by Tasha Black
She was probably right.
When he didn’t reply, she continued.
“Remember, these are not people. They are vermin, infesting our city.” Her voice had taken on an icy tone that made West more than a little nervous. “And when you have an infestation, you call an exterminator.”
She had a point, even if he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.
“Remind me to talk to you about switching to decaf,” he replied. “I’m on the move. Going silent.”
He was nervous, terrified, really. But moving forward was the best way to forget about retreat.
The car had gone, and all the skinheads were back on their crates, which meant that nothing was blocking or distracting them from seeing him.
As he expected, one of the guys spotted him almost immediately, and tapped Tattoo on the shoulder.
Tattoo turned and was on his feet in an instant, the other two quick to follow.
West figured the ski mask—the balaclava—covering his face must have spooked them. Good.
The dog was on its feet too, pulling at the heavy chain.
West kept his hands in plain view so that they could see he was unarmed and unlikely to be there to jack them for their supply.
They postured in front of him with wide leg stances, and tough eyes.
But West could tell they didn’t know what to make of him.
“You cold, bro’?” Tattoo asked sarcastically in a deep voice.
West realized he meant the balaclava. He continued toward them rather than answering.
“Hey, he’s talking to you,” said the skinny guy to his left in the bright red Dr. Marten’s.
West walked right up to Tattoo.
“The fuck you think—” Tattoo began.
But his words were cut short when West’s right fist connected with the man’s face.
West pulled his punch, but Tattoo’s bald head still snapped back like a Pez dispenser. His eyes rolled over white, and he crumbled to the ground like his skeleton had been removed.
West turned slowly to the others.
Red Shoes had produced a knife. The third guy was barely restraining the dog.
“You crazy fuck. Rommel’s gonna take a big piece out of your ass,” Dog Man yelped.
“I wouldn’t do that” West said quickly, thinking that he didn’t want to hurt a dog if he didn’t have to.
Shit. Should he have been disguising his voice somehow?
Should he get all gravely, like Christian Bale as Batman? Or maybe get one of those electronic voice modulator things?
Too late to think about that now.
“Why not?” Dog Man asked.
“I don’t want to have to hurt you,” West replied calmly.
Red Jacket laughed, but it was a high pitched, unsteady sound. He glanced at his fallen comrade, probably the leader of this little crew, and back at West. He was twitchy, like he was on something.
“Then what do you want?” Dog Man asked.
“I want you to take a message to your boss. You’re not welcome in this part of town anymore,” West said in the darkest tone he could muster. “Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, and pray that I don’t decide to come find you.”
He almost jumped out of his shoes when Jess squealed with glee into his earpiece. He’d practically forgotten her.
“Is that a fact? Well, I have a little return message from my boss,” Dog Man replied, dropping the leash. “Rommel, packen!”
“He trains the dog in German. Of course he does,” Jess’s voice groaned in his ear.
The enormous creature skittered on the pavement like a children’s cartoon character for half a second before finding purchase.
The minuscule delay bought West just enough time to sidestep as it launched itself at him, teeth gnashing.
West barely avoided the leap, and managed to shoot out a hand, quick as rattlesnake strike, catching the dog by the collar and holding it in midair.
Dog Man’s eyes went wide.
West hurled the enraged Rottweiler back at his handler, sending them both tumbling.
Red Shoes and his knife took a few steps back into the alley, eyes darting around for an escape route.
“Call off the dog,” West boomed. “Or next time, I snap its neck.”
He had no intention of doing any such thing, but his bluff worked.
“Rommel, bleib!” Dog Man commanded.
To West’s relief, the dog stayed put.
West took two quick steps toward Red Shoes. The terrified man bolted into the darkness of the alley.
West turned back to Dog Man.
“Get his name,” Jess whispered into his earpiece. “That will make it feel more personal.”
“What’s your name?” West asked.
Dog Man didn’t speak.
“What’s your name?” West demanded.
“T-bag,” the guy said, finally looking up at West.
West stared at him.
“I mean Timmy. Timothy,” the man stammered.
“Listen, Timothy, do you remember the message I told you to give to your boss?” West asked.
“Yes,” Timothy replied immediately.
“Good boy,” West said. “Why don’t you run along and tell him? And if I see you around here again, I won’t be so nice.”
Timothy stood frozen, gaping up at West.
“What are you waiting for?” West bellowed. “I said go!”
Timothy grabbed the dog’s leash and turned to go.
Behind West, the bell on the pizza shop door jangled.
“I told you sonsabitches you better not make no trouble out here!” a slightly accented voice announced.
West turned to see a balding, pot-bellied man, most likely the store owner, brandishing a sawed-off shotgun in his direction.
Timothy and Rommel picked up the pace and got out of dodge. West could hear the footsteps and the jingle of the metal leash fading.
His own instinct was to follow suit.
He began to run, and nearly fell over.
