FBI Agent Dilbert Linus watches from behind one-way glass, still nursing the hand he’s still sure Quatro sprained during her greeting earlier.
Tommy says nothing, his hooded eyes flick around the room like a snake’s tongue, darting from Quatro to Ortiz and back again. Quatro sits across from him. Ortiz stands behind her, arms crossed, his gaze intense on the young boy. Quatro takes out a folder and begins laying out photographs in front of Tommy.
“Do you know who these people are, Tommy?” Agent Quatro taps her finger on a few.
“Nope.” He pushes the photos away. Some fall on the floor. He makes no move to pick them up, nor does Quatro. Instead, he looks into the two-way mirror. Not liking what he sees he starts counting the holes in the lino-covered walls.
“Don’t you want to know who they are?” Quatro’s voice is sweet, cajoling.
“Nope.” He’s at twenty two.
Ortiz walks over, picks up the fallen photos. Slams them on the desk. Tommy jumps out of his chair, falling on the floor and scrabbling toward the wall. Ortiz grabs him by the scruff of his shirt and dumps him back into his seat, forcing his head toward the photos.
“Don’t you look away, you little shit. Look! Look at the faces of the people you killed.”
Tommy’s resolve cracks and he begins sobbing again, his tears puckering the nearest photos. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it would be so bad! I thought we were going to just scare them! I did what my brother told me to do!”
Quatro gives Ortiz a look and he backs off, re-crossing his arms, leaning against the wall near enough to Tommy to keep him nervous.
“Sorry isn’t going to bring all,” Quatro gestures at the photos, “these people back, Tommy. Thousands more than this. You understand that number, Tommy?” From a bag next to the table Quatro begins pulling out stacks and stacks of photographs, dumping them in front of Tommy, whose breathing shifts into the hysterical, on his way into a full-on panic attack.
Quatro lets it happen, watches as he weeps and clutches his chest. It passes and the sobs turn to hiccups. “Shall I get rid of these photos, Tommy?”
“Yes! Please!” The gratefulness in his eyes speaks volumes.
“These photos,” Quatro says as she puts all the images together in a pile, “don’t make even one thousand. Six hundred and seventeen to be exact.” Quatro shakes her head. “All the people who you murdered. Well, to your credit you feel badly about it. That might work in your favor down the line.” It won’t.
The list of charges against Tommy Cullen include: accessory to the destruction of a crime scene, a potential accessory to committing mass murder, and accessory to criminal conspiracy. He’ll spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison, if California doesn’t lift the moratorium on the death penalty for him and his friends. But Quatro doesn’t tell him that just yet. A confession in hand is worth all the evidence in the bush.
Special Agent Rosario Quatro
You aren’t the kind of person to want to rush through an assignment or look forward to the next one, but today has you thinking about cashing in the dozens of holiday days you’ve accrued since your last vacation. When was that even?
Miami Beach, Christmas of 1998. When you were dating Fede Fuentes, a DEA agent based in south Florida. You didn’t expect to, but you actually had a good time. Seeing alligators in the wild, dancing the night away in the open-air clubs, velvet sandy beaches during the day, seafood, handholding, lovemaking. He kept no secrets from you, making him the easiest man you’d ever known to touch. You almost saw a future with him. And then came the news that he got back together with his ex, and she quickly got pregnant. C’est la vie.
You’re also not the kind of woman to get tired on the job. It’s your fuel, your coffee, your cocaine. It keeps you going. There are always answers, and you always find them. But this time is different. This time it’s too heavy. The weight of all the dead kids, their absence in the world. And these perpetrators, so young as well and look at all the damage they’ve caused.
You don’t let these things get under your skin under normal circumstances—not that your involvement in a case ever signifies anything resembling average—but today you can’t seem to help it.
You put some liquid oxygen drops into a mug of distilled water—your secret weapon with all the airplane travel. You drink down and feel your blood expand, purify. The room brightens. You finish off the mug and feel almost renewed. There’s not much further to go now. For once, the thought comforts you.
