Authors: Matt Betts
59
At the loading docks, Garrett took Pel’s hand and pulled her up. “This is dumb. We never should have made this deal, we never should have let her go up by herself, and we should have just waited for the warrant and went in with an army of heavily armed agents and officers.”
“You know this is right,” Pel said. She made her way into the loading area with confidence and speed. “She’s not going anywhere. We’ll be up in no time to back her up.”
Garrett looked back at the street and the parking area, scanning to see if any of their friends of the federal persuasion had arrived. Rivers had assured them that the tactical team wouldn’t be in place for another half hour or so. This was Marsh’s place of business; surely some agency had a car or detail watching the place. But as he looked again, he found no one in the street or sitting in a car. He scanned the shiny glass of the nearby buildings and was pretty confident that someone had the smarts to be watching a criminal of this magnitude. He involuntarily patted his gun and felt at least a little better at the bulk and heft that he felt there. It didn’t dispel the unease he felt about going in without a full squad, but it would have to do.
They left the maze of boxes and crates and shoved open a stairway door back in one corner. It was like they’d said; no one saw them and no one physically challenged them. There were cameras everywhere, which they couldn’t avoid, but as long as they weren’t challenged, Garrett was happy. It was both comforting and terrifying that they had simply walked in and hadn’t been scrutinized. He was sure any guards in the place had been summoned to deal with Deena. “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to get going if we’re going to make it up the stairs in time to help if they need it.”
Pel put her foot on the first step. “They? Do you think Harper is still alive?”
“Mmmm.”
was Garrett’s only answer. His world had been completely turned upside down in the last two days. He went from investigating a horrible bombing, to agreeing to protect and fight for the safety of the main suspect in that case. Oh, and apparently witches were real. Or something like that. In a way, he already missed the familiar safety of his desk at the federal building, where he was surrounded by agents who smiled and talked about their kids. He was running up thirty-some flights of stairs into a building filled with heavily armed, hardened criminals, trying to help a
girl who was a terrible villain herself until her miraculous turnaround just days ago. Plus, there was that girl’s equally villainous sister, who may or may not want to be saved and could quite possibly try to kill them all, given the chance. Mmmm, indeed.
He placed his foot on the next stair and began to chase after Pel, whose footfalls were already echoing higher up in the stairwell. She was younger and in much better shape than Garrett, but he tried not to let it show.
“Are you sure we can’t use another elevator?” he called up to her. “Maybe if we just make sure we’re not on the same one as Deena, we’ll lessen our chances of being associated with her and caught if she gets in a jam.”
“Come on, you fossil. It’s only a few more floors,” Pel called.
“A few dozen more, maybe.”
“Sissy.”
“Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got?” He saw her up ahead, as she rounded another set of stairs. “I’ll beat you to the top and you’ll eat your words.”
Pel laughed and turned to watch him as he ran, which Garrett used to his advantage. She couldn’t run quite as fast as she looked back. He closed the gap to within half a flight of stairs as they reached the next floor. “Hey. Tell me again how to back up my contacts to the cloud.” He figured any distraction would help.
“How many times have we gone over that?”
“I’ll get it this time.”
They were laughing as the door on the landing between them opened and a man stepped out. Garrett’s momentum carried him into the man and they both fell into the wall then to the floor. Pel stopped a few stairs above them.
“Christ, what the hell?” the man said. He picked a cigarette and lighter up off the floor next to him.
Garrett quickly disengaged himself and scrambled to his feet, extending a hand to help the smoker up. “Sorry, didn’t expect you there.”
“What the hell were you doing?” the man asked. His gaze drifted to the badges the agents were wearing. His eyes got big and he turned around to grab the door handle.
“Whoa, whoa. Just hold on,” Garrett said. He grabbed the man’s arm and tugged him away from the exit. “What’s your name?”
“Me?” the man asked.
Pel was now directly behind him. “Who else would he be asking?” She got in close to the man and stared at the ID hanging from a lanyard around his neck. “James Marshall? Says you’re in tech support?”
James stared at her.
“Is that true?” Garrett looked the man up and down. “Do you do tech support for the whole building? Or just one business?”
James continued to stare.
After a pause, Pel reached down to grab James’ cigarette. She held it up to show her partner it wasn’t shaped exactly like it should be.
“James? Were you sneaking off to smoke a joint? Seriously?” Garrett was more than a little amused. The man had terrible timing. “That’s highly illegal.”
“It’s for my… back. It’s medicinal,” James said.
Pel rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“Look. James, is it? Is your desk nearby? Let’s go to your desk real quick.” He was shoving James back inside. If James was in IT, hopefully he knew passwords and other technical mumbo-jumbo that Pel could translate.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” James didn’t stop anyone from pushing him, but he played along reluctantly. Garrett assumed it was to put on a show for anyone who saw him with the agents.
