The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin)

by Carolyn McCray

  Her false boyfriend shrugged her off. “I’ve only been working at it for twenty seconds. Want to give me at least forty before you go all ballistic on me?” He glanced over at Mala, and she squinted her eyes almost shut to keep him from noticing that she watched. “Besides, don’t you have something you’re supposed to be taking care of?”

  Cat growled at the man. “The Master told me to wait. There’s something special planned for her now.”

  Jake snorted. “I didn’t hear of that little development. Sure you haven’t just lost your nerve?”

  In the blink of an eye, Cat had a knife pulled out of someplace hidden, and held it to Jake’s throat. A tiny drop of blood seeped up from the blade’s edge.

  “Want to test that theory?” she snarled at him.

  Jake went perfectly still. “I don’t think you want to damage the one person who can bring this plan to fruition, darling.”

  With another exclamation of disgust, Cat pushed the hacker away from her, secreting the knife away again. It appeared her one time bosom companion had a host of closely guarded skills and secrets.

  “Just make sure we have it by the time the Master gets here,” she spat at him, then slumped into a chair and scowled.

  The position both of her captors had taken allowed them both to see her face. But if Mala didn’t miss her guess, that was about all they could see. The monitors from a couple of the computers created a barrier for her.

  If she could only get her hands free…

  Mala set about trying to figure out how to get out of the situation. There was always the option of waiting for Darc to come for her, but that had never really been Mala’s style.

  This damsel was rescuing herself.

  * * *

  Trey rushed around the corner, chasing down the hulking form of the Chief of Ds. Some of the adrenaline of his impulsive choice to rush at the man had worn off, and Trey was now questioning the validity of his response.

  What in the name of all that was holy was he going to do once he caught up with the guy?

  Turned out, he wasn’t going to have all that long to wait. As soon as he rounded the next turn, he smashed straight into what felt like a brick wall. Odd place to put one, he thought as he hit the ground, hard. Then he realized that what he had run into was Hardin’s fist.

  The huge man towered over him, pulling the gun out of Trey’s stunned hands. A condescending smile played over the Chief of Ds lips as he stared down at Trey.

  “Think you can take me on, little man?”

  Okay. That wasn’t really fair. Hardin wasn’t exactly a giant, except when it came to his muscles. But Trey got the point well enough.

  Trying not to be obvious about it, Trey used his peripheral vision to scope out the area around him. Was there a weapon here he could use?

  Hardin kicked out with a heavily booted foot, the toe landing square in the middle of Trey’s left ribcage. Trey felt something… or several somethings… snap, and the next breath he took felt like fire.

  Broken rib. Possibly more than one.

  Trey watched as the Chief’s boots walked around him in a circle. It was like Hardin was the tiger and Trey was the hunk of beef that was meant to feed the tiger.

  Great analogy, Trey, he thought to himself. Now what would it look like if we figured out how to get away from the tiger?

  One of the moving boots reared back and struck him in the back, right next to the kidney. Pain burst into his brain like fireworks exploding on the Fourth of July. But at least the man hadn’t hit Trey’s kidney… or spine, for that matter.

  Back to figuring this thing out.

  Right. Hardin was a tiger. What do tigers hate?

  Well, tigers were big cats, right? And cats hate water.

  Looking up, Trey spotted something on the wall.

  Just what he needed.

  * * *

  Darc moved through the lightless hallways of the precinct, seeing the aftermath of the violence that had occurred here. Each death caused a reaction within him.

  Before, it all just would have been information that flowed in and took its place in the network of streaming light. But now, each ended life resonated along the structure of light and dark that shored up the floating array of data.

  Each individual, a web of potentiality that had been severed by a madman.

  Darc knew whom it was he sought. After sorting through all the potential suspects, one had ended up limned in the bright blue color of near certainty.

  There still remained a small possibility that he was mistaken. As much as the network produced consistently trustworthy results, the possibility of error never allowed for one hundred percent certainty.

  The part that surprised Darc was how much he had wanted to resist the conclusion. Never before had the answers he received, no matter how shocking, hurt him.

  This one did.

  Another room, another pile of body parts. The tally mounted. In the back of Darc’s awareness, the numbers turned over and over, building up a wall of fury fueled by the dark matter within.

  Strangely, the silver chains did nothing but define that rage. Focus it.

  A branch of blue light streamed out in front of Darc, leading him on his path forward. But even without the confirmation of the network of logic, Darc would have known where he was going.

  The bullpen.

  The final confrontation awaited him.

  One final corner, a doorway, and then Darc found himself inside. As he entered, the door shut behind him, propelled by its hydraulic arm. The snick of the latch engaging resonated through the room with the finality of a coffin lid closing.

  Without hesitating, Darc spoke into the darkness, identifying his opponent.

  “Captain Merle,” he said. “I will not allow your plan to move forward.”

  The battle lines had now been drawn.

  CHAPTER 15

  Mala inched her fingers toward a pair of scissors that must have fallen down next to the desk that was nearest where she had been deposited. A part of her wanted to thank the clumsy person who had worked there, but another part of her knew that person might very well be dead.

