Desolate Mantle (Street Games Book 2)

by L. K. Hill

  Tonight was not a night to focus on the weather.

  Josie’s men were expecting her. Unlike the nights she came to watch his family, tonight she travelled through the most obvious channels, walking in the middle of the street where she would be immediately seen. When she reached the correct street, she thought she’d have to stop and tell one of the gun-toting gangsters who she was, but they waved her through, looking bored.

  When she reached the front of the residence, four men not bothering to hide their .45s, held up their hands to indicate she needed to stop and surrounded her. Only then did Josie appear at the open door, though she hadn’t seen anyone send him a message.

  “So,” Josie said in his thick Caribbean accent. “Here you are.”

  She didn’t answer, just looked at him levelly.

  “Are you armed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “With what?”

  “I have a .380 under my left arm and a knife at each ankle.” She kept her voice level.

  “Is dat all?” his eyebrows went up.

  “Extra magazines in my back pocket,” she said with a shrug.

  “Not much for a little t’ing like you,” he said, chuckling softly, though his smile never touched his eyes. Hard eyes, those. The kind that never twinkled, day or night.

  “I didn’t think it would be proper to bring more to a job interview.”

  His eyebrows rose higher, though the amusement remained. The guards around her shifted, oozing danger. They had weapons they knew how to use, and were unfailingly loyal to Josie. That much she’d gathered during her reconnaissance.

  “So…” Josie moved until he stood toe-to-toe with Kyra. He towered, head and shoulders over her, but she didn’t bother to look up. She’d already established that she wasn’t afraid to look him in the eye, and didn’t want to make him angry. “You want a job,” he said from above. He tilted her chin up with his long, slender forefinger until she looked him in the eye and arched an eyebrow.

  “I’d like the chance to prove I could be valuable to your operation,” Kyra said.

  “Do you?” He stepped back and looked her up and down lasciviously before turning his back on her. “Here, in de Slip Mire, most women would sell deir bodies for da right fee. Dey make poor workers. Too easily manipulated. No loyalty.”

  “I’m not from Abstreuse,” Kyra said quickly, hoping the fact that she’d waited until the end of his sentence to speak was enough to not sound like she’d cut him off. “And I’m no hooker. Never have been, never will be.” She let an edge of indignation slip into her voice.

  Josie studied her—her face this time—his eyes weighing, calculating. “Terribly intelligent, aren’t you?” he said finally. “You have a head for business. For people.”

  Kyra dropped her eyes and lowered her voice so he would barely be able to hear it, yet she kept her tone firm. “I know how to survive.”

  “Dat’s as may be.” Josie sighed, then signaled the guards. They slammed her against the outer brick of the residence, hard enough to skin her palms. Their rough hands patted her down, removed her weapons, and dug into her flesh, looking for anything she might be trying to hide. Of course, they wouldn’t find anything.

  Cheek pressed against the cold brick, Kyra waited for them to finish, noting that they took their time about it. Something caught her eye in the distance. Down the street, farther than Josie’s guards stood, two people emerged from an alley. One was a man, the other a woman. They glanced toward Josie’s guards, then turned in the opposite direction and walked quickly away. They probably hadn’t realized how near to Josie’s residence they were. Anyone who lived in Abstreuse for more than a day recognized guards that worked for the Sons of Ares, and made sure never to cross them.

  Something about the couple struck Kyra as strange, though. The woman was tall. Her long pants gleamed dully in the red streetlights, as if they’d once been shimmery, but had faded. The woman’s dark hair looked short. The way it bounced made Kyra think some kind of barrette or hair claw held it in place, which may have cloaked its true length. But the man held most of Kyra’s attention. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He wore shorts that cut off above his knee, leaving most of his legs bare. Scanty clothing considering the chill in the air. It wasn’t yet freezing, but the autumn air left most people dressed in long pants and long-sleeve shirts. And something hung down his back. A do-rag, perhaps?

