Patient Zero

by Jonathan Maberry

  But probably not.

  With the rifle assembled, Miranda crawled across the filthy rooftop to the parapet. She’d planned and memorized the route to minimize any chance of being seen from surrounding buildings. There were only a few buildings higher in this neighborhood, and most of them were far enough away to lessen the angle of sight.

  The time was close. Lying behind the rooftop parapet, she stared up into a clear blue sky and felt the sun on her skin. Tess had loved the sun. She could spend hours sitting in sunlight, reading, listening to music, or simply relaxing, letting her thoughts fly. Miranda was the opposite. Her mind was always working, even though often she did not betray that externally. For her, relaxing was akin to letting down her guard.

  “You’ll be able to relax soon,” she whispered, not entirely certain if she was speaking to herself or to Tess.

  Down in the street, she heard the bustle of tourists and the peeping of moped horns. She would soon silence that street. The gunshots would be loud, reverberating between the buildings. The sight of the big man falling, his brains splashed across the window of the café where he went for lunch, would stun everyone silent.

  When the screaming and chaos began, Miranda would make her escape.

  Anger seethed within her, eager for the kill. “You see?” the tall man with nine fingers had said to her. “There? And there?” He’d shown her photographs of Ledger at the hospital the day before the explosion. Documents. Mobile phone data. Every shred of evidence had confirmed his assertion that Ledger was responsible for the explosion.

  She’d asked the nine-fingered man what his motive was in revealing this to her.

  “My nephew was in that hospital. I know the kind of man Ledger is, and I can’t do it myself.”

  It seemed the man had known the kind of woman she was, too.

  As she waited to kill the man who’d murdered her beloved, it was the moment of Tess’s death that played over and over in Miranda’s mind. The terror she must have felt. The shock. The awful realization when the building collapsed around and onto her, and the pressure, the pressure, the unrelenting crushing pressure as …

  Miranda had seen enough people die to know what her fiancée must have looked like when they scooped her up.

  She glanced at her watch. She was expert enough to not shift position, however uncomfortable she became. Any movement could give her away. The drainage hole afforded a good view down along the street, and she’d already run through events the previous evening. Now, all she had to do was wait.

  The rifle lay propped before her, barrel contained within the hole’s shadow, nothing protruding beyond. She viewed along its sights. This was close-in work, no scope required. She could put a hole in a tin can at two hundred yards, and this would be less than fifty.

  “Come on, you bastard,” she muttered, berating herself for talking. But no one would hear her up here, other than the pigeons that cooed and shit around her. Even they’d become used to her. One had even pecked at the grip on her right boot.

  The lunch crowds passed by below. A few people stepped into and out of the café, but none of them was Ledger. She looked at her watch again. It was past 1:00 PM, usually he’d have been and gone by now.

  Miranda breathed deeply and calmed herself. Tess smiled in her memory.

  “Come on. Come on.” The whispers were little more than breaths, and when she heard another breathlike sound behind her, for a second she thought it was a pigeon flapping its wings.

  A second was all he needed.

  “Nice and steady,” a voice said.

  Miranda held her breath, hands squeezed around the rifle. She could roll, bring the weapon up out of the drainage hole, finger squeezing as it came, and fire.

  “I’ve got about three pounds of pressure on a four-pound grip,” he said. “Don’t even think about it. Drop the rifle. Crawl back on your belly.”

  For a crazy second Miranda thought about making her move, but then she came to her senses. His voice was so assured and in control. And she hadn’t even heard the pigeons move.

  No one was that quiet and smooth.

  She let go of the rifle and pushed herself back, just a little.

  “Now roll over and sit up, hands where I can see them.”

  As she rolled and sat, several pigeons fluttered and took flight as if only just surprised. Ledger crouched ten feet across the rooftop. The access door was still closed behind him. She saw scuffs on his knees and the toes of his boots, a smear of dirt on his left elbow. He’d climbed the fucking wall.

