“What happened to me?” I asked. “How did I get like this? How did I lose my memories?”
“I wish I knew,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in so long. It’s got to be, what, ten years? Anything could have happened.”
Anything indeed. But nothing normal could have done this to me. That, at least, I was sure of. If I was Lucas West, something catastrophic must have happened. Something that not only took my memories but also erased me from public records. Damn it, how did I get this way? What the hell happened?
“Ah, there’s that look,” Jordana said. “I remember it well.”
“What look?”
“Consternation. I saw it a lot when I was helping you with your math homework. You never did understand algebra. You were always much better with your hands.” Her eyes widened suddenly and she quickly added, “On the football field, I mean! Not … not … oh, God!” She laughed, her face flushing with embarrassment. It was unbelievably charming.
So Lucas West was better with his hands than his head. That sounded like me, at least.
She rested both her hands on my chest and closed the distance between us. She looked up into my eyes. She spoke in a whisper. “I can’t believe you’re here, Lucas. I really thought I would never see you again.” She kept her face tilted up toward me, and I realized she was waiting for me to kiss her.
“Did we…? Were we ever…?” I stammered.
My cell phone chirped suddenly in my coat pocket.
Jordana smirked and stepped back. “Saved by the bell.”
“Sorry,” I said, digging out my phone. It was Isaac’s name on the display. “I have to take this.” I hit the talk button and stuttered a hello.
“Philip was right about these black market types,” Isaac said over the line. “Unsavory characters, all of them. Our legwork is paying off, though. We’re getting information, even if I’m not entirely comfortable with the methods we’re having to employ.”
In the background I heard what sounded like cries of pain, then Philip’s voice. “Quit being a baby, Langstrom. You still have three arms I didn’t break.”
“The Thracian Gauntlet was bought a couple of months ago at the Ghost Market, a black market auction specializing in magical artifacts,” Isaac continued. “It was purchased by a man named Clarence Bergeron. Independently wealthy, worth billions. Apparently he’s got a taste for expensive artifacts.”
“Hold on,” I said, walking away from Jordana. I tried to clear my head and focus. The Thracian Gauntlet had been the last thing on my mind just now. “You think Bergeron might be the one who attacked us in Chinatown?”
“That’s what I need you, Bethany, and Gabrielle to find out,” Isaac said.
“Bethany and Gabrielle aren’t here,” I said. “I sent them ahead. They should be back at Citadel by now.”
“No, I was just at Citadel and didn’t see them,” Isaac said. “They haven’t checked in with me, either.”
“That’s strange,” I said.
“Go find them and wait for my next call,” he told me. “We’re working on locating Bergeron now. He doesn’t have a public address or phone number.”
“Sounds suspicious,” I said.
“Maybe, but it’s not unusual behavior for a billionaire interested in maintaining his privacy and security,” Isaac said. “I’ll call you back as soon as we’ve got something.” In the background, Langstrom started screaming again. Isaac ended the call.
I turned back to Jordana. She was leaning against the wall by the window with her arms crossed, watching me. “Sorry,” I said.
She uncrossed her arms and walked over to me. “You have to go, don’t you? Just when things were getting interesting.”
“Duty calls,” I said. “Can we talk again soon? There’s so much more I want to know. Maybe I can call you later?”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the lips. “You damn well better call me.”
I looked at her in surprise. I had thought she was pretty when I first saw her, but now, as she smiled at me and her eyes brightened, I thought pretty wasn’t a strong enough word. Beautiful was more like it. Jordana Pike was beautiful. The feel of her against me was comfortable. Right. Familiar. I was certain then, without any doubt, that Jordana was telling me the truth.
“Um,” I said, flustered and tongue-tied. I was worried that was all I’d be able to say from now on.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to find you again, Lucas West,” she said. “I have no intention of letting you disappear on me a second time.”
“Um,” I said again. Damn it.
She smiled wider, clearly enjoying her effect on me. “You have my number. Use it. Besides, as I remember it, you still owe me a drink.”