“It’s a great idea. You and my partner can talk about servers and firewalls and gigabytes and jpegs… and… bookmarks…” Garrett started to trail off.
“Just stop,” Pel said. “It’s embarrassing.”
The IT room was right next to the stairwell and the agents followed close on James’ heels. The man’s desk was cluttered with computer parts: screws and wires, scraps of paper and action figures. Three monitors, a keyboard, roller mouse and a webcam appeared to actually make up his functioning work area. Garrett wanted to believe the Wu Tang Clan poster over the James’ desk was meant to be ironic, but judging from the man’s recreational smoking, it probably wasn’t. Pel sat down at the desk and looked up at James.
“She’d appreciate any passwords and such to get access to your important stuff like finances and whatnot,” Garrett said. He looked around the room and noticed another man sitting silently behind another bank of monitors. Garrett nodded. “You need to use the restroom or something?” The man started to shake his head no, but switched to yes. “Then you probably ought to take care of that.” The other techie left.
“Don’t you need a warrant for that sort of information? I’m pretty sure you do.” James bit his fingernails.
Garrett looked at Pel. “You know. We just started with a new agency. I’m not sure if we need one, do you?”
Pel shrugged in response. “How about you just do it and we’ll worry about that later?”
James was still hesitant.
“Look. Your coworker is gone. It’s just us here. Give us the passwords and we’ll give you your cigarette back.”
James’ face lit up slightly as he leaned down and typed in a string of letters and numbers and then leaned away. Pel started typing, opening histories, and looking at directories.
“It’s a start,” Pel said. “At least I think I can get a good picture of some of their operations. Nothing horribly incriminating, I’m afraid. What do you want me to get?”
“Just save everything you can and let’s get going,” Garrett said. He looked over Pel’s shoulder at the computer screen. “I wish we had Stanley here. He’d be a huge help. He has to know his way around these files like nobody’s business.”
“He isn’t.” Pel hadn’t stopped nodding since she sat down at the keyboard. The device allowed her to access everything on the server and all the records in the cloud. What she couldn’t get into, James shrugged over and said he didn’t have access.
“I’m a little concerned about the girls,” Garrett said. “Can we move this along?”
“Deena said they’d come back and I trust them.” Pel was still typing and nodding.
Garrett wasn’t so sure. He was putting his ass on the line by suggesting the deal with Deena and if she skipped out, he was screwed. “We just met this girl.”
“I can tell. She wants an out. We are the only one available.” She turned to James. “There’s nothing we can use here. Numbers. Lots of numbers.”
James shrugged. “I generally tell people to try turning their computer off and then back on again if they have a problem.”
“We can improvise. Maybe we can match some payments up pretty closely with contract killings and more criminal endeavors,” Pel said. “That should be worth something.”
“Circumstantial.” The computer talk had bored Garrett, but criminal investigation perked him right up. “We need more.”
“Sorry, they didn’t keep a ‘People We’ve Killed’ file or anything, as far as I can tell,” Pel said. “It does seem a little counterproductive.”
Even with Pel’s assurances, Garrett still wanted to keep an eye on the girls. “Get what you can and let’s go. I want to get upstairs in case they need help.”
“I could be at this all day.”
Garrett turned toward the door. “Don’t.”
60
Deena hit the stop button with her foot. There was no way she was going to reach Marsh’s floor with her arms pinned by some minion and her feet dangling because he had her in a bear hug. The abrupt stop put everyone off balance and Deena saw her chance. She wrenched up an arm, elbowed the man in the face, and wiggled free, standing on her own two feet. She considered trying to summon the Shadow Energy, and again decided it wasn’t something she wanted to tamper with. What would it cost her physically and mentally? The thought of conjuring help from a being that existed inside her was disturbing. She’d gotten free of its control; she wanted to stay that way.
Plus, it creeped her out.
While Deena had worked out at the boxing club and had occasionally had to fend for herself without using her powers, she wasn’t really a brawler. Fistfights weren’t her thing and the two men were much bigger and more muscular than she was. If she couldn’t use her powers, she’d prefer a gun in her hand. Deena’s only advantage was the tight environment of the elevator. The men didn’t have much room to swing at her without getting in each other’s way. As they advanced, she smacked the stop button again, putting the elevator back in motion and unbalancing everyone all over again.
“Are you gonna do this all day? Cause it’s getting boring, quick,” one of the men said.
“We’re headed back up towards Marsh’s office; I thought that was what you wanted.” Deena backed away without putting herself into a corner. There weren’t many places to go on the crowded elevator, so she tried to keep moving. The men looked up at the numbers over the door, watching the twenties light up one by one.
