“Shit.”
“Yeah. And, apparently, some high-up suits somewhere didn’t like me digging. Homeland showed up at the house.”
“Deshawn.”
“Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t careful early on. I know that, and it’s on me. But then.” His voice changed, lightened in a way that drew Rooster’s nerves tight. “I was approached by someone else.”
Rooster waited.
Deshawn drew something from his back pocket – a business card – and handed it over.
Matte black. A phone number on one side, and a logo on the other. An elegant embossed lion done in a few minimalist lines.
“What is this?”
“The defense contractor I work for.”
“Defense contractor,” Rooster said levelly. “You went Blackwater?”
“No,” Deshawn said, firmly. “It’s not like that. A guy reached out, said he had some of the answers I wanted, and a job if I was interested.”
“And you took it?”
“Not at first.” Deshawn dropped down onto the bench beside him, their shoulders touching. “I got this phone call. At home.” He stressed that; Rooster felt a flicker of tension move through him where they touched. “Guy was real polite. British. Said his name was Scarlet, and he’d heard my name was pinging all these Homeland lists because I was digging into shit I shouldn’t have been. Not his words – he said, ‘Sticking your nose into corners better left alone.’” He snorted. “Then he said that if retirement wasn’t sitting well with me, they’d be happy to interview me for their security firm. I said I wasn’t interested, and that was it. Or, I thought so.
“A week later Ash got this package delivered to the office.”
Rooster swallowed hard against a curse.
“It was a pigeon with its neck broken. ‘Drop it,’ the note said. She was working on the most promising of the Institute cases at the time. I just.” He clenched his jaw tight, emotion held barely in check. “So I called that Scarlet guy, asked him what he knew. The next day, there was an envelope thick as my hand in the mailbox. A whole damn file on the Institute. The shit that was in there…I agreed to a meeting. And I joined up.”
“I get it,” Rooster said, and he did. “Ash is safe now? Des?”
“As houses. And the shit I’ve seen.” He whistled. “I’d say you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but your girl can start fires, so.” He glanced over, faintly amused, but concerned underneath. Checking for Rooster’s reaction.
“What do y’all do?”
“Freelance security,” Deshawn said, like it was simple. “Special cases only. Under the radar. Payment in full upfront and in cash.”
It sounded completely illegal, and nothing that anything straight-laced, all-As, family man Deshawn would have ever touched with a ten-foot pole.
But Rooster owed his friend the chance to make it make sense.
“You’ll understand when we get there,” Deshawn promised.
Rooster nodded, trusting him. “What’s it called?”
Deshawn’s lips quirked, a small smile. “Lionheart.”
~*~
Rooster grew disoriented long before the helo entered an enveloping shroud of mist.
Deshawn stared out the window, at the expanse of gray, and smiled quietly to himself.
“Where are we?” Rooster asked.
“Appalachia.”
Okay. Sure.
They swayed in their seats as Dunbar started to set the helo down. Down, down, down through the mist. And then it began to clear, thinning until the rotors shredded it like wet paper, slender tendrils clinging and whirling past the windows. And there were the mountains: jagged black teeth stamped against a backdrop of white cloud, striated with shadows, great rippled folds of earth.
It was evening, and they slid down out of the clouds as they descended, until they passed through blinding bars of light from the sunset. Rooster squinted against them and saw that a destination was taking shape: a compound nestled in the crook between two peaks, ribbons of unpaved roads snaking out from it. The closer they drew, the larger he realized it was, a sprawling tract of mountain land, dotted with buildings of all shapes and sizes.
“What the hell is this place?” he asked, shouting to be heard over the rotors.
Deshawn grinned at him with teeth. “You’ll see!”
Dunbar set them gently down on a tarmac pad roughly the size of a football field. Rooster spotted other birds: all of them outdated, but immaculate. The engine died away with a slow wine, the rotors slowed, and Dunbar led them out across the tarmac toward a waiting Jeep. One man stayed behind the wheel, but the passenger got out and walked around to meet them.
