“Not a chance,” came the probing reply. “Made that mistake last time, didn’t I? Didn’t move fast enough for you not to latch onto me. I’m not stopping now!” He let out an abrasive laugh.
Best change tack, then.
Jennie pushed herself to her feet and ran toward the bomb. She was knocked sideways again but managed to keep her footing. Another few feet forward and the blow came from the front, sending her sprawling on her ass.
“Sorry, Rogue. No luck for you. That bomb is going to blow if it’s the last thing we do. No SIA means less chance of my employer getting caught. You’re an additional bonus if I can make you burn in the flames.”
Baxter and Carolyn appeared through the door with Sandra. Rhone followed them, gun poised and ready. When they saw Jennie getting knocked around by an invisible presence, they ran toward her.
“No!” Jennie shouted. She latched onto Carolyn, Baxter, and Sandra and shoved them back. Rhone stood where he was, watching them slide toward the wall. “Get out of here. It’s too dangerous. This bomb is going to blow soon, and I don’t want you here when it does.”
“Don’t you mean ‘if?’” Baxter called, struggling against her power.
Jennie glanced at the bomb. There was no timer set, but she could hear the pieces inside starting to shift into place. “Go!” she repeated. “Clear the building. Save who you can.”
She shoved the specters out of the room and pushed them as far as she could while they were within range. She couldn’t see where they went but hoped it was up the stairwell, getting people out the way.
Rhone stayed where he was.
“Rhone, leave!” Jennie cried, another blow taking her farther from the bomb. She clumsily rose to her feet and made a dash for it. The specter swooped in and pulled her back.
“No,” Rhone stated. “Your powers don’t work on me. I’m with you until the end.”
Jennie’s face grew dark. “This is not the time for heroics. Heroics killed Rogers, and you can’t be next. They’ll need you.”
A force hit Jennie’s throat and left her coughing.
“No,” Rhone repeated. “They’ll need you.”
He waited for a second, calculating the regularity and rhythm of the blows Jennie was receiving from the invisible force. At the moment that the next one came, Rhone aimed the gun at her and unleashed the entire chamber of bullets. Jennie’s head flew back from the punch of the specter, and she stayed on the floor as the bullets flew toward her.
Most of the bullets whizzed straight by, but at least two did their job.
A voice shouted in pain. Jennie focused her power and found Rico as he slowed down and crashed to the floor. The SI bullets had caught him in the thigh and chest.
Jennie latched onto him, and her spectral cells started filling. She dragged him into the air and choked him, draining his life force until he was unable to breathe.
Rhone dashed over to help Jennie, forced his eyes away from Rogers, and held the exposed wires. The knife was on the floor next to him.
Rico struggled, his face creased in pain. Jennie growled. “You’ve been a nuisance for the last time.” Her face was red, eyes focused on the specter in front of her. How many times had he almost come between her and justice? A boiling fury overtook her.
“Which color?” Rhone asked, holding the knife to each in turn. Something inside the bomb clicked.
Jennie didn’t hear him. “I don’t take a lot of pleasure in eradicating people from this Earth, but I’m going to take a great deal of joy in destroying you.” Her eyes widened as the words came unbidden to her tongue. “Deus est; Et inimicos eorum dispersus est et eos, qui oderunt eum, a facie ejus…”
Rhone shouted. “Jennie! Which color?”
If Jennie could hear him, she showed no sign. “Ut impellere fumum, pulsi sunt…”
Rhone shouted louder than ever, but there was still no response. The specter glowed white under her power, an orb of light taking him away. Rhone could see the irony as he imagined the bomb in front of him taking his life soon, too.
Jennie’s eyes turned pale. Rico was all but lost in the light. “…liquescit cera a facie ignis et peccatores coram Deo.”
With a final scream, Rico pulsed with holy light. Rhone was almost blinded. He shielded his eyes and looked down at the floor where Rogers lay with his head turned toward him. Rogers raised a weak hand and muttered a single word, “Blue.”
