Indelible Ink (24 page)

66

Chunks of the desk exploded into splinters that showered the room. One shot left a gaping hole in the front and Deena heard Harper scream.

“Harper!” Deena stood and left her cover as part of the wall exploded bits of plaster near her head. She ran to the desk and tried to hide herself in the useless cover there. She first saw Marsh’s lifeless body in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and unseeing.

Harper was next to him, holding her left shoulder. Before Deena could ask, Harper said, “I’m fine, it’ll be fine.”

Deena wanted to ask if she could check it but the sound of more bullets impacting the room interrupted her. She looked around and saw that the gunfire was concentrated at the door on the other side of the room. He’s toying with us, she thought. If he wanted us dead, we would be. Like Marsh.

There was some thudding from the hallway and the door crunched in two. Deena realized the door had been weakened enough that Marsh’s men could knock it down. Still in a crouch and using the desk for cover as long as she could, Deena hurried toward the doorway. Two men came through and looked around the room, apparently bewildered at the destruction. Another man entered it with an automatic pistol and leveled in her direction. Deena figured he wouldn’t have time to zero in on her and fire fast enough, not with his friends in the line of fire. She wished she’d kept a weapon, a pistol or something, so she wouldn’t have to fight the men so close up. She could feel the Shadow Energy moving on her arm, expanding up her veins. It hurt more than ever. She’d hoped she would be able to fight without the help of whatever it was that dwelled within her. As with so many other times, she didn’t have a choice. No chanting, no calming words, no yoga or screaming would make it stop now.

She covered the distance faster than she’d expected, faster than the men anticipated as well. They barely had time to look at her before she was there. Her fist was coming down on the first man’s face, she knew him, had seen him in the office many times, but his name didn’t come to her. She brought her knuckles down squarely on his nose, and heard a thick crack with the impact. She pivoted her body so that her back was to the men, using the swiveling motion to build momentum to plant her elbow firmly in the next man’s neck, she didn’t bother trying to remember whether she knew this one, she just let him fall with his hands at his throat as she turned toward the man with the Uzi.

As quick as she’d been, the man was still a few feet away with his gun trained on her. She could hear more people coming in the hall and somewhere in her mind, she figured it was over. Even with that knowledge, the entity within wanted her to keep going.

A single shot rang out, and Deena dove to the side to dodge it before she realized the man hadn’t fired. Once she hit the floor, she turned to see Harper standing by the desk, holding the gun Marsh had threatened them with. The Uzi man went down.

Several more thugs ran through the doorway and Harper dropped them before Deena was even back on her feet.

Deena pulled a pistol out of one’s hand and aimed it toward the door. There wasn’t a sound in the outer office and she couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Were more waiting, hiding? Or was the way finally clear? She put her back to the wall and peered around the corner.

She only got a glimpse of Agents Pel and Garrett in the outer hall before she heard a thud and another scream from her sister. She’d fallen to the ground close to Marsh again, but this time things didn’t look as superficial. Harper wasn’t moving and as Deena approached, she could see blood trickling from her sister’s body. There was a gaping hole in her side. Deena’s hand curled in rage.

She looked out at the city; the myriad buildings, skyscrapers and rooftops came into focus then blurred. One by one, they disappeared from her view as though they didn’t exist. One building, on the other side of the highway glowed a bright yellow to her and she saw a shadow fall across it, as though a cloud was blocking out the sun. As she focused on it, one floor near the top began to pulsate red until a window in the middle turned dark.

Without another thought, Deena raised her hand and pointed to a far-away window that she couldn’t even see. Flames of blackness erupted into a ball around her hand; the room was silent, at least to her, as she let the power do what it wanted. She didn’t try to control it, or guide it in any way. Her arm jerked and she remembered the sensation of firing a shotgun at the men in the house. It was a strong kick that made her stumble after the energy discharged. She recovered enough to see a circle of darkness the size of a softball disappear toward the building she’d focused in on. She didn’t try to follow it to its destination, just turned to tend to Harper. She weakened as she felt the cloud of the Shadow Energy’s control fade. She was suddenly tired, each step a chore with leaden feet.

Deena knelt next to her sister, trying to decide what to do. No ambulance or paramedics were going to make a run to this office right now; no doctor was going to make a house call. Harper’s eyes were open only in slits, like she was falling asleep.

“Harper?” Her own voice was growing quiet, catching in her throat. So much so that she barely heard the words coming from her sister’s mouth.

