Harmony leaped to her feet and jumped back, just ahead of another thunderclap swing of the stingray tail. Cranston was grinning, delighted, like this was nothing but a game to him. Her right arm was starting to shake. Her fingers twitched, jerking from the neurotoxin, and she realized she couldn’t even make a fist.
Her left hand still could, though.
He spun the tail over his head and let it fly. She dove under the attack and drove a punch square into his gut. He staggered, doubling over, but he jogged away just out of her reach before she could follow through.
“I’ve studied your art,” he panted. “I know your moves, know all the ways you can take me down. All I have to do is keep my distance and wait for the inevitable.”
The whip flickered like a serpent’s tongue and carved into Harmony’s left shoulder. She gritted her teeth at the sudden rush of branding-iron heat.
Her right arm was almost useless, ravaged by the stingray toxin. In a minute or two, her left was going to join it. Cranston was right: all he had to do was avoid and outlast her. If she didn’t finish this fight here and now, he was going to win.
* * *
The maid let out a shriek loud enough to shake dust from the cellar roof. Her eyes rolled back as her clothes and flesh tore, blistering with bone-quills. Curved, jagged fangs sprouted in her mouth, forcing her old teeth loose from broken and bloody gums. She brandished fingers turned into killing claws, spears of sharp scarlet bone, and charged.
Jessie hit her with an onslaught of jackhammer punches. The maid didn’t even slow down. She grabbed Jessie by the shoulders, lifted her off her feet, and hurled her into the closest tank. Jessie’s shoulders slammed against it and she collapsed to the stone floor with the breath knocked out of her.
A hairline fracture ran up the glass of the tank.
Jessie came up in a running charge, hitting the maid in the stomach headfirst, driving her off her feet. The maid’s belly burst open and a length of raw intestine snaked out like a tentacle, coiling around Jessie’s throat. It cinched tight as a hangman’s noose as they landed together, cutting off her air. They rolled on the floor in a clinch. Jessie batted away frantic swipes of the creature’s bone-claws, yanking herself out of reach, the intestine coming with her. The rubbery flesh tightened and spots bloomed in her vision. Blood roared in her ears, heart galloping, and she could feel herself tumbling into the abyss.
She grabbed the intestine between her hands, and bit down.
The maid-thing howled, thrashing on the floor, as Jessie chewed her way loose. The rubbery skin stretched and snapped, tearing free, and the coil around her throat went limp. She took a deep breath as she dove, landing with both knees on the maid’s chest. She was still mutating. New bone-quills erupted from her shoulders, curving to lethal points.
Jessie grabbed hold of the quills at their bloody roots, twisted her grip, and broke them off.
The maid was shrieking, bucking under her. Jessie raised both hands high, turned the quills around, and brought them plunging down. There was a wet, ripping sound, and then silence.
Jessie knelt on the corpse, panting for breath. The world slowly slid back into focus. She felt the impression of a winter wind and gray, snow-flecked fur brushing against her face. The flick of a tail and a rumble of contentment. The wolf had fed. It was going back to sleep. Just for a little while.
A faint crinkling sound, like someone rumpling a sheet of aluminum foil, turned Jessie’s head.
The hairline crack was spreading and multiplying. Fanning out, drawing frost-white lines, along the curved wall of the tank.
Harmony, she thought.
She pushed herself up onto unsteady feet and forced herself to run, hunting for her partner.
* * *
Harmony was a tactician. A one-on-one fight was battlefield strategy made personal; it was still a game of predictions and outcomes, feints and reversals.
Her right arm was almost useless, burning and twitching as the stingray venom ravaged her muscles. She could still use her left, but only for the moment: the slash along her shoulder was already starting to throb, numbness mingling with the wasp-sting agony. Her mind raced, struggling to rise above the floodwaters of pain and save her from drowning. Cranston was already making his move, and she knew she had one breath left before this fight was over. Plan on the inhale, execute on the exhale.
