Patient Darkness: Brooding City Series Book 2 (21 page)

She folded her hands on her lap, trying her best to look humbled. “I’m sorry I hired Heinrich without first consulting you,” she said. “I knew of no one else, and this was a job that only he and his men could perform on such short notice.”

James merely nodded. “What job was this?”

“I hired them to fake a hit on a detective,” she explained, “so that he would trust me after I saved him.”

“You may need to wind back the clock on this story.”

Alex took a deep breath and began anew. She explained how she had sensed a presence of extreme fury in her building, and how she had followed the disturbed thoughts to find the enraged man. James’s eyes darkened as she mentioned her conversations with Benjamin, but he remained quiet and let her continue. The rest of the story came in a blur. Leviathan’s attack. The brokered meeting between Brennan and Benjamin. The loss of her power.

She kept two details to herself. First, she never told him that her power was evolving, that she could “jump between branches,” as Benjamin had called it. Second, she didn’t disclose the true correlation between the murder victims. She wasn’t sure why; call it foresight, or call it a gut instinct, but she didn’t feel right revealing that particular piece of information.

Her face remained placid as she hid those facts from her father. She hadn’t missed the dark look that had passed over her father’s face, either. “So what is the history between you and Benjamin?”

James stared at her for a long moment. “Why did you think attacking the detective was the best way of earning his trust?” he asked.

Alex shrugged. “He thought he was in imminent danger, and I appeared to save him. I figured he would trust me implicitly the next time I showed myself.”

“And what does it matter if he trusts you?”

“Well now that I
know
about the Sleepers—thanks for the warning, by the way—it could be useful to have influence over a detective, particularly one who has distanced himself from Benjamin.”

James rubbed at his chin. “And he didn’t see your face in either instance?”

“No, I called him anonymously on his cell,” she explained, lying on multiple levels. “Why?”

“That’s just as well. These Sleepers can’t be trusted, Alexis.”

She gave him an irritated look. “You have to answer my question now. Why does Benjamin have people watching you? Did you used to be one of them?”

To her surprise, her father laughed out loud. It was a sound she seldom heard. “
One of them?
” he asked incredulously. “I may have lived a long time, but I do not yet have a death wish.”

“A frail, old man and his crippled grandson don’t seem too dangerous to me,” Alex muttered.

“That
old man
is the grandmaster of their order.”

“Grandmaster?”

James waved a hand dismissively. “A self-appointed title, basically worthless. But it does mean he was the first of them, the one who brought them all together. Your detective is one of them. There are countless others. My
threat
, as you and he both call it, is simply that I know they exist.”

“Detective Brennan seemed pretty adamant against meeting with Benjamin. Whatever happened between them, I think he’s on the outside now.”

One of her father’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Now that is interesting,” he murmured. “Nonetheless, they met. I have little doubt that he has been roped back into the old man’s schemes.”

Alex eyed her father with suspicion. “So you really have nothing to do with Benjamin aside from being really old and knowledgeable?”

“Not as knowledgeable as I would like, not by half,” he said, his eyes unconsciously wandering in the direction of her mother’s room. “I know enough secrets, though, that Benjamin would like to see me dead.”

“Could he do it?” The question blurted out from her lips. “Is it even possible for you to die?”

James flexed a hand, and she watched as veins rolled from the movement of the muscles. “It was a long time ago, but I used to look younger. I am old, but not eternal.” He gave her a tired smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes. “I imagine my blessing will run out eventually.”

“Hopefully not too soon.”

“Are you truly worried about this serial killer? There’s nothing to fear, Alexis. If Benjamin is half the strategist I believe him to be, then Detective Brennan will be able to put an end to these deaths. Until then, you’ll be safe here.”

Alex took a sip of wine, which depleted her meager portion by half. “I just have one more question to ask before we can bring Kern back in.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you train Heinrich and his men to resist my power?” She prepared herself for the inevitable answer, the one that would break her spirit. Her father feared her, and he had actual
henchmen
who could fight against her if the need arose.

