by Adams, Cat
I wished there was something I could do, but there wasn’t.
I was meeting Dom Rizzoli for breakfast at Irma’s Diner, a little place just off the expressway, nestled between diesel pumps and a car wash sized to accommodate semis. It had taken Dom some time to get things arranged, but he’d managed it.
Irma’s had the design of a classic fifties diner: a long narrow building with rounded windows and lots of chrome. Three different colors of neon chased around the upper trim and lit the big sign that showed a waitress holding a full tray. I pulled into the only empty spot in a large parking lot, slathered myself with sunscreen, and steeled myself for a dash through the sunshine.
The inside of the building was just what I’d expected. There was a long counter, with seats at fixed intervals. Booths lined the outside wall. The seating was all covered in bright turquoise vinyl; the low ceiling and walls were made of bright white plastic that shone in the light from the windows.
Rizzoli occupied a booth just steps away from the emergency exit, near the narrow hall that led to the restrooms—the only shady spot in the place. He wore jeans, a leather bomber jacket, and a sour expression. On the table in front of him was a white ceramic cup filled with coffee and a saucer with a half-eaten piece of cherry pie smothered in whipped cream.
“Hi, Dom.” I slid into the booth across from him.
“Celia.”
The waitress came over, an older black woman with broad hips and a ready smile. She set down a steaming cup of coffee and a little metal carrier filled with plastic tubs of cream and packets of sweetener. Dom raised his eyebrows when I ordered, but I ignored him. When the waitress left, he spoke.
“Explain to me again why we’re doing this?” Dom looked across the table at me, his expression more serious than I’d ever seen it. Since we’ve been through some hellish times together, it hit me hard that I had pushed him to his limits.
“Connor Finn has found a way to work magic from inside the Needle.”
Rizzoli shook his head. “Not possible.”
“He’s done it, Dom. I don’t know how, but he has. And he’s planning a big curse to wipe out the last of the Garzas. My source says he has to do it on the full moon.”
“So, Monday night. Your client is the Garza girl?”
“Yes, but she’s not the only person with Garza bloodlines.” I took a sip of my coffee. It was almost too hot to drink and strong enough to stand on its own without the cup. Perfect.
“Our records indicate she’s the last.” Dom quirked an eyebrow at me.
I dropped the bomb. “Connor Finn and his son, Jack, have Garza blood. They just don’t know it.”
His eyes went wide. For a long moment he just stared at me. Finally, he spoke. “You’re sure?”
“A ghost told me.”
“And ghosts can’t lie.” He took a bite of pie. His expression was thoughtful. “Connor won’t believe you. It’ll just piss him off if you tell him.”
“Maybe, but I’ve got to give it a shot. Lives are at stake. And while I couldn’t care less whether or not he survives”—in fact, I’d soooooo much rather he didn’t, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud—“Michelle’s just a kid. And then there’s his son.”
“What do you know about Jack Finn?”
“Not much, but I’ve met him. He’s one of the men who left me on the beach to burn.”
Rizzoli’s eyes darkened to almost black, his expression hardening to stone. “Sounds to me like the world might be better off without him.”
I certainly wouldn’t miss him. But I wasn’t the one we needed to worry about. “I’m hoping his father doesn’t agree with you.”
Dom was saved from framing a response to that by the arrival of my order, a heaping bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. He gave a snort as I dug in. “I still can’t believe you ordered that.”
“Hey, it’s comfort food. I need comfort.”
“Well, when you’re finished being comforted, we’d better get moving. I had to pull a hell of a lot of strings to arrange this. We don’t want to be late.”
I took a couple more bites before shoving the bowl aside.
Rizzoli reached into his wallet, withdrawing a twenty. Slipping it under the edge of his saucer, he rose. “Let’s do this.”
