by Lee Hayton
My head was too tired to think through scenarios and weigh evidence, but that didn’t stop my brain giving it a good try. As I put the car into gear and let it drive me home, I tried and failed to weave the tangled shreds of sense together.
I almost turned into the street that led in front of the apartment building, but luckily my subconscious mind was ticking over while my conscious thought had a sleep. Instead, I parked beside a derelict office building two blocks over, resenting each step of the extra walk all the way to the gym.
I checked that nobody was watching me, but given the slackness of my mind, it was altogether possible that whole teams could be lying in wait and I wouldn’t have seen them. With a yawn, I swung into the alleyway beside the old gym and knocked a few times on the boarded window.
“Hell. You look worse than I feel,” Norman exclaimed as he shifted the cladding aside so I could clamber indoors. “Do you want something to eat? Asha went on a sweep to get supplies earlier.”
I nodded, grabbing the candy bar that he’d offered and closing my eyes as I took a massive bite. The junk food probably wouldn’t help my energy levels tomorrow, but for the moment, they gave me a nice hit.
“Most of the team is upstairs,” Norman explained when I had a few minutes to get myself together. “We’ve been trying to patch over the worst of the ceiling collapse, so we don’t all freeze tonight.”
The bite of winter was eating deeper all the time. Even with the cats regenerated now, their combined heat wasn’t enough to warm the building. I nodded to a few before curling up in a corner, too exhausted to be able to lend a hand.
“How many did we lose?” I whispered to Asha when she came over to check on me.
“On top of Dory? Fourteen dead beyond repair and another eight missing.”
“Presumed dead.”
“I can’t think where else they’d go to. If they’d had a mind to move on, I’m sure they would’ve done it before now.” She looked down at the floor, wiping a hand across her forehead and staining it with dust and sweat.
“Has there been anything on the news about it?”
Asha shook her head. “As far as I know, nobody ever turned up in response to a call out.”
“Perhaps they never got one.”
“I know they didn’t come from us, but there were other businesses attached beside the apartment building. They’ve all lost money in this explosion, and you can be damn sure that at the very least, they put a call through to the council to get a rebate.”
“How’s your job in the pits?” Norman asked, walking over. He looked tired and angry. With his pointed question, I couldn’t work out if it was at the situation or if the fury was directed at me.
“It went okay. I think we should talk about what we can do while I have access,” I said just as a loud knock came on the front door.
All of us froze, staring wide-eyed at one another. “Was that the front door?” Percival asked from behind me. I hadn’t even seen him since I’d come in and when I turned, I knew why. He was peering out of a stand-up wardrobe. With his drawn white face staring out, it might as well have been a coffin tipped on end.
The knock came again, this time slightly softer. Either that or because we were half expecting it, the sound didn’t come as such of a shock.
“Are we answering it?” Norman asked, looking at Asha and me.
I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what the ramifications would be either way and couldn’t guess at who would be outside.
“I’ll get it,” Asha said, striding toward the lower level. “The rest of you hide away as best you can.”
Percival had the only true hiding spot, apart from a few spaces behind the temporary roof protection that had been piled up to stop the draft. I moved to the far wall and pressed myself as tightly up against the corner as I could, trying to appear smaller. A bunch of stray cats, that’s all we’d look like. I nodded across to Norman who flexed his claws, glinting in the reflection from the moonlight outside.
I heard the soft sounds of whispering voices, then Asha’s heavy tread coming back up to the mezzanine level. She was usually light on her feet, so I guessed that was a warning to us.
Not that it did me any good. There was nowhere else to go.
“Human,” Asha mouthed to me as soon as she drew level. I changed and walked across, tip-toeing in case the person downstairs still wasn’t meant to know that we were here.
Asha reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward and giving me a push toward the stairs. “It’s your boss,” she said, just before I saw the average man standing in the doorway.
“Did you do this?” I cried out, not caring that my voice was loud enough to be heard from the street outside. “You fucking prick.”
But the average man shook his head and stared over his shoulder in confusion. “I don’t know who’s responsible for this one, but when I heard I wanted to get here and check you’re okay. I can assure you, it wasn’t down to me.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, although he sounded as though he was telling the truth. That was the problem with a life lived undercover, though, everything seemed like the truth, so it might just as easily be a lie.
“Please.” He caught my arms. “If I wanted to hurt you or kill you, I’d do a far better job. I know that you’ve probably worked out the blood banks but believe me, this job was amateur, even for people trying to make it look that way.”
I whistled in a breath, my chest tightening so much it was hard to inhale. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Yes.” He stared at me. “It is. That’s another reason why I came here. If you’re a target for the state or the corporations, then you must have some idea who has it in for you.”
“Apart from everyone?” Asha said, walking back downstairs. She pushed past the two of us and closed the door after a quick glance outside. “Keep your voices down, how about it. Even if somebody up high knows everything we do, that doesn’t mean we have to broadcast it to the street.”