* * *
I couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot in the elevator down to the lobby. Everyone who got in on the floors between must have thought I was a lunatic. I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was soaring. I had just learned my name. More than that, I had met someone from my past. Someone who cared about me. Someone who missed me. I had started to think no one gave a damn. The feel of her kiss was still on my lips. And yet, the farther I got from Jordana, the more the questions started to creep back. Why hadn’t the Internet search found anything? There should have been something.
I did my best to put it from my mind and focus on the task at hand. Bethany and Gabrielle hadn’t shown up at Citadel. I needed to find them and await further instructions from Isaac. Back on the street, I went around the corner to the garage first. The attendant was leaning on the wall outside, smoking a cigarette. He nodded when he saw me.
“Mr. Escalade,” he said. “You here to pick her up?”
“The car’s still here?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said, taken aback. “I told you I’d take good care of her, didn’t I?”
“So my friends didn’t come by to get it?” I pressed.
He shook his head. “Nope, no one’s come for her. You want me to get the car for you?”
“Not yet,” I said, looking up and down the street. Where the hell could they have gone?
I thanked the attendant and walked up the block. I tried Gabrielle’s cell, but it went right to voice mail. I left a message telling her to call me back ASAP. Just this once I wished Bethany had taken a phone with her, but it wouldn’t have done any good. The charms in her vest would have fried it by now.
Across the street I noticed an alley filled with a thick, roiling fog. I stopped. That was odd. The weather was wrong for fog. And what kind of fog only sat inside an alley, nowhere else? I looked at it, confused.
From somewhere within the fog, Gabrielle shouted, “Show yourself!”
Shit. I pulled the Bersa semiautomatic from its holster, ran across the street, and plunged into the gray fog of the alley. It was as thick as the smoke of a five-alarm fire. I couldn’t see more than an inch in front of me. I moved slowly, one hand holding the gun, the other extended in front of me so I wouldn’t run into a wall. Or worse.
“Gabrielle!” I shouted. “Bethany!”
My boot touched something. I stopped and looked down. Lying on the floor of the alley with her eyes closed, shrouded in tendrils of fog, was Bethany.
Twelve
My chest squeezed tight. My breath caught in my throat. I begged whoever might be listening—God, the Guardians, the universe itself—to let Bethany be okay. I crouched down and touched two fingers to her neck. I felt a pulse and nearly crumpled with relief. She was alive, just unconscious.
What had happened to her? Who did this? Damn it, I should have been here.
Gabrielle’s voice came again from farther within the fog-shrouded alley. “I said show yourself, you coward!”
I sprang to my feet. I was reluctant to leave Bethany, but clearly whatever was happening wasn’t over yet. Holding my gun in front of me, I moved deeper into the swirling gray fog.
“Gabrielle!” I called again.
“Trent?” she called back. Her voice came from somewhe
re ahead of me, but how far ahead I couldn’t tell. The fog was disorienting, and the close walls of the alley played tricks with sound.
Gabrielle cried out suddenly in alarm. I quickened my pace, shouting her name. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
A shape appeared ahead. I stopped, lifting the gun. “Gabrielle?”
Gabrielle broke through the wall of mist, backing toward me, keeping her eyes on something I couldn’t see through the thick fog.
“She’s here,” Gabrielle whispered.
“Who?” I demanded.
But Gabrielle was lost in her own fear and anger, staring into the fog. “She’s here … in his body.”
My pulse quickened. I knew what that meant. I gripped my gun tighter. “Reve Azrael is here?”
“She ambushed us,” Gabrielle said. “Bethany—Bethany didn’t even see her coming. I tried to warn her, but it was too late, and now…”
“Bethany’s unconscious, but she’s all right,” I said.