7:15 PM LAPD Lockup
The officer assigned to DJ Fetish duty almost doesn’t notice the silence that now feels as loud as the loon’s screaming.
“Hey, DJ! You alright in there?”
No answer.
“Goddamn nutbag.” The officer hoists his six-foot three-hundred-pound frame from the creaking plastic chair and tramps down the empty cellblock.
“Yo! DJ! What you getting up to?”
At the cell his eyes widen and his gorge rises to see the headless pulp that used to be DJ Fetish supine on the cement cell floor.
Dry heaving, Officer Jones does something he hasn’t done in over ten years: Run.
Kaleanathi, The Smog Goddess
You laugh as you watch the fat policeman retching and reeling his way to get help. Maybe he’ll have a heart attack and you can eat him, too. You feel so much better now that this tribute is safe in your poison womb, just where he belongs.
The DJ’s torment is special: The other lost party souls know he was an instigator of their demise and they turn their suffering onto him. And all the better for you to drink their pain. It’s delicious.
This mess of a day is finally shaping up.
You can feel Mother, The Ancient One’s fury as she’s unable to locate you. And as she replenishes The Source you depleted, you resume siphoning small amounts. This time not enough for her to notice. She’ll think it’s taking so long to refuel because she’s still tired. You’re careful not to laugh even though you want to.
It does not occur to you that you can only hide from Mother for so long before she finds you. Your arrogance will be your downfall, while the other Elementals can see it clear as the smog that surrounds you. They begin working on the excuses that will distance themselves from you. You’re a lead zeppelin on its way down, and nobody wants to hitch a ride when Mother, The Ancient One is also in play.
7:20 PM Spruce-Musa Hospital
Red Feather takes up a point position by the fire door leading to the roof, watching while the hospital staff, police, and firemen evacuate every mobile person possible, carefully loading them onto a fleet of ambulances and buses waiting below. They barricade the upper floors, locking fire doors and hoping for the best.
This is going to work, Red Feather tells himself over and over, even though he knows that most of the cops aren’t going to make it out of here alive. Maybe not even him. Hoka hey. It’s a good day to die.
Chamelia is in full lizard form, her tail cocked and ready.
Secrete has loaded her room with poison air. She waits flush against the wall, hoping when the door opens she’ll be able to take out a few soldiers before the rest enter.
NRG has crawled under her bed, prepared to down Institute cronies by their Achilles heels with her knives. She knows they only wear armor on the top.
Icarus Lazlo climbs out the window and perches on the wall, just as Bram Stoker claimed Dracula did. He hears the commotion and wants none of this.
Connie Jones has been dreaming about a gruesome shootout between men in a spaceship and the police. She awakens with a start, realizing it’s about to happen.
Linda Kang feels her stomach churn along with the gunfire coming from upstairs. She hides in the bathroom in case she needs to throw up again.
Lola Calavera retreats to the corner of her room where she p
roceeds to blend into the wall. Invisible, but bringing out her long tiger-striped nails just in case.
The bird girl, Asha Kinsella, debates flying out the window, but settles on hiding in the corner above the closet, covering herself with all the linens in the room.
Lisa Wolverton feels the change coming on, screams as her bones break and organs re-form into her bipedal wolf shape.
Karma Devi wishes she had her scalpels, and goes for the IV rack she wields as a spear.
Cherie Beauxden stands by her door. Opens and closes her fists as spurts of fire launch and retreat, pheromones also in full force.
Tashi Lhamo hides under her bed, for the first time since she was raped, actually praying.
Una O’Doole cowers in the closet, weeping and screaming as she covers her ears. She doesn’t notice the pink ooze that seeps from between her legs, slithers from the closet, and plants itself in position in front of the door. Growing, growing, growing.