“Scarlet,” Deshawn explained quietly before they reached him. He stepped forward to share a hand shake and back slap with the guy, and then said, “Will, this is my old Corps buddy, Rooster. Rooster, Will Scarlet.”
Will was kind of a pretty boy. Tall, but willowy. A headful of shiny dark brown curls that a military man would have buzzed off.
Rooster didn’t know what to make of him. “Hey,” he said, abrupt.
Will stuck out a hand with a smile that was easy and friendly. “Hey, man. Deshawn’s told us a lot.”
Rooster accepted the shake with a darted glance to Deshawn.
“Good stuff only,” his friend assured.
Will hooked a thumb toward the Jeep. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the boss man and we’ll go from there.”
Rooster didn’t react; he couldn’t. It felt like his boots had been nailed to the pavement. The impossibility and strangeness of the situation, held at bay by Deshawn’s calming presence, by Dunbar’s, crashed down on him all at once now. He was so completely out of his element, and he couldn’t breathe suddenly.
“Hey,” Deshawn said, softly, and came to stand beside him. Rested a hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“Understatement.”
“But these are good guys.” He squeezed Rooster’s shoulder. “And they can help us get Red back.”
“Us?”
“You and me, brother. Just like old times.”
Rooster finally managed to drag a breath into his lungs. He felt helpless in a way that he hated. Reeling. After everything, after losing Red, this shouldn’t have been the thing that broke him, but he felt fractured. Unfixable and balanced on a knife’s edge.
“Roo,” Deshawn said, and it hurt to remember that the guys in the unit had called him that, mockingly, but not unkind, before it had turned to something sweet in Red’s mouth. “You with me.”
Rooster forced a jerky nod. “Yeah.”
Deshawn gave him a pitying glance that hurt to look at, but nodded. Twitched an encouraging smile. “Let’s go meet Rob and the rest of the boys.”
“Yeah.” He let himself be led.
~*~
The Jeep carried them up a slight rise to what looked like a fort nestled in the shadows of one of the higher peaks. It looked carved into the hilltop, constructed of heavy stone with narrow windows. European in all of its lines. They pulled up to an honest to God – what was it called? – portcullis of heavy iron set in a high, arched opening in the stone wall. The Jeep braked, and the portcullis slid up with a rattle, slow and ponderous. When it had cleared them, their driver piloted them into a large circular chamber with a hard-packed dirt floor. Arched gateways, some open and some sealed with heavy wooden doors, led off in all directions. The driver took the center one, and they plunged into a tunnel with electric lights set at intervals overhead.
Rooster turned to Deshawn in the back seat, cool breeze in his hair, Deshawn’s face flickering in and out of view as they moved under the lights. “What the fuck, man?”
Deshawn was grinning irrepressibly now. “Just wait.”
They ended up in an underground garage full of Jeeps, trucks, Humvees, and a few sleek sports cars Rooster was too distressed to stop and admire.
“Is this a castle?” Rooster murmured, voice bland with shock, mostly jokin
g.
“That was the idea,” Will said as he climbed out. “It’s not as old as a real one, obviously, only about a hundred years.”
He was serious, Rooster realized.
The driver stayed behind in the garage. When Rooster tried to grab his bags, the man waved him off and said they would be taken care of. Feeling naked without thirty pounds of guns slung over his shoulder, Rooster followed Deshawn and Will to a sleek, modern elevator that glided smoothly upward. They emerged in a room that overlooked the courtyard beyond, and, above the crenellations atop the gate, the mountains beyond, still wreathed in mist.
The first thing Rooster noticed was the massive computer set-up in the center of the room, a wide, half-circle desk with an array of flat-screen monitors spread out across its surface, some showing maps, others long strings of text, and three devoted to black-and-white security feeds.
