Bitter Waters

by Wen Spencer

  He looked at her sharply, then paid attention to merging with the high-speed traffic of I-79. While he jockeyed the Cherokee into a safe slot, he tried to form a reply. “I’m what’s left of Magic Boy, but I’m not him, I’m a totally new, separate person. And Kittanning is a new, separate person, and taking him back would be too much like murder.”

  “But you could take him back?”

  Ukiah shifted uneasily. “He has his own identity. He knows he’s Kittanning and not me. He has his own soul.”

  Sam startled in the seat beside him. “How do you know? Can you see souls?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You seem so sure he has one.”

  “If I have a soul, then he must have one too.”

  “And you know that you have one?”

  “I think I do. How else could I tell right from wrong?”

  “I have to say one thing, kid, conversations with you are never boring. So, where’s tall, dark, and scary?”

  “Rennie Shaw?”

  “Yeah, your sort-of dad.”

  Ukiah reached out to feel for the faint prickle of Pack presence. He felt Bear Shadow ranging at the edge of his awareness. “The Pack has an eye on me most of the time, but nothing overt. I’m not sure where Rennie is, but we’re being followed.”

  Sam turned in her seat and scanned the cars behind them as they took the exit onto I-279. Most of the midday traffic consisted of large trucks, and a handful of cars. “Which one? The bug, or one of the sedans?”

  “I think he’s on Route 19 still, paralleling. They keep only a loose watch over me—Pittsburgh’s a fairly safe town.”

  “Pendleton was a very safe town, and look what happened there.”

  “That was different,” Ukiah said.

  They rounded the curve of I-279 and Pittsburgh did its magic act, having been cunningly tucked away until this moment to appear, a sudden collection of towering skyscrapers.

  “Where’s Max?”

  “We had some trouble crop up yesterday.” Ukiah explained about Agent Hutchinson and the cult as he threaded his way through the odd Celtic knot that dropped them onto Bigelow Boulevard. They left the skyscrapers behind, skirting the Hill District, to cut through Oakland to Shadyside. “Max is at Pittsburgh Data Haven that owns the server the cult’s Web site is on. He wanted to go last night, but they put him off until this morning.”

  “He’s just going to walk in and toss a secure server?”

  Toss? Ukiah glanced at her and realized she meant rifle through it. “Probably. The owners owe Max a favor and he dangled some bright electronic gear in front of them.” Max had the money and connections to ride the bleeding edge of technology. His toys always outclassed anyone else’s.

  “Ah.” Sam fell silent as the neighborhood changed from the low-income Oakland area to the mansions of Shadyside. “Are these single family homes?”

  “Some are,” Ukiah said. “Some have been renovated into condos.”

  She fell silent again, murmuring only, “I should put out a trail of bread crumbs,” after they made a series of turns to shortcut through Shadyside’s one-way streets.

  He pulled up to the office’s four-car garage and tapped the garage door opener. The middle door slid up. Sam took off her sunglasses as he slotted the Cherokee into the dark opening.

  “Wow! Whose Hummer?”

  “That’s Max’s.”

  Sam turned to look at him, eyes narrowing. She walked out of the dark garage to stare at the looming splendor of Max’s mansion. The green of her eyes were like spring ice. “This is the office?”

  The question was void of all emotion; still it set off alarms in Ukiah. “Ummm, yeah.” He jiggled through his key ring to the back door key. “Come on, I’ll take you to your room.”

  Ukiah unlocked the back door, disarmed the security system, and set Kittanning’s car seat in the center of the kitchen table. Sam followed wordlessly with her two bags. He took her up the back steps to the second floor. “This is the laundry, if you want to do any wash while you’re here. This is my room, when I spend the night, which isn’t often. This is Max’s room.” Actually it was a full suite complete with working fireplace, sitting room, kitchenette, king-sized poster bed, and master bathroom. Friends teased that Max planned to bunker down in it if World War III broke out. “Guest bedroom.”

  Max talked about being torn between wanting to set a vase of a dozen roses in the guest bedroom, and knowing full well that he shouldn’t. Sam’s job offer had to be without strings attached, Max maintained, that would continue even if his romantic hopes crashed and burned.

