Jade Sky (25 page)

Same here.
Matt tried the knob. Locked. The old farmhouse doorframe had warped over time; he could see the latch mechanism through the crack. A moment's work with a knife, and the door opened with a creak.

Akash took point, leapfrogging with Blossom through the living room and up the stairs. Matt followed behind them after a quick sweep for a security pad; he found no evidence of one. Janet hummed in the shower, and he recognized the tune as he opened the bathroom door: "I'm Gonna Miss Her" by Brad Paisley.

He stepped through billowing steam, rifle pointed at the floor. The foggy glass shower doors left little to the imagination. Janet arched her back and ran her hands through her straight brown hair, water cascading over her head. A quick check revealed no firearms he could see.
Here goes nothing.

He banged on the wall.

Janet jumped, stumbled back, and put her hand over her heart. Eyes wide, she exhaled, then inhaled. "Fuck–a-duck, you gave me a heart attack, Matt."

It wasn't the reaction he'd expected, and he hesitated.

She opened the door a crack, peered at him, then turned off the water. She reached an arm out and grabbed a faded maroon towel. She held it to her chest, obscuring just enough to be even more distracting. "He said today, but holy shit, I wasn't expecting you to bust in on my shower at the butt-crack of dawn." She raised an eyebrow and slid the door the rest of the way open with her toe. "Do you mind turning around? It ain't like I'm going to come out shooting."

Instead, Matt stepped back and Blossom took his place. He took another step back, lurking around the corner with Akash.

"Not better," Janet said. A pause, then, "Whatever. I'd be paranoid, too."

"Hurry up." Blossom's voice held no humor. "When you're done, you sit on the couch."

"Sure."

She stepped out a minute later, the maroon towel around her head, a large beige bath sheet around her midsection. She exuded a confidence that unsettled Matt, even patting Akash on the cheek on her way by. "Morning, Rastogi."

She sauntered downstairs, feet leaving tiny puddles on the steps, and sat on the couch, legs crossed.

"You were expecting us," Matt said.

She nodded. To her right, Akash stood at ease in the doorway. Blossom took up position on the stairs, eyes scanning the doors and windows.

"Cavalry on the way?"

She shook her head. "Nope."

"You know why we're here?"

"You're looking for information." She reached one-handed into a large, garish purse on the end table, and instead of pulling out a piece of paper or a gun or something that made sense, she opened a pack of Orbit, popped out a square, and put it in her mouth.

"What information are we looking for?"

Janet flashed her eyebrows and chewed her gum. "You want to know where to find Fraulein Gerstner, and Jeff didn't tell you before he pancaked himself. But I don't know where she is. It's not in the computer."

Matt exchanged looks with Akash and Blossom.

"How . . . do you know this stuff?"

She scowled, gum between her teeth. "Dawkins told me before you captured him."

"There's no way he could have known that."

She rolled her eyes. "He can if he's fucking psychic. Your precog ain't got nothing on his." She held up a finger. "Here, I'll show you."

She opened a thin drawer under the coffee table—he never would have noticed it—and removed a cheesy-looking romance novel. She flipped through, found a scrap of paper, and handed it to Matt.

Matt took it and grunted. It read, "Rowley, Rastogi, Sakura. October 29
th
. Your house."

Akash raised an eyebrow. "I don't get it. If he's so damned psychic, why didn't he just give us Gerstner's location?"

She sat back, re-tucking the towel to keep from flashing them again. "Look, you're already in this, yeah? You know he's telling the truth?"

Matt wasn't sure of all of it, but close enough. He nodded. So did Akash. Blossom's eyes didn't leave the windows.

"So get this: he knew either he was going to capture you or the other way around. Every scenario was worse than the last—in every one he tried to get away, he ended up dead instead—so he planned for both contingencies, arranged the best final outcome he could either way," she pointed her finger at Matt and went 'bang' with her thumb, "which was to blow up your life to the point that you either help him or get yourself killed."

Matt frowned. "So if you can't help us, what are we doing here?"

Her smile met her eyes for the first time. "He knows where they're holding Gerstner. I know where they're holding him. You're going to break him out, then you're all going to shut this whole sick thing down."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"What's your stake in this?" Akash asked. "Why is it so important that he walks free?"