61
As each floor number lit up, Stanley felt his body tense. What awaited the two of them was a confrontation he had never thought he’d be around to see. At the next stop was Marsh’s office, along with several bodyguards, thugs and hired killers. He assumed he’d be long gone when someone came after Marsh. He’d hoped he would be in a new city, with a new name, living in witness protection or something. He certainly didn’t anticipate that he would be one of the idiots gunning for one of the city’s biggest crime bosses.
“You’re awful quiet over there,” Harper said.
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Isn’t there?”
“Nope,” Stanley tried to keep his focus on the numbers lighting up. His hands were shaking a little and nothing he did could stop them. He put them behind his back so Harper couldn’t see.
“This could get ugly. Maybe you should stay in the elevator and let me and Deena regroup,” Harper reached out.
Stanley moved just out of her reach. “If it gets ugly, it gets ugly. What’s going to happen once you and your sister meet up? She’s the one that got you into all of this. Not just the current situation, but she’s the one that got you started with Marsh. I watched you. It took you years to finally break down and do the things Marsh told you to do. Until that point, Deena had done all the dirty work. She killed who needed killing, beat who needed beating. All for Marsh. But you held out. If it wasn’t for her, you could’ve left any time.”
“I wanted to leave. I did. But Marsh and Deena both fed me separate lines of bullshit. Deena said I was just as fucked as she was for all the crimes she’d committed and Marsh said he’d kill Deena if I tried to get out. She never once seemed serious about leaving with me,” Harper said. She checked the gun and steeled herself for when the door opened. “Am I going to be happy to see her? I don’t know. I just don’t.”
When the elevator doors finally opened at the top floor, they found the lobby empty. Stanley’s desk was empty, and there was no one sitting on the leather couches in the waiting area, not a soul to be found.
Stanley looked at his desk warily, he wondered if someone was hiding behind it, waiting to ambush them and he wondered if he could dodge a bullet meant for the sisters.
Harper moved over to the elevators and watched for the car as it ascended. “Looks like we managed to make it here first.”
62
The high-pitched sound of the elevator’s ding rang as the car reached the thirtieth floor. “I take it I’m getting off first?” Deena asked the two men. They’d danced around in the elevator together, no one wanting to make a move. The men seemed content to wait out the clock and make a move on Deena once they’d reached their destination. They didn’t know that Deena hadn’t planned on using her powers, so they could be excused for not wanting to rush her and risk a black shadow cutting them to ribbons.
If the goons had expected help on Marsh’s floor, they were disappointed. The shiny metallic doors opened slowly to reveal two people with guns aimed directly into the elevator. But Stanley and Harper weren’t there to help them subdue Deena.
Deena ducked and the waiting duo shot into the elevator, filling the men there with bullets. When they stopped shooting, the elevator doors closed and the elevator started back down, floor by floor.
Deena pushed herself up onto her feet. She saw how empty the lobby for Marsh’s office was. “Did you make an appointment?”
“Funny,” Harper said. Her face was stony and showed no sign of emotion.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Marsh is booked solid until four. Maybe you could come back then?” Stanley’s face was easier to read. He looked scared and shaky. Guns weren’t his thing and neither was violence. As far as Deena knew, he lived and died numbers.
Deena looked at the door to the office. “Do we want to go in?”
“Why? Why would we need to?” Stanley said. “We’re all together. Harper is safe. You’re safe,” Stanley said. “Let’s get the hell out of here and let the feds or the police or the army take care of this now.”
The noise in Deena’s head didn’t let her react. All of the years at Marsh’s command, all of the horrible deeds that she’d done at his behest. It wasn’t just the thing inside of her that had made her do terrible things; he had a big hand in it.
“I don’t really want to go in there, OK?” said Stanley. “I don’t want to have to look that man in the eye when he finds out how screwed he is and that I’m one of the ones who screwed him.” Stanley talked in a low tone and kept looking at the door.
“I do,” Deena said. “Buzz me in.”
“What?” Stanley asked.
Pointing absently, Deena indicated the button on Stanley’s desk. “The buzzer. Let me in.”
On his way to his desk, Stanley handed Deena his gun. “You might need this.”
The weapon felt heavier than she remembered in her hands. “Thanks.”
As the buzzer began to scream, indicating she could open the door, Deena could feel her sister fall into step with her. She turned to see Harper, her face still blank and unreadable, standing almost next to her. They walked through the door together.
There weren’t huge hordes of killers and cutthroats waiting to capture and murder the sisters. The office was the same as always, a huge space with minimal furniture. Tennis balls everywhere. The giant window that made up the western wall was bright and clear, showing the city beyond. The only actual furnishings were an oversized desk with a chair behind it and two uncomfortable chairs opposite for Marsh’s visitors to sit on. Deena had felt her butt go to sleep on those monsters numerous times over the last decade or so. They made her squirm, though she hadn’t realized until that moment that the chairs were probably chosen deliberately for exactly that reason.
