Shadows (Ultrahumans Book 2)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I know him. Red Huntress won’t let him in the Den because… Well, he’s a dick. He was a dick. How’d he die?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Jacob said as he started pulling on his pants. ‘He took some sort of drug. The normals he was with are still coming down off it…’

  ‘Excelsior,’ Twilight mused. ‘Damn.’ She looked up at him. ‘We’re going to continue this tomorrow, and you’re going to tell me about Sandstorm. Sounds like the UID is going to be more involved and we can help.’

  He nodded. ‘Agreed. Not that I’m going to pass up the sex anyway.’

  Schatten Schloss, Italy, 24th March.

  Robert Durant marched through the halls of the ancient castle with purposeful stride. He was, and always had been, a man with a purpose, but now, as the moon shrank toward its darkest, that purpose had a sharp deadline associated with it.

  ‘We must be ready,’ he stated and all three of the subordinates following him nodded. ‘Have preparations been made for my flight to the USA?’

  ‘Sir,’ one man said, ‘all is ready. Our people in New Millennium City are keeping a watch on the Morgan girl. We know her usual haunts and patrol routes.’

  Durant gave a curt nod. ‘I’ll perform the ritual myself, but we will need her restrained. She must die when the moon is new. If she lives…’ He frowned. No one really knew what the consequences would be, but they all knew one thing. ‘If she lives, the Shadow Court will have failed and none of us are likely to survive that.’

  New Millennium City.

  Twilight looked up at the waning moon. It would be new moon at the end of the week, but for now there was a quarter visible, standing out in the night sky above the city and making the shadows deeper where it cast them.

  ‘I got a visit from your boyfriend,’ Cygnus said as she dropped onto the top of the Americas Trade Center one of their customary meeting spots.

  ‘I’m not sure “boyfriend” is right. We fuck.’

  Cygnus shrugged a reply to that comment. ‘He wants to get together. He says they have a few leads on the Excelsior case and it might be useful to get our help on a couple of them.’

  ‘Okay… Did you arrange somewhere to meet?’

  The blonde grinned. ‘Actually, Bryant is coming out to my place and I’ll be flying her out to our target. Dannon suggested you meet him at his house and he can drive you from there. He says he’s got a couple of targets where stealth would be useful.’

  ‘Huh,’ Twilight grunted. ‘As long as he isn’t just trying to get me alone.’

  ‘As long as he isn’t trying to set me up with Bryant,’ Cygnus replied as she lifted back into the air. ‘I mean, she’s an attractive enough woman, but I still prefer men.’

  ~~~

  Heather Bryant was an attractive woman and, knowing that she was going to be flying without an aircraft tonight, she had decided on a practical, if quite sexy, outfit in the ‘Baroness’ mould. She had short, very dark hair, so maybe the matt black catsuit was more ‘Catwoman,’ but it was windproof and made out of ballistic cloth so Cygnus could not argue it was just for the looks.

  ‘Where did this tip come from anyway?’ Cygnus asked as they flew out across the bay, north and east toward Kent Island.

  ‘This one came up through the NMCPD. One of their people thinks there’s a lab out here. The other one, which Jacob and Twilight are following up, came through one of my street people.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you take that one?’

  ‘Because Twilight’s better suited to dealing with that kind of task, and it’s pretty obvious that Jacob wants more… quality time with her. That’s assuming he hasn’t already, and the way he’s been acting recently I think he has.’

  ‘The Hero Code forbids me from making comment on what I may or may not know,’ Cygnus replied.

  ‘There is no such thing as the Hero Code, except in some old comic books.’

  ‘Well, okay, but I just think other people’s secrets are theirs to reveal, unless it’s putting someone in danger or something.’

  ‘Uh-huh. That’s actually a pretty good policy.’ There was silence for a second or two and then, ‘So they’re bumping hips on a regular basis, right?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Cygnus replied, grinning.

  ~~~

  ‘It’s not just a matter of me feeling like I’m… something you’re ashamed of,’ Twilight said as Jacob drove through northern Fairhaven toward Deale Harbour.