  A cold, oily feeling trickled into her stomach and she peered harder. No. Hair. Kyra gasped when the image of the man solidified in her mind enough for her to grasp it. Waist-length, bushy hair hung down his back.

  The guard finished the pat-down and slugged Kyra in the back, pushing her toward the door, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the two retreating figures. It was him. It had to be. If the woman was a hooker—and by the dingy, once-glitzy pants, she surely was—this could be the same man who’d killed Mallory and Janny. And possibly Marna.

  He might kill this woman.

  “What’s taking so long?” Josie’s voice thundered, and Kyra gasped. She stood at the doorway to his dwelling with her hands on either side of the door frame, peering down the street. Josie stood at the end of a short, narrow entryway glowering at her.

  “I…um…just—”

  “Have you changed your mind about da job?” he asked, walking slowly toward her.

  Kyra’s resolve immediately solidified. This was the only viable way she’d found into the gang. Her chance to find Manny. It wouldn’t take long to find out what Josie wanted her to do. Surely the woman would be okay until then. Of course she would. She had to be.

  “Not at all,” she said firmly.

  “What were you staring at?” Josie asked, joining her in the doorway.

  Kyra opened her mouth to say ‘nothing,’ but Josie’s expression told her it wouldn’t be enough for him. He wanted not only absolute truth, but absolute transparency. “I just…saw something strange…in the darkness. It’s gone, now.”

  “Ah yes,” Josie leaned his head and neck out of the door, resting his shoulder on the frame, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Dere are strange t’ings out dere in de dark. You be careful, girl. I might be one of dem.”

  Kyra met his gaze levelly. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes when he turned back into the house. He was trying to intimidate her, and she probably should be intimidated by him—she’d certainly never want to meet him alone in a dark alley—but at the moment all his words did was annoy her. So Josie would take any opportunity to try and intimidate her. Noted.

  Forcing herself to keep her gaze straight ahead and not glance toward the retreating couple one last time, Kyra stepped through the door.

  The inside of Josie’s dwelling was an all-out contradiction. Both posh and low-class at the same time, dirty walls framed dark hallways, all with either filthy, gash-filled flooring, or no flooring at all. In contrast, some of the rooms she glanced into as she passed had been renovated with fresh paint, thick carpeting, and expensive furnishings. As if Josie wanted the house to feel run-down, but in the rooms where he sat and gave orders, he’d made himself a king.

  Kyra couldn’t concentrate fully on her surroundings, though. Her brain made deductions, facts to be filed away and examined later, but they floated distantly. She couldn’t stop thinking about the couple she’d seen outside. A heavy feeling settled into her stomach, not unlike the fearful one she’d had the night she’d observed Janny ahead of her and ran back to her hotel, only to learn later that the woman had been murdered just after that.

  Kyra followed Josie into a massive room—she thought perhaps it had been two but a wall had been knocked down to make one huge space. On one side of the room, an oak mantle framed a fireplace that looked like it had been cold for decades. Josie took the only chair in the room, a heavy wooden monstrosity he managed to make look like a throne, and jammed a joint between his lips.

  He lit it and the sickly smell of pot filling the air, his yellow eyes darted to her. She suppressed
a shiver.

  As Josie spoke, the joint bounced up and down. “De assignment I have for you is simple. Jerome Dellaire.” He gazed at her expectantly.

  Kyra frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  “Jerome Dellaire. You’ve not heard da name?”

  Kyra shook her head silently.

  “Strange, for one who claims to know dis city. He’s somet’ing of a staple among de Mirelings. No matter. I want you to find out everyt’ing dere is to know about him. Report back to me in one week.”

  He said it so dismissively that Kyra couldn’t keep her eyebrows from rising. “You want me to spy on someone?”

  Josie shrugged. “De only use I can make of you at da moment will be for acquiring information.”

  “I can do other things,” Kyra said irritably. Too irritably.

  Josie’s eyes flashed. “Dat remains to be seen. You want me to consider you for a job? Dis is what I want you to do. If you don’t report back, don’t let me or my men see you on da street. Or no one else will see you dere. Ever. Again.”

