Black_Tide

by Patrick Freivald

  He sagged, a half-collapse deeper into his chair. "Nah, man. What a thing."

  Matt produced one of his new business cards and put it on the table, pinning it there with his index finger covering the Department of Homeland Security logo. "You think of anything, please call me."

  As he headed for the door, Ellery spoke. "Holy shit, man, you said you weren't a cop!"

  Matt paused. "I'm not, and like I said, I don't care about your dealing. But I'm going to find these people, and when I do I'm going to burn everyone who helped them to the ground. Call me if you think of something."

  He left the apartment and waited until he'd walked around the corner to put in his ear bud. "What have we got?"

  "Nothing yet," Janet said. "No calls, no conversations, no nothing."

  "Dammit, these guys are laying low."

  "We'll find them."

  * * *

  "Well?" Matt scanned the bank of monitors and tried not to grind his teeth.

  Sakura pulled up a string of police records and photos. "Operational security is tight, but several of the deceased were either current or past Humans for Humanity members or had donated to political action committees friendly to Humans for Humanity. Look at this."

  The monitor showed video of a drag race, nighttime, some city Matt didn't recognize. A chopped Bentley screamed past the camera, followed by a late-model Ferrari. Flags waved, the crowd went berserk. Amidst the cheering, money exchanged hands, and a trio of fire dancers moved out onto the street, whirling flaming balls on metal chains, the light illuminating their distinct lack of modest attire.

  Sakura paused the feed and zoomed in, running a filter to compensate for the low-quality cell phone video. "Subject on the right is Onnoleigh Sweetman, middle girl is Marie Thill."

  "Who's on the right?"

  "We don't know," Janet said. "Brown hair, between five-five and five-eight, one-ten-ish. She's cute, and younger, but no hits on facial recognition. Still, it's weird."

  "What's that?" Matt asked.

  "These young girls getting tied up in something this dark. It's not something you'd expect."

  Sakura snorted, but Janet pressed on.

  "Not in American culture, not girls with money. Sure, sometimes they might court the bad boys, but this . . . this speaks 'man' to me."

  "What does that mean?" Sakura zoomed out, scanning the crowd as Janet answered.

  "It's . . . loud. The fire, the murders, the kidnapping. Women—American women—we expect them to be more subtle, more in the background. Especially the rich kids. Someone got to these girls, made them this way."

  Matt grunted. "So Sweetman and Thill both inherited a good chunk of money in the past year, and both gave to H4H. What say we try to dig up any other trust fund girls with sympathies?"

  Janet spoke without taking her eyes from the screen. "It's a start."

  * * *

  Matt put his keys on the kitchen counter, bent down to scratch Ted on the forehead, and joined Jason Rees on the couch.

  He kept his voice low. "How is she?"

  "She slept most of the day, ate a little. Cried herself to sleep on the couch."

  "And you?"

  Jason rubbed his eyes. "I'm here, man. You guys have my support, whatever you need."

  "And what you saw?"

  They locked eyes. "I can't say I condone it. But I can't say I don't."

  Matt gave him a curt nod. "Thanks, padre. Has she talked, yet? About any of it?"

  Jason nodded. "Yeah. We talked a long while. She's terrified and heartsick and angry, so angry. She . . . said she envies you."

  Matt sat back. "What do you mean?"

  "She heard you, saw you, kill those men. Take vengeance—no, she called it retribution. She wanted to hurt them so bad, and you got to. She said their screams gave her comfort, and she's ashamed and grateful at the same time."

  Matt hadn't given them a second thought. "They needed to die."

  "All of them?"

  "Yup. Every goddamned one. And you're not my shrink, and this ain't your couch."

  Jason chuckled. "Thank the good Lord for that. I'm still having nightmares from what I saw in that room. I can't quite wrap my mind around that level of viciousness, from either end of it. I don't know how to help someone cope with doing something like that."

  "Who says I need to cope?"

  "I'm just talking, here. Don't get defensive."

  "If I get defensive you'll know. Probably from the impact of your face on the driveway."

