Powerlessness is emasculating, especially to soldiers. Usually we have a clear objective and all we have to worry about is the how. Right now, we didn’t even have the what. We barely had a finger on who. Even Ramirez was quiet and I think that scared me most of all.
We spotted the Captain’s car a few blocks from the town center, abandoned by the side of the road. We slowed, but didn’t stop. There were no signs of violence, just his empty car. He’d driven straight towards town knowing that the agents would pick him up. He hadn’t tried to run. The priest’s words came back to haunt me: ‘Once you leave here Stuart your part in this drama will come to an end.’
No one said a word as we passed. No one had to, but we all knew that whatever the final outcome might be, it would end bloody. Chamberlain might think he’d out maneuvered us, but he hadn’t taken one thing into account: in Shadow Company, we take care of our own.
Chapter 21
Atlanta, Tuesday 08:00
We didn’t have the warehouse’s address, but it turned out that we didn’t need it. All we had to do was get close enough to pick up on the dread. Southeast of the airport, the air started getting thick with it. It was subtle at first, all we noticed was a growing apprehension. We dismissed it as paranoia, too close to the jail perhaps, or the growing knowledge that our own government was looking for us.
Jitters. Nerves. That’s what we thought at first, but once we turned off I-85 and headed east along the Perimeter, we knew it was something more. Someone or something had saturated the area in a deep, dank fear.
Dreads are unusual spells and not ones we usually encounter. Most people react to a dread without any conscious thought. Their gut tells them that something is wrong and they simply avoid the area. It’s simple and logical, so much so that you don’t think twice about it. That alley is too dark, the men lounging around the doorway are suspicious, whatever. Most people probably congratulate themselves for being so aware of their surroundings. It’s also as false as a politician’s smile.
Dreads steer people away from places or things without an obvious sign. It’s a great way to hide. But they can have unintended consequences as well. It can act as a sort of beacon for broken souls, drawing them ever closer, like moths to a flame. And the longer it operates the more it prods and pulls at those whose interior landscape mirrors the darkness of the spell. I’ve even heard that some goth clubs pay to have low-level dreads cast over them to give them an eerie, creepy feel. It takes all types.
Whoever laid the dread upon the warehouse laid it on thick. Outside the industrial park silent figures stood along the fence line like scarecrows. Most were disheveled street people, but there were also gangbangers and executives standing silently beside each other, their hands grasping the metal mesh, staring across the deserted yard. That sent a cold chill down my back faster than anything radiating from inside the barrier.
Three guards huddled together near a pillbox designed for one at the entrance to the Morehead Industrial Park. They looked nervous as we pulled up, but also relieved. Stevens leaned out the window and flashed his credentials.
“That’s got to be a little creepy,” he said jerking his thumb back towards the silent watcher along the fence.
“It’s like a fucking zombie movie, man,” the guard replied. “Me and the boys are about this far from walking off the job, but there ain’t nowhere else to go.”
“You always have this much security up front?”
“Man, you don’t know what it’s like back there,” the guard insisted. “Everywhere you go it feels like someone’s watching you, then you turn around and see one of them standing at the fence. Last week we found a suicide in the back. Half the staff quit, but I’ve got a family to feed, so I keep coming back.”
“We might be able to do something about this,” Stevens said. “There’s a warehouse in the back—
“Yeah, 12-11B, you can’t miss it. It’s got tape all over it. The police weren’t able to do nothing except bag the bodies. They won’t even come around here no more.”
After a few more minutes the guards waved us through and we drove slowly past rows of deserted warehouses. At any other time we would have been dodging big rigs being loaded and unloaded, but now the entire park appeared deserted. Most of the companies that stored goods here had been plagued with sick calls and employees that refused to come to work. Many would have cancelled their business altogether if they’d been able to find anyone willing to show up and transfer their products somewhere else.