  ‘Good, because I’m not,’ he said, perhaps a little too quickly.

  ‘It’s also a matter of respecting your partner,’ Twilight went on. ‘You know she’s going to figure it out and you apparently don’t want her to. Aside from anything else, if you’re hiding something then she’s going to start wondering what it is.’

  ‘I know this.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you doing anything about it? I’m not asking for some huge commitment, you know? It’s a security issue. If she starts worrying you’ve been compromised…’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’ He sighed, his eyes flicking toward the first of six warehouses Heather’s contact had indicated might be being used for storage. Time to stop, which gave him a get-out clause, but she was right… ‘When we meet up with Heather and Cygnus later, I’ll tell her, okay?’

  Twilight reached for the door handle. ‘Sure. Three girls against one guy. Should be fun.’

  ~~~

  ‘This place is supposed to house a drug lab?’ Cygnus asked as she circled over what looked like an old office building. Concrete walls, broken windows, and a perimeter fence which had seen better days. Impressive it was not, but then if you were building a secret lab…

  ‘What were you expecting? A big sign: Drugs Made Here?’

  ‘Uh, no, but maybe more security. I’m seeing nothing in the way of people down there.’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty dark…’

  ‘I see fine in no light at all, Special Agent. I’m seeing nothing moving.’

  Bryant frowned. ‘Could be we’re wasting our time, but we should look closer. And it’s Heather, or Bryant if you must. Our respective partners are sharing a bed, so I think we can be on a first-name basis.’

  ‘Okay, Heather, you ready? I’ll drop us in on the roof of that big building. We can decide what to do from there.’

  Heather gave a nod and they dropped at a steep rate toward the concrete raft which formed the roof of the largest single building in the small complex. There was the whining hum of a small aircraft from the north as they touched down. The place was well suited to the task of handling illegal drugs: out of the way, but close to a small airfield and easy access to the sea, all good. The problem continued to be no obvious sign of activity. Heather scanned the area with a pair of infrared binoculars, frowning the entire time.

  ‘No ground disturbance I can see,’ she muttered. ‘You see anything? Tyre tracks, footprints, cigarette butts…’

  ‘How about a light?’

  Heather turned, looking in the direction Cygnus was looking. She just caught sight of something which looked like a torch beam flicking over a window before it went dark again. ‘That’s… something.’

  ‘We try over there?’ The other building was smaller, but there did seem to be more intact windows. Now that she looked, Cygnus could see a few which looked like they had been replaced recently. ‘I think someone’s been doing some weatherproofing on that building, now I look.’

  ‘Weird thing is, I saw the light, but I can’t see a heat signature.’

  ‘Some sort of camouflage suit?’

  ‘Why wear something like that and then use a torch?’

  ‘It’s a good point,’ Cygnus admitted. ‘So…?’

  Heather sighed and pulled her SIG Sauer P228 from where it was slung under her left armpit. ‘Can you put us in through the window there?’

  ‘Of course, if that’s what you want to do.’

  ‘You have a better idea?’

  ‘I could go in first, make sure it’s not a trap, which is
what it smells of, you have to admit.’

  ‘And this is my job; you just do it because you think it’s a good idea. We go in together.’

  Cygnus gave a shrug and stepped forward, her arm looping around Heather’s waist. ‘Here we go then. Hang on to your panties.’ And she lifted into the air, whipping up and over the edge of the roof to sweep down toward the window they had seen the light in. Heather raised her pistol just before they hit, firing off a shot and turning the white-painted glass into a crazy pattern of shards which they crashed through and into an empty room.

  Heather raised her SIG again as soon as Cygnus had her upright, aiming at the single door at the back of the room. ‘Someone could have flashed a torch in here, but been behind the wall so I’d miss the body heat,’ the agent mused.

  ‘If they were here, they probably know we’ve arrived.’

  ‘True. I’ll let you go first.’

  Cygnus flashed her a grin. ‘Gee, thanks.’ Then she edged through the door and out of the room, finding herself in a stairwell with doors, presumably rooms, on all four sides. ‘Must be a fire access or something,’ she said as Heather followed, taking a torch from her belt. ‘Stairwell goes a long way down though…’

  ‘Deeper than the building does,’ Heather agreed as her torch beam lit up the bottom. ‘They could easily hide something down there. There could be tunnels under the whole site…’

  ‘Fly or walk?’ Cygnus asked.

  ‘This time we’ll walk.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’ Cygnus started off around the landing to the downward stairs. ‘There’s still something wrong. If there was someone here, they should have heard us come in. If they did, why no sign of them?’

  ‘Not sure. Keep your eyes open.’

  They were somewhere around ground level and at least two storeys above the bottom of the stairs when Cygnus’ ears detected something. She glanced at Heather and noticed that she too was frowning and trying to localise a sound. It seemed to be somewhere upward… Cygnus lifted her head and spotted the shape moving across the very top of the stairwell.

  ‘Some sort of drone,’ she whispered. ‘Like a big camera supported on four fans.’

  As Bryant looked up, she saw a light flick on at the front of the flying robot, just as they had seen a torch light up the window from the outside. ‘Okay, but why would someone have a drone flying around in here…’ the agent began.

  ‘Because they don’t want anyone else in here?’ Cygnus suggested. She reached out, grabbing Heather’s waist. ‘Trap, remember?’

  ‘Right… go!’

  Cygnus lifted them out into the central open area and began to rise, and that was when the world turned to noise and chaos.

