The Devil's Own Game

by Annie Hogsett

  We shall live to dance in those shoes again, girl. Hang on to them. Besides that would be seven hundred seventy-five dollars’ worth of litter. How much does a bogus part-time librarian get paid these days?

  She had me there.

  After a groan, a small jerk, and a micromanaged touchdown, the big doors slid open. “How did you know this was here, Otis?”

  Terse. Tense. Grim. “Security dude, Allie. My job to know.” He glanced out and around. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We stepped into a murky hall. I was checking everything everywhere. One thing moved.

  As quietly as I could I murmured, “Someone else down here, Otis.”

  He swept his jacket away from his gun, released the strap holding it secure, rested his hand on it, said, in a moderately interested, conversational tone, “Hey, anybody out there?”

  A voice came back. “Otis. Is that you?”

  A punch to my chest. Not good.

  Otis didn’t answer. We waited, calculating.

  “Otis? Otis Johnson. It’s me. Chad. Chad Collins. Is that you? Are Tom and Allie with you?”

  Careful. Wary. “What are you doing down here, Chad?”

  Exasperation. “Whaddya think? I’m the guard they stake out where nobody in their right mind wants to go tonight. Big thrill. They said they’d bring me food. And a beer too. Not so much.”

  We breathed again. Otis dropped his coat back over the gun. Moved out into the hall where Chad was standing, having abandoned a folding chair against the wall. The lights were low here, but this was definitely our Chad. Definitely, seriously, aggrieved.

  “What are you guys doing down here? Where nobody in their right mind wants to be?”

  “Chad. I need a place to stash Allie and Tom for a little while. A really good hiding place. There’s a big storage room, right?”

  For a guy who’d appeared to have missed out on violence and crime for his whole first thirty-plus years, Chad spent no time mulling this over. “Sure. Great. Storage vault. Runs all the way under the atrium. Big. Dark—”

  “Locked?”

  “Oh yeah, Tom. But I have keys.” He held them up and jingled them. Hurried past us, stopped in the dim light, and inserted one into the lock of a very large door. It swung open into a vast, gloomy space. Except for a corridor running through the middle, it was overflowing with shapes that could be odds and ends or art or both. I made out objects lurking in big caged areas too. Figures. Furniture, maybe. I assumed they must be the serious second-string art stuff. “You have keys for the cages too, Chad?”

  “No cage keys for me. Too low on the totem pole.”

  ‘How dark is this space, Chad?’

  “Pretty damn dark, Tom, but Allie will be able to see enough so you guys won’t trip over anything. Security lights are on. Overheads are off now. The staff has to get around down here.”

  “Needs to be darker. Can we shut it all down?”

  “Sure. There’s a circuit breaker, but that would make it totally—Oh. I get it. ‘A place to hide.’ I can do it. No outside light comes in here at all.”

  “Allie,” Tom said, “Walk on in and look around. Try to identify the landmarks. Look for a good place for us to disappear into. Make a mental note of stuff we might trip over, if you can. Stay where it’s open until I douse the lights. You’ll need to talk me to you after it’s done.”

  “Chad, take me to that circuit breaker. Then I want you to get yourself out the door. Lock it. Stash the keys somewhere. Not on your person. For when Otis comes back. You remember Officer Valerio and Lieutenant Wood?”

  “Yes, Tom.”

  “Don’t give the key to anyone but Otis or one of those two.”

  While Tom talked to Chad, I walked and looked. And listened. All hell was breaking loose above me. “Chad? What’s that racket? The storm?”

  “No, Allie, that’s the party. We’re underneath the atrium. You’ve got probably a thousand people dancing on your head.”

  Great. At a life and death moment when Tom needed his hearing, there’d be two thousand shoes’ worth of interference. My lovely, expensive, Louboutins wouldn’t be among them. I found a place for them next to a box marked “Fragile. This side up.” Told them, “Stay right there. I’ll be back.”

  Optimism can’t hurt.

