Midnight Taxi Tango (23 page)

“Now that you have freed the Master Swarm from its mortal cage,” Caitlin says. Her smile makes little dimples form along her cheeks. “It will need a new one. Fortunately, we've arranged for that . . .”

“My . . . the twi—” I can't finish the word, because before I do, Caitlin nods, and all I see is red.

I lunge.

Kia

T
hat dead guy Riley was waiting for us when we rolled up. Had a whole team of floating, glowy badasses with him too, including Sylvia Bell, the stern white-lady ghost who was there the day I almost got choked out.

“C went in a couple minutes ago,” Riley said as I ran up to the front steps. Gio, Rigo, and Rohan were behind me, getting heavy with weapons and body armor and shit. “We're about to go down.”

“We gotta tell him not to kill Jeremy!” I blurt out.

“What?” Sylvia said.

“Can't explain. No time. You ready?”

“Garrick! Tartus!” one of the ghosts yelled.

“The fuck?” I said.

It was an older tattered-up phantom I hadn't even noticed before. The architect ghost Carlos mentioned.

“Oh yeah, pay him no mind,” Riley said. “We ready.”

“Garrick! Tartus!” Garrick Tartus yelled even louder.

“That's weird,” Sylvia said. “It had only been every couple minutes up till just now . . .”

“Garrick! Tartus! Garrick! Tartus!”

I look at Riley. “Uh . . .”

“Garrick Tartus Garrick Tartus Garrick Tartus!”

Riley shrugged, and then Garrick Tartus flung himself into the street. “It's time!” he howled.

“Goddammit!” Riley sighed as the old ghost began floating away. “Let him go. We need all hands for this shit.”

“Kia.” It was Gio. He looked worn-out. “You sta—”

“No.”

“Kia . . .”

“No, I said. I'm not losing you again. I'm not watching you disappear into some hellhole and never come out. I'm not—”

“Kia, I promise I'll—”

“I said no!” I stomped my foot. “That's it.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds as the ghosts started filing into the house. Rigo and Rohan hurried past. The door slammed. I narrowed my eyes. The face that meant I'm not giving in. Gio remembered it, I know he did. He sighed. I smiled, but only slightly: victory meant a horrible death probably, but it was better than waiting, waiting, wondering, waiting . . . no.

This path, I chose.

We ran up the steps together and inside.

“This way,” Gio said, walking unknowingly through a crowd of geared-up, ready-to-throw-down ghosts into the kitchen. We followed him in. He opened a little wooden door behind the fridge, which had been shoved aside, and ran down the stairs.

Rigo ducked in after Gio, then Rohan, then me. The ghosts streamed around us, rustling and furious as they readied for battle. Next came a wide, well-lit playroom of some kind. Creepy as fuck, to be honest, but we didn't stay long. Gio clearly had the whole place mapped out in his mind: he had already thrown open a trapdoor in the floor when we got down and was climbing into the darkness below.

• • •

The fear sits in my stomach, a squiggly lump, just wrastling and tumbling around. Still: I'm calmer than I ever would've thought myself capable of, considering everything. In the tunnel, the dark walls keep squirming to life, but it's just my feverish daydreams making hell where it isn't.

Yet.

We're trodding through their den, after all. They sure to show up. I think about Reza's girl Angie, what she must've felt like living her last however many hours or days or whatever in this dank pit, being tortured, used as a human nesting ground. Then I think about Carlos's babies. We're rushing forward through the tunnel, but it's not fast enough. It's probably already too late.

“You scared, little lady?” It's Rohan. He's beside me, even bulkier with that bulletproof vest on, and cradling his shotgun.

“Nah,” I lie.

“Good.” He flashes a gigantic smile. I want to ride his face.

I know. I know:
right now, Kia?
I can almost hear Karina say it. But yes, because those arms are lined with muscles, and together they could just lift me up and place me back down, spread, and yes, because goatee, and yes, Jesus, that smile, and most especially because just the thought of it pushes that ball of fear out of my tummy and I realize I'm smiling too.

And then Gio yells, “Incoming!” and flattens against the wall of the tunnel.

“Squad 9,” Sylvia hollers as the dim light ahead of us flickers. “Brace for roach impact.”