She raised her eyes just enough to meet his. Matt gasped just before she said it. "He's my brother."

*   *   *

Monica stirred as Matt set her on the bed in Janet's guestroom. The sparse furnishings included a full-sized bed, a small nightstand, an empty bookshelf, and a cheap floor lamp. The candy-apple-red wallpaper and faded teal throw rug accentuated the unspoken message:
whoever you are,
we'll make you feel welcome, but
we don't really want you here
.

He ran his hand through her hair and shushed her. "It's okay, baby. I'm here."

Her brow furrowed in confusion, and she hissed as she tried to sit up. "Where are we?"

He tried to remember if she'd ever met Janet and landed on "probably not."

"Don't sit up. There was a . . . problem at the hospital. We had to move you." As if on cue, Akash carried in a narrow wooden coat rack, from which hung another bag of saline. Her eyes widened, fluttered closed, opened again. Her head lolled to the side. "I'm so tired."

He kissed her cheek. "I know, baby. You need to rest. I got to get going—"

She dug her fingernails into his wrist. "No, no."
I lost our baby.

He put his hand on hers and cut her off before she could voice the thought. "No, you didn't. He's okay."

Her eyes snapped open and her hands covered her belly. "What? They . . . the doctors said they had to—"

"The surgeon patched you up, Mon. Saved the baby. You're going to be okay. Both of you."

Worry drained from her face, replaced with exhaustion and joy. "Really?"

"Really. But you need to rest."

She grabbed his arm. "I will, if you stay with me."

He kissed her.

"I would if I could, babe. But what happened at the hospital, it could happen again." She furrowed her brow, and he realized she wasn't conscious for the battle. "Don't worry about it." He smoothed her bangs out of her face. "The important thing is that you rest."

Instead of responding, she rolled her eyes over to Akash. "I don't want drugs."

In reply, he knelt, rubbed the inside of her elbow with alcohol, and inserted the IV needle. "You need fluids, and we don't want you getting up if you don't have to. You need to rest, and we'll fetch you some food."

She grimaced. "I'm not hungry. I feel . . . queasy."

"That's the anesthetic," Akash said. "It'll wear off, and you need to keep up your strength. For you and the baby."

She looked back and forth between them, and when Matt nodded she closed her eyes in resignation. "Okay."

Matt turned on the drip, and Akash injected the sedative into the plastic bladder. Her sharp breaths faded to smooth, deep sleep. Akash left the room. Matt followed him out several minutes later.

Janet, dressed in jeans and a Florida-Georgia Line T-shirt, met him in the hall. "I took a personal day. They weren't real happy about it and'll probably call me in anyway if forensics figures out that Jeff took a dirt nap."

"It's not likely. No ID, stolen car, wrong state. With how much damage there was, they'll need DNA to ID him, if it's even on file." He looked back at the guestroom, then at Janet. "Don't answer your phone, and they can't call you in."

Her smirk held no mirth. "This job don't work that way."

He didn't have enough in him to argue. "Just look after my wife."

"And you bring my brother home safe."

*   *   *

The address Janet had given them matched an abandoned warehouse near Anacostia Park, across the river from the US Naval Yard. She couldn't provide them with headsets, but current security codes and building schematics made an excellent consolation prize. The facility depended on ignorance for safety, the busted-out windows and gangland graffiti the perfect camouflage for an underground detention facility.

Six rooms: three large cells, a bathroom, and an office, arranged around a pentagonal common room accessible from the street via secret elevator. Matt didn't consider himself much of a conspiracy theorist, but "secret underground detention facility" fit the bill. A building of that size couldn't house more than a half-dozen guards, but given the nature of their prisoners, he'd bet they were augged.

Five security cameras lay hidden throughout the street level. There was no approach that wouldn't be seen, but Blossom moved so fast he doubted a person would notice her on camera. Matt's infrared overlay showed no obvious guards, but two homeless men lay on opposite ends of the building, and their bulky torsos were muffled in his IR vision.
Kevlar.
He hadn't known Garrett well, but already missed his tactical prowess—their simple plan should be foolproof, but doubts plagued him.