  Chad left us. As he was going Tom said, “Chad.” Stern, allowing no discussion. “The man who’ll—who may come looking for us is a killer. About your height. White-blond. Unusually light eyes. Don’t get in his way. If he comes in, he comes in. If there’s a place to sit down, sit. Cross your ankles. Act like you don’t especially care where he goes. Complain about not getting your beer. If he wants the keys, tell him you’re “too low on the totem pole.”

  A quick smile. Back to stern. “Don’t confront him. No matter what. Otis gave me his gun. We both know how to use it. Be safe. You have a family to think of.”

  When Tom said “family,” the memory of Rune’s worried eyes came into my mind. Young. Hopeful. Watching Tom with all his heart. I gave thanks for Iona and Clarence. Waited for the lights to go out.

  Chad called softly, “Good luck, you guys.”

  * * *

  The door clunked shut and the lock caught with a click. I heard that much. At least the sound from upstairs was dampened now. Tom was waiting at the circuit breaker.

  Counting down.

  Shadowy objects intruded onto the expanse, but the center of the corridor was unobstructed. Farther along the aisle one of the cages appeared to have people crouching in it. My scalp tingled. Spooky Town.

  After not nearly enough time, Tom said, “Allie, stay where you are.” Complete darkness fell on me like a weight. A cavern. Under a mountain. Like that. Only darker.

  I spoke into the blackness, my best eye roll in my words. ‘“Both of us know how to use it?’”

  Tom. Closer than I’d expected. Zeroing in on my voice.

  “I figured if I told him I’m the one who’ll be handling any shooting, he’d refuse to leave us alone in here. Or take away our gun.”

  * * *

  We verified Tom’s burner phone had no signal whatsoever. No emergency call in our future. I’d left mine at home, because it was a burner and not imprinted with my personality. He shut his all the way down. “How many times have you seen some yo-yo’s phone go off like a bomb at the worst conceivable moment. Who says there’s nothing worthwhile on TV?”

  Otis was in charge of whatever was happening outside. This was our world now.

  “Will you know if the—If Mercury comes in here, Tom?”

  “You’d know first. There would almost surely be light from the hall. He’ll close the door once he’s in. What sniper worth his salt doesn’t have night vision? And we might as well accept my hearing is not going to be our biggest asset until everybody upstairs goes home after midnight. We’ll be—out of here by then.”

  I noticed how smoothly Tom had segued from “if” to “when.” Otis had surveyed this building in preparation for tonight. Now we understood Mercury had too. Tom’s next words confirmed it. “I don’t know how he found out we’d be here tonight, but he did. He’s planned for this. Clearly, the money wasn’t his only target. After all.

  “When the door opens, you’ll see light, Allie. I might feel a draft. Sounds will rush in. Then we’ll know. Our best defense is invisibility and silence. We need to be as dead-like as possible to stay alive. That’s my whole game plan.” I read his smile in the words—pictured the dimple. “I’m good, but I can’t outshoot a sniper. Not sure what Otis was thinking, giving us the gun.”

  We went as fast as we could toward the far end of the room. Both of us blind. No cane at all for Tom this evening. I was supposed to be his seeing eye girl for the party. Not anymore. I put my hand on his elbow and let him lead. It was awkward and scary. Trust was never my strong suit.

 
You might want to start working on that one, Alice Jane.

  I’m busy working on not screaming.

  My Buddha upstairs would counsel, “When time is short, proceed slowly.” Tom was the master of Zen calm. Me, not so much. He’d figured out the arrangement of the cages and was walking along them. Patient. Careful. Finding their doors. Testing the locks.

  “Yales. Lucky for us. Maybe.”

  I struggled to keep up. Tom moved patiently. Finding the locks. Jiggling each one. Toward the back of the hall was a cage door with a lock someone had neglected to click completely closed.

  He laid it on my palm. “See. We’re lucky. You got a pocket for this? My pockets are full of gun. And a spare clip.”

  “Sorry. ‘Dry Clean Only’ has no pockets.”

  “Not much of a top either.”

  We were speaking to each other in the range between normal talk and a whisper, relying on the mayhem above to provide cover for our voices.

  I checked the time. Disconnected from my phone, my watch was a mere watch. “It’s 8:52, Tom.”