Then I realize: the light's not flickering. It's being covered up. It's a swarm. They've entered the tunnel and are barreling toward us. Rohan, Rigo, and I throw our backs to the wall. Squad 9 assembles in front of me, those dim shadows
shoulder to shoulder, three wide and about eight deep, helmeted heads leaning in. The swarm crashes into them and slows in midair, like they're flying through Jell-O. They're huge. Bigger than any roaches I've seen.

The Master Hive. They've taken wing.

Which means Jeremy is dead, and maybe Caitlin is too.

My heart beats in my mouth, my ears; my whole face pulses with it.

After a couple seconds of struggle-flight, the Queen Hive bursts through Squad 9's barricade and whooshes through the tunnel past us with a buzz and flutter. The ghosts of Squad 9 stumble to either side, coughing and collecting themselves. Musta been one of the more awful feelings of their weird ghost lives, having a whole swarm of evil queen roaches penetrate through their translucent flesh.

But there's no time to dwell or check on our dead friends. I break into a run. Ignore Rohan grabbing for me, ignore the weird chill that slivers along my skin as I brush through Squad 9, past Sylvia and Riley and Gio and then slide knee-deep into a pool of black water.

Something's rubbing against my legs, but I don't care. It's dead, whatever it is. Or was. I keep going, wading through the mire, and come out into a wide-open cavern with a platform in the middle. Six or seven Blattodeons stand in the water, staring. A few of those evil baby ghosts are there too, hovering, staring. I follow their eyes to where Carlos is lunging at a scrawny white girl, blade-first.

Caitlin.

She's still alive.

I yell with everything I got: “CARLOS, NO!”

Carlos freezes, eyes wild, blade inches from Caitlin's neck. The ghostlings and roach men turn to me as one.

Caitlin whimpers: “No . . .”

Then the ghostlings flood toward me and the roach men begin to wade through the mire. I pull the blade out, hold it
over my head like Ishigu in the Valley of the Damned. Magically, I don't shit my pants. There isn't time: the first pediatric fuckspawn of Satan rears up, sharp teeth, mouth wide, pupilless eyes, and long fingernails. And then it flies backward before I can slice it in half. For a second, all I see is Sylvia's big translucent soccer-mom ass as she dives past me, her arms raining Holy Ghost hell on that little fucker. Squad 9 bursts into the room; they tackle the ghostlings and plaster themselves like Saran wrap over roach guys, sending explosions of six-legged mothafuckas into the dank air. Gio and Rigo vault into the action after them, splashing through the murky water. Rohan follows, swinging a huge machete as he lumbers toward a charging roach guy. Gio drops his foe with a single, skull-shattering spin kick. Rigo ducks a swarm and then lifts back up a second too soon, catching a few in the face. Gio yells and runs toward him as Rohan swings his machete into the head of the roach man he's fighting, chopping him in half. The Blattodeon lingers for a few seconds, twitching, until Rohan spartan kicks him into the water.

I edge along the perimeter walkway toward Carlos. Caitlin whirls at me, enraged. “Carlos,” I say. He peers at me around Caitlin.

“Quiet, brat,” Caitlin snaps.

“She wants you to kill her; that's the whole thing. Some kinda resurrection-spirit transference plot. Just like she wanted you to kill Jeremy.” Carlos glances down at an arm and a hideously mangled torso half submerged in the icky water.

Jeremy.

Carlos looks back at me.

“Either way,” Caitlin says, “you can't stop the Master Hive. They are well on their way to their new host.”

Something flashes in Carlos's eyes, and for a second I think he's gonna kill her on general principle. I know I want to.

I hear Gio grunt and turn to see another Blattodeon
collapse beneath his flurry of kicks. Rohan helps Rigo wipe the roaches off his face.

“We have to go find the twins,” Carlos says. I can hear the sorrow and rage fighting inside him. “Now.” His voice is a hoarse whisper.

“How we lookin'?” Riley yells from across the room.

“We have to go,” Carlos says again. “Now.” He's about to explode. “Rohan!”

“What it do, gray guy?” Rohan pulls a final roach off Rigo and strides through the muck toward us.

“You guys have any way faster than driving to get us to Long Island?”

Rohan belly laughs. “Faster than—?” A ghostling flashes up into the air in front of him, then splatters across his face. Little arms scratch at his throat. Rohan gurgles, stumbles backward.