Blossom, dressed in a ratty hoodie and torn blue jeans, pushed a shopping cart past the first man. His infrared signature spread underneath him, and by the time she'd hobbled to the other side of the building, he'd cooled by more than a degree Celsius. The same happened to the second man, and then Blossom vanished inside.

Six seconds later, she appeared next to Matt. "Charges are set. Eighteen." He set his internal clock for eighteen seconds as she disappeared again. At eleven he ran, and at two he crouched behind the cinder-block outer wall.

A sharp bang shook his bones, then he rounded the corner. Akash ran from the opposite direction, and they hit the elevator shaft a bare moment after the secondary charges blew the lower doors. Blossom had emptied half her magazine by the time his feet hit the lower level. He choked up his assault rifle and scanned for targets.

What the hell?
Streams of dusty sunlight illuminated the five-sided room and the enormous chalk pentagram that dominated the floor. An altar of black basalt sat dead-center, the emaciated body on it surrounded by fat, sagging candles flecked with green specks. Everything stank of burning fat and sweat and feces and blood and Jade, tinged with gunpowder. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this.

A hooded man stumbled back from a giant leather-bound tome, spurts of blood gushing from his chest. Another screamed and choked up a sword—a freaking claymore of all things—and dropped it when his head shattered in a spray of gunfire from Akash. Matt fired two tight bursts, turned and fired one more. Three bodies dropped to the floor, and silence reigned.

The cells held dozens of filthy, half-naked people, jammed in to standing room only. Their haggard, dead-eyed stares held no sense of hope or even interest at the unfolding events. Except for one.

Dawkins smiled at Matt from across the pentagram. "Hurry. But don't—"

Matt stepped forward, then stumbled to the side as whispers screeched through his mind. Streams of thought swirled around the pentagram, a maelstrom of hate and vicious cruelty his psyche couldn't hope to survive. He gasped, braced himself on the wall, and circled around to the first cell.

"—cross the chalk," Dawkins finished.

Matt punched in the code Janet had given them. Nothing happened, so he grabbed the iron bar and pulled. "Hurry up," Akash muttered from across the room. The lock bent, then popped, and the door sprang open. Blank stares in empty faces, not one of the prisoners moved to escape. He popped the next, and then approached Dawkins.

They stared at each other through the bars. Shirtless and too lean, the drug dealer had lost weight, and dark circles ringed his glassy eyes. Weeping sores dotted his cracked, bloody lips. Tattoos criss-crossed his body, each one a copy of Conor's gruesome body art, but defiled by a crucifix over the top.

Matt hesitated. "You're as strong as I am. Break out."

Dawkins reached up without averting his gaze, and grabbed the bars. He hissed in pain as his hands sizzled and smoked. He dropped to his knees to wretch between the staring, vacant men that crowded him, then let go and held his hands to his chest. He gagged, spat, then spoke. "I can no more open those bars than you can cross that pentagram. Now hurry."

Matt had too many questions to ask, so he wrenched the bars apart instead. Behind him, Akash shrieked. He whirled around, weapon raised, and gaped in horror.

The headless man drove a clawed hand up through Akash's abdomen, lifting his twitching body from the floor. Blossom fired on full auto, emptying a clip into the dead man. As blood seeped from his wounds, it congealed, hardened.

Akash coughed blood as Matt fired, riddling the corpse with bullets. Each wound sprouted a long black thorn, glistening with blood, and the air filled with the scent of burnt matches. He paused to reload, and the corpse tore Akash in half.

Blood and viscera splattered on the floor. Akash's upper body landed on the altar, his mouth gaping. The light in his eyes died, and his body went slack. From it, shadows rose. Jade eyes opened in blood-soaked nothing, and wings of smoke unfolded to banish the sun. The emaciated body under Akash crumbled and remolded, forming naked, skinless muscle for the being that rose from the carnage.

The whispers filled Matt with praise.
Brother.

Dawkins shouldered past Matt, snapping him from his adulation. He stopped at the edge of the pentagram and sneered.

The angel—it couldn't be anything else—barked something in a language Matt didn't recognize, and Dawkins responded in what sounded like Hebrew. It roared, and the earth shuddered. Dawkins knelt and clasped his hands together, head bowed.