“Were they—”
“Nemesis. Possibly, but much better than the last batch if so.” Franks couldn’t tell Myers about the spirit that was inhabiting the body he’d fought, because to explain Kurst was to explain himself, and there were things that even Myers didn’t need to know. “There were human assassins among the responders. I killed one.”
“STFU?”
“Unknown . . . I’m on the run.” Franks walked through the bushes. He was getting close to the nearest police car. The officer had gotten out and was looking up at the broken window.
“Franks, wait!” Myers sounded unusually desperate. He was normally cool, even in the worst situations, though this situation probably qualified as desperate. “Is Strayhorn okay?”
Why did Myers particularly care about the rookie? “He was shot. Status unknown.”
There was a sudden bright flash, followed an instant later by a roar of sound and the rumble of a shockwave. Franks glanced up to see a fireball rolling out the side of the ninth floor. Sparkles of glass filled the air and fell like rain. Then another explosion ripped through the night, and then another. Those two were close enough that the hot wind ripped the leaves off the bushes around him.
“Explosions. Ninth, third, and first floors,” Franks reported as he kept moving. The blasts weren’t that big, maybe ten pounds of C4 each. Enough to make a real mess of the scene, but not enough to destroy the building. “They’re covering their trail.”
He couldn’t hear Myers’ response because he had a carjacking to attend to. The cop was staring at the destruction. Franks walked out of the bushes and kicked the cop in the stomach. He bent over, automatically retching, so Franks took him by the coat sleeve and slammed him into the side panel hard enough to dent it. The police officer had a triple-retention duty holster to prevent felons from snatching his gun, but Franks knew how to operate the mechanism, so he took the man’s gun, a Glock 9mm, and tossed it on the passenger seat. Then he rolled the groaning cop over and removed his spare magazines from their pouches. He tore his radio off and tossed it into the bushes. Franks got into the cop car, slammed the door, and drove away.
“I’m going after them,” Franks said into the cell phone.
“Don’t, Franks. If Stricken has taken his cold war hot, you need to lay low. Give me a chance to work this out.”
He could have been more concerned about getting himself to safety, but Franks was first and foremost a predator, and running from danger was not nearly as strong an instinct as running after it. Kurst had to exfiltrate somehow. Franks didn’t know what kind of illusion magic they’d been using, but it had been extremely powerful. There had to be limits to it though. He’d injured them, so at minimum their clothing would be bloody and they’d be leaving a blood trail. If they look like the wounded . . .
“I’ll be in touch,” Franks rolled down the window and tossed his phone out.
Franks turned right and kept going around the block. The police band was full of chatter about the incident, but as he suspected the locals were setting up a perimeter. Sadly, somebody must have seen him steal the car, because that came over the radio next, along with the patrol car’s number and a general physical description that must have just been provided by the MCB. Cop cars normally had tracking devices, so they’d be on him in seconds. There was an ambulance ahead. Franks went after it.
The old Crown Vic had a decent engine and he quickly overtook the ambulance. He pulled alongside first, but didn’t recognize the driver. He hoped to sense some tingling of magic, or perhaps the demon prince’s presence, but there was nothing. Franks pulled in front of the ambulance and hit the brakes. The driver barely had time to stop before hitting the police car’s bumper. Franks was out and walking, stolen 9mm leveled on the driver. The paramedic saw him coming and raised his hands.
Franks smashed in the driver’s side window and stuck the Glock in the paramedic’s face. “Whoa, man! I—” but Franks grabbed him by the throat and choked off the response. He stuck his head inside to see in the back, but it was just another startled paramedic and two badly injured MCB employees. Franks let go of him. The paramedic rubbed his throat. “What the hell?”
His wild goose chase had probably put those MCB employees in greater danger, but two lives were nothing compared to what would happen if Kurst reached his goals. “Get them out of here.” He got back in the police car. There were lights in his rearview mirrors. Then he heard the sirens. They had vectored in on him already. Franks gunned it.