I'm in the water, and it doesn't matter. I clear the ten feet between us in seconds, reach up without even thinking about it and pull that nasty little monster off Rohan's face. Gio and Rigo are on either side of him, holding him up.

“The . . . the fuck . . .” Rohan gasps. Dark splotches mark either side of his neck.

The ghostling squirms in my hand, growling and hissing, but his little arms can't reach me. “I'll take that,” Sylvia Bell says, hovering up beside me. She snatches the little guy and shoves him in her bulging sack with the rest of the ghostlings.

Behind us, something splashes into the water.

Caitlin.

She's gone.

“Riley!” Carlos yells. “You gotta handle this. I gotta . . . I gotta go.”

“Go, man!” Riley says. “We'll find her.”

“Kia, I need your phone.” He breaks into a run along the walkway. “Rohan, you okay, man? I gotta . . . I need to . . .”

“I'm alright,” Rohan says. “But there's . . . there's . . .” Carlos has already disappeared into the tunnel.

“Who are those glowing people?” Rohan says.

Oh boy.

“I'll explain later,” I say. “Right now we gotta make moves.”

• • •

Outside, Carlos borrows my phone. He pushes some buttons and then just stutters into it, so I take it away from him. “Who this?”

“Victor, Carlos's friend. Who this?”

Ah. I get it. “The EMT?”

“I'm a paramedic.”

“Whatever, man, nobody gives a fuck. We need your help.”

“What's wrong? I'm working. I—”

“Perfect. I'll explain when you get here.”

“Get . . . Listen, I can't just—”

I step away so Carlos can't hear me. “Listen, mothafucka, the twin babies Carlos didn't even know he had are about to get turnt into a festering hive of evil prehistoric-ass cockroaches of death. We need to get to Long Island to stop them, and you're gonna help us get there, because I know for a fact that Carlos has helped you out or saved your perníl-eating ass at least once, and if he hasn't, then I'm quite sure he one day will, so I don't give a full-fathomed fuck if you're working. I need you to pull whatever bureaucratic shenanigans you need to do to make this happen and still have a job. And then be here. Fast.”

“Fuck,” Victor says. “Where are you?”

• • •

Fifteen minutes later we're flying down the Jackie Robinson. Cemeteries stretch out to either side. Flickering shrouds rise out of the darkness like glow bugs, but they're not bugs at all: it's the dead. I wonder if my family's out there in the night.

“Yes, this is five-seven X-ray,” Victor says from the cabin behind me. His voice sounds shaky. “Calling for a transportation decision out of the regulated parameters. Yes, I'll hold.”

In the driver's seat, this huge West Indian dude named Del shakes his head. “This is ridiculous,” he says in a thick Russian accent. I don't ask.

“Yes, can you connect me to the telemetry doctor?” Victor says. “I understand that the protocol is to talk to the phone medic first, and I'm saying, connect me to the . . . Hello? Yes? No.”

“Fuck,” Del snarls. “Give me phone.”

“I have a patient that needs to be transported to . . .”

“Victor! Give me phone!”

Victor grumbles something under his breath and hands the phone up. We swerve hard around a corner, and my stomach almost flies out my mouth while Del shoves the cell into his shoulder. “Yes? Hello? Telemetry medic? Listen: we have a sixty-five-year-old male with history of endocarditis, hypertension, and pulmonary edema complaining of right-sided chest pain times four hours; patient states he was released from Long Island Jewish two days ago following open-heart surgery and would like to be transported back to this hospital as they are aware of the particulars of his medical condition.” We swerve around another corner, then hit a snarl of traffic. “Patient is morbidly obese and refuses transport to any other hospital in the area and has been appraised of risks involved with bypassing other hospitals.”

In the back, I hear Carlos whispering curses.

“Vital signs,” Del finishes triumphantly, “are stable.”

There's a pause. Then he nods and says, “Spasibo.” He tosses the phone over his shoulder. “Permission requested: granted. Let me just turn off GPS . . .”

“Just got a text from Reza,” Rohan says from the back. “The Long Island Expressway's backed up.”

“No problem,” Del grunts. He flicks a switch on the dash panel, and the night around us explodes with a pulsing red splatter of lights. The siren bleats out a frantic, ear-shattering staccato, and the gridlocked cars haul ass to either side in front of us.

“Put on seat belts,” Del says. “Now, we fly.”