  The entire time she was worming her bound hands closer to the blade that could free them, Mala also kept her ears trained on Cat and Jake. The hacker continued to type furiously, and from the sweat that poured off his brow, it looked like his task wasn’t easy.

  “What’s taking so long?” Cat complained, swiveling around in an office chair.

  As she spun, her gaze floated right past Mala’s face. Holding her breath, Mala froze, hoping Cat hadn’t seen the furtive movement there in the dark corner of the room.

  “You want to do this?” Jake fired back. “It’s not like the government doesn’t take its internet security seriously, you know.”

  “Get it done,” she growled. “You know our timeframe.”

  They were hacking into something involving the government? Mala wracked her brain, trying to find the link that would help her understand.

  Right at that point, the ceiling seemed to explode. Mala’s first impossible thought was that it was snowing inside the building. But then she realized that it was foam raining down from out of the sprinkler heads up above them.

  Someone must have tripped the fire alarm.

  Jake yelled out, trying to shield the computer and its monitor from the descending foam. Cat, for her part, let loose some language that was far from ladylike and rushed over to help her companion.

  With the foam reducing visibility, Mala threw caution to the wind and grabbed for the scissors. She opened up the instrument with fumbling fingers, resting the blade against the plastic of the zip tie. Trying to keep an even keel, she moved the tool back and forth, feeling it bite into her bindings.

  How far was she? Halfway? More? Less? She was so focused on the task at hand that she failed to notice the feet standing in front of her. A hand reached down, grabbing Mala by the hair and wrenching her head back.

  “Hey, Mala,” Cat pu
rred. “Whatcha doing?”

  * * *

  Okay. So pulling the handle hadn’t produced the water Trey had been expecting. In fact, now that he thought about it, he did remember someone talking about changing out the old water sprinkler system for a foam one.

  Whatever. This was so much better.

  The foam appeared to have gotten into Hardin’s eyes as he looked up at the ceiling to figure out what was going on. The Chief was now yelling and clawing at his face. Trey took note. No getting foam in the eyes. Check.

  Now all that remained was to scuttle off to the side, dignity be damned. His ribs shrieked a protest, but Trey had no intention of dying at the hands of this psychopath.

  No, not hands. Feet. From the damage Hardin had managed to do, Trey was pretty sure the guy was wearing steel-toed boots.

  Scrambling up to standing, Trey looked around for an offensive weapon. The foam had been great and all, but it wasn’t going to keep the Chief occupied for much longer, if Trey didn’t miss his guess.

  The man bellowed out his rage and began swinging his arms in wide circles, looking for Trey. Maybe Hardin had heard something, or maybe the guy was just lucky, but he was coming straight for Trey.

  Backing away, Trey groped around for anything he could find. Nothing. Glancing around behind him, trying to see through the raining foam, he realized that within moments he was going to be completely trapped.

  The corner into which he was being herded had no door, no window, and the foam that was billowing out of the ceiling had built up to form a sort of drift there. If Trey were forced into that mound of foam, it wasn’t going to be pretty. Burning eyes would be the least of it. Suffocation seemed the more likely scenario.

  Trying to find his way out of that trap, Trey managed to catch one of Hardin’s fists right in the jaw. Starbursts of colors danced in front of his eyes, and for a moment Trey lost all sense of where his attacker was.

  He stumbled back into the foam, knowing that his life was about to end at the hands of a madman. Trey’s existence would conclude with him chopped into body parts and stacked up like firewood in one of the rooms of the precinct building.

  Where his thoughts went in that moment surprised him. No images of childhood. No montage of his life. Instead, flashes of Maggie and his little lizard monster Darcie were the only pictures left.

  Well, if he was going to die, he was glad it was going to be with them in his head.

  * * *

  “Nicely reasoned, Darc,” came the rumble of the bass voice out of the darkness. “But that has never been your problem, has it?”

  The foam that floated down from the ceiling created a sense of otherworldliness to the scene. The bands of color traced the patterns in the flame retardant.

  “No, your issue has always been with people, wouldn’t you say?” Merle grumbled. “Who to trust, who to spurn… Never your strong suit.”

  “You wanted me here to witness,” Darc responded, knowing from the interplay of the light and dark within him that he spoke the truth. “Your arrogance will betray you.”

  There was a soft chuckle, dampened by the sound muffling foam. It created a sense that Darc and Merle were right next to one another, although Darc knew the Captain to be safe on the other side of the room.

  “You think to end this yourself, do you?” he asked.

  “Why would I not?”

  “You won’t kill me Darc.” The voice seemed to move about the room, another effect of the swirling foam. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Physically you are no match for me.”

  “Oh, I know that, Detective,” the man crooned. “Why do you think I forced my Servant to keep Mala alive?” There was a pause, as if the Captain were listening. “She’s here, you know? Just downstairs from us.”

  Darc had suspected something of this nature. The fact that Mala had not been at the rendezvous had been the strongest indicator. And that meant she had been betrayed by someone she trusted.

  His mind sorted through the possibilities in instants. Carly had been the proffered suspect, but she lacked the physical strength. Maggie had too much history and was currently in the hospital. There was only one remaining possibility.