  ~~~

  ‘Anything from Heather?’ Twilight asked as they drove toward Titanic Street.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jacob replied. ‘Which is a match for our results so far.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m not hopeful for the next one. This is the place Ghostfire had his secret lab. I doubt anyone would have moved in there so fast.’

  He shrugged. ‘You never know. You’ll be okay in there? I mean, last time…’

  ‘I’m not the one who spent several days in some weird chamber being experimented on by a mad Nazi. To be honest, I think putting her fist through Ghostfire’s chest was kind of cathartic; she didn’t really take killing someone too well, but once she was over it I think it killed the trauma along with the villain.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Jacob replied, pulling the town car over to the side of the road.

  Titanic Street had a lot of warehouses on it with refrigeration facilities. Ice houses, cold storage, meat-packing plants, that kind of thing, built close enough to the piers that merchandise could be moved to and from stores efficiently. Why Ghostfire and Professor Blutadler had decided to put their main base under one of these buildings had never been determined, but they had and the business which had run the warehouse had collapsed when its criminal backers had been taken out.

  ‘It looks dead,’ Twilight commented as she reached for the door.

  ‘We’d better take a look anyway.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She pushed open the door and stepped out, slipping her sword into place on her back before closing up the car. ‘I’m just not hopeful,’ she added.

  Together they walked up to the main doors, finding them locked, which was what they expected, but…

  ‘Some of these tyre marks on the concrete look new,’ Jacob said, frowning at the black marks running under the large doors. ‘We could do with getting inside…’

  ‘I can handle that,’ Twilight replied, ‘as long as you’re willing to say we had just cause for entry.’

  ‘I think we’re covered,’ he replied as she started around the side of the building. ‘How are you going to get in…?’ He rounded the corner after her, and she was not there. He frowned. The girl seemed able to get into his house without any trouble, even when he was sure all the doors and windows were locked.

  There was a click from somewhere just up ahead and Twilight’s head appeared through a doorway. ‘Come on. Can’t really see anything in here, but there are rooms at the back and some on the second floor.’

  Pulling his Glock, Jacob shook his head and hurried to join her, adding his flashlight when he got inside since the interior was in pitch-darkness. Twilight’s thin penlight beam lanced through the darkness as well, giving two thin patches of illumination in the black. Neither light showed anything moving, or out of place, but there was more to the warehouse than the main loading room, as Twilight had indicated.