His legs were glitching again. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“So sorry, sir,” West said raising his hands in the air.
“Who the hell are you?” the pizza shop guy asked him.
Good question.
West couldn’t exactly tell him. But he didn’t have another option. He needed a code name, like in one of Jess’s comics.
“You trying to rob someone?” the man asked, anger building in his voice. “That why you’re wearing a mask?”
“No. It’s not like that. I’m just…” West trailed off, trying to think of a name.
“The Grey Ghost! Captain Fury! Nightstalker!” Jess cried in his earpiece.
“A concerned citizen,” West finished flatly.
The store owner looked down at the sprawled body of the man West knocked out. Then he racked a shell and leveled the gun.
The sensation flooded back into West’s legs.
He took off as quickly as he could.
There was a roar, and then West felt a rash of pain across his back, but he didn’t slow.
“You okay?” Jess asked.
“Yeah,” he said, hoping he was right.
“Don’t forget the camera,” Jess said, with a bit too much glee in her voice.
22
Cordelia rushed out of the elevator.
The Med Pros lab stood deserted except for Mallory, bending over a sheet covered lab table with a body on it.
West.
He was shirtless and face down, his flesh too pale in the harsh light, his exposed back bloody and bruised.
Mallory leaned over him with a pair of forceps. Slowly, she extracted something from one of the many small wounds and dropped it into a metal pan with a plink.
“My god, what happened?” Cordelia asked breathlessly.
She wanted to run to him, to comfort him, but she didn’t want to get in Mallory’s way.
“You called Cord?” West’s voice was harsh with pain
and frustration.
“Of course I did,” Mallory snapped right back. “You wake me in the middle of the night to pick birdshot out of you with no explanation. What did you expect me to do?”
“I needed a doctor,” he complained.
“You know I’m not that kind of doctor, right?” Mallory retorted.
“West?” Cordelia was shocked. How could he be fighting with Mallory. He had clearly been shot.
“I’m okay. I just had a little misunderstanding,” he said with a disturbing nonchalance.
“With a gun?” Cordelia demanded.
She circled around so he could see her better, hoping the eye contact would shake him into the trust and honesty she thought they shared.
“With a couple of skinheads, and some pills, and a dog. And a gun, yeah,” he admitted.
“Pills? What kind of pills?” Cordelia asked.
Was West in so much pain that he would resort to using illegal drugs? She cursed herself for being so distant with him lately.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask. Maybe Claritin?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Allergy season is right around the corner.”
Allergy season. Why did that resonate, why was it echoing in her head?
“If you want, I can go back and—ouch!” West winced as Mallory yanked another BB out of his shoulder.
“Sorry,” she said impassively.
But she rolled her eyes at Cordelia, indicating she was most certainly not sorry.
Cordelia had to stifle a laugh.
But she was still thinking about allergy season. Letting the thought play out. She used to have to take shots, her allergies were so bad. She hadn’t needed to lately, since she spent all of her time in the city now. It must have been something in the air at her old job. The zoo imported all sorts of exotic flowers from all over the world. It was like a smorgasbord of—
“Cordelia,” Mallory said, breaking her train of thought, “I have some news about your sample. We don’t have an exact match, but it’s some sort of—”
“Pollen,” Cordelia finished for her.
“Yes!” Mallory said, looking up in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“And I bet it doesn’t match any of the local flora,” Cordelia added.
West sat up to face her, intrigued.
“Exactly. If you give me a few more days, I can send it out to a botany lab for a proper analysis,” Mallory offered.
“Don’t bother. I know exactly where it came from,” Cordelia said with a half smile. “And I know where Dalton is.”
23
Dalton’s eyes adjusted to the light.
It took him a moment to recognize where he was.
A sea of green was broken up by crumbling cement pits. Wood decking, covered in vines, snaked through all the spaces between.
It looked like the set of one of those movies where all civilization on Earth is gone and the forests are moving back in.
But something about it was… familiar.
He looked again at the curving shapes of the concrete dropping off the sides of the wood plank paths.
One pit had a huge island in the middle.
A rush of images came to him at once.
A hot day in late spring, everyone wearing the same blue t-shirt, a long bus ride, admonishments to stay with the group.
“The zoo…” he murmured, picturing the lethargic grace of the lions who had paced the island, only the rail and the moat separating little Eddie Dalton from the thrilling presence of the big wild cats.
“Well, technically, not anymore,” Sterling said at his side. “We’ve procured the property for use as the new Project Cerberus base of operations. It belongs to us now.”
She began to traverse the wood plank path, and Dalton followed.
Vines hung from the trees above, shading their way. It had only been a year or so since the zoo had closed, Dalton thought. Would Mother Nature really begin to take over so quickly? It was beautiful, really, with thousands of tiny white flowers dotting the lush overgrown grasses below the path.
The location certainly explained the confusing animal smells.