Cranston relied on his whip. He had the same myopia that had saved Harmony’s life more than once before, going up against other armed opponents: give someone a weapon, and they forget they have half a dozen other ways to attack. She could trust that he’d lead with the whip, every time.
She had to get close to take him down. He knew it, too, and he wasn’t going to let her. He danced around her, bouncing from foot to foot, keeping a safe distance and enforcing it with snaps of the stingray tail. Harmony worked the fight like a math problem and found the answer at the end of a brutal equation. Sacrifice play.
She watched his eyes, waiting for the telltale twitch of an impending attack. Then she forced her right arm up, feeling it shudder as she wrenched her elbow, and held it in front of her face like a shield. She charged straight at him.
He couldn’t resist the easy target. Just like she planned.
She bit back a scream as the whip let out a subsonic crack and chewed into her forearm, trapping her in its white-hot grip. She kept coming. His arm was overextended and she wrenched her shoulder back, pulling him off-balance. Then she kicked up off the ground, twisting in the air, and shot out her foot.
She felt his ribs crack under her heel.
Cranston fell, groaning, rolling onto his belly. Harmony jumped onto his back and tore the stingray tail from his hand. Her right arm was bleeding, crippled, useless for anything but leverage, but she could still use her left. She took the whip and looped it around his throat. Then she yanked it taut.
He squirmed under her, pinned like a roach. His breath escaped in a rattling gasp. Then it didn’t escape at all, as the stingray tail tightened around his neck. His cheeks turned purple, eyes bulging. His palm hammered the tatami mat. He was trying to tap out, like this was a sparring match. Surrendering. Begging for mercy.
Harmony pulled the noose harder.
She leaned in, put her lips to his ear, and spoke the last words he would ever hear: “This is for Natalie Cooper.”
She felt the moment Judah Cranston died. His head went limp, and the frenzied drumming of his feet fell silent and still. She left him like that, down on his face with the whip coiled around his crushed throat.
Promise made. Promise kept.
41.
The last brick of Semtex slapped against a dusty pillar. The final detonator’s prongs slid in like a knife through butter. Jessie had sent Harmony ahead to the silo ladder while she finished the job. The cracks were still spreading along the tank of Clean Slate, weaving a deadly spiderweb.
Harmony struggled on the rungs. Her right arm was dangling at her side, twitching uncontrollably, useless, and her left was losing strength fast. Her torn sleeves clung to her, soaked in twin streams of blood. Jessie came up behind her, scooped her up around the waist, and threw her over her shoulder. Harmony leaned against her, limp, as Jessie carried her up to the surface.
They emerged into the heart of the old cannery. And into the heart of an inferno.
The fires had spread out of control, ravaging the village. It was past midnight and bright as a summer day. Harmony almost expected to see the sun, but the sky was blotted out by roiling carpets of bitter black smoke. Both ends of the street outside the cannery were blocked off by walls of flame and fallen debris.
Jessie got on the phone. “Redbird,” she said. “Mission’s done but we’re trapped in the village and we don’t have a lot of time here. We need an immediate evac.”
The team commander’s voice crackled over the line on a wave of broken static. “Negative, ma’am. We can’t get to you through the fire. Beach Cell reports same problem: the road on the north s
ide of town is completely blocked.”
Harmony turned on the broken pavement, slow, looking for a way out. There wasn’t one.
“Aselia?” Jessie asked her, brainstorming.
“Not enough room to land the plane. We’d need a…” Her voice trailed off.
“A what?”
“A helicopter.”
She fumbled with her own phone, squeezing it in her trembling left hand as she hunted for a number. The roadway flooded with the hickory tang of smoke. The fire devoured everything in its path, feeding on her oxygen, squeezing her lungs as her breath went shallow.
“We don’t have a helicopter,” Jessie said.
“We don’t,” she said. “But Bobby Diehl does.”
Jessie arched an eyebrow. “What are you up to?”
