Creed exited the passenger side. I grabbed two heavy duty flashlights from the glove box before getting out. Reaching back in, I retrieved my sidearm from under the seat. It was better he didn’t know I was carrying. I was a consultant, not a cop (as he loved to remind me), so I hid the piece behind my back and covered the handle with my jacket.
As I closed the door, I eyed the crows circling the crumbling tower in the center of the complex. Their bodies glided, dark against monotonous gray clouds. Sheets of aluminum siding dangled loose, flapping and banging in the wind; hammering out an ominous drumbeat.
Evans would have been salivating.
No vehicles were in sight. Evidence of prior traffic had been carved into the mud, but both the tire tracks and footprints were dry.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a while.” I slapped a flashlight in his hand as we started toward the door. “Tell me again why we’re not taking backup?”
“You want backup? I thought you preferred to work without witnesses.”
“I do,” I said, refusing to acknowledge his sarcasm. “But this complex is huge. It’ll take all afternoon to search it on our own. We should at least call Evans.”
Creed hesitated. My relationship with Evans bothered him. I’d granted the younger man a VIP, all-access pass to the secret portion of my life—while I’d barely let Creed in the door. But, resentfulness aside, Alex Creed wasn’t stupid.
“Fine.” He grabbed the phone from his jacket pocket. “But I don’t think he’s in yet. His girlfriend was stranded.”
“His what?”
The phone at his ear, Creed glanced at me. “Her car broke down.”
“Oh,” I said, flat and far more nonchalant than I was. Unless he’d been hiding her somewhere, Evans didn’t have a girlfriend. Then where the hell is he?
“Son of a bitch.” Creed glared at his cell phone. “I don’t have a signal.”
I checked mine. “No bars. Something must be jamming it.”
“More like someone.” Creed emptied the holster at his side. He clicked on his flashlight and approached the entrance. “Let’s go see if they’re home.”
“You’re still going in?”
“Of course I’m going in. Stop acting like you’re not.” Creed pushed open the door with a creak of rusty hinges and the nauseating odor of old death. He stepped inside and held the door open for me.
I stared at it.
There was a good chance the place was empty. There was also a chance it was overrun with things Creed wasn’t ready for. He still saw humans as the superior species. He hadn’t been humbled yet by the sheer power some creatures were capable of.
“Alex,” I said sharply, making him look at me. “What you saw the victims of Chrysalis do was nothing. There are things out there able to kill you with a glance. Wield fire. Spit poison. There are—”
“I get it, Nite. I’ll be careful.”
Nodding, I moved in. The door fell closed and murk descended. Tall shapes cast unhelpful shadows. Many of the window panes were missing or cracked. Those remaining were coated with a thick film of neglect, allowing in no more than a washed-out suggestion of light. Rain had infiltrated the numerous holes and cracks in the structure, creating stagnant puddles on the pitted, concrete floor. Not all of them were water. Layers of trauma floated at my feet, ranging from fresh to decades-old.
I put up a sturdy, mental barrier. I didn’t have time for a psychic ambush.
A switch dangled from the wall behind me. I flipped it a few of times, more out of habit than any misconception it might work. The last time, a spark of electricity jumped onto my hand, but the lights stayed off. There was power somewhere in the building.
Turning my flashlight on, something interrupted the beam and sent it bouncing back into my eyes. I lowered it slowly, off a wide sheet of heavy plastic hanging in the entryway. Scratched, dirty, and partially disintegrated, the floor-to-ceiling curtain was split down the center. Creed gripped both sides. The rings at the top slid with a scrape of metal on metal as he opened the curtain wide, releasing a wave of stench that forced us both to turn away.
Creed bent over, gagging. It was a natural reaction. We were breathing in the kind of putrid, cloying smell that climbed inside and festered; worming its way deeper; feeding fears and haunting dreams. I gave him a minute and stepped through onto the main floor.