His next thought was that purchasing the land would have cost a pretty penny, even in its current state. The new benefactors must have deep pockets.
He decided not to press Sterling on that particular issue. Baby steps. He was glad to be outside.
And he was glad to be with her.
The sunlight filtered through the trees overhead, dappling the ivy on the planks below, and burnishing unexpected golden notes in Sterling’s shining brown hair.
Her shoulders were relaxed and though she was in uniform, there was a carefree quality about her today, a happiness in her movement.
“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she turned back to ask him, her green eyes sparkling just like he remembered.
“I thought it was all flooded out,” Dalton said, looking around again.
“Some sections are,” she explained. “They provide excellent grounds for training simulations. We’ve set up labs and living quarters in the dryer areas. And we installed an improved drainage system and pumps as a safeguard.”
They reached the next pit and Dalton watched as some of the men trained in what used to be the spectacled bear enclosure.
“Looks like you’ve got a good operation running here,” he said.
“We do.”
“Then why do you need me?” he asked.
Sterling paused, and looked out over the zoo.
“Two reasons, really.” She said, looking out over the spectacular view. “One is that we are still having control issues. That’s the reason Andrews cut us loose. The men and women in the program are loyal to me. They would follow my orders to hell and back. But that’s because they trust me. To them, I’m part of the pack. Like an alpha, I suppose. But under the stress of combat, they crack. That’s what the collars are for… They’re loaded up with Xylazine.”
“Isn’t that a horse tranquilizer?” Dalton asked in horror.
His hand went automatically to his neck. Sterling had told him that his own collar was disarmed, but that it was important for him to wear it, to keep up appearances. He had reluctantly agreed. Now he was starting to regret the decision.
“It’s not ideal,” she admitted. “But it is the only thing that can be counted on to stop a subject in a full on rage. That’s why we need to learn from you. Somehow, you’ve been living a normal life. You’re in control. That is something none of our current subjects could possibly manage. We need to know what makes you different.”
Dalton’s first thought was about the night in the cellar of the old butcher shop, when he’d wanted to help West. He thought about the pain of the meathook in his thigh, and what he had done to Cordelia when she tried to help.
“And the second reason?” he asked.
Sterling turned to face him.
“You’re a good leader, Dalton. Frankly, the best I’ve ever known. These people need a leader. I need a commander I can trust. Someone to be on the ground with them. I guess part of me just thought that once you saw the work we’re doing here. The way we are helping them. That you might —I don’t know. It’s stupid…” she trailed off.
“It’s not stupid,” he heard himself say with feeling.
The words hung in the air a moment between them
Dalton hadn’t expected to react this way, but his words were true. He loved West like a brother, and he owed him his life. But Sterling was right. Dalton was a soldier. A leader. Did he really expect he could be happy guarding someone from paparazzi and procuring ballerinas?
It had been a long time since he’d felt like he was making a difference.
Sterling looked up at him, her green eyes luminous.
Dalton gazed down at the troops training below. He could smell their fear. Each one was probably just as lost and scared as he had been.
Could he help them?
With Andrews out of the picture, and Sterling calling the shots,
it might just be possible.
If she were actually calling the shots.
He glanced at her again. A smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. It seemed genuine enough.
“There’s a third reason, too,” she said, reaching out a hand to stroke his biceps. “One I can’t put in the official reports.”
Dalton liked the sound of that.
He wanted to go all in. To trust Sterling. To let himself fall back into their old ways.
But he could sense that she was holding something back from him.
Maybe something important.
He resolved that, at the very least, he would stick around until he could find out who was holding the purse strings, and what the endgame was.
At the core, these men and women were soldiers. Someone had a mission in mind for them. Dalton was determined to find out what that was.
And whether he could trust her or not, that job would be much more enjoyable at Sterling’s side than locked in a windowless, cinder block cube.
24
West helped Cordelia off the leather seat of his custom Vyrus motorcycle in the familiar VIP parking area.
Weeds grew up through the macadam and only one of the solar lights still illuminated the parking lot. He’d parked as far away from it as he could, sticking to the shadows.
West looked around, trying to calm himself after the ride here. It had been intense, with Cordelia’s arms wrapped around him, the whole time. Loosely at first, but then every bump jostling her closer until she clung to him, her breasts pressed flat against his back and her helmet resting on his shoulder.
He’d pictured turning the bike around and heading out of Glacier City, far away into the country someplace, where things would be simpler and she would love him again.
They would sit on a porch, sipping tea and listening to the crickets as the sun dipped behind a mountain and then he would take her inside and make love to her gently, opening his heart and whispering to her as he did, so that she would be sure to know how wise and brave she was and how much she meant to him.
Things had only become more awkward after the moment of intimacy during that car ride. He wished he hadn’t touched her. Or that he hadn’t stopped. Or that he could just strip away the glass wall that was between them and beg her to explain what was wrong, without worrying that she would run.