“Bobby’s been using the Concierge for all of his transport needs. Remember the briefing? That’s how Cooper was supposed to get out of Tampa. We know now that he’d already marked her for a double agent, but it’s safe to figure he made the same arrangement with Dominguez. And considering there’s no way Dominguez traveled with a sniper rifle and a backpack full of Semtex on a commercial flight—”
“The Concierge flew him in,” Jessie said.
“And is presumably standing ready to fly him out.”
“I don’t think either of us can mimic Dominguez’s voice.”
Harmony dialed the number that Bobby had given to Cooper. Her eyes were bright, almost manic, clinging to one last shred of hope as the flames closed in around them. One last gambit to play.
The phone only rang once before it clicked. The voice on the line was modulated, electronic, impossible to say if it was a man or a woman.
“Yes,” said the Concierge.
“This is Natalie Cooper,” Harmony said. “I’m stuck in Graykettle, near the old cannery, and I need extraction now.”
There was a momentary silence on the other end.
“Natalie Cooper is deceased.”
“The fuck I am,” Harmony shouted over the roar of the flames. “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here. I got the package from the meet-up at the bar, exactly like Mr. Diehl told me to. Then some lunatic named Dominguez tried to murder me. He stole the goods, and I chased him all the way out here to the middle of goddamn nowhere.”
“Is he with you now?”
“Are you kidding me? He’s dead. I killed him. And recovered the briefcase. You know why? Because I’m Mr. Diehl’s number-one girl. So can you get me out of here or not? And you’d better decide fast because me and this case are about to get cooked.”
“One moment.”
The line went quiet. Right about now, Harmony thought, he and Bobby are going back over everything Dominguez might have told them and deciding what to believe. On one hand, he might have warned Bobby that she and Jessie were on his trail, making this an obvious trap.
On the other hand, the temptation of a bioweapon in a briefcase—and the chance to kill Cooper with his own hands—was a glittering lure in the water.
Come on, Bobby. Bite down. Take the bait.
The electronic voice returned, fast and crisp.
“Mr. Diehl is looking forward to seeing you again, Ms. Cooper. I will be there directly. Stay exactly where you are. Pickup in five.”
They waited and watched the smoky sky. Harmony’s face dripped with sweat, the inferno buffeting them with waves of brutal heat and gusts of breath-stealing smoke.
Then came the whir of propellers, and a spotlight’s blinding beam sliced through the choking clouds. Jessie darted into cover, hiding in the shadows of the ruined cannery, while Harmony stood in the open and slowly waved her arms above her head.
Their savior descended, dressed in white paint and bearing a blue logo on its side: CBS Channel 5 News. The helicopter touched down on the broken street. Harmony ran in, ducking low under the chopping blades, and clambered into the back seat.
Jessie broke from cover, darted across the broken pavement, and jumped in on the other side. She pressed the barrel of her pistol to the back of the pilot’s head.
“Fly,” she told him.
The chopper lifted off, veering as it hurtled away from the inferno, rising up through the smoke and into the clear night sky.
Jessie’s free hand laid her phone down on the seat between her and Harmony. Kevin’s makeshift app was cued up and ready to send its final command.
“Want to do the honors?” Jessie asked.
She tried. Harmony’s left hand trembled, fingers convulsing as she fought to make them obey.
Jessie took hold of her hand. Her index finger pressed down over Harmony’s, and they pushed the button together.
The cannery went up in a green-tinged fireball. Debris flew through the air like buckshot made from torn and tangled steel. The streets rippled from the shock wave, asphalt roiling like liquid. Then came a crash of thunder as the old warrens caved in. Roads and buildings collapsed in an endless rockfall, tons upon tons of broken stone. When the dust settled, there was nothing left but a burning tomb. The final resting place for Judah Cranston, his creation, and his dreams.
The helicopter arced out over the water. The sea was tranquil tonight, and a faint sliver of moonlight shone upon the gentle waves. Jessie put her arm around Harmony and pulled her closer. Harmony rested her head on Jessie’s shoulder, her eyelids fluttered, and she slowly drifted to sleep.