  Thus there wasn’t really anything for Sam to stand in the doorway and scowl so. The queen-sized cherry sleigh bed matched Ukiah’s, so he knew it was comfortable. He’d washed the linens so they were clean, and Max had made the bed to military neatness. Full bath, walk-in closet, towels, extra blankets and pillows: there was nothing missing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Sam slanted a look at him. She opened her mouth, considered, and closed it. Finally she said, “It probably wouldn’t have occurred to you to mention that your partner is a fucking millionaire.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “What’s wrong?” She tossed her bags into the room, cursing softly. “It would have been nice that sometime in the last few weeks, along with ‘the kid is an alien’ and ‘we’re going to do a salvage run on an alien spaceship,’ someone—no, no, not just anyone—Max—would have said, ‘Oh, yes, I’m a millionaire.’ ”

  “He had a lot to think about.”

  Sam snorted. “It’s just that I spent the last three days, driving that damn manual transmission van across country, worrying that you guys wouldn’t have dough to pay me when I got here, and bitching to myself for agreeing to sleep on a cot in the office back room in some bug-ridden, cold-water, third-story walk-up flat to save you money, and half-scared to death that I wouldn’t be able to get home without hitchhiking.”

  “Third-story walk-up?”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think up worst-case scenarios!” Sam snapped, and then rubbed at her eyes. “I’m sorry, kid. You’re not the one I should be yelling at.”

  “Max has had a lot on his mind lately. He makes most of the decisions for the agency, and then he’s got his own personal investments—and he dropped all of that to go to Oregon to find Alicia.”

  “I know, I know. Between you being killed, and fighting with Degas, and all that really weird shit with the mice and the turtle and the spaceship and everything—” She took a deep breath. “How much is he worth?”

  The pronoun threw Ukiah. Which “he” did Sam mean? “Max?” Earning a nod, Ukiah fumbled for an answer; he never asked Max about his personal finances, but his perfect memory had recorded bits and pieces of information. “I don’t know exactly. He sold his Internet company for forty million dollars in 1998, but he’s made a lot more since then. Bought low, sold high, and got out before the big high-tech crash.” A firm number eluded him. “The agency’s Dun and Bradstreet is two million, and we share it even.”

  Sam eyed Ukiah. “You’re equal financial partners in the company?”

  “Max gave me half of it, after I saved his life.”

  “Ahhh,” Sam said with the note of sudden understanding. She looked off at a distance, staring at an oil painting hung across the room. “Well, all the little techno gadgets, and the multiple airplane tickets, and the expensive dinners, and the nice designer clothes, and the expensive cologne, and the—oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “Oh—just that everything just got so much more—complicated. Well, at least I can stop worrying about you paying me, and how I’m getting home. We’ll deal with the rest when Max gets back. When does that happen?”

  “He hoped to get back around five.” He felt Kittanning stir in the kitchen. “Kitt is awake. I need to go downstairs.”

  Sam cocked her head to listen. “How can you tell?”

  “Pack can sen
se Pack,” Ukiah said.

  “Ooooooookay.” Sam scrubbed fingers through her hair. “I’m going to take a shower and catch a nap, and maybe throw some things into the washer. Does he have a pool in this mansion?”

  “No. Your bathroom has a Jacuzzi and a steam shower.”

  “Decadence—got to love it.”

  “Max had the kitchen fully stocked today.”

  “Had?”

  Ukiah assumed that she caught the implication that Max hadn’t bought the food himself. “He ordered food over the Internet before we left Pendleton. It was delivered this morning. If you want something to eat, help yourself; anything in the kitchen is fair game. Max is kind of picky about the wine cellar, but what’s upstairs in the game room’s bar is okay to drink.”

  “Go on, deal with your kid. I need a long hot shower.”

  The office doorbell rang, a play of Westminster chimes in eight solemn tones.

  “Bell,” Kittanning thought.

  “Somebody’s here.” Ukiah headed for the door, testing the bottle on his wrist. Upstairs, the water in the guest bathroom turned off.

  “Bottle?” Kittanning added a cranky verbal complaint.

  “It’s too hot, honey,” Ukiah said, opening the door.

  Later he would remember the man in painful detail.