“Oh, thank God,” Gabrielle said, relieved. “This is all my fault. I—I hesitated. I couldn’t help it. Reve Azrael knows what it does to me to see her using Thornton’s body like that. She knows I can’t stand it. It brings it all back, the pain of his death, the violation of that bitch stealing his body…”
A deep, derisive laugh echoed from farther ahead.
“It’s her,” Gabrielle whispered.
I raised my gun and moved into the fog. “Stay close.”
She was right behind me, but the fog was so thick I could barely see her there. We moved another few yards into the belly of the alley. A silhouette appeared in the distance. I curled my finger around the trigger of my gun. As we got closer, the shape’s features grew visible in the fog.
It was Thornton. He was still wearing the clothes he’d died in—the dark blue button-up shirt, jeans, and black sneakers, all much dirtier and worn now. His skin was pale and bloodless, but his body was still leanly muscled and undecayed, thanks to a spell that had rejuvenated his body but couldn’t save his life. A red glow burned in his pupils, the telltale sign of Reve Azrael’s necromancy, reminding me that what I was looking at was a revenant, nothing more. Reve Azrael had stolen Thornton’s body after he died. Apparently she was still using it as her host body while her true form remained hidden in her lair, somewhere in the city.
“There you are,” Reve Azrael said through Thornton’s mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I wish I could say it’s nice to see you again,” I said. “It’s not. So how about you tell me what you’re doing here?”
She laughed again, then sank back into the fog until there was nothing left but the dim red glow of her eyes. Then even that was gone.
The fog parted suddenly, drawing back toward the depths of the alley as if it had a mind of its own. A tall figure stood before us. It wasn’t Reve Azrael. There was no sign of her at all. There was only this eight-foot-tall figure in a billowing cloak. Its face was completely hidden in the darkness of its hood. My mind went immediately to the cloaked man I’d encountered in the Village, but this wasn’t him. The figure reached up and pulled back its hood.
Instead of a face, there was only dark hair, as if its head was turned away from us. But that didn’t make sense. The rest of its body was clearly facing us.
I aimed the Bersa at it. “Who are you?”
It didn’t answer. Did this thing even have a mouth?
Bethany came running up behind us, pulling a small wooden rod from her vest. She pointed it at the creature and muttered a quick incantation. A spinning ball of green fire launched from the end of the rod, speeding across the alley. The creature put up one hand. The spell struck its palm.
And vanished harmlessly into it.
The creature thrust out its other hand then, and the spinning green ball of fire launched back toward us. We jumped out of the way, crashing through a row of metal garbage cans along the alley wall and landing amid the spilled refuse. The spell struck the ground where we’d stood and erupted in green flames, leaving a dark scorch mark on the bricks. Bethany and Gabrielle crawled behind a makeshift barricade of garbage cans, blockaded on the end by a pile of concrete cinder blocks. I brushed the trash off of me and followed them, coming up next to Bethany.
“Are you okay? You were out cold.”
She nodded. “I’m fine, but I’m going to have a hell of a knot on the back of my head.”
“So what is that thing?”
“It’s a Fetch,” she said. “Don’t let it touch you. Whatever it touches, whoever it touches, it can mimic their power, just like it did with the spell from the charm.”
“Got it,” I said. “So if it touches me…?”
She looked at me gravely. “Then whatever it is that doesn’t let you stay dead, the Fetch would have it, too. We wouldn’t be able to kill it. It would be twice as dangerous as it is now.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Worse, if Stryge’s power was still inside me, did that mean the Fetch could mimic that as well? That would be a disaster.
“What the hell is it doing here?” I demanded. “And where did Reve Azrael go?”
“It was a trap,” Gabrielle said. “She led us right to the Fetch.”
I peeked over the top of the garbage cans at the Fetch. Its hairy head began to slowly rotate on its neck, as if to finally reveal its face, but on the other side there was only more hair. It was creepy as hell, but what came next was even worse. The Fetch’s hair-face split down the middle and cracked open into a vertical, toothy mouth. Inside the mouth wriggled a fleshy, twisting mass.
