She sighed. "I grew up in the traditions of kami-no-michi, but even to my parents it was more culture than belief. So, no. You?"
"Sure."
"Sure?" She chuckled, and covered her mouth with her hand, the dainty gesture at odds with her typical dour, mannish affect. "That's your belief? Sure?"
He chuckled with her, but didn't feel it. "Sure."
She looked back at her reader but didn't wake up the screen. In the reflection, her smile turned to a frown as she pulled her hand away. "When I was fourteen I wanted to believe in ancestor spirits, that my parents were still with me, but no matter what I wanted I knew it wasn't true."
Shit, Matt thought. He didn't mean to turn the conversation to that. He scrambled for what to say, and came up with, "Weren't you working for Tokyo Metro when you were fourteen?"
She blinked. "Ah, that's not in my file."
He raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Yeah, it is. It's in the file Jeff gave me. Said you were an informant after your parents passed, from twelve to sixteen."
Her scowl turned murderous. "That's not supposed to be in my file. They said only my police work goes to ICAP."
"I'm sorry, forget I brought it up."
"No, I will not forget." She hopped off the stool, snatched up her reader, and walked out.
Matt texted Jeff to let him know he might have slipped up, then went back to the others.
* * *
"So," Monica said. "It was an angel?" She kicked the dishwasher closed with her foot and fiddled with the cross at her neck. "A real angel with wings and everything?"
Matt tried not to roll his eyes. Monica's responding snort told him he hadn't quite succeeded. "No, of course not. I mean, it had wings, but . . . . No."
"Maybe Conor's right. Why couldn't it be an angel?"
Matt took a moment to choose his words carefully—too far down the wrong road and he'd end up somewhere he didn't want to be. "I don't know, babe. Angels aren't something that modern people see, you know? Jeff figures it's some kind of bonk we've never seen before. With everything else we've seen, big wings ain't out of the realm of possibility."
She scowled while drying her hands on the dish towel. "I wish you wouldn't use that word. They're not bonkers, they're addicts."
They're both, Matt thought. Bonks who snapped were definitely bonkers, and people who augged themselves to the point of risking GIP were, too, but Matt didn't need precognitive therapy to see the warning signs in her scowl. He held up his hands in supplication. "I'm sorry, you're right. It's hard not to . . . you know." He wasn't sure if she understood his point, or even if he did, but he hoped it mollified her enough.
She smiled her sad recovering-addict smile, then wrapped her arms around his neck. She smelled of jasmine and strawberries. He wrapped her in his arms and cursed his augs. Are you sure you want to—
She nuzzled his neck. "Are you sure you want to do this? That thing . . . that man, I mean. He could have killed you."
Matt closed his eyes and bathed in her scent. It wasn't fair. ICAP held no more danger for him than the army or the troopers, maybe even less with second-generation regenerates, and she'd wanted him to take the job as much as he had. "Yeah, babe, he could have. But he didn't." He squeezed just a little tighter. "I'm a lot tougher than I used to be." You said Garrett and—
"You said Garrett and Conor got pretty messed up."
"They were. Then they weren't." She didn't understand. That bear hug had left Corporal Garrett with six broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured tibia and a bruised stomach. Conor had multiple skull fractures and massive bleeding on his brain. Conor hadn't even slowed down, and ten minutes later they were both right as rain. "We bounce back pretty fast."
She kissed him on the lips. "I don't like that you're in so much danger. Your job with the state—"
"—was safer," he finished. They'd been through this a thousand times in the past three years. After pushing him to accept the ICAP job, and beaming with pride at his acceptance and subsequent promotions, she couldn't accept the risk. They both appreciated the tripled salary, though, plus ten percent since his promotion. "I know, babe. But it's not just that they need me. I need to do this."
Matt thought about the dozens of people they'd rescued from the mine. Jade addicts, doomed to a lifetime of recidivism and struggle, who because of his team at least had a chance to live a normal life, the chance to slough off the shadow they called the Servant. And that counted just his team, just this week.