  Kyra told herself to be calm. To focus. She should be watching Josie closely, mentally recording every glance and piece of body language. Looking for clues to what he wanted; to what game he was playing with her.

  But she couldn’t focus. The woman she’d seen in the street. The man with her. That woman was in danger. Kyra could feel it. Was there still time? Could the man be getting reading to kill a third hooker right now?

  No! Focus, Kyra. What does Josie want?

  He wanted information. A simple assignment. Deceptively so. Josie wouldn’t have given her an assignment she could easily complete. Either he wanted specific information about this Dellaire person—and if she didn’t produce it, he would decide she’d failed—or the entire thing was a trick. Perhaps Dellaire wasn’t even real, and Josie wanted to see how she’d handle being given an assignment impossible to complete. If that was the case, she had no idea how to answer him.

  Josie’s perceptive eyes studied her in silence. The thought that he was not at all fooled by her swam across her consciousness. A distant thought, though. Normally his scrutiny would have unnerved her, but she was too distracted at the moment. She needed to get out into the Mire and chase that couple down. She could be wrong. Maybe they were just another couple looking for a shadowy place to do their business…but Kyra didn’t think so. The panicky feeling gripped her too strongly. She had to consciously not tap her toe. If Josie wanted nothing else, why didn’t he dismiss her?

  Then it occurred to her that he’d spoken last. He was waiting on her response. This was not the kind of meeting she should be having while distracted.

  “I understand,” she kept her voice level, much calmer than she actually felt. “How much time do I have?”

  “Two weeks,” Josie answered, lips still smashed around the joint. “Of course you may return earlier if you do figure it out faster dan I tink you will.”

  Kyra nodded. “Two weeks, then.”

  Josie took the joint delicately from between his lips and gave her a smile that was downright chilling. “I look forward to it.”

  Josie’s men escorted her out. They tossed her gun, ammo and knives disdainfully onto the street. She forced herself to pick them up and walk calmly away. Josie could surely tell she was distracted, and the last thing she wanted to do was to give him more clues.

  Once she made it past his guards—about the spot she’d seen the couple walking—she ducked into the shadows of an alley and ran. Zigzagging up and down the passages, she searched systematically, moving away from Josie’s part of town. Their meeting had lasted long enough for the couple to be far away, but a hooker and a john wouldn’t have run like she was. If Kyra could find them, perhaps she could keep this hooker, whoever she was, from becoming a victim. She pushed her aching legs to go faster.

  Right, left, forward, back. Where were they? They had to be somewhere. Ignoring her burning lungs, she pushed deeper and deeper into the Mire, eyes searching frantically. The darkness deepened the further she went away from the busier streets. Kyra’s eyes adjusted quickly.

  As Kyra made her way down a particularly long stretch of alley, aiming for the turn she could see in the distance, a silhouette slid out of a wall, or so it seemed, and planted itself in front of her. She pulled up short, panting.

  She waited. Though she was no longer running, her heart rate didn’t slow.

  The silhouette—obviously a person, but head and shoulders taller than her—merely stood, gazing down at her. A cold, creeping feeling began on the surface of Kyra’s skin and worked its way deeper. A noise issued from the silhouette, half hiss, have guttural growl. Kyra had heard that noise before, though always from a distance. Prowlers.

  Kyra studied her surroundings for the first time. Where was she? She’d been so focused on searching every cranny as swiftly as possible for the hooker and her john, she hadn’t been paying attention to how deep she’d come.

  The darkness was nearly complete here. The Mire’s red light didn’t filter into this alley. Noises of people and voices and shoes on pavement were non-existent here. Only darkness, the silence lived here. That, and the hissing.

  The silhouette stepped toward her. Kyra stepped back. It felt like being stalked by a wild animal. A second step, and Kyra moved back again, breathing so quickly she felt light-headed.

  The silhouette was going to pounce. She could feel him coiling energy, like an elastic being pulled back before release.