James frowned at her. “I didn’t teach them to resist
you
.” He reached out and took her hands between his. “You have to understand that there are others out there like us, and some of those people could very well have the same abilities. Can you imagine what your gift would be like in the wrong hands? What
mine
would cause? An ageless tyrant, or an all-knowing one…either would be disastrous.” He patted her hands and rested back in his seat. “So we must be cautious, and learn to moderate ourselves. The path onto which Benjamin leads his Sleepers is a dark one, and I refuse to be taken down by his folly.”

Alex seldom heard her father speak like this. The words he used, along with the way he spoke, harkened back to another century. James Brüding was an old man, older even than he let on, and the world had changed drastically since his youth. The sudden change in his parlance made her both nervous and alert. Clearly, Benjamin’s appearance in her life had put him on edge.

“What will you do about Benjamin?”

“I thought you already asked your last question,” James said, arching an eyebrow. “You are normally not so talkative.”

“Is it a problem?”

He pursed his lips before responding. “No,” he said. “It is simply a change.”

Alex persevered in her questioning. “So? What can we do to stop Benjamin?”

“Stop him?” Her father gave her a level look. “Why should we need to stop him? His business is none of ours. Once the murders are resolved, I suspect Benjamin and the detective will resume their feud, and we will remain out of the crossfire.”

“That’s it?” she asked in disbelief. “We stand by while they duke it out?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding shocked. As he stared at her, she reevaluated her own reasons for being involved. Why did it matter so much? The detective meant nothing to her, and Benjamin was only as useful as far as what he could teach her. The more they spoke, the more she realized that her father might just be the source of information she needed. Benjamin was an unnecessary component in her life. More than that, he was a danger to her and her father.

“It…makes sense,” she said, nodding to herself as if it would reinforce her belief. That confidence was shaky, but growing. Her father was the only one she needed…until she didn’t.

And then what?
she thought. She loved him. But would he be as interesting to her, or as tolerable, if he had nothing to offer beyond human company? She could find that anywhere. Alex looked at her father, and neither of them moved for a long moment. It occurred to her that, had their roles been reversed, he could be reading her mind at this very instant, hearing her confused,
despicable
thoughts.

“I think I’m full,” she told him, pushing her plate away.

“Kern!” James called, and the butler appeared in the doorway.

“Yes, sir?”

“Dinner was delicious, thank you,” he said, gesturing to his own plate.

“I will give your compliments to the chef,” he said dryly, and the two men shared a smile. Kern cooked, served, and cleaned every meal under their roof.

“Alexis?” her father prompted.

“Thank you very much, Kern,” Alex said graciously.

He set about clearing their plates, and James put a hand on his daughter’s back as they stood and walked toward the foyer. “I hope you are feeling well,” he said to her. “Your ability will return, don’t worry. Once it does, you will feel more like yourself.”

Alex smiled weakly. She had already forgotten her lie, and the urge to correct him was smothered just in time. “Thanks,” she muttered.

James glanced wistfully down the hallway toward her mother’s room. “I have to work.”

“I understand.”

“Breakfast in the morning?” he asked, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

She leaned into the embrace, feeling fatigue rush over her unexpectedly. “Sounds good,” she said. “I’ll let you know when I’m awake.”

“The stairs are old,” he reminded her.

Alex winced. “Right. You’ll hear the creaking.”

She took to the steps two at a time, bounding toward the upper landing. It felt strange to be home again. There were some things that had become permanent memories, like the knowledge that there were fourteen steps between the first and second floor, or the fact that the flight she was ascending moaned with each footfall. Other things, though, had changed since her last prolonged visit home. Floorboards that had been sturdy before now groaned beneath her weight. The banister wobbled slightly as her hand trailed along its length. Dust dwelled in corridors that were once well-trodden by her mother and father.

The room at the end of the hall had always been hers, and yet now it wasn’t. Everything remained the same, but it felt foreign after so many years away. The industrial browns and whites and silvers of
her
apartment would never be at home in the lilac-colored corner room of her parents’ house.

Her life had changed so much since her childhood.
Armed thugs, Sleepers, Mom’s illness…,
she thought, running down the list in her head. Suddenly feeling ashamed, she reached out to touch upon her mother’s mind. A whirlwind of sensations flooded her consciousness, and she had to sit down before she could begin to process it all.