Walking softly on the rickety, metal, drainage grates, I peered up the stairwell on the left wall. It was empty. The door at the top was closed. No footprints disturbed the dust on the stairs. Satisfied, I crept over to the concrete dividers on the right. Behind the half-walls, doors hung from their hinges. Hallways loomed, dark and quiet. Concrete corridors and stairs filled with leaves, garbage, and rusted tools led to dark alcoves with padlocked metal doors.
There were too many ways in and out. Too many shadows. Too many places I couldn’t see. I didn’t like it. Specifically, I didn’t like Creed being here. But there was no way he was sitting this one out. All I could do was keep a close eye for lurking monsters.
I checked the peaked ceiling first. It was the perfect place for a creature to roost. But other than a few birds, nothing living was hiding among the piping, old duct-work, aluminum shafts, and conveyor belts. Dried and split with age, the rubber belts stretched down to empty out onto long tables, scratched and coated in filth. Rows of chains and sturdy hooks dangled from low-hanging pipes. The dark stains on the hooks were the wrong color to be rust.
At the end of the row was another curtain. The top was lower than the first, just over my height. Lifting onto my tiptoes to peer over the top, I found more of the same: curtains, chains, hooks, dirty tables, and old conveyor belts. High-walled, metal troughs ran beneath each set of hooks. I squatted to examine the one at my feet. Bits of leaves floated in the red scum resting in the furrow.
Slipping on a glove, I dipped a finger in the soup. It was cold and watered down. I glanced at Creed as he approached. “It’s blood. Diluted from the rain and far from fresh.”
He shined his light into the trough. “Human?”
“I can test it to find out. My kit is in the car.”
“Let’s clear the place first.”
Creed parted the next row of plastic with the muzzle of his weapon. The sheet settled into place behind him, and I stared at the drop on my glove, second-guessing my thoughts on a death-glimpse. I rubbed my fingers together. It wasn’t much. But it was doubtful I could pull one off without Creed noticing. It was safer to come back alone.
He called to me in a loud whisper. “You wanted fresh?”
I stood. “I didn’t say I wanted it…”
His voice had come from deeper in. Pushing through the first curtain, I spotted the muted beam of his light through the curtain and kept going. As I moved through one sheet, after another, after another, I made my way back across the main floor. Though his light was getting brighter and the shape of him through the plastic more defined, I wasn’t following him so much as the odor. The copper-smell was ripe, mixed with other, sour, pungent fluids and excrement.
I found him on the other side of the last curtain. Everything we’d seen so far was dilapidated, creepy, and old. But it was all decoy. Our suspects were banking on any curious locals who poked their head in getting fooled (or spooked) early on. There were other buildings in the complex, plus plenty of rooms and stairwells in this building for the brave to explore. Few teenagers looking for ghosts would patiently push through row upon row of empty chains and hooks, all the way to the back—to discover the slaughterhouse wasn’t as vacant as it appeared. Just like the steel factory. I was sensing a trend.
Here, where the main floor attached to the rest of the complex, is where the action started, with clean tables, a trough free of debris, and red dripping through the grated floor. Even the hooks were in use. And Creed was right, their occupants were fresh.
Walking the long row of carcasses, with his face buried in the crook of his arm, he paused in the middle to toss
me a gruff, “What the hell am I looking at?”
There was nothing to use for a visual ID. Large, humanoid and skinned raw, the limbless, headless subjects resembled slabs of meat more than bodies. “They’re not all the same species. You can see the difference in their bone structure and size. That’s all I can say without an autopsy or a DNA test.”
“I thought they were operating on their victims. You can’t make precise, surgical incisions on a body swinging from a hook.”
“No, but you can precisely take what you want first,” I motioned to the table behind us, “then slaughter the rest. The question is: why? For the meat? For an easy disposal?”
“Maybe both.”
“It can’t be that simple. We’re missing something.”
“Whatever’s behind this, whatever the motive is—”
“I can’t fucking see it.”
“Neither can I,” he said, his expression softening. Then determination swept in and hardened it again. “But we will.”
We moved down the line. The body on the last hook was different than the rest. Human, yet to be skinned or beheaded, he was in his mid-to-late 40’s. Dressed in jeans and a plain, gray sweatshirt, the man had a gunshot wound in his chest and a baseball cap on his head. The brim was pulled low over his battered face. Like the others, he hadn’t been dead long.
