Roark, for his part, looked entirely consumed by the clip.
“Roark?” It dawned on me that his father might work there. But it was only 5:05 AM—so relatively few people were at work. Unless the 9 – 5 thing had shifted, too, over the past twenty years.
“Hm?” He blinked multiple times, as if shaking cobwebs from his mind. “Has to be him.”
“What building is that?”
“R & D center.” Roark shook his head in stunned disbelief. “The security protocols are insane down there.”
“You worried?”
As if anticipating my question, Roark said, “The old man doesn’t work from an office.”
There was lots of information simmering beneath the surface of those words. But we didn’t have time to delve into Roark’s past. If it was only a little past five, then the necromancer had more festivities planned, like dominos stacked end to end.
Any reservations I had about being Roark’s partner vanished. However bad MagiTekk was, I had no desire to see the barbarians sack Rome. I might not have been around during the Dark Ages, but I’d crossed paths with enough survivors to know that it wasn’t a period of history worth reliving.
MagiTekk would have to be dismantled piece-by-piece. Not brought down in a day-long fireworks show.
I tugged on Roark’s arm, leading him down the sidewalk. “We need to get the tracking chips out.”
“He’s everywhere,” Roark said in stunned fascination, as if the magnitude of the task was finally dawning on him. “Pulling strings.”
“Well he pulled the wrong fucking one this time,” I said.
My mind was made up.
I could choose to be a killer.
Or I could walk amongst the mortals, in the light.
The scary part was encapsulated within one little word.
Choose.
Because, last time I had made a life-altering decision, things hadn’t turned out well for me.
Not one damn bit.
29
Almost 21 Years Ago
August 4, 2018
Phoenix, AZ
“You know what you have to do.” Pearl’s words were deliberate and measured, each syllable racked with pain. With weary fingers, I ignored her, sliding the final essence-infused shell into the shotgun.
I racked the slide in the swirling smoke. Orange slivers of flame and red-and-blue lights pulsed through the ethereal haze within the house. It all felt like a bad dream. But the itching in my lungs told me that this wasn’t something I could walk away from.
It didn’t take seeing the dark wisps hovering around the burning room to realize the situation was hopeless. Firing a shot against Jameson and what seemed like the entirety of the Phoenix law enforcement community hadn’t ended well.
Usually, in a standoff, the girl with the biggest pile of ammo wins.
That wasn’t me.
Pearl coughed. I stayed low in the doorway. They were trying to smoke us out, like prey in the forest. Starting a fire was a bold move, but it told me just how desperate they were to bring us in. Times and tactics had changed more in the past two years than the preceding two hundred.
It was a problem when the cops fought dirtier than the most amoral of marks.
I swallowed my righteous indignation, reminding myself that this was a choice. My intuition had shown me the door. Allowed me an escape back into the rapidly changing world. But I had stayed, loyal to the end.
And this was the fate you suffered when you made a last stand.
Eyes watering from the smoke, I flattened myself against the carpet. Another five or ten minutes at most. Then I’d die from smoke inhalation. Had to give it to the boys outside; after taking loss after loss for the past couple hours, they’d gone for the jugular.
The front door creaked open. From my vantage point in the bedroom hallway, I couldn’t see how many, but I could hear the whispers. At least three, maybe more if there was backup. Heavy footfalls across the carpet indicated they were wearing protective gear.
My sweaty fingers tightened around the shotgun.
“You heard me, damnit,” Pearl said in a forceful whisper. “You know—”
“I’m not leaving.” I closed my eyes, head spinning from the smoke.
“I didn’t spend a hundred years training you for you to be shot like a dog.”
That passed for affection. I would’ve smiled, but I heard a doorway creak. Opening my eye just a sliver, I caught sight of an armored guard. I pulled the trigger without hesitation, blue lightning zipping through the haze.
The blast caught him right in the chest, hurling him backward. I could hear his skin sizzle.
Or maybe it was the carpet.
That was it. The gun was empty.
Panicked shouts—calls to retreat—were met with forceful bellows from command to continue forward. Without my gun, I had no offensive powers. Nothing to save us from harm. I pushed against the carpeting, rising into the swirling cloud of smoke.
“You can come out now.” Jameson’s voice was cool, echoing from behind a breathing mask.
I backed into the bedroom, clutching the shotgun like a bat. “Come closer and I’ll blow your head off.”
“It’s not me you should be worried about.”
There was a cough, then Pearl said, “I can’t let you die for me.”
I whipped around, staring at the ruined bedspread in murk. Pearl had slipped past as I’d lined up my final shot, using the very techniques she’d taught me. Break a branch, start at the beginning of the forest. Rustle a leaf, no water for the rest of the day.
“You can save her,” Jameson called through the mess. “We just want you.”
“Who wants me? Dewitt?”
There was a terse laugh. “Above our pay grades, I’m afraid.” A pistol cocked. “Five.”
He didn’t have to reach four. I stumbled out into the living room, seeing the masked scourge of law enforcement training their rifles at me. When I dropped the shotgun to the ground, they closed in. My face was pressed against the ashy carpet, and then they hauled me out the ruined door, into the dusk.
