by Faith Hunter
Simone knew all too well about that part. “You sure?”
“Something’s fueling their construction efforts. I really doubt it’s the local power and light company.”
“So you want me to go in and plant explosives?”
“No. I want you to steal the hammer. It’s one of the few tools around with enough juice to build something that powerful. If we take it away, then they have to stop building.”
“Until they find the next tool.”
“Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. You stealing the hammer was the best plan I could come up with that wasn’t going to get anyone killed.”
“With a plan like that, you need me for more than just stealing.”
He frowned at her. “You don’t like my plan? Fine. Give me a better one.”
“For starters, we could let someone else deal with it.”
“Who? The police?”
“Of course not. The Fractogasts would plow through them.”
“Then who?”
“I hear rumors about a group of people arming up to deal with the threat.”
“The militia?”
“Yeah. You’ve heard of them, too?”
“I am one of them. And we’re not a group of superheroes who are going to swoop in and save the day. We’re just people. Like you. We’re all trying to do what we can to fight back the invasion.”
“Well, hell. For a while there, I actually had some hope that someone was in charge.”
“Someone is in charge, but we’re stretched thin. It’s one of the reasons I reached out to you for help. If we’re going to have any chance of winning, we need more people fighting—people who know the score.”
“I don’t fight for free.”
“Why do you think I spent the last several weeks working my ass off eighteen hours a day to make that purse to your ridiculously demanding standards?”
The way he said it made her sound like a greedy harpy instead of a savvy businesswoman.
Luckily, the pang of guilt didn’t last long. “You’ll thank me for my high standards if I agree to do the job.”
“My offer is on the table. Do you want it or not?”
She wanted that purse and the knives. And if she was completely honest with herself, she wanted to kill every Fractogast she could get her hands on. Slowly.
The only downside was the risk. Not that she was risking much. The life she’d carved out for herself since Jeremy’s death hadn’t exactly been a happy, shiny place.
“Fine,” she told him. “I’ll help you. It’s obvious you’ll get yourself killed if I don’t tag along.”
Sarcasm honed a sharp edge on his tone. “I’m sure my death would cost you many sleepless nights.”
“I would mourn the loss of that purse. And the knives.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?”
“Nope.”
“So, you’re in?”
“All the way. But if you die doing something stupid, the purse is mine. Deal?” She held out her hand to shake on it.
Brighton wrapped his fingers around hers and held on tight. She felt warm, work-roughened patches of skin graze across nerve endings she’d thought long dead. A tiny little spark of feminine interest zinged along her palm and into her wrist, shocking the hell out of her.
How long had it been since she’d felt that? Too many years to remember, and every one of them had sucked.
Feeling like a dirty cheater, she jerked her hand away and wiped it on her thigh.
“I don’t have cooties,” he said, half grinning at her actions.
“You drive. I’ll follow behind on my bike.”
Well out of reach of Marcus Brighton and those magic hands.
—
Marcus spent the two-hour drive gathering his wits. Something he’d done had spooked Simone, and the last thing he needed was for her to be distracted on this job. Even if she did come up with some ingenious plan, they were still risking their lives.
He parked on top of a hill overlooking the industrial park where the Fractogasts worked. His windshield wipers cut through the fine coating of drizzle a passing rainstorm had left behind.
There were few lights below—only a red pool here and there dotting the darkness. Just enough for human eyes to function.
The passenger door of his RV opened and Simone glided into the seat next to his.
He made it a point not to look at her and distract himself with her beauty. Even so, the wild, spring-storm scent of her wrapped around him, demanding attention.
“This is the place?” she asked.
“Yes. I can feel the portal they’re building.”
“Handy trick.”
He spared her a quick glance. Her dark hair was pulled back and bound at the nape of her neck with a barrette. Power shimmered from the copper clip, but the trace was too small for him to figure out what kind of magic the hair adornment held.
“The device is nearly complete.”
“How nearly?” she asked.
“No way for me to be sure. Days? Hours?”
“Give me a minute to scout the place out. When I’ve found a way in, I’ll come back for you.”
She already had the door open before he grabbed her arm. Hot leather and firm, feminine muscles teased his hand, forcing him to fight the urge to let his fingers wander. He’d spent thousands of hours touching leather, enjoying its texture and suppleness, but never before had any surface intrigued him half as much as what lay beneath her biker’s jacket.
Simone stared at his hand as if she couldn’t believe he’d dared to touch her.
It took him a second to steady his voice so it wouldn’t come out as a prepubescent squeak. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Your willingness to restrain an armed woman seems to support the theory.”
He lifted his hand, but settled it on the back of her seat—close enough to stop her if she tried to bolt again. “You weren’t going to scout. You were going in there alone.”