Even in the early morning light the buildings appeared haunted. Spectral faces peered from dirty windows, an early breeze carried whispers and moans. Though we knew the apparitions were components of the dread we shifted nervously in our seats, our hands nervously gripping the butts of our guns. Being familiar with the mechanism of the spell didn’t inoculate us to its effects; it merely granted a purchase for our rational minds to grasp.
12-11B was in the back, far from the road and prying eyes, making it a perfect place to stash illicit goods. This was the park’s low rent district, even without the dread stoking primitive fears, the back lot was creepy. Paint peeled from the sides of buildings; rust ate at cargo doors. Even before the spell had been cast, this area was rarely patrolled.
We pulled up in front of a building festooned with so much yellow crime tape that it looked as if it had been gift wrapped by a giant child. Even without the tape we would have known that this was the right place. The building stood in shadow as if the morning light couldn’t reach. Twenty yards beyond it the fence was crowded with hopeless men and women clutching the wire mesh; driven like flotsam atop an evil sea.
“Holy crap, its rank,” Ramirez complained stepping from the car.
We all nodded silently, afraid to open our mouths and ingest the foul air. It was more than just the dread at work, scummy water pooled beneath drain pipes filling the air with a stench of mold and decay. If it hadn’t been for the yellow tape, I would have thought the building had been abandoned decades earlier.
Mac stepped from the car and ordered us all to lock and load. “I expect that we’ll find the warehouse empty, but I don’t want anyone taking any chances. Nunez scout the area and warn us if anyone comes close. Ramirez and Thorn, you’ll conduct the breach. Stevens I want you right behind them. I’ll follow behind with a banishment in case there’s more than a dread at play here. Clear the office first and then into the warehouse. That’s where the ambush will be if there is one.”
We nodded, knowing our places, and gathered at the door. M5’s at the ready, Ramirez would go high and left while I’d sweep low and to the right. Behind us Stevens would be ready to take out anything in the middle. We’ve practiced this maneuver a thousand times, but I still get twitchy before every breach.
Ramirez flicked his fingers through a hanging glyph while muttering the trigger to a stored kinetic blast. The door flew open as if kicked by a bull and we went in, high and low with Stevens charging up the middle. Empty.
We cleared the room within seconds. Old and unused, blankets of dust covered the tops of the desks, hanging in sheets from the backs of broken chairs. No one had used this room in years, maybe decades. I breathed a sigh of relief, one down, one to go. If there was an ambush brewing, it would be behind the next door.
We assembled before the next door as Ramirez dropped the count. One, two, boom. The door flew open and we were immediately assaulted by the stench of rot and mold. Cockroaches rushed for cover as we charged through the broken door. The rats weren’t as cautious. Most kept to the shadows, only giving up their locations through their squeaks and the clitter-clat of their claws as they raced across the metal shelving. Several courageous fellows stood their ground hissing and spitting until Mac hit the lights.
Most of the warehouse was taken up with aisles of metal shelving stretching twenty feet into the air. The only open area was directly behind the cargo door, an area used for loading and unloading cargo when it had seen legitimate work. Stevens and Ramirez
raced along the aisles shouting ‘clear’ before ascending a staircase in the back that led to a catwalk and partial second story.
Mac and I concentrated on the cargo area. The police had chalked rough outlines where each of the bodies had been found, but the blood stains were a better marker. There wasn’t as much as I expected, but some of the men may have been killed elsewhere and then dragged here. Even a quick glance showed that this wasn’t an inside job.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said stepping around one of the larger pools. “The police report said that Ortiz killed his crew and stole the Dust, but look at the positioning.”
I pointed over to two blood stains splashed behind wooden crates and a third near the closed cargo door. “If I’m reading this right, these guys were using the crates as cover and this one would have been some sort of lookout. They would have been unloading crates, tossing those over there in order to get to the ones with the drugs. It looks like they were attacked from the outside, not by someone coming up behind them.”
