by L. K. Hill
The scream of the crowd never fully let up and Kyra couldn’t make out individual voices. The man circling with the knife kept looking at the crowd, pointing at people. Then he’d look to one side. Kyra followed his gaze. Beside the dais, four dead-eyed Mirelings stood, surrounded by armed guards, obviously awaiting their turns to go up on the dais. At a table on the other side, money changed hands. Beside the money changers stood a table full of medieval-looking weapons. Knives of every size and shape, hooks, even spiked balls on chains.
A man sitting at the table nodded. The crowd cheered as someone from their midst approached the table and slapped down what looked like a wad of cash.
The man on the dais with the knife circled his victim once more. Kyra gasped when he plunged his knife under the young man’s arm from behind. By its placement, it should have speared his kidney. The prisoner didn’t scream. He barely grunted. But blood spewed from between his lips, his eyes widening in shock. The crowd around the dais cheered.
Kyra wanted to gag. Not caring whether she fit in with the Mirelings any longer, Kyra threw her gaze around frantically. She had to find a way out of this warehouse. Now.
Strong fingers dug into her shoulder and Kyra sucked in a breath. An unwelcome arm encircled her waist from behind. Hot breath fell onto her ear and she recognized the voice as Jenkins’. “Don’t even think about it, Darlin’,” he rasped. “You wanted a fix? You’re ours now. I might just ask for you myself.” The arm he’d put around her tightened, his hand pressing into her ribcage and anchoring her against him. His other hand slid first down her arm, then over her hip, as far down her thigh as he could reach, groping.
The armed guards had gotten the group moving again, and Jenkins forced Kyra forward without letting go.
As they made their way toward the back of the warehouse, she noticed that the prisoners in the kennels became more lifelike. A few on her left actually made eye contact. Farther on, some of them on the right clung to chain link, curious eyes looking out at the newcomers. Panic rose in Kyra’s gut. She needed Jenkins to let go of her. The guards around her were heavily armed and looked strong, but they were used to submissive Mirelings. If she could dodge between them, surprise them, she could lose them in the maze of kennels. The warehouse was too dark to see much of anything clearly. If she could create enough chaos, she could make her way out before they could get a handle on the situation. But not if Jenkins still had his arm wrapped around her.
Three quarters of the way back, the guards stopped and opened one of the kennels. Three of the Mirelings in her group were forced inside. The chain link door was secured using a heavy, ordinary padlock, and the guard proceeded to the next one. He opened it and pushed two more inside. The group was dwindling fast, and soon it would be Kyra’s turn. Once in a kennel, there would be no getting out. Obviously Jenkins meant to escort her all the way to her prison.
Jenkins stood on her left side. A particularly screech-like cheer went up from the crowd around the dais, and Jenkins craned his neck around, trying to see what was happening. Breathing faster than she did after running, Kyra shifted her weight to her left foot, leaning into him. Jenkins didn’t notice. Moving her torso as little as possible, she raised her right knee. She needed to hurry. His attention wouldn’t be across the room for long. All in one motion, she reached down, dug under the ankle of her dark pants, yanked out the knife secreted there, turned the point of the blade toward herself, and rammed it behind her into Jenkins’ gut.
The man tried to bellow but only a gust of foul-smelling air left his mouth. Kyra whirled, ducked under his arm, pushed between two of the armed guards, and bolted down the lane. Shouts came behind her. She refused to acknowledge them. She had to get to the exit. She had to. When she reached the intersection, she turned left, away from torture dais. Left then right. Left then right, trying to get back to the door.
Everywhere she looked she saw eyes. The eyes of prisoners—some still with a glimmer of hope, others as dead as if they were already corpses. The eyes of armed guards. Most frowned at her, not sure what was happening until they heard the shouts still coming from behind her. By the time they understood, she’d already crashed past them.