There were two cars behind him. Franks had worked in Washington since they’d first drained the marsh, so he knew his way around the city rather well. He also had faster reaction times than a Formula 1 driver, so normally he could probably lose the cops long enough to pick up another ride, but finding Kurst was far more important than his own survival. Franks squealed the tires around a hard corner, down a block, then cut through a park, taking out a bench and a few bushes in the process. That bought him a few seconds out of their visual range. He shut off the headlights and reversed through a narrow alley as the cops’ cars went by, sirens blaring. Franks came out the other side, then went back toward MCB headquarters.
If they weren’t expecting pursuit, then they would want to take one of the fastest routes out. That presented a few options. However, if they were smart, they would want to initially leave in a direction that would make sense to any observers. Which meant they’d be heading toward a hospital. Franks picked the most logical route to the closest hospital and drove as fast as he could. Stealth really wasn’t an option at a hundred miles an hour on surface streets, so he turned on the lights and siren. Franks dodged cars, veering in and out of oncoming traffic as the opportunity presented itself. Only the lack of traffic kept him from killing anyone, though he did hit a bum’s shopping cart. The impact sent the cart flying into hundreds of pieces. He was lucky. Franks considered running over the homeless acceptable collateral damage.
There was an ambulance far ahead of him. Franks killed the lights and siren.
He picked up the radio microphone. “This is Special Agent Franks of the Department of Homeland Security . . .” Which was the ID that he used the most often when forced to work with other agencies. “Convey the following to my agency. I have commandeered a police car and am in pursuit of the real shooter. Bravo seven seven delta green.” That authentication code would be enough to get this incident flagged at the highest levels. Then, even though it wouldn’t make a difference, he had to add “Stay out of my way.”
Closing quickly on the ambulance, Franks kept cars between them. His vehicle was shorter so hopefully they wouldn’t spot him and make a run for it. It was possible this was just another regular ambulance, but it was worth a shot. Franks nearly rear-ended a town car, then slingshotted past it to come up alongside the driver’s side of the speeding ambulance.
The flashing lights provided enough ambient illumination that Franks’ improved vision could easily make out the driver’s features. The face was familiar. He recognized the STFU man. Foster . . .
So this was a Task Force operation. This setup had Stricken’s stink all over it. Franks lifted the police officer’s Glock. To be fair, when they’d spoken in northern Nevada, Franks had warned Foster that the next STFU employee to annoy him would end up in a body bag. Shooting accurately from one moving vehicle to another was difficult in any case, but it was more difficult when you were also driving, but Franks aimed out the passenger side window and opened fire anyway.
Glass shattered. Blood splattered against the inside of the ambulance’s windshield. Franks kept on pulling the trigger as Foster jerked back and forth against his seat belt. Whoever was in the passenger seat grabbed hold of the wheel and they veered off to the side.
Applying the brakes, Franks turned hard and kept after them. The ambulance was ahead of him now. The Glock’s slide was locked back empty, so Franks dropped the mag and steered with his left hand while he put the pistol down and rummaged about on the seat until he found
one of the stolen spare mags. He smacked it in, dropped the slide, brought the pistol up, put the sights into the vague middle of the ambulance and started shooting. The safety glass in front of him puckered into a crystalized mess. He could barely see. Both vehicles were weaving, so Franks made up for accuracy with volume, and he dumped the entire magazine within a few seconds.
It was difficult to see exactly what happened next, but as he was trying to reload again, a delivery truck came out of nowhere. Franks spun the wheel and stomped on the brakes, so he managed to not directly T-bone the truck, but couldn’t avoid all of it. The truck’s back bumper tore through his driver’s side and ripped the door off. The impact was jarring. Glass and debris struck him as the police car went spinning away on screaming tires.