The Needle is in the middle of nowhere. It’s surrounded by inhospitable desert, where the temperature rises into the triple digits. The heat is brutal, the landscape sere. There is only one road to the tall, narrow tower that rises from the heat shimmers. Made from smooth concrete, its construction had been no ordinary feat. Magic had been combined with skilled workmanship to make it an inescapable fortress. The tower gleamed silver in the blinding light of the morning sun. It was thirty stories tall, with a row of windows every ten floors.
I expected to feel the protective magics woven around the Needle from miles away, and I did. But it was not the burning pain that it should have been. The spells I felt were weak, like delicate spiderwebs brushing against my senses.
That was very bad. I turned to Dom. “Something’s wrong.”
Rizzoli glanced at me. The dark sunglasses he wore made it hard to read his expression, but at a guess he was worried. He should be. There were supposed to be concentric rings of wards surrounding the prison, stretching out for miles.
“Can you be more specific? What exactly is the matter?”
I answered his question with one of my own. “How far out is the first perimeter?”
“We passed it a couple of miles ago.”
I’d thought so, but I’d hoped I was wrong. “I didn’t feel it, Dom. I’m only now getting any sense of barrier magics, and they’re so weak as to be useless. The wards around PharMart are stronger.”
He swore softly. I figured that summed up the situation pretty well. After a long moment, Dom pressed the button for the car phone link and said, “Call supervisor.”
A pleasant computerized female voice responded through the car’s speakers. “Dialing supervisor now.”
The phone was answered after only one ring. “Anderson here,” said the man at the other end.
“Jason, it’s Dom. We may have a problem.”
“The girl?”
“No, she’s fine. She’s with me. We’re headed to see Finn now. But she tells me the outer perimeter’s down, that something’s wrong with the Needle’s magical defenses.”
“How the hell would she know?”
I spoke, hoping the microphone would pick up my voice. “There’s enough bat in me that I can feel protective wards. The strong ones hurt like a bad sunburn.”
I heard the clicking of keys of a keyboard, then Anderson said, “The records say they were just checked a week ago.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ll make a couple of calls, see if I can get someone out there. In the meantime, you might consider aborting. If the barriers have been lowered, something big may be going down.”
I shook my head.
“I think it might be better if I go on in and speak to the warden in person.” Dom didn’t put any particular emphasis on his words, but they made Anderson pause. With good reason—Dom Rizzoli is a high-level intuitive. I’ve seen him in action. Intuition is a subtle gift but an incredibly useful one. Dom was giving his boss a big, fat hint that we needed to visit the prison.
“If you say so. But be careful, Dom. I don’t like this.”
Him and me both.
The second perimeter was no stronger than the first. It made my skin crawl, but there was no buzz to it, no pain. This was so bad. As he drove, Dom had been watching me out of the corner of his eyes. When he saw that I didn’t flinch at the second barrier, his eyes darkened.
“Where’s the minefield from here?” I asked. It had been a long time since I read about the prison, but that detail had stuck in my head.
“It’s between the second and third rings,” Dom answered, “so we’re driving past it right now. Despite all the protests, it’s still unmarked.”
I remembered reading about the protests in the news. They happened from time to time, with the protesters saying that the minefield was a menace and should be fenced in and marked with warning signs. The last round of pickets had taken place shortly before the most recent election. The governor had made a public statement about it, basically saying, “Yeah, it’s a menace. It’s supposed to be. Get over it.” He was reelected by a landslide.
Shortly before we reached the third ring, the SUV hit a bumpy patch of road about twelve feet long—a section where sensors had been put in place to scan approaching vehicles for magic and weapons. This time I actually felt the power wash over me. It hurt. I gasped in pain as tears filled my eyes.
“That’s what you were expecting from the perimeters?” Dom asked tensely.
“At least,” I said.
He grunted in response as we neared the outer fence and the first guard post.
The fence itself was impressive. Built of sand-colored concrete, the base stood fourteen feet high and three feet thick. Triple rows of razor wire spooled above the concrete barrier in dizzying helixes, dangerous and beautiful in the bright sunlight. Motion sensors and video surveillance cameras were set every few feet, pointing in every direction so that not an inch of the area inside the wall was out of view. I assumed there were a number of guards assigned to view the camera feeds at all times.