Thus far, rehabilitation wasn't promising. The initial interviews had gone nowhere. The captives couldn't even be bothered to use the toilet, much less answer questions. After thirty hours or so they'd begun to cry, all of them. An hour or two later they wailed for the Servant and begged to be released to serve her. By the time Matt's team had left New Mexico, they were twitchy and morose, the classic signs of Jade withdrawal, but behaving for the most part like regular junkies. None had come out of it enough to give a statement.
The week since had been a disappointing denouement. Between debriefs and interrogations, a team of normals had brought in fancy equipment to check out the mine. Their results were conclusive: it contained no ornate stairs, no marble, no obsidian. The idea of an entire team sharing a hallucination bothered Jeff, but Matt couldn't shake the certainty that it hadn't been in their minds: it had been real. If anything, that bothered him more.
The inscriptions on the hide had been marker, and forensics had confirmed the skin as human, but they were still waiting on DNA. The report from Linguistics said they were gibberish, meaningless symbols culled from occult books and old horror movies.
The delicate arms around his neck tightened just a little. "You're a thousand miles away, baby." She kissed his sternum.
He shook his head to clear it. "Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about how we'd pay for this place if I left ICAP." He felt bad at the cheap blow, but at some point Monica needed to see the financial truth and accept it. Quitting ICAP meant losing their home.
He felt wetness on his chest. Monica sniffled. "I just don't want to lose you."
"You're not going—" His work phone chirped. He stepped back and looked at the screen. Jeff. "Excuse me," he said, disentangling himself from her arms before answering. "Rowley. Go ahead."
Monica leaned back against the kitchen counter.
"Matt, we got a mitochondrial DNA match on that skin you found. Close kin of the Alvarez family, who disappeared last month." Matt stepped onto the porch, slid the glass door closed, and popped in his ear bud. Monica dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then watched him pace on the deck. "We might have some of them in custody, but it's hard to tell. We've only got seven fingerprint matches out of the lot, and three are from a forensics merit badge project in White Sands from 1988."
"Still no cooperation from the perps?" Above him, a squirrel chittered in the pines. A cone landed at his feet, and tree litter drifted down around him.
"Um . . . they're eating at least."
Matt closed his eyes and listened to the wind through the trees. "That's something. So what's next?"
"Well, assuming some of them start talking—"
"I mean for my team." A wet nose nuzzled his ankle. He bent down and scooped Ted into his arms. The Basset tensed on the way up, then relaxed as he settled against Matt's chest, his tail thumping against the deck railing. "Dawkins. What's our next step?"
Jeff answered without hesitation. "I don't know if you're up on just how much that bust roiled the market. That was maybe fifteen, twenty percent of global production for the year. Street prices have skyrocketed, especially in the Southeast. Someone's got to be taking advantage of the supply vacuum."
Matt tried to play out the ramifications in his head. There were too many, so he scratched Ted between the ears instead. "Alright, let's start there."
Chapter 4
Akash Rastogi led them down the cobblestone alley, past rickety shacks displaying pirate-themed knickknacks made for the most part of plastic or carved woo
d. Despite the proximity to the Atlantic, sweat streamed from Matt's pores in St. Augustine's merciless humidity. The whole city smelled of sweating humanity, dead fish, and salt.
Garrett Johnson voiced Matt's unspoken thought. "Where are we going, again?"
With one irritated glance back, Akash pushed through a beaded curtain and into a dark building whose reek of incense bestowed a small mercy on Matt's nostrils. While his regular vision adjusted, his infrared and ultraviolet sight processed the tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of angel figurines, statues, carvings, and paintings that covered every available surface. A narrow aisle stretched between them, just wide enough to accommodate a man.
"Rastogi," Matt said, "I thought this was about Jade." Akash disappeared around the corner and reappeared with a large, angelic doll. The ancient wood had crumbled in places, and a bent copper frame held wings of sparse tinsel on its back. Whatever had served as its eyes had long since disappeared, as evidenced by the mildew-stained, empty sockets that stared back at him. The whispers babbled their nonsense as Akash lifted the fraying, moth-eaten robe to reveal a sexless, crude body of the same rotting wood. Matt stopped in shock.
