Ghost Soldiers (24 page)

“Run,” he whispered. “The shipyard.”

She nodded, her face grim and determined, a soldier's face, though her blue hair stuck up in weird spikes. He pushed her to her feet. “Go!”

She staggered at first, but caught stride and sprinted across the rooftop toward the shipyard and the black sculpture of cranes that broke up the horizon. Deor started to track her with his pistols, but Karl snatched up the Makarov. Deor shifted his dual derringers back to him. Karl shot first, hitting him on the right side of his chest, whipping the man around. Deor, breathing hard, scrambled behind cover. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder.
Politia.
Innocent people might be hurt if this continued.

He wheeled and sprinted after Bailey. He came to the eastern edge of the building and leapt off with all the power and strength he could summon. Another building, a good two floors lower, sat below. He sailed across the gap, sword and pistol in hand, the cool night air blowing in his face, across his skin, while his wound ached and burned. He cleared the wide chasm but came down hard. The tarpaper roof cratered beneath his feet, and it took every ounce of skill not to go tumbling and crashing end over end and probably impale himself in the process.

Bailey helped him stand. Strain etched her face and made dark circles under her eyes. “You're hurt.”

“Hurry. Not much time.”

Deor appeared at the edge of the building behind them, a pale demon with purple eyes. He started shooting again, same dual-pistol, two-shot, drop-the-gun-and-pull-another pattern he'd used before, but Karl had already started to run, guiding Bailey along with his gun hand until she sprinted full speed beside him.

They reached the far end of the building and dropped over the side, landing on a wide avenue fronted with closed-up stores and businesses. A car slowed down, faces peering out at them, and then sped up again, tires shrieking. He glanced around the street. A few more people a hundred feet or so off to his right, pointing and speaking in Romanian.

A terrible place to tend his wound, but if he didn't do something about the silver slug in his shoulder, he wouldn't make it to the shipyard.

Karl forced his hand open and the sword clattered to the ground. He hissed out air as he flexed his hand, trying to get sensation back since his fingers had nearly frozen shut with the agony of clutching the silver-wire-threaded grip. He gritted his teeth, pushed his claws out and dug into the hole in his arm, cutting and gouging and slicing until he felt the slug burn his fingertips. Bailey gasped as he ripped the .22 slug free and flicked it away with a hoarse scream. The silver had burned him again all the way out of the wound and blistered his fingers until the misshapen bullet hit the street with a
clack
.

The world grayed out, and he dropped to one knee. The silver had poisoned him—weakened him and almost nullified his vampire healing powers completely. The wound would drain him of power and strength until it healed, but he was lucky the bullet hadn't found his head or heart.

Bailey helped him to his feet once more. He reached for the sword with a hand that quailed at touching silver again, but he mastered it and shoved the blade into the sheath. He switched out the pistol's magazine, and then he and Bailey half-ran, half-lurched through the shadows toward the harbor. None of the people on the street dared get in their way.

They sprang over a high chain-link fence, avoiding the main gate and guardhouse, and entered a maze of red and blue intermodal containers stacked four stories high. A huge gantry crane whirred and rumbled as it unloaded cargo containers. For a moment he thought he sensed something, but it was lost in the burning agony from his arm.

“We need to find the
Talos
,” he said as they ran toward the water. “Hurry.”

They avoided workers and the massive forklifts, and hurried past a machining workshop where the bright flash of welding and raining sparks threw jittering shadows against the cement. They checked ship after ship until they reached one of the farthest quays. The massive freighter had rows of containers loaded on its deck and behind the bridge, piled four high like stacks of giant blocks. The name on its hull read MCS
Talos
. The ship appeared ready to depart, tugboats moving in and lining up alongside, the dock around it empty, and the cranes unmoving and dark.

They'd just started across the quay toward the ship when Cojocaru's voice sheared through the night air like an executioner's blade.