  He held a pistol in one hand, the other hand cupping the grip. He was a big man, hard, but he exuded grace and control.

  “Now then, we’re going to—”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Miranda said, surprising herself with the venom in her voice. It must have surprised him, too, just for a second—his eyes went slightly wider, his head lifted a little.

  “Not any more,” he said. “Maybe if I hadn’t seen you following me two days ago. Maybe if you hadn’t given yourself away like the amateur you are.”

  “So shoot me if you think I’m an amateur.”

  “I don’t go around killing people for no reason.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Ledger shrugged slightly, never taking his eyes from her. “I’ve taken pieces off the board, sure, but there’s always been a reason. So don’t give me one.”

  “I’ll give you hundreds, but only one of them matters to me. Royal London Hospital. You killed the woman I love.” She pressed her lips tight, trying not to betray her frustration. She shouldn’t be talking with him. Making this feel personal might strip away her edge, and until now she’d kept the grief and burning need for revenge buried under a veil of professionalism. She couldn’t let that change.

  She had to make her move.

  “I got the bastards who did that,” he said, and she could hear the uncertainty. Fear at being found out, no doubt.

  “I’ve seen enough evidence to nail you to the cross, Ledger. I’m here to do just that.”

  She sensed his confusion. His eyes flickered past her to the rifle she’d left lying beside the parapet. That was all she needed.

  Miranda flowed. Every shred of her power, every ounce of grace, went into rolling to her right and powering toward Ledger. He fired his gun and the bullet whispered past her ear and over her back, so close that her clothing flicked and her belt tugged. Then she was on him, one hand batting his gun hand aside, the other driving up into his chin in a palm slap that cracked his teeth together.

  She drove one foot between his and turned, still grasping his right arm at the wrist, tripping him and using his own weight to drop him to the rooftop. She went with him, drawing up her knee to land on his balls with all her weight.

  He switched to the side, grunting as her knee crushed into his thigh.

  Miranda head-butted him in the nose. She felt a warm splash of blood. Driving a fist into his left ear, hard, she rolled to her left.

  Ledger had recovered from his surprise. Spitting blood, he followed her movement, twisting hard to free his shooting hand. He still grasped the gun, and Miranda knew she had to force him to let go or this was over.

  She focused all her strength and attention on that hand, twisting, trying to haul it across her leg so she could break his wrist. Ledger did everything he could to prevent her from doing so.

  Which was exactly what she wanted.

  He didn’t see her right hand swing around, the blade glinting in the hot Venetian sunlight, its razor sharpness kissing against his neck.

  Now, she thought, and one flick would open his carotid artery. She’d watch him bleed out on this dirty rooftop, and it might be days before anyone found his body. Blinking Ledger’s blood from her eye, she saw Tess tucking her hair behind her ear, saw her beautiful smile.

  Ledger grasped the moment, writhed and flowed in her grip, releasing his gun and plucking the knife from her hand, smacking her down onto her back, pressing the knife against her thro
at.

  Blood smeared his face. He breathed hard, but not panicked. He was totally in control.

  “Fuck you,” Miranda hissed, and she so wished she believed in any sort of God. If she did, then perhaps now she’d be looking forward to seeing Tess again.

  It felt like a minute, but must have been only seconds.

  “Whatever you think I did, you’re wrong,” Ledger said. He sat up, left hand raised in a gesture of truce, right hand still pressing the knife hard against her throat. Fighting her for less than a minute, he’d already grown to know her well.

  Then he did the thing that shocked her even more than his stealth. He cast the knife aside and backed off her, both hands raised as if in surrender. The blade skittered and skidded along the rooftop, but Ledger remained on his knees, hands in the air, gaze locked on hers. Still on her back, Miranda was so stunned that at first she couldn’t think to move.

  “The hospital bombing—I was one of the investigators, not one of the evil pricks behind it,” he said. “I made them pay. They’re not going to hurt anyone again.”