“You killed the group,” I accused my old boss. “I went there after the blood bank bombing, and you’d killed everyone in the place.”
He shrugged. “Every job we do has collateral. You’ve worked with me long enough to know that.”
“A dozen people were staying there,” I said, stamping my foot. “That’s more than collateral.”
He fixed his gaze on mine. “As I said, it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened to them, it’s in the past. I want to know what’s going on right now.”
“Why don’t you know?” Asha pressed up close, Norman slowly sauntering downstairs, stopping halfway to block the passage in case the situation turned. Pounce was also cautiously alert. He’d changed back, except for his claws. They hung at his side, ready for the slightest excuse.
“I don’t know.” The average man sounded frustrated, and to me, that was the tip-off that he what he said was true. Somebody had left him out of the loop, and it was eating him alive. That was why he’d come along tonight. Not out of worry for me—although that might also have been on his mind—but out of fear for his own skin.
When you’re the person who knows what’s going on all the time, to have something unexpected happen sounds your death knell.
The real question was, could we use him to our advantage?
“What? Missing a few pieces, aren’t you?” The average man looked at me as though I’d sprung horns and grown a tail.
Well, the second part of that was correct, but the first? I licked a paw and flattened down my ears. Even in human form I sometimes like to keep them feline. “We haven’t formulated everything down to the—”
“You don’t have a plan at all.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture scaring me. Everything about my old boss had always been immaculate, neat and tidy were his middle names. Now, he had a smudge of dirt on his cheek and strands of his hair were laying every which way.
What he said was right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling affronted. I had
only been back in contact with my friends for a few days, and I’d had other things on my mind. Gaining access to the facility was a significant first step—I didn’t have to know the details of the rest of it to believe that they’d fall logically into place.
“Where’s the witch?” the average man asked, looking around. “Have you got her stored somewhere, so she can cast a spell to make you aware you’re out of your damn minds?”
“She’s dead.” Asha stared grimly at him until the man looked the tiniest bit ashamed. Another new low for him—emotion was the tool of lesser humans but had never been one he jumped for himself.
“I’ve already got access to the pits. Once I’ve scoped out the area—” I started, but he held a hand up to stop me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Even if you charge in there, changing vamps into werecats as you go, there’s no way you’ll be able to bring them back out.”
“You don’t know that.” I cast a steely glance his way. My brain was still scrambled from the explosion and the effort of just getting through the day. I didn’t need insults fired at it on top of that.
“You couldn’t even get a group of hippies to talk to you, how on Earth do you think you’ll get the finest guards in the empire to spill the beans about their lock-up.”
“I told you, I’m working there.”
“And that means you’ll have supervised access to one part of the facility, just like when we handed you the card to drag out Asha. It doesn’t mean you can wander in there anytime you like or let through anybody but yourself.”
“Well, I haven’t had time to study—”
“Then why don’t you let me talk instead of cutting me off with nonsense? Number one, you don’t actually have access to anything; you just have permission to be in the building when you’re doing your job. Number two, you don’t have any idea of what to do in the place, even if you did gain wider access.”
“How about instead of listing problems, you start providing some solutions?” Asha folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. Good girl. Show some solidarity. “If you’re so sure that you know everything, how about contributing something to the idea pot?”
“Well, my goal isn’t to free the vampires, so I haven’t given it any thought,” the average man hedged.
Asha snorted. “Like hell, you haven’t. You knew that’s some of what we wanted to do, which means you’ve already come at it from a dozen different angles just to be ready, in case we did mount an attack.”
“I didn’t say—”
Asha leaned over, touching one finger up against his chest. “If you’re not useful within the next five minutes, then I suggest you move on. The only thing obvious here is that every organization you work for has just terminated your employment. At least, when I get fired, I know the fuck why.”
The average man’s jaw locked, and his nostril’s flared. “Perhaps I should be going, then.”
Asha waved her hand. “Bye-bye. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
If he’d wanted someone to beg him to stay on board, then the man hadn’t read the situation correctly at all. I was too tired, Asha was too angry, and Norman had disappeared off somewhere to be alone.
“It takes a lot more than you have to be a success,” the average man said with one hand on the door. “At this point, I bet you don’t even know how to upload Dory into another body. That should be your first step, then she’ll be able to help you with the rest.”
Asha was out the door and hot on his tail before he could make it back to his vehicle. She brought him back inside with one hand bunched around his shirt front and the other secured in a vice-like grip around his hand.
When she sat him down, the man’s jawbone clicked, and I could hear the snap of his tailbone jamming into the wood of the chair. “Why don’t you take us through that part, and we’ll decide whether you’re worth the effort to keep alive?”
Chapter Nineteen
The average man talked a good game, but his only proficiency was in knowing the right people, not holding any particular skill himself. He might know in theory how Dory’s upload worked, but as contact after contact left him dry, I began to think that the entire thing was just a fool’s errand.
