King of the Dead (Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) (26 page)

Come on, come on.

She repeated the action, this time with her left foot.

This time, his gaze slipped downward, focusing on the knife for just a second, maybe two.

It was enough.

Without warning, Dmitri changed.

One moment he was human, and in the next he wasn’t. In his place was an eleven-hundred-pound polar bear with an attitude to match.

Shocked into immobility, the FBI agent didn’t stand a chance. To give him credit, he tried, he really did. He was in the midst of turning toward Dmitri, his gun arm swinging away from Denise and in the direction of the threat, when Dmitri clubbed him to the floor with one massive paw.

That was it.

Lights out.

Denise let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and bent to check on the officer. He was unconscious and probably would be for some time. Blood was flowing freely from several scratches across his scalp, but none of them was deep enough to be life-threatening and his pulse was strong.

From behind her there was a grunt of pain as Dmitri shifted back. While he dragged the agent over to the same utility closet they had hidden in earlier and left him inside, out of sight, she picked up the soul knives and stashed them in the satchel she’d brought along for just that purpose.

They left the building through the same door they had entered through earlier that afternoon and set off down the street at a steady, but unhurried pace.

They were two blocks away when they heard the first of the sirens. Several squad cars roared past moments later, responding to the alarms they’d set off at the museum. They kept their heads down, just another couple out for a walk, and managed to hail a cab a few blocks later.

Denise was concerned about getting the soul knives through airport security, but in the end, that too proved to be much easier than she had expected.

Rather than trying to plant a suggestion in the minds of half a dozen different TSA agents, Denise decided it would be easier to alter the image on the X-ray machine while simultaneously jamming the flashing light that signaled an alarm. She waited until her bag was about to go through, then said a few words beneath her breath and directed her will at the monitor.

That was all it took. Twenty minutes later they were boarding their flight back to New Orleans, the weapons they needed to banish the Angeu back to where it belonged stuffed unceremoniously in the small duffle bag Denise carried in one hand.

41

HUNT

With Denise and Dmitri gone, and Gallagher coordinating the activity of the seven wardens and the handful of medical volunteers who’d joined us at the new safe house while at the same time trying to determine what the Angeu could be up to, I was left to fend for myself for the day. The scarcity of the ghosts at the Sidhe enclave still troubled me. Was it an isolated incident, perhaps due to the presence of the Sidhe themselves, or was it more widespread and we just hadn’t noticed?

I intended to find out.

I convinced Gomez to drive me around the city for a few hours and used that time to observe the city’s spectral population.

Or rather the lack thereof.

On the day we’d arrived in New Orleans the dead had been everywhere. I couldn’t turn my head without seeing half a dozen or more. And now they were nowhere to be seen.

There were still a few haunts hanging around, those spectral presences that were so old as to be little more than whispers in the dark, and more than a handful of apparitions, which were nothing more than memories of a life caught in an endless loop. But the true ghosts, those spectral presences that still retained their human form as well as the ability to interact with the world around them as independent creatures, were few and far between.

I caught sight of a few in the heart of the Quarter, but they slipped away before I could shanghai them with a tune from my harmonica. The usual summoning songs didn’t work either; while on Bourbon Street I had my driver pull over and wait for me by the side of the road, but after almost half an hour of playing, I was forced to give up without having called a single ghost to my side.

I did, however, earn $9.50 from tourists slipping me their change.

I was certain that the Angeu had something to do with the missing ghosts but couldn’t put two and two together to make four.

Part of the problem was the fact that I didn’t really see the lack of ghosts as a negative. I never understood what role they played in the grand scheme of things, and being followed around by them on a regular basis could be downright irritating.

I headed back to the safe house more confused than when I had set out earlier.

The afternoon passed slowly and when I had a chance to discuss the issue with Gallagher, he was as much at a loss as I. Unfortunately, his optimism kept him from recognizing the true depth of my concern.

“Don’t worry, Hunt,” he told me. “Once Denise returns with the soul knives, we’ll be able to set everything right again.”

I seriously doubted that. He was putting all his eggs in one basket, and if there was anything I’d learned over the last few years it was that desperate plays often don’t turn out as well as you hope they will. But after my demoralizing day, I didn’t have the energy to argue the point with him. Instead, I wandered off to bed a good hour earlier than usual, figuring catching up on my sleep might not be a bad idea.

Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.

I lay there, wide awake, for quite a while before giving up and getting out of bed. The window in my room looked out over the front of the property, letting me see up and down the road in either direction, and I sat there awhile, just watching.

Looking for some reassurance.

Hoping that I’d see a ghost or two if I sat there long enough.

Where were all the ghosts?

The question was haunting me.

At the time I had no idea that my inability to sleep was going to save my life.

But that’s exactly what happened.

The sound of an approaching engine caught my ear and it wasn’t long before a dark-colored Hummer appeared at the top of the street.

Except it wasn’t.

A Hummer, that is.

Not unless Hummers now came draped in the spectral image of a rickety old cart pulled by a team of horses as a standard feature.

The horses were an odd pair: one young and vibrant and full of vigor and the other old and decrepit and more than likely blind in at least one eye, given the way it stumbled forward. But the worst thing that my sight showed me was the hunched figure I could see in the driver’s seat, a figure dressed in a dark cloak and wide-brimmed hat.

I didn’t need to see that skeletal face to know just who it was that I was looking at.

As I was trying to process the fact that the Angeu had reversed the cards on us and tracked us to our base of operations just as we’d done to him earlier, he raised his hand and used one long bony finger to point in my direction.

As if on cue, a group of Sorrows swarmed over the sides of the cart and rushed toward the compound.

I had just seconds to get the word out or we were going to be overrun by a dozen or more of the soul-sucking creatures.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I stepped into the hall and yelled my head off.