Wasting no time, Rhone slashed the blue wire in his hand, catching the skin of his palm, too. The bomb shuddered, then was still. Rhone prayed he had cut the right wire, but he wouldn’t be sure until they had gotten out of there and enough time had passed.
“Jennie! Let’s go!” Rhone shouted.
The light vanished. Jennie’s eyes snapped back into focus. She looked around as if remembering where she was.
“The bomb?” she asked.
Rhone nodded. “Taken care of, I think.” He grabbed Rogers’ arm and cradled it around his neck. “Here, help me get him back topside.”
Jennie took Rogers’ other arm, and they dashed from the rec room. Neither of them uttered a word as with every step they took, they prepared for the inevitable explosion behind them.
When they reached the top floor and the bomb had still not detonated, they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Washington DC, USA
Jennie blinked as she stepped into the sunlight. Rogers was unconscious between her and Rhone and was the only one of the three who didn’t look up in startled surprise as they exited the HQ.
Agent Sturgeon broke from her intense conversation with Baxter and stepped toward them. “Is it disarmed?”
Jennie could only give a small nod.
There were easily a hundred of them gathered outside the facility, half wearing SIA uniforms, the other half in SIS fatigues. Lionus stood beside Daggro, who had clearly been dragged out of the HQ by Carolyn, Baxter, and Sandra as they obeyed her wishes despite their personal feelings and rescued as many people as they could from the blast radius.
Clustered among them was the group of disheveled men and women who had masqueraded as SIA agents. Jennie glared at them. “You caught them all?”
Sturgeon nodded. “Anyone who left that building is with us now. It was lucky your friends came out when they did since we were all about to head inside to look for you.”
Jennie glanced down at Rogers. Lucky didn’t seem to be the right word for this occasion. “There’ll be time to talk,” she muttered. “Let’s get Rogers to the hospital.
* * *
Ashton ferried them to the hospital in the Airbus. Jennie had handed over the reins to Sturgeon in her absence, much to Lionus’ and Daggro’s displeasure.
As agents from both sides interrogated the enemy, Jennie and Baxter waited for news on Rogers in the hallway of the hospital. Jennie had refused medical attention for her bruises and injuries, stating that they were nothing and would heal. They always did.
Jennie and Baxter were quiet, and time passed slowly. Jennie made an effort to catch up on her notifications and was alarmed to see that things had developed further in Richmond. Julia would need to catch her up fully when they were out of there, but for now, Jennie found Tanya’s number and hit “Dial.”
Tanya answered almost instantly. They were back at the manor, collecting together their forces to go against this new enemy—the Dreadnought. Tanya even spoke of trying to break the poltergeists out of their borders and bring them along for extra numbers as she knew how busy Jennie and the others were.
Jennie told her to slow down. Washington wasn’t too far from Richmond, and they had the numbers to back them up. All Jennie needed to do was issue the command, and it would be likely many would follow. Especially given that she and Rhone—well, more Rhone—had saved Rogers’ life.
“There is just one thing,” Tanya added as they neared their goodbye. “We’re not sure where Jiao has gotten to. She was supposed to be at the manor, but she’s no
where to be found. I wondered if she went for a walk into town, but that seems quite unlike her.”
Jennie rubbed her eyes. “Seems to be the common thread at the minute—invisible friends and enemies.” She thought back to Rico, still not quite believing he had reappeared yet again. “We’ve still got no clue who the Dragon is, and she seems to be the missing link in this mess. If we can find the Dragon, we can end this whole damn ordeal.” Jennie sighed then muttered, “Renminbi…”
There was a pause on the other side of the phone.
“What?” Jennie asked. “Tanya, why have you gone quiet?”
* * *
Tanya stared at the wall, eyes unblinking. She held the phone loosely in her hand as a flood of memories came back to her. The gunmen were somewhere downstairs, waiting for the all-clear to attack the quarry. Jiao was missing.
