh the potential benefits. I think that, if it can recover its senses, when the jammer cuts out, it might attempt to escape back onto the internet.’

‘I think that those are all very good points.’ And Fox emptied her second magazine into the android’s skull.

~~~

When Sam and Marie burst in through the little apartment’s lounge door, Fox was sitting on the sofa in her bra and panties, taping over the four cuts on her stomach. The wig and dress she had been wearing were strewn on the floor at her feet. She looked quite calm about it, but Marie let out a sort of sobbing gasp at the sight.

‘You’re injured!’ Marie squeaked.

‘Just scratches,’ Fox replied.

‘Your hand’s covered in blood!’

Fox grinned. ‘That’s actually the lesser of the insults. Fingers bleed a lot. He got me pretty good on the stomach, but it’ll heal. The hand was shrapnel. And he’s a lot worse off than I am.’