Ridiculous or not, it saved lives. My own included.

The wardens had been prepped for just such an emergency; with this many of the Gifted clustered in one location, we’d always been a prime target for the Sorrows and plans had been made to deal with an attack should one happen. By the time I hit the ground floor, Gallagher’s people were pouring into the hallway from the rooms on either side, armed with both handguns and melee weapons, and lights were going on all around the compound.

As a result, I found myself in the midst of the conflict, blinded by the light, and unable to see much of anything.

It wasn’t the safest place to be.

Shouts rose, mingling with the howling cry of the Sorrows, and then everything was a chaotic mess, with men and women facing off against the Sorrows as the creatures tried to force their way inside the house. Thanks to their unearthly nature, the Sorrows glowed with a shimmering silver aura and so stood out slightly against the whiteout I currently was seeing, but my human allies did not. Unable to see them, I didn’t dare try and make my way out of the fighting, so there was nothing to do but back into the nearest corner and hope I could defend myself if the Sorrows broke through.

When a momentary lull fell over the fighting, Gomez took pity on me, pulling me out of my corner and shoving me inside a nearby room, out of the main action.

Seconds after he did, I heard him give a painful shout in the corridor outside the door and wondered if the distraction had proved to be his undoing. I fervently hoped not.

In the dark room my eyes adjusted and I could see again.

I was in a small storeroom, if the boxes of goods lining the walls were any indication. A single window looked out over the side yard, which led around to the rear of the property.

Out in the hallway, someone, Spencer maybe, was shouting for Gallagher’s men to fall back, and hearing it I knew that I couldn’t stay here much longer. There was no way I could take on the Sorrows myself. If they caught me, I was as good as dead.

I hustled over to the window, shoved it open, and climbed through. Once outside I made my way around to the back of the house, heading straight for the fence along the rear of the property. Decatur Street ran past the house on the other side of that fence. In the event of an emergency, Gallagher’s people had been instructed to regroup several blocks away from the clinic, and Decatur Street could take me there just as well as any other.

With a last look back toward the beleaguered men and women fighting inside the house, I slipped over the fence and headed off down the street, feeling about as useless as a priest in a whorehouse.

42

HUNT

The rendezvous point was an empty warehouse several blocks to the south and I headed in that direction as soon as I was clear of the compound. If we were going to have packs of Sorrows hunting us through the streets, I wanted to put a few more bodies between them and me without delay, and there was definitely a certain safety in numbers.

I moved through the night without difficulty, thankful for my ability to see in the darkness. Not only did it keep me from crashing into what would otherwise have been unseen obstacles, but it let me see what was coming my way, preventing the Sorrows from sneaking up on me from the shadows.

Rather than heading directly for the warehouse, I took a circuitous route, making random left and right turns for the first few blocks in order to confuse the trail. The Sorrows might not have the ability to reason things out, but the Angeu certainly did. I stopped at an intersection and turned around, staring back the way I had come, searching for anything moving amidst the parked cars and recessed doorways.

I glanced at the street sign above my head, made some mental calculations, and then set off down the narrow street to my left, intent on reaching the rendezvous before too much more time had passed.

Half a block later a figure stepped out of the shadows ahead of me, blocking my way. From his height and the width of his shoulders, I knew it was a man, but that was all; the light behind him kept him in silhouette, hiding him in shadows that even I couldn’t pierce. There was something about him that seemed familiar, something about the way he stood or carried himself that set that old alarm bell in my gut ringing in warning. I’d met him before; I was sure of it.

I slowed and looked back over my shoulder, just in time to see two men emerge from one of the cars I’d run right past a few seconds before and step up behind me, cutting off my retreat.

I was boxed in from the front and the back.

Not only that, but the trap had been sprung with such elegant precision that even I had to admit that they knew what they were doing, whoever they were. I was starting to suspect that I might be in a little bit of trouble.

“Never let them see you sweat” was my motto, so I slowed my walk, casually glancing to either side as I did, hunting for a way out of the mess I’d suddenly found myself in.

That’s when the one in front decided to speak up.

“Hello, Hunt. Remember me?”

Unfortunately, I did. It was hard to forget a man who’d told you straight up that he intended to see you hang for what you’d done. Especially if you knew that you were innocent of the very thing he’d been accusing you of. The man in front of me was my own private bogeyman, the one I’d been waiting to catch up with me for more than three months, and I recognized him the moment he opened his mouth.

Dale Robertson.

Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Where in heaven’s name had he come from?

Forget what I said about a little bit of trouble. With Robertson here, I was in a whole LOT of trouble.

My shock must have been readily apparent, for Robertson actually had the audacity to chuckle. “What’s the matter, Hunt? Cat got your tongue?”

He shouldn’t have laughed. If he hadn’t, I probably would have simply stood there in open-mouthed shock as his men closed in from behind and arrested me. But that laugh galvanized me into action. Although a moment before I’d been all but frozen where I stood, his obvious delight at surprising me burned away my indecision like fog in the morning sunlight. I knew that if I let them take me, I’d never see anything but the inside of a jail cell for the rest of my life. I had to act and I had to do it now.

“Nah,” I said, glancing around casually as I did. “I’m just looking for words that are small enough for you to understand.”

A white Cadillac was parked against the curb, blocking my access to the street, but I knew without having to think about it too much that going in that direction was suicide. If I got past the car I’d be in the open street, a clear target if they decided to shoot first and ask questions later.

To my right was a long stretch of brick wall that extended all the way to the end of the block, where Robertson was currently standing. An alley bisected it, most likely to allow delivery trucks to make deliveries to the rear of the building next to me, but its entrance was blocked by a wrought iron gate and secured with a thick chain and padlock.