Franks snarled as he brought it out of the slide. Tire smoke floated in the cabin. Something had cut him on the forehead and he was bleeding into one eye, but he could see that the ambulance wasn’t that far away. Its brake lights came on. They were stopping. Franks mashed the accelerator to the floor, intending to ram them. Kurst’s new body was tough, but it probably wouldn’t survive being turned into a red pavement smear. The ambulance doors opened. They were bailing out. Franks calmly reached over and put his seat belt on. He got it up to nearly fifty before the impact.
Only it wasn’t the ambulance.
His first clue that something was wrong was when the air quivered and the ambulance disappeared. It was an illusion. Franks stomped on the brakes, but the second clue came half a second later when the front end of the stolen police car smashed into a brick wall.
* * *
“It’s Foster.”
Stricken had been eagerly awaiting this call. The secure bands were all talking about a massacre at MCB headquarters and most of them were implicating Franks as the perp. There was so much to do. So many plans hinged on Franks being eliminated. This was like Christmas morning. He took the phone from his subordinate and hit the answer button. “Yes, Mr. Foster?”
“Foster’s dead, man! There are cops everywhere!”
“Renfroe?” It was one of his people but he was no operative. Renfroe was a glorified sys-admin who’d been marked by Fey and been lucky enough to end up with useful abilities rather than the normal Fey-related outcome of dead. It was always a roll of the dice what you’d end up with when you pissed off a witch queen. “What happened?”
“Franks shot him in the face. He gut-shot the Spider and she’s squirting green stuff everywhere. I guess he killed some of your other guys inside, maybe, I don’t know. And he messed up two of your weirdos. I didn’t sign up for this. They were killing innocent people!”
“Calm down, Mr. Renfroe . . .” People with functioning moral compasses were such crybabies, but his ability to communicate directly with electronics was invaluable. “This is very important. Did you alter the security footage in the manner I directed?”
“Sure. That was a piece of cake. With the Spider’s magic, I didn’t even have to tweak too much around your killer weirdos. I moved some events in the timeline and—”
“Wonderful. Are my weirdos—as you so eloquently call them—still alive?”
“I don’t see how, but yeah . . .” Renfroe was starting to hyperventilate. “I’m looking at one missing half his face and the other one is picking big chunks of broken glass out of his stomach right now.”
“Then please give the phone to the large white one.”
There was the sound of shaking and rustling from the other end of the line. “Yes?” the First Prototype answered.
“Status?”
He was emotionless in his report. “Our handlers are dead. We are wounded. The primary target’s status is unknown. He was in a car wreck. Local authorities were converging on him when we lost sight.”
Even busted up, it was doubtful that some regular DC cops would be able to take down Franks unless he went willingly, and if Franks went quietly that meant he had plans of his own. “Fuck!” Stricken kicked a wastepaper basket across the room. Everyone in the command center glanced his way in fear. That was an unusual display of emotion from their leader. Stricken took a deep breath and counted to ten. He could hear sirens as background noise on Kurst’s side. “Are you in danger of being spotted?”
“Negative. We are secure.”
He had a pickup team in place. “Don’t move. I’m sending a unit.”
“Requesting permission to pursue the primary, I am still ninety percent combat effective.”
Of course he was. The Nemesis assets were designed to be hard as nails. “Denied. Hold for extraction.” Stricken handed the phone back. That subordinate took their location while Stricken walked over to the nearest monitor. He’d hoped to have Franks nice and dead, not on the run.
However, this was still manageable. There were pros and cons to every outcome. This temporary disappointment was hardly insurmountable. Stricken folded his arms and thought it over while reading the intercepts scrolling across the screen. It made his people uncomfortable when he’d just stand there and watch over their shoulders, but he wasn’t exactly the type of leader who employees invited to their summer barbeques and he was in no danger of ever being gifted a Boss of the Year coffee mug. Stricken considered himself more results oriented.
“Anything?”
“Metro police found the car but no sign of Franks,” said the man Stricken was looming over. “They’ve set up a perimeter and have called in a chopper and a dog team to search for him.”