A smile twinkled in her smoky green eyes and curled at the edge of her mouth. “Guess you’re not an idiot.”
“We go in together. You’ll never be able to pick out the hammer from all the other tools. And what if there’s something else in there that’s important? Something powerful? Can you sense innate magic within an object?”
“My skills tend to lean more toward sensing monetary value.”
“Money means nothing to the Fractogasts. Only power.”
She glanced away, and he saw her slender throat move as if choking back unwanted emotion. “We should go if we’re going to do this. We need the cover of darkness. The human shells don’t have great eyesight, and slipping by them is our only chance at getting in undetected. If you’re going in with me, I’ll need to know how to hide you.”
He held out his hand, palm up. “Take my hand. When you activate the invisibility power, I’ll vanish, just like your clothes and everything else attached to you.”
“That’s it? That’s the big trick?”
Marcus shrugged. “Touch first, activate second. If you weren’t such a loner, you would have already figured it out by now. Not my fault.”
“Are you any good with weapons?”
“Just one. It’s in the back.”
“Then get it. If things go bad, you’re going to need it. While you do, I’m going to set up our safety net.”
“Safety net?”
She waved away his question. “It’s a need-to-know kind of thing, and you don’t.”
“Just hurry up. We’re running out of time.”
3
Simone couldn’t help but think of her dead husband as she scouted for the best entrance. The building below was crawling with human shells—those drained of life. They shambled about, shuffling on failing limbs. Zombie puppets con
trolled by the Fractogasts.
Jeremy had been a shell just like them, and no matter how many times she told herself what she’d done would have been what he wanted, she still felt sick every time she remembered the feel of her blade slicing into the body of the man she’d loved.
A deep sense of loss flowed over her, leaving behind a fresh layer of anger. No matter how much time passed since that night, her rage never faded. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but her brain must have been defective, because losing Jeremy hadn’t gotten any easier to bear. All she’d managed to do was hide it better. Shove it down. Pretend she’d gotten over it.
It was the only way to survive in her desolate new world, where everything that mattered had been ripped from her. Who wanted to hire a thief who was always just one heartbeat away from snapping under the strain of her grief?
Then again, maybe those who were desperate, stupid, or slimy enough to hire a professional thief didn’t give a shit how unstable she was so long as she got the job done.
Which she did. Every time. And this one would be no different.
After she finished setting up their safety net, she hurried back to the RV on top of the hill and lifted her binoculars.
Red lights flickered below before steadying out in a constant glow once more.
Simone knew what that flicker meant. Some poor humans down there were being squeezed dry of every spark of magic coursing through them. As they died, the stream of power faltered, causing the lights to flicker.
Either that, or the ’Gasts were firing up something that sucked a lot of juice.
“Time to go,” she told Brighton as she lowered her binoculars.
He loped down the RV stairs, carrying the red purse and balancing a wood-chopping ax on one wide shoulder. The wedge gleamed under the moonlight, its edge honed to razor sharpness.
“Really?” she asked. “An ax?”
He slipped the haft through a leather loop at his belt. “Don’t scoff. It works.”
“Fine. Whatever. Just keep that thing swinging away from me. I’m not looking for a haircut. Or worse.”
He tossed the red purse toward her. She caught it and held it close. “You’re not worried I’ll just turn and run?”
“Not if you want the magic to keep working. It’s a gift. For the night.”
“Or if you die,” she reminded him.
His dimple appeared as a flicker of a smile came and went. “Sure, though I’m not planning on letting that happen tonight. Sorry.”
“How do you know I won’t just kill you?”
“Guess I don’t. You ready?”
His trust made her pause. After a too-long moment, she nodded, pulled her attention away from Brighton, and put it where it belonged—on the job. “We’ll approach from the south. There are fewer shells on that side. Plus there’s a light out, which will help.”
“Why should we care about the light? You have magic boots that make us invisible.”
“Yes, but they don’t do squat for hiding footprints. The pavement around the building is wet. Each step we take will cause water to wick up as we step away, making our prints shiny and visible for a few seconds.”
“Right. Guess I didn’t think about that.”
She transferred a few necessary items she carried to the purse and looped the leather strap across her chest. “Which is why you hired me—to think of the things a law-abiding citizen doesn’t.”
“Southern approach it is. What about when we get inside?”
“All you have to do is follow my orders. Do what I say, when I say, and we’ll get out alive.”
“You get off on being bossy, don’t you?”
She gave him a level stare—the one she knew could render most men mute. “No. When I get off, I’m a lot louder than this.”
His jaw went slack, but to his credit, he recovered almost immediately. He gave himself a little shake and repositioned the ax. “You enjoyed that far too much.”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I love my work.”
And before he could call her out for her lie, she broke into a jog.