  ‘You want to check upstairs?’ he suggested. ‘I can take the back rooms.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to split up?’

  His gaze, and torch, scanned the room again. ‘You were probably right; it looks dead. Those tyre prints are probably from when they took the stock away.’

  His beam turned back toward her in time to see her shrug. ‘Okay. Meet you back here in… five minutes.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, flicking his light toward the rear of the building. ‘I’m not sure whether that lift is going to work. I think there were stairs–’ He stopped when he realised she was gone, vanished into the shadows. She was good at that.

  Turning again, he started for the rear of the room. From what he remembered, there were several, very large walk-in freezer rooms along the back wall, along with a couple of offices and the elevator which had looked as though it could carry freight to the upper level, but was actually mainly there to give access to the base beneath. That had been locked down; it was pretty unlikely that anyone could have gained access to it. No, if there was anyone in the place, they were going to be upstairs or in the offices back here.

  His light hit the doors of the lift, wide open and unmoving. There seemed to be no power so that confirmed what he had suspected and probably indicated that Twilight was going to find nothing on the upper floor. No one was going to move heavy drug crates up stairs when they could put them in storage on the ground floor.

  He turned left, the beam scanning over a frosted glass window and office door, and then alighting on a heavy, insulated freezer door near it. Jacob frowned and walked over to the freezer. It was faint, but he was sure he had seen it. There was a light glowing beside the door, and someone had gone to the trouble of covering it with duct tape. The metal door was cool to the touch as well. Someone was running at least one of the freezers and this place was supposed to be shut down.

  There was a click and a sharp crack, and the sensation of something hitting his jacket. Jacob blinked at the thin wires extending from his chest to a gap in the office door and had a fraction of a second to realise what was about to happen to him before every nerve in his body started misfiring and he collapsed to the floor.

  ~~~

  ‘Are you still with me?’ Cygnus asked as she pushed a block of concrete aside which was at least as big as she was.

  ‘I think so,’ Heather replied, looking up through the gap. The problem was that
the block Cygnus had moved was far from the only one above them. Most of the upper part of the stairwell had collapsed in on them. Someone had known what they were doing when they rigged the explosives. ‘We are not getting out that way,’ she added.

  ‘We’re lucky the stairwell wedged some of the larger blocks. Otherwise I doubt I could’ve held that up.’ The tall blonde peered around and then pointed to her right. ‘There’s a door there. Maybe a way out.’

  Heather turned her, miraculously intact, flashlight on the door and immediately noticed the biohazard symbol on it. ‘This place is supposed to be disused. I, uh, I doubt that has any meaning now.’

  ‘Better hope so,’ Cygnus replied as she started to pull fallen debris away from the door. ‘As far as I can see, it’s through here or wait to be rescued, which could take days.’

  ‘What’s a little plague between friends?’ Heather replied.

  ~~~

  Twilight stepped out of the shadows near the door she had let Jacob in through and saw no sign of his light in the darkness. She had been fairly quick checking the upper floor; there had been nothing up there to get excited about. On the other hand, she had expected him to be waiting for her since there was little to check down here.

  Her penlight beam flicked out into the darkness, but there was no sign of him walking back toward the door. Frowning, she set off toward the back where he would have been going. That was when she saw the light. It was dim, shielded, and coming through one of the freezer hatches. She edged closer, her night vision picking out more than one shape in the faint glow. Two men standing, another on a chair, tied there from his position.

  ‘They were supposed to be looking out on Kent Island,’ one voice said. ‘You said you’d given them reason to go look–’

  ‘And they did,’ a second voice stated. ‘The charges blew a few minutes ago. Looks like he decided to check out some other leads. Wonder where his partner is? Doesn’t matter. We leave him in here and he turns into a Popsicle. Come back tomorrow and tidy things up and his buddies’ll find him eventually. Tragic accident.’

  Twilight’s eyes narrowed and she slipped her sword free of its scabbard. There was no way she was going to let someone freeze her new boyfriend.