Marsh himself was standing with his back to them, looking out over the city. He didn’t turn; though Deena got the feeling maybe he could see them in the glass. He’d always seemed to know things he had no business knowing, arrivals and departures, facial expressions. As she got better at her job, Deena began to understand the tricks that people used to give themselves an edge in life. Using reflections in glass was just one of them.
“So, everyone’s back safe and sound?” he asked. “It was a big empty building for a couple of days there, and now all at once everyone is back.” He held up his hand and ticked off the names one at a time. “Deena goes missing, Avi goes after her, Wallace goes, Morgan goes, Ramirez goes. And oddly, we can’t find Harper
or
Stanley. It was unnatural. It was lonely here without you.” He turned and finally looked at them with a face of quiet, almost pleasant, calm. “But now everyone’s back. All at once. What fortunate timing.”
“Look,” Deena said. “I agreed to come back to talk if you let my sister go. She was free when we got here, so I guess that deal is off.”
“Hmmm,” Marsh said. “I’m not sure how poor Stanley got involved. When Harper escaped, did she take him as insurance? Did she think Stanley could get her out of here?” Stanley was a wildcard in the whole thing. Deena wasn’t sure how involved he had been in getting Harper out, but Pel and Garrett had assured her that Stanley was integral in bringing a case against Marsh. It was impossible to know if Marsh knew about Stanley’s overtures to the feds.
“Apparently
everyone
was getting lonely, Mr. Marsh. They all wanted me home just as quickly as possible, judging by the number of your goons that stopped by to see me at one point or another. Ramirez was out there. Was that Morgan that paid me a visit? Just one after another, your lonely employees came to say hello. They must have really missed me.” Deena’s throat felt dry suddenly. The words thick in her mouth.
“Well, I understand Avi isn’t going to be joining us anytime soon,” Marsh said. “That’s too bad. Thankfully, he managed to give us your location and convey your plans to come back here before he died.”
“That’s crap.” Deena was sure that Avi’s help was genuine and that he hadn’t sold her out. If he had, why would Marsh’s men have killed him? It was all a ploy to throw Deena off, or a way to stall her until more men could show up to kill them.
Deena and Harper moved to opposite sides of the office, together with Marsh, they formed a triangle.
“So you’re leaving me? After I took you wretched orphans in? You were living in the woods like animals and I gave you food, shelter and productive jobs.” Marsh’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, mocking Deena. “You’d be dead now if it wasn’t for me.”
Deena adopted a similarly insincere tone. “I’m grateful for everything that you did for us back then, but don’t act so wounded. You took advantage of us in terrible ways, ways that I just can’t take anymore. Something’s changed in me this time.” Deena looked more to her sister than Marsh for understanding. Still, Harper said nothing.
“Oh? You’re a changed person? Elevated? Above killing to earn your living?”
“Yes.”
“Humpf. I know of a little house in the mountains that is full of reasons why I find that to be bullshit. You know the house that I mean, yes? The old family abode? I understand things went on there, that prove you’re still willing to do the job,” Marsh said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t got the stomach or the skill for it, ’cause you really laid into those men. Oh, and the train? Do we want to talk about how unwilling you were to kill those men?”
Harper finally spoke. “So you went ahead and killed people even though you’ve been telling everyone you’ve changed?” Through the years, Deena had confided in Harper about the Shadow Energy, and the toll it took. She’d broken down numerous times describing the feeling of helplessness as her will slowly lost out to the power that pulsed through her body. Usually it was immediately after she’d killed someone, because the further from the event she got, the less it seemed to weigh on her mind. The fact that Harper chose to forget the pain it caused Deena, especially during the current conversation, made matters worse.
“I didn’t have a choice. They were trying to kill me and they were going to kill you.” Deena turned back to Marsh. “Did you send those men to bring me back, or to test me?” Deena asked.
Marsh’s oily voice was calm and soothing. Deena could feel something inside of her melting just a little as he spoke. “My dear, I’ve loved you and your sister like you were my own children. I’ve loved you better than your own father. Where was he all these years?” He kicked a tennis ball lightly and watched it roll before continuing.
“You were testing me. You wanted to see if you could push me back to the way I was, didn’t you?”
“Young lady, I’ve known what you were since the day we met in the woods. If you think I was going to give up on an instrument of destruction like you so easily, you’re dumber than I thought.”
“You knew? How? I didn’t know what I was,” Deena said.
“A girl gets in a fight and shards of blackness poke out of her skin, I do a little investigating. I ask questions. But undoubtedly, I see how I can put that power to work for me and my organization.” Marsh looked back over the city. “But if you aren’t planning on staying, I’m afraid our family will have to break up in a big, ugly way. I’m fond of you. But I’m not that fond of you.”
Stanley came in the room and slammed the door behind him. “The rest of the men are here.” He avoided looking over at Marsh.
“Which men?” Harper asked.
“
All
of the men.”