Carved into the doll's chest lay the symbol from the angel's—the winged bonk's—forehead. He reached for it but stepped back as the proprietor came into view around the corner. A gaunt man, too tall, too skinny, and too pale, with rotting brown teeth, smiled down at him.
"I'm sorry, sirs, that figure isn't for sale." He wiped his hands on a faded purple V-neck and looked up at Garrett. "My, ain't you a big one." His accent seemed to Matt to be more southern Georgia than northern Florida coast.
"Why not?" Matt said. He'd meant to ask, "What can you tell me about it?"
The shopkeeper lifted the doll from Akash with both hands and placed it back on the shelf, pushing back several other figurines to make room. "She's too fragile for you to be handling her. I'm afraid she hasn't held up well in the Florida humidity." Akash muttered an apology as the owner continued. "She was the first to grace this shop with her presence, and the inspiration for my collection."
"Neat piece. How long have you had her?" Garrett asked.
"I bought the shop thirty-four years ago, meant to open a vacuum-cleaner store. That was before this area became overrun with pirate mania, mind. I found her in the corner in a pile of broken furniture and other rubbish. She seemed so lonely I got her friends. Before I knew it I had this." He held out his hands to the cramped space.
"What do you know about her?" Matt asked. "About the symbol on her chest?"
His smile broadened. "An interesting question, but not as interesting as how your friend here knew about her." He turned, not just his head but his whole body, to peer down at Akash.
Akash put his hands in his pockets and shrugged at the man. "I saw it maybe fifteen years ago when I was visiting with my family." He looked at Matt and Garrett. "I remembered it the second I saw the symbol, thought you guys might want to see it."
"Symbol?" the man asked.
Akash pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it to reveal a close-up shot of the symbol, black marker on pale brown leather, taken from the discarded skin of the Alvarez boy. "It's the same as on the doll, isn't it?"
"Yes," the man and Matt answered simultaneously. Matt continued, "Do you know what it means?"
He nodded. "Yes. But no. No one knows what it means." His eyes fluttered closed. He licked his cracked lips. "To the Aztecs, it symbolized a great sundering, a separation of the Quetzalcoatl from himself. The ancient Greeks used a glyph like that to represent Nyx, the goddess of night who, content with the dark half of eternity, took no followers and coveted nothing of Earth for herself." He ran his tongue over his teeth. "But that thing there also represented the Henostic creation of Demiurge from Monad's overflowing and self-reflection. Heck, even the Zoroastrians, they used it to represent the eternal conflict between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, wisdom and destruction." He shrugged and opened his eyes. "You might say it means too much to too many, so it don't mean nothing to me."
Matt spoke before Akash could. "Does it show up in Judeo-Christian, um, lore or whatever?" Shit, that was elegant.
Impossibly, the proprietor's lips stretched wider, revealing gums pockmarked with bleeding sores. "Not even once." The whispers entwined the words with malicious laughter as Matt watched that rotten grin.
"Does it have a name?" Akash asked.
"I've always called it Ul." The guttural syllable sounded something like "ool,” but throatier. For a moment, something slithered behind the man's eyes, the shadow of barbed tentacles.
Matt stepped back into Garrett, blinked, and the whatever-it-was disappeared.
"You're augmented?" the man asked.
The change of subject caught Matt off-guard. "Uh, yes. We work for ICAP."
The man stiffened, and his smile faded to a grimace. "And you encountered the Ul in your work?"
"Yes," Matt said. "Can't really talk about where." To deflect the man's curiosity he asked a follow-up. "Are you an expert on angels, then?"
He shrugged and crossed his arms. "I guess, as far as anyone can be. You won't find two books that agree on nothing, much less two religions or cultures."
"Are there any with wings of smoke and silver feathers?"
He sighed and gave a pointed look to the exit. "Look, friend," he emphasized the word so that it meant anything but, "there ain't nothing I can tell you that you can't find on Wikipedia. If you ain't buying, I got other things to do."