  Jason looked at Matt, then the driveway, then rolled his eyes back at Matt. "Yeah, yeah, tough guy, I like my teeth where they are. So what's next?"

  "Any word?"

  They both turned at Monica's haggard voice. She leaned against the doorframe in her pajamas, huge bags under puffy, red eyes, her hair a tangled mess, clutching Adam's stuffed ostrich to her chest like a long-lost talisman.

  "We have some leads, baby. We'll find him."

  "They can't hurt him," she said.

  "If they do—"

  "No." She shuddered and rubbed her arms. "They can't. The girl, not Marie, the other one, she said so. They wanted to cut him, hurt him, said they couldn't. She called him devil-spawn, tried to get out of me why, but drugged me too good for it."

  Jason narrowed his eyes at Matt. "That doesn't make sense."

  "I know," Monica replied. "But I hope it's true. I think he has an angel watching him, maybe watching me a little, too."

  Matt locked eyes with her. "Wings of ice."

  "No shit, baby. You, too?"

  "I don't know how to explain it. When I ran to the house I felt something driving me forward, bringing me to you. It tried to stop me . . . stop me from killing those men. But I didn't listen, didn't want to listen."

  Jason turned to Monica. "Tell him about the mugger."

  She sat next to Matt, winced at his hand on her knee. He withdrew it, but she grabbed it and put it back with a defiant glare at nothing in particular. "Those men that came after Adam and me before, after kung fu. Adam just touched the guy and he went all wishy-washy, staring off into space, a half-smile on his lips. I never seen anything like it."

  She stopped Matt with an upraised finger. "And I saw that same angel in the woods, lying there with Adam, and again when I woke up in the house. He kept me safe, kept me from freezing, brought me out of harm's way much as he could."

  They both looked at Jason.

  "All right, Father Rees," she said. "Angels and ice. Enlighten us."

  Jason dropped his head into his hands, palms against his forehead. "All I've got is Dante, and that's not something you want to hear."

  Monica reached over and poked him in the chest. "What's Dante say?"

  "That in the ninth circle of hell, Satan is trapped in Cocytus, a lake of eternal ice, and that as he tries to escape, the beating of his wings blasts everything in eternal cold winds, creating a million million frozen cells for those who betray and commit treason."

  "My boy's angel saved me. He’s no Satan."

  Jason looked at her over his fingers, hands stretching his lower eyelids down, exposing the red flesh beneath. "I didn't say he was. And it doesn't fit anyway. Lucifer doesn't have wings of ice."

  "Besides," Matt said, "Dante's the middle ages, right? That's way too new for all this stuff. We're talking Old Testament here."

  Jason frowned. "Older."

  Monica leaned into Matt, resting her head on his shoulder. "So what's it all mean, baby?"

  Jason leaned down and rubbed Ted's belly. "It means your boy is very special, but we don't know how or why."

  * * *

  Janet smashed a fresh stick of cinnamon gum between her teeth and pulled up another dossier. These H4H assholes came from all walks of life, though knowing what she knew she felt hard pressed to blame them for their attitudes. Religious psychotics or not, when it came down to brass tacks on some level they had been, in fact, right about the dangers of Gerstner Augmentation. Right down to the demonic influence.<
br />
  I wonder what fanatics do when their enemy finally falls? If Matt died they'd have won, wholly, eliminated their enemies root and stem, at least until her brother—

  She jerked a hand to her nose. It came away streaked with blood.

  "Shit."

  She plugged her nostrils and hurried to the bathroom, ignoring the concerned looks and comments from the DHS employees—strangers all—who had taken over most of the ICAP Tennessee offices in the name of the Special Threats Bureau. A spasm twisted her as she kicked the door closed and locked it.

  A look in the mirror told her too much. Bloodshot eyes stared back at her, blazing bright green. She coughed and leaned over the sink as the Jade Cross tattoo on her back smoked, filling the room with the delicious, sickening aroma of cooking meat.

  "No," she snarled. "Not here. Not now."

  In response, black wings, the flesh cracked and bleeding from a thousand pus-filled wounds, unfolded from her reflection.