The survivors of the Crane Mansion Massacre are the only ones who haven’t been herded out with the rest. Chamelia knows that now that they’re all on the Roswell Institute radar, none of them will ever be safe again.
Chamelia and Red Feather bring them all out into the hallway, with the exception of Una O’Doole. The blob guards her door and lunges, toothed maw exposed, at the door’s opening.
“Jesus Henry Christ!” Chamelia shouts, slamming the door. “I remember that thing from the party.” To Red Feather she says, “New plan: We drive them back to this door. It’ll eat whomever’s left.”
“What about the girl in there?” Red Feather asks while the blob throws itself halfheartedly against the door and quiets, as if it knows the survivors in the hallway are not its enemy.
Chamelia shrugs, then shivers from lizard into human form. “That thing has her back.” She begins to speak to her makeshift congregation.
“Some of you may remember me from the rave last night. I needed your help then, and I need your help now.”
The group rumbles. “Why don’t we just run?” Linda Kang cries, burps, winces.
“They will kill every man, woman, and child on this planet to get to us. Wherever we go, they will follow and leave nothing but collateral damage in their wake. Do you want that blood on your hands?” Chamelia could care less about them, all she knows is she’s not getting taken alive.
“No!” Burp, ouch. Linda massages her throat.
“So, we fight. We can win this. We’ve done it before.” Chamelia says, leading the group as she did at the Crane Mansion Massacre.
“But wait, you guys, we all died!” Linda points out. How could they forget. The others ignore her.
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Secrete says, flashing a grim smile. “My room is hella poisonous. I’ll lead some of them in there.”
“They’ll have masks.”
“Not strong enough for what I can do now. We’re not going back to that dungeon.” Secrete is adamant. Chamelia concurs. They take hands with NRG, the strength of consanguinity multiplies their powers.
The bird girl Asha, aka Galactic Canary, flies above the group. “I’ll distract. They want us alive. You kill them.” Her words are coming back, but the birdspeak trill remains.
“You!” Secrete says, “I know you! You made fire.”
“Not anymore. My sisters died. I can only fly now.” Asha lands on the nurse’s station, perching on the edge.
“I can make fire.” Cherie Beauxden says in her southern drawl. “Don’t remember being able to do it before, but I sure can now.” She opens and closes her fist as flames emerge.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Chamelia nods.
Lola Calavera brings out her nails and flickers from visible to invisible. “Point me in their direction. Vamanos, motherfuckers.”
Icarus the vampire emerges from his room, fangs bared, deciding he’d rather die fighting than run away. And maybe in the meantime get into the good graces of the triple-uterus woman, of whom he would give his left arm to drink again.
“Good to have you two,” Chamelia says. She turns back to the group. “Everyone, grab what weapons you need, and take positions. No matter what, we stay together. They’ll have tranquilizers, the guns are silver with an orange pellet in the tip. Destroy those first. Don’t get shot.”
Karma Devi builds a stash of IV stands to use as spears and raids the nurse’s station for scalpels and other cutting tools. She fashions an apron out of hospital scrubs, tying it around her waist and filling it with all the sharp objects she can hold without cutting herself.
Teresa Chalmers sits and rests, chewing on an energy bar. She needs all the strength she can get to scream her way to helping the group.
Red Feather does a quick head count. “Hey, we’re missing someone. Tashi. She must be hiding.” Red Feather calls out to Cherie, “She’s in there. Can you go get her?” He points to Tashi’s room, but keeps his distance from Cherie, remembering how her pheromone power particularly affects men.
Cherie knocks on Tashi’s door and opens it. “Tash? You in here?” Tashi peeks out from under the bed.
“Cher!” She scrabbles out and throws her arms around her friend. “What the hell is going on around here?”
“We’re gonna fight these assholes. You in?”
“You jump, I jump, Jack. Right?” Tashi smiles through her fear.
“Goddamn right.” Cherie kisses Tashi on the mouth and pulls her out into the hallway. “Hey, Karma, fix my gal up with some cuttin’ tools, won’t ya?”
