Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9

by Crane, Robert J.

  “Do you remember the perp’s face?” Scott leaned on the counter, and by the way he asked, I could tell he was playing good cop. His voice was gentle, friendly, like he was your buddy about to take you out for a beer after work.

  “Not really,” Samuel said, and he shifted his eyes nervously toward me. He wasn’t lying, I didn’t think. Poor guy was probably traumatized. I sighed loudly, and he looked like he wanted to take a step back from the counter.

  I held out my hand for him to shake. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  Scott gave me a puzzled, sidelong look, probably wondering why I was ready to give up the interrogation so soon. I didn’t dignify his look by returning it, just kept staring straight ahead at Samuel and tried to make myself smile without looking like I was going to lean over the counter and drink his blood. It wasn’t easy.

  “Uh, okay.” Samuel took my hand, giving it a gentle shake. “Anything I can do to help.” He started to pull away, but I held firm. “Umm.”

  “Just a second.” I leaned forward, keeping his hand trapped in mine. If Charlie had been here, she would have cooed at him, done something seductive to keep his attention off the fact that I had his hand in an iron grip.

  I’m not Charlie.

  “I … uh …” Samuel looked like he wanted to sputter and started to tug his hand away from me again. It had been about seven seconds, and things were far beyond awkward. “I … I need my hand back.”

  “I said wait.” My voice was steel, and the command caused Samuel to freeze. His eyes went wide, his freckled face fell, and for a moment I thought he’d die of sheer terror right then.

  A second later, the pain started at a low burn, and I could tell by the look on his face that it took everything he had not to start screaming.

  Chapter 13

  It was a funny feeling, touching someone’s soul the way I could. It always started with the burning; my flesh pressed against theirs in a nearly intimate way. I stared into Annoying Samuel’s eyes, and saw green irises peeking back at me between eyelids tightened in fear.

  I didn’t care if he screamed, not now. I could feel his mind, there for the taking, and I leapt right in. I’d rifled through a few heads in my time, using my soul-draining powers to go through memories the way a clerk could pull files out of a filing cabinet.

  This one was easy to find. Everyone’s head was a little different, at least the ones I’d been in. Samuel’s was organized to the point of being annoying, like he had preplanned so he could live up to my expectations of him.

  I shouldn’t complain; it actually made my job easier. As I slid into his memory, the world around me faded. Whenever I stole a memory, I could view it as though it were taking place around me, while my surroundings slowed and disappeared. The pawnshop around me became a dull wash of blue tones, like the world had been filtered through a navy crystal.

  The door opened behind me as I heard a ding-dong electronic tone that I hadn’t even noticed as I had entered the pawnshop. I stood in front of the counter and turned to see Samuel behind me, working on a clipboard on top of the glass countertop. The place was nearly empty.

  Samuel looked up as the patron entered. The face was blurred, and I had to concentrate on it. I pushed through the blurring like brushing aside snow on a windshield. It took me a minute but it faded and I could see a face. I had looked through a lot of memories, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing anything like the blurring effect before.

  “Can I help you?” Samuel asked. He was leaning on the counter with both elbows, and his tone was polite but harried. Clearly in the middle of something important. Or something self-important, more likely. Like keeping a flawless inventory.

  I looked at the guy entering. Once I got past the blur, I could tell—barely—through the blue tinge of the world that he was darker of skin, Latino maybe. His face looked slightly pinched, like he was walking with a pebble in his shoe. Or a boulder.

  “Empty the cash register,” the guy said as he walked over to the counter. He wasn’t shuffling exactly, but he was at a hurried pace that didn’t quite match with his facial expression. Was he limping? The memory was so fuzzy. Bizarre.

  “Excuse me?” Samuel’s tone was still polite, like he hadn’t heard what the guy said.

  The guy took two more quick strides to the counter and had Samuel by the throat before the clerk could even flinch away. “I’m sorry,” the guy said, and he was truly apologetic. “I need the money in your cash register. Now.” There was an urgency there, driven by some deep emotion. I suspected fear.