Simone skirted the edge of some trees and brush that hadn’t been mowed down for development. The air had cooled from the rain, leaving her fingers chilled. Her riding gloves were back with her bike, so she shoved her hands in her pockets while she waited for Brighton to catch up.
His footsteps were quieter than she would have expected for a man his size. The damp leaves and twigs covering the ground kept the crunch factor down, but his sheer weight should have caused sticks to snap underfoot.
From the corner of her eye, she caught the gleam of his ax as he moved in beside her. “I see three shells,” he said.
She pointed toward a stack of rotting wooden pallets. “There’s a fourth. The way he’s leaning makes me think one of his legs might be out of commission.”
“No shoe, either.”
“I don’t see any weapons.”
Brighton pulled in a deep breath, and the expansion of his chest made his jacket graze hers for a second. She didn’t know what it was about this man, but he demanded way too much of her attention.
“They don’t really need weapons,” he said. “Besides, fingers and toes are often the first parts to give out after the eyes. Most of the older shells couldn’t hold a weapon if they wanted.”
Simone had almost become like them, shuffling around, mindlessly doing as they were ordered to do. Intellectually, she knew that the shells moving around down there were not people. Whatever spirit or soul that had made them who they were had disappeared long ago. The thing that was left behind was hollow and empty.
But even though they weren’t human anymore, they still looked human. Their hearts still pounded. Their lungs still breathed. Whatever the ’Gasts did to them kept their bodies alive as well as any medical equipment around. At least for a while.
As she watched, the shell near the pallets took a step and fell over. For several awful seconds, it struggled to regain its footing, but its body was so degraded that every movement was awkward and weak.
A low, furious rumble emanated from Brighton’s chest. “I’m going to put them out of their misery.”
She shifted her position, bodily blocking his path. “No, you’re not. You go killing shells and the ’Gasts will know we’re here.”
“I can’t just leave them like that. I owe them the peace of death.”
“They’re already dead,” she told him. “Nothing left but meat and bones.” At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
“No one knows that for sure.”
“I do.”
She felt him go still. “How?”
That single, tiny word fell on her with the weight of the world. She wasn’t about to spill her guts to a man she’d just met, but at the same time, ignoring his question would only make him more curious. Instead, she gave him the vaguest answer she could. “I’ve gotten close enough to look them in the eyes. I’m sure.”
“Well, I’m not. And until I am, I’m going to end the suffering of every shell I find.”
“You do that, and we’re dead. No hammer, no purse, no living to fight another day. And worse yet, our bodies will be right down there with those shells, wandering around, bumping into things until some unsuspecting human comes along for us to kill.”
He stared down at her for a long time, his mouth tight with anger, his body vibrating with restraint. “I hate it that you’re right.”
“So do I.” Her hand settled on his arm in an uncharacteristic show of sympathy. She knew better than to let herself feel anything for him—even something as simple as concern. Chances were he wouldn’t survive long if he kept messing around with the ’Gasts.
And a man like Brighton had way too much determination to do the smart thing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here now, about to walk into a life-or
-death kind of situation.
He covered her hand with his, his skin deliciously warm.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Brighton wove his fingers through hers, chasing away the chill that lingered along her skin. “Let’s do this.”
Simone activated her boots, willing them to layer a web of invisibility over both her and Brighton. Covering his bulk took a bit of effort, but she figured out how the ability worked pretty fast. It was similar to masking whatever she held in her hands, but on a grander scale.
A shimmering wave of warmth rippled across her skin—a familiar feeling. As she waited for the echo to die down, she swore she felt something else between the ripples. It was subtle, but it left the scent of sun-warmed skin and melting chocolate in its wake, and had the distinct feeling of acknowledgment to it. Almost like a homecoming.
If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that the boots recognized their maker.
Before the odd feeling could settle in and take root, it was gone, leaving her with a job to do and not much time left to do it.
“Stay quiet,” she told him. “Move slowly and follow my lead.”
Simone set a path toward the edge of the parking lot on the southern side of the building. None of the shells saw their approach, even though they left behind a path of trampled grass and weeds.
As they got closer, the scent of rotting flesh rose up like an invisible wall, making her falter in her tracks.
Brighton let out a quiet noise somewhere between gagging and a cough as his fingers tightened around hers.
She did the best she could to hold her breath as they slipped between the shells milling about.
Not only was the door on this side of the building cracked open, but it was broken. The handle had been snapped off—likely by one of the clumsy shells. No need for the set of lock picks tucked in the purse.
She waited until the shells were turned away, searching for signs of people approaching, then slipped through the door. It eased shut behind them.
Red lights gave the hallway a bloody glow. Smears of mud and worse dirtied the tile floor, proving that shells moved this way often. There were a few trails leading into the row of offices along this side of the building, but most of the filth went straight toward a pair of double doors about twenty yards away.