Stephanie Brüding’s mind and body were both a wreck. Her skin felt clammy, sweltering beneath the covers despite the cool breeze and gentle sunlight coming through the windows. The bed was soiled again, since her body refused to listen to the brain’s commands. But her brain wasn’t giving any commands today; all cylinders were firing, but nothing was being produced. There was nothing besides the pain. She was nobody. The mirror reflected a face that wasn’t hers, not one she could recognize. There was nothing going on in there.

Nothing but pain.

In that moment, Alex wanted to die.

With an effort of will, she pulled away from the dying woman, retreating into the young shell of her own body. Her throat had instantly dried, and her hands trembled as she tried to calm herself. No matter how she reminded herself that the thoughts weren’t her own, though, the tremors remained.

How could her mother live in such a state? If only her father had enough time to work on his cure, then they could put an end to her suffering. As it was, the next few months were going to be a long and arduous descent for all of them.

Alex collapsed back in her bed, and the weariness felt from her mother’s frustration quickly brought sleep down upon her head.

“Brennan, we’ve got
something.”

The call came before the taco log was three-quarters consumed, and Greg gave a mock parting salute as he guided another steaming bite toward his mouth. Brennan shook his head at his nephew’s black hole of a stomach as he left. He met Sam in an alley a few blocks away from the apartment. A light autumn rain began to fall, and they took shelter beneath the overhanging roof of a Chinese take-out restaurant.

“What’d Bishop tell you?”

Sam wiped some water from his eyes. “Kellogg has been routinely paying out rent for multiple apartments, and as far as we can tell from electrical and plumbing bills, he’s been living among all of them for months.”

“So there’s no way to pinpoint him to one spot. They’ll have to split up to find him…” Brennan frowned. “This sounds familiar.”

Sam nodded. “Multiple objectives, multiple police task forces? This is right out of your playbook against Leviathan.”

“They know how catastrophically
wrong
that went, right?”

“I tried to dissuade them, but it makes as much sense now as it did back then. Bishop backs it, and those FBI agents are on board as well.” Sam leaned in close. “But this is an opportunity for us, too.”

Rain started to fall more heavily, and Brennan huddled closer to hear Sam’s words. “How so?” he asked. “I’m on probation and you aren’t even on the force.”

Sam pulled on Brennan’s jacket sleeve. “Come on, let’s walk as we talk. There isn’t much time.”

“What do you mean?”

The light of the street lamps was muted by the steady downpour, and their steps were silent as they made their way south, away from Brennan’s apartment and the police station. “They broke everyone into teams of two,” Sam explained. “Each pair is taking one of Kellogg’s residences.”

“And we’re headed to one of them?” Brennan guessed.

“Exactamundo!”

“What kind of head start do they have on us?”

“I called you as soon as I heard about it, partner.” He faced Brennan, who saw a grin plastered on his friend’s face. “They assigned Pascale and Jun to check out the location we’re headed to. Can you imagine the egg on their face if
we
beat them to Kellogg?”

Brennan returned his smile. “How far is it?”

Sam nodded ahead of them. “About ten blocks that way. And if I know our boys in black, they’ll take the shuttle or, better yet, try to drive there.”

“What are we waiting for?”

Brennan pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and the two of them took off at a loping jog. Sam set a steady pace for them, and Brennan was grateful for the exercise regimen he had set for himself months before. While he still carried a few extra pounds, the breathlessness never quite emerged, and he found his legs striding powerfully beneath him.

Each step carried them forward a little bit more, and the blocks disappeared beneath their feet. Sam’s pace made it easy to avoid slipping on the rain-slick sidewalk, and startled, umbrella-wielding passersby hurried out of their way.

“Explain to me why Bishop is on board with this plan,” Brennan said. His breath came out in small huffs of white mist in the cool night air. “She of all people understands the magnitude of that mistake.”

Sam’s breathing was barely labored, as if he ran like this every day. “The orders came from higher up. The chief, or maybe even the mayor. With the elections coming at the end of the year, he can’t very well have a serial killer loose on his watch, can he?”

