Shades of Memory

by Francis, Diana Pharaoh

  Preparation paid off when a figure stepped into the alley opening. I recognized him immediately.

  “What are you doing here?” Price called out coldly, not lowering the barrel of his gun.

  The gunfire sounded like the quick pop of popcorn or firecrackers. Price shoved me against the door, slamming hard into my back. The breath went out of me with a whoosh.

  I heard at least a dozen quick shots, and the ping of bullets striking the dumpster and building.

  Sudden silence.

  All I could hear was Price’s ragged breathing in syncopation with my own. The air hung preternaturally still. Price must have used his talent to block any more shots.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Are you?”

  “I’m fine. Tell me, are you hit?”

  “I don’t think so, but the way you knocked me against the door, I might have a broken rib.”

  Hesitation. “I didn’t touch you.”

  I looked down at myself. I couldn’t see a hole in my jacket, but then there didn’t have to be one. If I’d been shot, it would have struck me in the back. Nothing said it had to come back out. I did notice a feeling of wet warmth and a tickling trickle beginning along my spine.

  I heard Price’s breath suck in and then felt pain explode like fireworks in my chest as my brain finally caught up to me having a bullet drill through me.

  “Shit, not again,” I mumbled. A wave of dizziness, and then my leg bones disintegrated. I felt myself falling and then endless cold.

  Chapter 9

  Gregg

  DALTON WOVE THROUGH the city, dropping to the Downtown shelf through the Excelsior Tunnel. Almost immediately they ran into gridlock. Sirens wailed and red, white, and blue lights strobed across the area. A heavy cloud of acrid smoke hung low overhead.

  “Park it,” Taylor said to Dalton. “We’ll walk.”

  Parking was easier said than done. Nothing moved. Dalton swerved up onto a sidewalk and then into an alley, scraping between a lamppost and a BMW with a metallic screech. The owner of the Beamer would not be happy.

  Inside the alley, he found the entrance to an underground parking garage. Above sat a squat tower, the first floor filled with businesses, the upper floors devoted to apartments. Dalton pulled into a slot marked Customer Parking Only.

  Taylor popped open the rear of the Tahoe and fished out a loose jacket made of Thinsulate and slid it on, hiding her Uzi beneath. She handed Gregg a knit hat and a pair of gloves. He’d lost his. He couldn’t remember where.

  “Don’t have socks, I’m afraid,” she said as she passed him a packet of chemical hand warmers. “Break those and stuff them in your shoes. Should help.”

  He did as told, shoving them down to his toes. It wasn’t comfortable, but he’d gladly exchange a couple of blisters for warm feet.

  Another car entered the garage, and they each stiffened, watching as it pulled into another slot. A woman sat inside. She gave them a thumbs up as she talked into her phone. Apparently, she’d thought Dalton’s sidewalk trick worth emulating.

  Taylor and Dalton rifled through the rest of their gear, stuffing some into a pair of backpacks. Before she could put hers on, Gregg grabbed it.

  “I’ll carry it.”

  She scowled at him. Before she could rip him a new asshole, he shrugged. “You’ve got the Uzi and you know where we’re going. It’s smarter to have you unencumbered.”

  Her lip curled slightly, but she nodded. “Fine.” She cast a glance at Dalton. “Ready?”

  “Let’s move,” he replied.

  She headed up the parking ramp exit. Gregg fell in on her right and slightly behind. Dalton brought up the rear. That made Gregg’s entire body itch. Never put your back to your enemy. Not that he had a choice at the moment.

  He overtook Taylor just outside the entrance. “Where are we going?”

  “Safe house, like I said.”

  “I don’t have much time.”

  She darted him a sideways glance, then went back to scanning their surroundings. She kept close to the wall, her Uzi held ready against her stomach. “Got a party to get to?” she asked.

  “A funeral is more like it,” he said.

