When the helicopter doors closed, the others were left staring at the tinted windows.
Julia scoffed. “Who the hell is that guy? He’s like shit you’ve stepped in, only personified.”
Baxter sighed. “Just when you think things can’t get any worse…” He spun to the others. “Leave it, for now. Fill us in, what the hell happened down there?”
* * *
Zhao returned in a fit of fury, although he had learned at least one thing from his lesson.
Jennie didn’t have the satisfaction of seeing Zhao hit the ground, but she knew the moment that he had thanks to the ear-splitting squeal that erupted in her head.
She tried to cover her ears, but her hands were bound. She grimaced and writhed as the sound threatened to explode her eardrums and drive her crazy. She had been smug for a few moments, waiting for any sign that Zhao had completed his descent, but now she regretted her complacency.
The squealing was like fingernails scraped on a chalkboard and pumped through a megaphone. She wondered when it would stop and, just when she thought she could take no more, her relief finally came.
A voice appeared in her head. Well played, King. Don’t forget, I have access to you. Inside you. You mess with the Dragon’s fire, expect to get burned.
Jennie panted and thought, You said you weren’t the dragon anymore.
A brief beat of silence before a soft chuckle echoed inside her.
Jennie soaked in the silence, glad for the relief from the squeal. She had only been a prisoner for one night, and already she was sick of this situation. There had to be a way out of here. There had to be something she could do to force her escape.
Her eyes widened, and she rocked her head back as she remembered that Zhao had access to her thoughts.
How do you free yourself from a prison when the warden knows your every thought?
Jennie tried to empty her mind and simply listen to the world. True yogis could erase their thoughts and exist purely in the present, at one with the sights, smells, and sounds of the world around them.
It had been something she had struggled to do for years. While she had come a long way in meditative practices, she had never quite achieved complete Zen. But she tried it now.
She stared out of the window at the city around her. Lights blinked and traffic ran lazily through the streets as dawn showed its head. Inside the room was the smell of her own sweat, mixed with a faint note of dusty carpet, and the remnant of a buffet that had been served in the room at some point over the previous few days.
There was a faint chill in the air, enough to cause her skin to prickle. She could make out the footsteps of Zhao’s men in the rooms behind her, slow and measured. Car engines met her ears and somewhere far off a plane hummed through the clouds.
And there…Somewhere below, the faint bass-line thud of music.
Music…
Jennie gasped and immediately tried to shut the thought away in a private lockbox, holding onto the thought while focusing on other things. It was like trying to hold onto a fish underwater, the thought doing its best to vanish while she desperately tried to keep enough of a hold to claim it as her own.
Music. That was the answer. Or, at least, it was worth a try.
Jennie closed her eyes and pictured her Spotify playlist. She ran an imaginary finger down the list until she found what she was looking for.
An oldie, but a goodie.
She imagined selecting the track, and Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now, began playing in her head. She had loved Queen from the first moment she had seen them live in concert. She hadn’t bought a ticket, hadn’t even meant to attend, but specters can choose some funny places to arise. Incidentally, the jolly feud that was triggered by Jennie on that fateful day may just be the first-ever recorded example of what has since commonly been labeled as a “mosh pit.”
A grin crept onto Jennie’s face. Somewhere far off she fancied she could hear Zhao’s confused words, but she blocked it all out, losing herself in the music. When the first full verse kicked in, she opened her eyes and scanned the room, looking for anything that could be of use to her.
It was the clearest she’d been able to see for hours, and as she eyed the FM radio in the corner and the large potted plant, she allowed herself brief moments to imagine what use they could be to her. As fast as the thoughts came, they went again.
Don’t stop me now.
Jennie twisted her neck over her shoulder, and her grin morphed into a wide beam. In the corner of the room, piled untidily next to a trolley with stale glasses of water and coffee-stained cups, was her utility belt, complete with Hendrick’s power cells.
Why would Zhao not have taken them?
Jennie focused on the music and interrupted her thoughts. The song was reaching its conclusion, and she already knew which tune she’d artfully fade into next: Somebody to Love.
The spectral power cells had been left when Zhao realized that he understood nothing of the equipment that Jennie carried. The guns he had snatched and hidden somewhere, but the belt, and even Jennie’s watch and glasses he had thrown carelessly into the corner.
However, the spectral power must have been picked up by the batteries at the moment that Jennie latched onto Zhao to hurl him from the roof. For, as she was excited to see, the cells showed a quarter charge across their LED panels each.
Everything was a theory at this point, and Jennie couldn’t allow herself to overthink. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done to allow her instincts to take over while she consciously focused on singing in her own head. She closed her eyes, felt for the cells, and tried something that she thought wouldn’t work.
In for a penny, in for a pound. A phrase her mother used to say to her. Even to this day, she never quite understood its origins, though its meaning was clear.
The belt slid off the table. Jennie’s heart pounded with excitement. She hoped to the heavens that Zhao couldn’t see through her then, that all he could see in the lenses of her eyes were the mullets and fros of four rock stars entertaining the crowds.