  The door dinged behind him, and the new guy turned. Another stranger was standing in the doorway, this one a little broader of shoulder. Big guy, probably over six feet tall. He wore dark sunglasses and a trench coat, which I thought was beyond weird for Vegas in the dead of summer. There was another shadowed figure just a pace behind him, a woman by the looks of her. She was shorter, stocky, and that was all I could see of her. She was hidden in a cloud of blur so deep that even when I focused on her, she still looked like she was standing behind smoky glass.

  “Get out of here,” the robber told them. Now his fear was obvious, even to Samuel, who he still held by the neck. I looked around the shop and marveled at how a normally crisp memory was completely degraded to the point where I was having trouble making out anything. I stared at Samuel, wondering if he perhaps had glasses that he’d forgotten to wear. A quick check of his outside mind showed that no, in fact, his other memories were clear as HD video. No blue, no blur.

  Trenchcoat did not answer. I stared at him and saw the blurring fade enough to make out his face. It was a broad face, a flat one, like he’d been hit in the nose with a frying pan every day of his life. He took another step into the shop and paused. He wore a smile, and from the look of it I got more than a hint of malevolence. He had some serious ill intentions for the robber, and things started to click into place for me.

  “Get out!” The robber shouted, voice cracking with the strain.

  “Antonio Morales,” Trenchcoat said, his dark eyes and face made even more sinister by that damned blurring effect, “this is the end.” I wanted to reach out and slap the bastard for saying anything as ominous and cheesy as he had, but I wasn’t exactly corporeal in this memory.

  Morales was shaking, his hand still wrapped around Samuel’s neck. He carried the look of a doomed man on his face, fighting to keep the horror submerged and failing. I could empathize.

  “Just leave me alone,” Morales said, nearly pleading. “Just go.”

  Trenchcoat took another step in, then another. I could tell by the look on his face that he was savoring it. This bastard loved the fear he was causing. He lived for this. It was all right there on his face—he was going to hurt Antonio, was going to kill him. And he’d enjoy every minute of it.

  I could see the cascade of emotions on Antonio Morales’s face, and then they just stopped. His mouth turned to a thin line, his grip on Samuel’s neck slackened and he let the clerk go. Samuel fell back as Morales’s hand went to his waist, and I barely saw him pull the gun before it was out and firing.

  Antonio Morales filled the air with bullets. I saw one of them catch Trenchcoat perfectly in the forehead, and a puff of red spit out the back of his skull and painted the glass windows. Trenchcoat’s look was utter surprise, then he pitched forward and landed with all the grace of a felled tree. And most of the noise, too.

  Samuel let out a scream that tore through the shop. Antonio kept his piece pointed at the door, and I could see that the woman, the one who had been so heavily blurred, was gone. Smart move. Even a meta could be killed by a gun, as Trenchcoat had just proven.

  And he was dead. I took a moment to drop to the ground to check. His lips were hanging open, saliva streaming out. I was surprised there was no blood, like you see in movies. I mean, there was some pooling on the ground beneath him, but none dribbling out of his mouth. He was still, and his breath had already left him. He didn’t look familiar at all, but that didn’t
matter.

  I knew who he was. Or at least, who he was with, and that was close enough.

  Antonio was shaking, standing in the same spot where he’d started the robbery. I thought for a minute he was going to collapse on the countertop and lose it right there, but he pulled himself together and shoved the gun into the front of his waistband, the hammer still cocked. I cringed when I noticed he didn’t safety it first. Bad idea, Antonio. All it’d take was the slightest pressure on the trigger next time he pulled it and suddenly Antonio would become Antonia.

  Antonio gave a quick look around the store. Annoying Samuel was still against the wall, shaking but now upright. I could feel it when Antonio had grabbed him, and the hold was strong, like a meta’s. Still, he wouldn’t have known that, and it made me wonder what could possibly have clued our people in that this was a meta incident.

  “I’m sorry,” Antonio said, and the remorse was all over his face. His eyes were sagging, his lips were drawn down like he’d had someone pull his cheeks down with lead weights. I thought he was going to cry right there for just a beat. He turned to Trenchcoat, and for just a moment I thought he was going to apologize to the corpse, too. The smell of gunfire hung heavy in the air.