I bent down to examine one of the crates where several bullets had smashed into the wood. “Someone dug the bullets out,” I noted. “That’s not the sort of thing you do when you’re shooting your buddies in the back. Mac, are you listening to me?”
I glanced up suddenly worried that the warehouse wasn’t clear after all, but Mac was fine. He was standing near the cargo doors staring at something hidden in the shadows that pooled above the doors. Following his line of sight, I could barely make out something that looked like an animal’s skin tacked above one of the racks, near the rollup doors. That couldn’t be good.
“Get a ladder,” Mac hissed.
“Where am I supposed to find a ladder?” I asked.
“It’s a fucking warehouse. Find one.”
I hustled off and found a ladder in the back, near the stairs where Ramirez and had disappeared. What was taking them so long? Was there really that much to clear?
Mac scrambled up the ladder almost before I’d set it up. “It’s a goat skin,” he called down, “and it’s definitely the source. I’m surprised the cops didn’t see it.”
“There were probably more interested in the bodies,” I replied. “It’s probably a good thing,” I added. “They would have damaged it getting it down and then we’d never get a read.”
“Stand back,” Mac called. “I’m going to pry it off. It doesn’t feel like it’s warded, but you never know.”
That wasn’t a good idea I thought, but I didn’t voice my opinion. Mac knew what he was doing. If he said it wasn’t warded, it probably wasn’t. Still it’s never a good idea to disturb a piece of magick you don’t understand.
Careful not to touch the skin itself, Mac used the blade of his combat knife to pry out the nails. As soon as the first one landed by my feet I knew we weren’t dealing with an ordinary sorcerer. The nails were square, hand forged and pure iron. Whoever planted the goat skin above the door knew what he was doing and didn’t cut corners. That’s never a good thing when dealing with the dark.
“Mac, stop!” I cried, but I was too late. Mac pried out the nails in quick succession and let the skin fall. I jumped back expecting an explosion or worse, but nothing happened. It simply flopped to the ground at my feet exposing an underside covered with a fine scrawl of glyphs and magickal characters that immediately began to fade. It was as if the light that fell upon them were scrubbing them away.
I quickly flipped the skin back over hoping to preserve what hadn’t already been exposed. We’d need something to use the skin as a trace, but the damage had already been done. I could feel the dread unraveling around us, dispersing its energy in a final puff of foulness like a rank candle snuffed out.
Son of a bitch! If we were lucky some part of the spell might remain on the back, but I was doubtful. The sorcerer who’d constructed this spell had been too careful to leave his fingerprints behind. We were back to square one and that meant that the unit would push for my run.
I turned and stared blankly at the space around me, the edge of an idea caught in my teeth. Nothing felt right, but I couldn’t get a grasp on what exactly was wrong. Bullets dug out of the crates and probably from the walls as well although I hadn’t checked. Hand forged iron nails and spells that erased themselves when exposed to light, it didn’t add up. The hand behind this was too methodical, too skilled for a drug gang. There had to be another player.
Ortiz wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of digging his bullets out, not when he admitted killing his men. Why admit it? And why plant a dread? That was sure to draw the wrong sort of attention, unless attention was what the sorcerer wanted.
A bit more of the idea wormed its way between my mental teeth. I stopped Mac on his way down the ladder.
“Go back up,” I said, “and dig around. There has to be something more up there.”
“I looked,” he said, “and there’s nothing. Just the board the skin was mounted on.”
“That’s it, look behind it. Think Mac, why mount it at all when he could have just unrolled the skin and tacked it up? There has to be something hidden behind it, some reason to go to all that trouble. This isn’t just a crime scene Mac, it’s a warning.”
Mac nodded and climbed back up. I wasn’t sure that I was right, but it felt right. It felt like something I’d been told long ago. I hoped I was wrong, but I was beginning to doubt it.