With a final push of will, the belt flew onto Jennie’s lap. She looked away from the belt, adjusting her knees to lever the pockets to her fingertips. She found something and hooked a finger inside a glass vial. Perfect. But which one was it?
Killer Queen. Killer Queen next. I love that song. Never quite got the lyrics, but…
Jennie’s eyes flickered to the vial. It wasn’t the one she wanted. She shifted the belt further along and tried the next pocket.
Why would Mary Antoinette eat cake? Did she have a weird way she ate?
She held another vial in her hand. Another flicker of her eyes. Perfect.
Jennie had been in enough scrapes to have mastered the art of undoing the vial’s cap with one hand. Only, with the angle her hand was at, she was certain that this wasn’t going to be a clean break.
Her heart pounded even faster. Don’t focus on that, Jennie.
Zhao’s voice in the back of her mind. Huh?
Jennie sang at the top of her lungs. “Dynamite with a laser beam! Guaranteed to blow your mind!”
She tilted the vial into the cuffs. The liquid spilled down the metal and began to eat its bonds. Whatever concoction Hendrick had put together flashed as it battled with the spectral imbuement.
The liquid finished eating through the cuff and trickled onto her hand. Her skin raged with fire, and she smelled her flesh burning. She tore her hand from the cuff, careful not to look directly at it, instead focusing on the world outside. She blindly fumbled a second vial and freed the other hand. Splashes of the acid found her arms and left angry red burns that she’d have to get Hendrick’s help to heal much later.
She fumbled with the straps around her feet and untied herself. The burning was all-encompassing. Jennie ran to the buffet table and threw the water on herself. Dashes of water wet her white top and caused segments of it to go almost translucent.
Jennie sighed with relief as the burns stopp
ed, barely aware that she had stopped all thought of singing. She turned at the sound of the door opening and found herself staring into the eyes of a confused guard.
His eyes lingered on her chest. Her eyes lingered on his pistol.
Jennie smirked. “That’s right, kid. I’m the Killer Queen.”
She moved so quickly that the man didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Thirty-One
New York City, New York, USA
Maybe luck was on Jennie’s side, or maybe it was some higher being, but the disturbance with the man at the door did little to raise attention.
More fortuitous than that, Jennie found her phone amongst the pile of her items that had been stripped, and while the guard snoozed soundly on the floor, she placed her glasses back on her face. She switched on her phone and was disappointed to find there was only a small amount of charge left. She forced herself not to dwell on what she found, still doing her best to shut Zhao out of her mind.
She blindly patted the guard down and found the pistol. She relieved him of the firearm and stumbled across a set of earphones, too.
Perfect.
Jennie instinctively found her Spotify app and opened her Get Pumped playlist. Music blared in her ears and removed some of the cognitive focus she had been forced to put on. She felt drained, and the music playing in her ears was like stepping into a refreshing bath.
It was all instinct. She was certain that, if Zhao didn’t already know she was coming, he would soon. She stepped to the door, adjusted her belt, then placed her hand on the handle.
Pistol at the ready, she stepped into the room. Her instincts worked for her, honed to a keen edge over decades of work. She shot three guards before they could so much as register her appearance. Only when the room was clear did she have a proper look at what was in front of her.
Adrenaline coursing through her body, Jennie took another pistol from a fallen guard and balanced them both in her hands. She’d done well so far, but she’d need to focus to make it out of this place alive. Perhaps the music would help silence some of her thoughts to Zhao, but it was time to throw caution to the wind and storm her way out of the building.
She checked each room on the upper floor for enemies and found only one. This guard had hidden behind the door as she entered. She sensed him before she saw him and whirled. She knocked his wrist and sent the gun he had been holding—Jennie’s pistol—from his hand. She knocked the Big Bitch into the air before tossing her borrowed pistol aside and grabbing it as it fell.
It felt good to be back in control.
The man cowered before her. She held the gun to his face. A tear rolled down his cheek.
Jennie sighed, speaking slightly louder than she meant to with the music playing in her ears. “You’re one of the lucky ones. Don’t forget my mercy.”
She freed a vial from its pouch and blew the silver sleep powder into the man’s face. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
Jennie examined the Big Bitch and was alarmed to see a scratch down its usually pristine metal exterior. “Son of a bitch!” She kissed the barrel. “Still, it’s nice that you’re back with me.”
Somewhere far off, she was aware of a specter yelling in rage. Zhao? More than likely.
She made a break for it, unsurprised to find a half dozen guards storming the upper floors from the elevator. Jennie sent off two shots, then ducked behind a table. She waited until they paused to reload, then leaned around and shot two guards in the ankles. The glance gave her an overview of the men and their positions. Without looking, she angled the Big Bitch over the top of the desk and fired twice more.
Return fire halted. A few groans broke the silence that followed.
Jennie rose to her full height and studied the men. They all wore dark fatigues that she would associate with ninjas. Why wouldn’t Zhao’s men have proper armor?
There was no time to answer her own question.
The elevator pinged as she pressed the button. She went inside, jabbed the “G” button, and exited before the doors closed. She took to the stairwell and removed her boots. She used the laces to tie them around her belt as she softly padded down the stairs.