Other voices echoed through the warehouse, now. They grew louder than the cheers, which quieted the moment she made a break for it. Guards ahead of her were obviously ready to catch her, and Kyra turned aside to avoid them. She was moving too far from where the entrance was. Each time she moved to avoid guards, she angled toward the front corner of the warehouse. There wasn’t an exit there.
Skidding around a corner into a lane that was, for the moment, completely vacant, she barreled down it, toward the front of the building. Up ahead, a lone guard appeared. His eyes ran down the lane and then back up toward her, his head swinging from left to right. His eyes fell on her. She would have groaned if she could have spared the breath. Instead she went left again at the next opportunity…and tripped over something lying in her path.
Falling hard, her eyes shut automatically as she landed on a pile of something hard and lumpy, but softer than the concrete. She opened her eyes to find another pair staring back at her. She’d landed on top of someone. Rolling her eyes around, she took in what lay in front of her. Bile rose in her throat. Inhaling painfully, she kicked her way backward, fighting to get away.
Not a person. People. Bodies. Most weren’t whole. Glassy eyes stared out from heads sometimes attached to torsos, but more often than not without bodies. She’d stumbled over a pile of parts two feet high that stretched for more than ten feet along the lane. Extremities so gashed they looked more like raw hamburger meat than human limbs, mixed with everything from bare organs to entrails to shredded muscle and bones.
Kyra fought her way clear of the gore, then rolled over and vomited. Before she could do more than push up onto her hands and knees, strong fingers closed painfully around her upper arms. It was the guard she’d seen coming toward her before turning. “Gottcha,” he murmured in her ear. “Do you really think we let anyone who’s seen our little operation out again?”
With an arm firmly around her middle, he dragged her backward. Her heels left marks in the grime on the floor as they went.
She forced the images out of her mind. She needed clarity. One more shot. If she screwed it up, she dead for sure. Kyra slumped against him, hoping he’d think her unconscious. With as much suddenness as she could muster, she twisted violently in his grasp.
With a gasp, he dropped her. As her side hit the concrete, she twisted, pivoting on her backside and kicked him hard in the hip. He went down with a cry, and Kyra scrambled away.
He lunged more quickly than his comrades’ had. Before she’d covered five feet, his hand closed around her ankle, accompanied by a snarl.
At least her hands stayed free. Digging under her arm, she pulled her gun free. The guard crawled forward, grasping first her knee, then her thigh, leaning down hard on them to pull her down. Kyra pointed the gun and squeezed, hitting him in the chest. The shot rang loud in her ears as she leapt to her feet.
Left. Right. Left. Where was the exit? A dark mass came into view and she skidded to a halt.
In the lane ahead of her loomed the tallest black man she’d ever seen. Towering head and shoulders over her, with close cut hair and pale, watery blue eyes, he regarded her with a neutral expression. An intelligence in his eyes tugged at her, but she trembled too violently to focus on it. Something about his gaze kept her from running. Their eyes locked for what felt like minutes.
He glanced to her left, nodding his head as if he wanted her to look there. Chest heaving, she followed his gaze. She’d reached the east wall of the warehouse—far from the front exit she’d been aiming for—and not ten feet to her left was a door.
She turned her gaze back on the black man.
“Go,” he motioned toward the door with his head. Her feet felt cemented to the ground. Determination appeared on his face and his next word cracked like a gruff whip. “Now!”
&nb
sp; She flinched. For some reason, the flinch made her look right. She did a double take, the blood pounding in her ears coming to an abrupt halt. A tall, lanky young man walked past a break in the kennels. He had dark blond hair and a light complexion. He was also flanked by guards that mostly obscured him from Kyra’s view. She craned her neck , trying to get a better look—she had to be sure—but only the top of the young man’s head showed clearly above the cages. They passed another break in the enclosures, and Kyra was sure she was mistaken. This time, the young man who passed looked too tall and thin, and his hair was too dark. But she’d been sure…
She realized he would pass another break in the enclosures in 3, 2, 1 seconds. And she could see him.
The way he walked, the slope of his shoulders, that slight gimp in his left leg....