“With pleasure.” Karma fakes tossing an IV stand their way. She rustles up another apron for Tashi and gives her some tips on how to wield a scalpel without getting cut herself. During her search Karma finds a huge stash of medical scrubs and everyone except Chamelia changes out of their hospital gowns into what now appears to be a team uniform.
The whole gang’s back together.
From his vantage point, Red Feather sees Chamelia and Karma are both smiling. Battle becomes them.
Detective Synthia Günn
What are you doing? What in the hell are you doing?! You did not just abandon your partner in the line of duty to go on a wild goose chase to rescue a cyclops girl who may or may not even need rescuing.
You rev the car faster, putting up the siren as you drive through red lights, screeching around station wagons, and putting dozens of peoples’ lives in jeopardy.
The realization hits you: You’re not running to save Lily, you’re running away from the hospital. You’re running away from the unbelievableness of today. You’re running away from the possibilities that science may never have predicted, all the things that before today were empirically impossible.
Slowing the car to a normal speed you take a deep breath. Maybe this isn’t working for you anymore. You can’t keep living like the world is a lab experiment, perfectly controlled, and your life is a mere footnote, closed off from the intimacy of human connection.
Why Lily? Why now?
Is it the baby? The baby you’re not even sure you want to keep? The baby who will surely ruin your career if you do? If you haven’t ruined your career already by taking off in the middle of an assignment?
You want to blame someone, reflect all these decisions back somewhere they won’t bounce off back onto you.
But this is all you, babe.
It’s time to accept you can’t control everything. Life is not sterile, ordered. It’s a big fucking mess, and maybe there’s beauty in that. All those incredible survivors, including Lily, will change the world, how people see and experience the world.
Why Lily?, you wonder again. Because someone has to snap you out of your resistance to change? Someone real needs to rescue you from the corner you’ve painted yourself into? Someone needs to help you accept that all the magic and miracles you’ve see
n today are real?
She’s as good a someone as any.
Hold on, Lily, I’m coming.
The words are as much for Lily’s salvation as your own.
7:25 PM The Roswell Institute
The Roswell Institute’s extraction team boards a modified alien craft, dating back to when it crashed on Earth in 1943 but looking good as new. The very ship that inspired the term flying saucer when it made its appearance on the American skyline, effectively terrifying hundreds of people around the nation, some of whom never recovered and whose lives went downhill from the moment of the sighting.
You’ve got to give credit where credit is due: Extraterrestrials sure know how to make things that last. The pilot of the 1943 saucer lives in a cell deep in The Institute, having proven he will kill anyone and anything that comes near him. All he wants is to return to his planet several galaxies over, but Colonel Ransom won’t release the craft until their scientists have replicated it. They aren’t even close. Jason Mars knows how the dude feels, and is grateful that his own impending departure back to Mars does not rely upon the possession of a spaceship.
Tiburona, the shark girl, can hear the heartbeats and rushing blood of every suited human soldier on the craft. The sound is deafening. She unbuckles her seatbelt. Despite myriad protestations from her colleagues she walks away, finding a spot to hide in the upper level. When the grunt sent to find her does, she eats him. Relishing the blood as it drips down her throat, snuffling in to get every last drop before his heart stops beating. Continuing to gorge even though her shrunken stomach forces her to stop and vomit. Three times.
As above, the smog goddess Kaleanathi shudders and belches, as the grunt’s soul becomes the newest part of her cloak.
Gustave II, the croc boy, and the werewolf Growl, raise their noses, smelling blood. Trixter, the coyote god, soon follows suit. Questions in their eyes as they look to each other for answers. Gustave shakes his head, a gesture they all read as Keep your traps shut. Not our goddamn problem. The others are more than happy to comply. They couldn’t give a shit about the success of this mission. They are all prisoners here. And not of their own device.
Crime Rave Page 30