  He was tall, broad in the shoulders, with a handsome face ravaged by acne in his youth. The hair was a dull color, once a mousy blond but grayed to muddy flatness. The eyes were gray and cold and looked at him with clinical dispassion. A jeans jacket hung over a plain white T-shirt. Jeans. A belt. Heavy steel-tipped shoes.

  “Can I help you?” Ukiah gave the quick rote query, his attention on the indignant squawks coming from Kittanning.

  The man glanced past him, toward the kitchen door.

  “It’s my son’s feeding time,” Ukiah said. “Could you hold on a moment while I give him his bottle?”

  Ukiah had turned, and gone four steps back to the kitchen when he heard the man move—a rustle of clothing, and a slight click of a snap behind undone, and then the whisper of gunmetal over leather.

  He spun, saw a gun in the man’s hand as the man pulled the trigger.

  It made so little noise for something that hit him so hard, again and again, tossing him down the hall.

  “Daddy!” Kittanning’s screams of terror filled him before the darkness washed in.

  “Ukiah! Come on, son. Talk to me.”

  Ukiah opened his eyes. He sat propped up in the dim office hallway, nearly to the kitchen. The smell of blood and spilt milk bombarded him. Mice with formula-covered feet darted across his limp palm to hide in his blood-crusted clothing. Max held his face in a vise, fury clear on his face.

  “Max?” He shuddered, room temperature to his core. He had been dead. “Max? What happened?”

  “I need you to tell me!” Max said.

  “I don’t remember. Sam called needing a ride, so I got Kittanning ready and—” He stopped. At the thought of Kittanning, he had reached out with his senses to check on his son.

  Kittanning wasn’t in the house.

  “Kittanning!” Ukiah cried. “Where is he?”

  “Whoever killed you took him.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Shadyside, Pennsylvania

  Tuesday, September 14, 2004

  “What? Took him?” Ukiah cried. “Oh, no. No!”

  As Ukiah flailed to get to his feet, realization hit Max. “Wait! You’ve already picked up Sam?”

  There was a black hole punched through his memories. He could recall carrying Kittanning out the back door, anxious because he had already made Sam wait so long, and then nothing. “I don’t remember.”

  Max bolted up the curving front stairs, shouting, “Sam! Sam!” His footsteps traveled the upstairs hall to the guest room. After a moment of silence, he came back at a run. “She was here and had a shower, but she’s gone too!”

  Ukiah hunted weakly through his clothes for mice as Max unlocked the gun safe and pulled on a shoulder holster.

  “What happened?” he cried at the first mouse he grabbed. “Where’s Sam? Who took Kittanning? What happened?”

  Flashes of recall from the mouse’s perspective. Sam standing over him, giant tall, still wet from the shower, her gun thundering. Sam paused at the door, looking back at his body.

  “Sam shot at whoever took Kittanning. She ran out after them.”

  Max swore, “We need to find them.”

  Ukiah reached out and found Bear ranging at the edge of his awareness. “Bear! I need you! Call the others!” Bear acknowledged the summons as he muscled his bike into a tight circle. “Bear is coming. He can track Sam. The others are coming.”

  “Why the hell weren’t they here before this? I thought they kept an eye on you and Kitt.”

  “I told them to keep their distance because of Hutchinson.”

  Max spat a swear word. Bear’s motorcycle rumbled up outside. Ukiah swept a hand across the bloodstained wood floor and found a single hair from Sam.

  “Here, give this to Bear. Go. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “Shit!” Max wavered at the door, obviously torn.

  “Go!” Ukiah shouted at him.

  Max went.

  “Take good care of him,” Ukiah told Bear.

  “I’ll keep him safe,” Bear promised.

  Alone, he took inventory of himself. Caught in the narrow hallway, he’d been hit by three bullets. The first struck him high in the left collar bone, shattering the bone, which deflected the bullet back out of his body. The bone shards grated together when he tried to move his left arm, giving out jagged peaks of pain to accompany a continuous low throbbing agony. The bullet must have turned him with its force; the second bullet tore a path through his body, right to left. Entering just under his ribs, it missed his lungs, but clipped a major artery. It was the cause of his death as his body shut down, trying to keep from pumping out his lifeblood. A delicate web of protein now held together all the jagged edges, keeping his precious fluids in, but just barely. He had to move carefully or risk tearing the patches open.