  “Care to explain?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Dalton. “It’s a little crowded for my taste.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Taylor crossed the street, slipping between cars like a shadow. Gregg and Dalton followed closely.

  “How far?” Gregg asked on the other side.

  “Few miles, then a few miles more,” she said with a taunting smile this time.

  “Jesus fuck,” Gregg muttered. “I don’t have time for games,” he growled.

  “Then shut your pie hole and walk faster, or use your talent and Tinker Bell off somewhere else. We won’t miss you.”

  By God, he was tempted. He grimaced. “I need to hear what’s been happening since I was taken, and I could use some weapons and clothing before I get back.”

  “Then stop dawdling.”

  The sidewalks were mostly clear of ice, making progress easier. Gregg paid attention to the signs, marking their journey on a mental map. They were heading north, staying close to the escarpment dividing the Downtown shelf from the Midtown shelf.

  They’d gone about four miles when Taylor abruptly turned into Royer Park, a three-hundred acre expanse of meadows, trees, and bushes. On the east side was a pavilion for musical performances and Shakespeare in the Park. Beside it were baseball diamonds, a soccer field, and large dog park. Those took up maybe a fifth of the park. The rest was a nature preserve—untended and wild.

  Taylor strode up under the trees, pushing between bushes and slogging through drifts of snow.

  “If this is a shortcut, it stinks on ice,” Gregg pointed out.

  She ignored him. Her silence made him want to shake some words out of her. Or force them out with spankings and other pleasurable punishments. He snorted inwardly. He didn’t have time for idle distraction, no matter how enjoyable it promised to be. He caught himself up short, a bit unnerved that he had to keep reminding himself that if he fucked Riley’s sister, Clay would have him by the short hairs. She was hands-off. Look, but don’t even think of touching.

  He’d have to convince his cock of that. But just at the moment, he decided watching her sweet ass swinging along in front of him was a reasonable compromise.

  Finally, they stopped. Brambles and bushes crowded the path, and wind whistled in the branches of the cedars looming overhead. Before Gregg could ask what came next, Taylor ducked down, pushing aside the branches of a holly bush with a stick. She slipped under.

  Gregg heard a grating sound. What the hell? He crouched, copying Taylor as he used his branch to shove aside the prickly leaves. Underneath was a hollow place about two feet by two feet wide. A hole gaped in the ground. Gregg crawled under the bush and looked inside. A ladder led downward. Darkness filled the hole.

  “Taylor?”

  “Shut up and get your ass down here,” she called, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Gregg swung down, wrapping his gloved hands around the outside of the ladder and clamping his feet likewise on the outside, and slid down. The drop was about twenty feet. He hit bottom with a sudden jolt that jarred his bones and made his teeth clack together. He stepped aside as a shadow blocked the light above. Dalton slid down in the same manner as Gregg, landing with catlike grace. Before he’d made it halfway, the hatch above started to slide shut.

  The inky blackness lasted only a moment. Strips of small lights came alive along the floor and ceiling. They stood in a small hollow about fifteen feet across and twenty feet long. Just ahead of them was a track that vanished into dark tunnel mouths on either side. Sitting on the track was a cigar-shaped vehicle. It looked
like the bastard child of a Coors can and an Airstream trailer. Both ends had consoles with buttons and levers. Between were eight bench seats, each wide enough to hold one person.

  “Get aboard,” Taylor said, going to the left side. She grabbed a handle set above the empty window opening and slid inside, feetfirst. She dropped into the seat behind the console and began flipping switches and pressing buttons. White lights flickered alive along the underside of the car’s canopy. The interior matched the polished steel exterior, except for the dark blue upholstery cushioning the seats.

  Copying Taylor, Dalton lifted himself and slid feetfirst inside, taking the last seat, farthest from Taylor. Gregg just stood agape.

  Taylor twisted to look at him. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Private subway,” she said, flashing a grin at his shock. “Now get aboard or we’ll leave your ass here.”