* * *
The last survivors of Cranston’s flock gathered at the point, standing in the shadow of the lighthouse. Its beacon had gone out, guttering and dying along with their home and their hopes. They watched the village burn in silence.
Not one of the dozen men and women dared voice the question they were all asking: how did this happen? They were the chosen. The special few. The ones who would rebuild the corrupted world and return in triumph to their home. They would be lauded as heroes in the Ocean Behind the Ocean and dance in the saltwater palace of the Old Man Below. What had gone wrong?
“It’s a sign,” one said.
The others turned his way, desperate for a glimmer of hope, something to cling to.
“This world was already beyond saving,” he told them. “That’s what this means. We weren’t wrong. We were never wrong. We just…we just didn’t understand it all. But now we do.”
Murmurs of agreement rose above the crackling flames.
“It’s time to go home,” another said.
They turned to the lapping waves. Some joined hands, some stood alone. And they all, together, walked into the sea.
They took deep breaths, all the way down.
42.
A wagon train of tinted SUVs and a wall of guns were waiting at the airstrip. The pilot had barely powered down when agents hauled him out of his seat, throwing him onto the tarmac and cuffing his wrists behind his back. A team of paramedics ran in on their heels.
Harmony wasn’t waking up. They lifted her limp body out, laid her on a gurney, and raced it to a waiting ambulance. Jessie ran alongside them, climbing on board.
Later that night, a storm rolled in. Water rained down like a judgment from the heavens, dousing the dwindling fires of Graykettle, leaving smoldering and soot-smeared ruins behind. The perimeter teams held their blockade on the roadway until dawn. When their lonely watch ended, they still had work to do.
Biohazard specialists donned CDC-grade chemical-resistant suits to venture into the ruins. Their backup wore the same suits, but they carried assault rifles instead of testing kits. Samples were taken, atmospheres measured. Nothing moved in the debris, and all they found along the shore were the bodies of the drowned.
Out on the water, a small fleet of commandeered fishing boats set up a perimeter along the islets. Heavy weapons were on standby as a few brave volunteers became the first into the water, scuba diving along the collapsed ruin of the cove. There were no mermaids swimming in the deep, only body parts and ragged chunks of blubber.
“We’re gathering up the pieces for storage and s
tudy,” said the site commander. “Only one problem.”
Jessie was standing at the window in Harmony’s hospital room. The morning sun was warm against her face, and she looked out over a quiet parking lot.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Well, ma’am, this…creature you described, with all the tentacles and mouths? The bull? The divers haven’t recovered anything that resembles it.”
* * *
“Keep your guard up,” Jessie said. “Call me if anything changes.”
Harmony’s eyes were open. Jessie lowered her phone, smiling as she moved to her bedside.
Harmony’s voice was a tired rasp. Her arms, swathed in bandages, lay limp at her sides. “Did we win?”
“Well, let’s see. We unraveled a death cult and stopped a literal doomsday plan, not to mention uncovering a traitor and throwing a wrench into whatever Bobby Diehl has planned. Oh, and captured the Concierge, who is not only Bobby’s conduit for contraband but one of the world’s most elusive smugglers. So, yeah. I’m going to call this a solid win.”
Harmony’s eyes went wide. “Let me question him.”
“Excuse me? Harmony? You almost died last night. Seriously, the docs say it’s a small medical miracle that you took that much stingray venom without having a heart attack. You need to lay your ass down in that bed.”
“Come on,” she said, pleading with her eyes. “This could be a breakthrough. He knows Bobby’s internal operations. He knows where to find Xanadu. You know I’m the best interrogator we have. You have to let me do this.”
Jessie pursed her lips, thinking it over.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll let you lead the interrogation if—and only if—I have your word that when it’s done, you let me take you directly back here, you get in that bed, and you do not move a muscle until you pass a comprehensive medical exam with flying colors. No ifs, ands, or buts. Agreed?”
Right to the Kill (Harmony Black Book 5) Page 28