The prison’s parking lot was outside the wall, for additional security. As Rizzoli turned into the lot, I studied the entryway. Two small guard posts flanked the heavy metal gate, which was just wide enough for two people to walk through abreast. The narrow space between the buildings was filled by a built-in full-body security scanner like the ones used at airports. The twin guard stations were made of tan brick, with white trim around the thick bulletproof glass of the windows and doors. The whole setup was spelled so heavily I could feel it, even from this distance and in the protective confines of Rizzoli’s SUV.
We pulled into one of the six marked visitors’ spaces. A pair of armed guards approached, wearing the Needle’s standard security uniforms: navy DETENTION CENTER ball caps, bright white starched shirts, and navy dress slacks. They hadn’t drawn their weapons, but the snaps on their holsters were undone. Their tinted aviator sunglasses hid their eyes, and their mouths were set in identical grim lines.
As we waited for the guards to scan the vehicle with technology and magic, Rizzoli turned to look at me. “You’re sure about this?”
Actually, I wasn’t. I hated the sight of this place. It reminded me of the Zoo, the prison for preternatural creatures that used to exist in the desert near Santa Maria de Luna. Bad things had happened there. I’d seen some of them. This place had the same feel to it. I so didn’t want to go in there. But I needed to. “I’m okay,” I said, lying as I slathered on sunblock from a little tube I’d tucked into my jacket pocket earlier.
“Yeah, right.” He snorted, then pressed the button to open the back hatch. “You’re going to have to leave your weapons here.”
“Fine.” I’d known they wouldn’t allow me to carry weapons inside in the facility. I wasn’t positive they’d let Rizzoli keep his; even though he’s law enforcement, the Needle was an ultra-max facility.
Gathering my courage, I opened the car door and hopped out. The heat slapped against me with almost physical force. I could taste the dusty grit of sand in my mouth.
The guard on my side of the SUV took a step back, giving me room to move but staying out of reach. He didn’t bother greeting me. That was fine. I wasn’t feeling all that social.
Rizzoli chatted with the other guard as I strode around behind the vehicle and started disarming. My jacket came off first, then the knives and sheaths. After that I removed the gun and holster at my waistband. Finally I shucked off the Derringer and my little ankle holster.
As the weaponry stacked up, the guard’s eyebrows started rising until I could see them, blond and bushy, above the rims of the sunglasses.
“I believe in being prepared.” I smiled when I said it.
“No shit.” He laughed, the first crack in his professional tough guy persona.
“Is that everything?” Dom asked as he joined me.
“Yup.”
“All right.” Choosing a small key from his ring, he turned the lock placed discreetly on the far left corner of the back compartment. I heard a soft popping sound and Rizzoli slid the tips of his fingers beneath something I couldn’t see—nice illusion spell at work there—and flipped up a section of false floor.
This revealed a weapons safe with digital and bio controls not unlike the one I had back home. It was very nice. I guessed that it was also very expensive, since it looked as if it had been built into the car. My tax dollars had evidently been put to very good use.
“Sweet.” The guard beside me said what I was thinking.
“This is my personal vehicle. The ones in the staff cars aren’t nearly as nice.”
Aha. So much for the tax dollars.
If we’d been alone I would’ve had him tell me all about it. I love tech toys and weapons and everything connected with them. We could’ve had a wonderful discussion about all the details. But the guard on Rizzoli’s side of the vehicle was practically twitching with impatience, so now was not the time.
“Remind me to ask you about this later. I have to get a new vehicle anyway. I may decide to have one of these put in.”
“Sure,” Dom agreed as he went through the multiple security steps to get the safe open. When the door finally swung up, he stepped aside, giving me room to stack my gear on top of the things he already had stored inside. Little things like stacks of spell disks, ammo, a double-barreled shotgun, a riot gun, and a pair of Glock 9mms.
