The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (27 page)

Soren looked around for something to throw, and while there were all kinds of debris on the trailer floor, there was nothing truly solid that might knock him out.

Soren glanced outside to see that the world had become ominously dark. There was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder immediately afterward. Gregory was dying, and his mind had turned into a final storm. Soren was running out of time.

“I need your help, Gregory,” Soren said. “I need you to stop trying to fight me, and tell me what you know about Rakev.”

The boy shook his head.

“Can’t tell you,” he said. “He’ll hurt me. I stay here where he can’t get me.”

What had Rakev done to this man? Soren had been prepared to despise him, even hate him, but he felt an unexpected stab of pity. Soren leaned down.

“Listen to me, Gregory,” he said. “There’s another little boy in danger, and I need to save him. But to do that, you have to share with me what you know.”

“I won’t do that,” Gregory said. “He’ll know. He’ll find me.”

There was another loud crash of thunder, and the trailer around them started to shake. A gale-force wind was now outside, conjured out of nothing.

“He can’t get you anymore,” Soren said. “You’re safe from him. Help me, Gregory, please.”

The boy looked at him with impossibly sad eyes.

“He killed Mama,” Gregory said. “Papa watched him do it. Then he made me kill Papa.”

“I’m sorry,” Soren said. “He did a lot of bad things. And he’s going to do more—much more—if you don’t help me stop him. I know he’s made you commit terrible crimes, awful acts. But this is your chance to make up for some of that, Gregory. First, you have to stop fighting.”

The boy nodded so slightly that Soren almost didn’t notice it. Around them, the trailer was abruptly ripped away, debris flying into the sky above them. Soren looked up to see a storm unlike he’d ever known before. It was a massive, dark hurricane that appeared to be swallowing up the world.

But when Soren really looked into it, he saw the storm had a face. Its gigantic eyes were two tornadoes bearing down on the land around them, but the mouth was the source of the storm. It hung open, sucking everything up. The trailer that had been their shelter a moment earlier was pulled inside. Soren recognized the features of the storm. The image of Rakev was before them.

Soren didn’t believe it was the real Rakev, but the memory of the monster that had twisted Gregory into what he had become. It was also his doom. Soren understood that once the storm destroyed the boy, Gregory Ivanovich would die.

Even as he had the thought, the boy was yanked into the air. Soren grabbed his hand, grasping it just as he almost slipped away. The boy hung above him, sucked by the force of Rakev’s image, his feet hanging in midair.

Soren fought to stay on the ground, but the wind whipped around him, threatening to pull him up, too. Lightning struck nearby. The thunder was so loud it threatened to knock him off his feet. Soren knew his own fate if he was sucked into the storm.

“You have to help me!” Soren shouted.

The boy couldn’t respond, but reached his free arm forward. It looked as if he was trying to grab on to Soren’s hand, but instead he released something small from his grasp. A tiny, blue metal car fell from his hand, and then was nearly jerked up by the storm before Soren snatched it from the air.

In doing so, his grip on Gregory slipped, and the boy fell back into the maelstrom. He didn’t scream or cry, but just wore that same mournful expression. The last part of Gregory Ivanovich’s mind tumbled into death.

*****

Soren found himself back in the police station, freed in those final seconds by the gift that the boy version of Gregory had given him.

He was still kneeling over the real Gregory, who was lying still, his eyes staring sightlessly ahead. Gregory was dead.

All at once Soren knew everything about Gregory. He saw as Rakev took a small boy, whose only possession was a tiny, blue car, and molded him into something evil.

The first terrible act had been hard, but after that, it had become much easier for Gregory. In the end, all he’d found to love was vodka and visits to a strip club, where he paid the owner extra so he could beat up some of the performers after the show.

Soren looked down to see his flesh ripple and change. This time, Soren fought hard to maintain consciousness, but he felt it slipping away regardless.

His vision blurred and then refocused itself. He looked down at his body, his mass now substantially larger. He put a hand to his face and stroked his black beard.