  Her hand clutched the cross at her throat, and through bloody phlegm she choked out words, ancient spells and abjurations that bound her spirit to her body, cemented the connection, and drove out intruders.

  Dawkins wailed in her mind, a pitiful, hopeless cry of starving despair, begging for succor, mercy, basic human warmth.

  "No, brother. Not this way. I am not the vessel of your return."

  A shard of jade thought wracked her body, slammed her against the stall door. In the mirror, ropy tendrils of hot red blood streamed from her eyes, nose, and mouth, battered at the mirror, writhed across the surface, seeking cracks.

  "Your time will come, brother, but it is not now, and it will not be me." A sob escaped her, and she crushed mercy, empathy, anything that might bind them closer. "No. I abjure you. By the blood we share and the eternal compact, I abjure you. I abjure you, I abjure you, I abjure you. By blood and pain I abjure you. You will never enter this way."

  In the mirror her reflection shrieked and lunged, clawing at the glass as it turned gray-brown and crumbled to dust.

  Janet closed her eyes, then opened them. A normal reflection stared back at her, a spot of blood under her nostrils, dress rumpled. She cleaned up with a brown paper towel off the roll, touched up her makeup, adjusted her clothes, and walked back to her office.

  A DHS flunky in a suit, cute in a geeky Jew-fro sort of way, cut her off at the door.

  "Hey, Miss LaLonde, uh, Janet. I, um, was wondering if you were free on Friday?"

  She drew a fake green fingernail down his jawline, leaned in and put her lips to his ear. "Oh, I am. And I'm still going to be. Now get the fuck out of my way before I cut your balls off."

  He flushed and stepped to the side, hand rising to his ear. "I'm sorry."

  She stepped into her office and turned, his eyes not quite leaving her ass fast enough. "I appreciate the thought, buddy, but I don't date work. Ever."

  She slammed the door in his face, sank down to the floor, covered her face with her hands, and bawled.

  * * *

  Matt opened his eyes and groped for the ringing phone. Monica shifted, her tiny form huddled in a fetal position against his side. He kissed her neck as he brought the phone to his ear.

  "Rowley."

  "Hey, it's Janet. I just got a call from Ronald Kellett, president of Humans for Humanity. He wants to meet."

  Matt rolled over and stood. "Did he say why?"

  "Extensively. Seems he's keenly interested in distancing his organization from the events in White Spruce, says he might have a lead you'll find useful."

  He grunted. "All we've got so far is circumstantial, but if it quacks like a duck . . . ."

  "Yeah, he sounded pretty nervous. No bluster, no threats, no squadron of lawyers. He wants to meet 'man to man' and 'hash out what this is all about,' quote-unquote."

  "Man to man. So I should sic Sakura on him?"

  "That'd teach him. Or kill him."

  Monica stared up at him, dark eyes glinting in the moonlight from the window.

  "Yeah. Set it up."

  "Your chopper leaves at oh-eight-hundred."

  Chapter 11

  The Humans for Humanity corporate offices annex to the Martonville megachurch complex would have been impressive anywhere but in the shadow of the enormous modern cathedral that dominated acres of parking lot. The massive edifice could give any NFL stadium a run for its money and took in far more on a yearly basis, tax free.

  As their government sedan pulled up to the marble steps, Sakura checked her pistol one last time.

  Matt tried not to chuckle. "You really think that's necessary?"

  "Could be a trap."

  "They'd have to be awfully stupid to invite us here into a trap. DHS knows we're here, so if anything happened to us they'd all go to jail."

  She holstered the weapon. "You're supposed to be smart, on paper anyway, but you expect religious zealots to act with reason."

  "There is that." He pulled his Glock from the glove box and holstered it at his waist. For the meeting they'd both chosen jeans and black ICAP T-shirts, flaunting instead of hiding what H4H hated so much. He grabbed the manila folder off the back seat. "Okay, let's go."

  They got out simultaneously. Matt slowed his ascent to accommodate Sakura's limp, which had improved but not as far as it would have if she'd let it heal without stressing it.

  A large black man in a light gray suit eyed them up and down as they approached the door, his muscles stretching the fabric beyond what the tailor would recommend. His deep bass voice resonated across the open space. "You'll have to leave your guns."