“Looks like we found our driver,” Creed said.
“He does match the description.” Perfectly.
“Humans kill with guns, Nite. Is it possible one of us discovered what’s out there and decided to do something about it?”
“By chopping up every creature in the city and disposing of them in random ways? Sure. It’s possible. But humans aren’t the only ones that can pull a trigger.”
Creed’s blank stare said he needed more.
I didn’t have it.
“Why don’t you check upstairs?” he said. “I’ll see where this goes.”
I stared past him into the darkness of the open hallway in the back wall—ready to argue against separating—when a light flicked on at the far end. A shadow, then a man, rounded the corner. The hem of his rubber apron slapped his knees as he walked. Staring down at the bin in his hands, he didn’t notice us right away. As he did, he dropped the container with a startled, “Oh, shit!” After a fast, nervous glance between us, he turned and ran.
Creed hissed. “I got him.”
He took off in pursuit, and I stayed to examine the contents of the bin. A full jawbone and several ounces of a milky white fluid had spilled out onto the floor. The teeth were flat and wide in the back, tapering to fine, curved fangs in the front. Aswang?
I lifted the jaw from the floor. It was tempting. Creed wasn’t in sight. I might have time for a vision. But the aswang was a victim. I needed a different point of view.
I glanced back at the human on the hook. If he was one of them, he knew things. He’d seen the killers’ faces. He knew their species. His was the death-glimpse I needed.
Gunfire shattered my thoughts. Shouts echoed back through the corridor.
Standing, I dropped the jaw and reached for my weapon. A longer barrage of bullets followed, as I tore down the hall. After the turn, a straightaway, and another turn, the passage fed into a covered walkway to an adjacent building. The power was on. There were multiple halls and rooms, empty offices with faded posters and dusty furnishings. Hulking machinery sat dormant in the corners. Dank stairs led down into darkness.
Creed must have been moving fast to make it so far ahead.
I was debating a direction when shadows moved at the bend ahead. Bullets shattered the sheetrock with a spray of dust, and Creed stumbled into view. A growing, red stain darkened the sleeve of his jacket as he backed up and fired down the corridor at someone out of view.
Lowering the weapon, he breathed out a pained, “Fuck.”
I ran up and tugged him out of the line of fire. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.” He yanked away with a wince. “Stay here. I’m going to get that son of a bitch.”
I watched him charge down the hall. “Stay here? Who the hell does he think he’s talking to?”
With a quick check around the corner, I trailed the sounds of struggle to a storage room. The automatic on the floor inside the door was Creed’s. I grabbed it. Empty.
He was grappling with the same aproned man, near the back, amid a congestion of work tables and storage crates. Creed snuck in a good punch. In retaliation, his opponent shoved a finger into the wound on Creed’s arm.
I let out a sharp whistle and threw the weapon in my hand. The muzzle struck the man’s face as his head whipped around. Taking advantage of the moment, Creed tackled him.
It would have made a great story for the team—if it had ended there.
The clamor of Creed’s brawl masking all other sound, I didn’t realize anyone else had come in, until a man’s tight embrace locked on my right arm. I squirmed, and we both hit the wall. My resulting tumble was cut short as he wrenched my arm up behind my back. Muscles strained, on the verge of tearing. He jerked harder, and I lost my weapon. A large shoe kicked it out of view.
Son of a bitch. I didn’t even get off a single shot.
Briefly pushing out a patch of scales, I rammed my head back into my captor and broke his hold. From the sound of it, I broke his nose, too. Turning, I backed farther in, giving myself room as I took his measure—and the three men running in behind him. Human, without a mask in sight, each one was more muscular than the next. All were in flannel shirts and blood-splattered aprons. Two were carrying cleavers.
“Put the knives down,” I said, as they advanced. “We don’t have to do this.”
“You’re trespassing,” one of them replied, his threat diminished by a prominent lisp. “We can do whatever we want to you.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“And I don’t think I don’t give a fuck.”