  “Uh …” Samuel’s answer was a non-answer, two steps away from stuttering. His mouth hung open and he tried to form words. He lifted a hand to point, and it shook like he was in agonizing pain at that very moment. “I … I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave …” I just stared at him, glad I was incorporeal. I doubt I could have hid how much I was marveling at his stupidity.

  “I’ll go,” Antonio said, to my surprise. He shook for a moment, and his skin rippled. He grunted like it hurt, his skin taking on a different texture, a rougher one. He grunted again, and I wondered if he was going to Hulk out like a Hercules-type. His body stayed the same shape, though, his skin just … changed. And not like I’d seen Clyde Clary do.

  Ridges appeared as his body hardened and he gained a few inches in height. Antonio started toward the door and his walk was even slower and more awkward than before, like he was walking on two tree trunks. Like one of the Ents I’d seen in the Lord of the Rings movies. His hips swung wide with every step and he went through the door sideways, shuffling to accommodate his larger frame. His skin had become like tree bark, a layer of protection against whatever came his way.

  I watched him walk, and changed my angle slightly to see him go for a car across the street. He lurched toward it, and as he reached the side I caught a glimpse of the plate number.

  I took one last look at Samuel, against the wall, watching, hand still shaking and stuck in place from where he’d held it out to point Antonio toward the door.

  The memory faded as the pawnshop snapped back into rough clarity around me. The haze of blue was gone, and I realized that the blurring had faded as soon as the stocky woman had run away from the scene. I pulled my hand from Samuel’s and his body slackened, slumping onto the counter. He caught himself with a hand, but he looked as though he was going to be sick right there on the glass display. Which would be a shame, because then the next customer wouldn’t be able to see the ten thousand Pokemon games he had for sale.

  “Wha …” Samuel’s green eyes snapped up to me, cloudy, like he was coming out of a deep sleep. “What … what …” He murmured, nearly incoherent.

  “Go sit down,” I said, turning away. I started back toward the door, the neon signs that lit the front windows looking even more vivid now that I’d returned from the haze of memory. “You’ve had a very traumatic experience.”

  “I … have?” Samuel mumbled. “Did I get robbed again?”

  I paused, thinking of all the things I’d like to say, the things that would sound cool, but the truth was, he was a scared kid. I’d seen that while I was in his mind. He wasn’t any older than me, and he was so bad with people he’d probably be single forever. “No,” I said. “You’re going to be fine. You just got a little lightheaded there for a bit. Have a seat, chill out and get some water, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said as I pushed through the door into the sweltering Vegas heat.

  The bright sun overhead glared down on me. This time I started to sweat instantly, but it still felt like my body was retaining heat so it could cook me internally. I made it five steps before Scott opened up on me. I’d almost forgotten he was there, he’d gotten so quiet.

  “What the hell was that?” He didn’t even bother to restrain his anger; it lashed at me as we walked through the sweltering parking lot.

  “Investigation,” I said.

  “You almost took that poor bastard’s soul!”

  “I was at least ten seconds away from that,” I replied, heading for the car. This time, I felt a trickle of sweat make its way from under my hair down my temple. “Besides, I got a plate number for the robber and some insight into what’s going on.”

  Scott paused, and I could feel his anger without looking at him. He was a black hole of irritation, following just behind me. “What did you find out?” he asked finally, with reluctance, like he was being dragged to the point of asking.

  “Antonio—the robber—got interrupted by Century,” I said. “He pulled a gun and shot one of their members.” I glanced back at the store. “Killed him. And it saved Antonio’s life.”

  “Great,” Scott said, and let loose a sigh. “So the extermination is alive and well in Vegas right now. Or was, anyway.”

  “Still is, I think.” I reached the car and grasped for the handle. The chrome was so hot from the sun that it burned my hand. “There was another one of them—a telepath. She blurred the world for Samuel so he couldn’t remember much of anything.”