But if his vision was clear, his mind felt fuzzy. He looked up to see the black detective smash in the head of a gaunt with a table leg. The thing tried to get up, but the cop hit it again, knocking it with such force that its skull cracked open. It fell to the floor dead, and Gregory let out a laugh. He enjoyed watching things die, just like his boss.

Silas Rakev is not your boss. That’s Gregory talking.

But he was Gregory, wasn’t he? He tried to remember how he’d gotten here. He had a memory of being arrested by the police and taken here. Since then, he’d ignored their stupid questions, confident that the boss would return and save him.

He remembered when the gaunt had broken through the window, he’d thought it was there to rescue him. He had known the boss wouldn’t leave him to die. It wasn’t until the thing had raked its claws across his throat that he understood he’d been betrayed. He put his hand to his throat in a panic, remembering the feeling of it being cut open.

It felt fine now. In fact, he felt fantastic. Way better than the guy on the floor beside him. The face looked familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it.

The only other people here were a dead cop in the corner, a dead gaunt, and the black detective who was staring at him.

“You could have been killed,” the cop said.

He snorted at that.

“It will take more than a gaunt to kill me,” he replied.

“Quickly,” the cop said. “We don’t have a lot of time. Where’s the boy being held?”

“I told you before, I’m not saying anything,” he replied, giving a laugh to show how little he thought of the detective’s interrogation technique.

“Now it’s your turn to snap out of it, Falk,” the cop said.

Falk? Who the hell was Falk? The name sounded like he’d heard it before, but it didn’t mean anything to him. His name was Gregory. Or was it? Now that he thought about it, another name surfaced, one that felt far more familiar.

“My name is Soren,” he said, and noticed the way the cop looked surprised—and unhappy—at that. It pleased Soren for some reason.

“Very well, Soren,” he said. “You took a risk and it paid off. Now where is Alex Ignatius being held?”

Soren looked at the detective with new eyes. They weren’t enemies; they were on the same side. It wasn’t even the real detective. This was Friday, another pretender, just like him.

He stood up, looking down at the body of the real Gregory. He almost felt sorry for him. But he turned to Friday, realizing he had all the information he needed.

“We need to get moving,” he said. “I know where Alex is. And we’re running out of time.”

Friday found a pair of handcuffs and put them on Soren, and then the two of them left the bloody scene behind them.

Soren was surprised to find nobody else near the door. Apparently, all the noise they’d made hadn’t attracted more attention, which meant the room must have been at least partially soundproof. He had no idea what the police would make of the situation when they found three bodies inside, especially when they reviewed security footage. One thing was clear—they couldn’t be here when that happened.

Friday marched Soren ahead, as if he were a prisoner, which in this case he was. He looked like Gregory. He even thought like Gregory, but he remembered his mission. It wasn’t like it had been with Ron Davis. Soren felt far more in control.

Friday as Ken was breaking several rules and probably a few laws by just walking out the door with a prisoner, but only one officer tried to stop them. Friday barked at the cop, insisting he’d cleared it with the “top brass,” and to take it up with them if there was a problem. He said it with such forcefulness the other officer backed down, but he gave Friday an uneasy look. Soren thought it was only a matter of time before they were uncovered.

The only other person they encountered was Glen, who was waiting in the hallway. When he saw Friday, he stood up straighter. His eyes flicked to Soren.

“Is that you?” he whispered when they got close.

“You can cross death-by-mind-tornado off my list now,” Soren replied.

“I don’t think that one was on the list, boss,” Glen replied. “What’s the plan?”

Friday nodded to the door.

“Unless you want Sara to question you when they find us missing, I’d suggest you come along,” Friday said.

The three of them made it to the parking garage, where Friday uncuffed Soren. Both he and Glen got in the back of Ken’s car. Soren had wanted to take a squad car, but those vehicles had trackers on them.

He wondered how he was going to explain this to Sara, and then decided it didn’t matter. If he got Alex back, nothing else would be important.

“Where to?” Friday asked as they drove out of the building.

“Take the Memorial Bridge downtown,” Soren replied. “Rakev controls a bar in Adams Morgan. That’s where Alex is. Do you have any guns in the car?”