“Our business is unfinished.” Cojocaru stepped out from behind a huge quayside container crane between Karl and the ship. His fire cat slinked near his heels. The succubus floated down beside him, and two ghouls crawled off the crane's frame to block the path forward. “The time has come to close the books.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: New York at the Table

Maria's meeting with the representative from New York went down at the Grotto restaurant north of the gold-domed State House. Brick walls, muted lighting and the smells of pan-roasted buffalo mozzarella and garlic soup sat heavy in the air.

William “The Eye” Ferrara, the
sotto capo
for the powerful New York-based Castelletti family, reminded her of an alligator. A long face, yellow teeth, and covered in lean muscle. He had a way of squinting as if he were always staring into a glare, although it was night and the lighting dim. He wore a charcoal, pinstriped sport coat and thick gold rings on his fingers. She'd heard different things about his nickname—either it referred to his squint or to the fact he'd shot a man in each eye when making his bones.

On the other hand, Dino “Big D” Caito, the
consigliere
from the Guttoso family in the Providence faction of The Office and mediator for their sit down, was a large, round man, sporting a suit jacket his waist had outgrown. Yet the guy had strange long and narrow fingers with huge knobby knuckles. She couldn't help staring at them. It almost looked as if the flesh had been dissolved off his hands.

Ferrara sat down at their table, straightened his suit jacket and glared at her. Maria tried for one of those Mona Lisa inscrutable smiles, and with her luck probably ended up appearing deranged. Dino mopped at his cheeks with a handkerchief that he stuffed back into his breast pocket. Their drinks arrived and the waiter hurried off.

“Let's fuckin' get this over with,” Ferrara said.

She nodded. “Lovely to be here.”

Dino cleared his throat. “We're here to sort out a little business. A little trouble that's soured things lately. All in good faith.”

Ferrara turned his glare to Dino. “Waste of my goddamn time, a sit down with this bitch. I should just bend her over this table and fuck her, send her home cryin'.”

It took every ounce of her restraint not to vault over the table and rip his throat out and slurp up his blood as it jetted out of his severed artery. Her fangs tingled, God they
tingled
with the desire to do it. Ferrara must have seen something in her eyes because he watched her closely. Cobra and the mongoose.

“What the fuck, Willie?” Dino sputtered. “Jesus, Mary and Jackson Browne, we're all friends here. We all got business to conduct. Let's conduct like civilized people.”

Maria stood slowly. “I came here in good faith, and I'm disrespected like this?”

“You ain't worthy of respect,” Ferrara snarled. He lifted his drink and threw back half of it. “We
call
this a sit down, but this ain't no motherfucking sit down. I'm here to deliver a message. I don't give a fuck what you have to
say
about it.”

Dino paled and wiped at his lips with his strange thin fingers. “C'mon, Willie. Don't be like that—”

Maria held up a hand, and Dino stopped talking, though he scowled at her. Beautiful, everything she did seemed to make her new enemies. Things could only get worse if she broke down and tore Ferrara apart. “Please, Dino, let the man speak his mind. Let's find out what New York thinks.”

“This ain't just New York,
puttana
.” Ferrara gave a cold smile. “This is a ruling straight from the Commission. Let me cut to the fuckin' chase. The Commission don't like the way New England's conducting itself.”

Dino leaned forward. The table shook and the silverware rattled when his stomach hit it. “We got no problems in Providence. It's smooth sailing and good times.” He saw Maria staring at him and he shrugged. “Hey, now, Boston's why we're here. Just wanted to get that out there, on the record.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Dino.”

He shrugged again and took a drink, very obviously not looking at her.

“You guys fuckin' done jabbering?” Ferrara had both hands on the table, white napkin crushed in one of them like the strangled neck of a goose. “Can I go on?”

“Nobody's fuckin' stopped you yet,” she said.

“Then maybe you'd do me the honor of sitting your ass down in that chair while I talk.”

“Fuck off, Ferrara. I'll stand and you'll goddamn like it. You show me no respect, I'll show you no respect.”

“The last motherfucker who told me to fuck off, I broke that cocksucker's face with a lead pipe. You fuckin' understand me?”

“How about this then, Ferrara? You say what you came to say, then shut the fuck up so I can get out of here and enjoy the rest of my evening.”