Maybe we should stop where we are and count our blessings that we’d freed the vampires that we had?
Luckily, after a short cat-nap, that malignant thought was dreamed out of my mind. While some of our fellow citizens were enslaved, we all were. If the empire or the corporations decided tomorrow that werecats were now the property of the state, then I’d have no defense. Only by seeking freedom for all could I ever hope to attain it for me.
Of course, the last time I’d been a ward of the state, the man standing before me had arranged a high price for buying me out. I’d brought him information a week ago, and now had the charred bodies of innocents on my conscience as a reward.
That, and a son who I hadn’t yet told the truth.
If we entered a deal with the devil willingly, we could keep our eyes peeled all we wanted—chances were still good that we’d end up buying a passageway to hell.
As I watched him through narrowed eyes, the average man hung up his phone call and shone a smile in my direction, then Asha’s. “I think I’ve managed to enlist the help of an old friend. A master of disguise.” He paused for a second, moving across to the bottom stair to take a seat. “Or mistress.”
When Nika turned up at the door, I didn’t recognize her. To be fair, I hadn’t worked with her much before, and what tasks we had performed together had been done when she had an entirely different face. It was Asha who saw through the new disguise the quickest. Perhaps it was because of their closer acquaintance, or maybe it was just that she paid more attention when she looked at the new arrival’s hand.
The one that was missing a forefinger.
I remembered using it to gain entry to a house that should have been impenetrable. That was back when Asha and I still had hope that we might bring this entire city down to its knees. A pity then that we were still the ones kneeling.
After a quick discussion with the average man, Nika produced a laptop out of her satchel and sat down cross-legged on the gym floor.
“Anyone want to tell us what the fuck you’re doing?” I asked in my politest voice. Nika barely bothered to glance up, so the average man had to be the one to step in.
“We need to move a lot of information from one facility to another,” he said as though it was an explanation.
“What kind—?”
“You mean Dory?” Asha must have gotten more sleep the night before than me, or she was following the conversation a lot more closely.
“Yes, I do. She’s stored in the government data bank somewhere in a facility used by the army. We need to get her out of there if we’re going to be able to retrieve her records and have a shot at recreating her.”
“I don’t understand why you even want her back,” I said, earning myself a scowl from Asha. “What? I didn’t say she wouldn’t be welcome. I just don’t understand exactly why she’s needed by the team.”
“Her spells come in handy,” Percival said, joining the conversation late. I’d forgotten that he’d been hiding away in the closet and from the look of it, no one else had bothered to tell him either. “I mean, they had a few drawbacks—”
I snorted with laughter at that one. “You think?”
“Still, at least she could literally pull something out of thin air when we needed it. That’s a skill I wouldn’t mind getting back.”
I knew they weren’t ganging up on me, but it still felt weird to be the only dissenting opinion. “What spells had she done lately? Seems to me, she was only useful when she got herself caught in a tight spot.” Perhaps I was too close to the memory of cutting up her boyfriend. “She certainly didn’t do Earnest any good.”
“She wasn’t trying to do Earnest any good,” Asha pointed out in a mild voice. “Dory was trying to keep a roof over our h
eads. Anything she got out of that relationship for herself was an afterthought. Probably why she didn’t particularly care when he dropped dead.”
“Lovely.” I sat back and watched Nika with some interest while she worked. With Asha, everything to do with manipulating computers was encoded inside her head—not much of a spectator sport. Nika, though, spat out bouts of furious typing, followed by long pauses, then another spat.
“Are you going to transfer Dory to that?” I asked, nodding at the computer.
“She’ll be far too big a file to fit on here,” Nika said mildly, most of her concentration caught up in her work. “This is just to facilitate the move.” She stared up at me for a second, a frown marring the perfect beauty of her face. Or someone else’s face. “You work at the vampire pits now?”
I nodded, feeling the scrutiny on my face as though it was a physical sensation. “I wanted to get a feel for the place and see if we could break into it from the inside.”
She nodded. “Not a bad idea. Your son works there, too, right? That’s what the boss told me.”
Norman jerked his head around to stare at me, while Asha’s expression appeared like a light bulb had gone off inside her head. “I didn’t know that’s what he was,” she whispered.
“I didn’t know you had any children,” Percival said.
“I lost them a long time ago.” I crossed my arms over my chest and shivered. The night had brought back the worst of the cold. “Does it matter?”
“Not to me,” Percival said. “Probably does to you.”
“Is he sympathetic to us?” Norman asked. I moved away and stared down at the floor so I could avoid his gaze.
“I haven’t told him. As far as he knows, I’m just a work colleague.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I tried to avoid answering, but Norman just pinioned me with his gaze. “He seems to enjoy his job,” I said at last, earning a sneer.