“Everything that happened here,” Harper paused and swallowed. Her lips dry and sticking together. “It’s your fault. All these people, this blood, all of it, because you couldn’t control yourself. I only wanted to watch over you.” Her eyes flickered and closed for a moment. She opened them again and tried to speak, the eyes couldn’t quite focus.

Tears rolled down Deena’s cheek and her arm began to ache. “It wasn’t me. I couldn’t control anything.” The hand throbbed and Deena looked at it as if it hadn’t been there all her life. Another part of the desk disintegrated in a hail of wooden debris but she didn’t flinch. Dark thread-like tendrils began to accumulate and wiggle at her fingertips and she began to speak words that she knew wouldn’t calm the force, but antagonize it, encourage it. A tendril began to extend beyond her index finger, like a drip of paint with a mind of its own. She moved her hand over toward her sister’s body, which was now heaving with the effort to breathe. Deena tried to pause and think through what was happening, but thought better of analyzing the situation. No one was going to help Harper if she didn’t try something, she knew that, but she had no clue what the material would do or how her sister would handle it.

Harper suddenly looked up and saw her sister’s hand coming toward her and shook her head. She raised her good arm and pushed weakly against her sister. “No,” she said softly. Her eyes widened a bit, but she didn’t seem to have the strength to fight or move away.

The drop of blackness fell free; broke apart from Deena completely and fell into the gaping wound below it and disappeared.

Harper screamed with strength that Deena was sure her sister hadn’t had moments ago. Harper’s body convulsed and Deena did her best to prevent her sister from moving for fear that she would injure herself further. “Don’t fight it,” she told her sister. “Fighting it makes it worse. I’ve been trying to fight it all my life.”

She heard sounds in the outer office and reacted without realizing it. She grabbed a gun and pointed it at the doorway without leaving her sister’s side. A moment later, Garrett and Pel burst through into the room. She had the presence of mind not to shoot.

“What the hell happened? You were supposed to wait for us.” Garrett looked around the room at the destruction and death and then looked back at Deena. “Are you all right?”

Deena was glad he was here. She wished like crazy that he’d been here minutes ago to help, but she wondered if the shooter would’ve targeted the agents as well. “I’m OK. Harper’s been shot, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What do you mean, what else? What did you do?”

Deena could hear the concern in his voice and she hesitated to explain. “I…” She held up her left hand, still black with the subsiding power.

Pel stepped over and looked at the wound. It was no longer dripping blood, but instead, seeping black matter. “This is like what happened when you were shot at the house.”

“You used the power on your sister? After all the pain it’s caused you, after everything that it’s done to you?” Garrett’s brow furrowed. “What the hell is going to happen to her?”

“What other choice did I have? It just happened on its own. What would you have done?” She started to grab Harper’s hand, to try to comfort the girl, or comfort herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch her. She heard Garrett inhale deeply and she thought he might pursue the argument further, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled out his radio. “Rice? Where are you? We are inside and there has been a massive amount of gunfire.” He waited for a response before adding. “I repeat, shots have been fired. Request assistance.”

“Is the shooter neutralized?” Pel asked. “Do you know where they are?” She moved to cover as best she could and pointed her weapon toward the window.

“I think I got him,” Deena said.

67

Blocks away, Morgan had only a split second to wonder what the blob was that darkened his telescopic sight. He’d been focused on Harper for a moment, and by the time he nudged the rifle scope over to where he’d left Deena, the missile of blackness was already near. The streak shot into his telescopic sight, shattering the lens. The sound of the destruction barely registered with Morgan before the dark blob burst through the second lens and embedded itself in his right eye. His head jerked backward and he fell to the floor, his hands instinctively going to his eye. He uttered what would later be described by his ex-girlfriend as a very unmanly and quite school-girlish scream as he writhed on his back. He fought to get up and figure out what was happening, to get himself away, but the pain was a shooting crackle of heat that penetrated his skull thoroughly. He passed out with the dull outlines of several figures gathering around to peer down at him.

“That doesn’t look good,” Mr. Hector said.

Later, on the floor, he could hear bits of glass tumbling off his chest, and the wind streaming in through the window. Unfortunately, for the moment, he could only hear it. When he opened his eyes, there was still nothing but blackness in his field of vision. His right eye, where he’d been struck, hurt horribly whenever he opened it, so he stayed on the floor with both eyes shut for as long as he could. He wanted to get up and make his escape, though he was fairly sure no one from Marsh’s office was going to travel across the city to get him anytime soon. He was far enough away that it was a good bet the police wouldn’t make the connection for some time.