  “Cat. Cat is your servant.”

  A sharp inhale was the only indication of his correct guess. It was enough.

  “Perhaps I underestimated your acuity,” the Captain admitted. “But it truly doesn’t matter at this point. Although I do admit to a certain curiosity. How much have you ascertained?”

  The shifting patterns of color continued to process, taking in the information the room offered. Darc could sense the patterns caused by the retardant that continued to move about the room. Strange interruptions caught his attention, alerting him to additional dangers here.

  “One plague remains,” Darc answered. “The one that was purposefully skipped. The one that was the endgame from the start.”

  “Well done, Darcmel. Yes. Fire from the sky.”

  The logic streams converged, and another symbol surfaced. “Cat’s boyfriend. A military computer expert. You seek to destroy Seattle through a drone attack.”

  A bark of sharp laughter fell on the sound dampening foam, cutting it short. It made the exclamation that much harsher.

  “Amazing. You deciphered my intent with so few clues.”

  “It was the most probable of the choices,” Darc responded as he began to move toward the voice.” The security for the drone system is, by necessity, more fluid and dynamic than that needed for missiles or other standing armaments.”

  “Detective,” Merle said, his tone patronizing. “I must insist that you stop moving this instant.”

  Darc stood still. Once again, he focused the attention of the grid of color upon the anomalies in the foam. Something lurked there.

  “You see it now, don’t you?” the Captain murmured. “The danger that lurks in the corners. I wasn’t about to let this meeting turn into a mano-a-mano situation.”

  The trap began to appear in Darc’s mind, showing him the outline of how the Captain… the Master… planned to keep himself safe. It was a good plan.

  An excellent one, in fact.

  “I couldn’t rely on your affection to Mala alone,” Merle continued in his rumbling voice. “Not someone who’s emotional IQ is less than my shoe size.”

  It was then that the disturbances in the foam pattern began to move, coalescing into the shapes of individuals. Dozens of them, lining the walls of the room.

  Darc was completely surrounded, and there was no way out.

  * * *

  Janey saw Trey grab for the fire alarm right before he did it, so although she was surprised to see foam shooting from the ceiling, it wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been. The real challenge had been to keep away from him as he started jumping around like one of those fireworks he’d purchased for the last Fourth of July. What were they called? Jumping Jacks.

  She’d been forced to hide behind one of the desks, and then the big muscled Hardin had almost grabbed her by mistake. That wasn’t going to work for her, so she looked at the desk in front of her.

  There! Perfect.

  Popeye didn’t like what was happening one little bit, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been through this. Janey wished that meant that he wouldn’t complain. But that would make him someone very different than her teddy bear, so she guessed it was okay.

  Except for all the potty words he was saying. If Mala caught Janey saying words like that, she’d get her mouth washed out with soap for sure. No question.

  Then the big man Hardin stumbled his way toward Trey, backing her almost favorite detective into a foam-filled corner. It was time for her to do something.

  Popeye yelled out that it was a bad idea. Janey agreed. In no universe did her stepping into a fight with a guy as big as Hardin ever work out well.

  But she had a secret weapon. Two, actually.

  One was her size. With Hardin’s eyes still filled with foam and the visibility so ba
d, she wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late.

  The other was Popeye. And no one ever saw Popeye coming. If anyone doubted that, they could just ask Father John.

  She followed along behind the enormous man, trying to ignore everything that Popeye was screeching at her. Really, he could be so annoying when he wanted to.

  Right when Hardin was about to reach out for Trey, Janey coughed. The big man swiveled around and started to grope behind him, looking for the source of the sound. But he aimed high, like he was going for an adult, his hands passing right over Janey’s head.

  And just as he turned, Janey reared back and swung her bear at the man with every ounce of hurt and fear she possessed in her body. And she had a lot of both.

  There was a sickening crunch as Popeye connected with Hardin’s temple, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap at Janey’s feet. Trey looked past the form of the Chief of Ds, his eyes as big as plates.

  “Did you just knock Hardin out… with your teddy bear?” he gasped, his tone shocked.

  Janey nodded, and reached inside of Popeye, where she had popped a couple of stitches in his back. He had whined the whole time she was doing it, saying that it was the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to him.

  Without stopping what she had been doing, Janey had thought two words at him. Bath. Time. He’d shut up without another word.

  Now she pulled out of Popeye’s innards the big glass trophy she’d found on the desk earlier. Trey’s eyes squinted as he peered through the dim lighting of the hallway, and then he chuckled.

  “That’s one dangerous bear.”

  Janey wasn’t sure, but she thought Popeye was pleased at that.

  * * *

  Mala stared right into the narrowed eyes of the woman she had once thought of as her friend. It might have been wishful thinking, but it seemed like Cat’s expression betrayed a sadness underneath.

  That was not true for the grip that pulled at Mala’s hair. There was no compassion there. Mala’s eyes watered as she tried to focus on what Cat was saying.

  “You should already be dead,” the woman said, then muttered under her breath. “It would have been easier that way.” She tightened her hold on Mala’s hair, intensifying the pain. “But I can’t have you trying to get away. That’s not going to work for me.”