  Scott let that sink in. “Why … why would she care?”

  I’d been thinking about that since I’d figured out what she was doing, and I’d come to a conclusion that made me smile. “Because if the extermination is going on right now, here in Vegas, then it means the last of Century’s telepaths are here. Right now.” I glanced at Scott and saw him nod, all trace of his rage gone.

  In fact, I think he might have smiled just a little bit himself.

  Chapter 14

  The Las Vegas Metropolitan PD got us a near-instantaneous return on Antonio Morales’s license plate, along with an address that was in Henderson. Fortunately, I found out when I checked the GPS that we were in fact already in Henderson, and our destination was less than ten minutes away.

  “I guess Antonio doesn’t adhere to the old adage of ‘Don’t shit where you live,’” Scott said. He chuckled slightly.

  I frowned, feeling a surprising amount of empathy for the would-be stick-up artist. “He was scared. He knew Century was coming after him, somehow.”

  “If that’s the case, you don’t think he’s going to be hanging around his house, do you?” Scott sent me a sidelong look that I ignored.

  We pulled up to the house a few minutes later. It looked odd to me after a steady couple years of Minnesota living. The entire front yard was made up of rocks instead of grass, and instead of the paneling that was so common in the upper Midwest, the exterior was a dull beige stucco texture that reminded me of a choppy river. The whole neighborhood had a similar sun-bleached look, complete with dull orange roofing tiles that reminded me of an Italian villa I’d seen on TV.

  “We’re not in Minneapolis anymore,” Scott said, neck hunched down to look at the house.

  “What tipped you off?” I jerked the handle of the car and pushed the door open. “The hundred and eight degree temperature?” I felt the rush of heat hit me again as I stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “Well, really, it was that there’s no lawn,” Scott said, straightening as he got out of the car. “What’s up with that?”

  “It’s the desert,” I said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, but I’ve seen grass. They’ve got golf courses here. It’s not all sand, sand, sand as far as the eye can see. I mean, Las Vegas means ‘the meadows’ in Spanish, for crying out loud.”r />
  “Do I look like a climatologist or something?” I asked, but said it relatively gently. My nerves were getting to me. I had no idea what to do here, and standing out in the hot sun wasn’t making me any happier or more relaxed. I wondered how long it would take my pale ass to get sunburned. I looked at my lily-white, near-glowing skin and knew that it wouldn’t take long. Not in this heat.

  We walked up the driveway, past the single brown garage door. I opened the metal gate attached to the front door and gave it a solid knock. The whole setup screamed, “Go away!” to me, and I wondered if it was a function of the owner’s personality or just the neighborhood that prompted it. The streets were quiet, filled with houses just like this, but it was hard to tell if it was quiet because people were scared, or if it was just too hot to be out.

  I felt a long trickle of sweat roll down my ribs and started leaning toward the latter.

  I gave the door another solid knock. Scott and I waited, staring at each other for a good thirty seconds before he broke the silence. “Maybe he’s not home,” he said.

  “Maybe.” I gave it a second’s thought and then kicked down the door.

  “Jesus, Sienna!” Scott said, and he had his gun drawn a second later. I was already on my way inside. “Are you trying to get killed?”

  “Antonio,” I announced from the entryway. “My name is Sienna Nealon and I’m here to talk to you.”

  There was a stark silence. “I don’t think I’d believe you if I were him,” Scott said. “You just kicked down his door!”

  “I don’t think he’s here,” I said, chewing my lip. It was dry and starting to crack from the desert air. “I suspect Century ran him to ground.”

  “You mean like … he’s dead?” Scott asked.

  “Or hiding.” I couldn’t see anything from the entryway, so I took a step forward and looked to my right. Just through an arch was a living room that had been tossed. And by tossed I mean completely destroyed in the search for anything useful. The couches were knocked over, the cushions slashed to leave a mess of stuffing everywhere on the grey slate tile. The coffee table was overturned, presumably when someone checked to make sure nothing was taped underneath. There were holes punched in the walls, vases shattered, and every painting had been torn down and ripped from its frame.