  The third bullet nearly missed him altogether, cutting a thin gouge across his back.

  Wincing at the pain that the movement triggered, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and selected Indigo’s number. As he lifted it to his ear, motes of blackness appeared on the edges of his vision and cascaded in, drowning him in darkness.

  “Special Agent Zheng.” Her voice came out of the darkness. She was in a crowded place, voices murmuring all around her.

  “Indigo.” He slid down the wall so his hand was level with his heart, not above it. Slowly light filtered back in until he looked up at the ceiling. “Someone just kidnapped Kitt. They shot me and took him.”

  In the silence from Indigo that followed, he heard her friend and co-worker, Agent Joan Fisher, say, “Indigo, what’s wrong?”

  “How hurt are you?”

  “Extremely. I’ve got mice everywhere.” Safe code words for I was dead, I don’t remember what happened. “Sam’s on foot somewhere in Shadyside chasing after the kidnappers. Max and Bear just left to find her.”

  “I’ll put out an APB indicating that’s she’s chasing kidnappers and should be assisted.” She snapped her fingers, and Agent Fisher murmured something about a pen. “Female. Blond. Height? Weight?” Ukiah supplied them. “Any idea what she’s wearing?”

  Ukiah picked up the nearest mouse and checked the memories that it held. “A T-shirt and underwear. And a gun.”

  With a rustle of paper, Indigo handed off the description to Fisher, who said, “Well, that will make her easy to spot. I’m on it!”

  There was a change in background noise as Indigo changed rooms or shut a door. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

  “I’m at the office.” He told her as Rennie’s presence rolled into his awareness like a thunderstorm. “Rennie is almost here.”

  “I hate to admit how reassuring that sounded.” Her revolver clicked
distinctly as she checked it. “Call me when you remember anything about the kidnapper.”

  “Will do.”

  “I love you. Be safe,” she commanded, and hung up.

  After fumbling his phone back into his pocket, he concentrated on getting up without fainting. He actually had managed to stand, leaning against the wall, when Rennie stormed in the front door. The leader of the Dog Warriors wore his duster and a shotgun slung by his side like a sword, cloaked by long folds of black leather. In his left hand he held a Dog Warrior clan jacket. Rennie pressed a callused palm to Ukiah’s chilled face, rage and concern fighting for control of his features. “You were dead.”

  Ukiah tried to push away his hand, but Rennie only tightened his hold. “The bastard took Kittanning. Walked in, shot me, and took my son.”

  Rennie turned Ukiah’s chin, exposing the mice hiding in his hair. “You remember anything?”

  “No.”

  Releasing his chin, Rennie gingerly lifted Ukiah’s T-shirt to eye his wounds. “These were made by a forty-five caliber. One. Two. Three.” He counted the holes in Ukiah, and then scanned the hall. “Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.” He fingered two of the shells lying on the ground. “He emptied his gun. Your partner’s love, Sam, shot once.” He went to the door, crouched, and lightly touched a spot of blood glistening bright red on the sill. “She hit him. White man, middle age, blond hair.”

  “Ontongard?”

  “No.”

  “Why would a human take Kittanning?”

  “I don’t know, Cub.” Rennie came back to Ukiah as more of the Pack arrived, their bikes growling their anger. “But I should get you away from here quickly, in case your neighbors have called the police. There are too many bullets and too much blood for them to overlook.” Rennie held out the leather jacket. “Here, put this on. You’ve got an obvious entrance and exit wound. Anyone with the imagination of a doorknob can guess you shouldn’t be up and walking.”

  “I’m not anywhere near walking,” Ukiah growled, angry at his own helplessness.

  Mom Jo laughingly called the Hummer Max’s G.I. Joe car, but in truth, it was his war paint. It masked Max’s fear, called up the spirits of those who fought beside him in the Gulf War, and announced his intention to the world: I am a warrior seeking vengeance; get out of my way. With Ukiah shot, Kittanning taken, and Sam missing, it came as no surprise to Ukiah that Max had taken the Hummer.