With a screech of protesting nails, Mac pried the board loose. “You’re right, there is something back here. Looks like a piece of paper, but I can’t reach it. I’m going to pry out the bottom and let it fall. Don’t touch it.”
Mac slipped the blade of his knife under the bottom edge and hammered at the pommel. After a few blows the bottom of the board shifted and a piece of paper fluttered down, blank side up. Despite Mac’s warning I couldn’t help myself. I reached over and flipped the paper over and felt my blood run cold.
“Hey, didn’t you hear me? I told you not to touch it.”
I was too absorbed in what I saw to pay any attention. What I’d first thought was a note wasn’t that at all. It was the thirteenth card of the Major Arcana; the tarot’s death card.
It was an old card, not one of those mass-produced things that you find in book stores and edgy occult shops. This card hadn’t been printed or stamped. It was hand painted on heavy card stock. The armored figure of death wasn’t carrying the black flag and white rose that you usually see. Instead the flag was emerald green and bore the inverted pentagram and skull of House Sinister. Even before I touched it, I was afraid of who’d planted it there, but once I held it I was sure.
Thomas Sinistra was a part of my past that I’d tried hard not to think about. There’s an old saying about friends: a good friend will help you move, a best friend will help you move bodies. Thomas was the closest of friends and would have done more than help me move a few bodies. He would have likely put the bodies down in the first place. From the moment I’d joined Shadow Company I’d been afraid that I’d have to confront him one day. I hoped it wasn’t today.
I was shaken, but I had to think this through. I hadn’t seen Thomas in over a year, not since he’d helped me finish that business in Japan. Ramirez and Nunez knew about him, but together we’d kept his involvement secret, for his sake and ours. Any hint that the rebel son of one of America’s most dangerous crime families had a connection to the Company would be disastrous for all of us.
When I’d last seen Thomas he’d been hiding from his House. In fact, he’d been on the run for years. Had that changed? I didn’t know. I hadn’t kept up on purpose. I owed him too much.
Mac slid down the ladder, landing beside me. “Didn’t you hear me? I told you not to touch anything.”
Before I could answer, Mac snatched the card from my hand. “It’s the death card,” he said. “It’s strange too, doesn’t feel like it’s printed, more like it was painted.”
“It was,” I said. “Look at the signature.”
“Damn, is that SSin the artis
t? I saw one of his exhibits once. They were mad things, crazy paintings. Every time I looked at one it seemed like it changed. Scared the crap out of me,” he added.
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. SSin was a modern master, the only artist whose paintings can’t be reproduced. They can’t be photographed or copied. Sorcerers have studied his art and reported that they’re heavily spelled, but Thomas told me his father’s secret. He’d learned to weave the magick into the paints, he’d said. His father used the old processes, crushed gemstones, egg yolks, mercury, and pigments held together with sorcery. Each painting was a crafting, he’d told me, much more than a simple spell. Each was an entire ritual expressed on canvas.
Thomas was convinced that the paintings were clues to his father’s disappearance. The last I’d heard he was actively recovering them from their previous owners. If he’d left one of his father’s works in this warehouse, there must be a very good reason. I just had no idea of what it could be.
Luckily Ramirez appeared on a catwalk above us and shouted down that we needed to come up before Mac could start asking questions. I reached for the card, but Mac pocketed it and I was forced to follow him to the back of the warehouse and up the stairs. I could feel the residual magick as we climbed. Someone had performed a ritual up here and I was beginning to suspect that I knew who.
At the end of the catwalk there was a storage room. It was a strange place for it. Maybe it was here to store items too valuable for the floor below? My first thought was that this was where Ortiz had stashed his Dust, but as soon as we entered the room, I knew that wasn’t the case.
Whatever the original intent of the room had been, someone had changed it into a ritual chamber. Large sigils drawn in chalk on the walls and floors still pulsed with residual power. The most striking feature though was the plainest. A lone chair was positioned in the center of the room.
The Dead Pools Page 15