Ferrara stared at her. His knuckles whitened as he crushed the napkin even tighter. She knew he wanted that hand around her neck so she smiled at him. This sit down had been an unqualified disaster from the get-go, but if Ferrara so much as touched her, she'd kill him. Rules or no rules.

“All right then,” Ferrara said. “All right. Let me fuckin' lay all the shit out for you. Out of respect for your father, the bosses are willing to let you live if you step aside and scurry off to some faraway shithole in Nebraska or Arizona or I Don't Give A Fucktown.
They'll
pick the next boss of the Ricardi family. Mighty fuckin' generous, letting you live after you fuckin' pissed on every tradition we have, but what the hell, I only deliver the message.”

“And what a diplomatic way you have of doing it too.” She seethed inside, but a cold ball of dread wound its way around her intestines like one of those marbles on a track.

“I ain't fuckin' done yet. You'll never be a recognized boss. You'll never have a seat on the Commission. You don't run Boston and you never will. Nobody gives a fuck about your name, the Ricardis ain't your family. It's over for you.”

“Maybe Providence can help run things,” Dino suggested. “Just in the short term. Make things go smooth.”

Ferrara shook his head. “The big guys already got someone in mind.”

That chilled her more than anything else, even more than hearing the bosses of all the syndicates in the U.S. had ruled against her. “You done?”

“No. Not even fuckin' close. I got some personal stuff to get off my chest.
Omerta
ain't for fucking women. That's an abomination. You fuckin' disrespected all of us, disrespected the memory of your father—”

“Don't you fucking talk about my father, you shit-eating two-bit thug.”

Ferrara stood up. She faced off with him, feeling her fingertips tingle, knowing her claws wanted to push themselves free. She smiled again, careful not to show fang, but keeping the smile cold as frost on a knife blade.

Dino held up his hands. “People, people, remember the rules. Not here. Not now.”

“I don't know how you cocksuckers do it out here in the sticks,” Ferrara said, spitting out each word with utter contempt. “But New York runs things different, and we run things right. So get the fuck outta here, you're making me sick. I better not ever see your fuckin' face again, unless it's in a porno with a dick in your mouth.”

Only some asshole from New York would call Boston the sticks. The goddamn
gall
of it. And that porno comment…

Don't kill him. Don't kill him. Don't kill him.

She glanced at Dino. “Give Don Guttoso my respects.” She looked back to Ferrara. “Give Don Castelletti my respects. I haven't been down that way in awhile. Maybe I'll stop in. Have a bite.”

She smiled one last time, turned and walked for the door. She felt their gazes crawling over her with every step she took. She kept her head high and never looked back, her hopes of coming to some kind of arrangement with the Commission in flames, staring at open war with New York if she didn't concede to their demands.

Absolutely fucking fantastic.

A traitor in her ranks. Cojocaru's pet shark nosing around, looking to edge her out. The Thorn after Karl and now after her. The worst, Karl still gone. Everything falling apart. All her hopes and dreams blowing steadily away like sand from the crest of a dune.

Chapter Twenty-Four: One Way Out

The shipyard and quays were lit up like a small city by overhead floodlights from the cranes, frame towers and buildings. Sorin Cojocaru, Naoimy and the ghouls stood between Karl and Bailey and the containership. Another massive stack of shipping containers, pallets and two parked forklifts blocked retreat to the west. Water to the east. The air was rife with the smells of ozone from batteries and oil and metal and ocean.

“Shit.” Bailey sagged against him, a puppet with her strings cut. “It's over.”

Karl drew his pistol with one smooth, quick motion and held it steady on Cojocaru, but the fire cat slinked around Cojocaru's ankles, burning with green and black flames and watching him with shining slit eyes. Naoimy stretched her wings, spanning them across the quay, her silver braid weaving serpentine in the air alongside her head. The ghouls rocked side to side, as if in time with the slap of water against the ship hulls. Their flesh, scarred in strangely intricate patterns, gleamed in the floodlights. Drool seeped from their jaws, through the gaps where their cheeks had been flayed away to show sharpened teeth.