Jiao…
It came back to her in crystal clarity, that niggling sensation she had experienced when staring at the exchange bureau sign. It was written right there in little red LEDs: Renminbi.
“Tanya, why have you gone quiet?” Jennie repeated.
“Jiao,” Tanya mumbled, recalling the units of Chinese currency that had been listed. The Jiao was equivalent to one-tenth of a Chinese yuan. It had been in front of their faces all along.
Jennie’s voice was sharp. “Tanya, speak up.”
“Jiao,” Tanya repeated. “Jiao is the Dragon. She’s the one behind all this.”
At that moment, the pieces of the puzzle clicked together. Why Jiao was so quiet, why she was so keen to learn about Jennie’s operation, why she had been able to expunge the women of their specters.
Why she was gone at the pinnacle of their discoveries.
* * *
Jiao waited at the entrance to the quarry’s cave. The sun was unrelenting, the sky a perfect azure. Surrounding her were the beginnings of the army of possessed, encircling her and standing like silent sentinels.
She stared into the dark mouth of the cave. Footsteps echoed around the large hole and reverberated out toward her. A moment later, two women stepped into view.
Madame Celestine looked awful. Her hair was a nest of tangles, and the bags beneath her eyes were dark. It seemed that in finding a new primary host, Rathbourne had left the husk of his former body behind, with only enough of him left inside to keep control over her.
The new woman, however, was in peak physical condition, older than she would have expected, but with the body of a soldier. She held an AK comfortably in her hands.
A man’s voice leaked from the woman’s mouth. “You come to us willingly?”
“I come with an offer,” Jiao replied.
The woman cocked her head. “What can a puny excuse for a woman offer a god such as me? When I can enter who I may and control these lands, there is little of value to be had in negotiation.”
Jiao held his stare. “I have dominion over a band of powerful mortals who will add sufficient sway to our discussions. You are the last king from your era, are you not?”
The woman grinned, the smile unnaturally wide for her face. “What use have I for you to shepherd more mortals my way? I can build my army alone.”
“You’re up against a challenge,” Jiao declared. “A woman who is maybe more powerful even than you. You will need someone by your side. A power who can warn you of her approach. A woman who can govern at your side. Perhaps even a queen.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, the Dreadnought’s interest caught. “Or I could control you and make you tell me.”
Her hands lashed out before her, dark shadows spreading from her fingertips. The smoke snaked toward Jiao, who took a step back and readied her stance. Three gold rings decorated her fingers, and as she circled her hands around her body and head, she created a forcefield that staved off the smoke and prevented it from touching her skin.
The smoke surrounded her, but with a final push, a flash of light extinguished it. The woman was lost for breath as a surge of power made its way toward her.
Jiao grinned. “You have no power or dominion here.” She readjusted her stance and stared at the woman, able to just about see a hint of the spectral demon living inside of her. “So. Do we have a deal?”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Richmond, Virginia, USA
The reception lounge of King Manor had never seen so many guests. The room was quiet as the assembled mix of SIA, SIS, King’s Court, and Spectral Planes representatives waited for the last of their order to arrive.
Earlier that day, the Richmond sky had been buzzing with the humming drone of helicopters. Jennie summoned the leaders of each of the respective organizations to convene and discuss what lay ahead. The realization that the woman they had rescued from the clutches of Peter Zhao, the former Dragon, was linked to the madness currently taking place across Washington and its neighboring states had struck them like an ice pick to the heart.
It had been Tanya who had made the discovery, her memory triggered by the currency exchange bureau she had passed in Richmond. The only clue they had to go on had been “Renminbi,” a word uttered several times by Zhao, but they hadn’t known what it meant.
When Tanya had seen the denominations of the Chinese currency and her eyes had lingered on the “jiao”—a denomination of Chinese coin—she hadn’t been sure why this stood out to her, until much later when she discovered that Jiao was missing from the manor.