"Thanks for your time." Matt tried to walk out, but had to wait for Garrett. If he tried to sidle past, he'd knock a bunch of figurines over. The proprietor said nothing as they left one-by-one, but never stopped watching them. Once outside, Matt gasped in a breath of "fresh" air. Oddly enough, the stink of salt water, fish, and over-concentrated humanity made a welcome reprieve from the oppressive incense.
"That was weird," Garrett said as they walked back toward the car.
"There was something very . . . off about that guy," Matt said. He glanced to the side at a writhing, slithering shadow, but as his eyes focused on it the image resolved as flags flapping in the breeze. Shit, I'm jumpy today. He took a deep breath and tried not to think about PTSD.
"He freaked me out as a kid, too," Akash said. "But I thought maybe he'd know more than what we could find poking around online."
Garrett frowned as he got in the front seat of the SUV. "I can't even remember whatever gibberish he said."
"You're not eidetic?" Akash asked, his eyebrows raised.
Garrett shook his head. "Under the new guidelines, it was that or reflex enhancements. I know my strengths." Matt didn't bother to remind him that he'd chosen Garrett more for his tactical mind than his physical prowess; he saw no point in testing the man's modesty. "As it is, I sometimes feel this weird pressure . . . ."
Matt locked eyes with Akash through the rearview mirror. They looked away, but too late.
"What?" Garrett said. "I'm not saying I'm about to bonk or anything."
Matt started the car, and sighed. "You know I'm going to have to report that comment." He waited for a cab to pass, then pulled out into the light traffic.
Garrett shook his head. "No you don't. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just stress."
Akash leaned forward and clapped Garrett on both shoulders. "Yes he does, and if he didn't, I'd have to, eh? There's no policy tighter than that one."
"Give me a break, guys. I didn't mean anything by it."
Matt swerved to the right and jerked to a stop, one tire against the curb. He locked eyes with Garrett as the SUV behind them blew its horn. "You can be sorry you said it, but think about this. If you were me, what choice would you have?"
Garrett glared at him. "I'd be faithful to the men under my command. Always."
Knowing it wasn't what Garrett wanted to hear, Matt said, "I'm glad you understand." He put the car in gear and hit the gas.
* * *
When they got back
to their temporary office—a two-room suite at the Best Western Miami—Matt searched the internet for "ool" and "Ul" and "Ewl" and every other spelling he could think of, and came up blank. Well I'm sure as hell not going back to ask him.
He shivered and turned as a shadow blocked the light from the window.
Blossom Sakura nodded at the screen. "What are you looking for?"
"That guy Akash told you about? He said the symbol had a name, but I can't find it anywhere."
"Show me." She crouched next to his chair and turned the laptop so she could type. After a few minutes, she gave up, and they discussed the Florida operation. They had to postpone if they wanted Garrett in the field; he had to fly back to D.C. for a full psychological evaluation. In time, conversation again turned to the winged bonk.
Blossom gave him a short bow from her waist and dropped her gaze to the floor. "I can't say it any better. There's no such thing."
Matt sat down, his legs in as casual a pose as he could manage. "Aren't Kami angels?"
Blossom flopped down across from him. "No. Kami aren't angels. And they don't exist, either. Shinto is culture, not religion."
"Are you sure?"
She gave him a withering look. "I'm sure. Maybe some from Japan aren't sure, but I'm sure. There is no more evidence for Kami than for unicorns."
Matt smiled, conceding defeat. "So you don't believe in the supernatural. What do you believe in?"
Blossom froze for a split second, then disappeared. A moment later she sat on the edge of the couch next to his outstretched left foot, a framed picture in her hand. "Her. I believe in Kazuko, that she will make her mother proud."
A Japanese girl, no more than eight years old, sat on a swing, her innocent smile dominating the otherwise plain picture of a little girl in a white blouse and blue plaid skirt. "Beautiful name," Matt said. "What does it mean?"
"It means she is the only child I will have, and the debt I owe her is greater than her obligation to me."
Jade Sky Page 4