I’d seen enough. I aimed my gun at the Fetch. Before I could squeeze the trigger, a long, gray tentacle shot out from the mass in its mouth and struck the gun, knocking it out of my hand. The tentacle retracted into its mouth. My gun skittered across the alley floor away from me. I pulled my hand back quickly and dropped down behind the garbage cans again, my heart lurching against my ribs.
“It has a face tentacle?” I demanded. “You didn’t say anything about face tentacles!”
Bethany shrugged apologetically at me. “What are we going to do?”
I risked a glance at the Fetch again. It stayed rooted where it was, waiting for us to make another move. How were we supposed to get away without it touching us? Especially with the long reach of its tentacle? I looked at the metal garbage cans in front of us and had an idea.
“We need a distraction,” I said. “I’ll keep it busy while you and Gabrielle get out of here.”
Bethany stared at me. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? You can’t risk it touching you.”
“It’s the only way,” I said. “That thing’s not going to let us just walk out of here.”
“Forget it, it’s too dangerous,” Bethany said.
“You’re out of your mind,” Gabrielle added.
“Probably,” I said. “But when has that ever stopped me?”
I grabbed the closest metal garbage can lid by its top handle, jumped up, and started toward the Fetch. The tentacle lashed out of its mouth again. I held up the lid like a shield. The tentacle struck it, banging heavily against the thin metal. The force of the blow nearly knocked it out of my hand, but the makeshift shield held. I gripped the handle tighter and braced my feet.
Before the tentacle retracted, another shot out of the Fetch’s vertical mouth. With my other hand I grabbed the lid off another garbage can and held it up as a shield. The second tentacle banged into it.
As the two tentacles began to retract, a third rocketed toward me between them, straight down the middle.
Shit. I pivoted and brought the first lid up again to block it. All three tentacles retracted into the Fetch’s vertical maw. We regarded each other a moment, waiting to see what the other would do.
And then the Fetch’s mouth exploded with tentacles.
One after another they lashed out at me, six tentacles in all. I backed away, swinging both garbage can lids again and again, blocking the tentacles as they came. It
happened again, what always happened when I was in the thick of a fight. It was as though something took control of my body, some forgotten instinct that knew how to fight like I’d been doing it all my life. The Fetch’s tentacles lashed at me harder and faster, nearly knocking the lids out of my hands.
“Go! Get out of here!” I shouted at Bethany and Gabrielle. I glanced their way and saw with some relief that they were already gone.
I’d only looked away for a moment, but that was all the time the Fetch needed. One tentacle wrapped itself around the lid in my right hand and yanked it out of my grip. The Fetch tossed the lid away, sending it sailing down the alley. I reached for another garbage can lid near me, but a second tentacle knocked it out of my reach. I only had one makeshift shield left against six lashing tentacles that I couldn’t let touch me. It wouldn’t be enough.
I backed away from the Fetch. “Look, pal, you don’t want my power. Trust me, it comes with a lot of baggage. It’s a real downer.”
The Fetch didn’t care. All six of its tentacles came flying at me. I raised the garbage can lid.
Something hit the Fetch from behind with a metallic clang. It stumbled forward from the impact, its tentacles missing me and retracting instantly. Gabrielle stood behind the Fetch, holding an empty metal garbage can with a big, new dent in its side. Before the creature could right itself, Bethany came leaping out with a cinder block held over her head. She brought it down on the back of the Fetch’s head. It fell to the ground at her feet. Bethany lifted the cinder block again, then dropped it as hard as she could on the Fetch’s skull, smashing it into a puddle of gooey black ichor and bone. The Fetch’s body melted into a thick black smoke that drifted harmlessly across the alley floor and eventually dissipated. All that was left of the Fetch was a dark stain where its crushed head had been.
“Thanks, but I had it under control,” I said, catching my breath.
“Of course you did,” Bethany said. “Garbage can lids, was it? Great idea.”
Die and Stay Dead Page 12