“MCB?”
“They’re calling the shots with the locals. The Washington SAC just got woken up. They’ve got the NSA monitoring all comms in the area in case he tries to contact anyone,” answered a different office minion. “Franks placed one call to Dwayne Myers during his escape. No transcript of that one yet.”
It would probably be pushing his luck to have Myers picked up as an accessory, though it was sorely tempting. “The minute you get that transcript I want to see it. MCB will be shell-shocked, but the explosives were all left in nonvital areas.” He wanted Franks gone, he didn’t want to permanently damage his other assets in the war against the supernatural, just wake them up. “They’ll get their shit together in short order.”
“FBI and DHS are on their way in,” reported the first one. “That’s a lot of outsiders on the case.”
He could tell that his inner circle was scared. They were volunteers. Everyone here knew the real score. They understood that even dirty wars were worth winning. All of them were in deep. If they got caught, every last one of them was looking at prison time. If Franks flipped this and somehow exposed STFU’s actions, Stricken wouldn’t hang alone.
Fear was an excellent motivator.
One of his men approached cautiously. “Orders, sir?”
“First off, the Task Force will offer our assistance to our sister agency in their time of need. We’ll coordinate as we normally would with the MCB. This is just another case involving a monster. Second, we debrief our team and figure out if we’ve left any loose threads that need cutting. Anything that doesn’t lead straight to Franks, we squash it.”
The entire command center staff was staring at him, waiting. Word of Foster’s death had already spread around the office. Foster was a bit of a sociopath, and hadn’t exactly been beloved, but he’d been one of their own.
“Don’t worry. This isn’t a setback at all. Franks escaping actually works to our benefit.”
He could tell they didn’t believe him. A few men were studying their shoes.
It was time to rally the troops.
“You know, this whole thing reminds me of a story. When I was a kid, I lived in a really small town. Poor place. I’m talking a real shit town. We even had a problem with stray dogs. They’d hang out at the landfill and form packs. They started breaking through our fences and attacking our pigs. We shot a few of them, but you’ve got to sleep sometime. A dirty job like protecting pigs from wild dogs sucks when you’re on your own and nobody in charge gives a shit.”
>
A few men chuckled. It sounded a lot like their thankless job.
“My dad complained to the town council. He said it was only a matter of time before somebody got hurt bad, but oh no, they said they didn’t have the budget to deal with animal control . . . I guess that really pissed my dad off, because he drove to a city a few counties over, went to the pound, and picked out the biggest, most vicious dog he could find. I’m talking nasty mean. They’d pulled it out of a fighting ring where they’d been beating it with bloody ropes, that sort of thing. That dog was a real piece of work. I don’t know who he bribed to keep them from putting that monster down.”
Stricken surveyed his kingdom. It was very silent. The few smiles had died. He kept his voice cold and hard. “So my dad snuck this god-awful beast over to the elementary school and let it loose right before recess . . . One little boy got mauled and had to get reconstructive surgery for his face. Sure . . . Dad was kind of an asshole like that, but you know what? After that very public incident the town council found their balls and their budget. The rest of those wild dogs got taken care of right quick and the town was safe.”
The command center was very quiet.
Franks was dangerous on the loose, but that danger would make for a great selling point for his next pitch to the POTUS. After all, it was Stricken who had warned everyone about Franks’ volatile nature, while his rival Myers had gone to bat for the freak. So a murderous Franks rampaging across the capital was actually a good thing . . . briefly.
“Call up the Flierls. Mad dogs can be useful sometimes, but you’ve still got to put them down.”
CHAPTER 6
This new empty body was so miraculous that it attracted my kind like flies. We’d never seen anything like it before. Necromancers and wizards had been creating bodies for a long time, but none of them had been very good, worthy only for lesser demons. The weaklings like the succubi and the imps had found ways, but there was rarely a body fit for a warrior or a prince to be found.
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