The second thing he noticed was the man – the boy – sitting in the swivel chair. He was turned to the left, looking at the monitor there, and Rooster got a look of an almost dainty profile, a cap of straw-colored hair that fell past small ears; narrow shoulders, and wrists, and ankles, where his skinny jeans didn’t quite reach to the tops of his sneakers. He wore an oversized hoodie and too many leather bracelets. He didn’t look up when they entered.
“Much,” Will called as they approached the desk. “Where’s Rob?”
The kid didn’t look up. “Out.” His accent marked him as British, too. He blew his hair out of his face and tapped something out on the keyboard.
Will sighed, and Rooster had the impression they’d done this same routine a thousand times. “Where’s John?”
“With Rob.”
“Much,” Will repeated, firmer this time. Rooster realized that was the kid’s name.
The boy – Much – sighed elaborately and turned a bored look on them. “They’re on the way back.” His gaze slid over Rooster. “Who’s the side of beef?”
“Rooster Palmer,” Rooster said stupidly. “You let kids work in your company?” he asked Will.
Much narrowed his eyes; a laughable show of threat.
Will grimaced and said, “We try not to use the K-word.”
“Fuck you,” Much said, and turned back to the computer. “Here’s Rob.”
On the screen, the portcullis went up and two figures on horseback rode into the courtyard.
Without meaning to, Rooster walked deeper into the room, past the desk and right up to the window to get a better look.
“Oy. What’s he doing?”
“It’s fine.”
Much and Will, he registered, but his attention was on the courtyard and the circling riders.
They’d trotted in, and the horses were excited; tossing their heads and tugging at the bits. Not fractious, but still full of energy from the ride. Both were big-boned, heavy-legged draft types. And their riders:
Both in those awkward skintight English riding pants and tall black boots, and dark green jackets with hoods. One, the larger of the two, carried a rifle in a scabbard strapped to his back like a sword. And the other had a longbow and a quiver of arrows.
Something tickled at the back of Rooster’s mind, a tense crawling sensation that left him suppressing a shudder.
Deshawn came to stand beside him.
“That’s your boss? The one with the bow?” Somehow, he knew that was the case.
“Yep, that’s Rob,” Deshawn said, and the tickling in Rooster’s head intensified. There was something in his friend’s voice – not smugness, but a secret barely held in check.
Rooster couldn’t see the speakers set in the walls around the courtyard, but he heard the crackle and then the distorted echo of a voice over a sound system; it was Much – he could heard him right behind him, too. “We’ve got company, Rob. Get up here.”
The man with the bow swung off his horse, smiling, and waved up at the window with a gloved hand. Rooster saw his mouth form the words, Just a second.
Someone came out on foot to take the horses. The other rider, Rooster noted, was huge. No wonder they’d ridden Percherons.
By the time the sound of footfalls crossed the threshold, the tickling in Rooster’s mind had become an awful scratching. He was missing something here; something everyone else wanted to smile about.
“So this must be Rooster,” yet another British-accented voice said, and Rooster turned.
The man they’d all called Rob was unremarkable. At first glance. Pleasant-faced, but not distracting in any way. But the longer Rooster stared at him – his easy smile, the copper flash or his hair when he pushed his hood back – the more he started to think that behind the camouflage of vagueness lurked something foxy and sharp. His eyes were bright, and his canine teeth were just a little too sharp. When he strolled into the room, seeming unconcerned, it was with the coiled grace of a predator. Under his loose green jacket, there was a soldier’s body, ready for battle.
And his hair. The light hit it just right and it was red. For a moment, Rooster’s breath caught. Could he…? But no. It wasn’t the same shade as Red’s. A darker russet, with lots of brown. He wore it longer than military regulation; it clung to the sweat at his temples.
He’d never met the man in his life, but there was something almost familiar about him. Forget itching; there were warning sirens going off in his brain now.