  We were going to miss the sunset. 9:04 p.m. Tonight and every night for the rest of the month. Summer pausing on the brink—

  “Allie. Turn off your watch.”

  Against a black background, a tiny spotlight is a still a spotlight. We both turned them off. We now had access to the exact same number of electronic devices as the knights upstairs. And not a single damn broadsword or crossbow. He described everything as we went. Softly. I listened and stumbled. Disoriented by my blindness. Slipping along an unmarked ledge above a cliff. Quietly missing my Louboutins. If I hollered, “ouch” every time I stepped on a nasty little sharp thing down here, even the people upstairs would know exactly where we were.

  Tom pulled us into the cage. This one turned out to be full of—people?

  “Allie. Hang on. There’s a…a head? About waist high on me. It’s a sculpture of a guy. Kneeling, feels like.” He knelt down too. “Naked guy. Big shoulders. Muscular arm—Ah. Hand to chin—It’s The Thinker? Not regular size. Smaller.”

  He moved further in, dragging me with him. Excited. “Here’s another one.” He inhaled. “Can you smell that? It’s paint. And something else. Glue maybe?”

  I sniffed. Papier-mâché. Even a blind pig, Allie—

  “It’s ‘The Thinker Tic Tac Toe’, Tom. They had a serious exhibit for the Rodin Centennial, but this was for kids. Neon colors like the Warhol Marilyns. They had miniature sets for the children to play with. Sold them in the gift shop. There should be nine in here, three in a row. Can we crouch down in among them?”

  “I don’t think so. They’re not big enough. And if he has night vision, we’d still—You’re right, though. This is the third one in the row—” He stumbled. “Something on the floor back here. Feel this. It’s a heavy—Drop cloth. Big. This could work. These shapes might divert him from us. If we lie down under this, back in here, flat as we can—It’ll have to do, Allie. We need to—If he makes it in before we get set—catches a glimpse—”

  We hit the floor behind the last row of Thinkers. Lay down side by side. Pulled the sheet—big, heavy, and smelling of paint and dust—over us. We bunched it up to make it look carelessly cast aside, checked to make sure we were completely under.

  Tom skootched closer to me. “Wanna make out?”

  “Let’s wait and see how this goes.”

  The floor of our makeshift hidey-hole was hard and cold. My heart was clattering “They’re here! They’re here!” in Morse code for anyone within a five-mile radius. Plus I now really, really had to pee.

  Dear sweet baby Jesus. I hate hide-and-seek.

  If we had to wait in here for hours—

  Stop twitching. Even I can hear you.

  From outside the door, the muffled chuff of a shot. A thunderbolt.

  Chad.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The door snapped open.

  Light.

  Slammed shut.

  Night.

  Sniper in the house.

  So much for the lock. Lying next to Tom under the drop cloth—the two of us interred, side-by-side, still as mice, in spite of the choking paint smell, the throat-tickle of dust, and our ridiculously bleak situation—I tried to screen out the rumpus above our heads—and the one inside me—and isolate any minuscule, insignificant, nano-sound.

  Where in this vast dark space was he?

  Swift. Stealthy. His vision enhanced to catch our slightest movement. A feather-light scrape? There. The subtle tap of a strategically placed foot? Here. Prelude to that final, suppressed cough—the one I might not hear coming. Closer. Close Now?

  For crissake, Alice Jane. Buck up. Don’t just lie there and die.

  No kidding, Lee Ann. Shut the fuck up.

  The unknown is a demoralizing enemy, and my optimism had gone over to the other side. Mercury had the edge. He had all the edges. Night vision would alert him the instant we moved. If he had thermal, he’d find us by reading our body heat. I knew squat about all that but I had a kick-ass imagination. And, of course, his aim was Certified Grade A. He was a warrior. We were civilians. Hell. We were blind rats in a cage. Under a sheet.

  Second by second, my mind multiplied its own fright. His silvery eyes, narrowing to slits. Taking aim. Focusing his shot. His smug satisfaction. “Mission Accomplished.”

  Was Shadow Man here too? They were buddies, after all. Colleagues.