* * *
Darius Chu received the demanding call from Zhao as he shouted into his earpiece and informed him of the situation.
King had escaped. Somehow. It didn’t seem possible.
Yet, when Zhao crawled into the lobby, all of Darius’ doubts faded away.
The man was a mess, which made no sense to Darius. He was certain that Zhao had been upstairs with the rest of his comrades when last he checked. After the effort of taking over the Empire State Building at night, passing off the operation as Federal with fake FBI badges and convincing the management the case be left well enough alone until morning, Zhao had been immensely thorough in ensuring that nothing should happen to King and she’d be held captive until the rest of the plan had unfolded.
So how had Zhao ended up outside?
Only one answer came to him. He must have fallen from above. But, if that was the case, surely a specter could turn immaterial and land safely?
Zhao used arms that appeared broken in various places to crawl along the floor. His legs were dead weight. His body twisted into unnatural contortions. He couldn’t see guts or the white of bone, but he knew enough to know that Zhao was in pain.
He didn’t even have to ask before Zhao answered. “Teething problems. I’m still learning to control my powers. I tried to turn immaterial, but apparently falling over a hundred floors is enough to take your mind away from any focus it may have.”
Who was Darius to argue?
“She’s really escaped?” Darius asked.
Zhao nodded. The movement appeared painful. The surrounding guards tried not to look at the sickening sight of Zhao for too long. “Yes. She’s on her way down. Get her before the whole thing falls apart.”
Darius was about to send a group of guards upstairs when he noticed the light on the elevator. “Wait. She’s coming down in the main elevator.”
His spider senses tingled. Something wasn’t right. Why would King go straight down the main access route when she knew that the lobby would likely be guarded?
Darius grinned. He instructed a handful of guards to monitor the stairs for the first two floors, while the rest waited in the lobby, each guard’s eye fixed down the scope of their weapon.
“She’s up to something,” Zhao gurgled.
Darius forced himself to look at the mess on the floor. “Sir. You need to get out of here.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Zhao managed.
Darius snapped his fingers toward a specter who had been waiting patiently for instructions. “You. Get Zhao out of here.”
“Where shall I take him?” the specter replied.
Zhao answered. “The safe house. Take me to the safe house.”
She knelt beside Zhao and scooped him up. At least in spectral form, his weight wasn’t as much of an issue, though thanks to the awkward angles his body was twisted in, he wasn’t easy to carry.
He grimaced as she cradled him across her arms. The elevator closed in on the ground floor.
“Go,” Zhao instructed. “Now.”
Darius turned his attention to the elevator doors and waited. Maybe he had outsmarted Jennie. Yet, knowing what he knew about her, maybe they hadn’t. The only thing they could trust was that they needed to expect the unexpected.
* * *
Jennie heard their footsteps far below.
She couldn’t count them, but she knew they were there. Booted footsteps carried far in an empty stairwell.
Which is why I took mine off.
The earphones hung limply around her neck. She had removed them, knowing that she would need to hear as she journeyed ahead. All she could hope was that she wasn’t completely transparent and that Zhao wouldn’t anticipate her next move.
Which was what, exactly?
Jennie didn’t know. As always, she knew t
hat plans only held so much weight in these situations. Things never turned out the way you planned, so it was useful to learn how to react to the unexpected. Maybe Zhao had sent them up the stairs. All she knew was that she needed to find a way past them.
Having the Big Bitch back in her life gave her some assurance. She sneaked onward, slowing down as the footsteps echoed around her. She chanced a look down below and saw dark shapes moving, though they stopped when they reached the second floor.
Interesting…
Jennie continued in silence, steadying her breath. Her socks padded without a murmur on the stairs, and soon she was only one floor above the others.
Although they tried to remain quiet, she could hear a cornucopia of sounds. Fatigues rustling as the guards adjusted their positions. Guns clacking as they checked their ammo and readied their fire. Breathing and murmuring from the group.
Jennie could take them, of that she was sure. But what then? These wouldn’t be the only guards waiting for her, so how many were armed and ready on the next floor, and the ground floor, too?
Time for some out of the box thinking, Jennie thought, then tried to close off the conscious part of her mind again. An idea had come, but it would be dangerous if Zhao caught hold of it.
It was then that she realized that Zhao had fallen silent. There wasn’t even a trace of him in her mind.
Not that that could count for much. There was so much of his power that she was yet to understand.
Jennie closed her eyes and found her center. She tapped into the spectral power cells, knowing she only had limited juice and this would be a risky maneuver.
She stepped toward the wall and turned spectral. With a leveled hop, she threw herself sideways and out into the street below.
Her stomach flew into her throat as she dropped like a pin toward the concrete. The cells were fast depleting, and Jennie only hoped she had enough power to stick the landing.
The ground met her. She absorbed the shock and sunk a foot below the surface. She speedily climbed out and freed herself right at the moment that the cells depleted.
Agents, Agreements and Aggravations: In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service™ Book Three Page 24