As light slowly seeped into his left eye, he found the right one wasn’t improving. He couldn’t keep his right eye open for more than a second or two without it shutting involuntarily. He tried to sit up, but felt ill immediately and rolled on his side to vomit. When it passed, he looked around the room, blinking constantly. “Hello?” He was alone.

He crawled over, grabbed his rifle, pulled his suitcase next to him and closed his good eye to rest it. From memory, he disassembled the weapon and put each piece carefully in its designated place inside the hard-sided case, including the shattered telescope. When he was done, he opened his eye again, got on his hands and knees and picked up every spent shell and every little bit of the shattered lens he could find
and put them in his shirt pocket. He pulled on his jacket and removed sunglasses from the inside pouch and slipped them on. It hurt, but the light was making everything hurt worse. From another compartment he pulled the ear nub for his cell phone and shoved it in his left ear. He decided that no matter how dumb it was, he couldn’t handle the stairs. Since his first job, he’d taken the stairs whenever possible and crisscrossed from stairwell to stairwell on the way down, to avoid any pursuers. Today, he knew he couldn’t handle forty flights of steps, so he stumbled toward the elevator.

68

Garrett ran ahead of the group and into the parking garage to let Rivers and Rice know that the girls were on their way and prepared to cooperate. He hoped he was right. Harper seemed to be hanging on by a thread. He wasn’t sure what her death would do to the deal they’d worked out and how it would affect Deena’s temperament. “Let’s not get too crazy about this,” Garrett said. “Nice and easy. No need to scare anyone.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to upset the weirdo with scary powers,
or
any gangsters with automatic weapons. Not that stupid.” Rivers put his hand on his gun and unsnapped the holster. “Think they’ll actually show up, or try to make a run for it?” Rivers asked quietly.

Garrett was sure they were coming down the escalator to the lower level of the parking garage. They had little choice, with the condition that Harper was in. Pel could handle them and the deal made sense to everyone. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do some good for everyone. “They’re on their way. Pel’s good with Deena.”

“This better go well.” Rivers stood with his arms folded the whole time. The only reason he’d gone along with the plan on the phone was that he saw some gain in bringing Deena in without a fight. At least not a fight that involved the FEI agents.

They stood in plain sight so the sisters could see there was no ambush. The agents soon heard voices coming nearer, talking low. Garrett could count four people coming up the ramp. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back,” he said. “You OK, Pel?”

“I’m fine, but we need an ambulance or something for Harper.”

With a slight nudge, Harper pushed the agent away. “Actually, it just kind of stings.” She pulled her hand away from her side and everyone saw that there was little more than a scratch where she’d been bleeding before. She looked concerned and turned to her sister. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. It just happens.”

“Does anyone other than Agent Pellegrino still have a weapon? If so, drop the guns and kick them down the ramp.” Rivers stared at them, and appeared fully prepared to shoot if they did anything he didn’t like. Pel had her hand near her own weapon, but didn’t pull it. Garrett and Pel had both been sure they were doing the right thing with Deena; it was her sister that was the variable in the situation. As he sized Harper up, he noticed she didn’t seem to be carrying a gun.

“Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.” Stanley stepped between the two opposing groups. “Deena said you wanted to talk, let’s talk. We were just coming to talk.”

Garrett felt his finger twitch on the trigger. The accountant was harmless, but Rivers and Rice didn’t know that. “Stanley, we’d be more inclined to believe you if you didn’t have two guns tucked in your waistband.”

Stanley looked more embarrassed than scared. “Oh.”

“Now everyone put your guns on the ground and kick them away,” Rivers said. “We had a deal, Deena.”

Everyone grew quiet but no one moved.

“And that deal is still in place?” Deena fought her instinct to fight and run away. It wouldn’t work this time.

“Yes,” Rivers said.

“We can take these guys,” Harper whispered. Her hands balled into fists.

Garrett sighed. “I’m standing right here, Harper. I can hear you. Don’t make any sudden moves or we’ll shoot.”

Harper turned slowly to Stanley. “You sure you trust these guys?”

“Yes, I trust these new guys, the other two are kind of dicks,” Stanley said. “But, at least I think these two have their hearts mostly in the right place.”

“I can fix that,” Harper said. “Where would you like their hearts? Floor? Ceiling?”