“Pleasure to meet you, Rooster.” He stuck out his hand; freckles across the knuckles, old, hard calluses on the palm and fingers. He wore a three-fingered archery glove. “I’m Captain Locksley, but all the boys just call me Rob. Welcome to Lionheart.”
And then it all clicked into place. Some tiny scrap of schoolboy knowledge finally fitting the pieces together: Will Scarlet. Much. John. Rob Locksley.
His mouth felt numb. It was hard to work his tongue. He asked, “Where’s Friar Tuck?”
Rob laughed, delighted. “Sleeping, I expect. He does a lot of that when he’s got into the good wine.” His eyes danced; they were green, a deep forest green. “You figured it out quicker than I thought.”
Processing all of this was impossible. He turned to find Deshawn smiling at him.
“Your boss is Robin Hood,” he deadpanned.
Deshawn shrugged. “Again: your girl shoots fire out of her hands.”
Very true.
Rooster turned back to the man – the legend – in question. Still smiling kindly at him. Slowly, he reached out and took the offered shake.
Rob gave him a firm grip and then let go. “Alright. Someone said something about staging a rescue?”
39
“There have always been groups like the Institute,” Rob said from the head of a conference table that looked very much like it had come from the Middle Ages. On the stone walls around them hung crimson banners stitched with golden, rampant lions. Rooster had a vague idea what they were all about, part of the business name no less, but he’d been lucky to figure out Robin Hood on his own. No doubt someone would fill him in at some point.
“But the Ingraham Institute,” Rob continued, “is the first one to have government funding and total protection from all the alphabet agencies.” He turned to his right. “Much?”
The kid, face invisible save for a narrow sliver of nose and a corner of an eye through his pale hair, tapped something on the laptop in front of him and an overhead projector whirred to life. An image appeared on the wall behind Rob’s chair: an old black-and-white photo of an utilitarian building in the snow, a smiling man in a lab coat standing in front of it.
“Dr. Charles Ingraham,” Rob said, gesturing behind him to the photo. “He was the first notable American to use medical science to try to explain supernatural phenomenon. Thousands had done it before him, all the way back to the beginning, but he had a grant from Harvard and was performing experiments on wolves in his school-provided labs.”
Much made a disgusted noise.
“Wolves?” Rooster asked.
Rob’s pleasant expression grew wry. “I’ll get to that.
But be warned: you aren’t going to believe it. Okay, so, Ingraham. One of his lab rats was Russian, so he convinced the university, and eventually the damn president, to send him to Stalingrad as part of the Lend-Lease program the US had with the Soviets.”
Rooster nodded. That at least made some real-world sense.
“He’d been in contact with a man named Philippe being kept on retainer by Stalin. It was all very convoluted – a whole anti-Soviet White plot – and at the end of it, Dr. Ingraham was killed in a fire. But not before obtaining video and photo and biological evidence that werewolves exist, can be created, and can be used to wake and assist vampires.”
Rooster stared at him.
“I know,” Rob said, growing serious. He braced his elbows on the table, hands linked as he leaned toward Rooster imploringly. “It sounds completely crazy, no doubt to a military man like yourself. But here I sit. In the flesh. And Deshawn tells me your Red is a mage.”
Rooster swallowed three times, and finally picked up the water bottle that had been set in front of him before the meeting. “She,” he said, hesitant, after he’d had a sip. “She has…these powers.”
“When you came home from Iraq, you could barely move,” Deshawn said levelly from across the table. “Red put her hands on you, and look at you now; you’re bigger than you ever were on active duty.”
“I got better.” A weak protest. A false one, he knew.
Rooster gripped the water bottle hard in his left hand – his bad hand – and felt the plastic crumple. Water droplets spilled over his knuckles. The pain was only a low buzz. She hadn’t healed him in the traditional sense, but she’d pushed the pain back and let his body heal itself.
“The more magical technology becomes, the less humans are willing to believe in actual magic,” Rob said.
Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2) Page 38