Smoke and flame hung over the dark sky. But I didn’t really focus on that.
I was focused on the grass, where Pearl knelt, Jameson’s masked face leering behind her.
His eyes met mine.
Then he pulled the trigger, the bullet cutting through her mussed black hair, coming out the other end, barely any blood at all. She crumpled to the pleasant suburban grass, like she’d just gotten too tired to stand upright.
I kicked the nearest officer, splintering his shin. Jerking free, I charged at Jameson, still cuffed. His eyes widened, going from self-satisfied to terrified in under half a second. He fumbled with the pistol, not anticipating my rage.
I hit him dead center in the chest, feeling his sternum crack.
Before we hit the ground, I had my knee at his throat, pressing down. Trying to crack his windpipe.
His eyes bulged out, red lines straining. Pearl’s death played over and over in my mind.
“You promised, you son of a bitch,” I said.
He tried to say something.
I wasn’t going to let him.
Then a rifle butt collided with my head. I heard a gasp, my heart wrenching with unfulfilled vengeance. Before I could roll over, I caught a glimpse of another rifle headed toward my temple.
The next time I woke up, I was inside the Tempe camp.
And I wouldn’t leave for almost twenty-one years.
30
Freedom was always preferable to incarceration. But one could argue that these circumstances—being a pawn on Marshall’s chessboard—weren’t particularly liberating. Neither Roark nor I spoke much as we trudged through the quiet streets.
Hopefully this choice would turn out better than the last one.
Serenity Cole’s clinic was in about the roughest area of Phoenix you could find without venturing into the Fallout Zone. Here, the homes were comparatively miniscule two- or t
hree-story structures, connected to one another in long blocks.
Row homes, they used to call them.
I suspected the city planners now called them a blight. A statistic dragging down their numbers. Cutting them off from precious federal funding. Too many of these shacks, and all the MagiTekk skyscrapers in the world didn’t have a chance of bringing this place above three thousand feet.
Here, too, even the advertisements were low-tech: electric billboards embedded at vacant bus stops, e-papers displaying today’s headlines from dented corner boxes.
Unlike the surrounding area, which was covered in a fine layer of dust and about a decade of disrepair, the clinic was clean and cheery, all the lights on even in the early morning.
We stopped in the middle of the cracking street. No cars came whipping by. I couldn’t even hear a sound. Either the place was abandoned, or everyone kept a low profile. Like the antithesis of the Fallout Zone, at least in that regard.
It had the whole ghost town vibe down pat, though.
“You know this woman?” Roark finally broke the silence. Although the necromancing elephant still loomed over us, the conversation was a welcome distraction.
“I’ve met her once or twice.” I nudged him with my shoulder. “What, that wasn’t in my file?”
“I don’t know everything.” His sad blue eyes darted over the glass exterior, searching for threats. From my days with Roark, I could tell he was a good cop. Had instincts that couldn’t be taught. As for what my intuition told me, well, it was a whole lot of nothing.
A kaleidoscope of uncertainty—hints of danger, reconciliation, awkwardness. I didn’t need magic to tell me that Serenity would be less than pleased to see me. My only friend in this world had died twenty-one years ago.
Everyone else was more of a passing acquaintance.
“My, how you change from day to day, Roark,” I said.
“Kind of unsporting to beat up on an amnesiac, don’t you think?”
“That was sarcasm.” We could go into a suburban coffee shop, and he’d sit down in the corner booth to get a full view of the place. Sitting straight, eyes open the whole time to make sure no one got the drop on him.
One person in particular. The necromancer. All that vigilance was really vengeance in disguise. Waiting for his shot. Dreading the thought of missing it.
I knew the feeling.
“Oh, is that what it was?” Roark didn’t adjust his gaze.
“You need to get out more.”
“The irony is astounding.”
“Still good advice,” I said.
“Let’s save the self-actualization for tomorrow,” Roark said, pointing toward the clinic. “Anything I should know about our friend?”
“You’re the one who busted her.”
“I meant, is she going to shoot you?”
I would’ve been offended, but it was a fair thing to wonder. But I still said, “Now why would you say something like that?”
“Because you’re gripping that damn gun hard enough to twist it in half.”
“Let’s just go, before Marshall catches up with us.” So much for conversation. All we’d established was that we were obsessive to the point of being ill socialized. Lucky for the world, we were tasked with saving the day.
I tried the clinic’s door, but it was locked. Rapping on the glass with my knuckles, I peered inside. It wouldn’t look out of place in a nicer part of town. Although the threadbare furniture and antiquated computer system kind of gave it away.
Elves. If there were good guys in the magical kingdom, they were it. Serenity should have been the one saving the world. But that wasn’t usually a job for good guys. Because most of the decisions you had to make existed in a hazy shade of gray.
And Serenity had her own checkered past, anyway.
In war or bounty hunting, good and bad were byproducts of choosing sides. Those on the wrong end of a contract were my enemy. Solomon Marshall was my enemy. MagiTekk’s sordid business—the werewolf trials, the Fallout Zone, the corporate espionage—was merely a depressing footnote.