  Heart pounding, breath shallow, Miranda scrambled to her feet, crouched and ready for a fight. Ledger still didn’t move. He’d had her, could have slit her throat, but he’d tossed the knife away. He was on his knees now, there would be no way for him to catch her if she ran for the knife or her rifle. All she had wanted was his death. She could feel it now, a tangible thing, could see in her mind’s eye what his face would look like when he breathed his last. Her hands opened and closed as she studied him. But while she was picturing Ledger’s death, she couldn’t see Tess’s face in her mind’s eye.

  “Go on,” Ledger said. “Grab a weapon if it makes you feel safer.”

  Miranda felt the hatred and grief rush up inside her. She took a step toward him. “I don’t need a weapon to kill you.”

  “The way you fight, maybe you don’t,” Ledger said.

  Nothing more. No explanation for throwing the blade away, no wheedling plea for his life, no further defense. Just letting his words sink in.

  “I’m just supposed to believe you?”

  “Up to you,” he said. “I guess in your situation, I’d want to backtrack to whoever put the wrong guy in my crosshairs, figure out their motives.”

  Miranda felt the Italian sun on her back. From somewhere far off, two men began to shout amiably to each other—something about an upcoming wedding. She could smell peppers roasting on a grill in a patio restaurant someplace close by. Tess had never been to Venice, but she would have loved the people here. Loved the sounds and the smells and the ancient magic of this place.

  She ignored Ledger now, walked back over to the edge of the roof, and picked up her rifle, began to break it down and pack it away. Her back remained to him for long seconds, so she wasn’t surprised when she stood with the gun case and turned to see that he’d risen to his feet. His hands were at his sides, but he’d kept a respectful distance.

  Still, his eyes were hard. “Seems like we’ve got mutual enemies now.”

  Miranda inhaled slowly. Exhaled. She believed him, of course. How could she not, when he’d given up an opportunity to kill her and put his life in her hands instead? It gave her some comfort to know the people responsible for the hospital bombing had been dealt with, but it was cold comfort indeed. She had wanted to get vengeance for Tess herself.

  She carried the gun case at her side and headed across the long roof. This time she heard Ledger’s footfalls as he followed her. Pigeons scattered in an irritated shush of wings.

  “You’re not just walking away after that,” Ledger said.

  Hatred had distracted her before, too much noise in her head. Now she listened to the rhythm of his footfalls and the shifting of his weight on the roof as he caught up behind her.

  “Look, whatever your deal is, I need to know what you know,” he went on. “I get it, you want to take out the people who pointed you at me, tried to get you to pull the trigger for them, but I was the target. So we need to talk. I don’t know you well enough to just assume you’re gonna get the job done. Damn it, are you even listening to—”

  She sensed it the moment before his hand landed on her shoulder. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she drove her other elbow into his gut. Still holding that wrist, she twisted out to one side, wrenched his arm back, and swung the gun case with perfectly calculated force. It struck Ledger’s skull with the sound of a cricket bat connecting with a ball. He staggered, but the son of a bitch was so strong, so determined, that he stayed on his feet. He’d been staggering to his left, trying to stay upright and keep her from dislocating his shoulder, and now she released her grip on his wrist.

  As he righted himself, turned to face her, shooting her a pissed-off look that said all of his patience was at an end, Miranda snapped a high kick at the center of his chest. Ledger stumbled back a foot—but the roof had only six inches left to give. His arms pinwheeled as he went over the edge. Knowing there might be eyes on her, Miranda didn’t stay to watch him hit the water, but she heard the splash in the canal as she bolted back toward the stairs.