  Sakura crossed her arms in a parody of his stance. "We're federal officers and invited. We're keeping the weapons."

  He moved his hands to his hips, puffed up his enormous chest a little bit more. "I'm sorry, then, you'll have to leave."

  The door opened and gray-haired Ronald Kellett stepped out. Tall, clean-shaven, thin and dapper in a thousand-dollar suit, he smiled and extended his well-manicured hand. "Ronald Kellett. You must be Isuji and Matt." His accent mingled British English and Texan in a blur of cultural paradigms.

  Matt shook. Sakura kept her arms crossed and frowned at his offered hand.

  Kellett looked from his hand to Sakura. His smile never faltered as he reached for the door handle. "Well, if you would, right this way."

  They followed him down a hallway more Vatican than central Texas, with ornate statues, biblical paintings in gilded frames, and a plush carpet in royal purple. He turned left, past a dozen rooms—doors closed—into an office fit for a banana republic dictator, complete with a giant painting of the office's occupant above the oversized mahogany desk.

  Whispers slithered through Matt's mind, insidious and seductive, flayed skin and eyes crushed to jelly and bones cracked to suck the sweet marrow within. He sat in a giant, cushioned chair and accepted a glass of ice water—with coaster—from a smiling redhead in all white, with perfect teeth and four-inch heels. Sakura declined both the chair and the water, without speaking, and stood just behind the door.

  "Mister Rowley, thank you for coming. We seem to have some common ground on this matter that your colleague Janet and I spoke about."

  "Commonality, anyway." Matt tossed the folder across the desk. "Of at least twelve people involved in an assault on my town, and the kidnapping of my wife and son, four are confirmed members of Humans for Humanity, two are convicted felons and confirmed members of Humans for Humanity, and six, well, we have no idea who they are and neither does anyone else. Add in the three that attacked the Mayo clinic, you've got two terrorist cells comprising a membership half confirmed to be members of your cult."

  Kellett's lips pressed together at the word "cult," and his ears flushed red. "Mister Rowley, I invited you here in a common spirit—"

  "Bullshit. After years of agitating violence to your minions, they've finally gotten brave enough to carry it out. You're exposed and don't want your neck on the chopping block. I couldn't be happier at the thought of you hangi
ng from a rope—this is Texas after all—so why don't you cut the crap and tell us what you can about these people so I don't have to drag you in for questioning?"

  Face red, Kellett flipped through the folder, separating out three pictures, none of whom had been in the room with Matt's wife, all of whom Janet had tagged as H4H members. "You have to understand that this is an enormous organization, comprising thousands of chapters worldwide. I can hardly be expected to know everybody . . . ."

  "But," Matt said, pointing at the papers.

  "But, these three men were sanctioned and expelled for fomenting violence against the augmented. You must understand that we do not and never have condoned violence—"

  Sakura snorted.

  "—and in fact actively counseled those who wished to attempt such. Not only would it have been foolhardy, it would have been unchristian. We are not a violent church, nor a violent people, and while Christ flipped tables and chased people with a whip, he did not direct his physical ire into harming people, and nor will we."

  Matt leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. "Am I people?"

  "Of course." He didn't miss a beat. "We've never hated the augmented, only their augmentations. Which leads to the question of how you maintained yours, when the Almighty stripped all others of theirs."

  "No, it doesn't."

  Kellett furrowed his brow. "Pardon?"

  "It doesn't lead to the question. I don't owe you an explanation and didn't come here to give you one. We came a thousand miles and so far you've told us things a secretary could have confirmed on the phone. So either you cut to the chase, or we're leaving."

  He squirmed in his seat. "I need complete assurance that you are not recording this conversation, and that you will not report any of this to the authorities or the press."

  Matt held up his hands. "Frisk us."

  "Thank you." Kellett pushed a button on his phone.

  Sakura rolled her eyes to Matt, and Matt made no attempt to hide his contemptuous snort.

  The whispers babbled of the opening door and blood falling like rain from Matt's fist as he obliterated the guard's head.