She still couldn’t believe it. No one could. Jiao was so quiet and innocent. It would, however, explain her strange behavior of late. The strange power she harnessed in freeing the two mortal women from their possession without telling anyone else. The sudden hanging up of her phone when Tanya had entered her chambers. Her curiosity and willingness to accompany Jennie and the others to their new headquarters without question or reserve.
Tanya’s only true surprise was that Julia hadn’t been the first to discover it all. Particularly with her massive brain and studious demeanor, Julia had been their go-to resource for research when it had come to the strange goings-on in Richmond. Julia had translated the text they found on the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus and had since been trying to dive deeper into any mentions of his existence in the history books.
So far, nothing had shown up.
The front door opened, and all heads turned toward the lobby through a large open archway. Jennie walked inside, a paper bag in one hand, laden down by heavy items. She shut the door, then headed behind the makeshift bar she had created in the reception lounge.
Tanya caught the smiles of her friends: Carolyn, Lupe, Baxter, Sandra, and Feng Mian. They were the only ones among the gathered group who had grown accustomed to Jennie’s obsession with cocktail-making.
The room remained silent as Jennie unloaded bottles, then quietly counted the number of heads in the room. It wasn’t until she screwed up the paper bag and threw it into a wicker trash basket that someone actually spoke up.
Agent Sturgeon, of the Paranormal Court’s SIS department, rose to her feet. “Excuse me, Rogue, I don’t mean to cut into your recreational time, but I was under the impression that we had a crisis on our hands.”
Jennie rested her hands on the bar and examined the bottles and cartons she had placed before her. She didn’t bother to look up at Sturgeon. “We do. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little refreshment while we discuss the particulars of the operation, does it? Relax, it’s just something to take the edge off.”
Sturgeon turned to the spectral forms of Agent Clark and Agent Tiptry for help. They each shrugged their shoulders.
Before Sturgeon could say another word, Jennie unscrewed the lid from a bottle that contained a violently orange liquid. It was so bright that it was nearly neon. She started pouring. “Did you know that alcohol has been proven to lower stress and anxiety levels? Over the last few years, alcohol has gotten a bit of a bad rep, what with binge drinking and the associated health risks of chugging wine and whiskey on a regular basis, but when taken in moderation, alcohol can do a lot
to lubricate social awkwardness, and limber up the mind.”
Carolyn laughed. “Moderation? Is that what you call it?”
Jennie looked out from over her dark glasses. She smirked. “Yes. Moderation.”
She filled five metallic shakers with a measure of the orange liquid, then started measuring out an array of white and brown liqueurs. Each of the drinks looked as though they shouldn’t mix, but she added them with a confidence that couldn’t be questioned. Despite the current situation, the newcomers to the manor watched on with interest.
The only person not taken by the demonstration was Tanya. “We should’ve seen it coming. Jiao. It’s so obvious, now. We could have prevented this from happening.”
Jennie started shaking each metallic container in turn. “It’s not your fault. Hiding in plain sight is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Besides, you did what you could with the resources you had. The fact is that even if we hadn’t been here, the Dreadnought would have found his way into existence, anyway. Jiao had nothing to do with his unleashing. We don’t know that the two are connected, anyway, so let’s keep optimistic and find a way to hunt down that bitch.”
Jennie placed the last shaker down and wiped her brow with her forearm. “Orders are up. Get yours while they’re cold.”
She ducked under the desk and retrieved a number of glasses that she lined up on the counter. When she returned to standing, no one had moved a muscle.
“Oh, come on,” she urged. “Don’t make me beg. I made these for all of you.”
Sturgeon’s brow furrowed. Agent Lionus, who was the only member of the US Government’s SIA currently in any kind of position to act as a representative, given SAiC Kurt Rogers’ current incapacitation in the hospital, and Agent Daggro’s much-needed hibernation, was the only one who leaped to his feet and took his drink.
Agents, Agreements and Aggravations: In Her Paranormal Majesty’s Secret Service™ Book Three Page 38