I pondered the ethics as we waited, incapable of convincing myself that Marshall was truly evil. Serenity shuffled out from the back, dragging a beanie over her long black hair. Her light brown skin glowed in the weak interior lights.
Goddamn elves. They literally radiated goodness.
Then she saw me on the other side of the door and stopped at the counter.
“Ruby.” Serenity looked at me like a dog who had bitten her before. Her voice was slightly distorted by the glass still separating us. “You swore you’d leave me alone.”
“I’m not here for you.”
“You swore.”
“I really don’t want to shoot the doors down.”
I saw her hand shake. Serenity was smart, but she lacked a hunter’s cruelty. Or imagination—the ability to plot out threats and think like a killer. And all the medical knowledge and good intentions in the universe wouldn’t save you from a desperate person with a gun.
There was a life philosophy for you.
Her lips crinkled in resigned frustration as she trotted over and opened the door. Roark and I slipped inside.
Serenity crossed her arms and waited for an explanation. I didn’t really have time to offer one, so I just hit the high points. Time loops, necromancer serial killers and such.
Needless to say, her eyebrows were furrowed in skepticism by the time I finished. The digital clock on the wall ticked over to 6:35 AM. Phoenix, with the rioting and explosion, hadn’t exactly been easy to navigate.
Plus, it seemed they wanted to keep Old Phoenix and its plebes as far away from the glittering monstrosity of downtown as possible.
Finally, I said, “Believe me or don’t, but I need you to scan us and get these chips out.”
“We’re in a time loop.” Serenity repeated the words like I was insane.
“Goddamnit, we’ve been over this.”
“Then we’ve had this conversation before.” It was a challenge.
“No,” I said. “This is the first time.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“That’d also be a first,” Serenity said. The empathy and friendliness that were simply part of her being almost seemed to smolder into something resembling rage.
Don’t let anyone tell you I don’t have special skills.
“Roark will clear you from the database. No record.”
“You show up after almost fifty years, and you expect me—”
“How about you scan us, then judge whether I’m full of shit?”
“And you want me to help the FBI? After what they do to people around here?”
I glanced at Roark. “He’s one of the good guys.”
Roark broke into a wide, almost genuine smile. “I apologize for the actions of my colleagues, ma’am. I don’t agree with many of their tactics.” He paused for just the right amount of time. “Or all of Miss Callaway’s, for that matter.”
“You’re the one who busted me.” Her lips pursed tightly. “I was trying to save lives.”
The smile didn’t waver. “Just doing my job, ma’am. Same as you.”
“I’m not a ma’am.”
“We need your help, Serenity,” Roark said, his sad blue eyes flooding with feeling.
Serenity’s posture relaxed and she said, “Let’s head back to the exam room.”
I hung back with Roark and, in a low voice, said, “Well, aren’t you the little charmer?”
“Jealous?”
“Now I know why you never trusted me.”
“Why’s that?” Roark asked as we followed Serenity past a rickety gurney.
“Because you’re so full of shit.”
Roark shrugged, as if to say maybe, then disappeared with Serenity into the exam room. When I tried to follow, she stopped me in the doorway, keen brown eyes conveying a clear message.
“You can’t come in.”
�
��Come on.”
“It’s a private operation.”
“You know the shit I’ve been through the past few days?”
“I don’t want to know, Ruby.” I believed that. “It’ll be done in an hour.”
“What about me?”
“Here.” She handed me a scalpel and a gauze pad.
“The hell am I going to do with this?”
“Where’s the chip?”
I tapped my wrist, and Serenity grabbed it. I felt a warm aura sweep over the room, subtle strands of essence coursing through her fingertips. In a long-dead elven language, she whispered an incantation.
“Ow.” I shook loose, feeling like fire ants had suddenly burrowed within my wrist.
“The light is fighting the darkness,” Serenity said, brushing her fingers through her long black hair. Pointy ears were revealed for a split second, then disappeared beneath the thick hair. After many years, she’d become an expert at hiding them from mortal eyes.
That was the only way you survived as an elf. Because before twenty years ago, we were all hiding in the shadows. Secrets. Ears like that were a clear tip-off.
Most elves didn’t make it. Hard to blend in.
“How much time do I have?”
“Better start cutting.”
Her eyes met mine, then she disappeared into the exam room, shutting the door in my face. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Serenity had just told me to slit my own wrist.
Sighing, I wandered back to the waiting room to settle in. The itchy burning sensation beneath my wrist refused to subside. The scalpel gleamed with a friendly menace as I clutched it in my hand.
“Just like the pen,” I said. But in the absence of adrenaline, jabbing myself seemed insane. And the sharp shock that had stymied my last attempt still served as an unfriendly warning to stay away.
Shaking off the hesitation, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and jammed the scalpel into my skin. It quickly tapped the necromancer’s chip, which emitted a little buzz. A wriggle of the blade indicated the presence of two chips.
Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection Page 14