  He didn’t doubt that she would. He grabbed a handle and swung himself inside. He’d barely sat down before Taylor flipped on five brilliant headlights and the car started rolling.

  “Keep your body parts inside,” she called. “Tunnel gets tight.”

  With that, the car shot like a bullet into the darkness. Gregg’s heart leaped into his throat at the sudden acceleration. The wheels made a slight whirring sound, but otherwise the silence was complete.

  “Here comes the tricky part,” Taylor said. “Hold on to your butts.”

  With that warning, the car tipped downward and spiraled around and around like water spinning down a drain. Gregg gripped the windowsill to balance himself as centrifugal pressure pushed him against the wall of the car.

  He was dizzy by the time they straightened out. They didn’t slow down. If anything, they increased speed, shooting off in a straight line that seemed impossible. Unless—“Are we under the Bottoms?”

  “Very good, Mr. Touray. You get a prize,” Taylor said, not looking away from the passage ahead.

  The tunnel walls whipped past. He had no idea how fast they were going, but it couldn’t have been less than seventy miles per hour. They’d gone another twenty minutes when they started to descend again. The slope reminded him of a roller coaster’s plunge, except it went on for a full minute. At last they flattened out and began a long, steep climb. They never slowed down. The car was powered by spells cast by powerful mages. Questions popcorned in Gregg’s brain. Who had built it? Who did it belong to? Taylor and Riley’s family? How had they done it? When? Why? Where did it go?

  At the top of the grade, the tunnel split. They glided into the right-hand passage, curving in a lazy arc. After another ten minutes or so, they slowed to a soft halt. As they arrived, lights along the platform burst the darkness. The cavern was nearly identical to the previous one, except for a walking passage that led off to the right.

  Taylor shut down the car, snapping off the lights before grabbing the handle above the window and swinging through. Gregg and Dalton had already disembarked. Gregg eyed the other man through narrowed eyes. Dalton stared back, expressionless. Blue still ringed his silver eyes. Gregg wished to hell he knew what the other man could see. Certainly infrared and heat signatures. But what else? Distances, short and far? Magic? Smells? The possibilities were many.

  “Coming?” Without waiting for an answer, Taylor crawled up the rungs of the exit ladder with fluid grace, pressing her hand against a spot on the wall that betrayed no indications it was anything but a stone face. Instantly, a trapdoor slid away and a burst of chill, dank air washed down over them. Taylor climbed through.

  Gregg waved at Dalton to follow. He didn’t want the man behind him any more than necessary. Dalton gave a knowing smirk and clambered up.

  They stood inside yet another tunnel. It had tool marks along the walls, indicating it had been part of a mine. Taylor shut the hatch and started walking into the darkness. She pulled a headlamp out of her pocket, donning it and turning it on. Dalton did likewise.

  They hadn’t gone far before they came to a branching. Taylor turned sharply down the left-hand passage, striding quickly. It wasn’t long before he caught a whiff of fresh air cutting through the cave smell. His breath plumed white. Then suddenly they were stepping out of the cave onto ground smothered in pine needles and clots of snow. Close-growing cedars and firs stood to either side, their drooping limbs brushing his hair as he passed below.

  The path wiggled and snaked, the wall of trees occasionally giving way to a towering boulder before resuming again.

  The path kept going, breaking up as trees and bushes encroached. Most of the bushes trailed wicked bramble vines, making it unlikely that intruders would accidentally find their way through. Not that anybody spent time exploring the Bottoms. Those who came down to the bottom of the caldera stayed in the wart of a town where they could disappear from the law and buy the drugs and other illicit items they desired. The caldera bottom contained no roads. The only ways down were a walking path and the massive elevator system for the mines on the western wall. In the winter the caldera bottom filled with snow. In summer, it smelled fetid, the many square miles of boggy center surrounding the lake and river sweltering and swarming with biting bugs.