There were too young men in that group, and one of them she would know anywhere. The world became surreal. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Kyra lunged toward the young man, even as he and his guards turned and retreated further into the warehouse. A strong arm hooked around her middle, holding her back.
“Manny!” she screamed.
Her feet left the ground as the person holding her swung her around to face the door again. She looked down at the arm encircling her waist and realized it was the black man who had pointed her toward the exit.
“You cannot go to him now,” he rasped into her ear. Even his whisper rumbled like thunder.
“Let go!” she screamed. “He’s my brother.”
“And if you go to him now, he’ll die. You’ll die. Every man you’ve come to care about will die.”
He said it with such confidence and knowledge that it gave her pause. She twisted her neck to look up at him. He immediately loosened his hold so she could turn fully to face him. His eyes were such a hypnotic, pale blue.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Doesn’t matter who I am,” he said firmly. “Only that you must go.”
“But—”
“Go. Get help and come back”
When she still didn’t move, he put his palms on her shoulders and shoved her backward. She stumbled back several steps, wondering what the hell this was all about.
“Go,” he said again. “NOW!”
She spun, ran, and slammed her entire bodyweight into the door. It was heavy, the hinges stiff with lack of use, but it gave under her weight. The cold, stinging night air was the most welcome sensation she’d felt in days. The voices came faster and louder behind her. She made out one clearly amongst the others.
“There! She’s going out through the side door! Catch her!”
Without looking back, Kyra bulled her way into the darkness and turned into the first alley she came upon. Her vision blurred, her side ached and her lungs burned, but she didn’t even think about stopping. The voice faded into the darkness behind her.
Chapter 24
Gabe sat at his desk, staring at a transcript of the interview between Shaun and Eltern. He must have read it a hundred times, looking for clues, answers, anything Eltern wasn’t actually saying. Nothing more jumped out at him now than when the interview actually took place.
Gabe dropped the transcript and rubbed his eyes. The station was unusually quiet tonight, but the quiet wasn’t helping him think. If anything, it made his mind fuzzier. Soft conversations between detectives and muted keystrokes were the only sounds.
The whole situation with Eltern felt so surreal. From the time of the incident in Eltern’s garage, a dark, heavy weight had settled on Gabe’s chest. He’d been so high on adrenaline—on urgency—for the past two days that he hadn’t noticed it. The only reason he did now was because the energy had faded. More than just an adrenaline crash, it felt like this new lead in Dillon’s case had already slipped away into the distance, like a criminal in the Mire.
A ridiculous notion, of course. Eltern was still in custody, and not going anywhere. It was just a matter of getting him to talk. Still, Gabe couldn’t shake the feeling.
He glanced up as Tyke appeared. Gabe’s partner dropped his car keys on his own desk and fell into a squat, yanking open a desk drawer and rummaging through it. Cora went home hours ago, and Tyke had been attempting to leave for nearly as long. He must have headed out to his car five times, only to come back either because of something he’d forgotten, or to do something he’d remembered he wanted to get done before leaving.
Another day, Gabe would have razzed him for how many times he’d come back. For the past two days, all Gabe’s co-workers had been walking wide, silent circles around him. He knew they were trying to give him space, but their sympathy bordered on pity, which felt condescending. The awkwardness increased daily.
He picked up the transcript again, willing answers to reveal themselves. He didn’t know what he was looking for anymore. Just something that would lead to the next big revelation.
When it didn’t come after thirty seconds, he dropped it, giving up. Underneath it was a different file. The one from the crime scene he’d visited the night before. Another hooker, just as Shaun had said. This time, the woman’s throat had been slashed. Nothing else. Four girls in less than two weeks. No way that was coincidence, but Gabe couldn’t figure out what the hell the killer was doing. Such different MOs on each one.
It was possible he was evolving, still figuring out what excited him the most, and so trying out different things. It was also possible this was truly a different killer, but because the one Kyra had seen didn’t have a particular, signature MO, there was no way to know for certain.