“A few, but it would be unwise to walk in there like Rambo,” Friday replied. “You tried that, remember? You may look like one of them, but if you come armed for battle, we’ll lose the element of surprise. Besides, we don’t need guns. We are the weapons.”

“You looked like you were having trouble with that gaunt,” Soren said to Friday.

“Bit out of practice. It took me a moment to find a memory powerful enough to make me as strong as I needed to be. Ken keeps his feelings tied down tight. But in the end, I found the right motivation.”

“Which was what?” Soren asked.

“Sara,” Friday replied. “It all comes back to her. Not unlike somebody else I know.”

“Don’t look at me,” Soren said. “I’ve never even met the bitch.”

He bit his tongue. Of course, he’d met her, but that was Gregory talking. The man’s consciousness filtered through his own, making it hard to know what was his and what wasn’t.

He hated being Gregory. He desperately wanted to take a shower, but this wasn’t the kind of thing you could wash off.

“Sorry,” Soren said after a moment.

Friday shrugged, and gave him a sympathetic look. Glen moved ever so slightly farther away from Soren.

“I don’t get it,” Glen said. “If you guys know where they are, why not just send the police to raid the place?”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Friday said.

But Soren shook his head. “That’s just Ken talking. The police can’t handle creatures like that gaunt. It would be a slaughter, and Alex would most likely be killed.”

Friday was silent for a few moments before giving Soren a grudging nod.

Soren directed Friday through Washington, DC, to Rakev’s bar.

The only way to save Alex was to do what Friday suggested at the beginning—use deception as their weapon. Infiltrate Rakev’s bar, and get Alex away. He was less concerned with fighting Rakev. He would have to do that eventually in order to get the knife and the gun away from him, but he had to get Alex free first.

They found a crowded parking garage near the bar, and Soren and Friday climbed out of the front seat. Glen began to follow.

“No,” Soren said. “You stay here.”

“I can help,” Glen protested.

“You can get yourself killed,” Soren countered. “Stay here and call Terry. If we don’t come back in thirty minutes, call the police and tell them where we went.”

“That’ll be too late,” Glen said.

“Then let’s hope we come back sooner.”

They left Glen standing by the car, looking deeply unhappy.

The two emerged onto Eighteenth Street, and walked past the restaurants and bars. Soren was surprised Rakev would plant himself here, among so many people and businesses, but maybe that was the idea. This wasn’t the kind of place where you’d look for a monster.

They walked into a tourist’s version of an Irish pub, complete with signs showing off Harp lager and Guinness. It was still early afternoon, and there was nobody in the place except for the bartender behind the counter. Gregory knew why. The food served here was purposely awful, designed to keep away repeat customers. Rakev only wanted it as a front for other operations.

The bartender was polishing the glasses, but stopped and looked up in surprise when he saw Soren enter. He was another large, muscular man, the only type of human Rakev bothered to employ. He was bald and, like Gregory, had a thick, black beard, and a neck covered in tattoos.

“Gregory!” the man said. “I heard you were taken by the police.”

Soren nodded in the direction of Friday.

“Meet my lawyer, Butch,” he said. “He got me out of there.”

The bartender looked impressed.

“I’m surprised the boss bothered,” he said. “You know how much he hates lawyers. Almost as much as he hates grunge.”

“Maybe it was Lochlan’s idea,” Soren replied. “Where’s the boss? Butch here said he had an assignment for me.”

“Boss is out,” Curly replied.

Soren glanced at Friday.

“Out where?”

“The last person that asked him a question like that ended up as his dinner,” Curly said. “So I didn’t ask. Something’s up, though. Lochlan said we had to pack everything, get ready to move.”

Rakev’s private army of supernatural creatures was already headed out. Soren didn’t like it.

“What about the kid?” Soren asked. “He still here?”

Curly’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Since when do you give a shit?”

“Boss said I had to teach the little snot a lesson,” Soren replied.

Curly smiled. “I think that part has already been taken care of.”

Soren’s heart stopped beating. His own smile, the one he’d plastered on his face, slipped.

“What are you talking about?”