The responding round of snickers from his friends cut off at an abrupt thud and crash, as Creed and his opponent collided with a wooden shelf and knocked it to the floor. Scrambling off the busted panels, both men lunged for the same broken slab of wood. Each seized an end, and their struggle continued.
I wanted to help, but I had my own troubles as the mouthy goon stepped up and threw the first punch. I leaned to the side, evading his fist. Grabbing his extended arm with a smile, I slammed the heel of my boot down on his knee. His cry became a grunt, then a strained gasp, as I snapped his arm with an unpleasant crunch. A few punches later, and he was out cold. I tossed him to the floor.
The odor of human sweat spiked. I pivoted left with a quick kick. It was a solid hit to the stomach, but the muscle-bound man didn’t flinch. I tried again, and he seized my ankle with a cocky laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re too slow.”
“Am I?” I pulled the knife from my belt and shoved it in his chest. Pain loosened his grip. As my leg slid free, I caught the fast-approaching glint of light on steel in the corner of my eye. Cleaver I thought, bending out of its path. The blade whipped closer. I reached to grab the handle—and missed it by a mile as pain blasted across the back of my head. Impact threw me onto my hands and knees. Panting, overcome with a nauseating throb in my skull (courtesy of whatever hit me), blood dribbled from my hair to paint circles on the floor.
The circles blurred in and out… In and out…
Blinking, straining to clear my vision, I noticed the dark, unmistakable shape of my weapon, half under a shelf, two feet away. Fire’s faster. But how could I explain it?
I lunged for the gun. My hand closed on the grip. I turned to fire and, this time, I caught a glimpse of the weapon coming for me. I scaled my jaw a split second before the rubber mallet made contact. The swift move saved my teeth, but little else. Agony spread across my face, and I slumped onto the floor. My vision was all but gone. I pulled the trigger, anyway.
The first bullet missed. The second ripped through my attacker’s bicep. The third went wild as I
tried—and failed—to stand. I kept firing, but my vision was shot. My hearing had become distant echoes, as I watched Creed duck from the violent swing of a pipe wrench. The heavy tool smashed through the plaster beside him, and I thought, Shift.
I had no choice. The next hit could be his head.
But there was no way Creed would miss a full emergence of scales.
If I do this, my secret is out.
He eluded another swing. I swallowed my dread and let go, but nothing happened. I stayed human. The message to change form got lost somewhere, swept away by the blood pouring from my head. It was warm. Like a blanket in the dark.
I rubbed the frost from the glass. The ice coat was heavy on the mirror, the walls, even the floor. It stung my skin, bit into my lungs as I breathed. Clouds from my trembling lips struck the glass, fogging the small portion of my reflection I’d managed to reveal.
Only, it wasn’t my reflection.
Our height and build were similar, but not exact. Her human skin was the right tone, but her hair was a shade off, the texture different. Hanging straighter than mine ever could, the fine strands shimmered and shifted with some unknown breeze, brushing over the ghosts roosting on her bare shoulders. A hard mix of indifference and superiority jaded her features as the woman admired herself with an aloof, oblivious expression.
She had no idea I was here.
And I have no idea where here is.
Her spacious room, on the other side of the mirror, was stone. Shadows muted the colors and hid most of the furnishings. The door on the wall behind her was familiar, somehow, with rusted bolts and heavy chains.
I watched her from a much smaller space. My room was square and empty, with a single, weak bulb suspended from the ceiling. Cold pumped in from nowhere at a relentless pace. My clothes, a white t-shirt and faded jean jacket, gave no clue as to where I was or where I’d come from—and provided even less heat. The only source of warmth was the pendant around my neck.
I touched the piece, and the eyes of the woman in the mirror snapped to mine. They burrowed in, eager and wild. With a bite of her lip, she placed both palms on the glass between us. I held my breath, expecting her hands to sink through, her long fingers to reach into my world and close around my throat. Instead, they rested on the flat surface. One dark, claw-like nail tapped impatiently as she stared. Watching. Waiting.
Smoke & Mirrors Page 12