  I struggled to square the picture of my Shadow Man—sitting in our kitchen, drinking Otis’s coffee, wearing his Navy hoodie—with the terror racing through me now. Was he here with Mercury, silently stalking Tom and me. Tall, hot, and corruptible. One last devil.

  The two of them together would be an elite special operations unit all by themselves. Betrayal and death, times two. I lay as quiet as I could. Hating them both.

  Tom and I were frozen in place, hands welding us together. My fingers were numb. My pulse was galloping. Tom’s too. Our shared fear pulsed in our palms. Being frantic is extra-bad when there’s nothing to do for it—Tom had Otis’s gun in his other hand, I could smell it. Metal and oil.

  Maybe we should—?

  Not a chance.

  With all my experience of Tom’s well-honed talents and occasional near-supernatural skills, I couldn’t come up with the scenario in which either Tom or I—both of us in the dead dark—could make the exceedingly awkward move to get out from under the sheet and off the floor, and then aim that gun—let alone fire it—without getting shot.

  C’mon. Do something, Allie. Flight or fight. Pick one.

  You pick, Lee Ann. Flight? We die. Fight? We die.

  Girl, your options suck.

  Stony despair pinned me to the floor of our cage. One gun. Both of us blind.

  Alice Jane Harper Smith. Are you guys going to just lie there like dummies and let him shoot you. For fuck’s sake?

  Oh, please. Go for it, Lee Ann. Let me know when you have a scheme that doesn’t involve free nail polish.

  Tom moved ever so slightly to put his mouth against my ear. Spoke hard words, softly.

  “Allie…Done what we can… This…best chance… Maybe Otis…so sorry.”

  Lee Ann heard him too.

  The storm of possible options faded away. I relaxed my body into his. Letting it answer him for me, once again. Don’t be sorry. You’re right.

  In spite of what you read in popular fiction, every once in a while “lie there like dummies” is your best option. Also the bravest. And the cruelest. In the end, none of it would make a molecule of difference, and this way I’d be here with Tom. Still terrified. Still holding hands.

  From somewhere in the dark silence the sniper fired his voice at us. Good as a bullet. We both jerked.

  “Oh, c’mon. Tom. Allie. You know you can’t hide. I’ve got night vision. Not using the ther
mal to be sporting. But if I’m going to be sporting, you have to play along.”

  A quick flash of an opening door, and a new voice broke into our shared blindness. Cool. Calm. Familiar.

  “Mercury?” Like it was a joke they shared.

  “Everett. Or should I say, “Shadow Man?”

  Despicable lying, cheating, stealing, betraying, bastard.

  Well said.

  “Do you have them?

  “Not quite yet, Everett. Waiting for you. Like we agreed.”

  Let’s go ahead and say, “Despicable lying, cheating, stealing, betraying, fucking bastard.”

  Let’s.

  “So. Everett? Friendly little wager? Who bags the first one?”

  “That is not what we agreed, Mercury. We both get to hunt, but she’s mine. You get him. Optimum damage. I wouldn’t mind a small wager, though. Say one hundred thousand dollars for whoever locates them and brings both of them out for us to deal with. Night vision but not thermal. Sound good?”

  “Done. I’m about to get plenty of cash. Thanks to you. And you’ll have quite a bit. Thanks to me. You start where you are. Work your way to me. I’ll start at the far wall. Work my way in. No thermal until I say. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Deal? Rage was diluting my fear. Tom’s grip was a vice.

  Shadow Man’s real name is Judas.

  Back at the beginning, Gloria pegged our silver-eyed devil as colder than Dante’s ninth circle of hell. We were there now. Underground nightmare. Mercury. Shadow Man. Betrayal everywhere.

  Our Judases wouldn’t appreciate the Dante thing. This wasn’t hell to them. They were playing “special ops on maneuvers in the jungle with live ammo” tonight. Big game hunters. Stalking their prey.

  Them, the hunters. Us, the quarry.

  Otis. Where are you?

  Down the corridor, maybe two or three cages away, the sound of metal on metal rattled the wire grid. The music of a kid with a stick and a fence. Only this was a sniper with a—

  “Oh. Tom?” His words were casual, but they fell on us like stones. “I thought you’d appreciate hearing—I brought the knife.”