“So it’s politics,” Brennan grumbled. He wasn’t sure Sam even heard him, his voice was so low. “What’s the game plan here? We go in, hope he’s there, and cuff him?”

Sam shrugged, which was an impressive thing to do while still jogging. “That was basically my plan,” he said. “If Kellogg is there, then great. We’ll take him down, and they can’t fault us for bringing a mass murderer to his knees. Hell, we’ll probably even get medals. If the place is empty, we’ll make ourselves scarce before Pascale and Jun show up.”

“We’ll be cutting it close.”

“No way,” Sam said, waving him off. They dodged around a young couple who was walking briskly without the protection of an umbrella. The traffic light was red in their direction, but their pace was too determined to be broken. Brennan awkwardly twisted to the side to avoid being hit by a car just starting to move, and Sam
slid
across the hood of the car. For the second time this week, he seemed the spitting image of James Bond.

“You’re lucky that car’s hood was wet from the rain,” Brennan shouted as they continued running.

Sam laughed. “I know, right? That was actually way harder than I thought it would be.”

The flow of traffic worried Brennan. It actually wasn’t too terrible tonight, which meant Pascale would have an easier time navigating the streets. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the car they had just avoided had belonged to the men in question.

Luckily, though, Sam slowed to a halt in front of an old brownstone duplex. A few of the lights were on, but it seemed like the sort of neighborhood where people didn’t want to attract too much attention to themselves, and the majority of the rooms were dark.

“I don’t have a search warrant,” Brennan said.

“How exactly do you think I do most of my work?” Sam asked, producing a set of lock picks from inside his jacket. He set about inserting them in sequence into the lock, adjusting them with practiced ease as the tumblers fell into place. Even through the rain, Brennan heard a distinctive click as Sam turned his picks and the doorknob in unison. “After you.”

Brennan unsnapped his holster strap and placed his hand on the grip as he shouldered his way through the entrance. The room inside was dark; the only illumination came from the street lamps outside as their light filtered through the cracks in the boarded windows. A couch and chair sat in solemn silence in the room to the left. A hallway continued to what looked like the kitchen, and Brennan could just make out a set of stairs leading up to another level.

“You get the hallway, I’ll take the second floor?” Sam suggested, keeping his voice low.

“Ha ha,” Brennan said bleakly. “You went high last time. Check out the kitchen, and then meet me upstairs.”

Sam gave a mock salute and pulled his own, private sidearm. He stepped slowly and methodically down the hallway, his lean form a shadow among shadows.

Brennan tentatively placed a foot on the first step; it held his weight without protest. Like an animal stalking its prey, he ascended the staircase swiftly and silently, his back to the wall with the gun raised ever so slightly. His eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, and details came to him in shades of gray. Not quite fifty of them, but enough to distinguish family photos on the walls from the dulled phosphorescent stars clinging to the ceiling of one bedroom.

He opened a door in the center of the hall, but there was only a small bathroom beyond. That only left one room to be explored, the one directly above the living room.

There was a faint hint of light showing through the space at the bottom of the door, and Brennan felt more than heard the thrum of electrical equipment inside. Something was live in that room. His hand reached for the doorknob, and just then a loud thump came from the stairs behind him. He whirled around, weapon raised, and Sam held up both hands with his gun turned sideways.

“Woah, Brennan, it’s me!” His voice obviously struggled not to shout, and it came out as a harsh whisper.

Brennan lowered his pistol. “Sorry,” he said. “You spooked me.”

“Well now that
both
of our hearts are pounding,” Sam grumbled, “let’s see what’s behind door number three.”

The metal knob was cool against the skin of his palm as Brennan gripped and twisted it. He leaned hard against the door as he entered like a bulldozer, and Sam followed close behind. Armed and alert, they swept the room with their eyes and weapons, but Kellogg wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“That’s disappointing,” Sam said, allowing his arms to drop to his sides.