  Kyra spun and bolted.

  The sound of shoes on pavement at her heels and breathing above and behind her spurred her on.

  Taking long strides back the way she’d come, she soon reached the turn. She had no idea which way to go. The light seemed brighter to the right than to the left. She followed it.

  Turn, turn. It got lighter. The shoes pounded the pavement faster than hers did, and the breathing sounded like it was at her shoulder now.

  Another turn. In the distance, she could see light. A car passed an alley opening. M street. She could see it. At least six intersecting alleys passed between her and the opening. How deep had she gone before the Prowler spotted her?

  Kyra pounded forward, digging her shoes into the pavement and trying to spring forward with each step. Her side hurt. Her lungs burned. The breathing behind her was practically in her ear now.

  She passed the sixth alley from M street, which meant she was five layers deep. It still seemed so far away. Something brushed the nape of her neck. Fingers perhaps. She pressed forward, ignoring the stitch in her side and the fire in her calves.

  Four layers deep. Sadie said the Prowlers lived beyond four layers. Kyra didn’t think this guy would stop until she hit three at least. Almost there. Ten feet from the third layer. Five feet. Two feet.

  A hand closed around her wrist. The instant he had her, he threw his entire weight backward to halt them. Kyra was jerked so violently, every muscle in her shoulder instantly screamed with strain.

  With her other hand, Kyra reached down, raising her knee, until she found the hilt of the knife strapped to her right ankle. She hadn’t wanted to expend the energy to reach for it before. Better to outrun him.

  Now, as he swung her toward him, she swung her arm out in an arc and brought the knife down.

  In these somewhat lighter alleys, she could make out more of him, though still not coloring. He had high cheek bones and deep-set eyes. Her knife left a slash across one of those cheekbones, reaching from the outer curve of his eye to his upper lip.

  He gasped in pain. He didn’t let her go, but his grip on her wrist did loosen. She slashed at him again, frantically wiggling her wrist in his grasp.

  This time he did let go. Kyra spun and bolted again.

  Gasping for breath, she crossed into the third layer of the Mire. She slowed then—no sounds of pursuit came from behind this time—and had moved well into the second layer before she slowed enough to turn.

  Nothing. She could see farther than where he’d grabbed her
and he wasn’t there anymore. He must have turned back. She would have heaved a sigh of relief if she hadn’t already been gasping for breath.

  She wasn’t about to hang out either. Turning, she power-walked toward M Street. She wanted to be where people were, no matter who. When she passed the last alley between her and the busy street—only one layer deep now—she realized she still held her ankle knife. Blood glittered darkly on the blade. She couldn’t walk out onto M Street brandishing it.

  Raising her knee, she returned it to the sheath secured to her ankle. Drops of blood spackled her hand as well. She wiped them on her dark pants and moved toward M Street again.

  Thud. Whatever slammed into her back was heavy enough to knock the air from her lungs, even as it slammed her, belly first, into the pavement. She struck her chin and her head rebounded. Lights and stars swam before her eyes.

  The lights and sounds of M Street reared before her, less than a block away, but they were blurry.

  Something wrapped firmly around her ankle. The lights receded as it dragged her backward. “I’ve heard stories of them dragging people into the darkness…”

  Kyra grasped with her hands, groping for any handhold or weapon. She found only pavement and tiny pebbles. Her head began to clear as she struggled. Her gun. Where was it? She could no longer feel it scraping against her underarm. He must have taken it when he landed on her.

  Sucking in her stomach, she flipped onto her back. She needed to reach one of her knives. Sure enough, the leather gun holster flattened against her back, empty.

  She fought to reach her ankles, but the Prowler pulled her too quickly into deeper murkiness of the Mire. He hadn’t changed the way he held her leg when she flipped, so his momentum kept rolling her back toward the belly-down position. It took all of her concentration to fight against the pain of a twisted knee and stay on her back. Besides, though her head had mostly cleared, lights and objects still passed beside her in a blur. Her limbs didn’t move as dexterously as they usually did.