  Taylor stepped off the path, through a niche between two sugar pines, and disappeared beneath a drooping curtain of winter-blackened vines. Dalton followed and then Gregg. Thorns scraped his cheek and hooked on his jacket. It took a moment for him to disentangle himself. When he turned around, he found they’d arrived.

  A small log cabin sat ten feet away. Trees grew close around it. Bushes and brambles peeked through the snow piled on the roof. The whole place faded into the forest like it wasn’t even there. It took a moment for Gregg to distinguish the building from the disguising foliage. Someone flying a drone and looking for it would be hard put to see it.

  “Christ,” he murmured with no little admiration as Taylor opened the door.

  He was reaching for his gun before he was aware of the why. Taylor’s body stiffened, and she jerked back slightly, as if she’d been slapped. She hesitated on the threshold, then moved stiffly inside.

  Gregg wanted to elbow Dalton aside, but the other man was hard on her heels, his weapon raised. Gregg brought up his Glock as he followed.

  His two companions stood in the entry, buttery light radiating from lamps in the living room beyond. The smell of roasting meat filled the air, mixing with smoke from a woodstove. The air was warm and should have been inviting after their journey, and yet Gregg felt like he’d stepped onto a live firing range.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Taylor demanded, fury radiating off her like summer heat off the pavement. “You’re like a cockroach, turning up wherever you aren’t wanted and—”

  She broke off. Gregg edged to the left to look around her, his gun still raised. The living room beyond was far larger than the front of the cabin promised. It was filled with cozy couches and chairs, with a woodstove sitting in a stone alcove in the corner. A man stood facing the doorway, hands behind his back. He had silver-blond hair, slender, with tanned face. He smiled at Taylor, his blue eyes sleepy.

  Across the room behind the unwelcome visitor was Taylor’s eldest half brother, Jamie. A metal talent, he had fox-colored hair that was clipped short. He was slender but muscular, with blue eyes. He slouched against the wall, his mouth twisted in a mirror of Taylor’s fury. Standing to the right of Gregg in the kitchen doorway was Leo, the younger of the two brothers, though older than Taylor. His dark hair was clubbed behind his neck, the chiseled planes of his face looking harsh.

  Taylor glanced at her brothers, then back at the older man. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you where you stand.”

  Gregg’s brows rose. Today he was seeing layers to her he’d had no idea existed.

  The other man smiled patiently.

  “You sho
uldn’t shoot me because I’m not here to talk to you. I’m here to talk to Mr. Touray.” The man gestured toward Gregg.

  Taylor shot Gregg a disgusted look. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you two know each other?”

  Betrayal and bitterness underlined her disgust, and Gregg almost pulled the trigger on the stranger for painting him with whatever shit the other man wallowed in. His jaw hardened. He spoke in a gentle singsong, tamping down his fury, letting it burn like a white-hot coal. “Mister, I don’t know who you are or what business you think we have, but I’m not interested.”

  The stranger locked eyes with him, his expression innocuously bland. But Gregg had been swimming with sharks since he was a teenager. In the other man, he recognized the glint of mercilessness and savagery just under the surface.

  “I beg to differ,” the stranger said. “I’ve done you a service. I should think you would be grateful.”

  “Service? Mister, I don’t know who the fuck you are and I sure as hell don’t have any reason to thank you.”

  “Ah, but you do. I have delivered you from quite a pickle.” He paused. “One hour ago, I killed Savannah Morrell.”

  Gregg’s mouth fell open. Savannah dead? Relief lifted a weight off his back, even as his mind darted around, collecting potential ramifications. “Just who the fuck are you?”

  “Vernon Brussard.” The other man paused as if waiting for a reaction.

  Gregg had heard the name, but couldn’t place where or when. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

  “In my former life I went by Samuel Hollis. Taylor and Riley are my daughters.”

  Gregg flicked a glance at Taylor, understanding her anger now. “You tried to kill Riley. Nearly succeeded.”