Glancing over my shoulder at “my” guard, I said in a mock whisper, “He likes to be prepared, too.”
It won me a snicker from him and a glare from his partner.
Dom locked the safe and the trunk, and the four of us took the short walk to the gate.
“Ladies first.” The guard next to Dom made it sound like a threat. Rizzoli turned, giving the man an unfriendly look.
“No. I think I’ll go first.” Dom opened the gate and stepped through. I waited as the machine did its thing. When it finished, the guards locked inside the guardhouse waved him through. Then it was my turn.
It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. The guards took their time, far longer than they had with Dom, but I’d expected that. I stood patiently as I could, waiting for the all clear, and eventually they waved me through. I joined Dom on the other side of the gate, where the vehicle stood that would take us the rest of the way into the complex.
It was the ugliest ATV I’d ever set eyes on. It had four wheels with tank treads on each side. The passenger compartment had been built to carry six on a pair of bench seats and was covered by a spelled canvas top with plastic windows. The whole thing was painted olive drab, with the prison logo emblazoned on the only bit of metal that showed—the hood.
Dom held the door open for me and I climbed in.
The vehicle was loud and the ride was rough. The bench seat might have been as comfortable as sitting on a splintered board, but I doubted it. Conversation wouldn’t have been easy even if we’d wanted to talk. I didn’t. I was checking out the security. There were guards set at frequent intervals, and yet more cameras.
It was damned impressive. No one had ever escaped from the Needle. Now I could see why.
We came to a stop at the stairs that led up to the front door. As we mounted the steps, the ATV drove off. I felt a chill run down my spine as it left us stranded.
There was a man waiting for us at the door. Tall and thin, his hair was cut short and was the same steel gray of the fabric of his suit and a couple of shades darker than the color of his eyes.
“Special Agent Rizzoli.” He shook Dom’s hand, ignoring me completely. “I see you brought us a guest.”
The inflection he put on the word “guest” made it
clear he meant “prisoner.” I fought to swallow my anger. I had done absolutely nothing wrong, but this asshole wanted to lock me up. Gritting my teeth, I counted silently to ten before turning to look over at Dom.
Dom’s expression darkened dangerously, but when he spoke, his voice was level. “A visitor, Eric. Princess Celia is here to see Connor Finn regarding a case she’s working on. Warden Davis has approved it. And you might want to be a little more polite. You keep insulting her and we’re liable to have an international incident on our hands.” He turned to me.
“Princess Celia, allow me to introduce a former coworker of mine, Eric Zorn. Eric, her Grace, Princess Celia Kalino Graves of the Pacific line of sirens.”
“Oh, I know who she is.” Zorn’s eyes flicked over me dismissively. “I know all about her. We do our homework around here.”
He finally looked straight at me, his gaze locking with mine in a direct challenge. “I don’t like you, Princess. I think you use the press, your looks, and your rank to get away with things you shouldn’t. I’ve heard you have diplomatic immunity along with that royal blood. But you should know that that only goes so far. You may not be staying here today, but you’ll wind up here eventually. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Eric.” A new voice spoke like the crack of a whip. Zorn jumped, just a little, and turned to face the man who’d joined us so silently.
The newcomer wasn’t tall or particularly imposing. His features were as average as his coloring. His black suit was off the rack but well tailored, and his white dress shirt was crisp with starch. His red-and-black-striped tie was held in place by a silver-and-onyx tie tack. But while his appearance was ordinary, the man himself wasn’t. There was a strength, a presence to him that Zorn couldn’t match.
“Princess,” he said, bowing slightly, “it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Warden Bob Davis. I don’t believe you remember me, but I was at the demon rift. You saved me and God knows how many others that day. It’s an honor to have you here.”
“Thank you. I hope my being here isn’t causing too much trouble?” I put a lilt in my voice to make it a question.