“Hang on.” Brennan leaned forward and squinted his eyes. There, on the far side of the room, was a faint, blinking red light. He flipped on the small flashlight attached to his gun and pointed it at the dot. A small camera came into view, and its lens was a peculiar shade of crimson.

A small television flickered to life, and a man’s face appeared on the screen. It was a face that Brennan recognized, even though he had only seen it once before, on paper.

“Detective…Brennan, was it?” Levi Kellogg asked on the screen.

“And associate,” Sam chimed in.

“Where are you, Kellogg?”

“Far away from your current location,” Kellogg said. His eyes remained trained on Brennan, who looked around the room warily. “Though maybe I should say current locations, plural.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Sam muttered under his breath.

“He knows we’re storming all of the—”

“What I
know
, Detective,” Kellogg interrupted, “is that the microphone mounted to the camera is a powerful one. What I
know
is that you will never find me.”

“Pretty confident for a man whose cover was blown in a day.”

“Yes,” mused the man on the screen. “After a day in your hands. I wonder why that is.”

Sam glanced at Brennan. “What does he mean?”

“No idea.”

“Come now, Detective, we both know that’s not true.” He leaned forward, his face nearly pressed against the screen. His pale features shone as he glared out at them with serpentine eyes. “I see you for what you really are. Why do you freaks insist on living among us? Why am I the only one who can identify you as an imminent threat to humanity’s survival?”

“You’re insane,” Brennan told him.

“I’m insane?” Kellogg looked to Sam, as if in search of support. “He calls
me
insane? I can see your aura, Detective Brennan, and it is just like all the others. Black, to the core. Your corruption spreads like the plague, and I am this city’s deliverance.”

Brennan felt a tingle in the small of his back, the same sensation that had emerged when Benjamin confronted him in his Sleeperscape. He remembered the feeling of wings that had sprouted from across his shoulders…He was no angel, but to hell with anyone who called him part of a corrupt plague.

“I am doing
everything
I can to save this city from people like you!” Brennan yelled.

Kellogg’s visage smirked from behind the glass. “People like
you
destroyed it. I set up this little distraction to get the police off my case, but to find one of
you
among them…this will be a treat indeed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Uhh, Brennan?” Sam holstered his sidearm. “We need to go.”

“Sam, what are you—?”

“Do you know what my specialty was in the military, Detective Brennan?” Kellogg asked. “What kind of skills I got while I was over there?”

“Arthur, we’ve gotta
go
!”

Brennan turned to look at his friend. It wasn’t often that Sam called him by his first name, and his tone now spoke of anything but good news. Sam nodded to the side, and Brennan followed his gaze. On the floor, tucked almost out of view, was a colored cable running between several tightly closed gray packages. As his eyes traced the length of the cable, he saw more packages arranged in a semicircle around the perimeter of the room.

Attached to each squat gray block was a small metal charge.

Kellogg’s face split in a cruel grin. “Keep a spot cool for me in hell, Detective.”

“Sam, run!”

Brennan pushed his friend out of the room and slammed the door shut as he followed closely behind. The opening to the stairs was too far away; Brennan body-checked Sam into the banister, jarring it loose, and it broke free entirely as he added his own weight to the impact. They fell almost ten feet before landing on the bottom-most step in a tangled mess.

An earth-shattering rumble shook the house, and the room upstairs exploded into flames. The burning door burst outward and slammed against the wall before it came crashing down toward their heads. Sam pulled the two of them out of the way just in time, though the flames caught quickly on the peeling wallpaper and old wooden stairs. Black smoke started to envelop them.

Sam flung open the front door, and they were greeted by a gust of clean air and the sight of a nondescript black SUV pulling up in front of the house. “We have to leave through the back,” Sam coughed.

“Why?”

“Pascale and Jun just arrived.”

Brennan shouldered his way past burning debris from the blast upstairs. Nothing was being spared by the roaring, gaping hunger of the inferno. Flames licked their heels as they blazed a trail down the hallway, through the small kitchen, and out the back door. Rain fought off the smoke that tried to follow them. Sam fell to his knees, hacking up ash as his lungs tried to clear themselves. Brennan wiped at his mouth with a dirty hand as he gulped in deep breaths of fresh air.