Bailey had found a clear, slippery substance on the vic’s clothing. “I don’t think that’s semen, Gabe,” she had said.
“What then?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s thick and slippery. It smells…almost soapy. Maybe liquid dish soap.”
“Really?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea. I’ll send it to the lab.”
It would be days before results came back. Gabe hoped it was semen. Getting DNA on any of these cases would be immensely helpful. But the fact that the substance was there at all made him think this might not be the same killer Kyra saw. No substance like that had been left behind before.
Now he scanned the file, looking for anything he’d missed. Just as with Eltern’s interrogation, nothing jumped out at him.
His cell phone’s ring buzzed so loudly against the muted quiet of the room that Tyke fell off his toes and onto his backside, muttering. Gabe smirked, pretending he hadn’t nearly dropped the transcript as well. He didn’t recognize the number, but answered anyway.
“Nichols.” Even he registered the exhaustion in his own voice.
“Gabe?”
He sat up straighter. “Kyra?” Something in her voice made his stomach constrict. “Are you okay?”
A split second hesitation. “I got into the warehouse tonight, Gabe.” She sounded mildly out of breath.
“The one in the Carmichael District? Are you there now?”
“No, I escaped.” Her voice cracked with the last word, and dread swaddled his stomach in ice, like cold Kevlar.
Tyke got to his feet and cast a curious glance at Gabe as he continued to rummage through the desk drawer.
“Escaped from what, Kyra?” Gabe said into the phone. “What did you find?”
Her voice rose in pitch and trembled when she answered. He’d never heard her sound like that before. “They’re trafficking in people, Gabe. In Mirelings. People no one will miss.”
Gabe frowned. “You mean it’s a sex ring?”
Tyke’s head snapped up, his rummaging hand freezing. Where the sounds in the station were a quiet murmur before, now they stopped dead. Chairs in other parts of the station swiveled toward him or scooted outward so their occupants could get a better view of his desk.
“No. They’re not after sex. Or at least not just that.” The words poured out of her, like a floodgate had been opened. “They’re torturing people. They have…an altar, with restrai
nts. People in cages. Dead eyes. Piles of body parts. They’re auctioning off victims to the highest bidder, making bets on how long it will take them to die. Blood. So much blood…”
As the words spilled across the line to him, Gabe cupped a hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. “Go get Shaun,” he mouthed to Tyke. “Now.” Tyke straightened his legs, spun on his toe and headed toward Shaun’s office. Meanwhile, Kyra’s voice got higher and fainter by the word. Kyra usually spoke with such confidence. This must be a sign of hysteria.
“Kyra,” he said firmly.
“—rows of…cages with people in them—”
“Kyra!”
She paused, only her ragged breathing coming through the line.
“Take a deep breath. You said you got away. Where are you?”
“At the pay phone. On the east side. Same one I called you from before.”
He nodded, turning his computer. He remembered where the pay phone was, but he needed the address of the warehouse in the Carmichael district. His fingers flew over the keys and he pulled up the reports he’d already gathered on the warehouse. They’d include its address.
He glanced up as Shaun came to stand beside his desk, Tyke at his shoulder. The other detectives present had come to stand in a circle around Gabe as well. They might not be able to hear Kyra, but their eyes said they could feel that whatever this was, it was big.
“Hold on, Kyra.” Gabe opened his mouth to explain to Shaun, and found he had no words. Where to even begin? Changing tactics, he pulled the phone from his ear and touched a button on the screen. “Kyra,” he raised his voice. “You’re on speaker with Shaun, Tyke, and a handful of my colleagues. Can you repeat what you just told me?”
She did, though she kept better control of her voice this time. Around Gabe’s desk, eyebrows reached for hairlines and jaws cranked slowly open as she spoke. Shaun’s face didn’t show surprise. Rather, it darkened, his jaw clenching so tight it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. Shaun was never shocked by depravity. Just pissed off.