  A trace of guilt flickered through her mind as she fled, gun case in hand, but it was gone as swiftly as it had arrived. Ledger could have killed her. If the tables had been turned, she doubted she’d have been so understanding. But he’d taken the vengeance that should have been hers. The killing wasn’t over, but the important killing—the killing that would have given her a sense of balance—had already been done, and Miranda knew that would haunt her for the rest of her life. That, and images of Tess that would continue to flicker into view, continue to linger in her thoughts, the ghost who walked the corridors of her heart. She couldn’t escape the feeling that the two most important moments of her life had been stolen from her before she’d even lived them.

  A wedding and a killing.

  In a narrow back alley, passing over a canal in a dilapidated part of Venice that the tourists never saw, Miranda pitched the gun case into the water and walked on without watching it sink into the murk.

  There would be other guns.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Christopher Golden is the New York Times number one bestselling author of Snowblind, Tin Men, Of Saints and Shadows, and many other novels. With Mike Mignola, he co-created two cult-favorite comics series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. As editor, his books include the anthologies Seize the Night, The New Dead, and Dark Cities. Golden is a co-host of the pop-culture podcast Three Guys with Beards, co-founder of the writing workshop and literary event company River City Writers, and frequent conference, school, and library speaker. His works have been published in various languages around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

  Tim Lebbon is a New York Times bestselling writer with more than thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Recent releases include The Silence, The Hunt, The Family Man, and The Rage War trilogy (licensed Alien and Predator novels). Forthcoming novels include the Relics trilogy and Blood of the Four (with Christopher Golden). He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award and has been short-listed for World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards. A movie of his novel Pay the Ghost, starring Nicolas Cage, was released in 2015, and other projects in development include My Haunted House, Playtime (with Stephen Volk), and Exorcising Angels (with Simon Clark). To find out more, please visit www.timlebbon.net.

  * * *

  EDITORS’ NOTE: This story is a crossover between the Joe Ledger series and Scott Sigler’s novel Nocturnal. In that novel, San Francisco homicide inspectors Bryan Clauser and Pookie Chang follow a trail of brutal serial killings tied to a secret, subterranean war that has raged through the city for more than a century.

  * * *

  VACATION

  BY SCOTT SIGLER

  A spectacular sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge, turning the few wisps of fog below it a reddish orange. A view of Alcatraz Island, old
and solid and full of legends. And me—just some guy sitting on a park bench at Marina Green with his dog lying down next to him, big white head in my lap.

  A perfect moment. I shouldn’t have answered the phone, but old habits die hard. And then there was the fact that calls to this phone were not to be ignored—especially when those calls came from that man.

  I had to jostle Ghost a bit to pull the phone out of my pocket. The white German shepherd glanced at me, just to check that everything was okay, then put his head back down on my lap.

  I answered.

  “Know what, Church? I’m buying you a dictionary.”

  “So I can look up what the word vacation means, I assume.”

  I hate it when he does that.

  “The least you could have done was let me have the fucking punch line.”

  “If you want the punch line, Joe, tell better jokes. Don’t worry, this probably won’t take long.”

  That’s the thing with Mr. Church. His probably has a completely different definition from what you’d expect. Yes, a dictionary would be the ideal Christmas present.

  In my life, perfect moments are rare. Church had interrupted that moment. I breathed deep, slow, petting Ghost’s head. A big head, because he’s a big dog. As in almost fifty kilos big. I’d had him only a few weeks, and we were already bound by blood. He’d taken a bullet that would have killed me. He’d also torn the hand off a human being who’d murdered the love of my life. I’d never been a dog person, but in my mind Ghost wasn’t really a dog—he was a fellow soldier. He was my pack member.

  That bullet hurt him, though. An inch-wide streak of shaved fur on his left shoulder surrounded eight stitches dotting a line of pursed flesh. While he recovered, I’d decided to reward his performance with a “sniff all the things you can” tour of San Francisco.

  Of course, this trip wasn’t just for Ghost. I needed recovery time, and not the physical kind. The wounds of Grace’s loss were too fresh. Too raw. I wasn’t ready to deal with people. I sure as hell wasn’t ready to go back to work.